Sylvia said:
“Just a moment, Father,” and she addressed Mrs. Satterthwaite: “I suppose I shall have to put myself to bed.”
“You will,” Mrs. Satterthwaite said. “I’ll not have any maid kept up after ten in a holiday resort. What’s she to do in a place like this? Except listen for the bogies it’s full of?”
“Always considerate!” Mrs. Tietjens gibed. “And perhaps it’s just as well. I’d probably beat that Marie of yours’ arms to pieces with a hairbrush if she came near me.” She added: “You were talking about men, Father. …” And then began with sudden animation to her mother:
“I’ve changed my mind about that telegram. The first thing tomorrow I shall wire: ‘Agreed entirely but arrange bring Hullo Central with you.’ ”
She addressed the priest again:
“I call my maid Hullo Central because she’s got a tinny voice like a telephone. I say: ‘Hullo Central’—when she answers ‘Yes, modd’m,’ you’d swear it was the Exchange speaking. … But you were telling me about men.”
“I was reminding you!” the Father said. “But I needn’t go on. You’ve caught the drift of my remarks. That is why you are pretending not to listen.”
“I assure you, no,” Mrs. Tietjens said. “It is simply that if a thing comes into my head I have to say it. … You were saying that if one went away with a different man for every weekend …”
“You’ve shortened the period already,” the priest said. “I gave a full week to every man.”
“But, of course, one would have to have a home,” Sylvia said, “an address. One would have to fill one’s midweek engagements. Really it comes to it that one has to have a husband and a place to store one’s maid in. Hullo Central’s been on board-wages all the time. But I don’t believe she likes it. … Let’s agree that if I had a different man every week I’d be bored with the arrangement. That’s what you’re getting at, isn’t it?”
“You’d find,” the priest said, “that it whittled down until the only divvy moment was when you stood waiting in the booking-office for the young man to take the tickets. … And then gradually that wouldn’t be divvy any more. … And you’d yawn and long to go back to your husband.”
“Look here,” Mrs. Tietjens said, “you’re abusing the secrets of the confessional. That’s exactly what Tottie Charles said. She tried it for three months while Freddie Charles was in Madeira. It’s exactly what she said down to the yawn and the booking-office. And the ‘divvy.’ It’s only Tottie Charles who uses it every two words. Most of us prefer ripping! It is more sensible.”
“Of course I haven’t been abusing the secrets of the confessional,” Father Consett said mildly.
“Of course you haven’t,” Sylvia said with affection. “You’re a good old stick and no end of a mimic, and you know us all to the bottom of our hearts.”
“Not all that much,” the priest said, “there’s probably a good deal of good at the bottom of your hearts.”
Sylvia said:
“Thanks.” She asked suddenly: “Look here. Was it what you saw of us—the future mothers of England, you know, and all—at Miss Lampeter’s—that made you take to the slums? Out of disgust and despair?”
“Oh, let’s not make melodrama out of it,” the priest answered. “Let’s say I wanted a change. I couldn’t see that I was doing any good.”
“You did us all the good there was done,” Sylvia said. “What with Miss Lampeter always drugged to the world, and all the French mistresses as wicked as hell.”
“I’ve heard you say all this before,” Mrs. Satterthwaite said. “But it was supposed to be the best finishing school in England. I know it cost enough!”
“Well, say it was we who were a rotten lot,” Sylvia concluded; and then to the Father: “We were a lot of rotters, weren’t we?”
The priest answered:
“I don’t know. I don’t suppose you were—or are—any worse than your mother or grandmother, or the patricianesses of Rome or the worshippers of Ashtaroth. It seems we have to have a governing class and governing classes are subject to special temptations.”
“Who’s Ashtaroth?” Sylvia asked. “Astarte?” and then: “Now, Father, after your experiences would you say the factory girls of Liverpool, or any other slum, are any better women than us that you used to look after?”
“Astarte Syriaca,” the Father said, “was a very powerful devil. There’s some that hold she’s not dead yet. I don’t know that I do myself.”
“Well, I’ve done with her,” Sylvia said.
The Father nodded:
“You’ve had dealings with Mrs. Profumo?” he asked. “And that loathsome fellow. … What’s his name?”
“Does it shock you?” Sylvia asked. “I’ll admit it was a bit thick. … But I’ve done with it. I prefer to pin my faith to Mrs. Vanderdecken. And, of course, Freud.”
The priest nodded his head and said:
“Of course! Of course. …”
But Mrs. Satterthwaite exclaimed, with sudden energy:
“Sylvia Tietjens, I don’t care what you do or what you read, but if you ever speak another word to that woman, you never do to me!”
Sylvia stretched herself on her sofa. She opened her brown eyes wide and let the lids slowly drop again.
“I’ve said once,” she said, “that I don’t like to hear my friends miscalled. Eunice Vanderdecken is a bitterly misjudged woman. She’s a real good pal.”
“She’s a Russian spy,” Mrs. Satterthwaite said.
“Russian grandmother,” Sylvia answered. “And if she is, who cares? She’s welcome for me. … Listen now, you two. I said to myself when I came in: ‘I daresay I’ve given them both a rotten time.’ I know you’re both more nuts on me than I deserve. And I said I’d sit and listen to all the pi-jaw you wanted to give me if I sat till dawn. And I will. As a return. But I’d rather you let my friends alone.”
Both the elder people were silent. There came from the shuttered windows of the dark room a low, scratching rustle.
“You hear!” the priest said to Mrs. Satterthwaite.
“It’s the branches,” Mrs. Satterthwaite answered.
The Father answered: “There’s no tree within ten yards! Try bats as an explanation.”
“I’ve said
