Christmas Holiday Read Free Page A

energetic man, and his position and his wealth gave him an influence with the rest of the family which none of its members questioned, but which it did not displease him to have acknowledged.
    “You don’t mean to say you’d be satisfied to let your boy take on your job?”
    “It was good enough for me. Why shouldn’t it be good enough for him? One doesn’t know what the world’s coming to and it may be that when he’s grown up he’ll be damned glad to step into a cushy billetat a thousand a year. But of course you’re the boss.”
    Sir Wilfred made a gesture that seemed modestly to deprecate this description of himself.
    “I’m a shareholder like the rest of you, but as far as I’m concerned, if you want it, he shall have it. Of course it’s a long time ahead and I may be dead by then.”
    “We’re a long-lived family and you’ll live as long as old Sibert. Anyhow, there’ll be no harm in letting the rest of them know that it’s an understood thing that my boy should have my job when I’m through with it.”
    In order to enlarge their children’s minds the Leslie Masons spent the holidays abroad, in winter at places where they ski and in summer at seaside resorts in the South of France; and once or twice with the same praiseworthy intention they made excursions to Italy and Holland. When Charley left school his father decided that before going to Cambridge he should spend six months at Tours to learn French. But the result of his sojourn in that agreeable town was unexpected and might very well have been disastrous, for when he came back he announced that he did not want to go to Cambridge, but to Paris, and that he wished to be a painter. His parents were dumbfounded. They loved art, they often said it was the most important thing in their lives; indeed Leslie, not averse at times from philosophical reflection, was inclined to think that it was art only that redeemed human existence from meaninglessness, and he had the greatest respect for the persons who produced it; but he had never envisaged the possibility that any member of his family, let alone his own son, should adopt a career that was uncertain, tosome extent irregular, and in most cases far from lucrative. Nor could Venetia forget the fate that had befallen her father. It would be unjust to say that the Leslie Masons were put out because their son had taken their preoccupation with art more seriously than they intended; their preoccupation couldn’t have been more serious, but it was from the patron’s point of view; though no two people could have been more bohemian, they did have the Mason Estate behind them, and that, as anyone could see, must make a difference. Their reaction to Charley’s declaration was quite definite, but they were aware that it would be difficult to put it in a way that wouldn’t make their attitude look a trifle insincere.
    “I can’t think what put the idea into his head,” said Leslie, talking it over with his wife.
    “Heredity, I suppose. After all, my father was an artist.”
    “A painter, darling. He was a great gentleman and a wonderful raconteur, but no one in his senses could call him an artist.”
    Venetia flushed and Leslie saw that he had hurt her feelings. He hastened to make up for it.
    “If he’s inherited a feeling for art it’s much more likely to be from my grandmother. I know old Sibert used to say you didn’t know what tripe and onions were until you tasted hers. When she gave up being a cook to become a wife of a market gardener a great artist was lost to the world.”
    Venetia chuckled and forgave him.
    They knew one another too well to have need to discuss their quandary. Their children loved them andlooked up to them; they were agreed that it would be a thousand pities by a false step to shake Charley’s belief in his parents’ wisdom and integrity. The young are intolerant and when you talk common sense to them are only too apt to think you are an old humbug.
    “I don’t think