CHAPTER III
IS DOMESTIC IN THE MAIN, BUT WE HOPE
NOT UNWORTHY OF A GREAT CONSTITUTIONAL
STATESMAN
WHEN you are up against a serious anticlimax it is a golden rule to begin a fresh chapter.
The Suffolk Colthurst paused, and sat with a further access of natural majesty upon a chair Louis Quinze, supplied, like the hearthrug, by Tottenham Court Road.
“Wally, Philip has declined to come to the Queen’s Hall this afternoon to hear Busoni.”
Doing his best even in this dangerous anticlimax, S. of P. retrieved the Leading Morning Journal from the carpet, straightened out its crumpled folds with patient humility, laid it on the table, sat down in his own chair—Tottenham Court Road of the best period—put up his eyeglass—by Cary of Pall Mall, maker to the Admiralty—and, in the voice of one pronouncing a benediction, said, “Well, Agatha?”
“Actually declined. Tells me he’s engaged to a pantomime at Drury Lane.”
“Matter of taste, I suppose.”
“Taste, Wally! Dear Adela is coming, and I have taken such trouble to arrange this.”
The Proconsul showed a little perturbation.
“No accounting for taste, I presume. Why a man of his age, rising twenty-eight, should prefer—”
“Wally, it is very wrong, and you must speak to him. It is not kind to dear Adela. Please ring the bell.”
The Proconsul rang the bell, and a young and very good-looking footman attended the summons.
“Joseph,” said his mistress, “if Mr. Philip has not gone yet, tell him, please, that his father would like to see him.”
After a lapse of about five minutes, a young man sauntered into the library. He was a somewhat somber-looking young man in a chocolate-colored suiting.
“Good morning, Philip,” said the First Baron.
“Mornin’, father,” said the heir to the barony.
“Philip,” said the First Baron, “your mother tells me that you have declined to accompany her and Adela Rocklaw to the Albert Hall this afternoon to hear Paderewski.”
The heir to the barony knitted the intellectual forehead that was his by inheritance.
“Not declined, you know, exactly. It’s a bit of a mix. I thought the concert was next Saturday.” Mr. Philip was a slow and rather heavy young man, but his air was quite sweet and humble, and not without a sort of tacit deference for both parents. “Fact is, I was keepin’ next Saturday.”
“Why not go this afternoon as you have got wrong in the date? Your mother has been at so much trouble, and I am sure Adela Rocklaw will be disappointed.”
“Unfortunately I’ve fixed up this other thing.”
“Engaged to a music hall, I understand.”
“Pantomime at Drury Lane,” said Philip the sombre.
“Quite so.” The Proconsul, like other great men, was slightly impatient of meticulous detail in affairs outside his orbit. “Hardly right, is it, to disappoint Adela Rocklaw, especially after your mother”—Mother, still mounted on the Louis Quinze, sat with eyelids lowered but very level—“has taken so much trouble? At least I, at your age, should not have thought so.”
Mr. Philip pondered a little.
“A bit awkward perhaps. I say, Mater, don’t you think you could fix up another day?”
The gaze of Mother grew a little less abstract at this invocation.
“Impossible, Phil-ipp”—the Rubens-Minerva countenance, whose ample chin was folded trebly in rolls of adipose tissue was a credit to the Governing Classes—“Dear Adela goes to High Cliff on Wednesday for the shooting.”
“Well, I’m sorry,” said Mr. Philip quite nicely and politely, “that I shall have to go to Drury Lane this afternoon.”
“Have to go, Phil-ipp!” Still ampler grew the Governing Classes. “It is really impossible in the circumstances.”
“What circumstances, Mater?”
“Dear Adela.”
“She won’t mind, if you explain. It’s like this, you see. Teddy Clapham has taken a box for his kids, and I promised ’em I’d be there—and you can’t go back on your word with kids, can you?”
“Why not, Phil-ipp?” inquired the Governing Classes.
“Sort of gives ’em wrong views about things, you know.”
“How absurd,” said Mother. “Much too sentimental about children nowadays. Telephone to Mr. Clapham and explain the circumstances. I am sure he will understand that as dear Adela is going to High Cliff on Wednesday—”
A cloud gathered on the brow of Philip.
“May be wrong, you know, Mater, but I really can’t go back on my word with kids. I promised ’em, you know, and that little Marge is a nailer, and she is only five.”
The statement, in spite of its sincerity, did not seem to carry conviction to either parent.
The heir to the barony was a dutiful young man; at least, in an age which has witnessed a somewhat alarming decline in parental authority, he passed as such. His deference, perhaps, was not of a type aggressively old-fashioned, but he honored his father and his mother.
“I’ll get a box for the ‘Chocolate Soldier’ on Monday if you and Adela will come, Mater, but I don’t see how I can throw over Teddy Clapham’s kids—five of ’em—toddlers—and they ain’t got a mother, you know.”
“Phil-ipp, this is ridiculous. And dear Adela will be so disappointed, and on Monday there is a reception at the Foreign Office.”
“You can go on afterwards.”
“But your father and I are engaged to dinner with the Saxmundhams.”
“Well, Mater, I’m sorry. I hope you’ll explain to Adela. Got mixed in the date and if it hadn’t been kids I really would in the circumstances—”
The door knob was now in the hand of the heir to the barony. Parthian bolts were launched at him, but he made good his escape.
“It’s a nuisance,” he muttered as he closed the door behind him, “but I really don’t see what’s to be done in the circumstances.”
In the entrance hall he put on his hat and was helped by Joseph into an overcoat with an astrachan collar; from the hall stand he took a whanghee cane with massive silver mountings, and sauntered forth pensively to his house of call, that was not very far from the corner of Hamilton Place.
Arrived at that desirable bourn, his first act was to ring up 00494 Wall.
“That you, Teddy? Have you told the kids to feed early to be in time for the risin’ of the curtain? Yes, I’ve bought the Bukit Rajahs. Think so? Yes, not a minute later than a quarter-past one.”
Replacing the receiver, the heir to the barony of Shelmerdine of Potterhanworth recruited exhausted nature with a whisky and apollinaris, and put forth from the chaste portals of the Button Club. Adventures were lying in wait for him, however.
As he rounded the corner into Piccadilly, a little unwarily, it must be confessed, he nearly collided with the Ne Plus Ultra of fashion in the person of a tall and decidedly smart young woman, in a rather tight black velvet hobble and a charming mutch with a small strip of white fur above the left eyelid.