‘Entirely so.’
‘But, don’t you see that that doesn’t matter to us! It’s part of your business ’ ‘But when, so to speak, is my business not my business? When, as it were, does Mathewson presiding over my lunches come in? And the dog ’ ‘Crellie!
’ ‘I was alluding to Bottles,’ he countered brusquely, and I laughed in his face, ‘Where do they fit in?’
‘All the time. One can’t always tell when. They just happen.’
‘How did you know that I am attached to Mathewson?’ ‘That grew. But it was also plausible, wasn’t it? And it was all my idea,’ I added proudly.
‘Ah . . . ’ and Sir Herbert thrust his head forward and scanned me with those tired, kind, brown eyes. ‘Tell me, what else do I do?’
Here I deliberately pulled his leg; gave him a reasonably adequate résumé of his public engagements for the past six weeks, together with the bons mots he had dryly delivered, the first nights he had attended and the barristers he had snubbed, at which his face relaxed grimly. ‘You dangerous lady! But that wasn’t quite what I meant.’
I smiled back. ‘Of course I know that. Well . . . there’s a lot of it.’ (And some of it you can’t be told, Toddy).
‘For instance, have I ever done anything disgraceful?’
‘Tut, no! Never. You’ve had scenes, of course, with Dion Saffyn ’ ‘And who ?’
‘A pierrot. He’s dead.’
‘Why did we disagree?’
‘Because you thought he wasn’t fit company for us.’
‘I was perfectly right!’
‘No. Not that time. You weren’t clever about Saffy. He was a dear. And Sheil hasn’t been told he’s dead, so he still comes in to meals.’
At last, Toddy was beginning to look at me with the expression I had had from him so often before. Knowledge . . . intimacy . . . infinite whimsical wisdom. The relief of it made me grip the acorn of the blind.
‘I see . . . and who else do I know? Am I on terms with anyone alive, for instance?’
‘Rather! Sir Horatio Sparrow.’
‘Ah, come now! That’s better. He is, as a matter of fact, a great personal friend of mine.’
‘Is he? How heavenly!’
He stood thinking. ‘By the way, is my wife in this?’
‘Yes.’
‘M’m . . . I’m glad of that,’ said Toddy.
And then I glanced across the room and saw on Lady Toddington’s face the wife-look. And suddenly I was Miss Deirdre Carne.
I don’t remember that we said anything as we walked home. I wondered whether Toddy would ring us up, as usual, last thing at night, and it then occurred to me that our actual acquaintance with the Toddingtons might put a stop to all that. It might be going to alter all the old, familiar things. We even might be going to lose more than we had won . . . it rather depended on mother and Sheil. I could go on, of course . . . I was irrationally despondent. Having to leave Toddy like that, and be ushered out into the Square, was as painful and ridiculous as a lovers’ quarrel. And if Lady Toddington was going to turn into affronted conjugality on us, we should have to make a drastic overhaul of the entire story. She had, I seem to remember, shown signs of restiveness in the past, when Katrine and I kissed him and called him an Old Pet, but on those occasions there was always mother to pick up the pieces and mend the breach in a jiffy. The Toddingtons have no ‘s.’ no ‘d.’ or they’d figure in Who’s Who. Was the attraction going to be Sheil? And was I going to mind too badly if it were? But one would adore to make them happy. Toddy has done so much for one that he will probably never know. And Mildred has given one so many laughs! Was it possible that knowing the Toddingtons might be going to be just a matter of ‘new friends’? Is it only selfishness to tinker at their personalities? But we’ve guessed right so often that it may be justifiable. On more than one occasion we’ve sent Toddy overnight to some public function, and found in the morning papers that he was actually there, or at something amazingly similar. And there is the sheer scavenging: for, once you are caught in anybody’s current, you are apt to be drawn towards people who already possess knowledge. There was that girl I met at the Florences’ – an Academy friend of Katrine’s. Her mother had once rented their seaside house at Birchington to the Toddingtons, and Lady Toddington hadn’t liked the bath-room having no geyser.
‘I like Mildred,’ said mother, that night.
‘Good thing, isn’t it? Because one always has,’ I answered. ‘What did you talk about?’
‘Oh, you and Sheil mostly. Well, you got Toddy, anyway. What did the old darling say?’
‘My dear, I told him about the Saga.’
‘You didn’t! ’ Mother put down her cigarette.
‘Bits.’
‘Lor! Lor!
’ ‘And I think he catches on.’ Suddenly I was full of happiness and, as I always do, rushed to the piano and improvised a dance tune. (A year later, I sold it for more than I’d ever earned, which only goes to prove what a basic ass the world really is.)
‘I like that,’ said mother. ‘Do go on going on.’
And then Miss Martin was in the doorway. Mother hastily crushed out her stub and I stopped at once.
‘Oh, Mrs Carne, I’m so sorry to trouble you, but could you come up to Sheil?’ We were both on our feet. ‘She’s being so difficult, this evening.’ At that, we both sat down. ‘Do come in, Miss Martin. What seems to be the matter?’ Miss Martin turned a brickish colour.
‘I – of course she doesn’t mean anything, but – it’s silly to repeat, of course – but she says she wants that Mr Pipson to sleep with her.’
‘How adorable they’d look!’ I remarked, but catching mother’s susceptibly watering eye, I gave an excellent imitation of efficiency and left the room to its atmosphere of apologies.
‘Anything else?’ asked Mrs Carne.
‘Well, when I asked her if she had enjoyed the afternoon with Lady Toddington, she began to cry, and became – really ’ ‘Ah. I was rather expecting something of the sort,’ responded her employer.
Over the schooled features of Agatha Martin flitted noncomprehension, dawning temper, and resentment. She had had a wretched day. The unfinished letters to Violet and
Mabel in which cheerfulness must be maintained . . . the letter from Arthur, confirming his transfer to a curacy in the East End . . . the secret offer of a portion of her salary to Flossie. Mabel’s old lady had died, and Mabel was out of employment, and at home.
Agatha’s eyes began to water. Inside, she was saying to Mrs Carne, ‘You are a fool and your children are liars. Your fault. You are undermining my work and encouraging senseless delusions.’ Oh, the healing of saying that! But repression and expedience said something else, though she was pleased to hear that her voice was chilly.
‘Indeed? In that case, could you not have given me some – hint?’
‘But, Miss Martin, does it really matter? You know what children are. I was very much the same, myself.’
(You would be.) ‘Quite so. But – do you think it is perhaps quite – the best thing to encourage so much pretence?’
(I know it’s wrong of me, but I can’t seem to have patience with women with faces like roast hares.)
‘Ah, don’t try and turn them out of fairyland too quickly. There’s all the time there is for coming down to earth with a bump.’
(But, apparently, they don’t come down, you silly woman. Katrine seems to be acquiring a little sense, but look at Deirdre.) ‘I see what you mean.’
(That you don’t! and I wish you’d go).
(It’s ridiculous, and dangerous. How can one hope for results with the child brought up in such an atmosphere? )
Miss Martin left the room.
15
There was no engagement for the evening, and Sir Herbert Toddington joined his lady in the drawingroom, after dinner. It had been rather a silent meal; possibly, he thought, through contrast with the young voices whose tones still seemed to hang in the atmosphere. Mildred was being
nervous with him. He hated it. It disappointed him, and she guessed that, and it made her worse. She was deep in one of what to himself he termed her ‘Should She Have Done It?’ novels. Curious how nearly all women could adapt themselves to the social side and still remain mentally at a standstill That little child . . . the pretty thing! Wanting him to play . . . and Miss Deirdre . . . there was a companion! The gift of fearlessness, when one was so sated with perfunctory deference. It wasn’t always easy to shed the lordship at home, and for the first time he wondered if he had ever seemed to bully Mildred? Of late years she hadn’t appeared to be able to get past his manner, though, goaded, she could occasionally let fly. Sparrow understood her, but then they were old flames and he wasn’t her husband. Apart from Mildred, Herbert knew that Sir Horatio Sparrow had a very low opinion of women, whereas Herbert had for the entire sex a curious tenderness and admiration which must have been innate, or his experiences of them in the courts would have destroyed it years ago. For women, he had often stretched the law to splitting point. And then he remembered the boiled cod and the Athenelium, and chuckled.
Mildred dropped her book. Stooping to pick it up, the title caught his eye. The Life of Charlotte Brontë, by Mrs Gaskell. Keeping a poker-face, he restored it. Mildred turned very red. He longed to know how it struck her, but to ask would lay him open to the charge of patronage. Mildred was sensitive about her mental attainments. He used to chaff her, in the old days. Defensively she forestalled him. ‘Not Edgar Wallace after all, Herbert!’
‘So I see, my dear.’
‘“The poor woman has got glimmerings of intelligence,” eh?’
‘Come, come!’
‘Come where? I do wish you wouldn’t use those silly Court expressions on me.’
‘Now, my dear, don’t let us be cross.’
‘All right. Only you do think I’m a perfect fool, don’t you?’
‘By no means. I think, in your own department, you are a most able woman.’
‘That means that I know just enough not to serve cheesestraws with the fish.’ Behind the pince-nez his eyes gleamed with amusement. ‘Oh well . . . humour the village idiot. Anyway, Herbert, you must admit that I’m a shade more presentable than the usual Chesterfield sofa your colleagues seem to marry.’
‘Dear Mildred, do not fight me, if you please.’
‘ . . . and now I suppose I’ve met my Waterloo in the Carne girl.’
‘My dear child!’
‘Oh, I suppose something of the sort was bound to happen.’ This, her husband thought rapidly, was an example of Mildred’s type of cleverness; too sensible to harbour dramatic fears, she was intelligent enough to dread the mental affinity as the profounder menace.
‘It would be singular indeed if I started making conquests at my age.’
‘I don’t know. You’re awfully attractive, Herbert. You were very plain as a young man, but you’ve found your face all right, now.’ She stopped the ‘Deirdre Carne adores you’ just in time.
One didn’t give girls away, even to one’s husband.
‘I should have said that I’m emphatically caviare to the general ’
‘One doesn’t shut oneself up in the library for three-quarters of an hour with caviare,’ she rapped.
‘Were we, indeed, as long as that?’
‘You were indeed. Time flying, and so on.’
‘The old complaint, books, my dear.’
‘But you can’t talk about books – Herbert, what were you talking about?’
‘We were discussing Emily Brontë ’ ‘Oh, I know that.’ She saw, instantly, that she had given herself away, and stowed the Gaskell Life behind a cushion. ‘When I came down, you were doing that.’
‘Please, Mildred! That is a First Edition.’ Where did you find it?’
‘I saw it on the table, when we all left,’ she answered brusquely.
‘I hope we are going to be friends with the Carnes. I should be grieved if you have taken a dislike to the girl.’
‘Dislike? I’m very fond of her!’ She seemed indignant.
‘Oh, Mildred, I am glad! I can see how she admires and likes you.’
‘I thought so too, at first.’ She ran her hand through her shingle, like a schoolgirl. ‘Herbert, I – you won’t let me be left out, will you? Please . . . I’m so tired of being just a hostess to be endured, and having to be pompous and no fun. I like fun, Herbert, and the Carne girl is fun and she seemed to be fond of me, and I thought there’s someone at last to take about and make a fuss of and have silly jokes with that aren’t witty and so clever one can’t see the point, and who won’t score off one when one splits infinitives. And little Sheil . . . and then I saw it was really going to be all you, and I was stranded again. Have Deirdre as your own property, but let me in on things sometimes.’ A large tear – rolled down her nose.
Toddington, astounded and profoundly touched, came over to her, put his arm round her.
‘Dear Milly-Mill, of course you are in everything. I know, you see. Miss Deirdre told me.’
‘Eh?’ she sniffed, her head hidden on his shoulder.
‘My dear, we figure in a family saga. I mean, they’ve got a story about us,’ his face wrinkled with amusement, ‘and you’re well and truly in it.’
‘What do I do?’ she asked eagerly.
‘Just what I asked about myself. I don’t know, yet, the full scope of your activities (we must find that out gradually), but my own include a singularly helpless dependence upon Mathewson, who chooses all my luncheons for me, plus ill-bred scenes with a defunct pierrot.’
Lady Toddington gave a scream of laughter.
‘I’ve got a better one than that! though Sheil was careful – to explain that they didn’t really think it happened. It appears that once you refused to join in the Judges’ Michaelmas Term procession, and dug a burrow and hid in it with only your head out and a mushroom on your wig.
‘And they call you Toddy. And me Lady Mildred.’
He swept off his glasses. ‘But, let me understand you. About the mushroom. Why a mushroom?’
‘So as not to be seen, you old silly! You were part of the landscape, with a mushroom on. Oh mercy! I saw that at once!’
‘Hah. And was I not discovered?’
‘Never!’ she answered triumphantly. ‘Herbert, have you been ringing them up every evening, or is that part of the game, too?’
He looked at her slightly harried face, and shook.
‘I really believe I must have. When did I first start telephoning?’ ‘I don’t know. It sounded like a long time ago.’
‘Then let’s not question it . . . Mildred, we’ve been missing a lot of good times, haven’t we?’
‘By Jove, my dear, we have!’
He began to walk up and down the room with the famous stiff gait with which he entered his court before bowing like a jack-knife to the jury.
‘You know, I dropped a brick, this afternoon at tea. Brick . . . m’m. . . a witness said that the other day, and it struck me as a most felicitous expression . . . brick . . . ’ (‘Oh do go on! Everybody says it.’)
‘Well, it seems that we have a dog called Bottles ’ ‘Yes, yes. I heard that.’ She was fidgeting with impatience. ‘You did? Well, I was slow about the whole situation, with the little child ’ ‘Oh Herbert, you old juggins!’
‘I know. I’m extremely sorry . . . Do you advise the purchase of a terrier whom we can call ’
‘That’s no good, dear. It wouldn’t be the same. I can’t explain why, but it wouldn’t. We’ll all have to wipe out Bottles. I suppose she didn’t say anything about Ming, did she?’
‘Er , I’m afraid not.’
‘Poor old fat Mildred’s dog! A washout like his missus!’ But she smiled into his face.
‘It’s curious how unsatisfactory they’ve made one feel.’
‘Oh, it’ll right itself in time, my dear,’ she responded comfortably, ‘and we’ll have good times, won’t we?’
‘Indeed, yes.’
&nb
sp; ‘Not all Brontës and highbrowism, Herb’?’ Her hands were on his shoulders.
‘Heaven forbid, my dear. I want to be amused! We both need it. I will be amused, too!’
‘How nice!’
‘Not “nice,” Milly! Nice means ignorant, foolish, senseless, fastidious, careful, subtle, appetising, hard to please, and so on. Dear me! How can my wish to be amused be careful or appetising? Foolish, possibly, and even ignorant
’ She tweaked his face. ‘My darling Herbert – go to blazes and stop there!’
For a second he looked at her with what to herself she called his mud-turtle expression: hooded eye and long upper lip compressed into a thread. Then he shook with giggles. Lady Toddington said, ‘I do love pulling that pouch by your mouth. It goes back with a plonk. I do hope when I’m your age I shall go back with a plonk, too. But plonks don’t come so well in women.’
‘Now, Mill, stop this nonsense, and confess.’
‘What?’ she answered happily.
‘Exactly how the Brontë Life struck you?’
For a second she hesitated, then plunged. ‘Oh my dear, its all such a fuss ! I’m bored stiff! I hoped I was going to be edified, because ’
‘I know. And you’re a very plucky woman to admit it. Confound the Brontës!’
‘You won’t believe it, but I am so fond of you, Herbert.’
‘I was afraid you were bored with me, Mildred. I don’t know . . . one gets set in one’s ways . . . ’
‘Hurray ! Let’s have a drink.’
‘A very small one for me. I can’t put away what you ladies do.’ Glasses in hand, they sat down side by side.
‘And now, what are we going to do about it?’
‘Ring them up as usual,’ said Lady Toddington promptly. ‘You’re not serious?’
‘Why not?’
‘It would be a most unwarranted intrusion on so slight an acquaintance.’
‘Ah, but you see, apparently the acquaintance isn’t so slight . . . My dear, we shall lose those children if we don’t watch our step.’
The Brontes Went to Woolworths Page 10