Stephen McKenna

“ LADY ANN (to a friend of proved discretion) : But this is as delightful as it is unexpected! If we only have the carriage to ourselves. . . I often say that a first-class ticket is the merest snare and delusion; during the war it has exposed one to a new order—I’ve no doubt they are very brave and so forth and so on, but that sort of thing ought to be kept for the trenches. One doesn’t want to travel with it, one certainly doesn’t want to live with it. . .
At least I don’t. There’s no accounting for tastes, as my poor niece Phyllida has been shewing. You are going to Brackenbury, of course? ”

“ As Will once said, “Half the world doesn’t know how the other half lives.” I felt that, when Colonel Butler stood there, everything sinking in. A man, I suppose, always is rather bewildered at the number of things a girl requires—frocks, gloves, hats, shoes, stockings. . . You mustn’t think that I shewed him Phyllida’s wardrobe! ”

“ He would be living on Phyllida; and, if he loved her as much as he pretended, he would always be feeling: “It’s a frock for her or a suit of clothes for me.” A very humiliating position for any man. . . I know it’s the modern fashion to pretend that it doesn’t matter; Phyllida says in so many words that the advantage of money to a girl is that she can marry where her heart leads her. ”

“ Brackenbury never checks her. . . But you know what a girl is when she has had a disappointment, we must both of us have seen it a dozen times . . . some sort of natural recoil. If she throws herself at Will’s head. . . With her money they’d have enough to live on, of course, and young people ought to be very comfortable on four thousand a year. (It will be seven, when the parents die.) One need not look ahead to a family; but the grandfather, Ruth’s father, would not be illiberal. ”

“ You know whether I am the woman to stand on my dignity, but, when one’s niece writes one letters in the third person. . . Indeed I know what I am talking about! “Lady Phyllida Lyster presents her compliments to Lady Ann Spenworth and is not interested in any explanation that Lady Ann may think fit to put forward.” These are the manners of the war. From the very first I urged Brackenbury not to let her work in that hospital; some one had to go, of course; I’m not so foolish as to think that a hospital would run itself without hands, but why Phyllida? ”

“ A snare and a delusion, unless you mean that a woman with money and nothing else can occasionally buy herself position. . . I’m sure she picked that up from her poor mother. But, if Brackenbury married on his debts, he did bring something; I know we all had to work very hard for Ruth—“doing propaganda,” as my boy Will says—to shew people that the marriage was all right. . . And it will be the same with Will, if he ever marries. . . Whoever he marries. . . He does bring something. . .
Colonel Butler asked if people would think Phyllida had thrown herself away on him. ”

“ And I always have to remember that Ruth is too busy painting and powdering ever to think of her own daughter. I suppose she feels that her looks are the only thing that keeps Brackenbury enslaved. . . What was I saying? Oh, about poor Phyllida. It is to my credit that I insisted on a proper settlement when Brackenbury was mooning about like a love-sick boy; she has four thousand when she’s of age and she’ll have another three when the parents die—enough, you will agree, to tempt some men. I happened to mention at dinner that this Colonel Butler had called, and Will became greatly concerned. ”

“ Phyllida didn’t know. His father, I think she told me, was a surveyor, and she presumed that he intended to be a surveyor too. And an excellent profession, I should imagine, with the big estates being broken up and the properties changing hands everywhere. ”

“ It was almost pathetic; one could fancy the poor young man counting on his fingers and saying: “She must have as good a room as this, she’ll want to keep on her present maid, I don’t suppose she can even prepare a bath for herself or fasten her dress or brush her hair. ”