Mrs. Ames (6 page)

Again a little shy smile quivered on Millie Evans' mouth.

‘I shall tell my husband,' she said. ‘I shall say you told me you spend an hour a day in weeding, so that you shouldn't ever set eyes on him. And then you make poetry about it afterwards.'

Again he laughed.

‘Well, now, I call that downright wicked of you,' he said, ‘twisting my words about in that way. General, I want your opinion about that glass of champagne. It's a '96 wine, and wants drinking.'

The General applied his fishlike mouth to his glass.

‘Wants drinking, does it?' he said. ‘Well, it'll get it from me. Delicious! Goo' dry wine.'

Major Ames turned to Millie Evans again.

‘Beg your pardon, Mrs Evans,' he said, ‘but General Fortescue likes to know what's before him. Yes, downright wicked of you! I'm sure I wish Amy had asked Dr Evans tonight, but there - you know what Amy is. She's got a
notion that it will make a pleasanter dinner table not to ask husband and wife always together. She says it's done a great deal in London now. But they can't put on to their tables in London such sweet peas as I grow here in my bit of a garden. Look at those in front of you. Black Michaels, they are. Look at the size of them. Did you ever see such sweet peas? I wonder what Amy is going to give us for dinner tonight. Bit of lamb next, is it? And a quail to follow. Hope you'll go Nap, Mrs Evans; I must say Amy has a famous cook. And what do you think of us all down at Riseborough, now you've had time to settle down and look about you? I daresay you and your husband say some sharp things about us, hey? Find us very stick-in-the-mud after London?'

She gave him one of those shy little deprecating glances that made him involuntarily feel that he was a most agreeable companion.

‘Ah, you are being wicked now!' she said. ‘Everyone is delightful. So kind, so hospitable. Now, Major Ames, do tell me more about your flowers. Black Michaels, you said those were. I must go in for gardening, and will you begin to teach me a little? Why is it that your flowers are so much more beautiful than anybody's? At least, I needn't ask: it must be because you understand them better than anybody.'

Major Ames felt that this was an uncommonly agreeable woman, and for half a second contrasted her pleasant eagerness to hear about his garden with his wife's complete indifference to it. She liked flowers on the table, but she scarcely knew a hollyhock from a geranium.

‘Well, well,' he said, ‘I don't say that my flowers, which you are so polite as to praise, don't owe something to my care. Rain or fine, I don't suppose I spend less than an average of four hours a day among them, year in, year out.
And that's better, isn't it, than sitting at the club, listening to all the gossip and tittle-tattle of the place?'

‘Ah, you are like me,' she said. ‘I hate gossip. It is so dull. Gardening is so much more interesting.'

He laughed again.

‘Well, as I tell Amy,' he said, ‘if our friends come here expecting to hear all the tittle-tattle of the place, they will be in for a disappointment. Amy and I like to give our friends a hearty welcome and a good dinner, and pleasant conversation about really interesting things. I know little about the gossip of the town; you would find me strangely ignorant if you wanted to talk about it. But politics now -one of those beastly Radical members of Parliament lunched with us only the week before last, and I assure you that Amy asked him some questions he found it hard to answer. In fact, he didn't answer them: he begged the question, begged the question. There was one, I remember, which just bowled him out. She said, ‘What is to happen to the parks of the landed gentry, if you take them away from the owners?' Well, that bowled him out, as they say in cricket. Look at Sir James's place, for instance, your cousin's place, Amy's cousin's place. Will they plant a row of villas along the garden terrace? And who is to live in them if they do? Grant that Lloyd George - she said that - grant that Lloyd George wants a villa there, that will be one villa. But the terrace there will hold a dozen villas. Who will take the rest of them? She asked him that. They take away all our property, and then expect us to build houses on other people's! Don't talk to me!'

The concluding sentence was not intended to put a stop on this pleasant conversation; it was only the natural ejaculation of one connected with landed proprietors. Mrs Evans understood it in that sense.

‘Do tell me all about it,' she said. ‘Of course, I am only a woman, and we are supposed to have no brains, are we not? And to be able to understand nothing about politics. But will they really take my cousin James's place away from him? I think Radicals must be wicked.'

‘More fools than knaves, I always say,' said Major Ames magnanimously. ‘They are deluded, like the poor Suffragettes. Suffragettes now! A woman's sphere of influence lies in her home. Women are the queens of the earth; I've often said that, and what do queens want with votes? Would Amy have any more influence in Riseborough if she had a vote? Not a bit of it. Well, then, why go about smacking the faces of policemen and chaining yourself to a railing? If I had my way - '

Major Ames became of lower voice and greater confidence.

‘Amy doesn't wholly agree with me,' he said, ‘and it's a pleasure to thrash the matter out with somebody like yourself, who has sensible views on the subject. What use are women in politics? None at all, as you just said. It's for women to rock the cradle, and rule the world. I say, and I have always said, that to give them a vote would be to wreck their influence, God bless them. But Amy doesn't agree with me. I say that I will vote - she's a Conservative, of course, and so am I - I will vote as she wishes me to. But she says it's the principle of the thing, not the practice. But what she calls principle, I call want of principle. Home: that's the woman's sphere.'

Mrs Evans gave a little sigh.

‘I never heard it so beautifully expressed,' she said. ‘Major Ames, why don't you go in for politics?'

Major Ames felt himself flattered; he felt also that he deserved the flattery. Hence, to him now, it ceased to be
flattery, and became a tribute. He became more confidential, and vastly more vapid.

‘My dear lady,' he said, ‘politics is a dirty business nowadays. We can serve our cause best by living a quiet and dignified life, without ostentation, as you see, but by being gentlemen. It is the silent protest against these socialistic ideas that will tell in the long run. What should I do at Westminster? Upon my soul, if I found myself sitting opposite those Radical louts, it would take me all my time to keep my temper. No, no, let me attend to my garden, and give my friends good dinners - bless my soul, Amy is letting us have an ice tonight - strawberry ice, I expect; that was why she asked me whether there were plenty of strawberries. Glace de fraises; she likes her menu cards printed in French, though I am sure “strawberry ice” would tell us all we wanted to know. What's in a name after all?'

Conversation had already shifted, and Major Ames turned swiftly to a dry-skinned Mrs Brooks who sat on his left. She was a sad high-church widow who embroidered a great deal. Her dress was outlined with her own embroideries, so, too, were many altar cloths at the church of St Barnabas. She and Mrs Ames had a sort of religious rivalry over its decoration; the one arranged the copious white lilies that crowned the cloth made by the other. Their rivalry was not without silent jealousy, and it was already quite well known that Mrs Brooks had said that lilies of the valley were quite as suitable as Madonna lilies, which shed a nasty yellow pollen on the altar cloth. But Madonna lilies were larger; a decoration required fewer ‘blooms'. In other moods also she was slightly acid.

Mrs Evans turned slowly to her right, where Harry was sitting. She might almost be supposed to know that she had a lovely neck, at least it was hard to think that she had lived with it for thirty-seven years in complete
unconsciousness of it. If she moved her head very quickly, there was just a suspicion of loose skin about it. But she did not move her head very quickly.

‘And now let us go on talking,' she said. ‘Have you told my little girl all about Cambridge? Tell me all about Cambridge too. What fun you must have! A lot of young men together, with no stupid women and girls to bother them. Do you play a great deal of lawn tennis?'

Harry reconsidered for a moment his verdict concerning the wonderfulness of her. It was hardly happy to talk to a member of the Omar Club about games and the advantages of having no girls about.

‘No; I don't play games much,' he said. ‘The set I am in don't care for them.'

She tilted her head a little back, as if asking pardon for her ignorance.

‘I didn't know,' she said. ‘I thought perhaps you liked games - football, racquets, all that kind of thing. I am sure you could play them beautifully if you chose. Or perhaps you like gardening? I had such a nice talk to your father about flowers. What a lot he knows about them!'

Flowers were better than games, anyhow; Harry put down his spoon without finishing his ice.

‘Have you ever noticed what a wonderful colour La France roses turn at twilight?' he asked. ‘All the shadows between the petals become blue, quite blue.'

‘Do they really? You must show me sometime. Are there some in your garden here?'

‘Yes, but father doesn't care about them so much because they are common. I think that is so strange of him. Sunsets are common, too, aren't they? There is a sunset every day. But the fact that a thing is common doesn't make it less beautiful.'

She gave a little sigh.

‘But what a nice idea,' she said. ‘I am sure you thought of it. Do you talk about these things much at Cambridge?'

Mrs Ames began to collect ladies' eyes at this moment, and the conversation had to be suspended. Millie Evans, though she was rather taller than Harry, managed, as she passed him on the way to the door, to convey the impression of looking at him.

‘You must tell me all about it,' she said. ‘And show me those delicious roses turning blue at twilight.'

Dinner had been at a quarter to eight, and when the men joined the women again in the drawing room, light still lingered in the midsummer sky. Then Harry, greatly daring, since such a procedure was utterly contrary to all established precedents, persuaded Mrs Evans to come out into the garden, and observe for herself the chameleonic properties of the roses. Then he had ventured on another violation of rule, since all rights of flower-picking were vested in his father, and had plucked her half a dozen of them. But on their return with the booty, and the establishment of the blue theory, his father, so far from resenting this invasion of his privileges, had merely said:

‘The rascal might have found you something choicer than that, Mrs Evans. But we'll see what we can find you tomorrow.'

She had again seemed to look up at Harry.

‘Nothing can be lovelier than my beautiful roses,' she said. ‘But it is sweet of you to think of sending me some more. Cousin Amy, look at the roses Mr Harry has given me.'

Carriages arrived as usual that night at half past ten, at which hour, too, a gaunt, grenadier-like maid of certain
age, rapped loudly on the front door, and demanded Mrs Brooks, whom she was to protect on her way home, and as usual carriages and the grenadier waited till twenty minutes to eleven. But even at a quarter to, no conveyance, by some mischance, had come for Mrs Evans, and despite her protests, Major Ames insisted on escorting her and Elsie back to her house. Occasionally, when such mistakes occurred, it had been Harry's duty to see home the uncarriaged, but tonight, when it would have been his pleasure, the privilege was denied him. So, instead, after saying goodnight to his mother, he went swiftly to his room, there to write a mysterious letter to a member of the Omar Club, and compose a short poem, which should, however unworthily, commemorate this amorous evening.

There is nothing in the world more rightly sacred than the first dawnings of love in a young man, but, on the other hand, there is nothing more ludicrous if his emotions are inspired, or even tinged, by self-consciousness and the sense of how fine a young spark he is. And our unfortunate Harry was charged with this absurdity; all through the evening it had been present to his mind, how dashing and Byronic a tale this would prove at the next meeting of the Omar Khayyam Club; with what fine frenzy he would throw off, in his hour of inspiration after the yellow wine, the little heart wail which he was now about to compose, as soon as his letter to Gerald Everett was written. And lest it should seem unwarrantable to intrude in the spirit of ridicule on a young man's rapture and despair, an extract from his letter should give solid justification.

‘Of course, I can't give names,' he said, ‘because you know how such things get about; but, my God, Gerald, how wonderful she is. I saw her this afternoon for the first time, and she dined with us tonight. She understands
everything - whatever I said, I saw reflected in her eyes, as the sky is reflected in still water. After dinner I took her out into the garden, and showed her how the shadows of the La France roses turn blue at dusk. I quoted to her these two lines -

“O, thou art fairer than the evening air, Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars.”

‘And I THINK she saw that I quoted AT her. Of course, she turned it off, and said, “What pretty lines!” but I think she saw. And she carried my roses home. Lucky roses!

‘Gerald, I am miserable! I haven't told you yet. For she is married. She has a great stupid husband, years and years older than herself. She has, too, a great stupid daughter. There's another marvel for you! Honestly and soberly she does not look more than twenty-five. I will write again, and tell you how all goes. But I think she likes me; there is clearly something in common between us. There is no doubt she enjoyed our little walk in the dusk, when the roses turned blue … Have you had any successes lately?'