A HOME CHAT
"Yes, Romer, on the whole I don't think our season's been a success.
With any amount of struggle, worry, bother, clothes, motoring, and
making up parties, we've just succeeded in not getting Daphne married to
Van Buren, and putting your mother in a perpetual, constant, lasting bad
temper."
"Have we?" said Romer.
He was sitting in an arm-chair listening, as usual, while Valentia
talked. He did not always understand what she was saying, nor did he
even always know the subject she was discussing, but he loved to hear
her voice, that was like an incantation in his ears. He said a few words
occasionally, desiring that the musical sound should continue.
"All our old friends seem to have grown dull and sensible except Harry,
and he's been rather jerky and unsatisfactory--and all the new ones have
turned out complete failures. When I say they're complete failures, of
course I mean they've bored me. But, of course, it may not have been
their object in life to do anything else."
"Yes."
"Look at Mr. Rathbone--a man like that, tattooed, and collecting old
programmes of theatres. Well, he's as dull as ditchwater, perfectly
stupid and always saying the right thing to the wrong people. Then
Captain Foster, who seemed perfectly harmless and only decorative, turns
out to be really dangerous, and to count. He's in love with Daphne, and
he has got his mother, who is very weak and foolish and sentimental,
round on his side, and Daphne's always going to tea or to lunch there,
and they've utterly spoilt her--at least, her taste in hats has gone all
wrong, and she told me that Mrs. Foster had pink paper shavings in her
drawing-room fireplace, and asked me why I didn't have them too!"
"Really?"
"Yes. And though she's very good, I know it'll end in our having to give
in, and a pretty wedding, and a tiny flat, and utter wretchedness! And
Daphne will get to like old Mrs. Foster better than me, and they'll have
five hundred a year at the most; and even if they aren't really
miserable she'll have to gradually grow suburban, and come up to the
theatre and have to rush off so as to catch the last train back to
Boshan or Doddington or somewhere! I mean if they take a little house
out of town--near Mrs. Foster. However, I'm not going to give in just
yet.... I could understand a slight sacrifice--or even a big one if I
were in love with Captain Foster, but I'm not. I suppose you'll say that
I needn't be, but that isn't the point. The utter absurdity is that all
Daphne wants of him she could see now. No one minds her seeing him. But
why should she break up her life and spoil her future for it? Of course,
_that_ part is _his_ idea. He is so selfish that he isn't satisfied with
the harmless fun they have now, but wants her to live all her life in a
sort of workman's cottage or tenement building just for the sake of the
joy, privilege, and honour of having every meal with him!"
"What a brute!" said Romer mildly.
"Isn't he? And suppose a war broke out, and that darling, handsome boy
perhaps put an end to suddenly by a bullet, or mentioned in despatches,
or something, and promoted--oh, please don't talk to me about it any
more, Romer. I hate the life. But I suppose she'll have to go her own
way."
Valentia paused and looked pensively in the glass.
"And dear Van Buren, he's been pretty badly treated, I think. I suppose
he knows it isn't my fault or Harry's. I try to make up for it in lots
of ways--by getting him an introduction to the man who wants to fly
across the Atlantic. I really hoped he would say to Van Buren, 'Fly with
me!' but he didn't, and in the most roundabout way and by the most
fearful lot of trouble--chiefly through me--he was asked to dinner to
meet that other man--I forget his name, the one who keeps on discovering
the North Pole. And it seems he is a dear, and awfully good-looking. And
then he--Van, I mean--has met Bernard Shaw, and Graham White, and Lloyd
George, and Thomas Hardy, and Sargent, and Lord Roberts, and Henry
James, and even Gabrielle Ray, so he hasn't had such a bad time in
London. I don't see that he has anything to complain of, do you, Romer?"
"Shouldn't think so."
"That was what he wanted, you know," continued Valentia. "But if we
couldn't get him a wife as well, it's not our fault. I'm sure we've
tried our best. He's such a dear, and very fond of England. He has been
most useful to Harry, I'm sure; and----I think the new fashions are
simply frightful. The new way they're going to do the hair will be
revoltingly unbecoming, and the whole thing will make every one look
hopelessly dowdy. The smarter you are, the more of a frump you will
look!"
"Oh, I say, Val!"
"Yes, you will--I mean I will, but I won't.... Because I'm not going to
follow the fashion like a sheep. And if you're not very careful I shall
dress in a style of my own."
"Like a sheep! Do sheep follow the fashion?"
"Of course they do. Didn't you know that? What one does all the rest do.
Of course it doesn't change so often--even in the best Southdown
circles--at least _we_ don't notice the change. When a new kind of 'baa'
comes in and they all echo it we don't see any difference, but I don't
suppose they see any difference in our fashions either. Oh, and Romer,
I've been worried because I feel I've got so frightfully empty-headed
and unintellectual through just _living_, never reading or thinking,
when we go down to the Green Gate I shall read a lot of serious books.
I'm going to read H. G. Wells, and Hichens, and Aristotle, and some
history, and all sorts of 'improving' things. When are we going?"
"As soon as possible," said Romer, brightening up. "Let's go next
Wednesday."
"Oh, I can't be ready quite as soon as that, Romer dear! Let's go on
Tuesday. I'll arrange it all."
"Good!" said Romer, beaming.
"And I'll get Harry to come down with us."
"Thought he was going yachting with the Walmers?"
"Oh no, he's not, after all.... He doesn't really care for the sea."
"Oh!"
"Harry, of course, is sorry for Van Buren," continued Valentia. "And yet
he takes Daphne's part about Cyril Foster. He knows it's spoiling her,
but he thinks she ought to be spoilt; he's so fond of Daphne."
"Why doesn't he marry her himself?" asked Romer.
"Harry?" She looked at him in surprise. "Why, Romer, what a harpist you
are. If I've told you once, I've told you a hundred times, he never
marries! Harry has a great many bad habits, goodness knows. But marrying
isn't one of them."
"Do you think he's keen on some one else?" asked Romer after a rather
long pause.
She seemed annoyed at the question, then smiled again.
"I don't know! The other day I called at the studio unexpectedly to ask
for something I'd forgotten, and found Harry improvising at the
piano--you know that way he has of improvising from memory--an
inaccurate memory--of some well-known composer. I've never known him do
it except when he wanted to--please some woman. Well, Lady Walmer was
there, leaning over the piano and listening. Should you think from that
he's keen, as you call it, on her?"
"Lady Walmer! At her age!"
"Why, Romer, she's no older than anybody else! It doesn't matter
nowadays in the very slightest degree whether one is twenty-eight, or
thirty-eight, or even forty-eight. To a modern man it's all exactly the
same. Of course, if a flapper is what is required, well then, naturally,
he must be shown to another department. But apart from that--why, Lady
Walmer would be quite as dangerous a rival for me as a woman ten years
or twenty years younger. And I'm not twenty-five yet."
"Rival to _you_? What do you mean?"
Romer stared at her, a spark of his fanatic admiration showing in his
eyes.
She laughed and hurried on.
"Nothing. I never mean anything. I know what you think, Harry is not a
marrying man, but he might become one. But a girl like Alec Walmer! With
the figure of a suffragette and the mind of a canary who plays cricket,
or a goose who goes in for golf----"
"Heaps of cash."
"Yes, I know. But Harry's an artist--he needs sympathy."
"He's got his head screwed on the right way."
"But his heart's in the right place."
"What is the right place?"
"Don't be irritating, Romer. We'll go to the Green Gate on Monday then.
And now I must go out and order a short tweed skirt, and a garden
roller, and a few other things that we shall need in the country. Leave
it all to me! No, I never forget anything; even your mother says I'm
practical. And oh, do let's try and put her in a good temper before we
go away. You'd better go and see her and say good-bye to-day, early in
the afternoon, alone. And then I'll go in late and take away the
impression of anything you've said wrong. Do you see, darling? Dear
Romer!"
She went out of the room like a sunbeam in a hurry.
Romer followed her with a wondering expression. To him her movements,
her hair, her eyes seemed to suggest some fascinating language he had
not yet learnt. She seemed to him almost a magic creature.
As usual, he showed his sensations simply by obeying. He went to say
good-bye to his mother.