SAVILE AND SYLVIA
One gay irresponsible April afternoon Sir James and Woodville had gone
to the House, and Savile, thinking he might be useful as an escort,
strolled into Sylvia's boudoir. It was her favourite room, where she
received her intimate friends, played and sang, wrote letters, read
novels and poetry, and thought about Woodville. The scent from the lilac
in the vases seemed to harmonise with the chintz furniture, covered with
a design of large pink rosebuds and vivid green trellis-work; there was
a mandoline on the lacquered piano and old coloured prints on the walls;
books and music were scattered about in dainty disorder. Sylvia was
sitting on the sofa with her pretty fair head bent down and turned away.
She did not move when Savile came in, and he was shocked to see she was
crying.
Savile turned quite pale with horror. Young as he was, nature and
training had made all outward manifestations of emotion so contrary to
his traditions and mode of life, and it seemed so unlike Sylvia, that he
felt a kind of shame even more strongly than sympathy. He shut the door
quietly, whistled to show he was there, and walked slowly up and down
the room. Then he stood by the latticed window, looking out, and tried
to think of something to say. What comforted girls when they cried? The
inspiration "Tea" suggested itself, but that would mean the entrance of
outsiders. Presently he said shyly and sympathetically, "Shall I smoke,
Sylvia?"
She made a gesture signifying that nothing mattered now, and went on
crying.
"I say," said Savile, striking a match, "it can't be as bad as all
that."
He went up to the sofa and she held out her hand. Demonstrations of
sentiment made him acutely uncomfortable. He put the pretty hand back
carefully, and said in a level tone, "I tell you what I should do if I
were you. I should tell some one about it--Me, for instance. I've been
through a lot--more than any one knows." (Here he gave what he believed
to be a bitter smile.) "I might be some use; I'd do my best, anyway."
"Darling boy!"
"Oh, buck up, Sylvia! You're going to tell me every word about it, and
more, once you start! I'll help you to start." He waited a moment and
then said rather loudly and sternly, "What's wrong between you and
Woodville?"
Sylvia sat up, took her handkerchief from her eyes, and stared at him.
"What? Have you guessed?"
"Have I guessed! If I'm always as sharp as this I shall cut myself some
day," said the schoolboy ironically. "Why, what do you take me for? Do I
live here? Do I come down to breakfast? Aren't I and Woodville great
friends? Have I guessed?" He sighed in despair at her denseness.
"Dear boy, I'm sure I'd tell you anything. You're so wonderful and so
clever, but how could I know you'd be so sweet about it? Why papa said
even you wanted me to marry Mr. Ridokanaki. He quoted you."
"Well, why shouldn't he? I do wish it."
Sylvia's eyes blazed, and she tapped her foot on the carpet.
"Oh, do you? Very well, I'm sure I don't mind! You see it doesn't matter
in the very least what you think. After all you're only a little boy."
Savile smiled with genuine amusement, patted her golden hair paternally,
and said "Of course. But if I'd happened to suggest your going to the
registry office with Woodville this afternoon (I believe there's one
somewhere in Kensington, near the work-house), I suppose I'd have been
what you call a _dear_ little boy, and you'd have let me have some jam
for tea.... Poor girl! You must be bad." He laughed, and then said
quietly, "Now, then, go ahead."
"Well, Savile, it's too dreadful, and I _will_ confide in you. Last
night"--Sylvia began talking very volubly--"that horrid old brute--you
know, the Greek--asked Frank, Mr. Woodville, to dinner, and actually had
the impertinence to offer him a sort of post in a bank, starting at
L2000 a year, at Athens. ATHENS! Do you hear? It's in Greece."
"Don't rub it in. This is no time for geography. What else?"
"Well, it was on these conditions. Frank was to go for a year, and all
that time the _fiend_ has given word of honour never to come and see me,
or anything, and if at the end of the year Frank and I are still both
the same, _he_ will give it up--about me, I mean--and get Frank the same
sort of berth in London. And if we're not--just fancy making such a
horrible proposition! At Willis's, too!"
"Well, what's the matter with Willis's? Would it have been all right at
the 'Cheshire Cheese'?"
"What's the 'Cheshire Cheese'?"
"Never mind," said Savile mysteriously. (He didn't know.) "And if you're
_not_ still the same?"
"Oh, _then_"--she began to cry again--"of course the wretch thinks there
might be a chance for him. He _must_ be mad, mustn't he? But the
horrible part is that Frank actually thinks of _going_! Fancy! How
_degrading_! To accept a favour from my enemy! Isn't Ridokanaki exactly
like Machiavelli?"
"Mac who? I see nothing Scotch in the offer. But if he were the living
image of Robert Bruce or Robinson Crusoe, that's not the point. Now
let's have it straight. Would you marry him in any case?"
"Absolutely never," flashed Sylvia, showing all the celebrated family
obstinacy by her beautiful set mouth, "I'd rather----"
"Never mind what you'd rather. _I know_ what you'd rather, thanks very
much. All right, you mean it. Cross him out. And now we know where we
are."
"But still I'm afraid ... you don't seem to think I ought to marry Mr.
Woodville, do you?"
"Not that exactly," said Savile. "But I think the man who's been making
love to my sister ought to marry _her_. What's more, he's got to."
"Oh, Savile, how can you! Don't you think he cares for me?"
"Off the rails as usual! Yes, I do think so, but it doesn't matter a
straw what my thoughts are. It matters what's going to be done."
"But what can be done? Unless he goes away to Athens, I mean."
"Great Scott!" exclaimed Savile, starting up. "What's the use of all his
friends--Chetwode, and Mervyn, and Wilton, Vere and Broughton, and heaps
more--if they can't get him something? A splendid chap like old
Woodville! He was looked upon as a brilliant man at Balliol. I happen to
know that--never mind how."
She kissed him. "Do you think, then, that Arthur Mervyn would help him?
I mean, do you think that Frank might go on the stage?"
He looked at her quite anxiously, as though he thought her troubles had
turned her brain.
"Go on the _stage_! Go on _what_ stage? Oh, you'd like to see your
husband prancing about like a painted mountebank with a chorus of
leading ladies, would you?"
"Oh no, indeed I shouldn't! But are leading ladies all dreadful? And I
thought you were in love with a singer yourself," said Sylvia.
Savile threw away his cigarette, with what he hoped was a hollow laugh.
"My dear child, what I choose to do and what I allow my sister to do are
two very different things."
"I dare say they are, darling," said Sylvia mildly. "And, _please_ don't
imagine for one moment that I suppose you ever do anything at all--I
mean, that you oughtn't."
"No, I shouldn't worry about _me_," said Savile. "We're talking about
_your_ troubles.... As if Woodville were such an ass! Catch him going in
for such rot!" He laughed. "Sylvia, do you suppose that he's stayed here
in this hole," said Savile in a muffled undertone, looking round the
exquisite room, and then repeating loudly and defiantly, "I say, in this
_Hole_, except for you? Do you think he can't do anything better? Mind
you, the Governor's fond of Woodville, it's only the cash and all that.
If that idiot of an uncle of his hadn't married his housekeeper, it
would have been all right."
"Oh, Savile, fancy, I saw her once! She wore----"
"Describe her dress some other day, dear, for Heaven's sake. What I say
is that Woodville is the sort of man who could make his mark."
"Do you think he could make a name by painting?" she asked eagerly.
Savile looked rather sick, and said with patient resignation, "By
painting what? The front of the house? Look here, _some one's_ got to
talk sense. Leave this to me." He then waited a minute, and said,
"_I'll_ get him something to do!"
"Oh, Savile!--Angel!--Genius! How?"
"Would you mind, very kindly, telling me what Chetwode's our
brother-in-law for?" said Savile. "What use is he? When's he ever seen
with Felicity? He can't live at curiosity shops and race-meetings. He
can't expect to. Why (keep this to yourself) I brought him back last
night from Yorkshire! Just in time, don't you know. Felicity was as
pleased as Punch."
"My darling boy, I _know_ you're sweet and clever, but you talk as if
you had any amount of power and influence, and all that!"
"Well, I got Bertie Wilton a decoration!" He laughed. "The Order of the
Boot! Now, Sylvia, pull yourself together and I'll see it through. Don't
say a word to Woodville, mind that!"
"I adore you for this, Savile." During the interview the girl of twenty
seemed to have grown much younger and more inexperienced, and the boy
four years her junior, to have become a man.
"Tell me," she asked anxiously, "then am I to pretend to consent to his
going to Athens? Why, if he did _go_, well, it would kill me--to begin
with!"
"And what to go on with? Rot! It wouldn't kill you. It might spoil your
looks, or give you a different sort of looks, that mightn't suit you so
well. Awfully jolly it would be, too, having an anxious sister looking
out for the post. Thanks! What a life for me! How soon has he to give an
answer?"
"Oh, in a month," she answered.
"Well, let things slide; let them remain in ... what's that word?"
"I don't know. In doubt? In ... Chancery?"
"Chancery! Really, Sylvia! I know! In abeyance, that's the word," said
Savile. He seemed to take special pleasure in it. "Yes, _abeyance_," he
repeated, with a smile. "Well, good-bye! I'm going out." He looked to
see that his trousers were turned up and the last button of his
waistcoat left unfastened in the correct Eton fashion, and said, "Do
look all right in our box to-night, Sylvia. You can if you like, you
know."
"I _promise_, Savile! I'd do _anything_ for you! I shall never forget."
"You know, looking decent can't do any harm anyway anyhow, to anybody.
Never be seen out of uniform." He stopped at the door to say very
kindly, "Buck up, dear, and don't go confiding in people--I know what
girls are. I suppose now," remarked Savile sarcastically, "that you want
a powder-puff, and a cup of tea. I'll tell Price--about the tea, I
mean."