“I had better go down and throw out Varens,” said Cyril, looking at the clock, “unless—(an idea struck him)—unless you care to go, Chips, and tell your mother I think I am a little feverish and would she like to come and rub me with camphorated oil?” Evangeline stared at him.
“What on earth for?” she asked.
“And tell Varens I’ll be down in a minute when the attack has worn off, if he wouldn’t mind waiting,” Cyril continued. “I’m rather inclined to back up young David against Miss Emma Goliath when it comes to taking up Dicky’s time.”
“Where do you get all your Scripture knowledge from?” she asked wonderingly.
“I have often read the lessons,” he assured her; then he remembered his son-in-law and looked at him guiltily, but all was calm. Evan was listening and smoking benevolently. Evangeline resumed, “Mother will never swallow that rot.”
“Then I must do it myself,” Cyril decided reluctantly. “Down with Emma Goliath and her musty cohorts!” He left the room and a few minutes afterwards they heard him rummaging in a book-case in the passage for the Army List of 1913, while Susie held the candle.
CHAPTER IX
Young Mr. Price worked quite hard (“rehrly, you know, kait sairys effort!”) to bring his parent’s house up to the requirements of his college friends. He was not likely to ask anyone to his home except for political or enterprising reasons, because Millport at its richest did not provide much entertainment for unsympathetic guests. Its merchant princes fell short of imagination when it came to spending. They were as unlike the Medici as could well be imagined. They not only failed to encourage art, but they disliked it and fought against it. It took as much pressure of public opinion from rival cities and continents to get anything of value into the town as would have been required to turn Lobengula into a St. Anthony. Sometimes when this or that architect, painter, poet or musician was known to have built, decorated or filled the super-halls of America and returned burdened with contracts and delicious food, Millport used to stir uneasily in its contempt and occasionally went so far as to despatch a clerk to find out if there were any of the stuff left; because America’s habit of apt valuation is only too well known in business circles. The fact that her people also care passionately for their purchases might otherwise pass unnoticed. Neither did Millport indulge itself much in luxuries such as sailing, travelling or sport. The Prices kept a big motor which they used carefully, often suffering the horrors of the local train or the crowded tram rather than be unbusiness-like with petrol. Their clothes were a source of pride rather than pleasure. Mrs. Price was timid in her choice of garments and inclined to the perfect taste prescribed by the lady-in-waiting at Messrs. Venison and Phipps. “Mantles this way, Modom,” said the junior assistant in black charmeuse, and then Miss Figginbottam, whom Mrs. Price “always reckoned on,” aged forty-five, disillusioned and imperative, stepped forward and gave the casting vote between the grey moire velours and the rather richer effect of the petunia and chinchilla.
But young Mr. Price and his sisters now told the poor old lady that this would not do. Her daughters took her to London and brought her back with monkeys’ tails and Balkan embroideries hanging slantwise over her innocent curves; they trotted her about in high-heeled shoes instead of the soft kid boots that Bollingworth’s used to make so well to her pattern. They did her hair in the fashion of Goya’s mistress and made her drink cocktails and become a vegetarian, but forbade her to smoke, which she did not understand. Her son taught her the names of the new poets, but could never get six quotable lines of their poetry into her head because there was “nothing to catch hold of” about it. Then they began on Dad; and he took to it like a bird. There was no trouble with him. He put himself entirely in the hands of his son’s tailor and then was told he looked too smart. So he stood patiently and allowed his trousers to be let down till they corkscrewed ever so rightly down his short legs. He shaved off his beard and grew a very intellectual-looking moustache; but his daughters told him he looked like a Labour Member and made him shave it off. He smoked a pipe, which he did not care for, and also learned when to smoke it; as, for instance, when his old friends of the city had all got out their cigars. He was made to eat less and give up carving; forbidden to press his guests to a second or third helping and privately instructed to let the butler manage. He was persuaded to buy some pedigree dogs for Mrs. Price, and a man was hired to lecture to her once a week on their management and breeding as she wouldn’t learn from books. The more they tore up the drawing-room the better the young Prices were pleased, though it caused their mother secret agony. Besides the names of poets and their works, the parents were made to learn the phraseology of farming, lawn tennis, cricket, golf, sex-boredom and the religions of the world.
It was during the time when these social gymnastics were being most arduously practised by the Price family that they gave an evening party; one might almost suppose for the purpose of taking their minds off themselves. “Everybody” was there and a few representative nobodies, just to show that Mr. Price, senior, was in touch with the political movement of the day. “The University,” of course, were there, because though it used not to be considered the thing in Millport to encourage people who lived in poky houses and “talked superior” and “made fun,” it is different now that the aristocracy have taken to asking even theatrical people about and marrying professors and so on. You never know in these days when your local goose won’t go away somewhere and become a swan and get written up in the papers and go to Court or even make money. Once bitten, twice shy. Mrs. Carpenter and Mrs. James Manley and Mrs. Price had one or two secret grievances against certain home-clad young wives whom they had avoided as “not quite——” and who had gone back on them later by being positively run after by all sorts of people; people you wouldn’t expect. How on earth is one to know? Jupiter ought to label his protégés in some way from the start so that honest people who can afford the best of everything may know where to look for it.