Tenterhooks - Ada Leverson
Tenterhooks
[Book 2 of The Little Ottleys]
by Ada Leverson
1912
TO ROBERT ROSS
CHAPTER I
A Verbal Invitation
Because Edith had not been feeling very well, that seemed no reason why
she should be the centre of interest; and Bruce, with that jealousy of
the privileges of the invalid and in that curious spirit of rivalry
which his wife had so often observed, had started, with enterprise, an
indisposition of his own, as if to divert public attention. While he
was at Carlsbad he heard the news. Then he received a letter from
Edith, speaking with deference and solicitude of Bruce's rheumatism,
entreating him to do the cure thoroughly, and suggesting that they
should call the little girl Matilda, after a rich and sainted--though
still living--aunt of Edith's. It might be an advantage to the child's
future (in every sense) to have a godmother so wealthy and so
religious. It appeared from the detailed description that the new
daughter had, as a matter of course (and at two days old), long golden
hair, far below her waist, sweeping lashes and pencilled brows, a
rosebud mouth, an intellectual forehead, chiselled features and a tall,
elegant figure. She was a magnificent, regal-looking creature and was a
superb beauty of the classic type, and yet with it she was dainty and
winsome. She had great talent for music. This, it appeared, was shown
by the breadth between the eyes and the timbre of her voice.
Overwhelmed with joy at the advent of such a paragon, and horrified at
Edith's choice of a name, Bruce had replied at once by wire,
impulsively:
_'Certainly not Matilda I would rather she were called Aspasia.'_
Edith read this expression of feeling on a colourless telegraph form,
and as she was, at Knightsbridge, unable to hear the ironical tone of
the message she took it literally.
She criticised the name, but was easily persuaded by her mother-in-law
to make no objection. The elder Mrs Ottley pointed out that it might
have been very much worse.
'But it's not a pretty name,' objected Edith. 'If it wasn't to be
Matilda, I should rather have called her something out of
Maeterlinck--Ygraine, or Ysolyn--something like that.'
'Yes, dear, Mygraine's a nice name, too,' said Mrs Ottley, in her
humouring way, 'and so is Vaselyn. But what does it really matter? I
shouldn't hold out on a point like this. One gets used to a name. Let
the poor child be called Asparagus if he wishes it, and let him feel he
has got his own way.'
So the young girl was named Aspasia Matilda Ottley. It was
characteristic of Edith that she kept to her own point, though not
aggressively. When Bruce returned after his after-cure, it was too
late to do anything but pretend he had meant it seriously.
Archie called his sister Dilly.
Archie had been rather hurt at the--as it seemed to him--unnecessary
excitement about Dilly. Not that he was jealous in any way. It was
rather that he was afraid it would spoil her to be made so much of at
her age; make her, perhaps, egotistical and vain. But it was not
Archie's way to show these fears openly. He did not weep loudly or
throw things about as many boys might have done. His methods were more
roundabout, more subtle. He gave hints and suggestions of his views
that should have been understood by the intelligent. He said one
morning with some indirectness:
'I had such a lovely dream last night, Mother.'
'Did you, pet? How sweet of you. What was it?'
'Oh, nothing much. It was all right. Very nice. It was a lovely dream.
I dreamt I was in heaven.'
'Really! How delightful. Who was there?'
This is always a woman's first question.
'Oh, you were there, of course. And father. Nurse, too. It was a lovely
dream. Such a nice place.'
'Was Dilly there?'
'Dilly? Er--no--no--she wasn't. She was in the night nursery, with
Satan.'
Sometimes Edith thought that her daughter's names were decidedly a
failure--Aspasia by mistake, Matilda through obstinacy, and Dilly by
accident. However the child herself was a success. She was four years
old when the incident occurred about the Mitchells. The whole of this
story turns eventually on the Mitchells.
The Ottleys lived in a concise white flat at Knightsbridge. Bruce's
father had some time ago left him a good income on certain conditions;
one was that he was not to leave the Foreign Office before he was
fifty. One afternoon Edith was talking to the telephone in a voice of
agonised entreaty that would have melted the hardest of hearts, but did
not seem to have much effect on the Exchange, which, evidently, was not
responsive to pathos that day.
'Oh! Exchange, _why_ are you ringing off? _Please_ try again.... Do I
want any number? Yes, I do want any number, of course, or why should I
ring up?... I want 6375 Gerrard.'
Here Archie interposed.
'Mother, can I have your long buttonhook?'
'No, Archie, you can't just now, dear.... Go away Archie.... Yes, I
said 6375 Gerrard. Only 6375 Gerrard!... Are you there? Oh, don't keep
on asking me if I've got them!... No, they haven't answered.... Are you
6375?... Oh--wrong number--sorry.... 6375 Gerrard? Only six--are you
there?... Not 6375 Gerrard?... Are you anyone else?... Oh, is it you,
Vincy?... I want to tell you--'
'Mother, can I have your long buttonhook?'
Here Bruce came in. Edith rang off. Archie disappeared.
'It's really rather wonderful, Edith, what that Sandow exerciser has
done for me! You laughed at me at first, but I've improved
marvellously.'
Bruce was walking about doing very mild gymnastics, and occasionally
hitting himself on the left arm with the right fist.' Look at my
muscle--look at it--and all in such a short time!'
'Wonderful!' said Edith.
'The reason I know what an extraordinary effect these few days have had
on me is something I have just done which I couldn't have done before.
Of course I'm naturally a very powerful man, and only need a little--'
'What have you done?'
'Why--you know that great ridiculous old wooden chest that your awful
Aunt Matilda sent you for your birthday--absurd present I call it--mere
lumber.'
'Yes?'
'When it came I could barely push it from one side of the room to the
other. Now I've lifted it from your room to the box-room. Quite
easily. Pretty good, isn't it?'
'Yes, of course it's very good for you to do all these exercises; no
doubt it's capital.... Er--you know I've had all the things taken out
of the chest since you tried it before, don't you?'
'Things--what things? I didn't know there was anything in it.'
'Only a silver tea-service, and a couple of salvers,' said Edith, in a
low voice....
...He calmed down fairly soon and said: 'Edith, I have some news for
you. You know the Mitchells?'
'Do I know the _Mitchells_? Mitchell, your hero in your office, that
you're always being offended with--at _least_ I know the Mitchells by
_name_. I ought to.'
'Well, what do you think they've done? They've asked us to dinner.'
'Have they? Fancy!'
'Yes, and what I thought was so particularly jolly of him was that it
was a verbal invitation. Mitchell said to me, just like this, 'Ottley,
old chap, are you doing anything on Sunday evening?''
Here Archie came to the door and said, 'Mother, can I have your long
buttonhook?'
Edith shook her head and frowned.
''Ottley, old chap,'' continued Bruce, ''are you and your wife doing
anything on Sunday? If not, I do wish you would waive ceremony and come
and dine with us. Would Mrs Ottley excuse a verbal invitation, do you
think?' I said, 'Well, Mitchell, as a matter of fact I don't believe we
have got anything on. Yes, old boy, we shall be delighted.' I accepted,
you see. I accepted straight out. When you're treated in a friendly
way, I always say why be unfriendly? And Mrs Mitchell is a charming
little woman--I'm sure you'd like her. It seems she's been dying to
know you.'
'Fancy! I wonder she's still alive, then, because you and Mitchell have
known each other for eight years, and I've never met her yet.'
'Well, you will now. Let bygones be bygones. They live in Hamilton
Place.'
'Oh yes....Park Lane?'
'I told you he was doing very well, and his wife has private means.'
'Mother,' Archie began again, like a litany, 'can I have your long
buttonhook? I know where it is.'
'No, Archie, certainly not; you can't fasten laced boots with a
buttonhook.... Well, that will be fun, Bruce.'
'I believe they're going to have games after dinner,' said Bruce. 'All
very jolly--musical crambo--that sort of thing.... What shall you wear,
Edith?'
'Mother, do let me have your long buttonhook. I want it. It isn't for
my boots.'
'_Certainly_ not. What a nuisance you are! Do go away.... I think I
shall wear my salmon-coloured dress with the sort of mayonnaise-
coloured sash.... (No, you're not to have it, Archie).'
'But, Mother, I've got it.... I can soon mend it, Mother.'
On Sunday evening Bruce's high spirits seemed to flag; he had one of
his sudden reactions. He looked at everything on its dark side.
'What on earth's that thing in your hair, Edith?'
'It's a bandeau.'
'I don't like it. Your hair looks very nice without it. What on _earth_
did you get it for?'
'For about six-and-eleven, I think.'
'Don't be trivial, Edith. We shall be late. Ah! It really does seem
rather a pity, the very first time one dines with people like the
Mitchells.'
'We sha'n't be late, Bruce. It's eight o'clock, and eight o'clock I
suppose means--well, eight. Sure you've got the number right?'
'Really. Edith!... My memory is unerring, dear. I never make a mistake.
Haven't you ever noticed it?'
'A--oh yes--I think I have.'
'Well, it's 168 Hamilton Place. Look sharp, dear.'
On their way in the taxi he gave her a good many instructions and
advised her to be perfectly at her ease and _absolutely natural_; there
was nothing to make one otherwise, in either Mr or Mrs Mitchell. Also,
he said, it didn't matter a bit what she wore, as long as she had put
on her _best_ dress. It seemed a pity she had not got a new one, but
this couldn't be helped, as there was now no time. Edith agreed that
she knew of no really suitable place where she could buy a new evening
dress at eight-thirty on Sunday evening. And, anyhow, he said, she
looked quite nice, really very smart; besides, Mrs Mitchell was not the
sort of person who would think any the less of a pretty woman for being
a little dowdy and out of fashion.
When they drove up to what house agents call in their emotional way a
superb, desirable, magnificent town mansion, they saw that a large
dinner-party was evidently going on. A hall porter and four powdered
footmen were in evidence.
'By Jove!' said Bruce, as he got out, 'I'd no idea old Mitchell did
himself so well as this.'... The butler had never heard of the
Mitchells. The house belonged to Lord Rosenberg.
'Confound it! 'said Bruce, as he flung himself into the taxi. 'Well!
I've made a mistake for once in my life. I admit it. Of course, it's
really Hamilton Gardens. Sorry. Yet somehow I'm rather glad Mitchell
doesn't live in that house.'
'You are perfectly right,' said Edith: 'the bankruptcy of an old friend
and colleague could be no satisfaction to any man.'
Hamilton Gardens was a gloomy little place, like a tenement building
out of Marylebone Road. Bruce, in trying to ring the bell,
unfortunately turned out all the electric light in the house, and was
standing alone in despair in the dark when, fortunately the porter, who
had been out to post a letter, ran back, and turned up the light
again.... 'I shouldn't have thought they could play musical crambo
here, 'he called out to Edith while he was waiting. 'And now isn't it
odd? I have a funny kind of feeling that the right address is Hamilton
House.'
'I suppose you're perfectly certain they don't live at a private idiot
asylum?' Edith suggested doubtfully.
On inquiry it appeared the Mitchells did not live at Hamilton Gardens.
An idea occurred to Edith, and she asked for a directory.
The Winthrop Mitchells lived at Hamilton Terrace, St John's Wood.
'At last!' said Bruce. 'Now we shall be too disgracefully late for the
first time. But be perfectly at your ease, dear. Promise me that. Go in
quite naturally.'
'How else can I go in?'
'I mean as if nothing had happened.'
'I think we'd better tell them what _has_ happened,' said Edith; 'it
will make them laugh. I hope they will have begun their dinner.'
'Surely they will have finished it.'
'Perhaps we may find them at their games!'
'Now, now, don't be bitter, Edith dear--never be bitter--life has its
ups and downs.... Well! I'm rather glad, after all, that Mitchell
doesn't live in that horrid little hole.'
'I'm sure you are,' said Edith; 'it could be no possible satisfaction
to you to know that a friend and colleague of yours is either
distressingly hard up or painfully penurious.'
They arrived at the house, but there were no lights, and no sign of
life. The Mitchells lived here all right, but they were out. The
parlourmaid explained. The dinner-party had been Saturday, the night
before....
'Strange,' said Bruce, as he got in again. 'I had a curious
presentiment that something was going wrong about this dinner at the
Mitchells'.'
'What dinner at the Mitchells'? There doesn't seem to be any.'
'Do you know,' Bruce continued his train of thought, 'I felt certain
somehow that it would be a failure. Wasn't it odd? I often think I'm a
pessimist, and yet look how well I'm taking it. I'm more like a
fatalist--sometimes I hardly know what I am.'
'I could tell you what you are,' said Edith, 'but I won't, because now
you must take me to the Carlton. We shall get there before it's
closed.'
CHAPTER II
Opera Glasses
Whether to behave with some coolness to Mitchell, and be stand-offish,
as though it had been all his fault, or to be lavishly apologetic, was
the question. Bruce could not make up his mind which attitude to take.
In a way, it was all the Mitchells' fault. They oughtn't to have given
him a verbal invitation. It was rude, Bohemian, wanting in good form;
it showed an absolute and complete ignorance of the most ordinary and
elementary usages of society. It was wanting in common courtesy;
really, when one came to think about it, it was an insult. On the other
hand, technically, Bruce was in the wrong. Having accepted he ought to
have turned up on the right night. It may have served them right (as he
said), but the fact of going on the wrong night being a lesson to them
seemed a little obscure. Edith found it difficult to see the point.
Then he had a more brilliant idea; to go into the office as cheerily as
ever, and say to Mitchell pleasantly, 'We're looking forward to next
Saturday, old chap,' pretending to have believed from the first that
the invitation had been for the Saturday week; and that the dinner was
still to come....
This, Edith said, would have been excellent, provided that the
parlourmaid hadn't told them that she and Bruce had arrived about a
quarter to ten on Sunday evening and asked if the Mitchells had begun
dinner. The chances against the servant having kept this curious
incident to herself were almost too great.
After long argument and great indecision the matter was settled by a
cordial letter from Mrs Mitchell, asking them to dinner on the
following Thursday, and saying she feared there had been some mistake.
So that was all right.
Bruce was in good spirits again; he was pleased too, because he was
going to the theatre that evening with Edith and Vincy, to see a play
that he thought wouldn't be very good. He had almost beforehand settled
what he thought of it, and practically what he intended to say.
But when he came in that evening he was overheard to have a strenuous
and increasingly violent argument with Archie in the hall.
Edith opened the door and wanted to know what the row was about.
'Will you tell me, Edith, where your son learns such language? He keeps
on worrying me to take him to the Zoological Gardens to see
the--well--you'll hear what he says. The child's a perfect nuisance.
Who put it into his head to want to go and see this animal? I was
obliged to speak quite firmly to him about it.'
Edith was not alarmed that Bruce had been severe. She thought it much
more likely that Archie had spoken very firmly to him. He was always
strict with his father, and when he was good Bruce found fault with
him. As soon as he grew really tiresome his father became abjectly
apologetic.
Archie was called and came in, dragging his feet, and pouting, in tears
that he was making a strenuous effort to encourage.
'You must be firm with him,' continued Bruce. 'Hang it! Good heavens!
Am I master in my own house or am I not?'
There was no reply to this rhetorical question.
He turned to Archie and said in a gentle, conciliating voice:
'Archie, old chap, tell your mother what it is you want to see. Don't
cry, dear.'
'Want to see the damned chameleon,' said Archie, with his hands in his
eyes. 'Want father to take me to the Zoo.'
'You can't go to the Zoo this time of the evening. What do you mean?'
'I want to see the damned chameleon.'
'You hear!' exclaimed Bruce to Edith.
'Who taught you this language?'
'Miss Townsend taught it me.'
'There! It's dreadful, Edith; he's becoming a reckless liar. Fancy her
dreaming of teaching him such things! If she did, of course she must be
mad, and you must send her away at once. But I'm quite sure she
didn't.'
'Come, Archie, you know Miss Townsend never taught you to say that.
What have you got into your head?'
'Well, she didn't exactly teach me to say it--she didn't give me
lessons in it--but she says it herself. She said the damned chameleon
was lovely; and I want to see it. She didn't say I ought to see it. But
I want to. I've been wanting to ever since. She said it at lunch today,
and I do want to. Lots of other boys go to the Zoo, and why shouldn't
I? I want to see it so much.'
'Edith, I must speak to Miss Townsend about this very seriously. In the
first place, people have got no right to talk about queer animals to
the boy at all--we all know what he is--and in such language! I should
have thought a girl like Miss Townsend, who has passed examinations in
Germany, and so forth, would have had more sense of her
responsibility--more tact. It shows a dreadful want of--I hardly know
what to think of it--the daughter of a clergyman, too!'
'It's all right, Bruce,' Edith laughed. 'Miss Townsend told me she had
been to see the _Dame aux Camelias_ some time ago. She was enthusiastic
about it. Archie dear, I'll take you to the Zoological Gardens and
we'll see lots of other animals. And don't use that expression.'
'What! Can't I see the da--'
'Mr Vincy,' announced the servant.
'I must go and dress,' said Bruce.
Vincy Wenham Vincy was always called by everyone simply Vincy. Applied
to him it seemed like a pet name. He had arrived at the right moment,
as he always did. He was very devoted to both Edith and Bruce, and he
was a confidant of both. He sometimes said to Edith that he felt he was
just what was wanted in the little home; an intimate stranger coming in
occasionally with a fresh atmosphere was often of great value (as, for
instance, now) in calming or averting storms.
Had anyone asked Vincy exactly what he was he would probably have said
he was an Observer, and really he did very little else, though after he
left Oxford he had taken to writing a little, and painting less. He was
very fair, the fairest person one could imagine over five years old. He
had pale silky hair, a minute fair moustache, very good features, a
single eyeglass, and the appearance, always, of having been very
recently taken out of a bandbox.
But when people fancied from this look of his that he was an
empty-headed fop they soon found themselves immensely mistaken.
He was thirty-eight, but looked a gilded youth of twenty; and _was_
sufficiently gilded (as he said), not perhaps exactly to be
comfortable, but to enable him to get about comfortably, and see those
who were.
He had a number of relatives in high places, who bored him, and were
always trying to get him married. He had taken up various occupations
and travelled a good deal. But his greatest pleasure was the study of
people. There was nothing cold in his observation, nothing of the
cynical analyst. He was impulsive, though very quiet, immensely and
ardently sympathetic and almost too impressionable and enthusiastic. It
was not surprising that he was immensely popular generally, as well as
specially; he was so interested in everyone except himself.
No-one was ever a greater general favourite. There seemed to be no type
of person on whom he jarred. People who disagreed on every other
subject agreed in liking Vincy.
But he did not care in the least for acquaintances, and spent much
ingenuity in trying to avoid them; he only liked intimate friends, and
of all he had perhaps the Ottleys were his greatest favourites.
His affection for them dated from a summer they had spent in the same
hotel in France. He had become extraordinarily interested in them. He
delighted in Bruce, but had with Edith, of course, more mutual
understanding and intellectual sympathy, and though they met
constantly, his friendship with her had never been misunderstood.
Frivolous friends of his who did not know her might amuse themselves by
being humorous and flippant about Vincy's little Ottleys, but no-one
who had ever seen them together could possibly make a mistake. They
were an example of the absurdity of a tradition--'the world's'
proneness to calumny. Such friendships, when genuine, are never
misconstrued. Perhaps society is more often taken in the other way. But
as a matter of fact the truth on this subject, as on most others, is
always known in time. No-one had ever even tried to explain away the
intimacy, though Bruce had all the air of being unable to do without
Vincy's society sometimes cynically attributed to husbands in a
different position.
Vincy was pleased with the story of the Mitchells that Edith told him,
and she was glad to hear that he knew the Mitchells and had been to the
house.
'How like you to know everyone. What did they do?'
'The night I was there they played games,' said Vincy. He spoke in a
soft, even voice. 'It was just a little--well--perhaps just a _tiny_
bit ghastly, I thought; but don't tell Bruce. That evening I thought
the people weren't quite young enough, and when they played 'Oranges
and Lemons, and the Bells of St Clements,' and so on--their bones
seemed to--well, sort of rattle, if you know what I mean. But still
perhaps it was only my fancy. Mitchell has such very high spirits, you
see, and is determined to make everything go. He won't have
conventional parties, and insists on plenty of verve; so, of course,
one's forced to have it.' He sighed. 'They haven't any children, and
they make a kind of hobby of entertaining in an unconventional way.'
'It sounds rather fun. Perhaps you will be asked next Thursday. Try.'
'I'll try. I'll call, and remind her of me. I daresay she'll ask me.
She's very good-natured. She believes in spiritualism, too.'
'I wonder who'll be there?'
'Anyone might be there, or anyone else. As they say of marriage, it's a
lottery. They might have roulette, or a spiritual seance, or Kubelik,
or fancy dress heads.'
'Fancy dress heads!'
'Yes. Or a cotillion, or just bridge. You never know. The house is
rather like a country house, and they behave accordingly. Even
hide-and-seek, I believe, sometimes. And Mitchell adores unpractical
jokes, too.'
'I see. It's rather exciting that I'm going to the Mitchells at last.'
'Yes, perhaps it will be the turning-point of your life,' said Vincy.
'Ah! here's Bruce.'
'I don't think much of that opera glass your mother gave you,' Bruce
remarked to his wife, soon after the curtain rose.
'It's the fashion,' said Edith. 'It's jade--the latest thing.'
'I don't care if it is the fashion. It's no use. Here, try it, Vincy.'
He handed it to Vincy, who gave Bruce a quick look, and then tried it.
'Rather quaint and pretty, I think. I like the effect,' he said,
handing it back to Bruce.
'It may be quaint and pretty, and it may be the latest thing, and it
may be jade,' said Bruce rather sarcastically, 'but I'm not a slave to
fashion. I never was. And I don't see any use whatever in an opera
glass that makes everything look smaller instead of larger, and at a
greater distance instead of nearer. I call it rot. I always say what I
think. And you can tell your mother what I said if you like.'
'You're looking through it the wrong side, dear,' said Edith.
CHAPTER III
The Golden Quoribus
Edith had been very pretty at twenty, but at twenty-eight her
prettiness had immensely increased; she had really become a beauty of a
particularly troubling type. She had long, deep blue eyes, clearly-cut
features, hair of that soft, fine light brown just tinged with red
called by the French chatain clair; and a flower-like complexion. She
was slim, but not angular, and had a reposeful grace and a decided
attraction for both men and women. They generally tried to express this
fascination by discovering resemblances in her to various well-known
pictures of celebrated artists. She had been compared to almost every
type of all the great painters: Botticelli, Sir Peter Lely,
Gainsborough, Burne-Jones. Some people said she was like a Sargent,
others called her a post-impressionist type; there was no end to the
old and new masters of whom she seemed to remind people; and she
certainly had the rather insidious charm of somehow recalling the past
while suggesting something undiscovered in the future. There was a good
deal that was enigmatic about her. It was natural, not assumed as a
pose of mysteriousness. She was not all on the surface: not obvious.
One wondered. Was she capable of any depth of feeling? Was she always
just sweet and tactful and clever, or could there be another side to
her character? Had she (for instance) a temperament? This question was
considered one of interest,--so Edith had a great many admirers. Some
were new and fickle, others were old and faithful. She had never yet
shown more than a conversational interest in any of them, but always
seemed to be laughing with a soft mockery at her own success.