“It’s quite all right,” said Caroline, in whom perplexity was beginning to give way to pity and amusement.
“Well, there you are, you see. I mean, without being conceited I can say I’m a better member of society than poor old James; but can I marry?”
As Caroline only looked at him inquiringly, he had to supply his own answer, a violent negative.
“Were you thinking of Julia?” she asked.
“Thinking! You don’t know what it means, Caroline, to care for anyone as frightfully as I do for Julia. Of course I know you must have been fond of James, but dash it all,” said Wilfred, who felt the vague sense of repugnance that we all experience at the idea of physical passion among our near relatives, “you were married. And here are Julia and I, absolutely the sort that any decent state would want, and where are we?”
At the end of this impassioned and rather muddled outbreak, Wilfred hit his head fairly hard with both his fists.
“Does Julia know?” said Caroline.
“She ought to, but women are such damned coquettes. You’re not, Caroline: no one would think of trying to make love to you. I made my attitude to the Reds and the Communists pretty clear to her and she agreed with every word. A brain, that girl. But like all the rest she prefers the frivolous side of life. When I saw George making such a fool of himself with her after tea I couldn’t stand it. God, what would Hitler have thought of it. He’d have had them all in a labor camp within twenty-four hours.”
Caroline hardly saw how this would further Wilfred’s plans, but knowing well that whatever she said would be treated as evidence of a capitalist or communist mentality, she only said mildly:
“Well, Julia was only doing it for fun. And she didn’t dance the rumba. That was George and Hugh.”
“Fiddling while Rome is burning,” said Wilfred bitterly. “But look here, Caroline, you’ll stand by me, won’t you. I dare say James was a bit unsympathetic. I usedn’t to think so, but loving a girl does open your eyes to some things. If anyone tried any rough stuff on Julia, I’d kill him with my bare fists. You’ll help me, won’t you, Caroline?”
“To kill people?”
“No, no. To get a chance alone with Julia tomorrow evening. Oh, Caroline, you haven’t the faintest idea what really caring for a person means.”
“Well, I’ll try to imagine, and I’ll do what I can, but don’t expect too much, Wilfred dear. She is a bit young to know her own mind.”
“Never has youth been so strong, so certain as it is today,” said Wilfred. “By Jove, I must hurry up. I want to get that bath before George.”
He dashed upstairs, leaving Caroline to reflect that youth certainly knew what it wanted and usually got it; but in this case, Wilfred cannot have been quite young enough, for as she passed the corridor where the boys slept, she heard George loudly singing the International in his bath, while Wilfred banged furiously at the door. During the evening, Wilfred showed a deference and courtesy to her which delighted his parents, mystified Anna, and seriously alarmed his brother George.
Chapter VII
Christmas Day
Christmas Day began at breakfast with the usual medley of presents, wanted and unwanted. Mr. Danvers pleased everyone with generous checks. Wilfred and George bestowed chocolates upon the female members of their family. Wilfred gave George a book about the ballet by an author whose views George found altogether unsound and retrograde, while George gave Wilfred a translation of Hitler’s Mein Kampf which Wilfred had already perused, with no little ostentation, in its original tongue. But both were fine gestures and the brothers were much moved. Equally were both disgusted at receiving Book Tokens from some of their female admirers.
“That’s a rotten kind of present,” said Wilfred, holding up a Token between his thumb and finger with every sign of repugnance. “Does the woman think I’m going to spend my time hunting around booksellers’ shops? If she wants to give me a book, let her give me a book, something like that one you gave me, George, but not a soup ticket.”
“And anyway,” said George, “what do you do if you want a book that costs more than the ticket, or if you want a book that costs seven and six and your ticket is worth ten shillings? The bookseller isn’t going to shell out half a crown.”
Anna suggested that another book, costing the exact sum specified might solve the difficulty.
“Yes, but hang it, I mightn’t want a half-crown book,” said George. “It’s just what Wilfred said, like having a food ticket, like the Germans. I bet a German would be sick if you sent him a Book Token when he wanted a food ticket.”
“At least food tickets mean that everyone gets a fair share,” said Wilfred. “If we were in Germany you wouldn’t be eating sausage and bacon and tomatoes and toast and butter while millions were starving.”
“Well, I jolly well wish we were in Germany,” answered George, who was rummaging among the dishes on the sideboard, “and then you wouldn’t be able to take the last sausage. I had my eye on that fellow; a nice little one with a good frizzly skin.”
“That’s just too bad,” said Wilfred in a strong American accent, which showed that he also was at the moment a film fan and did not propose to be drawn by his brother on the subject of Germany.
“Hullo,” said George, ripping open the last of his letters, “here’s a Christmas card from James. I say, I clean forgot to send him one. If I bought one tomorrow, or dash it all the village shop will be shut won’t it, or if I could find one that hasn’t got my name written on it, I could get it to him in time for the New Year, couldn’t I? I don’t know where he is, but I dare say his bank would forward it. Anyone else have one?”
Mr. and Mrs. Danvers and Anna, who had all had cards from James, looked up apprehensively. Caroline said, “I’m afraid it takes about three weeks to South Africa, George, but you could try air mail.”
Wilfred, whose newfound chivalry to his sister-in-law had inspired him to hide his own card, made such hideous faces at his brother that George, not to speak of everyone else at the table, realized that he had been far from tactful. Mumbling something about getting ready for church, George left the room. Caroline was too much occupied by her own feelings to notice this by-play. When George first spoke, her old sense of unreasoning terror had made her faint and dizzy for a moment. But before he had finished speaking she had realized with grateful surprise that this reaction was only automatic, that her deep self was untouched and even amused. She saw her relations’ apprehensions, rallied every force to combat them, and was able to say quite easily the few words that she thought would best meet the situation.
“I’m very glad James thought of you all,” she said, getting up, “and I think it was very nice of him not to think of me. I’ll be ready for church about a quarter to eleven, Mother, shall I?”
When she had gone the four others sat in silence, consumed by various and tumultuous feelings. Mr. and Mrs. Danvers were full of joy that their graceless son had not forgotten them, though to see his writing was a pang in their hearts when he was so far. After a few words about arrangements for the day, Mrs. Danvers got up and went to the library, followed by her husband. Left alone, Anna and Wilfred looked at each other.
“Wilfred,” said Anna, “did you happen to look at the stamp on your card from James?”
“No.”
“Then do.”
Wilfred looked among his letters and drew out James’ envelope.
“By Jove,” he said, “a French stamp.”
Anna nodded.
“And why on earth no one noticed it, I can’t think,” she said. “It was the first thing I saw, and I was hoping Mother and Father wouldn’t. I didn’t dare to look at it for fear they should begin thinking. Wilfred, the postmark is Paris. What on earth is James doing in Paris?”
“Staying there, I suppose.”
“Of course. But does it mean he is coming home? And if so, how? And will he be – oh, it’s all very disconcerting. What can we do?”
“I don’t see
that you can do anything. There’s no earthly reason why James shouldn’t come to England, or to Beechwood, if he wants to. I must say I’d hate Caroline to be upset. She has had about enough of that kind of thing. Look here, Anna, find the envelopes and burn them. Here’s George’s. Then if he goes back to South Africa or doesn’t come to England no one need be upset. And I’ll tell Hugh. He has scouts out all over the place abroad through his newspaper friends, and I expect he could find out what’s happening. Have you found the parents’ envelopes? That’s right, now yours and mine and I’ll burn the lot. Now forget it, sister,” said Wilfred, relapsing from the man of action to the gangster.
Anna patted his shoulder gratefully. The immediate danger was averted, but a depression lay on the conspirators’ spirits which they found it difficult to shake off.
*
Dr. and Mrs. Herbert came up for dinner, making with the Beatons, and Hugh and Francis a party of twelve. The Herberts were a middle-aged couple without children who had been established at Beechwood for some years. Dr. Herbert was physician in ordinary to the Danvers family and much loved by them. His wife, who had been an actress before she married him, wrote stories for twopenny magazines under her stage name of Pearl Trotter. But she was not puffed up, looking upon Pearl Trotter as a mere matter of business, and never expected her friends to have read or even heard of her works. The fact that quantities of shop girls, domestic servants and young men about to be married wrote to her for advice on life and conduct, gave her great pleasure. Her one regret was that the great and honorable class of barmaids appeared to be untouched by her literary compositions. Never had one of them appealed to her for help. The Danvers family called her Pearl, because her name was Oenone Crystal.
“A Christmas dinner without children is a sad thing indeed,” said Mrs. Herbert in a deep resonant voice as they all sat down to turkey and champagne, not to speak of soup, fish, chestnut stuffing, bread sauce, sausages, plum pudding, mince pies, fruit, port, chocolates and everything else.
“My dear Pearl,” said Mrs. Danvers, “there aren’t any children, so don’t be unreasonable. And in any case they would certainly not be allowed to stay up till half-past eight. When all my children were small we used to have a big family lunch for them on Christmas Day, but never dinner.”
“I think it is lovely to have children for Christmas,” said Julia, “only not at dinner do you think, Mrs. Herbert? We had a divine Christmas tree for the Whitelands children this afternoon with tea and cakes and crackers and we enjoyed it frightfully, and Hugh was Father Christmas. But that is quite enough. Really, not at dinner too do you think, Mrs. Herbert?”
Mrs. Herbert at once gave in to Julia’s pleading.
“Perhaps you are right, my dear,” she said tragically. “Youth is often right.”
“What I always think,” said Julia fixing her large velvet eyes on Mrs. Danvers, “is that children are an awful nuisance, the darlings, but one would feel an awful fool if one hadn’t got any. I shall have heaps.”
Luckily, this confession of faith was not heard by Mrs. Herbert who had begun to discuss village matters with Mr. Danvers. Caroline heard it and felt a momentary pang. It wasn’t one’s own fault always if one hadn’t got children. Colonel Beaton who was next her said apologetically that he was in no way responsible for his daughter. Wilfred on her other side gazed ecstatically at a woman whose ideas were sometimes so near his own. Mrs. Danvers also approved the sentiment, though she felt that Julia was not the one to make it.
Julia and the young men now raised conversation to such a riot that private talk became impossible. Foolish jokes produced an inordinate amount of mirth and the noise was deafening, when suddenly a dreadful thing happened. Mrs. Danvers had for some time been showing symptoms of wanting to make a speech. Her family and friends kindly hushed themselves, and in the silence which ensued she pronounced the following words, uncomfortable enough at any time, but doubly so at the present moment.
“There is one toast that we all ought to drink: Absent Friends.”
Her audience, cowed and flattened, lifted their glasses, murmuring in varied tones “Absent Friends”. George, who had just made and placed in his mouth a complete set of orange-peel teeth, forgot that he was wearing them, tried to drink through them, choked, and let them fall out on to his plate. Anna was thankful that the servants were not in the room. Caroline knew that her mother-in-law was thinking of James, but could well have dispensed with Wilfred’s sotto voce remarks, “And may they never come back.” Mrs. Danvers then cried gently and sat down.
Mrs. Herbert gallantly took up her cue.
“Curiously enough,” she said, gathering all the table on her as if they were a packed house on a first night, “Absent Friends is the title I have chosen for Pearl Trotter’s next book. The Friends in this case are Maisie Watson and Frank Trevor, who were brought up in the same village, but in the battle of life they are separated. After many trials and temptations, both male and female, Maisie and Frank meet again in the cinema where they had first avowed their love.”
“And may we venture to conclude,” said Francis, seconding her nobly, “that in their case friendship will ripen to something warmer and deeper?”
“You may,” said Mrs. Herbert graciously.
“It sounds divine,” said Julia. “When will it be out?”
“The opening chapters will appear in a weekly periodical called Cissie’s Companion early in January,” said Mrs. Herbert, who preserved such a sphinx-like attitude towards her work that no one had ever discovered whether she was laughing at it or not.
“I know what,” said Julia in a peacock shriek of excitement, “well act it after dinner. Oh, could we, Mrs. Danvers? Youll tell us the plot as we go along, Mrs. Herbert, won’t you? It would be too divine.”
Mrs. Danvers, her attention thus happily distracted, gave permission, and dessert was finished in a babel of plans.
The host and hostess, Dr. Herbert and Colonel Beaton were made into permanent audience. Julia was universally cast as Maisie Watson, but over Frank Trevor there were difficulties. Francis said Frank was too like his own name and made him uncomfortable. George said he must insist on being the villain who makes advances to Maisie at the Saturday night social. Wilfred, who was longing to do hero to Julia’s heroine, but was too stiff with self-consciousness to ask for it, was cast for a policeman. Mrs. Herbert took for herself the part of the wicked Madame Isabelle in whose beauty parlor Maisie was to be offered worse than death by the villain during a manicure, while Anna, Caroline and Francis were general utility.
From that moment, the audience was as if it had not existed in the eyes of the performers. Such in fact was the laughing and shrieking, such the length of the intervals, that Mrs. Danvers suggested bridge in the library. If the absence of the audience was occasionally noticed by the performers, it made no difference to their pleasure in their own acting. Mrs. Herbert supplied a scenario step by step, and enjoyed herself tremendously as Madame Isabelle, Purveyor under the disguise of manicure, of Young Girls to Roues. She it was who, knowing Maisie to be an heiress, a fact ignored by all the other characters, spurred on the wicked nephew to meet Maisie at the social. Here George, his parents being happily no longer present, insisted on a rumba, token, as he explained, of a depraved nature. Just as he was making dishonorable proposals to Maisie in the beauty parlor next day, Hugh, who as Frank Trevor was hiding behind a curtain the more fully to foil the villain’s plans, said:
“Mrs. Herbert, may I interrupt?”
“Certainly.”
“Wouldn’t it be better if George offered her marriage? She is supposed, I understand, to be an heiress, but I can’t help feeling that his chances of getting at her money would be much better if he married her. You see, taking a girl to Southend, which appears to be the villain’s dashing and ingenuous – I mean ingenious idea, won’t give him any particular claim on her property.”
“Right, perfectly right,” said Mrs. Herbert who had been listening attenti
vely, “that is an extremely practical suggestion, though,” she added wistfully, “Southend is a very good selling proposition. But I will consider it and am truly grateful to you. Go on, George.”
Hugh put his head back behind the curtain and the plan proceeded. The denouement was highly successful and when Wilfred had taken George into custody and Madame Isabelle, now a reformed character, had adopted Caroline the orphan flower-seller and Anna the comic charwoman, there was nothing left but for Francis to come forward as Frank’s rich uncle with a check for ten thousand pounds, and for Julia to fall into Hugh’s arms, which she did most engagingly.
Wilfred, who had much embarrassed Caroline during the evening by sticking to her like a burr, except when either of them was momentarily required on the stage, and throwing out dark hints and confidential glances, now approached his sister-in-law.
“I say, Caroline, be an angel and help me now,” he said urgently. “Look, there she is with Hugh, near the door. Could you possibly get Hugh away so that I could take Julia into the hall?”
Caroline did not at all enjoy the thought of interfering, but she was sorry for Wilfred, so she walked over to the hero and heroine.
“Hugh,” she said, “Mrs. Herbert would be so grateful if you would just go over your idea of changing the Southend plan again.”
“Of course,” said Hugh, and went over to Mrs. Herbert who was only too enchanted to discuss her work.
Wilfred then strolled carelessly up.
“It’s frightfully hot here,” he said to Julia, wasting no time on his approaches. “Come into the hall and I’ll get you a drink.”
“Oh, I’d love a drink,” said Julia. “I’m frightfully thirsty. Wilfred, you were divine as a policeman. I could quite imagine you in uniform.”
“You may yet see me in a uniform. I can! find the things in the dark. Oh, here they are. I do think Mother’s economy of hall lights is too ridiculous. Barley water, whisky, what?”
“Barley water, please. Why uniform?”
O, These Men, These Men! Page 10