I
The Felix Waites, as every one knows, are the most exclusive people in
Hampstead. And since the war, with its attendant new people, the family
have become so aristocratic that they can scarcely speak, for Mrs. Felix
Waite says that every one talks too much nowadays. The Felix Waites are
understood to spend most of their time in the country, where they
entertain only very small parties. There was a time when they spent
anxious moments about their only son, Thomas, but all that is over now.
Once upon a time young Thomas did the superman on them about a
chorus-girl, and broke away. Young Thomas had never fancied himself as
an aristocrat, and so he did not marry the chorus-girl at once; but he
said he would, and in the meanwhile he concentrated on making money. He
was understood to be making big money--so big that he could inhabit a
suite of rooms at the Ritz for a week, sign the bill in pencil, and get
away before the hotel clerks had rubbed the dazzle of his sapphire
tie-pin out of their eyes. But one day young Thomas forgot to wear his
tie-pin, whereupon he adjourned to Brixton Prison for two days and four
hours, which he spent in trying to imagine the expression on his
father’s face on hearing of his son’s latest telegraphic address.
However, Mr. Felix Waite paid up like a gentleman, as he did everything
else like a gentleman. That is the only time a Felix Waite has ever
stayed with King George, but they do not mention it. Whether the chorus
girl became a footlight-favourite or just faded away was never known.
Young Thomas married county.
It occurred to Mrs. Felix Waite during the season of 1922 that she might
give a garden-party. There was a something about a garden-party, a
certain elegance which, Mrs. Felix Waite thought, was lacking in a ball.
Every one, after all, can give a ball. Whereas, except for the King and
the Queen, very few can give a garden-party in London, for the central
idea of a garden-party is that it be held in a garden, and gardens in
London are rarer than the jewels on the Mikado’s brow. Now Mrs. Felix
Waite had a spacious garden; and about it the walls were so high that
the youth of Hampstead Heath had to stand on each other’s shoulders to
catch a glimpse of the garden life of the gentry.