Read At Lady Molly's for Free Online Page B

the field, but also forced to join as an ally its victorious adversary.
    ‘I hear his clothes are—well, awful,’ he muttered, almost inaudibly.
    So far as Hugo was concerned, he seemed to agree absolutely with Molly Jeavons in thinking the situation could scarcely be worse.
    ‘But all undergraduates are like that,’ said Mrs. Conyers, unexpectedly. ‘I mean they all wear extraordinary clothes, don’t they? They always have—and say things to try and shock people. My father used to say they were like that even in his day. I know he himself, just after he had been sent down from Oxford, said some terrible thing to Mr. Gladstone when he was introduced to him at Holland House. My father had to write and apologise, or I don’t know what would have happened. I am not sure the Ministry might not have fallen.’
    ‘Well,’ said Molly Jeavons, ‘I’ve known some undergraduates in my time—Jumbo, for instance, you should have seen him in his young days—but I’ve never met one who dressed like Hugo. I was talking to the Bridgnorths’ boy, John Mountfichet, when he was here the other day. He is at the same college as Hugo. He told us some things that would make your hair stand on end. They made Teddy laugh, and you know how difficult that is.’
    ‘Even Sillery says Hugo goes too far,’ said Lovell. ‘He drives all the other dons quite mad, of course, but I should have thought Sillery would have stuck up for him. The other undergraduates are very disapproving too. Apart from anything else, aesthetes have gone completely out of fashion at both universities these days. I told Hugo when I saw him the other day that he was hopelessly out of date.’
    ‘What did he say?’
    ‘“My dear, I love being dated . I hate all this bickering that goes on about politics. I wish I’d lived in the Twenties when people were amusing .”’
    Lovell spoke the words with the mannerism he judged appropriate to such an impersonation.
    ‘He’ll grow out of it,’ said Mrs. Conyers, surprising me with this repeated display of toleration. ‘Lots of nice young men go through a stage of being rather silly.’
    ‘Let’s hope so,’ said Alfred Tolland, with a sigh.
    He did not sound very confident.
    ‘At any rate, George is all right,’ he added a moment later.
    I had the impression he was playing his last card, but that this card was a trump.
    ‘What is George Tolland doing now?’ I asked. ‘He was the one of the family who was my contemporary, though I never really knew him.’
    ‘In the Coldstream for some years,’ said Alfred Tolland. ‘Then he thought he ought to try and make some money, so he went into the City. He has done fairly well, so they say. Never know what people mean by that—but they say pretty well.’
    ‘Oh, yes,’ said Molly Jeavons. ‘I am sure that George has done well. But what a correct young man— what a correct young man ! I don’t think I ever met a young man who was so correct. I can’t see how we are ever going to get him married, he is so correct—and even if we found a correct wife for him, I am sure they would both be much too correct to have any children. And even if they did, what frightfully correct children they would have to be.’
    ‘You can’t have it both ways, Molly,’ grumbled Tolland. ‘You blame some of them for misbehaving themselves. Perhaps you are right. But then you don’t approve of George because he is what you call “correct”. Can’t understand it. There is no pleasing you. It isn’t reasonable.’
    ‘Well, now I’ll tell you about the rest of them,’ said Molly Jeavons, turning to me. ‘Of course I really adore them all, and just say these things to make Alfred cross. There is Susan, who is showing every sign of getting engaged to a nice young man, then there is Blanche—’
    ‘I’ve seen Blanche, though I don’t know her.’
    ‘Blanche is dotty. You must know that much, if you’ve seen her. But she’s not a bad old thing.’
    ‘Of course