SEPTIMA. I haven’t.
[195]MARION (awed). What was it the Telegraph called him only this morning? “The Supreme Songster of an Earlier Epoch.” (Her own father!)
SEPTIMA. I said that I hadn’t forgotten what Grandfather is. You’re telling me what he was. He is an old man of ninety. I’m twenty. Anything that I do will affect him for at most five years. It will affect me for fifty years. That’s why I say this has nothing to do with Grandfather.
MARION (distressed). Septima, sometimes you almost seem as if you were irreligious. When you think who Grandfather is—and his birthday too. (Weakly) You must talk to your father.
SEPTIMA. That’s better. Father’s only sixty.
MARION. You must talk to your father. He will see what Grandfather says.
SEPTIMA. And there we are—back again to ninety! It’s always the way.
MARION (plaintively). I really don’t understand you children. You ought to be proud of living in the house of such a great man. I don’t know what Grandfather will say when he hears about it. (Tearfully) The Reverend William Styles ... Hockley Vicarage ... Bishop Stortford. (And from every line she extracts some slight religious comfort.)
SEPTIMA (thoughtfully). I suppose father would cut off my allowance if I just went.
MARION. Went?