"Sorry, but Nan can't! Mother wouldn't like it, as you have only just
left school, and are not properly out yet."
"Well, I shall _leak_ out, then! I am not going to wait another year,
if I know it. There's a dance coming on at home in February, and I'm
going to it, or my name is not Christabel Rendell. I'm going to buy a
dress and all the _et-ceteras_, and then mother won't have the _heart_
to say No. Nan, if you won't give us a dance, what _are_ you going to
do? You can't be so mean as to provide _no_ evening jollification!"
"My dear, remembah! You were a girl yourself!" echoed Agatha, in deep-
toned remonstrance, and then they began rattling out a list of
suggestions.
"Tableaux--"
"Progressive games--"
"Dinner-party. No old fogies! We will choose the guests."
"Music and conversation. You do the music, and we'll converse."
"General frolic, and supper to finish up. If it develops into a dance,
so much the better! It's not coming out to dance on a carpet."
"Really, Nan, it's piteous to think how _stodgy_ you have grown!
Married sisters are a delusion. We used to imagine coming to stay, and
doing whatever we liked, and eating all sorts of indigestible things
that we mayn't have at home. But now Maud can think of nothing but that
baby, and you are so prim--too fearfully prim for words."
"Prim!" shouted Mrs Vanburgh. There is really no other word to express
the outraged indignation of her tone. To hear her, one might have
supposed it the greatest insult in the world to be accused of primness
of demeanour. "You dare to sit there and call me names in my own house!
If I am prim, you had better go home and leave me. I wouldn't stay any
longer, if I'm prim. I'm sorry I asked you, if I'm prim. If I'm prim,
I wonder why you ever wanted to come. Prim, indeed! If it's prim to
know what is correct and what is not, it's a pity you are not prim too!
If I'm prim, I won't give any party at all. You had better sit round
the fire and knit stockings, and I'll read aloud _The Old Helmet_, as
I'm so prim."
Christabel raised her hands to her ears in affected distraction.
"Stop her, somebody--stop her for pity's sake! When she is once wound
up like this she will go on for hours! My dear, I crawl, I _grovel_
before you! You are _not_ prim! Nothing is further removed from your
character. You are going to give us as many parties as we like."
"Humph!" said Mrs Vanburgh shortly. She was by no means appeased, and
during the meal which followed ejaculations of "Prim--prim, indeed!"
fell from her lips at intervals like so many minute-guns of indignation,
while Christabel ate cakes and scones with undiminished zest, and smiled
upon her with patronising indulgence.
In relating the history of the afternoon to Jill, later on, Betty
declared that she herself had not spoken a single sentence the whole
afternoon. She had exclaimed, "Really!" "Fancy!" "Goodness!" "How
killing!" each about a hundred times over, had laughed and smiled,
nodded her head and said "Yes" to a dozen propositions, had been
unceasingly amused and interested, but had never been allowed a
breathing space in which to air her own opinions.
It had been finally decided that "a general frolic" should be held on
the following Thursday evening, Christabel proposing, seconding, and
triumphantly carrying the resolution that each guest should come
prepared to entertain the company for a period of at least five minutes
on end. The protesting groans and denials of her companions beat in
vain against the rock of her decision. She smiled graciously upon them,
and cried--
"Rubbish! Of _course_ you can! Sing, play, dance, recite, read aloud,
tell a story, show some new tricks; there's no _end_ to the things to
choose from, my deah! If you begin by protesting and excusing as you
are doing now, there will be no time left. It will be too lovelay for
_words_! A sit-down supper, Nan,--no light refreshments, please!--and,
as a matter of precaution, as much furniture as possible moved out of
the drawing-room. I can't think why you did not have a parquet floor!
People grow so selfish and inconsiderate when they are married.
_Piteous_, I call it!"
"Anything else?" queried Nan loftily. "Selfish, and inconsiderate, and
prim, am I? Prim, indeed! I'll tell Gervase the moment he comes in
what a wretched wife he has married! He'd never find it out for
himself."