"Yes--it"s all right, Meg. Poor, poor creature--"
"Come back to the Wilc.o.xes and tell me later--Mr. W much concerned, and slightly t.i.tillated."
"Oh, I"ve no patience with him. I hate him. Poor dear Mr. Bast! he wanted to talk literature, and we would talk business. Such a muddle of a man, and yet so worth pulling through. I like him extraordinarily."
"Well done," said Margaret, kissing her, "but come into the drawing-room now, and don"t talk about him to the Wilc.o.xes. Make light of the whole thing."
Helen came and behaved with a cheerfulness that rea.s.sured their visitor--this hen at all events was fancy-free.
"He"s gone with my blessing," she cried, "and now for puppies."
As they drove away, Mr. Wilc.o.x said to his daughter:
"I am really concerned at the way those girls go on. They are as clever as you make "em, but unpractical--G.o.d bless me! One of these days they"ll go too far. Girls like that oughtn"t to live alone in London.
Until they marry, they ought to have some one to look after them. We must look in more often--we"re better than no one. You like them, don"t you, Evie?"
Evie replied: "Helen"s right enough, but I can"t stand the toothy one.
And I shouldn"t have called either of them girls."
Evie had grown up handsome. Dark-eyed, with the glow of youth under sunburn, built firmly and firm-lipped, she was the best the Wilc.o.xes could do in the way of feminine beauty. For the present, puppies and her father were the only things she loved, but the net of matrimony was being prepared for her, and a few days later she was attracted to a Mr.
Percy Cahill, an uncle of Mrs. Charles"s, and he was attracted to her.
CHAPTER XVII
The Age of Property holds bitter moments even for a proprietor. When a move is imminent, furniture becomes ridiculous, and Margaret now lay awake at nights wondering where, where on earth they and all their belongings would be deposited in September next. Chairs, tables, pictures, books, that had rumbled down to them through the generations, must rumble forward again like a slide of rubbish to which she longed to give the final push, and send toppling into the sea. But there were all their father"s books--they never read them, but they were their father"s, and must be kept. There was the marble-topped chiffonier--their mother had set store by it, they could not remember why. Round every k.n.o.b and cushion in the house gathered a sentiment that was at times personal, but more often a faint piety to the dead, a prolongation of rites that might have ended at the grave.
It was absurd, if you came to think of it; Helen and Tibby came to think of it; Margaret was too busy with the house-agents. The feudal ownership of land did bring dignity, whereas the modern ownership of movables is reducing us again to a nomadic horde. We are reverting to the civilisation of luggage, and historians of the future will note how the middle cla.s.ses accreted possessions without taking root in the earth, and may find in this the secret of their imaginative poverty. The Schlegels were certainly the poorer for the loss of Wickham Place. It had helped to balance their lives, and almost to counsel them. Nor is their ground-landlord spiritually the richer. He has built flats on its site, his motor-cars grow swifter, his exposures of Socialism more trenchant. But he has spilt the precious distillation of the years, and no chemistry of his can give it back to society again.
Margaret grew depressed; she was anxious to settle on a house before they left town to pay their annual visit to Mrs. Munt. She enjoyed this visit, and wanted to have her mind at ease for it. Swanage, though dull, was stable, and this year she longed more than usual for its fresh air and for the magnificent downs that guard it on the north. But London thwarted her; in its atmosphere she could not concentrate. London only stimulates, it cannot sustain; and Margaret, hurrying over its surface for a house without knowing what sort of a house she wanted, was paying for many a thrilling sensation in the past. She could not even break loose from culture, and her time was wasted by concerts which it would be a sin to miss, and invitations which it would never do to refuse. At last she grew desperate; she resolved that she would go nowhere and be at home to no one until she found a house, and broke the resolution in half an hour.
Once she had humorously lamented that she had never been to Simpson"s restaurant in the Strand. Now a note arrived from Miss Wilc.o.x, asking her to lunch there. Mr Cahill was coming and the three would have such a jolly chat, and perhaps end up at the Hippodrome. Margaret had no strong regard for Evie, and no desire to meet her fiance, and she was surprised that Helen, who had been far funnier about Simpson"s, had not been asked instead. But the invitation touched her by its intimate tone. She must know Evie Wilc.o.x better than she supposed, and declaring that she "simply must," she accepted.
But when she saw Evie at the entrance of the restaurant, staring fiercely at nothing after the fashion of athletic women, her heart failed her anew. Miss Wilc.o.x had changed perceptibly since her engagement. Her voice was gruffer, her manner more downright, and she was inclined to patronise the more foolish virgin. Margaret was silly enough to be pained at this. Depressed at her isolation, she saw not only houses and furniture, but the vessel of life itself slipping past her, with people like Evie and Mr. Cahill on board.
There are moments when virtue and wisdom fail us, and one of them came to her at Simpson"s in the Strand. As she trod the staircase, narrow, but carpeted thickly, as she entered the eating-room, where saddles of mutton were being trundled up to expectant clergymen, she had a strong, if erroneous, conviction of her own futility, and wished she had never come out of her backwater, where nothing happened except art and literature, and where no one ever got married or succeeded in remaining engaged. Then came a little surprise. "Father might be of the party--yes, father was." With a smile of pleasure she moved forward to greet him, and her feeling of loneliness vanished.
"I thought I"d get round if I could," said he. "Evie told me of her little plan, so I just slipped in and secured a table. Always secure a table first. Evie, don"t pretend you want to sit by your old father, because you don"t. Miss Schlegel, come in my side, out of pity. My goodness, but you look tired! Been worrying round after your young clerks?"
"No, after houses," said Margaret, edging past him into the box. "I"m hungry, not tired; I want to eat heaps."
"That"s good. What"ll you have?"
"Fish pie," said she, with a glance at the menu.
"Fish pie! Fancy coming for fish pie to Simpson"s. It"s not a bit the thing to go for here."
"Go for something for me, then," said Margaret, pulling off her gloves.
Her spirits were rising, and his reference to Leonard Bast had warmed her curiously.
"Saddle of mutton," said he after profound reflection; "and cider to drink. That"s the type of thing. I like this place, for a joke, once in a way. It is so thoroughly Old English. Don"t you agree?"
"Yes," said Margaret, who didn"t. The order was given, the joint rolled up, and the carver, under Mr. Wilc.o.x"s direction, cut the meat where it was succulent, and piled their plates high. Mr. Cahill insisted on sirloin, but admitted that he had made a mistake later on. He and Evie soon fell into a conversation of the "No, I didn"t; yes, you did"
type--conversation which, though fascinating to those who are engaged in it, neither desires nor deserves the attention of others.
"It"s a golden rule to tip the carver. Tip everywhere"s my motto."
"Perhaps it does make life more human."
"Then the fellows know one again. Especially in the East, if you tip, they remember you from year"s end to year"s end."
"Have you been in the East?"
"Oh, Greece and the Levant. I used to go out for sport and business to Cyprus; some military society of a sort there. A few piastres, properly distributed, help to keep one"s memory green. But you, of course, think this shockingly cynical. How"s your discussion society getting on? Any new Utopias lately?"
"No, I"m house-hunting, Mr. Wilc.o.x, as I"ve already told you once. Do you know of any houses?"
"Afraid I don"t."
"Well, what"s the point of being practical if you can"t find two distressed females a house? We merely want a small house with large rooms, and plenty of them."
"Evie, I like that! Miss Schlegel expects me to turn house-agent for her!"
"What"s that, father?"
"I want a new home in September, and some one must find it. I can"t."
"Percy, do you know of anything?"
"I can"t say I do," said Mr. Cahill.
"How like you! You"re never any good."
"Never any good. Just listen to her! Never any good. Oh, come!"
"Well, you aren"t. Miss Schlegel, is he?"
The torrent of their love, having splashed these drops at Margaret, swept away on its habitual course. She sympathised with it now, for a little comfort had restored her geniality. Speech and silence pleased her equally, and while Mr. Wilc.o.x made some preliminary inquiries about cheese, her eyes surveyed the restaurant, and aired its well-calculated tributes to the solidity of our past. Though no more Old English than the works of Kipling, it had selected its reminiscences so adroitly that her criticism was lulled, and the guests whom it was nourishing for imperial purposes bore the outer semblance of Parson Adams or Tom Jones.
Sc.r.a.ps of their talk jarred oddly on the ear. "Right you are! I"ll cable out to Uganda this evening," came from the table behind. "Their Emperor wants war; well, let him have it," was the opinion of a clergyman. She smiled at such incongruities. "Next time," she said to Mr. Wilc.o.x, "you shall come to lunch with me at Mr. Eustace Miles"s."
"With pleasure."
"No, you"d hate it," she said, pushing her gla.s.s towards him for some more cider. "It"s all proteids and body buildings, and people come up to you and beg your pardon, but you have such a beautiful aura."
"A what?"
"Never heard of an aura? Oh, happy, happy man! I scrub at mine for hours. Nor of an astral plane?"