CHAPTER XXV RECONCILIATION
Barslett: Sept. 13.
My dearest Sarah,—I know how much you value my letters. I know more—how valuable my letters are to you. Only by letter (as I've mentioned before) can I come near telling you the truth. In your presence, no! For aren't you, your dear old stately self, in the end, a—(so glad there are hundreds of miles between us!)—a splendid semi-mendacity?
I have just answered Trix's brief note. Here I wrote just as I should have spoken: 'I'm sure you'll be so happy, dear,' above my breath; 'why, in Heaven's name, does she do it?' under the same. Trix was curt. She marries 'Airey Newton, the well-known inventor'! Little Peggy was rather more communicative; but Peggy is an enthusiast, and (politics apart) I see no use for the quality. 'The well-known inventor'! I never heard of the man. Ça n'empêche pas, by all means. Shall we say 'Like to like'? Trix was rather a well-known inventor in her day and season—which is the one from which we are all precariously recovering. (How's the marital liver?) I wonder if we've got to say 'Like to like' in any other way, Sarah? You are no philosopher. You abound in general rules, but haven't a shred of principle. I will instruct you in my old way. But first I must tell you that Audrey is positively improving. She coquetted the other night! The floor creaked, as it seemed to me, but it bore well; and she did it. The Trans-Euphratic is, as you are aware, active even in the dead season. I fancy the Trans-Euphratic helps Audrey. There are similarities, most especially in a certain slowness in getting under way. The Trans-Euphratic is going to get there. An American engineer who came down to Barslett the other day, and said he had always dreamed of such a place (he was sallow and thin), told me so. Audrey's going to get there too. Now isn't she? Don't say it's labour wasted!
I digress. Listen, then:—
Lord B.: Do you—er—know a Mr. Airey Newton—Newton, Viola?
Myself: Very slightly. Oh, you're thinking of——?
Lord B.: I saw it in the daily paper. (He means the 'Times'—he doesn't know of any others.)
Myself (hedging): Curious, isn't it?
Lord B.: It will possibly prove very suitable—possibly. As we grow old we learn to accept things, Viola.
Myself (looking young): I suppose we do, Lord B.
Lord B.: For my own part, I hope she will be happy.
Myself (murmuring): You're always so generous!
Lord B. (clearing his throat): I am happy to think that Mortimer has recovered his balance—balance, Viola.
Myself: He'd be nothing without it, would he, Lord B.? (This needed careful delivery, but it went all right.)
Lord B. (appreciative): You're perfectly correct, Viola. (Pause.) Should you be writing to Mrs. Trevalla, express my sincere wishes for her happiness.
Now, considering that Trix knocked him down, isn't he an old dear of a gentleman?
But Mortimer? A gentleman too, my dear—except that a man shouldn't be too thankful at being rid of a woman! He showed signs once of having been shaken up. They have vanished! This is partly the prospect of the Cabinet, partly the family, a little bit Audrey, and mainly—Me! I have deliberately fostered his worst respectabilities and ministered to his profoundest conceits. As a woman? I scorn the imputation. As a friend? I wouldn't take the trouble. As an aunt? I plead guilty. I had my purposes to serve. Incidentally I have obliterated Trix Trevalla. If he talks of her at all, it is as a converted statesman does of the time when he belonged to the opposite party (as most of them have). He vindicates himself, but is bound to admit that he needs vindication. He says he couldn't have done otherwise, but tells you with a shrug that you're not to take that too seriously.
Mortimer: We were fundamentally unsuited.
Myself (tactfully): She was. (What did I mean? Sheer, base flattery, Sarah!)
Mortimer: She had not our (waving arm)—our instincts.
Myself: I think I always told you so. [!!!]
Mortimer: I daresay. I would listen to nothing. I was very impetuous. (Bless him, Sarah!)
Myself: Well, it's hardly the time—— (Do wise people ever finish sentences, Sarah?)
Mortimer: It is a curious chapter. Closed, closed! By the way, do you know anything of this Airey Newton?
Myself: A distinguished inventor, I believe, Mortimer.
Mortimer: So the papers say. (He 'glances at' them all.) What sort of man is he?
Myself: Oh, I suppose she likes him. Bohemian, you know.
Mortimer: Ah, yes, Bohemian! (A reverie.) Bo-hem-i-an! Exactly!
Myself: Is that Audrey in her habit?
Mortimer: Yes, yes, of course. Bohemian, is he? Yes! Well, I mustn't keep her waiting.
That is how I behave. 'O limèd soul that, struggling to be free'—gets other people more and more engaged! Tennyson, Sarah. And when they're quite engaged, whether it's in or out of the season, I'm going to Monte Carlo—for the same reason that the gentleman in the story travelled third, you know.
Oh, I must tell you one more thing. Running up to town the other day to get my hair—— I beg your pardon, Sarah! Running up to town the other day on business connected with the family estates (a mortgage on my life-interest in the settled funds—no matter), who should shake me by the hand but Miss Connie Fricker! Where had I met Miss Connie Fricker? Once—once only. And where, Sarah? Everywhere, unless I had withstood you to the face! And I don't know why I did, because she's rather amusing. In fact, at your house, dearest. Long ago, I admit. She has come on much in appearance, and she's going to marry Beaufort Chance. I know she is, because she says it—a weak reason in the case of most girls, but not in hers. Quod vult, valde vult. (A motto in one branch of our family, meaning 'She won't be happy till she gets it.') I am vaguely sorry for our Beaufort of days gone by. These occurrences, Sarah, prejudice one in favour of morality. She has gleaming teeth and dazzling eyes (reverse the adjectives, if you like), and she has also—may I say it?—she has also—a bust! She says darling Beaufort is positively silly about her. My impression is that darling Beaufort is handling a large contract. (Metaphor, Sarah, not slang. Same thing though, generally.) That man wanted a slave; he has got—well, I shall call on them after marriage. I spoke to her of Trix Trevalla. 'I thought she'd quite gone under,' says Connie. 'Under where?' would have been my retort; but I'm weakly, and I thought perhaps she'd slap me. It's as pure a case of buying and selling as was ever done, I suppose; and if the Frickers gave hard cash I think they've got the worst of the bargain.
What's the moral, Sarah? Not that it's any good asking you. One might as well philosophise to an Established Church (of which, somehow, you always remind me very much). 'Open your mouth and shut your eyes'—that's out of date. Our eyes are open, but we open our mouths all the wider. That's superficial! In the end, each to his own, Sarah. I don't mean that as you'd mean it, O Priestess of Precedence. But through perilous ways—and through the Barslett shrubberies by night, knocking down his lordship and half a dozen things besides—perhaps she has reached a fine, a fine—— Perhaps! I hope so, for she had a wit and a soul, Sarah; and—and I'll call on them after marriage. And if that little compound of love and mischief named Peggy Ryle doesn't find twenty men to worship her and one who won't mind it, men are not what they were and women have lost their prerogative. Which God forbid! But, as my lord here would say, 'The change appears to me—humbly appears to me—to be looming—looming, Viola.'
Fol-de-rol, Sarah! Scotland as misty and slaughterous as ever? You might be a little bit nice to Mrs. Airey Newton. You liked her, and she liked you. Yes, I know you! Pretences are vain! Sarah, you have a heart! J'accuse!
Yours,
V. B.
As on a previous occasion, Mrs. Bonfill ejaculated 'Tut!' But she added, 'I'm sure I wish no harm to poor Trix Trevalla.'
It is satisfactory to be able to add that society at large shared this point of view. It is exceedingly charitable towards people who are definitely and finally out of the running. Those in the race run all; they become much more popular when it is understood that they do not compete for a prize. There was a revulsion of feeling in Trix's favour when the word went round that she was irredeemably ruined and was going to throw herself away on a certain Airey Newton.
'Who is he?' asked Lady Glentorly, bewildered but ready to be benevolent.
'Excuse me, my dear, I'm really busy with the paper.'
If Trix's object had been to rehabilitate herself socially, she could have taken no more politic step than that of contracting an utterly insignificant marriage. 'Well, we needn't see anything of him,' said quite a number of people. It is always a comfort to be able to write off the obligations that other folks' marriages may seem to entail.
Mr. Fricker had one word to say.