Relationships were somewhat strained in the Vane household during the
next few weeks, the two elder members being banded together in an
unusual partnership to bring about the confusion of the younger.
"I can't understand what you are making such a fuss about. You'll have
to give in, in the end. You a poet, indeed! What next? If you would
come down to breakfast in time, and give over burning the gas till one
o'clock in the morning, it would be more to the point than writing silly
verses. I'd be ashamed to waste my time scribbling nonsense all day
long!" So cried Agnes, in Martha-like irritation, and Ronald turned his
eyes upon her with that deep, dreamy gaze which only added fuel to the
flame.
He was not angry with Agnes, who, as she herself truly said, "did not
understand." Out of the storm of her anger an inspiration had fluttered
towards him, like a crystal out of the surf. "The Worker and the
Dreamer"--he would make a poem out of that idea! Already the wonderful
inner vision pictured the scene--the poet sitting idle on the hillside,
the man of toil labouring in the heat and glare of the fields, casting
glances of scorn and impatience at the inert form. The lines began to
take shape in his brain.
"...And the worker worked from the misty dawn,
Till the east was golden and red;
But the dreamer's dream which he thought to scorn,
Lived on when they both were dead..."
"I asked him three times over if he would have another cup of coffee,
and he stared at me as if he were daft! I believe he is half daft at
times, and he will grow worse and worse, if Margot encourages him like
this!" Agnes announced to her father, on his weary return from City.
It was one of Agnes's exemplary habits to refuse all invitations which
could prevent her being at home to welcome her father every afternoon,
and assist him to tea and scones, accompanied by a minute resume of
the bad news of the day. What the housemaid had broken; what the cat
had spilt; the parlourmaid's impertinences; the dressmaker's
delinquencies; Ronald's vapourings; the new and unabashed transgressions
of Margot--each in its turn was dropped into the tired man's cup with
the lumps of sugar, and stirred round with the cream. There was no
escaping the ordeal. On the hottest day of summer there was the boiling
tea, with the hot muffins, and the rich, indigestible cake, exactly as
they had appeared amidst the ice and snows of January; and the
accompanied recital hardly varied more. It was a positive relief to
hear that the chimney had smoked, or the parrot had had a fit.
Once a year Agnes departed on a holiday, handing over the keys to
Margot, who meekly promised to follow in her footsteps; and then,
heigho! for a fortnight of Bohemia, with every arrangement upside down,
and appearing vastly improved by the change of position. Instead of tea
in the drawing-room, two easy-chairs on the balcony overlooking the
Park; cool iced drinks sipped through straws, and luscious dishes of
fruit. Instead of Agnes, stiff and starched and tailor-made, a radiant
vision in muslin and laces, with a ruffled golden head, and distracting
little feet peeping out from beneath the frills.