The Edwardians by Vita Sackville-West

teach the boy a lot, and meanwhile she kept him from less desirable entanglements; also, thanks to Sylvia’s medium, it was often possible for Lucy to trickle into Sebastian’s ear suggestions which could certainly not have been made by any more direct method. Sylvia, superb and triumphant, was commendably amenable, even if she occasionally annoyed Lucy by her air of superior privity. (Lucy’s passion for her son, probably the most estimable thing about her, inevitably carried with it a certain degree of jealousy.) Many and long were the conferences that Lucy held with Sylvia, for Sylvia, even if not contributing much beyond an “Ah!” or a “Quite,” was content to let Lucy talk while she herself reclined on a sofa, stitching at an endless piece of needlework which well displayed the grace of her little, white, exquisite hands. They were tiny hands, that collapsed, boneless as a kitten, when one grasped them. Lucy, who had scarcely noticed these hands before, now often looked at them and thought with a curious complicated pang how much Sebastian must love them. She, who was as a rule unappreciative of women apart from their clothes, learnt to appraise Sylvia very closely in those days. She looked at the other woman with all her own feminine experience coming to her aid. Sylvia, the beautiful Sylvia, she had always thought, had always been something of an overblown rose, loose, generous, lovely; now she recognised an additional luxuriance, as though the rose were putting forth all its lavishness before the petals fluttered finally to the ground. There was a bloom on her cheeks, a light in her eyes, a softness on her mouth, which even Lucy must attribute to some influence working from within. Then, immediately, she began to wonder. Was Sylvia really in love with Sebastian? or was it only a final blossoming of her vanity? Impossible to answer! and, needless to say, no allusion was ever made between the friends as to Sebastian and Sylvia’s real relationship. “How kind you are to that boy of mine,” Lucy would say, playing the grateful mother; “so good of you, Sylvia dear, to be bothered with a boy who might be your son—and so raw and uncontrolled, too; so uncivilised. I never know what he will do next. There seems to be no sense in him. I wonder that George doesn’t get annoyed, to see him perpetually storming into the house. Send him back to me, if he becomes a nuisance.”
    But she was amused, not dismayed. For a young man to start his career with a love affair with an older woman was quite
de rigueur,
and in choosing Sylvia, Sebastian had certainly given proof of his fastidiousness. Lucy respected the instinct that went straight for the best. It did not distress her in the least that they should exhibit themselves together as they did, for she considered it quite cynically: Sebastian
affiché
with the most beautiful woman in London, Sylvia
affiché
with the most dashing and eligible young man. Such aesthetic sense as she possessed was gratified by such an association. Of course, it must not go on for too long. An apprenticeship was a very different thing from a career. Meanwhile she was quite content that Sebastian should become tanned in the rays of Sylvia’s Indian summer.
    About Sylvia, her dear friend, she did not trouble her head at all. Sylvia had had enough experience, and could look after herself. Still, she wondered. Was Sylvia merely amusing herself with the boy, or was she really in love with him? Anyhow, however much in love she might be, Sylvia could be trusted to see that no unpleasantness resulted. Supposing that George, for instance, suddenly unsealed the eyelids that had been so conveniently stuck together for all these years, and put his foot down as he most certainly would? What would Sylvia do then? Lucy’s knowledge of her friend and of her world gave the instant answer: prevent a scandal. The code was rigid. Within the closed circle of