lined with pain and sadness, the very expression of antique tragedy.
Lady Montdore went on with her piece, talking exactly as if I were not there.
“I take endless trouble so that she can go and stay in nice houses, but she never seems to enjoy herself a bit, she comes home full of complaints and the only ones she ever wants to go back to are Alconleigh and Emily Warbeck. Both pure waste of time! Alconleigh is a madhouse.… Of course, I love Sadie, everybody does, I think she’s wonderful, poor dear, and it’s not her fault if she has all those eccentric children.… She must have done what she can, but they are their father over again and no more need be said. Then I like the child to be with Fanny, and one has known Emily and Davey all one’s life—Emily was our bridesmaid and Davey was an elf in the very first pageant I ever organized—but the fact remains Polly never meets anybody there and if she never meets people how can she marry them?”
“Is there so much hurry for her to marry?” said Lady Patricia.
“Well, you know she’ll be twenty in May. She can’t go on like this for ever. If she doesn’t marry what will she do, with no interests in life, no occupation? She doesn’t care for sketching or riding orsociety, she hardly has a friend in the world.… Oh, can you tell me how Montdore and I came to have a child like that? When I think of myself at her age! I remember so well Mr. Asquith saying he had never met anybody with such a genius for improvisation.…”
“Yes, you were wonderful,” said Lady Patricia with a little smile. “But, after all, she may be slower at developing than you were and, as you say, she’s not twenty yet. Surely it’s rather nice to have her at home for another year or two?”
“The fact is,” replied her sister-in-law, “girls are not nice. It’s a perfectly horrid age. When they are children, so sweet and pretty, you think how delightful it will be to have their company later on, but what company is Polly to Montdore or to me? She moons about, always half-cross and half-tired and takes no interest in any mortal thing, and what she needs is a husband. Once she is married we shall be on excellent terms again. I’ve so often seen it happen. I was talking to Sadie the other day, and she agreed. She says she has had a most difficult time lately with Linda. Louisa, of course, was never any trouble. She had a nicer character and then she married straight out of the schoolroom. One thing you can say about the Radletts, no delay in marrying them off, though they might not be the sort of marriages one would like for one’s own child. A banker and a dilapidated Scotch peer … Still, there it is—they are married. What can be the matter with Polly? So beautiful and no B.A. at all.”
“S.A.,” said Lady Patricia faintly, “or B.O.”
“When we were young none of that existed, thank goodness. S.A. and B.O., perfect rubbish and bosh—one was a beauty or a
jolie-laide
, and that was that. All the same, now they have been invented I suppose it is better if the girls have them. Their partners seem to like it, and Polly hasn’t a vestige, you can see that. But how differently,” she said with a sigh, “how differently life turns out from what we expect! Ever since she was born, you know, I’ve worried and fussed over that child, and thought of the awful things that might happen to her—that Montdore might die before she was settledand we should have no proper home, that her looks would go (too beautiful at fourteen, I feared) or that she would have an accident and spend the rest of her days in a spinal chair—all sorts of things. I used to wake in the night and imagine them, but the one thing that never even crossed my mind was that she might end up an old maid.”
There was a rising note of aggrieved hysteria in her voice.
“Come now, Sonia,” said Lady Patricia rather sharply, “the poor girl is still in her teens. Do wait at least until she has had a
Lady Montdore went on with her piece, talking exactly as if I were not there.
“I take endless trouble so that she can go and stay in nice houses, but she never seems to enjoy herself a bit, she comes home full of complaints and the only ones she ever wants to go back to are Alconleigh and Emily Warbeck. Both pure waste of time! Alconleigh is a madhouse.… Of course, I love Sadie, everybody does, I think she’s wonderful, poor dear, and it’s not her fault if she has all those eccentric children.… She must have done what she can, but they are their father over again and no more need be said. Then I like the child to be with Fanny, and one has known Emily and Davey all one’s life—Emily was our bridesmaid and Davey was an elf in the very first pageant I ever organized—but the fact remains Polly never meets anybody there and if she never meets people how can she marry them?”
“Is there so much hurry for her to marry?” said Lady Patricia.
“Well, you know she’ll be twenty in May. She can’t go on like this for ever. If she doesn’t marry what will she do, with no interests in life, no occupation? She doesn’t care for sketching or riding orsociety, she hardly has a friend in the world.… Oh, can you tell me how Montdore and I came to have a child like that? When I think of myself at her age! I remember so well Mr. Asquith saying he had never met anybody with such a genius for improvisation.…”
“Yes, you were wonderful,” said Lady Patricia with a little smile. “But, after all, she may be slower at developing than you were and, as you say, she’s not twenty yet. Surely it’s rather nice to have her at home for another year or two?”
“The fact is,” replied her sister-in-law, “girls are not nice. It’s a perfectly horrid age. When they are children, so sweet and pretty, you think how delightful it will be to have their company later on, but what company is Polly to Montdore or to me? She moons about, always half-cross and half-tired and takes no interest in any mortal thing, and what she needs is a husband. Once she is married we shall be on excellent terms again. I’ve so often seen it happen. I was talking to Sadie the other day, and she agreed. She says she has had a most difficult time lately with Linda. Louisa, of course, was never any trouble. She had a nicer character and then she married straight out of the schoolroom. One thing you can say about the Radletts, no delay in marrying them off, though they might not be the sort of marriages one would like for one’s own child. A banker and a dilapidated Scotch peer … Still, there it is—they are married. What can be the matter with Polly? So beautiful and no B.A. at all.”
“S.A.,” said Lady Patricia faintly, “or B.O.”
“When we were young none of that existed, thank goodness. S.A. and B.O., perfect rubbish and bosh—one was a beauty or a
jolie-laide
, and that was that. All the same, now they have been invented I suppose it is better if the girls have them. Their partners seem to like it, and Polly hasn’t a vestige, you can see that. But how differently,” she said with a sigh, “how differently life turns out from what we expect! Ever since she was born, you know, I’ve worried and fussed over that child, and thought of the awful things that might happen to her—that Montdore might die before she was settledand we should have no proper home, that her looks would go (too beautiful at fourteen, I feared) or that she would have an accident and spend the rest of her days in a spinal chair—all sorts of things. I used to wake in the night and imagine them, but the one thing that never even crossed my mind was that she might end up an old maid.”
There was a rising note of aggrieved hysteria in her voice.
“Come now, Sonia,” said Lady Patricia rather sharply, “the poor girl is still in her teens. Do wait at least until she has had a
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