Landed Gentry. W. Somerset Maugham
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make her happy. I’ve got a husband who adores me. We’re rich. We’re—[with a sudden break in her voice]—happy! I wish to God he had married you! It’s clear enough now that he made a mistake.
Miss Vernon.
[With a chuckle.] I don’t think it’s occurred to him, you know.
Grace.
How many times d’you suppose his mother has said to Claude: Things would be very different now if you’d had the sense to marry Helen Vernon.
Miss Vernon.
Yes, in that case I must say it’s not to be wondered at if you don’t like me very much.
Grace.
Like you! I hate you with all my heart and soul!
Miss Vernon.
Good gracious me, you don’t say so?
Grace.
[With a sudden flash of humour.] You don’t mind my telling you, do you?
Miss Vernon.
Not a bit, but I should very much like to know why?
Grace.
Because I’ve got an envious disposition and I envy you.
Miss Vernon.
A solitary old maid like me?
Grace.
You’ve got everything that I haven’t got. D’you suppose I’ve lived ten years in my husband’s family without realising the gulf that separates Miss Vernon of Foley from the very middle-class young woman that Claude Insoley was such a damned fool as to marry? You’ve got money and I haven’t a farthing.
Miss Vernon.
Money isn’t everything.
Grace.
Oh, don’t talk such nonsense! How would you like to be dependent on somebody else for every penny you had? If I want to get Claude a Christmas present I have to buy it out of his money. … It wouldn’t be so maddening if I only had forty pounds a year of my own, but I haven’t a penny, not a penny! And I have to keep accounts. After all, it’s his money. If he wants accounts why shouldn’t he have them? I have to write down the cost of every packet of hair-pins. [With a sudden chuckle.] And the worst of it is, I never could add.
Miss Vernon.
That, of course, must increase the difficulty of keeping accounts.
Grace.
I’ve been an utter failure from the beginning. They despised me because I was a nobody and not even a rich nobody; but I was a strapping, healthy sort of young woman and they consoled themselves by thinking I’d have children—a milch cow was what they wanted—and I haven’t even had children. …
[Miss Vernon, not knowing what to say, makes a little gesture of perplexity and helplessness. There is a brief pause.
Grace.
Oh! I’m about fed up with all the humiliations I’ve had to endure.
[Edith Lewis comes in with a wrap which she gives to Miss Vernon.
Edith.
Will this do?
Miss Vernon.
Thanks so much. You’re a perfect angel.
Grace.
You mustn’t stay out more than a few minutes. The men will be here in a moment, and I want to play poker. When my mother-in-law comes we shall have to mind our p’s and q’s.
Edith.
You don’t like Mrs. Insoley?
Grace.
Mrs. Insoley doesn’t like me.
Miss Vernon.
Nonsense! She’s very fond of you indeed.
Grace.
I could wish she had some pleasanter way of showing it than finding fault with everything I do, everything I say, and everything I wear.
Edith.
She’s coming to-morrow, isn’t she?
Grace.
Yes. [With a quizzical smile.] She’ll thoroughly disapprove of you. When I introduce you to her: This is Miss Lewis—she’ll look at you for a moment as if you were a kitchen-maid applying for a situation and say: Lewis.
Edith.
Why?
Grace.
Because, like myself, you’re not county.
Edith.
Oh!
Grace.
It’s all very fine to say: Oh! but you don’t know what that means. In London, if you’re pretty and amusing and don’t give yourself airs, people are quite ready to be nice to you; but in a place like this, you can have every virtue under the sun, and if you’re not county you’re of no importance in this world, and you’ll certainly be very uncomfortable in the next.
Miss Vernon.
[Smiling.] I think you’re extremely hard on us. If you have the advantage of. …
Grace.
[Seizing the opportunity which Miss Vernon’s hesitation gives her.] Middle-class origins?
Miss Vernon.
You needn’t grudge us the perfectly harmless delusion that there is a difference between a family that has lived in the same place for three or four centuries, with traditions of good breeding and service to the country—and one that has no roots in the soil.
Grace.
I seem to hear Claude’s very words.
Miss Vernon.
[Good-humouredly.] Of course we have our faults.
Grace.
You’re the first member of your class that I’ve ever heard acknowledge it.
Miss Vernon.
[Meditatively.] I wonder if you’d despise us so much if you had a string of drunken, fox-hunting squires behind you.
Grace.
Oh, my dear, when I was first married I used to lie awake at night wishing for them with all my heart. When the neighbours came to call on me I could see them obviously lying in wait for the aitches they were expecting me to drop. A Miss Robinson, wasn’t she? Robinson! Are there people called Robinson? Oh, how I wanted to scratch their ugly old faces!
Miss Vernon.
How lucky I was abroad for so long! You might have disfigured me for life.
Grace.
I’ve often thought that if the Archangel Gabriel came down in Somersetshire, they’d look him out in the “Landed Gentry” before they asked him to a shooting-party.
Miss Vernon.
I don’t think you ought to judge us all on Mrs. Insoley. She’s a type that’s dying out.
Edith.
I don’t want to seem inquisitive, but if you don’t like Mrs. Insoley why on earth d’you have her to stay here?
Grace.
Simple-minded child! Because even in a county family money’s the only thing in the world that really matters, and we’re penniless, while Mrs. Insoley—[with a quick, defiant look at Miss Vernon]—Mrs. Insoley