Part 14

LUCY DAVENPORT. [_Throwing in the monosyllable with sharp youthful enquiry._] Why?

FRANCES TREBELL. There were no text books on the subject.

MRS. FARRANT. [_Smiling at her friend._] Yes, Fanny . . I think you escaped to look after your brother only just in time.

FRANCES TREBELL. In another year I might have been head-mistress, which commits you to approve of the system for ever.

LADY DAVENPORT. [_Shaking her wise head._] I've watched the Education fever take England . . .

FRANCES TREBELL. If I hadn't stopped teaching things I didn't understand . . !

AMY O'CONNELL. [_Not without mischief._] And what was the effect on the pupils?

LUCY DAVENPORT. I can tell you that.

AMY O'CONNELL. Frances never taught you.

LUCY DAVENPORT. No, I wish she had. But I was at her sort of a school before I went to Newnham. I know.

FRANCES TREBELL. [_Very distastefully._] Up-to-date, it was described as.

LUCY DAVENPORT. Well, it was like a merry-go-round at top speed. You felt things wouldn't look a bit like that when you came to a standstill.

AMY O'CONNELL. And they don't?

LUCY DAVENPORT. [_With great decision._] Not a bit.

AMY O'CONNELL. [_In her velvet tone._] I was taught the whole duty of woman by a parson-uncle who disbelieved in his Church.

WALTER KENT. When a man at Jude's was going to take orders . . .

AMY O'CONNELL. Jude's?

WALTER KENT. At Oxford. The dons went very gingerly with him over bits of science and history.

[_This wakes a fruitful thought in_ JULIA FARRANT'S _brain_.]

MRS. FARRANT. Mamma, have you ever discussed so-called anti-Christian science with Lord Charles?

FRANCES TREBELL. . . Cantelupe?

MRS. FARRANT. Yes. It was over appointing a teacher for the schools down here . . he was staying with us. The Vicar's his fervent disciple. However, we were consulted.

LUCY DAVENPORT. Didn't Lord Charles want you to send the boys there till they were ready for Harrow?

MRS. FARRANT. Yes.

FRANCES TREBELL. Quite the last thing in Toryism!

MRS. FARRANT. Mamma made George say we were too _nouveau riche_ to risk it.

LADY DAVENPORT. [_As she laughs._] I couldn't resist that.

MRS. FARRANT. [_Catching something of her subject's dry driving manner._] Lord Charles takes the superior line and says . . that with his consent the Church may teach the unalterable Truth in scientific language or legendary, whichever is easier understanded of the people.

LADY DAVENPORT. Is it the prospect of Disestablishment suddenly makes him so accommodating?

FRANCES TREBELL. [_With large contempt._] He needn't be. The majority of people believe the world was made in an English week.

LUCY DAVENPORT. Oh, no!

FRANCES TREBELL. No Bishop dare deny it.

MRS. FARRANT. [_From the heights of experience._] Dear Lucy, do you seriously think that the English spirit--the nerve that runs down the backbone--is disturbed by new theology . . or new anything?

LADY DAVENPORT. [_Enjoying her epigram._] What a waste of persecution history shows us!

WALTER KENT _now captures the conversation with a very young politician's fervour_.

WALTER KENT. Once they're disestablished they must make up their minds what they do believe.

LADY DAVENPORT. I presume Lord Charles thinks it'll hand the Church over to him and his . . dare I say 'Sect'?

WALTER KENT. Won't it? He knows what he wants.

MRS. FARRANT. [_Subtly._] There's the election to come yet.

WALTER KENT. But now both parties are pledged to a bill of some sort.

MRS. FARRANT. Political prophecies have a knack of not coming true; but, d'you know, Cyril Horsham warned me to watch this position developing . . nearly four years ago.

FRANCES TREBELL. Sitting on the opposition bench sharpens the eye-sight.

WALTER KENT. [_Ironically._] Has he been pleased with the prospect?

MRS. FARRANT. [_With perfect diplomacy._] If the Church must be disestablished . . better done by its friends than its enemies.

FRANCES TREBELL. Still I don't gather he's pleased with his dear cousin Charles's conduct.

MRS. FARRANT. [_Shrugging._] Oh, lately, Lord Charles has never concealed his tactics.

FRANCES TREBELL. And that speech at Leeds was the crowning move I suppose; just asking the Nonconformists to bring things to a head?

MRS. FARRANT. [_Judicially._] I think that was precipitate.

WALTER KENT. [_Giving them_ LORD CHARLES'S _oratory_.] Gentlemen, in these latter days of Radical opportunism!--You know, I was there . . sitting next to an old gentleman who shouted "Jesuit."

FRANCES TREBELL. But supposing Mallaby and the Nonconformists hadn't been able to force the Liberals' hand?

MRS. FARRANT. [_Speaking as of inferior beings._] Why, they were glad of any cry going to the Country!

FRANCES TREBELL. [_As she considers this._] Yes . . and Lord Charles would still have had as good a chance of forcing Lord Horsham's. It has been clever tactics.

LUCY DAVENPORT. [_Who has been listening, sharp-eyed._] Contrariwise, he wouldn't have liked a Radical Bill though, would he?

WALTER KENT. [_With aplomb._] He knew he was safe from that. The government must have dissolved before Christmas anyway . . and the swing of the pendulum's a sure thing.

MRS. FARRANT. [_With her smile._] It's never a sure thing.

WALTER KENT. Oh, Mrs. Farrant, look how unpopular the Liberals are.

FRANCES TREBELL. What made them bring in Resolutions?

WALTER KENT. [_Overflowing with knowledge of the subject._] I was told Mallaby insisted on their showing they meant business. I thought he was being too clever . . and it turns out he was. Tommy Luxmore told me there was a fearful row in the Cabinet about it. But on their last legs, you know, it didn't seem to matter, I suppose. Even then, if Prothero had mustered up an ounce of tact . . I believe they could have pulled them through . .

FRANCES TREBELL. Not the Spoliation one.

WALTER KENT. Well, Mr. Trebell dished that!

FRANCES TREBELL. Henry says his speech didn't turn a vote.

MRS. FARRANT. [_With charming irony._] How disinterested of him!

WALTER KENT. [_Enthusiastic._] That speech did if ever a speech did.

FRANCES TREBELL. Is there any record of a speech that ever did? He just carried his own little following with him.

MRS. FARRANT. But the crux of the whole matter is and has always been . . what's to be done with the Church's money.

LUCY DAVENPORT. [_Visualising sovereigns._] A hundred millions or so . . think of it!

FRANCES TREBELL. There has been from the start a good deal of anti-Nonconformist feeling against applying the money to secular uses.

MRS. FARRANT. [_Deprecating false modesty, on anyone's behalf._] Oh, of course the speech turned votes . . twenty of them at least.

LUCY DAVENPORT. [_Determined on information._] Then I was told Lord Horsham had tried to come to an understanding himself with the Nonconformists about Disestablishment--oh--a long time ago . . over the Education Bill.

FRANCES TREBELL. Is that true, Julia?

MRS. FARRANT. How should I know?

FRANCES TREBELL. [_With some mischief._] You might.

MRS. FARRANT. [_Weighing her words._] I don't think it would have been altogether wise to make advances. They'd have asked more than a Conservative government could possibly persuade the Church to give up.

WALTER KENT. I don't see that Horsham's much better off now. He only turned the Radicals out on the Spoliation question by the help of Trebell. And so far . . I mean, till this election is over Trebell counts still as one of them, doesn't he, Miss Trebell? Oh . . perhaps he doesn't.

FRANCES TREBELL. He'll tell you he never has counted as one of them.

MRS. FARRANT. No doubt Lord Charles would sooner have done without his help. And that's why I didn't ask the gentle Jesuit this week-end if anyone wants to know.

WALTER KENT. [_Stupent at this lack of party spirit._] What . . he'd rather have had the Liberals go to the country undefeated!

MRS. FARRANT. [_With finesse._] The election may bring us back independent of Mr. Trebell and anything he stands for.

WALTER KENT. [_Sharply._] But you asked Lord Horsham to meet him.

MRS. FARRANT. [_With still more finesse._] I had my reasons. Votes aren't everything.

LADY DAVENPORT _has been listening with rather a doubtful smile; she now caps the discussion_.

LADY DAVENPORT. I'm relieved to hear you say so, my dear Julia. On the other hand democracy seems to have brought itself to a pretty pass. Here's a measure, which the country as a whole neither demands nor approves of, will certainly be carried, you tell me, because a minority on each side is determined it shall be . . for totally different reasons.

MRS. FARRANT. [_Shrugging again._] It isn't our business to prevent popular government looking foolish, Mamma.

LADY DAVENPORT. Is that Tory cynicism or feminine?

_At this moment_ GEORGE FARRANT _comes through the window; a good-natured man of forty-five. He would tell you that he was educated at Eton and Oxford. But the knowledge which saves his life comes from the thrusting upon him of authority and experience; ranging from the management of an estate which he inherited at twenty-four, through the chairmanship of a newspaper syndicate, through a successful marriage, to a minor post in the last Tory cabinet and the prospect of one in the near-coming next. Thanks to his agents, editors, permanent officials, and his own common sense, he always acquits himself creditably. He comes to his wife's side and waits for a pause in the conversation._

LADY DAVENPORT. I remember Mr. Disraeli once said to me . . Clever women are as dangerous to the State as dynamite.

FRANCES TREBELL. [_Not to be impressed by Disraeli._] Well, Lady Davenport, if men will leave our intellects lying loose about . .

FARRANT. Blackborough's going, Julia.

MRS. FARRANT. Yes, George.

LADY DAVENPORT. [_Concluding her little apologue to_ MISS TREBELL.] Yes, my dear, but power without responsibility isn't good for the character that wields it either.

[_There follows_ FARRANT _through the window a man of fifty. He has about him that unmistakeable air of acquired wealth and power which distinguishes many Jews and has therefore come to be regarded as a solely Jewish characteristic. He speaks always with that swift decision which betokens a narrowed view. This is_ RUSSELL BLACKBOROUGH; _manufacturer, politician . . statesman, his own side calls him_.]

BLACKBOROUGH. [_To his hostess._] If I start now, they tell me, I shall get home before the moon goes down. I'm sorry I must get back to-night. It's been a most delightful week-end.

MRS. FARRANT. [_Gracefully giving him a good-bye hand._] And a successful one, I hope.

FARRANT. We talked Education for half an hour.

MRS. FARRANT. [_Her eyebrows lifting a shade._] Education!

FARRANT. Then Trebell went away to work.

BLACKBOROUGH. I've missed the music, I fear.

MRS. FARRANT. But it's been Bach.

BLACKBOROUGH. No Chopin?

MRS. FARRANT. For a minute only.

BLACKBOROUGH. Why don't these new Italian men write things for the piano? Good-night, Lady Davenport.

LADY DAVENPORT. [_As he bows over her hand._] And what has Education to do with it?

BLACKBOROUGH. [_Non-committal himself._] Perhaps it was a subject that compromised nobody.

LADY DAVENPORT. Do you think my daughter has been wasting her time and her tact?

FARRANT. [_Clapping him on the shoulder._] Blackborough's frankly flabbergasted at the publicity of this intrigue.

MRS. FARRANT. Intrigue! Mr. Trebell walked across the House . . actually into your arms.

BLACKBOROUGH. [_With a certain dubious grimness._] Well . . we've had some very interesting talks since. And his views upon Education are quite . . Utopian. Good-bye, Miss Trebell.

FRANCES TREBELL. Good-bye.

MRS. FARRANT. I wouldn't be so haughty till after the election, if I were you, Mr. Blackborough.

BLACKBOROUGH. [_Indifferently._] Oh, I'm glad he's with us on the Church question . . so far.

MRS. FARRANT. So far as you've made up your minds? The electoral cat will jump soon.

BLACKBOROUGH. [_A little beaten by such polite cynicism._] Well . . our conservative principles! After all we know what they are. Good-night, Mrs. O'Connell.

AMY O'CONNELL. Good-night.

FARRANT. Your neuralgia better?

AMY O'CONNELL. By fits and starts.

FARRANT. [_Robustly._] Come and play billiards. Horsham and Maconochie started a game. They can neither of them play. We left them working out a theory of angles on bits of paper.

WALTER KENT. Professor Maconochie lured me on to golf yesterday. He doesn't suffer from theories about that.

BLACKBOROUGH. [_With approval._] Started life as a caddie.

WALTER KENT. [_Pulling a wry face._] So he told me after the first hole.

BLACKBOROUGH. What's this, Kent, about Trebell's making you his secretary?

WALTER KENT. He thinks he'll have me.

BLACKBOROUGH. [_Almost reprovingly._] No question of politics?

FARRANT. More intrigue, Blackborough.

WALTER KENT. [_With disarming candour._] The truth is, you see, I haven't any as yet. I was Socialist at Oxford . . but of course that doesn't count. I think I'd better learn my job under the best man I can find . . and who'll have me.

BLACKBOROUGH. [_Gravely._] What does your father say?

WALTER KENT. Oh, as long as Jack will inherit the property in a Tory spirit! My father thinks it my wild oats.

_A Footman has come in._

THE FOOTMAN. Your car is round, sir.

BLACKBOROUGH. Ah! Good-night, Miss Davenport. Good-bye again, Mrs. Farrant . . a charming week-end.

_He makes a business-like departure_, FARRANT _follows him_.

THE FOOTMAN. A telephone message from Dr. Wedgecroft, ma'am. His thanks; they stopped the express for him at Hitchin and he has reached London quite safely.

MRS. FARRANT. Thank you.

[_The Footman goes out._ MRS. FARRANT _exhales delicately as if the air were a little refined by_ BLACKBOROUGH'S _removal_.]

MRS. FARRANT. Mr. Blackborough and his patent turbines and his gas engines and what not are the motive power of our party nowadays, Fanny.

FRANCES TREBELL. Yes, you claim to be steering plutocracy. Do you never wonder if it isn't steering you?

MRS. O'CONNELL, _growing restless, has wandered round the room picking at the books in their cases_.

AMY O'CONNELL. I always like your books, Julia. It's an intellectual distinction to know someone who has read them.

MRS. FARRANT. That's the Communion I choose.

FRANCES TREBELL. Aristocrat . . fastidious aristocrat.

MRS. FARRANT. No, now. Learning's a great leveller.

FRANCES TREBELL. But Julia . . books are quite unreal. D'you think life is a bit like them?

MRS. FARRANT. They bring me into touch with . . Oh, there's nothing more deadening than to be boxed into a set in Society! Speak to a woman outside it . . she doesn't understand your language.

FRANCES TREBELL. And do you think by prattling Hegel with Gilbert Wedgecroft when he comes to physic you--

MRS. FARRANT. [_Joyously._] Excellent physic that is. He never leaves a prescription.

LADY DAVENPORT. Don't you think an aristocracy of brains is the best aristocracy, Miss Trebell?

FRANCES TREBELL. [_With a little more bitterness than the abstraction of the subject demands._] I'm sure it is just as out of touch with humanity as any other . . more so, perhaps. If I were a country I wouldn't be governed by arid intellects.

MRS. FARRANT. Manners, Frances.

FRANCES TREBELL. I'm one myself and I know. They're either dead or dangerous.

GEORGE FARRANT _comes back and goes straight to_ MRS. O'CONNELL.

FARRANT. [_Still robustly._] Billiards, Mrs. O'Connell.

AMY O'CONNELL. [_Declining sweetly._] I think not.

FARRANT. Billiards, Lucy?

LUCY DAVENPORT. [_As robust as he._] Yes, Uncle George. You shall mark while Walter gives me twenty-five and I beat him.

WALTER KENT. [_With a none-of-your-impudence air._] I'll give you ten yards start and race you to the billiard room.

LUCY DAVENPORT. Will you wear my skirt? Oh . . Grandmamma's thinking me vulgar.

LADY DAVENPORT. [_Without prejudice._] Why, my dear, freedom of limb is worth having . . and perhaps it fits better with freedom of tongue.

FARRANT. [_In the proper avuncular tone._] I'll play you both . . and I'd race you both if you weren't so disgracefully young.

AMY O'CONNELL _has reached an open window_.

AMY O'CONNELL. I shall go for a walk with my neuralgia.

MRS. FARRANT. Poor thing!

AMY O'CONNELL. The moon's good for it.

LUCY DAVENPORT. Shall you come, Aunt Julia?

MRS. FARRANT. [_In flat protest._] No, I will not sit up while you play billiards.

MRS. O'CONNELL _goes out through the one window, stands for a moment, wistfully romantic, gazing at the moon, then disappears_. FARRANT _and_ WALTER KENT _are standing at the other, looking across the lawn_.

FARRANT. Horsham still arguing with Maconochie. They're got to Botany now.

WALTER KENT. Demonstrating something with a . . what's that thing?

WALTER _goes out_.

FARRANT. [_With a throw of his head towards the distant_ HORSHAM.] He was so bored with our politics . . having to give his opinion too. We could just hear your piano.

_And he follows_ WALTER.

MRS. FARRANT. Take Amy O'Connell that lace thing, will you, Lucy?

LUCY DAVENPORT. [_Her tone expressing quite wonderfully her sentiments towards the owner._] Don't you think she'd sooner catch cold?

_She catches it up and follows the two men; then after looking round impatiently, swings off in the direction_ MRS. O'CONNELL _took. The three women now left together are at their ease._

FRANCES TREBELL. Did you expect Mr. Blackborough to get on well with Henry?

MRS. FARRANT. He has become a millionaire by appreciating clever men when he met them.

LADY DAVENPORT. Yes, Julia, but his political conscience is comparatively new-born.

MRS. FARRANT. Well, Mamma, can we do without Mr. Trebell?

LADY DAVENPORT. Everyone seems to think you'll come back with something of a majority.

MRS. FARRANT. [_A little impatient._] What's the good of that? The Bill can't be brought into the Lords . . and who's going to take Disestablishment through the Commons for us? Not Eustace Fowler . . not Mr. Blackborough . . not Lord Charles . . not George!

LADY DAVENPORT. [_Warningly._] Not all your brilliance as a hostess will keep Mr. Trebell in a Tory Cabinet.

MRS. FARRANT. [_With wilful avoidance of the point._] Cyril Horsham is only too glad.

LADY DAVENPORT. Because you tell him he ought to be.

FRANCES TREBELL. [_Coming to the rescue._] There is this. Henry has never exactly called himself a Liberal. He really is elected independently.

MRS. FARRANT. I wonder will all the garden-cities become pocket-boroughs.

FRANCES TREBELL. I think he has made a mistake.

MRS. FARRANT. It makes things easier now . . his having kept his freedom.

FRANCES TREBELL. I think it's a mistake to stand outside a system. There's an inhumanity in that amount of detachment . .

MRS. FARRANT. [_Brilliantly._] I think a statesman may be a little inhuman.

LADY DAVENPORT. [_With keenness._] Do you mean superhuman? It's not the same thing, you know.

MRS. FARRANT. I know.

LADY DAVENPORT. Most people don't know.

MRS. FARRANT. [_Proceeding with her cynicism._] Humanity achieves . . what? Housekeeping and children.

FRANCES TREBELL. As far as a woman's concerned.

MRS. FARRANT. [_A little mockingly._] Now, Mamma, say that is as far as a woman's concerned.

LADY DAVENPORT. My dear, you know I don't think so.

MRS. FARRANT. We may none of us think so. But there's our position . . bread and butter and a certain satisfaction until . . Oh, Mamma, I wish I were like you . . beyond all the passions of life.

LADY DAVENPORT. [_With great vitality._] I'm nothing of the sort. It's my egoism's dead . . that's an intimation of mortality.

MRS. FARRANT. I accept the snub. But I wonder what I'm to do with myself for the next thirty years.

FRANCES TREBELL. Help Lord Horsham to govern the country.

JULIA FARRANT _gives a little laugh and takes up the subject this time_.

MRS. FARRANT. Mamma . . how many people, do you think, believe that Cyril's _grande passion_ for me takes that form?

LADY DAVENPORT. Everyone who knows Cyril and most people who know you.

MRS. FARRANT. Otherwise I seem to have fulfilled my mission in life. The boys are old enough to go to school. George and I have become happily unconscious of each other.

FRANCES TREBELL. [_With sudden energy of mind._] Till I was forty I never realised the fact that most women must express themselves through men.

MRS. FARRANT. [_Looking at_ FRANCES _a little curiously_.] Didn't your instinct lead you to marry . . or did you fight against it?

FRANCES TREBELL. I don't know. Perhaps I had no vitality to spare.

LADY DAVENPORT. That boy is a long time proposing to Lucy.

_This effectually startles the other two from their conversational reverie._

MRS. FARRANT. Walter? I'm not sure that he means to. She means to marry him if he does.

FRANCES TREBELL. Has she told you so?

MRS. FARRANT. No. I judge by her business-like interest in his welfare.

FRANCES TREBELL. He's beginning to feel the responsibility of manhood . . doesn't know whether to be frightened or proud of it.

LADY DAVENPORT. It's a pretty thing to watch young people mating. When they're older and marry from disappointment or deliberate choice, thinking themselves so worldly-wise . .

MRS. FARRANT. [_Back to her politely cynical mood._] Well . . then at least they don't develop their differences at the same fire-side, regretting the happy time when neither possessed any character at all.

LADY DAVENPORT. [_Giving a final douche of common sense._] My dear, any two reasonable people ought to be able to live together.

FRANCES TREBELL. Granted three sitting rooms. That'll be the next middle-class political cry . . when women are heard.

MRS. FARRANT. [_Suddenly as practical as her mother._] Walter's lucky . . Lucy won't stand any nonsense. She'll have him in the Cabinet by the time he's fifty.

LADY DAVENPORT. And are you the power behind your brother, Miss Trebell?

FRANCES TREBELL. [_Gravely._] He ignores women. I've forced enough good manners on him to disguise the fact decently. His affections are two generations ahead.

MRS. FARRANT. People like him in an odd sort of way.

FRANCES TREBELL. That's just respect for work done . . one can't escape from it.

_There is a slight pause in their talk. By some not very devious route_ MRS. FARRANT'S _mind travels to the next subject_.

MRS. FARRANT. Fanny . . how fond are you of Amy O'Connell?

FRANCES TREBELL. She says we're great friends.

MRS. FARRANT. She says that of me.

FRANCES TREBELL. It's a pity about her husband.

MRS. FARRANT. [_Almost provokingly._] What about him?

FRANCES TREBELL. It seems to be understood that he treats her badly.

LADY DAVENPORT. [_A little malicious._] Is there any particular reason he should treat her well?

FRANCES TREBELL. Don't you like her, Lady Davenport?

LADY DAVENPORT. [_Dealing out justice._] I find her quite charming to look at and talk to . . but why shouldn't Justin O'Connell live in Ireland for all that? I'm going to bed, Julia.

_She collects her belongings and gets up._

MRS. FARRANT. I must look in at the billiard room.

FRANCES TREBELL. I won't come, Julia.

MRS. FARRANT. What's your brother working at?

FRANCES TREBELL. I don't know. Something we shan't hear of for a year, perhaps.

MRS. FARRANT. On the Church business, I daresay.

FRANCES TREBELL. Did you hear Lord Horsham at dinner on the lack of dignity in an irreligious state?

MRS. FARRANT. Poor Cyril . . he'll have to find a way round that opinion of his now.

FRANCES TREBELL. Does he like leading his party?

MRS. FARRANT. [_After due consideration._] It's an intellectual exercise. He's the right man, Fanny. You see it isn't a party in the active sense at all, except now and then when it's captured by someone with an axe to grind.

FRANCES TREBELL. [_Humorously._] Such as my brother.

MRS. FARRANT. [_As humorous._] Such as your brother. It expresses the thought of the men who aren't taken in by the claptrap of progress.