Chapter 3

And now the rest of the day must be got through somehow, but the members
of the house-party, though surely spoilt by the surfeits of
entertainment that life had always offered them, showed no disposition
to be bored by each other’s familiar company, and no inclination to vary
the programme which they must have followed on innumerable Sunday
afternoons since they first emerged from the narrowness of school or
schoolroom, to take their place in a world where pleasure fell like a
ripened peach for the outstretching of a hand. Leonard Anquetil,
watching them from outside, marvelled to see them so easily pleased.
Here are a score or more of people, he thought, who by virtue of their
position are accustomed to the intimate society of princes, politicians,
financiers, wits, beauties, and other makers of history, yet are
apparently content with desultory chatter and make-believe occupation
throughout the long hours of an idle day. Nor could he pretend to
himself that on other days they diverted themselves differently, or that
their week-end provided a deserved relaxation from a fuller and more
ardent life. All their days were the same; had been the same for an
eternity of years; not only for themselves, thought Anquetil, but for a
long dwindling procession of their ancestors. By God, thought Anquetil,
waking up to a truth that hitherto had not occurred to him, Society has
always existed. Strange hocus-pocus, that juggles certain figures into
prominence, so that their aspect is familiar to the wife of the
bank-clerk, and their doings a source of envy to the daughter of the
chemist in South Kensington! With what glamour this scheme is invested,
insolent imposture! and upon what does it base its pretensions? for
Anquetil, for the life of him, could not see that these people were in
any way remarkable, nor that their conversation was in any way worthy of
exciting the interest of an eager man. He listened carefully, tabulating
their topics. They were more interested, he observed, in facts than in
ideas. A large proportion of their conversation seemed to consist in
asking one another what they had thought of such-and-such an
entertainment, and whether they were going to such-and-such an other.
“What was Miriam’s party like, Lucy? sticky, as usual?” “No,” said Lucy,
“quite a good party for once, but of course nothing will ever make poor
Miriam into a good hostess.” “Millions don’t make a salon.” “Are you
lunching with Celia to-morrow, Lucy?” “Yes,—are you? What fun. Who else
is going, do you know?” “Tommy, you’re going, aren’t you? How too deevy.
We’ll all be able to laugh at Celia in a corner. And let me
see—to-morrow evening is Stafford House, isn’t it? Deevy parties at
Stafford House, always. And Millie looking like a goddess, with a golden
train half-way down the stairs. The charm of that woman! Everybody will
be there.” “Violet really ought to be stopped from giving parties. There
ought to be an Act of Parliament about it. Friday was ghastly.”
“Ghastly! Horribilino! And the filthiest food.” “Where are you going to
stay for Ascot?” . . . Anquetil nearly got up and wandered off, but he
was fascinated and amused. These parties of theirs, he thought, were
like chain-smoking: each cigarette was lighted in the hope that it might
be more satisfactory than the last. Then investments bulked heavy in
their talk, and other people’s incomes, and the merits of various stocks
and shares; also the financial shrewdness of Mrs. Cheyne, a lady unknown
to Anquetil, save by repute, but who cropped up constantly in the
conversation; Romola Cheyne, it appeared, had made a big scoop in rubber
last week—but some veiled sneers accompanied this subject, for how
could Romola fail, it was asked, with such sources of information at her
disposal? Dear Romola: what a clever woman. And never malicious, said
someone. No, said someone else; too clever to be malicious. Then they
passed on to other house-parties, and Anquetil learnt how poor Constance
had made the _gaffe_ of her life, by inviting Sophie and Verena
together; but who Sophie and Verena were, or why they should not be
invited together, Anquetil did not discover. And would Constance’s girl
marry young Ambermere? she would be a fool if she refused him, for when
his father died he would come into thirty thousand a year—incomes
again, thought Anquetil, who happened to know young Ambermere and had
once had the pleasure of telling him exactly what he thought of him. He
felt sorry for Constance’s girl. Then for a space it seemed good to them
to play at being serious. Politics flitted across the conversation, and
these ladies and gentlemen spoke with a proprietary and casual
familiarity, somewhat as though politics were children that they
entrusted to the care of nurses and tutors, remembering their existence
from time to time, principally in order to complain of the inefficient
way the nurses and tutors carried out their duties; but although they
were careful to give an impression of being behind the scenes, like
parents who go up to the nursery once a day, their acquaintance remained
oddly remote and no more convincing than an admirably skilful bluff. It
was founded, Anquetil discovered, on personal contact with politicians;
“Henry told me last week . . . ,” or “A. J. B. was dining with me and
said . . . ,” but their chief desire was to cap one another’s
information. So this is the great world, thought Anquetil; the world of
the élite; and he began to wonder what qualities gave admission to it,
for he had already noticed that no definite principle appeared to
dictate selection. He was not really very much interested, but the study
would do well enough as an amusement for a Sunday afternoon under the
trees of Chevron, listening to chatter in which he could not take part.
This organisation puzzled him, for, so far, he could perceive no common
factor between all these people; neither high birth nor wealth nor
brains seemed to be essential—as Anquetil in his simplicity had
thought—for though Sir Adam was fabulously rich, Tommy Brand was
correspondingly poor; and though the Duchess of Hull was a duchess, Mrs.
Levison was by birth and marriage a nobody; and though Lord Robert Gore
was a clever, ambitious young man, Sir Harry Tremaine was undeniably a
ninny. Yet they all took their place with the same assurance, and upon
the same footing. Anquetil knew that they and their friends formed a
phalanx from which intruders were rigorously excluded; but why some
people qualified and others did not, he could not determine. Some of
these women were harsh-faced, and lacked both charm and wit; their only
virtue, a glib conversance with such topics as came up for discussion
and a manner of delivering themselves as though the final word had been
uttered on the subject. If this is Society, thought Anquetil, God help
us, for surely no fraud has ever equalled it. These are the people, or a
sample of them, who ordain the London season, glorify Ascot, make or
unmake the fortune of small Continental watering-places, inspire envy,
emulation, and snobbishness—well, thought Anquetil, with a shrug, they
spend money, and that is the best that can be said for them. Lying in
his long wicker chair, he could see some of them strolling about the
lawn, and so low did he lie that the green lawn appeared to stand up
behind them, like a green cloth stretched on a wall, with the little
domes of the parasols moving against it, and the trim waists cutting
their hour-glass pattern above the flowing out of the skirt.