Britannia Mews Page 26

  Most young people have an exaggerated idea of their own importance, it is very useful to them and helps them to push themselves out a little breathing-space in the world; the curious part about Dodo’s conviction that she was too rare for Surbiton was that Surbiton had given it to her. Daughters at home were less numerous than they used to be; many of Dodo’s contemporaries, and many of the most intelligent among them, went to work, or had been to the university and adopted a profession; as a daughter at home Dodo had the approval of all elders; and as a very pretty girl, with ample leisure to improve her tennis and learn long dramatic parts, she naturally took the lead among the young. She couldn’t help but think herself something out of the ordinary. (At the Slade, where her talents had met genuine competition, her looks had not; it was Dodo who posed as Lady Hamilton in the tableau for the Arts Bail.) She was not however particularly vain; but she believed she had personality. She had an idea she could make some sort of mark on the world. Born a generation earlier, she would have been a suffragette; Octavia Hill could have turned her into a rent collector; a fervent evangelist might have sent her to missionize among zenanas. But in the ears of Dodo’s generation no such calls to faith and work sounded; so they believed in free love and the Ballet Russe.

  That Dodo, wishing to share a flat with her raffish and unprincipled friend Sonia Trent, was really seeking after faith was something no one—not even Dodo—could guess.

  “Hello, Uncle Treff!” said Dodo softly; and with childish superstition moved his photograph into a better place. Then she grew restless again; in the hall outside her mother and aunt talked on; presently, to her extreme annoyance, she heard them both go upstairs. “She can’t be showing mother the house!” thought Dodo indignantly; and presently went out into the hall again, and again called out.

  “Mother! I’ll have to go! I’m playing badminton at the Club!”

  There was a whispered conversation on the top landing—“So they are going over the house!” thought Dodo. “The old really are incredible!”—and then Alice called back.

  “Very well, dear. Don’t be late for dinner.”

  Dodo let herself out of the front door. Walking swiftly down the drive—and here, under the chestnuts, the leaves lay thick—she wondered how any one could bear to live in so melancholy a place.

  4

  Looking back afterwards on the events of that remarkable Saturday, Dodo thought that the surprise sprung on them by Miss Hambro was due partly to the surprise which had been sprung on her by Alice; for she always tried to cap anything her sister said or did. (When the Bakers had vanilla ice at their garden-party, Miss Hambro had pistachio. When Alice had a musquash coat, Ellen had a sealskin.) In this instance she produced a counter-interest so effective that for some days Treff’s impending visit was completely forgotten.

  Dodo got back rather late for dinner, and slipping into her place was at once aware of something unusual in the wind. Her mother looked almost solemn, though at the same time pleased; there was an odour of cigar smoke about her father; and as they both looked up Dodo perceived that the event, or surprise, or whatever it was, had something to do with herself.

  “Did you have a nice game, dear?” asked Alice.

  “Yes, thanks.”

  But the question, like the answer, had been purely automatic, as Alice’s next words showed.

  “You shouldn’t have run off like that, Dodo; it was very rude.”

  “Good heavens, I don’t suppose Aunt Ellen minded!”

  Alice glanced at her husband, received a confirmatory nod, and said impressively:—

  “As a matter of fact, she has something very important to say to you. You must go round again after dinner.”

  Dodo gaped.

  “Go round? Why can’t I ring her up?”

  “You’re to go round,” said Freddy Baker sharply.

  Dodo put down her fish-fork and looked stubborn.

  “I’ve just played three sets of badminton, it’s the Tennis Club dance, and Tommy’s calling for me at nine.”

  “Tommy had better go with you.”

  “Then we’ll be late. Anyway,” persisted Dodo, “it’s perfectly obvious that you both know what she wants to see me for, so why can’t you tell me? If she’s just decided to give us some ghastly piece of silver for a wedding present—”

  “Oh, Dodo!” cried Alice reproachfully. “She’s going to give you the house!”

  Dodo sat back, her mouth and eyes wide open, and stared incredulously. Indeed, at that dreadful moment, she felt incredulity to be her only hope.

  “There, darling!” said her mother sympathetically. “Isn’t that marvellous? I don’t wonder you’re surprised—but she really does feel it’s too big for her—”

  “It’s too big for Tommy and me,” gasped Dodo.

  “It won’t always be too big, darling.”

  “Mother, we can’t possibly live at the Cedars. It’s out of the question. Tommy couldn’t afford it.”

  “Rubbish. Anyone can afford to live rent free,” said Freddy. “It’s a freehold house, and a valuable property.”

  “Well, where would Aunt Ellen live?”

  “She’ll take a nice little flat,” said Alice reassuringly.

  Dodo almost laughed aloud at the irony of it. Though astonished and perturbed, she was not yet seriously alarmed. It seemed too impossible that one could be saddled, against one’s will, with a thing like a freehold house; and she relied on Tommy to share her point of view. But Tommy, when he arrived and was told of this stupendous wedding present, was extremely pleased. He agreed that the house was large, but he had always looked forward to having a large house in due course, and the Cedars—so substantial, with such a good garden—most adequately filled the bill. “But how in hell’s name are we to run it?” wailed Dodo. “That’s your job,” pointed out Tommy reasonably. “There are dozens of houses that size in Surbiton, and some one runs ’em. I do hate to hear you swear, darling.” “If we ever live at the Cedars, you’ll hear me swearing all day long,” snapped Dodo.

  This conversation, so nearly a quarrel, took place at the Club dance, after they had paid a visit to Miss Hambro on the way—Tommy had absolutely insisted on doing so, and quite charmed Dodo’s generous aunt by the warmth of his expressions. For once he had definitely taken the lead, forcing Dodo into the distasteful rôle of a child overcome by a Christmas-tree. They were now sitting out, like the engaged couple they were, in a corner of the lounge. Through the archway from the dance-room floated the strains of piano, saxophone, and drums, playing “K-K-K-Katie”; but though it was one of Dodo’s favourite tunes, she had refused to dance.

  “Tommy,” she said suddenly, “why do we assume we’re going to live in Surbiton? Why shouldn’t we live in town? It’s where you work—”

  But Tommy was looking at her in the blankest amazement.

  “Not live in Surbiton? My dear girl, it’s where every one we know lives—”

  “Not everyone I know,” put in Dodo.

  “And where all our people live, and now your aunt’s given us a house we could never afford anywhere else! I never heard such an idiotic suggestion.”

  “That house,” said Dodo distinctly, “is an octopus.”

  “And I suppose Surbiton’s an octopus, and I’m an octopus,” said Tommy, with justified annoyance. “You talk the most utter bosh, darling, and even if you don’t mean it—”

  “I do mean it. At any rate about the house,” added Dodo; for she had not the heart to call Tommy an octopus. He looked so puzzled and distressed, like a good dog in unmerited disgrace. With genuine curiosity she said, “I wonder why you want to go on being engaged to me?”

  “I suppose because I’m used to it,” said Tommy, with a brighter look; and dropping into the current idiom he added cheerfully, “I’m used to you, old thing; I can’t think of any other reason, can you? So come and shake a leg …”

  This time Dodo rose, and they joined the dancers. She was by now very tired: it had been a long
and full day, and looking back to its beginning, Dodo was struck with astonishment. Here every face was familiar—every name, even the women’s dresses; Dodo knew exactly where they all lived, she could have made a good guess at what they had all had for dinner; and that morning she had woken up in the company of a perfectly strange young man.…

  Dodo hid a smile against Tommy’s shoulder. She hadn’t told him, of course; he would have been shocked to the core. She was leading, in fact, a double life. And who would have thought it? Who, judging by her present appearance and circumstances, would take her for anything but a thoroughly nice girl who never slept anywhere but in her own virginal bed? Appearances are the thing, thought Dodo vaguely. So long as you keep up appearances, I believe you can get away with murder.…

  She was so tired that she stumbled. Tommy looked down at her anxiously.

  “Like to stop, old thing?”

  “Yes, please,” said Dodo meekly. “I think I’d like to go home.”

  “You’ve had too much excitement,” pronounced Tommy, not displeased. “In London all morning, and then playing badminton—besides having a house given you.”

  His tone was slightly interrogative; Dodo knew he wanted her to admit having been foolish about the Cedars, so that they could drive home in the affectionate amity proper to an engaged couple. They had come to a halt in the centre of the floor; every one was looking at them; and though all the glances were friendly, Dodo (perhaps fatigue heightened her imagination) thought she could perceive under the friendliness a movement of curiosity. She knew from experience that the evening, in all its least particulars, would be discussed and re-discussed for days afterwards; could guess at the very phrase even then forming, perhaps, behind the smooth, friendly brows—“And there they stood glaring at each other, darling, in the middle of the floor!”

  Dodo tucked her hand closer against her fiancé’s side and smiled up at him.

  “I’m an idiot, Tommy …”

  He responded with touching eagerness, pressing her hand more closely still. Dodo turned towards him, so that they could dance down the length of the room, and let her soft hair touch his chin. Tommy responded again; as the kiss brushed her temple Dodo indeed felt a slight pang of self-reproach. But at least she had killed that obnoxious, imagined phrase—let them repeat as often as they liked, “And he actually kissed her, darling, in the middle of the floor!”

  CHAPTER III

  1

  “You’ve just come from Florence, sir?” observed Tommy Hitchcock, politely. “Very picturesque, isn’t it?”

  “Very,” said Mr. Culver.

  It was a week later; Treff Culver had arrived. Unswathed from the ulster, scarves, comforters, and additional waistcoats in which he had faced the journey, he emerged slight, stooping and dandified. Even his stoop was dandified, suggestive not so much of age—and indeed Treff was only fifty-four, though he appeared much older—as of a life-time spent bowing over ladies’ hands; he wore ghosts of side-whiskers, a lock of silvery hair drooped over his forehead. Both Alice and Dodo also received the impression that, though he moved so spryly, he was extremely brittle. Spry, delicate, dandified: Italianate, expatriate—trailing an aura of Pater, Ruskin, and the Brownings, Treff Culver returned to his native shores; and Alice was giving a little family dinner-party to welcome him.

  “The way Italians treat their animals is abominable,” observed Aunt Ellen.

  “Though I doubt,” continued Mr. Culver precisely, and ignoring the interruption, “whether ‘picturesque’ is an accurate description. To me ‘picturesque’ suggests a ruined mill and a duck-pond—a page, in fact, from a young lady’s sketch-book; Florence is a beautiful and an historic city.”

  His head as he spoke revolved slowly from left to right, so that he began by addressing Alice and finished up at Dodo, taking in Tommy, Miss Hambro and Mr. Baker on the way. He was evidently used to a small, attentive audience. There was now a slight pause. Tommy, perhaps feeling he had got more than he asked for, fell silent; Freddy Baker was carving a partridge; Dodo, though she kept her eyes fixed on her uncle, appeared to be lost in thought.

  “Mrs. Ambrose was in Florence two years ago,” said Alice. “She stayed in such a nice guest-house, run entirely by English people—”

  Dodo emerged from her dream to interrupt.

  “You don’t live in a guest-house, do you, Uncle Treff?”

  “The Gods forbid, my dear.” Mr. Culver turned to Alice. “The architecture of the Palazzo Venezia, which I am sure your friend would detest, is as far removed from the cosiness of a guest-house”—here his eye caught Tommy’s—“as the crypt of Saint Paul’s from the domestic cupboard-under-the-stairs.”

  “Platt’s End was a nice house,” remarked Freddy Baker suddenly. “Alice and I always liked it.”

  “I loved it,” agreed Alice warmly. “And I remember how pleased Aunt Bertha was …” She broke off, fearful lest she had introduced an inappropriately mournful note. She looked at her cousin anxiously. But Treff went on eating partridge without a tear. “I remember how proud Aunt Bertha was of her garden,” finished Alice.

  “She grew bulbs and stuff in Florence.”

  “Poor soul!” ejaculated Miss Hambro ambiguously.

  “And I remember your lavender hedge.” Alice always enjoyed these excursions into the past. “It was a lovely garden altogether; I’m sure I don’t know how you could bear to leave it.”

  “I do,” said Dodo, under her breath. No one heard her but Tommy, who glanced at her sharply. He had several times tried to catch her eye, he wanted to share his amusement in this extraordinary old party who had suddenly been sprung on them as a long-lost uncle. Tommy prided himself on being tolerant—“Live and let live” was his oft-declared motto: though he could not help scenting something fishy about an Englishman who chose to live abroad, he was perfectly prepared to treat Mr. Culver with benevolence. But when Dodo did meet his eye she frowned repressively, as though—as though, damn it, he’d been laughing in church.… Tommy turned to Miss Hambro, to whom he was in these days extremely attentive, and began to talk eagerly of lawn-mowers.

  About an hour later, in the hall, he asked Dodo how long Mr. Culver was expected to stay.

  “I don’t know,” said Dodo vaguely. “As long as he wants to.”

  “He isn’t going to make life any jollier.”

  “I think he’s interesting.”

  “He’s like one of those old music-boxes where you shift a little pointer and out comes a little tune.”

  Dodo smiled mysteriously—she didn’t in the least mind being the only one to understand her uncle—and bade Tommy an affectionate good night. They still enjoyed kissing, though there was no longer any excitement in it; but he walked out of the front door and out of her mind at the same instant.

  2

  The presence of any guest, however welcome, in any family, however loosely united, cannot fail to produce certain minor alterations in that family’s habits. Shortly after Treff’s arrival Alice surprised her husband by reverting to her long-discarded practice of walking down to the gate with him each morning, and waving to him as he turned the corner. “It’s so nice to see you go off,” observed Alice guilelessly. Freddy, rightly referring this remark to the presence of her cousin, merely nodded, and that night brought back a piece of fish. Alice did not quite know what to do with it, she happened to have a rather large salmon in the larder already, but she appreciated his motive. They were always sure of each other’s sympathy, however obliquely expressed.

  The problem of a man perpetually about the house was not one which Alice had previously encountered. When Treff told her he had come home on business, to renew acquaintance with London art circles, to see editors and arrange for the publication of more articles, Alice of course believed him, and in her innocence expected him to be very fully occupied. But after one or two calls on the editors, Treff’s business was apparently accomplished; one or two visits to art exhibitions sent him home quite depressed; and he soon
stopped going up to town at all. It was difficult to know what to do with him. The gaieties of Surbiton (And it is gay, thought Alice patriotically; there’s the Tennis Club and the Golf and the Amateur Dramatic, I’m sure Dodo has a wonderful time) were all run by a younger generation. (And quite right too, thought Alice.) One could invite older people to dinner; one did; they asked one back. One had people to tea, went out to tea in return; but even so great stretches of each day remained untouched.

  “He’s used to artistic conversations,” Alice told her husband uneasily.

  “They go in for that sort of thing in Florence,” agreed Freddy.

  “I mean all day. In cafés. I take him to the Copper Kettle every morning, and it holds up my shopping dreadfully, but I’m sure I don’t know whether he enjoys it.”

  There was room for doubt. When Treff Culver, hunched in his overcoat, endeavoured to draw preoccupied housewives into a leisurely discussion of the merits of Perugino, frustration was inevitable. “How very interesting, Mr. Culver!” they said. “I could listen for hours—couldn’t you, Alice? I suppose you didn’t notice whether Davies had any prawns? I’m going to try an aspic.” It was unsatisfactory. And when he tried London again, making his way to the Café Royal, to the purlieus of Bloomsbury, it was no better. A violent young generation, spouting incomprehensible shibboleths, elbowed him aside. Not literally, to be sure; they grinned tolerantly when he asked if he might sit at their tables; but when he spoke of Florence, referred to an article of his in the Connoisseur, they showed their boredom. Their own conversation was marked by iconoclasm based on ignorance. In the course of a single evening Treff heard Swinburne called a “tripe-merchant,” and Lord Leighton a “photographer manqué.” He also learned that the adjective “Victorian” was purely abusive (if frequently misapplied), and that any one over thirty was a “back number.”