The plan was to row out over the lagoon, and have tea at Santa Rosa. Tea made the centre of the afternoon, round which the rest appeared to be grouped in the minds of the Osbornes. Then they were to return to Venice in time to look in at St. Mark’s, and loiter in the piazza, where Mrs. Osborne, it was hoped, would find at one of the photograph shops the representation of the fish market on which she had set her heart. Accordingly the labouring gondoliers propelled the laden craft across to the little island, tied up to the bank, and procured strawberries from the fruit farm to add to their tea. Mrs. Osborne at first had a sort of vague prejudice against them, for abroad it was impossible to tell “who hadn’t been touching them,” and, it is to be feared, it was only because the rest of the party found them remarkably good that she joined them. But she was charmed with their picnic, and saw a great similarity between the little waterway of the island and the Regent’s Park Canal.
They dined that evening at Dora’s house—meals somehow had leaped into sudden importance and preponderance since the arrival of her father-in-law in Venice, though they had no more meals than usual—and Mrs. Osborne as well as her husband was voluble over all they had seen.
“Just to think that all the floor of St. Mark’s is in marble!” said she. “Why, it seems almost a shame, doesn’t it? I’m sure there’s not a cathedral in England that’s got such a grand floor, and St. Mark’s, so you said—didn’t you, Dora?—was only Roman Catholic?”
“Well, well, mother,” said Mr. Osborne, “it’s the Church of the country, you see, just as the EnglishChurch is ours. You’d think more of the Roman, if you’d been brought up to it. But I’m surprised at their letting the floor get into that state: it was all ups and downs, and I’m sure I scarcely knew where I should be setting my foot next. So dark it was, too, that one couldn’t see as much as one would like. If I were them, I should send for some good English architect as knows when a building’s safe, and when it isn’t, and make him cut half a dozen sensible windows somewhere, or perhaps take down one of them domes, and put in a glass roof to it instead. Five domes there are, for I counted them, and that’s beyond all reason.”
Dora felt that this was too much for her: simply she could not think of any reply whatever. If somebody proposed putting a glass dome in St. Mark’s, what answer was possible? But there was no need for one. Mrs. Osborne instantly joined in again.
“And never did I think to see such shops in Venice,” she said. “Why, there was electric fittings at one I passed, beautiful they were, with nymphs and such-like holding up the globes, the same as you might get in the most superior shops in town. And I need never have brought out stationery with me, for there was a stationer’s there as I could have bought the best cream-laid at. And not expensive either, if you recollect that alirais but tenpence, though its strange to have your silver coins worth tenpence instead of a shilling. It wants a deal of thinking back into pounds and shillings.”
“They seem to have a notion of building, too,” said Mr. Osborne. “I’m sure that great square tower they were building was as solid a piece of work as you couldfind anywhere. And to think that the original had stood there five hundred years. How it takes you back!”
Claude nodded at Dora.
“What did I tell you?” he said. “Didn’t I say the mater and pater would like Venice near as much as you do?”
“Yes, dear, you were quite right,” said Dora, with a sort of despairing acquiescence in even this. “And what should you like to do to-morrow, Dad?” she asked.
“Eh, there’s more yet to see, is there?” he said. “And to think that I’ve been sight-seeing all day, and not finished even now! Who would have thought there was so much in such a small town? Well, my dear, I’m in your hands, and whatever you show me I’ll be bound I shall like it, if it comes up to the sample of Venice we’ve had to-day. And what says Mrs. O.?”
“Well, there’s all the pictures we haven’t seen yet,” said she. “Perhaps Dora would take us to see the pictures in the morning, but as for the afternoon I want nothing better than to have another look at St. Mark’s and do a bit more shopping, and perhaps have a bit of a row afterward, for I declare it’s a pity not to be out up till it’s time to dress.”
The next three or four days were, it must be confessed, a sort of nightmare to Dora, for she took Venice too seriously to see anything humorous in what she had to go through. She took them to the Accademia, and the Paul Veronese of the “Marriage of Cana” had an instant and amazing success owing to its size. Mr. Osborne doubted if it would have got into the picture gallery at Grote at all, and Mrs. Osborne had no doubt whateverabout it; she saw at a glance that it would not, “without you took its frame off.” Other pictures pleased for other reasons: the “Procession of the Cross,” because St. Mark’s and the Campanile came into it; the Tintoret of the “Adoration of the Doges,” because St. George was sitting by the Virgin, and he was an English saint. But before Titian’s “Assumption of the Virgin” (a picture which, unfortunately, Dora detested) criticism with regard to its dimensions and even appreciation was mute, and its size and frame passed without remark. Mrs. Osborne’s eyes filled with dear, heart-felt tears, and Mr. Osborne said, “Lor’, Maria, it was worth coming to Venice for to see this alone, my dear. Well, now, they could paint in those days!” And immediately thereon, he bought an enormous copy of it, vilely executed, which an elderly English lady was just finishing with an uncertain strippling touch. She explained in quavering tones that she was obliged to charge very high for her copies because she spent weeks in study before she began to paint, in getting at the spirit of the original. And Mr. Osborne’s alacrity in securing her work no doubt made her wish that she had charged higher yet for the spiritual tension required for its production.
On another day they went to San Rocco, for Mr. Osborne found to his amazement that it was impossible to see all the pictures in Venice in one “go,” even if you spent the whole morning at it. This seemed strange, since you could see the whole of the Royal Academy in a less time. But the remedy was simple. Why not build a new picture gallery, hang all the pictures in Venice there, charge twolire, and have them all catalogued inone book? That was the kind of suggestion that cornered Dora: it seemed scarcely worth while to say that many were in the churches, and that it would be a pity to move them since they were painted for the places which they occupied. But, trying to be patient and kind, she did say so, and Mr. Osborne was fired with the brilliant thought of having copies made for the churches. Claude thought this an excellent idea. “The Gov.’s hit the nail on the head this time,” he said, and was surprised when Dora, turning aside, said, “Oh, Claude!” to him. But apart from the pictures at San Rocco, which did not have a great success, the visit was memorable because Mrs. Osborne said “Bon giorno” to the custodian, just as if she did it every day of her life. He understood perfectly, and made a suitable reply about the loveliness of the day. That was a little beyond Mrs. Osborne, so she said “Grazie,” and her husband admiringly commented, “Lor’, you speak it like a native! I told you the mother would have it by heart in no time,” he said.
On this morning they had still an hour to spare before lunch, since the Tintorets were not interesting or beautiful, and they rowed across to the Giudecca to see a garden. The garden was fairly appreciated, though to Mrs. Osborne’s mind the borders, where the southern June was rioting, were not quite so trim as she would have had them; but the great sugar factory was found to be most attractive, and Mr. Osborne was much surprised to find that Dora did not know whether it was possible to see over it or not. However, Claude made inquiries, and found it could be shown. He took his father there next day, and they were late for lunch. But Mrs. Osborneand Dora were late too: they had been ordering a very handsome gilt frame for the copy of “The Assumption,” and the “pattern” on it wanted a lot of choosing.
Dora and Claude dined that night at the Dandoli, and Mr. Osborne announced that he and the mother had settled to stay on another week, for they were both thoroughly delighted with Venice.
“And its grateful to you, my dear, that we both are,” said Mr. Osborne, “for telling us about it, and making us feel as how we should like to see it. There’s fifty different things in Venice I should like to see a score of times, and if we’re spared, my dear, we’ll spend another month next year as per this sample.”
Now Dora did her best when this little speech was made, but Sirocco had been blowing all day, and, as usual, it had made her feel rather jerky and irritable. Also, it must be remembered, Mr. Osborne, with the best and most appreciative intention in the world, had, as may be conjectured from the foregoing details of their days, succeeded in spoiling everything for her. Who could look at and enjoy a picture while he was wondering why Tintoret hadn’t given St. John something more on, or feel the magic of the approach across the lagoon when Mrs. Osborne said that the gray shining mud-flats called to mind the Fal below Truro at low tide, and Mr. Osborne confirmed the accuracy of this impression? But Maria had such an eye for likenesses.
In consequence, Dora had a little failed in cordiality of tone on the receipt of the news, for by this plan they would leave Venice all together, and every day till their departure would be taken up with these nightmareexcursions, for it was part of the plan that they should do everything together. Her words, whatever they were, had been expressive of delight at their remaining, but Claude, at any rate, had noticed the failure in tone, and on their way back after dinner he spoke about it in kindly fashion, but so, it seemed to Dora, with a matchless awkwardness.
“Sorry you’re a bit off colour, dear,” he said. “I know Sirocco always makes you feel like that.”
Dora saw the obviously tactful intention; her conscience also a little accused her, and she knew quite well what he had in his mind and was probably going to say.
“Feel like what?” she said, though she knew this to be useless fencing.
“Oh, feel like what you felt when you said you were so glad the pater and mater were going to stop here. I don’t say that they noticed, but I did. I expect I’m quicker than them at feeling what you feel. What you said was right enough; it was just the way you said it.”
He leaned forward in his seat a little, looking her full in the face. And somehow the sight of him and the proximity failed for once to make themselves felt. His presence did not mitigate what he said, or stamp it with the old magic.
“I wish you would explain,” she said.
“As if there was any need, darling,” he said. “As if you don’t understand as well as I do. You said you were delighted they were stopping, but only your voice said it. What’s wrong? There’s something up. And I thought we were having such jolly days together. Fatherand mother are enjoying it ever so much, and if they pretend they find it just a shade more delightful than they really do, why, it’s just to please you, and make you feel it’s a success that they do it. They settled to stop on, I believe, just for that.”
This made matters no better. Dora felt she ought to be delighted they were doing so, and ought to be touched and pleased with the reason Claude had conjectured. But she was not: Venice, as a matter of fact, or rather these days of Venice, were being spoiled for her. She would as soon, as Claude had once said to her, though with inverted meaning, have spent them at Clapham Junction if the Osbornes were to be with her. It was a great pity that they should stop on, if their motive in doing so was to gratify her. She hoped it was not that.
“Oh, I don’t think that is it, Claude,” she said. “Dad likes—likes the sun and the—oh, lots of things, Stucki’s sugar factory for instance, and your mother likes the pigeons and the shops. But it isn’t Venice they like.”
“That’s just what I say,” said he, “they stop to make you think they do. They think the world of you, you know.”
“Yes, the darlings,” said Dora quickly. “That—that makes it so pathetic.”
“Pathetic? You mean that you don’t think so highly of them?”
Dora’s heart suddenly sank. She had not meant that: she had meant only that it was a pity they stayed in Venice to please her, when in reality she was not enjoying their stay. She knew well that they were out ofplace in Venice ... it was hopeless to try to explain. But even if she had meant the other, it would have been a fatal error on Claude’s part to put it into words. He called this kind of frankness “getting at the bottom of the thing.” She felt he was certain to use that phrase now. He did so.
“Let’s get at the bottom of it, dear,” he said, “and as we always do, I shall speak my mind, just like you. Perhaps it will sound harsh to you: I’m sorry if it does.”
He leaned back again, but without looking at him she could see that he tilted his head back, and put his chin a little out, the identical gesture which before she had found so attractive, so fascinating, even. She had told him so, too, a hundred times: had said she loved a man to know his mind, to be firm and decided, especially with those he loved best. No doubt he remembered that at this moment: perhaps even he was doing it consciously or at least half-consciously, so as to present what he had to say in the most attractive guise. But, suddenly and disconcertingly, she found the gesture scarcely less than odious.
“I think the pater’s been awfully good to you, dear,” he said. “He’s done a lot for you, given you all sorts of things you had no reason to expect. There’s this month in Venice, to go no further than that. Well, it will stand him in a pot of money, and it’s just because he doesn’t grudge you one penny of it that I think you ought to feel rather more cordial to him about their stopping. I don’t say that you behaved not cordially, because I think what you said was all right, and neither of them noticed that anything was awry, but you hadn’t got the right feelings to back up your tongue. Wait a moment.I’ve not finished; there’s something more yet, but I want to find words that won’t hurt you, and yet will express what I mean.”
There was something in this that roused a certain sense in Dora that she knew had been often present in her mind, but which she hoped would always remain dormant. But now it began to awake; his words, kind as they were, implied an impossible attitude. He was judging, so it seemed to her, making himself jury and judge all rolled into one, and it was understood that she, put in the dock before him, would make no defence. He knew that he was right—that was what it came to—and was going to tell her, as kindly as possible, what was right. And on the instant she found herself refusing to be judged and condemned by his standards. He did not know what Venice meant to her, or how essentially his father’s attitude toward the things and the place that she loved jarred on her. And unfortunately the affair was typical of hundreds of other affairs. That Mr. Osborne had no artistic sense of any sort or kind did not matter, but what was beginning to matter was that Claude, who apparently could not see that the entire absence of it in a person with whom she was brought into day-long contact made something rather hard to bear, had put on his wig and was going to sum up on a matter about which he knew nothing. Her behaviour had never broken down; he had said that himself, and she believed it to be true; the matter was that he could not understand that she had to struggle against the disappointment of spoiled days, and was yet serenely confident that he had the complete data.
“Don’t mind about hurting me,” she said quickly. “I want you to say exactly what you feel.”
They had arrived at the water-gate of their home, without her noticing it, and Giovanni was already standing, hat in hand, to give her the support of his arm on to the steps, which were slippery with the receding tide. Claude was conscious of this first: he was quite conscious, also, of Dora’s tone.
“Not before the servants,” he said. “Get out, dear, and take Giovanni’s arm. The steps are like ice!”
Again Dora was in revolt: it seemed to her that he was advising her against a thing he might have done himself, but which she could not have dreamed of. She had been absorbed in this—this dispute was it?—had not noticed. He had noticed, and warned her against an impossible thing.
Giovanni unlocked the door for them, received orders for the next day, and they went up the stairs together in silence. And as they went up all the womanhood in Dora—and there was much of it, and it was all sweet and good—rose, flooding for the time the bitter gray mud flats that had appeared. And at the top of the stairs she turned to him.
“Oh, Claude,” she said, “we’re not quarrelling, are we?”
“Takes two to make a quarrel,” he said, “and I’m not one. But I want to say something yet, and I think you’d better hear it. I ask you to, in fact.”
She unpinned her hat, and led the way to the end of the bigsalathat overlooked the canal. She sat downin her accustomed chair, flinging the window open, for the night was very hot.
“Say it then,” she said.
Again Claude’s head went back: he felt perfectly certain he was right.
“Well, it’s just this. You’ve told me not to choose my words, so I won’t bother to do so. You haven’t felt right toward the pater and mater all this time here. When he wanted to go and see a factory, you wondered at him—and, yes, you despised him a bit for it. When he admired some picture you didn’t think much of, you wondered again. Now, he never wondered at you. If you wanted to sit half an hour before some adoring Doge, he never wondered, any more than I wonder, for there are lots of people in the world, and they’ve got their different tastes and every right to them. But he only said to himself: ‘Gosh, there’s something there, and she’s right, only I don’t know what it is she’s looking at.’ He never thought you wanting in perception because you didn’t admire the iron in the fish market. He only thought to himself, ‘Let’s go and see something this afternoon that Dora does like.’ How often has he gone to the National Gallery in London? Never, you bet: he doesn’t know a picture from a statue. And how often has he gone to look at some mouldy old Titian here, because you thought it worth a look? Well, isn’t that anything? It’s no use you and me not saying things straight out, and so I say it straight out. He’s been boring himself fit to burst over your Botticellis, and been trying to admire them, saying this was the biggest picture he’d ever seen, and this was the smallest. And yet dearold Dad wasn’t boring himself, because he was with you, and trying to take an interest in what you showed him. Well then, I ask you!”
There, close in front of her, was the beautiful face, the beautiful mouth which she loved, saying things which, as far as they went, her essential nature entirely approved. But at the moment his beauty did not move her. And the account he had given was correct: she had been having on her nerves the fact that Mr. Osborne took more pleasure in the steamboats than in San Rocco, in the fish market than in the Frati. He might be right: she might be right, but in any case the attitudes were incompatible. And Claude at the moment clearly took up the attitude that was incompatible with hers. There was much more, too, he did not see: he did not see that indifference on Dora’s part did not destroy his father’s pleasure in the speed of the steamboats, whereas his artistic criticisms blackened her pictures for her.
And then, womanlike again, she knew only that Claude was her man, that he was beautiful, that he loved her....
“I dare say I am quite wrong,” she said. “I dare say you are quite right. Shall we leave it, then, darling? I will try—I will try to do better. I am sorry.”
“And there speaks my darling girl,” said Claude.
THE stay in Venice had naturally curtailed for Mrs. Osborne the weeks of her London season, but she had never intended to begin entertaining on the scale required by the prodigious success of the fancy-dress ball last year till after Whitsuntide. Before leaving town in May she had sent out all invitations for the larger functions (except those which her invited guests subsequently asked for on behalf of their friends, and which she always granted), and it was clear that the world in general was going to pass a good deal of its time at No. 92. Indeed, when she went through her engagement book on her return from Venice to Grote, hospitable though she was, and greatly enjoying the exercise of that admirable virtue, she was rather appalled at the magnitude of what she had undertaken. She was going to give three balls (real balls), three concerts, two big dinner parties every week, and a series of week-ends down at Grote, while on such other nights as she was not dining out herself there were a series of little parties. In addition Sheffield friends coming to stay with them for the insides of weeks to finish up with one of the Grote week-ends. These visits she looked forward to with peculiarly pleasant anticipations, for the dear soul could not but feel an intense and secret gratification at the thought of such local celebrities as Sir Thomas and the Prices seeing her and Mr. O. absolutely at the topof the tree, and entertaining princes and duchesses and what not just as they had entertained aldermen and manufacturers at Sheffield. Also there was a secret that Mr. Osborne had told her, which filled her with feelings that were almost too solemn to be glee. The secret was not to be talked about yet, but in private he no longer called her Mrs. O., but “my lady.” She hoped Sir Thomas would be with them when the honours were published, for secretly she still took her bearings, so to speak, by the stars as they appeared in Sheffield. There Sir Thomas Ewart, Bart., and Lady had been the very Pole-star to which quite important constellations reverently pointed. But now, as by some new and wonderful telescope, she saw herself and Mr. O. high above Sir Thomas. Why, even Per would be the Honourable Per, and Sir Thomas would have to say, “After you, Per, my boy.” She and Mr. O. had already had more than one broken night in thinking of a title which he could submit for approval. Mrs. Osborne was all for something old and territorial.
“There’s Hurstmonceaux, my dear,” she said, “that ruined old castle which we drove over to see when you was down at Hastings with your attack of gout. I don’t doubt you could buy it for a song, and there you’ll be.”
“And then next you’d be wanting me to do up the Castle and live in it,” said he. “Besides, it’s a regular stumper to say, and French at that. No, my dear, we must think of something more British than that; there’s plenty of good names without crossing the Channel, so to speak, for something to call yourself by. But it’s puzzling work, and new to me, to have to think of christening yourself afresh.”
“Lor’, Mr. Osborne, you don’t mean to say that you’ve got to change your Christian name, too?”
“No, no, my dear. There’s no Christian name to bother about; I don’t deal any more in Christian names—not officially, anyhow.”
He blew out the light.
“Good night, my dear,” he said. “And God bless you.”
It was all very well to say “Good night,” but Mrs. Osborne could no more sleep than she could think of a name. After an interval she heard Mr. Osborne turn himself ponderously round in his bed, and knew that he was awake too.
“There’s some things called ‘Hundreds,’”she said. “I seem to remember that all England is cut up into Hundreds, which is a queer thing to think upon. It’ll be worth while seeing in what Hundred the East End of Sheffield lies.”
“There’s something in that,” said Mr. Osborne, “and it would bring the business into it. Lor’, Mrs. Osborne, my lady, I’m glad I had nothing to say to a knighthood five years ago. I’d have been put on the shelf for good if I’d jumped at it. But not I! It’s this parliamentary business coming on top of all I did at Sheffield that has given the extra turn. And I’ve been liberal, I’m sure, to the party. What was the name of the street now where I built the church in Sheffield? I declare it’s gone out of my head. Thinking of new names drives the old ones out.”
“Commercial Road, my dear,” said Mrs. Osborne, “for I thought of the name myself when you was building the street.”
“Then we ain’t no further on yet. Grote, too; that’s not to be thought of, as it’s Lord Austell’s second title.”
“After all, we only take the place on hire,” said Mrs. Osborne, “and it doesn’t bring the business in.”
“That’s what beats me,” said Mr. Osborne. “How to bring the business in! Lord Hardware, Tinware; that would be a thing to laugh at.”
The matter was still in debate on that morning when Mrs. Osborne went through her engagement book down at Grote and found so heavy a programme in front of her. And somehow to-day she did not feel markedly exhilarated by it. The journey back from Venice had tired her very much, and though she had felt sure that a good night’s rest coupled with a day or two of solid English food would set her up again, she still felt overdone and devitalized. She was disposed to attribute this in the main to the unnutritious character of Venetian diet, where, if you got a bit of veal for your dinner, that was as much butcher’s meat as you were likely to see; while, to make up, there would be nothing more than a slice of some unknown fish and the half of a chicken that was no bigger than a blackbird. As for a nice filet of beef or a choice leg of lamb, it was a thing unheard of. Yet she had not felt much inclined for the filet of beef when it was accessible again; it seemed to suit her as little as the rice and maccaroni had done. For the last week, too, she had had from time to time little attacks of internal pain. No doubt it was of no consequence, but it was a pain that she did not know and could not quite localize.
Once or twice she had thought of consulting a doctor, a thing that Mr. Osborne had urged on her before the Venetian visit, but some vague and curious fear prevented her—the fear of being told that something was seriously wrong, and that she would have to give up their London programme which she had planned so delightedly. That was a thing not to be contemplated; the London plans were, to her mind, part of the immutable order of things, and it was therefore essentially important that Mr. Osborne should not guess that she was out of sorts, for she well knew, if he had so much as a guess of that, he would have carried her off, by force if necessary, and not let go of her till he had deposited her in some eminent consulting room, with specialists dangling at the end of the telephone. But she had never been lacking in spirit, and it would be a singular thing if she could not be genial and hearty to all the world for a few weeks more.
But what she doubted was her power of getting through the physical strain of it. She knew how tiring the standing about and the receiving was, and every day now she felt tired even before the fatigues of it had begun. If only she had a daughter, who could quite naturally take some of this off her hands, and let her sit down while the “company” were arriving. And then an idea struck her.
Dora and Claude were intending to occupy the flat in Mount Street till the end of the summer. After that they would come down to Grote, and soon, please God! the flat in Mount Street would be too small for them “and what would be theirs”—this elegant circumlocution was exactly the phrase that passed through Mrs. Osborne’s mind—and when they returned to London again in the autumn, it would be to a house of their own in Green Street with place for a nursery. This, however, they were only going to take at Michaelmas; but Dora had written to her mother-in-law this very morning (and her innocent letter suggested possibilities to Mrs. Osborne), saying that Mount Street really seemed to be hotter than Venice, and dreadfully stuffy, which Venice was not. What if Dora and Claude would come and live with them in Park Lane till the end of July? She remembered how Dora had acted hostess down at Grote in the winter, and they might play the game again. But this time there would be a real object to be served by it; Dora would help her in the entertaining, which prospectively, as she planned it, had seemed so delightful, but now appeared so difficult. It was an excellent idea, if only she could compass it.
The large Indian gong had already boomed through the house, announcing that lunch was ready, and next moment Mr. Osborne came into her “boudoir,” announcing that he was ready too. Venetian habit still lingered with him.
“Well, lunch ispronto, my lady,” he said, “but you’re busy yet, and still at the plan of campaign for the summer. But in your plan of campaign don’t forget the commissariat; and here’s your lieutenant Marie come to tell you that my lady is served. Balls, concerts, dinners; dinners, balls, concerts; my lady is a regular Whiteley to theélite: she gives them all there’s to be had. You’ll be pauperizing the dukes and duchesses, my dear; they’llbe thinking of nothing but the amusements you provide for them.”
Mrs. Osborne was not without the rudiments of diplomacy, though, it may be remarked, nothing in the least advanced in that line was necessary with her husband. Still it was better that, if possible, he should suggest Dora and Claude coming to them than that she should. She laughed dutifully at Mr. O.’s joke about the dukes and duchesses, and proceeded.
“I had a note from Dora this morning,” she said, as they sat down.
“Bless her heart,” said Mr. Osborne parenthetically. “For what we are going to receive, my lady.”
“Amen, my dear. There’s some of that rice with bits of chicken in it as I got the recipe of from Pietro, and I could fancy a bit myself. Well, she wrote and said she was very well, and she’d seen—she’d been to call in Harley Street.”
Mr. Osborne again interrupted.
“And was anything said about September?” he asked.
“There was some mention of September. And there was something else, too. Oh yes, she finds that pokey little flat in Mount Street hotter than Venice, she says.”
“Well, then, why don’t she and Claude take a cab round to No. 92, and let the luggage follow?” said Mr. Osborne rather hotly. “Claude’s not got a grain of sense: he should have thought of it long ago, if Dora feels it stuffy and hot there, and suggested their installing themselves there, cool and comfortable. Bless the boy, all the same. But after I’ve had my lunch I’ll get one endof the telephone and him the other, and see if you don’t hear the front door slam and them drive away to Park Lane before I’ve lit my cigar. That’ll suit you, my lady, will it? You’ll like to have them dear children in the house, I know.”
“Bless them, let them come,” said Mrs. Osborne, “and the longer they stop the better I shall be pleased. Dora will be a help too: she will help me with the dinners and what not.”
The two were alone on this their last day at Grote, but all six wasp-coloured footmen marshalled by Thoresby formed a sort of frieze round the table, occasionally changing a plate or handling a dish. Generous though he was with money, Mr. Osborne had very distinct notions about getting his money’s worth when he had paid it, and since the house required six footmen he saw no reason why they should not all wait at table, even when only he and Mrs. O. were having their lunch. Nor was the number of dishes curtailed because they were alone; Mr. Osborne always ate of them all, and because there was “no company” that was no reason why he should go starved. It was not, therefore, for nearly an hour after the time they sat down that he went to the telephone—so accurately depicted by Sabincourt—and rang up Claude.
He joined Mrs. Osborne on the terrace a minute or two afterwards.
“Claude’s willing enough, and thank you,” he said, “but he says he must speak to Dora first. So you’d better telephone to 92, my lady, and tell them to make ready whatever rooms you think right. Give them anice sitting-room, my dear, so that they can feel independent.”
“Better hear from Dora first,” said Mrs. Osborne.
“Just as you please; but when the girl says as the flat in Mount Street is hot and stuffy, and there’s the coolest house in London waiting for her just round the corner, I don’t see there’s much call to wait. Well, my lady, I must be off. There’s a committee been sitting in the Lords on the Bill about the Employers’ Liability Act, and I must get all they’ve talked about at my fingers’ ends. Who knows, but Mrs. O., but that I’ll be able to tell them a thing or two in that chamber before the summer’s out? It’s a strange thing to me how clever men, such as have taken degrees and fellowships at Oxford, should have so little common sense on other matters. As if there wasn’t a difference between one sort of risk and another, and they want to lump them all on to the employer. I doubt most of them Liberals are either Socialists or afraid of the Socialists. But there! the noble lords have had a committee and I must see what’s been said and done.”
“Just to think of it! And have you got any idea about your new name yet?”
“No, I daresay something will suggest itself. After all, I shall smell as sweet by any other name, hey?”
“Lor’, my dear,” said Mrs. Osborne with a slight accent of reproof; for Thoresby had come to see if there were any orders, and must have heard.
The question, however, about this move of Dora and Claude to Park Lane was not so foregone a conclusion asMr. Osborne had anticipated. Claude had gone to the telephone when he was rung up, and came back beaming to tell Dora of this delightful offer.
“Dad and the mater invite us to go to Park Lane till the end of July,” he said. “I’m blowed if there are many fathers who would want a son and daughter-in-law in the house all the time. Of course I said that I must consult you first; that was only proper.”
“Oh, Claude,” said she, “of course it’s awfully kind. But, but do you think so?”
“But why not? It’s just like the governor to have guessed that we should feel stuffy and cramped in the flat during this hot weather.”
Dora remembered her letter.
“I’m afraid I may be responsible for that,” she said. “At least I wrote to your mother yesterday saying it was very hot and airless here. Oh dear, I hope she won’t think I hinted at this.”
“Not she. You don’t catch her imputing motives, specially when there weren’t any. She’s got more to think about than that. I say, Dora, are you sure you didn’t have that in your mind? Awfully sharp of you if you did.”
Dora resented this; indignant that he could have supposed her capable of it, and a little of this indignation coloured her words.
“I’m afraid that I can’t lay claim to sharpness,” she said, “because the fact is that if I had thought such an offer was possible, I should have said it was cool and airy here.”
Claude’s profile was outlined against the hot, hardblue of the sky outside, and Dora noticed how perfect it was. But she noticed it in some detached sort of way; it did not seem to concern her. At this he turned round, and came across the room to her.
“What’s the matter, dear?” he said. “Why is it you don’t want to go?”
“Oh, Claude, if you don’t see, you wouldn’t understand if I explained,” she said. “And I can’t quite explain, either.”
“Try,” he said.
“Well, I married you, do you see, and you are master of the house, and I’m mistress, and it isn’t quite the same thing if we go and live with other people. They are angelic, of course, to suggest it. But oh, I wish people wouldn’t be quite so kind—or, rather, that they would mix a little tact with their kindness. They’ve made it hard to refuse, telephoning like that. It’s—it’s like a word-of-mouth invitation for a month ahead. You’ve got to say ‘Yes.’”
Claude took up a rather listless hand of hers that lay on the arm of her chair.
“Ah, then I do understand,” he said, “and I love your reasons. I guessed it before you said it; you want to be alone with me. Well, it’s the same here. But I’ve no doubt they’ll give us a sitting room and all that.”
Though Dora had meant something very like that, it sounded rather dreadful to hear Claude say it, and say also that he had guessed. He oughtn’t to have guessed, although he assured her it was “the same here.” There was an unconscious complacency about his guessing that she did not like. But he went on without pause.
“As for its being tactless,” he said, “I think you’re rather hard on the governor. When a man’s as kind as he can be, and as devoted as he is to you, I don’t think you should say that.”
Claude stuck out his chin a little over this, and Dora, though she knew he was right from his point of view, knew that she had been right too. Kindness, even the most sincere, can easily be embarrassing: it needs refining, like sugar. But that was the sort of thing that Claude could not understand: the tact of good nature had been left out of him just as it had been left out of his father. So her reply was sincere.
“Yes, dear; it was a pity I said that,” she said.
But somehow the admission was bitter; the truth was that it was a pity to say it, because she ought to have been more careful in what she said to him, not because the impulse that prompted her speech was a mistaken one. But all that was unconjectured by him.
“My darling,” he said, “you are so sweet with me. If I have to criticise anything you do, you never take it amiss. And now I’ll tell you another reason why I think we had better go, apart from the comfort and convenience of it. It is that I don’t think the mater is very strong, for all that she eats so heartily. She gets very easily tired, and she’s laid down a programme for the next six weeks which might well knock anybody out. Now it would be awfully good of you if you would help her with it.”
That appealed to Dora much more.
“Oh, then, let’s go, let’s go,” she said. “Telephone at once. No, I think I will. I think Dad would like me to.”
“You think of everything,” he said. “I hoped you would think of that. He’ll be so pleased at your telephoning. ‘8003 Lewes,’ you know.”
Claude had a meeting at Brentwood that afternoon and had to leave immediately, taking a cab to the station and the train from there, so that Dora might use the motor if she wished. He felt that this was a perfectly natural and ordinary thing to do, but at the same time he had to tell her he had done it.
“It takes but a very little longer,” he said in answer to her urging him to take the motor himself, “and a walk from the station at the other end will do me good. I wish I was going to prowl about with you all afternoon. But men must work, you know. Though when I come back I hope I shan’t find that you’ve been weeping. But you wouldn’t like your ‘Claudius Imperator’ to be a drone. Good-bye, my darling; I shall be back in time to dine and take you to the play.”
He lingered a moment still.
“If you haven’t got anything special to do, you might go down to Richmond and have tea with Uncle Alf,” he said. “He’d like it, and you haven’t seen him for some time.”
“Yes, I’ll go by all means,” she said.
“Thanks, dear. You see, after all, he gives us fifteen thou. a year.”
Dora ordered the motor, and set off on her drive to Richmond at once. The day was exceedingly hot, and the reverberation of the sun from the grilling pavements struck like a blow when she went out. A languid, airlesswind raised stinging grit from the wood pavements, and the reek of the streets hung heavy in the air. She longed with an aching sense of physical want for the soft, dustless atmosphere of Venice, the cluck and ripple of its green waterways, and with no less an ache and thirst of the spirit for all that those things had once symbolized to her. Yet this last visit had not been the rapturous success of the one before. Venice was there unchanged, with the gold mist of romance that Claude had woven for her about it, but he, the magical weaver, or she, the woman for whom it had been woven, had altered somehow, and perhaps even in the enchanted city a certain vague but growing trouble that was in her mind would not be completely dissipated. In general outline she knew what it was, but hitherto she had not focussed her vision on it. But now she felt that it had better be examined, for it cried out to her from the darkness of her mind where she had been at pains to hide it. Perhaps on examination it might prove to be imagination only, to have no real existence except in her own mind. And the trouble was Claude.
It seemed to her ages ago, though in point of fact it was still scarcely twelve months, that she had told May Franklin that sometimes he said things that gave her a check. But it seemed almost longer ago, though it was only a few weeks, that she had sat alone one afternoon, when Claude was at Milan meeting his father and mother, and registered the fact that he again gave her checks. Between those two occasions lay romance, a golden dream, an experience which, common though it may be in this world of men and women, was none the less marvellous, miraculous. He, his love for her, and her love for him, had lifted life out of the levels on which it had hitherto moved, had made of it a winged and iridescent thing, which had soared many-coloured into sunlight and moonlight. And that marvel, the enchantment of it, had seemed to her then to be a thing indestructible and eternal. While she was she, and while Claude was Claude, it could never change, nor shed one feather from its rainbow wings. Often had she whispered to him, or he to her: “It will be like this for ever”; more often had the tense silence testified with greater authority than any voice, even his. In those months whatever her senses perceived was glorified: she looked at the world through the radiance of love.
That conviction that their romance would last for ever was part of the divine madness of love: she saw that now clearly enough. She who had believed that they, and they alone, were different from all others, had not been truly sane when she believed it: she had been living in a world, real no doubt while it existed, yet not only capable of being extinguished but doomed to extinction. Once, before their marriage, she had talked to Claude about what she called “the gray-business” of life, and he, she remembered, had given the gray-business a “facer,” to use his words, by pointing to the example of his father and mother. That had seemed to Dora, already ripening for romance, to fall very short of the reply she wanted. She had wanted lover’s nonsense which would assure her that for them romance could never fade. But it had faded: it always faded. The question now was concerned with what was left. Did even the consolation ofClaude’s “facer” remain to her? Had she, to put her part of it baldly and brutally, got as great an admiration, respect, and affection for her husband as Mrs. Osborne had for hers? She knew she had not.
To-day she could look undazzled at the materials out of which her romance had been constructed and analyse them. It was made of her passion for beauty. She had fallen in love with his good looks. And she was getting used to them: she had got used to them. What else was there? What was left to learn, now she had that by heart?
There was a great deal left. So she told herself, but without emotion. There was his character left, which was sterling; his qualities, which were excellent; his kindness, his safeness, his—to go to purely material things—his wealth. And his vulgarity.
The word was coined: her thought for the first time definitely allowed it to pass into currency, and she had to reckon with it.
What a topsy-turvy affair it had been! How strikingly different a disposition from that which she had contemplated had come about! She had told herself that she must for ever be in love with that beautiful face, that slim, active body, those deft, decided movements; and she had told herself that his vulgarities were things of no moment, things to which she would swiftly get used. But events had been evolved otherwise. She was used to his beauty; his vulgarities were cumulative in their effect on her; instead of getting used to them she was daily more irritated by them and—more ashamed of them. She had imagined even that it would be easy tocure them, to eradicate them. But it proved to be a task like that of emptying a spring with a teacup. She had thought that they lay, so to speak, like casual water on the surface of the ground, a mere puddle that the sun would swiftly drink up. It was not so; they sprang from his nature, and came welling up bubbling and plenteous and inexhaustible.
And there was something about them, so it seemed to her now, that tinged and made unpalatable all the good qualities in which he was so rich. You could draw a gallon of pure fresh kindness from that well-spring which was inexhaustible, but even before you had time to put your lips to it, and drink of it, some drop—quite a little drop—would trickle in from the source of his vulgarity and taint it all. It was even worse than that; there was a permanent leak from the one into the other, the kindness was tainted at the source.
Dora did not indulge in these reflections from any spirit of idle criticism or morbid dissection. She wanted to see how they stood, how bad things were, and what chance there was of their righting themselves. They were no longer mere surface vulgarities in him (or so she believed) that got on her nerves: she no longer particularly minded whether he said “handsome lady” or not; what she did mind was the impulse that prompted him, for instance, to suggest that she might go down and see Uncle Alfbecausehe gave them “fifteen thou.” a year. She minded his saying he had guessed the reason why she did not want to establish herself in Park Lane; namely, because she wanted to be alone with him. She minded the suggestion that she had written to say the flatwas stuffy, in order to be asked there. It was all common, common; he judged her by impossible standards, standards that were inconceivable. And yet all the time he was good, he was kind, he had all the qualities that should make her love him, make her devotion an imperishable thing. As it was, they had been married scarcely six months, and already she knew that at times he so got on to her nerves that she could have screamed. Already, as she began to look closely at these things, she felt she was glad they were going to Park Lane; she was glad that limitations were placed on her being alone with him.
It was a little cooler out of town, and Richmond Park was in the full luxuriance of its summer beauty. They had entered by the Roehampton Gate; she had still half an hour to spare before the time she had said she would be at Uncle Alfred’s, and she directed her driver to turn up to the left, past the White Lodge, and go round by Robin Hood Gate and Kingston Gate. A delicious smell of greenness and coolness came from the noble groves of trees, beneath the clear shade of which, knee-deep in the varnished green of the young bracken, stood herds of fallow deer with twitching ears and switching tails, warding off the persistence of the flies. All the sweet forest sights and sounds were there: the air was full of the buzz of insects, and hidden birds called to each other from among the branches. Distantly on the right she could see gleams of water, where the Pen Ponds lay basking in the sunlight, and the flush of mauve and red from the great rhododendron thickets above them. All the triumph of summer time was there; all the joyof the ripeness and maturity of the year, of the kindled and immortal vitality of the world. But for herself, though every day brought nearer to her the miracle of motherhood, it seemed as if summer had stopped.
Once more she faced the situation as she conceived it to be. The time of romance, those months in the autumn were over: the red and gold of the autumn were withered from the trees. Brief had been their glory, which should have shed its light over many years yet; but, as far as she was concerned, what had made their flame was just the personal beauty of her husband. And out of them should already have sprung a deep and tender affection, the friendship which is not only the true and noble sequel of love, but is an integral part of love itself, perhaps even love’s heart. But was it there? It seemed to her rather that something bitter had come out of it, something in which regret for the past was mingled with the gall of disillusionment. And even regret had but small part in it; those months of gold seemed already unreal to her: she felt that she was regretting a dream. It was the same in little things too, for the little things all took their colour from what had been to her then the one great reality. He had referred to himself, for instance, that very afternoon as “Claudius Imperator,” and it was with a sense of unreality that she remembered the genesis of that very microscopic joke. She had bought a Roman coin in Venice with that inscription on it, and had given it to him, saying it was his label in case he was lost. To-day she could not conceive doing such a thing: she could not recapture the state of mind in which she did it, the impulse even that made such a trifle conceivable. In anycase, the thing was one that might be said once and then be forgotten. But Claude had the retentive Osborne sense of humour. With him it was “Once a joke, always a joke,” and from time to time, as to-day, he brought out the “Claudius Imperator” again. The Osborne humour had a heavy tread—a slow, heavy, slouching rustic tread—and a guffaw of a laugh.
There is a Spectator within each of us who for ever watches our thoughts and words, and criticises them. It may be called conscience, or guidance, or the devil, as the case may be; for some folk are gifted with a Spectator that is their best self, others with a Spectator which is but a parody of themselves. Dora’s Spectator was above the average; he was optimistic anyhow, and kindly, and at this point he came to her aid with, so to speak, several smart raps over her knuckles. Whatever was the truth of the whole matter—if, indeed, there is any absolute truth to be arrived at in the fluid and ever-varying adjustments of our relationships with others—only one attitude is compatible with self-respect; namely, to find out and hoard like grains of gold all that is fine and generous and lovable in others, and do our best to find something in ourselves worthy of being matched with it. Instead of this, so said Dora’s Spectator to her now, she had, with acute and avid eye, been picking out all that in Claude seemed to her to be trivial or ludicrous or tiresome, and been finding in herself, to match it, intolerance and want of charity. There had been no difficulty, so said her Spectator, in laying hands on plenty of those.
She had but one word to say in self-defence, and the moment it was said she perceived that it amounted to self-accusation. She had fallen in love with his beauty: how could she not despond when she found that she was in love with it—like that—no longer? It had blinded her to all else: she had seen his vulgarities but dimly, if at all, even as she had seen his panoply of excellent qualities but dimly. Now she saw only the vulgarities, or at any rate she saw them right in the foreground, big and blinding; while behind, in the distance, so to speak, sat the rest of him. Was it not reasonable that her outlook, which must take its colour from the past, should be pessimistic? And then even that piece of self-defence was turned into self-accusation. If that was the case, the fault had been hers from the beginning. But that was what she had done; she had separated him, the man, into packets: she had fallen in love with one packet, and now she was spreading in front of her another that only irritated and almost disgusted her. She had yet to learn the true and the wider outlook, to feel that fire of love that fuses all things together, and loves though it can tenderly laugh, and is gentle always, and rejoices in the weaknesses and imperfections and faults of the beloved, simply because they are his. For though there are many ways of love, the spirit that animates them all is just that; they are all swayed by one magical tune. But that Dora did not yet know, she had not heard a note of it, she did not even know the region of the soul where it made melody all day long. All that she had learned in the last few minutes was that she had with considerable acuteness been spying out causes forcomplaint, excuses for dissatisfaction. She could do a little better than that.
By this time she had arrived at Uncle Alf’s and though the severe remarks of the Spectator had partially braced her again, after the rather sloppy abandonment of self-pity and dejection into which her introspection had brought her, it must be confessed that there was something about Uncle Alf, caustic and malicious though he was, that restored her more efficaciously. For out of all the weapons with which it is fair to fight the disappointments and despondencies that are incidental to human life, there is none sharper or more rapier-like in attack or defence than the sense of humour. And Uncle Alf was well equipped there: not even the picture dealer whom he habitually worsted would have denied that he had that. It was lambent and ill-natured; it twinkled and stung; but it had the enviable trick of perceiving what was ludicrous.
“And I hear poor old Eddie has been out with you and Claude in Venice, my dear,” he said; “and I can’t say which I’m the most sorry for—you, or him, or Claude, or Venice.”
“Oh, why Claude?” asked she, for she had not thought of being sorry for Claude.
“Because you had taught him probably to admire Tintoret—or say he did—and Eddie would want him to admire the railway station. He would have to trim. A very funny party you must have been, my dear.”
Dora laughed; till this moment she had thought of them all as a rather tragic party, and the other aspect had not occurred to her.
“Do you know, I expect we were,” she said; “and all the time I took it seriously. I wonder if that was a mistake, Uncle Alf.”
“To be sure it was. There’s many things in this world that will depress you, and make you good for nothing, if you take them seriously, and that cheer you up if you don’t.”
That was not exactly wisdom out of the mouths of babes and sucklings, since Uncle Alf was a very old man, but it was a sort of elementary wisdom which a child might have hit on. And she felt that below the surface of this wizened, crabbed little old man there was something that was human. She had never suspected it before: in her shallowness she had been content to look upon him as a mask with a money-bag. To be sure, he was devoted to Claude: she had not even reckoned with what that implied, not given him credit for the power of feeling affection.
“I believe you are right,” she said.
“And when you’re as old as me, my dear, you will know it,” said he. “Lord, I’ve had a lot of amusement out of life—digging for it, you understand, not picking it up. Poor old Eddie amuses me more than I can say. Why, his hair is turning gray with success and pleasure.”
“Ah, not a word against him,” said Dora; “he’s the kindest Dad that ever lived.”
“I daresay; but there are things to laugh at in poor old Eddie, thank God. He and his Grote, and his Park Lane, and all! Did you ever see such a set-out, my dear? But Eddie in Venice must have been a shade finer yet. Tell me about it. He and Maria on the Grand Canal,and you and Claude; all in the same gondola, I’ll be bound, so as to make a family party. ‘This is the way we English go,’ good Lord. I wouldn’t have been your gondoliers on a hot day, not even for the entertainment of seeing you all like Noah’s Ark. Your gondoliers were thin men that evening, my dear, poor devils!”
Alfred had guessed the situation with the unerring eye of cynical malice, and his words brought the scene back to Dora with amazing accuracy. That day had depressed her at the time; she had never guessed how funny it was; and here she was laughing at it now, when it was a month old!
Alfred continued:
“Eddie among the pictures, too,” he said. “A bull in a china shop would have been more suitably housed! Why, I nearly came out myself in order to see the fun. ‘What a holy look there’s about that, Maria,’ he’d say; or, ‘My, I don’t believe it would go into the gallery at Grote unless you took the roof off.’ And he wrote to me yesterday that he had bought a copy of that housemaid among the clouds by Titian—what a daub, my dear!—with a frame to match!”
It was too much for Uncle Alfred, and he gave a series of little squeaks on a very high note, shaking his head.
“Eddie’s a silly man,” he said; “a very silly man is poor old Eddie, and he gets sillier as he gets older. What does he want with his Assumption of the Virgin and his six powdered footmen? What good do they do him? As little as my liniment does me. Lord, my dear, he says something too in his letter that makes me think they’re going to make a peer of him. He hints it: ah, I wishI’d kept the letter; but it made me feel sick, and I threw it away. But Eddie a peer, my dear. And I saw in a leader in theTimesthe other day that the Prime Minister hadn’t got a sense of humour! I reckon they’ll sack that leader writer if it’s true that Eddie’s going to have a peerage! Lord deliver us: Lord Saucepan: let’s think of half a dozen names and send some picture post cards of Venice to Lord Saucepan, care of Mr. Osborne, Park Lane; Lord Lavatory, Lord Kitchen-sink. Fancy Per too, an honourable, and Mrs. Per. My dear, I hate that woman worse than poison. I should like to smack her face. She thinks she’s a lady, and Maria thinks she’s a lady. Why, Maria’s more of a lady herself—and that’s not saying much. To see Mrs. Per and you talking together about art or acting would make a cat laugh. I wonder at your marrying Claude when you thought of his relations.”
Dora smiled at him.
“But that’s just what I didn’t do,” she said. “I only thought of Claude.”
“And well you might. My dear, I love that boy. He’s got into proper hands too: you can make a lot of him. Lord Toasting-fork, Lord Egg-whisk, Lord Frying-pan.”
Uncle Alfred could not get away from inventing titles for “poor old Eddie,” and he did it with a malicious relish that was rather instructive to Dora. It could not be called kind, but it hurt nobody; and his frank amusement at the idea of the peerage was certainly better than the heart-sinkings with which the prospect of the event had inspired Dora when she thought of the genial pomposity with which it would be received. Throughoutshe had been too heavy, too ponderous: she had pulled long faces instead of laughing, had seen the depressing side of expeditions like the family party in the gondola instead of its humorous aspect. That was a hint worth attending to. She had got a sense of humour, so she believed, yet somehow it had never occurred to her to look at those spoiled days of Venice in a humorous light.
Soon she rose to go.
“Uncle Alfred,” she said, “you’ve done me good, do you know? It is better to be amused than depressed, isn’t it?”
“Yes, my dear, and I hope you’ll laugh at me all the way back to town, me and my great-coat on a day like this, and my goloshes to keep the damp out, and a strip of flannel, I assure you, round the small of my back. Eh, I had the lumbago bad when first I saw you down at Grote, but the sight of those pictures of Sabincourt’s of Eddie and Maria did me more good than a pint of liniment. What a pair of guys! Lord and Lady Biscuit-tin.”
Dora laughed again.
“How horrid of you!” she said. “Well, I must go. Claude and I are going to the theatre to-night. And we are leaving the flat in Mount Street, Uncle Alf, and are to live in the house in Park Lane till the end of the season. Wasn’t it kind of Dad to suggest it?”
“Not a bit of it. You’ll help entertain Maria’s fine friends, half of whom she don’t know by sight. Not but what I envy you: Maria’s as good as a play down at Grote, and Maria in London must be enough to empty the music-halls. She does too, so they tell me. She asks everybody in the ‘London Directory,’ and they allcome. Good-bye, my dear; come down again some time and tell me all they do and say. Write it down every evening, else one’s liable to forget the plums.”
Dora had given orders that their personal luggage should be transferred from the flat to No. 92 during the afternoon, and on her return she drove straight to that house. Claude had already arrived, and was sitting in the big Italian drawing room. He had had a most successful meeting, and was in excellent spirits.
“This is a bit better than the flat,” he said. “I went in there just now, and it was like a furnace. But here you wouldn’t know it was a hot day. It’s a handsome apartment: the governor bought nothing but the best when he had it done. And how’s Uncle Alf?”
“Very well, I thought, and very amusing,” said she. “Oh, Claude, he had a great-coat on, and goloshes. He is too funny!”
Claude did not reply for a moment.
“Darling, I hate criticising you,” he said at length, “but I don’t think you ought to laugh at Uncle Alf, considering all he does for us.”
“But he recommended me to,” said she. “He said he hoped I should laugh at him all the way back to town. In fact we talked about laughing at people, and he said what a good plan it was.”
Claude paused again. He felt strongly about this subject.
“Did he laugh at the governor?” he asked.
“Well, yes, a little,” said Dora.
“I hope you stuck up for him. I’m sure you did.”
Dora gave a hopeless little sigh: she wondered ifUncle Alfred could have seen the humorous aspect of this; personally she could not.
“It was no question of sticking up for him,” she said. “It was all chaff, fun.”
Claude got up, with his chin a good deal protruded.
“Ah, fun is all very well in its right place,” he said, “and I’m sure no one likes a joke more than me. But there are certain things one should hold exempt from one’s fun——”
Dora tried the humorous plan recommended by Uncle Alfred.
“Darling, I hope you don’t consider yourself exempt,” she said. “I am laughing at you now. You are ridiculous, dear. You take things heavily, and I do too. We must try not to. So I hereby give you leave to laugh at mother and Austell as much as you like—and me.”
“Dora, I am serious,” he said.
“I know; that is just the trouble,” she said, still lightly.
Claude’s face darkened.
“Well, it’s a trouble you must learn to put up with,” he said rather sharply. “I daresay I’m old-fashioned: you may call me what you like. But I ask you to respect my father. I daresay he and the mater seem to you ridiculous at times. If they do, I ask you to keep your humorous observations to yourself. I hate speaking like this, but I am obliged to.”
Dora felt her hands grow suddenly cold and damp. She was not afraid of him exactly, but there was some physical shrinking from him that was rather like fear.
“I don’t see the obligation,” she said.
“Perhaps not. It is sufficient that I do. Now let’s havedone. We spoke on the same subject, your attitude to my father, in Venice. Don’t let us speak of it again!”
“You say your say, and I am to make no reply. Is that it?” she asked.
“Yes; that is it. I know I am right. Come, Dora.” But the appeal had no effect, and for the moment she did not know how to apply Uncle Alf’s wise counsels.
“And if I know you are wrong?” she asked. “If I tell you that you don’t understand?”
“It will make no difference. Look here: the governor has done lots for you. You’ve never expressed a wish but what he hasn’t gratified.”
“Then ask him if he is satisfied with my attitude toward him,” said Dora. “See what he says. Tell him that Uncle Alfred has laughed at him, and I laughed too. Tell him all.”
“I wouldn’t hurt him like that,” said Claude.
Dora walked to the window and back again. She felt helpless in a situation she believed to be trivial. But she could not laugh it off: she could think of no light reply that would act as a dissolvent to it. And if she could find no light reply, only a serious answer or silence was possible. She chose the latter. If more words were to be said, she wished that Claude should have the responsibility of them. Eventually he took it.
“And I’m sure we’ve all been good enough to your people,” he said; “made them welcome at Grote for as long as they chose, and behaved friendly. And it was only ten minutes before you came in that I wrote to Jim, telling him he could live in the flat and welcome till the end of July. I don’t see what I could do more.”
The logical reply was on the tip of Dora’s tongue—the reply “That did not cost you anything”—but she let it get no further. Only she rebelled against the thought that it was a kindness to do something that did not cost anything. He thought it was kind—and so in a way it was—to give Jim the flat rent free. He might perhaps have let it for fifty pounds. But he did not want fifty pounds. Yet he thought that it was kind: it seemed to him kind. It must be taken at that: it was no use arguing, going into the reasons for which it was no real kindness at all. And he had told her that now, she felt sure, to contrast his friendliness to her relations with her ridicule—so he would put it—of his. But he had done his best: she was bound to take it like that, not point out the cheapness of it.
“Claude, dear, that was nice of you,” she said, searching for anything that should magnify his kindness. “And Jim will be an awful tenant. He will leave your books about and smoke your cigars. I hope you’ve locked them up.”
“Not a thing,” said he. “He just steps in. He’ll find a sovereign on my dressing table, I believe, if he looks, and a box of cigars in a drawer of my writing table which he’s welcome to. One doesn’t bother about things like that.”
That was the worst: the parade of generosity could not go further than saying that there was no parade at all. Dora could not reply any more to that: she could only repeat.
“It’s awfully kind of you,” she said again. “We must go and dress if we are to be in time for the first act.”