Mrs. Brocklebank, who could stop most people in full career, as a policeman halts the traffic in the city, discovered that it was possible for her largeness to be ignored.
“Lynette, my dear, come and show me——”
Lynette whisked past her unheedingly. Mrs. Brocklebank tilted5 her glasses.
“Dear me, how much too impetuous that child is. I am always telling Gertrude that she is far too wild and emotional.”
Mrs. Lankhurst, who was Mrs. Brocklebank’s companion for the moment, threw back an echo.
“A little neurotic6, I think.”
Mrs. Lankhurst was a typical hard-faced, raddled, cut-mouthed Englishwoman, a woman who had ceased to trouble about her appearance simply because she had been married for fifteen years and felt herself comfortably and sexually secure. An unimaginative self-complacency seems to be the chief characteristic of this type of Englishwoman. She appears to regard marriage as a release from all attempts at subtilising the charm of dress, lets her complexion7 go, her figure slacken, her lips grow thin. “George” is serenely8 and lethargically9 constant, so why trouble about hats? So the good woman turns to leather, rides, gardens, plays golf, and perhaps reads questionable10 novels. The sex problem does not exist for her, yet Mrs. Lankhurst’s “George” was notorious and mutable behind her back. She thought him cased up in domestic buckram, and never the lover of some delightful11 little dame12 aux Camellias, who kept her neck white, and her sense of humour unimpaired.
Lynette’s white legs flashed across the grass.
“Oh, Miss Eve!”
Eve Carfax had stepped out through the open drawing-room window, a slim and sensitive figure that carried itself rather proudly in the face of a crowd.
“Lynette!”
“I knew you’d come! I knew you’d come!”
She held out hands that had to be taken and held, despite the formal crowd on the lawn.
“I’m so glad you’re back.”
A red mouth waited to be kissed.
“We have missed you—daddy and I.”
“My dear——”
Mrs. Brocklebank was interested. So was her companion.
“Who is that girl?”
Mrs. Lankhurst had a way of screwing up her eyes, and wrinkling her forehead.
“A Miss Carfax. She lives with her mother near here. Retired13 tradespeople, I imagine. The girl paints. She is doing work for Mr. Canterton—illustrating catalogues, I suppose.”
“The child seems very fond of her.”
“Children have a habit of making extraordinary friendships. It is the dustman, or an engine-driver, or something equally primitive14.”
“I suppose one would call the girl pretty?”
“Too French!”
Mrs. Lankhurst nodded emphatically.
“Englishmen are so safe. Now, in any other country it would be impossible——”
“Oh, quite! I imagine such a man as James Canterton——”
“The very idea is indecent. Our men are so reliable. One never bothers one’s head. Yet one has only to cross the Channel——”
“A decadent15 country. The women make the morals of the men. Any nation that thinks so much about dress uncovers its own nakedness.”
The multi-coloured crowd had spread itself over the whole of the broad lawn in the front of the house, for Gertrude Canterton’s garden parties were very complete affairs, claiming people from half the county. She had one of the best string bands that was to be obtained, ranged in the shade of the big sequoia16. The great cedar17 was a kind of kiosk, and a fashionable London caterer18 had charge of the tea.
Lynette kept hold of Eve’s hand.
“Where is your mother, dear?”
“Do you want to see mother?”
“Of course.”
They wound in and out in quest of Gertrude Canterton, and found her at last in the very centre of the crowd, smiling and wriggling19 in the stimulating20 presence of a rear-admiral. She was wearing a yellow dress and a purple hat, a preposterous21 and pathetic combination of colours when the man she had married happened to be one of the greatest flower colourists in the kingdom. Eve shook hands and was smiled at.
“How do you do, Miss Garvice?”
“It isn’t Garvice, mother.”
Eve was discreet22 and passed on, but Lynette was called back.
“Lynette, come and say how do you do to Admiral Mirlees.”
Lynette stretched out a formal hand.
“How do you do, Admiral Mirlees?”
The sailor gave her a big hand, and a sweep of the hat.
“How do you do, Miss Canterton? Charmed to meet you! Supposing you come and show me the garden?”
Lynette eyed him gravely.
“Most of it’s locked up.”
“Locked up?”
“Because people steal daddy’s things.”
“Lynette!”
“I’m very busy, Admiral, but I can give you ten minutes.”
The sailor’s eyes twinkled, but Gertrude Canterton was angry.
“Lynette, go and show Admiral Mirlees all the garden.”
“My dear Mrs. Canterton, I am quite sure that your daughter is telling the truth. She must be in great demand, and I shall be grateful for ten minutes.”
Lynette’s eyes began to brighten to the big playful child in him.
“Lord Admiral, I think you must look so nice in a cocked hat. I’ve left Miss Eve, you see. She’s been away, and she’s my great friend.”
“I won’t stand in Miss Eve’s way.”
“But she’s not a bit selfish, and I think I might spare half an hour.”
“Miss Canterton, let me assure you that I most deeply appreciate this compliment.”
Eve, left alone, wandered here and there, knowing hardly a soul, and feeling rather lost and superfluous23. Happiness in such shows consists in being comfortably inconspicuous, a talker among talkers, though there are some who can hold aloof24 with an air of casual detachment, and outstare the crowd from some pillar of isolation25. Eve had a self-conscious fit upon her. Gertrude Canterton’s parties were huge and crowded failures. The subtle atmosphere that pervades26 such social assemblies was restless, critical, uneasy, at Fernhill. People talked more foolishly than usual, and were either more absurdly stiff or more absurdly genial27 than was their wont28.
The string band had begun to play one of Brahms’ Hungarian melodies. It was a superb band, and the music had an impetuous and barbaric sensuousness29, a Bacchic rush of half-naked bodies whirling together through a shower of vine leaves and flowers. The talk on the lawn seemed so much gabble, and Eve wandered out, and round behind the great sequoia where she could listen to the music and be at peace. She wondered what the violinists thought of the crowd over yonder, these men who could make the strings30 utter wild, desirous cries. What a stiff, preposterous, and complacent31 crowd it seemed. Incongruous fancies piqued32 her sense of humour. If Pan could come leaping out of the woods, if ironical33 satyrs could seize and catch up those twentieth century women, and wild-eyed girls pluck the stiff men by the chins. The music suggested it, but who had come to listen to the music?
“I have been hunting you through the crowd.”
She turned sharply, with all the self-knowledge that she had won at Latimer rushing to the surface. A few words spoken in the midst of the crying of the violins. She felt the surprised nakedness of her emotions, that she was stripped for judgment34, and that sanity35 would be whipped into her by the
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