‘No, it’s the respectability which baffled her, I expect. If James and his family lived in romantic squalor in a one-room studio, they would be much more conventional.’
‘It’s very sad. But I feel that if we could get him right away … away from his wife….’
‘She’s invited tonight.’
‘Oh, is she? I am sorry. That is unfortunate! It’s quite unnecessary that she should be asked to places with him. That is a pity!’
‘But he won’t go anywhere without her.’
‘Oh dear, how difficult it all is! Of course, people can’t be expected to invite her to their houses. She oughtn’t to expect it. Can’t she see what a drag she is on him?’
‘But she’s quite respectable.’
‘Y—yes. But impossible socially. It would have been better …’
Marian broke off and did not state what would have been better. Hubert inferred that Dolly would have been less of a drawback if she had come from a meaner stock or were not properly married.
Coffee came in. Marian had instituted a small coffee-making machine on a wheeled table and brewed the drink herself before leaving the dining-room. Agatha had had one at Lyndon, and there were coffee percolators now at Braxhall and Killigrew’s Croft. But Hubert thought it a pity. They none of them did it properly; even Lois fussed over it. No woman could make coffee as the peccant Agatha had made it, lazy and amused, with one eye on the bubbling percolator and all her attention for her guests. He could even remember tenderly the evening when, absorbed in somebody’s witty conversation (it must surely have been his own), she had forgotten to fasten something or other and the whole thing had blown up, spattering half a dozen shirt fronts. Alas, poor Agatha! It was dreadful to think of her abdication; to imagine her drinking her coffee in some grubby Corsican inn, counting Lyndon well lost for love of the insignificant, the quite undeserving Blair. Hubert would not believe it.
A moment later he learnt that he need not believe it, for Agatha was no longer in Corsica.
‘There is one thing,’ said Marian mysteriously as she poured two cupfuls of water into the percolator, ‘that I wish you’d tell Lois. That is, if you think that it won’t upset her in any way.’
‘Yes?’ he said, hurrying her past Lois.
‘I couldn’t tell her this morning on the telephone, because one never knows what the servants may not overhear. One has to speak so clearly; I’ve often been annoyed about it. But I’ve heard that Agatha and … and her cousin are back in town. I’m keeping it from John, of course.’
‘Oh, really?’ murmured Hubert, feeling uncomfortable, but strangely excited.
‘If it’s true, it’s most inconsiderate of them,’ pursued Marian weightily. ‘The least they could do was to keep away. But I met Lady Peel yesterday, and she told me that she had just been with Ellen, with Mrs Cocks, I mean, and that she said that she was expecting Agatha home shortly. It was most awkward for me because I had just said she would be abroad some months longer. I thought Lady Peel looked a little queerly at me. It’s a pity that Mrs Cocks has not got a more reticent nature. I can never be quite sure how much she tells people.’
‘But perhaps Agatha is coming home alone,’ suggested Hubert.
‘I’m afraid not. I mean I’m afraid they are both coming, and it’s too much to hope that they are not coming together. I was determined to make sure, so I sent Miss Barrington, who is absolutely discreet, round to Harley Street this morning to ask when he was expected back. She saw a parlourmaid who said he was coming today or tomorrow, she believed, but that she didn’t think he was coming there, and he wouldn’t be seeing patients yet awhile, and she could forward letters but couldn’t give an address. So it looks like it.’
‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘It does look rather like it.’
‘Will you tell Lois, or shall I write a note to her?’
‘Oh, I’ll tell her.’
Hubert could not see why the tidings should disturb his wife to any great extent.
‘Of course, it’s hard on John,’ he added with some compunction.
‘I shall keep it from him as long as possible. It’s very upsetting for us all. I only hope Lois …’
‘It’s really time I got off,’ exclaimed Hubert, glancing at the clock. ‘I’d better get to this place punctually, hadn’t I? No knowing what James mightn’t be up to if I left him to himself.’
And he fled.
2.
On his way to Chelsea Hubert’s brain was busy with this new development of affairs. Ought he to tell anybody who inquired tonight that Agatha was now back in London? And what on earth was going to happen next? Of one thing he was certain, knowing the family: there would be scenes and indignant letters and diplomatic discussions. What a confounded nuisance it all was.
Penetrating into the main reception room of Stella Martin’s house in Cheyne Walk, he peered nervously through the heavy fog of cigarette smoke in search of his inconvenient brother-in-law. The heat of the room made him feel rather giddy and he was deafened by the high, staccato symphony of cultured conversation. He could not see Dolly or James anywhere. Freaks he saw, of every sort and size; freaks who would make even James look almost normal. He saw celebrities, and minor celebrities, and people who looked like celebrities but couldn’t be, since he did not know them. At last he saw his hostess and made his way over to her.
Stella Martin was a lively, pretty woman with long earrings and a cigarette perennially falling out of the corner of her mouth. She had been a great friend of Hubert’s in his salad days, but he had begun lately to find her rather boring. She had become Lois’s appendage, and he still liked her well enough when she was not trying too desperately to avoid the commonplace. He often complained to Lois that the woman positively collected shady characters. Lois had disagreed with him and said that Stella surrounded herself with men of talent.
‘But the ladies …’ he had expostulated.
Lois admitted that the ladies were sometimes rather odd, but maintained that they were the kind of ladies who have had, throughout the ages, a particular attraction for men of talent. And anyhow it was very conventional of Hubert to object to them. Hubert, who had begun to discover that there is, nowadays, a certain distinction in conventionality, did not wilt under this taunt as much as she had hoped. He agreed.
‘We have a pretty amusing crowd tonight,’ said Stella. ‘You know most of them, don’t you? I’m sorry Lois couldn’t come, but I think she was very wise not to turn out this wicked night. It’s much too cold. It was nice of you to come, Hubert.’
‘She was very sorry to have to give it up.’
‘She must come up and have tea with me one day when I can have her all to myself. Mr and Mrs Clewer are here, by the way; I don’t see them at the minute, but I know I’ve shaken hands with them.’
‘Oh, they are here?’
‘Yes, or at least they were. You’ll find them if you look. And Lawrence Argony may drop in later on. It will be a great feather in my cap if he does, for you know he never will go to evening parties. Have you seen his portrait of Garry Shandon? I haven’t, but, after all I’ve heard, I’m longing to. Mick says Garry is rather vexed about it. But I don’t know what else he expected, do you?’
She turned to other guests, and Hubert resumed his search for Dolly and James. He came to the conclusion that Stella’s ladies were rather more respectable than usual. Listening to their vehement conversation and watching the bobbing of their bobbed heads, he decided that he was in for an evening with London’s women of talent. Though he saw a few who might be said to have one foot in the demi-monde, he was sure that they had got in tonight upon some intellectual ticket. They must have written an autobiography or a novel or something. Friends greeted him and he found himself pouring forth, a little absently, a small but regular stream of witty remarks. Half of his mind was occupied with the thought of Lois and his nice quiet house where he would rather have been. He was immensely pleased to find that he could think of his home with such a pang, a
nd his impersonation of a man about town at a party in Chelsea was spiced by the thought of the domestic fellow that he really was. Then he caught sight of Dolly, with James beside her, sitting on a distant divan. Very mournful they looked, in this strange galley, and their faces, when they perceived him, lit up with a ludicrous relief. He crossed over to them and they made room for him with alacrity.
‘Oh, but I’m glad you’ve come,’ cried Dolly. ‘We were just wondering if it was too soon for us to go. It’s so awkward us not knowing any of these people.’
‘Well, I can introduce you to any amount,’ said Hubert, mindful of his mission and trying not to look at James’s dress-clothes. ‘That’s a friend of mine over there. The man with the eyebrows. Binns, the architect. Shall I effect an introduction?’
‘No, don’t,’ said James. ‘I want to look at him. He’s got a very nice head, especially at the back. I couldn’t see it if I was talking to him.’
‘James says all the people here are out of drawing,’ said Dolly doubtfully.
‘They are certainly a queer-looking lot,’ said Hubert, agreeably convinced that he looked quite normal himself.
‘You may say so,’ she affirmed with more ease. ‘I never saw anything like them. I said to James when we first come in: “Well, the Zoo isn’t in it!” Not but what it isn’t a very nice party,’ she added, remembering her manners. ‘I always tell James it’s good for us to go into company once in a while. But we are still so upside down, getting into the new house; it was quite a job getting here at all tonight.’
‘D’you think my clothes smell too much of camphor?’ asked James. ‘Dolly was very worried about it.’
‘It’s the first time he’s had them on in years,’ she explained. ‘That’s why they fit so sort of loose on the shoulders. In the army they made him hold himself so straight.’
‘And for the same reason they fit sort of tight in front,’ said James.
Hubert sniffed and said doubtfully:
‘I smell something … but it isn’t like camphor exactly.’
‘Oh, I expect that’s Sanitas,’ explained James cheerfully. ‘I sprinkled on a little. I thought it would drown the camphor.’
‘Which was silly,’ commented Dolly. ‘If anybody has to smell of anything, camphor’s better than Sanitas.’
‘And how is the new house getting on?’ asked Hubert.
‘Oh, nicely, thank you. There’s a studio for James that we’ve got ever so nice. Better than anything we’ve had before.’
‘It’s quite a good house,’ said James. ‘And Dolly has made it look exactly like our last one, so there is nothing to worry about. I thought at first I shouldn’t like it, but I do quite.’
‘There’s a basement kitchen, though,’ said Dolly, ‘which is a nuisance. I don’t like the children getting all their meals down there. I said to old Lady Clewer, “Well, I don’t think the kitchen’s very nice.” And she said, “Perhaps you won’t be in it so much now.” But, as I say, wherever else should I be? But, as we’ve a room on the ground-floor that we don’t need, I’m having a nice little electric range put in there, and a sink, and I’ll do most of my cooking there and we’ll get our meals handy. It’s nice and sunny. The garden at the back isn’t up to much, but there’s always the Heath for the children to play on. Sonny has fallen into that pond already, but that’s only what’s to be expected.’
‘We had to paper the whole house,’ said James. ‘Mamma wanted us to distemper it, but we don’t like distemper.’
‘No,’ rejoined his wife. ‘Just like a prison or a hospital! A nice bright paper is ever so much more cheerful. Eh, James! There’s Mr Argony!’
The big gun of Stella’s party was making his way slowly through the room, growling replies to the greetings which washed round him like a tide.
‘He does do it well,’ said James appreciatively. ‘Just like Sissy feeding chickens.’
‘Do you know him then?’ asked Hubert in surprise.
‘Oh, yes,’ Dolly told him. ‘He often comes to tea with us. He and James like to get a good talk. You know what men are! Talk the hind leg off a donkey and then have the face to bring it up against the women. They go on about these pictures of theirs.’
Lawrence had by now perceived them, and, shaking himself free from his ardent acquaintances, he joined their group. Hubert, who knew him slightly, offered his greetings. The great man stared at the trio, his heavy eyebrows shot out in a frown of perplexity. He seemed to find them unexpected. Having revolved them in his mind for a second or two, he exploded:
‘I have it! Brothers-in-law.’
‘Stepbrothers-in-law,’ corrected James. ‘His wife is my stepmother’s daughter.’
‘His wife is your stepmother’s daughter?’ repeated Mr Argony. ‘His … wife … is … your … stepmother’s … daughter? His Wife…. Oh, quite so! Quite so! How are you, Mrs Clewer? I’m glad I found you here, James, for I came especially to find you. Someone told me you’d be here. Can you come round to my place tomorrow? I’ve got to talk to you about something.’
‘Tomorrow is Sunday,’ calculated James. ‘I can’t come in the morning….’
‘Well, don’t come in the morning. Come in the afternoon.’
‘But I could come in the morning,’ went on James laboriously, ‘if I went to chapel in the evening. Dolly, shall we do that?’
‘Oh, settle it between you,’ said Lawrence amicably. ‘Any time will suit me. I shall be in all day.’
‘When are you coming to tea with us again?’ asked Dolly. ‘You haven’t been, not for a long while.’
‘Oh, I’ll come soon,’ he assured her, and was taken away by his hostess.
Hubert was able to put the question which had been burning within him ever since he became aware of an intimacy between Lawrence Argony and the Clewers.
‘I suppose you’ve heard of this portrait of Garry Shandon?’ he said. ‘Nobody’s seen it yet, of course, but …’
‘I have,’ said James.
‘You have?’
‘Yes,’ said James, adding kindly, ‘it’s very good.’
Hubert gave it up and resolved to tell Lois that never again would he undertake the social pilotage of James. It was absurd! It was like a minnow trying to steer a whale. He was relieved when he saw Stella descending upon them with a black and white striped lady in tow.
‘You three have monopolized this divan long enough,’ she declared. ‘I must break you up. Hubert, this is Mrs Taylor, who wants to know if it’s true that you and Lois have been to Madeira, and if it’s nice there. Mr Clewer, there are some people in the next room who are dying to meet you….’
She carried off poor James who, in his dismay, was almost clinging to his wife.
Hubert, marooned upon the divan with the lady who wanted to know about Madeira, found it very difficult to keep his attention fixed. Fortunately she did not require much to set her going. He bent upon her an interested eye, and occupied his mind with the idea of James and Lawrence Argony. If only he could manage to convince Lois that this friendship was of his making, how pleased she would be! But he could not claim to have had any hand in it; James had brought it off without the help of his relations. Still this was, surely, the sort of thing she wanted. She would be glad when she heard of it.
‘In those days,’ said a voice at his side, ‘my state of mind was one of wonder without curiosity.’
‘How very uncomfortable!’ he murmured, noting that he was no longer listening to Mrs Taylor but to a good-looking elderly man with grey whiskers. Stella must have substituted this new one at some moment when he was not attending.
‘Curiosity,’ said the stranger, ‘is necessary before any great work of art can be produced. I trust you agree with me?’
‘Quite!’ concurred Hubert. ‘Exactly!’
His mind reverted to a picture of Dolly blowing the children’s noses, and spreading their jam for them, while James and Argony growled technicalities at each other across the kitchen tablecloth. Or did
they have tea in the parlour on these occasions? Perhaps Argony got an egg, being a fellow-worker.
‘But don’t you think,’ said the lady with the Spanish comb (at what point had they absorbed her into the group?), ‘don’t you think that the individual must realize himself before he can create?’
‘He must, indeed,’ said the grey whiskers. ‘There must be no repressions, no inhibitions….’
They seemed to be so beautifully occupied with each other that Hubert thought he could slip away unnoticed. He became aware that Dolly was beckoning to him across the room. She was standing half hidden by a curtain drawn across the door of a small conservatory, and she struck him as being a trifle flushed and in some distress. When he had joined her, her agitation was manifest.
‘I want to go home,’ she said wrathfully. ‘I want to get away from here. Let’s find James and be off.’
‘Come and sit in here,’ said Hubert soothingly. ‘Come and rest a little and let me try and get you an ice or some coffee.’
He moved to take her into the conservatory but she drew back quickly.
‘No,’ she said. ‘I can’t go back in there. He’s inside still.’
‘Who is?’
‘That young fellow.’ A fleeting smile crossed her troubled face.
‘Fact is, we’d better move away. He can’t get out very well till we’ve gone.’
‘But what has he done?’
‘Well … that’s asking! Though it isn’t so much what he’s done as what he said. He ought to be ashamed of himself, and so I told him.’
‘Oh, do please tell me what he said,’ cried Hubert, edging found the curtain to get a look at the young fellow. ‘I’m dying to know.’
Ladies of Lyndon Page 25