The Whicharts Read online

  Tania looked sympathetic.

  “Herbert’s being too aggravating,” Maimie continued, encouraged to further confidences by Tania’s silent sympathy. “Seems to think that knowing him ought to be enough for any girl. Well, I’m not like that, I get tired of one damn man all the time. Gets in a perfect uproar if he thinks you are seeing any other man more than twice a year—”

  “And who is it you are seeing?” asked Tania, skipping to the pith of the matter.

  After some hesitation, Maimie owned that Herbert was terribly jealous of George, Lord George Ronald, a ghastly attractive man, but it was silly of Herbert to fuss about George who was too heavily married for words, got a wife and kids, and family tree, and moated granges, and a bit of shooting here, and a bit of fishing there—all that sort of thing; and as if that wasn’t enough, he must needs have the most terrific sense of duty. All the old-fashioned stuff, love of wife and home, and three cheers for the red, white and blue. All that sob stuff.

  “Why are you wasting your time on him, then?”

  Maimie looked as near embarrassment as she ever looked.

  “Don’t know, must be a bit struck on him, I suppose. There’s no doubt the man’s lousy with attraction.”

  Tania, busy with rehearsals, and depressed and bored at the thought of the tour, had not been paying much attention to Maimie. But now that she considered her, she realised that she had changed. She who was usually so calm and unmoved had a restless manner. Tania couldn’t place it exactly, but she looked as though there was something on her mind which she would like to confide in someone. If it was about being in love, Tania earnestly hoped she would keep it to herself, those sort of things she found terribly embarrassing. She looked at Maimie again; something was wrong, she was sure of it, she must say a word or two to show she was sympathetic:

  “Not going to have a baby, are you?” Maimie looked at her sister with scorn.

  “You poor mutt! Haven’t I just been telling you that there was nothing doing, and you surely don’t think I’m such an idiot as to get careless with Herbert?”

  “I think it would be a good plan if you married Herbert, he’s got plenty of money, and he’s awfully fond of you.”

  “Well I’m not going to—A—because I’d be bored to death, and—B—because he’s married already.”

  “Herbert is! Whoever to?”

  “I don’t really know, he doesn’t like it talked about, they haven’t lived together for donkey’s years. She’s a Roman Catholic and thinks divorce is wrong. I’m damned glad she does, I’ve enough bother with Herbert as it is, without his being free to marry me.”

  Tania was sure she ought to say something more, ought to encourage Maimie’s confidences. After a pause she ventured:

  “This Lord George, I suppose he’s so full of the domestic hearth business you don’t see him often?”

  “Well, I wouldn’t say that.” Maimie paused— “The trouble is, it’s all such a waste of time. I get him worked up a bit, and then the next time we meet I have to start all over again, because in the meantime he’s been wallowing in simply abject remorse about what he did the time before.”

  “If you ask me,” said Tania boldly, “I’d leave him alone. You’ve got such a lot of men in love with you, what do you want him for, with his wife and children and remorse. Is it because he’s a lord?”

  “Of course it isn’t. Oh shut up! What can you understand about it, anyway?” Maimie got to her feet. “You can’t tell me anything I haven’t told myself. I say to myself every day—Give him up­ don’t see him any more—what’s the good of worrying out your guts about the man?—And then directly I do see him, I get all feeble. Come on, it’s no good jawing about it. It’s a good world if you don’t weaken.”

  On the Saturday before Tania left, Daisy had planned a farewell tea-party for her in her dressing­ room, to which Miss Poll was to be invited. This scheme was frustrated, because Daisy was asked to go on after her matinée, and dance at a big charity fête and bazaar, in the place of some star who was ill. Nannie insisted that Tania should come too:

  “It’s your last afternoon, dear, an’ we’ll ’ave tea there, nice ’ome-made cakes they often ’as at these affairs.”

  Secretly disgusted with the entertainment offered, Tania nevertheless agreed to go. She was dreading the morrow with its coming separations. Even a dreary fête with Nannie and Daisy was better than a flat without them. She had a gnawing pain deep inside her, caused by a suspicion that her departure on a long tour didn’t so terribly matter to the others. They would miss her of course, but they were so much less dependent on people than she was. She realised it was stupid to be dependent on people, they would always hurt you, and go on hurting you till you were dead. But there it was, people loving you, and better still, needing you, that was everything in life. That, and doing the work you liked.

  The fête was an exceedingly fashionable affair.

  Tania, in her plain rather shabby clothes, felt out of place, so she went to the dressing-room and sat with Daisy, while Nannie dressed her. But as always when she had nothing to do, she grew cross and restless, until Nannie was exasperated.

  “Oh, go an’ ’ave a look round the fête, do—gives me an’ Daisy fidgets to see you fussin’ around like that.”

  Tania wandered out into the hall. She wandered past an ornate stall devoted to lavender bags, and nightdress-cases, which had six chinless, rather stupid-looking girls, dressed in lavender-coloured crinolines, in attendance. And past another stall marked Household, which was packed with opulent rubbish for the home, with exact replicas of the girls at the lavender stall in charge, only these wore green. She stared vaguely at many other stalls, all brightly decorated, all most expensive, and all looked after by women in crinolines. “Gracious!” she thought, irritated, “all these women look most awful fools.” She studied them, and tried to find out what it was that annoyed her. “I believe,” she decided to herself, “it’s because, in spite of the fact that they look most terribly stupid, they seem infuriatingly pleased with themselves.”

  At the far end of the hall was a tent. For lack of anything better to do she wandered into it. Inside, on a small platform, stood a car. It was not a new car, but it was only about a year old, and had been beautifully repainted. What could a car be doing here? She stared at it enchanted.

  “Will you take a ticket for the ’bus? Only ten bob.”

  It was a cheerful red-faced young man speaking. He’d a book of tickets in his hand. He was so much the most pleasant person Tania had seen during the afternoon, that she hated refusing to buy from him:

  “A ticket for what?” she asked. “A ten-bob raffle for the car.”

  “Do you mean to say that someone’s going to get that heavenly car for ten shillings?” The young man lit up at once. “Isn’t she a topper? She’s mine, at least she was mine. Only I’m going to Kenya on Monday, so my Mother, who runs this show”—he waved an airy hand towards the whole bazaar—“knowing I was going to sell the little bus before I sailed, said she’d hand over a stout cheque for her, if I’ d raffle her at this do. So here we are. Why don’t you have a dash for her?”

  “Good gracious! Mel” exclaimed Tania in surprise. “You surely don’t think I’ve got ten bob!”

  “Well, I don’t know why not. It’s not such a hell of a lot to ask for the tickets,” objected the young man. “And, anyway, people who come to these shows are generally rolling.”

  “But I’ve not come to this show—at least not to buy—not like that I mean—”

  “Well, what have you come for then?”

  Tania nodded her head towards the distant Daisy:

  “I’ve a sister here, she’s going to dance.”

  This apparently harmless statement seemed to stupefy the young man. He said nothing, but stared at Tania, till at last she said:

  “Well, good-bye. I am sorry
I couldn’t buy a ticket.”

  Her showing signs of departure brought the young man back to life.

  “I say,” he gasped, “you aren’t Daisy Whichart’s sister, are you?”

  “That’ s right,” Tania agreed. “Well, good-bye.”

  “I say!” The young man ran after her, he stammered a little in his excitement. “I say, I suppose you will think this the most awful cheek, but would you—would you—?”

  “Would I what?” asked Tania, to help him.

  “Well. Oh I know you’ll think it the most awful cheek, but well—you want a ticket for the raffle, and I want—Well, would you introduce me to your sister in exchange for a raffle ticket?”

  Tania wrestled with her conscience. Of course the man must be mad, she would never look herself in the face again if she did a thing like that—still, a chance to win a car! But no: “I couldn’t,” she said.

  “I was afraid you’d say no,” agreed the young man, completely crushed.

  “You see,” Tania explained, “I couldn’t be as mean a dog as that. I know Daisy, and I know meeting her simply isn’t worth ten bob.”

  “YOU mean—?” the young man began to laugh. “Well, I’ve done some mean things in my life, but I simply couldn’t sell you a pup like that.” Th e young man went on laughing:

  “You are a howl,” he said. “What name shall I put on your ticket?”

  Daisy was still dancing when they arrived. She was spinning round on her pink toes, her red curls flying, her white skirts billowing—“Phew!” whistled the young man. Tania, rapturously clutching her ticket, whispered to him:

  “It isn’t too late, think it over. Ten bob’s ten bob.”

  But he didn’t hear her, he was engrossed with the dancer. When Daisy came off the stage, flushed with her efforts, and clasping an enormous bouquet, Tania slipped up to her:

  “I say, there’s an awfully nice man here who wants to know you.”

  “Who is he?”

  “I don’t know, but he’s awfully nice. Imagine it! he gave me a ten-bob raffle ticket in exchange for being introduced to you. I told him it wasn’t worth it, but he seemed to think it was—”

  “You didn’t tell him I was only fourteen, did you?”

  “Of course not, I never told him anything about you, except that knowing you wasn’t worth ten bob.”

  “And he still thought it was?” Daisy was enormously flattered.

  Tania made the necessary introduction—she merely said:

  “This is him,” and hurried off. She looked over her shoulder to see how they were getting on. He looked very happy, she was glad to see, not a bit as if he was regretting his ten shillings. Nannie hurried after her, and Tania suddenly remembered that she had no name for the young man. Nannie vaguely distrusted the entire male sex—but a young man without a name!—

  “’oo’s the young gentleman talkin’ to Daisy?”

  “Well, Nannie.” Tania paused, and fidgeted.

  “He’s the son of the woman who’s running this show—”

  “Oh! An’ ’is Mother sent ’im to thank Daisy for ’er dancin’?”

  “Well—I think he’s telling her how much he enjoyed it.”

  “Tania, you look at me! ’oo is the young man? Come on now!”

  “It’s quite true: Nannie. His mother is running this show, but I don’t know his name because I only met him over a raffle ticket.”

  “An’ you stands there, Tania Whichart, an’ tells me that you h’introduced that Check lamb to a man as you knows nothin’ about?”

  Tania pointed to Daisy:

  “I don’t believe he’s doing her any harm. Look at them.”

  Nannie looked. She sniffed.

  “That’s as may be. Time will show. Many a young gentleman behaves decent at the start.”

  “But gracious! Nannie, you talk as if Daisy were a grown-up person. He can see she’s a kid, and anyway he’s going to Kenya on Monday.”

  “Kenya?”

  “Umm, Africa, not the Egypt end, I think it’s somewhere in that bit at the bottom.”

  “Africa! On Monday?” Nannie sighed with relief. “Well, he can’t go too far or too fast for me, and I’ll thank you to keep any other young gentleman you picks up to yourself. You’ve no more sense sometimes than a baby.” Clucking and fussing like an indignant hen, she went over to Daisy and told her she must change, it was time to go.

  Tania grinned. “Poor Nannie,” she thought “Scared stiff of having another? in the home.” Then she giggled. “Gracious! I must be unattractive. Nobody ever bothers who I know.”

  “I say, thanks awfully.” The young man stood in front of her, holding two enormous boxes of chocolates. “I’ve just brought these. Would you keep one, and give the other to your sister from me?”

  He went back to his car. Tania looked after him, then she looked at the chocolates. “Gracious!” she thought, “Daisy’s stock is going up.”

  Early though she had to start for Waterloo the next morning, Nannie, Daisy, and to her immense surprise Maimie, came to see her off. After one look at the company Maimie told Tania she took back every word she had said about envying her for going on tour, never before had she seen such a dreary collection of long-haired, seedy-looking men:

  “My God!” she said. “If they do ever take you out, they’ll offer you a glass of Horlick’s.”

  However, she changed her tune when Ian Long arrived. It might be a cold Sunday morning, and Waterloo Station, but he triumphed over these slight obstacles, and made a thoroughly impressive entrance on to the platform, with his chauffeur, his secretary, and his man, fussing round him; and knots of passengers and porters recognising him, and whispering the exciting intelligence to each other. His hair was a little wild, and his manner exalted, as though the station, the confusion, and the bustle in no way reached his mind, for his soul had soared to heights where mundane things are not. It was all a pose of course, and Maimie appreciated it as such, but it was enormously effective, and it hid the fact even from her, that here was a lonely, dissatisfied, commonplace man. Only a few years back, and he had been quite a figure on the West-End stage. The slump in the theatre world, together with the fact that newer and younger men were playing the romantic youths at which he had excelled, had driven him into the provinces. He did very well. He still retained the rather too good looks, which endeared him to his feminine public, and still had the manner of the popular idol. He never admitted that he had retired to the provinces for good, and indeed, given the right play, was still capable of drawing an audience, as his occasional dashes back to the West-End proved. He was a glorious joke to his company, for apart from his poses, never was a man more wife-ridden She had been Phoebe Pleasant, a very indifferent small-part actress, whom he had met in a touring company in his salad days. Though an indifferent actress, Phoebe was far from being an indifferent business woman. She knew a good deal when she saw one. Ian was a good deal. With those looks, and that acting ability, he could hardly fail to succeed, especially if he had a wife behind him with a little money, who could push. Phoebe had a little private money, and large quantities of push. She was determined to get Ian, she studied him from every angle. Fate played into her hands. One day as she was passing his dressing-room door, he called out to know if she had an aspirin. She had,and while giving it to him she asked if he had a headache. No, he hadn’t, but he ran an anxious hand up and down his throat, and over his glands. He thought there was a slight stiffness, he wasn’t sure that he wasn’t sickening for a cold. He spoke of this possibility so nervously, there was such a strained look in his eyes, that in a flash she learned something which in the ordinary way it might have taken years to discover. He was nervous about himself, a hypochondriac in the making. That did it, she pandered to his failing, made him frightened about himself, and then consoled him with remedies. His friends, who were not on the whole drawn t
o Phoebe, tried to save him from her, but it was no use; by the time the tour finished he had got used to confiding his every symptom into her receptive ear, he felt it was most unlikely that he would ever find another woman to take such an interest, and worry over him in the way she did, so he married her to keep her on the spot. From that moment he led a dog’s life. Realising the enormous sex-appeal he possessed for the females in his audience, Phoebe convinced herself that, given a chance, here was a Don Juan. He was nothing of the sort, for he was far too careful of his health for excesses of any kind, but she couldn’t bring herself to believe this, she couldn’t prevent women from falling in love with him, but she could prevent him from having a chance to return it. “Watch him,” she said to herself, “Never leave him alone,” and on that principle she built their life together. She was always at his side, save during the few months before her two children were born, and then she saw to it that he was always at hers. She would never have had the children with all the expense and anxiety they caused, had it not been that they were such good publicity. She had them christened Viola and Sebastian, and apart from their admirable photographic qualities, as they grew older, she found them useful. She kept them in a flat in London, in the care of a governess, where they were supposed to work hard at their lessons until she telegraphed for them. Then their lives changed entirely, and they found themselves hurriedly packed and moved to some provincial town, which meant that mother had to be in London, so they had been sent for to—Take care of poor Daddy—This was fun, but what wasn’t fun was the fuss when mother came back. To begin with, her return meant that their holiday was over, and then there was all that dreadful questioning to be got through. Questionings as to what they had done with every minute while she had been away, and, much more difficult to remember, what daddy had done, and of course not remembering, and getting more tongue-tied and nervous every minute.

  On this Sunday morning, Ian had escaped from both wife and children, and had a few unaccustomed minutes of freedom. He spoke to various members of his company, then seeing Tania came over to her. She, covered in confusion, and convinced that every eye on the platform was turned on her, hurriedly, and in a shamefaced manner, introduced her family. He had seen Daisy dance, he congratulated her. This gave Maimie a good chance to study his profile. She decided that if on the old side, he was still desperately attractive. When he turned to speak to her, she looked up into his eyes, and smiled. Phoebe, hurrying late and cross down the platform, saw the group, and in one glance took stock of Maimie—