Christmas Holiday Read Free

wife, a smile of pride shining in his kindly eyes, “to see two young things like that taking to Matisse like a duck takes to water.”
    She gave him a look that was partly amused and partly rueful.
    “They think I’m dreadfully old-fashioned because I still like Monet. They say it’s pure chocolate-box.”
    “Well, we trained their taste. We mustn’t grouse if they go ahead and leave us behind.”
    Venetia Mason gave a sweet and affectionate laugh.
    “Bless their hearts, I don’t grudge it them if they think me hopelessly out of date. I shall go on liking Monet and Manet and Degas whatever they say.”
    But it was not only to the artistic education of their offspring that the Leslie Masons had given thought. They were anxious that there should be nothing namby-pamby about them and they saw to it that they should acquire proficiency in games. They both rode well and Charley was not half a bad shot. Patsy, who was just eighteen, was studying at the Royal Academy of Music. She was to come out in May and they were giving a ball for her at Claridge’s. Lady Terry-Mason was to present her at Court. Patsy was so pretty, with her blue eyes and fair hair, with her slim figure, her attractivesmile and her gaiety, she would be snapped up all too soon. Leslie wanted her to marry a rising young barrister with political ambitions. For such a one, with the money she’d eventually inherit from the Mason Estate, with her culture, she’d make an admirable wife. But that would be the end of the united, cosy and happy family life which was so enjoyable. There would be no more of those pleasant, domestic evenings when they dined, the four of them, in the well-appointed dining-room with its Steer over the Chippendale sideboard, the table shining with Waterford glass and Georgian silver, waited on by well-trained maids in neat uniforms; simple English food perfectly cooked; and after dinner with its lively talk about art, literature and the drama, a glass of port, and then a little music in the drawing-room and a game of bridge. Venetia was afraid it was very selfish of her, but she couldn’t help feeling glad that it would be some years at least before Charley could afford to marry too.
    Charley was born during the war, he was twenty-three now, and when Leslie had been demobbed and gone down to Godalming to stay with the head of the family, already a member of parliament, but then only a knight, Sir Wilfred had suggested that he should be put down for Eton. Leslie would not hear of it. It was not the financial sacrifice he minded, but he had too much good sense to send his boy to a school where he would get extravagant tastes and acquire ideas unfitted to the station in life he would ultimately occupy.
    “I went to Rugby myself and I don’t believe I can do better than send him there too.”
    “I think you’re making a mistake, Leslie. I’ve sent my boys to Eton. Thank God, I’m not a snob, but I’m not a fool either, and there’s no denying it, it’s a social asset.”
    “I daresay it is, but my position is very different from yours. You’re a very rich man, Wilfred, and if things go well, you ought to end up in the House of Lords. I think it’s quite right that you should give your sons the sort of start that’ll enable them to take their proper place in society, but though officially I’m secretary of the Mason Estate and that sounds very respectable, when you come down to brass tacks I’m only a house agent, and I don’t want to bring up my son to be a grand gentleman, I want him to be a house agent after me.”
    When Leslie spoke thus he was using an innocent diplomacy. By the terms of old Sibert’s will and the accidents that have been already narrated, Sir Wilfred now possessed three-eighths of the Mason Estate, and it brought him in an income which was already large, and which, with leases falling in, the increasing value of the property, and good management, would certainly grow much larger. He was a clever,