Delphi Collected Works of W. Somerset Maugham (Illustrated)

by William Somerset Maugham

  Mrs. Fitzherbert had acquired a certain taste for original sensations, and it diverted her to meet again in this fashion the lover of her youth. She wanted to know how he had fared and what sort of man he was become. Outwardly he had altered but little; he was as tall and as handsome, and had still the curly hair which she had so desperately adored. The years had dealt amiably with him, and she was delighted that on her side the change was all for the better. She could not deny now that at eighteen she must have been a lumbersome, awkward girl; and a young man could not guess that time and a discreet skill in the artifices of the toilet would transform her into a striking woman whom men turned round in the street to admire. At the end of their first conversation Canon Spratte asked if he might call upon her, and two days later had tea at the new house in Norfolk Street. From these beginnings a somewhat intimate acquaintance had arisen, and now Mrs. Fitzherbert was on the best of terms with all his family. The winter before she had asked Winnie to come to the Riviera with her, and the affectionate father had agreed that no better companion for his daughter could possibly be chosen. He disclosed to her now the great news of Wroxham’s proposal.

  “You must be very proud and pleased,” said Mrs. Fitzherbert.

  “Of course it’s always satisfactory for a father to see his daughter happily married. He’s an excellent fellow and quite comfortably off.”

  “So I’ve always understood,” she answered with a smile, amused because the Canon would not acknowledge that Wroxham was far and away the best parti of the season.

  Mrs. Fitzherbert had quickly taken Theodore’s measure, and it was a curious satisfaction, sweet and bitter at the same time, to find defects of character in the man who had once appeared so romantic a hero. She looked upon him with oddly mingled feelings. Her sense of humour caused her vastly to enjoy the rich comedy of his behaviour, but she preserved for him, almost against her will, a certain tenderness. He had made her suffer so much. She saw that he was often absurd, but liked him none the less. Though she discovered the feet of clay, she could not forget that once he had seemed a golden idol. She was willing to forgive the faults she now saw clearly, rather than think she had loved quite foolishly. The Canon felt her sympathy and opened his heart as to an old friend with a frankness he showed to no one else. The smile in her handsome eyes never warned him that she tore him to shreds, not unkindly but with deliberation, piece by piece.

  Mrs. Fitzherbert asked how long Winnie had been engaged, and was somewhat astounded at his answer.

  “He hasn’t spoken to her yet, but we’ve talked it over between us, he and I, and he’s to come to luncheon to-morrow to make his declaration.”

  “Then Winnie hasn’t been consulted?” she exclaimed.

  “My dear lady, do you imagine for a moment she’ll refuse?”

  Mrs. Fitzherbert laughed.

  “No, I frankly don’t. She’s not her father’s child for nothing.”

  “I look upon it as completely settled, and then I shall have only Lionel to dispose of. Of course I’m far more anxious about him. In all probability he will succeed to the title, and it’s important that he should marry a suitable person.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  He looked at her and smiled.

  “Well, you know, the Sprattes are poor, and if Lionel has no children the peerage will be extinct. I can allow him to marry no one who hasn’t considerable means and every appearance of promising a healthy family.”

  “Would it surprise you very much to know that the matter is already somewhat out of your hands? Unless I’m very much mistaken, Lionel is making up his mind to propose to Gwendolen Durant; and unless I’m equally mistaken, Gwendolen Durant is making up her mind to accept him.”

  “You amaze me,” cried the Canon. “I’ve never even heard of this person.”

  “Oh, yes, you have; she’s the only daughter of Sir John Durant, the brewer.”

  “Monstrous! I will never allow Lionel to marry any one of the sort.”

  “I believe he’s rather in love with her.”

  “Good heavens, it’s just as easy for him to fall in love with a girl of good family. I did, and upon my word I can’t see why he shouldn’t follow his father’s example.”

  “The Durants are very nice people, and — prolific,” smiled Mrs. Fitzherbert. “Gwendolen had six brothers, three of whom are still alive, and her father was one of ten children.”

  “Sir John is only a Jubilee baronet. I would as soon he were a city knight.”

  “On the other hand, he proposes to give his daughter one hundred and fifty thousand pounds as her marriage portion.”

  Theodore Spratte turned right round and stared at Mrs. Fitzherbert.

  “That’s a very large sum,” he smiled.

  “It certainly may help the course of true love to run smoothly.”

  “No wonder that Lionel was disinclined to accept the Bishop’s advice to become a total abstainer,” the Canon chuckled. “It would really be rather uncivil if he has matrimonial designs on a brewer’s daughter.”

  He thoughtfully sipped his wine and allowed this information to settle. Mrs. Fitzherbert turned to somebody else, and the Canon was left for a couple of moments to his own reflections. Presently she smiled at him again.

  “Well?”

  “I’ll tell you what I wish you would do. I understand you are deputed to find out my views upon the subject.”

  “Nothing of the sort,” she interrupted. “Sir John cares nothing for your views. He is a merchant of the old school, and looks upon himself as every man’s equal. I don’t know whether he has thought for a moment of Gwendolen’s future, but you may be quite sure he won’t consider it a very signal honour that she should marry Lionel.”

  “You express yourself with singular bluntness,” answered the Canon, mildly.

  “Nor do I know that the young things have settled anything. I merely tell you what my eyes have suggested to me. If you like, I’ll ask the Durants to luncheon, and you can see them for yourself.”

  “But tell me, does she lead one to imagine that she’ll — —” he hesitated for a moment, but made a dash for it, “breed well?”

  “My dear Canon, I never considered her from that point of view,” laughed Mrs. Fitzherbert.

  Canon Spratte smiled and shrugged his shoulders.

  “One must be practical. Of course a great change has come over the opinion of society with regard to the position of merchants, and one mustn’t lag behind the times.”

  “A Conservative member of Parliament is still an object of admiration to many,” murmured Mrs. Fitzherbert.

  “Well, well, I’m not the man to stand in the way of my children’s happiness, and if I find that Lionel loves the girl, I promise you to put no obstacle in his way.”

  Lady Hollington rose from her chair, and with a rustling sweep of silk skirts, with a quick gleam of diamonds, the ladies followed one another from the dining-room. Their host took his glass and moved round the table to sit by his most distinguished guest. But Canon Spratte, like a wise man, had already seized the opportunity. He drew his chair near that of Lord Stonehenge. The Prime Minister, obese and somnolent, turned upon him for a moment his dull, suspicious eyes, and then sunk his head strangely into his vast corpulence.

  “I’m sorry to see that poor Andover is dead,” said the Canon, blandly.

  His neighbour, meditative as a cow chewing the cud, made no sign that he heard the observation; but Canon Spratte was by no means disconcerted.

  “He’ll be a great loss and most difficult to replace,” he continued. “They say he was the most learned of our bishops. I was excessively distressed when I heard of the sad event.”

  “What did he die of?” asked the Prime Minister, indifferently.

  “Oh, he was a very old man,” promptly replied the other, who had no idea to what fell disease the late Bishop of Barchester had succumbed. “My own conviction is that bishops ought to retire like ambassadors. A bishop should be a man of restle
ss strength, active and versatile; he should be ready to put his hand to anything. To be a bishop you want as much energy and resource as if you were manager of the Army and Navy Stores.”

  “Who is the manager of the Army and Navy Stores?” asked Lord Stonehenge.

  Theodore Spratte smiled politely, but thought none the less that the Prime Minister was growing very stupid.

  “Thank heaven, I shall never be as fat as that,” he said to himself, and added aloud: “I believe Andover was appointed by Mr. Gladstone.”

  “How very large these grapes are!” said Lord Stonehenge, looking heavily at the dish of fruit in front of him.

  “Yes,” said the Canon undisturbed, “my father, the Chancellor, used to grow very fine grapes at Beachcombe. You know, of course, that he held very decided views about the political opinions of the bishops.”

  A slight movement went through the Prime Minister’s colossal frame, like a peristaltic wave passing along the coiled length of a boa-constrictor. Canon Spratte seemed to him like an agile fly that settled on every exposed place, and alit elsewhere as soon as it was brushed away. Just as all roads lead to Rome, every comment that Lord Stonehenge made appeared to bear directly upon the vacant See.

  “And I cannot help thoroughly agreeing with him,” proceeded the Canon. “My view is that the bishops should be imbued with Conservative principles. The episcopal bench, I always think, should be a stronghold of Tory tradition, and if you come to think of it, the very nature of things accords with my conviction.”

  Lord Stonehenge gave no sign of disagreement, which was sufficient excuse for Canon Spratte to state at length his laudable opinions. Presently, however, Lord Hollington proposed that they should go upstairs, and on their way the Canon shot his last bolt.

  “By the bye, I was just talking to Lady Patricia about addressing a great Primrose Meeting this month.”

  He was able, consequently, to flatter himself that he had not left a single thing unsaid which it behoved the Prime Minister to know.

  Canon Spratte and Lord Stonehenge went away together. When the Canon had driven off behind a fine pair of bays, in a new and splendid brougham of the latest pattern, Lord Stonehenge lumbered into a carriage, which was both small and shabby. It was drawn by one horse only, and this was somewhat long in the tooth. There was no footman, and the coachman, in a uniform much the worse for wear, sat on his box in a slovenly, humped-up fashion. The Prime Minister and Lady Patricia drove for a while in silence; then from the depths of his beard, Lord Stonehenge summed up the party.

  “They were very dull, but the dinner was eatable.”

  “I hope you took no ice, papa,” said Lady Patricia.

  “I merely tasted it,” he confessed, in apologetic tones. “I wonder why we can’t have ices like that. Ours are too cold.”

  “Lady Eastney was there, so I suppose it’s not true about Sir Archibald. The Hollingtons are so careful.”

  “Who was she? The woman with the fat neck?”

  “She sat immediately opposite Canon Spratte,” answered Lady Patricia.

  “Theodore Spratte wants me to make him a bishop,” said Lord Stonehenge, with a slow smile.

  “Well, he’ll keep his clergy in order,” said Lady Patricia. “He’s very energetic and clever.”

  “I prefer them stupid,” retorted the Prime Minister.

  There was another pause, and presently Lord Stonehenge remembered an observation of his secretary.

  “Vanhatton says I promised to do something for Spratte before the last election. I never thought we’d get in. His father was the most disagreeable man I ever saw.”

  “I wonder what Mr. Highbury will say to him.”

  “It’s no business of his,” retorted Lord Stonehenge, with considerable irritation.

  “No, but you know what he is,” answered Lady Patricia, doubtfully.

  The Prime Minister meditated for some time upon the officiousness of his colleague.

  “I like my bishops tedious and rather old,” he said, at last. “Then their clergy give them plenty to do, and they don’t meddle with the Government.”

  “Canon Spratte is such a staunch Conservative. He even speaks at Primrose Meetings.”

  “He’ll only work for us as long as it pays him,” said Lord Stonehenge, reflectively.

  “Oh, papa, he’d never become a Radical. He’s too anxious to be a gentleman.”

  “I prefer a Radical to a Liberal Unionist,” replied the Prime Minister, with some bitterness. “I must ask Vanhatton whether I definitely committed myself.”

  VI

  NEXT morning Canon Spratte awoke in the best of humours, and determined to chaff Lionel good-naturedly about this attachment of which he had become cognisant. He felt relieved, on the whole, that his only son had done no worse. It was much against his father’s wish that the prospective heir to the peerage went into the Church, which none knew better than the Canon was no longer an eligible profession. Considering the position Lionel must one day occupy, Canon Spratte suggested that he should enter the diplomatic service or the Guards, but the boy had inherited his mother’s lack of ambition rather than his father’s spirit. For years the Canon had noted with irritation this timid and retiring temper. He could never understand why a man should sidle down a secluded alley when he might saunter along the sunny side of Piccadilly, and he could not help looking upon his son as something of a milksop. It would not have surprised him if Lionel had announced his desire to marry the daughter of a country clergyman. But money was more necessary than anything else to the Sprattes. The second earl had inherited all the Chancellor had to leave, and was understood never to have practised rigid economy. Theodore, finding a considerable expenditure necessary to his importance, had never been able to save a penny.

  “Well, my boy, I hear that in spring a young man’s fancy turns lightly to thoughts of love,” he said, when Lionel bade him good-morning.

  The curate looked at him with a start and reddened. Canon Spratte burst out laughing.

  “A little bird has whispered to me that Master Cupid has been busy with you, Lionel. Come, come, you must have no secrets from your old father. Why have you never brought the girl to see Sophia?”

  “I really don’t know what you mean.”

  “Are you going to deny that you have cast a favourable eye upon Miss Gwendolen Durant?”

  The renewal of colour upon Lionel’s fair cheek assured the Canon that Mrs. Fitzherbert’s surmise was eminently correct.

  “I like her very much, father,” admitted Lionel, after some hesitation, “but I’ve not said anything to her. I have no reason to believe that she cares for me at all.”

  “Good heavens, that’s not the way to make love, my boy. Why, when I was your age I never asked if there were reasons why a young woman should care for me. It’s a foolish lover who prates of his own unworthiness. If it’s a fact let the lady find it out for herself after marriage.”

  “Would you approve of my asking Miss Durant to marry me?”

  “Well, my dear Lionel, I will not conceal from you that I dislike her connection with trade, but still we live in a different world from that of my boyhood. Every one has a finger in some commercial enterprise now-a-days, and after all the Sprattes are well enough born to put up with a trifling mésalliance. I don’t want you to think me cynical, but a hundred and fifty thousand pounds will gild a more tarnished scutcheon than the Durants’.”

  “But I’ve not altogether made up my mind,” said Lionel, who had not bargained for being rushed into the affair.

  “Well, then, make it up, my boy, for it’s high time you were married. Don’t forget that an old and honoured name depends on you. Your duty is to provide a male child to inherit the title, and I’m assured that the Durants run to boys.”

  “I’m not quite certain if I love her enough to marry her, father. I’m trying to make up my mind.”

  “Don’t talk such nonsense, Lionel. If you don’t look sharp about it, upon my soul I’ll cut you o
ut and marry her myself.”

  The Canon rubbed his hands and laughed heartily.

  It was no wonder that his humour was jovial, for he was enjoying already his relatives’ astonishment when they heard that Wroxham, most desirable of young men, wished to marry Winnie. He sent a note to his brother asking him very particularly to luncheon, but his sense of dramatic effect was far too keen to permit him even to hint that it was an occasion of peculiar solemnity.

  “I shall point out to Sophia that she hasn’t used her sharp eyes to very good effect,” he muttered. “And if I’d depended on her to see Winnie happily married, I should have depended on a broken reed.”

  Had he not foreseen it since the lad was fourteen, and nourished the scheme assiduously in his paternal heart? It was a triumph for a happy father. The thought of the world’s envy served nothing to decrease his complacency. The gay sunshine of May seemed to indicate that the universe at large shared and approved his self-satisfaction.

  “Well, Sophia, did you see the notice about me in this morning’s paper?” he cried, as he went into the drawing-room to await Wroxham’s arrival.

  “I’ve not had time to read it.”

  “I wish you took more interest in me!” exclaimed the Canon, not without vexation. “It’s extraordinary that when there’s anything in the paper, every one sees it but my own family.”

  “Please tell me what it is.”

  He took up the newspaper and with due emphasis read:

  “There is no truth in the rumour that Canon Spratte, Vicar of St. Gregory’s, South Kensington, has been appointed to the vacant bishopric of Barchester.”

  “Did you send the communication yourself, Theodore?” asked Lady Sophia, with raised eyebrows. “Surely I recognize your incisive style.”