THE DISGRACEFUL PARTY
I suppose everybody--I mean every girl body--will want to know what
we three had to wear for this party? Nothing wildly exciting, I can
tell you: the fact is we haven't got any really compelling clothes.
How can you, when you have to shop out of catalogues, and when you're
_miles_ bigger than stock size? Still, we'd three quite fairly
pretty frocks left over from last summer; Evelyn's is pale, pale pink
voile, with little rosy dabs scattered all over it, and with a fichu
that makes her look like a Puritan maid. Particularly as she never
likes "extremes" of fashion, and simply wouldn't have her skirt cut
as it was in the _Lady's Pic._, though Nancy and I _told_ her that
skirts were going to be imitations of the London Skittish, only more
so!
I wore white: my last Prize-Day frock made a little shorter and
fuller, and frillier, and Nancy had a very sweet mauve, like a
fondant.
All our hairs looked simply lovely: and I'm sure our complexions must
have been a treat to three young men who had been surrounded all day
by masculine tan and freckles and mud-ground-in-ness!
Now, I'd better get on to those young men, and to about what happened
at the party....
Aunt Victoria--she really is a weird old thing! Always taking you by
surprise when you're least expecting it. What do you think she'd
done? She had actually rolled down to the supper-table after we had
finished arranging it: and she'd placed by the side of the glasses of
each of our visitors a large dark bottle with a gold paper "top" to
it.
"Bubbly, by Gad!" were what burst from Mr. Frank Lascelles' lips at
the sight of them.
And Aunt Victoria beamed at him, and said: "Just the three bottles of
champagne that were left over from little Elizabeth's christening
dinner-party" (I being called "little Elizabeth," you understand!)
"and they've been waiting in the cellar here ever since."
The first any of us had ever heard of there having ever been a
christening dinner-party in this house: not to mention champagne.
Life is full of sudden shocks, these days. Well, to get on with this
other party. Dinner lasted for hours, with everybody having second
helps of everything, and a great deal of what you could only call
"horse-play" from Mr. Lascelles, though I can't imagine any horses
being as silly as he was over going round the table with a
table-napkin thrown over his arm and pouring out champagne and
pretending to be a waiter; and then pretending to "straf" Captain
Masters for letting some of his fizz over on to the table-cloth.
Telling him to "parade in chains at ten o'clock to-morrow," and that
sort of rot.
The really interesting part of it all to us (not to the men, of
course) began after the eating was finished, and after we had left
those three young men alone to smoke, and after they had rejoined us
in the drawing-room afterwards. Aunt Victoria was playing patience,
and Evelyn was busy as usual over her embroidery-frame, and Nancy and
I were comparing notes, just as girls always do, about what we
thought of the two new young men.
I haven't said anything about them yet, so I'll just tell you quickly
that Captain Masters, the elder one, was a perfect dream of good
looks, just like an illustration to a story in _Forget-me-not_, only
better. He'd black, black hair, like pitch with a crinkle in it, and
black lashes framing his dark-grey "round-the-corner" sort of eyes,
and a cleft chin that's supposed to be the mark of a flirt. And so
tall, and such a nice shape all over! I thought he was rather too
much of a vision. Any girl that he went about with would have to be
most frantically pretty to keep pace with him! I expect that's what
most girls feel when they say they like a man to have a nice _ugly_
face: and probably that's why these Greek-goddy sort of men are
always picking out quite ordinary girls in the Society Wedding
photographs of them. They don't feel they can stand up against
competition. It's all vanity really, as Solomon said. Well, but
about these two. The other one, Mr. Curtis, was a complete contrast.
I don't know why I thought he was "interesting-looking" the first
time. He's fearfully tall and thin, with those glasses, and very
bulgy knuckles and khaki-coloured hair. He looked as if Nature
never, never meant him to wear khaki in any other way, but never
mind, I daresay it's all the more credit to him that he joined as
soon as war broke out. He had a look about him, too, that
immediately convinced Nancy and me that the story which the Incubus
had told us about him was literally true. I could just imagine him
sitting down and reeling off articles about "Weight-lifting for
Girls" and "Steeplechasing for Girls," and all the other things that
seemed to make out that he was a regular expert about girls,
whereas-- Well, I don't suppose he was on Christian-name terms with
any girl except his sister. He gave you that feeling about himself.
I was just saying so to Nancy, when in he came with the others.
Captain Masters, coming over to Nancy, immediately began about
"having a little music," as he'd heard we all played. Wanted to
"turn over" for her, I guessed.
You know, there's no piano in the drawing-room at the Moated Grange,
only antimacassars and vases and what-nots. The only piano is in the
Lair.
I scarcely expected that Aunt Victoria would be the one to suggest
that "the young people" should adjourn to that room for their little
concert. It was quite as unexpected as the bubbly for dinner when
she did so. Not only that, but she thought nothing of going on
playing her own solitary game of patience in her accustomed corner of
the drawing-room while we all trooped off to the back of the house.
This is where the evening really began, so listen.
After putting chairs for us nearly inside the grate, the three young
men plumped down on the hearthrug, which is a nice thick, furry one.
Captain Masters flung his glossy black head back against the
Incubus's knee, and sent a sleepy, round-the-corner glance at Nancy
which was evidently meant to convey the message, "It's really you
that I should like to be leaning up against at this minute."
However, of course, Nancy never noticed it. She says so. And all he
(Captain Masters) said was: "Now, do let us have these songs, shall
we? Who's going to open the Concert? And what are we going to have?
Have you got any of the music of Shell Out, Miss Verdeley? There's
an awfully pretty thing in it called
"'_Sprinkle me with kisses if you want my
Love to Grow----_'"
"Oh, yes: let's have that: I think I can manage to vamp it,"
volunteered the Incubus, springing up from the rug and bustling
across to the piano. In a stage aside I heard him say to Nancy, "So
awfully appropriate for old Curtis, what?"
I saw Nancy, who was looking prettier than ever in her life before,
dimple back at him. Then she gave a glance at "Old Curtis." He
still looked painfully shy, but as if he were thoroughly enjoying
himself, in an embarrassed sort of way. Yes, he was exactly the sort
of person who would be too bashful to ask any girl to write to him.
He would be a regular "Lonely Subaltern" himself. But I did hope
that my own special Lonely One, to whom I'd sent a letter and a
photograph that very afternoon, was not like Mr. Curtis to look at.
Perhaps he'll send me a photograph in return. Then I shall know.
Well, but to get on with this celebrated party of ours. (Evelyn has
taken to calling it "that disgraceful" party, by the way.) There was
a lot of laughing and "ragging" each other by the young men, in fact,
the Lair echoed more than even when the three of us have been there
in our giggliest mood. Captain Masters said something about
palmistry, and the Incubus said: "Yes, old Thing, you can tell mine;
anything else would take too much time..." and so on.
The next thing that happened was the Incubus giving an imitation of
Miss Vesta Tilley singing
"_I joined the Army yesterday,
So the Army of To-day's all right!_
and the staircase window which is outside the Lair began to rattle so
violently that we heard it right through the music. Nancy, skipping
up in the middle of all her mauve flounces from the hearthrug, said
she must go and put a wedge in it.
Of course, directly she hopped up, up jumped Captain Masters, who had
been lolling with his head against Mr. Curtis's knee, this time.
"Let me help you," he said; "I'd love to."
And then Mr. Curtis jumped up and actually plucked up courage to say
that he was very good at putting in wedges. At the same moment the
Incubus--Mr. Lascelles--also skipped to his feet and said, "Bravo,
Curtis! This will provide you with copy for another newspaper
article: 'Window-Fastening for Girls'--what? I'm going to come and
look on at this."
"Surely it won't take four of us," protested Nancy, in her most
mischievous voice. "I can do it all by myself, thank you;
unless--unless Mr. Curtis really wants to help me?"
And with that, of course, the other two young men flopped down again
on the hearthrug like two terriers when one tells them that they are
not going to be taken for a walk after all.
And Mr. Curtis was at Nancy's heels like another dog to whom she had
whistled.
Evelyn was at the piano trying over the music of "Neville Is a Devil
with the Girls," which Mr. Lascelles had just sent for down from
London.
I must say that he is very good about sending for those things for
us--I mean, for Evelyn and Nancy.
For he knows perfectly well that I don't want any dance music, or
chocolates, or fashion magazines, from him. He scarcely spoke to me,
either, the whole of the evening.
Well, Evelyn had played all through "Neville" and gone on to the one
about "In my heart there's always room for One Girl More," and still
Nancy, in spite of what she'd said about being able to do it all by
herself, hadn't got that window wedged.
Minutes passed, my dears. And she was still out there in the
passage, with the young man who wrote those articles on "Exercise for
Girls"--and who had never kissed a girl in his life--until then.
You notice that I said "until then." That's the point.
For when he came in again to the Lair I looked at that minx Nancy,
and _I saw that he had_! Don't ask me how I knew. If you're a girl,
you won't have to. (Girls have intuitions, thank goodness, even if
they haven't any sense of humour, as people always say.) And if
you're a man, you won't get answered. So that's that.
(Later.)
All to-day, which is the day after this scandeelious orgy, poor Nancy
has been having nothing but talking to upon the subject. You see, it
was no earthly good pretending that she hadn't been kissed--we just
knew. And to do her justice, Nancy didn't try to pretend that she
hadn't been. She stood her ground quite pluckily, and said: "Yes!
That was why we were such ages over the rattling staircase window.
Yes, I did let Mr. Curtis kiss me. Why not?"
This was where our eldest sister, Evelyn the Ever-proper, came down
on Nancy like a ton of bricks. She was really fluent. I needn't go
into all that fluency. I expect every girl who reads this has heard
bits of it at one time or another: "He comes too near who comes to be
denied." Also: "A young girl who has been kissed is like a peach
with the bloom off it." (I've never seen any kisses that come off
like that.) Also: "Men think very lightly of any girl who gives her
favours to a man before she is even engaged to him."
"Engaged to him!" said Nancy, turning upon the lecturer at this.
"But how do you want me to be engaged to the man when I had only seen
him for the first time that evening? Don't be so ridiculous--and
besides," here she began to laugh a little, "Mr. Curtis is scarcely
the kind of young man that I should want to be engaged to. Not my
type. Much too---- Well! Too everything that I could never like in
that way."
"Why not, I should like to know? He's a good deal cleverer than his
friends---- I mean, if you wouldn't want to be engaged to him," said
Evelyn, in a voice that was even more shocked than before, "how was
it, Nancy, that you allowed him to kiss you? That makes it so far,
far worse."
"No, it doesn't. It makes it so much, much better," protested Nancy
defiantly, but still going on with her work, which was, as usual, the
darning of our Incubus's khaki socks. "Poor Mr. Curtis, he really
never had before! It seemed to mean such a treat to him! And it
didn't mean anything particular to me!"
"Only like letting a rather rough retriever lick your hand," I
suggested.
"Rattle, there's only one word for you," said Evelyn. "Vulgar!"
"Yes: people always call people that as soon as they're _natural_," I
said. "The fact is, we live in an artificial age. I've read that,
heaps of times, and I see it's true. Why, the girls in Shakespeare
say much worse things than I do--much! and the other people in the
plays never seem to turn a hair at them. Even the ones that are
supposed to be quite ladies. Like Juliet. Or Beatrice when she
says----"
The other two weren't taking the least notice of me and my
Shakespeare. Nancy was going on explaining to our eldest sister that
what she had done in letting Mr. Curtis kiss her was "only patriotic."
She said, "Think what a man like that is doing for us. Leaving his
good job as a schoolmaster. Leaving his home. Leaving his
friends----"
"Can't have many friends," I put in, "if this was the first time he'd
ever been allowed to----"
"All his friends," pursued Nancy, waving aside my objection with the
khaki sock, "and everything he's got! Presently, in three weeks'
time, he'll be off to the trenches in that awful country where it
seems to be even muddier than it is here at its worst. He's going to
have an awful time there this winter. He may," said Nancy, with a
graver look on her pretty face, "he may be giving his life for
England and Englishwomen. Yet here you are, ready to grudge him a
little thing like a kiss."
Evelyn began to look cross as well as shocked. She protested that a
kiss was not "a little thing." It was all part and parcel of the
biggest thing that a girl had to give--her love and herself.
"You mean you would refuse that poor young man?"
Evelyn, drawing herself up to her full height, which as you know is a
good long way with all of us three girls--Evelyn said, whatever
happened, rather than not refuse, she would remain an old maid with
nobody wanting to kiss her for the rest of her life.
"And how would you have felt a month after," asked Nancy, "if we have
to read Mr. Curtis's name in the casualty lists: '_Wounded and
missing--believed killed_'? How would you have felt then?"
Evelyn gave a little shiver.
"Don't--don't talk about that----"
"Yes, but I want to ask you. Wouldn't you have felt sorry?"
"Of _course_ I should have felt sorry if anything had happened
to--him," Evelyn quite snapped, "but I shouldn't be sorry about what
I'd done. I should always be glad to think I had behaved in the
right way about _that_."
And as she marched out of the room I couldn't help laughing.
Because, for the only time it has happened in her life, I saw my
pretty sister looking like Aunt Victoria.
Yes, she had just the sort of face on that Aunt Victoria has
sometimes when we have a very special kind of cake for tea. She
looks down her nose at it, and raises her eyebrows as she passes it
to us as much as to say, "How can any one possibly eat it?" You see,
poor auntie is what they call "a martyr to indigestion," and she
isn't allowed to have any sort of cake. At the same time, we always
think that she is really, in her secret heart of hearts, rather
greedy about cake, and would give anything to take some.
But about the party: it may have been a "disgraceful" one, but you
_can't_ say it was an unsuccess!
All the young men were absolutely enthusiastic about the way they'd
enjoyed themselves--even Mr. Curtis!