The Way Things Are

by E M Delafield

  In the middle of the room ten little girls and five little boys waved their arms and legs about, with varying degrees of grace, more or less in time to the emphasised rhythm that proceeded from the piano at which sat a chilly-looking but decorative young woman in orange georgette. The senior teacher also wore orange georgette, that stopped short just above her knees, and gave place to pale stockings and heelless orange satin shoes.

  She stood gravely facing the class, directing their movements with suave and superior gyrations of her own, and saying from time to time:

  “Arms upward raise—knees outward bend—one, and two, and—on the toes, Cynthia—Edward—four, and one, and——Stop, please.”

  The piano abruptly became silent.

  “Johnnie Temple, you’re not attending. Nor is Mary Manners. Now I can’t have the whole class interrupted like this. You must pay attention, or go and sit down. Resume, please.”

  The piano and the class resumed.

  Laura talked to the mother of Mary Manners, who was sitting next to her, wearing a grey squirrel fur coat.

  “I always admire Miss King’s appearance so much, don’t you?” said Laura. “So very unlike the dancing mistresses of our day.”

  “Yes, isn’t she? And really she gets them on very well. Mary has improved tremendously.”

  “Mary has such a good sense of rhythm,” politely said Laura. “I’ve always noticed it.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. She doesn’t pay attention to what’s going on, or she could do much better.”

  “So could Johnnie.”

  “What I feel about Mary is that she could do better, if she’d only concentrate. It’s all there, but she doesn’t try.”

  “It’ll come, won’t it? Though, of course, in some children concentration seems to be the natural thing. Now Edward will give his whole mind to anything that interests him, but then, unfortunately, he’s not in the least interested in anything educational, except perhaps mechanical toys. Johnnie, who’s really much cleverer—”

  “Mary! Mary dear!”

  Mrs. Manners was shaking her head, and hissing in a distressed way through her teeth, and Laura perceived that her conversation was no longer receiving attention. She knew, however, that it had been directed to her own gratification rather than to that of Mrs. Manners, and was not surprised.

  On her other side was a very earnest mother whose Cynthia was the star performer of the class.

  Mrs. Bakewell, unlike Mrs. Manners, wore no furs, but always wore very plain tailor-made suits, small felt hats that seemed to be poised on the extreme top of her head, and immense chamois-leather gloves.

  She had a very bright smile, a large nose, and a large, alert glance.

  She turned them all upon Laura and said, with a strange effect of restrained ardour in her manner:

  “I think dancing does so much for the little people, don’t you? It helps them to express themselves, I feel.”

  “Yes,” said Laura doubtfully. Cynthia Bakewell was beautifully poised on the tips of her toes, although she looked interested and conscientious, rather than spiritually uplifted, but Johnnie was expressing himself by means of trying to make Miss King rebuke him publicly once again and Edward was blowing his nose with great earnestness.

  “They teach eurythmics everywhere now,” said Mrs. Bakewell. “My elder girl is at a wonderful school, where the pupils dance in a wood, like nymphs, every evening in the summer.”

  “Shall you send Cynthia there? She dances so beautifully already.”

  “All my children have always danced, from the time they could walk. I used to play the piano, after tea, when they were wee babies, and they used to get up and dance, without any suggestion from anybody. Cynthia invented a dance when she was only three. It was a Butterfly Dance, and she did it beautifully.”

  Laura, as usual, wondered why her children were so unlike other people’s children. If she played the piano at Applecourt after tea, Edward ran out of the room, because he found it boring inside, and Johnnie either wished to thump a humorous imitation beside her, or begged her to leave off and come and play. Never had either shown the slightest indication to invent a dance, or even to dance one which somebody else had invented.

  “Of course, girls are so different. My two little sons—”

  “But Theodore dances quite as well as his sisters,” said Mrs. Bakewell, interrupting.

  Laura had forgotten about Theodore. He was at school, and no longer attended the class.

  “He said to me the other day: ‘Mama, do the angels dance? If they don’t, I don’t think I want to go to heaven.’”

  “Did he? How sweet,” said Laura, in a depressed way.

  “It was rather sweet, wasn’t it? He’s only seven, you know. But of course he’s danced ever since he could walk.”

  Laura said, “Oh, of course,” as though all the children of her acquaintance, her own included, had danced ever since they could walk—and then felt that her words had sounded inane.

  “Cynthia, of course, is much the best of them all,” she added, indicating the class, and in atonement for her tepidity about Theodore.

  “It’s very nice of you to say so, but then,” returned Mrs. Bakewell more brightly than ever, “Cynthia has danced ever since she could walk.”

  Laura thought: “I wonder whether the mere fact of being a mother does really reduce one, conversationally, to the level of an idiot.” Aloud she said: “Yes, of course.”

  “Rest,” cried Miss King smartly, and all the children sank back on to the soles of their feet with relieved expressions on their faces.

  Edward rushed to his mother, and Johnnie, whom she wished Mrs. Bakewell to have a good opportunity of looking at, on account of his superiority in good looks to the talented Cynthia and Theodore, walked to the far end of the room and made hideous faces at himself in the looking-glass.

  “Is that your little fellow?” said Mrs. Bakewell with a tolerant smile, as Johnnie further distorted his features.

  “I can’t think what he’s doing,” murmured Laura, trying to return Mrs. Bakewell’s smile while at the same time shaking her head violently and frowning in the direction of Johnnie.

  “Showing off, I daresay,” Mrs. Bakewell observed, more tolerant than ever.

  “That was very nice, darling. You’re getting on,” said Laura to Edward, regardless of accuracy.

  “I simply hate dancing,” Edward replied gloomily.

  “My little children love dancing.” Mrs. Bakewell turned her large, bright gaze upon Edward. “When Cynthia and her brother Theodore were tiny they used to invent dances. You ask Cynthia to tell you all about it. They had a Windmill Dance and a Butterfly Dance, and all sorts of other dances. They liked dancing better than anything.”

  Edward gazed indifferently at Mrs. Bakewell’s smile.

  When his silence became embarrassing, Laura gently prompted him.

  “That was clever of Cynthia and Theodore, wasn’t it? That’s why Cynthia is so good at dancing now, I expect.”

  “Is she good at it?” Edward chillingly remarked, and strolled away without waiting for an answer.

  Mrs. Bakewell, her smile as indomitable as ever, said chat children were so delightfully quaint, always, but Lura felt that it was time for her to turn again to Mrs. Manners, who now had Mary seated on her lap.

  “What are you doing about Mary’s lessons now, I wonder? I know you were finding it all so difficult a little while ago.”

  “It always is difficult, when one lives in the country. My husband says it’s quite out of the question to drive her to and from Quinnerton every day.”

  “So does Alfred.”

  “It’s with great difficulty that I’ve persuaded him to let me have the car and bring her into the dancing-class once a week.”

  “I can’t even do that regularly.”

  “Oh well, of course, I drive myself. And unless they’re going to attend regularly, it’s no use at all, is it?”

  “It’s better than nothing,”
said Laura firmly. “And we’re lucky about teaching. Miss Lamb comes every morning and gives them their lessons.”

  “That really is excellent. I,” said Mrs. Manners, “am teaching Mary myself.”

  “And do you find it answers?”

  “Oh yes. I simply, for the time being, become a teacher pure and simple. We’re perfectly regular—perfectly punctual. Mary knows that the lessons have got to be done, just the same as if she was at school. And of course I always keep a little ahead of her, preparing the lessons.”

  “How do you find the time?”

  “I make the time, Mrs. Temple,” replied Mrs. Manners, not without superiority. “But of course, I’m not clever, like you. I know you write. Naturally, in the case of a gift like that, one hasn’t the same time to devote to one’s husband and children.”

  Laura reflected that, whether the time was there or not, one did devote it to one’s husband and children, although ineffectually. It seemed impossible to do otherwise, in a small household. But, owing to the gift, it seemed that one got no credit for it.

  “Now, please take your partners for the fox-trot.”

  Miss King was at the piano, and the youthful and charming assistant teacher had taken her place in the middle of the room.

  “Will you come and dance with me, dear?” she said, patting Johnnie’s curls.

  Laura wondered whether this distinction was a tribute to Johnnie’s charms, or an indication that his steps required attention.

  “Is that your other little one?” Mrs. Bakewell enquired of Laura benignantly.

  “Yes, that’s Johnnie. He’s only five.”

  Laura tried to say this in a matter-of-fact, indifferent voice. In reality, it seemed to her to be almost inevitable that anyone in the world, seeing Johnnie for the first time, should be struck by his good looks, his curls, his intelligence and his size.

  “Miss Thompson is always so good with the less advanced ones. So patient,” said Mrs. Bakewell kindly.

  “Long, short-short, long, short-short,” intoned Miss Thompson firmly, bearing Johnnie with her as she skimmed up the room.

  “He’s really not doing it too badly, considering that he doesn’t attend regularly,” Laura remarked, trying to sound coldly impartial.

  “Not at all badly,” Mrs. Bakewell agreed. And Mrs. Manners, on the other side, said that it really was a pity that Laura’s little boys shouldn’t attend the dancing-class regularly. The elder one—Edward, wasn’t it, was getting on quite nicely with his dancing.

  Edward was dancing with Mary Manners, who was taller, older, and a good deal more skilful than he was.

  At the end of the hour’s lesson, the class departed. Alfred Temple, in the two-seater, came for Laura and the children. The boys climbed to the little dicky seat at the back, and their mother took her place beside the driver.

  “I just want to stop at the Home and Colonial and go to the greengrocer’s, Alfred—the one at the bottom of High Street, and change my books at the Library. You don’t mind, do you?”

  “I don’t mind. But I should have thought, I must say, that you could have done your jobs while the boys were at their dancing. You’re not obliged to stay there the whole time.”

  “You don’t understand, dear. I must. They’re not really old enough to trust by themselves. They’d take advantage of my not being there.” It was one of Laura’s most resolute convictions that her children behaved better when she was with them than when she was not.

  (Many mothers cling to this theory, in spite of the immense inconvenience that it entails upon themselves.)

  At the library, Laura encountered Lady Kingsley-Browne.

  “You’ve come to get the new volume of the Life of Disraeli, I feel perfectly certain,” declared Lady Kings-ley-Browne. “So have I. It only came out yesterday, but I couldn’t wait for it another day. Could you?”

  Laura, who did not buy books, and was still waiting for the first volume of Disraeli from the Circulating Library, insincerely replied that she, also, wanted dreadfully to read it, but that she was only just changing the books, and could not contemplate any purchase.

  “What are you going to get? Have you read this?” said her neighbour tiresomely, thrusting upon Laura’s attention a novel with a title that she disliked, by an author whose works she never read.

  “Is it good?” said Mrs. Temple doubtfully.

  “Delightful. I’m sure you’d like it. And have you read this?”

  “Yes, I have,” hastily said Laura. “Have you anything on my list?” she added to the assistant.

  “Only one, I’m afraid, madam. Would you care for this new detective story? It’s in great demand, and people say it’s excellent.”

  Lady Kingsley-Browne uttered a faint, protesting cry.

  “How truly dreadful! The Murder in the Old Mill— what a name! And to offer it to you, of all people, my dear!”

  The flattering implication of Laura’s eclectic taste made it rather difficult to accept The Murder in the Old Mill, but Laura did so.

  “Alfred always likes a good murder story,” she apologetically explained; aware that in this case her likings and Alfred’s were identical, but not having the moral courage to say so.

  “Men!” ejaculated Lady Kingsley-Browne, in a tone of indulgence. “What about the Georgian Poems for your other choice?”

  Laura did not get very frequent opportunities of changing her books at the Quinnerton Library, and from motives of economy she did not subscribe to a London one. She had no wish to take Georgian Poems in place of the many new novels that she wanted to read. Nevertheless she presently found herself leaving the shop with this unwanted addition to her stock of literature.

  “Delighted to have met you,” said Lady Kingsley-Browne. “Do come out and see us again one of these days. The bulbs are quite nice just now.”

  “We’d love to—”

  “Bébée will be home in a day or two. She’s been having a wonderful time at Nice. You know she dashed over there for a flying visit with another girl—just the two of them. Really, girls do have the greatest fun nowadays! When I think of what our mothers would have said if we’d suggested doing half the things they do—”

  Laura assented, hoping rather indignantly that Lady Kingsley-Browne realised at least approximately the number of years that separated them.

  “You must come when Bébée’s at home.” And Laura repeated, with a final, valedictory smile: “We should love to,” and hastened with relief into the greengrocer’s shop. When she came out with one dozen bananas in a paper-bag, Laura found Alfred, the boys and the two-seater waiting for her outside.

  She climbed in.

  “That’s all. I’m quite ready now.” She turned her head. “Are you all right, darlings?”

  “Mummie, look, I’ve got my overcoat on,” said Edward, who had had his overcoat on ever since the end of the dancing-class.

  “I see, darling,” said Laura.

  “Are we going home now?” Johnnie enquired.

  “Yes.”

  “We’re going home now,” Edward echoed. “Now we’re going home, aren’t we, mummie? Aren’t we, daddy? We’re going home, we’re going home now, aren’t we, daddy?”

  “Ont-ils été sages?” hissed Laura at her husband as the car started.

  “O wee,” said Alfred resignedly.

  By the time they got home the second post had been delivered, and Laura found two letters waiting for her.

  One was to say that the house-parlourmaid engaged a week earlier by Laura to enter her service at the end of the month had accepted another situation, and the other was a bill.

  “That girl has failed me,” exclaimed Laura, with as much pain, indignation, and surprise as though no servant had ever done such a thing before.

  “What girl?”

  “The house-parlourmaid—the one I definitely engaged—from the Registry Office.”

  “Have you any other possibilities?”

  “Only the girl they wouldn’t keep at the
Vicarage because she broke things, and had a fit or something in the middle of the night—(she sounded to me epileptic)—and the one who wrote from Stockport, and said she was willing to learn. She’s only eighteen, and asking thirty pounds a year, and it was a most illiterate sort of letter.”

  “It’s a long way to get her down on approval. I suppose we pay the fare?”

  “Oh yes, we pay the fare. And besides, now I come to think of it, I’ve had her letter nearly a week, because I thought I was fixed up with this Jones creature—and she’ll probably have been snapped up by now.”

  “I believe you’d do better with a married couple.”

  “They’re much more expensive—and besides, Gladys is staying on as far as I know, and if I give her notice, we may find ourselves left without anyone. I wish I knew what to do.”

  “How long before Nellie goes?”

  “A week.”

  “Then there’s time, still, after all. And worst come to the worst, there’s that woman—Mrs. Raynor.”

  “Yes, we can have her. Only it’s unsettling for nurse and Gladys, and you know how they never will put up with anything nowadays.”

  Alfred did indeed know, and Laura felt that it would be fortunate for them both if he received no further demonstration of the state of affairs that she deplored.

  “I’ll go out to the Vicarage to-morrow and find out if that girl there is absolutely hopeless. There’s nothing else I can do.”

  Nevertheless, Laura, as though fascinated, studied the columns in The Times headed “Domestic Situations Wanted,” and before she went to bed that night wrote three letters, in which she conscientiously set out the disadvantage of a quiet place, right in the country, with oil lamps, and every other Sunday afternoon and evening out, in turns with the cook-general.

  Laura held to a theory that by means of this preliminary candour she eliminated the possibility of subsequent reproaches and discontent on the part of the servant engaged. But it discouraged her when none of them answered her letters, not even when a stamped addressed envelope was enclosed.