Chapter 38
"Now tell me, Sylvia, ought I or ought I not to wear a widow's veil?
Miss Dashwood inviting me in that friendly way, I do want to show that I appreciate her kindness. I know that strictly we weren't married. I dare say nowadays it would be different, but people was much more old-fas.h.i.+oned about marrying ballet-girls when I was young. Still, it doesn't seem hardly decent for me to go gallivanting to his funeral in me black watered silk, the same as if I were going to the upper boxes of a theater with Mrs. Marsham or Mrs. Beardmore."
Sylvia told Mrs. Gainsborough that in her opinion a widow's cap at the general's funeral would be like the dash of mauve at the wedding in the story. She suggested the proper thing to do would be to buy a new black dress unprofaned by visits to the upper boxes.
"If I can get such an out size in the time," Mrs. Gainsborough sighed, "which is highly doubtful."
However, the new dress was obtained, and Mrs. Gainsborough went off to the funeral at Brompton.
"On, it was a beautiful ceremony," she sobbed, when she got home. "And really Miss Dashwood, well, she couldn't have been nicer. Oh, my poor dear captain, if only all the clergyman said was true. And yet I should feel more comfortable somehow if it wasn't. Though I suppose if it was true there'd be no objection to our meeting in heaven as friends only.
Dear me, it all sounded so real when I heard the clergyman talking about it. Just as if he was going up in a lift, as you might say. So natural it sounded. 'A gallant soldier,' he said, 'a veteran of the Crimea.' So he was gallant, the dear captain. You should have seen him lay out two roughs who tried to s.n.a.t.c.h me watch and chain once at the Epsom Derby.
He was a gentleman, too. I'm sure n.o.body ever treated any woman kinder than he treated me. Seventy years old he was. Captain Bob Dashwood of the Seventeenth Hussars. I can see him now as he used to be. He liked to come stamping up the garden. Oh, he was a stamper, and 'Polly,' he hollered out, 'get on your frills. Here's d.i.c.k Avon--the Markiss of Avon _that_ was' (oh, he was a wild thing) 'and Jenny Ward' (you know, she threw herself off Westminster Bridge and caused such a stir in Jubilee year). People talked a lot about it at the time. I remember we drove to the Star and Garter at Richmond that day--a lovely June day it was--and caused quite a sensation, because we all looked so smart. Oh, my Bob, my Bob, it only seems yesterday."
Sylvia consoled Mrs. Gainsborough and rejoiced in her a.s.surance that she did not know what she should have done.
"Fancy him thinking about me being so lonely and wanting you to come and live with me. Depend upon it he knew he was going to die all of a sudden," said Mrs. Gainsborough. "Oh, there's no doubt he was clever enough to have been a doctor. Only of course with his family he had to be a soldier."
Sylvia mostly spent these spring days in the garden with Mrs.
Gainsborough, listening to her tales about the past and helping her to overlook the labors of the jobbing gardener who came in twice a week.
Her landlady or hostess (for the exact relation was not yet determined) was very strict in this regard, because her father had been a nursery gardener and she insisted upon a peculiar knowledge of the various ways in which horticultural obligations could be avoided. When Sylvia raised the question of her status at Mulberry Cottage, Mrs. Gainsborough always begged her not to be in a hurry to settle anything; later on, when Sylvia was able to earn some money, she should pay for her board, but payment for her lodging, so long as Mrs. Gainsborough was alive and the house was not burned to the ground, was never to be mentioned. That was certainly the captain's intention and it must be respected.
Sylvia often went to see Mrs. Gowndry
"I've told me old man to keep a good lookout for her," said Mrs.
Gowndry.
"He's hardly likely to meet her at his work," Sylvia said.
"Certainly not. No. But he often goes up to get a breath of air--well--it isn't to be expected that he wouldn't. I often say to him when he comes home a bit grumblified that his profession is as bad as a miner's, and _they_ only does eight hours, whereas in his lavatory they does twelve. Too long, too long, and it must be fidgety work, with people bobbing in and out all the time and always in a hurry, as you might say. Of course now and again you get a lodger who makes himself unpleasant, but, year in year out, looking after lodgers is a more peaceful sort of a life than looking after a lavatory. Don't you be afraid, Miss Scarlett. If ever a letter comes for you our Tommy shall bring it straight round, and he's a boy as can be trusted not to lose anything he's given. You wouldn't lose the pretty lady's letter, would you, Tommy? You never lose nothing, do you?"
"I lost a acid-drop once."
"There, fancy him remembering. That's a hit for his ma, that is. He'd only half sucked this here acid-drop and laid it aside to finish sucking it when he went up to bed, and I must have swept it up, not thinking what it was. Fancy him remembering. He don't talk much, but he's a artful one."
Tommy had a bagful of acid-drops soon after this, for he brought a letter to Sylvia from Lily:
DEAR SYLVIA,--I suppose you're awfully angry with me, but Claude went on tour a month ago, and I hate being alone. I wonder if this will find you. I'm staying in rotten rooms in Camden Town. 14 Winchester Terrace. Send me a card if you're in London.
Loving, LILY.
Sylvia immediately went over to Camden Town and brought Lily away from the rooms, which were indeed "rotten." When she had installed her at Mulberry Cottage she worked herself up to having a clear understanding with Lily, but when it came to the point she felt it was useless to scold her except in fun, as a child scolds her doll. She did, however, treat her henceforth in what Mrs. Gainsborough called a "highly dictatorial way." Sylvia thought she could give Lily the appearance of moral or immoral energy, however impossible it might be to give her the reality. With this end in view she made Lily's will entirely subordinate to her own, which was not difficult. The affection that Sylvia now had for her was not so much tender as careful, the affection one might feel for a bicycle rather than for a horse. She was always brutally frank with herself about their relation to each other, and because she never congratulated herself upon her kindness she was able to sustain her affection.
"There is nothing so fickle as a virtuous impulse," Sylvia declared to herself. "It's a kind of moral usury which is always looking for a return on the investment. The moment the object fails to pay an exorbitant interest in grat.i.tude, the impulse to speculate withers up.
The lowest circle in h.e.l.l should be reserved for people who try to help others and cannot understand why their kindness is not appreciated.
Really that was Philip's trouble. He never got over being hurt that I didn't perpetually remind him of his splendid behavior toward me. I suppose I'm d.a.m.ned inhuman. Well, well, I couldn't have stood those three months after I left him if I hadn't been."
The affair between Lily and Claude Raglan was not much discussed. He had, it seemed, only left her because his career was at stake; he had received a good offer and she had not wished to detain him.
"But is it over between you?" Sylvia demanded.
"Yes, of course, it's over--at any rate, for a long time to come," Lily answered. "He cried when he left me. He really was a nice boy. If he lives, he thinks he will be a success--a real success. He introduced me to a lot of nice boys."
"That was rash of him," Sylvia laughed. "Were they as nice as the lodgings he introduced you to?"
"No, don't laugh at him. He couldn't afford anything else."
"But why in Heaven's name, if you wanted to play around together, had you got to leave Finborough Road?"
Lily blushed faintly. "You won't be angry if I tell you?"
Sylvia shook her head.
"Claude said he couldn't bear the idea that you were looking at us. He said it spoiled everything."
"What did he think I was going to do?" Sylvia snapped. "Put pepper on the hymeneal pillow?"
"You said you wouldn't be angry."
"I'm not."
"Well, don't use long words, because it makes me think you are."
Soon after Lily came to Tinderbox Lane, Sylvia met Dorothy Lonsdale with a very lovely dark girl called Olive Fanshawe, a fellow-member of the Vanity chorus. Dorothy was glad to see her, princ.i.p.ally, Sylvia thought, because she was able to talk about lunch at Romano's and supper at the Savoy.
"Look here," Sylvia said. "A little less of the Queen of Sheba, if you don't mind. Don't forget I'm one of the blokes as is glad to smell the gratings outside a baker's."
Miss Fanshawe laughed, and Sylvia looked at her quickly, wondering if she were worth while.
Dorothy was concerned to hear she was still with Lily. "That dreadful girl," she simpered.
"Oh, go to h.e.l.l," said Sylvia, sharply, and walked off.
Next day a note came from Dorothy to invite her and Lily to tea at the flat she shared with Olive.
"Wonderful how attractive rudeness is," Sylvia commented.
"Oh, do let's go. Look, she lives in Half Moon Street," Lily said.
"And a d.a.m.ned good address for the demi-monde," Sylvia added.
However, the tea-party was definitely a success, and for the rest of the summer Sylvia and Lily spent a lot of time on the river with what Sylvia called the semicircle of intimate friends they had brought away from Half Moon Street. She grew very fond of Olive Fanshawe and warned her against her romantic adoration of Dorothy.
"But you're just as romantic over Lily," Olive argued.
"Not a single illusion left, my dear," Sylvia a.s.sured her. "Besides, I should never compare Lily with Dorothy. Dorothy is more beautiful, more ambitious, more mercenary. She'll probably marry a lord. She's acquired the art of getting a lot for nothing to a perfection that could only be matched by a politician or a girl with the same brown eyes in the same glory of light-brown hair. And when it suits her she'll go back on her word just as gracefully, and sell her best friend as readily as a politician will sell his country."
"You're very down on politicians. I think there's something so romantic about them," Olive declared. "Young politicians, of course."
"My dear, you'd think a Bradshaw romantic."