Success
Thames on fire and make a fortune and all the rest?”
“I hardly think I should say that,” Nan said slowly. She had a habit
of speaking rather slowly; it came of her way of thinking before
she spoke, and meaning literally what she said, really giving her
considered judgment in small matters as well as great. The result was
unsatisfactory in ordinary social intercourse, where it was naturally
misunderstood; but to some people it gave a weight to her words which
made them worth answering: Mr. Cordover, apparently, was of these.
“You don’t think he’s going to make his fortune?” he said. “Only a
second-class genius after all?”
“I didn’t say that,” Nan reminded him.
“What then?”
“That I think it very likely he won’t make a fortune. I said that, and
I think it, though of course he may. But as to a genius—he is, you
know.”
Mr. Cordover did not know, but Nan spoke as if she did; not as if she
were giving an opinion, rather stating a simple fact. Mr. Cordover did
not contradict her; not because he was not contradictory, he was, very;
nor because he did not disagree with her, for he did. Perhaps because
he vaguely felt that though she would have given his opinion courteous
attention, it would have made no difference to her. It does make no
difference if, when you know that a Rembrandt is a Rembrandt, someone,
who has had no opportunity of studying the subject, says in casual
conversation that it is a Phil May. Mr. Cordover may not have grasped
this rather arrogant attitude, which Nan unconsciously held towards the
few subjects she understood, but he did not contradict her. He glanced
across at the person under discussion, who was now at the other side
of the table, listening with polite interest to what the mother was
telling him, while her two daughters stood behind, examining turquoise
hat-pins and silver butter-dishes.
Miss Wharton and her friend were just beyond Nan, and having been
absorbed in their chat had not noticed that anyone else had spoken
to her; now, recollecting her, they turned to her in enthusiastic
admiration of everything.
“Isn’t it an exquisite sideboard!” Miss Wharton exclaimed, standing
before a small modern copy of a Sheraton model, for which space had,
with difficulty, been made at the end of the room. “What a handsome
present! I do think they are lucky young people, don’t you? Don’t you
think it’s a sweet design?”
“Yes,” Nan answered; “I like it very much.”
“H’m!” Mr. Cordover said gruffly. “Gimcrack!”
“Not altogether, do you think?” she asked. “It’s a good copy and well
made on the whole; the drawers are not air-tight, certainly, but
perhaps one would hardly expect that.”
She spoke again with the unconscious assurance of one who knows; Mr.
Cordover observed it, and was a little surprised.
“Sort of notion of a sideboard a girl like Rosalind would have!” he
said.
“Perhaps so,” she agreed, “if she had a notion apart from the fashion.
Do you think she would have?” She put the question speculatively. “Of
course, there are some designs she could never choose. I don’t suppose
she would ever choose a massive one—solid Honduras mahogany, almost
purple, with drawers that slide noiselessly and fruit carved over the
top, beautiful pears you can put your finger under, and a pineapple in
the centre.”
Mr. Cordover snorted. “So,” he said, “my nieces have been making game
of me and my things, have they!”
“Of you?” Nan asked. “Of course not. I am sure they wouldn’t do
anything of the kind. They have not mentioned you to me that I know
of. I’m afraid I must say I don’t know who you are. If you think they
or someone told me that you have a sideboard like that, no one has;
though I naturally know you would be likely to have, if you could have
afforded it when you were furnishing, and were uninfluenced by other
people at the time.”
Mr. Cordover stared at her half sceptically. “How do you know?” he
asked.
“I’m not sure,” she answered, “unless it is because my father deals in
furniture and talks to me about it. I sometimes see people he deals
with, and get to know the sort of things which belong to different
sorts of persons. One gets to know that way.”
“H’m!” Mr. Cordover said.
At that moment Constance, who had brought some solitary relative and
tactfully introduced her to Miss Wharton, approached her uncle with a
pleasant remark.
Mr. Cordover answered gruffly, and Nan withdrew a pace, instantly
reduced to speechless shyness by the presence of Constance.
“Oh, there you are!” Constance said, when she became aware of her. “I
was wondering where you had hidden yourself. I’m afraid we’ve neglected
you dreadfully, but we’re trusting to you to look after yourself. Do go
and have an ice; I’ve heard Mabel say they’re very good.”
Nan answered shyly, “Thank you,” and looked round, as if preparing to
obediently go or otherwise make her escape.
But Mr. Cordover’s bulky figure was in the way. “If she wants an ice,”
he said, “I’ll see she has one; you need not give yourself any further
trouble about her.”
“That young lady has about as much reality as a daddy-long-legs has
inside,” he announced, when Constance, rather curtly dismissed, had
gone on to other social duties. “She’s all shell, that’s what she is;
and her words are shells with nothing in them. She couldn’t even get
decently angry about anything—it’d take her hair out of curl.”
“Her hair curls naturally,” Nan protested, shy no longer. “I admire it
and her; she is always kind and pleasant.”
“You didn’t seem to have much to say to her,” Mr. Cordover retorted,
“though you don’t appear to mind setting me to rights.”
“I’m sorry,” Nan said, flushing, and then explained, “I don’t see
people very often, I mean socially, and I always feel, though they are
kind, they can’t really want to talk to me. I don’t know anything about
the things that interest them or that they talk about.”
“Oh?” Mr. Cordover said gruffly. “As I said before, that didn’t make
you bashful in giving your opinion to me.”
“It was about things I understand,” she pleaded.
“Oh?” he said again. “Michael Annarly and furniture, that’s what you
understand, is it?”
“Yes,” she said, laughing, “I think I do a little.”
“Well, I don’t pretend to understand either,” Mr. Cordover said, “but
I do understand I’m to get you an ice to satisfy my niece’s sense of
duty.”
“And my wish for one,” she told him, and they went to the refreshment
tent where he personally selected an ice of enormous size.
She was still eating it when those guests, desirous of the best view
of the departure of the bride, began to move towards the front of the
house.
Rosalind left early. The Annarlys did not make the mistake of
unduly retarding her departure, tiring their guests of each other’s
company, and wearing out their interest in the chief person and the
occasion. In good time the carriage, which was to take the pair to
the station, came round. The Annarlys privately thought it would have
been appropriate if Uncle Giles had offered to lend his car for that
purpose; it could easily have taken them to the station and been back
before he was ready to leave. But Uncle Giles did not offer it; he
did not think Dick Wharton justified in giving such a tip as he would
feel adequate to the occasion. And, so he said tartly to his sister,
“he did not see much sense in a girl starting off in a sort of party
dress and somebody else’s motor, when she was coming back to live in a
forty pound a year house, and clean her own silver, or, at all events
ought to clean it, if she didn’t.” In consequence of these opinions, it
was only a hired brougham, though a very nice one, with white horses
and a coachman in livery, which came to the door. Some time before it
came most of the guests were assembled in the hall, the front garden,
and about the steps. There was scarcely room for them all, some of
the younger ones were obliged to go almost to the roadway, where the
nursemaids and school children stood.
Rosalind looked radiantly happy when she came down, and very pretty
in a gigantic hat and a dress which Mary, who had helped put it
on, described as “very chic and just the thing for garden-parties
afterwards.” She kissed her mother at the foot of the stairs, the
hat getting somewhat in the way; embraced her father by the steps,
squeezing him a little when she saw a tear trickling down the side of
his nose.
“Dear old dad!” she said. “Don’t do that! You ought to be glad I’m so
happy.”
“I am, I am,” he said unsteadily, and squeezed back, her left hand,
leaving some crackling bank-notes in it.
Then Constance, who gracefully played the second part, picked up the
ends of the feather scarf, which had fallen from her sister’s neck,
and followed her towards the carriage. All the friends and relatives
followed so far as they could, closing round. There were kissing and
handshaking, handfuls of confetti and rose petals, laughing faces, good
wishes, a struggle to get through to the carriage.
They were away at last, the last good wishes shouted, the last flutter
of the scarf Rosalind waved from the window gone. The best man, who
had been busy to the last with travelling-coats and orders, suddenly
remembered that he was standing hatless in the middle of the road in
broad daylight; he pulled down his waistcoat, and wondered whether
it was his own hat or the bridegroom’s which he had crammed into
the hat-box among the luggage. The bridesmaids who had collected,
a laughing group, for the departure, turned about, putting into
inconspicuous places in breast or belt the drooping pieces of the
bride’s bouquet, for which they had gaily struggled a little while
back. The guests, shaking the confetti and rose leaves from their
clothing, with one accord made for Mrs. Annarly, all at once aware
that they were staid English people, and, for that or some other
reason, anxious to hasten away from the scene of their late momentary
abandonment.
“Good-bye, good-bye,” was heard on every side. “Such a charming
wedding——” “She looked perfectly sweet——” “Heartiest congratulations——”
and so on.
Constance, standing by her mother, helped her to answer the
complimentary remarks, and always remembered to say she was glad the
maker had been able to come, or sorry some relative had not, with
appropriateness. Which, like all graciousness, is worth something, in
spite of what Uncle Giles and similar people say to the contrary.
Mabel was in the front garden, she and Jack chattering with Muriel
and Godfrey Wharton and a few others about plans for the evening.
They paid little attention to the departing guests, merely responding
when definitely taken leave of by some persistent person. Nan did not
interrupt them for that purpose, although she was by; Uncle Giles,
however, was less considerate.
“Good-bye, niece and nephew,” he called in his rather grim way.
“Good-bye,” Mabel returned carelessly. He was a disagreeable person,
who had behaved disagreeably to them all for a year past, and she,
not only was not going to put herself out for him, but she was rather
pleased with the opportunity of showing her indifference.
Jack made half a step forward. “Good-bye, sir,” he said, a trifle
embarrassed. “Shall I call your—shall I see if your——”
“No, thank you,” his uncle replied, “I can do my own seeing.”
And he went away, carrying Nan with him.
“I have to pass the end of Tottenham Court Road,” he said to her. “I
can drop you there; it will be quicker for you than going by train.”
And he settled it without waiting for her acceptance or refusal,
putting her into the car almost as he spoke of it.
Michael saw her start, though the rest of the family, having no
interest in her, did not. He was near the doorway, giving attention
to the discovery of mislaid wraps, and escorting elderly ladies to