“Not by the sweat of his brow, at all events!” sneered my aunt.
“I came to him without a penny, and I haven’t the right to dictate so much as the position of a wardrobe.”
“You’re the man’s lawful wife,” said Aunt Gerty, as she always did. One got tired of the expression.
“Yes, unfortunately,” said Mother. “Or I’d have a better chance! But I am not going to fight over George with that minx!”
How Mother did hate Lady Scilly, to be sure, a person she had never seen! I once told her she needn’t be cross with Lady Scilly, and how harmless she was, and how very little she really thought of Papa—snubbed him even, and treated him like dirt; and then she was cross with me, and said George was a man of whom any woman might be proud.
Ariadne and I went over to the new house often, to get measurements for blinds and curtains and things at home. Mother made them, and then we took them round. Lady Scilly was always there, from twelve to two, and George generally met her and they shut themselves into first one room and then another, discussing it. Vanloads of furniture kept coming in, and all George’s furniture from his old rooms in Mayfair. She kept saying—
“Oh, that dear old marquetry cabinet! How I remember it in Chapel Street, and how the firelight caught it in the evenings!” or else—“That sweet little pair of Flemish bellows? Do you remember when you and I”—something or other?
She marched about and settled everything. George took it quite mildly, and made jokes, at least I suppose they were jokes, for he made her laugh consumedly, so she said. It’s extraordinary how he can make people laugh—people out of his own family!
She is very friendly to me and Ariadne, and has promised to present Ariadne at the next Court. It’s to please George, if she does remember to do it. But if I were Ariadne I should refuse till my own mother had been presented first, so that she could introduce me herself. George ought to insist on it, but he always says “Let them rave!” and that means, Do as you like, but don’t bother me. What he won’t like will be forking out forty pounds for Ariadne’s dress, and it will end by her staying at home. Ariadne wants to be presented badly; she is practising curtseys already, and longing for the season to begin. I would not condescend to owe even a pleasure to Lady Scilly, but Ariadne is so poor-spirited, and Aunt Gerty continually advises her to take what she can get, and make what she can out of George’s “mash,” when well disposed.
About Easter, George got his chance. Lady Scilly proposed a month’s yachting trip in the Mediterranean in somebody’s yacht that they were willing to lend her, on condition she invited her own party and included them. If I had a yacht, I would ask my own party, that is all I can say. She asked George to go with them—“We shan’t see more of Mr. Pawky (i.e. the owner) than we can help, and you can have a study on board and write a yachting novel, like William Black’s, and put old Pawky in. He is quite a character, you know, with a gilded liver, as they say—dyspeptic and all that. I can’t stand him, but you might bear with him a little in the interests of Art!” George had no objection to visiting the scene of his new book at Mr. Pawky’s expense, in the company of his own pals, and accepted at once. I wonder if they will batten down the hatches on Mr. Pawky as soon as they get out to sea, and keep him there for the rest of the voyage? It would be just like them.