“Waldo is one of those people who would be enormously improved by death.”
Presently she asked: “And that odious young man, Waldo Plubley,
who is always coddling himself—have you thought of anything that one
could do to him?” Evidently she was beginning to see the possibilities
of Nemesis Day.
“If there was anything like a general observance of the festival,” said
Clovis, “Waldo would be in such demand that you would have to bespeak him
weeks beforehand, and even then, if there were an east wind blowing or a
cloud or two in the sky he might be too careful of his precious self to
come out. It would be rather jolly if you could lure him into a hammock
in the orchard, just near the spot where there is a wasps’ nest every
summer. A comfortable hammock on a warm afternoon would appeal to his
indolent tastes, and then, when he was getting drowsy, a lighted fusee
thrown into the nest would bring the wasps out in an indignant mass, and
they would soon find a ‘home away from home’ on Waldo’s fat body. It
takes some doing to get out of a hammock in a hurry.”
“They might sting him to death,” protested Mrs. Thackenbury.
“Waldo is one of those people who would be enormously improved by death,”
said Clovis; “but if you didn’t want to go as far as that, you could have
some wet straw ready to hand, and set it alight under the hammock at the
same time that the fusee was thrown into the nest; the smoke would keep
all but the most militant of the wasps just outside the stinging line,
and as long as Waldo remained within its protection he would escape
serious damage, and could be eventually restored to his mother, kippered
all over and swollen in places, but still perfectly recognisable.”
“His mother would be my enemy for life,” said Mrs. Thackenbury.
“That would be one greeting less to exchange at Christmas,” said Clovis.
THE DREAMER
It was the season of sales. The august establishment of Walpurgis and
Nettlepink had lowered its prices for an entire week as a concession to
trade observances, much as an Arch-duchess might protestingly contract an
attack of influenza for the unsatisfactory reason that influenza was
locally prevalent. Adela Chemping, who considered herself in some
measure superior to the allurements of an ordinary bargain sale, made a
point of attending the reduction week at Walpurgis and Nettlepink’s.
“The cook was a good cook, as cooks go; and as good cooks go, she went.”
As a
War Minister she might have been celebrated, but she was content to be
merely rich.
"If I take it in here, and--Miss Howard, one moment, if you please--and
there, and round like this--so--I really think you will find it quite
easy."
The Woman hesitated; it seemed to require such a small effort to simply
acquiesce in Madame's views. But habit had become too strong. "I'm
afraid," 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 her
thraldom to fact. Madame was not best pleased at being contradicted on a
professional matter, and when Madame lost her temper you usually found it
afterwards in the bill.
And at last the dreadful thing came, as the Woman had foreseen all along
that it must; it was one of those paltry little truths with which she
harried her waking hours. On a raw Wednesday morning, in a few
ill-chosen words, she told the cook that she drank. She remembered the
scene afterwards as vividly as though it had been painted in her mind by
Abbey. 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 never
forget an injury.
REGINALD'S DRAMA
Reginald closed his eyes with the elaborate weariness of one who has
rather nice eyelashes and thinks it useless to conceal the fact.
"One of these days," he said, "I shall write a really great drama. No
one will understand the drift of it, but everyone will go back to their
homes with a vague feeling of dissatisfaction with their lives and
surroundings. Then they will put up new wall-papers and forget."
"But how about those that have oak panelling all over the house?" said
the Other.
"They can always put down new stair-carpets," pursued Reginald, "and,
anyhow, I'm not responsible for the audience having a happy ending. The
play would be quite sufficient strain on one's energies. I should get a
bishop to say it was immoral and beautiful--no dramatist has thought of
that before, and everyone would come to condemn the bishop, and they
would stay on out of sheer nervousness.
“We all know that Prime Ministers are wedded to the truth, but like other married couples they sometimes live apart.”
It
would be a fit and appropriate wind-up to an auspicious evening. The
cold chicken and modest brand of Chablis waiting for her at home should
give way to a banquet of more festive nature.
In the crush of the vestibule, friends and enemies, personal and
political, were jostled and locked together in the general effort to
rejoin temporarily estranged garments and secure the attendance of
elusive vehicles. Lady Caroline found herself at close quarters with the
estimable Henry Greech, and experienced some of the joy which comes to
the homeward wending sportsman when a chance shot presents itself on
which he may expend his remaining cartridges.
“So the Government is going to climb down, after all,” she said, with a
provocative assumption of private information on the subject.
“I assure you the Government will do nothing of the kind,” replied the
Member of Parliament with befitting dignity; “the Prime Minister told me
last night that under no circumstances—”
“My dear Mr. Greech,” said Lady Caroline, “we all know that Prime
Ministers are wedded to the truth, but like other wedded couples they
sometimes live apart.”
For her, at any rate, the comedy had had a happy ending.
Comus made his way slowly and lingeringly from the stalls, so slowly that
the lights were already being turned down and great shroud-like
dust-cloths were being swaythed over the ornamental gilt-work. The
laughing, chattering, yawning throng had filtered out of the vestibule,
and was melting away in final groups from the steps of the theatre. An
impatient attendant gave him his coat and locked up the cloak room.
Comus stepped out under the portico; he looked at the posters announcing
the play, and in anticipation he could see other posters announcing its
200th performance. Two hundred performances; by that time the Straw
Exchange Theatre would be to him something so remote and unreal that it
would hardly seem to exist or to have ever existed except in his fancy.
And to the laughing chattering throng that would pass in under that
portico to the 200th performance, he would be, to those that had known
him, something equally remote and non-existent.
“There may have been disillusionments in the lives of the medieval saints, but they would scarcely have been better pleased if they could have foreseen that their names would be associated nowadays chiefly with racehorses and the cheaper clarets.”
She found she'd about cleared stock in fortitude by that time,
and now she gives drawing-room recitations. That's what I call being
vindictive."
"Life is full of its disappointments," observed the Duchess, "and I
suppose the art of being happy is to disguise them as illusions. But
that, my dear Reginald, becomes more difficult as one grows older."
"I think it's more generally practised than you imagine. The young have
aspirations that never come to pass, the old have reminiscences of what
never happened. It's only the middle-aged who are really conscious of
their limitations--that is why one should be so patient with them. But
one never is."
"After all," said the Duchess, "the disillusions of life may depend on
our way of assessing it. In the minds of those who come after us we may
be remembered for qualities and successes which we quite left out of the
reckoning."
"It's not always safe to depend on the commemorative tendencies of those
who come after us. There may have been disillusionments in the lives of
the mediaeval saints, but they would scarcely have been better pleased if
they could have foreseen that their names would be associated nowadays
chiefly with racehorses and the cheaper clarets. And now, if you can
tear yourself away from the salted almonds, we'll go and have coffee
under 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 at
once, of course, but the habit grew upon her gradually, like lichen on an
apparently healthy tree. She had no children--otherwise it might have
been different. It began with little things, for no particular reason
except that her life was a rather empty one, and it is so easy to slip
into the habit of telling the truth in little matters. And then it
became difficult to draw the line at more important things, until at last
she took to telling the truth about her age; she said she was forty-two
and 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 not
gratified. On the Woman's birthday, instead of the opera-tickets which
she had hoped for, her sister gave her a view of Jerusalem from the Mount
of Olives, which is not quite the same thing.
“Children are given to us to discourage our better emotions.”
The revenge of an elder
sister may be long in coming, but, like a South-Eastern express, it
arrives in its own good time.
The friends of the Woman tried to dissuade her from over-indulgence in
the practice, but she said she was wedded to the truth; whereupon it was
remarked that it was scarcely logical to be so much together in public.
(No really provident woman lunches regularly with her husband if she
wishes to burst upon him as a revelation at dinner. He must have time to
forget; an afternoon is not enough.) And after a while her friends began
to thin out in patches. Her passion for the truth was not compatible
with a large visiting-list. For instance, she told Miriam Klopstock
_exactly_ how she looked at the Ilexes' ball. Certainly Miriam had asked
for her candid opinion, but the Woman prayed in church every Sunday for
peace in our time, and it was not consistent.
It was unfortunate, everyone agreed, that she had no family; with a child
or two in the house, there is an unconscious check upon too free an
indulgence in the truth. Children are given us to discourage our better
emotions. That is why the stage, with all its efforts, can never be as
artificial as life; even in an Ibsen drama one must reveal to the
audience things that one would suppress before the children or servants.
Fate may have ordained the truth-telling from the commencement and should
justly bear some of the blame; but in having no children the Woman was
guilty, at least, of contributory negligence.
Little by little she felt she was becoming a slave to what had once been
merely an idle propensity; and one day she knew. Every woman tells
ninety per cent. of the truth to her dressmaker; the other ten per cent.
is the irreducible minimum of deception beyond which no self-respecting
client trespasses. Madame Draga's establishment was a meeting-ground for
naked truths and over-dressed fictions, and it was here, the Woman felt,
that she might make a final effort to recall the artless mendacity of
past days. Madame herself was in an inspiring mood, with the air of a
sphinx who knew all things and preferred to forget most of them.
“The young have aspirations that never come to pass, the old have reminiscences of what never happened.”
And
the youngest, who was intended for the American marriage market, has
developed political tendencies, and writes pamphlets about the housing of
the poor. Of course it's a most important question, and I devote a good
deal 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 about
other people's. She feels it very keenly, but she always maintains a
cheerful appetite, which I think is so unselfish of her."
"There are different ways of taking disappointment. There was a girl I
knew who nursed a wealthy uncle through a long illness, borne by her with
Christian fortitude, and then he died and left his money to a swine-fever
hospital. She found she'd about cleared stock in fortitude by that time,
and now she gives drawing-room recitations. That's what I call being
vindictive."
"Life is full of its disappointments," observed the Duchess, "and I
suppose the art of being happy is to disguise them as illusions. But
that, my dear Reginald, becomes more difficult as one grows older."
"I think it's more generally practised than you imagine. The young have
aspirations that never come to pass, the old have reminiscences of what
never happened. It's only the middle-aged who are really conscious of
their limitations--that is why one should be so patient with them. But
one never is."
"After all," said the Duchess, "the disillusions of life may depend on
our way of assessing it. In the minds of those who come after us we may
be remembered for qualities and successes which we quite left out of the
reckoning."
"It's not always safe to depend on the commemorative tendencies of those
who come after us. There may have been disillusionments in the lives of
the mediaeval saints, but they would scarcely have been better pleased if
they could have foreseen that their names would be associated nowadays
chiefly with racehorses and the cheaper clarets. And now, if you can
tear yourself away from the salted almonds, we'll go and have coffee
under 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.
“Think how many blameless lives are brightened by the blazing indiscretions of other people.”
"My idea about the lecture," resumed the Duchess hurriedly, "is to
inquire whether promiscuous Continental travel doesn't tend to weaken the
moral fibre of the social conscience. There are people one knows, quite
nice people when they are in England, who are so _different_ when they
are anywhere the other side of the Channel."
"The people with what I call Tauchnitz morals," observed Reginald. "On
the 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 those
foreign lines that it's really an economy to leave one's reputation
behind one occasionally."
"A scandal, my dear Reginald, is as much to be avoided at Monaco or any
of 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 the
liberty of calling you that name. Scandal is merely the compassionate
allowance which the gay make to the humdrum. Think how many blameless
lives are brightened by the blazing indiscretions of other people. Tell
me, 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 people
as 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 has
written a most interesting book on the home-life of the Esquimaux; but
naturally 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 old
acquaintances of mine; they're always having trouble, poor things."
"Trouble is not one of those fancies you can take up and drop at any
moment; it's like a grouse-moor or the opium-habit--once you start it
you've got to keep it up.
“It is one of the consolations of middle-aged reformers that the good they inculcate must live after them if it is to live at all.”
Many of the wives started off
immediately in pursuit of their errant husbands, and it took the
Government a considerable time and much trouble to reclaim them from
their fruitless quests along the banks of the Oxus, the Gobi Desert, the
Orenburg steppe, and other outlandish places. One of them, I believe, is
still lost somewhere in the Tigris Valley.”
“And the boy?”
“Is still in journalism.”
THE BYZANTINE OMELETTE
Sophie Chattel-Monkheim was a Socialist by conviction and a
Chattel-Monkheim by marriage. The particular member of that wealthy
family whom she had married was rich, even as his relatives counted
riches. Sophie had very advanced and decided views as to the
distribution of money: it was a pleasing and fortunate circumstance that
she also had the money. When she inveighed eloquently against the evils
of capitalism at drawing-room meetings and Fabian conferences she was
conscious of a comfortable feeling that the system, with all its
inequalities and iniquities, would probably last her time. It is one of
the consolations of middle-aged reformers that the good they inculcate
must live after them if it is to live at all.
On a certain spring evening, somewhere towards the dinner-hour, Sophie
sat tranquilly between her mirror and her maid, undergoing the process of
having her hair built into an elaborate reflection of the prevailing
fashion. She was hedged round with a great peace, the peace of one who
has attained a desired end with much effort and perseverance, and who has
found it still eminently desirable in its attainment. The Duke of Syria
had consented to come beneath her roof as a guest, was even now installed
beneath her roof, and would shortly be sitting at her dining-table. As a
good Socialist, Sophie disapproved of social distinctions, and derided
the idea of a princely caste, but if there were to be these artificial
gradations of rank and dignity she was pleased and anxious to have an
exalted specimen of an exalted order included in her house-party. She
was broad-minded enough to love the sinner while hating the sin—not that
she entertained any warm feeling of personal affection for the Duke of
Syria, who was a comparative stranger, but still, as Duke of Syria, he
was very, very welcome beneath her roof.
“We will be taking the matter to the African Commission, ... We are in the process of preparing heads of argument. Our greatest concern is that the constitutional amendment takes away the duties of the courts, violates property rights and empowers the government to take away passports.”
“A little inaccuracy sometimes saves tons of explanations.”
I think she might at least have waited till the funeral was over, said Amanda in a scandalized voice.Its her own funeral, you know, said Sir Lulworth; its a nice point in etiquette how far one ought to show respect to ones own mortal remains. (Laura)
Im living so far beyond my means that we may almost be said to be living apart.
The cook was a good cook, as cooks go; and as cooks go, she went.
Never be a pioneer. Its the early Christian that gets the fattest lion.
The young have aspirations that never come to pass, the old have reminiscences of what never happened.
This story has no moral. If it points out an evil at any rate it suggests no remedy.
Do one thing for me, Sredni Vashtar.
I think oysters are more beautiful than any religion, he resumed presently. They not only forgive our unkindness to them; they justify it, they incite us to go on being perfectly horrid to them. Once they arrive at the supper-table they seem to enter thoroughly into the spirit of the thing. Theres nothing in Christianity or Buddhism that quite matches the sympathetic unselfishness of an oyster.
It follows that they never understood Reginald, who came down late to breakfast, and nibbled toast, and said disrespectful things about the universe. The family ate porridge, and believed in everything, even the weather forecast.
Well in those parts (upcountry India) they have were-tigers, or think they have, and I must say that in this case, so far as sworn and uncontested evidence went, they had every ground for thinking so. However, as we gave up witchcraft prosecutions about three hundred years ago, we don’t like to have other people keeping on our discarded practices; it doesn’t seem respectful to our mental and moral position.
