The Edwardians (11 page)

Lord Roehampton had five sisters, who all seemed to have been brushed off the same stencil. They were all angular, erect, flat, and looked as though they had been born to sit behind a tea table dispensing tea and refilling the teapot with water from a silver kettle. They all had long distinguished faces and remarkably beautiful hands. They adopted a severe style in dress, the effect of which was marred by the fact that their hair remained incorrigibly wispy round the back; no nets or slides could ever secure for them a neat nape. Rather caustic in their speech, it was evident that they were capable and energetic women, as fit to intimidate local government boards as to control the domestic economy of their own homes. There was no nonsense about them, nor would they stand any. What they thought of their lovely sister-in-law was never expressed, since their code permitted no outside criticism of their brother's wife, but it was sufficiently plain; and Sylvia on the rare occasions when she had been with them all assembled together, had felt that she sat surrounded by five grenadiers armed with upright pikes of disapproval. Fortunately for her she need seldom endure their scrutiny, since their social orbits rarely overlapped; at most, she might espy one of them at some big function, such as a ball at Devonshire House, when laughing behind her fan she would draw her escort's attention to the steel-grey satin and the diamond ‘fender' of Lady Blanche or Lady Clementina moving stiffly through the throng; but at the more intimate gatherings which were the inner life of the London season—the little bridge-parties at Sir Adam's, the informal dinner-parties where the King came almost incognito and chuckled richly over his big cigar—she might be sure that no gaunt censor would be at hand to chill her happy irresponsibility.

Sylvia had diagnosed them rightly when she thought of them as in their element in the Wexford world. They all belonged to the same solid, territorial aristocracy that took no account of ‘sets' or upstarts, jargon or crazes, but pursued their way and maintained their dignity with the weight and rumble of a family coach. They had genealogical tables at their fingers' ends; they thought more of a small old family than of a large new fortune; they were profoundly and genuinely shocked by the admission of Jews into society; they regarded the fast set, in so far as it comprised some people who by birth were entitled to inclusion in their own faction, as a real betrayal of the traditions of
esprit de corps.
Their solidarity was terrific. They had a way of speaking of one another which reduced everybody else to the position of a mere petitioner upon the doorstep. Too well-bred to be arrogant, too uninspired to sneer, they were simply so well convinced of their own unassailability that the conviction required no voicing, but betrayed itself quietly in glances, in topics, in the set of shoulders, the folding of hands, and in the serene assumption of certain standards and particular values as common to all. They moved all together, a large square block in the heart of English society, massive, majestic, and dull. In their own way they were as exclusive and as critical as the incorruptible
grandes dames
who were such thorns in Sylvia's side; the only difference between them was a difference of wealth and position; in outlook they were identical. Nothing but the chance of fortune differentiated Lady Blanche or Lady Clementina from Lady L. and the Duchess of D. For naturally all the daughters of this world could not aspire to brilliant marriages, but had to be content with the respect-worthy gentlemen whom England fortunately produced in such adequate supplies. Lord Roehampton's sisters, twenty years or so previously, realising that coronets and the nobler seats were not for them, had followed the example of many well-born but superfluous sisters in a similar position, and had one by one accorded their hands to various squires who were not sorry to acquire a wife with a handle to her name, and who in return were able to make her the mistress of some commodious Georgian mansion standing in its own park, and of a town house with, possibly, a Doric portico. Thereafter the lady's life was marked out for her, as it were, by white posts with chains slung between them even as the carriage-drive of her country home; her future became reassuringly predictable; the first few years of her married life were spent in retirement, devoting herself to the production of an heir, of a younger brother or two if possible, and probably of several little girls whose own future, at that date, seemed not very hard to guess; this duty accomplished, she might hope for a period of yearly relaxation in London, ordered and increasingly stately as the natural frivolity of youth matured into the sobriety of complete matronhood; until we behold her, fulfilled in the person of Lady Clementina Burbidge, barricaded behind her tea table and her sizzling kettle, dispensing tea to her afternoon callers with her débutante daughter in attendance to hand little plates of rock cake, bread-and-butter rolled into sausages, or buttered scones supposed to retain their warmth over a splash of hot water in the slop basin.

The very rooms in which they dwelt differed from Sylvia's rooms or the rooms of her friends. There, a certain fashion of expensive simplicity was beginning to make itself felt; a certain taste was arising, which tended to eliminate unnecessary objects. Here, the overcrowded rooms preserved the unhappy confusion of an earlier day. Little silver models of carriages and sedan chairs, silver vinaigrettes, and diminutive silver fans, tiny baskets in silver filigree, littered the tables under the presiding rotundity of the lampshade. (Sylvia noticed, with amusement, that no ash trays were included among this rubbish.) Palms stood in each corner of the room, and among the branches of the palms nestled family photographs, unframed, but mounted upon a cardboard of imperishable stiffness; a single shake, thought Sylvia, taking in every detail in the short space between the door and the tea table, a single shake would bring down cascades of relations: Aunt Fanny in her bustle, George in his sailor-suit, Ernestine about to bowl her hoop; and one photograph of surprising beauty, Daisy the present Dowager, a well-known Irish beauty, dressed in ermine from top to toe, with her two little boys on a sleigh in a forest of snow-clad firs, somewhere in the Carpathians; and then, coming nearer home, Sylvia herself with Margaret, Sylvia wearing a tweed cap and tailor-made skirt with a sailor tie, Margaret in a pram, wearing a bonnet tied under the chin and a pair of gloves that had thumbs but only a bag for the fingers. It struck Sylvia as odd that she should figure in so intimate a connection in so unfamiliar a drawing room. She knew that her photograph was there, not because her sister-in-law had any affection for her, but because she figured (however unacceptably) as one of the family. It was right that poor George's wife should have her place among the palms.

Yes, certainly the room was overcrowded. There were too many chairs, too
many hassocks, too many small tables, too
much pampas grass in crane-necked vases, too many blinds and curtains looped and festooned about the windows. The whole effect was fusty, musty, and dusty. It needed destruction, it needed air. The very satin was fastened to the chairs with aggressive buttons. Everything had something else superimposed upon it; the over-mantel bore its load of ornaments on each bracket, the mantel-shelf itself was decked with a strip of damask heavily fringed, the piano was covered over by a square of Damascus velvet, on which more photographs and more ornaments were insecurely balanced. In the centre of the room stood a sociable, also buttoned to its cover; a sociable on which two persons might sit, facing one another, but properly divided by the arm and wriggle of the S. Sylvia remembered that Romola Cheyne had once said that the S of a sociable stood for Sex. That was the sort of joke that made the King laugh, and kept him in a good temper.

When Lady Clementina heard “Lady Roehampton!” announced, she looked up expecting to see her own mother; but it was no dowager that entered the room, but a radiant Sylvia with Margaret in tow. Charm was so much second-nature to Sylvia, that she must exert it even in her sister-in-law's drawing room. She rustled forward, avoiding the obstacles, filling the air with unaccustomed scent; she was as full of voluptuousness as a cooing pigeon. One could almost believe that her soft generous curves bruised themselves against the bony protuberances of the assembled ladies. For a tea party of ladies was in progress. Sylvia noted them all with a skilled and rapid eye: Clementina herself; Ernestine; Blanche; Lady Wexford in maroon velvet; Lady Porteviot; and a handful of girls, all very gauche but very propitiatory, jumping up to prove themselves attentive, but gratefully subsiding once more round the tea table set apart for their especial use, where their whispers and suppressed laughter testified to the excellent understanding that existed amongst them. Sylvia descended upon this gathering as a bird of paradise might wing down upon an assembly of hens. She knew quite well that they were startled and hostile, she knew too that they were hard nuts to crack—no naïf sentimentality there, to be moved by her beauty in a short cut!—nor was the conquest a very interesting one, but so intimately had she acquired the habit of conquest that she must marshal all her powers against defeat, for aesthetic reasons and in the cause of proper pride, quite apart from the urgent practical motive she had in view. So she started by taking it for granted that Lady Clementina would be delighted to see her; enveloped the rigid form of her sister-in- law in a voluminous and prolonged embrace; renewed it with slight modifications for Ernestine and Blanche; extended a cordial hand to Lady Wexford and Lady Porteviot, undeterred by the chilliness with which it was received; beamed upon the circle of girls; picked out her nieces and blew them a kiss; and subsided upon the sofa beside Lady Clementina, retaining that lady's hand in her own and patting it gently as it lay on her knee.

This physical contact with Lady Roehampton was highly distasteful to Lady Clementina; through the medium of her hand she became aware of the extreme softness of Sylvia's thigh under the thin silk of her dress, communicating to her a suggestion of impropriety which was immediately associated in her mind with the stories familiar to her—stories of Sylvia's own affairs as of the fast set in which she lived. What was it that Lady Porteviot always called her? pronouncing the a's thin, with her north-country accent, “That nasty fast woman, my dear—sorry if she's your brother's wife—can't help that—a nasty fast woman.” Lady Porteviot, from the altitudes above her tightly upholstered bust, considered herself entitled to make downright pronouncements, and indeed assumed the position of dictator to the circle of ladies she frequented. She was accustomed to being listened to with respect; her intimates knew when to stop talking themselves in order to attend to her words; and now here was Sylvia monopolising the conversation, chattering radiantly, appealing now to Ernestine and now to Lady Wexford for corroboration—“I'm sure, dear Lady Wexford, you know what I mean—yes, I see you do”—turning her lovely head first to one lady and then to another, laughing, joking, and all the while clasping Lady Clementina's hand and bringing her eyes back to gaze at her as though she were the one object of her affection in the world. The girls had stopped whispering together; they gaped at Lady Roehampton, thinking that they had never seen anybody more fascinating, more animated, more self-possessed and altogether enviable. It was a real blow to them when Lady Clementina, seizing the first opportunity, fixed her daughter Agatha with an eye like an awl and said she was sure they would all like to go upstairs now to Agatha's sitting room.

They went, of course, meekly, trooping out; and with their going Sylvia knew that she lost her only supporters. She had been quite well aware that she could play on their susceptibilities as upon the susceptibilities of young men. Now they were gone, and she confronted this stockade of unresponsive bosoms. She had managed difficult situations in her time; she had coaxed the King back into a good temper when he was in a bad one; she had steered coincident and resentful lovers into havens of mutual civility; situations such as these were well within her province; but a phalanx of women was a different matter. There was no hostility like that of women to a woman. But she had still got hold of Clemmie's hand. Clemmie was trying to wriggle it away. All Lady Roehampton's mischievousness rose up in the determination to retain it. So long as she held her hand, Clemmie couldn't pour out tea; and, according to Lady Roehampton's view of Clemmie, Clemmie's function was to sit behind a teapot and pour it out; so, under the guise of sisterly affection, she would frustrate Clemmie. She continued to hold her hand and to pat it, meanwhile pouring forth a volume of amiable absurdities. Fancy, Lady Porteviot, she exclaimed, last time I saw Agatha she was in the schoolroom practising her scales, with chilblains and two plaits; now she is out, and what a lovely figure she has, Clemmie! she makes my poor Margaret look a lump beside her. Her poor Margaret, she continued, was scarcely enjoying her first season as much as she ought; and it's all my fault, she said, sighing; I should have kept up with the younger generation, but as one grows older one's friends grow older too, and the result is that Margaret doesn't know nearly enough people of her own age. Lady Clemmie looked cynically at her sister-in-law, but so outrageous a piece of nonsense deserved no comment and received none. Lady Roehampton proceeded to paint a sad picture of poor Margaret's plight at a ball. “I know no young men to introduce to her,” she said; “what a girl wants is a
start
—isn't
that so, Ernestine?—but with neither brothers nor sisters it's so difficult. Now when I take her to the Court ball tonight she will simply trail about behind me all the time—and I'm dining out first and the poor child isn't invited, and will have to have her dinner at home all by herself. A cutlet on a tray. I shall pick her up afterwards, of course.” And she sighed again.

Lady Clementina began to be sorry for Margaret; no doubt Sylvia lost no opportunity of making the child feel she was a nuisance. She had no wish to oblige Sylvia, but the girl must be considered. Besides, it was most undesirable that poor George's daughter (Lord Roehampton was always ‘poor George' to his sisters) should mix entirely with Sylvia's terrible friends. A mother with a young lover always at her side! The family must be thought of; what would Susan Darlington, and Julia Keswick, and Charlotte Grantham say if they knew that Clementina, Blanche, Ernestine, Ermyntrude, and Ada had done nothing to rescue and redeem their niece? And they certainly would know—these tyrannical old matriarchs who never came near London, but were informed of everything that went on there and ruled the family with a power and severity whose secret is known only to the deposed but tenacious Dowager. Lady Clementina, shaping that way herself, would not enjoy a scrutiny through Charlotte Grantham's lorgnon, nor the croak of that rasping old voice, “Well, Clemmie; well, Clemmie? and what's this I hear? George's girl left to the Jews and to persons like that woman whose name I believe is Mrs. Cheyne? What's the meaning of it, Clemmie? eh? What have you all been about?”