Family History

by Vita Sackville-West

  “Of course they couldn’t,” said Evelyn, inclined to laugh although she foresaw that she was in for a bad quarter of an hour; “you’ve always given Dan the best hunters of any boy in England. He was asking after them only the other day,—St. Andrew’s Day. I went down to Eton, and almost the first thing he said was, How’s Silver Star?”

  “Glad to hear it,” said Mr. Jarrold grimly, without turning round.

  He was not in the least mollified. She could see thatt, by the nervous, angry way he kept clasping and unclasping his fingers. Childish old creature! she thought. He had deliberately chosen to be affronted in his pride, just as a pretext for losing his temper. In a moment she would give him something to lose his temper about, in sober earnest. Perhaps he would even forbid her to come to Newlands with Dan for Christmas. Thatt would be a relief. These family gatherings, taken so much as a matter of course, were sometimes almost more than she could bear. She would go with Dan to the South of France . . .

  “Papa, don’t be so cross. The boy loves riding, you know, and he could ride even if he couldn’t hunt.”

  “Is thatt all he wants?” said Mr. Jarrold, swinging round on her. He looked so savage that she really quailed. “To go ambling round the park instead of going across country? Perhaps he’d like Wilkins to take him on a leading-rein? Perhaps he’d like me to buy him a donkey? The boy’s a coward, Evelyn. I’ve always known it, but I wouldn’t face it. My grandson, a coward! But, by God, I won’t have it. He shall hunt. All gentlemen hunt, don’t they? When they can afford it, which most of them can’t. No one shall say that Jarrold’s grandson isn’t a gentleman, or that his grandfather can’t afford to mount him. Hunt he shall, and I don’t care if he breaks his neck doing it.”

  “He isn’t a coward,” said Evelyn in a low voice. She was trying to control the trembling which had seized upon her, determined to go through with this ordeal now that it had started. “He’s a sensitive boy, he loves animals, and he doesn’t like cruelty. Thatt’s all. You had to know it sooner or later. I promised him I would tell you that he means to give up hunting.”

  “Didn’t dare tell me himself, what? Gets his mother to do it for him! A moral coward as well as a physical one. Very pretty! And what’s all this rubbish about cruelty? The poor fox, I suppose? Doesn’t he want to shoot either, may I ask?”

  “No, Papa, since you ask, he doesn’t.”

  “I see. This is what comes of trying to make a gentleman of my grandson,—my eldest grandson, mark you; my heir. I offer him the best hunters and the best shooting in England, but he’d rather have his nose in a book. Why, my sons are better gentlemen than he is. Tommy was a sportsman, whatever you may say. He hadn’t an idea in his head, but he could get his horse over a fence as cleanly as anybody. Geoffrey, too, lazy beggar though he is. And young Robin, too,—now, there’s a good boy, a real boy. Dan and Evan are the duds. Nice things you’ve been telling me, Evelyn!”

  “You’re very hard on Dan,” said Evelyn, nettled at hearing her son called a dud; “everybody can’t be cut on the same pattern. You admit yourself that Tommy hadn’t an idea in his head. (“Tommy was a damned good fellow,” interjected Mr. Jarrold.) Dan’s head is full of ideas, he’s an intelligent boy, and he thinks for himself. Isn’t thatt something?”

  “Something, but not much,” said Mr. Jarrold, calming down a little. “It’s not natural for a boy of his age to think for himself. Dangerous. Not natural for an English boy, I mean. Don’t know about foreigners. Anyway, they wear socks till they’re fourteen. French boys do. I’ve seen them. And bowl hoops.”

  Evelyn laughed; she couldn’t help it.

  “Oh, you may laugh. You say everybody can’t be cut on the same pattern. Why not? We’ve evolved the best pattern in the world, so why not stick to it? Besides, we’ve got more than one pattern. I’m not a gentleman myself,—never pretended to be, I’m a successful business man. I’ve got my place in the world too. But once I’ve done the job, I don’t see why my sons and grandsons shouldn’t reap the benefit. They say it takes three generations to make a gentleman. Well, Dan’s got his three generations behind him.”

  “I don’t see why you should expect him to be an empty-headed ninny,” said Evelyn, less alarmed now that she was annoyed, and now that Mr. Jarrold’s first rage had passed.

  “Obstinate, aren’t you? M-m-m. Stick up for your young. Quite right. But see here, Evelyn, what’s come over Dan? You insisted on taking him off to Italy or somewhere in the summer, so I haven’t really seen him since Easter. He was sound enough then. Has he been getting into a bad set at Eton?”

  “So far as I can make out, he hasn’t any friends at Eton.”

  “All wrong, all wrong,” muttered Mr. Jarrold. He was not angry now; only puzzled and distressed. Evelyn wondered how far she dared go. Perhaps it was wiser to prepare the old man’s mind before the Christmas holidays.

  “You see, Papa. Dan is growing up. A year makes a lot of difference at thatt age. Remember, Dan is seventeen now.”

  “Only a phase, I dare say,” said Mr. Jarrold more hopefully. He looked tired; his burst of anger had tired him.

  “Perhaps, Papa. So you mustn’t get too much annoyed with him if you hear him saying things you don’t agree with.”

  “Not a Socialist, is he?” barked Mr. Jarrold, preparing to lose his temper again.

  “I don’t think he takes much interest in politics,” Evelyn said evasively. She decided that she had given the old man enough shocks for the present.

  “Or a pacifist? Nothing like thatt? Couldn’t stand thatt. Religious, is he?”

  “Not very,” said Evelyn, with a smile.

  “Don’t care about thatt, so long as he goes to church at Newlands. He must go on Christmas Day and every Sunday. Must keep up appearances for the sake of the village.”

  “I’m sure he’ll do thatt, Papa,” said Evelyn, not feeling sure at all.

  “Well, well . . .” grumbled Mr. Jarrold. “This hunting business bothers me, all the same. Quite sure he isn’t a coward? How are his games?”

  “I’m afraid I didn’t ask.”

  “He ought to have told you. If he was keen, he would have told you without asking. Bad sign. Bad sign.”

  “He got his Trials Prize last half; you know. And he’s in the First Hundred.”

  “Don’t care. Who ever went to Eton to be educated? Manners and character,—thatt’s what you go to Eton for. Learn to be a man of the world. Learn to control yourself, and so to control others.”

  Mr. Jarrold, she might have retorted, had never learnt to control himself and yet had controlled others with conspicuous success. Like many a greater man, he had given way to his feelings and his bouts of temper whenever he felt inclined. He had never absorbed the English gospel of repression, ardently as he might preach it now for the benefit of his sons or his grandson. But then, he had never been to an English public school. He had never even come under the heritage of Dr. Arnold’s influence. He had knocked his way upward through life, getting crudely to the top, meeting his fellow men in the ordinary, ungentlemanly rough-and-tumble of competition. He had dispensed with both manners and classical education. Nor had games entered much into his life. He had never had time. He had originated in a different class and a different age. Evelyn could not see that he was any the worse for thatt.

  “Doesn’t it all rather depend,” she said, “on what we want Dan to do when he grows up?”

  “Dan needn’t do anything,” said Mr. Jarrold proudly. “He can go into the Guards.” He spoke without irony. “He’ll be a peer before he’s twenty-five. He can fill up his time in the House of Lords.”

  “Papa, what do you mean?”

  I’ve let the cat out of the bag, it seems,” said Mr. Jarrold, cocking his head at her, his temper completely restored. He was charmingly naif at that moment, and Evelyn forgave him all his trespasses.r />
  “Really, Papa? New Year’s Honours?”

  Mr. Jarrold nodded.

  “Does Mrs. Jarrold know?”

  “Haven’t told her. Haven’t told Evan or Geoffrey or Catherine. Didn’t mean to tell you. Meant to let you all see it in The Times. Surprise.”

  “Well, Papa, I won’t give you away.” She put her arms round him and kissed him. She was sure that he had let her into his secret to make up for having been so cross about Dan. Dear old man. During the brief moment of her kiss he savoured the slight, warm scent that hid within her furs.

  “Trust you, Evelyn.”

  “You can. I’m so glad. You don’t know how glad I am. For you.”

  She spoke truthfully. She was glad for the old man’s sake, and, because she came from the middle class herself, for the sake of her son. Aristocracy held a glamour for her. She was glad that Mr. Jarrold should be rewarded, because such a reward would please him; and she was glad to think that her son would eventually take his place in the House of Lords. Her father would be pleased, too, pottering in retirement among his water-colours at Biggleswade. “My grandson,” he would say, “Lord . . .”

  “What name have you decided on?” she asked.

  “Can’t make up my mind. Thought you might help. Newlands sounds a bit too new, somehow. Silly business. Wouldn’t accept it, but for Dan. And now you tell me Dan won’t hunt, or shoot,—dammit, he’ll go vegetarian and teetotal next. Crank. Hate cranks.”

  “What about Orlestone as a name?” she said, edging him off the dangerous subject. Orlestone was in the district of the Jarrold coal-pits.

  “Orlestone. Not bad. Thought of it myself.”

  “Well, you can tell us for certain on New Year’s Day, Papa.”

  “Mind you look surprised,” said Mr. Jarrold.

  “But of course! Mrs. Jarrold mightn’t like it, if she thought I had known before she did.”

  “Stuff,—she minds nothing except the slugs eating the esquilogias.”

  “The what, Papa?”

  “Esquilogias. One of those flowers she’s always poring over.”

  “Aquilegias, you mean, Papa,—or eschscholtzias.”

  “Cross between the two. Anyhow, something that makes me feel left out in the cold. When she talks about them to one of those gardening friends of hers. She had a man down the other day, who’d discovered seventy new kinds of lily in Manchuria.”

  “Dear me, Papa.”

  “Well, I may have got it wrong. He’d discovered something somewhere, and there were seventy kinds of it. They discussed each kind in detail. I went to sleep.”

  He was in a good mood now, pleased that Evelyn should know his secret, gratified that she should have received it with suitable delight. Because the revelation had made him shy, he turned it off with a joke. Quite enough emotion had been displayed when she kissed him. They understood one another very well.

  “Dear Papa, I’m afraid I must be going now.” “Got your car? Want a taxi?”

  “Neither. I shall walk.”

  “Cold day,” said Mr. Jarrold warningly.

  “I’ve got a fur coat.”

  “Quite right to walk when you can,” said Mr. Jarrold, accompanying her down the polished gallery of the Museum; “keeps your complexion fresh.” He stumped along beside her. “You won’t tell anybody, Evelyn, eh?”

  “Word of honour, Papa.”

  “M-m. I’ll take thatt.”

  At the top of the stairs they met Geoffrey Jarrold coming up with an unknown young man.

  “Hullo, Papa. I was looking for you. Hullo, Evelyn. This is Miles Vane-Merrick, Papa. He wants to talk to you about conditions among industrial workers. I told him I was sure you couldn’t be bothered.”

  “M-m-m,” said Mr. Jarrold. Vane-Merrick’s name was well known to him as a rising young M.P.,—an aristocrat in the ranks of the I.L.P. Vane-Merrick might be worth talking to. “Come along,” said Mr. Jarrold; “Evelyn’s just going,—got an appointment with a dressmaker. My daughter-in-law, Mr. Vane-Merrick.”

  They smiled conventionally and nodded to one another. Evelyn saw a fair young man with an extraordinarily gay, frank, and alert expression. Vane-Merrick saw a dark, slim woman dressed in green velvet and sables, a bunch of violets pinned into her furs. He was struck even then by her look of passionate reserve. It was not so much her obvious loveliness and elegance that attracted him, as the secret her whole being withheld. Their glances crossed for an instant. She went on her way, elegantly, down the polished staircase, exchanging remarks with her father-in-law who insisted on escorting her.

  A biting wind caught Evelyn as she emerged from the security of the Jarrolds’ house into the roar of London. She shivered, and turned up her fur collar, putting down her nose against the wind. The scarlet buses thundered past her, going down Park Lane. They reminded her of the days when she had been obliged to travel in buses; when she had taken her place among the waiting groups on the kerb, getting in the way of hurrying passers-by, being pushed aside by competitive boarders of the bus; days when the harsh cry of the conductor’s voice came accompanied by an out-stretched, barring arm, “Outside only!” like the cry of fate, condemning one forever to the outside seat, in the rain, in the cold, though a bus was ostensibly the most democratic of conveyances. Today, even buses had changed. Their outsides offered as much shelter as their insides. Moreover, one could smoke on the top. Life was undergoing the process of being levelled up for everyone. Evelyn Jarrold felt less sympathy for bus-boarders than Evelyn Wilson had felt twenty years ago. Perhaps thatt was because Evelyn Jarrold had entered into the preserves of the capitalists. She now registered a definite annoyance when taxis delayed the free passage of her motor through Hyde Park, and was apt to recall the days when the Park was closed to all but privately-owned vehicles. Her grievance against buses and the conductor with his strident voice had diminished noticeably since she herself had owned her private car or had been able to hail a taxi whenever she stood in need of one.

  Perversely, despite the wind and the general unpleasantness of the December weather, she preferred to walk. One could afford to walk, when one was lapped in sables, and could hail a taxi whenever weather-conditions became intolerable. The icy wind, whipping, biting, brought a certain exhilaration. Discomforts that one need not necessarily endure, always do induce a certain exhilaration. Hence the perennial charm of picnics.

  Evelyn struggled up Park Lane against the wind. Life was easy and pleasant for her,—too easy, too pleasant,— and she welcomed the wind as something that would buffet her from without. People were too much inclined as a rule to consider her wishes; to make much of her, to spoil her; the Jarrolds adored her, and her many friends were a great deal fonder of her than she of them. It was all too soft and comfortable. It made her sometimes a little impatient and uneasy. In material ways, too, she was fortunate; at the dressmaker’s where she was going she would order anything she wanted, and she knew that she would want a great deal, being easily tempted in such feminine ways. She would be unable to resist the pretty tissues, the furs and flowers; indeed there was no reason why she should resist them. She would have a lot of things sent home on approval, strewing them all over her room and wandering amongst them, while Privett, her dour maid who had been with her ever since her marriage, looked on disapprovingly, saying only, when consulted, that she had got enough clothes already. But she would eventually charm a smile even out of Privett.

  Madame Louise the head saleswoman at Rivers and Roberts came forward with a pleased smirk to welcome Mrs. Jarrold. She reserved thatt smirk for customers whom it was a pleasure to dress, those customers who would always do credit to the firm. Customers of the other sort were greeted only with a hard and supercilious stare, as much as to enquire what their business might be with Rivers and Roberts. But Mrs. Tommy Jarrold was a favourite, no doubt about it. Even the ma
nnequins smiled, and the great Mr. Rivers himself came out from behind a curtain when he heard that Mrs. Jarrold was in the shop. He was very small and finicky, with long expressive hands and tiny little feet in patent-leather shoes; when he flittered beside Madame Louise, who was large and tightly encased ill black satin, her grey hair cropped and brushed back so that she looked almost like an eighteenth-century gentleman, one expected her to pick up Mr. Rivers and spank him. Evelyn often wondered amusedly at their exact relationship. They were colleagues, deferring to one another’s opinion, but did they loathe one another secretly? Did the most terrible scenes take place behind thatt curtain, in Mr. Rivers’ sanctum? Scenes from which they emerged, bland and smiling, when the arrival of an American duchess was announced to them by a scared assistant? However they might behave in private, in public they were a formidable combination. A glance from them was enough to make a stout millionairess feel like a disgrace upon the earth.

  They implied by their manner that it was a matter of complete indifference to them whether they sold their goods or not. In fact, their manner suggested, they would rather not sell them at all, such trafficking being beneath their dignity. They were artists, creators, who if they received a cheque would scarcely know what to do with it. If any client committed the solecism of asking a price, they raised their eyebrows and summoned some inferior being to give the answer, during which time they discreetly turned away to save themselves the pain of over-hearing so sordid a discussion. It was always assumed that anybody who entered Rivers and Roberts’ must be above such small considerations. The whole atmosphere of the establishment breathed such an assumption.

  For the display of their creations they employed a number of young women of surpassing beauty, whom Madame Louise treated with quasi-paternal benevolence and Mr. Rivers with a fussy irritability. But though Madame Louise might call them “dear,” and though Mr. Rivers might dance up to them, jerking a fold into place or stepping back to admire the effect of an orchid held between finger and thumb against the shoulder, these young ladies reproduced with marked success the superbly indifferent manner of their employers. They were bored, they were beautiful, they were scornful. They minced across the stretches of grey pile carpet as though the clothes they wore were their own. And indeed the clothes they wore suggested every varying hour in the life of a young lady of fashion, a debutante in the crowded and luxurious year of her first emancipation. She played tennis, she danced, she dined, she went to Scotland in tweeds and to Ascot in painted chiffon; she bathed, she went on the river; she was cool or cosy. But whatever she did she was exquisite, disdainful, and bored.