IV
A mother may laugh with a master; she goes andthe joke goes with her: the boy stays behind.
A mother may laugh with a master; she goes andthe joke goes with her: the boy stays behind.
A mother may laugh with a master; she goes andthe joke goes with her: the boy stays behind.
A mother may laugh with a master; she goes and
the joke goes with her: the boy stays behind.
Sibyl Carston,having arranged things entirely to her satisfaction, straightway made preparations to join her husband in that far-off dependency. The preparations were quickly made. She went down to see Dick at school: walked with him through cool cloisters, out into the sun; paced close-shaven lawns; drank in the beauty of it all and expressed a hope that it was sinking into the soul of her son.
“Oh, rather,” said the son, a little surprised that his soul should be discussed. He realized the occasion was a special one, otherwise it was the sort of thing you didn’t talk about. It was there all right, his soul, he supposed. It stirred to the sound of beautiful music; also when he read in history of deeds of valour!—you bet it did—at the greatness of England in general; at the left-hand bowling of one master in particular. It was all there, but he didn’t want to talk about it.
“I understand, darling,” said his mother, “but don’t stifle it.”
He wouldn’t, rather not. “But, I say, what’sthis about Diana and this London business and Aunt Elsie? Rough on her, isn’t it?”
“No, darling, I don’t think so. I want Diana to have some fun.”
“There’s lots at Aunt Elsie’s. There are the dogs, they’re good fun, and the rabbits, and the farm. There’s always something to do there. Aunt Elsie is jolly good fun, isn’t she?”
“So is Uncle Marcus.”
“Is he?” This doubtfully.
“He’s my brother, darling.”
“Oh, I see. I suppose you are bound in a kind of way to think him funny then—you like him in a way.”
“Very much.”
“Aunt Elsie doesn’t.”
“She has never seen him.”
“She jolly well doesn’t want to either.”
“Dick, darling, you will take care of Diana, won’t you?” said his mother, changing the subject: it was so difficult to keep to any subject with the good-bye looming in the near distance.
Any one who says good-bye to the child she loves for a long time (and a year to a mother is an eternity) drinks deep of the cup of self-sacrifice. Sibyl’s one thought was that Dick should not know what she was suffering. Of course he knew: but if it were her business—as mother—to bridge the distanceacross the sea, to talk of the near days when they should be together again, it was his—as son—to pretend he believed her. He assured her it was no distance: he didn’t mind: it happened to lots of boys: it was all right.
“You will take care of Diana?” she repeated—readjusting the distance.
“Yes, rather; you don’t want her to marry while you’re away, I suppose?—because I don’t quite see how I should manage that.”
“I don’t want her to marry while I’m away, of course, although I hope she may some day.”
“Taboret Major admires her so, I thought I would just ask.”
“He would be young to marry, wouldn’t he?”
“Well, so would she—anyway, he wouldn’t like me to talk about his private affairs, so don’t say anything about it. And, I say, if you do see him, I think you’d better not speak to him at all; he doesn’t like people speaking to him. He’s going to be a great writer—he thinks.”
Sibyl promised she wouldn’t speak to Taboret Major, but Mr. Wane she must see. Mr. Wane was Dick’s house-master, and Dick allowed he was very fairly decent. But Dick had started early in life with prejudices against masters and it was difficult to overcome them. When he had come back from his first term at a private school, he had resentedwith the whole force of his small being the injustice of being given a holiday task. Until he had got home he hadn’t known the beastly thing had come with him. The perfidy of the master had embittered him. “How could he have wished me a happy holiday when he knew all the time that he had given me this beastly thing to do?” he had asked.
It was a difficult question to answer. Masters must answer it for themselves—at that day when they too must answer questions: not only ask them.
“Oh, yes, you must see old Wane,” Dick admitted.
“We will walk about a little first—and talk—there is so much to say—isn’t there?” said his mother.
Dick nodded: she tightened the pressure of her arm on his, and it spoke volumes. He kicked at the little pebbles in the path, anything seemed to help. “How high do you suppose that tree is?” he asked. “It’s awfully old.”
The sun was in his mother’s eyes, she couldn’t see. Neither could he, but he knew; it was sixty feet high, so it wasn’t quite a fair question, was it?
“Not quite fair, my Dick.”
So much wasn’t quite fair.
If you can’t talk you can always eat an ice, at least you can if you are a boy. Sibyl suggested it. “Good business,” said Dick.
The ice was a help—a still greater help, two ices. They seemed to help the swallowing part of the business and good-byes largely consist of that. Then Sibyl went to see Mr. Wane and Dick waited outside—hoping she wouldn’t do anything funny—or try to make the old man laugh. If Sibyl had been, as a mother, a little less pretty and charming, it is possible Dick would have been—as a boy—a little less forward for his age, and might have been possessed of a character that was less surprising in its strength to his house-master. It is possible.
Mr. Wane was a just man and honourable, but perhaps, to convince himself that Dick’s mother had dimples, he may have emphasized a little more than he need have done certain things that had been “curiously brought to his notice” about Dick. A certain sterling honesty of purpose—unusual in so young a boy—Yes, they were there! Two of them, one on each side of her mouth. A very pretty mouth—a mouth that told of a certain fastidiousness of character that appealed to Mr. Wane. He only needed to give one or two instances, which bore out what he had said about Dick’s character, and a depth he had suspected, in the eyes of Dick’s mother, he found and fathomed.
“Show me a boy’s mother!” he was wont to say.
Dick had shown him a pretty mother, and had waited patiently outside while she talked abouthim! At last she joined him. Old Wane came out with her and he was laughing, but he seemed all right,otherwise.
Dick and his mother walked back through the cool cloisters, out into the sun and over close-shaven lawns. “Point out to your mother,” Mr. Wane had said, “architectural features of interest, my boy!” And Dick proceeded to do it. “That gate, see? It was built—I don’t know when—in the year, I don’t know what—by—I don’t know who,”—and his mother was duly impressed. To pay for this knowledge and other things there must be spent years in hot climates. Money must be saved so that when Dick was grown to be a man he should look back to this time as the happiest in his life. If all this and the sense of its past should sink into his soul, it must help to make him one of England’s proudest sons.
At the railway station they parted, and Sibyl watched till she could no longer see her small pink-faced son, who was growing, for all his smallness—so big, so tall, so reserved.
After Dick’s mother had left him, an uncomfortable way all visiting mothers have, Dick, unconscious of that curious nobility of character that Mr. Wane, somewhat to his own surprise, had endowed him with, felt very lonely. He hated islands, beastly far-off islands, rotten places for mothers togo to—what was the matter with England? He asked Taboret Major, and Taboret Major said, “Nothing, absolutely nothing—England was all right.” And he and Dick walked down to the cricket fields (their England) and it was all right.
Mrs. Wane, who had lately been brought to bed of her third son, was propped up on her pillows and Mr. Wane was sitting beside her. That he had something on his mind she knew. Mothers always upset him: they upset boys too; being altogether upsetting things.
“Heisa very nice boy—averynice boy—aparticularlynice boy, I should say,” he said thoughtfully.
He had said it three times, so Mrs. Wane put out her hand and closing it on his said—“Was she so very charming and attractive?” And Mr. Wane laughed, for in spite of what Dick knew to the contrary, “old Wane” could see a joke, and that joke against himself.
“You dear!” he said to his wife, and she answered: “Heisa nice boy—averynice boy—aparticularlynice boy—and there’s another just as nice—and you might tell his mother so without its causing you any after pricks of conscience, or remorse.” And she looked towards the cradle in which slept profoundly Wane Minimus.
“He’s very good and quiet,” admitted his father.
“He knows perhaps,” said his mother, “that his father is one from whom it is supposed the secrets of no small boy can be hid. By instinct he knows that: later on I shall tell him that he need not be quite so good, or so quiet; that although as a schoolmaster it is your bounden duty to know the secrets of all small schoolboys, as a father you are just as blind—and just as weak as any other well-dispositioned father. It is in order to make schoolmasters human that mothers marry them—there could be no other reason. Now tell me all about Carston’s mother and just what it was you said to her about him?”
That night, as Mr. Wane undressed, he was still a little uneasy.
“He is aparticularlynice boy,” he murmured; but this it was that rankled—Barker’s mother had been down, too, and Barker was a particularly nice boy—he had faults, of course, so had Dick—but he had told Barker’s mother of Barker’s faults. He had not spared her: nor had he cared whether she had dimples or not—perhaps because she had not.
Before he got into bed he thanked God for the inestimable gift of a good wife—and he meant it; and of an understanding wife—he meant that too; and of a beautiful wife—he meant that too—in the highest sense.