At tea he was so silent that I felt it was all sinking in very deep. At the end he said:
“Lady Ann, may I ask your advice? You are a woman of the world——”
“Goodness me, no!,” I said. “Thirty years ago I may have counted for something there; but now I live under my own little vine and fig-tree; I see no one; I’m out of touch; you’d find me very old-fashioned, I fear.”
“You’ve been very kind to me,” he said, “and I want you to add to your kindness. I’m in love with Phyllida, as you know; and she—I think she quite likes me. Lord Brackenbury and every one here have been simply ripping. Please tell me what you think about it.”
“Do you mean, will she marry you?,” I asked.
“Yes,” he said.
“Oh, I should think it very likely,” I told him; “I wondered whether you meant, would you make her happy?”
“I should certainly hope to do that,” he answered.
“We all hope,” I said …
My responsibility is confined to giving him a moment’s pause for thought. Phyllida will tell you that I set him against her, poisoned his mind, I shouldn’t wonder … It’s most charitable to recognize that she really did not know what she was saying. I didn’t talk about him at all; I talked about Will, about my nephew Culroyd, their friends, their lives … Any deductions were of his drawing; and, goodness me, one need not be branded a snob for seeing that they had been born and bred in different worlds. He seemed to think that love would overcome everything.
“If you’re in love,” he kept saying, “these things don’t matter, do they?”
What made him uncomfortable was the money question—the thought that he would be bringing literally nothing. I was most careful not to say anything, but every child knows that if you divide a sum of money by two … He would be living on Phyllida; and, if he loved her as much as he pretended, he would always be feeling: “It’s a frock for her or a suit of clothes for me.” A very humiliating position for any man … I know it’s the modern fashion to pretend that it doesn’t matter; Phyllida says in so many words that the advantage of money to a girl is that she can marry where her heart leads her. A snare and a delusion, unless you mean that a woman with money and nothing else can occasionally buy herself position … I’m sure she picked that up from her poor mother. But, if Brackenbury married on his debts, he did bring something; I know we all had to work very hard for Ruth—“doing propaganda,” as my boy Will says—to shew people that the marriage was all right … And it will be the same with Will, if he ever marries … Whoever he marries … He does bring something …
Colonel Butler asked if people would think Phyllida had thrown herself away on him. What could I say? … But for the war, he told me, he would be earning his own living; and, do you know?, that was the only time the cloven hoof appeared.
“We’ve all of us had to make sacrifices,” I answered, “and the war ought not to be made either an excuse or—an opportunity.”
Goodness me, you don’t suppose my boy Will enjoyed the fatigues, the dangers … The general was utterly callous towards his staff; but Will “stuck it out”, as he would say. It was the soldier’s part, and Colonel Butler knew as well as I did that it was only the war and the accident of being wounded that had thrown him across Phyllida’s path.
“What do you mean by ‘opportunity’, Lady Ann?,” he asked.
It was not easy to put into words … I sometimes feel that romance has gone to the head of some of our girls; first of all, a man had only to be in uniform, then he had only to be wounded … I liked Colonel Butler, but in the old days Phyllida would not have looked at him … And, goodness me, if you go back a generation, you can imagine what my father would have said if a man, however pleasant, with nothing but his pay and the clothes he stood up in … A soldier only by the accident of war … And in a regiment one had truly honestly never heard of …
“I don’t feel I can help you,” I said. “Times have changed, and my ideas are out of date. My brother may be different; have you spoken to him?” …
As a matter of fact any woman could have seen that it wasn’t necessary to speak; Brackenbury, all of them were throwing themselves at the young man’s head. That’s why I felt that, if I didn’t—give him a pause for reflection, no one would. No, he hadn’t said anything yet; it seemed such presumption that, though every one was gracious to him and Phyllida more than gracious, he wanted an outside opinion from some one whom he was good enough to call “a woman of the world.” Was he justified in saying anything while his financial prospects were so uncertain? Was it fair to ask Phyllida to give up so much of the life she was accustomed to? Would people think he was trying to marry her for her money? Was he entitled to ask her to wait?
I said … Phyllida was not present, you understand, so anything she tells you can only be the fruit of a disordered imagination. If Brackenbury sent her right away, the whole thing would be forgotten in two months … I really forget what I did say …
At dinner I could see that Colonel Butler was pondering my advice. At least, when I say “advice”, the limit of my responsibility is that perhaps the effect of our little talk was to check his natural impetuosity. Things were sinking in; his own good sense, more than anything I should have dared to say … Phyllida came down arrayed with quite unnecessary splendour—we were only the family and Colonel Butler. “Poor child,” I thought to myself, “you fancy you’re attracting him when you’re only frightening the shy bird away; you imagine he’s admiring your frock when he’s only wondering how much it cost.” It was sinking in … If poor Ruth wanted her to throw herself away on a penniless surveyor, she might have told her that simplicity was the note to strike. Phyllida won’t think for herself, and Ruth is incapable of thinking for her. Good gracious! at dinner the child sat between Colonel Butler and my boy Will; I don’t encourage any girl to become a minx, but no man thinks the better of you for throwing yourself at his head. A little distance, a little indifference; until a man’s jealous, he doesn’t know he’s in love. She proved my point that night, both my points; Will was furious—and with reason—at being so uncivilly neglected; and the young paragon … he was simply sated. When the telegram arrived …
But I thought Phyllida would have told you about that; she has been so—immodestly candid. He returned to London next day, saying he’d received a wire overnight. I met him the following week, and he told me. Simple and straightforward as ever … He wanted to know how Phyllida was; had Lady Brackenbury thought him very rude? It was one thing or the other, he said: he could ask Phyllida to marry him or he could go right away and forget about her … until he had something more to offer, I think he said … You and I know what that means. He was greatly upset and begged me to write occasionally when he was back at the front, just to tell him how Phyllida was; he wouldn’t write to her himself, he said, because he wanted to leave her unembarrassed and it would be too painful for him.
“If she’s still unmarried when I’ve made good,” he said, “it will be time to begin writing then.”
I suppose it was because Phyllida had never been in love before … I was ready to make allowances, but I was not prepared for the outburst, the extravagance, the self-indulgence of grief.
“Come, come, my dear!,” I said, “it would have been a very unsuitable match; and, if you haven’t the sense to realize it, he has.”
She turned on me like a fury … I don’t know what was in his letter of good-bye; but I suppose it was the usual romantic promise that he’d