The Last September (9 page)

Francie said: “I do wonder now whether this weather will last.” This gold weather had all the delight of a new perception, it made Danielstown real as a memory.

“I suppose they don’t really feel like that inside,” said Laurence.

“I
wonder at them
bringing
a child like
Hercules. I
found him walking about the house when I went up for my air cushion. The poor little fellow … I let him blow up my air cushion and then I took him and showed him photographs of the Carnival that I brought back from Nice. We talked quite a time; he tells me he is afraid of bats. I wonder now why they called him Hercules.”

“Wouldn’t it be terrible to be in the Army? . .”

“Isn’t that young Mr. Lesworth devoted to Lois? I wonder does she feel it at all?”

“I always wonder what one does in the Army when one’s not doing something particular very particularly.”

“I wonder if they would marry.”

“Marry?” said Laurence, surprised into attention. “I don’t see why. Though I don’t see why not. As Lois never does anything or seems to want to, I suppose she must be hoping to marry someone. And Lesworth is pleasant, I think, and rather pretty. He is like a photograph of a man in an advertisement putting on the right kind of collar. Doesn’t advertising develop—I sometimes wonder if one might not think of taking it up.”

“But doesn’t she draw very nicely?”

“Well, she could draw people in the Army doing things, like Lady Butler.”

“She is so sweet, I think; I love to watch her.”

“Her consumption of tennis is something enormous. There’s tennis tomorrow at Castle Trent and I’ve got to drive her over. I often wonder whether she really would get assaulted by Black and Tans if she went alone, or by sinister patriots, or whether she might not be old enough now to look after herself.”

“I’m afraid at
her
age—” said Francie, blushing, “her age isn’t any protection.

“I cannot imagine wanting to assault anybody. But then I never can conceive of anybody else’s mentality—or isn’t that mentality? Why is it so much worse for a young girl to miss tennis than for a young man to miss Spain? I suppose it is something to do with the life force and that one must not trace the connection.”

“I wonder why she’s so fond of that Livvy Thompson—she seems to me managing.”

“She’s not fond—it’s contiguity. Why should they chop up the rather beautiful name of Olivia into something that sounds like cat’s meat?”

This
Francie well understood, she did not care to be called Frances, it sounded formal. She sighed and gathered the folds of her grey-and-blue “mottledy” foulard. She had been wondering—watching Hugo so happy with Mrs. Trent, and now the speculation recurred to her—whether the woman Hugo had really needed would not have worn coats and skirts, snapped her fingers at dogs and recrossed her legs with decision. Mrs. Trent was an amusing “good sort”; she so radiated the quality that Francie, after a minute or two’s conversation, had felt quite a “good sort” also. Was she, though, perfectly understanding? But then did not Hugo perhaps feel a little smothered in one’s own understanding, a little reduced by it? For instance: Francie thought, honestly, Hugo had played magnificently this afternoon; several people had said to her: “It’s a delight to see your husband play on these courts again—” They would not have said that, surely, if he had not been playing magnificently? But even so armed, she would not be able to combat Hugo’s conviction that his tennis was going off because it was something he never mentioned and he would be furious at hearing it put into words. So still she would have to feel his pride suffer—as though he were growing old, when there wasn’t a shadow of age on him. She remembered how he had shown up today, playing, sitting or walking, among the young men. She liked the young men but they seemed all limbs and faces, not yet related. She wondered what Hugo had thought of the young men.

She thought of their room upstairs with the grey light on the ceiling; of the ghostly roses that still 
showed faintly when one drew the curtains over the daylight. She supposed she ought to be lying down; she got up, murmuring something, and went indoors. Laurence stood up, vacillating. He wondered if they would meet him and make him do things if he were to venture up for his book.

Francie, crossing the anteroom, was waylaid by Lady Naylor coming out of Lois’s room. “Ah, there you are, Francie, good! Now I’m longing to know what you thought of them all. To tell you the truth, I am thankful it’s safely over. I hope they enjoyed themselves really: they
looked
all right.”

“Indeed they must have! It was a great success.” They sat down on two of the crimson chairs, stepping-stones over a lake of floor, to discuss the party.

Francie declared how pleasant she had found Mrs. Archie Trent, and how nice it had been to see Mrs. Carey again, and how handsome Nona was growing up. And what a pity it was, she said, about the Hartigans; they had been grown-up girls when she had seen them last and it did seem hard! “And oh,” she cried, in a glow of pleasure and sympathy, “isn’t that young Mr. Lesworth very devoted?”

“Yes, he has charming manners; he comes over here a good deal. He’s so helpful with chairs and rugs; I do wish he were Laurence!”

“But so devoted to Lois—and really one can’t be surprised. The way he follows her round with his eyes —and his feet too—”

“
Sssh!
”
exclaimed Lady Naylor. “She’s in her room! I wouldn’t like her to pick up ideas like Livvy’s. Are you sure, by the way, you’re not thinking of Mr. Armstrong? There’s a very great case of devotion
there.
He follows Lois and Livvy follows him. I expect in the general confusion, with so many people, you mixed up the young men. They are all alike—it’s a pity, I always think. It’s a pity, too, about Lois and Livvy; it isn’t a friendship I like. But poor Livvy’s motherless and she’s always riding over to meals, and of course Lois needs girls of her own age. She made very nice friends at her school in England, but it’s so unlucky, they’re never allowed to come over. Something said in the English press has given rise to an idea that this country’s unsafe. It’s lucky for Lois…I should never go by the papers about England…No, Francie, if you didn’t mix up the young men, I really don’t know what you mean.”

“Oh, it’s been very stupid of me,” cried Francie, flushing with agitation. “Of course I should never have said if I hadn’t thought—if I hadn’t been led to think … No, I see now that I oughtn’t to have. But I thought from what everyone said…”

“But I am still quite in the dark, dear,” said Lady Naylor, flushed also and smiling with irritation. “I suppose, however, you must have gathered that as I
don’t
understand what you
do
mean, what you mean cannot really be so.”

“Oh, of course,” agreed Francie, ruffling the silk on her lap with light, feathery touches. “All the same, I do think you ought to know, Myra, that everyone said …”

“One cannot help
what
people
say, though it is
always annoying. Not that I ever do know what they say. I make a point of not knowing. You know how I’vd always turned my face against gossip, especially these days: it’s annoying to find it everywhere, even at one’s own parties. It’s a very great danger, I think, to the life of this country.”

“Well, but really, you couldn’t say this was political. It seems to me natural that people should take an interest—they’re all so fond of her. If young Mr. Lesworth and Lois
are
really—”

Lady Naylor was forced into open country. “Oh, is that it?” she cried in enlightenment. “But really, my dear Francie, what a fuss about nothing! No, not you, dear; I never meant you made the fuss, but really with all these hints: ‘People are saying,’ you might have meant almost anything. One’s friends do excel themselves, really! Just because they’ve played tennis together and danced once or twice! Really, you would think they wanted one to divide one’s tennis parties up like a Quaker meeting, and turn ball-rooms into that horrible kind of country dancing they have in England—Anna Partridge’s people do it—women hopping one way, waving things, and men all hopping the other way, stamping. ‘Really,’ as I said to Anna Partridge, ‘if this is what you call getting in touch with the people give me what you call feudalism!’ “

“Yes. But really, Myra, is it so very improbable? They’re both so young, and so—”

“Why, yes, of course; exactly!” Lady Naylor sat up in her chair with a heightening of colour, an incisive gesture; her eyes threatened a falcon-swoop on her friend’s rash flank. “E
x-actlyI
Which is one of the many things that do make it so impossible.”

“I said, ‘Improbable!’ ” Francie spoke with a funny zest. She hated arguments as she hated rain; once caught in the rain she could hear it crashing on her umbrella, feel it chill on her shoulders, with exhilaration. She knew so little excitement. She now felt, for the first time, Myra’s equal in vigour and personality; she felt this opposition to Myra must at last increase their confidence in each other.

“In the first place,” said Lady Naylor, “he’s a subaltern. Subalterns can’t marry—not of course that they’re like priests, but they might just as well be until they are captains and thirty. Colonel Boatley feels very strongly … Of course, he’s a thoroughly nice boy, so much liked in the regiment. But then, what
are
the Rutlands nowadays? Of course they did magnificently in the War. But now they seem to be full of people like that extraordinary little Mrs. Vermont, who turned up perfectly pleased with herself this afternoon in spite of Lois having quite forgotten that she’d asked her. No,
he
of course is charming, but he seems to have no relations. One cannot trace him. His mother, he says, lives in Surrey, and of course you do know, don’t you, what Surrey
is.
It says nothing, absolutely; part of it is opposite the Thames Embankment. Practically nobody who lives in Surrey ever seems to have been heard of, and if one does hear of them they have never heard of anybody else who lives in Surrey. Really altogether, I think all English people very difficult to trace. They are so pleasant and civil, but I do often wonder if they are not a little shallow: for no reason at all they will pack up everything and move across six counties … Of course, I don’t say Gerald Lesworth’s people are in
trade
— I should never say a thing like that without foundation. Besides if they were in trade there would be money, money in English people shows so much and he quite evidently hasn’t any. No, I should say they were just villa-ry.”

“But there are so many villas in England,” said Francie, “that some of the people who live in them are bound to be nice. I often think so, looking out of the train.”

“Very nice in their way, I am sure—but that’s not the immediate point, dear. There is no question at all—you understand?—of anything between Mr. Lesworth and Lois. And of course naturally
they
haven’t thought of it—if they had, don’t you see, they’d be much more careful to make it appear they hadn’t. Of course I agree that Lois ought to be more careful. I was careful at her age; I was careful by instinct, which is a thing that girls nowadays seem to lack. There seems nothing to do between putting ideas in a girl’s head and letting her behave like an absolute donkey. It is all very difficult, really. If she were my own niece I should speak to her—I should certainly speak to Laurence if he were going on like that—but as she’s Richard’s niece I don’t very well see that I can. There’s so little to go on. And I really cannot have Richard bothered, it makes him so difficult. When he feels he ought to do something and isn’t quite sure what, there’s no saying at all what he may do. One does dislike awkwardness. And it doesn’t seem kind to ask the young man his intentions when if he should have any they would have to be quashed immediately … No, one must leave it at this. I rely on you, Francie, to contradict any more of this gossip that comes your way, and you might ask Hugo to also— if he has heard any— Perhaps on the whole better not put the idea into his head; he might forget and discuss it with Richard … Meanwhile, I shall talk to Lois seriously about her future. She draws very nicely; I often think that she might take that up. I must tell her to show you and Hugo some of her drawings.”

“But I don’t know anything about drawing.”

“Oh, all she needs is a little encouragement.”

“Just one thing, Myra—I think you’re so wise, you’re so perfectly right, as you know. I do always in general believe in letting things like this take their course. But … as this thing can’t
have
a course, really mustn’t: is it quite fair to the young man? Because Lois is so very—”

Here she broke off, scared by a terrible clatter in Lois’s room. A pail had been kicked and some furniture violently shifted.

“Oh, Francie!” exclaimed Lady Naylor reproachfully. “You ought to remember she’s there! One can’t be too careful! In fact, if you don’t mind, I expect we had better not talk any more. You must go and lie down—you’re looking as fresh as a rose but I know how Hugo insists upon it.”

They rose, she took Francie’s arm and led her as far as her door. Francie felt like something being put back in its box. Lady Naylor went down, calling, to look for Laurence and ask him to bring the chairs in and lock up the garden.