diff options
Diffstat (limited to 'old/67610-0.txt')
| -rw-r--r-- | old/67610-0.txt | 9874 |
1 files changed, 0 insertions, 9874 deletions
diff --git a/old/67610-0.txt b/old/67610-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 7254afb..0000000 --- a/old/67610-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,9874 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of Three Loving Ladies, by Mrs. Dowdall - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: Three Loving Ladies - -Author: Mrs. Dowdall - -Release Date: March 12, 2022 [eBook #67610] - -Language: English - -Produced by: Richard Tonsing and the Online Distributed Proofreading - Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from - images generously made available by The Internet Archive) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THREE LOVING LADIES *** - - - - - - THREE LOVING LADIES - - - By - THE HON. MRS. DOWDALL - - - BOSTON AND NEW YORK - HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY - - 1921 - - _Printed in Great Britain_ - - - - - TO - - KATIE BURRILL - - - - - THREE LOVING LADIES - - - - - CHAPTER I - - -Messrs. Burridge and Co’s pantechnicons bumped majestically along the -streets of Millport early in the morning. Mud seemed to be unaccountably -falling from the sky through a close filter of smoke draped high above -the town; for although there was no fog, the great stucco offices on -either side of the street were slimy with coffee-coloured moisture, and -the people who hurried along looked cold and slippery, like -panic-stricken snails compelled to leave their shelters. The same -mysterious mud oozed also from below the paving stones, and would -continue to ooze long after the sun had penetrated the smoke filter and -made the houses and the pedestrians comparatively dry. - -Millport is one of the largest cities of the empire, and one of the -richest. I have never heard of anyone living there for choice, or for -any reason but an alleged opportunity for making money. Those who settle -there are in the habit of transplanting themselves at regular intervals; -removing to a house further away from the premises to which the -breadwinner carries a neat bag or attaché case every weekday morning, -between eight and ten. The removals mark a rise in the social scale, and -are celebrated by new responsibilities, in the addition of servants, -greenhouses, garages and acres of ground requiring “upkeep.” The heights -of Elysium are, in the end, reached by train. Between the main railway -station and the outskirts of wealth, lie nearly two miles of shops, and -a professional quarter where the inner darkness of blocks and terraces -shades into the dim glory of semi-detached houses. The next stage of -grandeur is seen in the increase of laurel bushes and gravel paths round -each semi-detached pair. When the flower beds in front, and the tennis -lawns at the back, reach a certain standard of importance they flow into -each other by connecting paths between the buildings, and each house -then stands alone, detached, in the full radiance of encircling -“grounds.” - -It was nearly ten o’clock before Messrs. Burridge’s stately -pantechnicons reached their destination, a large, square, -cinnamon-coloured house, standing in about two acres of ground on the -borders of Millport’s largest and most satisfactory park. General -Fulton, who had taken a five years’ lease of it, wondered many times -what had induced him to leave his comfortable little house in -Westminster. He had meant to retire from the army at the end of the war, -and had been turning over in his mind many agreeable plans for the -future, when he was offered the command of a military district of which -Millport was the centre. In a rash moment he confided the offer to his -wife, hoping for some entertainment from her habit of commenting -seriously on matters which he regarded as trifling. To his surprise and -disgust, she surpassed his expectation, and pointed out unanswerable -reasons why the command must be accepted. She confronted him with facts -about his income, which had hitherto been sufficient. But he neither -read the papers nor practised arithmetic, and, as she observed at the -end of the argument, “seemed to suppose that girls’ clothes grew on -their backs.” His reply to this last shot produced a silence which he -knew to be ominous of a settled programme; he knew that he had thrown -away his last chance by “saying something coarse,” and that any further -excuses would be flung unregarded into the flame of her spiritual nature -(a possession which is supposed by women who boast of it, to guarantee -also a sound business judgment). He appealed in vain to his daughters -Evangeline and Teresa. Evangeline said carelessly, “Oh, do let’s, -father,” and left the room to post a letter. She informed the maid whom -she passed on the stairs that, “we are all going to Millport, and isn’t -it fun?” Teresa ran her fingers through her untidy hair, done up for the -first time, and said, “If it is by the sea couldn’t we have a cottage?” - -General Fulton, avoiding his wife’s eye, mixed himself a whisky and -soda. It was the only way to drown his bitter regret at having ever -mentioned the appointment. “You’ll never get another house as nice as -this,” he suggested feebly. “I’ve been to Millport once, and it’s a -filthy place. There was a great black church opposite the hotel, and -drunken old women poking stale fish about.” Teresa shivered, but said -nothing. - -“I don’t suppose those poor old women ever thought of drinking until -they were taught by their husbands,” said Mrs. Fulton, glancing at the -tumbler he held, but she added hurriedly, before he had time to protest, -“and I believe it is perfectly necessary to poke fish before you can -tell whether it is fresh or not. You would see that kind of thing in any -town you went to, Cyril. And, anyhow, one doesn’t live down there. -Father and mother lived in Millport for years, and I know father said -everyone lived right out.” - -“Well, I don’t think I want the thing,” he said bravely. “I am not going -to take it.” He gathered up his morning’s correspondence. “I’m out to -lunch, Sue.” - -“Do you mind paying some money into the bank for me as you go past?” she -said gently. “The last quarter hasn’t been nearly enough. I suppose it -is the income tax and the price of everything.” - -General Fulton looked at her in exasperated admiration as she sat there, -quietly warming her toes in front of the fire, meditative and candid; -the typical gentle wife who patiently adds up the problems of life for -her husband, and leaves his wisdom to unravel the answer. - -“Why didn’t you say at the beginning that we were in debt?” he asked. - -“I don’t know that we are, dear,” she said, looking at him in perfect -innocence. “I only said that I couldn’t manage on what you gave me. I -don’t know what your shares come to; it is all Greek to me.” - -“Well, have it your own way, damn it,” returned her husband. “Perhaps -you’ve inherited business instincts, and they always go with turpitude.” - -“I wish you would think a little of the children sometimes,” she said, -glancing at Teresa who sat lost in thought by the window, hearing what -they said, and trying in vain to understand what the argument really -meant. - -“Do you want to go to Millport, Dicky?” her father asked kindly. - -“I don’t know,” she said. “It is on the sea, isn’t it?” - -“It’s on shrimps,” he replied, “and docks—things that open and shut at -you—and it is as black as night, and people walk about with bread under -their arms. Well, good-bye, dear; your mother says we’re going, and she -knows—she cares—God bless her.” He kissed Teresa affectionately, and -left the room. - -And so, the course of time showed Messrs. Burridge’s pantechnicons -casting the contents of Cyril’s happy little home into the ornate -cinnamon jaws of a house that he said made him think somehow of the late -Prince Albert. “The sort of thing he’d have built for the head -gamekeeper, Sue,” he remarked after lunch on their first day there. “And -the park is the very thing for ‘interments’; you could see them winding -all the way from end to end. I hope it will come up to your expectations -in the matter of wealthy consorts for the girls; or is that not part of -the scheme?” - -“I don’t like joking about marriage, Cyril, you know that,” she replied, -“it may mean so much to a girl.” She sighed. She had been very beautiful -twenty years before, and would have been so still, but for the fact that -years of quiet enjoyment of her own skill in getting what she wanted, -and a conscious superiority over people who “worried about what couldn’t -be helped” had obliterated the delicate lines of her face, and given to -the fleeting dimple, which used to be the despair and delight of her -lovers, the coarser appearance of a crease in a satin cushion. - -“It may mean something to her partner, too, if you come to that,” -returned Cyril. “It will to Evangeline’s, I should think. I wouldn’t be -in his shoes for something. She’s like you, Sue, in some ways; with all -the naughty little point of the story left out. I never knew such a -rough rider in the field of conversation. She’d never have been able to -stuff me with the stories you did about the injury to your pure young -mind when I kissed you. Lord! think of it!” - -Mrs. Fulton kept a dignified silence for a minute or two, and then -sighed again, as if to waft away the possibility of looking at Nature’s -beauties with a man who had been blind from birth. “How did you like the -people you met to-day?” she asked. - -“Oh, some of them weren’t bad. Hatton will be here to breakfast. He’ll -always be about the place, so I hope you’ll like him; he’s my A.D.C. And -all their wives will be round soon, I suppose, to pay their respects. -Hatton hasn’t got one I’m glad to say; though I daresay he’ll be as -preoccupied with the subject as if he had. I wish I had gone into the -Navy instead of the Army.” - -“Why?” she asked, though she knew that the drift of what he was going to -say would be somehow unflattering to herself. - -“Because one’s subordinates have always got a neat woman in lodgings -somewhere, and they just clear off in their spare time and keep -themselves employed until one meets them again. Their wives don’t litter -about the place and fight with each other.” - -“I don’t know how any woman can care to be a mere tool like that,” she -replied. “It must make them so one-sided.” - -“Yes,” he said, “but think of the feelings of the happy man who can say, -‘This little side is all for me,’ and knows that she has no other to -give to one who might like to have it. Why, it would make life a -different thing. Where are the girls, by the way?” - -“I think they are arranging their rooms and showing the servants where -to put things. They seem to be the most curious creatures that we have -got; but it was so difficult to find well trained ones. They call me -‘Mrs. Fulton,’ and tell me what they have been accustomed to. I think I -shall engage a housekeeper, Cyril. I do hate explaining, and these -creatures want to argue about everything.” - -“Can’t the girls do it?” he asked. - -“Oh no; they have other things to do. Besides, Evangeline turns -everything upside down. I had the greatest difficulty in getting the -dining-room table put where I wanted it. Of course I want the dears to -have everything as they like, but I do wish sometimes they would be a -little more help.” - -“Oh, well, we managed all right in the old place.” - -“Yes, but then these servants won’t do nearly so much,” she complained, -“and they have more to do as it is. I must say I think it is only right -that we should consider them more than we used to do. It must be so -dreadful to work all day. I am sure that new girl Strickland would be -more satisfied and likely to stop if you kept your room tidier, Cyril.” - -Evangeline poked her head round the door. “Father,” she asked, “can I -leave your books and have a lesson on the car from that magnificent -Fitz-Augustus person of yours? He says he is going some messages for -you, and he wouldn’t mind——” - -“Anything you like,” said her father, “so long as I don’t know anything -about it; you can’t drive without a licence. Also, if you’ll make Dicky -go for a walk with me. I must go into the town, and I must have some -exercise, and I won’t walk alone.” - - * * * * * - -“I don’t think we’ll do that business after all,” he said as he left the -house with Teresa half an hour later. “It only means a small additional -coolness to the heels of an unknown gentleman in an office. They’ll warm -up again to-morrow, like a lodging house chop. You’ve never lived in -lodgings have you?” - -“No, never.” - -“Well, never do. When I lived in lodgings and used to be a bit off -colour in the morning I used to see ornaments about everywhere. I -remember I once saw a china dog, with a basket of forget-me-nots in its -mouth, on the Colonel’s table in the middle of his papers, and I’m -hanged if I know to this day whether it was a real one or not. I could -never make up my mind about it, though it gave me such a turn that I -went round to the chemist and got something.” - -“What else,” asked Teresa. “That’s lovely.” - -“Oh, I don’t remember anything special; but they never clean the mustard -pot in those places—that was another thing. They’ve no sense. And I -never could find the matches. They’d be at the bottom of a vase with -dried grass in it, or that kind of thing. I think this ought to take us -down to the docks. Would you like to see them?” - -“Yes, awfully,” she agreed, and they walked some way in silence. “They -are nicer houses down here if they weren’t so dirty, aren’t they?” she -said presently, looking up at the windows as they passed along a street -to which some bygone architect had bequeathed an indestructible dignity. -Their restful proportions and large windows gave her a sudden sense of -relief after the turrets and variegated excrescences, coloured bricks -disposed in geometrical patterns, and twisted ironwork that adhered to -the semi-detached quarter they had passed through. - -“Yes,” said her father. “I expect all the old turpitudes—pious founders -and all that—lived down here. Our place was probably a marsh or a coal -mine or something, till the influence of the Late Lamented overtook it. -A man I met yesterday was talking about slaves. They were up to all -sorts of games down at their warehouses. The negro still flourishes -apparently,” he added, as a group of black men passed them and turned -down a narrow street, where tousled women stood at their doors, and -children screamed in the gutter. They crossed over a thoroughfare at -which main streets intersected one another, and accommodation for -sailors was advertised by mission rooms, clubs, public-houses, slop -shops, and reiterated offers of beds. Blocks of shops, shipping bureaus -and warehouses split up further on into single gigantic buildings, the -offices of the state and of great trading companies, full as beehives, -and glittering with prosperity; all the organism of a seaport in touch -with continents. The sea air was fresh in their faces. - -“That’s good,” said Cyril. “We’ll go and hang about.” - -They went precariously down a sloping bridge, slippery with mud from the -feet of a stream of hurrying workers intent on their home affairs which -lay on the other side of the river, and stood by a line of iron chains -that stretched indefinitely along the gently heaving planks of the stage -to which the ferry boats were moored. A red sun hung above the chimneys -on the opposite side in a slight fog that was creeping up the river, -and, from mysterious shapes behind this veil, hooters, syrens and -clanging bells answered one another in warnings to the capering atoms of -whom the drowning of even one would affect, in some degree, the life of -the city. - -“Do you know,” said Teresa presently, “that I haven’t seen a single -person—what we used to call ‘person’—since we came out; nothing but the -kind of people who make crowds.” - -“That’s because you don’t know them,” said Cyril. “I saw a millionaire -get off the boat a minute ago, ‘walking quite unaffectedly,’ as the -newspapers say.” - -“No, but the dressed people,” said Teresa, “you know what I mean. Where -are they?” - -“My dear, how should I know?” he replied carelessly. “That’s what I -tried to explain to your mother before we came; I thought it would put -her off. But I shouldn’t be in the least surprised if she took up -philanthropy.” - -“Do you mean that she’d go on committees?” Teresa asked awestruck. - -“She might quite well, and if I were the committee I should just tell -her what I wanted done, and leave her to do it her own way. You’d find -it would work out in the end.” - -“But those kind of people are generally so interfering,” said Teresa. -“Mother is not.” - -“No, but she is a master of strategy,” said Cyril. “I used to read about -Napoleon when we were taught strategy. Did you ever hear of his -battles?” - -“You mean Waterloo?” she asked. - -“Yes, but that didn’t come off. His great success was before then. She -may meet her Wellington on the playing fields of Millport for all you -know. We shall see. Let’s go back to tea. Have a taxi?” - -“No, let’s go on the top of a tram,” said Teresa. “I want to have that -rod thing arranged over my head. Did you see the conductor running round -with a string and hooking the little wheel on at the back?” - -“Well, I don’t mind,” he conceded, “but the smell will knock you down.” - -“What smell?” asked Teresa. - -“Demos, a crowd,” he replied, as they made their slow progress between -the jostling workers who still poured uninterruptedly across the bridge, -“see also ‘Demosthenes’ and ‘demon’— and ‘demi-monde’,” he added -reflectively, as a whiff of strong scent struck him from a girl with a -sharp elbow. - -“What a fuss you make about smells and things,” she said. “They’re all -life. They mean all sorts of things.” - -“Well, they don’t mean anything I want,” he grumbled. “I believe -everybody in this damned place wears fish next the skin.” This was said -with profound disgust as they took their places on a little seat at the -top of the tram staircase, and other swarms of people with pale, serious -faces and drab clothing pushed past his knees to the glass shelter -beyond. The windows became fogged with human breath and clouds of cheap -tobacco, and as the sun disappeared in the drifting fog from the river, -the mud began to filter down once more on to the roofs, and to ooze up -from under the stones of the pavement. The car swayed under its heavy -load, with occasional grinding squeals, stopping every few hundred yards -to take up new burdens in place of those who had reached their -destination. Teresa watched the squalid forms and weary faces with a -new-born ecstasy. Some veiled desire, a love for something unknown, -which had led her in pursuit for as long as she could remember, had -stopped and shown itself to her for a moment. Then it fled again from -her reach. - - - - - CHAPTER II - - -One great source of mental nourishment that Evangeline relied on at this -time was the Press. Two thirds of the things she thought about each day -came from the newspapers, plain or illustrated, but not political; that -is to say, not political beyond striking headlines and a short—very -short—leading article. Her mind made curious pictures of these scraps of -state information. Perhaps the best way of describing what she thought -Parliament is, and does, is to imagine oneself very agile, very kind, -very interested, perched inside the roof of an immense building, looking -down on hundreds of elderly gentlemen all of one type, but some with -familiar faces. We, from our perch, know that each of them has gone -through a period of anxiety and expense, connected with loss of voice -and terrible boredom of his supporters, who have to sit behind him on -uncomfortable chairs and wish he would pull his coat down at the back -before speaking. This period of trial has ended in an election—ribbon -and scratch meals—and then he got a “seat” here on something or other -benches (Evangeline had been at school, but she wasn’t in the serious -lot, at least, not the brainy serious. Her set used only to discuss -things like immortality when they felt really friendly.) Once on these -“benches” men become political, and lose considerably in spiritual -value, except when they call out the army and navy. Otherwise they spend -their time henceforth in committing blunders (the meat blunder, the wool -blunder, the tax blunder, the housing blunder, etc.), to the perpetual -inconvenience of the public, until something happens to the Cabinet and -a lot of well-known people who were IN become OUT, and it makes no -difference at all, except as a frail raft for the drowning in -conversation. But the rest of the paper is worth reading; there are -things to interest everybody. The eccentric behaviour of criminals, -landladies and leaders of society; adventures, and reports of shipwrecks -and calves with two tails. On the last page there is often expert advice -on physical fitness and the complexion. - -On the morning following Teresa’s walk to the docks with her father -Evangeline began to try the effects of the juice of an orange -accompanied by half an hour’s deep breathing before breakfast. She had -walked and deep breathed in the park, and returned full of exhilaration -from the sight of the dewy grass, young tulips pushing through the heavy -dun soil and the song of birds in smoke-laden trees and bushes that were -budding as irrepressibly as herself. She stood on the edge of a pond and -watched the ducks performing an ecstatic toilet. Their guttural sounds -of pleasure and the grinding of distant tram wheels were the only sounds -besides the chorus of chirping. The only people she met were a policeman -on one side of the pond, and a dressmaker’s assistant on the other, and -she felt that God was the friend of both as of the ducks and the Spring; -they were not at all in the way. When she arrived at home a man in -military uniform was standing on the doorstep. He was young and had the -face of a reformer. - -“Good morning,” she said. “Are you coming in?” - -“Please,” he answered gravely, and said no more, while she fitted her -latchkey. She led the way into the dining-room, where breakfast was -laid, and looked vaguely round. - -“Shall I tell my father you’re here?” she asked hesitatingly, and then, -with sudden uncontrollable interest, “Are you the man that hasn’t got a -wife?” - -He started and frowned. He was embarrassed, and felt that the question -was not one that should have been asked by a stranger. “No, I am not -married,” he snapped. - -“Is your name Hatton?” she asked next. - -“Yes.” - -“Oh, then Father told us about you. Do you want to see him?” - -“Very much,” said Captain Hatton with emphasis. - -“I’ll fetch him,” she said, “but do sit down and be comfortable.” She -went out and called, “Father! Father!” at the bottom of the stairs. -“Father! Oh, drat him! I believe he is still in the bath.” Captain -Hatton, erect on the hearthrug in front of the door she had left open, -heard, and winced. - -“Dick—y! Dick—y!” she called next. - -“Oh, do come up, Chips, if you want anything,” he heard a small weary -voice say upstairs. “Father is in the bath; he’ll be out directly.” - -“Well tell him to hurry up; it’s Captain Hatton,” said Evangeline, and -she plunged back into the dining-room. - -“I am afraid my watch must be all wrong,” he said, as he glanced round -the room in hope of moral support from an accusing clock. “I thought -General Fulton said breakfast at half-past eight.” - -“So it is,” said Evangeline. “It is only twenty minutes to nine now. -Father won’t get up if he has an interesting post. What time do you get -up?” - -“Oh—er—a quarter to seven usually,” he replied. - -“A quarter to——? Gracious! Do you mean in the very middle of a minute -like that? It seems just as if you said ‘up goes the hand of my watch, -down goes my leg on the floor.’ I couldn’t do that. I have to yawn a -long time first and then get out by degrees till it gets too cold not to -do something about it.” - -There was silence. Evangeline felt depressed. All her gladness in the -awakening spring had gone. “Would you like to look at the paper?” she -asked with a sigh. He said, “Thank you,” but as he stretched out his -hand to take it from her he saw that it was not _Country Life_, but a -lady’s paper. Doll-like faces with no noses, shameless trousseaux, -ridiculous young men in black, scent bottles and wigs met his eye on the -open page. - -“Er—thanks very much,” he said, “I think I’ll wait for the morning -paper. What time do you get it?” - -“I expect it has come,” said Evangeline. “The boy generally flings it in -at the kitchen window.” She rang the bell. “Breakfast, please, -Strickland, and the paper if it has come,” she ordered. - -“I was waiting till Mrs. Fulton came down,” said the maid severely. -Evangeline sighed again. “How obstructive everyone is this morning,” she -thought, but said aloud, “No, we’ll begin please, and anyhow I want the -paper.” - -But neither came and the silence grew heavier. She wanted to rush out -of the room; she knew that her hair was untidy and two of her finger -nails were grubby owing to having restored a strayed worm to what she -thought a safe place on the bank of the pond, where a duck had eaten -him at once to her disgust. But she could not move from the sofa where -she had taken refuge with her rejected paper. The barrier of Captain -Hatton’s eye stretched between her and the door and she felt that it -might touch her as she ran past; if it did she would have to scream. -Suddenly—“A—tish—u!”—a fearful explosion. Captain Hatton had sneezed. -There was a dead silence while Evangeline held her breath and dared -not look. Then again the awful sound; and again; eight times. - -“I beg your pardon,” he said when all was quiet again. “Extraordinary -how these attacks come on.” - -The great friendly creature cheered up at once on this crumb of -encouragement. “I like sneezing,” she said. “It almost takes the place -of swearing. You feel better and no harm done to anybody.” - -“Ah—h’m,” he agreed without enthusiasm. - -“There’s Mother coming,” she said thankfully as a gentle rustle was -heard in the passage. Susie came in in a soft breakfast gown that -avoided conclusions with her figure. Her hair was beautifully done and -her face delicately cared for. Captain Hatton, though he approved of her -evidently careful toilet, took a vague dislike to her because it had not -been carried through at the specified time. - -“I am so sorry my husband is late,” she murmured, “I am afraid we got -into bad habits in London. Everything is so late there and the morning -is really the loveliest time, isn’t it? I remember once being out at six -to catch a train and the birds were simply delightful. Do you sing at -all?” she inquired, her eyes brimming with sympathetic interest. - -“I do occasionally,” he admitted, heartily wishing that his chief would -come and relieve him. - -“I hope we shall often hear you,” said Mrs. Fulton. “I always think -music is such a happy thing. Evangeline dear, ring the bell.” - -“I have rung twice,” she said. - -“Servants are very unpunctual as a race,” Mrs. Fulton observed. “I wish -they would get up earlier, but I daresay they are often tired like we -are.” Strickland came in with the hot dishes. “We shall want some more -toast, I think, Strickland.” - -“The fire’s not hot enough,” answered the maid. “The cook was late this -morning.” - -“Then just run up and make a little at the gas fire in the General’s -dressing-room,” Susie ordered. “Will you help yourself, Captain Hatton.” - -A few minutes later Cyril entered hurriedly in his dressing-gown. “I -say, Sue, what the devil—hullo, Hatton, that you?—what the devil did you -send that woman to make toast in my room for? I’d nothing but——” - -“Cyril dear, never mind,” his wife interrupted. “The kitchen fire wasn’t -quite ready; she won’t be a minute.” - -“Well, I can’t go back to dress now,” he complained. - -“It will teach us to be more punctual to-morrow,” said Mrs. Fulton. “We -must set them a good example. Dicky ought to be down too.” - -Teresa came in quietly and shut the door without looking at anyone. She -was flushed and seemed preoccupied and had evidently forgotten -Evangeline’s announcement of a guest. “My hair refuses to go up,” she -began, turning straight to the sideboard. “I shall do it like some women -I saw yesterday. The front was all in tiny plaits and the back—well, it -wasn’t hairdressing, it was plumbing. You’ve been pretty hearty with the -kedgeree, haven’t you?” - -“Dicky, darling, I don’t think you have seen Captain Hatton,” her mother -suggested. Teresa turned unconcernedly. - -“I am sorry,” she apologised. “How do you do? I remember my sister did -tell me you were here, but I happened to be thinking at the time and I -forgot.” - -“Please don’t bother,” he said. He was recovering his temper under the -influence of breakfast and the sense of safety that his host brought. -“You’ll see so much of me, I’m afraid, that I’d rather you did not -notice it.” - -“Don’t hope for that, Hatton,” put in the General. “They’ll see -everything you do. It’s a damned noticing family; except Evangeline and -she’ll fall over you in the dark every time.” - -Captain Hatton looked embarrassed and changed the subject. “Are you -going to like being here, do you think?” he asked Susie. - -“Oh, I think so,” she replied. “Of course it is quite different from -London, but there must be some nice people. Do you know many people here -yet?” - -“I have got some friends who live a few miles out,” he said. “I have -stayed with them for hunting, but I’ve been out of England for the last -three years. We were sent to Germany after the armistice and I came back -to go into hospital.” - -“Oh, dear me, those hospitals!” she sighed. “Shall I ever forget them! I -couldn’t do any actual nursing, of course, though I should have loved -it; but I don’t think it was right the way women left their children. -But I used to visit the poor boys and wash up. I get such touching -letters from them even now. Do you remember young Digby, Cyril?” - -“No, I don’t, but I could make a fair guess at him. You forget that I -was in my little wooden hut at the time and couldn’t leave it even for -you. I wonder if that beastly woman is out of my room. Dicky—oblige your -father. Go and see if she is there, will you? I want to get dressed.” - -“She is making toast, dear,” Mrs. Fulton explained. “You might ask her -for it; she won’t hear the bell.” - -Teresa went out and met Strickland in the passage. She was dusting the -hall. “Can we have the toast, please?” Teresa asked. - -“It isn’t made,” Strickland replied coldly. “I couldn’t be spoken to -like that. I shall leave at the end of the month. I’m not accustomed to -be blasted.” Teresa touched her on the shoulder. “Never mind Father,” -she said. “We none of us do. He’s most affectionate really. Forget the -toast; I’ll tell them.” She went back into the dining-room and shut the -door. Mrs. Fulton was offering dainty morsels of sentiment about -hospitals to Captain Hatton, who disposed of them one by one with the -indifference a sea lion shows about the quality of the fish thrown into -its mouth. Teresa sat down by her father and said in a low voice, “You -mustn’t swear at the maids, you know. Strickland is very angry and was -going to go, but I told her you are all right. I don’t know if she will -recover, but you must remember that you don’t have the trouble of going -to registry offices.” - -“What an eternal curse women’s feelings are,” he grumbled as he pulled -out a cigarette case. “I believe they grow fat on them.” - -“But then, you see, your men have none at all,” she explained, “which is -as bad the other way, because you can’t make them hear except by -blasting and all those kinds of words that mean nothing.” - -“But they do mean something,” argued her aggrieved father. “They mean, -‘You’ve damn well got to do it and look sharp.’” - -“Yes, but if you say to a woman, ‘Be quick, Pansy dear,’ she does it -just as well.” - -Cyril roared with laughter. “Here, Hatton,” he said, “do you know what -you’ve got to say to the mess sergeant the next time he keeps you -waiting? ‘Be quick, Pansy dear!’ Will you try it first or shall I?” -Captain Hatton laughed. - -“What is Dicky saying?” asked Mrs. Fulton indulgently. - -“Explaining the art of commanding those of unripe station,” said the -General. “Come on to my room, Hatton, and I’ll leave you there while I -get some clothes on—if they’re not all over toast and tears,” he added -resentfully. - -“Good heavens! What a man!” Evangeline exclaimed when the door shut -behind them. “He’s like an umbrella.” - -“Oh, I think he’s charming,” said her mother. “So much tact, and most -interesting, I should think, when one gets to know him. Ring the bell, -Dicky dear, and when she comes to clear away tell her I shall be in my -sitting-room if she wants me.” - -“What are we going to do with ourselves every day in this place, Chips?” -Teresa asked her sister when they were alone. - -“Oh, what we have done before, I suppose,” Evangeline answered -carelessly. She was reading the paper that had come too late to save -Captain Hatton’s temper. The Labour Party, she read, were determined to -do something which she did not understand, but which foreboded -discomfort to everybody including their own supporters. They seemed to -do it on purpose, like schoolmistresses, for some end which no -reasonable young person desires, even if it could be achieved. Who -exactly were the Labour party she wondered? The paper showed their -photographs; clumsy figures in impossible hats, with impossible wives -whose barren heads contrasted grotesquely with the hairiness of their -men’s faces. She looked over the page. An officer, recently demobilised, -had committed suicide owing to the difficulty of maintaining a blue-eyed -child, whose portrait was inset below his own. The “night life” of a -great city was said to be “glittering with unprecedented extravagance!” -A millionaire had made a unique will at a place she had never heard of, -providing for the purchase of fifty elephants, which were to be -presented to the Corporation, and supported by public funds for the -employment of superannuated keepers. - -“But you forget that I haven’t done anything except go to classes,” -pursued Teresa. “I am supposed to be ‘out’ now.” - -“Jolly lucky for you,” remarked her sister. “There was no coming out in -my time.” - -“I don’t see much difference,” said Teresa, “except that you brought -your own food to parties and didn’t wear such low necks. But anyhow, -what I meant was that the war is over, and we’re in a new place and -we’ve got some maids, and what is the next?” - -“I don’t know,” Evangeline answered slowly. “There are days when I want -to burst—you know—with a pop, in the sun on a still day—like that, (she -waved her hands) and then I should become something quite different. I -should be full of ideas. I don’t know what they would be but that is the -exciting part.” - -“This is a very dirty town,” Teresa said, as she stood at the window. “I -haven’t seen any people yet who looked as if they liked what they were -doing.” - -Evangeline’s eager interest had faded. “Haven’t you?” she said. - -“No, and I don’t know what Mother will do with herself, either. I -suppose there must be some ordinary ones. She’s a social success, isn’t -she?” - -“In a way——” Evangeline hesitated. “She’s not like an American mother in -those ways, but if you notice you’ll find that you never can stop -anything happening as she wants it to. I believe she conjures. She seems -to sit down by a hat and take no notice of it, and then there’s an -omelet in it. If Father doesn’t want the omelet, or we don’t, she says -she hasn’t made it, and I spend my life trying to find out whether she -has or not.” - -“Well that hasn’t much to do with what I was saying,” her sister -continued. “We shall drift here if we don’t look out.” - -“Drift?” - -“Yes, you know—I shall arrange the flowers, and you will play endless -games and go to things and perhaps ‘take up’ something, and I shall shop -and be polite to visitors, and I really don’t want to do anything else. -I am not energetic, and I should love to live in a cottage. But -everything is so hideous here, and those smells and awful faces make me -sort of drunk.” - -“My dear!” Evangeline sympathised with little understanding. - -“Everyone has always made me feel a little drunk,” Teresa went on. “They -say such stupid things; sit there gibbering and drinking tea, and yet -all the people in history—anyone—Nebuchadnezzar or Cleopatra or Anne -Boleyn—were in society, and all sorts of real things happened to them; -they didn’t ask for it. And I believe just as much could happen to the -silly people who pay calls. I often understand eating grass and letting -one’s nails grow.” She paused. “And those people who are poor—they must -know a lot. I want to know what it is.” - -“It is like my wanting to burst, perhaps,” said Evangeline. “Except that -I don’t want to know all about those horrors. I hated all that in the -war, though, of course, it was so exciting being useful that one forgot -the mess. I should like to be in a dangerous country with a lovely -climate, and live with a man who had read everything there is. We should -ride all day, and perhaps have some children who wouldn’t want clothes -or governesses nor have diseases.” - -“Like a cinema,” commented Teresa. - -“Yes, rather. I always get so angry with the film girl who is left in a -log cabin with a perfectly beautiful savage who leaves her the room to -herself out of chivalry and sleeps in the stable and does all he can for -her, and then the silly ass crawls screaming round the walls, and wants -to go back to some odious young man in the city.” - -“But the city man would be much more likely to have read everything,” -her sister pointed out. “Your savage wouldn’t know any more than you do, -which isn’t saying much.” - -“No, I know,” she admitted with a sigh. “I don’t know what I want; -perhaps both of them for different days; wet Sundays to spend with the -young man who reads, and the other days, when it is sunny, to gallop -about with the dangerous one.” - -“I believe there is more in it than that,” said Teresa, “and meantime I -am going to study Strickland. I have an idea she can tell me the things -I want to know. I had better find her, by the way, and give her Mother’s -message. I don’t think she takes much interest in bells.” She left -Evangeline to speculate on life as digested for her by the newspaper, -and went herself in search of the woman who, she felt, held some clue to -the pursuit of her desire. - -At the end of a week she recalled her sister’s inspired description of -their mother’s behaviour. Susie had, it seemed, by some unobservable -process, evolved a spiritual omelet out of the most unpromising material -among the people who called on her. Most of them belonged to what -Strickland, who had begun to unbend towards Teresa, assured her were -“some of our leading families.” - -“The Manleys are very well known,” she said. “Old Mr. Manley did a great -deal of good, and was very well thought of all over the town. My -grandfather used to work for him, and he always said he never wished to -have a better master. I don’t know so much about the young ones. My -sister lived with Mrs. James Manley, and I can’t say she enjoyed it. -Everything was very near, and she left because she got run down with the -work. But Mrs. Eric Manley, that called to-day, is well enough spoken -of, though I don’t think much of her myself.” - -“Yes,—Mrs. Carpenter,” she said, another day, when she was turning down -Teresa’s bed. “I’m glad you mentioned her. She’s another of the sort I -was telling you about. They’re well enough in public I suppose, but -those who have to do with them when they get back know who are the real -ladies and gentlemen. Now you’ll hear a great deal, I daresay, about -Mrs. Carpenter, and how she goes about here and there and all she does, -but I wouldn’t be the matron of some of those homes she goes to—no, I -wouldn’t for all the money you could give me; and I wouldn’t be one of -the inmates, either, with all the advice she gives, and she who doesn’t -know what it is to have one child left on her hands for a day, let alone -six or eight. I don’t say she doesn’t go about here and there, and so -she should, for she’s the time and the money, but I don’t think it’s -right for servants to be kept up till all hours washing dishes for those -who study the poor, and up again next morning to light the fires in time -for ladies to warm themselves while they telephone for the best of -everything.” - -“Yes,” said Teresa, looking into the fire. - -“You’ll say I’m a socialist, perhaps, Miss,” Strickland added, as she -was going to leave the room, “but it isn’t that. I know we can’t all do -alike, and I don’t mind the General, if you’ll excuse me, now I’ve got -used to his language. He’s very thoughtful in some ways, and it seems a -man’s place to mess things about. But when I took in the tea, and heard -Mrs. Carpenter going on at such a rate, and Mrs. Manley, too, I felt -like speaking out when you mentioned her.” - -“How you do gossip with the servants, dear Dicky,” said Susie, who had -heard the last word on her way to her bedroom, and called to Teresa to -help her to fasten her dress. “I never think it is a wise plan.” - -Teresa said nothing. Although she always received her mother’s remarks -with respectful affection, due to the fact that Susie never appeared -cross and everything she said was incontrovertible, yet very little that -was not a definitely expressed wish penetrated her thoughts. “If Mother -wants anything done, of course we do it,” was the understanding between -her and Evangeline, but they respected her power as a conjuror, rather -than her wisdom as a prophet. Susie’s power over men had been great in -her youth, and she had had much influence in the lives of women, but no -one had ever counted her as friend or enemy. She had been an article of -faith to some, of admiration, of liking, of amusement or indefinite -irritation to others, but only her children in their nursery days had -ever looked to her as a help in time of trouble. Her conjuring ability -had been invaluable in the nursery and schoolroom. Her presence would -always turn a crime into a bubble, and the indignant nurse or governess -was compelled to see her rod break out into the delicate blossom of -divine forgiveness under her outraged eyes. The impression of this -gentleness remained with the girls when they grew up; but that was all. -They might search the corners of the wonder-box where their -recollections of her were stored, and find nothing that they could put -together and call a mother. - -Teresa had been surprised that day by Susie’s immediate success with the -women who had called. It is true that they had come prepared to like the -Fultons, but they were in no way committed; and such all-embracing -eagerness to love as Evangeline showed to strangers was against their -traditions. It is one of the customs of Millport before paying a call to -consider first the reasons for the newcomers’ arrival. A well paid -appointment gives them a good start, whereas an indefinite purpose would -be thought suspicious. Second to be considered is their pedigree. If -they can be traced to some source called “good connections” another -point is scored in their favour. A good income comes third, and, -provided the rest is satisfactory, adds greatly to their favourable -chances, but this item is not so essential as it used to be. People who -are not at all nice are often rich at the present time, and even furs -have to be more carefully chosen than in the past, for fear they may be -the outcome of too recent enterprise. But the thing that tells in the -long run is “views.” The Provinces have collective “views” in a way that -would be impossible in London. You must either think with the city or -carry the city with you. To live in opposition to it you must be either -a hermit or a fanatic; cease to love your neighbour or lose your reason. -The apostle of a different creed from that of the city can carry the -people with him some distance towards any end—the best or the -worst—provided he uses the old ritual cunningly; but wolves and doves -alike must be dressed in sheep’s clothing, or out they go. - -“None of that, now, with those feathers,” the city says to the intruding -dove. “I know you’re not a wolf. You don’t need to tell me what I can -see. But you’ve got a beak, and I wouldn’t put it past you to get -pecking at my legs.” - -But they received Susie at once with open arms. She came from London, -which is always nice; her parents had been born in Millport of -absolutely pure wool stock, her husband had inherited money from a good -old lady before the war, and Susie had only to appear in her own -spotless fleece of nice feeling upon every subject—especially wine—for -them to cluster round her with acclamations and summon their kind from -the most distant parts of the county. - - - - - CHAPTER III - - -Miss Archer, reporter for the _Millport News_, stood just inside the -first reception-room at the Town Hall. There was a suite of rooms, -leading one into the other, showing a vista of hats and baldish heads -and faces of all sorts wedged together in packs or moving in a slow -stream with eddies and cross currents. The stream rose in the great -entrance hall of the building. It was brought by contributory motors and -broughams, from all parts of the town, suburbs and county, and it flowed -upstairs and through the rooms and down again through a temporary -congestion at the first door where Miss Archer stood with her little -note book. A middle-aged woman, mastering fatigue with vivacity, stood -beside her and made rapid remarks in an undertone, pointing out this or -that noteworthy face or garment. Her hand was conspicuous by being so -obviously ill at ease in its white glove. It was a worker’s hand, full -of strength and sensibility, and the sillily cut glove sat on it like a -bonnet on a horse. The Mayor and Mayoress remained just within the big -folding doors which were set wide apart, a footman planted on either -side. The footman on the left had nothing about him to allay the -suspicion that he was stuffed, except his small twinkling eyes that -spoke of much experience of humanity, a family life of his own and -knowledge of the moral difficulties of rich men. His counterpart on the -right was unable to give way to the same luxurious calm, being compelled -to undergo the trouble of repeating strange syllables whispered into his -ear, such as “—siz-an-Miss-S-Arkbury,” “—stron-misses J’n’per,” etc.; if -it had not been that he knew the names of the greater number of the -guests he would probably have broken down and been led weeping to the -nearest public-house. As it was he battled bravely on, and beyond the -momentary annoyance of the Harburys who became “Barleys,” and the -Muskovilles who became “Musk-and-veal,” and so on, it didn’t really -matter. People who knew them knew them, and those who didn’t didn’t -mind. - -“Who were those last, did you hear?” Miss Archer bent to ask her friend. -“They’re new, surely; I must note their dresses; they’re very good. -There—the woman in grey with sables, and the two girls.” - -“‘Fulton!’ I thought he said,” answered the tired woman. She followed -them with her eyes to where they stopped, looking at the crowd and -talking now and then to each other. Susie was benevolently dimpling, as -if the party were hers, and commenting to her daughters on the beauty of -the rooms. “Architecture makes so much difference to a building, doesn’t -it?” she said. “It would be so easy to spoil a big place like this by -making it clumsy and in bad taste. But I do admire this immensely, don’t -you?” - -“There’s Mrs. Manley gone up to them now,” said Miss Archer’s friend. “I -tell you—won’t they be the new general’s family that someone said had -come? There’s some new arrangement or other about the soldiers. I know -my nephew who’s a territorial said something about a General Fulton -coming to be over the whole lot of them; not separated as they used to -be.” - -Miss Archer wrote down, “—in a distinguished combination of old gold and -palest petunia, relieved by valuable antique buckles. Mrs. Slacks looked -well in mauve, with one of the new violet pyramid hats.” “What did you -say? Yes, I should think that’s very likely. Let me see. Grey poult de -soie, isn’t it, with sables? and her two young daughters (she was -scribbling again) in girlish foam of niaise crepe in the new swallow -blue that has lately come into its own. Yes, that will do.” - -“There’s Mrs. Carpenter speaking to them,” said the friend. “I don’t -know how you are going to dish up that checked coat of hers again. I -must catch Mr. Beaver if I can—he has just gone through—and see if he -will take the chair on the 15th.” She disappeared among the crowd, and -presently Miss Archer tripped away to take a turn through the rooms to -make sure she had omitted no one of importance. - -“Shall we find a table for you?” Mrs. Manley said to Susie. “It will -take us through the rooms on the way and there are several people you -must meet.” - -A young woman, dressed with the touching pride of the connoisseur on a -small income, turned as Mrs. Manley spoke, and smiled at her. - -“How are you?” Mrs. Manley said. “I am showing Mrs. Fulton the lions. If -you want tea we could fill a table. Mrs. Fulton, may I introduce you to -Mrs. Vachell. You are sure to meet everywhere. General and Mrs. Fulton -have just moved into the Babley’s house,” she explained to the other. - -“Yes, I know,” said Mrs. Vachell. “I was going to call on you this week -(she turned to Susie). Mrs. Babley left me several messages for you -about the house, small things that she thought might be useful, but she -didn’t want to bother you by writing about them. I only came back from -Egypt yesterday.” - -“Mrs. Vachell’s husband,” Mrs. Manley explained, “is the most -distinguished something-or-other-ist of the century, only I never can -pronounce it.” - -“Never mind,” said Mrs. Vachell. “We’ll leave it at that. What a squash -there is to-day. Do you suppose we shall ever get any tea?” They moved -slowly on, and Mrs. Vachell found herself separated with the two girls. - -“You must find it rather dreary being turned loose in a strange town,” -she said almost pityingly. “Has anyone been any use?” - -“We’re quite happy,” said Evangeline. “Do tell me why so many people -come here. Is a Town Hall a sort of public party place? Oh dear, what a -row that band makes!” - -“If we can get to the tea room we shall be out of it,” said Mrs. -Vachell. “No, this isn’t exactly a public party, but the Lord Mayor has -to entertain everybody. You will find later that you meet your friends -here, and it isn’t so bad. But you will probably be roped in to make -yourselves useful before long.” - -Teresa thrilled once more with the breath of the thing she sought. -“How?” she asked. - -“All sorts of ways. Child welfare or domestic training or inebriates—or -perhaps imbeciles,” Mrs. Vachell added, mischievously putting on an -extra screw as she noted the alarm in Evangeline’s face and the throb of -excitement in Teresa’s. - -Mrs. Carpenter was to be seen through the doorway, pushing slowly -towards them, elbowing one, patronising another with a smile, making -expressive gestures to friends here and there indicating that her task -was nearly impossible—but—hold on, little sheep! The shepherdess is -coming. You shall have tea if she has to commandeer some one else’s -table. - -“I wonder if you would mind——” she will probably say reproachfully. -“This lady ought to sit down and it is impossible to find a table. I -think we can get six chairs in here if it won’t be pressing you too near -the wall.” It was by some manœuvre of this sort that she did in the end -plant the girls, whom she had volunteered to find, and Mrs. Vachell, -whom she could not very well get rid of, at a table where Mrs. Fulton -and Mrs. Manley were already seated. The two elderly ladies who were -there first drained their cups and withdrew, commenting on the bad -management of the tea rooms and the “manners of some people.” - -Mrs. Eric Manley, Mrs. Carpenter and Mrs. Vachell occupied -positions in Millport not unlike those of the kings of England -before Alfred. Their territories were less defined, their wars -were not so bitter, but, as the history books say, “the country -languished under their rule and longed for a just and wise leader -to unite their petty factions under his sway.” Mrs. Manley ruled -over the Fashionable-who-are-charitable, Mrs. Carpenter over the -Charitable-who-are-fashionable-and-educated, and Mrs. Vachell over -the Educated-and-incidentally-fashionable-and-charitable. They -were ripe for the arrival of a visionary like Susie who should -unite their people in the peaceful practices of Love—love of -architecture-and-so-on, love of children, of all weathers, of the -poor, “even those poor terrible drunken creatures who have been -taught to be wicked,” of “your own beautiful homes.” We have -anticipated this last object of her love. It became one of the -stock phrases of those speeches which made her the idol of public -meetings in days to come. - -But although Destiny was hovering over the tea-table, they knew it not. -Perhaps Teresa felt something of the fate in store for her. Their chairs -were near a window, below which the trams stopped to load and discharge -their passengers. The faces were there by the hundred, the drab -clothing, the mud were as usual. Did the scene never alter she wondered? -Did the stream of people pour on like that under lowering skies -perpetually—all day—Sundays—holidays, even through the night? She had -come from the crowded streets of London, but that was utterly different. -There was variety, sunshine, even leisureliness in the squares and quiet -places off the main traffic; and besides that, the significance of any -individual was so small that no one could feel responsible for his -neighbour unless he were invited to interest himself. In Millport every -weary pedestrian seemed to carry a personal grudge against those who had -the means to escape from the mud. - -Mrs. Manley was comparing notes with Susie on the eternal subject of -prices. Even cakes made at home were almost too expensive to eat every -day, she complained. Her husband had had to give up keeping a tin of -biscuits at his office, and he often came home to tea to save expense, -unless he had to stay and carry on work that the clerks used to do. It -was impossible to have the sort of entrées one used to, made with just a -little sweetbread or cream or something; even the eggs mounted up now—— - -“Yes, yes, I know, my dear women,” Mrs. Carpenter interrupted, “but do -you realise what it means to _Charity_? You are only on the visiting -committee of my beloved Institute, you know,” she smiled at Mrs. Manley, -“and you can have no idea. The very soap the women wash with costs us -£20 a year more than it did; there now! What do you think of that? That -is just soap alone.” - -Mrs. Manley looked a little contemptuous. “Everyone uses soap,” she -said. “I have to deal it out at our orphanage when it is my week for the -store cupboard. But anyhow I believe there is only one thing that hasn’t -gone up and that is bi-carbonate of soda. That is why everybody’s cakes -taste of it. (She glanced at Mrs. Carpenter). How do you find things, -Mrs. Fulton?” - -“I try not to worry about it,” Susie replied. Love seemed to envelope -the table as she spoke, and even Mrs. Carpenter felt that she had not -got the nail plumb on the head with her last blow. Mrs. Vachell pricked -up her ears. “I do so want those two,” Susie continued with a fond look -at her daughters, “not to have all their young time clouded by perpetual -half-pennies. Of course we are not extravagant, but we have none of us -very large appetites and, as I say, I just try not to worry. I have no -doubt that what we are going through now is somehow for the good of the -world.” - -Mrs. Carpenter drew a long breath and turned back a piece of fur at her -wrist. “Of course we all believe that,” she said, “or we shouldn’t be -here; at least I hope not. But what do you propose, Mrs. Fulton, to do -about the terrible suffering as it is?” Even the best accredited lamb in -its first year at Millport must not have things all its own way in the -fold. - -Susie’s eyes brimmed. “I think and think,” she said earnestly, “but I -can’t see how it is to be avoided. It seems somehow as if it was meant, -and we can only learn the meaning by helping everywhere we can when we -get the chance. I think some of the saddest cases are often the least -known, don’t you?” Mrs. Vachell was taking an Olympic pleasure in the -new forces which Susie was evidently going to bring in on the side of -good against evil. She looked on from the high ground of quicker wits -than her two sister rulers. She now wanted to see what Susie did with -her two daughters. “It is the younger generation that will have to find -out these things,” she said, looking at the girls. - -“Oh, shall we,” said Evangeline, rather bored. Teresa shrugged her -shoulders and passed the cake. Mrs. Carpenter alone took up the -challenge. “I think girls have lost all taste for the mere -pleasure-loving life they used to lead,” she said, “I know mine won’t -look at it. ‘Oh, Mother,’ they say, ‘We’re _so_ bored with parties.’ -They are all going to have professions and Lena is going to do social -work.” Mrs. Manley, being childless, said nothing. - -“Are they!” Susie exclaimed, full of interest. “How wonderful! I often -thought as a girl how much I should have liked to _be_ something, but I -never had a chance and I am afraid I had no talents.” She dimpled at the -three leaders. “I could only admire and enjoy. We must really be going, -I think, dears. You belong to the University, don’t you, Mrs. Vachell?” -she asked as they dispersed. “It must be so delightful.” - -“Yes,” Mrs. Vachell replied, “my husband does. Have you met Mrs. -Gainsborough yet?” - -“The Principal’s wife?” said Susie. “No, she called last week, but I was -out. I was so sorry.” They were walking down the great staircase by this -time. - -“You must be sure to call on her At Home day,” Mrs. Vachell warned her, -“or you will frighten her. It is every Tuesday.” - -“Frighten her?” Susie repeated. - -“Yes, because if she hasn’t met you first she will have to ask you to -dinner without knowing you and she can’t bear that. There she is, by the -way, still in the hall. Will you come and speak to her?” - -Susie allowed herself to be the means of violently startling a massive -woman—there is no other way to think of her—dressed in old-fashioned -clothes, who was peering timidly through the glass doors that opened on -to the street. She turned in a fright when Mrs. Vachell spoke to her. -“Oh! is that you!” she exclaimed thankfully. “I can’t think why my cab -hasn’t come. I ordered it at a quarter past five and it is nearly six -now and it has come on so wet.” - -Mrs. Vachell introduced Susie and her daughters and slipped away. - -“Oh!” said Mrs. Gainsborough again—(it was her usual beginning)—“so -delighted to meet you—so sorry you were out when I called. And these are -your girls?—quite so—yes——” She relapsed into silence and went on -looking helplessly at the rain. - -“Mayn’t we drive you home?” Susie suggested. “Our car is there.” Mrs. -Gainsborough threw up her hands and followed, murmuring. As they drove -home through the crowded, dripping streets, Evangeline and Teresa -crushed suffocatingly under the shadow of Mrs. Gainsborough’s knees, -Susie’s kind little face peeping from behind a bunch of aged ostrich -tips in Mrs. Gainsborough’s bonnet, all three of them disconcerted by -the unusual smell of warm eau-de-Cologne that filled their car, very -little was said. Mrs. Gainsborough was at her request left on the -doorstep of a house, cinnamon-coloured like the Fultons’, at the corner -of a cinnamon-coloured square. Once safely on her own territory her -nervousness left her, and her smiles and genuine pleasure in the small -service rendered brought Teresa another fleeting vision of the joy she -perpetually sought. - - - - - CHAPTER IV - - -Mrs. Gainsborough soon returned the hospitality of Susie’s motor by -inviting her and Cyril to dinner. Her note was rambling and agitated -like her manner, and ended with a postscript, “Please bring one of your -daughters if she would care for it. Emma will be so pleased.” - -Evangeline and Teresa refused to have anything to do with it when the -letter came, but Cyril said with genuine terror to Teresa when his wife -had gone out of the room, “Dicky, you must come—promise me quick—but -don’t say anything about it——” - -“All right, of course,” she assured him, “but why?” - -“They’re all schoolmasters,” he explained in an undertone as Susie came -back. Nothing more was said until breakfast was over and then Teresa -plunged for her father’s sake. - -“Can I go to the Gainsboroughs’, after all, Mother?” - -“If you like, dear, but I thought you said just now——” - -“I know,” she interrupted, “but—I should like to see the University. I -think the Gainsborough girl would like it.” - -Mrs. Fulton looked suspiciously at her husband. He was filling his -cigarette case from a box on the mantelpiece, using unnecessary care to -fit them in properly. - -“Strickland should have done that for you, dear. Are you off now?” - -“Yes, presently,” he answered. “I’m not sure I can come to the -Gainsboroughs, Sue; we’ve some rather special business next week.” - -“I think we ought to get to know everybody as much as possible, Cyril, -if only for the sake of the girls. And the University are the most -interesting of all. If you knew what a pleasure it is to me to talk -about something besides wine and money now and then!” - -Cyril instantly threw diplomacy to the winds and began to enjoy himself, -standing with his back to the fire. “I don’t want to be a kill-joy,” he -replied, “but I learned more about those two subjects from old Wacks at -Cambridge than I ever have since from anybody. But he wasn’t married. I -daresay the female dons understand the use of the globes and all that. -By George! I remember their queer get-ups. Must have been some very deep -thinking that led to most of those marriages; which, after all, proves -your theory of the Higher mind. Let’s go, and take Dicky if she wants to -come,” he added with the boldness that often came to him suddenly after -hunting down one of his wife’s insincerities. - -By this time she felt nothing but an irritable longing to get him out of -the room. Through the whole of their married life he had amused himself -by making a cockshy of the sentiments which she presented to the world -as the expression of her thoughts. He often exaggerated her insincerity, -for the sentiments were as much her own as any other jewellery she might -have bought to adorn herself. She admired them quite as much as any she -could have originated. - -“One of the children will come, of course,” she said impatiently, “if -Mrs. Gainsborough really wants some young people. It is very kind of -her, for I don’t suppose you have the least idea how dull it is for -them, seeing nothing but soldiers and business people who have nothing -to talk about. The Gainsboroughs are probably teetotallers—in spite of -the set you mixed with at Cambridge and who had probably nothing to do -with the life there. Most clever people think very little about their -food. But you had better have your wine at the club before you start or -they will think there is something the matter with you. Isn’t the time -getting on? That clock is a little slow.” - -When the time for the party came it turned out to be less of a feast of -intellect than had been hoped and feared by the Fultons. In the first -place the Carpenters were there, because Mrs. Carpenter was as difficult -to keep out of any social gathering as was King Charles’s head from Mr. -Dick’s “Memorial.” If the festivity were a heavy duty for the cementing -of business connections, Mrs. Carpenter was invited to lighten the dough -of wealth with the ferment of culture. If it were a frivolous affair for -the benefit of the young and thoughtless, she was there with her -daughters. Hostesses included her as a precaution against any subsequent -rumour that the scene had been one of unbridled licence. “Really, my -dear—of course I wasn’t there so I can’t say, but I believe, etc.” If it -were an ordinary mixed dinner, town and gown, she must be there to make -things smooth between everybody; to interpose when Mrs. Alderman Snack -was talking to Professor Cameo about rabbits, and see that the -conversation was switched off at once on to his last book. She had read -it of course and was so anxious to contradict him on one point, the -condition of India before the mutiny. “My grandfather, you know, was -there as a subaltern and he always said he was _convinced_, etc.” “A -wonderful woman, Mrs. Carpenter,” everybody said. “She talks so well -upon anything.” - -Mrs. Gainsborough, being so very nervous as she was, of course had not -settled on a day to ask the new general and his wife until she had made -sure that the Carpenters would come. Mrs. Carpenter had therefore -consulted her little note-book and had chosen a day when she had only -one or two small committees and dear Amy’s dancing lesson to attend, so -that she would be “nice and fresh for the evening.” Poor Mr. Carpenter, -who was the overworked underwriter to an insurance company, was not -likely to be at all nice and fresh, even if he had a good twenty minutes -to dress after hurrying up from the office. He could be trusted to be -punctual, though, and would be quite up to a little educated chaff with -anyone of his own set—Mrs. Vachell or one of the Manleys—so long as he -hadn’t to tackle a stranger. He was, as it turned out, very happily -situated, as there were only the Vachells, and Mrs. Eric Manley and her -unmarried brother-in-law and two young men for Emma Gainsborough and -Teresa. One was David Varens, whose father, Sir Richard Varens, belonged -to a family that had owned land round Millport for three or four hundred -years. Sir Richard had given money and land to Millport University and -his son David had just left Oxford. It would never have done if Mrs. -Carpenter had not been there. - -The third unmarried man was Mr. Joseph Price, the son of Mr. Manley’s -partner. Eton and Cambridge had recently handed him back to the home -nest, which he was prepared, with the backing of the Liberal Party and -his father’s money, to re-line and generally bring up to date. The old -birds were to be furbished up and taught new songs; the young lady birds -from neighbouring nests were to be simply knocked off their perches, and -Londoners coming to Millport were to understand that Millshire was young -Mr. Price’s country seat and Millport was his little village where he -went to post his letters and chat to the Mayor at election time. You -could even buy things in the town now, he was told—quite fairly decent; -of course not clothes and all that, but groceries and gloves and that -sort of thing his mother found she could get there now. But the hotels -were pretty scandalous sort of places. What? I should say so. Lots of -churches though; some quite decent ones in the old part of the town if -you’re interested in glass and all that kind of thing. And good music -too; you ought to go to the concerts if music doesn’t bore you. There -was a fellow there the other day—what’s his name—came all the way from -Russia with a little handbag—he beat everyone else hollow—never heard -anything like it—thought his arm would come off. Abs’lutely wond’f’l. -You’ve heard him b’fur ’n town, ’f course? (I have burst into Mr. -Price’s way of speaking for a moment, but I cannot reproduce it -perfectly.) - -This was to Teresa, whom, owing to her father’s military position and -their having lived in London, he was treating with unusual effusiveness. -He knew Emma Gainsborough slightly and had made an honest effort to talk -to her. He always tried to keep close to the ideal manner at which he -aimed, the manner of the particular social pen through whose doors he -had been allowed to squeeze because of his politics and his father’s -money. He was already getting on very well with the manner, a sort of -mincingly polite way of speaking, with the vowels squeezed slowly out as -if through a confectioner’s icing tube, and laid along the sentence, or -else omitted altogether; the exact opposite to the broad flat tones of -his native habit. The natural rudeness of vanity was sugared over in -this way to just the “right” effect he sought; enthusiasm for this or -that “discovery,” indifference to anything tainted with popularity -unless some popular thing became discredited enough in time to make it -discoverable as a new taste. - -“Been doing very much lately?” he had asked Emma Gainsborough dutifully -before turning his attention to Teresa who was really his object of the -evening. “Seen anything new?” - -“No, I don’t think I have,” the poor girl replied, instantly ill at -ease. Mr. Price observed the effect he had made, and scored several -marks of superiority to himself; it made him feel good-natured. - -“Peewit’s brought out another book, I see,” he said, giving her another -chance. “’ve you read it?” - -“No,” said Emma, adding hurriedly, “I’m doing welfare just now and it -takes such an awful lot of time. I’m too sleepy to read after I’ve been -wading through statistics all day.” - -“Welfare? Let’s see—what’s that now?” asked Mr. Price. It might possibly -be something he ought to know about, though from the way Emma did her -hair he thought it unlikely. - -“Welfare? Oh, it is seeing about children—at least, my part is—finding -out things about them and seeing what happens to them and all that; I -can’t explain it, but I have been making records of imbeciles all -afternoon.” Emma was reckoned a humorist in the family circle and many -were the evenings when her father and mother went to bed exhausted by -their laughter over things noted by her with a delicacy of perception -few people would have suspected, Mr. Price less than any. His “Oh, I -see. Splendid work, I’m sure, but don’t you get tired of it?” was -followed by a minute’s horrid silence and then he devoted himself with a -clear conscience to Teresa in the way that has been described. - -Teresa’s attention was wandering to her father, who seemed to be doing -very well with Mrs. Gainsborough. She wondered what they were laughing -at. She caught up Mr. Price at his short pause after the Russian with -the handbag. - -“No, I didn’t see him,” she answered vaguely. “What was he doing? Was -there anything in the bag?” - -Mr. Price was not very pleased. “I don’t know. Pro’b’ly the last sponge -in Russia, what? Don’t you take almonds? I shall eat them all if you -don’t stop me. Oh, prihsless caat, what are you doing? come here and -talk to me——” He broke off as Mrs. Gainsborough’s blue persian stood up -beside him and, having pretended to extract three or four long thorns -from his leg, withdrew. - -“I don’t mind them one way or the other,” said Teresa, “but I want to -know something. Who is the man—the last at the end opposite—by my -mother?” - -“Mr. Vachell do you mean? Don’t you really know him? No, that’s -delightful. He’s simply won’f’l man—been digging, you know—Egypt—didn’t -you read about it? You ought to read the paper, you know. He’s our show -card. When I was up at Cambridge they were fairf’lly jealous that I knew -him. I told my tutor that I’d seen him once act’lly in pyjamas and he -became quite respectf’l and let me off a lot of lectures on the strength -of it. And then you live here and ask who he is——! That’s really great, -what? isn’t it? You’ve got to say something really brilliant now to make -up or I shall think you’ve taken to good works like all the dear people -here.” - -“Do you know you make me feel awfully queer,” said Teresa, looking at -him with puzzled interest. “What are you talking about really? I know -you answered my question, but what has all the rest to do with it? Why -should your tutor let you off lectures because you saw somebody who -lives here in pyjamas? I don’t understand a bit?” - -“Miss Fulton, it is quite time you left that silly boy and gave me a -little attention,” said Mr. Manley, whom Mrs. Vachell had neglected so -much that he had been keeping a friendly eye on Teresa. He liked the -young and had understood that she was not enjoying herself. He included -Mr. Price in what he said with a friendly smile and Teresa turned to him -gratefully. - -“I believe you are much more old-fashioned than you look,” he said to -her. “You were not getting on at all well. You didn’t mind my rudeness?” - -“No, I liked it,” she answered. “I have met Mrs. Manley heaps of times, -but I’ve never seen you nor your brother to talk to. I have noticed -since we came here that you may know people for quite a long time before -you are even sure that they have a husband. One has nothing to go by -sometimes except the hats in the hall.” - -“We come back sometimes to claim them, believe me,” said the old -gentleman. Teresa’s heart warmed towards him as the dinner went on. His -kindliness was real, untainted by any wish to shine or obtain credit. He -had the quick understanding of ideas half expressed, succeeding one -another like colour in changing light, which alone makes conversation -anything but a distorted image of what the mind sees. Questions come so -often from a curiosity that wishes to compare others with itself to its -own glorification. Each one that Mr. Price or Mrs. Carpenter asked had -that end in view. Mr. Manley enjoyed his game of give-and-take without -that ghostly referee to balance the score. Teresa began to understand -dimly how it was that what Strickland called “our leading families” -seemed to have been the pious founders of Millport in a way that no -Londoner’s ancestors can claim to have built their city. Millport was -the child of dead and gone Manleys; it was handed on by them to new -generations of themselves and of trusted friends who had watched over -the early days of its growth. Tutors, governors and servants were -appointed for the precious thing with that personal care that Teresa -found so puzzling in the words “duty to the city,” which recurred -constantly in public and in private. Afterwards in the drawing-room Mr. -Manley came to her again. - -“If you don’t go away and forget all our conversation,” he said, -“come to me and tell me what you want to do and I’ll show you how to -set about it. You’ll find my office hat in the hall on Saturday and -Sunday afternoons—and that’s the one I keep my ideas in. I’d like to -show you some pictures I’ve got of the old town as it was in my -great-great-grandfather’s time.” - - * * * * * - -I had meant to say a great deal about David Varens during this dinner -party. But Millport has proved too strong for him. It always must have -been and is now overpowering for the gentle, detached characters whose -strength is in enjoyment of the immediate thing that circumstances have -put in their way to be done as well as possible; people who accept -inherited comfort and adventitious pain equally, as it comes; who love -and hate by instinct without recognition of any outside interests to -modify their decision and who never go back on a verdict given by this -tribunal of taste. He is to be Teresa’s lover and therefore his first -words to her should have been recorded, also his appearance, his manner -and what they thought of each other. They should have begun at once with -definite sensations of like or dislike. But the truth is they hardly -exchanged a word. He sat on the other side of Emma Gainsborough and -shared with Mr. Price the miasma of her longing for the whole evening to -be over. He talked to her as well as he could, patiently and easily, in -spite of her stumbles into pitfalls of silence that the least presence -of mind should have taught her to avoid. He retrieved her each time -without effort and set her on her legs again, wondering what was the -matter with the poor girl, supposing she might feel the fire at her -back. He did once suggest drawing a screen further along behind her and -they talked for some minutes about the cold of Oxford Colleges, but she -didn’t seem any better for it so he gave it up. It is no use giving Mr. -Varens any more scope just now. He will turn up in his glory when the -time comes. - - - - - CHAPTER V - - -It did not need many months in Millport to convince Teresa that idleness -was not one of the snares of the city. She soon found that if any young -person of the leisured classes were to attempt to “drift” she would have -her aimless career brought to a standstill by some snag of “duty to the -city.” No one in London had ever reminded Teresa of her civic -responsibilities. On thinking it over one day after a particularly -strong dose of “duty to the city,” administered by Mrs. Carpenter, she -could not remember that the city of London and its chief magistrate had -ever laid any personal claim to her services. She tried to imagine any -such phrase as, “Have you seen the Mayor about it?” or, “What does -Alderman Teazle think?” occurring in her father’s conversation at his -club. It was impossible. In those days no one knew anything of her plans -or her wishes but what she told them; in Millport it seemed that the -very paving stones knew who was walking along and why, and that carrier -sparrows flitted from chimney to chimney with little messages of -information about everybody and an index of probable explanations for -their conduct—all dead certain to be wrong. - -Mrs. Carpenter had not trusted to the fowls of the air to inform the -Fultons that Millport intended them to do their duty. She gave them a -few weeks’ law, with full access to her own example. She never failed to -explain in the street, in the shop, in the ladies’ club, across the -family pew or on the platform that the fact of her being found where she -was would mean the loss of so many heart beats to the city’s life. She -would say, perhaps, “I ought not to be here, my dear, but I promised -dear Mabel Somebody this little treat just to buck her up after the new -arrival. Fancy! I was there just two hours before it happened, and my -waifs and strays waiting for a tin of biscuits I had promised them, and -Alderman McWhittock’s funeral at half-past two. I don’t know how I ever -got there—but now what are _you_ doing here? Up to the ears, I suppose, -getting ready for the dance next week. What it is to be young! though I -saw you resting like a wise girl at dear Emily’s party. The men are so -naughty now, aren’t they? They won’t dance—absolutely won’t—except with -their own old favourites. I always say to them now, ‘No, it’s no use. I -am here to rest my old bones and you have just got to look in all the -corners and pick out the plainest and dullest thing you can find and -send her home happy.’ I condoled with Emily because I know the -difficulties, and after all a dance must be a success if it is to be -worth all the trouble, mustn’t it? Now what church do you go to——?” etc. - -But Susie almost forestalled her remarks. She was there ready equipped -by instinct before the call to battle came. Mrs. Carpenter didn’t know -what to think of it. It is said that birds of prey have their own -allotted beats and do not poach on their neighbours’ quarry; but they -arrive, warned by some secret telegraphy wherever there is a vacancy and -a corpse. Susie had evidently sensed the prevailing occupation of -Millport and had descended out of the blue to fill a gap among the -leaders of good works. She could not be said to “take an active part” in -anything, because that was against her nature, but her name was soon in -everybody’s mouth as a member of all the chief committees of private -enterprises. Strangely shaped gentlemen in black used to call on her -between meals with papers and she listened to them with her gentle smile -of the mother was has suffered all things; she recognised them instantly -when she saw them again and remembered with which particular good work -they were connected; and that is really quite enough, as she herself -would have said. Ladies with grown-up daughters, who are obliged to -entertain a great deal and who have no head for organisation and so on, -ought to leave the running about to those who will do it so much better; -what the workers need is sympathy. - -Evangeline and Teresa, being newcomers from a careless place of comfort, -were particularly susceptible to the unfamiliar poison of depression for -which there seemed no cure. The mud, the damp, the ugly streets, and -indignant, tired faces, the grudging service of the working classes, the -self consciousness of the well-to-do who walked everywhere in the -limelight of recognition, the sharp division between those who thought -everything was all right because they were comfortable and those who -thought everything was all wrong because they weren’t—all this made the -girls restless. - -A vision of Hyde Park Corner on a sunny day used to haunt Evangeline’s -mind. She contrasted the space of it, the blue sky, the -buildings—“polite buildings” was the description that came to her as she -recalled their appearance, perfectly groomed, keeping their private life -absolutely to themselves. She felt a sudden hatred for the rows of pert -little dwellings that she saw all round; “brick trimmings!” she thought -with disgust as her eye fell on the oblongs and stars and cubes inlaid -in musty red on a background of livid ginger. There was nothing polite -about them; they seemed positively loquacious about themselves and their -trimmings and the nice people that lived in them. Horrid houses, she -thought. - -Teresa, though she did not know it, was distilling for herself a sort of -love potion from the drabness and hostility. As she once said to her -sister, the smells and the mysterious purpose behind the faces in the -fog intoxicated her. All that she knew about what she felt was that an -insistent passion was dragging her towards some end that she could not -see. The interest that she found in her conversations with Strickland -gave her a clue towards the direction from which knowledge of her desire -was coming to her, and gave her relief from the excitement at the same -time because Strickland had no grievance against society; she only -disliked people—ladies especially—talking “through their hats” about -work. For instance, she did not mind Cyril or Teresa being untidy, -because “it was their place to leave things about” and she was paid to -look after them. They never referred to her duties nor seemed to think -about them. Mrs. Carpenter and Susie implied by their manner that they -were selected by Providence to lead comfortable lives for the reason -that every one of their common attributes of humanity, such as their -legs and their brains, were of such superior quality that their births, -their lives and their deaths must not be confused with similar -occurrences in other houses. Work! Of course they knew all about work! -Did they not exhaust themselves in explaining how early rising and -attention to detail actually saves labour? If you clean a room -thoroughly every day there is no need to turn it out once a fortnight; -if you clear up as you go, wipe the plates with paper and burn it -directly to avoid clogging the sink, and if you wear gloves for the -roughest work and put glycerine on the hands after washing, there should -be at least two clear hours in the afternoon for mending stockings or -even making clothes. That was the point where Strickland became “horn -mad,” as she said. “I’d sooner earn me money by being starved and -scolded as me mother was,” she declared, “than have it explained that -there’s nothing to complain of. I’d rather have it all wrong and keep my -liberty to object.” - -“But Strickland,” Teresa interrupted, “don’t you remember when you first -came you said you wouldn’t be blasted by father and you were going to -leave?” - -“Yes,” she replied, “and so I should have if he had made out, as some -do, that it was all a misunderstanding. But when I saw that it was just -his way, as you said, and he wasn’t aware of it, you will understand -that it was no business of mine and I didn’t object. There’s never -anything personal about the General’s language, I will say that for him. -It seems it’s his nature, like my brother.” - -She took no notice of Evangeline, neither liked nor disliked her. “She’s -a young lady that will marry,” she observed, “and change her servants -and not notice who comes and goes nor how the work is done. She won’t -make much of a house, but no doubt she’ll keep a housekeeper and not -notice how the money goes. She’ll always be a favourite with the -gentlemen. My brother’s wife is like that. You never saw such a -house—and the mess! I often tidy it all up for her and it’s all the same -next day. And yet he thinks the world of her and keeps out of the public -house so as he can take her about. And my cousin Gladys is just the -opposite; everything tidy and as it should be, but she’ll talk, talk, -talk the whole day, pointing out what she’s done; and her husband has -taken to drink; he can’t stand it, he says.” - -Strickland was right. Evangeline was already proving her capacity for -being a favourite with the gentlemen by penetrating, one by one, Captain -Hatton’s well-ordered defences. Being her father’s A.D.C. he was, as he -had warned them on the first morning, so much about the house that he -preferred they should not notice him; but then as Cyril counter-warned -him, “they were a damned noticing family.” - -Captain Evan Hatton had always been shy of women because as a -passionately serious little boy he had been for ever baited by a pair of -lively young sisters. They meant not an atom of harm, but neither were -they at all interested in abstract goodness, which together with -mechanisms of any kind were Evan’s consolation for the trials of family -life. He wanted with all his soul to know what made wheels (including -those of the Universe) go round. Nature, which he admired, completely -outwitted him there and he developed towards the Maker of the Universe -the passionate respect of pertinacious inquiry incessantly baffled. He -succeeded in finding out from time to time the elementary rules -governing earthly wheels, but the vastness of the world (as he had -glimpses of it through the life of his tame rabbits, the beauties of a -well-kept garden, geography lessons and the upheaval of his own mind), -kept him in a ceaseless ferment of questioning. The most industrious -organ must rest sometimes; so at about fifteen years old he admitted -himself beaten by the Higher Inquiry. He rested his poor mind in worship -of that which he had questioned in vain, and concentrated his efforts on -wheels which could be explained by those who made them. His sisters -thought all this very funny indeed. They themselves approved of the -Universe as a first-rate place to live in; it looked so charming, with -hills and fields and woods all of nice colours. Winter, spring, summer -and autumn were all nice in their way and could not be improved. The -idea of tropical storms and polar silence and danger made it seem all -the more cosy in England. Machinery was a delightful invention and they -were glad it had been discovered, because it brought all sorts of -comfort within reach and gave one’s brothers something suitable to do. -They did laugh sometimes when Evan took a really good thing to pieces -and couldn’t put it together again or when he got in such a bait about -Emily giggling at the missionary. When the war broke out they stopped -laughing at him at first. He was suddenly lifted in their estimation -from the position of a dear, ridiculous creature to that of “our brother -in France,” a god among Olympians—“while we have got to stick at home.” -They worked creditably and humbly at home and when he came back they -forgot his ribbons in the agitating question whether Emily’s cooking -would still do or whether they ought not to scrape up £50 somehow and -get that kitchenmaid who was leaving the club. - -When they began to get used to having him at home again they noticed -that what had been only serious attention to rectitude in the old days -now burned hot in him as passionate morality. They were good girls, -secured from evil, if he had known it, by their happy natures. They -would have thought it very silly to let a man kiss them unless he were -an accepted lover, properly engaged; because where would be the point in -being scrubbed by a hairy face; unless it were one of the poor darling -boys leaving Victoria, and then of course one would hug any stranger. -That is enough. We know the girls quite well now. There is nothing at -all the matter with them, quite the contrary. But their brother’s heavy -sense of responsibility for their souls was as much wasted as if he had -been Joan of Arc hiding an unexpurgated edition of Shakespeare from the -cat. All the mistakes he had made about his sisters he repeated with -every woman he met afterwards. He was wrong every time because the -attention he gave to their conversation was of the same kind as he would -have given to a machine that didn’t interest him—if any such machine -could be imagined—a musical box perhaps. Now everyone knows what happens -to even the cheapest fiddle, still more to a bird, if its music is -courted in that way. His sisters saved him from disaster by affectionate -amusement that asked nothing of him. He offended a great many other -women, but, to return to the simile of the fiddle, their discords meant -as little to him as their harmonies, so he learned nothing from his -failures. - -Then suddenly fate confronted him with Evangeline, who also wanted to -know how wheels went round and—oh, the poor fellow! my heart bleeds for -him—the wheels she was interested in were those of love and creation and -human nature; and poor industrious Hatton, who only wished for -righteousness and good machines, was put into her hands to take to -pieces. It is, as has often been observed, a cruel world in many ways. - -Evangeline’s mother had also been on the track of true love in her -youth; her story has been written. But a world of difference lay between -them, for Susie had wanted to possess love and had studied to be all -things to all men to gain it, giving nothing in return; her daughter -wanted it in order to give it away, as another lavish nature might ask -for wealth to spend. - -“Captain Hatton is less like an umbrella than he used to be, don’t you -think?” she said one day to Teresa as they walked home through the Park. -“When I go riding with him he often stops being polite and tells me -about the tanks. Yesterday he told me about men out at the war who had -visions. You’d never think he was that sort of man, would you?” - -“I never think much about him,” said Teresa, “I just think of him as a -table that Father has brought in to work at.” - -“I know he doesn’t talk to everyone,” said Evangeline proudly. “He never -talked to his sisters.” - -“Well, what do you do to him?” Teresa asked. - -“I don’t know. I just went on bravely and wouldn’t be put down. I was -sure there must be something somewhere and I wanted to know what it was. -He has a wonderful face, if you look at it. His eyes look so suffering -sometimes, like something in a cage. I was sure he couldn’t be all ribs -and the best waterproof twill really. I said to him once at the Manleys’ -dance, when we were sitting out,” she went on after a pause, “‘You know -we can’t always go on pretending that you are a pair of trousers and a -coat and I am a bag with flounces propped up on two chairs. I’m a person -and so are you. We must have heaps and heaps of things to talk about. -Do, for goodness’ sake, let one of us go ahead’—I really worked myself -up. I felt I just would smash into that propriety.” - -“And what happened?” her sister asked. - -“He got red at first and didn’t answer and I got awfully frightened. -Then he said in quite a natural voice, ‘If you will behave just as you -like I will try not to put you off. It is very kind of you to trouble -about me.’ Rather as if I were a dog that he had been asked to exercise. -However it was a beginning, and now he starts off by himself. I think -the great thing is that he doesn’t regard me as a girl.” - -“What does he think you are, then?” - -“I don’t know. A sort of inferior Tommy I should think; uneducated but -harmless, and quite useless. I might be his batman, marooned with him in -a desert full of baboons.” - -“It sounds very unlikely,” said Teresa. “You have a very muddled head, -Chips, and you read such a lot of scraps that I believe it makes you -worse; but you explain yourself quite clearly. I shall be interested -to-morrow when I see that stuffed back at the breakfast table. Father -would be amused.” - -“You are not to tell him,” said Evangeline quickly. - -“I’m not going to. At least I might have if you hadn’t told me not to. -Why don’t you want him to know that his man is nicer than we thought?” - -“I don’t know, except that I discovered him and I don’t want to show him -to people; he’s not nearly ready. And besides, he is like having a -sitting-room of my own. I like a retreat that no one else knows the way -to.” - - * * * * * - -“Is Hatton in the house by any chance?” Cyril asked one day when he came -in to tea. - -“I don’t know at all, dear,” said Susie. “I should think very likely; he -generally is.” - -“He’s helping Chips to wash Tricot in the bathroom,” said Teresa. - -Cyril stopped in the act of filling his pipe. “H’m,” he remarked. -“Hereditary instinct, I suppose. Poor fellow.” - -“I know by your face that you mean something unkind, Cyril,” said his -wife, “but I don’t see how even you can make out that there can be -anything hereditary about washing a dog.” - -“Not if there’s only one person to do it,” he replied. He was holding a -match to the tobacco and went on explaining between puffs. “But when -Hatton, who is a nervous fellow—begins washing poodles with your -daughter—your own little girl—who isn’t generally fond of work—I seem to -see the young Eve adorning herself with the leaf of experiment just as -Mother did. Have you ever seen a young chicken begin to scratch the -moment it leaves the egg? It isn’t imitation, because it does it just -the same if it is raised in an incubator.” - -Teresa looked anxiously amused as a mother does whose favourite child is -not behaving well in a drawing-room, but Mrs. Fulton was smarting under -old sores. She said coldly, “Perhaps you would finish washing Tricot, -dear Dicky. You had better tell Captain Hatton that your father wants -him.” - -“Don’t be silly,” said Cyril. “I don’t want him. I told him there was -nothing for him to do this afternoon and as I didn’t see him at the Polo -ground and found his hat in the hall when I came in I remembered the -story of Adam and thought I’d ask, that’s all.” - -Teresa had gone out while he was speaking. - -“May I ask if you never want the girls to marry?” Susie asked. - -“Lord, no, I don’t care,” he replied, “but what’s that got to do with -Hatton? I was only joking. I suppose he knows all about washing dogs. I -expect he likes it. And Chips doesn’t know the business as well as you, -Sue; she won’t construe a wag of the tail into an offer of marriage. -Hatton is a very upright man. He’d probably consult you first and lay -out his plans on paper in the approved style.” - -“Well, if he did I’m sure I don’t know what I should say,” she answered -thoughtfully. Cyril had once explained to a bewildered friend, “The -great charm of an argument with Sue is that you never know which part of -a conversation she will choose to take the trick with. You may find that -the only lie you have told for years is used as an ace.” - -“I mean,” she went on, “that I don’t think Evangeline ought to be -encouraged to act hastily. I like Mr. Varens so much better than Evan -Hatton. He will probably come into his father’s place very soon.” - -“Great Scott!” exclaimed Cyril, really startled at last. “Has Varens -asked her after dining here once? What in heaven’s name possesses the -poor devils! But I oughtn’t to talk I suppose.” - -“Don’t be so absurd, Cyril. I never said he had proposed to her. I only -meant that she hadn’t had time to consider him.” - -“What do you mean, ‘consider him?’” - -“I merely took Mr. Varens as an instance. I don’t want her to be pushed -into liking Evan Hatton just because she hasn’t had time to think of any -other. Ill-considered marriages are often so regrettable.” - -“If I were a woman,” said Cyril, “I should say that I didn’t know -whether to laugh or cry at the things you say. Unlace me, Emmeline, and -give me some more tea—have you got any?” He passed his cup. - -“But do you see what I mean, Cyril?” she persisted. - -“Oh, I see all right,” he replied. “My eye wants shading if anything; -it’s positively dazzling, the light that you throw on matters of the -heart. It’s a pity you never met Darwin. He wrote on natural selection, -but I’m not sure that he mastered the subject. You might——” He stopped -as the door opened and Evangeline came in with Captain Hatton. - -Evan glanced at his general, who was peacefully sunk in an armchair, -playing with the cat. Tricot, the poodle, followed into the room and -walked about shaking himself restlessly as if he missed something. - -“That’s all right, old Tricot,” said Cyril. “Come here and talk to -Pussy; she’s your friend.” - -Tricot came in innocent confidence, and the usual recriminations between -him and the cat began. - -“It is funny, if you notice, that dogs are all for love and cats all for -marriage,” said Cyril thoughtfully, “and the two together are always -chosen to represent domestic life—at least the ill-considered domestic -life that you were talking about, Sue. I suppose it’s handed on for -generations.” - -Evan Hatton did not hear. He was at the window with Evangeline, trying -to make her understand the principle of a magneto. “Here’s Emma coming,” -she announced presently from the window. “She’s getting off the tram. Do -you want her, Dicky?” - -“I’m going out with her,” Teresa answered. “She said she would come.” - -“Where on earth to at this time?” - -“She has got a place where children go after school; she said she would -take me.” - -“I do wish she wouldn’t wear that hat,” Evangeline said critically, -watching Emma as she came up the garden path. “I wonder where good -milliners go to when they die. They never seem to mix with good people -in this world.” - -Captain Hatton’s face reddened and he turned away from the window. - -“What’s the matter?” asked Evangeline. “Are you going?” - -“Yes,” he answered shortly and then he said good-bye and left the room. -He nearly ran into Emma in the hall, so great was his haste and his -preoccupation. “I beg your pardon,” he apologised. “How could I have -been so stupid. Did I knock your hat?” for she had put up her hand to -straighten it. - -“Captain Hatton!” Evangeline called over the banisters, “are you coming -riding before breakfast to-morrow?” - -“If you wish me to,” he answered unsteadily and waited for a moment -while Emma ran upstairs. But Evangeline only replied, “All right, eight -o’clock then,” and disappeared, and he heard the girls’ laughter in the -drawing-room. He let himself out and spent the evening and most of the -night walking along the sea shore. - -“That’s an unlucky hat of yours, Emma,” said Evangeline when she went -back to the drawing-room. “I believe there’s a devil in it. We had one -row about it before you came up.” She went off singing. - -Teresa’s elusive desire had begun to show itself openly to her since she -met Emma Gainsborough. She had been allowed at last behind the curtain -where the faces that haunted her in the streets were no longer imaginary -characters in a scene at which she looked on as a spectator. She began -to know individual Tommys and Gordons and Gladyses and Victorias, Mrs. -Potter and Mrs. Jason; to understand why Mr. Potter was out of work and -what it meant to half-a-dozen lives when Mr. Jason brought home only a -fraction of his earnings. She saw disease for the first time. She met -pleasure and wit and obscenity and tragedy jostling familiarly together -without prejudice or distinction, engendered by all possible unions of -hunger, love, jealousy, optimism, sensuality, pride, gentleness, -patience, brutality, callousness, kindness, ambition, hopelessness, -fidelity, in all possible conditions of filth or heartrending strife -with squalor; intelligence burning indomitably in fogs of prejudice and -lies and stupidity. She had torn the veil which the faces in the street -seemed to draw down between Mrs. Carpenter’s “duty to the city” and some -vital secret that the city kept to itself. The passionate love of -fellowship that had tormented her with its insistence and eluded her by -its formlessness had taken shape in the places that Emma and her leaders -were patiently trying to remake, and now she thought of little else. - - - - - CHAPTER VI - - -If Evangeline’s campaign against Evan Hatton’s prejudices had been a -public war, the supporters of either side would have seen that the end -was now drawing near. Optimists among the Evangelineites would have -rubbed their hands and said that she had got the forces of his harsh -morality fairly on the run; the pessimists would have prophesied (though -admitting Evangeline’s strength) that the struggle would break out again -as soon as peace was signed. The Evanites would either have declared -that Morality was going to the dogs and was being sold by Self-interest -and Pleasure, or they would have prepared to retreat, still fighting, to -the height of “A Strong Man’s Influence,” and determined to reorganise -for a new offensive when the enemy should be weakened by marriage. - -An important battle took place during the ride that Evangeline had -arranged, when Evan retreated after her flippancy on the subject of dead -milliners. He called for her and brought her horse from the livery -stable at eight the next morning, and they rode away in that state of -silent tension which precedes an explanation when two people who care -for each other have parted in offence. Evangeline tried hard to make him -“start talking by himself,” as she had boasted to Teresa that he was now -in the habit of doing. She tempted him with proof that she had absorbed -his lecture on the magneto and was mistress of its difficulties. She -threw him touching confidences about her plans in little everyday -matters. But all in vain. At last her temper rose slightly. - -“What is the matter with you?” she asked. “Are you angry with me?” - -“I have no right to be angry with you,” he answered with emotion, “but I -don’t understand you, and yet I know that you are good and could be -great. Why do you pretend to be like the others and say things that are -unworthy of you?” - -Evangeline was overawed. “What things?” she asked timidly. - -“It was a silly trifle, and I know I am a fool—but it made me hot—what -you said about good milliners not associating with good people in this -world. Emma Gainsborough is giving her life to God’s work as readily as -the saints gave theirs—she’s a Crusader if you like—and you make paltry -fun of her hat. There now! I suppose you won’t speak to me again.” - -“Yes, I shall,” said Evangeline. “If you will not shut yourself up into -that dreadful silence you may say anything—absolutely anything. You make -me see such a long way when you talk. I read the papers by myself and -get into such knots because I can’t see any connection between different -things. But when you hurl me about from Emma’s hat to the Crusaders, who -I thought were people who fought in nightgowns and red crosses with a -feather in their helmets and defeated the heathen—why—let me see, where -am I?—well you see how exhilarating it is! I feel as if my mind had been -galloping miles in the fresh air in new places.” - -“Great heavens, what a child you are!” he said, looking at her in -wonderment. Then he smiled and held out his hand. “I’m sorry,” he said. - -Evangeline shook it heartily. “So am I,” she assured him. “And will you -show me how to take the car to pieces next time Father lets you off?” - -“Nonsense, he won’t want it taken to pieces,” said Evan. “What’s the -good of that?” - -“Just to see the wheels,” she begged. “And then I should be so useful if -anything went wrong.” - -“No, you haven’t got any mechanical sense,” he argued. “I can see that. -You understand a theory when I tell it you, but when it comes to putting -it into practice you don’t think a bit. I’ve watched you learning to -drive; you do it all by the book.” - -“Well, what should I do it by?” she asked. - -“Common sense and a thorough knowledge of the reason for everything. The -fact that any part of a machine does so-and-so isn’t enough; you must -know why, and what will be the result if it doesn’t act, and then you -must treat it so that it will act.” - -“Oh, dear,” she said. “There’s the sun coming out! Let’s gallop while -there is grass.” - -It is superfluous to follow this love episode any further. I have met -ladies who are always passionately anxious to know “what he said” when a -girl announces her engagement, and who need no encouragement to tell in -return “how John did it.” But I am all against emotional indecency, and -unless any private conversations in this book have to be recorded in the -interests of research, or are betrayed by the genial indiscretions of -sympathy, they will be omitted. Evan is the last person who would wish -anything to be said of him in that moment when Nature, who had always -laughed at his attempts to make her acknowledge the sovereignty of such -Divine Rule as he was able to imagine, pushed Evangeline into his arms -and commanded him to take her or suffer the pains of hell. - -He saw no reason to refuse. But the end was not yet, though it had -become inevitable. Evan had reserves. Evangeline’s gallant forces had a -tough time of it before they won. Suspicion was the hardest to beat -down; Evan’s sisters had helped to make that so strong. He reviewed his -bonny black doubts every day, and led them out against Evangeline’s -joys. But there was all the difference in the world between his sisters’ -cheerfulness and hers. Their pleasure in life was that of mice in a -granary, hers was that of a rush of invaders over a rich country; she -wanted all there was. Her assurance that God loves His world was -invincible. Evan’s doubts suffered casualties that put them out of -action; but for a happy marriage they should all have been dead. The -smallest remnant of a strong army is dangerous. - -These battles went on unobserved by Cyril. Susie noticed and said -nothing, because she knew that unasked advice to a girl precipitates a -crisis, and she hoped in secret that Evangeline loved her freedom too -much to do what her mother would call “anything rash,” such as binding -herself in marriage before she had reviewed all likely candidates. As -weeks went on she became more anxious. There was a look of settled -happiness about Evangeline that was not what you would expect of a young -girl, Susie said to herself. It is a mistake to wear the heart on the -sleeve. One of the great joys of her own girlhood had been the security -of living behind a veil of misty sweetness that allowed the public free -scope for their imagination of what might be behind it and yet committed -her to nothing. Misunderstandings had arisen in that way but she had not -suffered and those who had done so had only their own imaginations to -blame. She still made use of the veil, and the only person who made her -feel nervous about it was Cyril. He had the knack of twitching it away, -and never tired of the joke, which seemed to compensate him for the -nothingness he exposed. In one way only, her disappointment about -Evangeline’s choice was a good thing to her. She felt it as a revenge on -her husband for his cynicism about women and the jibes he aimed at her -about their duplicity towards men. “Perhaps he will see now,” she said -to herself—her very soul bridling at the Spirit of Man—“that they do -need protection after all. If he really cared for her I could have -discussed it with him and he could have got another A.D.C. until this -had blown over. As it is, it must just go on, and I can’t prevent -it—with the man here all day while the sons of rich people are sitting -on office stools, shuffling oats and sugar through their fingers. Why -can’t some of them come and ride with her and show her their motors? And -I suppose Dicky will marry a rent collector with a wooden leg, or a -socialist who stands on a chair and wants to take away our money.” Her -thoughts wandered into all sorts of bitter possibilities, not at all in -keeping with the maxim that “if everyone were happy and contented -everything would come right,” which she brought in so delightfully at -Mrs. Carpenter’s little informal conferences on social reform. “Mrs. -Fulton is so original in what she says,” was a remark constantly made. -But true it was that she thought differently at the moment. -Circumstances alter cases, as she so often said. - -Because of this grievance of hers against him, Cyril was not told of her -fears, and in due time Evangeline’s battle was won. Evan frowned on the -tattered remnant of his doubts and bade them go home. He went in, his -heart stumbling and stopping, to the study where Cyril was asleep after -a day’s hunting, and shut the door. - -Cyril came down early before dinner, and found Evangeline reading the -evening paper in the drawing-room. - -“Hullo,” he said. - -“Hullo, dear,” she replied, and went on reading. - -“So you and Hatton have fixed it up,” he began. Evangeline put down the -paper, and looked up at him. - -“Is that all right?” she asked. “You’re not cross, are you?” - -“No, I’m not cross, my dear,” he said, as if he were thinking of -something else. “I suppose you wouldn’t tell me any more, would you? Why -you really want him, for instance.” - -“Yes, I would, of course,” she answered readily. “I’d tell you -anything—though that’s not true, because I told Dicky weeks ago that he -was getting—oh well, you know—quite tame—and she thought you would be -pleased, but I wouldn’t let her tell you because—I didn’t want to spoil -it.” - -“H’m,” said Cyril. - -“I mean I liked feeling that none of you knew him properly.” - -“H’m,” said Cyril again. - -“Well, what’s the matter?” - -“A powerful apple,” he observed. “Power, my dear child, power.” - -“Oh, Father,” she sighed, “you’re not going on again about that dreadful -old Eden, are you? I do wish no one had ever told you the story. You -think women are always tempting men to this day.” - -“So they are when it comes to marriage,” he asserted. “Don’t you make -any mistake about that.” - -Evangeline felt desperate, as if she were caught and entangled. “Do you -mean that men never fall in love with them?” Tears gathered in her eyes. -She had had some weary work at the last stand of Hatton’s doubts, and -now her father, whom she loved and believed in as a friend, was going to -take the top off the morning of her happiness. - -Cyril understood and repented. “No,” he said, “Hatton loves you—but——” -he looked at her inquiring face and decided to revise what he was going -to say. “Have you ever heard of spontaneous combustion? It’s a -troublesome thing, but I should have more faith in your sex if they -suffered from it in their emotions. They think too hard for my taste. -But that’s all. Hatton is the devil of a hard thinker himself, so you -had better leave him to scratch his head, and say, ‘yes, dear,’ like -your mother does when I give her the benefit of my wisdom. Then all you -need is to go out and do just the opposite, and say afterwards that that -was what you thought he meant. Don’t incense him at the time, is the -great thing. ‘The Housewife’s Vade Mecum,’ as I read somewhere, or -‘Little Polly’s first steps in efficiency’.” He kissed her on his way -across the room to turn on some more light. “Just to wish you luck, -dear, and to show there’s no ill-feeling.” - -He returned to the fire and drew up a chair. “I’m in favour of marriage -for all, myself,” he went on, “young and old, rich and poor, never mind -the reason, but get on with the event itself. The advent of little ones -is, after all, the only thing that matters, as your mother explained to -me. And that was you, Chips. There was a devil of a row before you -turned up.” - -“Oh, did you and Mother quarrel?” she asked, very much surprised. - -“You can’t call a one-sided thing exactly a quarrel,” he said. “No one -but a man could quarrel with me.” - -“Couldn’t they?” she asked. - -“No. But your mother is very powerful in the way I was describing;——” - -Susie came in just then. Cyril had told her while they were dressing -that Evan had “put in a claim as consort for Chips; which just bears out -what I said this style of architecture would lead to when we came; -except that he isn’t wealthy. In fact, he has very little except his -pay.” - -Susie took the line that this was “all that could be expected in a place -where people think so much of money that they never leave their offices -till it is time to go to bed.” - -“That ought to make them all the more anxious to marry,” he remarked, -“or else how can they enjoy any intellectual conversation?” - -“Of course you will twist everything I say to a coarse standpoint, -Cyril,” she said, “because those sort of cheap jokes are so easy to -make.” - -“Where’s the joke?” he asked, putting on his coat. “‘Honi soit qui mal y -pense,’ as the leaders of taste remind us.” - -Susie made no answer, but closed the door between their rooms, and she -did not go down until dinner was announced. - - - - - CHAPTER VII - - -Among the people who called on Susie from Mr. Price’s Paradise, the -county, was Lady Varens, David Varens’s stepmother. Sir Richard and -Cyril were admirably suited to one another because the old man was a -sportsman by nature and practice. He had had an adventurous youth and -“mercifully,” as Cyril said, “forgotten the details.” Then, on his -father’s death, he came back to Millshire and managed the estate with -the same thoroughness that had brought him success in less peaceful -enterprises. He married first a guest of one of his hunting neighbours. -She was lying unconscious on a bank, with her horse grazing beside her, -when he saw her for the first time; and when he had brought her round -and taken her home and called every other day to ask how she was it -seemed natural to regard her as his own property. She died when David -was nine, and Sir Richard married, two years afterwards, a lady whom he -thought to have been unjustly divorced from a drunken old peer who had -married her from the schoolroom. - -She was good to David and kept her own counsel, so Millshire allowed her -to carry on the tradition of Varens hospitality; in fact there was an -extra piquancy about her parties owing to the opportunity they gave for -a little private skeleton hunting among intimate friends. Towards the -following Christmas, while Evangeline was staying with Evan’s sisters, -Sir Richard invited Cyril to take a day or two’s hunting with him and -stay over the week-end. Lady Varens hoped that Mrs. Fulton would come -too, and bring her daughter, to hunt or not, as she liked. Evangeline -being away, Teresa was torn from her heart’s delight, the alleys, the -rotting garrets and the dingy clubs where she groped all day for the -scattered remnant of what seemed to her the lost birthright of the -bottom class, their right to the fellowship of common desires and tastes -with the people who filled her mother’s drawing-room. - -“What is the good of this eternal talk about all men being able to reach -any position they are fitted for, if, when you come across the most -lovable people in that class, you can hardly bear to sit with them for -five minutes because of smells and anxieties and habits that shut them -off like a cage that they didn’t make themselves and can’t get out of?” -she asked Emma Gainsborough. - -“We are trying to get them out,” said Emma. - -“I know,” Teresa answered, “but I don’t see how you can unless you kill -Mrs. Carpenter.” She and Mrs. Carpenter had perhaps the same end in view -when they worked among the dismal crowds that swarmed in the mud and -hideousness of the poorer quarters, but to the casual observer it looked -as though the “charity ladies,” as Strickland called them, were under -the impression that in their promotion of health and virtue they were -pressing something new on somebody who had never heard of it, while -Teresa hoped to restore a treasure that had been lost by past -generations. - -Her own experience was showing her that the cage door gives way before -devotees who will suffer the violation of everything that makes life -sweet to them for the sake of what they hold dearer, and she also -learned the freemasonry of hard work; the point where she stuck was the -apparent impossibility of ever bridging the gulf between Mrs. Carpenter -and Mrs. Potter. How to wean Mrs. Carpenter from the idea that the -social order was all right because she was on the bright side of it, and -at the same time convince Mrs. Potter that it was not all wrong because -she was on the dark one? As one of Emma’s friends pointed out, twenty -centuries had passed since the only serious attempt had been made to -bring about an understanding between the ancestors of those two -irreconcilable ladies. The best spiritual engineering had been carried -on ever since along the lines then laid down; communications had been -devised and traffic of a sort carried on. But as soon as Mrs. Potter -advanced a little and caught sight of Mrs. Carpenter and went for her, -bald-headed, and when Mrs. Carpenter sailed along from her end of the -bridge and then sat down and sang to Mrs. Potter——. I must stop this -allegory or the reader will break down in tears of perplexity and -perhaps send the book straight back to the library; unless he has -himself lived for a time miserably wedged between the philanthropists -and the slums of a city. - -To get on with the story. Teresa was, as I have said, torn from her -absorbing occupation and compelled to go with her father and mother to -be the Varens’ guest at Aldwych Court. - -I believe there is no place so comfortable to stay in as an English -country house belonging to a good hostess. The luxury of dressing in any -part of her room without the penalty of gooseflesh; the deep, scented -bath and warm towel three feet square; the rich, dry fluffiness under -foot, and the cup of tea afterwards, brought by a maid who seemed to -have nothing else to do, banished all visions of Mrs. Potter to such a -remote corner of Teresa’s consciousness that when she did remember her -again the recollection had no more sting than a bad dream. She ate her -dinner, served by willing men and women who performed their duties like -priests of Isis, instead of, as dear Strickland did, giving her the -uneasy feeling that one course would have been quite enough if ladies -were not so greedy. She had observed sometimes to Evangeline that -Millport maids treated their mistresses as if they were parrots whose -dirty cages had to be cleaned out, and whom it “took up people’s time” -to feed. - -David Varens is to play his part on the stage now, but there is to be no -sudden change in the music to waltz time, nor cries of the villagers, -“But here comes the Prince! Gay and dancing, bright and prancing, sing -we now our welcome,” nor will the light fade and moon children glide out -from under trees and sit upon their mushrooms while he sings, “Queen of -the dusk and lodestar of my dreams.” He comes on like Cyril’s -millionaire, “walking quite unaffectedly” among a number of ordinary -people. It was not until Teresa and her mother went away on Monday that -she began seriously to prefer him to Mrs. Potter. It may be difficult -for anyone who is unacquainted with the love of Beauty for the Beast to -understand what a disappointment it was to her to find that her heart -had betrayed her and was transferring its allegiance to a normal object. -It was something between childish terror of the sea and the remorse of a -pilgrim whose prayers have grown cold that followed on the joy his -presence gave her. “How happy I am,” she thought, and then, as a ghostly -voice demanded the truth, she added, “and I don’t care a hang what Mrs. -Potter is doing.” - -There were other people staying in the house, but she did not notice -them and no more need we. Lady Varens and Susie talked and knitted and -drove, and Lady Varens liked Susie, because it was impossible not to on -a slight acquaintance, and Susie liked Lady Varens because there was -mystery about her and she had great charm, with her soft eyes that saw -much and told nothing, and her sensitive mouth whose utterances led to -conversation, but also told nothing. Susie admired in her the ideal -woman, and “we are so much alike” was what she chiefly thought of her. -Cyril enjoyed his hunting and sat up late in the smoking-room. - -“I hope you will come and see us, Mr. Varens,” said Susie before they -left. “Your mother, I know, hardly ever leaves this lovely place, and no -more should I if it were mine. But I know you do come into town -sometimes. We can always give you lunch and it will be such a change to -hear about the beautiful country things in the middle of all our -ugliness; I never get used to it. I shall be so anxious to hear whether -that dear black cow gets all right again. Cows are such mothers, you -know; one feels so sorry for them having to be parted from those sweet -calves. You are going to manage the estate now, Sir Richard told me. How -delightful that will be, and what a saving of anxiety to him.” - -“Yes,” said David, “I come in two or three times a week to the -University. Perhaps you would let me come one of those days, may I? -Thanks very much.” - -He took Teresa through the woods that morning. She said less than usual, -and presently he noticed this. “You look worried,” he remarked. “Is -anything wrong?” - -“I don’t know that you can call it wrong,” she answered, “but I feel -almost sick at the thought of going back to Emma Gainsborough and her -office. It doesn’t seem any use from here. I was bent on teaching music -to Albert Potter the day I came, and now I want to turn him into a calf -or a frog. What is the good of Emma going on sending different kinds of -splints for him and telling Mrs. Potter how to put them on? The money I -have eaten since I came here would have saved him from getting like that -a year ago.” - -“Look here,” said David seriously, “I have been along that road while I -was at Oxford, and it leads nowhere, except into a sort of maze where -you lose yourself and die for want of a fresh argument. If I had ideas I -would come down to your place and do what you are doing for as long as -you wanted me, but I haven’t got any ideas and I have got fields—or -rather my father has, and can’t look after them as he used to—and I am -going to see what is to be got out of them.” - -“I have neither ideas nor fields,” she said, “but I had an enormous -family when I left home last week, and now I have been happy and -forgotten them.” - -“Did you forget them?” he asked. - -“Yes, quite,” she answered sadly. - -“Then you can’t really care for them enough to succeed,” he said. This -struck Teresa a blow. “Don’t you ever forget your farms and things?” she -asked, “not for a minute?” - -“No, except when I’m asleep or hunting.” - -“Hunting! my hunting is done down there,” she said illogically. - -“Then where are your farms?” - -“Oh, blow!” said Teresa. - -“All right. Well, when will you come back here?” - -“When I can’t bear any more committees of the charitable. I wish you -could see Mrs. Carpenter. Do you remember, she was at the Gainsboroughs -the night you were there?” - -“Was she? I forget. What like?” - -“Like an hour glass, in pink—with the sand quite solid.” - -“I didn’t notice. I couldn’t make your Miss Gainsborough talk, that’s -all I know. Is there anything the matter with her?” - -“Dear me, no,” she answered in surprise. “She’s very amusing when you -know her. Mr. Price got her into such a state of nerves. He did me, too. -Do you understand him?” - -“No, but I think he is only trying to mix society; just what you want to -do with Mrs. Potter. If you encourage her you ought to encourage him.” - -Teresa looked at him to see whether he was laughing, but they had come -to a stile and he was waiting politely for her to get over. Instead of -climbing she sat down on it and faced him. “It is absolutely different,” -she began to explain. “What I can’t bear is to find people, who would be -just like you if they had been sent to school and fed, unable to express -themselves and living in such horrible places that one can hardly attend -to what they are trying to say because of the awfulness. And it is -nonsense to say that they can always get out. All self-made men say -afterwards that they were newsboys, but there are thousands of darling -newsboys who haven’t got just the bit of extra that made Dick -Whittington; and, as my mother says, purring among her furs on a -platform, ‘they are often taught to be bad.’ She does talk such rot, and -yet often her platitudes wouldn’t be so telling if they were not made up -over a small piece of truth. There is nothing like that about that -dreadful man Price; is there now? Come, speak up.” - -“He wants to get into a better set and explain himself,” said David. - -“Nonsense,” answered Teresa, “not a better set at all; only a more -fashionable one.” - -“Well, but you say that your set isn’t any better than Mrs. Potter’s, -only more fashionable. If that is so then Mrs. Potter is a snob like -Price. But if you claim some other advantage that you want Mrs. Potter -to share, why shouldn’t Price be sensitive about having been born -outside a set that claims to be better than his own?” - -“I wish I could get someone who has as much ‘lip’ as you have to talk to -you,” said Teresa. “I can’t do it, but I know you are wrong.” - -“Your Potter vocabulary is beyond me,” said David politely. - - - - - CHAPTER VIII - - -The curtain now goes up on Evangeline’s marriage. It took place six -months ago. Cyril has a new A.D.C. with a fluffy wife and blue-eyed -child; all three as happy as grigs. His name is Jimmy Trotter—(the -Trotters of Burnside) and she was Miss Fripps of Ely, a daughter of the -famous Dean Fripps. Cyril doesn’t mind Trotter, who does his work all -right, and Mrs. Trotter is always good fun at a party, though Susie -thinks she is rather empty-headed, and can’t understand how she can -afford a nurse like that for the baby; it would be much more sensible if -she looked after it herself, and got a really nice girl to take charge -in the afternoon. Mrs. Trotter thinks not, as she does not believe in -nice girls and prefers to save money by doing the cooking in which she -is expert and let the baby have the whole attention of a woman whom she -can trust. She doesn’t believe in making oneself a premature fright by -being a Jack-of-all-trades. They have recurrent arguments on this -question and Susie gets the worst of it, for Mrs. Trotter disposes of -platitudes as she would of kitchen refuse, without a moment’s thought -whether there may not be diamonds among them. Therefore, Susie says she -is empty-headed, and does not care to see more of her than politeness -demands. - -And you should see Mrs. Trotter mimicking “Mrs. General” to the wives of -Cyril’s staff, all of whom she knows intimately! Of course it got round -in time to Susie through Mrs. Carpenter, who heard of it from the wife -of the Staff-Captain, who was rather keen on getting into the University -set. - -Evangeline was happy at this time, living at a place we will call Drage, -where Cyril had got Evan an appointment. He found there several men who -had been with him in the trenches. Their recollections pictured him as a -man who had been of the greatest value as an unfailing joke; a good -joke, too, for you never knew when it mightn’t blow you sky high. It was -always worth while raising him when you had a lot to think of, because -his explosions of temper were entertaining enough to take your mind off -any unpleasantness. And he was such a thoroughly good fellow; would do -anything or go anywhere, and his mechanical genius had earned their -admiration and gratitude for many improvised good things. Hicks -remembered him taking a Hun’s watch to pieces in his dug-out and—the -story that followed was always a success. It preceded his arrival at -Drage, and Evan found everyone pleased to welcome him and his wife. - -Evangeline’s enthusiasms and her naïveté were soon the talk of the -place. Some of the women regarded her as a fool and some as “a very -dashing young person.” She certainly was, as Strickland had prophesied, -“a favourite with the gentlemen.” There is a pose of free speech and -free living that is as closely bound by its self-imposed limits as any -other doctrine, and it is particularly false because the naturally free -have never heard of freedom; as Cyril would have pointed out, “it was -knowledge of the damned thing’s existence that made Eve a slave to -propriety.” Evangeline’s knowledge of good and evil was, as we have -seen, gathered almost entirely from the newspapers, and was therefore -negligible. So she thought freely (which is different from being a free -thinker) and Evan, who had eaten his apple with attention, was -scandalised, and the ladies of Drage, who wore their aprons merely as a -class distinction, cutting them long or short or leaving them off -altogether, as fashion dictated, were astonished at her behaviour. -Indeed when her instincts did, as she once hoped they would, “burst with -a pop in the sun” of experience, she loved creation with a generosity -that might have led her into all sorts of trouble had she been as -faithless a woman as her mother. She was fascinated by the idea of -having a child of her own, “a brand new person, whom no one has ever -seen before, conjured from the vasty deep,” she said (with some school -recollection of a quotation connected with impressive magic). She adored -Evan as the god behind the machine and lost a great deal of the interest -in his character that had made her take pride in his reluctant -confidences. Splitting hairs in argument about sin seemed to her an -absurd waste of time when it was clear that no one would bother to sin -if he were happy; and who could be other than happy when the war was -over and a new generation coming into life? Evan’s friends enjoyed her -hospitality in peace, for she never teased them by the militant -chastity, provoking but unyielding, which turns many a good bride into a -firebrand. The average Englishman does not often engage in illicit love -affairs unless they are offered him; so Evangeline’s lack of decorum was -regarded as a new and perfectly innocent game. Evan, with his explosive -seriousness, had been a first-class jest in the old days, and here he -was back again, married to some one just as funny in an opposite way, -and the two together were simply splendid. The jokers were never tired -of setting the one against the other in public, without an idea that -differences of opinion could hold any danger for two people so obviously -in love. They relished the stories that went round about Evangeline’s -latest indiscretions and told how shirty old Evan had been and how the -two had gone off together afterwards talking all the way and you could -bet she got it properly in the neck when they reached home. One evening, -these mischief makers who had egged on Evangeline to persuade poor old -Hicks to do his Fiji dance, with young Blake lashed to a chair in the -character of a maiden, went home to bed in the highest spirits, and left -Evangeline and her husband alone. - -“I shall chuck my job at once and leave here if you ever encourage that -sort of thing again,” he said, standing in front of the embers of the -fire that had made the little room so cheerful earlier in the evening. -He had put young Blake’s chair back into its place with a savage push, -and was now winding up the string that had been broken in the final -ecstasy that brought the house down. Evangeline stared at him with -round, startled eyes. “Darling Evan,” she said, “it was a game. What on -earth is the matter?” - -“It was outrageous. If you had ever been among savages——” he stopped, -speechless. - -“But I haven’t,” she argued. “That’s just it. I want to know. It was -fascinating. I felt as if I were the girl and he were getting nearer and -nearer—it was gloriously exciting. And anyhow—dear Evan—don’t be an ass; -it was pure farce, and I don’t believe he knows anything about Fijians -at all.” - -“My mother would have died before she would have allowed such a thing in -her drawing-room,” said Evan. “You have no womanly dignity. Everyone -talks about you and the way you behave as if you were married to the -whole staff.” - -“Oh, what is the matter with you?” cried Evangeline. “I was so happy and -I have done nothing whatever. I don’t know what you are trying to get -at. How can I be married to the whole staff?” - -“I assure you no stranger could point out which was your husband in a -mixed gathering,” he replied coldly. - -“Oh my dear, you’re like an eclipse of the sun,” she said, getting up -and putting her arms round his neck. “I have been so happy that I had -forgotten all your Mumbo Jumbo of this or that being right or wrong, -that you used to make my flesh creep with till I thought you really knew -about it. I believe you would blow out pleasure like a lamp if you could -and make us all sit and eat repentance by corpse light. I am going to -make another fire in my room and have tea and cake there, and if you -don’t come and cheer up I’ll telephone for one of my other husbands to -come instead.” So Evan relented until the next time. - -They came back to Millport for a visit at Easter. - -“And when does Mrs. Hatton expect the great event?” asked Mrs. Carpenter -of Susie when she and Mrs. Eric Manley and Mrs. Vachell had remained -behind to tea after a committee meeting. The committee had been dealing, -among other matters, with the case of Mrs. Potter’s daughter, for whom -Teresa asked admittance to the maternity home they represented. - -“A particularly sad case,” Susie had remarked, “because it seems that -she hardly knew the man and only encouraged him because her husband -drank and she had nothing to live on. If she had only come to me, as -Teresa might have suggested to her, I would have advised her what to -do.” - -“What would you have advised?” asked Mrs. Vachell curiously. - -“I should have tried to explain our point of view,” said Susie, “and -shown her that, apart from the disgrace and all that, the man would -probably leave her sooner or later, as he has.” - -“But surely, Mrs. Fulton, that is not the main point?” said Mrs. -Carpenter. “Surely we want to awaken something more than self-interest? -We want to make these girls understand that the marriage vow often -implies suffering.” - -“Oh, of course,” replied Susie with a far-away look. “But I think a -woman always hopes to the end. They are so confiding and they forget -that it will probably lead them into trouble.” - -In replying to Mrs. Carpenter’s other question, however, she took a -brighter view of marriage. “Not quite yet,” she said, “but to tell you -the truth, I never ask many questions of that sort. I always think that -the glamour of a young marriage ought not to be rubbed off by too many -practical details.” - -Mrs. Vachell used to wonder now and then how it was that Susie -constantly took the bread out of Mrs. Carpenter’s mouth without her -victim seeming to experience any sense of loss. Mrs. Carpenter did -sometimes hesitate as if she thought she had lost something, but Susie -seemed so innocent of her theft that it generally passed as an accident. -On the whole, Mrs. Carpenter accepted her as an ally. - -“How do they like being at Drage?” Mrs. Manley asked. - -“Very much indeed,” Susie replied. “She enjoys military society, -fortunately, which I never did. Mrs. Trotter envies her, she says, as -she doesn’t like Millport herself. Of course a place that is building -itself up a great position with its University and its social schemes -can’t have much interest for people who are always packing up and -following a drum from one dusty parade ground to another.” She paused -and, as her audience was busy with cake, went on, “Those dreadful -folding beds and bamboo furniture that they all seem to go in for—I -suppose because it is so light—depress me too much. I do love a -beautiful home of my own, however small.” - -“I don’t think you are altogether fair to the army, my dear lady,” said -Mrs. Carpenter, a trifle piqued. “I lived, until I married, among my -dear people who were always on the move, and I don’t think you would -have said that their ideas were limited. Wherever they went they were -fêted like princes by all the most interesting people, and I think it -gave all of us girls much wider interests and sharpened our wits more -than being shut up in the same set who all think each other perfect. -Your parents felt it a great change, I expect, when they moved to -London. One’s individuality has to fight so much harder there not to go -under with the stream.” - -“I daresay,” said Susie gently, “but that was some time before I was -born. I have always been a Londoner, you know. Of course I missed at -first being in the centre of everything, but I have got to enjoy the -earnestness and concentration of it all here. Like those wonderful -things your friend showed us under the microscope the other day,” she -added to Mrs. Vachell. “One could hardly believe they were of so much -importance until one saw them moving about.” - -Mrs. Manley laughed and exchanged a look with Mrs. Vachell and then -Cyril came in and they rose to go. They never felt quite at ease with -him. Mrs. Carpenter, feeling bound to assert her familiarity with -military interests, stayed a few minutes to question him about his work, -hoping incidentally that she might see Evangeline and determine for -herself the probable date of her initiation. - - * * * * * - -A few days later Evangeline was sitting in her father’s study after -dinner. Her eyes were red with crying and she sat in a deep armchair -opposite him, blowing her nose at intervals. - -“Have a cigarette,” said Cyril sympathetically, pushing the box towards -her. There had been something like a row at dinner. The Trotters had -been invited and David Varens had turned up unexpectedly as he often did -now after a late lecture at the University. All had gone well until the -dessert, when Mrs. Trotter, with that want of perception that often goes -with household efficiency and a bright nature, began telling of a rift -in the matrimonial lute of the staff-captain and his wife. “It all comes -of her being so keen on the University,” she concluded. “She was bound -to get scorched by Mrs. Vachell, sooner or later, when she took up Egypt -with that giddy old professor. He knows too much about the Sphinx -altogether.” She helped herself to some grapes and winked at Evan -Hatton. Evangeline grew nervous as she saw that he was excessively -angry. Cyril saw, too, but not realising that the matter was serious he -laid himself out for a little fun. - -“Now then, Evan,” he said, “we’ll drink to the spotless reputation of -the Army versus Thought, coupled with the name of Captain Hatton.” He -poured himself out a glass of port and passed the decanter. “Now then, -up you get.” - -“I have no joke ready, Sir, about the sort of dirt that women choose to -throw at each other,” said Evan, and he relapsed into a black silence, -fingering his glass. - -“Here, I say, Hatton——” began Captain Trotter angrily. Evangeline -blushed scarlet and looked at her husband in despair. Mrs. Trotter -inspected him with amused disgust and waited for her husband to go on. - -“Evan dear, Evan,” Susie remonstrated. “What are you talking about? Mrs. -Trotter will think you a great bear if you use such strong language -about poor old Professor Vachell’s little flirtation. You’d really think -he meant it, wouldn’t you?” she smiled round the table and was going to -change the conversation when Evan rose. - -“I am sorry,” he said, “but I should have to finish what I was going to -say if I remained, and perhaps I have no right—which of us has when it -comes to throwing stones?” He went to the door. - -“Evan——!” pleaded Evangeline almost angrily, but he was gone. - -“Poor fellow!” said Susie, “I expect he feels the heat” (or the cold—I -forget what the weather was at the time). “You know,” she turned to -Captain Trotter, “I don’t believe any of you have quite got over that -dreadful war yet. I met a poor boy only yesterday who was quite sure -that Moses had appeared to him in a vision and announced the Day of -Judgment.” - -“That’s what Moses is rather in the habit of doing,” said Cyril, -grateful to her for once, though the occasion had been unintentional. -“You know, Trotter, seriously, you ought to stop those boys gambling at -the mess like that. There’s some of them don’t know the difference -between a Hebrew and a bank account.” - -The Trotters went home early after dinner. Evan had gone for a walk and -not returned, and David Varens and Teresa were arguing in a corner about -something, so Evangeline slipped off to her father’s room and there wept -profusely while he smoked. When she was re-established and had accepted -a cigarette, Cyril began to talk. - -“I’ve seen more of that sort of thing than you’d suppose,” he said, “but -I’m sorry it should come your way, Chips; you, of all people.” - -“Oh, I don’t much mind, thanks,” she answered, blowing her nose once -more with a final blast, the last roll of thunder before sunshine -reappears. “Only when it is in public.” - -“Do you get much of it in private?” asked her father. - -“Oh, yes,” she sighed. “Father, what do you think it is? He must be so -miserable if he thinks everybody wicked when they are having fun. I -would give up everything or do anything to see him happy, but it seems -impossible.” - -“I always understood he had a reputation for being very good fun,” said -Cyril. - -“Yes, to the others,” she agreed. “They all adore him and he never minds -anything they do or if he does they only think it funnier still. It is -women he thinks ought not to be amused at anything broader than—— Oh, I -don’t know, the way a canary eats or something like that.” - -“Very dry humour certainly,” he commented, “but easily gratified. It’s a -pity more of you don’t care for it.” - -“Father, don’t talk to the gallery,” she reproached him. “You know you -detest a perfect lady.” - -“H’m. First catch your hare,” he replied. “We’re not getting on with -this, Chips, but I wish I could help you. How does he take the prospect -of fatherhood? If it’s a girl and you keep her in good condition I -should think his number will be up shortly.” - -“But I hate fighting,” she objected. “Why can’t we be happy? And suppose -it is a boy and he learns to hate Evan? I should give up then and run -away with him to the desert and live on dates in the sun. I won’t have a -little boy brought up in that abominable nonsense about Hell. Anger is -hell. I don’t believe in a God with a black temper.” - -“Have another cigarette,” said Cyril. - -“Thanks.” - -“What are Hatton’s sisters like?” he asked after a pause. - -“Giggly little people,” she said, “awfully kind.” - -“Do they like you?” - -“Oh, yes, so long as they suppose I think Evan perfect.” - -“Does he object to them?” - -“No, he talks to them about carburettors and their G.F.S. and the dogs.” - -“Oh, well, that shows he can be all right if he’s interested,” Cyril -remarked with some relief. “You evidently haven’t mastered the art of -distraction that I warned you about, you remember. - - ‘J. is for James, Maria’s younger brother, - Who, walking one way, chose to look the other.’ - -That is the secret of married happiness, I find; to act like James.” - -The front door banged and they heard Evan come upstairs. He stopped for -a moment outside the door and then came in. “May I come in, Sir?” he -asked, “I heard Evangeline was here. I’m very sorry I lost my temper at -dinner. I’ve been round to Trotter and apologised; but I can’t stand -that woman.” - -“Oh, Evan, you are a good bird,” said Evangeline. “Come and sit down -here and have a cigarette.” - -“I had better go down and throw out Varens,” said Cyril, looking at the -clock, “unless—(an idea struck him)—unless you care to go, Chips, and -tell your mother I think I am a little feverish and would she like to -come and rub me with camphorated oil?” Evangeline stared at him. - -“What on earth for?” she asked. - -“And tell Varens I’ll be down in a minute when the attack has worn off, -if he wouldn’t mind waiting,” Cyril continued. “I’m rather inclined to -back up young David against Miss Emma Goliath when it comes to taking up -Dicky’s time.” - -“Where do you get all your Scripture knowledge from?” she asked -wonderingly. - -“I have often read the lessons,” he assured her; then he remembered his -son-in-law and looked at him guiltily, but all was calm. Evan was -listening and smoking benevolently. Evangeline resumed, “Mother will -never swallow that rot.” - -“Then I must do it myself,” Cyril decided reluctantly. “Down with Emma -Goliath and her musty cohorts!” He left the room and a few minutes -afterwards they heard him rummaging in a book-case in the passage for -the Army List of 1913, while Susie held the candle. - - - - - CHAPTER IX - - -Young Mr. Price worked quite hard (“rehrly, you know, kait sairys -effort!”) to bring his parent’s house up to the requirements of his -college friends. He was not likely to ask anyone to his home except for -political or enterprising reasons, because Millport at its richest did -not provide much entertainment for unsympathetic guests. Its merchant -princes fell short of imagination when it came to spending. They were as -unlike the Medici as could well be imagined. They not only failed to -encourage art, but they disliked it and fought against it. It took as -much pressure of public opinion from rival cities and continents to get -anything of value into the town as would have been required to turn -Lobengula into a St. Anthony. Sometimes when this or that architect, -painter, poet or musician was known to have built, decorated or filled -the super-halls of America and returned burdened with contracts and -delicious food, Millport used to stir uneasily in its contempt and -occasionally went so far as to despatch a clerk to find out if there -were any of the stuff left; because America’s habit of apt valuation is -only too well known in business circles. The fact that her people also -care passionately for their purchases might otherwise pass unnoticed. -Neither did Millport indulge itself much in luxuries such as sailing, -travelling or sport. The Prices kept a big motor which they used -carefully, often suffering the horrors of the local train or the crowded -tram rather than be unbusiness-like with petrol. Their clothes were a -source of pride rather than pleasure. Mrs. Price was timid in her choice -of garments and inclined to the perfect taste prescribed by the -lady-in-waiting at Messrs. Venison and Phipps. “Mantles this way, -Modom,” said the junior assistant in black charmeuse, and then Miss -Figginbottam, whom Mrs. Price “always reckoned on,” aged forty-five, -disillusioned and imperative, stepped forward and gave the casting vote -between the grey moire velours and the rather richer effect of the -petunia and chinchilla. - -But young Mr. Price and his sisters now told the poor old lady that this -would not do. Her daughters took her to London and brought her back with -monkeys’ tails and Balkan embroideries hanging slantwise over her -innocent curves; they trotted her about in high-heeled shoes instead of -the soft kid boots that Bollingworth’s used to make so well to her -pattern. They did her hair in the fashion of Goya’s mistress and made -her drink cocktails and become a vegetarian, but forbade her to smoke, -which she did not understand. Her son taught her the names of the new -poets, but could never get six quotable lines of their poetry into her -head because there was “nothing to catch hold of” about it. Then they -began on Dad; and he took to it like a bird. There was no trouble with -him. He put himself entirely in the hands of his son’s tailor and then -was told he looked too smart. So he stood patiently and allowed his -trousers to be let down till they corkscrewed ever so rightly down his -short legs. He shaved off his beard and grew a very intellectual-looking -moustache; but his daughters told him he looked like a Labour Member and -made him shave it off. He smoked a pipe, which he did not care for, and -also learned when to smoke it; as, for instance, when his old friends of -the city had all got out their cigars. He was made to eat less and give -up carving; forbidden to press his guests to a second or third helping -and privately instructed to let the butler manage. He was persuaded to -buy some pedigree dogs for Mrs. Price, and a man was hired to lecture to -her once a week on their management and breeding as she wouldn’t learn -from books. The more they tore up the drawing-room the better the young -Prices were pleased, though it caused their mother secret agony. Besides -the names of poets and their works, the parents were made to learn the -phraseology of farming, lawn tennis, cricket, golf, sex-boredom and the -religions of the world. - -It was during the time when these social gymnastics were being most -arduously practised by the Price family that they gave an evening party; -one might almost suppose for the purpose of taking their minds off -themselves. “Everybody” was there and a few representative nobodies, -just to show that Mr. Price, senior, was in touch with the political -movement of the day. “The University,” of course, were there, because -though it used not to be considered the thing in Millport to encourage -people who lived in poky houses and “talked superior” and “made fun,” it -is different now that the aristocracy have taken to asking even -theatrical people about and marrying professors and so on. You never -know in these days when your local goose won’t go away somewhere and -become a swan and get written up in the papers and go to Court or even -make money. Once bitten, twice shy. Mrs. Carpenter and Mrs. James Manley -and Mrs. Price had one or two secret grievances against certain -home-clad young wives whom they had avoided as “not quite——” and who had -gone back on them later by being positively run after by all sorts of -people; people you wouldn’t expect. How on earth is one to know? Jupiter -ought to label his protégés in some way from the start so that honest -people who can afford the best of everything may know where to look for -it. - -“Would you believe it, Mrs. —er?” Mrs. Manley had been known to say, on -coming to something of the sort in the pages of her _Times_. - -“No, and if you ask me, I think it’s absu-u-rd,” replied Mrs. Price in -her new accent. - -“I used to think her decidedly peculiar,” put in Mrs. Carpenter, “but -there never was any question that he was immensely clever. I used to -talk to him by the hour.” Emma Gainsborough was reported to have said -that she hoped that when Millport put up a memorial to Mrs. Carpenter it -would be in the appropriate form of a weathercock. - -The Prices’ house was about three times the size of the Fultons’. It was -of the same pattern as all the other houses in the neighbourhood; only -its square mass seemed to have plumped itself down with more aggressive -self-satisfaction than the others. On a close spring day it could almost -be heard breathing there on its bit of gravel, puffing and grunting, -“Now then; what dju looking at? Go away. This is Mr. Price’s house. -We’ve got four reception rooms, twelve bedrooms, double tennis court, -treble croquet lawn, copious vinery, garage and the usual offices.” - -It must be admitted that the party was a good one to the extent that the -prodigality of limitless self-satisfaction can go. The Prices meant well -so far as they could see beyond their own affairs; and their unfortunate -haziness over the rest of humanity was probably not their fault. Some -day the school of “Hope-for-all” thought may enlarge its activities and -devise a sort of Borstal system for the spiritually deficient, and the -habits of the Prices will be investigated and probably traced to some -quite simple defect in the marrow; the juice of a dog’s kidney may -perhaps be injected and suitable exercises prescribed, and so on. - -Dancing was going on in the larger of the two drawing-rooms, cards were -to be played in the other, an “imperial supper,” as someone reported, -was laid out in the dining-room and Father’s den was banked up all round -by about a hundred hats, in the middle of which an old retainer with a -face like the largest and richest muffin ever seen sat as if in a nest. -No one could have approved more thoroughly of the proceedings than he. -He had spent nearly all his life in waiting on the ladies and gentlemen -of Millport in the evenings and in the small hours. By day it is -supposed that he slept and murmured in his dreams, “Cold chicken or -galantine, Sir? Lobster salad or trifle, Miss? Champagne, Madam?” He was -now too rheumatic for this labour of love, so he sat among the hats and -greeted the familiar faces as they came in. A few of them, such as Mr. -Manley, spoke to him. “Ah, Higgins, so you’re here, are you?” they said. -“Wet night, isn’t it?” and then they passed into the bright light and -deafening chatter. Cyril came in to leave his coat and hat at the same -moment as Sir Richard was receiving his ticket. “Hullo, what brings you -here?” he said. “Didn’t know you came to these things.” - -“I’ve laid a foundation stone this afternoon and looked in on my -doctor,” Sir Richard began, and he paused a moment to dust his sleeve -with a clothes brush. - -“Pure coincidence, I hope?” Cyril asked anxiously. - -“No, it’s a fact,” the old man assured him. “But I’ll tell Milly you -asked and what’s more I won’t tell her that Queen Anne sent that joke to -_Punch_. She has got the car here and I thought I might as well go back -in it. Young David is here somewhere with her. By-the-bye, Price wants -me to let Aldwych to him for the hunting next year. I may have to go -abroad, but I can’t make up my mind.” He spoke in a low voice, but -Higgins heard. - -“I shouldn’t,” Cyril answered. “You never know what those sort of people -will do with a place.” - -“How d’you mean?” asked Sir Richard. - -“Oh, I don’t know,” Cyril replied, “but it is never the same -afterwards.” It was characteristic of him not to connect any mental -process with a globe of flesh encircled by hats, so he spoke in his -usual tone. “You never get the smell of money out afterwards, and it -demoralises tenants worse than the plague. And what would you do with -the stables?” - -“He wants to buy the lot,” said Sir Richard. - -“My dear fellow!” Cyril exclaimed, and then words failed him. “Here, -come along and let’s see where the bottle imp has his lair. That -foundation stone had your wits in it, I think.” - -Mr. Joseph Price had been dancing with Evangeline and they were now -sitting in the winter garden. “You’re living at Drage now, aren’t you?” -he asked. “Rather a wretch’d sort of place, isn’t it? Not much to do -there, what?” Evangeline looked at him in surprise. “What sort of things -can’t you do?” she asked. “I should think you could do anything there is -to do as well there as anywhere; unless you want to shoot bears or ride -elephants.” - -“I led the strainuous life there for a bit,” he replied. “I never was so -f’d up in my life.” - -“How long were you there?” Evangeline asked. - -“Oh, on and off f’ three years in charge ’f a batt’ry.” - -“And where did your battery go to?” She was full of interest. - -“Well, ’n point ’f fact it stayed where ’t was,” he replied carelessly. -“They’d had ’nough, you see, ’f sending out f’llers not prop’ly trained, -and the f’llers they sent to us then weren’t fit t’ handle a catapult. -H’wever, we pushed them off in th’ end.” - -“And then where did you go?” she pursued. - -“I’m ’fraid you’ll be raather shocked,” said Mr. Price, smiling, “but I -never got further than Switch’nham. Kait sairysly though, the Gov’nment -took over the Dad’s plant there and not a soul knew an’thing about it. I -had t’ run the whole blooming show by m’self with a handful of r’tired -M’thuselahs. Awf’l shaame, I thought, digging the pwur old things out at -their time ’f life. But now you have the whole sordid story ’f m’ life. -Not much of a f’ller, Price, is he? I know that’s what you’re thinking.” - -“Well, I want to be quite fair,” said Evangeline. “Have you got anything -the matter with you?” - -“No, sound ’s a bell,” said young Joseph. - -“Well, but had you anything then?” she persisted. “Groggy arms or legs -or insides?” - -“Lac’ration of right forearm ’n’ elbow, received when leaving th’ -theatre in state ’f intoxication during ’n air raid,” he replied, -grinning at her, “also sustained loss ’f an eye and inj’ry to left -ankle.” - -“Honest?” she asked earnestly. “Let me look at your eye.” - -“’T’s glass, but there’s nothing green in it,” said Mr. Price, holding -down one eyelid, and she saw that what he said was true. - -The music of the next dance began and he rose. “You dancing this?” he -asked, “or c’n I get you a partner? I’m ’fraid I’ve got to trot out Miss -Gainsborough. I shall keep her meuving for she caan’t talk.” - -“I’ve lost my programme,” said Evangeline, “but I’m almost certain I’m -dancing with some kind of a Manley, with pink eyes—— Oh, I’m sorry, I -expect he is your cousin; everybody is here.” - -“Yes, that’s Claud, I expect, but don’t mind me, please,” Mr. Price -replied. “His mother’s my aunt. But I don’t see him or my partner——” He -looked round and they waited a moment. “He’s great on the pwur, too,” he -said. “P’haps they’re hatching something t’gether. I don’t alt’gether -b’lieve in it m’self, d’you? Of course it’s awf’lly fine and all that -and I ’dmire it immensely, but I think it ’ncourages them t’ have -grievances—makes them dwell on their p’sition and so on, which after all -can’t be helped. Don’t you rather agree?” - -“I don’t know,” said Evangeline. She was not attending much for she had -caught sight of her husband talking seriously to Mrs. Vachell and -wondered what it was about. She recalled her mind to what Mr. Price was -saying. “My sister thinks of nothing else,” she said, “but I am no good -at it; I am too lazy and selfish.” Emma Gainsborough appeared just then -and Mr. Price left Evangeline with an apology. - -“Awf’lly hot, what?” he observed to Emma when they had been labouring -round the room a few minutes. Emma was not a good dancer. - -“Hot what, what hot?” she mimicked him rather crossly. “You had better -stop and have an ice.” - -“Forthcoming!” he observed as they stopped and he inspected her -curiously. “Forthcoming indeed! You’re magnif’cent actress, you know, -Miss Gainsborough. Why couldn’t you do thaat when I came to dinner with -you, ’nstead of making me think I was boring you all th’ time?” - -Emma ignored his last sentence. “I am very sorry,” she said, “but I do -so hate parties. I get to know such a lot about the food before I see -it, and I know all the time that my father will criticise every dish -afterwards and mother will feel she has been a failure and say that she -must get another cook; and we never do. We have had the same one for -years and she gets steadily older and worse.” - -“Have some coffee or ’n ice?” he suggested. “What c’n I get you? I say, -th’ band seems to be packing up—that means supper. Will you excuse me as -I merst look after one of the dowagers. Claud will take you in. Here, -Claud,” he beckoned to his cousin, “’ll you taek Miss Gainsborough?” and -he departed in haste. He found that his mother had allotted Susie to him -from among “the dowagers.” The parent Gainsboroughs, Sir Richard and his -wife, Cyril and the sister of the ex-Lord Mayor, filled a table with -their host, and Joseph Price and Susie sat together close by. - -“A most charming young man, that Joseph Price,” Susie remarked in her -room that night. “I wish Evangeline had met him before dear Evan came to -the house so constantly. He is so fond of sport. I hear there is some -idea of his father taking Aldwych.” - -“Mother Price’s diamonds would flash the glad news from tower to tower,” -said Cyril with more animosity than he generally showed to anyone. “Her -searchlights played over me at supper till anyone could have spotted the -lobster swimming in the champagne.” Susie took refuge in silence and -they went to bed. Evangeline and Evan were talking in their room at the -same time. “I hope you had supper,” she said, “I feel I don’t want any -more to eat for days. Whom did you get hold of?” - -“Mrs. Vachell,” he answered. “She is a very charming woman; most -interesting and cultivated.” - -“Evan, I shall never understand you,” she said with amusement. “You -disapprove of the most harmless people and Mrs. Vachell does more harm -than almost anyone at Drage.” - -“Now that is so like a woman,” said Evan. “Always running down your own -sex if a man praises one of them.” - -Evangeline winced under the injustice and her amusement died. “You will -give me a sharp tongue some day that I wasn’t born with,” she said -hotly. “What I meant was that Mrs. Vachell doesn’t believe in any of the -things you are always fighting about, she isn’t kind to people for she -doesn’t like them, and Mrs. Carpenter——” - -“Don’t mention her,” said Evan. “She’s an awful woman.” - -“Yes, I know you can’t stand her any more than you can stand Mrs. -Trotter who is a perfectly harmless, common little thing, as good as -gold. But Mrs. Carpenter is the solid prop of the whole edifice of what -I understand you want people to be and yet you hate her.” - -“She’s a humbug,” said Evan, “that’s why.” - -“I don’t think Mrs. Vachell believes in anything except brains,” said -Evangeline. “That’s her own affair,” he replied. “That is a matter -between her and her Maker. All I say is that she behaves like a lady and -talks intelligently, without that silly affectation of chaff that spoils -most women.” - -“She doesn’t work nearly as hard as Mrs. Carpenter,” Evangeline laboured -on. She would always take up any cause at a moment’s notice and -sacrifice the approval she loved best in her whole-hearted defence. - -“Well, keep your opinion and I’ll keep mine,” he said, “I never could -help being fond of you, Evangeline, but you do exasperate me sometimes -more than I can tell you. I never know whether you deliberately won’t -see what I am talking about or whether you can’t.” - -“If that is all,” she said contentedly, “I don’t mind. I thought you -were angry with me.” - -The Gainsboroughs were habitually early risers. At half-past nine they -generally parted for the day; the Principal to his principalling, his -wife to the kitchen, fortified by renewed hope of Annie being able to -cook something really nice to-day; Emma to the grimy back street where -she had her office. It had been late when they reached home after the -Prices’ party, and Mrs. Gainsborough’s inevitable question, “Would you -like anything, dear, before you go to bed?” was known to the other two -to offer no inducement to sitting up; no one can talk over a feast on -digestive biscuits and water. The three bedroom doors were shut within -ten minutes after the cab had rattled away down the street and not a -sound was heard in the big house except faint snoring from the top floor -and the ticking of the grandfather clock on the landing below. Emma got -into bed and heard the clock gather itself together with a hoarse rattle -and strike one; four church clocks answered it a minute later. The trams -had stopped and the road was so silent that a policeman’s footstep was -heard all up the street that lay behind the house, round the corner and -down past Emma’s window almost to the end of the Square. “Certainly not! -Certainly not!” Emma imagined the footsteps saying, and her heart warmed -to the image of faithful Robert, patient and decorous, with order as his -means of subsistence and disorder his only hope of pleasure in the -monotonous hours. “Certainly not. Certainly not.” The clocks chimed two -strokes and then one; half-past one. Robert was coming back. Cats began -to quarrel in the sooty flower beds of the Square; scuffled, spat, -shrieked and vanished. Emma thought harshly of them and gradually dozed. -The silence was broken by a sudden uproar in the street at the back, -near the corner of Robert’s beat, where rows of mean little houses led -down to one of the railway stations. There were loud sounds of -quarrelling, a woman’s voice and two or three men; a splintering of -glass, a scream, grumbling, threats and oaths and then—“Certainly not. -Certainly not.” Robert was coming back. - -“’Ere, what’s this?” she imagined he would say when he reached the -corner, but all was silent before he had passed the Square, and any hope -of incident for that night faded away as the clock struck two and the -rain began to fall gently. Emma was wide awake now and lay for some time -thinking of her work with the hopelessness of a tired body and mind. -Robert probably never suffered in this way. If he got in the dumps he -took something for it, “an’ as for that lot up there,” he would have -said, pointing a thumb up the poverty-stricken scene of the quarrel, -“the sooner they was all turned out the better.” Mrs. Robert probably -understood more than he did about the discouraging habits of matter, -which collects again as soon as it is displaced. Teresa’s dreams were -busy with other plans for settling the difficulty. She wanted to build -up the whole mess into a work of art. - -The Gainsboroughs had their deferred talk about the Prices’ party at -breakfast next morning. - -“Joseph Price is a perfect ass,” said Emma. “And yet you can’t be as -angry with him as he makes you. I want first to slap him and then to -turn him right side up again and put him back in his chair.” - -“No, I think he is really dreadful,” said her mother. “He always was a -tiresome little boy, but Cambridge seems to have done him more harm than -good. I can’t think where he gets that silly way of speaking. It is more -like Oxford if anything, but it isn’t that either. I wouldn’t libel the -poor things.” - -“It is a sort of culture and climbing mixed,” said Emma. “Don’t you -remember when the Mortons came down here to open the Industries? Some of -them talked exactly like that, only it wasn’t so obvious because it must -have been longer since they did it on purpose. It is almost natural to -lots of people I am sure. But Joseph Price was very busy with it then. -‘Voilà que j’arrive!’ his whole face said.” - -“It was a splendid supper,” said Mrs. Gainsborough, “I only wish I could -teach Annie to make quenelles like that. I think she must make ours too -soft. They always have that curious squashy tastelessness about them, or -else too much pepper.” - -“My dear Beatrice, you’ll never do anything with that woman, so long as -you live,” said the Principal. He tossed a piece of kidney on his plate. -“Look at that! Leathery, dry—a kidney ought to be a dream of tenderness -and blood, just poised—poised, mind, so that the juices soak through—on -a piece of toast, neither hard nor soft, browned to a turn——” - -“Oh, Father,” interrupted his daughter, “do please talk of something -else. You make me dribble with envy; I can’t bear it.” - -“Poor darlings!” murmured the mother, compassionate almost to tears. “It -is hard on you. I really will speak to her and see if she wouldn’t care -to go to Mrs. Plumtre; I know they don’t care what they eat. I’m not -sure even that they’re not vegetarians.” - -“Did you know Mrs. Price has become a vegetarian?” said Emma. “But not -the duck-made-of-peas kind; just lettuce and peaches and cheese; except -when she goes to London by herself, she told me. Oh dear, I must go but -I am so sleepy,” she yawned and got up. - -“Did you sleep well, darling?” asked her mother anxiously. - -“There was a row going on in Millard Street and it woke me up.” - -“I’d have all those people turned out,” said the Principal. “When -there’s a revolution the houses round here won’t be fit to live in. And -there’s that Cranston next door, throwing out literature that is so much -rank poison by its stupidity. It is bad enough to harm even educated -idiots, for they take it all in, but at least they are not likely to -burn down——” - -“If you please, Sir, Mr. Fisk wants to know if he can see you for a -moment. He is in the library,” said Annie at the door. - -Emma escaped, and as she passed the open door of the library she saw a -young man with hair à la Kropotkin and immense spectacles whom she knew -to be the secretary of the students’ debating society and the son of -good Mr. Fisk, plumber and decorator in the neighbourhood. - - - - - CHAPTER X - - -Mr. Fisk was a good son at home and a pleasant fellow among his friends. -Emma, who was liked by the students and went to their gatherings, had -often met him. He kept dormice in his bedroom and tended them with care, -but if the Communist society he belonged to had called him to do murder -in the cause of incomes for all he would have summoned his courage to -smite some bald-headed director of a company with a bloody axe. His -errand to the Principal that morning was, I am glad to say, of a most -peaceful nature, connected with the degree he hoped to take. He met Emma -and Teresa the same afternoon at a tea given by some of the students -after the meeting of the debating society. Teresa took the cup he -offered her, and became fascinated by his withered little face, his -immense spectacles and his Kropotkin hair. Her instinct scented -suffering and the cage, and she led him on to talk. It must be -understood that this was her first experience of his kind and she never -forgot it. He began explaining to her, earnestly at first, then -excitedly; he struck his knobbly little hands one against the other. -“Blood!” he concluded, “blood! there’s nothing else for it. We shall -give our blood when the time comes and we shall take it -ruthlessly—without remorse.” Teresa looked at him fixedly, questioning. -“I think that is very wicked,” she said, when she had made up her mind. -“You have no business at all to decide that one person shall live and -another shan’t; it is much too serious. Suppose that another lot of -people decided that you must be killed because you got a degree and they -didn’t?” - -“I shan’t have been born into my degree when I get it,” he said proudly. -“I shall have earned it by my own endeavours. The rich have been born -into their property for generations. They come into the world nourished -on the blood of my fathers. Show me the signs of toil on your hands, if -you please,” he looked down with a bitter expression at her little hands -that held the cup. - -“I know,” she said humbly, “I often think of it. You needn’t point it -out. But still you oughtn’t to murder anybody. It is not their fault; -and anyhow, suppose you burgled my father’s house, he would have no -right to kill you except in self-defence. I know that is so; a lawyer -told me.” - -“What’s the law!” said Mr. Fisk contemptuously. “We’re going to alter -all that; we’re going to make new laws by which man will have the right -to live.” - -“Yes, but not to stop others living,” said Teresa. “It’s silly; you know -you can’t make laws; and who is going to carry them out if you do? You -can’t make people do what you want just by telling them that you have -made a law. There’s the army and navy too—but what is the good of -arguing. You must know it is silly.” - -“The army and navy are also learning to think, you’ll find,” said Mr. -Fisk. “But I don’t wish to offend you, Miss—er. You are yourself of -military stock, I believe?” - -“Yes I am, but I don’t bother about that. It has got nothing to do with -what I think,” she replied. “Don’t you know——” she went on, with passion -beginning to rise in her as his words soaked in, “don’t you know, you -stupid (she shook him delicately by the sleeve), that all the decent -people in England—and English people are decent, not like the beastly -people you try to make your hair like—are working their very hardest, -day and night, to put things straight? And the fact that some of them -have got white hands is all the better, for it means they have money and -time to spend on it, and you have only the time to learn by heart what -someone else has written. It does make me so angry when I know what the -idle rich, as you call them, are doing.” - -“Bah! charity!” said Mr. Fisk, and he spat some shreds of tobacco from -his cigarette neatly into the grate. - -“Oh, you can’t have thought I was talking about charity,” said Teresa -with real distress. “Of course I wasn’t. It is the very thing I dislike -most, except your muddle and murder. And besides that, some of the -richest people boast of having been newsboys, and they are often the -rudest to their servants and their wives are horrid lazy snobs.” Mr. -Fisk’s little withered face twitched with his anxiety to collect some -clear dignified retort. - -“Have you ever read much on your subject, may I ask?” he inquired at -last. “Have you studied economics? Perhaps you have attended Professor -Cranston’s lectures?” - -“No, I haven’t,” she replied. - -“Then, pardon me, but I think you are hardly qualified for the argument. -Capitalism is a highly intricate subject and should involve deep study. -To judge how far it is advisable to submit the control of wages to the -State, and also to consider to what extent the right of the individual -to determine the extent of his earning capacity should be carried, -requires a long training and arduous study. I should be pleased to -continue our talk at some other time if convenient to you, and I should -be happy to lend books if you are interested.” - -“Yes,” said Teresa with a sigh of fatigue. “I want to know. And you are -part of the faces in the fog, I suppose,” she added absently, looking at -him. - -“I beg pardon?” - -“I said you were part of the faces in the fog. I used to wonder when we -came here what was behind the sort of brick-wall expression that people -in the streets and the trams had. When you go to speak in Hyde Park you -will see how different your audience is—quite merry in comparison.” - -“I don’t propose to do so at present,” said Kropotkin-Fisk, highly -offended. “We leave that to the executive. Our body here is concerned at -the moment exclusively with study and propaganda.” Emma came to look for -Teresa and heard the end of the discussion. - -“Aren’t you paving the way for a new set of class distinctions, Mr. -Fisk?” she asked. “What you said just now sounded like it. I hope you -will take a lesson from the present evil system and pay yourself -properly if you are going to keep to the higher activities.” - -“I don’t quite follow,” said Mr. Fisk, “but if you’ll favour us at the -next debate and hear my paper, perhaps you will put your question then, -and I shall do my best to parry your thrust.” - -“I don’t know what Mrs. Potter would do if Fisk were made Chancellor of -the Exchequer under the new régime,” said Emma, as she and Teresa walked -back together. - -“Yes, she would loathe it,” Teresa agreed. “But I don’t exactly know -why. Why do they so often hate their own class in office?” - -“Well,” said Emma, “I suppose if Eddie Fisk is Chancellor of the -Exchequer there’s no reason why Albert Potter shouldn’t go one better -and be King. Mrs. Potter ‘never would ’ave ’eld with them Fisks,’ you’d -find, ‘—settin’ themselves up!’” - -“But Communists don’t have a King; isn’t that the whole point?” Teresa -objected. - -“They don’t until one of them wants to be it,” said Emma. “They would -call him something else, but some of them would develope an aptitude for -ruling. Even apes do.” - -“But then, I suppose the others could depose him if he wasn’t -hereditary,” said Teresa. - -“No, ‘Gawd save the Prince o’ Wales, bless ’is dear ’eart!’ is Mrs. -Potter’s motto. ‘That there Fisk is never going to come it over our -Albert, you’ll find, Miss,’ is what she would say. Ask her the next time -you see her.” - -“Mr. Jorkins doesn’t agree with that,” Teresa pursued. “When he is out -of work the first thing he blames is Parliament. He’s dead against it.” - -“Well, there will always be two opinions about everything in a country,” -said Emma. “You had much better leave them all alone to mess about and -let us get on with what we are doing. At present Mr. Fisk is rather like -the mouse that dipped its tail in the beer and sucked it. He is looking -for the cat, that’s all.” - -“Are you sure?” her friend asked anxiously. - -“I am only sure after a party like the Prices’ last night,” Emma -answered. “It will wear off to-morrow, and I shall get cross with Father -for talking Conservative intellectualism. I can’t see any use in the -Prices to-day. They give money when there is a list of donations, and -Papa Price just hugs himself when someone comes round for a -subscription. He keeps them waiting in his office, and then when he has -succeeded in beating them down to less than they asked for and yet finds -he is still in the top batch of subscriptions he does think he has been -clever. And Mrs. Price and the family! I would really enjoy seeing the -girls working in the fur trade instead of wearing coats of it, and I -wouldn’t wish that to many people. I would like to see them stop -cackling and find out how witty they would be on two pennyworth of -refuse. Then the next day, perhaps, I meet Lady Varens, whom I don’t -grudge anything to, because she keeps a lot of people happily employed -and really cares for them and buys beautiful things with her money. And -after that the Starks turn up—you know—the schoolmistress at St. -Angelus’ school—you met her at the Dispensary. Mrs. Potter’s life is a -screaming farce compared to hers, and the Jorkinses are wallowing in -wealth, for at least they enjoy themselves at the pictures and the pub -when so disposed.” - -“Well, let us add it up,” said Teresa. “Under Mr. Fisk’s scheme, Mrs. -Potter and Mrs. Stark will benefit; Mrs. Price will be altogether -wrecked and mangled—she and her family; Lady Varens will live as she -would probably be quite content to live now—she never seems to want -much—and she would upset the apple carts of a lot of happy dependants. -But then there are lots of Potters, lots of Starks, comparatively few -Prices, a good many Varenses and not a great many happy dependants, so -how does the proportion of benefits work out? I shall have to ask David -to unravel it.” - -“I beg your pardon—David?” asked Emma. - -“David Varens,” said Teresa. “What’s the matter?” - -“Nothing. I only wondered for a moment. Do you go much by what he says?” - -“Yes, more than anybody.” - -“Why, may I ask?” - -“Oh, because he is so simple,” she answered readily. “I can never tangle -him up in a problem. He lays it all out and sorts it into heaps, and -then generally sums up by saying there is nothing in it. It is so -restful. And then he tells me about phosphates and the habits of the -teal. But it is only for the rest to my muddled head that I like it so -much. It would never put me off my work.” - -“Sure?” asked Emma, and she was obliged to accept the assurance when it -was given a second time. - -As they passed the Vachells’ house, which was not far from the -Gainsboroughs’, Mrs. Vachell was just going in. “Come and have tea with -me?” she suggested. Emma explained that they had had tea and that she -had work to do at home, but Teresa accepted. She was inclined, like -Alice in Wonderland, to taste and nibble whatever new thing came her -way; she had never been inside the Vachells’ house, nor felt that she -understood what lay behind the self-possession of the small, graceful -lady whom it was said the Professor had found fanning herself by -moonlight under an obelisk and brought home. Mrs. Vachell’s face was -beautiful and full of character but the character was of the reversible -kind, of which it is impossible to decide whether it is intended to be -good or bad. Such faces seem not, like most faces, to alter gradually -with their owner’s mind, but to hold always in themselves two distinct -characters between which the soul has never chosen a habitation. At -death, opinion is generally divided as to which character has been the -true one, as in life it was never decided which it would prove to be. -“Very like a curious death-mask my father was once given for his study,” -Susie had described her on first acquaintance. “Dante, or somebody, I -think it was, who wrote the ‘Inferno.’” - -Teresa followed the small gliding figure into the hall and up the -stairs, where photographs of Byzantine art and reproductions of drawings -from Egyptian tombs were hung right up to the high window that lighted -the stairs with a cold north light. The back yards and chimneys of young -Millport mixed disagreeably in her mind with the impression of endless -centuries of life that she gathered from the procession of antiquity on -the walls. There is something alarming to youth in the idea of the early -days of a very old person. - -The drawing-room was more cheerful, but Mr. Vachell’s study, which his -wife showed her as they passed, made her shiver again. There were -objects of stone, of clay, of mildewed bronze; tiny domestic -possessions, gifts of love, weapons, tokens of mourning for the dead, -provision even for an eternity of wandering beyond the grave. Everywhere -were glass cases to preserve the imperishable; the penetrating dust of a -new city defiling them notwithstanding. If Teresa had seen Life and -Death supping together in the silent room, pledging one another from the -old vessels that stood upon the Professor’s table, she could not have -felt more discomfort than she did. - -“Do you like these things?” Mrs. Vachell asked her. - -“Perhaps I might if I got to know them,” she admitted, “but they scare -me rather.” - -“Come into the drawing-room and have tea then.” Mrs. Vachell led the way -into the next room and rang the bell. “It is only half-past five; you -have lots of time to recover. What have you been doing?” - -Teresa told her about the Debating Society and Mr. Fisk. “A horrible -young man,” said Mrs. Vachell. “He isn’t one of my husband’s students, -luckily, or I should have to ask him to tea. They all get brought here -at intervals. They sit about in corners and balance cups on their knees -and spill tea into the saucer. I wish you would come and help me next -time I have to ask some of them. I believe you would be good to them and -teach me not to dislike them so much.” - -“Very well,” said Teresa, “though I am not benevolent. If people won’t -talk I can’t make conversation. Why don’t you ask Emma? She knows them -all.” - -“That is just why she is no good,” Mrs. Vachell explained while she made -tea. “It is like a mother and her children in society. They can’t talk -their own nonsense before an audience, and they can’t do the polite to -each other. I want you to extract something from the students. They must -have interests of the sort that one does not air in the family circle, -and strangers are the ideal safety valve for that sort of thing.” - -“Are many of them like Fisk; wanting blood and new governments and -things?” Teresa asked. - -“That is one of the things I want to know,” Mrs. Vachell answered. “Emma -could tell us so far as statistics go, but I want to hear for myself. -You know I sit on Committees with Mrs. Carpenter and her lot because I -love organisation, and so many of those women who are always talking and -ordering and doing the Nosey Parker everywhere are just tools for -anybody in the show who has an axe to grind. Do you understand about -Boards of Guardians and Select Vestries and all that part?” Teresa -answered quickly, “Oh, no—nothing whatever. Of course I get inspectors -and visitors on my track and I have to help Emma with her reports. But a -Board of Guardians means nothing to me except a firm eye and questions -that I can’t answer. Mother has them to lunch sometimes.” - -“Can she answer their questions?” asked Mrs. Vachell. - -“Surely you know that Mother never answers any questions?” said Teresa -very much surprised. “She always tells you something that she thinks -instead, and makes it seem as if she had answered. But I never know -whether it is because she can’t or won’t.” - -“I do loathe poverty,” Mrs. Vachell said, as if to herself. - -Teresa went home very little the wiser for her visit, but she felt -greatly discouraged by the extreme age of civilisation as it had been -shown to her at the Vachells’. It seemed to have accomplished so little -in the time at its disposal. - - - - - CHAPTER XI - - -Evangeline’s baby was a boy, very much to Susie’s satisfaction. It would -be going too far to say that it had been a grief to her that she had no -son, for grief and she had met only on the most courtly terms since she -outgrew the realities of childhood which no one escapes. Her philosophy -had developed early, and since then she had met grief on the terms of -cavalier and lady. He had bowed to her and fingered his sword; she had -curtseyed, smiled and turned her back on him, with perhaps a coy glance -of mockery above her fan. But he paid his first visit to Evangeline, -equipped for battle, when her son was a few months old. Evan began -making plans one day for his future, as affectionate fathers will, and -the discussion, begun amicably, ended in such a storm of passion from -Evangeline as surprised and horrified him. A doctor would have said that -she was still weak and unbalanced after young Ivor’s birth; the fact was -that resentment suppressed or tided over on many occasions had -accumulated, and was now being paid in one sum. Her natural gaiety had -made her fairly independent when it was only she who was to suffer from -Evan’s severity; but when it went beyond her to the child she became -savage in the defence of her offspring. This situation is as old as the -hills—older than man—and the true simile of the tigress has become so -hackneyed by being tacked on to every thwarted feminine instinct that it -hardly arrests the eye on a printed page; but its accuracy is age-proof. -The occasion for her outburst was as trifling as it could be; it -generally is when a storm is long brewing. Evan had chosen for his -peroration the unfortunate words, “—and we shall teach him discipline -early.” - -He spoke from a full heart and meant, as Queen Elizabeth is said to have -performed upon the virginals, “excellently well.” Evangeline pictured -the young creature that was to have been a marvel of joy, crushed by -fear of its natural friends, pursued by something dark and threatening -that was called “Right,” so that all sweetness of the day that was -called “Wrong” must be loved and followed in secret. She pictured the -child lonely in a garden, with a dog for his friend and his father for -an enemy, and she herself, perhaps, under suspicion as being in the -confidence of the enemy. He would be like Romulus and Remus, she -thought, as her horror gathered volume. She was always a very simple -thinker. In any crisis her mind’s eye looked over a wide space of -whatever emotion was in possession of her, and some episode, historical, -literary or personal, often arose before her as a point of focus for the -end she was aiming at. Just now she was overwhelmed with pity for the -awful loneliness of a child’s nature with no human love to comfort it. -She knew herself what a place animals can take at such times. Romulus -and Remus had been mothered by a wolf, but must her Ivor be abandoned to -such a makeshift, while she, adoring him with all her heart and soul, -was chained by Evan to the Juggernaut’s car that was to pursue the child -through life? At the moment she pictured her husband’s religion as an -all-devouring monster. - -He sat meanwhile silent, frowning at her grief and wondering how his -domestic security had come to collapse like this at the breath of a high -ideal. Was his wife wholly worldly and given over to the worship of -self-indulgence? Did she mean to bring the boy up to be a pampered young -ass with no sense of duty to God or man? He said nothing, but thought -very dark thoughts. - -Presently Evangeline’s indomitable optimism came back to the rescue. She -had exhausted her emotion; Romulus and Remus had played their part in -her imagination and retired. Pity remained, but there was also hope and -the fighting strength of the jungle mother. She would remain Ivor’s -mother and play the part of the wolf as well. Evan should never get at -her darling while she lived; she would throw herself between them. It -was not until very much later in the tragedy that she began to think of -using cunning in her defence. At present she had no idea of decoying an -enemy away; that instinct had not yet been roused in her so she still -fought in the open. After the outburst of protest with which she first -met his innocent remark, and the passionate tears that followed, she -cheered up again and was prepared to shake hands. - -“It will be all right,” she said confidently. “I know you love him as -much as I do.” - -“I love him more, for I care what becomes of him,” was Evan’s grave -reply. - -“You are not going to beat him the first time he disobeys you?” she -asked in renewed panic. - -“Control yourself, for goodness sake,” he replied impatiently. “He is -only a baby. I have nothing to do with your nursery arrangements. Let -him tyrannise over you and make his life and yours a misery. There is -time enough for you to think over whether I am right, and to see the -result of depriving him of all means of defending himself against -ill-fortune in this world and damnation in the next.” - -“And when he is older, if I still think you are wrong——?” she pursued -breathlessly. - -“Then—I am sorry, Evangeline—I shall not hesitate to remove him from -your charge.” - -“You couldn’t!” she exclaimed. “They would never let you!” - -“I don’t know the exact law, but I fancy I could safeguard him and still -allow you to see him in an ordinary way without your being in authority. -But all this is absurd. We are making ourselves miserable about nothing. -Go up to him now and spoil him to your heart’s content. But think over -what I have said. You have so much good in you, Evangeline, if you would -only not let yourself be carried away by this terror of all pain and -discomfort.” - -“I didn’t make a sound when Ivor was born,” she said in amazement. - -“I know. Don’t think you hadn’t my admiration because I didn’t say so. I -was thinking of the pains of self-sacrifice and obedience to rules not -understood.” - -“If I can keep Ivor by bearing those, too, I will,” she assured him. - -“Of course you can, darling,” he said, misunderstanding. “We shall all -be happy at last, you will see.” - -At Christmas they went again to stay with Evangeline’s parents. Ivor -found his grandmother all that he could possibly desire. He fell madly -in love with her and she made very little attempt to conceal her triumph -from his nurse. Ivor loved the nurse dearly and she loved him, so that -altogether he never suffered a moment’s anxiety during his visit. War -was declared over him; a long and bitter war as it turned out; yet his -life became for the time being all the sweeter in consequence. Susie -entered the battlefield on the side of Evangeline and motherhood in -general, of “not worrying about things that can’t be helped,” and of -opposition to men who “will be disagreeable.” Love, wounded by Ivor’s -mischievous treachery at times when his grandmother’s blandishments must -be left for sleep and exercise, brought nurse in on the side of the -father and discipline. It was she who had to endure the nerve-racking -screams and struggles that took place on the other side of the -drawing-room door, and the wakeful nights caused by excitement and “the -very purest chocolate” from Grannie’s drawer which Ivor had learned to -open so cleverly. She had to put up with the gentlest and most -persistent advice, with seeing windows covertly opened or shut when -otherwise arranged by her with the tenderest care for Ivor’s comfort, -with clothes added to or removed from what he was wearing. Mothers of -any civilised country will bear witness that such trifles are more -dangerous to domestic peace than the franker brawls of the gutter. If -Susie and the nurse had let themselves go with the same _abandon_ as the -ladies of honest Robert’s beat, Ivor would have suffered less in the end -and his father and mother might have called quits after the exchange of -a black eye and a broken nose. As it was, Evangeline took no part in the -daily duels so long as her son remained unscathed between the contending -parties; but she noted Evan’s silent criticism. She saw that every scene -of wilfulness strengthened his position against her, and her heart -hardened towards him. Once when Mrs. Vachell asked her to lunch she -arrived there so discouraged that she could hardly keep up a pretence of -other conversation. - -“I am very sorry to be so stupid,” she said at last, “but I am tired to -death. Mother and Ivor’s nurse do get on so badly, though I believe it -is really one-sided because Mother seems not to notice at all; but she -puts nurse’s back up and Ivor takes advantage of it to get everything he -wants, and I don’t think she would stay through another visit. Evan -thinks it is my fault and that I spoil Ivor. I do so hate anger and -fuss. What would you do?” - -“I should tell the nurse that she must be polite to your mother or go,” -said Mrs. Vachell. - -“I wouldn’t do that for a thousand pounds,” said Evangeline. “She -worships Ivor and would give her life for him I really think.” - -“You would easily find another who would do just the same,” Mrs. Vachell -remarked, “and it might be good for him not to depend so much on one -person.” - -“No, no,” Evangeline repeated. “I won’t do that. But people can make -one’s life a burden, can’t they! Just by disapproving.” - -“I never allow anyone’s vagaries to bother me,” said Mrs. Vachell -coolly. “I do the best I can and am proof against black looks. Angry -faces are as soon dead as merry ones and their memory is not kept -green.” - -“Do you think a man’s feeling about children is always different from a -woman’s?” Evangeline asked presently. - -“Yes, very different,” Mrs. Vachell replied. “I think, if you ask me, -they are the most ram-headed, firebrand, poker-fingered lumps of folly -that could have been planted on an unhappy world to wreck its comfort.” -She spoke in a low, deliberate voice. “Damned fools,” she added lightly. -“Don’t you think so in your heart?” - -Evangeline was just going to answer when she remembered her husband’s -description of Mrs. Vachell after the Prices’ party, “intelligent” and -“cultivated” and “talks like a lady.” She saw a very old mistake for the -first time, fresh in all its eternal comedy, and was lifted right out of -her present difficulties by the amusement of it. “How gloriously funny!” -she exclaimed. - -“What is funny?” Mrs. Vachell asked, a little displeased. - -“That you should think that, and—Evan was so delighted with you!” -Evangeline blurted out. - -“Pooh!” said Mrs. Vachell. “I suppose you think I was trying to please -him?” - -“Oh, gracious, no,” said the poor girl. “I told him he knew nothing -about you.” - -“Did you? Why did you say that?” - -“Oh, because I knew you don’t believe in any of the things that he -likes.” - -“My dear girl, how can you know that? What don’t I believe in?” - -“I mean his kind of religion, and rectitude, and making oneself -uncomfortable about nothing, and all that misunderstanding of everybody -and looking out for badness.” - -“You don’t need to look far,” said Mrs. Vachell. - -“Do you think so?” said Evangeline, surprised. “Now that is just what I -don’t. I think there would be hardly any badness if people didn’t make -it by believing in it. But why do you think men are so stupid? You can’t -have thought so in the war——” She became suddenly indignant. - -“If men had not been what they are there would have been no war,” said -Mrs. Vachell. - -“Oh, but—good gracious! Look how women fight!” Evangeline exclaimed in -amazement, “and all about nothing! Men fight _for_ something, and—I -can’t bear to hear you say beastly things about them when they did——” -Her voice broke and she stopped. Her eyes were bright and troubled as -she looked at Mrs. Vachell in the hope of having mistaken her words. - -“Don’t take what I say so much to heart,” Mrs. Vachell said gently. “You -are a very feminine woman. You ought to turn your sympathies on to your -own sex, who have to endure seeing their lovers and sons killed because -countries are governed by brutes and knaves and idiots. When your baby -goes to war and your husband urges him on with applause and he leaves a -wife and probably two or three ruined women behind him——” - -Evangeline’s tears had vanished in utter astonishment at the novelty of -this view and her own fundamental disbelief in its reality. There was -nothing in it to stir her passion as it was remote from anything she -could ever feel and she did not believe anyone else felt it either. - -“Of course Ivor will go without any egging on,” she said. “I should die -of shame if I had even to open the door for him. And as for ruined -women—Evan is not like that nor are my people, any of them. I don’t see -why Ivor should grow up a pig any more than they did. But”—she -remembered again what had amused her—“I do wish you would come and say -all that to Evan. I do want to prove to him that I was right, and of -course I can’t tell him what you said. He wouldn’t believe it and would -think I was being like a woman.” - -This last slip of the tongue was unfortunate and might have led to such -divergence of opinion as would have deprived Evangeline of those further -talks with Mrs. Vachell that had so much influence on her future. But -they heard the front door bell ring and Mrs. Vachell said, “That is -probably Mr. Fisk. He said he might come this afternoon. I wish you -would stay a little; he might really interest you.” - -“Who is he?” Evangeline asked. - -“One of the stupidest of the students, but a reformer——” Mr. Fisk was -announced. He began of course about the weather and asked Evangeline -whether she had “been long in these parts,” and so on; he omitted none -of the steps to acquaintance by which his kindred are accustomed to -reach the more companionable stage of invitations to “tea and s’rimps.” -Mrs. Vachell soon became impatient and cut him short. “Don’t let us be -social any more, Mr. Fisk,” she suggested, “but tell us how your -campaign is getting on.” - -He plunged at once into oratorical phrases and Evangeline listened, -bewildered. Mrs. Vachell led him on by subtle questions to the law of -marriage. - -“Are you in favour of the coming of women?” he asked Evangeline. - -“Where to?” she asked. She was deeply interested. - -“What people call feminism,” Mrs. Vachell explained. “Don’t you want to -take your share in the world?” - -“What sort of share?” said Evangeline. “I thought I had got one; but I -am too stupid to do things, if you mean having a profession.” - -“Have you ever tried, may I ask?” Mr. Fisk inquired. “Perhaps you hardly -know your powers.” - -“You like people to be happy, I know,” said Mrs. Vachell. “Why not take -steps to make them so? Don’t you find, for instance, that men have too -much power over their families?” - -Evangeline’s private anxieties awoke. “Do you mean when they can say how -children are to be brought up?” - -“Yes, that among other things.” Mrs. Vachell observed her closely. - -“They oughtn’t to,” said Evangeline. “They don’t understand——” - -“Have you read Iris Smith’s pamphlet on the matriarchate?” asked Mr. -Fisk. - -“No, I haven’t read anything deep,” she replied. “What is the thing? You -don’t mean that sort of solid turquoise?” She supposed him to have -changed the subject out of modesty. He looked scared and Mrs. Vachell -laughed. - -“Mrs. Hatton is only a potential ally,” she explained to him. “She has -the real instinct, which is worth all the learning in the world. Books -are only useful for downing the catchwords of stupid people who won’t -think. How would you like it,” she continued to Evangeline, “if your -husband insisted on your boy being brought up at some particular school -and you knew that he would be bullied and misunderstood there, and that -all the tenderness you love would be crushed out of him; and suppose you -found after he went that he came back despising you in his heart for -being of the inferior sex, though he still caressed you as a dear old -silly whom he could get material comforts from and put down with one -hand in any discussion?” - -“Boys aren’t like that,” said Evangeline frowning. “I know they are -not—not English boys, anyhow,” she added with a look at Mr. Fisk’s hair, -to which she had taken a sudden dislike. - -“They have been just like that since a date so far back that I don’t -believe you have ever heard of it,” Mrs. Vachell assured her. “That is -why you will find it interesting to read books some day.” - -Evangeline stayed to tea and came back more incensed than ever against -Evan’s theories and more than ever in love with his masculinity. - - - - - CHAPTER XII - - -Anyone entering the Prices’ house on any Wednesday afternoon between -3.30 and 6 would hear from the staircase and even from the front door a -chatter and clatter of cups and conversation and shrill laughter. In a -short time the drawing-room bell would ring, a door would open upstairs -and louder sounds of talking would burst out; then one of the Price -girls would be heard to say, “Well, good-bye, then. Tuesday week,” or -something like that, and a female form, expensively dressed, the remains -of a farewell smile still on the face, would pass down the stairs and -probably meet the maidservant on her way up with another batch from the -front door. On some Wednesdays as many as thirty women called on Mrs. -Price. Susie, who “believed in keeping up with people,” as she said, was -there one day soon after Evangeline had left her. The Prices made much -of her because of her triple connection with Millport, London and the -county, and the girls described Cyril as “perfectly killing!” They had a -great respect for him as soon as they saw that he had none whatever for -them. - -Perhaps it was some survival of the days when slavery was upheld from -the pulpit by a man of God in their city that gave one or two of the -older Millport families their exaggerated esteem for an impressive -manner. They knew by ancestral experience that the top dog is the thing -to be. They sat as near the top as they could and gazed with admiration -at those who pressed on them from above. No one who understood Cyril -could suspect him of being impressive, but he took no interest in the -Prices, so their natural inference from his behaviour was that he must -be used to something better than themselves, and that would be something -very good indeed. The train of thought runs easily to the conclusion -that Cyril was worth cultivating. Half the things he said would have -convicted him of “giving himself airs” had he been a poor man and polite -to the Prices, but, “Have you heard what the General said?” they -repeated to one another after every occasion when they met him. Even -such trifles as “what he said when Father offered him a cigar at the -Club,” were reported, and the answer, “No, thanks; have you seen the -paper?” produced an avalanche of delight. - -“But what did he mean, dear?” asked poor Mrs. Price. “I don’t see -anything particular in that.” - -“Oh, mother! Of course he wanted to get rid of Dad; can’t you see? ‘Have -you seen the paper!’ I think it is delicious. You can just imagine him -handing it over and sloping off.” - -On this afternoon Mrs. Price sat down beside Susie and began to make -herself agreeable. “Your daughter has left you now, hasn’t she, Mrs. -—er?” she began. “I hope Drage suits her. My son was there for a time -and didn’t care for it.” - -“It is not a beautiful place, of course,” Susie replied, “but to see -those boys back from the war enjoying themselves so much is as good as -any scenery. Your son told Evangeline of the unfortunate accident that -prevented him from going out. She was so sorry for him.” - -“Well, I wasn’t sorry,” said Mrs. Price. “I think the whole arrangement -of conscription was scandalous. They took people who were absolutely -necessary for carrying on what business there was, and sent them out. -Joseph has a very weak throat and would have been absolutely useless, as -I told him; though he had made up his mind to go. However, it is all -over now and I hope to goodness they will get all the labour troubles -settled soon. The price of everything is dreadful. I don’t know how we -are to go on living.” - -“By-the-bye,” asked Susie, “has anything been settled about your taking -Aldwych?” - -An unpleasant recollection rose in Mrs. Price’s mind. Higgins had -reported to one of the maids after the party “how disrespectful that -military gentleman that came had spoke” about wealth in general and the -Prices in particular. He had retailed Cyril’s remarks about getting the -smell of money out of the house and the likelihood of the Prices -demoralising the Aldwych tenants like the plague. Higgins had told the -infamous tale three times at supper, and Hopkins, Mrs. Price’s maid, had -repeated it to her mistress. The young Prices had heard of it, but paid -little attention. It only stung them to further admiration of Cyril, for -since the Profiteering Act had been passed and half the jokes in _Punch_ -were about people who looked rather like Dad and Mother they had begun -to feel that the gilt on their gingerbread had better be covered a -little to prevent rubbing. The parents, however, did not like it. - -“I don’t know whether we can afford to take it at all,” Mrs. Price -continued. “It is only people who have made money in the war that can do -that sort of thing now. Of course Mr. Price actually lost more than he -made, and with the income tax and everything his idea was really to give -up and go into the country. Aldwych would need a great deal of keeping -up.” - -“Would it?” said Susie. “I daresay. But you would find the life so -delightful, wouldn’t you? I think the unrest in a big town is so trying, -and the unemployment makes it so much worse.” Mrs. Gainsborough was -sitting on a sofa at her left hand, talking to a clergyman’s wife, and -there was a sudden silence as Susie spoke. The young Prices had gone -into the little room beyond to discuss some theatricals they were -getting up for a charity. - -“Why does the Principal allow Mr. Cranston to go on as he does?” Mrs. -Price asked, turning to Mrs. Gainsborough. - -“He doesn’t,” she replied distractedly. “It drives him nearly wild, but -he can’t do anything.” - -“He is making it much harder for everybody,” said Mrs. Abel, the -clergyman’s wife. “My husband says he is doing incalculable harm in our -neighbourhood. They are not the very poorest people there and they all -have time to read and they are great orators—” - -“Mrs. Carpenter and Mrs. Vachell,” the maid announced. - -“Ah, this is delightful!” Mrs. Carpenter exclaimed, advancing first and -shaking hands with everybody. “You are so wise to go on keeping to one -day,” she said to Mrs. Price. “It is almost the only way of seeing one’s -friends. I should love it if I had nothing to do, but if I tried to keep -an afternoon to myself someone would be sure to call a special meeting -somewhere and I should have to go off. And how is your dear girl? (To -Susie.) Wrapped up in hubby and the baby, I suppose. I hope he is not -getting his teeth too soon; it is such a pity when they do; they only -decay earlier. And how is Emma? (To Mrs. Gainsborough.) I meet her here, -there and everywhere. I think she does too much. She has not been -accustomed to so much drudgery as an old soldier’s daughter like me. -Papa used to hear us our Greek Testament every morning at half-past six. -You know those were the good old days at Universities! He never gave it -up even when he went to India. Then we had our classes and our -riding-master and the old drill-sergeant, and my mother used to take us -round among the wives and tell them what to do with their babies. Girls -haven’t the same strength now. I make Baba lie down for an hour every -day after lunch while I write letters, and I am sure Emma ought to do -the same. And how is your parish, Mrs. Abel?” She settled down at last -to one victim and let the others go. - -Presently they heard men’s voices in the hall, some heavy stumbling -upstairs and a door shut. Mrs. Price listened, hesitated and rang the -bell. “Has anything happened, Gregory?” she asked the maid. - -“Mr. Joseph, ma’am, brought home a young man who got knocked down by the -car. He wished you not to be troubled as there is nothing serious and he -is expected to be all right in a few minutes. Mr. Varens is with him in -Mr. Price’s study.” - -“I had better go and see what is the matter,” said Mrs. Price. “Don’t -disturb yourselves; I shall be back in a minute.” She was gone nearly a -quarter-of-an-hour, but her guests waited on. Mrs. Carpenter and Mrs. -Vachell had begun an animated conversation on strikes and Susie was -listening. When Mrs. Price came back she looked quite scared. - -“It is a young man called Fisk,” she said. “David Varens says he is one -of the students and you would know him,” she turned to Mrs. -Gainsborough. “He is quite himself again, but he was stunned for the -moment and I don’t think he knew where he was. He was talking a great -deal in a very noisy way about blood, and there wasn’t a scratch on him! -I have telephoned for the doctor to make quite sure he is all right, -though he says he can go home. Do you know anything of him?” - -“Yes, I do,” said Mrs. Gainsborough, “and if he is talking about blood -you may be sure he is quite well. He thinks of very little else; it is -almost a pity in some ways if he hasn’t lost any. We all know about him -and he is the greatest nuisance and trouble to my husband. How did it -happen?” - -“Joseph was driving Mr. Varens back to tea here and the young man came -out from behind some cart when they were crossing the road. He was not -thinking where he was going and walked right into the car; but -fortunately it was hardly moving.” - -“Dear me, what a shock it must have given him!” said Susie. - -“Have you got brandy in the house?” asked Mrs. Abel. - -“Of course we have, thank you,” Mrs. Price was greatly offended at the -suggestion of such incompleteness in a perfect establishment. As bad as -asking King George whether he kept a hair brush. “That is not the point. -Do you mean to say that he is dangerous, Mrs. Gainsborough?” - -“Not more than a flying soda-water bottle,” she answered nervously. The -little contretemps about the brandy had flurried her and probably -suggested the comparison. - -“I think Teresa mentioned him once,” said Susie, who always came to the -rescue at any hint of dispute. “A Communist, isn’t he?” - -“A very determined one,” said Mrs. Vachell. - -“What nonsense!” Mrs. Price exclaimed. “A great many of my relations are -Communists and I am quite sure this young man doesn’t look like one. He -must be pretending.” Joseph came in just then. - -“The doctor has come,” he remarked, “and says he’d better go t’ bed. -There’s nothing the matter, but David says he’ll leave a note on the -chap’s people on th’ way back. They live close by th’ station. Kerious -sort of f’ller, he is. Called me ‘Moloch’ when he w’s coming round. Who -was Moloch, d’you remember?” he asked Mrs. Vachell. “I can’t just get it -for th’ moment.” - -“Something to do with blood, wasn’t he?” Mrs. Vachell suggested. - -“Ah, thaat’s it,” Joseph replied contentedly. “Script’ral allusion ’f -some sort I w’s sure. He’s talking about blood all th’ time and not a -scratch on him anywhere. ’t’s most kerious.” - -“Some people have such a prejudice against cars, particularly if they -are not in them,” said Susie. “And if he is a Communist he is quite sure -to think he ought to have one. And so ought everybody, I do think, if -they can. When cheap ones are made in large quantities I am sure people -will be happier and more contented.” - -“Except those who make them,” said Mrs. Vachell. She was standing up by -the mantelpiece, fingering a matchbox on the corner. “Or shall we -contrive that Mr. Fisk gets inside one as soon as possible and you and I -take a turn at the workshops, Mrs. Fulton?” - -“No, I think we are all much better where we are,” Susie replied -smiling. “Every man to his last. But I do certainly think that -conditions ought to be made better. I believe if all that sort of thing -were arranged everyone would settle down much more comfortably. Beauty -is such a happy thing. I find, myself, that I don’t mind how simply I -live so long as I have music and books and so on and if I can get out -into the country sometimes. These ugly streets are so depressing.” - -“You must meet Mr. Cranston and see what you can do with him,” said Mrs. -Vachell. - -“I don’t think Mrs. Fulton would get on with him at all,” put in Mrs. -Gainsborough in a great flurry. Her imagination flew to a possible scene -of inextricable confusion and she turned quite red with embarrassment. - -“No, do, Mrs. Fulton,” said Mrs. Abel anxiously. “I wish you would speak -to him and see if you can’t influence him. What you say is perfectly -true. My husband would be so grateful to you.” - -“Well, I hope you will ask me to come too,” said Mrs. Carpenter. “I can -support you with all the facts if you want them. Mr. Cranston talks the -greatest nonsense. He should come down to our place and talk to the -women I have to deal with and get at the practical side of what they -want. He would find that if he stopped the men drinking and made them -bring home their wages there would be plenty—abundance even—to live on; -and if it were made a criminal offence for a man to run after a young -girl——” - -“Or for a girl to run after a young man,” Mrs. Gainsborough interrupted -nervously. “They so often do, you know.” - -“Not unless they are taught to do it,” Susie objected, her eyes wide -with reproach. - -Joseph Price sat on the back of a sofa looking from one lady to the -other and jingling the money in his pockets. His mother was waiting to -ring the bell and have them all shown out. The girls had come from the -other room and were standing at the back wondering what it was all -about. - -“I am afraid we must be going,” said Mrs. Gainsborough, feeling that she -had not said the right thing and wishing Emma were there. - -“You m’st have a talk to Fisk,” said Joseph to Susie. “You’d like him; -he’s really a very int’resting f’ller. I wonder if he’s still talking -about blood; p’raps I’d better go and see.” - -“Well, you will come and meet Mr. Cranston, won’t you, Mrs. Fulton?” -Mrs. Vachell said. She held out her hand to say good-bye to Mrs. Price -and they all went downstairs. - - - - - CHAPTER XIII - - -Teresa was staying with Evangeline at Drage. Evangeline had received a -letter from her a week before saying, “I want you to ask me to stay with -you for a few days. David has asked me to marry him and I can hardly -make you understand how much I want to and at the same time explain why -I have refused. You will think it silly, because you don’t take sayings -literally and there are some that I can’t take generally. If I had a lot -of money I should see written up on the walls all round me, ‘Sell all -that thou hast and give to the poor.’ I couldn’t live in the middle of -it and just dole out what was left from the expenses of a big house. -David won’t see it. If only his father had not died! Then we should have -been married and I couldn’t have gone back; whatever we settled David -and I could not have parted. Though that is just cowardice. It is that I -hate having the choice when I am so perfectly certain which I ought to -do. David says the money he would get for the estate would make as much -difference to the poor as a parcel of dressings in a battle, but I think -that is the weakest possible argument, that because one person can’t do -much no one is to do anything; everyone has to go as far as they can see -and nothing less is enough. He says the money is more useful where it -is, in teaching people to make the best out of the land. I asked if we -couldn’t at least sell the big house and live in a cottage or perhaps -use the house as a convalescent home for mothers and children; but he -says, No. It is full of lovely things, hundreds of years old, that -belonged to his family and that he has the right to enjoy as much as if -he had bought them himself. He says that if Mr. Price bought them, as he -would like to do, he wouldn’t either give them away or sell them -directly. He doesn’t care about them, but he would keep them out of -vanity and hand them on to Joseph, who would probably sell them to the -Jews and they would be lost all over the world. I said, wasn’t that a -good thing, as then so many people could each have a little bit and -enjoy it, but he said there was no sense in that; they looked much -better all together where they were. Of course you and I have never had -a family tree, so I don’t suppose we understand any more than Mrs. -Potter does—though, if you come to think of it, whenever she puts that -absurd old tea caddy of hers up the spout she always gets it out again -because it was her grandmother’s. But Mother found out about David and -she goes on talking very gently and persistently, and tells me I am only -a little girl and can’t possibly think out things that even the greatest -men don’t agree about, and she doesn’t see that that is not the point. I -have to follow what my bones say is the only decent thing to do. She -does get on my nerves so, and I know you won’t argue if I ask you not. I -believe I shall get some support out of Evan, as he does so believe in -anything uncomfortable, doesn’t he? And this is so uncomfortable I am -nearly mad.” - -Evangeline had written at once, offering all the welcome and freedom -Teresa could want, and Evan received her with affection. He liked her -thoroughly. She found an atmosphere of tension and sadness in the house -that she had not expected, neither could she see how it came there, for -Evangeline seemed on good terms with her husband, and Ivor was well and -in the highest spirits; except when his father came into the nursery, -which was not very often. Then the nurse grew troubled and fidgeted the -child and he became exacting and contentious, speaking rudely to her, -which was quite unusual with him. One day Teresa and Evangeline were -there playing with him in perfect peace, when Evan came in. It was about -half-past three on a foggy November afternoon. “Why isn’t that boy out?” -he asked his wife. - -“He has been out,” she answered, “but Nurse brought him in as it is so -foggy and he has had a cold.” - -“We were always turned out in all weathers up in Yorkshire, and it never -did us any harm,” said Evan. - -“Let’s turn that gun further round this way, Ivor,” said Evangeline, -going on with the game. “You see it would be firing right into its own -trenches; try a shot and you will see.” Evan looked on. - -“Here, old man, I’ll show you,” he said, and he took hold of the gun. - -“No, don’t!” shouted Ivor in great excitement. “Put it down! I’ve put it -there mythelf.” - -“Yes, but you haven’t done it properly,” his father said, beginning to -move it. - -“Leave it, I thay,” Ivor screamed, almost beside himself. “Get out from -my gunth——” He pushed his father away impatiently. “And you get out -too,” he commanded Evangeline, pushing her also, suddenly tired of -visitors. “All go away downthtairth.” Tears of aggravation were in his -eyes, but he kept them back. - -“You are not to speak to your mother like that, sir,” said Evan. -“Apologise to her at once.” Ivor had no idea what apologising meant, but -it sounded horrid. “Than’t,” he said. - -“Oh, do go away, please, Evan,” said Evangeline. “We’re coming down to -tea presently. Do go and ring for it.” - -“Not till that boy has apologised for his rudeness,” said Evan. Ivor had -resumed his game alone and was getting interested and remote. Evidently -this tiresome family of his were going to fight among themselves and -leave him in peace. - -“You are sorry, aren’t you?” his mother said, then in a pleading tone: -“You didn’t mean to push, did you?” - -“Eth,” said Ivor, as he placed the contested gun carefully back in the -position from which his father had moved it. - -“Nonsense,” said Evangeline temptingly. “Come here and kiss me and make -it up.” - -“Take—away—your—’uthband,” Ivor said slowly, as if he were repeating a -lesson to himself. His mother and his aunt shouted with delight and -could hardly believe that the child had meant it. Ivor’s face was quite -unmoved. “Come on,” said Evangeline, seizing Evan by the arm and -dragging him out of the room. “You can’t stay after that.” But he -neither smiled nor answered. He followed them downstairs and did not -speak for some time. - -When he had gone out again after tea Evangeline sat for a time looking -idly into the fire. “Dicky,” she began after a little while, “whatever -you do don’t marry a man with whom you daren’t be truthful. Before I -talk to Evan I have to treat what I want to say as if it were to a -foreigner and had to be translated into his language. First I have to -cut out the bits that won’t do because of the prejudices he was brought -up in. Then I have to change whole chunks that he would associate with -other women whom he dislikes and who have said the same things; we do, -as a sex, rather talk about the same things as each other, don’t we? But -when he has heard some gas-bag of a creature say, ‘Oh, Captain Hatton, I -do love children!’ (which she probably does) he thinks the whole subject -exhausted, and shamefully exhausted too! So if any woman uses the word -‘love’ at any time afterwards he looks the subject up in his mind and -finds a note, ‘memo. gas. Mrs. T.’ and there’s an end of it; so in -future, when I want to say anything about love I have to use another -word. It is very hampering.” - -“But you can’t go on using new words about everything,” said Teresa. - -“No, but you see in the kind of things he talks to men about the words -can’t very well be misused. If you are describing what has gone wrong -with an engine you can only use words like ‘plug’ and ‘spring’ and -‘valve,’ that have only one meaning. Even a lawyer couldn’t say, ‘I -suggest that when you tell the Court that the valve was defective you -inferred that John Brown’s baby had a wart on its nose.’ But that is -what Evan does if I try to tell him what Ivor is thinking—things that I -know quite well because I remember being a child, and he doesn’t.” - -“Yes, I see,” said Teresa. - -“Well, let us get on to David,” said her sister. “Does what I have said -apply to him or not?” - -“No, not at all,” (very emphatically). - -“Then why doesn’t he do what you want?” - -“Not because he doesn’t understand, but because he doesn’t agree. It is -rather like statistics; two people can add up the same figures and prove -different results with them, one showing that trade is prospering and -the other that it is going all wrong.” - -“You know, I agree with him,” said Evangeline. “I don’t think you could -do any good by selling everything. There is nothing you can give to -people to make them happy if they don’t want to be. I have found that -out.” - -“But the people I am talking about do want to be happy,” Teresa argued -passionately. “They are starving for what other people are throwing away -because they can’t use all of it.” - -“I saw in the paper the other day that if you divided up everyone’s -money there would be only thirteen-and-something a day—or a week—or it -might have been a year—I forget; but only a very little like that for -each person.” - -“It wasn’t finance that I was thinking of,” said Teresa, “I know it is -no good trying to settle that. There is a horrid boy at the University -called Fisk. He is always telling me that I haven’t studied the subject, -and he is going quite mad himself over it. He devours Mr. Cranston’s -literature and coughs it up again much the worse for wear. Joseph Price -ran over him once, ages ago, and brought him back to their house in the -middle of a tea-party. Mother was there, and David told me all about it -afterwards. Of course Mother told us nothing except that Mrs. Price got -frightened at Fisk talking so much about blood, as he always does when -he is excited, and that she had said that he couldn’t possibly be a -Communist, because some of her own relations were; wasn’t that like her? -You know they were all very rich, so I have wondered since how they did -mean to divide up their money. But whichever way it was they don’t seem -to have done it. Fisk stayed in the Prices’ house for two days, and at -last Mrs. Price sent for Emma, as he seemed to have settled down there -very comfortably and said he was too ill to move. I think Joseph -encouraged him because he thought it was the kind of thing his dear -Mortons, whom he imitates, would do; keep a revolutionary in bed in -their own house and egg him on and feed him up and get lots of notoriety -out of him and then manage to get out of any trouble that they raised -later on. David says if there were a revolution the Mortons would -probably pretend to head it and then slip off to another country where -it is all comfortable under a despot.” - -“What does Father say?” Evangeline asked curiously. - -“I haven’t told him about David,” Teresa replied. - -“Why not? He always understands, and if, as you say, Mother knows, she -is sure to have told him.” - -“No, there are some things he doesn’t see at all, and one of them is -slums. They don’t worry him an atom unless he has to walk through them, -and if he does that he complains that everyone wears fish next the skin, -and wants to go home another way. He never will take the trouble to -think about anything horrid that he can’t help. I asked him once what he -would do if he had to live in a place like that—we were in some horrible -street near the docks—and he said that it was impossible that he should -have to, because then he would be somebody else; he explained that he -would have been given gin in his bottle as a baby, and therefore would -have grown up quite contented with it all. Of course he would side with -David if I told him. The idea of Mr. Price having anything to do with -hounds would prevent him from listening to arguments even from an -archangel.” - -If Teresa had but known, her parents were at that very moment discussing -the same subject. It was after dinner, and Susie had mentioned that she -met Lady Varens that afternoon opening a bazaar. “They are going to let -Aldwych to the Prices for three years,” she said. “David refuses to sell -it, but he has suddenly come round to the idea of letting it. I suppose -the Prices hope to be able to buy it in the end.” - -“Well, I’m damned sorry,” he said with a sigh. - -“I am afraid it is partly Dicky’s fault, Cyril,” she suggested gently. - -“How’s that?” he asked. “You haven’t sold her to that young Price, have -you, Sue? I couldn’t stand that.” - -“I wonder if you will ever understand that marriage is not a question of -bargaining and arrangement,” said his wife impatiently. “It is really a -pity, I think, that I wasn’t able to provide you with cattle instead of -children. You would have understood me far better if I had been a slave -or an animal.” - -“We might try,” he suggested. “It is not too late to add to your list of -female impersonations. But you haven’t answered my question.” - -“I forget what it was,” she answered gravely. - -“Whether you had bestowed (we will say if you prefer it) Teresa on -Joseph Price.” - -“I have no reason to suppose that he has asked her to marry him,” said -Susie. - -“Then we may take it that is all right,” he said with relief. “She would -never invite herself. I am always glad to see Mammon spread his net in -vain for your sex, Sue. It makes the world so much brighter and better. -But what did you mean that Dicky had done?” - -“She has refused David; why I don’t know.” - -“I am really sorry about that,” he said after a pause. - -“I suppose you wouldn’t tell her so, would you?” she asked hopefully. - -“Of course not. If marriage means as much to a girl as you say it does, -she isn’t likely to invest in a husband to amuse dear old Dad.” - -“No, but you might tell her. Girls are so silly.” - -“Well, you astonish me!” said Cyril. - -“Why? Surely you must know they are.” - -“I thought the feminine instinct was infallible on every subject.” - -“She can’t be expected to have experience,” said Susie. - -“Then the divine gift is just a happy little flame that you can blow out -when you don’t want to see it, is that it? You can just ask Mother what -she saw when she was a girl? And that was a devil of a lot,” he added -reflectively. - -“Then it is no good asking you to take the matter seriously?” she -inquired. - -“She is not going to stay away long, is she?” Cyril asked. - -“I shouldn’t think so. I believe Evan’s sisters are going to stay there -next week.” - -“Well, absence makes the heart grow fonder,” he observed. “I am very -sorry about Dicky. I don’t think you made a great success there, Sue.” - -“I had nothing to do with it,” she protested. “I implored her to wait. -If anything it was your fault for having Evan always about here.” - -“Now how could I help that?” Cyril inquired. “I couldn’t have a maiden -lady as my A.D.C., and if I had, you would have said that I taught her -to be wicked. As it was, I just tried not to worry.” - -“Is there anything else I can say for you to twist round, Cyril dear?” -asked his wife. “I am delighted to give you opportunities for your wit, -but sometimes it is hardly possible to open one’s mouth.” - -“I am sorry,” he said penitently. “I don’t want to tease you, really. I -love everything you say. But when you blamed me for not keeping Hatton -in a cupboard like a bottle of whisky labelled ‘not to be taken,’ I -thought you were coming it a little strong.” - -“They don’t seem to me to be very happy,” said Susie, prepared to start -again amicably. “I wish he wouldn’t carry religion quite so far.” - -“How far does he carry it?” asked Cyril, “You see, he never had occasion -to bring it to me at all, so I don’t know.” - -“Oh quite ridiculous lengths,” Susie replied. “He thinks quite a number -of things wrong.” - -“Ha! ha! ha!” laughed Cyril uproariously. “Well done, Sue. That’s a -topper! Ha! ha!” - -“My dear Cyril, what on earth is the matter?” she asked, quite -bewildered. - -“Nothing,” he replied gravely, as he poured himself out his usual -evening drink. “My mind wanders sometimes. Go on, my dear. Evan is -suffering from moral unrest, you say?” - -“Yes, he used even to think it wrong sometimes when I had dear Baby in -my room and played with him. I think it is dreadful not to want to see a -little child happy.” - -“I don’t know that I would trust you to bring up a boy, Sue,” he said -candidly. “You see, your idea of a male is to let it have all it wants -so long as it is only a matter of a little song and dance. But when it -begins to want things a bit nearer the bone, you pull it up short and it -gets confused. Very few women know how to go on as they meant to begin.” - -“I suppose you mean ‘begin as they mean to go on,’” said Susie, “but you -are quite wrong. Men understand what women mean quite well from the -beginning.” - -“I meant what I said,” Cyril persisted. “Go on as they meant to begin. -They meant to begin with a carnival and to end in Lent.” - -Susie flushed. “I was saying that I think Evan is far too strict with -little Ivor,” she said. - -“Someone has got to be sometime,” said Cyril carelessly. “It will save -the schoolmaster’s arm later.” - -“But a baby! It is so cruel,” she protested. “I must say, Cyril, to do -you justice, you never interfered with the children.” - -“No, because they were girls,” he replied. “And anyhow, I don’t know -anything about kids. I don’t mind them but I keep out of the way.” - -“They were much fonder of you than Ivor is of his father.” - -“Don’t let’s be boastful. And you had much better leave those two to -manage their own affairs.” - -Teresa came back at the end of the week and saw David once before he -went away. The Prices were to move into Aldwych next month and Lady -Varens was going abroad when David went to the Argentine to learn -farming. - -He met Teresa when he was leaving the University one evening and walked -back with her. When they reached the house she invited him in. “I know -Mother is out,” she said, “and Father probably is, too, but I want you -to come in. I have one more thing to say.” - -“What is it?” he asked when they were in the drawing-room. - -“Do you think you will certainly come back when the Prices’ three years -are up?” - -“I shall see what sort of a show they run there. If it is all right I -might let them have it and I would buy some land somewhere else.” - -“Where for instance?” - -“Anywhere where they talk English.” - -“Even in the Colonies? And what about all the things in your house?” - -“I should move them.” - -“And what about the old people on the place?” - -“Easily move them too, if they liked. If not, leave them.” - -“Would many of them want to go, do you think?” - -“Not unless your friend Fisk gets too much of the blood he is after. -Then they might.” - -“David, I do loathe that Fisk.” - -“Yes, so do I.——Teresa?” - -“It is the Lady Bountiful I can’t do,” she said very sadly. “There is -something in me that sticks and boggles at it as if I were trying to -swallow a fish bone. If you loved someone as much as you could and were -told you must only flirt with them—wouldn’t you feel you couldn’t? It -would be like selling one’s soul to the devil.” - -“No, I do think that is awfully silly,” said David. “You can’t flirt -with a girl you love. You get run away with and then—well, you go where -it is going. You don’t think about whether you ought to stop and pick -mushrooms.” - -So it seemed. For when Susie came back David had gone, and Teresa’s pale -little face bore evidence of having paid dearly for her inability to (as -she thought) flirt with her love for Mrs. Potter. It is impossible to -say whether David carried his idea of the runaway horse any further, or -comforted himself with the possibility of deflecting the course of -Teresa’s passion for regeneration. - - - - - CHAPTER XIV - - -“I am going to Aldwych to call on the Prices. Will you come with me, -dear Dicky? I wish you would,” said Susie. - -Teresa said she would. Sometime the idea of Aldwych without David must -be recognised and dealt with. She also wished her mother to forget that -“a girl may regret some day” having refused a beautiful old place in the -country and a really good husband “just for an idea.” Poor little Teresa -supposed that any show of reluctance to go back to the house might be -taken as evidence of a weak spot in her armour. Neither she nor -Evangeline had ever known how much of the world their mother detected -from behind her veil of misty sweetness. Anything more candid than her -words and actions could hardly be imagined, and yet somehow, as -Evangeline had said, omelets were mysteriously made in hats, and whether -Susie or the Powers of Darkness made them none of her audience could -discern. Cyril had his ideas on the subject and we have seen how deeply -they wounded her. - -Mrs. Price was found in the garden, talking in her best manner to one of -“the county” who had called; a crushing sort of woman who made it quite -clear to Mrs. Price that she had called in obedience to the tradition -that “noblesse oblige.” She was known as Mrs. Archie Lake, and newcomers -were supposed to be “all right” if she called on them. She had conferred -the stamp of recognition on Mrs. Price for several reasons. First, “out -of decency to Milly Varens”; secondly, because the Hunt was not in a -very flourishing condition, and Mr. Price was reported to be rich and -ambitious; thirdly, “just to see what they were like.” Someone had met -Joseph Price and reported that he was quite possible and that the girls -would probably have money too in the end——. Here Mrs. Lake let her train -of thought lose itself because one does not think these things out in so -many words. Her son was rather a worry to her, but it is impossible to -make plans of that sort. The French do, but we don’t. Anyhow she called, -and Susie and Teresa found her there. Mrs. Price was getting on well -with her new manner. “How charming of you to come, Mrs. Fulton. Of -course you know this part of the world well. And how is the General?” -She did not wish Mrs. Lake to suppose that Millport was going to be -allowed to track her down here, but Susie, of course, was different. She -welcomed her. - -“Yes, I think we have met somewhere, haven’t we?” said Mrs. Lake, -raising her eyes sleepily to Susie. Mrs. Price made a mental note and -tried to look a little sleepy too. - -“I am sure you are enjoying the country,” Susie said to her. “Everything -is looking so exquisite just now. We want to go away ourselves as soon -as we can, but my husband finds it very difficult to get away. He -doesn’t care for the sea and so many of his Staff have children that he -likes to let them off when the schools break up and take his own holiday -when the hunting begins.” - -“But isn’t Millport on the sea somewhere?” asked Mrs. Lake. Mrs. Price -flushed. “We hardly think of a great port like that as the seaside,” she -said. “Of course when my husband’s ancestor went there first and -practically built what there was it was on the sea, but that is so long -ago and everything is so altered he would hardly recognise it if he were -alive. There are very few people nowadays who have the courage of those -pioneers who went down to the sea in ships and opened up communications -with the East. My husband cares so much more for sport and racing and -all that, that I tell him he is not half proud enough of the old family -he comes from. Something so rugged and adventurous about the sea, isn’t -there?” - -“They used to import slaves, didn’t they?” Mrs. Lake inquired, looking -quite vacant. “I wish they would begin again now. I am fed up with the -search for servants, aren’t you?” - -“Oh, but don’t you think that was terribly wrong?” said Susie. “I can’t -bear to think of it. I am sure that most of the labour troubles now are -largely owing to people having been so inconsiderate for others in the -past. Teresa and I both work a great deal in that way, and we see so -much of it.” - -“Oh, really? What sort of work do you do?” asked Mrs. Lake of Teresa. - -“I just sort papers in an office,” said Teresa, who would have beaten -her mother at that moment. - -“Really? Don’t you find you need exercise?” said Mrs. Lake. “You had -better come and do some hunting in the winter. I have come to the -conclusion that the working classes don’t need helping any more; they -help themselves to everything they want. Do your girls hunt?” she turned -to Mrs. Price. - -“Oh, they are quite mad about it,” their mother replied. “Sir David sold -his horses before we came. He said he didn’t understand that Mr. Price -would have bought any that were good enough for the girls, but some -others have been ordered, I believe, and in the meantime we have the -three motors to get about in, so we are not really cut off.” - -Mrs. Lake was startled almost out of her good behaviour. She regretted -for a moment having called so soon, in case it should really be -impossible to go on with these people, however rich they were. - -“I suppose Sir David is coming back in a year or two?” she said, -anxiously. - -“Well, that of course, one can’t say,” Mrs. Price replied, “but my -husband would have bought the place if he could and he still hopes to—if -we find we can afford it, that is,” she added, recollecting certain -warnings from her daughters. “We had to draw in our horns very much -since the war, like everybody else.” - -“Not quite everybody, do you think?” said Mrs. Lake, as she made room -for the butler and footman who had come in with tea. “There are some -people who have taken a place called Fable near here—perhaps you know -them? I think they come from Millport or Poolchester, I forget which. He -contracted for something during the war, boots or cholera belts or -cigarettes or something, and not only that, but the price of whatever it -was is still up. It is rather sad to see the old places go, one by one.” - -“I expect they come from Poolchester,” said Mrs. Price. “There is a -great deal of that sort of thing there. It is a manufacturing town of -course.” - -“But such an interesting place,” Susie intervened. “So much life. I went -there once to hear some wonderful music, and the faces all looked to me -so strong. No, no sugar, thanks,—Teresa, dear, will you take that cup -from Mrs. Price?” - -Joseph came in just then and Mrs. Lake dropped all unpleasant subjects -immediately. She encouraged him and he responded gladly. He infused a -quality of ease into the conversation. - -“And how’s the—what d’you call it?—the welfare of the city, Miss -Fulton?” he asked presently. “Still going strong, what? Fisk been -shedding much blood lately?” - -“What’s that?” asked Mrs. Lake curiously. - -“Oh, great sport, isn’t he, Miss Fulton? Communist, what? Miss Fulton -b’nevolently hands round soup and Fisk gets into it, isn’t that it? No, -kait sairysly though. I hope you’re getting on. I do immensely admire -what you’re doing. I couldn’t do it for m’life. The smell of the f’llers -on parade used to quite upset me.” - -Mrs. Lake didn’t like that. “He must learn not to say those kind of -things,” she thought. “It is dreadfully bad form; but he is a nice boy -in many ways; we had better make use of him.” - -To Teresa the whole thing was little less than torture. Love of humanity -was so alive in her that to have it wounded in sport gave her something -of the hopeless misery of a child roughly handled by bigger boys. The -fact that they were of her own species made her sense of isolation -worse. Affectionate women fear alien sympathies more than force. They -also feel it their duty to betray the whereabouts of the thing they love -by fighting over it, instead of merely putting it out of range of attack -and guarding all approaches as men do. - -“You would have smelt just as bad yourself if you had been a private,” -she said, blushing and stammering, “it is only just chance that gives -you hot baths.” - -“Ha! ha!” he laughed heartily. “Of course I should. You’re abs’lutely -right; but then I shouldn’t have minded, don’t you see? That’s th’ whole -point.” - -“How do you know you wouldn’t?” she flamed out. “How do you know they -don’t care? They do care. You know nothing about it. You have never -talked to them.” - -“Teresa, dear,” Susie remonstrated. - -“No, no, please,” said Joseph. “Come on, Miss Fulton, we must finish -this. I’m enjoying it ’mmensely. I love people that speak out. I——” - -“Oh, do leave it alone,” said Teresa. “You don’t understand a bit.” - -“Yes, I do,” he persisted. “I’m ’normously int’rested in th’ whole -subject. I shall b’ sure to have to canvass for my father at the next -election and what you were saying is just th’ sort of thing th’ Labour -people will put up, and I shall have t’ find an answer. And there isn’t -any answer, you know, except that somebody’s got t’ have money—there -isn’t ’nough in th’ country for everybody—and mining and all that takes -generations of training. Somebody’s got to do it, and somebody’s got t’ -stay outside and watch them when they come up. Th’ question is, Who? -Fisk thinks he ought t’ have a turn because he never has. I think I’m -going to because I’ve got int’ the habit of it. There’s nothing in it as -an argument, you see. The only way is t’ sit tight. The thing’s bound t’ -settle itself in time.” - -“And what is your father’s view as a Member of Parliament?” asked Mrs. -Lake, who was a good deal bewildered, a little shocked and a very little -amused. - -“Oh, I don’t know,” said Joseph, “he doesn’t say, but I don’t think he -stands much nonsense from the f’llers down at the works. But he keeps -friends with the Labour Party, I b’lieve on principle. The government -offered him a baronetcy last year, but that sort of thing isn’t done -now, thank goodness. He said he’d be a fool t’ take it, I remember, but -I forget why.” - -“How can you pretend to be so silly, Joseph,” his mother interrupted. -“You know your father doesn’t believe in rewards for public service of -that sort. No one can ever say he has pushed himself forward.” - -“No, my dear mother, that’s just what I said,” he remarked. “It’s such -frightf’lly bad form t’ have titles and all that sort of thing, now. The -Tories stick to it on principle, of course, but they’re frightf’lly -crude in their ideas——” He was wandering on gaily as a matter of habit, -relating as much as he could remember of what he heard at the houses he -loved, when Mrs. Archie Lake rose. - -“Don’t talk too much about crude Conservatives while you are at Aldwych, -Mr. Price,” she said. “We don’t study politics down here; we just have -them, and we are not likely to change. You had better come and play -tennis with us next week, and leave abstruse problems alone.” - -Evangeline had taken a small house by the sea for July and August. She -intended to be there alone with Ivor and his nurse, except for such time -as she could persuade Teresa to spend with her. Evan would come down for -week ends, and perhaps a whole ten days at the end of the time. She was -beginning to lose those sociable tastes that had made her so popular -when she came to Drage. Her joy in living that had made her easily throw -off the weight of other people’s theories of conduct was giving way -under continuous fatigue. Her war against Evan’s prejudices had broken -out again. - -This reassembling of his forces and hers might have been prophesied -without much risk from the beginning, but the prophet would have been -called cynical and pessimistic by all those genial souls who believe -that the best way to prevent war is to invite the hostile parties to a -picnic. They fondly suppose that because the guns are left at home there -will be no fighting. Even when they look round and discover that half -the party are drawn up on one side of the tablecloth with all the -teapots and the other half are massed with all the buns on the -other,—even then they would consider it morbid to suspect them of -harbouring old grudges. It may be remembered that before Evan asked -Evangeline to marry him he had reviewed and finally dismissed the -remnant of his doubts about the soundness of her character. His inner -voices warned him, “She is not your ideal woman; she is lax and flippant -and light-headed,” but Nature laughed at and tormented him. No one knows -how Nature does this work of uniting opposite temperaments, but she did -it, and Evan’s misgivings retired muttering. - -By the time we are now speaking of they had gathered again in a strong -force. Evangeline’s gaiety and confidence and innocence with which she -had routed them were now weakened by constant unexpected attacks. The -anxiety of never knowing from what quarter disapproval would burst out -and turn pleasure into pain made her nervous and depressed. As Ivor grew -older the strain was more than doubled, for in every attack of Evan’s -that she could have dodged or parried for herself she was hampered by -Ivor’s little body, that would suffer equally from her blows at her -husband and her husband’s at her. She dared not hide away with him, -because that would at once bring about the crisis she dreaded, and Evan -would claim his right to take the boy away. There was nowhere she could -hide him where he would not be found by the police and given back to his -father. She sat sometimes on a gate among fields that overlooked the -railway line, and watched with frightened eyes the trains rush by and -wondered whether any of them went far enough without a stop to take her -and the child out of Evan’s reach. She thought longingly of other -countries, stretches of hill and forest, new faces, new people; -English-speaking they must be for Evangeline, but there are plenty of -these everywhere, on the other side of the globe. She thought once what -fun it would be to walk about in bright sunshine, knowing that Evan was -asleep in darkness and fog just below the curve of the round world. Only -there, on the other side, would she feel safe; he would never come -slowly up like a fly over an orange (as she was taught at school when -the hemispheres were explained) and look for her. No, she knew he would -not. He would search over England, and possibly Europe, but if the -police still failed in their clues he would go home at last and explain -to Cyril, and retire into a blacker severity than ever with his giggly -little sisters. Then she used to shake herself free from these dreams -and return home tired and sad. She had looked forward eagerly to being -by the sea with Teresa and Ivor, and when they were all there at last, -some of her old confidence came back. - -She said nothing to Teresa about the trouble in her mind, because it had -increased beyond the stage of being an interesting puzzle and become -grief that lies quieter untouched, except by the one who brought it and -only could remove it. One great difference between Evangeline and her -mother was that Susie counted differences of opinion with herself as a -compliment to her higher understanding; they were treasures to be turned -over and enjoyed in secret. To her daughter they were so many -obstructions to love, and must be destroyed if possible; if persistently -obstructive, she climbed over and fled from them. - -Ivor had certainly managed to collect in himself all the elements of -discord in his father’s and mother’s families. If he had inherited his -mother’s joyousness and been content with that, the two of them together -might have weakened Evan’s fears through lack of exercise, for his -disapproval was not the natural bitterness that uses a creed as the -organ of its appetite; it was his means of following the same desire as -Evangeline followed, the desire to know how God works the universe. She -felt that she knew how it was done and he thought he knew. But feeling -is generally stronger than thought in personal affairs, so if the -wretched young Ivor had left well alone and not excited his father’s -reasoning powers, they might have grown soft like the Roman Legions. But -unfortunately he had inherited a great deal of Susie’s mischievous -tendency to stir up strife without taking part in it. He had her elusive -charm and was, like her, uncommunicative; he loved natural pleasure and -was indifferent to public opinion, like his mother, and was as -unswerving along his own chosen path as his father. This combination of -qualities made him perfectly adapted as a bone of contention, a -desirable young person, belonging to both, and yet to neither of the -contending parties. There, down by the sea with his devoted mother and -aunt and nurse, he played and bathed and went his own way in peace, -asking nothing that was unreasonable, kind-hearted, courageous and -merry; the kind of child that terrifies its weaker relatives by the -thought of what it has to meet in the future; of candid eyes coming upon -hatred for the first time, small hands roughened by work and stained -with blood from the noses of hostile neighbours with predatory instincts -and a perverted sense of humour; visions perhaps, of little trousers -that were designed for warmth and comfort removed with trembling fingers -at the command of an ogre with a cane in a place far from home—a callous -creature with lips dripping the literature of a civilisation that -worshipped suffering. There is a radical difference between mothers who -revere the name of Cæsar and mothers who don’t. It is not all children -who work upon maternal terrors in this way, but Ivor had the gift to -perfection and his unconsciousness of his own power made it the -stronger. - -The little party were playing on the sands one day, when two figures, -one in a linen dress with a red parasol, the other in baggy tweeds, came -to the edge of the cliff above them and sat down. Evangeline heard a -small laugh with a familiar tone in it, and looked up. “Hullo, Dicky,” -she said, “there are the Vachells; look!” Mrs. Vachell waved her hand -and then said something, and presently both figures rose and came slowly -down the sandhills, Mrs. Vachell with leisurely ease, her husband with -the reluctance of a shy man obeying the stronger will of a wife used to -society. - -“I had no idea you were here,” she said. “Did I tell you of the place by -any chance? There are so few people here generally. You know my husband, -don’t you?” Mr. Vachell bowed. “But you two don’t count as people,” she -added. “I don’t grudge you your simple pleasures. If you spend your days -like this making sand pies you must have very peaceful minds. What I -hate are people who put up tents and are always making tea and screaming -in two inches of water.” - -“Your boy seems to be having a good time,” said Mr. Vachell. Ivor was -busy with a net among the small rocks that appeared at low tide. - -“Yes, he loves it,” Evangeline replied. “We are so happy here.” She -spread her rug hospitably, and they all sat down. Mr. Vachell and Teresa -were side by side in a silence that each felt the other ought to break -first, but neither was equal to the attempt. - -“Is Captain Hatton with you?” asked Mrs. Vachell. - -“No, not often,” Evangeline replied. “He comes for week ends sometimes. - -“Your boy looks very well,” Mr. Vachell remarked. - -“Yes, he is, and he is really no trouble,” said his mother. “There are -some other children about, but he doesn’t seem to want them. He is the -most independent creature I ever met.” - -“That is a useful thing in a boy, isn’t it?” - -“It is useful in anybody,” said Evangeline, sighing. “I think if -everyone minded their own business like animals, and were just happy -eating together and enjoying each other’s society and hopping off in -between, it would be much nicer.” - -Mr. Vachell’s face wrinkled into a smile, but he said nothing. - -Teresa happened to look up. “What are you laughing at?” she asked. - -“Your sister’s idea of living agrees with mine,” he said. They missed -Mrs. Vachell’s reply, but Evangeline went on thinking aloud, incited by -the sunshine and the splash of the waves. She had once said to Susie, as -a child, that the sea was always telling her to speak out, but that it -never said anything but “h’m” when she did, and Susie had answered, -“Yes, dear, that is quite true.” She had found the sea restful herself, -when pursued by the eager questioning of lovers. Evangeline went on now, -“There is too much busy-bodying about morals. I think that people who -like committing murder should be put on an island together and settle it -among themselves; people who steal should have all their things taken -away and sold for hospitals; people who say nasty things should be given -vinegar tea made with bilge water, and be photographed every day and -obliged to look at the proofs——” - -“What about people who are stupid?” asked Mrs. Vachell. - -“Oh, poor darlings, nothing about them,” said Evangeline quickly, “don’t -be horrid.” - -“Don’t you think most vice is stupidity?” - -“No, certainly not. For instance, I am so stupid that I don’t know what -two and two make, but I don’t mean an atom of harm.” - -“But you may do a lot of harm by adding them up to make six. Why not try -to learn?” - -“I don’t believe God adds up,” said Evangeline, tracing patterns in the -sand with her finger. “But then I expect He knows the answer without -thinking, so that doesn’t come to anything.” - -“I don’t know your husband, Mrs. Hatton,” said Mr. Vachell, “but I hope -he is not passionately fond of arithmetic.” - -“He has a passion for everything uncomfortable,” said Evangeline. - -“Poor fellow!” observed Mr. Vachell. - -“Mr. Vachell, really I don’t think you need look like that,” said -Teresa. “Your study, which I saw once, is the most hauntingly -uncomfortable place I was ever led into. I couldn’t go to sleep the -night after I had seen it.” - -“Why, what is the matter with it?” he asked, surprised. - -“Everything is so dug up,” she explained. “Have you ever seen it, -Chips?” she turned to her sister. “I do think when people have finished -with their lives they might be allowed to get rid of them decently. To -have their bones and their tears and the things they have been happy -with all brought back and looked at——. Suppose someone dug up Millport -thousands of years after us, and put a whole street full of people -together again! Personal possessions are bad enough when the people who -own them are alive; they are so full of—I don’t know what—associations. -But when the owners are dead their things become perfectly horrid. I -don’t think anyone ought to own anything at all. I would like them to -live out of doors in tents that don’t cost anything, and to eat with -their fingers——” - -“I am very sorry my things worried you so much,” said Mr. Vachell. “I -have always looked at them quite prosaically as history; interesting in -their way. In fact, I think I could show you that they are interesting -if you came and looked at them again. Some of them are very beautiful, -and if people make beautiful things to please themselves they are worth -keeping. The world would be very squalid by now if it had gone on as you -suggest. Think of the grass all trampled down with being sat upon and -nobody’s hair ever having been combed, and how dreadfully they would all -quarrel and gossip with nothing to do.” - -“I expect I was thinking of a world with fewer people in it,” said -Teresa. “It makes me giddy when I think of arranging a government that -will be fair to millions and millions of people, each one of them just a -little different from any one of the others.” - -“That is where historians do their humble best for you,” said he. “It -does sort the masses into a few main heaps that tend to move about in -definite directions, and even clear the ground by destroying one -another.” - -“Yes, that is a man’s only idea of deciding an argument,” said his wife. -“He has never been able to understand anything more intelligent than -blood. And as long as women are silly enough to go on providing children -and handing them over to him the supply will be kept up and arguments -will be decided in that way.” - -“I am afraid I must go in and do a little work,” said he, rising with a -sigh. - -“Good-bye,” said his wife, “I’ll come along later.” - -They sat talking until it was time to go in to tea. Evangeline began to -feel her contentment in the outdoor life she loved give way gradually -before the force of purpose that Mrs. Vachell brought with her. The -Sphinx who looked so calm among hungry crowds had the opposite effect on -Evangeline’s simple enjoyment of things as they are. The smothered -rebellion that is hidden by pride so long as the enemy is overpowering -may suddenly break out and inflame a peaceful party of shepherds and set -them running and shouting for an end that they never contemplated or -desired. Evangeline had been suffering under a sense of heavy depression -when she came away to the sea. She felt herself up against an obstacle -that was not to be moved because it moved with her and encircled her -from all sides, closing her in and shutting out all the new joys of the -future that she had seen ahead of her when Ivor was born. Every step she -took was hampered by fear that she might be sending him farther away -from her, some incident might arise that would strengthen Evan’s -conviction that she was not fit to have the charge of him. Then when she -hid her sympathy from Ivor and forced herself to suffer for the sake of -keeping him with her, she could see a look of childish judgment in his -eyes that placed her unjustly in the category she dreaded, that of -people who have grown up and are beyond the pale of confidence from the -young. If she went on pretending for his sake, she said to herself, he -would become like Romulus and Remus, living in his own thoughts without -a mother. The idea made her almost mad at times. - -Alone with Teresa and Ivor by the sea, she had got back her confidence, -her nature being of the kind that expects a trouble left behind to -remain where it is without attempting pursuit. She kept no record of the -occasions when this hope had been disappointed. The things Mrs. Vachell -talked of that afternoon showed her something entirely new to her. She -understood, to her great surprise, that all over the world were -thousands of other Evangelines, suffering as she did, from the -inexplicable harshness of men towards those precious, irrational -gambollings of the mind, that move women to actions that are condemned -as “unreasonable,” “inconsistent,” “illogical,” “false,” “silly,” and -generally lacking in orderly sequence. She learned that she was not -alone, fighting something sinister that had no shape and perhaps was -only a disorder of her own imagination. Mrs. Vachell explained that the -enemy was terribly real and powerful; the enemy of all true women whose -duty it was to unite in fighting to the last drop of their blood. - -“Women are not stupid,” she said in her slow, deep voice, “they are not -irrational. What you see in Ivor and dread to lose—what your husband -does not see—is what comes into the world by women, and your husband -thinks it foolish because it is not in him. He wants to preserve his own -qualities; you want to preserve yours; they are wholly contradictory, -and one side or the other must impose its will.” - -“But I thought men were supposed to adore women for having just what -they haven’t got, just as we adore them for their physical strength and -their brains.” - -“So they say, and so we say, because otherwise there would be no -marriages,” said Mrs. Vachell. “But it is a lie. We only love their -strength for the sake of getting the better of it. They cultivate our -foolishness because it gives them rest from competition, and they can -sit down and plume themselves. Each wants the power, and the centuries -of suffering that we have gone through have taught us to see love as the -only thing worth having, while they still look on it as a pleasant fad -to be indulged in when they have finished arranging who is to get the -most of what belongs, by right, equally to all. It is all very pretty, -you will find, if you look into it.” - - * * * * * - -“Dicky,” said Evangeline, a few days later, when she and Teresa had -settled themselves under the cliff after breakfast, “I have done the -most evil bit of mischief. I feel like Guy Fawkes. I have advised Mrs. -Trotter to come here, and she is coming.” - -“But why not?” Teresa asked in surprise. - -“Don’t you know how Evan hates her? No, I suppose you wouldn’t. But he -does. She is his _bête noir_.” - -“But, then, why have you asked her?” - -“I didn’t ask her. Mother wrote and said the rooms the Trotters -generally go to at Broadstairs have got something the matter with them; -a lodger developed some disease or other, I think. They couldn’t get in -anywhere, and she wanted to know if I could get rooms here. There are -rooms in those cottages down on the left by the church, nurse told me. -So I think she is sure to come.” - -“But that isn’t your fault,” said Teresa. “You couldn’t do anything -else. Evan hasn’t bought up the whole place.” - -“No, not if I had done it innocently like that,” said Evangeline, “but I -didn’t. I urged her to come and made everything easy, and I have been -enjoying the idea ever since. It is deliberate vice. There is Evan -coming along now with Mrs. Vachell, of course. He still thinks her a -very ladylike woman. Oh, Dicky! when Mrs. Trotter comes won’t she mow -them both down with repartee? It will be lovely.” - -“Chips,” said Teresa hesitatingly, “you—you’re not so—so kind to Evan as -you are to the rest of us. You used to be so interested in making him -talk, and now you so often won’t listen when he does.” - -“He talks such rot,” said her sister. “I can’t be bothered with it.” -There was silence for some minutes. - -“I’m a pig, Dicky,” said Evangeline presently. “But if you knew how -deadly it is being with someone who doesn’t understand the way women -look at things——” - -“Don’t talk about women as if they were all alike,” said Teresa -impatiently. “It is as bad as Mrs. Carpenter. She is always saying, ‘we -women are so something or other,’ and Mother says, ‘but then, don’t you -think women are so something else.’ But they both give you an idea of -somebody very noble and forlorn in the position of Daniel in the den of -lions. I am sure that there are certain qualities in people, courage and -truthfulness and meanness and greed and all the rest, and everybody has -some of them in different mixtures; it doesn’t make any difference -whether they are male or female or rich or poor. It is so silly trying -to label people into classes and species according to their incomes or -their sex. Nationality divides them up a little, I admit, but otherwise -you are just asking for trouble by presupposing any vice or virtues.” - -“Well, then, men should stop presupposing that women have no brains and -no morals,” said Evangeline. - -“I don’t believe that any woman with either has ever bothered what was -presupposed about her, or had any difficulty in convincing anyone to -whom it mattered,” Teresa replied. - -“But that is nonsense, Dicky. You know it was only when women had to be -employed in the war that they had a chance to show what they could do. -Look at women doctors before they began to run their own hospitals.” - -“Well, that is exactly what I have been trying to explain. It all came -of that abominable system of classifying. Women were this and women were -that, and it was very largely their own fault. Which sex was it that -used to say, ‘My dear, that is unladylike. Don’t imitate that nasty bold -girl who handles mice as if she were a navvy’? Now they are allowed to -be competent or incompetent, as nature made them, and you are doing your -best to rebuild the whole obstacle by saying, ‘All women are not what -you think them. They are all something else. They have all got lovely, -pure, high-browed minds and all men have horrid brutish ones.’ You are -only changing a guerilla war into a series of pitched battles. I detest -Mrs. Vachell. She looks like a martyr, and she is only a hunger -striker.” - -“What do you mean?” - -“I mean she is a rebel with no sense of adventure. She will plot against -any sort of power that galls her personally, and I don’t think she uses -fair means; there’s no gallantry about her. It is all spitting and -kicking and causing harmless people inconvenience.” - -“I think you are most unfair,” said Evangeline hotly. “She is out -against all sorts of tyranny, the sort of tyranny that Evan would -exercise over Ivor if he could; the tyranny of horrid vulgar people who -never do a stroke of work and have no brains and simply live on enormous -incomes, while women are sweated and slave-driven or forced on to the -street. It has nothing to do with her personally; Mr. Vachell is the -least interfering man in the world, and they are not particularly hard -up.” - -“Whom does she think she is going to do good to by making you fed up -with Evan?” - -“She doesn’t; but she has made me see why it is that he doesn’t -understand children and why I have to stand up to him if I want to save -Ivor. And you know, Dicky, it is such a joke, because Evan thinks her -perfect and is always holding her up as a model of dignity and common -sense. That is why I want Mrs. Trotter to come. It does make me so -irritated to see him stalking along thinking Mrs. Vachell is listening -with the deepest interest to what he says, and all the time she is -boiling like a volcano, and when she looks quietest I know she is quite -white hot with contempt for something he has said.” - -“Then she is an abominable hypocrite,” said Teresa indignantly. - -“I know,” her sister answered rather sadly, “and if I tell Evan the -least little bit of truth about her he flies at me and won’t listen; -just thunders me down, and yet I am really fond of him. But she hates -him, and the only way she can get in the truths she wants to say is to -keep so quiet that he doesn’t understand, and then little by little she -undermines his ideas. It is quite wonderful to watch.” - -When Mrs. Trotter came she surpassed even Evangeline’s expectations. It -may be necessary to recall to the reader’s mind that on the occasion -when Evan had burst out at Cyril’s dinner-table on the subject of women -throwing dirt at each other the exciting cause of his anger had been -Mrs. Trotter’s sarcasm on the wife of the Staff Captain, who wanted to -“get into the University set,” and was alleged to have incensed her -husband by too frequent references to Mr. Vachell’s brain power. Mrs. -Trotter was devoted with real sisterly affection to the Staff Captain, -who was an honest blue-eyed Briton, and she therefore harboured secret -dislike, both of the University set and of Evan with his misplaced -belief in Mrs. Vachell. The Hattons could not do other than ask her to -dinner on the evening when she arrived at her lodgings, alone with the -child and its nurse, as Captain Trotter was yachting with a friend. -Evangeline had mischievously urged the Vachells to come in after the -meal as they often did. When they arrived Evan was in one of his most -taciturn moods, having been worried by his wife’s daring laughter over -some misdemeanour of Ivor’s. She was comparing notes with Mrs. Trotter, -whose young daughter treated her parents with fearless impertinence, the -common result of insensitiveness in favourable surroundings. - -“The little scamp!” Mrs. Trotter exclaimed. “He and Maisie will be great -pals I expect. She doesn’t care a rap for anybody. Her father can’t say -boo to a goose when she is knocking round. I tell him he had better give -it up and save time.” - -Evan glanced at Mrs. Vachell and saw her raise her eyebrows slightly. It -soothed him to be assured that she shared his disgust and he sat down by -her. “I am very sorry,” he said in a low voice. “We ought to have warned -you.” - -“Oh no, please,” she answered. “It is very interesting; and I am sure -Evangeline enjoys it. And it is something you have got to learn some -time. You may have daughters of your own in days to come, and then you -will know how to save yourself needless worry by giving in at once.” - -“Yes, it is appalling, isn’t it?” he agreed, supposing her to be -commenting on Mrs. Trotter’s remark. “But perhaps it is good in some -ways to let the thing go on as grossly and blatantly as possible. It -will achieve its own destruction all the quicker.” - -“How?” she asked. - -“A revulsion is bound to come, and it will be all the stronger when -women see what a monstrous race they have raised. They have rebelled -against chastisement with whips and their children will chastise them -with scorpions.” - -“They will, indeed,” said Mrs. Vachell. “I am glad I have no children, -though the want of them put out the sun for me so far as marriage is -concerned. But it is not a world to have children in just now.” - -“If you had brought them up to be like yourself they would have helped -to keep the balance,” said Evan. - -“Well, you shall send your daughters to me to bring up,” she said, -turning her small sphinx face directly to him. “Evangeline will be -engrossed in her boys. She thinks women of no importance.” - -“It is not that,” said Evan, “but she thinks nothing of importance -except liveliness and getting the pleasure out of everything that -happens, and throwing away the rest. As soon as anything has to be -bought at the price of discomfort it is worthless to her.” - -“Do you think so?” said she, raising her eyebrows again. “Is your -beautiful Ivor worth so little to her? You surprise me. I thought she -was devoted to him.” - -“So she is, but she won’t give herself the momentary pain of correcting -him. It is the most fatal cowardice. I don’t know what to do to avert -the end that I foresee.” - -“You must have been a great deal with children,” she remarked, while she -looked at him with grave inquiry. “Did you always care for them, or is -it just that you understand them so well?” - -“Every man knows the kind of way a boy ought to be brought up,” he -replied innocently. - -“And a woman, of course, understands a girl better?” - -“Yes, I suppose so.” - -“It is so much simpler that they should start on wholly different lines -from the beginning.” - -“Well, I suppose they do naturally. I know that my sisters never had the -least idea what I was driving at. They were always giggling among -themselves.” - -“And your mother?” asked Mrs. Vachell. - -“My mother was a wonderful woman,” Evan replied. His tone made it clear -that discussion was barricaded along that road. - -“I don’t want to persuade you to discuss her, but please answer one -question truthfully. Suppose you had done something that you knew she -would dislike, not because it was wrong in itself, but because she had -no experience of a wish to do it herself; let us take for an instance -that delightful story I heard about your taking a German’s watch to -pieces and what you did with it.” - -“Who told you that story?” he asked, frowning. - -“The Staff Captain’s wife told my husband. It amused him and it amused -her, because she has had parents who educated her between them; they -didn’t believe in female sheep and male goats.” - -“I find all that sort of telling of stories very offensive,” said Evan. -“But if they choose to hear it it is nothing to me. There is no harm in -it.” - -“But your mother would have held a different opinion if she had known?” - -“Why are you asking these questions, Mrs. Vachell?” She saw -disappointment in his face, and knew she must pick her way delicately. - -“Because you were good enough to give me some of your confidence in a -difficulty and I was trying to make you understand what I think is a -point of great importance to you and Evangeline and Ivor. What I say is -that you were not perfectly brought up as you think, because you grew up -with the idea that what was all right for you as a man would offend your -mother as a woman, even to hear about. That means that all through your -life you could only enjoy her society within limits, and you were either -obliged to worry out every difficulty alone in your head, or else to -chance it among outsiders who had not a quarter of the interest in you -that she had. You must have felt very lonely, or you wouldn’t have shown -me so much confidence as you have. Have you ever tried Evangeline as a -confidante? She has not been brought up with many prejudices—not enough -you think. And one thing more. Don’t you think that Ivor is better off -than you were at his age? I am sure he is less harassed with problems -and he will have a better brain than his father, because it won’t have -been prematurely worn out.” - -“It is no use telling me he won’t go to bits if he has no principles to -fall back on,” said Evan doggedly. - -“But what about Evangeline’s principles?” Mrs. Vachell persisted. - -“She has none. That is the whole point. It is where we started from——” - -“You two are carrying on a very long flirtation,” interrupted Mrs. -Trotter from the other side of the room. “Can’t we hear what it is all -about? I heard something about principles just now. Do you believe in -principles, Captain Hatton?” - -“Yes,” said Evan. “I hope you are pleased with the lodgings my wife -found for you.” - -“Yes, thank you, they are delightful. But talking of principles, do you -know, Mrs. Vachell, that your friend Fisk has been making the most -dreadful havoc with his principles? You see we never get rid of these -students like the ordinary undergraduates are disposed of, because they -don’t go down for the vacs. They are at home all the time. And he has -been spending his spare time in stirring up the Welsh and the Irish and -every sort of rabble in the place, and holding meetings and passing -resolutions. He gets hold of the wives and tells them they ought to be -dressed in velvet and silk, and have time to read and play the piano. -But Mrs. Price says all that is quite inconsistent with Communism. The -real Communists want everyone to live as simply as possible and earn a -small amount each day and then improve their minds. But since Mr. Fisk -spent those few days with the Prices he has lost all his noble ideas -about garden cities and honest toil and sandals or whatever he believed -in, and in place of the blood that was to be spilled in the cause of -education and leisure and concerts and so on he now wants rapine, and -oh! the most frightful outrages! so that everyone may change places. He -and his friends are to have education and champagne and talk big, while -their female relations play the gramophone and order Mrs. Price about. -It is all screamingly funny. Dear me, Captain Hatton, pray don’t look at -me like that. Do you think one ought not to laugh at poor silly -creatures? I do find human nature so very amusing sometimes. What do you -think, Professor Vachell? Do you think the universities are doing good -or harm?” - -“They have hardly reached an age of full-grown responsibility yet,” he -replied. “When ladies and Labour have joined our deliberations for a few -years we shall be able to give a better opinion.” - -“Now, don’t be sarcastic,” Mrs. Trotter warned him with a finger. “That -is very naughty of you. I hope it will be a long time before your -beautiful cloistered calm is invaded in any such way. I can’t imagine -women and tradesmen holding forth in Oxford, can you, Mrs. Vachell?” - -“So long as the present generation of poor weak fools, who will risk -nothing, survive it is rather difficult,” she answered quietly. Evan -started slightly as she spoke. “But even though every year the -percentage is less of boys who are brought up to be bullies and of girls -whose intelligence is crushed, it will take a long time to destroy the -tradition. Don’t worry, Mrs. Trotter. Your system will probably last -your time, and if your little girl does scandalise you by learning some -other trade than husband hunting, she may make up by marrying a -tradesman Prime Minister.” - -“I don’t think that is at all likely,” Teresa broke in. “The tradesman -Prime Minister would want a perfect lady for his wife; they always do. -They boast of the work that their women do when they want to compare -them with what they call the idle rich; but the very first thing they -want to buy for their wives and daughters is exemption from any kind of -work.” - -“Nonsense, my dear Teresa,” said Mrs. Vachell. “They are the keenest of -all that their daughters should have ‘the schooling.’” - -“Yes, but that is only so that they may not have to do housework or be -ordered about in shops. They think that education for a girl means her -marrying into another class and keeping a servant. They are just like -us. They hate squalor and want to live like we do. They don’t care for -learning in itself any more than we do——” - -“I beg your pardon, Miss Fulton,” Mr. Vachell interrupted. “Do I -understand that you put down my laborious work of research to a sordid -hope of fitting myself to dine at Buckingham Palace, or even living -there some day? You are wounding me very much.” - -“No, of course not,” said Teresa. “You are quite different; you are a -man. I am sure lots of men wanted to learn because they are interested. -I was thinking of what they wanted for their daughters.” - -“Well, what do you think the Principal wants for our excellent Emma?” he -went on. “That she should marry the Prince of Wales? I don’t believe she -has got the ghost of a chance, so you had better stop her while you -can.” - -“Don’t muddle up what I say like that,” said Teresa. “Emma only wants to -stop mothers giving their babies rhubarb pie, and to persuade fathers to -buy bread instead of beer; and she wants them to be clean and have time -and money enough to find out what they can do.” - -“But where does Maisie Trotter’s husband come in?” asked Evan, who was -also grateful for the diversion that Teresa had made. - -“I haven’t the least idea. I have lost sight of him. Oh, no, I remember; -he was to be Prime Minister. It will be no good for Maisie to live up to -him in the way of education, because his sisters will do that. He will -want a pink and white princess who can detect a crumpled rose leaf under -the mattress. I assure you that is what working people ask for. It is -the really valuable thing that they have lost, and they are often so -silly, poor darlings, and think it comes with money. You know how fussy -people like the Prices are about breeding, and they spend and spend, -trying to buy it somehow and knowing that they fail. It is so sad.” - -“Oh, everything is sad if you notice it,” said Mrs. Trotter impatiently. -“I don’t believe in pitying people for not being different from what -they are. I once met a woman who said she disliked travelling in public -conveyances because women’s hats were pathetic; something about the -trimming; if you ever heard such nonsense! Now I’m off and thank you all -very much for a pleasant evening. Anyone coming my way?” - - - - - CHAPTER XV - - -“Well, I am sure, Roderick,” said Mrs. Carpenter as she turned the last -page of a letter she was reading, “Evangeline Hatton seems to be laying -up a nice future for herself. Emmie Trotter is staying down there with -Maisie and she says that Mrs. Vachell is in and out of the Hattons’ -house the whole time, influencing Evangeline to run down her husband. -And that poor Evan Hatton is as blind as a bat and running after Mrs. -Vachell all the time. Of course, Amy Vachell is one of those hard women -who never see when men are attracted by them. All she thinks of is her -social work and I have often told her it is dangerous and that in her -anxiety to put women on a higher footing she forgets that men persist in -remaining on the lower one and they misunderstand her motives. I knew -she would get into trouble some day.” There was a note of triumph in her -voice. - -“Yers,” her husband answered deprecatingly over the top of his -pince-nez. “Yers—yers—very foolish of her.” - -“They will come to grief in the end, you will see,” said Mrs. Carpenter, -as one who observes the first swallow of the season. - -She met Mrs. Eric Manley that afternoon at a sale of work on behalf of -an inebriates’ home in Mrs. Abel’s parish. They wandered together from -stall to stall, inspecting photograph frames ornamented with landscapes -in poker work, table centres and tea-cosies of hand-painted satin, -pinafores edged with cheap lace, preposterous woollen garments for all -ages, dreary confections in flannelette that would make a Hottentot -pessimistic, dusters, packets of Lux and grate polish; everything that -could most vividly recall the horrors of the Will to Live and the Desire -to Decorate at Random. The two friends sat down presently to tea in a -small room festooned with coloured muslin, served by ladies who were -beginning to feel the running about rather a strain though great fun. - -“Well, my dear, how is it that you are still here?” asked Mrs. -Carpenter. “I told Mrs. Abel that it was a bad time to have the sale as -everybody would be away, but she said that some of the best helpers -would have more time now. Of course, we shall get off to Scotland later. -I heard to-day that Evangeline Hatton and her husband are not enjoying -their holiday very much, poor things. They are at Roscombe with the boy -and Teresa Fulton, and the Vachells are there too. I am afraid Amy -Vachell is stirring up mischief. It is a great pity for such young -married things.” - -“Oh, who told you?” asked Mrs. Manley. - -“Emmie Trotter for one. She is quite worried about it. Captain Hatton is -so dogged, you know, with that kind of foolish religious fervour. It -does blind people so when it takes hold of them; they don’t seem to see -anything else. Of course he is a splendid man; so upright and devoted to -her. But I do think it is a great mistake to get carried away by that -kind of thing.” - -“And what is Mrs. Vachell after, do you suppose?” inquired her friend. - -“Oh, dear Amy! I am sure I don’t know. Of course one knows that she is -absolutely straight; no one could doubt that. But it is a pity, I think, -the things she does sometimes—with that far-away look of hers, don’t you -know? She may have encouraged Evangeline without meaning anything, and -made her rebel against his very dogmatic manner. And the Professor is so -silly; he really is. All that about Mrs. Harting was so absurd. She is a -very intellectual woman; I get on with her splendidly, we have so much -in common; and she threw herself into all his excavations and so on, and -of course dear Amy was just a little—well, she didn’t like it; naturally -she wouldn’t; but there was absolutely no more in it than that. However, -it may have made Amy bitter and perhaps she has lashed out against men -and put Evangeline up to some nonsense. I wonder if I could do any good -by having a chat with her mother.” - -“I should leave it alone, I think,” Mrs. Manley advised. “You won’t get -anything out of Mrs. Fulton. She is so extraordinarily broad-minded and -indulgent and thinks everybody means well.” - -“Do you think so?” said Mrs. Carpenter, with her head on one side. “I -don’t know altogether that I should have said that. Dear Susie Fulton is -very shrewd and likes to keep the peace in the family, but she would -very much dislike the General getting to hear anything from outside -sources, and it might be best to warn her privately. What do you think?” - -“Well, you might drop in,” said Mrs. Manley. “I could drive you round -there if you have bought all you want now. Perhaps I had better not come -in. You would prefer to talk about it alone.” - -“Perhaps that would be wise,” Mrs. Carpenter agreed. “I really think it -is the kind thing to do. It would be such a pity if anything got round.” - -She found Susie at home and tea being cleared away. “I have had some, my -dear, thank you,” said Mrs. Carpenter. “Quite an excellent tea at dear -Jenny Abel’s little sale, where I was buying for all I was worth. Such a -poor lot of things. I am afraid they won’t have done very well; but then -they don’t manage that place at all as it should be done. They ought to -call a meeting and have the whole thing laid out and make a proper -appeal. It is no good patching up with little affairs like that. No one -wants to buy at all nowadays; we are all overdone with sales of work. -Still, the things won’t be wasted. I just pass them on to the next. Your -little Teresa is not back again with you yet, I suppose?” - -“No, she is still with Evangeline,” said Susie. “They are staying on as -long as the weather lasts. The Vachells and the Trotters are there, too, -so they are quite a pleasant little party.” - -They talked nicely in this way for some time and then Mrs. Carpenter -said, lowering her voice mysteriously, “You didn’t gather, did you, that -there was any little difficulty with Evangeline seeing so much of dear -Amy Vachell? I am not quite sure that she is just the person whom I -should choose to be very much with a young mother, who, of course, wants -to see everything _couleur de rose_.” - -“Dear me, no,” Susie replied in gentle astonishment. “Is there any -difficulty about anything? I didn’t know. What makes you think so?” - -“My dear, it was just an impression that was whispered to me by a little -bird who knows them very well. I won’t tell you whom because it wouldn’t -be fair, and of course there was nothing wrong anywhere, but just the -idea that Evangeline and her hubby were inclined to drift a little in -opposite directions and that Amy Vachell—who is so open-hearted and -sincere and has such a high opinion of women and the place they should -take in the home—may perhaps have unconsciously made a little mischief. -Captain Hatton believes so very strongly in the dogmatic side of -religion, doesn’t he? and he may suppose that Amy goes further with him -in her opinions than she does. But that is all; just to put you on your -guard. It was the merest trifle that I heard, but it would be such a -pity if it went any further when you as a mother could put it all right, -probably, in a moment with just a word.” - -“Oh, I am sure there is nothing in it,” said Susie contentedly. “People -make too much of Evan’s manner, and he means nothing; it is all on the -surface. He is a most delightful fellow and Evangeline is wrapped up in -him. But it was so kind of you to come and tell me. I often think people -are not outspoken enough.” - -She said nothing about Mrs. Carpenter’s visit until Teresa came home, -and then she chose the next evening when Cyril was peacefully reading in -an armchair. Teresa had put away a bundle of papers from Emma’s office, -over which she had been toiling with evident fatigue and depression. - -“I hope dear little Ivor is not vexing his father as much as he did -while he was a baby,” Susie began quietly over her knitting. - -“He doesn’t get into many rows,” said Teresa. “It would be almost better -if he did.” - -“How do you mean, dear?” - -“I mean that Evan says so little, it is rather frightening sometimes. He -just looks and you don’t know what he is thinking.” - -“Evangeline doesn’t worry, I suppose?” - -“Yes, I think she does. She is much thinner than she used to be.” - -“I daresay that is the damp of Drage,” Susie remarked. “It is a very -relaxing place, I have heard.” Teresa laughed, not very merrily. - -“Mother, darling,” she asked, looking at Susie with kindly curiosity, -“if Father bit you do you think you would say it was owing to the frost? -I believe you would.” - -“What an absurd thing to say, dear. I don’t talk so much about the -weather, do I? It is a subject I have always detested; it is so -commonplace. But if you are laughing because I said that Drage is damp -that is ridiculous. Everyone knows it is and there is nothing so -depressing as a place that is all on clay.” She left the room presently -and Cyril put down his book. - -“How old are you, Dicky?” he asked. - -“Twenty-five next month. Why?” - -“You seem to have grown a little and I couldn’t remember how long we had -been here. It is a devil of a long time. Sit down there for a minute and -tell me something I want to know. Aren’t you wasting your time a bit, -young woman? frousting down there with Emma Gainsborough. Or is it what -you want?” - -“I am rather in a fog,” said Teresa. He said nothing and she went on, “I -used to look at people paddling along in the mud, streaming past all the -time; you remember the first time we went down to the docks together and -came back on a tram? It fascinated me. I had always felt that there was -something that my mind was chasing after, as if I were half asleep and -shouldn’t wake up until I had found out what I wanted to know. Have you -ever felt like that?” - -“No, I am not much troubled with what is called the Higher Mind,” said -Cyril. “But I don’t disbelieve in it on that account. In fact I think it -is a good thing if properly used. But go on. How does it work out?” - -“Well, they all look so angry and miserable and discontented,” she -explained. “There was some mystery or other that cut me off from them -like a misunderstanding; some enormous grievance or injustice that -divided us and our lot from them and their lot, and I felt as if I -wanted to break through it somehow—anyhow—and say, ‘Here! Let me in! I -won’t be left outside. Tell me what you want and I will get it for you -somehow.’ I wanted to give them everything I had; not only money, but -the kind of pleasure that makes it of no importance whether one has -money or not. And then they let me in. Strickland let me in first. She -told me such a lot when she found that I wasn’t inquisitive or -preaching. She explains things so clearly and I began to see what the -grievance is and then it got more hopeless than ever, because I saw that -before you can get into the frame of mind that is independent of poverty -you must be decently fed and warm or else you can’t think at all for -sheer animal discomfort. I suppose mystics come back down the same road -by smashing the body after they have used it to get a mind with. They -couldn’t begin as slum babies and say, ‘I must fast and subdue the -flesh.’ You see, if you start hungry, unless you have a perfectly sweet -nature you probably think of nothing but clawing for food and knocking -down someone else who has got some. Then you find people down there with -all sorts of wonderful qualities so strong that they manage to keep -their end of the stick up in spite of everything. So that topples down -all your hopes when you see that all the virtues that you were going to -bring in by making more comfortable surroundings are there already in -the most wonderful perfection. It just thickens the mystery and makes -the barrier and the fog more unaccountable than it was from outside. If -you could see the horrors that some people contend against and still -remain as good as gold and gay as larks, I think you would stop being so -perfectly disgusting as you are sometimes about my Potters and people.” - -“No, I shouldn’t, my dear,” he said, “but not because I don’t believe -you. But why should I make myself sick with smells that I can’t prevent? -I should be of no earthly use sitting by the bedside of an aged -fish-wife with my nose in my handkerchief, and I don’t understand -accounts or babies. I am much more use at my own job, which neither Emma -nor your friend Jason nor even the lion-hearted Fisk could do.” - -“No, no, you are much better where you are,” she agreed. “And now you -see I have got beyond the first fog into a worse one. I feel cut off -from the side I left and I can do nothing for the others because they -have got all the means of happiness that I wanted to give them. You see, -if anything good survives there it gets awfully good because it takes so -much exercise.” - -“Yes?” said Cyril. - -“I don’t know how much you were ever in love with anyone, but you -wouldn’t, would you, have married Mother if she had not been rather -extra pretty and very, very well washed?” - -“No, Dicky, you are not going to win on that. I should never have got -within speaking distance of her, so the Higher Mind would not have -contended with the lower. No war, no victory. You see, your Misters and -Misseses of the unwashed brigade start on an equal footing. Mr. Potter -has nothing to forgive before he inquires into the perfections of Mrs. -Potter’s character.” - -“Very well, we’ll try again,” she said patiently. “I must make you -understand somehow. We’ll take Mother. She was devoted to us and she -loves babies as she only sees clean ones. Suppose she lived in a slum -and had half-a-dozen of them squalling and screaming and covered with -every sort of hideous filth and was kept awake all night and saw them -being hungry and ill and cold. Just think what a tremendous sort of love -she would need to have to make her go on with it; and how honest she -would have to be not to steal for them; and how unselfish to go hungry -so that they might have what food there was, and how patient not to -grumble and scold. You need a super quality of every good point in a -character in order to keep up at all. You can’t say that being used to -horrors takes away all the merit of enduring them with real style like -you see sometimes down there. - -“No, not all,” said Cyril, “but then, Dicky, you must be fair. Lots of -things that I find very hard to bear, such as—no, I won’t go into them; -you are too tender-hearted and I don’t want to add to your worries. But -I assure you I am a very noble fellow in my way though nothing I have to -put up with would rouse any sympathy in your fog-bound heroes.” - -Teresa looked at him anxiously, critical and questioning. - -“I am only trying to cheer you up, dear,” he assured her. “I have a very -tidy mind—untidiness at the office is one of the things that I was going -to mention just now—and I dislike arguing in a circle. That is where -Emma is more suited to her job than you are. She never stands about and -says, ‘Yes, but on the other hand——’ or, ‘what can we do, because every -way you look at it it doesn’t make sense?’ She plugs along as busy as a -bee, fitting splints on to one and a flannel petticoat and a book of -poetry on to another and doesn’t wear herself out in guessing whether -the creatures are angels or devils. Dicky, my dear, you are twenty-five -and you are missing everything that you have been looking for and that -you haven’t found. You have said that you only got past one fog into -another and that you want to give what you have to starving people who -need it. What about David?” - -“I do want so dreadfully to marry him,” said Teresa after some -hesitation. “But I am sure it is selfish. He won’t do what I want and -what would make it all right.” - -“What won’t he do?” - -“Sell the place and give the money to the work Emma is doing. It -wouldn’t make much difference, I know, but it would take a few hundred -children out of the mud and I should feel I had done my best.” - -“You would do much more good by keeping those damned Prices out of -Aldwych. You never saw such a mess as they are making of it. It is -perfectly beastly. Enough to make the old man turn in his grave.” - -“But it is the wrong way to live,” she persisted. “I have no right to -glide into beautiful things and comfort that I haven’t earned.” - -“Well, look here. You’re pretty comfortable to start with, aren’t you? -Your mother and I saw to that. She especially. She married me because -she wanted a child and like a good careful bird she chose the downiest -nesting-place she could find for the benefit of her young.” - -“Oh, Father,” said Teresa, awestruck. “Wasn’t she in love with you?” - -“Not a bit of it,” he replied. - -“I wish she had married a poor man, then,” said the girl. “It would have -saved me a lot of trouble. But to go back to what you said. I couldn’t -help being born where I am, but I can give back everything I have got. -It makes it worse to marry into a lot more luxury.” - -“How much do you think your friends in the fog would give back to you if -they dropped into a soft job?” he asked. - -“That has nothing to do with it.” - -“Yes, it has. It means that they go with the stream and don’t drown -themselves trying to dam it up with a bunch of flowers. Keep those -damned hucksters out of Aldwych and keep it the decent civilised place -it was; and breed young Davids to counteract the pernicious spawning of -Millport. You’ll be far better employed. You can invite all the young -Potters to tea and show them what they may attain by thrift instead of -greed. They’ll only think you a damned fool and not listen to a word of -good advice.” - -Teresa was silent. - -“They would take the place off you to-morrow if they could and say you -weren’t fit to appreciate it. And they would undo the work of centuries -that have been spent on it and turn it into a hell of their own.” - -“They wouldn’t. They would want to become gentle people and build it up -again in their own way.” - -“Rot,” said Cyril. “Much better keep it as a model instead of wasting it -all first. You must keep something in the show room. It is no good for -everybody who wants an airship to destroy all there are and begin again -by himself with a glider.” - -“Why are you two silly things sitting together in the dark?” said -Susie’s voice at the door. - - - - - CHAPTER XVI - - -“There is a good deal to be said for subscription lists all the same,” -said Mr. Manley. “How could you have the hospitals and other places kept -going?” Teresa often went to the old man for help in her schemes, as he -had invited her to do on their first acquaintance. They were good -friends, though his tolerance of institutions, governors, spiritual -pastors and masters puzzled her when she tried to piece it together with -the other side of his character; the side which made him impatient with -all sorts of pomposity and humbug. He delighted in the removal of -lifeless traditions and he welcomed to his house the whole of the small -army of people who fought for the life of the city against vanity, -self-interest and stupidity. - -“But the way people go home to a fat dinner, with servants running round -the table with more dishes, after they have sat listening to speeches -about all sorts of deadly necessities makes me sick,” she said. “They -sign a cheque for a sum that is just large enough to look impressive on -a list, but that won’t make the least difference to the way they live; -and then they think they have done everything that can possibly be -required of them.” - -“If would be a dull world if there were no kindness, only obligation and -compulsion,” he remarked. “I like people who are charitable to the -poverty of my intelligence, so why not to the poverty of my comforts.” - -“But if some starving genius were to head a list of people who were kind -to Mr. Price’s intelligence he wouldn’t be grateful.” - -“Well, if we are going to pounce upon ingratitude and snobbery in one -place let us be down on it all round,” he said. “I tell you that -kindness is a good thing anywhere, and though giving and taking is -always a ticklish business because people think too much of themselves, -that doesn’t make it any less good. By the way, did you know that Fisk -has got himself locked up?” - -“I am delighted to hear it,” said Teresa, “but what for especially?” - -“Inciting to breach of the peace. Of course that has finished him so far -as his career goes. He never got his degree and now he is too old and -too mad. He was quite a decent boy. I used to employ his father and knew -him quite well. He was as keen as possible on educating the lad. -Cranston has a great deal to answer for, wasting these boys’ time so -that they don’t work at anything. Fisk will have to be a paid agitator -when he comes out in order to make a living. He’ll never go back to -learn a trade now.” - -“How do you manage to stand the Prices?” Teresa resumed presently, going -back to her train of thought. “I have often wondered. And Mrs. -Carpenter—— Oh, dear me, I have got to hate rich people since we came -here. At first I was worried about the poor. I wanted money not to -matter either way, so that one could make friends anywhere and there -shouldn’t be a barrier of habits and manners that some of them were born -into and that cut them off from their natural friends in other classes.” - -“But that is nothing new,” he said, “I saw when I first met you that -that was what you were after and you thought none of us here had ever -had the same idea at all except good old Emma. That is why I wanted to -make friends with you. I didn’t want the barrier of a rich dinner table -to separate you from your natural friend here.” - -Teresa laughed. “Well, it didn’t, you see. But still, I don’t seem able -to leap across the pineapples to Mr. and Mrs. Price. What does she mean -by saying that her people are communists? It does seem the silliest -rot.” - -“They are intellectual socialists. People who see that the world is -untidy, which it certainly is, but they haven’t the taste for the -characters that can only come out of an untidy world. I am a bit of a -reader of the classics, as I haven’t a wife to talk to, and I can’t see -any of the people I love best in books coming out of a world where -everything is as neat as a bedded-out garden. I have a great dislike of -culture, as it is called. Education is one thing and so is enterprise, -and Price is enterprising; but I must say I don’t like Botticelli -pictures and cocoa in a public-house, and that is what Mrs. Price means -by saying her people are communists. They are wealthy themselves with -all sorts of art tastes and live comfortably, and they like to preach. -They don’t understand commerce and are ashamed of having any connection -with it. You may always suspect a man who is prepared to run a business -he hasn’t served in. I’ve the same suspicion of parsons. They see so -many notices up everywhere, ‘Beware of the Devil!’ that they get -tripping about here, there and everywhere in such a state of nerves that -they forget they are not there to run God’s business, but to find out -what He wants done. It is all this assuming of moral responsibility -instead of working that I think is the mistake. Now you see what I meant -when you were running down charitable institutions. You do your bit, my -dear, and help to keep the machinery going. You can’t run it alone and -improvements are being made all the time.” Teresa got up to go. - -“Do you know Mother is making a speech to-day?” she said doubtfully. -“The first she has ever made outside a drawing-room, and I have to -go—shall you be there? It is in the small room at the Town Hall.” - -“What is the meeting for?” he asked. - -“The Mary Popley Home for women.” - -“No,” he said, “I have given a subscription, but I am not coming to-day. -I am sure she will do it well; she is so gentle and tactful. We want -more women like that on our committees. Some of them are so very fierce. -That is why I like Mrs. Vachell, though I am never sure what she has got -up her sleeve; she’s rather an enigma.” - -“She hates men, that is all I know,” said Teresa. - -“Does she really? How very remarkable. I never knew that. And living -among such excellent men and great scholars as she does! Good-bye, my -dear, good-bye.” - - * * * * * - -“I suppose you are not coming, Cyril?” said Susie, later, putting on her -gloves. “We are dining with the Gainsboroughs after the meeting; without -dressing.” - -“No, your subjects are too deep for me, Sue,” he replied. “I’ll have -something ready to wet your whistle when you come back, and keep up the -fire and let the cat out and that sort of thing.” - -“Strickland will see to all that, dear,” she said. “I think you had -better go to bed if you feel tired. I expect one of the maids will be up -to make tea if we want it.” - -When they arrived at the Town Hall they were shown into a small room -where the general committees of charitable institutions were often held. -Reports were read, giving an outline of the year’s work and a statement -of the financial position and requirements; an attempt was made to rouse -public interest, accounts were then passed and votes of thanks to the -principal helpers and the chairman were proposed, seconded and carried. -Susie had been asked to second the vote of thanks to the committee. - -The audience consisted of a large number of her personal friends, a few -dowdily dressed women with serious, lined faces, whom she knew by sight, -and dreaded a little for their habit of turning up at tea-parties and -saying tactless things about the behaviour of young girls in the Park -after sunset, the cruelty of parents and the tendency of wives to drink -to excess, in spite of industrious husbands. Very often they introduced -these subjects just when she herself had been expounding the perfection -of the mother instinct or the disastrous result of confidence in a young -and innocent mind. They had a way of referring to crime as if it were a -flaw in a work of art, rather than a snare set by wicked poachers for -the Almighty’s pet rabbits. A few of the outside public were also -present, with the usual vacant faces, perfunctory clothes, thin hair, -and those curious eyes of the English stranger, which, if they are -indeed windows of the soul, certainly do not belong to a country where -romances are carried on at the lattice. Those eyes suggest Nottingham -lace curtains and an aspidistra behind the dim panes which the owner -never approaches, unless there is a street accident or a ring at the -bell. They enclose many human preoccupations, but nothing that is likely -to be shared with the passersby. - -Susie faced the eyes, the friendly eyes, the business-like eyes and the -aspidistra eyes. The chairman had called on her to second the vote of -thanks, after a short-sighted glance round to make sure she was there. -Her dimple, the little crease in the satin cushion of her cheek, -appeared, and she smiled, catching the attention of the first few rows. - -“Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen,” she began, “I think it extremely -kind of you to ask me to second this vote of thanks, because you are all -so busy and I am not used to speaking, nor experienced enough in your -work to be of very much help. But in thanking our splendid committee for -all they have done, I want to try and tell everybody if I can, how -deeply I feel that we all ought to do a great deal more to help these -poor women. Vice is so pitifully easy to women in a great city like this -(murmured approval was heard at the back). I am not going to say -anything against men. We are the wives and mothers and sisters of men, -and the responsibility lies with us (slight signs of cynicism from an -aspidistra eye in the fifth row). But what I say is this. All our -influence is necessarily—must necessarily be—of no use so long as our -girls are wilfully misled by the idea that their love and innocent -confidence will be understood and valued at its true worth by the -naturally coarser and rougher nature. (“How thankful I am father didn’t -come!” thought Teresa.) Men go into the world and become accustomed to -hardness and cruelty, especially in foreign countries, with which a -great port like this is constantly in touch. They drink and quarrel, and -their poor homes have so little beauty to encourage them. Is it to be -wondered at that a young girl who dreams of romance and her own little -home and the sound of baby feet should refuse to believe that these -things are of less value to the rough sailor or soldier or merchant, -drunk with wine and full of strong passions that have no place in her -finer nature? (The chairman, the treasurer and a doctor, who happened to -be there, were gazing meditatively at the electric light fixtures, the -desk, the floor, anywhere that would afford a sufficiently obscure -resting-place for any involuntary expression of opinion on their faces. -They felt a friendly approval of Susie as a nice, tender-hearted little -woman, but all the same they hoped she would wind up soon.) What I feel -so much is this, that although great sympathy and great patience with -these poor girls must be shown, and although they must, of course, be -taught to see the dreadful evil that they do, yet until wives and -mothers and sisters impress their men with a better understanding of a -woman’s feeling about these things, and make them see that the finer and -higher view is not necessarily foolish and sentimental—that they hurt us -by coarse jokes and rough actions, by mistaking love of motherhood for -vulgar flirtation—that until they see all this in its true light it is -useless to expect that trust will not be betrayed and happy girls flung -back into these Homes, ruined and disgraced. Marriage may mean so much -to a girl. It is surely worth an effort from us, who have had our trials -and difficulties and misunderstandings, to bring home to the boys who -are growing up a sense of those qualities which they lack by nature. I -have much pleasure in seconding this vote of thanks to our committee.” - -She sat down amidst whole-hearted applause from her friends and several -of the aspidistra-eyed. The ladies whom she feared gave a few -business-like taps with one hand upon the other and fidgeted -impatiently. Everything that interested them in the meeting was over and -most of them had other engagements or voluminous documents at home to -attend to. - -The vote of thanks to the chairman and his reply only occupied another -ten minutes, and then there was tea in the Lady Mayoress’s parlour. - -“What a splendid speech you made,” said Mrs. Eric Manley, coming up to -Susie. “I don’t know that I go quite as far as you do about the -innocence of girls, but still——” - -“Oh, don’t you?” said Susie. “Of course a great many are not innocent, -because they have been taught so young by seeing all kinds of dreadful -things. But I think a woman’s natural character is much less suspicious -than a man’s.” Mrs. Vachell came up and under the pretext of finding a -chair drew Susie away from the crowd. - -“I have been waiting to see you,” she said. “I have just seen Evangeline -off to Drage again and I am very much worried about her. Has she written -to you much about herself?” - -“No, her letters are generally full of darling Ivor,” said Susie. - -Mrs. Vachell looked her up and down for an instant as if considering -whether she could make a cut in Susie’s plump little figure without -letting out too much sawdust and spoiling it. - -“She didn’t tell you that her husband thinks of sending Ivor away from -her?” - -Susie’s eyes grew startled, but she said quietly, “Don’t you think you -have mistaken a joke of his? Why should he do such a thing?” - -“I think he is a little mad,” said Mrs. Vachell. “The war shook a good -many of them. He was always very strict with Ivor, wasn’t he?” - -“Oh yes, but then men are so silly about children,” said Susie, a little -reassured. “They never do understand them.” - -“You were saying this afternoon that the responsibility for making them -understand lies with women,” said Mrs. Vachell. “If you really believe -that, it is time for you to help Evangeline. Her situation seems to me -to be desperate.” - -“What did he say he was going to do?” Susie asked. - -“He told me in confidence that he means to send him away quite soon, in -a year perhaps—not to a boy’s school, of course, but a sort of place -kept by religious ladies. But Evangeline was not to know that. He is -afraid she might do something violent, come to you and her father or -make some public scandal. He hates having his affairs discussed and -preferred to wait until the time comes.” - -“Men are really very tiresome and difficult sometimes, aren’t they,” -said Susie with a sigh. “I do wish they would keep to their own affairs. -Suppose I interfered with my husband’s soldiers and you put all Mr. -Vachell’s diggings upside down on the shelves when he had arranged them. -I can’t think how they can be so stupid. I am dreadfully worried about -what you tell me, because, of course, it is all nonsense. If dear Evan -suffers from his head that is no reason why he should vent it on a -little boy. Perhaps a doctor might advise some tonic that would do him -good.” - -“There is no tonic for a bullying disposition,” said Mrs. Vachell. - -“Oh, don’t you think so?” said Susie. “I am sure the blood has so much -effect on those kind of ideas. If people are well, you know, they see -things quite differently, though, of course, there are some things that -they will never understand, unless they are poets or artists. That makes -a great deal of difference, I think, being in touch with beautiful -things. Those religious ideas of his are a great mistake, I think; all -about Jehovah, and being so full of judgment and wrath and so on. It -gives them quite a wrong idea of the Bible. But I think his mother must -have been a masculine sort of woman from what he says. Quite a little -joke sometimes upsets him. Teresa and I are going on to the -Gainsboroughs. Can we drop you?” - -All through the evening Susie was a little preoccupied. She was thinking -out a plan of campaign by which she might save Evangeline from the harsh -authority of her husband, as she had saved her from the prosy ethics of -the schoolroom when she was a child. But, as in those days so now, she -had no wish to reveal herself as a fighter. Once recognised as a -partisan she would lay herself open to attack and perhaps be driven from -her high ground of superiority to earthly passions. She represented in -her own mind idealism, tender remoteness from all ugly thoughts, -innocence of all desires save love for everybody. Could power be more -strongly hedged about from attack? - -She had a short time alone with Mrs. Gainsborough, as the Principal -retired to work in his study and Emma took Teresa away to her room. - -“I heard from a sister of mine at Drage to-day,” Mrs. Gainsborough -began, “that they think they will probably be sent to Egypt quite soon. -Will that affect Captain Hatton or will the special work he is doing -keep him behind?” - -“I don’t know at all,” said Susie. “I hadn’t heard there was any idea of -their going, but I think my husband did say that Evan would probably -have to move soon in any case. Those special jobs they get are only -temporary.” - -“Would Evangeline go with him?” asked Mrs. Gainsborough; “would it be -all right for Ivor?” A possible solution to all difficulties at once -presented itself to Susie. “I hardly think he could afford to take them -both,” she said. “Without the extra pay he has been getting they will -have to be very careful for a time, and I hear everything in Egypt is an -awful price. He may be glad to leave Evangeline and the boy with us; I -hope so.” - -“Oh, poor girl!” exclaimed Mrs. Gainsborough, “she wouldn’t like that.” - -“No, of course it would be a dreadful separation,” Susie agreed, “but it -might be necessary until he got something else. He probably would very -soon. He is so popular with everyone and so high principled. Anything to -do with engineering delights him, and I should think there must be a -great deal of that sort of thing going on everywhere just now. The whole -world is making an effort to better everybody’s lives—except ours, of -course, who have to pay for it. But one doesn’t grudge that. Personally -I don’t mind how simply I live so long as I can have the things I want.” - -“I am very sorry I couldn’t come and hear you speak this afternoon,” -said Mrs. Gainsborough. “But the fact is, my old cook, Annie, is being -married and we gave her a little send-off from here. She has married -such a nice respectable man—a widower—a plumber and decorator; we have -known him for years—a man of the name of Fisk. But you know all about -young Fisk, the son? How stupid of me! A horrid nuisance he is and a -great worry to his father. He won’t have anything to do with poor old -Annie. Turns up his nose at her altogether.” - -“How horrid of him!” said Susie. - -“Yes, I believe he thinks we arranged it all as a studied insult to him; -vulgar little wretch!” - -“You will miss Annie, won’t you?” said Susie. “She has been with you -such a long time.” - -“Oh, she is not exactly leaving us,” said Mrs. Gainsborough. “She will -still come for the day about eleven o’clock to do all the cooking, and -she will go home in the afternoon to give her husband his tea and then -come back and dish up the dinner. You see, her home is only just round -the corner and he is out all day so she is glad of the company and to -earn the extra money. I fancy young Fisk takes a good bit of what his -father makes.” - -They had hardly finished dinner when the maid handed a note to Susie. -The girl, she said, was waiting for an answer. It was from Mrs. Vachell. - - “DEAR MRS. FULTON,” it said. - - “You told me you are dining with the Gainsboroughs. I wonder if you - would have time to come in here for a few minutes on your way home. If - Teresa is tired she could drop you and send the car back? I have heard - from Evangeline by the last post with some reference to what I - suggested to you this afternoon. She is sure to have written to you at - the same time, but I cannot answer her letter without consulting you, - and as you are always so busy it might save time if I can catch you - between your good deeds.” - -“Would you ask the girl to tell Mrs. Vachell I shall be very glad to -come round later,” she said to the maid; then she turned with an apology -to Mrs. Gainsborough. “If one once takes up these public things there -are so many little details to think out. Mrs. Vachell wants to talk over -one or two points that she suggested this afternoon. I will send Teresa -home when the car comes in case my husband wonders what has become of -us, and it can come back for me to Mrs. Vachell’s.” - -Mrs. Vachell was alone when Susie was shown up. “My husband is out at -one of those dreary men’s dinners where they play Bridge till all -hours,” she explained. “I wanted to tell you, though you are sure to -find a letter from Evangeline when you get back, that there seems to be -an idea that his regiment is going to Egypt and he will probably have to -go with them. In that case he is sure to make it the excuse for the -separation I told you of.” - -“But surely all such things must be decided between themselves,” said -Susie. “Evangeline and he are sure to talk it over and decide what is -best to be done.” - -“Mrs. Fulton, have you seen your son-in-law lately?” Mrs. Vachell asked, -looking at her searchingly. “Do you know how strongly he has got to feel -on this point? I have been down there for a month with them and I -realised that Evangeline has no idea what an obsession it has become -with him. He seemed to want to pour it out to somebody and you know -yourself how a man always chooses a woman to listen to him because of -the very qualities he despises in her—shall we call it flexibility of -judgment? He knows she is not likely to say, ‘My dear chap, that’s all -rot. Have a whiskey and soda?’” - -“That is so true,” said Susie with a sigh. “How well I know it!” - -“You understand then how I come to know more of his intentions than you -do. He wouldn’t feel that you were an impartial judge and also——” her -mouth twitched slightly—“I am afraid he thinks you a little—frivolous. -He mistakes your delicacy of thought for want of earnestness.” - -“Yes, I daresay,” said Susie, slightly stung, “I am quite used to being -thought absurd just because there is so much in spiritual things that -one cannot explain in black and white. Those very dogmatic people always -seem to me to miss the whole point of everything.” - -“Well, now, the question is this. I know—I tell you this in all -seriousness—I know what he means to do with the child at the last -moment, and the last moment will come sooner than we expected if he is -ordered to Egypt. So please do dispossess yourself of any fancy ideas of -its all blowing over or all coming right. What can you do? You will -probably offer to take Ivor and Evangeline too. He will refuse because -he thinks you are even worse for the boy than she is.” Susie betrayed no -sign of anger, but her eyes narrowed a little and there was no dimple in -her cheek as she listened attentively. “What will you do then?” Mrs. -Vachell went on. “There are some terrible women he knows of who keep a -school away down in Cornwall. I don’t mean that they are intentionally -cruel, but Ivor has your sensitive nature. He is a little boy whom you -might as well whip with a cat-o’-nine-tails as send to women like that.” - -Tears sprang to Susie’s eyes and her lips trembled. “I will do anything -you suggest,” she promised. “I don’t care what it is. I think I could -almost kill him. Thank heaven he trusts you!” - -Mrs. Vachell laughed. “It is against all my principles and theories,” -she said, “but they force us to do these things. Some day when we are in -power we can be our true selves and enjoy the luxury of the straight -path. At present we lie for the children and the women like Evangeline -who suffer in their foolish reverence for the male. I don’t know what -you advise, but I don’t see any better way out of it than that -Evangeline should be supposed to be going overland to join him and just -not turn up. The boy will be left with me on the understanding that I -take him to Cornwall as soon as Evangeline has left or perhaps a month -or two after.” - -“It doesn’t sound at all the sort of thing Evan would do,” said Susie -doubtfully. “He is always so very downright.” - -“No, you are quite right,” said Mrs. Vachell. “He hasn’t thought of it -yet. He has only got as far as the old ladies. But I can make him see -the difficulty of a scene with Evangeline. She is very much liked at -Drage. Evan’s Colonel and his wife are devoted to her. There would be -awful talk and gossip and indignation if she let herself go and got the -rest of them down on to it. He is secretive and hates outside -interference.” - -“But then why not let public opinion have the chance to make him give -in?” asked Susie. - -“He wouldn’t do that. He would make some plan for a temporary -arrangement with me or someone else and it is safer that it should be -with me.” - -“But when you have got him off, what next? The school will be expecting -him, they will be furious and write to Evan and he will order you to -give up Ivor. He may send a solicitor’s letter. He may get special leave -and come back.” - -“That he couldn’t possibly afford,” said Mrs. Vachell. “It is a very -expensive journey just now. And as for the solicitor’s letter—do you -know I am not at all sure that I shouldn’t leave that to your husband. I -can’t tell you why, but I think he could manage Captain Hatton even now; -the only thing is that he wouldn’t. You have to get things into a mess -first before a man like that will move. They never will do anything to -prevent a row if it means making a plan, but they will shovel away the -mess afterwards quite willingly.” - -“I think I might sound him,” said Susie reflectively. - -“Very well, but remember if you give him the least hint of a plan he -will forbid you to do it and then it becomes rather a nuisance; it would -be fifty per cent more complicated. If you do the thing first you can -pretend to be sorry and say how stupid you were not to have thought of -the consequences. A man will always swallow that.” - -Susie changed the subject. “And what about Evangeline?” she asked. -“Shall I write to her?” - -“No, indeed, you won’t. Don’t write a line except the usual -grandmotherly stuff. I will ring her up and get her to take a day’s -shopping in London; I am going there next week. Then after that I will -go on to Drage to see a young cousin of mine. Evan will know by that -time whether he is going or not. If he does I can persuade him to lend -me Ivor for a month or two or even more. Even he understands that he is -rather a baby to go to strangers alone and he is sorry for me for having -no children——” She gave a little laugh. “You might, perhaps, make it -easier by saying that you want to have Ivor yourself, but that there is -difficulty about the nurse. He trusts her, and she doesn’t, in fact, -like being with you.” - -“Doesn’t she?” asked Susie, very much surprised. - -“No, not at all. She went so far as to threaten to give notice if she -stayed with you again. She complains that you spoil Ivor.” - -“What a horrid woman!” said Susie. - -“Yes, you will probably have to get another in the end. But all that -will be much simpler when we once get him out there. It is difficult for -anyone to make arrangements with such a long post in between.” - -“Dear me,” Susie said with a sigh, “it is all very sad. I think I will -go home now. There may be a letter from Evangeline and I can see what my -husband says.” - -“Well,” said Cyril when she came back, “Dicky says you are a great -orator, Sue. Got the nail plumb on the head and brought tears to every -eye. I sent her to bed as she looked tired. Strickland said she was -going to bring you some tea as soon as you came in.” - -“Are there any letters for me?” she asked. - -“Yes, I believe there are. I put them down somewhere. Evan has written -to me to say that the regiment is going to Egypt and he will have to go -unless he gets anything else.” - -“Is he likely to do that?” - -“I don’t know. He will have to run his own show now. I should think he -is most likely to go.” Susie found her letters and looked through them. -There was nothing from Evangeline. “I wonder why she writes to Mrs. -Vachell and not to me,” she thought, but she felt no jealousy; nothing -more than a little surprise, such as she might have felt if one of her -children had chosen to have tea with the housemaid instead of coming -down to the drawing-room. - -“What sort of a country is Egypt for children?” she asked presently when -Strickland had brought the tea. - -“I’ve never been there, but I shouldn’t think it was very good for -them,” said Cyril. - -“Wouldn’t it be the best plan for Ivor to stay with us and have a -governess?” she suggested. - -“Well, I suppose that is for Chips to settle.” - -“When you talk of her settling do you realise that Evan has very odd -views about children and that he is a little obstinate sometimes?” - -“What are you getting at, Sue?” he asked. “I haven’t studied the insect -world enough to be always sure what particular idea you are after. If -you will tell me the shape of twig you want to resemble——” - -“I haven’t an idea what you are talking about, Cyril, but I was asking -for Evangeline’s sake. You always seem to understand men so much better -than I do.” - -“That is because they say what they mean,” he replied. “There is no -difficulty about that.” - - * * * * * - -Mrs. Vachell scarcely recognised Evangeline when she rose out of a -corner of the shop lounge where they had arranged to meet. She was not -only thin and heavy-eyed, but she looked hunted. Behind the sphinx face -that looked into hers bitter pity was hard at work. “My dear child,” -Mrs. Vachell said, holding out both her hands, “don’t worry. It is -perfectly all right.” - -“But you don’t know,” said Evangeline in a low, frightened voice. “I -haven’t told you. He is going to Egypt and insists on my going too. Ivor -is to be sent away——” Her voice broke. - -“No, no, nonsense,” said Mrs. Vachell. “Here, come and sit down. Ivor -isn’t going away. He will be sent to me first and you won’t go on the -boat at all. You can either be supposed to join him at Marseilles, or if -that makes too much fuss you can go on board and slip off among the -crowd when people are being sent ashore at the last minute. There are -lots of ways and we will think out the best. Once he is safely off, you -will go back to your parents and he will find the devil of a difficulty -in dislodging you. It is a temporary remedy, I know, but we shall have -time to think of something else when the next obstacle turns up. He is -one man against three women, remember. You know your mother by this -time. I am not sure but what she is stronger than either of us. And you -will have all the regiment with you if they get to know of it.” - -“But Mother doesn’t know,” said Evangeline. “I didn’t think it was any -use telling her.” - -“Then you are a fool, dear. Never mind; I have told her; and if Evan -thinks he is any match for her he is mistaken. He might as well try to -fight a climate.” - -“But how did you know anything about it?” she asked, more and more -puzzled. “He only told me yesterday, and I don’t know now where he wants -to send Ivor. It may be to his sisters, which is bad enough.” - -“I knew a month ago what he intended to do some day, and I made plans -for you as soon as I heard that he might be going to Egypt. Don’t waste -time being jealous of me, Evangeline. I would wring the man’s neck like -a turkey’s if I could.” - -“Oh, you are wicked!” gasped Evangeline. - -“No, I am not. Don’t be stupid. You will lose your faith in men too some -day, and then you won’t stick at anything to help a woman. What other -weapons have we to defend our lives as yet? Do you want Ivor or do you -not?” - -“Do I?” said Evangeline, nervously hunting for her handkerchief. “I -didn’t sleep last night and I’ve had no breakfast.” - -“Very well, have lunch now, then,” said Mrs. Vachell, rising. During -lunch they matured their plan. Evan had not yet explained definitely -where he intended to send Ivor, though he had once mentioned two friends -of his mother’s, “the best women in the world,” he called them. Mrs. -Vachell related all she knew of the place where they lived and their -methods of training the young mind. Perhaps she exaggerated and perhaps -Evan had laid unfair stress on the items he was most anxious about. -“They believe in making a child independent of physical comforts,” she -said, “and not allowing a light in the room at night and that sort of -thing.” - -“Oh, God! Ivor will go mad,” said Evangeline. “He is so good about the -dark and getting used to it, but he hates it—and without me!” - -Mrs. Vachell shrugged her shoulders. “I came across men in hospital,” -she said, “to whom their childish terrors used to come back. Of course -it made them able to stand anything as they grew up, for nothing they -were likely to meet afterwards in an ordinary life could be such -torture. But it seems a little like burning down the house to get roast -pig. And, after all, the war has shown that it wasn’t worth while, -because boys from happy homes were just as undefeatable as the children -of brutes. In fact some of them who took it most simply had had the -happiest childhood. Good schools do just as well now when the boys come -by train as when they were frozen on the tops of coaches on the way and -tortured when they got there.” - -“Yes,” said Evangeline. - -“I shall have to fool your husband a good deal before I get Ivor handed -over to me,” Mrs. Vachell said, looking at her attentively. - -“Oh, I don’t mind,” Evangeline answered carelessly. “He doesn’t love the -real you. That is the only thing that would annoy me.” Mrs. Vachell gave -a little laugh. - -“Who says women can’t stick together or tell the truth?” she said. - -“Do they?” said Evangeline with indifference. “I wonder why.” - -“Well, let’s get on,” said Mrs. Vachell. “I must do my shopping in a few -minutes. I shall come to Drage next week, and, in the meantime, just -behave as you would if you believed it was all going to happen as he -says. Try to forget that it isn’t; and when I come you will find that -the old ladies will be postponed for a few months at least. And another -thing. You had better beg for Ivor to be sent to your mother. I want -your husband to have knocked off that idea before I come or I should -have to suggest it and fail. He shall tell you himself that it won’t do, -and he will be getting uneasy about the old duchesses by that time if -you are tragic enough.” - -“Oh, it is beastly!” said Evangeline. “Hateful! disgusting! How can a -man be so mean as to force his wife to filthy, low tricks to keep their -only son with her while he is a baby and she has done nothing wrong. How -dare he do it! I shall be a wicked woman before he has done with me.” - -Mrs. Vachell again shrugged her shoulders. “Wait,” she said, “it is -coming. There can be no stopping it in the end. We are in Parliament; we -are almost in the Law; we have one foot in the Church. Wait, Evangeline, -my dear. And in the meantime we won’t throw away the old weapons till -the new are ready. They haven’t done bad service in the past.” - - - - - CHAPTER XVII - - -“God bless you,” said Evan, as he let Mrs. Vachell out of his house -about a week later. “I’ll tell Evangeline as soon as she comes in. It is -an enormous weight off my mind, really. I can’t tell you what torture it -has been to see the poor girl in that state, and yet it was my duty. I -couldn’t do otherwise, so it had to be gone through. Now she will be -comparatively happy as she will trust Ivor with you and Mrs. Fulton can -see him when she wants to—within limits. Evangeline will like that. I -have the utmost confidence in the nurse too. I should never have sent -her away from him if it had been possible to keep him at home. I have -written to Miss Moseley and told her that his coming is only postponed -and that I will arrange with her later when you see how he gets on.” - -“Yes,” said Mrs. Vachell. “I will write to you every week or so at -first. Good-bye. You sail on the 30th, don’t you? I suppose I can make -all the final arrangements about trains with Evangeline. She will like -to see him settled in before she goes, perhaps, and it will give her -time to pack and settle the house in peace.” - -Evan had refused to listen to the suggestion that Evangeline should pick -up the ship anywhere on the way out, so that had been given up. Mrs. -Vachell had undertaken to bring off the final coup. Ivor was to be -established in her house a week before the ship sailed. Evangeline was -to pack her trunks as much as possible with old clothes and oddments -that she did not need. Evan was out all day, so there was no difficulty -about that. Mrs. Vachell would get permission to see them off on board, -and would undertake that Evangeline should disappear when the shore bell -rang. An errand of mercy in some lady’s cabin would prevent Evan from -looking for her until some time after the ship had left. Mrs. Vachell -would keep him in discussion till the last moment and tear herself away -only at the last imperative shouts from the gangway. After that the -deluge, and Cyril in the character of Noah. - -“I don’t like the plan at all,” Susie said anxiously, when Mrs. Vachell -returned. “I simply don’t know how I shall ever make my husband -understand. He is quite extraordinarily dense in those ways. And I want -to tell the servants to get Evangeline’s room ready, and of course I -can’t. There are all sorts of things to be seen to, and Strickland will -be so cross. And I am afraid they will gossip, too. Can’t you possibly -think of anything else? Couldn’t Evangeline be taken ill on the way out -and landed, and then she could just come home?” - -“I am afraid that soldiers are more easily deceived than doctors,” said -Mrs. Vachell, “and Evangeline is such a bad actress! How I have pulled -her through this week I don’t know. But I can keep Ivor as long as you -like while you make your preparations. When Evangeline comes off the -boat and gets to you, she must just have had a fit of temporary insanity -to account for it to your husband; a sort of mad motherhood. I -understand that she has an excuse for a certain amount of eccentricity. -For that reason alone any doctor can be got to say that she is better at -home.” - -“Well, we must try not to worry,” said Susie. “I daresay, when you come -to think of it, that by the time Evan has several children he will give -up a great deal of that absurd nonsense about training. The children -themselves will make him forget about it. Marriage does away with so -many silly fancies, doesn’t it?” - -All the same, as the time drew near, she became a trifle restless. One -day, unknown to her, Cyril went to have a tooth out. It was a bad tooth, -and he felt decidedly uncomfortable afterwards, so he telephoned from -the dentist’s house to put off an engagement he had made, and went -straight home. It happened to be the afternoon Susie had chosen for a -box containing Evangeline’s belongings to be brought to the house, as -she knew Cyril had a train journey of a couple of hours, which would -keep him out of the way. He was just fitting his latchkey in the door -when a van stopped and a man got out and touched his hat. “A box for -you, sir,” he said, “would you sign, please.” Another man was dragging -out the box and Cyril took the paper and read it. “It is addressed to -Mrs. Hatton,” he said. “Just wait a minute and I’ll send a servant.” -Susie, hearing his voice, was peeping rather agitatedly out of the -drawing-room door. He rang the front door bell for Strickland, and went -upstairs. - -“There’s a man with a box addressed to Chips,” he remarked. “Is it all -right?” - -“Y-yes, I think so, dear,” said Susie. “It is just a few things we are -to take care of, that she thought might spoil in Egypt. Perhaps I had -better see about it. Why are you back so early?” - -“I had a tooth out,” he explained. - -“Well, really, Cyril dear,” she said impatiently, “how you men do fuss -about every little ache and pain. What would you say if we gave up our -work for as little reason as that?” - -“I should say you had the wisdom of the serpent and the harmlessness of -the dove,” he replied. “It wouldn’t matter a row of beans.” He went off -to his room. - -“When are we going to see those two to say good-bye?” he asked that -evening after dinner. - -“They will be coming for a night next week when they take Ivor to the -Vachells’,” said Susie. - -“I still don’t understand why he is being sent there instead of coming -to us,” he observed. - -Susie made a little face. “It is just Evan,” she said. “He thinks we are -not to be trusted with children. Of course I couldn’t insist.” - -“It is very unlike you, Sue, to hand over one of your brood without a -murmur. Does Evangeline want him to go there?” - -“Certainly not,” said Susie unguardedly. - -“Well then, I bet he won’t be there long,” said Cyril. Susie began to -wonder whether this might not be a golden opportunity put into her -hands. - -“If you think it best too, dear, I am not sure it mightn’t be the wisest -thing to move him here after a little while,” she said. Cyril looked at -her speculatively, but said nothing at the time. When Evangeline arrived -he noticed a great alteration in her. She had lost her easy-going -acceptance of everything that was said and done. She seemed anxious and -analytical, on the look out for traps, chary of expressing an opinion. -She had said good-bye to Ivor, she told them, and Evan had stayed behind -to settle a few last details with Mrs. Vachell. She said all this with -so much nervousness and lack of interest, as if repeating a lesson, that -Cyril wondered more and more. He thought again of the box that had -arrived, of Susie’s embarrassment, and her anger at his unexpected -return. When she went in the afternoon to pay her fortnightly visit to a -women’s hospital Cyril asked: - -“You’re not acting altogether on the straight about this voyage, are -you, Chips? What’s the plot?” - -Evangeline pushed back her chair and a look of terror came into her -face. She hesitated, but said nothing. He looked at her with concern. -“My dear child, I am not going to eat you,” he said. “What’s the -matter?” - -“I thought perhaps you knew,” she stammered, without realising what she -had said. - -“What, that your mother had given you away?” - -“Yes.” - -“Well, she did, though she didn’t mean to. She was a marvel of -discretion, but unfortunately I had a tooth out and came here when I -ought to have been stowed in the train, and I met your luggage on the -doorstep. She told me it was antiques or something, and I didn’t, in -fact, think much about it until you turned up. So now you had better -tell me what you have both been up to. It is quite evident that you -haven’t parted from Ivor. How do you manage that? Are you going to take -him as a cargo of apples or what?” - -“No, I am not going,” said Evangeline. “I won’t go, and if you give me -away, I’ll—no, I am sorry. I would have told you at first, but Mother -and Mrs. Vachell said that men will only help to clear up a mess. They -won’t ever make a plan to prevent it.” - -“Oh,” said Cyril, “so the plot is pretty deep, is it? How big is the -membership?” - -“Just us three,” said Evangeline. - -“Not Dicky?” - -“No, no, Dicky is impossible. She wouldn’t give it away, but she would -want me to fight it out with Evan. But I can’t, Father,—I can’t, I -can’t. He has broken my nerve. I would fight for myself, but I can’t -risk it when it is for Ivor. I can’t afford to lose. It is Evan’s own -fault. I never thought of being deceitful until I met him.” - -“And Mrs. Vachell?” added Cyril. - -“I daresay,” she admitted, “but she doesn’t want to any more than I do. -She says she does so look forward to the day when women won’t have to -lie. It will be such a luxury.” - -“H’m, yes, perhaps,” he replied, “but we won’t go into these gilded -prospects now. She’s evidently still in a very poor way. But if you -don’t mind me telling you, I think what you are doing is very risky, -though I don’t exactly know what it is. How are you going to get off?” - -“Just slip off the boat while Mrs. Vachell is saying good-bye to him. He -is to suppose that I am in the ladies’ cabin looking after someone who -is ill.” - -“And do you suppose any man is going to find out that his wife has -played him a trick like that and yet go on with his voyage and stay over -there?” - -“Mrs. Vachell said he wouldn’t be able to afford to come back,” said -Evangeline. - -“Good God! What a fool the woman is,” he exclaimed. “And she and her -pack of jelly-brained idiots think that—well, well, Chips my dear, she -is not too big a fool anyhow to have properly done poor old Evan. She -must have endured the devil of a lot of self-denial in the way of truth -lately. A regular Lent of corkers. Chips, I really don’t advise you to -go on with this. It is all nonsense; Evan is a very decent sort of -fellow and I don’t suppose he understands in the least that he is -worrying you seriously. I’ll tell him that I am going to keep you here -for a bit, and Ivor too, to keep you company, and that we’ll think out a -scheme later for you to go out there when he has got ready for you. He -can’t object, for I don’t think you are well.” - -“No, I am not,” said Evangeline, and she burst into tears. “I am going -to have another, and I know he will take it away, too, and I shall go -mad——” - -“Oh, rot!” said Cyril kindly. “Here, buck up. You’re not going if you -don’t want to. Why on earth didn’t you talk over this mess before? -There——” (the front door bell rang) “that’s probably the heavy father -coming on the stage now.” - -“Father,” said Evangeline, turning white, “don’t tell him——” She fell -forward in her chair and fainted, and at the same moment Evan came in. - -“Here,” said Cyril holding her, “go down, there’s a good fellow, and get -some brandy; there’s some in the dining-room.” Evan raced down and -brought back the decanter and a glass, and between them they did their -best, lifting her on to the sofa, and Evan tried to make her swallow -some of the brandy. She opened her eyes and looked at him with terror, -and then sat up. “What is it?” she asked. “Oh please, please, Evan, -don’t take him away. I will do anything you like.” - -“Don’t take who away, my darling, I don’t know what you mean?” he said. - -“Here, never mind,” said Cyril. “It’s all right, Chips. We’ll get you -put to bed I think, and, there’s nothing to worry about; do you -understand?” He rang the bell for Strickland, and she came in and stood -gazing at them in surprise and disapproval. - -“Mrs. Hatton isn’t well,” said Cyril. “A little influenza or something. -Will you get her room ready and put her to bed? Can you walk so far, -Chips, if we give you a hand?” They left her in the bedroom with -Strickland, and then Cyril faced his son-in-law in the drawing-room. - -“I think I’ll telephone for a doctor,” he said, “just to make sure she’s -all right. Mix yourself a drink while I look the fellow up.” He found -the number and took up the receiver. “That Doctor Clark?” he said. “Oh, -isn’t he? Well would you ask him to come round to Mrs. Fulton’s house as -soon as he comes in. Now then, Evan,” he went on, while he lit a pipe, -“let’s have this out. You mustn’t take the girl away to Egypt just yet. -She’s all to bits and she’s got a holy terror of you for some reason. -What have you been doing?” - -“I am afraid it has been parting from the boy that has upset her,” said -Evan. “But I considered very carefully before I did it, and I am quite -sure it is the only way.” - -“Only way to what?” asked Cyril. - -“The only way to safeguard him from being ruined by weakness and -self-indulgence.” - -“It won’t do him any harm to speak of for a year or two,” said Cyril, -“and then he’ll go to school and get it put straight. You’ll do him far -more harm where you’ve left him at present with that unscrupulous -she-devil of the Nile. Take her back with you on the spare ticket and -drop her whence she came.” - -“Excuse me, sir,” Evan said, getting up. “I can’t listen to any abuse of -Mrs. Vachell. I am sorry Evangeline has sunk to that last resort of -slandering her best friend to achieve her end.” - -“Evangeline didn’t slander her, my dear boy,” said Cyril. “She was full -of her praises because of the magnificent plan she had devised for -deceiving you. I arrived home unexpectedly a few days ago and met -Evangeline’s box on the doorstep. The plan was that Cleopatra was to -beguile you at one end of the deck while Evangeline nipped off down the -gangway and home. They had a plan all thought out about her ministering -to a sick friend in a distant cabin so that you wouldn’t look for her -until you were well out at sea. Ivor was to join her here then, and -after that I don’t think they had any clear idea, but they were -reckoning on your finding it cheaper to stay where you were and storm at -them on paper.” - -Evan’s face looked hard and worn, but he showed no other sign of -disappointment. “I think I had better go now and ask Mrs. Vachell if it -is true,” he said. “You know I have only just come from her, and we made -an arrangement that Ivor should stay with her for two or three months -and then go to some ladies whom my mother knew in Cornwall; they keep a -small school for very young children whose parents are abroad.” - -“Did Chips know of that further arrangement?” asked Cyril. - -“Not unless Mrs. Vachell told her.” - -“Why not? What sort of a fellow do you think you are, making plans with -another woman behind your wife’s back as to what you will do with your -son while she is away?” - -“It was the only way,” said Evan again. - -“The only way to land yourself in the devil of a mess. Upon my word, -Evan, it’s a pretty beastly sort of thing to do. If it got round to the -mess you’d find yourself up against a devilish hard proposition.” - -“Yes, I know,” said Evan. “It was cowardice. I hate hurting a woman if -it can be avoided.” - -“Funny how people deny themselves in little ways,” Cyril said -reflectively. “There you say you hate hurting a woman, and you go a long -way round to find a plan that must hurt her more than anything you could -have chosen. Evangeline told me that Mrs. Vachell hates lying more than -anything, and she——” - -“Excuse my interrupting you, sir,” said Evan rising. “That is not quite -proved yet. I’ll be back in half an hour.” - -Cyril, from the window, saw him rush after a passing tram and board it -with the expression of the Chief of Police in a cinema drama. “Poor -devil!” he said to himself with amusement. “She’s going to catch it.” - -Mrs. Vachell’s little maid was greatly surprised when the gentleman whom -she had let out of the house not long before brushed past her with some -muttered remark when she opened the door, and ran straight up to the -drawing-room, where her mistress was having tea. Mr. Vachell had -returned from the University and was enjoying himself with a muffin. -Evan greeted him hurriedly, and said to Mrs. Vachell, “Can I speak to -you a moment alone?” - -“No, my dear Evan, I don’t think you can with that face,” she said, -looking at him coldly, “you almost frighten me. Sit down there and have -some tea, and tell us what is the matter. Ivor is quite happy having his -upstairs.” - -“He must pack up now and come with me, unless you can contradict what I -have just been told,” said Evan. “But I know you will——” his voice was -almost beseeching. “Evangeline is ill. She fainted and went to bed, and -I think she is a little light-headed. She assured her father that you -had made a plan to let her slip off the boat as it was starting and to -join Ivor here and take him to her father’s house——” he paused -anxiously. - -“Yes, it is quite true,” she said without concern. “It evidently isn’t -coming off now as Evangeline has gone back on it. Still I think she -might have warned me. It is all the same to me what she does, but it is -generally considered not to be playing the game to do that sort of -thing.” - -“Why did you do it?” asked Evan. - -“Because it was the only way to stop your monstrous behaviour to a woman -and her child. I would have done it for anybody.” Mr. Vachell had taken -no part in what was going on, but was quietly proceeding with his tea. - -“Did you know of this?” Evan asked, turning to him. - -“Of course not,” he replied. “Is it likely?” - -“Of course he didn’t,” said Mrs. Vachell. “It had nothing to do with -him. But he wouldn’t have interfered in any case. We are a normal -husband and wife; not a potentate and his slave.” - -“Then would you ring for Ivor and his nurse to get ready, please,” said -Evan. - -“Where are you going to take him?” she inquired. - -“I beg your pardon, but that is no business of yours.” - -“Very well, then, wait a moment please.” She took up the telephone from -a table beside her and asked for the Fultons’ number. Cyril answered it. -“Is that you, General Fulton?” she said. “Captain Hatton wishes to take -Ivor away at once and will not tell me where he is taking him to. The -little boy has hardly had his tea and is tired after the journey. Would -you mind telling me what to do.” Emphatic sounds were audible from the -mouth-piece, and she turned to Evan. “He says I am to tell you not to be -a damned fool but to go round there at once. Your wife is very ill. You -are to leave the child here for the present. What did you say, General -Fulton? Do you want to speak to him?” She got up and gave her place to -Evan. “Yes—hullo,” he said. “Is that you, sir? What’s the matter, -please,—very well—I will come.” He said good-bye to neither of the -Vachells, but stopped at the door. “I should like Ivor and the nurse -sent to General Fulton’s as early as you conveniently can to-morrow,” he -said, and went downstairs. - -“Good heavens! what idiots!” said Mrs. Vachell, pouring herself out -another cup of tea, when he was gone. “It is very difficult to do good -in this world.” - -“I know you don’t want my advice,” said Mr. Vachell, “so I won’t give -it. But I am sorry there has been such a mess and she is ill. I like the -poor girl and she seems to have had a bad time one way and another. -Little Teresa will be hitting out right and left I expect.” - -“Oh, Teresa!” his wife said contemptuously, “is full of old-fashioned -prejudices, and her idea of equality between human beings doesn’t go -beyond incomes.” - -“If people would study the way things have worked out in the past they -would get a better idea of what is likely to happen in the future,” he -observed. “I think I must go down and do a little work.” - - - - - CHAPTER XVIII - - -“There is certainly no question of her going to Egypt just yet,” said -the doctor when he came downstairs. “She seems to have got a sort of -nervous breakdown. Can you account for it in any way?” - -Susie had come home just before he arrived, and was apparently greatly -fluttered by the scene of confusion that she found, but, in fact, she -was secretly rejoiced. “It clears the whole thing up in the most -wonderful way,” she thought. “Really it almost seems as if Providence -did interfere sometimes.” She came into the drawing-room with the doctor -and found Cyril and Evan talking with perfect friendliness. She put them -both down in her thoughts as “extraordinarily lacking in all feeling,” -but she expressed nothing but cheerful propriety. - -“Really I don’t know,” she said, in answer to the doctor’s question. -“Evan, Dr. Clark wants to know whether you can account for Evangeline -having broken down like this. You were here with her, Cyril, when it -happened. Do either of you know of anything?” Both were silent, waiting -for the other to speak. “Well?” said Susie impatiently. “You see, I have -been out, and she seemed to be all right when she arrived.” - -“I think it had to do with her leaving Ivor behind,” said Cyril at last. -“Really, my dear, you are a mother; you ought to understand these -feelings. She was about to sail on a long voyage, remember.” - -Susie blushed. “There has been the move too, of course,” she said to the -doctor. “Everything was arranged in a great hurry and there was a great -deal of packing up; and as she told you, she is not strong just now.” - -“No,” he said, “there’s that. But I should have thought there was more -in it. However, it is not my affair, and if it is a family matter you -must do as you like. But whatever it is must be put right somehow, or -you may have very serious consequences to deal with. I will come back -to-morrow morning, unless you want me before then. But please try to set -her mind at rest on whatever it is that is worrying her. It would be -much better if you had a trained nurse.” - -“Little Ivor’s nurse is a splendid woman,” said Susie. “She has had a -hospital training, and Evangeline is used to her. Do you think she could -manage?” - -“No, I think not,” he said. “She seems to be worrying about the child as -it is. Have him in the house with her and let her know he is within -reach with his own nurse, and I’ll send you round another woman, if you -don’t mind.” - -Evangeline slept that evening under the influence of some medicine the -doctor ordered, and Cyril and Evan were left alone after dinner, while -the household were carrying out the numerous requirements of the nurse -and preparing another couple of rooms for Ivor. - -It had been decided that Evan must sail with his regiment, but so far -nothing had been said about Ivor’s future. Presently Cyril remarked, “We -had better settle now about the boy, Evan. It looks pretty clear to me -that you have got to wait for him to find his level in the ordinary way -at a preparatory school. There aren’t many years to wait, and I can -promise you that there will be nothing morbid about him so long as he is -under my roof. You see, if I had had a son I should have had to check -his tendencies and all that, and he will quite likely mind what I say -more than he would the old women of Cornwall.” - -“I shall make no inquiries,” said Evan. “Since his mother and I cannot -act together, and it seems that I shall be responsible for her illness -if we act separately, I shall withdraw altogether. I will send her all -the money I have beyond what I need for bare necessities, and she has -your very generous allowance. I don’t imagine she will miss me at all -out of her life. Everything has been as wretched as it could be for the -last year or two.” - -“I think you will probably find you want them both back again by and -bye,” said Cyril. “My wife would tell you, I am sure, that absence makes -the heart grow fonder—which reminds me that I very much hope that is -true. However, don’t let’s take it for granted that all is over and Moab -is our wash-pot, and so on. It is wonderful how things peter out if you -leave them alone.” - -“Perhaps,” said Evan gloomily, “but I am afraid not. What is wrong in -the beginning is wrong in the end. I shall go away to-morrow before the -boy arrives. He is not likely to ask after me much, as he was set -against me from the beginning.” - -“Have a drink before you go up,” said Cyril, as Evan rose from his -chair. “I am sure you had better.” Ten minutes later they were absorbed -in a discussion about Egyptian administration, but Evan remained gloomy. - -When Strickland brought his breakfast next morning she asked whether he -had seen Mrs. Hatton, and how was she? - -“I didn’t disturb her,” he answered, “but the nurse came to the door and -told me she was better.” - -“I think Mrs. Fulton will be down in a few minutes, sir,” said -Strickland, hesitating at the door. She liked Evan, who was always -gravely considerate to the maids and, as she once said to the cook, -“never passes us with his hat on.” “I may be gone before then,” said -Evan, “but if so, please tell her I was sorry to go without saying -good-bye. I have several things to do on the way to the station.” Teresa -ran down just as he was putting on his coat. - -“Oh Evan, were you going without saying good-bye? Wouldn’t you like to -see Chips?” - -“No, Dicky, I must be off,” he said. “Will you write and tell me how she -is?” - -“Yes, I will, and Ivor too,” she promised. “I wish you were not going so -early and so far off. You look so bleak. But it won’t be long before -Chips can go out to you.” - -“Dicky,” he said, stopping with his hand on the door, “don’t say -anything about Ivor when you write. I would rather not hear. But do what -you can for him—and if you marry, have him with you sometimes, will -you?” He gave her a kiss and went out, and she watched him call a cab -from the rank across the road and drive off. She was standing there -still when Strickland came to shut the door. - -“I don’t like the Captain going off like that,” Strickland said, when -they were back in the dining-room and she was clearing away the plates -and cup. “It doesn’t seem right somehow.” - -“I wonder what there is about marriage that is so difficult,” said -Teresa sadly. “People nearly always behave queerly after a bit. Even if -they don’t actually quarrel they call each other ‘dear’—rather short—and -say ‘it doesn’t matter, thank you,’ and dreary things like that.” - -“I think, myself, better have a quarrel and have done with it,” said -Strickland. “It is a mistake to think over things too much. If a woman -is busy all day working she’s no time to bother about the man till it -comes to getting his wages off him, and then it’s best to be civil.” - -“But, my dear, it is worse in working men’s houses,” said Teresa. “If -you counted up the quarrels between husbands and wives in some of those -small streets!” - -“Quarrels, yes, Miss, that’s what I said,” Strickland replied. “But I -thought you were speaking of Captain Hatton going off so cold this -morning, and no one able to say exactly what has happened.” - -Susie came in at that moment and dismissed Strickland with a rather -reproving request for breakfast at once. When the door was shut she said -to Teresa, “I do hope the maids haven’t begun gossiping about Evangeline -already. What was Strickland saying?” - -“We were talking about marriage and wondering why it is so difficult,” -said Teresa. “She was sorry Evan had gone off so drearily.” - -“Oh, has he gone!” Susie exclaimed. “Really he ought not to have done -that. They will think all sorts of absurd things, and now there is that -nurse to gossip with. You really encourage them sometimes, dear Dicky, -by talking about a thing instead of pretending there is nothing to -notice.” - -“But I didn’t know there was anything the matter, except that Chips was -ill,” said Teresa in astonishment. “I was talking to Strickland about -married people’s manner to each other. What has happened?” - -“Evan made a very foolish and cruel plan to send poor little Ivor to a -strict school in the furthest part of Cornwall. There was no persuading -him, so Evangeline very wisely took the whole thing out of his hands.” - -“How?” asked Teresa. “What could she do if he wouldn’t do what she -wanted?” - -“Well you will find, dear, some day,” said Susie, “that when a man is -bent on doing what is wrong the only way is to seem as if it was all to -go on as he says and then trust to Providence to find some way of -stopping it when the time comes. Opposition only makes him more -determined, and he is more likely to take precautions.” - -“I thought it was arranged by Evan and everybody that Ivor was to go to -Mrs. Vachell’s.” - -“That was Evan’s own silly arrangement, certainly, and Mrs. Vachell -agreed just for the sake of putting off the dreadful school time. And -now you see, mercifully the doctor says that Evangeline must, on no -account, be worried, so darling Ivor is to come here after all, as he -ought to have in the first place, and everything is all right. It is -wonderful how things work out if only one has trust.” - -“But then, I don’t see what you are afraid of the maids knowing, and why -Evan is so cold,” said Teresa, very puzzled. - -“Well, of course Evan wasn’t pleased with the alteration of plan. You -couldn’t expect him to be. And Evangeline has got so ill with the -anxiety. If she had only trusted to its coming out right——. But she got -run down and worried, and what with one thing and another, she didn’t -want to see Evan or to hear any more discussion, and I thought the maids -would think it so odd. You know how in that class everything is -sacrificed to the man because he has the money, and they don’t -understand anything between a difference of opinion and actual -quarrelling.” - -“I see,” said Teresa thoughtfully. - -“I wouldn’t talk to Evangeline about it, I think, dear,” said Susie -after a pause. “The doctor says she must be kept very quiet.” - -Later in the morning Evangeline asked for Teresa to come up to her room. -She was in bed, looking white and tired and the nurse was quietly -dusting. - -“Wouldn’t you like some tea, Nurse?” Evangeline suggested. “Strickland -is sure to be making some if it is eleven o’clock.” - -“I don’t mind leaving you for half an hour if that is what you want,” -said the nurse with a smile. “But don’t talk about any worries, there’s -a dear, or you will get your temperature up again. You’ll not let her -tire herself, will you?” she said to Teresa. “And I’ll leave this little -bell here in case you want anything.” - -“Everything is quite all right, you know,” she said soothingly, as she -arranged the bedclothes before departing. “Your husband sent you his -best love when he went off this morning, only you were asleep and he -wouldn’t disturb you. And everything is ready for the little boy when he -comes. He will be pleased to see his Mummy again, won’t he?” - -“Oh yes, yes,” said Evangeline, “it is all right. Do go and get your -tea, Nurse; we won’t do anything.” - -“Well, did you see him?” she asked eagerly, when the nurse had gone. - -“Yes, I did. He was very nice about you. He asked me to write and tell -him how you are, and I said I would.” - -“Forgive me, Dicky, for not telling you what I meant to do,” said -Evangeline. “But I knew it would make you miserable, and I couldn’t -stand discussion.” - -“I don’t mind that a bit,” she answered, “but if you get into a mess -again, Chips, do tell Father. I think Mother’s way of deceiving men on -principle is a mistake, apart from whether it is right or wrong. I think -you could have got Evan to do anything you liked if you had told Father, -because, after all, it was quite reasonable, only I expect he didn’t in -the least understand. You told me once that if you want to make him see -your side of the argument you have to translate it into different terms, -because he uses other ways of expressing the same things. You see, -Father would probably have used very bad language and said that the -school Evan wanted was kept by a lot of damned tea-drinking, -blanketty-blank-I-don’t-know-what’s, and then Evan would have understood -that it wasn’t really a good plan.” - -“Well, it is done now and he is gone,” said Evangeline. “I shall never -see him again. I’ve deceived him and that is the end. But if he hadn’t -told Mrs. Vachell what he meant to do I should never have found out. I -knew nothing about the school until she told me.” - -“Didn’t you! Oh, Chips, how horrid! But then, he must have deceived you, -too, so it is rather like what Mother says about being ‘taught to be -wicked.’ It is so odd if you come to think of it that what she says -should really come true, perhaps for the first time; though it is too -near the bone to be so funny as it might be.” - -“Do you know, I never thought of that,” Evangeline remarked, “but, of -course he did. That makes it a lot better.” - -“No it doesn’t. It doesn’t make any difference either way. But, at -least, you can both say you are sorry and start again.” - -“But Dicky, I didn’t tell you—there is going to be a new one, and then -everything will begin all over again. I could perhaps have held out -until Ivor goes to school in the ordinary way, which of course I want -him to, and after that he will be able to look after himself; but I -can’t go through it all with another.” Her eyes looked large and -startled. - -“But he hasn’t done Ivor any harm,” Teresa protested, “and he will see -by and by that he is not a tiresome little boy, and then he won’t want -to interfere.” - -“But the strain of perpetually smoothing things over and avoiding -rows——. You don’t know what hell it is. We never laugh now except when -he’s out of the house, and when I hear his latchkey it is like hearing -the prison door shut again after one had escaped.” - -“For the Lord’s sake don’t cry,” said Teresa, “or the nurse will never -let me up here again. It is all over now, Chips. There’s months and -months for things to settle, and they always do settle. Nothing ever -goes on as it is. I wish it did sometimes, but life is a very restless -thing, like the kind of person who is always saying, ‘Well, what shall -we do next?’ You will see something will turn up.” - -But months went by, and nothing did turn up. The carrier sparrows of -Millport somehow disseminated the news that the Hattons had had a split. -One report said that Evangeline was looking ill and went nowhere. This -was contradicted by someone who had met her at the theatre, “In quite -her old spirits.” Mrs. Carpenter determined to sift the matter to the -bottom, and invited Evangeline to tea. She refused, so Mrs. Carpenter -called on Susie and found Mrs. Gainsborough there. Evangeline had gone -to stay for the week-end with her sisters-in-law, Susie announced with -secret pleasure. No one but herself knew what a relief it was to have -such a respectable piece of news to impart. For since Mrs. Carpenter’s -visit of inquiry during the summer holiday she had been in daily dread -of what the mysterious “little bird” then alluded to might not choose -for its subject next time it sang songs of Araby to its kind patroness. -“The Hattons are charming girls and devoted to Evangeline,” Susie added. - -“I suppose she will be going out to her husband soon,” said Mrs. -Carpenter. “She will get the climate at its very best about now I should -think.” - -“Oh dear no, she is not going to Egypt,” said Susie, with great surprise -at such an idea. “She gave that up from the very first. It was really -foolish of her to think of it at all, but she was so anxious to be with -him. But Doctor Clark says it would never do to take the risk. It would -be difficult to get a proper nurse out there, and either to keep a baby -out in the heat or to bring it home such a long way would be risky. No, -there is no idea of that.” - -Susie had always had a lurking taste for critical situations requiring -skill in manipulating censorious persons, and whenever she managed to -get out of a difficult place with credit, she always felt an increased -sense of safety from the snares of the stupid and downright who persist -in making life difficult by wanting everything set down in black and -white. - -“Oh certainly, you are very wise,” Mrs. Carpenter agreed, “though it -always seems hard on a husband when he is away a long time. Dear Mamma -always insisted on going out to India whatever happened. One of us was -even born at sea when the doctor had said that he wouldn’t be -responsible for her unless she spent one hot weather at home. However, -she was back again that autumn and we were all left with dear Grannie -until Papa came home for good.” - -“I never think that mothers were so wise in those days as they are now,” -said Susie. “One reads of so many little lives sacrificed to theories of -that sort. Mothers away, careless nurses and governesses, cold bathing -and all sorts of tyrannical rules. They did nobody any good that one can -see.” - -“Don’t you think that generation were very much stronger, though, than -the present one?” asked Mrs. Carpenter. “I do, and I think they were -more high principled.” - -“Oh no, I don’t think so,” Susie answered in gentle rebuke. “Look at the -drinking that went on, for instance. Even gentlemen used to spend their -evenings under the table, unable to sit up, and they did just as they -liked, and no one dared to say anything. The divorce laws are improving -all the time now, though, of course, it is still dreadfully wrong -whichever way you look at it. Still, I think people have higher ideals -than they did.” - -Mrs. Carpenter was completely crushed for the moment. Susie had left no -opening for her to score, for modern ideals were her own favourite -topic, which she was sometimes unwisely tempted to confuse with the -superiority of her own infancy. Susie, though she was by nature always -anxious to smooth over all friction between other people, and to -establish her own spiritual triumph over sordid dispute, had lately -passed through a dangerous crisis, owing to the fact that her own -intrigues against her son-in-law might be exposed at any moment by -Evangeline’s impatient candour or Mrs. Vachell’s boastful contempt for -male authority. It was necessary that she should build for herself a -strong pedestal of Courage-to-do-what-is-right-at-all-costs, and she -chose to cement it with a plastering of the Best Modern Thought. Once -her position was on a solid foundation, she would withdraw again behind -her inviolable mist of vagueness. It is easy to imagine how foolish a -veiled figure of Mystery would look, toppled over and broken, with -nothing left but some meaningless drapery and wire, compared to that of, -let us say, Nelson, whose every separate feature and limb would retain -its individuality, whether erect above the ground or scattered upon it. - -“These strikes are very terrible,” Mrs. Gainsborough remarked, seizing -upon the nearest current topic in order to save herself from the perils -of controversy into which she might be drawn at any moment. Poor woman! -She chose badly. - -“It is all very largely the fault of so-called education,” said Mrs. -Carpenter, pulling herself together for a new line of self-assertion. -“They insist on everybody being taught to read, and send working-men to -the Universities, and then are surprised that they read the wrong -things. Of course they read whatever is sensational, just as our maids -prefer trashy novels about peers marrying housemaids, and they won’t -look at the classics. All that the strikers want is gramophones and -pianos that they can’t play and motors to go to work in instead of -trams. They are far better paid than our wretched clergy, for instance. -I looked in on little Jenny Abel the other day, and found her and the -children having tea with nothing but bread and a scraping of margarine, -and all of them with colds, and Jenny simply worn out with doing all the -housework and the cooking. The small girl they had had gone off to a -place where she was getting £35 a year; more than Jenny has to dress -herself and all the children. The girl’s mother took her away because -she said she wasn’t properly fed and had too much to do. Said she -shouldn’t touch margarine. ‘Nasty poor stuff, I call it!’ she said; and -the girl must have butter and jam and something hot for supper and every -afternoon off from three to six and two evenings a week out until ten.” - -“But I really don’t think you would find those sort of girls very much -educated,” said Mrs. Gainsborough nervously. “They are not the kind who -take scholarships. They are, in a way, more like some of the girls one -meets about in society just now; selfish, you know, thinking of nothing -but amusing themselves.” - -“I don’t know at all where you meet such girls, dear lady,” Mrs. -Carpenter answered rather acidly. “All my friends’ daughters whom I can -think of are taking up professions.” - -“Yes, but rather for the fun of it, don’t you think?” poor Mrs. -Gainsborough suggested, plunging more and more wildly. “They don’t like -to be worried by home life and they prefer working with men and so on. -It is very natural, poor young things. Just what I should have done -myself if I had been born later.” - -“My dear Mrs. Gainsborough, how shockingly indiscreet!” said Mrs. -Carpenter with a silly little laugh. “I hope you won’t go round the -University saying that women take degrees in order to be with men. You -will raise a nice hornets’ nest if you do.” - -“Oh dear me, no, that is not in the least what I meant,” stammered Mrs. -Gainsborough. “Most of the girls are splendid and don’t run after the -boys at all. But I meant that I don’t think that they care about -domestic things so much and that it is partly to escape from them that -they take up professions. I can’t believe that some of them who are -really pretty and charming can care very much for mathematics and the -other subjects of that sort that they take.” - -“Evangeline was telling me that she read in some paper that socialism is -taking a great hold in the Universities,” said Susie. “I think it is a -pity, because though it is a nice idea in many ways it doesn’t seem -practicable. What you were saying just now about Mrs. Abel just shows -that everybody is not fitted for the same kind of work; and either very -strong people would get into mischief from not having enough to do or -else the weaker ones would die through having too much to do.” - -“I think the chief difficulty would be with the ordinary British working -man,” said Mrs. Gainsborough, innocently. “They do so dislike -regulations of any sort, and if they chose to stop work for any reason I -believe they would always do it. They would take no notice of orders or -shots or anything. They are so unused to not doing what they want and -you can’t argue with them. They would just say it was all nonsense. They -are very strong and not at all hysterical like foreigners. They never -paid the least attention to rationing, you remember, during the war; no -tradesman dared to enforce it in the industrial districts. They don’t -mind losing their lives but they seem to think it so silly to be ordered -about at home and so it is, I quite agree.” - -“Of course,” said Susie, placidly, “if anyone could be found who had -really enjoyed a revolution it would be different and one would have -more sympathy. It is worth any sacrifice to make people happy. But -beyond a few brutal kind of men, who I am sure are either naturally -disagreeable or not English, it seems to make everyone discontented. -Even the people who make themselves comfortable in ruined palaces must -be afraid of someone wanting to turn them out. It all seems so gloomy -from what one reads. Must you really go? I hope you will come back, Mrs. -Carpenter, and see Evangeline when she comes home. Now she is here for -good she will want something to interest her. She might help you perhaps -at Christmas with your parcels distribution. Dear Evan was so anxious -she should be too busy and happy to miss him just now.” - - - - - CHAPTER XIX - - -Just before Christmas, Teresa met Lady Varens in a shop. “My dear, I am -so glad to see you,” said the soft voice that reminded her of Aldwych -and her first happiness there. “Come and have tea with me somewhere. I -have a great deal to tell you.” Teresa’s heart bounded and bumped. It -seemed a year before the girl behind the counter located her particular -little wooden ball from among the dozens that were bowling along the -wire above her head, carrying little scraps of paper and small change to -a stupid public who did not know David. She followed Lady Varens through -the crowd to a shop on the other side of the street, where they sat down -at a table shut away in a recess off the main room. “What would you -like?” Lady Varens asked; “tea and crumpets?” - -“Oh yes, anything, awfully,” said Teresa, hardly able to hide her -impatience. - -“David is coming back next week, did you know?” said Lady Varens. “Has -he written to you?” - -“No,” said Teresa; “I haven’t heard from him for a year.” Tears came -into her eyes, but she flattered herself that they were unobserved. - -“We are both going to stay with Mr. Manley,” Lady Varens went on. “I had -just let my villa and was going to friends in Rome when David’s letter -came; but I didn’t want to lose any time by bringing him round all that -way so I came here and Mr. Manley wants us both to go to him. We must -settle finally with the Prices whether we take Aldwych back next year or -whether I go out with David to the Argentine. He has a charming house -there.” - -“Oh,” said Teresa, “and which do you think you will do?” Her heart -seemed to have stood still for a year, waiting for the answer, before it -came. - -“I don’t know at all, but old Bessie, David’s nurse, who writes to me -sometimes from the village, says they are all longing for him to come -back. The Prices seem to have put everybody’s back up. None of the -outside people will stay if he buys the place and he makes all sorts of -mischief with the bailiff and the farmers, imagining he is being robbed -of sixpence somewhere or other. He says that if he buys it he is going -to get an American expert over to run it all on some new system by which -everything is organised and checked automatically, and the output, as -they call it, of every grain and cow and rabbit and man and boy on the -place is ascertained, and if it doesn’t work out at the maximum the -animal is destroyed and the man is sacked.” - -“Oh, David must come back,” said Teresa. “It sounds too horrible.” - -“Very well then, dear, tell him so,” said Lady Varens, drinking her tea -peacefully without a hint of intention in her voice. - -“I can’t think why the man in the Bible was told to give all his money -to the poor if it wasn’t the right thing to do,” said Teresa. She put -her chin on her hands and puckered her brow over some inner problem. - -“I think it was probably suggested more for his benefit than for that of -the poor,” said Lady Varens. “It is the giving that matters much more -than who gets the stuff.” - -“Do you really think so?” said Teresa. - -“Yes, personally I do. People can only be governed by the qualities that -are in them, and a state can’t make them equal, because it is made up -itself of inequalities. It can never be made into an automatic machine; -it is alive—made of live things. I can’t understand how even decent -socialists can expect it to act as if it were a machine. Of course one -knows what bad communists are after. They are just criminal tyrants who -want to be beasts in control instead of controlled beasts. But the good -ones make me desperate. It is so impossible to imagine anything but -disaster coming from their innocent idiocy. They seem to go on blindly -hoping that human intelligence can devise a scheme that is proof against -human intelligence. They are dear things but I do wish they would take -their hobby horses to some place where the bad boys couldn’t harness -them to the cart that will land us all in the ditch. They think they can -out-theorise history and all forms of religion.” - -Two little tears rolled at last down Teresa’s cheeks and were lost in -the cup with which she tried in vain to hide them. Their salt taste -symbolised to her the bitterness of her failure. - -“Oh, bother it!” she said; “I give up here and now trying to do any -good. It is no earthly use.” - -“David said that when he left Oxford,” said Lady Varens, lighting a -cigarette to avoid Teresa’s eye. “But in a way he works harder than ever -at it now.” - -“Does he?” Teresa answered with elaborate indifference. - -“Yes; won’t you come to dinner with us while we are with Mr. Manley? He -said I was to ask anyone I liked and he loves you.” - -“Yes, I would like to.” - -“Very well; come next Thursday if you are not too busy,” said Lady -Varens. “By the way, how is your sister? Are they still at Drage?” - -“Oh, no—dear me, it is a long story to tell you all the things that have -happened since you left. But Evan is in Egypt and Evangeline and Ivor -are with us.” - -“I am sorry; that sounds dreary,” she said. “I never knew your sister -well, but I liked him though he seemed so different from her. I often -wished he had thought of going out to the colonies or something of that -sort. I believe it would have suited her. I can’t see her in a garrison -town.” - -“She used to say she would like to lead two lives at once,” said Teresa. -“One a sort of Wild West business and the other with someone very -literary, but Evan isn’t either, so I suppose people compromise or do -something different from what they intended.” - -“Tell me, Teresa,” said Lady Varens, “I am not asking from curiosity; is -it a success?” - -“Chips could make a success of almost anybody who didn’t interfere with -her,” Teresa replied. “She is not at all exacting and she is so -affectionate. But Evan is a little like John Knox or that sort of -person; then she does things without telling him and he gets all sorts -of ideas into his head. I do hate Mrs. Vachell. I think she does more -harm than a thousand mothers-in-law.” Lady Varens laughed. - -“Do be careful what you say about mothers-in-law. When David marries I -shall remind you of that remark and ask you not to suggest to my -daughter-in-law that I interfere, because I don’t.” - -Teresa blushed and looked vexed. “I had forgotten about you, really,” -she said. “But Mrs. Vachell came to stay by the sea when Chips and I -were there with Ivor, and it all went wrong after that. I don’t think -they were ever happy again. And I believe she only did it out of sheer -spite because she hates men.” - -“Does she? I should never have guessed that,” said Lady Varens. - -“No, nobody would. She never says a word, but she used to get at that -wretched boy Fisk, at the University, and put him up to all sorts of -revolutions; not because she cares twopence about the poor, I think, -unless they are women, but she wants women to govern everything, and I -think she got him to believe that they would all help a revolution for -the sake of making laws to get what they want for themselves. Don’t you -think that Miss Smackfield would probably drop her Bolshevism if there -were any women capitalists?” - -“I don’t know that I or anyone else knows exactly what a capitalist is. -But do you seriously suppose Miss Smackfield cares a hang what any row -is about so long as she can be in the front with an axe, shouting, ‘Off -with his head!’ like the Queen of the pack of cards. She would be -forgotten to-morrow if someone put a flower pot over her.” - -They talked for some little time and at last Lady Varens said, “It is so -difficult to remedy anything, from a disease to a grievance. There is -always a ‘vicious circle,’ not one thing alone that is the matter. -People are ill because they fuss and fuss because they are ill. There -are some, I think, who want a revolution because they are miserable, and -others who are miserable because they want a revolution, another lot who -make other people’s misfortunes an excuse for making a row and some more -who put all their misfortunes down to other people’s love of making a -row. If you take a human body in that sort of contradictory mess into a -doctor’s consulting room, he pays no attention to the details, but tells -the patient to wash in the Ganges or eat a lightly-boiled onion an hour -before sunset with his back to the north; or else he tries -psycho-analysis or hypnotism.” - -“Oh, does he?” said Teresa, who was quite bewildered by this time. - -“Yes, he does, and once upon a time it was done with incantations and -charms, or the fat of a dormouse was rubbed under the ear. There was -Christianity too, with all sorts of by-products in the way of -Reformations and Crusades—but you see my point. A really engrossing -superstition or a creed with a ritual would be more useful than -discussing symptoms of national neurasthenia. Any idea that is unselfish -and clean would do, and Bolshevism isn’t either; it is both selfish and -dirty.” - -“But you can’t preach unselfishness to the unemployed,” Teresa objected, -“not, anyhow, so long as there are ‘boudoir gowns for my lady when she -snatches a moment’s rest in her strenuous afternoon,’ advertised in the -papers. If I were an unemployed, I should want to tear my lady in -pieces, and roll her beastly maid with the sofa and the pot of chocolate -over and over in the mud on the Embankment.” - -“That’s illogical,” said Lady Varens. “I have to shut my eyes tight when -I see advertisements of anything to do with my lady, because I know that -that sort of indignation is off the line. Communism is dreary and -crushing and impossible, I think; and if you are going to let people -keep the money they or their fathers make, then you must let them alone -to spend it as they like. There are idiots in every class who chuck -money about. But, as I say, if you are going to admit freedom to inherit -and make, you must have freedom to spend as well, or else Rule Britannia -becomes Rule Bolshevina, and my dear friend, the British working man, -who hates to be hustled, will have to set up his apple cart again in -some other place.” - -“No, it is quite true, it won’t suit him a bit,” said Teresa, thinking -of Mr. Jason. - -“I have tried to imagine the very beeriest British loafer being made -compulsorily drunk at stated intervals by a public authority, and I -can’t see him getting a bit of pleasure out of it. And as for being -compulsorily busy, and obliged to see nothing but good plays, and sent -to hear good music—has any real Englishman ever devised such a plan, or -are they all those very unhumorous Huns in disguise? Only a nation that -wears spectacles could picture England as a community with rules, except -the ordinary policeman rules. But the people have got so used to freedom -that they may let the thing go on and stand watching it like a dog fight -until it is done and has to be cleaned up.” - -“That is what Mrs. Vachell said about Evangeline, that father wouldn’t -interfere about Evan until he had actually done something. She said that -men won’t bother to prevent a thing happening.” - -“What are you talking about?” said Lady Varens. - -“Oh, I forgot, I was thinking about what you said. Evan did rather try -to work out theories about Ivor and there was a bother that there -needn’t have been if he and Chips had understood each other instead of -working separately. However that is nothing. I expect they will worry -through all right.” - -“Well, come and see David,” said Lady Varens, “and help us to decide -what we will do. He is all for stopping a muddle before it is too late.” - -Teresa went home in a tram, among the faces in the fog, but she did not -notice them. She was tired to death by problems and counter problems; by -desires that seemed to lead straight to a just and happy end, and were -blocked always, sooner or later, by some defect of the quality that -engendered them. Equality had a way of elbowing the grace of respect off -the path, social recognition bred snobbery and civic responsibility led -to jobbery, philanthropy grew so easily into impertinence, reform into -self-righteousness and contentment into smugness; there seemed no end to -the fine and stupid ideas that had started along the same road. -Innocence and discipline fought for perfection in every imaginative -task. She saw a world full of Evans and Evangelines quarrelling -irreconcilably for ever, like Tweedledum and Tweedledee. - -The car trundled and swayed, grinding along its rails. The distorted, -grotesquely-dressed forms that had been made beautiful all these years -in her imagination by the belief that they were princes and princesses -in disguise, waiting for the magic touch of recognition to restore them -to their kingdom, failed for the first time to excite her interest. The -desire which used to entice her with the promise of a new world had -vanished, and left in its place a message rather like the traditional -note on the pincushion left by the escaping heroine of romance. The -message said that the only truth on which heaven and earth were agreed -was that a marriage would shortly take place. - -She cheered up a little as she looked at the fog-bound faces on either -side of her, and thought how greatly any of them might be improved by -loving any one as much as she loved David. Another still more cheerful -idea occurred to her, that perhaps they did! Perhaps it was only the mud -filtering down upon the city that made them look so depressed. Inside -their minds there might be an inextinguishable flame that only needed to -be kindled to destroy all anger and discontent. “I suppose there will -always be Evans and Evangelines,” she thought, “all the Tweedledums and -Tweedledees, and they will fight about nothing whenever they meet; but -if they were really in love Evan wouldn’t look for trouble and -Evangeline wouldn’t try to walk round it; they would go through it -together as it came. I am glad David doesn’t either worry or shirk—but -then, of course, he wouldn’t.” - -When she reached home she went up to the nursery where Evangeline was -putting Ivor to bed, it being nurse’s afternoon out. When he was tucked -up and Evangeline was tidying the nursery, Teresa sat down by the fire -and said, “I met Lady Varens and had tea with her. David is coming home -in a few days, and they are going to stay with Mr. Manley. They are -going to make up their minds what they will do with Aldwych.” - -“Oh, are they?” said Evangeline. “Do you suppose they will go back?” - -“I should think quite likely.” - -“You look very pleased, Dicky,” said Evangeline, looking at her sister’s -face in the firelight. “I am so glad if it is all right. But Dicky——” -she hesitated in a frightened way—“you know I have no nerves in these -days, and I get unnecessary panics—, don’t build on his being the same -as when he went away, will you? You know what men are.” - -“Oh, Chips, do drop that men and women business,” said Teresa wearily. -“There are men and men and David is David.” - -“I know,” she admitted, “but you see Evan is also Evan, so I warn you -from my experience—quite kindly meant, and you are angry, quite fairly.” - -“I think you would like him best to be Evan if you loved him,” said -Teresa. “He wouldn’t be ‘men’ any more, and you wouldn’t compare him -with yourself.” - -“I do love him,” Evangeline answered; “but he thinks I don’t because I -deceived him.” - -“Do you suppose he doesn’t love you because he deceived you?” - -“I am sure he doesn’t, because men—I am sorry, I won’t say it. But he is -always talking about ‘women’ too. In fact, he began.” - -“Do you know, as I was coming up in the tram it occurred to me how like -Tweedledum and Tweedledee you two are, and now what you say makes you -more absurdly like. They never knew which began the quarrels. You need a -‘monstrous crow’ to send you both flying into one another’s arms. Of -course if you were in a book Ivor would have a dangerous illness or -something silly like that.” - -“That would only make us hate each other more because he would say that -God did it for our good, and I should say that God was sorry the devil -did it.” - -“And suppose Ivor died, whose doing would you say it was?” - -“No one’s doing at all. But I should say the devil made the germs and -that God did nothing, except that He was glad to have Ivor back.” - -“I am sure that is very bad theology,” said Teresa, “You can’t have -Badness with a definite intention and Goodness without any.” - -“Why not? Intentions mean brains and theories and I do loathe them more -than I can tell you. I’m content with things that are alive and perfect; -I mean without diseases and sins. One doesn’t need any intention for -loving the sun and everything that I call ‘God.’ But Evan sets his brain -humming and buzzing like a factory to make up the awful Moloch of a -creature that he worships.” - -“It is very odd,” said Teresa, “how people have always been more annoyed -by each other’s religions than by anything else. I am myself. I could -put up with Mrs. Carpenter’s face, if it were not for the things she -says about the Church. But there we go again! I suppose if a monstrous -crow could frighten quarrellers apart a monstrous dove might prevent -them from fighting; but I don’t know, and there would probably be some -drawback to that too; there always is. I am going to meet David next -week.” - -“You know, I can’t go on living at home for ever,” said Evangeline. “I -shall have to arrange something when all this business is over, and what -am I going to tell people? I can’t keep an unexplained husband in the -background all my life. Just think of it! Very little money, no man, no -father for the children and no explanation to give. I shall have to -become a paid agitator in self-defence.” - -“To agitate about what?” - -“Oh, anything. Mrs. Vachell belongs to all sorts of societies. I might -help to run a paper. I’ve always liked papers.” - -“Yes, I know you have,” said Teresa. “I think, Chips, if you hadn’t sat -so comfortably in the sun, and been content with sensations you might -have found out more for yourself. Isn’t that why we called you ‘Chips,’ -just because you were always picking up bits of information? I always -think of toast and newspapers when I remember you as my elder sister in -the nursery. Either with toast and newspapers by the fire or else out in -the garden when you ought to have been somewhere else. Do you remember -when you brought in a worm when we were away in the country, and you put -it on a doll’s chair on the tea-table, and tried to make it sit up, and -Miss Jacks came in? But to go back to your newspaper; you can’t do that. -Do wait until you are well again, and then go away from Mrs. Vachell, -and write to Evan. I am not sure you hadn’t better leave your family -with nurse and me somewhere, and go to Egypt yourself; but, anyhow, it -will be all right. I have told you things are always happening.” - -“Evan’s sisters are another problem,” Evangeline said presently. “They -don’t know anything yet, but they keep on wanting Ivor to go there, and -when they do find out they will do everything they can to get him taken -away from me. They will think I am an active danger if I differ from -Evan in any way. And they are so silly with Ivor. They do spoil him so.” - -“I think that is awfully funny,” said Teresa. “Doesn’t it amuse you if -you think of it?” - -“You mean because Evan complains of me spoiling him? But then, you see, -I don’t and they do. You never saw such drivel as they carry on. Ivor -gets quite imbecile when he is there; he hardly seems the same. It isn’t -gaiety, it is a sort of orgie of pranks; like those wearisome film -comedies where a lot of people slip up on a piece of soap, and get -covered with whitewash and food. Really when I am staying there I often -feel like asking the cook to shoot me into the dining-room by the hatch -and fling a basin of custard after me just so as not to damp the party.” - -“Doesn’t Evan mind that?” - -“No, he doesn’t, because it is something that can be explained. It -doesn’t amuse him, but he can pigeon-hole it as ‘all good girls’’ way of -amusing themselves. It has nothing to do with him, but it is a necessary -cog in the machinery of a nice family so he can get on with something -else while they do it. It is almost like a domestic rite. But when I -enjoy myself he thinks it is moral indulgence because it isn’t planned -out and it isn’t tiring.” - -“I don’t know how father gets on so well with all sorts of different -people,” said Teresa. “It never seems to bother him if they don’t -understand what he is talking about. He never tries to explain himself -or cares whether they agree with him or not.” - -“No, I daresay, but then he has only got himself to bother about,” said -Evangeline. “If he had to protect us from a wife with high principles it -might make him think a bit.” - -Teresa dreaded telling her mother about the Varens’ return. Experience -has taught me that there are many painstaking minds who will come to a -knot at this point, and want to be told why any young girl with a clear -conscience should dread to tell so amiable and good a mother that an -eligible young man, dear to them both, has returned to the -neighbourhood. But it cannot be made quite clear to all readers. The -nearest thing that can be said is that perhaps if Susie had been known -to approve less of the possibility with which Teresa was secretly aglow, -the girl would have been less anxious to keep it to herself. “Alice in -Wonderland” is full of the everyday experience of simple people, and in -one of those irrational gambollings of the female mind which have been -referred to on another page I seem to see Susie represented by the -kindly Dodo who said to Alice after she had won the race, “I beg your -acceptance of this elegant thimble,” and presented her with her own -property. Teresa was as straight-forward as Alice, and liked things to -work out logically, so she resented being led up to her lover, as much -as she disliked hearing Mrs. Carpenter instruct Mrs. Potter in the art -of patience. - -She decided now that the dangerous moment could be most successfully -faced under Cyril’s protection, so she announced at dinner, “I met Lady -Varens to-day, and they are both coming back, probably for good.” She -made the news sound as gossipy and impersonal as she could, and shot a -rapid glance at her father. - -“I am glad to hear that,” he replied. “The Perkin Warbecks can now -resume their normal occupations.” - -“Who are they?” she said. - -“I don’t know who they were, but I remember being sent to bed because I -didn’t know that they aspired to the throne. I’ve remembered their -beastly names ever since.” - -“They are staying with Mr. Manley,” Teresa went on, “at least she is, -and David is going there next week. I promised to go to dinner one -evening, so I can tell them about the Perkin Warbecks. It is nice to -think how pleased the farmers will be, isn’t it?” She felt some pride in -the way she was conducting this affair. - -“Very nice, dear,” said Susie quietly. “Do you know at all how he got on -in the Argentine?” - -“No, she didn’t say,” Teresa answered. - -“I thought perhaps you might have heard sometimes,” said Susie. “So -often out in those lonely places people are so glad of posts, and they -write and tell one all sorts of things about themselves, just with the -idea of getting an answer. I remember I had a cousin who used to write -dreadfully dull letters all about the country and then strings and -strings of questions.” - -Teresa need not have been afraid. Her mother did, as Evangeline had -pointed out, achieve what seemed like conjuring tricks in the lives of -other people, but she only prepared spiritual omelets in places where no -omelet was likely to be made in the ordinary way. Having satisfied -herself now that Teresa had been completely cut off from David while he -was away and was full of suppressed excitement at his return, she was -too great an artist in mystery to use apparatus when the laws of nature -were already operating in the direction she wished. - -Three days after this was Christmas Day, and both Susie and Teresa had a -busy day before them. Susie was to attend a tea and distribution of -useful Christmas presents to the inmates of the Mary Popley Home, and -Teresa was to help serve dinner to some hundreds of street urchins, -members of one of the many organisations with which Emma’s devoted band -worked ceaselessly and hopefully, undeterred by rumours of class war or -theories about the reconstruction of the State. Emma’s workers got on -with the business of cleaning the city as best they could, while Fisk, -the people’s friend, raved of blood and destruction, and then went home -to tend his dormice. Teresa’s post was at the end of a trestle table -with nearly fifty boys on each side. She was buttoned up to the neck in -an overall; her face was hot from the stove beside her and from the -crowded atmosphere; her head felt bursting from the smell of poor homes -and the clapper of voices; her feet were icy from the draught along the -wooden floor which was only separated from the street by an open door -and a long stone passage. In front of her was a gigantic hot-pot, -replaced by another as soon as empty. She held in her hand a long iron -spoon, greasy from top to bottom and heavy to wield. At her elbow were a -pile of plates, which were snatched up and borne away by other helpers -as fast as she filled them. There were three tables altogether, and the -same thing was happening at both ends of each. Other people, visitors -and members of the committee, stood about the room and looked on, giving -a hand with any extra job that was needed. When the last plate was -filled Teresa had a moment in which to look at the faces down the table. -They were all faces from behind the fog, but they were young, and the -Great Depression (as she called the public expression of countenance -when she first came to Millport) had not yet reached them. Many of them -were pale and pinched, many were apple-faced, some fat and white, but -they were all young and as free as squirrels. They bore marks of cold -and hunger, some of them of cruelty and disease, every single one of -them had a cold in the head and took no notice of it. “The plum pudding, -Miss——. May I pass?” said a voice beside her, and, as she moved, a -monstrous pudding was put before her and the helpers pawed the ground in -their impatience to be off with the plates. Teresa doled out great -helpings of the stuff as fast as she could, grasping her heavy spoon -with both hands. Once more she had time to look at the boys. They were -not talking now; they were stuffing, and they had said all they had to -say to their neighbours. She saw one of them deposit a large -tablespoonful of the pudding in a pocket of his little age-worn -waistcoat, and in the horror of the moment she exclaimed, “Child! what -on earth are you doing?” - -“It’s for me granny,” he said, “she’s sick.” Teresa experienced the -upheaval of mind and body that used to shake her with a general sense of -topsy-turvydom when she first took up Emma’s work, and which she had -nearly lost during the last years. She remembered Ivor as she had left -him that morning, happily engaged in discussion on seasonable topics of -revelry, she thought of dirty little faces assembled outside toyshops -lighted up early on account of the penetrating fog; she had a vision of -the Price family in paper caps seated among a débris of hothouse dessert -and wine and coffee and expensive trifles in leather and gold, recently -unwrapped from parcels, each “novelty” designed to save small -discomforts, such as the lighting of a match or the turn of a head to -see the time; she thought of Evan’s sisters, giggling happily beneath -banners that advertised Peace and Goodwill, and of Fisk at the other end -of the Christmas dinner-table, gloomily contemplating his father’s -mésalliance, the Gainsboroughs’ old cook who never could cook anything -decently, and who had now become the last straw on all that an unjust -government had heaped upon him at his birth. Teresa’s mind, which had by -now established David in its background as a referee in all debated -questions, recalled at this moment her first visit to Aldwych and her -self-reproach for having eaten the price of Albert Potter’s splints. “I -have been along that road,” David had said, “and it leads nowhere except -to a maze where you lose yourself and die for want of a new argument.” -“David!” she cried now, in her heart, “David! get me out of this and -take me with you, if you know where you are going.” - - - - - CHAPTER XX - - -Susie, meanwhile, was performing prodigies of peace and goodwill at the -Mary Popley Home. She radiated the most suitable atmosphere that a lady -visitor to a rescue home could possibly have evolved after years of -thought, and she did it without any thought at all! The “inmates,” as -they were called, and as we will call them for want of a less lively -word, literally basked in her smile. Grave kindness they were accustomed -to; breeziness they knew to satiety; Mrs. Abel’s generous pity almost -inconvenienced them; but Susie’s veil of aloofness from everything real -wrapped them in gossamer of the angels who have no bodies. “Isn’t she a -nice lady?” they said among themselves, feeling that, where she was, -neither shame nor hope of doing well eventually, nor gratitude for -tolerance would be expected of them. “It must be nice to be a lady and -able to do what yer like without any ’arm coming of it,” was what they -mostly thought, in place of the bitter reflections that stung them in -the presence of Mrs. Carpenter. “What does she know about it?” they were -used to mutter, when that excellent visitor explained to them the duties -of self-respect, the necessity for self-control, the joys of home that -they had forfeited, and the useful-even-though-damaged lives they might -yet lead. “That there Jack, I used to tell you about, would ’ave taught -’er what for,” was a favourite comment of one of them after these -occasions. “Telling us as men is what we makes them, and ’adn’t ought to -be encouraged! ’E don’t want much encouragin’, she’d find, if she got -’im ’ome, in spite of ’er face.” It seems almost a pity that this inmate -could not have heard Susie second the vote of thanks to the committee at -the Town Hall; for one feels that justice was hardly done to Mrs. -Carpenter, while Susie, who had said the same thing in other words, was -so much admired. But that, of course, was never known, and probably if -it had been, her manner and her expression would have caused a different -interpretation to be put upon her words. The inmates would have pictured -themselves as partakers in a scene of innocent pleasure, ended in sorrow -by the devil, while Mrs. Carpenter only succeeded in offending them by -the suggestion of mischief done to an honest fellow. - -“’Ain’t she a nice lady!” they repeated in admiration. “I do like ’er -’at, and the way it is done at the back. Just pass my cup up along -there, Veronica, would you?” - -“Give old pasty-face something to do for ’er living,” said Veronica, as -she passed the cup up the line, to where the under-matron was presiding -over the urns. - -“You know, some of them are such nice girls,” Mrs. Abel was saying -enthusiastically to Susie at the same moment. “I can’t tell you what -splendid natures they have. That one down there—Veronica Baker—it’s the -saddest history, but I won’t tell you now. She is simply devoted to the -baby—such a darling it is—and I am hoping to get her a really good job -where she can keep it with her. It is with her mother at present.” - -“I do hope the old woman is good to it,” said Susie. “It would be -terrible if anything happened to it while the mother is here. That is -the worst of Homes I always think, although they are so necessary and -splendid in every way. But so few of them are able to arrange to keep -the mothers and children together, and it does separate them so in cases -where it isn’t possible. Don’t you think there is that about them?” - -“Yes, but then what can one do?” said Mrs. Abel a little sadly. “One -can’t leave them to go on with the life, and in many cases it is better -that the child should be sent to some place that is known to be all -right, so that the mother may not be hampered in finding work. It goes -against them very much with some people if the child is seen.” - -“I do think,” said Susie, “that if the girls could be got to see before -they go so far what will happen if they do, it might prevent them. It -seems to me sadder than any amount of difficulty in making ends meet.” - -“Yes, indeed, it does,” said Mrs. Abel, greatly touched, poor little -thing. “When I think of my own home and how difficult things are just -now, and yet how we have been kept from all unhappiness, I think I -hardly know how to be thankful enough.” - -“It must be so delightful to have your husband with you in everything,” -Susie said with a little sigh. “It must make up for any anxiety. If one -is thoroughly understood nothing else matters. I was so glad you did so -well with the sale of work in the summer. Drink is really another of the -worst problems, I think. Do you find many in your Home are any better?” - -“Well, it is impossible to say whether any of them are really cured,” -said Mrs. Abel. “But a great many have gone out and kept steady for -several years, and now and then we hear from them that they are doing -well. But of course some of them relapse and then they sometimes come -back for a time. But if we get them quite early on I believe there is -every chance of their keeping straight. Only it is so difficult to -persuade them to come in then.” - -“What a pity it is that wine was ever invented,” said Susie. “I can’t -think what people want with it. It only makes them noisy and stupid; not -really cheerful.” - -“I don’t think it is wine that matters,” said Mrs. Abel. “In fact a -little of it would do them good if they could get it. It is the beer and -spirits that are so bad, because they take such quantities of beer and -so little spirits affects them, especially the stuff they can afford. My -husband doesn’t at all believe in actual teetotalism, except as a help -to those who can’t keep away from it. The doctor says a glass of port -would do him all the good in the world in the evening, but I can’t get -him to take it, just for the sake of the example.” - -“How splendid of him!” Susie exclaimed. “I wish I could persuade my -husband to set the example to his men.” - -“You see, it is the evenings that are such a temptation,” Mrs. Abel went -on. “Their homes are so dreadfully uncomfortable, with the children all -about and everything in a mess and nothing to do. Of course they prefer -the public-houses and the clubs.” - -“But if the children went to bed in proper time and the wives kept their -sewing until the evening it would be quite simple,” Susie declared. -“They seem to have no idea of time.” - -“Still, I know myself that it is not easy to have everything straight by -the evening,” Mrs. Abel sighed. “Now my little maid has gone and I have -everything to do for the children, besides the house and the parish, I -find it very difficult to be all neat and good tempered, and ready to -listen to my husband, though I am longing to hear all about his day. And -then, you see, very often with those people the children have nowhere to -sleep except the living-room, and there is hardly room for them all to -sit round—and perhaps no fire—and if there is illness—and they have no -occupations to keep them quiet. And besides, some of the houses you -really can’t make clean or cheerful, and if the man does get good wages -for a time it all goes as soon as there is unemployment or if he meets -with an accident; the insurance doesn’t cover it all. At least I know my -husband will get his stipend whatever happens, and people are very kind -and good. We were so touched by the amount of the Easter Offering this -year, although it is such a poor parish.” - -“Mrs. Fulton, would you like to come and see the distribution of -presents?” said the matron, advancing to Susie with a smile that she did -her best to make genial. Long years of bringing the passions of other -people into line had made it difficult for her to relax at different -milestones of the Almanack into the requirements of a moral armistice. - -Susie followed her into the next room, where a small Christmas tree was -glimmering and dropping wax on to a table; round it, piled high, were -parcels with the forbiddingly soft contours that betray to the -experienced eye the presence of wool in unattractive shapes. Two smiling -men with eyeglasses and gay waistcoats, and Mr. Abel, well-bred, shabby, -harassed, devoted and obviously in need of port wine, stood by with -sponges, ready to quench any untoward splutterings between the dim -flames and the branches on which they drooped. Festoons of tinselled -cotton hung between the pine needles which still smelled of the forest, -and on the top spike, precariously inclined, was a cardboard Father -Christmas with frosted boots and a face like Mr. Price after dinner. The -inmates crowded round, murmuring among themselves in drawling -exclamations peculiar to the class who spend so much of their lives as -onlookers at all kinds of pageantry. - -“Eh, luk!” they said. “H’m—yes, it is, i’nt it! eh, to be sure! See, -Lily, the li’l moonkey wi’ th’ baal in its mouth! See Father Christmas? -Where? Eh, yes, a see ’im. Seems a pity there a’nt no children here to -see it. What’s the good of it?” A terrific sniff raised the speaker’s -nose in wrinkles almost into her low-growing hair. “Eh, luk! the parcel! -’tis for the paarson!” Roars of laughter broke out while Mr. Abel -unwrapped a neat silver cigar-cutter and sought in vain for words that -should combine truth with the idea that it was the thing he was most in -need of. Mrs. Abel received a pocket manicure case, the matron was -delighted with Miss Gilworth’s _Outlook of the Saints_, the under-matron -had a sponge, “specially designed for continental use,” and the rest of -the staff were given various articles ranging from penwipers to plaster -dogs with one eye bandaged. The proceedings ended with a carol, in which -Susie joined with her very kindest expression and a most delicate voice, -reinforced by the powerful bass of one of the gentlemen with eyeglasses -who was a member of Mr. Abel’s choir. Mr. Abel moved a vote of thanks in -his high-pitched Oxford plaint, and soon after a piercing wind from the -front door and a hum of voices and flutter of aprons in the passage -betokened that the Mary Popley inmates would be left to their own -reflections on a year that was about to slink away like a defaulter with -the happiness they had invested. - - * * * * * - -Evangeline’s daughter was born between Christmas and the New Year. -Teresa arrived home late from her dinner at Mr. Manley’s and was met by -Strickland looking as if she were about to perform some religious rite. -Her cap lay across her head at an angle that gave her a slightly mystic -appearance, her eyes were full of indefinite purpose and her mouth was -set tight. - -“Have you got toothache again, you poor thing?” Teresa exclaimed the -moment she saw her. - -“No, Miss Teresa; it’s _that_,” Strickland replied in a hushed voice. -“We’ve got the nurse, and the doctor is coming along now. Mrs. Fulton is -upstairs, but I was to tell you there’s nothing to worry about and you -was to go into the General’s study. I’ll bring you a cup of tea and then -you’ll go to bed. It’ll be all over in the morning, you’ll see. You’ll -not hinder me by worrying, now, will you? For I’ve the kettles to see to -and all.” - -“N—no,” said Teresa rather doubtfully. “I won’t hinder you anyhow, old -lady. Go on with your fussing and don’t mind me. But I wish you would -come and tell me when it is there. I don’t suppose I shall be asleep.” - -“Yes, you will, then, Miss Teresa, or I shall be angry. No, I mean it. -You’ll be doing very wrong if you’re not asleep. The General is in the -study, if you’ll go up now, so I needn’t keep up the drawing-room fire.” - -“Strickland—here a moment,” said Teresa, pulling her into the darkened -drawing-room. “Just tell me before you go. Is it very, very awful?” - -“No, Miss Teresa, of course it isn’t,” she replied quite angrily, -shaking herself away. “My brother’s wife thinks nothing of it. It’s what -we’ve all got to go through—unless it’s a poor thing like me that has no -one. And there’s the nurse and doctor and everything she can want. -There’s a great many that hasn’t——” - -“Oh, yes, yes, I know,” Teresa interrupted. “I shall stop my ears if you -say any more of that. I’ve finished with it. I’m not going to hear any -more until I can begin again. Strickland, I’m engaged; but please don’t -tell them downstairs. I want to do it myself when it is all over. Only I -am so happy I had to tell you; and now I have come home to be so -frightened. Never mind; you see, I am not in the least worried. I’m -going up. And about twelve o’clock I shall go to my room—and take off -all my clothes—and go to bed—and put my head on the pillow—Oh, -Strickland, you are an ass, aren’t you? How do you suppose I am going to -sleep? Well, good-night.” She ran upstairs very quietly and went into -the study. - -Cyril was sitting by the fire, smoking and reading. He looked round as -she came in and said, “Well, did you have a good time? I suppose they’ve -told you about Chips?” - -“Yes,” she said. “I shan’t go to bed yet if you are not going. We’ll -wait together if you like. And, Father—I saw David.” She brought a chair -up to the fire. - -“And did he see you?” Cyril inquired. “You please my eye very much when -you are happy and you’ve been a withered little object lately.” - -“Well, that is really about all about it,” she said. “I’ve stopped -withering. You do like David, don’t you, Father?” - -“I’m devoted to him,” Cyril answered. “Do I understand that you have -fixed it up?” - -“Yes,” she answered. “Oh, Father, listen, what was that?” - -“I didn’t hear anything,” he said, rather hastily, “but there’s a devil -of a draught up those back stairs. I think I’ll shut the passage door.” - -“I’ll do it,” she said. - -“No, stay where you are.” He went out, shutting the door after him, shut -the passage door that led to the top storey and met Strickland coming -up. “Keep that door shut, would you?” he said. “Miss Teresa’s in there; -and don’t worry her to go to bed. I’ll send her when I think it is a -good plan.” He went back to the study. - -“Was that Strickland you were talking to?” she asked. “There’s nothing -wrong, is there?” - -“No, but I can’t do with her damned singing. I told her to wait until -the Philharmonic was open. Now then, tell us all about it, Dicky; that -is, as much of it as you like.” - -“Well, you see, I refused him before,” she began slowly. “He wouldn’t -combine with what I was doing and I wouldn’t give it up——” She stopped, -and Cyril poured himself out a glass of whiskey. “Have some?” he asked. - -“Now you know, dear, that is silly,” said Teresa. “I don’t want to take -to drink because I am going to be married—— Oh, father, what is that? -Something is bothering me—is there a wind or something? It was quite -still when I came back.” - -Cyril hesitated a moment and then said, “You’re not the woman your -mother is. She thought me very foolish—I am not sure she didn’t say very -wrong—for spending the night in the Turkish bath when you were born. I -should be there now if you weren’t at home, but if you are going to sit -there behaving like some damned fox-terrier whenever a door opens I -shall have to get out the car and drive you round till we both freeze.” - -“All right,” she said. “I am sorry, but I didn’t know what it was. I -just felt creepy.” - -They heard the front door slam. - -“That’s the doctor,” said Cyril. “Now you can go ahead. The pilot is on -board and a tot of rum will be served to all those in favour. I wish you -would have some.” - -“No, I am going to have tea presently,” she said. “I do wish you -wouldn’t interrupt. I was going to tell you why I changed my mind.” - -“Yes?” he said, encouragingly. - -“Let’s see. You see, the thing is like this. I think David started with -the same idea that I did and I don’t know exactly what happened but he -found that he hadn’t enough brains for argument, so he studied -fox-hunting which he had always had a passion for, only he got slightly -mixed like I did about people who live in towns. He is really very -sensitive about cruelty, and his father gave him such a lot of money at -college that when he found anyone who wanted it he gave like anything; -and when you have once begun doing that in person, not just by -subscription, it is very difficult not to feel that you ought to be -earning some instead. But anyhow that is what he did. And then he had to -go to Aldwych to help his father who wasn’t well, and then he got -interested in the land and he met some people who wanted experiments -done—I forget what in—and who couldn’t afford to do them; and, it is -very odd, but he seems to find out more by common sense than I ever -should by working and working at an idea, trying to make it fit whatever -happens, because it never does. As soon as one stops worrying and works -at whatever one can do best, the idea one had tried to fit on to all -sorts of contradictions seems suddenly to grow up out of the middle of -one’s work, with a root fastened to all the different things it wouldn’t -fit before. It is impossible to explain but I assure you you would have -found that happen if you had ever had an idea of any sort or done any -work.” - -“I should like to direct your next piece of purposeless labour to -respecting the forces of the Crown a little if you can,” said Cyril. -“I’m damned! No ideas and no work! Do you know who I am? I suppose your -mother is right. Marriage does mean something to a girl.” - -“Why? What?” she asked in bewilderment. “What have I said?” - -“Go on, my love; don’t let me interrupt you,” he said. Strickland came -in with some tea and a plate of sandwiches. “I suppose it is no good -offering you tea, sir?” she inquired. - -“No, thank you, I have got everything I want,” he answered. - -“I am coming to bed in a few minutes,” Teresa said, nodding to her. - -Strickland looked appealingly at Cyril and hesitated. “You’d better stay -here a bit I think,” he said. “You won’t sleep after that stuff.” - -“Oh yes, I shall. I’m awfully sleepy,” she said. - -Strickland pulled herself together and cleared her throat. “I’m sorry, -Miss Teresa,” she said boldly, “but there’s been a slight accident in -your room. Your hot water bottle leaked, and the bed was wet through so -I’ve taken the things down to the fire. I’ll tell you as soon as they -are dry.” - -“Very well; but goodness, how late it is!” Teresa said as she glanced at -the clock. “Nearly one. Has mother gone to bed?” - -“Not yet,” said Strickland. “She’ll be down by-and-by. You’ll see her if -you wait a little.” She shut the door and Teresa settled herself again -in the armchair with her tea. “The Prices have got Aldwych for another -six months,” she said, “but David thought perhaps if we were married in -the spring I might go out with him to see his place over there and help -him to settle up, and then come back when they leave. I shouldn’t so -much mind leaving all of it if I didn’t go straight from Emma’s office -to a house with hot towel rails and pheasant for breakfast and a peach -house.” - -“Well, we all have our troubles, but I feel if I were given my choice -that that is the one I could face with most courage,” said Cyril. “I -could tear myself away from Emma’s office more resolutely than from -almost any luxury I know. But then I can’t live up to your friend Mrs. -Vachell, who hunts with George Washington and runs with Ananias from a -sense of duty. I admit I wasn’t happy in the office when you took me -there.” - -“What are we going to do with Chips when she gets well?” said Teresa. “I -can’t bear to go away and leave her here. Mrs. Vachell would get her -altogether in time and mother wouldn’t be any good. Mother thinks that -when she says what fine creatures women are and all that, and when Mrs. -Vachell begins on the same subject, they both mean the same thing. But -they don’t. Did you know that? Mrs. Vachell is quite serious.” - -“Yes, I knew that,” he answered. “She told me herself that nothing was -too bad to do in the cause of the noblest of God’s creatures, and a -woman in that frame of mind is always beyond a joke. You can’t get it -into their heads that there are certain things that are not done, such -as vitriol and so on. Not that I have heard of any of them doing that, -but she seemed to be speaking inclusively.” - -“No, that sort of thing isn’t a bit like her. Really father, it isn’t. I -only meant that the more depressed Chips gets about being away from Evan -the more Mrs. Vachell uses it to make it impossible for her ever to go -back. Chips is quite right in saying that she can’t live here. It would -be so dreary for her and she hates having no explanation for it. People -will think that either she or Evan have done something bad. And it is -cruel to think of her without a man for the rest of her life; it is far -worse than being a widow. I don’t think either you or mother have -realised that.” - -“It hadn’t, as you say, occurred to me that they wouldn’t finish it up -sometime. I hope marriage doesn’t mean too much to her after all. I have -always supposed that so long as people mind their own business there is -very little to complain of.” - -As he stopped speaking, a long, high-pitched sound, seeming to come from -nowhere in particular and too faint to be more than just audible, rose, -grew and died away again. Teresa turned white and looked at her father -with frightened, questioning eyes. - -“Was it a lie that Strickland told me about my hot bottle?” she asked. -“Didn’t she want me to go up?” - -“I expect not,” said Cyril. “You can’t do anything. Would you like me to -get the car out? We can wrap up quite warm.” - -“No, what is the good of running away,” she answered. “I have got to -know. But Strickland said it was nothing. She was quite indignant and -was going to tell me that there are people who aren’t as well looked -after as Chips, but I wouldn’t listen. Let’s go on talking. I do so want -to get out of this mess of pity on to a road that leads somewhere. It is -like being for ever shot at and hurt by something you can’t see. -Strickland is wrong. Evidently in the main things one person suffers as -much as another.” - -“I’ve often told you you were worrying unnecessarily,” said Cyril. “I am -sorry we didn’t send you away just now, but I never thought of it and -your mother doesn’t descend to details much, as you know. She takes the -most alarming things as a matter of course. I believe she was born a -favourite of the gods. I found out the other day that she has never had -a tooth out. I was away when Chips was born and, as I told you, I spent -the night of your arrival in the Turkish bath, so I don’t know what -happened; but it wouldn’t surprise me in the least to hear she slept -through it.” - -The door opened and Susie came in. As she stood there for a moment a -smell unknown to Teresa came in with the air from the passage. - -“What! are you two still here?” she said in the gently reproving tone -she used when any of them did anything not wholly normal. “Why didn’t -you go to bed, Teresa dear? I told Strickland to tell you not to worry. -I hope you weren’t.” - -“Oh no,” she replied, “it wasn’t that. I got your message, but I’m not -sleepy. What is that odd smell?” - -“Just a little something the doctor used to give her some sleep,” said -Susie. “I think I shall wait here until he comes down.” She had left the -door open and Teresa sat tense and agonised, dreading the sound that -might come again at any moment. But everything was quiet. Strickland -shuffled down the back stairs and shut the kitchen door. Cyril got up -and shut the door of the study and drew up another chair. - -“Well, and how did your dinner go off?” Susie asked. “Did you see -David?” - -“Yes,” said Teresa. “He—he enjoyed himself very much in the Argentine.” - -“How nice. And is he going back or is he going to take up Aldwych again? -I do hope he will.” - -“Yes,” she said still more nervously. “Yes—we are going to take it up -together—we arranged—I hope you don’t mind. I got a little worried with -Chips and everything, or I should have told you. I really came home to -tell you—I——” - -“My darling, I quite understand,” said Susie. “Don’t trouble to explain. -I am so glad that you have come to see what a dear fellow he is. I -always told you he was a great deal nicer than you thought; but you -wouldn’t believe me.” - -Teresa’s just feeling of indignation gave way to a second thought that -she had much rather her mother supposed her not to have cared for David -before, than that she should suspect her of having listened to wisdom on -the subject of a prudent marriage. - -“And so that is all settled!” Susie continued, warming her toes -peacefully. “And when dear Evangeline is strong again we must make -another effort to put that right. And then we shall have nothing left to -wish for, shall we? Evan is a silly fellow, really. I wish he were here -now; it might bring it home to him.” - -“How, Mother?” - -“I mean that he might see that women have quite enough to go through -without being teased about their children when they have got them. All -those stupid rules and that kind of thing! Really, you know, I think -that anyone who has had a child—I mean any woman, of course,—deserves to -be let alone. Now those poor women I saw last week——. I don’t know that -it is a very nice subject for you, Teresa, but as you have taken to work -among the poor you are bound to hear of it, and you are going to be -married yourself—what I was going to say is that those poor women I saw -at Christmas have been most foolish, there is no doubt, and the law -ought to oblige the men to marry them. But if it won’t do that, at least -it might be made more easy for the mother to keep the child with her -instead of her living alone with that matron, who I am sure, is -extremely kind, but with such a cross face. The poor little child has to -be brought up elsewhere because the mother has lost her character! Men -lose their characters quickly enough in the public-house, and no one -says anything. They are allowed to take the bottle home with them, too, -and it is not thought a disgrace, although they do it deliberately. -Whereas a child——” She paused, becoming suddenly aware that Cyril’s eye -was fixed on her with delighted interest. “Cyril, dear,” she said, “are -you sure you want to wait up? There is really no need.” - -“I wouldn’t miss a word, Sue, I assure you,” he said politely. “Dicky, -pass me the syphon, would you?” Teresa passed it, and said nothing. No -one spoke for a short time, and then a bell rang upstairs and another -sound, a sort of rapid, angry mewing, was heard as Susie opened the door -of the study and Strickland vanished up the stairs. Susie disappeared -into the passage and presently Strickland ran down again. “It’s a dear -little girl, sir, the doctor says,” she remarked, thrusting her head -round the study door, “and now you get to bed, Miss Teresa, please, -while I get a cup of something for the nurse. The doctor will be pleased -to join you, sir, presently, but he won’t stop to have nothing but a -glass of wine and a biscuit. He’s got another case waiting for him he -says.” She disappeared before Teresa had grasped the wonderful details -of her déshabille. This was indeed a new Strickland, or at least one -unknown to the family. “My brother’s wife” and Evangeline were one and -indivisible in Strickland’s heart that night. - - - - - CHAPTER XXI - - -Lady Varens and David stayed for some weeks with Mr. Manley, and then -took a furnished cottage by the sea, at a place not far from Millport. -It was a place of everlasting winds, sandy as the desert, flat as a -tablecloth, ugly as every other nest of the speculative builder. It is -true that the owners of the land had imposed restrictions on the -invaders, but the only result of this was to make a certain style of -architecture a duty, instead of an unfortunate occurrence, so the town -had as little chance of achieving beauty as a society for the -suppression of marriage would have of evolving true love. The little -caskets of the home, that were dumped down in groups along the shore, -roofed to excess in the prevailing fashion, neatly gardened with rock -plants that could not blow away and might be disinterred from an -avalanche of sand without obvious damage, were designed to catch the -greatest possible quantity of ozone. Painstaking mothers, whose husbands -were occupied in Millport, immured themselves heroically there all the -year round for the good of their offspring, who rewarded them by -thriving exceedingly on the hurricanes of health that swept along the -mud flats. The tide rose from time to time—generally in the night—, took -a rapid survey of the villas, and fled back into the distant sea. -Squadrons of perambulators were marched daily along the most exposed -part of the shore, which the speculative builder had kindly laid with -asphalt for the purpose. There, prevented by stout iron railings from -being blown into the sea, the mothers and sisters and aunts and nurses -of young Millport wrestled up and down twice a day, their skirts lashed -impedingly against their knees or their calves, according to whether -they were going to or coming from, the butcher. Their faces were set -with a permanent expression of having been blown crooked, nose slightly -aslant and a little richer in tone on one side than the other, eyes half -closed to keep out the volleying sand, ears all but inside out, and the -mouth set at the gasp, owing to the nostrils having been banged to as -soon as the owner struggled out of her front door; heads were mostly a -little on one side, cocked to meet the shouts of a succession of -acquaintances all endeavouring to hear whether Reggie would come to tea -with Edna on Thursday or Friday, or whether the bridge party began at -three or four. But then, as the inhabitants say when strangers are -critical about the place, “we do have such beautiful sunsets. They say -it is something phosphorescent about the mud.” So there’s always -something either way to keep the balance between good and evil. - -Lady Varens took one of the villas for a few months. The place more -nearly resembled country than any other in the neighbourhood where she -could get a house; it was at least in the open air, or rather, as she -said, in an open draught, and the mud stayed where it was, instead of -going up into the sky and down again all the time. The sun shone a -little when it was anywhere handy, and one could smell the sea, and even -see it for a few minutes if one looked sharp about it. There was a golf -course, and a train to bring Teresa and anyone else who had sufficient -patience and a solid enough frame to hold together during the requisite -period. Maids were found who, being attached by love to the butcher’s -assistants, were willing to oblige a titled lady to whom money was no -object. The villa was designed for a large family and attendants, so -when Evangeline was well again, Lady Varens asked her to stay for a time -with the children; she persuaded her that it would be good for them to -be blown into the state of solidity that comes to the young of that -scourging place from constant tossing between the consuming ozone and -the replenishing butcher. Evangeline accepted, and at the end of a week -or two the shadow of Millport and all the human vexatiousness which had -darkened the last months for her began to stir and rise, taking with it -her newspaper problems, Mrs. Vachell’s sphinxery and the episodes of her -life at Drage that were stored in her recollection like toys broken in a -long-forgotten quarrel. The dear inanities of that time were like poor -Tweedledum and Tweedledee’s nice new rattle which had brought them both -out armed with deceptions against each other, till the monstrous crow -they had brought down frightened them apart. She laughed aloud one day -as she thought of Teresa’s comparison, and presently she went to the -nursery and brought Ivor’s copy of “Through the Looking Glass” into the -drawing-room and sat down with it in the window seat, where she used to -watch the sunsets. She turned up the part where the quarrel begins about -nothing, when Tweedledum and Tweedledee have been sitting together under -an umbrella. “That is exactly like us,” she thought and she laughed as -she read. “But Evan will never see that. I shall have to explain the -situation in some other way.” Her thoughts wandered back down a train of -other things that she had tried to explain to him. Before their -engagement she had expounded a good deal and listened very little. To -tell the truth, Evan had been attending more to the distraction of her -presence than to the matter of her speech, but she did not know that. He -had been unaccustomed to the society of women who lulled, and she did -lull his natural embarrassment in conversation by the largeness of her -interest in everything that went on in the world. Such luxuriant living -and lack of analysis was new to him. He had formed an idea of women from -his sisters’ giggling little comments on every subject; they inspected -life at too close quarters to make their view interesting to anyone with -Evan’s passion for Universal study. The world was contained for them in -their village interests; England was a garden where God lived and their -village was one of His boundary lodges; foreign countries were something -akin to a nobleman’s other residences, managed by agents and let to -strangers; the mission field a wild region that must be brought into -cultivation. Evan had loved his sisters while the war was on, for they -thought neither to the right hand nor to the left. They had trotted out -of their village in the wake of England, Harry and St. George, never -doubting that God was with them as they bandaged and stitched and prayed -that Ypres might hold out, and that Evan and the men from the village -might come home safe. They never spoke of the enemy as sheep or devils. -War was a medicine which England had to take now and then for the good -of her health, and whether it was against Zulus, Boers, or Germans had -nothing whatever to do with the village. _The Graphic_ of the past or -_The Graphic_ of the present, depicted “the dead,” with troops advancing -over them through smoke, and dropping as they came; or a hillock and a -gun and a few figures lying bandaged—perhaps with the very bandages that -Emily had made—and that was Victory, and would end someday in “The -Soldier’s Return,” and a dinner in the village. Such a dinner! The -sisters were at their best at such times; no one could be cross with -them; but in private life, during peace, Evan found them trying beyond -words. He was suffering from reaction against their village interests -when he met Evangeline, and listened to her impersonal prattle of -sunshine and wide spaces of the earth where parties are unknown and no -man is obliged to ask the nymph of his choice how many theatres she has -been to. Then, as we know, Evangeline encouraged him. She wouldn’t let -him keep himself to himself as he had always done. She forced him, in -the name of politeness to his General’s daughter, to say something, and -it had to be something true. She refused all substitutes for his -treasures; so he brought them out one at a time, and she handled them so -respectfully, owing to a “gentleman’s” instinct, which was part of her -inheritance from Cyril, that in the end he married her; married her, -poor dear, supposing her to be what he called a lady. Then after a time -they began to quarrel. He said his nice new rattle was spoiled, his lady -was not ladylike. She always behaved “like a gentleman” towards him, but -that wasn’t right; she must behave like a lady. Then Evangeline said -that she had done nothing to the rattle. It was just as it was when he -first got it. So he pointed to Mrs. Vachell and said that was what he -wanted his rattle to look like, a ladylike woman who could understand a -man’s idea of the way he wanted his sons brought up. They fought battles -and separated in fear of the darkness that came down over everything -after that and now——. “Really, really,” she thought, “it is too silly -for anything. He knows by now that Mrs. Vachell was having him on and -never cared twopence for what he said. If he could know that I love him -he might see that his rattle isn’t broken at all. After all, we were -happy—. Ivor doesn’t seem to mind very much whether he is approved of or -not. Evan wouldn’t find his ‘moulding’ made much difference in a year or -two’s time, and Father says Ivor is all right; he is not afraid of -things and tells the truth; and perhaps Evan might let him alone if he -came back now. What a good thing Susan is a girl. I don’t think he would -be so keen about bringing her up to be ladylike after coming such a -cropper. Oh, dear! I do wish we could begin all over again.” She -remembered the daily event of Evan’s homecoming when they were at Drage; -the pleasure of his being in to lunch unexpectedly; his atrocious -singing while he had a hot bath; the general disturbance in every room; -the comfortable, foolish conversations; the friendly disputes and dear -kisses; one or two tiresome occurrences, as when there was a drunken -cook to be dealt with and people coming to dinner and Evan was so decent -and helpful. Then a happy, out-of-door summer, and later on their -eagerness about Ivor. After that, Evan began to shun the nursery -foolishness and she had got bored by his details of tinkering with the -little car he bought. They had gone to Millport one Christmas and Ivor -had screamed a good deal, and the nurse complained. There were no -complaints now. Everything went like clockwork, and life was dull as -ditchwater with no man to promote irrationality by treating all episodes -with common sense. No household can be really merry without someone to -supply the spectacle of common sense, meeting with little accidents from -the mischievous contradictions of the human heart. Presently David came -in. - -“You can’t see to read there, can you?” he said. - -“I wasn’t reading,” she answered. “I was wondering. I must do something -about Evan, do you know? It isn’t really a quarrel if you come to think -of it.” - -David looked at her inquiringly, and sat down on the window seat. “I -wonder what I had better do. Go out to him, or what?” - -“The children would be all right with us here, but I suppose you would -want them,” he said. “Your husband has never thought of leaving the -army, has he? He could get something to do in England that would -probably pay him better.” - -“What sort of thing?” she asked. - -“I don’t know, but I could find out. I know some engineering people.” - -Evangeline was silent. “I haven’t the least idea when it began,” she -said, after a few minutes’ thought. - -“Have you tried writing to him?” he suggested. - -“No, not yet.” - -“Does he know about Susan?” - -“Dicky wrote,” said Evangeline. - -“There is no difficulty in getting out of the army,” he remarked. - -“But how am I to put that? What shall I say?” - -“Just tell him,” said David; “there’s no difficulty in that.” - -“Oh, David!” said Evangeline in despair, “don’t go on saying there’s no -difficulty in anything. I daresay there isn’t if you can do the things, -but just think of it! He went away in the blackest huff you ever saw, -and all about nothing, so there is, in a way, nothing to begin on. I -can’t say, ‘Are you still angry?’ because he must be, or he would have -written. I can’t say, ‘I am not angry any more,’ because I wasn’t. I was -depressed and frightened to death.” - -David sat with his hands in his pockets, slowly swinging his legs and -gazing at the floor, wrapped in thought. “I don’t think I should think -at all,” he advised. “I should just take a pen and write.” - -“Would you take a J pen or a quill pen?” Evangeline inquired, while she -tossed the volume of “Alice” backwards and forwards. - -“Either,” he replied. “There’s no difficulty in that.” She all but threw -the book at his head, but refrained. “No difficulty at all,” he -repeated, with his eye on the book. - -“Can I say you thought he could get a job in England?” she said. - -“Yes, if you like.” - -“But do you think I had better?” - -“I shouldn’t begin with it,” said David. - -“But you think I might put it in at the end?” - -“I should see how the letter looks when it is done. If it seems to fit, -put that in.” - -“I suppose you are doing your best to be helpful.” - -“I’d do anything I could for you.” - -“But you don’t know how frightening he is when he just turns his back. -Suppose he says, ‘No’.” - -“Then you might have to go out there.” - -“What! and just walk up to him?” - -“Yes, or else wait till he came in.” - -“And what should I say?” - -“You’d have to tell him you had come.” - -“I see.” - -“I am going to see where Dicky is,” he said, getting off the window -seat. “I really came in to look for her. You had better have a light.” -He brought a small lamp over from the writing-table and fastened it to a -switch beside her. Then he got a blotting book and some paper and -envelopes and took a fountain pen from his pocket. “That will write, -you’ll find,” he said, as he laid the things by her and then he went -out. - -She took up the paper and turned it over; paused, and took up the pen. -It was rather like the preliminaries to a letter written by planchette, -when the fingers are loose upon the board and the eye fixed on vacancy. -Presently she began and wrote a few words rapidly, stopped, wrote again, -and this time she was off. She filled the four sides of the paper with -what she wrote, and then folded it, screwing up her eyes resolutely. “I -daren’t read it,” she said to herself, and pushed it, with shaking -fingers, into the envelope, stuck it down and addressed it. Then she -went into the hall and opened a cupboard, groped in the dark for a coat, -and took the first she touched, which happened to be David’s. She -slipped her arms into it, and without stopping for fastenings, wrapped -it round her and opened the outer door. The pillar box was about twenty -yards away and the letter was posted before anything but the speed of -her actions had time to guide her thoughts. When it was done she felt as -if she had given the world a kick and sent a villa or two toppling about -her ears. “Oh!——” she thought, and “Oh——! suppose it doesn’t work!” She -ran back into the house and flung David’s coat upon a seat without -thinking. Then she went to the drawing-room and drew the curtains and -sat down by the fire. “Suppose I should have to go out,” she thought. -“Suppose he wouldn’t look at me. Suppose he doesn’t care for old times -after all.” She was still sitting there when Lady Varens came in. “I -thought there was no wind this afternoon,” she remarked, “but there is -something; I think it must be suction, because there is not a twig -stirring, but my hat was drawn off my head and my eyes are full of sand. -Have you been out?” - -“Only to the letter box,” said Evangeline. “I wrote to Evan and raced -out to post it before I had time to think.” - -“What made you do that?” Lady Varens asked. - -“David,” she answered. “He kept repeating that there was no difficulty. -If anyone goes on saying a thing often enough I begin to believe it, and -he went on and on.” - -“But I don’t understand yet,” Lady Varens said. “What sort of a letter -was it?” - -“Just a nice letter. There are a great many things that he may have -forgotten. I haven’t. It was all right, you know, once.” - -“David thinks Evan might leave the army,” she went on presently. “I -shouldn’t have to go out then—unless he won’t answer.” - -“What would he do if he left?” asked Lady Varens. - -“I don’t know, but David seemed to have some idea in his mind.” - -“Then I expect if he seemed to, he had. If he goes after a fox there -generally is one.” - - * * * * * - -The post to Egypt is not a very long one, but measured by the emotions -Evangeline went through between the earliest day when Evan’s answer -could be expected, and the day when it came, the interval was about a -year and a half. The extra length of time was put in three strips. One -between the moment when the postman knocked at the front door and the -time it took the maid to examine and bring up the letters. The second -was when Evangeline was out in the afternoon and remembered that another -post would be there when she got back; it took the length of several -days to look at the letters on the hall table as she crossed the -threshold and judge from their appearance whether they were all -circulars. The third age was when she and Teresa were talking in their -bedrooms before going to bed and went through their nightly review of -all the things he would be likely to say, and compared them with the -likelihood of his saying nothing at all. The nights were all right, for -Evangeline, when in health, would sleep though the earth cracked -asunder. One day people came to lunch and stayed talking, so she did not -go out, and the maid brought the letters to Lady Varens before anyone -had remembered the postman. - -“Here’s yours, Evangeline,” Lady Varens said, passing it to her. “Do you -know whether the children have gone out yet? I wanted them to call at -the butcher’s for me. He didn’t send the mutton I ordered this morning.” - -“I’ll go and see,” said Evangeline, and she carried off her letter. Ten -minutes or a quarter-of-an-hour went by, and then Ivor came in dressed -for going out. - -“Mother’s being a dog on the stairth,” he said. “It’s dangerous; you’d -better not go past, but we’re going to do your message now if Nurth can -get past.” - -“Can’t you say your s’s yet, darling?” said the visitor. “Well, I’m -quite shocked! Come and tell me where you are going.” - -“Can’t thtop,” said Ivor. “You oughtn’t to path remarkth. Good-bye.” - -He went out, leaving the door open, and Teresa got up and shut it. She -heard cacklings from the baby and Ivor and respectful protests from the -nurse near the top landing. “Now go off,” she heard Evangeline say in a -tone she had nearly forgotten. “I don’t know where the dog has gone; -probably to the butcher’s. You may find him there.” Teresa shut the door -behind her. “Chips!” she called gently, “shall I come up or are you -coming down?” - -“I don’t know what I am going to do,” said a dishevelled head through -the banisters. “What about those people? ‘Massacre them all!’ as the -Peace Delegate said.” Nurse, carrying the baby, brushed past with an -apology, and went down, herding Ivor before her. - -“It is quite all right,” said Evangeline. “Very much all right. -Excessively all right.” Teresa sat down on a lower step. - -“David is clever, isn’t he?” she remarked with pleasure. - -“I thought of it first,” said Evangeline. “He only suggested writing.” - -“Well what is going to happen? Are you going out or what?” - -“No, he says Joseph Price offered him a job in their works when the -regiment was sent out, but he refused. If he can still get it he will -clear out.” - -“Why did he refuse it before?” asked Teresa. - -“Because of Ivor I think—but we won’t go into that.” - -“Where is the Price place? Would you have to be in Millport?” - -“No, it is a new one they have started somewhere near London. I forget -what the name is; it is somewhere I never heard of except that I know -some famous person was born there.” - -“Hush!” said Teresa. “They’re coming out. Let me up, quick!” They both -disappeared into Evangeline’s room as the drawing-room door opened. - -“Yes, he’s a thoroughly decent f’ller,” said Joseph Price to his father, -that evening. “Marv’llous engineer, I’m told. But ’f course, it’s just -’s you like.” - -“What does he want to leave the army for?” inquired Mr. Price -suspiciously. “Nothing fishy about it, I suppose? The army’s a very good -profession for a man that has got up in it.” - -“’T’s not lucrative, very,” observed Joseph, “nor int’resting exactly, I -should think. And Egypt’s a tedious sort of place; nothing t’ do except -learn about it and so on; th’ sort of thing Vachell’s good at. You know, -so far as Hatton’s concerned I c’n understand a man pr’ferring to use -his intell’gence in the panoply of war, rather than th’ executive; -specially if there’s nothing t’ execute, if you see what I mean. And, -aft’r all, the sort of thing he’d be doing f’r us might be useful in all -sorts of ways in ’nother war. There’s no earthly reason, if you come t’ -think of it, why he shouldn’t join up again ’n that case and take th’ -thing up where he left it.” - -“Yes, yes,” said Mr. Price, “but that’s not the point. What I want to -find out is, has he any business capacity apart from this talent?” - -“’Mense capacity, I b’lieve,” said Joseph. “It’s his strong point.” - -“How do you know? What experience have you of him?” - -“When I was at Drage the f’llers talked of nothing else. He was the very -man that ought to have taken over your plant then.” - -“But surely he was in France at that time,” said the perplexed parent. - -“Yes, I know, but everyone was going backwards and forwards all th’ -time, and they all knew what th’ others were doing. There was a story -about him, I r’member——” - -“Well?” said Mr. Price, as his son stopped. - -“No, you must get him t’ tell it you himself; I might spoil it. But kait -sairysly, Dad, he’s the very f’ller you’re looking for.” - -“Why are you so keen about this?” asked Mr. Price, frowning to himself. -“You’re not after the wife, are you, eh?” - -“No, my dear dirty old man, I’m not, and you mustn’t say that kind ’f -thing now; ’t’s not done.” - -“I don’t see why not,” his father remarked. “There’s nothing to be -ashamed of. I remember a time when a lot of jobs were handled that way, -but people are mealy-mouthed now. Well, write and say we’ll try him, if -you like.” - -“I’ve his letter ’f acceptance here, as a matt’r of fact,” said Joseph. -“Subject, of course, t’ your approval. I sounded him more ’r less befur -he went away, but it didn’t appeal t’ him then. However, Egypt’s kait -’mpossible they tell me, f’r a young family; flies get int’ the milk, -’n’ so on. I’ll fix it up with him for you, ’f you like. By th’ bye, -when exactly d’ we clear out ’f here?” - -“In June,” replied his father. “It’s a great disappointment to me, the -whole thing. I had thought of settling down here and leaving you with a -decent place to call your own. However, there are plenty more in the -market. I shouldn’t be surprised if Brackenbury didn’t come up for sale -some time, and of course this doesn’t hold a candle to it.” - -“If you’re thinking of me, I’d leave it,” said Joseph. “You know, the -thing’s hardly done ’t all now. You won’t find any decent f’llers left -in houses like this in a year or two, I b’lieve. Nobody’s got ’ny money, -except a few people like you, and you might b’ left stranded here with -practic’lly no one to talk to. Personally, I should say th’ thing to do -is to live ’s quietly and comf’rtably as possible, and say we’ve lost -th’ money. You’d find yourself in a far better set t’-morrow.” - -“Tut! nonsense!” said his father. - -“’T’s true, I ’ssure you. I’ve been sairysly c’nsidering putting in a -couple ’f hours a day at the ’lectric light plant at Brackenbury. Th’ -Duke’s fairf’lly keen on getting his daughters off, and they won’t look -’t anybody ’nless he’s a mechanic ’r dustman or that kind ’f thing. Two -’f them are starting ’n old-fashioned inn and calling it ‘Th’ Star ’nd -Garter.’ They want t’ have th’ old f’ller’s trophies framed t’ stick up -outside. ’T’s an awf’lly jolly little idea ’f you come t’ think of it.” - -We will here leave Mr. Price to his reflections. - - - - - CHAPTER XXII - - -“Well now, tell me,” said Mrs. Carpenter, drawing her chair near to Mrs. -Vachell’s tea-table. “What is all this about the Hattons, do you know?” - -“I haven’t heard anything,” said Mrs. Vachell. “What have they, or -rather, what has she, been doing?” - -“Haven’t you heard that he is coming home?” - -“Let me see, where was it he went to? Egypt, wasn’t it? I haven’t seen -Evangeline for some time.” - -“Amy,” Mrs. Carpenter said earnestly, wedging her large face close up to -Mrs. Vachell, “tell me now—you know I never repeat things—what did -happen then? You know people say all sorts of things, and some of them -have really said so much about you that I want to be able to contradict -them.” - -“You can contradict them all, certainly,” said Mrs. Vachell. - -“I may do that from you, may I?” - -“No, not from me, from yourself. I don’t know what they have said, but -whatever it is, I am sure you can safely say it is untrue.” - -“You really had nothing to do with his going to Egypt? I was told -to-day, on the very best authority, that you had sent him off because -Evangeline—you know those young wives—they can’t bear anyone even to -look at their husbands, can they? Do you know, I thought she was quite -strange in her manner one evening at our house when he would talk to me -all the time about India. We said something about the heat, and I -remember I thought to myself, ‘Yes, my dear boy, you would find it very -hot indeed out there with a wife who looks after you with those eyes!’ -Why, half the women at any station would run after him on purpose, if -they saw she was jealous.” - -“Yes,—women!” said Mrs. Vachell. “How these Christians love one another, -don’t they? We are a very united sex when we are running with the hounds -to show what the hare can do to please them.” - -“Then it really wasn’t you who made him go to Egypt?” Mrs. Carpenter -persisted. - -“No. I am very much flattered at being mistaken for the War Office, but -it wasn’t me. I should like to take the credit for ridding the country -of the dullest regiment in England, but I am afraid I can’t truthfully.” - -“That is very sarcastic of you, dear Amy, but I know you don’t like -soldiers,” said Mrs. Carpenter affectionately. “You have never mixed -with them enough to know how honest and simple they are. What do you -think of General Fulton, though, really and truly? He is an odd sort of -man, isn’t he? I get on with him very well because I love his humour and -we have great arguments together, but I know he is not popular as a -rule. He is very naughty in the things he says to her sometimes, and she -never seems to see. Emmie Trotter doesn’t like her at all; she thinks -she is not genuine, but I don’t think that. I think she is perfectly -sincere in the work she does but I don’t think she is business-like. -Someone told me that Evan Hatton is coming back and going into business. -Had you heard of it?” - -“Yes, I had heard that,” said Mrs. Vachell. “And Teresa has given up her -work with Emma and is going to study unemployment from the most -favourable standpoint, by having nothing to do. She is very lucky, I -think, though I couldn’t do it myself.” - -“You mean you don’t care for the Varens’?” - -“I know nothing about them one way or the other. He used to be in and -out of the University, I don’t know what for; learning to make chemical -manures perhaps; but I never saw much of him. He belongs to what Mrs. -Harding calls the ‘polo set’ and they don’t interest me.” - -“Oh, now, some of them are very charming and delightful. All the -Brackenbury set are dears. Bobo, as they call him, is a splendid player -and a real dear boy. However, the Duke says he can’t afford to let him -play next year and he must do something. You have heard about the girls -setting up an inn, haven’t you? It is a pity, I think, but as Bobo says, -what are you to do? He pretends he is going to run a circus, but -seriously, I’m sure I don’t know. They can’t keep themselves in the army -now, not even in the Guards. But David Varens—how did we get off the -track——? He is all right, apparently. His father seems to have left him -plenty of money, and of course he is not extravagant like Bobo and that -terrible elder brother. Wasn’t it dreadful about him! Did you say Teresa -is going to give up all her work as soon as she marries? Now I do think -that is a great mistake, don’t you? All the more reason she should go on -with it now that she will have money. Of course I can see that she -couldn’t come in every day in the same way, but there is no reason why -she shouldn’t visit and take an interest in it all. A few meetings would -be good for her and prevent her from getting self-centred.” - -The door opened and Mr. Vachell was heard to say, “Come in. I think my -wife is in here,” and Teresa walked into the room, followed by the -little man with a pile of books. “I was bringing these back,” she said -to Mrs. Vachell. “They are some that you lent to Evangeline and she had -forgotten about them. I am so sorry. I met Mr. Vachell on the step and -he brought me up, but I am afraid I mustn’t stay.” - -“Yes, you must,” said Mrs. Vachell. “I haven’t seen any of you for so -long and Mrs. Carpenter was saying just now that I am given credit for -all sorts of things in your family—for Captain Hatton’s regiment being -sent to Egypt and—what else was it, Mrs. Carpenter? I have just told her -that I never see you, but she is still suspicious.” - -Teresa frowned and blushed and had nothing to say for a minute. Then she -turned on Mrs. Carpenter in sudden wrath. “I do wish women wouldn’t be -sweet when they want to make mischief,” she said. “I never knew anything -like this place. It is like a lot of flies walking in muck and then -settling on the jam.” The expression on Mrs. Carpenter’s face moved her -to compunction, and she stopped. After all, the woman had had children -and battled with pain and death and denied herself for her -fellow-creatures in more ways than Teresa, for she had no love of them -to carry her over the discomforts of bearing other people’s burdens. If -she did gossip and preach and plume herself by the way, she was entitled -to that relaxation, knowing no other. So long as Britons never shall be -slaves let us allow the Potters their public-house, the Carpenters their -tea-table, the Fisks their blood and the passionate philanthropists -their feast of reason and flow of soul. The Emma Gainsboroughs will go -on patiently and methodically clearing up, taking no notice of -themselves, and by-and-bye, as Susie so often justly remarked, “Anything -that is really good is sure to make the rest seem so small in -comparison.” - -“What was it you wanted to know?” she asked Mrs. Carpenter gently. “I -would so much rather tell you, if you are interested, than have you -going about asking all sorts of people whether they have heard -anything.” - -“Dear little Teresa!” Mrs. Carpenter said, recovering her usual smile. -“What a set-down for poor me! You fierce little thing! Well then, since -you ask, tell me what Evangeline has been doing to set all the tongues -wagging? I shouldn’t have liked to ask you, dear, until you offered me -your confidence so sweetly. I appreciate it, I assure you. But you know -it is distressing to hear a thing hinted at everywhere and not to be -able to put it right authoritatively. Now we will have it all fair and -square, shall we? Sit down there and tell me——have they separated?” - -“No, they haven’t,” said Teresa. “Mrs. Vachell lent Evangeline those -books that I have brought back, and they are all written to dish up rows -that needn’t happen if people’s minds weren’t as stuffy as mouldy -cupboards. Evangeline’s is like a wide open door, you know; she is not -at all stuffy; but she wants so much to have everyone enjoy everything -they can that she took on the idea of women being oppressed, and of -course, wanted to help to let them out, as she thought. That is true, -isn’t it?” she turned to Mrs. Vachell. - -Mrs. Vachell shrugged her shoulders. “It is true as far as it goes,” she -said. “Yes.” - -“Well then, you know Evan Hatton, don’t you,” Teresa continued. She had -forgotten her anger against Mrs. Carpenter, and was trying to tell the -story as if she were in a Court of Justice, presenting Evangeline’s case -and Evan’s as one against the world. “He is not so naturally anxious for -everyone to be happy. In fact he doesn’t mind whether they are enjoying -themselves or not, so long as he thinks they are doing what has got to -be done. He got really worried about her trying to undo all the doors -and locks everywhere. I think he got a sort of panic about it; as if she -would or could possibly have done any harm! Anyhow, he thought it was -the thing to do, so they had it out; that is all. And now he is coming -back. They hated being away from each other, and he is going into Mr. -Price’s engineering place, a new one he has started near London. Now -aren’t you sorry you helped to make people think there was some nasty, -frowsy mystery?” - -“That is nonsense, dear Teresa,” Mrs. Carpenter protested. “You ought -not to let yourself run away with such ideas. But I am more than -delighted it is so simple as you say. You know Mrs. Trotter had quite a -different impression, and I must say Evangeline talked to her a good -deal when you were all together that summer.” - -“Yes, that is what she does,” Teresa admitted regretfully. “She talks to -everybody as if they were all straight and decent, and she doesn’t -realise what worms some of them are. Of course they just mix whatever -she says with slime.” - -Mrs. Carpenter gave the little laugh which she used to express offence. -“Hardly flattering to her audience, is it?” she said. - -“No, I didn’t mean to flatter them,” said Teresa. “They can do that for -themselves when they have finished. I was telling you how it looks to me -when I know how Evangeline loves all sunny and kind things.” - -“I hear you are going to be married and give up all your work,” said -Mrs. Carpenter. “I must congratulate you and I hope you will be very -happy. Aldwych is a lovely place and David Varens is quite delightful I -think. You find you can’t keep on with your poor people, don’t you? With -so many new interests, I daresay it is not easy for young people to -think of others.” - -“Yes,” said Teresa, her cheeks glowing. “But you know you will never -make anything different out of Mrs. Potter, any more than I have.” - -“Who is Mrs. Potter? I don’t remember her,” asked Mrs. Carpenter. - -“There are some people called Potter in that long street—Boaling -Street—just by Emma’s office; but I don’t mean them alone. I was -thinking of them as a class, and I forgot you didn’t know them. I don’t -think either you or I are any good to them. They laugh at you for -thinking you are wiser than they are, and they think I am mad because I -keep on supposing they are feeling the same things as I do. Emma -understands everything they say and is never surprised, nor ever tells -them anything about herself, so they think she is perfectly normal and -never suspect her of being a lady. She is just ‘The lady at the depôt,’ -like the girl behind the counter is ‘the young lady in the shop.’ They -go to her when they want sensible things, and I don’t suppose they have -any more theory as to why she is there than they have about any -official. They probably think she is paid by the Government.” - -“And you are really sure you are not going to keep it up, even twice a -week?” said Mrs. Carpenter. Then, without waiting for further answer, -she changed the subject. “By-the-bye, Mr. Vachell, can you tell me what -the Sphinx really is? Someone was asking the other day, and I said you -could tell us if anyone could.” - -Teresa excused herself and went away, depressed by what had happened. -She felt crushed by the weight of the heaviest burden that society -brings, the failure to impress a living thought on a dead comprehension. -She had offered sincerity, and been met with the corpse-like hand of -offence. - -“Both those Fulton girls have been very much spoiled,” said Mrs. -Carpenter, when she had shut the door. - -When Teresa got home she found David sitting stiffly in a chair beside -Susie, who was knitting a small coat for her grandchild. There had been -a conversation between them which it may be worth recording, and Teresa -arrived at a critical moment. Susie’s knitting was a curious -performance, and David, sadly at a loss for an occupation while he -waited for Teresa, had watched it and wondered in what way it differed -from his mother’s. Lady Varens at work with needles suggested Penelope -filling in time to avert the intrusion of emotions. Susie evidently -undertook the thing as part of the equipment of a rôle. It was like all -household affairs performed by stage characters, the dusting of a room -by a saucy maid who flicks the mantelpiece twice and then gets on with -her lines, the dinner-party where everything is swept away after the -first morsel of fish has been tasted. Susie’s knitting was the -“business” connected with the rôle of “Mrs. Fulton; beautiful, refined, -well-dressed, awaiting the eventide of life with the calm philosophy of -one who has known much suffering.” She was now “discovered seated, -centre R.f., expecting the return of her husband, a typical twentieth -century rake.” - -“You do a great deal of knitting, don’t you?” David remarked at last. - -“Not as much as I should like,” said Susie. “I hope that when you and -Dicky are married you will encourage her to do something of that kind in -the evening. If she is giving up all her other work she will need -something to take its place. You don’t sing or play at all, do you?” - -“No,” he said, feeling some apology was needed, “I don’t.” - -“I almost think I should take up some interest if I were you,” she said -gently. “Of course there is no doubt that there is no happiness like -being married if people understand each other, but at the same time it -is impossible not to feel the need for change of thought sometimes. You -are not fond of wine, are you, David?” - -“No, not at odd times, thanks very much,” David replied. He was mildly -startled by the question and wondered what she was driving at. - -“And no more is Dicky. She never cared for it at all, and yet Evangeline -would always take a glass when it was offered her. It gives people quite -a different outlook. I don’t know how far you have studied Dicky’s -character but I understand her, in a way, better than Evangeline. Dicky -takes a much wider view of spiritual things.” - -“Yes, I expect so,” said David, polite and noncommittal. - -“And just for that reason I am a little sad at her giving up all her -work among the poor. I am afraid she will feel the want of it.” David -was struck dumb, so she went on, supposing his silence to be due to a -wish to hear more. “She has no artistic interests, you see. When I was -her age I had a great many. I was devoted to music, for instance, and if -I had not fallen in love with my husband the course of my life might -have been quite different. I hope you will forgive these little bits of -personal history, dear David, but I should be so glad if they helped you -in any way to clear up difficulties that may come when the ‘first fine -careless rapture,’ as I heard it described the other day at a wonderful -lecture of Professor Gaskie’s—I thought of you two at once—when that is -over. I felt it so much when I had to give up all that side of things -when I married. You see my husband has his wine, for instance, and his -men; he had a great number of old friends when we first married, whom I -must say, I thought extremely uninteresting. They talked by the hour -about foxes; not in connection with all the beautiful country life that -you have, for he never hunted except when he was asked to stay with -people, but they were always talking about that kind of thing. Some of -them were purely politicians and some very much worse. Not the old -intellectual type like Disraeli, who really cared for beautiful things, -but the sort who run away from a drawing-room and hide themselves -somewhere with decanters and laugh and roar and sing half the night. I -can’t tell you how much I used to feel the want of something else. Then -the children came, and of course it was all right, and I had friends who -were very kind, so that I could go now and then and hear music and talk -about the things I cared for. That is why I have taken up the work I do -here. It is not an intellectual place, as you see; and those concerts! -Have you ever been to them?” - -“Yes, sometimes,” said David. “I thought they were supposed to be rather -good.” - -“The performers are often very good,” she agreed, “but there is an -atmosphere about the place that I don’t like; a want of appreciation. -Have you noticed that there is often quite a fog in the hall? I have -wondered sometimes whether it was anything like what Professor Bole was -describing the other day. I forget how he put it, but I thought of those -concerts and wondered whether people’s tastes—their love of rich dinners -and wine and all that, had been chased out of them by the music and was -wanting to get back and preventing them from hearing it fully. Dear -little Dicky used to find the fog in the town so depressing when we -first came, and I expect she felt the same as I do. Now Evangeline is -different altogether, more like her father. She will throw off anything -of that sort in a minute and be all ready for a gallop or a dance or -party. Haven’t you noticed that? And yet I always think any art is such -a happy thing. One has no real need of other people——” Her knitting had -gone down on to her lap long ago. - -“No, perhaps not,” said David. - -“I am so glad you think so,” she continued in her purry voice. “For of -course, you will be a great deal cut off in the country. What is that -Mrs. Lake like whom I used to meet now and then? She seemed to have -quite taken up the Prices. She is very typical of the society round -there, isn’t she?” - -“I don’t know much about her,” said David. “But I believe she is all -right.” - -“Dicky will find friends, of course,” said Susie. “One can always find -some good in everybody if one is prepared to look for it.” - -“Yes, I don’t think there will be any difficulty,” said David. - -“What do you think about Evan going into this business of Mr. Price’s?” -she asked. - -“It ought to be quite easy I think,” he answered. “It is what he likes.” - -“Yes, but Evan does like such curious things,” said Susie. “His is a -most interesting nature; so upright; but I often wonder how Evangeline, -with her very sunny disposition, chose anyone with such very strong -religious views. Religion always seems to me to be a thing that should -be so helpful in making it easier to stand up against things that go -wrong. One sees so much suffering in a place like this that unless one -can be sure that it is all intended and for the best, one would be -inclined to dwell too much on it. Now Evan, it seems to me, instead of -seeing it like that, often makes it sadder by supposing things to be -worse than they are. He used to take the gloomiest view of poor little -Ivor in his childish naughtiness, though he is really a good little boy -and very obedient if one just smooths over difficulties with a little -tact. Nurse is not always very wise with him. She goes on persisting at -the time, instead of waiting until he has forgotten and letting him do -whatever it is of his own accord, when he is interested in something -else. That is Evan’s mistake I am sure. He is always on the look out for -sad things and it makes him so difficult to interest. Now my husband is -all the other way. He won’t believe that anything matters, and I think -that Evangeline is rather like him. They have no sympathy for any aims -beyond the present. Do you know Mrs. Vachell well?” - -“Not very,” David replied. - -“Do you like her?” - -“I don’t think she wants people to either like or dislike her, so I -haven’t got so far,” he said. He would have been candid with Teresa or -Evangeline or many other people, but he had a deep-rooted distrust of -Susie as a receptacle for words. They meant so little to her that she -was liable to pass them on as coinage in conversation and give no goods -of her own in exchange, so there was no bargain that she was likely to -respect between her and whoever she talked to. He felt this -instinctively and had no dealings with her, not being willing, like -Cyril, to declare himself bankrupt for the joy of riotous living. - -“She believes very much in women,” Susie went on. “Her idea is that some -day all those things that I was talking about, the love of finer tastes -and of children, and all the confidence and dislike of harshness and -ugliness that woman feels so much will come more to the front and have -more influence. There may be something in it, for although I dislike the -idea of women going into the world, still, if they can do any good I am -sure it is right for them not to hold back; for the sake of the -unmarried ones who have to earn a living. It does seem terrible, don’t -you think, that there should be no way for those who are not -intellectual to live except by pleasing men in the wrong way; because -that is what it comes to, whether they are married or not. And if they -are not good looking it is even worse. They ought to be as well paid for -cultivating the higher side of life as for pandering to the lower. A -loving nature is of as much value to the world as a brain that invents -war material; and, as it is, men only use it as a toy for every sort of -coarser instinct.” - -“But does Mrs. Vachell suggest a sort of spiritual—market?” David asked, -hesitatingly, roused at last out of his burrow by the logical -enticements that Susie had been aiming at him. “Aren’t there enough -people who sell themselves in that way already?” - -“I don’t think you have quite understood my point, dear David,” she -replied, and at that moment Teresa came in and found them. - - - - - CHAPTER XXIII - - -Teresa and Joseph Price were going back to Millport together in the -rickety little train that joggled up and down the coast every few hours. -Teresa had spent the day with the Varens’ and Joseph had called about -tea time with some information from his father for Evangeline about her -husband’s new work. Evan was expected in about ten days, and was to take -up his work at first under Mr. Price’s own eye before being entrusted -with the final appointment at a distance. Joseph and Teresa were each -occupied in trying to hold an evening paper still enough in the dim -light to read the last news of a riot that had broken out in the -Midlands over a labour dispute. They had hardly deciphered more than a -few lines when the train wriggled itself to a standstill, and Mr. Fisk -junior jumped into the carriage. He threw himself down in a corner and -took some papers from his pocket and then recognised his companions. -“How do you do?” said Teresa. “I don’t think you can see anything by -this lamp. We were trying to read a paper, but it is no good.” - -“How d’ you do, Fisk?” said Joseph. “Been playing golf down here?” - -“No,” said Mr. Fisk, frowning. “What I have been doing is a game to some -but deadly earnest to others. If it ends in bloodshed the responsibility -will lie with those who treated it as a game.” He settled himself into -his corner and glared at Teresa. - -“Kait sairysly, though, Fisk, what d’ you think of this?” Joseph asked, -tapping his paper. “D’ you think it’ll come t’ anything, what?” - -“It has come to something already,” said Fisk, “as you will find if you -study your newspaper. And it will come to something that you have not -yet experienced, the search for a crust of bread by those who have -treated the misery of their fellow-creatures as a game.” - -“Yes, but you know, that won’t do any good,” said Joseph. “Somebody’s -got t’ hold the purse, or the money’s bound to get lost. That’s been -gone into pretty thoroughly. You and I can’t decide the thing ’n a -railway carriage, like this. Now I’ll tell you a thing ’s an instance. -My father, the other day, was thinking of buying a big place—since -you’ve turned us out—” he added politely to Teresa, “and I said t’ him, -‘Don’t. I don’t want the thing. In a year or two’s time we shan’t have a -soul left t’ talk to. All the f’llers we know will be in trade or -driving their own engines and so on, and the people at the top will be -the sort that nobody c’n ask out and all that. ’T’s abs’lutely not -done,’ I said, ‘’t’s played out.’ Th’ only thing t’ do now, ’f you want -to be in it, is t’ cover yourself with grease and get up at th’ most -ungodly hours. Th’ old aristocracy won’t look at you if you offer them a -really decent dinner. At my club th’ other day, I met a f’ller ordering -tripe and onions; ’t’s a fact.” - -“Oh, don’t be so stupid,” said Teresa angrily. “You can’t always go on -shifting from one branch to another as soon as anyone else sits down on -yours. All people want is to be let alone to do anything they are able -to do, and it is snobbery like yours that makes it impossible.” - -“No, no, really, I assure you,” Joseph protested. “That’s not Fisk’s -idea, I’m sure, is it?” He appealed to the indignant spectacled form -opposite. “What? I heard about you th’ other day, you know. I was down -canv’ssing your way for my father and turned up ’t your house. Your -father gave us his vote—’t’s a fact, abs’lutely—because he said he was -f’d up with socialism. ‘My son’s one of them,’ he said, ‘and he won’t -work, and he objects t’ me and my wife working.’ Now there’s snobb’ry -for you ’f you like, I think, what? I’m willing t’ associate with people -who won’t associate with themselves. What are you t’ do?” - -“My father knows nothing about economic questions,” said Fisk, with -dignity. “He has been ground down to the level he is at now, but he has -never been below into the pit from which a class must either become -submerged or rise above the one that is holding it down. They may rise -through blood——” - -“Oh, do stop, Mr. Fisk,” Teresa implored him, “I believe England got on -a lot better when people only argued at elections and went on with -things in between. But look here. Will you tell me what you get paid for -stopping people working and I will find you something to do where you -shall get the same for being of some use. I have promised to find -someone who will give their whole time to doing properly what I did so -badly in scraps for Miss Gainsborough. You have had an education which I -haven’t, and you have much longer legs——” - -“No, pardon me, I don’t approve of palliative methods,” said Mr. Fisk. - -“Well, you won’t argue any more till we get out, will you?” asked -Teresa. “How are the dormice?” - -He launched into the subject with enthusiasm. He forsaw a great future -for dormice in the field of knowledge when their habits had been studied -more. After he got out at the next station Joseph remarked: - -“Kerious sort of f’ller, isn’t he? Typical of a kind that’s dying out, I -b’lieve. In a year or two you’ll find that sort of thing’ll hardly be -done at all. Abs’lutely the latest thing already is t’ work at something -and it’ll come in, you’ll find, and then everybody’ll want to do it for -a bit. Fisk’ll be as jealous as poss’ble when he finds someone else has -collared his little shovel and his paint pot and all that, and that -there isn’t any loose money about to pay him for talking. It’s a very -kerious thing how ’n idea gets out ’f date. I don’t know if you’re -interested in morals and all that?” - -“Go on,” said Teresa, “I shall be grateful if you will make me really -cross with you.” - -“How’s that?” inquired Joseph. - -“It is like a sneeze that won’t come off—but never mind; you have worked -me up into an explosion sometimes. What were you going to say?” - -“I said I didn’t know if you are int’rested in morals; because I b’lieve -very strongly that illicit love affairs and all that sort ’f thing’s -going t’ be frightfully stale, what? Don’t you think so? Of course it’ll -go on happ’ning; you can’t prevent it; but people will have t’ run the -risk of being thought middle class. I’m fairf’lly bored with th’ idea of -sex, myself, aren’t you?” - -“No, I must say I am glad there are two,” said Teresa. “But then I am -‘fairf’lly bored,’ as you call it, with the idea of anything being -‘middle class.’ Perhaps that is newer still. I hope not for your sake. -However, in the meantime I am ever so grateful for what you have done -for Evan. My sister is so happy about having him back and that he is -going to do something he will like so awfully. I hope it won’t bore your -father, having him there.” - -“Oh no, my father’s never bored,” said Joseph. “That’s really th’ thing -about him that bores me sometimes, ’f you know what I mean.” - -The train stopped for the last time and Teresa got out into the -brightly-lit station. Outside it there was semi-darkness, and the -mud dripping imperceptibly. Along the slimy pavements three or four -of the little boys to whom she had ladled out hot-pot and plum -pudding ran to and fro, shouting the latest news. “—’clock -‘Echo’—special edi—shun! six-o’clock—‘Echo’—’clock—edi—shun! -‘Echo’—riots—in—Blankshire—forty-seven—persons—injured! -‘Echo’—edi—shun—serious-rioting—in Midland—town—forty-seven—’ere you -are, sir.—’clock—‘Echo’——” and away he sped. “I wonder if he has got -any awfulness buttoned into his waistcoat for Grannie to-night,” -thought Teresa, “or whether she died——. Shall I ever be able to -stand knowing that ‘Grannie’ and the waistcoat are there and I am -with David, and not doing anything?” - -“I met Joseph Price to-day,” she said to her father when she got home. -“He has really been very good about Evan. I believe he invented the -whole idea himself. Mr. Price seems suspicious about it and wants to -have Evan at the works here first, to make sure that he is all right. -David says he is quite sure that he is in fact what is wanted, and there -won’t be any difficulty, as he keeps on saying, but how Joseph knew, or -why he took the trouble, I can’t imagine. He is such an absolute ass and -yet he seems to pick up ideas and he makes the old man do just what he -likes. He is also the greatest snob and time-server, and yet he will do -anything or go anywhere for anybody for no reason. Fisk was in the -train, raving about blood as usual, and Joseph said he was going to ask -him to stay for a week-end and meet some of the people who are coming -down about the election. Joseph will sit there quite undisturbed by his -family and get any amount of amusement out of the fluttering in the -dovecot there will be, and Lady Varens says that Mrs. Lake—the select -Mrs. Lake—thinks he would make a nice son-in-law. She thought that he -liked Lady Angela Brackenbury who started the inn, the Star and Garter. -They wanted to have the Duke’s Star and Garter framed as a sign outside. -I am getting so muddled with them all. I couldn’t go and live there if -it weren’t for David. Joseph told me he was bored with sex, so I -suppose, as he can’t find anything newer than a woman to marry, it won’t -be either of them and the Price money will have to go to anyone who -marries the girls after Joseph has lolled about on it enough. It is -distracting to ravel out.” - -“You’ve got an abnormal love of the social order,” said Cyril. “You’d -much better leave it alone and concentrate on your man. He’ll repay it -with far more gratitude.” - -“I don’t want gratitude,” she said. “It is just the Lady Bountiful idea -that has annoyed me from the beginning. I want to feel one of a colossal -family, that’s all; not to be the housekeeper in the store cupboard or a -cow being milked.” - -“Then you must put up with poor relations, and they’re always a damned -nuisance,” said Cyril. “Your mother had a great love of humanity, she -said, but her idea was more to be the head of a family of her own than -to be mixed up in a general one. Gad! she used to rope them in, too! I -never saw anything like it. And nothing about it of a grosser nature, -like your friend Joseph. All pure, unadulterated love. It’s a wonderful -gift.” He was lost in retrospect. - -“Where have you wandered off to?” she asked in perplexity. “Mother had -only two of us and you said once that she wasn’t in love with you. I -have thought over that sometimes, and I think you must be wrong. I don’t -mean to say you oughtn’t to have said it, because I don’t want nasty -things covered up; I want them not to happen. But you were probably -talking to the gallery that time, weren’t you? People forget. Evan -forgot a lot of things that Chips remembered afterwards.” - -“I wasn’t thinking about anything at all nasty,” Cyril replied. “There’s -nothing wrong with the instinct of the nesting season, and the number of -eggs laid has nothing to do with it. The selection of a mate has also -been sung by poets, so I have every right to use the comparison without -being blamed by you. Chips is another of you loving ladies,” he went on. -“That makes three of you. What a trio for one man to keep under the same -roof! No wonder that I give way sometimes.” - -“Chips loves the sun, with people thrown in as something that hatches -out under it, I think,” said Teresa. “There’s not much actual family -about it—though Ivor—goodness! You talk of birds! That is nothing to -her. Do you know, I think she imagined she had hatched out the whole of -creation at once when Ivor was born. And now she lives in him in a way, -and doesn’t mind how independent he is. She never wants to hold on to -him or push him this way or that, like some mothers do. She forgets so -easily what other people think, so long as they don’t make obstacles and -set them up in front of her.” - -“I daresay,” said Cyril. “Your sex amuse me very much, and I am very -fond of a great many of you. But I wish you didn’t all think so much. It -keeps one for ever tripping about for fear of disturbing a valued plan. -That’s a thing I detested during the war, having to make arrangements. -You see a thing to do and you do it or don’t. That’s the only reasonable -way.” - -About a fortnight later Evangeline went to London to meet Evan. They -were to stay there for a few days while he went to see Mr. Price’s -engineering works. They were then to take rooms in Millport until after -Teresa’s wedding, and make arrangements for the future. There was not -much money to spare for the moment, and Susie had urged Evangeline to -economise by staying with them until Evan began to receive his new -income. But the sisters decided between themselves that the suggestion -held too many risks. “He does so hate being looked at,” Evangeline had -said, at the conclusion of her remarks on the subject in Teresa’s -bedroom one night. - -“There is too much of what Father calls ‘damned noticing’ in this -family, isn’t there?” said Teresa. “And yet Mother never tells you she -has seen anything; she only points out what someone else has seen. And -Father never seems to see anything unless you ask him, and I don’t spy -round, but still I understand. I should hate not to be away with David. -I am so glad we are going away into another continent before we end up -among neighbours.” - -“But this isn’t a honeymoon, so it ought not to matter,” said -Evangeline. “But I know you will all look so nervous if we disagree, and -since the Vachell episode I feel that Evan will suspect the devil in -every female eye he sees for a long time.” - -“Mrs. Vachell is the only person I know from whom I feel absolutely cut -off,” said Teresa. “I don’t mean since the episode, but always. You and -I have thought she wasn’t human, but that is not true. She is fond—I -mean fond really—of that little Vachell. He fainted one day at his -lecture and was brought home in a cab; I don’t know if I ever told you; -and I happened to be there. She didn’t say anything hardly, but you -can’t mistake. That is all I know about her. I think from something she -said once that her father ill-treated her mother, but I am not sure. If -you had left Evan I have an idea she would have carried the -luggage—taken the blame and all that—and you would have kept Ivor even -if she had to seduce Evan and all the jury, so if you come to -principles——! She would have been burnt in the Middle Ages and Evan -would have burnt her and been burnt himself. Isn’t it a mercy there is -nothing worse than Fisk to make opinions unpleasant in this country.” -The hour was very late and honest Robert’s footsteps could be heard -coming down the street. “Certainly not; certainly not,” they said. But -neither Teresa nor Evangeline was aware of him. “But I don’t know her in -the very least,” Teresa added. - -“I was a fool,” said Evangeline, reflecting. “As if it mattered!” - -“As if what mattered?” - -“Whether Evan understood either her or me. Things come out in the wash. -But it would be nice to live with someone whom one could say just -anything to, instead of only being in love with them, wouldn’t it? But I -suppose that hardly ever happens.” - -Teresa didn’t answer. - -A day arrived when Evangeline stood waiting for the train that was to -bring Evan. She was shivering and impatient, like a swimmer about to -dive on a rough day; anticipating the joy of achievement and the thrill -after stale security, but aware also of what would happen if she failed. -The noise of the station was deafening; other trains came in, -discharging crowds that pushed past her in their search for relatives -and luggage. An engine let off steam close behind her and then thudded -and puffed interminably, it seemed, until the noise added to her -nervousness and the smell of smoke and the pushing of unlovely strangers -gave her an utter revulsion against the thought of contending with -Evan’s sunlessness. She forgot everything except the weariness of -contention. All of a sudden the platform was magically clear except for -a line of porters drawn up at intervals along it. The engine was still -screeching somewhere near and now a second one appeared before her in a -rush of smoke and noise. The powerful movement of the axle, bringing the -inexorable moment, was the only thing she noticed, and then she was -fairly in the crowd, trying to remember what Evan looked like. She -caught sight of him at last, standing a little apart, with a drawn, -chilly expression of disappointment. She ran up to him, pushing porters -and passengers out of her way and caught his arm. “Here——” she said -breathlessly, “I’m here—I couldn’t find you for ages.” He smiled, and -she began to feel less at the mercy of events. He said something not -very distinctly, that was drowned in a blast from the engine. She made a -sign to him to look for his luggage, and after a time they drove away to -the hotel. Poor Evan felt as though he had been washed ashore right into -his own home after a shipwreck. He wanted to hear everything, to pick up -lost threads of small events; to hear about this new job, and Teresa’s -marriage. Evangeline found plenty to talk about over their meal, but she -was conscious all the time of the strength of the sea and that she would -have to swim again presently. She longed for a sunny beach and warm blue -ripples with no danger lurking in them. She was tired with excitement, -and all her natural distaste for effort oppressed her with a wish that -the man she loved were in charge of the situation, and not she. She -wanted to bask in the certainty that nothing she could say would matter, -and yet she knew that his face might cloud at any moment and become -chilled by a chance slip of her speech. - - * * * * * - -The story ends at the Fultons’ house a few weeks after this. Luncheon -was over and Cyril had poured himself out a glass of port and pushed the -decanter towards Evan. The Hattons were to leave Millport in ten days -after Teresa’s wedding and move into their new home. Even Mr. Price was -satisfied that there was no hanky-panky about the appointment his son -had made, and Evan’s prospects were bright. He and Evangeline had been -to lunch and the children were to go afterwards for a drive with Susie. -David was also there. - -“Well, here’s luck,” said Cyril. “Luck to marriage and all it may mean -to a girl. Isn’t that it, Sue?” - -“I will drink the health in my cup of coffee, I think, dear,” said -Susie. “Hadn’t you better send the wine down to this end of the table? -David may like to reply with some idea that is a little brighter.” - -“I am not sure that I won’t drink Mrs. Potter’s health,” said David. -“May I, Dicky?” - -“Yes, do,” she said eagerly. “And you do really mean it, don’t you?” - -“Yes, of course I do,” he answered. “Where’s the difficulty?” - -“No, there isn’t any, I know,” said Teresa. The door was pushed gently -open and Ivor came in. Nurse stood in the doorway holding young Susan. - -“I shall be ready in about twenty minutes,” said Susie. “I must be at -the bank before it shuts. Would you like to walk up and down a little, -in the garden, Nurse, and get what sun there is till the car comes?” - -The little party went out and Evan got up to watch them from the window. -“How they do wrap that child up,” he observed to Evangeline. “Just look -at the forest of shawls in that thing. I am sure it is not good for -her.” - -“Oh, Evan,” she said, wincing, “please, please don’t begin over again. -You may find the wheel of the perambulator is loose or something,” she -added hastily, to make her request sound like a kindly joke. She opened -the window to say something to the nurse, and Strickland, who had come -out into the garden, intoxicated with the atmosphere of nuptial gaiety, -was heard carolling to the baby, as she pushed the perambulator up and -down: - - “It’s a—long, long trail a—winding - Unto the—land of—my dreams——” - -“I always think that is so true,” said Susie with a little sigh. - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES - - - 1. Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in - spelling. - 2. Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed. - 3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_. - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THREE LOVING LADIES *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the -United States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part -of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm -concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, -and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following -the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use -of the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for -copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very -easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation -of derivative works, reports, performances and research. Project -Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given away--you may -do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected -by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the trademark -license, especially commercial redistribution. - -START: FULL LICENSE - -THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE -PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK - -To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free -distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work -(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project -Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full -Project Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at -www.gutenberg.org/license. - -Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works - -1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to -and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property -(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all -the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or -destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your -possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a -Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound -by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the -person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph -1.E.8. - -1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be -used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who -agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few -things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works -even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See -paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this -agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below. - -1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the -Foundation" or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection -of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual -works in the collection are in the public domain in the United -States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the -United States and you are located in the United States, we do not -claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing, -displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as -all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope -that you will support the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting -free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm -works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the -Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with the work. You can easily -comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the -same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg-tm License when -you share it without charge with others. - -1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern -what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are -in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, -check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this -agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, -distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any -other Project Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no -representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any -country other than the United States. - -1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: - -1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other -immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear -prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work -on which the phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the -phrase "Project Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, -performed, viewed, copied or distributed: - - This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and - most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no - restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it - under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this - eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the - United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where - you are located before using this eBook. - -1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is -derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not -contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the -copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in -the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are -redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase "Project -Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply -either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or -obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg-tm -trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. - -1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted -with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution -must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any -additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms -will be linked to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works -posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the -beginning of this work. - -1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm -License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this -work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. - -1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this -electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without -prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with -active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project -Gutenberg-tm License. - -1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, -compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including -any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access -to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format -other than "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official -version posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm website -(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense -to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means -of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original "Plain -Vanilla ASCII" or other form. Any alternate format must include the -full Project Gutenberg-tm License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. - -1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, -performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works -unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. - -1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing -access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works -provided that: - -* You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from - the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method - you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed - to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he has - agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project - Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid - within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are - legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty - payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project - Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in - Section 4, "Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg - Literary Archive Foundation." - -* You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies - you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he - does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm - License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all - copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue - all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg-tm - works. - -* You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of - any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the - electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of - receipt of the work. - -* You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free - distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. - -1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic work or group of works on different terms than -are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing -from the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of -the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the Foundation as set -forth in Section 3 below. - -1.F. - -1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable -effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread -works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project -Gutenberg-tm collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may -contain "Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate -or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other -intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or -other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or -cannot be read by your equipment. - -1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right -of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project -Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project -Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all -liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal -fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT -LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE -PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE -TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE -LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR -INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH -DAMAGE. - -1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a -defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can -receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a -written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you -received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium -with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you -with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in -lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person -or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second -opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If -the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing -without further opportunities to fix the problem. - -1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth -in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO -OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT -LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. - -1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied -warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of -damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement -violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the -agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or -limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or -unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the -remaining provisions. - -1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the -trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone -providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in -accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the -production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, -including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of -the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this -or any Project Gutenberg-tm work, (b) alteration, modification, or -additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any -Defect you cause. - -Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm - -Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of -electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of -computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It -exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations -from people in all walks of life. - -Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the -assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's -goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will -remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project -Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure -and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future -generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see -Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at -www.gutenberg.org - -Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation - -The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit -501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the -state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal -Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification -number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by -U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. - -The Foundation's business office is located at 809 North 1500 West, -Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up -to date contact information can be found at the Foundation's website -and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact - -Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg -Literary Archive Foundation - -Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without -widespread public support and donations to carry out its mission of -increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be -freely distributed in machine-readable form accessible by the widest -array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations -($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt -status with the IRS. - -The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating -charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United -States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a -considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up -with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations -where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND -DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular -state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate - -While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we -have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition -against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who -approach us with offers to donate. - -International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make -any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from -outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. - -Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current donation -methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other -ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To -donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate - -Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works - -Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project -Gutenberg-tm concept of a library of electronic works that could be -freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and -distributed Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of -volunteer support. - -Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed -editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in -the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not -necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper -edition. - -Most people start at our website which has the main PG search -facility: www.gutenberg.org - -This website includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, -including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to -subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. |