Of course, as I say, one never really _knows_ one's ground, and one maymake mistakes occasionally. But then one's mistakes sometimes turn outassets in the long-run: if we had never bungled away our Americancolonies we might never have had the boy from the States to teach us howto wear our hair and cut our clothes, and we must get our ideas fromsomewhere, I suppose. Even the Hooligan was probably invented in Chinacenturies before we thought of him. England must wake up, as the Duke ofDevonshire said the other day; wasn't it? Oh, well, it was someone else.Not that I ever indulge in despair about the Future; there always havebeen men who have gone about despairing of the Future, and when theFuture arrives it says nice, superior things about their having actedaccording to their lights. It is dreadful to think that other people'sgrandchildren may one day rise up and call one amiable.
There are moments when one sympathises with Herod.
REGINALD AT THE CARLTON
"A most variable climate," said the Duchess; "and how unfortunate that weshould have had that very cold weather at a time when coal was so dear!So distressing for the poor."
"Someone has observed that Providence is always on the side of the bigdividends," remarked Reginald.
The Duchess ate an anchovy in a shocked manner; she was sufficiently old-fashioned to dislike irreverence towards dividends.
Reginald had left the selection of a feeding-ground to her womanlyintuition, but he chose the wine himself, knowing that womanly intuitionstops short at claret. A woman will cheerfully choose husbands for herless attractive friends, or take sides in a political controversy withoutthe least knowledge of the issues involved--but no woman ever cheerfullychose a claret.
"Hors d'oeuvres have always a pathetic interest for me," said Reginald:"they remind me of one's childhood that one goes through, wondering whatthe next course is going to be like--and during the rest of the menu onewishes one had eaten more of the hors d'oeuvres. Don't you love watchingthe different ways people have of entering a restaurant? There is thewoman who races in as though her whole scheme of life were held togetherby a one-pin despotism which might abdicate its functions at any moment;it's really a relief to see her reach her chair in safety. Then thereare the people who troop in with an-unpleasant-duty-to-perform air, as ifthey were angels of Death entering a plague city. You see that type ofBriton very much in hotels abroad. And nowadays there are always theJohannesbourgeois, who bring a Cape-to-Cairo atmosphere with them--whatmay be called the Rand Manner, I suppose."
"Talking about hotels abroad," said the Duchess, "I am preparing notesfor a lecture at the Club on the educational effects of modern travel,dealing chiefly with the moral side of the question. I was talking toLady Beauwhistle's aunt the other day--she's just come back from Paris,you know. Such a sweet woman"--
"And so silly. In these days of the over-education of women she's quiterefreshing. They say some people went through the siege of Paris withoutknowing that France and Germany were at war; but the Beauwhistle aunt iscredited with having passed the whole winter in Paris under theimpression that the Humberts were a kind of bicycle . . . Isn't there abishop or somebody who believes we shall meet all the animals we haveknown on earth in another world? How frightfully embarrassing to meet awhole shoal of whitebait you had last known at Prince's! I'm sure in mynervousness I should talk of nothing but lemons. Still, I daresay theywould be quite as offended if one hadn't eaten them. I know if I wereserved up at a cannibal feast I should be dreadfully annoyed if anyonefound fault with me for not being tender enough, or having been kept toolong."
"My idea about the lecture," resumed the Duchess hurriedly, "is toinquire whether promiscuous Continental travel doesn't tend to weaken themoral fibre of the social conscience. There are people one knows, quitenice people when they are in England, who are so _different_ when theyare anywhere the other side of the Channel."
"The people with what I call Tauchnitz morals," observed Reginald. "Onthe whole, I think they get the best of two very desirable worlds. And,after all, they charge so much for excess luggage on some of thoseforeign lines that it's really an economy to leave one's reputationbehind one occasionally."
"A scandal, my dear Reginald, is as much to be avoided at Monaco or anyof those places as at Exeter, let us say."
"Scandal, my dear Irene--I may call you Irene, mayn't I?"
"I don't know that you have known me long enough for that."
"I've known you longer than your god-parents had when they took theliberty of calling you that name. Scandal is merely the compassionateallowance which the gay make to the humdrum. Think how many blamelesslives are brightened by the blazing indiscretions of other people. Tellme, who is the woman with the old lace at the table on our left? Oh,_that_ doesn't matter; it's quite the thing nowadays to stare at peopleas if they were yearlings at Tattersall's."
"Mrs. Spelvexit? Quite a charming woman; separated from her husband"--
"Incompatibility of income?"
"Oh, nothing of that sort. By miles of frozen ocean, I was going to say.He explores ice-floes and studies the movements of herrings, and haswritten a most interesting book on the home-life of the Esquimaux; butnaturally he has very little home-life of his own."
"A husband who comes home with the Gulf Stream _would_ be rather a tied-up asset."
"His wife is exceedingly sensible about it. She collects postage-stamps.Such a resource. Those people with her are the Whimples, very oldacquaintances of mine; they're always having trouble, poor things."
"Trouble is not one of those fancies you can take up and drop at anymoment; it's like a grouse-moor or the opium-habit--once you start ityou've got to keep it up."
"Their eldest son was such a disappointment to them; they wanted him tobe a linguist, and spent no end of money on having him taught tospeak--oh, dozens of languages!--and then he became a Trappist monk. Andthe youngest, who was intended for the American marriage market, hasdeveloped political tendencies, and writes pamphlets about the housing ofthe poor. Of course it's a most important question, and I devote a gooddeal of time to it myself in the mornings; but, as Laura Whimple says,it's as well to have an establishment of one's own before agitating aboutother people's. She feels it very keenly, but she always maintains acheerful appetite, which I think is so unselfish of her."
"There are different ways of taking disappointment. There was a girl Iknew who nursed a wealthy uncle through a long illness, borne by her withChristian fortitude, and then he died and left his money to a swine-feverhospital. She found she'd about cleared stock in fortitude by that time,and now she gives drawing-room recitations. That's what I call beingvindictive."
"Life is full of its disappointments," observed the Duchess, "and Isuppose the art of being happy is to disguise them as illusions. Butthat, my dear Reginald, becomes more difficult as one grows older."
"I think it's more generally practised than you imagine. The young haveaspirations that never come to pass, the old have reminiscences of whatnever happened. It's only the middle-aged who are really conscious oftheir limitations--that is why one should be so patient with them. Butone never is."
"After all," said the Duchess, "the disillusions of life may depend onour way of assessing it. In the minds of those who come after us we maybe remembered for qualities and successes which we quite left out of thereckoning."
"It's not always safe to depend on the commemorative tendencies of thosewho come after us. There may have been disillusionments in the lives ofthe mediaeval saints, but they would scarcely have been better pleased ifthey could have foreseen that their names would be associated nowadayschiefly with racehorses and the cheaper clarets. And now, if you cantear yourself away from the salted almonds, we'll go and have coffeeunder the palms that are so necessary for our discomfort."
REGINALD ON BESETTING SINS: THE WOMAN WHO TOLD THE TRUTH
There was once (said Reginald) a woman who told the truth. Not all atonce, of course, but the habit grew upon her gradually, like lichen on anappa
rently healthy tree. She had no children--otherwise it might havebeen different. It began with little things, for no particular reasonexcept that her life was a rather empty one, and it is so easy to slipinto the habit of telling the truth in little matters. And then itbecame difficult to draw the line at more important things, until at lastshe took to telling the truth about her age; she said she was forty-twoand five months--by that time, you see, she was veracious even to months.It may have been pleasing to the angels, but her elder sister was notgratified. On the Woman's birthday, instead of the opera-tickets whichshe had hoped for, her sister gave her a view of Jerusalem from the Mountof Olives, which is not quite the same thing. The revenge of an eldersister may be long in coming, but, like a South-Eastern express, itarrives in its own good time.
The friends of the Woman tried to dissuade her from over-indulgence inthe practice, but she said she was wedded to the truth; whereupon it wasremarked that it was scarcely logical to be so much together in public.(No really provident woman lunches regularly with her husband if shewishes to burst upon him as a revelation at dinner. He must have time toforget; an afternoon is not enough.) And after a while her friends beganto thin out in patches. Her passion for the truth was not compatiblewith a large visiting-list. For instance, she told Miriam Klopstock_exactly_ how she looked at the Ilexes' ball. Certainly Miriam had askedfor her candid opinion, but the Woman prayed in church every Sunday forpeace in our time, and it was not consistent.
It was unfortunate, everyone agreed, that she had no family; with a childor two in the house, there is an unconscious check upon too free anindulgence in the truth. Children are given us to discourage our betteremotions. That is why the stage, with all its efforts, can never be asartificial as life; even in an Ibsen drama one must reveal to theaudience things that one would suppress before the children or servants.
Fate may have ordained the truth-telling from the commencement and shouldjustly bear some of the blame; but in having no children the Woman wasguilty, at least, of contributory negligence.
Little by little she felt she was becoming a slave to what had once beenmerely an idle propensity; and one day she knew. Every woman tellsninety per cent. of the truth to her dressmaker; the other ten per cent.is the irreducible minimum of deception beyond which no self-respectingclient trespasses. Madame Draga's establishment was a meeting-ground fornaked truths and over-dressed fictions, and it was here, the Woman felt,that she might make a final effort to recall the artless mendacity ofpast days. Madame herself was in an inspiring mood, with the air of asphinx who knew all things and preferred to forget most of them. As aWar Minister she might have been celebrated, but she was content to bemerely rich.
"If I take it in here, and--Miss Howard, one moment, if you please--andthere, and round like this--so--I really think you will find it quiteeasy."
The Woman hesitated; it seemed to require such a small effort to simplyacquiesce in Madame's views. But habit had become too strong. "I'mafraid," she faltered, "it's just the least little bit in the world too"--
And by that least little bit she measured the deeps and eternities of herthraldom to fact. Madame was not best pleased at being contradicted on aprofessional matter, and when Madame lost her temper you usually found itafterwards in the bill.
And at last the dreadful thing came, as the Woman had foreseen all alongthat it must; it was one of those paltry little truths with which sheharried her waking hours. On a raw Wednesday morning, in a fewill-chosen words, she told the cook that she drank. She remembered thescene afterwards as vividly as though it had been painted in her mind byAbbey. The cook was a good cook, as cooks go; and as cooks go she went.
Miriam Klopstock came to lunch the next day. Women and elephants neverforget an injury.
REGINALD'S DRAMA
Reginald closed his eyes with the elaborate weariness of one who hasrather nice eyelashes and thinks it useless to conceal the fact.
"One of these days," he said, "I shall write a really great drama. Noone will understand the drift of it, but everyone will go back to theirhomes with a vague feeling of dissatisfaction with their lives andsurroundings. Then they will put up new wall-papers and forget."
"But how about those that have oak panelling all over the house?" saidthe Other.
"They can always put down new stair-carpets," pursued Reginald, "and,anyhow, I'm not responsible for the audience having a happy ending. Theplay would be quite sufficient strain on one's energies. I should get abishop to say it was immoral and beautiful--no dramatist has thought ofthat before, and everyone would come to condemn the bishop, and theywould stay on out of sheer nervousness. After all, it requires a greatdeal of moral courage to leave in a marked manner in the middle of thesecond act, when your carriage isn't ordered till twelve. And it wouldcommence with wolves worrying something on a lonely waste--you wouldn'tsee them, of course; but you would hear them snarling and scrunching, andI should arrange to have a wolfy fragrance suggested across thefootlights. It would look so well on the programmes, 'Wolves in thefirst act, by Jamrach.' And old Lady Whortleberry, who never misses afirst night, would scream. She's always been nervous since she lost herfirst husband. He died quite abruptly while watching a county cricketmatch; two and a half inches of rain had fallen for seven runs, and itwas supposed that the excitement killed him. Anyhow, it gave her quite ashock; it was the first husband she'd lost, you know, and now she alwaysscreams if anything thrilling happens too soon after dinner. And afterthe audience had heard the Whortleberry scream the thing would be fairlylaunched."
"And the plot?"
"The plot," said Reginald, "would be one of those little everydaytragedies that one sees going on all round one. In my mind's eye thereis the case of the Mudge-Jervises, which in an unpretentious way hasquite an Enoch Arden intensity underlying it. They'd only been marriedsome eighteen months or so, and circumstances had prevented their seeingmuch of each other. With him there was always a foursome or somethingthat had to be played and replayed in different parts of the country, andshe went in for slumming quite as seriously as if it was a sport. Withher, I suppose, it was. She belonged to the Guild of the Poor DearSouls, and they hold the record for having nearly reformed a washerwoman.No one has ever really reformed a washerwoman, and that is why thecompetition is so keen. You can rescue charwomen by fifties with alittle tea and personal magnetism, but with washerwomen it's different;wages are too high. This particular laundress, who came from Bermondseyor some such place, was really rather a hopeful venture, and they thoughtat last that she might be safely put in the window as a specimen ofsuccessful work. So they had her paraded at a drawing-room "At Home" atAgatha Camelford's; it was sheer bad luck that some liqueur chocolateshad been turned loose by mistake among the refreshments--really liqueurchocolates, with very little chocolate. And of course the old soul foundthem out, and cornered the entire stock. It was like finding a whelk-stall in a desert, as she afterwards partially expressed herself. Whenthe liqueurs began to take effect, she started to give them imitations offarmyard animals as they know them in Bermondsey. She began with adancing bear, and you know Agatha doesn't approve of dancing, except atBuckingham Palace under proper supervision. And then she got up on thepiano and gave them an organ monkey; I gather she went in for realismrather than a Maeterlinckian treatment of the subject. Finally, she fellinto the piano and said she was a parrot in a cage, and for an impromptuperformance I believe she was very word-perfect; no one had heardanything like it, except Baroness Boobelstein who has attended sittingsof the Austrian Reichsrath. Agatha is trying the Rest-cure at Buxton."
"But the tragedy?"
"Oh, the Mudge-Jervises. Well, they were getting along quite happily,and their married life was one continuous exchange of picture-postcards;and then one day they were thrown together on some neutral ground wherefoursomes and washerwomen overlapped, and discovered that they werehopelessly divided on the Fiscal Question. They have thought it best toseparate, and she is to have the
custody of the Persian kittens for ninemonths in the year--they go back to him for the winter, when she isabroad. There you have the material for a tragedy drawn straight fromlife--and the piece could be called 'The Price They Paid for Empire.' Andof course one would have to work in studies of the struggle of hereditarytendency against environment and all that sort of thing. The woman'sfather could have been an Envoy to some of the smaller German Courts;that's where she'd get her passion for visiting the poor, in spite of themost careful upbringing. _C'est le premier pa qui compte_, as the cuckoosaid when it swallowed its foster-parent. That, I think, is quiteclever."
"And the wolves?"
"Oh, the wolves would be a sort of elusive undercurrent in the backgroundthat would never be satisfactorily explained. After all, life teems withthings that have no earthly reason. And whenever the characters couldthink of nothing brilliant to say about marriage or the War Office, theycould open a window and listen to the howling of the wolves. But thatwould be very seldom."