Outbreak of Love (16 page)

“Cousin Sophie has asked me to dine tomorrow.”

“But that's the night of the ball,” said Mildy.

“Yes, but before the ball. They'll take me.”

“You haven't accepted?”

“Of course I have.”

“Oh!” wailed Mildy. “This is too much.”

“But surely you don't expect me to refuse?” The idea of going first to a dinner party and then to a ball on the same evening, appeared to me an enlargement of experience which only a lunatic would expect me to avoid.

“How am I to go?” asked Mildy.

“In the car of course, as you intended.”

“Alone.” This terrible hollow sound fell flat and dead into the room. It shook my egoism, but I was not prepared to abandon reason. Mildy sat with her hands in her lap, staring into the now empty fireplace, and in the same condition of speechless despair in which I had found her on my return from the Radcliffes'.

“I shan't go,” she said at last. I was horrified at this sudden end to all the eager anticipation of the last three weeks, but also indignant at the blackmail.

“That's absurd,” I protested. “I'll meet you at the ball. It's only ten minutes' drive.” In saying this I showed that I recognized her desire to be with me, and accepted it as a fact in our conversation so that in spite of myself I was obliged to be a party to a kind of semi-lovers'-quarrel, taking the role of the neglectful young man. This gave Mildy a slight satisfaction and she prolonged the argument. She was not devoid of the rationality, or even astuteness inherited from her legal ancestors, and finding me so upset, and to some extent at her mercy because of her refusal to go, she saw that she might derive more satisfaction from that than from attending the ball, where she again realized that she would spend a miserable and neglected evening. The apparently enormous sacrifice she made by not going, her expensive new dress wasted, would provide her with material for reproach and blackmail for weeks, possibly months ahead, and in addition to referring to the night of the Radcliffes' party as “that horrid evening when we quarrelled”, she would now be able to talk of the night of the ball as “that horrid evening when you left me alone, and went off with the twins, and I couldn't wear my new dress”.

The next evening when I came home, before I went up to change, I begged her to come. I said that although Cousin Sophie had promised to drive me to the ball I would not go with her, but would come back and collect Mildy, but nothing would move her. She wore a faint sweet smile as she said: “No. I must be sensible. I mustn't be jealous of the twins.”

When I left she kissed me good night rather lusciously and said: “Enjoy yourself,” with the result that in the hansom on the way to Cousin Sophie's house I felt guilty and miserable; but these feelings could not last long in the twins' company, unless provoked by themselves.

Cousin Sophie's servants were so ladylike, rather more so than her daughters, and had so thoroughly assimilated the atmosphere of the house, that if I passed one in the street, from a vague familiarity I thought she must be one of our numerous relatives, and expected her to stop me saying: “Aren't you Laura's youngest boy?” One of these now showed me into the drawing-room, and Mildy's sorrows evaporated from my mind.

The drawing-room was rather like that of an English vicarage, furnished with negative good taste. On the walls were watercolours and prints of the Winged Victory and the Temple of Vesta. In spite of Cousin Sophie's hatred of vulgarity, and her anxiety to conceal the extent of her husband's income, if she knew it, there were a few evidences of wealth. On the occasional tables were one or two objects of value, and there was a photograph of the Dowager Lady Saltash, and signed photographs of impressive-looking Governors' wives, with tiaras and dog-collars, and with coronets on the silver frames. The most conspicuous pieces of furniture were two grand pianos, on which the twins played duets, mostly from
The Ring of the Nibelungen
. Whether it was because it was played so much by the twins that I came under the spell of this music, or whether it was the music that put me under the spell of the twins, it is hard to say. But for me all that year before the war echoed with the music of Wagner, which filled my life with enchantment. On summer evenings the river at Warrandyte became the Rhine, and it was in the saplings that Siegfried listened to the bird, and blew his hunter's horn. Because of this music the bludgeonings of the twins was nothing beside their beauty, and when I heard the motif of the golden apples, my heart was pierced with the thought of Anthea. When I was with one of the twins in some woodland place, with a pear tree shimmering in the moonlight, I heard Siegmund's cry at the approach of spring. When a year later I went to the war, it was the song of the Rhinemaidens I heard in my ears, wailing for the gold that was lost for ever. The gold for me was this year about which I am writing, and it certainly does not seem to have been particularly enjoyable.

Cousin Edward was the first to come into the drawing-room. Although I had been here three or four times since the Radcliffes' party, I had not been alone with him before, and I felt a little nervous, as I thought that he might think I wanted to seduce his daughters. In the minds of the innocent are these curious pot-holes.

“I hear Mildred's house is very pretty,” he said, illustrating the attitude of the Enemy, who heard about us, but who preferred to have little first-hand information. There was a babel in the hall and the twins burst in.

“Oh you!” said Cynthia crossly. “I thought it was Mr Hemstock.”

“You're only
faute de mieux
,” said Anthea, “
faute de
Saltash. The peerage has failed us.”

“It was very good of you to come at such short notice,” said Cousin Edward, gravely courteous. I did not know whether to be mortified at finding myself a substitute, or gratified at being thought an adequate one for a peer.

“Has Father been probing into your prospects?” asked Anthea.

“I don't think I have any,” I said.

“We'll give you some—vistas anyway. We'll stretch your mind.”

“It sounds like torture.”

“All growth is painful,” said Cynthia.

“One doesn't go out to dinner to grow,” I protested.

“Of course you do,” said Anthea. “Eating makes you grow, doesn't it? Talking makes your mind grow at the same time.”

“It's quite Greek,” said Cynthia. “Mind and body growing together.”

“In fact dining out is a classical education,” declared Anthea.

“I thought it was for enjoyment.”

“Not here, it isn't. It's just hell.”

“Anthea!” exclaimed Cousin Edward.

“Well, all our visitors leave in tears—utterly shattered. If they don't, we think the evening's a failure.”

Mr Hemstock and the two other guests were announced. The latter were a young married couple from Cambridge, both graduates. They were touring Australia in a second-hand car to learn the marriage rites of the aborigines. Cousin Sophie had invited them and Mr Hemstock to meet Lord Saltash, as she thought it would be nice to have an all-English dinner-party. It took her forty years to learn that the English aristocracy do not come to Australia for cultivated conversation in quasivicarages, of which they have ample for their requirements at home, but for race meetings and rowdy fun in rich houses.

“Good evening, sir,” boomed Mr Hemstock. “Good evening, Miss Cynthia. Good evening, Miss Anthea.”

“I think you know our cousin, Guy Langton?” said Anthea.

Mr Hemstock glanced at me, and evidently did not think the question worth answering.

Cousin Sophie, who before her marriage had spent much of her time in vice-regal courts at Dublin Castle and elsewhere, never entered the drawing-room until all her guests were assembled. The reverberations of Mr Hemstock's voice warned her that she might now appear. Dinner was announced almost immediately and we went in.

“A ball is quite an occasion for me,” said Mr Hemstock as we sat down. “I am not a devotee of Terpsichore, nor shall I tempt the goddess by pretending that I am.”

“I certainly shan't,” said Cousin Edward, politely putting himself on the same level of decrepitude as his guest. “I'm much too aged, and to be aged is to be damaged.”

“Oh Father!” exclaimed Anthea.

“It's in the
genre
of his generation,” said Cynthia.

“That's exactly the same kind of joke,” I said.

“
Il ne faut pas enseigner les poissons à nager
,” said Cousin Sophie. Her pronunciation was too good for me to be able to understand her, and I looked nonplussed.

“That means, don't teach your grandmother to suck eggs,” said Anthea, who was firmly convinced that any kind of refinement was middle class, perhaps her one point of intellectual contact with Freddie Thorpe. Cousin Sophie gave a smile of almost tearful apology to the Cambridge couple, who were very earnest and sat bewildered throughout the meal, as their conversation was limited to primitive sex and camping equipment.

“Anyhow, who gave you permission to intervene?” Cynthia asked me haughtily.

“You are inclined to forget, Cynthia, that you are not Dr Johnson,” said Cousin Edward, with the cruelty which some parents show to children who deviate from the pattern they had in mind for them.

Mr Hemstock, at the mention of Dr Johnson, gave that involuntary, imperceptible start which an Egyptologist will give at hearing the word “Luxor”, or an Anglo-Catholic at the word “ferrola” or a snob or a cricket enthusiast at the word “Lord's”.

At the end of dinner the port decanter came round to me, but I was talking to Anthea on my left and did not notice it. Mr Hemstock boomed: “The oporto is to you, young man.”

When I had translated this into modern English I showed that I was offended at being roared at, so he may have been surprised at the alacrity with which I helped him on with his coat as we were preparing to leave for the ball. He did not look pleased, and would have been less so if he had known that my attention was largely due to a wish to hear his hot water-bottle splash. I was rewarded by a faint gurgle, but was not sure that this was not, as Arthur had denied, the natural rumblings of indigestion.

The Enemy were possessed by a ruthless determination that no one else's convenience should interfere with their own. It was unknown for one of them to say: “Please don't bother to call for me. It will be so much easier for you if we meet at the theatre.” A more familiar sound was: “I couldn't possibly do that. It would be tiresome.”

The transport to Government House consisted of a hired car which would just take five passengers—the twins at last had struck at going to parties in a wagonette—and the grubby two-seater of the primitive sex students. There was no room for me, and although Cousin Sophie had said she would take me, she now merely told me that I could ring up for a hansom if I liked. The Cambridge man, seeing my dismay, told me that I might stand on the step of his car. I accepted thankfully but he did not moderate his speed to my precarious situation. Also at that time I had the idea that it was smarter to go to dances without an overcoat, giving the impression that one always just walked out of the house into a rich warm limousine. As he whizzed round corners I hung on grimly, rubbing my white waistcoat and shirt-front against the canvas hood, impregnated with the fine brown dust of some Australian desert, so that when I entered the ballroom they looked as if I had just fished them out of the dirty linen basket.

“What on earth have you done to your shirt?” demanded Anthea. “You'd better go home and change it.” Owing to my appearance the twins only gave me one dance each.

This made me very disconsolate and I wished that I had not gone to their beastly dinner party. I thought of Mildy with tenderness and sympathy, and considered ringing her up, and saying I would come for her. Then I could change my shirt and she would pay for the taxi. But I decided that by the time I returned to the ball it would be too late to fill my programme.

I saw Aunt Baba arrive and stand inside the door, waiting for George to come from the cloakroom. As she was not technically the Enemy I thought she would be nice to me and I went over to her. She did not answer my greeting, but gave a vicious glance at my shirt-front.

“What on earth have you been doing?” she said. “For goodness sake don't stand by me.”

I left her and stood by myself against the wall. By now I was almost in tears, and wondering what I should do, when I became aware that a woman of about forty, with golden curls massed on her head, was watching me with an expression of the most benevolent kindness. Our eyes met and she smiled, and I felt a sudden human warmth suffuse my body, and diffident, ingenuous, with my heart opening like a flower in the sun, I moved towards her.

“Cheer up, ducks,” she said.

This caressing word fell on my wounds like healing ointment. Such easy humanity, such absence of priggishness and wit, such indifference to my dirty shirt, made me feel that I had entered a nobler world where rich and natural rhythms were not disturbed by the tricky agility of the mind. There was about her a suggestion of high summer, of the orchards and vineyards to which Lady Pringle had referred, in the richness of her curls and her ruby velvet dress, in the many gold bracelets on her plump arms, and the necklace of gold vine leaves, very beautiful, but recalling rather those labels which are sometimes seen on the necks of decanters, lying on the soft powdered folds of her bosom. She was, of course, Mrs Montaubyn.

With that foolish confidence which I was apt to show to anyone with a kind face I asked her: “Do you think my shirt-front looks awful? It got smudged driving here. My cousins say I should go home.”

“Don't you worry about your shirt-front, dear,” she said. “It's your face that matters and that's as sweet as two pippins.”