Britannia Mews

by Margery Sharp

  Adelaide watched her cousin curiously. Alice, looking prettier than usual, was walking briskly about the Culver drawing-room as though she were out of doors. She was too full of energy to sit down. Adelaide thought that probably no one at the Hambros’ had sat down for days.

  “But what about you?” she asked. “Are you in love with Mr. Baker?”

  “Well, I don’t know,” explained Alice. “I like him. I like him better than any man I know. It is such a comfort always to have one’s programme filled. Do you like him, Addie?”

  With a slight effort Adelaide fixed the image of a sleek-haired, high-collared, altogether average young man. If she liked him, it was because there was nothing to dislike.

  “Yes, of course,” she said. “Though I don’t see what that has to do with it.”

  “Well, you’re my cousin. And I must say he’s awfully sweet with the children. The twins like him. We’re all going on Sunday to sail their steamer on the Round Pond.”

  “Then if you’re marrying to suit your family—I should say you’d better take. Mr. Baker.”

  Alice stopped walking about and looked at Adelaide suspiciously.

  “If you don’t like him, Addie, I wish you’d say so outright.”

  “Good heavens!” cried Adelaide. “Of course I like him! Only it, does seem to me that if you’re thinking so much about the twins and the children and your cousins and all your other relatives—you can’t be in love with Mr. Baker at all. And if you’re not in love with him, you oughtn’t to marry him.”

  “But I think I am.”

  “You know perfectly well you aren’t!”

  “Anyway,” said Alice, rather offendedly, “I don’t see how you can judge. I’m not saying this to be unkind, dear, but you’ve never had an offer at all—unless you count the Matthews boy, and I don’t see how you can count him, when he hadn’t a penny. I know just as much about being in love as you do.”

  Adelaide nearly laughed aloud. She had been walking that morning with Mr. Lambert in the snowy Gardens—only for ten minutes, but every one of them brimmed with exquisite emotion, spiced with danger. She felt she had already lived more intensely in those ten minutes than Alice would ever do in her whole married life. She was filled with kindness, and a sort of pity; almost the feeling of the married woman for the virgin.

  She slipped her arm round her cousin’s waist and said gently, “I’m sure you’ll do whatever’s right, dear. In fact, you’re so good and sweet, I don’t believe you could do wrong.”

  Alice looked gratified.’

  “Anyway, if I do marry Freddy, I’ll try and make him a good wife. Adelaide …”

  “Yes, dear?”

  “I am in love with him,” said Alice firmly.

  2

  The Hambros were all delighted to hear this, and so, naturally, was Mr. Baker. The engagement was announced, and Alice immediately went off to pay a visit to his family in Somerset. Her letters thence were ecstatic: Freddy Baker also had brothers and sisters, Alice loved them all and they loved Alice. The little girls were to be bridesmaids along with Milly and Sybil and Ellen. Alice’s wedding, observed her father thoughtfully, was evidently going to look like a school-treat.

  Adelaide welcomed these events because her cousin’s absence left her freer. Mrs. Culver was so used to thinking of the two girls together that she did not realize how much of the time Adelaide was now on her own. The question of the drawing-lessons did of course arise, but Alice’s share in them was already promised, and Mrs. Hambro resourcefully sent the twins along instead (on the railway principle that two children equalled one adult). Mr. Lambert, equally resourceful, set them to copying sailing-vessels in the front part of the drawing-room, so that he and Adelaide had the back to themselves. Before this comfortable solution was reached, however, something occurred which made Adelaide so angry that she nearly wrecked the whole plan.

  The twins, as has been said, got about a lot. Arriving ten minutes early for their first lesson, they informed their cousin that they had seen Mr. Lambert the day before, coming out of the Café Royal.

  “He was squiffy,” added James casually.

  “James!” cried Adelaide. “How dare you say such a thing!”

  “But he was,” corroborated John stolidly. “He nearly fell down.”

  “I don’t believe you!” cried Adelaide. “You horrid boys! Mr. Lambert will be here in five minutes, and I shall tell him what you’ve said!”

  The five minutes passed in furious silence. As they heard Mr. Lambert run upstairs they all three turned and faced the door. He paused and looked at them enquiringly, as well he might; for they had rather the air of a reception committee at odds with itself.

  Adelaide at once said:—

  “James, repeat to Mr. Lambert what you’ve just told me.”

  James remained obstinately silent.

  “Or confess that you were lying. Or you shan’t have any drawing-lesson!”

  “We weren’t,” muttered John.

  “If you’ve been lying to Miss Culver,” said Mr. Lambert sternly, “you must apologize at once.”

  “We weren’t lying,” repeated John; and he looked Mr. Lambert in the eye. “We only told her we’d seen you outside the Café Royal.”

  Mr. Lambert stooped and rubbed his ankle.

  “Then you saw me take a nasty spill,” he said cheerfully. “I went down on a piece of ice, Miss Culver, and nearly broke my leg.”

  Adelaide was glad to find that her young cousins weren’t liars, but she read them a long lecture on the wickedness of jumping to conclusions, especially slanderous ones. They didn’t answer her. They got about so much, they already knew when it was best to hold their peace.

  3

  Adelaide never referred to this incident again, nor did Mr. Lambert; it was beneath their notice. They talked about his picture for the Academy, often about his other pupils; for Adelaide was eager to inform herself on every part of her lover’s life. He gave lessons almost every day—to the Misses Pomfret and the Misses Drew in Bayswater, to a Miss Ocock in Knightsbridge, besides his girls’ school. Adelaide made him describe them to her in detail, and it was a secret pleasure to learn that every one of these young ladies was exceptionally plain. “But they can’t all be plain!” she once protested insincerely. “They are,” said Mr. Lambert, with a grin, “otherwise they wouldn’t be taking drawing-lessons.” He added hastily, “It’s only a very rare person like you, dear, who’s clever as well as beautiful.” No wonder Adelaide liked hearing about Enid Pomfret, who was freckled, and Florence Ocock, who looked like a dumpling; and on the one occasion when she actually met Miss Ocock, at an At Home, Adelaide was hardly disconcerted to find her, though plump, exceedingly pretty. She had curly brown hair and a bright colour; some men would have admired her very much; and Adelaide saw it as a further proof of his devotion to herself that Mr. Lambert did not. Out of sheer gay-heartedness she led the conversation round to art.

  “Do you sketch?” asked Adelaide.

  “Oh, yes,” said Miss Ocock. “At least, my mamma makes me take drawing-lessons. They’re a fearful bore.”

  Adelaide smiled. How indifferent, how preoccupied, must Mr. Lambert be, that anyone should find him boring!

  “I think accomplishments are such nonsense,” went on Miss Ocock ingenuously. “Except dancing, of course. I can’t sing, and I can’t play a note, and I certainly can’t draw, and dear me, what does it matter?”

  Adelaide could see it didn’t matter at all, to a girl who even at an At Home had just been talking to three young men at once—a circumstance all the more striking because there were only three young men present, all the rest being middle-aged or old. The next time she saw Mr. Lambert she told him of the encounter, and made a loving joke of his insensibility.

  “I’ve met your Miss Ocock, Henry. I think she’s quite fascinating.”

  “She’s an empty-headed little bundle of conceit.”

  “Other men don’t seem to think so.… I don’t believe
you can have paid her proper attention.”

  “I’ve had no attention to spare,” said he.

  Adelaide’s own looks at this time began to improve. She had always possessed a good, though rather thin figure; now her complexion and her eyes brightened, her mouth took a softer curve. It annoyed Mrs. Culver that with these improvements went an increased absent-mindedness, an unsuitable aloofness; more young men asked to be introduced to Adelaide, but she seemed unable to hold their interest. She didn’t try to. “She stands there like a duchess,” complained Mrs. Culver to her husband, “saying ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ till they go away again!” “You’d better speak to her about it,” said Mr. Culver.

  This was his usual answer to all domestic problems, for he was still cultivating detachment. Like Adelaide, he was aloof—or Adelaide was like her father: she had inherited an acquired characteristic. Mrs. Culver herself had never been either impulsive or emotional, but as she grew older a belated desire for affection was altering her character—whereas the characters of both Adelaide and Mr. Culver remained, in this direction at least, unchanged. As a result Mrs. Culver’s heart turned more and more towards her impulsive and amiable son.

  Treff was now nearly eighteen, on the point of leaving Harrow and going up to Cambridge. His scholastic career had been undistinguished, but he possessed a knack of scraping through examinations. Most people liked him. He was tall, like Adelaide, his straight dark hair fell untidily over his forehead, giving him a rather romantic look, and his manners were often charming. Most people liked Treff, but especially women. Even in adolescence he showed no awkwardness with them, he approached them with ingenuous confidence. Tea-parties had no terrors for Treff, he handed cups neatly and easily—and, as Adelaide observed, always got a good tea. None of these qualities however pointed to any definite career, and in moments of clear-sightedness Mrs. Culver felt it fortunate that he was destined for his father’s firm.

  Or so she had always assumed. As her husband left the house to her, so she left the office to him; if she ever thought about it, she fixed the age of his retirement at about sixty, or sixty-five—after Treff was firmly established. But now, at fifty-three, Mr. Culver suddenly announced that the firm of Culver, Blore and Masterman was about to become Masterman, Masterman and Blore.

  He was in fact being bought out. Masterman and Blore also had sons; they were unluckily two of the people who did not think much of Treff Culver. It was possible that in his heart of hearts Mr. Culver didn’t either. When a handsome offer was made, he accepted it—and found his technique of detachment perfectly equal to this new task.

  “But what about Treff?” cried his wife.

  “Treff will go to Cambridge as arranged.”

  “But after?”

  “Three years will give him time to consider. I think I’ll go round to the Club.”

  “No, William,” said Mrs. Culver firmly. “You must tell me more. Are we to stay here, for instance? Should we move again, into a smaller house? Are we to stay in London at all? William, what will our income be?”

  Mr. Culver hesitated. Even at this crisis of their fortunes, he could not quite bring himself to give her the precise figure. He never had. The only precise figures Mrs. Culver knew were those of her housekeeping and dress allowances.

  “You’ll have to manage on about half. Adelaide has the hundred a year her grandmother left her, which I suppose amply covers her expenses, and when Treff finishes at Cambridge things will be easier. But no doubt there must be changes.”

  “No doubt,” said Mrs. Culver.

  She tried not to speak bitterly. They had been married twenty-five years, an emotion never very rapturous had long settled into habit; they were used to each other, they got on as well as most couples. If Mrs. Culver ever felt disappointed—if she had had to put aside secret dreams of Mayfair or Belgravia—she did so in silence. They were married, for better or worse, and it might have been a great deal worse. Already she was beginning to disguise from herself the fact that her husband had been dropped from his own firm at the age of fifty-three. That he had been paid, in fact, to get out …

  The great thing was to keep up appearances.

  “Will, I’m quite glad,” she said thoughtfully. “I believe it’s a good thing. You haven’t been looking at all well lately, and I don’t think that in any case you could have gone on much longer. So many men have to retire for reasons of health—and then find they’ve left it too late.”

  Mr. Culver nodded seriously. He was perfectly willing to retire for reasons of health, he thought it a very good notion. And soon it was no longer a notion, but an accepted fact. He began to take care of himself. He told people—or Mrs. Culver told them for him—that he had to avoid any strain on the heart. “My dear, why don’t you move out of London?” said Mrs. Orton; and Mrs. Culver, anxious and sensible, agreed that this might be the wisest plan.

  4

  Adelaide was aghast.

  “Move into the country!” she repeated. “Mamma, we can’t!”

  There was fortunately so very natural a reason for her looks of dismay that Mrs. Culver did not even rebuke her.

  “I know you’ll miss your friends, dear; but you’ll soon make others. Indeed, I sometimes think a girl has better chances in the country than in town; one gets more intimate with people.”

  Adelaide realized at once what sort of chances her mother referred to; it was the uncomfortable fact that in the three years she had been out only one man had proposed to her, and he the Matthews boy.

  “Besides,” went on Mrs. Culver, “you’ll always be able to visit the Hambros—and when Alice is married you can stay with her. That will be really nice.” Mrs. Culver brightened; she knew she could rely on Alice’s co-operation, and a young married woman was the very person to get Adelaide off—Adelaide, who was too old now to be taken about like a girl in her first season … The more she thought of this the more hopeful Mrs. Culver became; until she began to see it as almost worth while moving into the country, simply to be able to send Adelaide back to town …

  But Adelaide still struggled.

  “What about Treff? He’ll hate the country!”

  “Treff will be going to Cambridge next year. Besides, I’m sure it will be much nicer for him to bring his friends home to a pleasant country house, than to Kensington.”

  “Mamma, do you mean it’s decided?”

  “Practically, dear. Mrs. Orton knows of a place in Surrey.”

  CHAPTER VI

  1

  This news Adelaide did not immediately report to her lover. She could not quite believe it herself; moreover, she hoped for delay. The move from Albion Place—only across the Park—had been talked of for at least six months in advance; an exodus from London altogether was a much greater undertaking. They had to find a house; they had to get rid of the lease of their present one; and surely, persisted Adelaide, they ought to consult Treff? She wrote to him herself, painting an almost macabre picture of rural life, urging him to protest; Treff wrote back, to his mother, saying he thought the country would be rather jolly. Treff was a broken reed. So (from Adelaide’s point of view) were the house-agents. With unique efficiency they produced a retired Anglo-Indian who was seeking just such a house as the Culvers’, and who wished to move in as soon as the Culvers could move out. Mrs. Culver took Adelaide down to Farnham to look at a house belonging to Mrs. Orton’s second cousin; it was the very thing. Even Adelaide had to admit its charm: medium-sized, two-storied, facing south; a white, bow-windowed villa, with a garden before and an orchard behind; within, plenty of cupboards and a modern hot-water system. Mrs. Culver also saw at a glance that it was a house of good standing, carrying the right to a prominent pew in church and a place on flower-show committees: no struggling, if one lived at Platt’s End, to keep up one’s position. The very name, in its plainness and lack of pretence, guaranteed a minor but solid importance. Mrs. Culver felt she could be happy there; for a moment, standing in the sunshine of the empty drawing-room, she had
an almost poetic vision of herself, in the right sort of hat, hobnobbing with nice people after morning service.…

  “Don’t you think it’s very nice, dear?” she asked almost persuasively. She felt so expansive that she wanted Adelaide to share her pleasure.

  “Oh, very nice,” said Adelaide.

  “You can have the pretty room at the back. Or you could have the corner one.… I do think you might show a little enthusiasm.”

  “It won’t make any difference whether I do or not,” said Adelaide resentfully.

  But still, looking through the wide light bow of the window, at the pretty garden, at the chestnut-trees in the lane and the roofs of Farnham rising picturesquely beyond, she felt the charm of the place. It was rustic, but civilized: the good proportions of the room behind her matched the cultivation and neatness of the view; a gentlefolk’s house in a gentle landscape. Something in Adelaide stirred; as she had once been ready to respond to Miss Yates, so she could once have responded to this. For it is rarely that life offers no alternative: there were two other possible Adelaides—a social worker, and a country gentlewoman—each with a fair chance of happiness. But now it was too late, her course was already set; and being what she was, she could not alter it.

  “I shall tell your father we like it very much,” said Mrs. Culver.

  They walked back to the station in silence. For once it was the elder lady who day-dreamed, while Adelaide was absorbed in the most practical considerations. They led her, as soon as she got home, to slip into Mr. Culver’s study and borrow Whitaker’s Almanac.

  2

  The following day, Adelaide visited Mr. Lambert at his rooms in Britannia Mews. She was fully aware of the impropriety of this step—or rather that it would have been improper, in other circumstances. Now it was simply necessary. Mrs. Culver went out early to see Mrs. Hambro, she longed to pour into more sympathetic ears a description of Platt’s End; and as soon as she had gone Adelaide went out too. She walked swiftly across the Gardens, across the Bayswater Road, past the old house in Albion Place, down the turning that led to the Alley beyond. There for a moment she paused. On one side rose the familiar wall, spiked on top, with the lilac hanging over; on the other opened the archway into the Mews.