The Favorite Short Stories of W. Somerset Maugham

  “I suppose Freddy would go to the House of Lords when George was old enough to stand.”

  “We’ve done a good deal for the party,” said Muriel.

  Muriel was a Catholic and she often told you that she had been educated in a convent-“Such sweet women, those nuns, I always said that if I had a daughter I should have sent her to a convent too’-but she liked her servants to be Church of England, and on Sunday evenings we had what was called supper because the fish was cold and there was ice-cream, so that they could go to church, and we were waited on by two footmen instead of four. It was still light when we finished and Freddy and I, smoking our cigars, walked up and down the terrace in the gloaming. I suppose Muriel had told him of her conversation with me, and it may be that his refusal to let George see his great-uncle still troubled him, but being subtler than she he attacked the question more indirectly. He told me that he had been very much worried about George. It had been a great disappointment that he had refused to go into the army.

  “I should have thought he’d have loved the life,” he said.

  “And he would certainly have looked marvellous in his Guards uniform.”

  “He would, wouldn’t he?” returned Freddy, ingenuously. “I wonder he could resist that.”

  He had been completely idle at Oxford; although his father had given him a very large allowance, he had got monstrously into debt; and now he had been sent down. But though he spoke so tartly I could see that he was not a little proud of his scapegrace son, he loved him with oh, such an unEnglish love, and in his heart it flattered him that George had cut such a dash.

  “Why should you worry?” I said. “You don’t really care if George has a degree or not.”

  Freddy chuckled.

  “No, I don’t suppose I do really. I always think the only important thing about Oxford is that people know you were there, and I dare say that George isn’t any wilder than the other young men in his set. It’s the future I’m thinking of. He’s so damned idle. He doesn’t seem to want to do anything but have a good time.”

  “He’s young, you know.”

  “He’s not interested in politics, and though he’s so good at games he’s not even very keen on sport. He seems to spend most of his time strumming the piano.”

  “That’s a harmless amusement.”

  “Oh, yes, I don’t mind that, but he can’t go on loafing indefinitely. You see, all this will be his one day.” Freddy gave a sweeping gesture that seemed to embrace the whole county, but I knew that he did not own it all yet. “I’m very anxious that he should be fit to assume his responsibilities. His mother is very ambitious for him, but I only want him to be an English gentleman.”

  Freddy gave me a sidelong glance as though he wanted to say something but hesitated in case I thought it ridiculous; but there is one advantage in being a writer that, since people look upon you as of no account, they will often say things to you that they would not to their equals. He thought he would risk it.

  “You know, I’ve got an idea that nowhere in the world now is the Greek ideal of life so perfectly cultivated as by the English country gentleman living on his estates. I think his life has the beauty of a work of art.”

  I could not but smile when I reflected that it was impossible for the English country gentleman in these days to do anything of the sort without a packet of money safely invested in American Bonds, but I smiled with sympathy. I thought it rather touching that this Jewish financier should cherish so romantic a dream.

  “I want him to be a good landlord. I want him to take his part in the affairs of the country. I want him to be a thorough sportsman.”

  “Poor mutt,” I thought, but said: “Well, what are your plans for George now?”

  “I think he has a fancy for the diplomatic service. He’s suggested going to Germany to learn the language.”

  “A very good idea, I should have thought.”

  “For some reason he’s got it into his head that he wants to go to Munich.”

  “A nice place.”

  Next day I went back to London and shortly after my arrival rang up Ferdy.

  “I’m sorry, but George isn’t able to come to lunch on Wednesday.”

  “What about Friday?”

  “Friday’s no good either.” I thought it useless to beat about the bush. “The fact is, his people aren’t keen on his lunching with you.”

  There was a moment’s silence. Then:

  “I see. Well, will you come on Wednesday anyway?”

  “Yes, I’d like to,” I answered.

  So on Wednesday at half past one I strolled round to Curzon Street. Ferdy received me with the somewhat elaborate graciousness that he cultivated. He made no reference to the Blands. We sat in the drawing-room and I could not help reflecting what an eye for beautiful objects that family had. The room was more crowded than the fashion of today approves, and the gold snuff-boxes in vitrines, the French china, appealed to a taste that was not mine; but they were no doubt choice pieces; and the Louise XV suite, with its beautiful petit point, must have been worth an enormous lot of money. The pictures on the walls by Lancret, Pater, and Watteau did not greatly interest me, but I recognized their intrinsic excellence. It was a proper setting for this aged man of the world. It fitted his period. Suddenly the door opened and George was announced. Ferdy saw my surprise and gave me a little smile of triumph.

  “I’m very glad you were able to come after all,” he said as he shook George’s hand.

  I saw him in a glance take in his great-nephew whom he saw today for the first time. George was very well dressed. He wore a short black coat, striped trousers, and the grey double-breasted waistcoat which at that time was the mode. You could only wear it with elegance if you were tall and thin and your belly was slightly concave. I felt sure that Ferdy knew exactly who George’s tailor was and what haberdasher he went to and approved of them. George, so smart and trim, wearing his clothes so beautifully, certainly looked very handsome. We went down to luncheon. Ferdy had the social graces at his fingers’ ends and he put the boy at his ease, but I saw that he was carefully appraising him; then, I do not know why, he began to tell some of his Jewish stories. He told them with gusto and with all his wonderful mimicry. I saw George flush, and though he laughed at them, I could see that it was with embarrassment. I wondered what on earth had induced Ferdy to be so tactless. But he was watching George and he told story after story. It looked as though he would never stop. I wondered if for some reason I could not grasp he was taking a malicious pleasure in the boy’s obvious discomfiture. At last we went upstairs and to make things easier I asked Ferdy to play the piano. He played us three or four little waltzes. He had lost none of his exquisite lightness nor his sense of their lilting rhythm. Then he turned to George.

  “Do you play?” he asked him.

  “A little.”

  “Won’t you play something?”

  “I’m afraid I only play classical music. I don’t think it would interest you.”

  Ferdy smiled slightly, but did not insist. I said it was time for me to go and George accompanied me.

  “What a filthy old Jew,” he said as soon as we were in the street. “I hated those stories of his.”

  “They’re his great stunt. He always tells them.”

  “Would you if you were a Jew?”

  I shrugged my shoulders.

  “How is it you came to lunch after all?” I asked George.

  He chuckled. He was a light-hearted creature, with a sense of humour, and he shook off the slight irritation his great-uncle had caused him.

  “He went to see Granny. You don’t know Granny, do you?”

  “No.”

  “She treats daddy like a kid in Etons. Granny said I was to go to lunch with great-uncle Ferdy and what Granny says goes.”

  “I see.”

  A week or two later George went to Munich to learn German. I happened then to go on a journey and it was not till the following spring that I was again in London.
Soon after my arrival I found myself sitting next to Muriel Bland at dinner. I asked after George.

  “He’s still in Germany,” she said.

  “I see in the papers that you’re going to have a great beano at Tilby for his coming of age.”

  “We’re going to entertain the tenants and they’re making George a presentation.”

  She was less exuberant than usual, but I did not pay much attention to the fact. She led a strenuous life and it might be that she was tired. I knew she liked to talk of her son, so I continued.

  “I suppose George has been having a grand time in Germany,” I said.

  She did not answer for a moment and I gave her a glance. I was surprised to see that her eyes were filled with tears.

  “I’m afraid George has gone mad,” she said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “We’ve been so frightfully worried. Freddy’s so angry, he won’t even discuss it. I don’t know what we’re going to do.”

  Of course it immediately occurred to me that George, who, I supposed, like most young Englishmen sent to learn the language, had been put with a German family, had fallen in love with the daughter of the house and wanted to marry her. I had a pretty strong suspicion that the Blands were intent on his making a very grand marriage.

  “Why, what’s happened?” I asked.

  “He wants to become a pianist.”

  “A what?”

  “A professional pianist.”

  “What on earth put that idea in his head?”

  “Heaven knows. We didn’t know anything about it. We thought he was working for his exam. I went out to see him. I thought I’d like to know that he was getting on all right. Oh, my dear. He looks like nothing on earth. And he used to be so smart; I could have cried. He told me he wasn’t going in for the exam, and had never had any intention of doing so; he’d only suggested the diplomatic service so that we’d let him go to Germany and he’d be able to study music’

  “But has he any talent?”

  “Oh, that’s neither here nor there. Even if he had the genius of Paderewski we couldn’t have George traipsing around the country playing at concerts. No one can deny that I’m very artistic, and so is Freddy, we love music and we’ve always known a lot of artists, but George will have a very great position, it’s out of the question. We’ve set our hearts on his going into Parliament. He’ll be very rich one day. There’s nothing he can’t aspire to.”

  “Did you point all that out to him?”

  “Of course I did. He laughed at me. I told him he’d break his father’s heart. He said his father could always fall back on Harry. Of course I’m devoted to Harry, and he’s as clever as a monkey, but it was always understood that he was to go into the business; even though I am his mother I can see that he hasn’t got the advantages that George has. Do you know what he said to me? He said that if his father would settle five pounds a week on him he would resign everything in Harry’s favour and Harry could be his father’s heir and succeed to the baronetcy and everything. It’s too ridiculous. He said that if the Crown Prince of Roumania could abdicate a throne he didn’t see why he couldn’t abdicate a baronetcy. But you can’t do that. Nothing can prevent him from being third baronet and if Freddy should be granted a peerage from succeeding to it at Freddy’s death. Do you know, he even wants to drop the name of Bland and take some horrible German name.” I could not help asking what. “Bleikogel or something like that,” she answered.

  That was a name I recognized. I remembered Ferdy telling me that Hannah Rabenstein had married Alfons Bleikogel who became eventually Sir Alfred Bland, first Baronet. It was all very strange. I wondered what had happened to the charming, so typically English boy I had seen only a few months before.

  “Of course when I came home and told Freddy he was furious. I’ve never seen him so angry. He foamed at the mouth. He wired to George to come back immediately and George wired back to say he couldn’t on account of his work.”

  “Is he working?”

  “From morning till night. That’s the maddening part of it. He never did a stroke of work in his life. Freddy used to say he was born idle.”

  “H’m.”

  “Then Freddy wired to say that if he didn’t come he’d stop his allowance and George wired back: ‘Stop it.’ That put the lid on. You don’t know what Freddy can be when his back is up.”

  I knew that Freddy had inherited a large fortune, but I knew also that he had immensely increased it, and I could well imagine that behind the courteous and amiable Squire of Tilby there was a ruthless man of affairs. He had been used to having his own way and I could believe that when crossed he would be hard and cruel.

  “We’d been making George a very handsome allowance, but you know how frightfully extravagant he was. We didn’t think he’d be able to hold out long and in point of fact within a month he wrote to Ferdy and asked him to lend him a hundred pounds. Ferdy went to my mother-in-law, she’s his sister, you know, and asked her what it meant. Though they hadn’t spoken for twenty years Freddy went to see him and begged him not to send George a penny, and he promised he wouldn’t. I don’t know how George has been making both ends meet. I’m sure Freddy’s right, but I can’t help being rather worried. If I hadn’t given Freddy my word of honour that I wouldn’t send him anything I think I’d have slipped a few notes in a letter in case of accident. I mean, it’s awful to think that perhaps he hasn’t got enough to eat.”

  “It’ll do him no harm to go short for a bit.”

  “We were in an awful hole, you know. We’d made all sorts of preparations for his coming of age, and I’d issued hundreds of invitations. Suddenly George said he wouldn’t come. I was simply frantic. I wrote and wired. I would have gone over to Germany only Freddy wouldn’t let me. I practically went down on my bended knees to George. I begged him not to put us in such a humiliating position. I mean, it’s the sort of thing it’s so difficult to explain. Then my mother-in-law stepped in. You don’t know her, do you? She’s an extraordinary old woman. You’d never think she was Freddy’s mother. She was German originally, but of very good family.”

  “Oh?”

  “To tell you the truth I’m rather frightened of her. She tackled Freddy and then she wrote to George herself. She said that if he’d come home for his twenty-first birthday she’d pay any debts he had in Munich and we’d all give a patient hearing to anything he had to say. He agreed to that and we’re expecting him one day next week. But I’m not looking forward to it, I can tell you.”

  She gave a deep sigh. When we were walking upstairs after dinner Freddy addressed me.

  “I see Muriel has been telling you about George. The damned fool! I have no patience with him. Fancy wanting to be a pianist. It’s so ungentlemanly.”

  “He’s very young, you know,” I said soothingly.

  “He’s had things too easy for him. I’ve been much too indulgent. There’s never been a thing he wanted that I haven’t given him. I’ll learn him.”

  The Blands had a discreet apprehension of the uses of advertisement and I gathered from the papers that the celebrations at Tilby of George’s twenty-first birthday were conducted in accordance with the usage of English county families. There was a dinner-party and a ball for the gentry and a collation and a dance in marquees on the lawn for the tenants. Expensive bands were brought down from London. In the illustrated papers were pictures of George surrounded by his family being presented with a solid silver tea-set by the tenantry. They had subscribed to have his portrait painted, but since his absence from the country had made it impossible for him to sit, the tea-service had been substituted. I read in the columns of the gossip writers that his father had given him a hunter, his mother a gramophone that changed its own records, his grandmother the dowager Lady Bland an Encyclopaedia Britannica, and his great-uncle Ferdinand Rabenstein a Virgin and Child by Pellegrino da Modena. I could not help observing that these gifts were bulky and not readily convertible into cash. From Ferdy’s presence a
t the festivities I concluded that George’s unaccountable vagary had effected a reconciliation between uncle and nephew. I was right. Ferdy did not at all like the notion of his great-nephew becoming a professional pianist. At the first hint of danger to its prestige the family drew together and a united front was presented to oppose George’s designs. Since I was not there I only know from hearsay what happened when the birthday celebrations were over. Ferdy told me something and so did Muriel, and later George gave me his version. The Blands had very much the impression that when George came home and found himself occupying the centre of the stage, when, surrounded by splendour, he saw for himself once more how much it meant to be the heir of a great estate, he would weaken. They surrounded him with love. They flattered him. They hung on his words. They counted on the goodness of his heart and thought that if they were very kind to him he would not have the courage to cause them pain. They seemed to take it for granted that he had no intention of going back to Germany and in conversation included him in all their plans. George did not say very much. He seemed to be enjoying himself. He did not open a piano. Things looked as though they were going very well. Peace descended on the troubled house. Then one day at luncheon when they were discussing a garden-party to which they had all been asked for one day of the following week, George said pleasantly:

  “Don’t count on me. I shan’t be here.”

  “Oh, George, why not?” asked his mother.

  “I must get back to my work. I’m leaving for Munich on Monday.”

  There was an awful pause. Everyone looked for something to say, but was afraid of saying the wrong thing, and at last it seemed impossible to break it. Luncheon was finished in silence. Then George went into the garden and the others, old Lady Bland and Ferdy, Muriel and Sir Adolphus, into the morning-room. There was a family council. Muriel wept. Freddy flew into a temper. Presently from the drawing-room they heard the sound of someone playing a nocturne of Chopin. It was George. It was as though now he had announced his decision he had gone for comfort, rest, and strength to the instrument he loved. Freddy sprang to his feet.