Mrs. Warren's Daughter Part 3

Vavasour Williams will take up the running. David V. Williams--don't interrupt me--will study for the Bar, eat through his terms--six dinners a year, isn't it?--pa.s.s his examinations, and be called to the English Bar in about three years from now. Didn't you once have a pupil called Vavasour Williams?"

_Praed_: "What, David, the Welsh boy? Yes. His name reminded me of your mother in one of her stages. David Vavasour Williams. I took him on in--let me see? I think it was in 1895 or early 1896. But how did you hear about him?"

_Vivie_: "Never mind, or never mind for the moment. Tell me some more about him."

_Praed_: "Well to sum him up briefly he was what school boys and subalterns would call 'a rotter.' Not without an almost mordid cleverness; but the Welsh strain in him which in the father turned to emotional religion--the father was Vicar or Rector of Pontystrad--came out in the boy in unhealthy fancies. He had almost the talent of Aubrey Beardsley. But I didn't think he had a good influence over my other pupils, so before I planned that Italian journey--on which you refused to accompany me--I advised him to leave my tuition--I wasn't modern enough, I said. I also advised him to make up his mind whether he wanted to be a sane architect--he despised questions of housemaids' closets and sanitation and lifts and hot-water supply--or a scene painter. I think he might have had a great career at Drury Lane over fairy palaces or millionaire dwellings. But I turned him out of my studio, though I put the fact less brutally before his father--said I should be absent a long while in Italy and that I feared the boy was too undisciplined.

Afterwards I think he went into some South African police force..."

_Vivie_: "He did, and died last year in a South African hospital.

Had he--er--er--many relations, I mean did he come of well-known people?"

_Praed_: "I fancy not. His father was just a dreamy old Welsh clergyman always seeing visions and believing himself a descendant of the Druids, Sam Gardner told me; and his mother had either died long ago or had run away from her husband, I forget which. In a way, I'm sorry David's dead. He had a sort of weird talent and wild good looks. By the way, he wasn't altogether unlike _you_."

_Vivie_: "Thank you for the double-edged compliment. However what you say is very interesting. Well now, my idea is that David Vavasour Williams did _not_ die in a military hospital; he recovered and returned, firmly resolved to lead a new life.--Is his father living by the bye? Did he believe his son was dead?"

_Praed_: "Couldn't tell you, I'm sure. I never took any further interest in him, and until you mentioned it--I don't know on whose authority--I didn't know he was dead. On the whole a good riddance for his people, I should say, especially if he died on the field of honour. But what lunatic idea has entered your mind with regard to this poor waster?"

_Vivie_: "Why my idea, as I say, is that D.V.W. got cured of his necrosis of the jaw--I suppose it is not invariably deadly?--came home with a much improved morale, studied hard, and became a barrister, thinking it morally a superior calling to architecture and scene painting. In short, I shall be from this day forth Vavasour Williams, law-student! Would it be safe, d'you think, in that capacity to go down and see his old father?"

_Praed_: "_Vivie_! I _did_ think you were a sober-minded young woman who would steer clear of--of--crime: for this impersonation would be a punishable offence..."

_Vivie_: "_Crime_? _What_ nonsense! I should consider I was justified in a Court of Equity if I burnt down or blew up the Law Courts or one of the Inns or broke the windows of the Chartered Inst.i.tute of Actuaries or the Incorporated Law Society. All these inst.i.tutions and many others bar the way to honourable and lucrative careers for educated women, and a male parliament gives us no redress, and a male press laughs at us for our feeble attempts to claim common rights with men. Instead of proceeding to such violence I am merely resorting to a very harmless guile in getting round the absurd restrictions imposed by the benchers of the Inns of Court, namely that all who claim a call to the Bar should not be _accountants_, _actuaries_, _clergymen_ or _women_. I am going to give up the accountancy business--or rather, the law has never allowed either Honoria or me to become chartered accountants, so there is nothing to give up. To avoid any misapprehension she is going to change the t.i.tle on our note paper and bra.s.s plate to 'General Inquiry Agents.' That will be sufficiently non-committal.

Well then, as to s.e.x disqualification, a few weeks hence I shall become David Vavasour Williams, and I presume he was a male? You don't have to pa.s.s a medical examination for the Bar, do you?"

_Praed_: "Really, Vivie, you are _unnecessarily_ coa.r.s.e..."

_Vivie_: "I don't care if I am, poor outlaw that I am! Every avenue to an honest and ambitious career seems closed to me, either because I am a woman or--in women's careers--the few that there are--because I am Kate Warren's daughter. _I_ am not to blame for my mother's misdeeds, yet I am being punished for them. That beast of a friend of yours--that filthy swine, George Crofts--set it about after I refused to marry him that I was 'Mrs. Warren's Daughter,' and the few nice people I knew from Cambridge days dropped me, all except Honoria and her mother."

_Praed_: "Well, _I_ haven't dropped you. _I'll_ always stick by you" (observes that Vivie is trying to keep back her tears).

"Vivie--_darling_--what do you want me to do? Why not marry me and spend half my income, take the shelter of my name--I'm an A.R.A.

now--You needn't do more than keep house for me.... I'm rather a valetudinarian--dare say I shan't trouble you long--we could have a jolly good time before I went off with a heart attack--travel--study--write books together--"

_Vivie_ (recovering herself): "Thanks, dear Praddy; you are a brick and I really--in a way--have quite got to love you. Except an office boy in Chancery Lane and W.T. Stead, I don't know any other decent man. But I'm not going to marry any one. I'm going to become Vavasour Williams--the name is rotten, but you must take what you can get. Williams is a quiet young man who only desires to be left alone to earn his living respectably at the Bar, and see there if he cannot redress the balance in the favour of women. But there is something you _could_ do for me, and it is for that I came to see you to-day--by the bye, we have both let our tea grow cold, but _for goodness' sake_ don't order any more on my account, or else your parlour-maid will be coming in and out and will see that I've been crying and you look flushed. What I wanted to ask was this--it's really very simple--_If Mr. Vavasour Williams, aged twenty-four, late in South Africa, once your pupil in architecture_ or scene painting or whatever it was--_gives you as a reference to character, you are to say the best you can of him_. And, by the bye, he will be calling to see you very shortly and you could lend further verisimilitude to your story by renewing acquaintance with him. You will find him very much improved. In every way he will do you credit. And what is more, if you don't repel him, he will come and see you much oftener than his cousin--I'm not ashamed to adopt her as a cousin--Vivie Warren could have done. Because Vivie, with her deplorable parentage, had your good name to think of, and visited you very seldom; whereas there could be raised _no_ objection from your parlour-maid if Mr. D.V. Williams came rather often to chat with you and ask your advice. Think it over, dear friend--Good-bye."

Early in July, Norie and Vivie were standing at the open west window in their partners' room at the office, trying to get a little fresh air. The staff had just gone its several ways to the suburbs, glad to have three hours of daylight before it for cricket and tennis. Confident therefore of not being overheard, Vivie began: "I've got those rooms in Fig Tree Court. I shall soon be ready to move my things in. I'll leave some of poor Vivie Warren's effects behind if you don't mind, in case she comes back some day. Do you think you can rub along if I take my departure next week? I want to give myself a fortnight's bicycle holiday in Wales--as D.V.

Williams--a kind of honeymoon with Fate, before I settle down as a law student. After I come back I can devote much of the summer recess to our affairs, either openly or after office hours. You could then take a holiday, in August. You badly need one. What about Beryl?"

_Norie_: "Beryl is well over her accouchement and is confident of being able to start work here on August 1.... It's a boy this time.

I haven't seen it, so I can't say whether it resembles a policeman more than an architect. Besides babies up till the age of six months only resemble macrocephalic idiots.... I shall be _wary_ with Beryl--haven't committed myself--ourselves to any engagement beyond six months. She's amazingly clever, but I should say quite heartless. Two babies in three years, and both illegitimate--the real Mrs. Architect very much upset, no doubt, Mr. Architect getting wilder and wilder in his work through trying to maintain two establishments--they say he left out all the sanitation in Sir Peter Robinson's new house and let the builders rush up the walls without damp courses--and it's killing her father, the Dean. It's not as though she hid herself away, but she goes out so much! They are talking of turning her out of her club because of the things she says before the waitresses..."

_Vivie_: "What things?"

_Norie_: "Why, about its being very healthy to have babies when you're between the ages of twenty and thirty; and how with this twilight sleep business she doesn't mind how often; that it's fifty times more interesting than breeding dogs and cats or guinea-pigs; and she's surprised more single women don't take it up. I think she must be detraquee.... I have a faint hope that by taking her in hand and interesting her in our work--which _entre nous deux_--is turning out to be very profitable--I may sober her and regularize her. No doubt in 1950 most women will talk as she does to-day, but the advance is too abrupt. It not only robs _her_ parents of all happiness, but it upsets _my_ mother. She now wrings her hands over her own past and fears that by working so strenuously for the emanc.i.p.ation of women she has a.s.sisted to breach the dam--Can't you imagine the way the old cats of both s.e.xes go on at her?--the dam which held up female virtue, and that Society now will be drowned in a flood of Free Love..."

_Vivie_: "Well! We'll give her a six months' trial here, and see if our mix-up of advice in Law, Banking, Estate management, Stock-and-share dealing, Divorce, Private Enquiries, probate, etc., does not prove _much_ more interesting than an illicit connection with a hare-brained architect.... If she proves impossible you'll pack her off and Vivie shall return and D.V. Williams go abroad....

Don't you think there is something that ought to win over Providence in that happily chosen name? _D.V._ Williams? And my mother once actually called herself 'Vavasour.'

"Well, then, barring accidents and the unforeseen, it's agreed I go on my holiday next Sat.u.r.day, to return never no more--perhaps--?--"

_Norie_ (with a sigh): "Yes!"

_Vivie_: "How's your mother?"

_Norie_: "Oh, as to her, I'm glad to say '_much_ better.' When I can get away, after the new clerks and Beryl are installed and everything is going smoothly, I shall take her to Switzerland, to a deliciously quiet spot I know and n.o.body else knows up the Goschenenthal. The Continent won't be so hot for travelling if we don't start till the end of August..."

_Vivie:_ "_Then_, dearest ... in case you don't come to the office any more this week, I'll say good-bye--for--for some time..."

(They grip hands, they hesitate, then kiss each other on the cheek, a very rare gesture on either's part--and separate with tears in their eyes.)

The following Monday morning, Bertie Adams, combining in his adolescent person the functions of office boy, junior clerk, and general factotum, entered the outer office of Fraser and Warren and found this letter on his desk:--

Fraser and Warren Midland Insurance Chambers, General Inquiry Agents 88-90, Chancery Lane, W.C.

July 12, 1901.

DEAR BERTIE--

I want to prepare you for something. If you had been an ordinary Office boy, I should not have bothered about you or confided to you anything concerning the Firm. But you are by now almost a clerk, and from the day I joined Miss Fraser in this business, you have helped me more than you know--helped me not only in my work, but to understand that there _can_ be good, true, decent-minded, trustworthy ... you won't like it if I say "boys" ... young men.

I am going away for a considerable time, I cannot say how long--probably abroad. But Miss Fraser thinks I can still help in the work of her firm, so I remain a partner. A cousin of mine, Mr. D.V. Williams, may come in occasionally to help Miss Fraser. I shall ask him to keep an eye on you.

Miss Rose Mullet and Miss Steynes are likewise leaving the service of the firm. I dare say you know Miss Mullet is getting married and how Miss Steynes is going to live at Aylesbury. Two other ladies are coming in their place, and much of my own work will be undertaken by a Mrs. Claridge, whom you will shortly see.

It is rather sad this change in what has been such a happy a.s.sociation of busy people, n.o.body treading on any one else's toes; but there it is! "The old order changeth, giving place to the new ... lest one good custom should corrupt the world"--you will read in the Tennyson I gave you last Christmas. Let's hope it won't be when I return: "Change and Decay in all around I see" ... as the rather dismal hymn has it.

Sometimes change is a good thing. You serve a n.o.ble mistress in Miss Fraser and I am sure you realize the importance of her work. It may mean so much for women's careers in the next generation. I shan't quite lose touch with you. I dare say Miss Fraser, even if I am far away, will write to me from time to time and give me news of the office and tell me how you get on. Don't be ashamed of being ambitious: keep up your studies. Why don't you--but perhaps you do?--join evening cla.s.ses at the Polytechnic?--or at this new London School of Economics which is close at hand? Make up your mind to be Lord Chancellor some day ... even if it only carries you as far as the silk gown of a Q.C. I suppose I ought now to write "K.C." A few years ago we all thought the State would go to pieces when Victoria died. Yet you see we are jogging along pretty well under King Edward. In the same way, you will soon get so used to the new Head Clerk, Mrs.

Claridge, that you will wonder what on earth you saw to admire in

VIVIEN WARREN.

This letter came like a cricket ball between the eyes to Bertie Adams. His adored Miss Warren going away and no clear prospect of her return--her farewell almost like the last words on a death-bed....

He bowed his head over his folded arms on his office desk, and gave way to gruff sobs and the br.i.m.m.i.n.g over of tear and nose glands which is the grotesque accompaniment of human sorrow.

He forgot for a while that he was a young man of nineteen with an unmistakable moustache and the status of a cricket eleven captain.

He was quite the boy again and his feeling for Vivien Warren, which earlier he had hardly dared to characterize, out of his intense respect for her, became once more just filial affection.

His good mother was a washerwoman-widow, in whom Honoria Fraser had interested herself in her Harley Street girlhood. Bertie was the eldest of six, and his father had been a coal porter who broke his back tumbling down a cellar when a little "on." Bertie--he now figured as Mr. Albert Adams in the cricket lists--was a well-grown youth, rather blunt-featured, but with honest hazel eyes, fresh-coloured, shock-haired. Vivie had once derided him for trying to woo his frontal hair into a flattened curl with much pomade ...

he now only sleeked his curly hair with water. You might even have called him "common." He was of the type that went out to the War from 1914 to 1918, and won it, despite the many mistakes of our flurried strategicians: the type that so long as it lasts unspoilt will make England the predominant partner, and Great Britain the predominant nation; the type out of which are made the bluejacket and petty officer, the police sergeant, the engine driver, the railway guard, solicitor's clerk, merchant service mate, engineer, air-pilot, chauffeur, army non-commissioned officer, head gardener, head game-keeper, farm-bailiff, head printer; the trustworthy manservant, the commissionaire of a City Office; and which in other avatars ran the British World on an average annual income of 150 before the War. When women of a similar educated lower middle cla.s.s come into full equality with men in opportunity, they should marry the Bertie Adamses of their acquaintance and not the stockbrokers, butchers, drapers, bookies, professional cricketers or pugilists.

They would then become the mothers of the salvation-generation of the British people which will found and rule Utopia.

However, Bertie Adams was quite unconscious of all these possibilities, and thought of himself modestly, rather cheaply.

Swallowing the fourth or fifth sob, he rose from his crouching over the desk, wiped his face with a wet towel, smoothed his hair, put straight his turn-over collar and smart tie, and went to his work with glowing eyes and cheeks; resolved to show Miss Warren that she had not thought too highly of him.

Nevertheless, when Miss Mullet arrived and giggled over the details of her trousseau and Lily Steynes discussed the advertis.e.m.e.nts of Aylesbury ducks in the current _Exchange and Mart_, he was reserved and rather sarcastic with them both. He intimated later that he had long been aware of the coming displacements; but he said not a word of Vivie's letter.

CHAPTER IV