The Edwardians (10 page)

Still, in more sober moments, she was irritated when Sebastian was asked to small dinner-parties at D. House and she was not. Pride forbade that she should express the true origin of her irritation, so she took refuge in trumped-up grievances. The duchess wanted to catch him for a daughter, or a granddaughter, she exclaimed; he was a simpleton not to see through such transparent devices. Then her temper would get the better of her, and she would upbraid him frankly for going to parties where she was not invited. “They think you good enough, because you are an eligible young man,” she would say; “they don't think me good enough, because I have compromised myself with you; I wonder at you, for suffering such a slight to be put upon me for your sake.” Sebastian, who by now was well-advised enough to disentangle truth from falsehood, only smiled, in the way that most infuriated Sylvia. “Very well, then, go!” she would say; “go, or you will be late. Go, and enjoy yourself in your respectable circles; I'm dining with Julia and Sir Adam, and I dare say we shall have a more amusing evening than you will. I don't envy you—stuffy, proper, strait-laced that you are. That's your natural world. . . .” And so they would part; but Sylvia, coming home that night, would unfasten her jewels angrily and would cast them down upon her dressing table, raging inwardly at the tyranny exerted by those old women, and snapping at her sleepy maid, who was usually accustomed to find her mistress good-humoured and gay, if a trifle capricious. Old, crushing sepulchres! so Sylvia would think; old, crushing sepulchres, determined to enshrine everything as it had always been! But she raged in vain, and she knew it. Their smile or their frown sufficed to admit or to banish. They were the last survivors of the old régime, and they had never departed by an inch from their original standards. Their arrogance was as magnificent as it was maddening. They refused even to be introduced to people whom most people would have given their eyes to know. Their insolence was intolerable—but they could not be ignored. Fashionableness went for nothing, compared with their hearse-like state. Brilliant though a social career might be, in the long run it was always brought up short against the wall of their severity. Few of Sylvia's personal friends could get past them; and Sylvia, in moments of honesty, admitted they made some of her friends look cheap; not only those of her friends who were Jews or Americans, but people like . . . and Sylvia shrank at the names that came into her head. It was an uncomfortable admission. Sylvia took comfort in the thought that soon they would die off, and that there was no one of quite their calibre to take their place—those old Incorruptibles, in their black lace and their diamonds, who could set their disapproval even upon the choice of the King.

Lord Roehampton was considered no fit counterpart to his lovely wife. People tolerated him for her sake only, for he was in truth a dull, heavy man, with whom Lucy had every right to be bored as a neighbour at dinner; the only people whose company he really enjoyed were his trainer at Newmarket and the keeper on his Norfolk estate. In that company he could indulge himself in the only things—apart from his wife—he recognised as beautiful. He would, of course, have shied mistrustfully away from the word; still he got a private satisfaction out of watching his fillies cantering in the paddock, and his pheasants running on the outskirts of his woods. Standing there, with trainer or keeper, he would confine his remarks to the advantages that these animals or birds were likely to bring him. “A sporting chance for the Oaks,” he would say; or “We ought to equal last year's bag. But what about those damned foxes?” Nevertheless, those who appreciate the Lords Roehampton of England will readily believe that his brief grunts and utterances to the trainer and the keeper represented but a tithe of the pleasure he actually absorbed on a day spent in the paddock or tramping across the acres. Incapable though he was of saying so, he liked the green meadow with its white posts, the sensitive foals; the marriage of wood and cornfield, the turnip leaves holding the rain. He got a dumb satisfaction out of these things, which it never occurred to him to confide to anybody.

If his capacity for enjoyment was thus inarticulate and limited, his principles were equally simple and unexpressed. There were certain things which you did not do, and there was an end of it. You did not take the best place at your own shoot, you did not look over your neighbour's hand at cards, you did not open his letters, or put up with his committing adultery with your wife. These were things which everybody knew, and which consequently might be taken for granted. Lord Roehampton held very definite views about his wife. He was proud of having married the most beautiful woman in London, and, regarding her taste for parties and society as the natural foible of a creature designed by nature for all men's admiration, he took pleasure in indulging her in all the adjuncts of luxury necessary to her proper fulfilment. Jewels, dresses, furs—she could have whatever she wanted. Nobody should say that he did not appreciate his prize. He would even submit to spending the season in London, though his heart ached rather wistfully for Norfolk and the young corn on the particularly sunny days of May and June. Sylvia, however, rewarded his indulgence with great consideration, for she would often urge him to prolong his weekends at home while she herself returned to London, to sail out again superbly on the ocean of festivities that were to him a weariness and an embarrassment. Why, she had even insisted upon going alone to the Court ball, so that he might not be defrauded of an important sale of shorthorns down in Norfolk. There were few wives, he thought with real gratitude, who would do that. Yes, Sylvia was good to him, he thought—her dull old George—and standing upon the refuge waiting to cross Park Lane, he had seen her drive out of Stanhope Gate in her victoria with the smart, high-stepping cobs and James the tiger sitting very straight with folded arms upon the box, and his heart had swelled with emotion as he took off his hat. A nice turn-out, that, he had thought, watching the carriage bowl down Great Stanhope Street; and what a pretty thing it is, he thought, to see a lovely woman drive in London behind a well-matched pair. Lord Roehampton had no use for the motors that were beginning to invade the streets. He crossed into the Park and continued his walk, feeling that all the creases had been smoothed out of him. The Park was bright with tulips and the lilac bushes near Rotten Row were all in flower; people were strolling or sitting under the trees, watching the carriages go by; it seemed to Lord Roehampton that everything was specially animated and gay, that the women were like moving flowers in their light frocks, and that the men in their black coats were an admirable foil, their spats whiter than usual, and their top hats more than usually glossy. And this good-humour, he reflected, was all because he had seen Sylvia drive out of Stanhope Gate! He thought himself extremely lucky; how many men after twenty years of marriage could say as much? He was almost reconciled to being in London; he began to enjoy the sensation of all this life streaming round him; and, leaning over the railings, he watched an escort of Household Cavalry come trotting round the bend on their black horses, their accoutrements shining and jingling, their scarlet tunics brilliant above the immaculate pipe clay of their breeches. A young officer rode with them, his sword sloped across his shoulder; Lord Roehampton recognised Sebastian. Nice boy, that, he thought; nice boy; and he sighed, for he had no son.

It was inconvenient for Sylvia that “Sebastian's summer” should coincide with her daughter's coming-out. She had wondered whether she could invent any excuse to delay this ceremony by a year, but failed to find one: Margaret was eighteen and everybody knew it, and with all her daring Lady Roehampton was too well trained to break through the convention that a girl on the completion of her eighteen years was ripe for the feast and battle of the world. She would as soon have attempted to alter the date of Christmas. So she sighed and resigned herself. Nevertheless she was determined that Margaret should inconvenience her as little as possible, while preserving every appearance of the conscientious mother; and with this end in view she decided to devote an afternoon to establishing good relations between Margaret and several of her aunts, who had daughters of their own and might be expected to include Margaret in their parties where her mother's chaperonage would not be necessary. Fortunately, George approved of his sisters—who indeed were ladies of unimpeachable respectability—and would readily accept the idea that in their company, and in the company of her cousins, Margaret would meet people whose standards and morals were more suitable to her unsophisticated years than the outlook prevalent among her mother's friends. Sylvia tested him to see whether, on this subject, he was as sound as she hoped and anticipated.

“You see, George, dear, I am afraid I have been rather selfish. I ought to have realised that Margaret was growing up. I ought to have got into touch with people like the Wexfords—nice, old-fashioned, steady people who live in Cadogan Square, and give a ball once a year to try and work off another daughter—really one loses count; I believe it's the ninth Wexford girl who comes out this year. Or is it only the eighth? And only the eldest one married, and to a parson at that. Anyhow, the Wexfords are just the sort of people who have their uses when one is bringing out a girl. Young men don't mind who gives the party—they don't mind, I mean, how stodgy their host and hostess are in themselves, so long as they get a party to go to, and can dance; and I must say I would rather that Margaret met her friends at the Wexfords, even if they are a bit dull, than always at Julia Levison's or Romola Cheyne's. Romola is quite careful, as a matter of fact, about what she says in front of girls, but one never knows how much they hear and notice that isn't intended for them. Besides, it's the general atmosphere that counts. You know what I mean, George. Now your sisters are such dears, I am sure they will help by letting Margaret go with them when you and I are simply obliged to dine at places that wouldn't amuse her. I must really go round leaving cards this afternoon, and I shall take her to tea with Clemmie when I have finished.”

“My dear,” said George mildly, “you were saying the other day that you hadn't seen Clemmie for five years.”

“Nor I have—that's just why I must take Margaret to tea with her today. Clemmie's girl is just Margaret's age. By the way, George, what is her name?”

“Agatha,” said George, who often went to see his sisters when he had nothing better to do.

“Agatha. Of course. The girl with freckles. I had better go unpowdered,” said Lady Roehampton with a peal of laughter, “or Clemmie will be shocked. And you really think, do you, George, that I ought to let Margaret go about with Clemmie rather than drag her always with us to people like Romola or Sir Adam? I expect you are right. One can't be too careful about a young girl. I won't tell Clemmie what you say, in so many words, or she might think I was apologising for our friends, but if she suggests rather adopting Margaret this season I won't say no. Dear George. You are always so wise. What should I do without you. Ring the bell, and I'll order the carriage.”

An hour later, Lady Roehampton, with Margaret at her side, drove away in her smart victoria. After some persuasion, for he still preferred horses to machinery, George had given her an electric brougham, but having obtained it she seldom used it. It lacked both the speed of a motor and the distinction of a carriage. It had other disadvantages. If one took it down to Ranelagh, its batteries were apt to run out, leaving it stuck on the middle of Kingston Hill. Then, after every stop, it started off again with a pounce that dislocated not only one's spine but the angle of one's hat—and, since one's hat was perched and pinned somewhat precariously on the top of one's coiffure, tilted forward over one's eyes, that was a serious matter. Sylvia did not often find herself in agreement with George—though for tactical reasons she sometimes pretended agreement—but over the question of electric brougham versus victoria they indubitably saw eye to eye. True, they approached the dispute from a slightly different point of view. George thought primarily of his horses and carriage, then of his wife, then of both together as a satisfactory whole. Sylvia thought of herself as a picture in a frame. She knew that a woman in a carriage is exceedingly becoming to a carriage: whereas George would have said that a carriage was exceedingly becoming to the woman who drove in it. Sylvia knew moreover that the greater and staider ladies, who, despite her affectation of modernity, excited her envy and emulation, clung obstinately to their barouche. Sylvia could not quite stomach a barouche. She could admire the barouche in which certain great ladies drove out, but she could not imagine herself driving in it. She compromised with a victoria.

There was no doubt that Lady Roehampton in her victoria, with her daughter beside her, presented an extremely pretty sight. She held a parasol over her head, and on the seat opposite lay her card case and a pink leather address book from Dreyfous. As they drove along, spanking through the Park, she extracted three cards in readiness, letting the little slip of tissue paper flutter away over the side of the carriage; she turned down a corner and put them neatly together; on the larger card was engraved: The Countess of Roehampton, Lady Margaret Cairn; and down in the corner was the address: Roehampton House, Curzon Street. The smaller cards said: The Earl of Roehampton, and down in the corner: Carlton Club. Sylvia was very well satisfied. She enjoyed this leisurely business of driving through the Park; of stopping at various houses; of receiving the answer, “Not at home”; of handing the cards to James the tiger, after rapidly pencilling “So sorry to miss you”; of consulting her list for the next address; of rolling off again, on the silent rubber wheels, to the quick trot of her two little cobs. She liked the angle at which Bond the coachman wore his hat, and the delicate way he twirled his whip when about to turn a corner. And today she enjoyed it especially, for had she not some prospect of unloading Margaret on to her aunts, leaving herself a greater freedom for Sebastian?