The Blotting Book | Page 2

one servant. But she would have
left that four-roomed cottage at once for even humbler surroundings
had she found that her straitened circumstances did not permit her to
keep it as speckless and soignée as was her present house in Sussex
Square.
This achievement of having lived for nearly sixty years so decorously
may perhaps be a somewhat finer performance than it sounds, but Mrs.
Assheton brought as her contribution to life in general a far finer
offering than that, for though she did not propose to change her ways
and manner of life herself, she was notoriously sympathetic with the
changed life of the younger generation, and in consequence had the
confidence of young folk generally. At this moment she was enjoying
the fruits of her liberal attitude in the volubility of her son Morris, who

sat at the end of the table opposite to her. His volubility was at present
concerned with his motor-car, in which he had arrived that afternoon.
"Darling mother," he was saying, "I really was frightened as to whether
you would mind. I couldn't help remembering how you received Mr.
Taynton's proposal that you should go for a drive in his car. Don't you
remember, Mr. Taynton? Mother's nose did go in the air. It's no use
denying it. So I thought, perhaps, that she wouldn't like my having one.
But I wanted it so dreadfully, and so I bought it without telling her, and
drove down in it to-day, which is my birthday, so that she couldn't be
too severe."
Mr. Taynton, while Morris was speaking, had picked up the nutcrackers
the boy had been using, and was gravely exploding the shells of the
nuts he had helped himself to. So Morris cracked the next one with a
loud bang between his white even teeth.
"Dear Morris," said his mother, "how foolish of you. Give Mr. Morris
another nutcracker," she added to the parlour-maid.
"What's foolish?" asked he, cracking another.
"Oh Morris, your teeth," she said. "Do wait a moment. Yes, that's right.
And how can you say that my nose went in the air? I'm sure Mr.
Taynton will agree with me that that is really libellous. And as for your
being afraid to tell me you had bought a motor-car yourself, why, that
is sillier than cracking nuts with your teeth."
Mr. Taynton laughed a comfortable middle-aged laugh.
"Don't put the responsibility on me, Mrs. Assheton," he said. "As long
as Morris's bank doesn't tell us that his account is overdrawn, he can do
what he pleases. But if we are told that, then down comes the cartloads
of bricks."
"Oh, you are a brick all right, Mr. Taynton," said the boy. "I could
stand a cartload of you."

Mr. Taynton, like his laugh, was comfortable and middle-aged.
Solicitors are supposed to be sharp-faced and fox-like, but his face was
well-furnished and comely, and his rather bald head beamed with
benevolence and dinner.
"My dear boy," he said, "and it is your birthday--I cannot honour either
you or this wonderful port more properly than by drinking your health
in it."
He began and finished his glass to the health he had so neatly proposed,
and Morris laughed.
"Thank you very much," he said. "Mother, do send the port round.
What an inhospitable woman!"
Mrs. Assheton rose.
"I will leave you to be more hospitable than me, then, dear," she said.
"Shall we go, Madge? Indeed, I am afraid you must, if you are to catch
the train to Falmer."
Madge Templeton got up with her hostess, and the two men rose too.
She had been sitting next Morris, and the boy looked at her eagerly.
"It's too bad, your having to go," he said. "But do you think I may come
over to-morrow, in the afternoon some time, and see you and Lady
Templeton?"
Madge paused a moment.
"I am so sorry," she said, "but we shall be away all day. We shan't be
back till quite late."
"Oh, what a bore," said he, "and I leave again on Friday. Do let me
come and see you off then."
But Mrs. Assheton interposed.

"No, dear," she said, "I am going to have five minutes' talk with Madge
before she goes and we don't want you. Look after Mr. Taynton. I know
he wants to talk to you and I want to talk to Madge."
Mr. Taynton, when the door had closed behind the ladies, sat down
again with a rather obvious air of proposing to enjoy himself. It was
quite true that he had a few pleasant things to say to Morris, it is also
true that he immensely appreciated the wonderful port which glowed,
ruby-like, in the nearly full decanter that lay to his hand. And, above all,
he, with his busy life,