Our Elizabeth | Page 8

her offering and regarded it a moment in silence, while my aesthetic nature shook to its foundations. Stifling the moan of horror that had risen to my lips, I faced her with a smile. Balaclava heroes could have done no more.
'Thank you, Elizabeth,' I said humbly.
CHAPTER IV
Marion often says that if Elizabeth hadn't . . . but I believe I haven't told you about Marion yet. I'm afraid I shall never learn construction, in spite of Henry.
Well, Marion is Henry's sister. She is what you would call a really nice girl. Everybody likes her and sends for her when in trouble or needing advice. Women adore her and tell her all their secrets, and get her to alter their dresses for them. Men seek her company in order to pour out their worries and anxieties into her sympathetic ear. She is always acting as intermediary in love affairs that are not running smoothly and need the intervention or assistance of a third party. But--and this is where the poignant touch comes in--she never had a love affair of her own. I could not understand why. It isn't that she's unattractive, being quite pretty in that feminine clinging way which we generally connect with the Victorian era.
There is a certain type of man who admires this type of woman. He writes to the newspapers, clamouring loudly to be told where the 'nice' girls are (the girls of modest mien who know only the gentle, housewifely arts), and signs himself 'Old-Fashioned' or 'Early Victorian,' or merely gives baffling initials, always being careful not to disclose his identity. If he really wants these sort of girls why doesn't he give a name and address to which they can be forwarded?
It is my belief that men like these 'nice' homely women as mothers, but do not seek for them as wives. But, I ask, how are they to be mothers--and still remain 'nice'--if they are not first to be selected as wives? If the position isn't faced they will soon die out altogether and become as rare as the brontosaurus. We shall go to museums and see exhibited, 'Fossilized remains of "Nice Girl": supposed to exist in early part of twentieth century. Rare specimen.'
Everybody said Marion ought to be married as she had those fine qualities which belong to the ideal home-maker. Nearly every man who knew her declared that she would make a perfect wife--and then went off and married someone else. They said the chap would be lucky who got her--which was true enough--but the idea of going in to win her didn't seem to occur to any one of them.
So here was Marion, sweet and lovable, who would make a delightful mother of children and of a home a haven of refuge, languishing alone for want of a suitable offer of marriage.
I will frankly admit that I planned various matrimonial schemes for Marion. Many eligible men did I invite to meet her; some fell on stony ground, and others made excuses and stayed away.
I remained undaunted, although I got no assistance from Henry, who strongly disapproved of my manoeuvres. In any case, he would never have been of much help in the matter, being quite unable to distinguish between the Right and the Wrong kind of man. Also, nearly all his friends are either married with grown-up children, or elderly widowers with hearts so firmly embedded in the graves of their former wives that it would be perfectly impossible to try to excavate them again.
The annoying thing about Henry, too, is his lack of discernment regarding men. I have known him speak glowingly, and with unabated enthusiasm, of 'a most interesting chap' he has met at his club, referring to him as 'altogether delightful,' 'a charming conversationalist,' and so on, until I have felt impelled to ask Henry to bring this treasure home to dinner.
Then, after expending myself in the preparation of such things as _hors d'oeuvres_ and iced cocktails and putting on my most becoming frock Henry has walked in with a veritable monster of a man. You know the kind I mean. Quite good and God-fearing and all that, but with one of those dreadful clematis moustaches which cling half over the face, beginning at the nostrils and curling under the chin, a form which undulates in the region of the waistcoat, and a slow and pompous conversation (mainly devoted to the discussion of politics in the 'fifties).
I remember, shortly after one of these visitations, Henry ringing me up on the 'phone and asking if it was convenient to bring a man home to dinner that evening.
'What is he like?' I inquired, still smarting under recent experiences, 'has he much moustache--I mean, is he nice?'
Henry paused. 'Oh, all right. I don't know whether you'd care for him. Perhaps I'd