She kissed her daughter and departed. Agatha was not at all disturbed by all this talk of love lasting or not lasting. It was unthinkable that John should cease to desire her while she remained beautiful. And, at eighteen, she could expect to be that for years and years. Thirty years at least, since she took after her mother. She would possess all the aids to beauty which wealth can supply. There would be no hardships to dim her fairness or slacken her hold on him. Nothing else could shatter love’s illusion save the dallying years. She could very tolerably endure the idea that at sixty his ardour might begin to cool a little. She herself would be forty-eight, and everyone has to get old sometime.
Then, as her mother had said, there would always be beautiful manners. These would perpetually adorn his passionate demands and her own guarded compliance. They would dignify the late season of love’s decay. This sentiment reminded her of something she had lately read. She turned to the shelf by her bed, where the carefully chosen books of her girlhood stood in well-dusted rows. Pulling out Mansfield Park, she sought through it for a passage dimly remembered. It was something, surely, said by Mary Crawford when she was congratulating her brother on his attachment to Fanny Price:
‘I know that a wife you loved would be the happiest of women; and that even when you ceased to love she would yet find in you the liberality and good breeding of a gentleman!’
3.
Three days later Agatha met James Clewer, the strange brother-in-law of whom she had heard so much. Her first impression was not pleasing, but she was very tired, having spent the afternoon with her mother at a dressmaker’s. There they encountered Lady Clewer and Lois, who was trying on a bridesmaid’s frock and looking very sulky. Agatha perceived that she did not like the dress at all, and seized a moment when the matrons were discussing shoes to whisper anxiously:
‘Do you like it?’
‘Quite,’ said Lois, without enthusiasm.
‘But you don’t! Please say! Is there anything you’d like altered?’
‘Not unless you altered the entire dress,’ burst out Lois. ‘It’s so … dull!’
‘Plain white is always rather nice, don’t you think?’
‘No, I don’t. It suits you, that style. But it makes me look like a mincing missie. And it’s so smug. Almost like a confirmation dress!’
‘We did think of orange sashes shot with gold and bouquets of orange-lilies to match. Do you think that would improve it?’
‘Why, yes! That would be original. If you’ll excuse me, I think pale pink carnations are frightfully ordinary for a bouquet. Why did you give up the idea?’
‘My mother … your … our mothers … decided, I think, that it would be unsuitable for the younger bridesmaids.’
‘Our mothers! It’s not their wedding!’
‘Isn’t it?’ Agatha’s eyes danced. ‘I’m not so sure. But … I’ll see what I can do.’
When she could gain her mother’s ear she asked politely:
‘We’ve quite decided, then, against the orange scarves and flowers?’
‘Yes, quite,’ said Mrs Cocks. ‘As Lady Clewer says, they will be much too conspicuous.’
‘It’s a pity you didn’t decide before your gown was ordered, Mother. You’re bound to have an orange-tawny bouquet with it and it will clash so with the pink and white bridesmaids.’
‘Oh, do you think it will?’ Mrs Cocks looked distressed. ‘How tiresome! In that case the bridesmaids must have orange bouquets.’
‘A little pointless without the sashes, don’t you think?’
‘The sash could always be taken off afterwards if Mam’selle wanted to wear plain white,’ put in the dressmaker, who was all for the more striking effect.
Lady Clewer’s face cleared and she conceded:
‘That is so. We can take it off after.’
‘Not if I know it,’ was the outspoken comment of the two young women.
They exchanged triumphant glances but said nothing until they were left together in the car while their mothers paid a short call, later in the afternoon. Lois dropped the slightly hostile manner which she had formerly adopted towards Agatha and said with confidential friendliness:
‘You managed that very well. Do you always get your own way like that?’
‘Very seldom. It’s too much trouble.’
‘I do hate my clothes. They are so disgustingly jeune fille. I wonder if I shall ever be allowed to choose my own things! It’s the limit! I’ve been out two years, and I’m less free than I was in the schoolroom. I’m chaperoned all over the place, and have to read Italian with Miss Barrington, and can’t buy so much as a pair of stockings for myself. Other girls aren’t treated like this; not so badly! You are two years younger than me and after next week you’ll be absolutely free and allowed to buy what clothes you please, just because you’re married. It’s simply silly.’
‘You must hurry up and get married too, Lois.’
‘How am I to get married I should like to know? There is literally no one. All the boys Mother makes me dance with are so stupid. I couldn’t marry anybody but a clever man that I had something in common with. And I’d never be allowed to, because clever men are nearly always poor. Anyhow, I’ve only met one man I could ever marry, and’—with a stifled giggle—‘I’m afraid he’s quite impossible. I don’t know what Mother would say if she knew I was in love with him.’
Agatha looked very much embarrassed.
‘Were you ever in love before you met John?’
‘No.’
There was a distinct chilliness in Agatha’s voice. She had been brought up to regard this sort of conversation as extremely ill-bred. Her courteous priggishness infuriated Lois, who would have given the world not to have giggled. After an uncomfortable pause Agatha made an attempt at conciliation. She said:
‘You’ll be allowed to come and stay with us at Lyndon, won’t you? I’ll invite entire house parties of clever men to meet you. I’ll have all the intellect of Oxford to tea every afternoon.’
Before so glorious a prospect Lois softened.
‘Oh, Agatha, that will be fun! Will you really? You may laugh, but you don’t know how much the idea of any sort of escape appeals to me. My mother is so much worse than yours, if you’ll excuse me saying so. She treats me sometimes as if I had no more sense than James.’
‘Do you know, I haven’t met James yet.’
‘Haven’t you? Well, you have got a treat coming! It’s a good thing you didn’t see him before you accepted John. It might have scared you off.’
‘You alarm me.’
‘I’m only preparing you. You know, Mother doesn’t see that she only makes him worse, the way she goes on.’
‘But how, Lois?’
‘Oh, well … though he’s so quiet he’s really very sensitive. And he minds frightfully when she treats him like a baby. He understands quite enough to feel the indignity. It’s that, more than anything, which makes him so shy. He’s got perfectly awful now. He won’t go anywhere. And he’s always worse if she’s there.’
‘But he was always shy, wasn’t he?’
‘Oh, yes. He never would go to parties or anything, even when he was a little boy. And when other children came to play with us he always hid. Sometimes he came with us to tea at the rectory, but that was the most he would do.’
‘Shyness grows on people so.’
‘Yes, I know. And he’s just terrified of meeting you. He’s been lectured so tremendously about being civil and saying the right thing. If you come back to tea with us today, you will see him.’
‘Am I to come back with you?’
‘John said we were to bring you because he will be in. Then he can take you home if your mother can’t come.’
‘A drive with John! A drive with John!’ sang Agatha’s heart.
Lois was saying:
‘If you do come, please be nice to James and help him out if he puts his foot in it. You know, I sort of understand him, as far as anyone can. We used to back each other up a g
ood bit in the schoolroom days. And I know how much he minds things. She shouldn’t speak to him, in front of people, as if he wasn’t all there.’
‘But … frankly … is he?’
‘I suppose not, if it comes to the point. But he’s got more sense than she thinks.’
‘She’ here reappeared, having obtained leave to bring Agatha back to Eaton Square for tea. On the way there Agatha found the prospect of meeting James was quite unnerving her. She told herself that he could be no shyer than she was.
As they climbed the stairs a strange figure bolted suddenly from the drawing-room and made for the upper floor. Lady Clewer raised her voice to an unusually raucous pitch and bawled after the fugitive:
‘James! James! Where are you going? Come down and be introduced to your new sister!’
James hesitated, lurking in the obscurity beyond the turn of the stairs. Then he came down and followed them into the drawing-room.
Agatha had been prepared to find him strange looking, but he was a greater shock than she had expected. She immediately thought him the most hideous creature she had ever encountered. But, on a second glance, it struck her that there was not quite the vacuity she had feared to see. Those sad eyes were too observant, the lines of the young face too severe to suggest imbecility. His build was massive, though short, and very uncouth by reason of his stooping shoulders and the immense length of his arms. His head was rather too big and his large, pale face, with its prominent cheekbones, was unrelieved by the faintest suggestion of eyebrow. This was the more noticeable since his brow was spacious and heavily constructed, especially in the region immediately above his light, sorrowful eyes. Sparse sandy hair grew far back upon his splendid, thoughtful forehead. His expression was one of discomfort and terror.
He advanced, smiling nervously, and shook with enthusiasm the hand which she gave him. She was most anxious to be nice to him, but she could think of nothing to say. What sort of thing did he talk about? What remark on her part would penetrate that amazing skull and convey to him her cordial intentions? An awful little pause ensued. She was aware that the whole Clewer family were trembling with anxiety to see how she took him. At last she bethought herself to say that he must have disliked leaving the country at so lovely a time of year.
‘Lyndon is beautiful in June, isn’t it?’ she asked.
He took no notice of the question. He was plainly labouring with some form of utterance. From Lady Clewer’s prompting glances it was obvious that he had been coached beforehand in the civilities of the occasion.
‘I must congratulate you,’ he pronounced at length, ‘upon our approaching relationship.’
This, it seemed, was not quite right. He thought it over and then tried again:
‘It is a great pleasure to meet you.’ Then with, a sudden glibness: ‘John is a very lucky man. Indeed, we are all very lucky to have you in the family. We are quite pleased, I can assure you.’
This was obviously very nearly what he had been told to say. She thanked him gravely. But he did not appear to think that he had done his full duty, though he was visibly perspiring with the effort. He babbled on:
‘I wish you both every happiness. I … er … hope….’ He stuck for a moment and then got it triumphantly: ‘I hope the marriage will be blest….’
‘That will do, James!’ exclaimed Lady Clewer.
She spoke with a luckless promptitude which could emphasize the unfortunate phrase but never obliterate it. He took her words, however, as a literal intimation that his task had been performed to her satisfaction, and relapsed into smiling silence. Agatha, glancing from Lois’s crimson blush to John’s bland vacancy, had much ado not to laugh. It occurred to her that James was going to be very much more of a trial if the Clewers would insist upon taking him seriously. They were all ridiculously put out, and began discomposedly to hand plates of bread and butter and teacups to each other. Lady Clewer became vehement upon the beauties of a silver rose-bowl which the Lyndon tenants had presented to John. It would be so nice for large white roses; she did hope Agatha would use it constantly.
‘You like flowers, dear? Ah, you’ll enjoy the Lyndon roses. I am a great gardener myself.’
Marian had not always been a great gardener. She had acquired the taste, with others, upon her second marriage. As mistress of the well laid out Martin ‘pleasure grounds,’ she had never thought of admitting to a close acquaintance with her garden. That was the affair of the hirelings who tended it. At Lyndon, however, she realized that every lady in the country is a great gardener. The country dames who now called on her inquired tenderly after her herbaceous borders. They made nothing of asking each other for a root of this or that, which was apparently by way of being a compliment, though Marian thought it a very odd habit. She was a woman who could conform rapidly to any type, so she promptly provided herself with a large straw hat, leather gloves, and a pair of scissors. She took to spending her afternoons among the roses and learnt to talk of daphne cneorum, romneya, hepatica, arenaria, gaultheria and berberis darwiniae. She flung a few of these exotic names about the drawing-room now, and Agatha, duly impressed, wondered whether she, too, would be transmuted into a great gardener when she was established at Lyndon.
‘But I don’t like weeding,’ she confessed. ‘When I used to stay with my godmother in the country she used to make me weed. It was so hot and stoopy.’
‘Oh, weeding!’ Lady Clewer was amused. ‘I don’t do that, naturally.’
John began to laugh at the idea of his frail bride wrestling with docks and thistles. Cynthia looked a trifle disdainful. ‘We have some sort of an old woman to do that,’ she said.
‘Griselda Pyewacket,’ said James unexpectedly.
‘What?’
Everyone was startled.
‘Griselda Pyewacket. That’s her name.’
‘Really? I didn’t know,’ said Lady Clewer looking repressively at James. ‘I thought it was a little boy.’
‘It’s rather a nice name,’ said Agatha thoughtfully.
‘Isn’t it?’ agreed James. ‘Her husband was called Pyramus Pyewacket. There was a little boy. He was her grandson. But he couldn’t weed because he got a whitlow on his thumb.’
‘Indeed! Just hand me Agatha’s cup, please, James!’
He rose with anxious alacrity, became entangled with the cake-stand and scattered several platefuls of macaroons and cress sandwiches over the floor. Agatha was very sorry for his discomfiture; she longed to laugh and help him to pick up the fragments. But under Lady Clewer’s uneasy glances she dared not. A bell was rung and they sat uncomfortably ignoring the food at their feet until menials had come and removed it.
The meal wore on and Agatha was glad to escape early. The strain of the afternoon, following upon the fatigues of the dressmaker, had almost overpowered her. As she took her leave she was aware of John’s hardly repressed impatience. She knew that he had joined them at tea merely in order to earn the brief bliss of escorting her home. It was a prospect which had sustained them both. Knowing this she became more punctiliously deliberate in her parting civilities, a reaction which her lover perfectly understood and which moved him to a restive approval.
‘Are you sure,’ said he, when they were at last in their taxi, ‘are you sure that this fellow isn’t taking the corners too quickly? You are looking quite pale! Let me tell him to go slower.’
‘No, thank you!’ she said, in some surprise. ‘I don’t call this fast. There is no traffic.’
‘Personally I don’t like this pace at all,’ he said gravely.
He seized the speaking tube and gave an order, whereupon the fellow not only crawled but adopted a strangely circuitous route.
‘Well, and what do you make of old James?’ he asked.
‘Oh, I was so sorry for him. It’s always difficult to congratulate a bride-elect, even for a person who isn’t shy.’
‘I know. One’s tendency is to be too much surprised, which isn’t really complimentary. And he always has had a k
nack of saying exactly the wrong thing, don’t you know.’
He slid a glance at her where she sat, withdrawn and tranquil in her corner of the car. She met his eyes with candid gravity and asked:
‘Do you think he will live at Lyndon in the future?’
‘Not unless you want him, darling. But as a matter of fact I don’t know at all what’s to be done with him unless he does. I should think he’ll always have to be with people who will keep an eye on him. But enough of James! He’s no topic for a tête à tête, do you think, Agatha?’
The fond pair passed to points of greater interest to them, conversing always with sufficient decorum but never without a disturbing suggestion, on his part, of ardour temporarily restrained. As they crept into Agatha’s street, however, she reverted to James:
‘He seems to be very good-tempered,’ she said.
‘Oh, yes, quite. In a way. He’s perfectly harmless. I don’t think he’ll give us any real trouble. I take it he’ll fall in with any plans we make for him. He’s got no particular views of his own, you see.’
4.
John was mistaken. In after life it seemed to Agatha that the whole of her wedding day had been filled with commotions about James and his inconvenient, unexpected views. It was entirely typical of him that he should have seized such a moment to launch them on his family. Wind of the trouble came to South Kensington the night before the wedding, when a note from Lois was brought in to Agatha:
‘My mother forgot to say to yours that a large slice of wedding cake and a photograph of you and John ought to be sent to:
Mrs Job Kell,
Old Forge Cottage,
Little Baverstock,
Tiverton.
She’s a superannuated housekeeper or something, who ran Lyndon in the interval between John’s mother and mine, and J. is the apple of her eye. Incidentally, I may add that James is even more of an apple, she having “reared him from a babby”, when even his own nurse had given him up. Indeed, she will never admit that there is anything the matter with him! Fact!!!
Ladies of Lyndon Page 3