lady.’
‘And what did you say to that?’
‘That I didn’t have a position in Calcutta and didn’t want one. I said too, and this of course was wrong, I acknowledge, that I was only out here as a superior sort of errand-boy, that neither her father nor anyone else had ever allowed me any responsibility in the business when I was at home, and that everyone here would realize it as soon as I opened my mouth. Which is true, you know! I’m the most junior member of the firm, and that only because my father was on the Board. Of course I know that I was very lucky to have this opportunity to come out here and see how things are at first hand; it will give me a real advantage, so they all say, but after all we owe it to my mother, not her father, that we are here. She’s footing the bills. And I’d like to see her face if I wrote home for further funds because we’d had to take a house of our own for a miserable six or eight weeks.’
I could see his point but I held my peace and he remained silent for a while, glowering into his glass and thinking of his wrongs.
‘Wish to God I’d never entered the firm!’ he mumbled eventually. ‘I always wanted the Army, but after my father died, Mama decided she couldn’t afford a commission in the Guards, and she couldn’t see me in anything less. I have no aptitude for commerce,’ he confessed with some embarrassment, ‘and it bores me. I’m already looking forward to the time when I can retire quietly to Dissham and ride a bit and shoot a bit and manage my tenants. But Emily is always throwing her father and brothers up at me—what astute business men they are and how young they were when they started to make money and so on. It’s not even as though we were poor and I had to make do with a salary!’
The mention of poverty made me smile rather sadly to myself. No, indeed—these young people would never be poor! Not as I was poor at any rate. My father, though certainly never profligate, had never shown, either, any very economical bent. His inheritance, as the younger son of a very ‘sound’ family, should have been sufficient for him to live on in modest comfort. But he had had many friends less fortunate than he, and many interests that seemed to consume as much of his money as his time; so between generosity and enthusiasm he managed to go through a very large part of his patrimony. On his death his widow inherited what remained of his money, while I was despatched to my Uncle Hewitt in Sussex with the minute income that was all the lawyers had managed to salvage of my own mother’s marriage portion. It was some time before I could forgive my father his improvidence, much as I had loved him, and I still had daily cause for gratitude that my uncle and aunt were the civilized and magnanimous people they were. They had provided me with all I needed; a great deal more than I had ever had in Italy. And when I had agreed to accompany Emily to India, my uncle had insisted that I receive an adequate imbursement, although I had pleaded that all I wished was a chance to show my gratitude. ‘You must consider it a gift—to a much-loved daughter,’ my aunt had insisted, ‘certainly not as a salary, dear, as though we were the sort of relatives who would allow you to put yourself out to work!’
She had smiled as she spoke, but Emily, who had heard the remark, laughed acidly and said to me, ‘So, you’re a paid companion now, are you? And I shall make you feel your position—just as people do in books! How I shall enjoy it!’ I had thought she was joking at the time, but her behaviour towards me over the last few months had often made me remember her words.
Musing in this fashion, I did not realize that Charles was speaking again, and pulled myself together abruptly to hear him say, ‘… and she is convinced that, unless we make a proper splash in the social whirlpool and spend a vast amount of money in order to get invited to the Governor General’s
‘And what did you say to that?’
‘That I didn’t have a position in Calcutta and didn’t want one. I said too, and this of course was wrong, I acknowledge, that I was only out here as a superior sort of errand-boy, that neither her father nor anyone else had ever allowed me any responsibility in the business when I was at home, and that everyone here would realize it as soon as I opened my mouth. Which is true, you know! I’m the most junior member of the firm, and that only because my father was on the Board. Of course I know that I was very lucky to have this opportunity to come out here and see how things are at first hand; it will give me a real advantage, so they all say, but after all we owe it to my mother, not her father, that we are here. She’s footing the bills. And I’d like to see her face if I wrote home for further funds because we’d had to take a house of our own for a miserable six or eight weeks.’
I could see his point but I held my peace and he remained silent for a while, glowering into his glass and thinking of his wrongs.
‘Wish to God I’d never entered the firm!’ he mumbled eventually. ‘I always wanted the Army, but after my father died, Mama decided she couldn’t afford a commission in the Guards, and she couldn’t see me in anything less. I have no aptitude for commerce,’ he confessed with some embarrassment, ‘and it bores me. I’m already looking forward to the time when I can retire quietly to Dissham and ride a bit and shoot a bit and manage my tenants. But Emily is always throwing her father and brothers up at me—what astute business men they are and how young they were when they started to make money and so on. It’s not even as though we were poor and I had to make do with a salary!’
The mention of poverty made me smile rather sadly to myself. No, indeed—these young people would never be poor! Not as I was poor at any rate. My father, though certainly never profligate, had never shown, either, any very economical bent. His inheritance, as the younger son of a very ‘sound’ family, should have been sufficient for him to live on in modest comfort. But he had had many friends less fortunate than he, and many interests that seemed to consume as much of his money as his time; so between generosity and enthusiasm he managed to go through a very large part of his patrimony. On his death his widow inherited what remained of his money, while I was despatched to my Uncle Hewitt in Sussex with the minute income that was all the lawyers had managed to salvage of my own mother’s marriage portion. It was some time before I could forgive my father his improvidence, much as I had loved him, and I still had daily cause for gratitude that my uncle and aunt were the civilized and magnanimous people they were. They had provided me with all I needed; a great deal more than I had ever had in Italy. And when I had agreed to accompany Emily to India, my uncle had insisted that I receive an adequate imbursement, although I had pleaded that all I wished was a chance to show my gratitude. ‘You must consider it a gift—to a much-loved daughter,’ my aunt had insisted, ‘certainly not as a salary, dear, as though we were the sort of relatives who would allow you to put yourself out to work!’
She had smiled as she spoke, but Emily, who had heard the remark, laughed acidly and said to me, ‘So, you’re a paid companion now, are you? And I shall make you feel your position—just as people do in books! How I shall enjoy it!’ I had thought she was joking at the time, but her behaviour towards me over the last few months had often made me remember her words.
Musing in this fashion, I did not realize that Charles was speaking again, and pulled myself together abruptly to hear him say, ‘… and she is convinced that, unless we make a proper splash in the social whirlpool and spend a vast amount of money in order to get invited to the Governor General’s
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