It was the month of June. A breeze blowing in at the open window fluttered out the muslin curtains and shook loose the petals of roses standing on the table. A milk-cart rattled down the Terrace, clattering its cans. Sounds, which drifted in from the primrose-tinted world, were all what Peter would have described as “early.” The walls of the room were splashed with great streaks of sunlight, which lit up some of the pictures with peculiar intensity and left others in contrasting shadow. One of those which were thus illumined was a Dutch landscape by Cuyp, hanging against the dark oak paneling above a blue couch; it represented a comfortable burgher strolling in conversation with two women on the banks of a canal. Barrington liked to face it while he sat at breakfast; it gave him a certain indifference to worry before the rush of the day commenced. But this morning, to judge by his puckered forehead, it had not produced its usual effect. He glanced up from the letter he was reading and tossed it across to Nan. “What d’you make of that?”
She bent over it, wrinkling her brows. The letter was in a man’s handwriting and the postscript, which was of nearly equal length, was in a woman’s.
“I don’t know; if it was from anyone but Ocky——”
“Precisely, Ocky’s a fool. He’s always been a fool and he’s growing worse; but Jehane ought to have sounder sense. It’s beyond me why she married him. I never did understand Jehane; I suppose I never shall.”
“You’re not a woman, Billy; or else you would. She was sick and tired of being lonely and dependent; she wanted someone to take care of her. Ocky was the only man who offered. But that’s eight years ago—I’m afraid she’s found him out; and she’s doing her best to persuade herself that she hasn’t. Poor Jehane, she always admired strong men—men she could worship.”
“That explains but it doesn’t excuse her. She had a strong man in Captain Spashett; the hurry of her second marriage was indecent. I never did approve of it. I said nothing at first because I thought she might help Ocky to grow a backbone.—And now there’s this new folly, which she appears to encourage.”
“But, dear, is it so foolish? Perhaps, she’s given him a backbone and that’s why he’s done it.” She laughed nervously. “They both say that this is a great opportunity for him to better himself.”
“Bah! The only way for Ocky to better himself is to change his character. He’s a balloon—a gas-bag; he’ll go up in the air and burst. The higher he goes, the further he’ll have to tumble. You think I’m harsh with him; I know him. Jehane’s done him no good; she despises him, I’m sure, though she doesn’t think she shows it. She’s filled his head with stupid ambitions and before she’s done she’ll land him in a mess. She’s driven him to this bravado with private naggings; he wants to prove to her that he really is a man. Man! He’s a child in her hands. It hurts me to watch them together. Why can’t she be a wife to him and make up her mind that she’s married a donkey?”
“It’s difficult for a woman to make up her mind to that—especially a proud, impatient woman.”
He paid no attention to his wife’s interruption, but went on irritably with what he was saying.
“So he’s giving up a secure job, and he’s going into this harum-scarum plan for buying up the sands of Sandport for nothing and selling them as house-plots for a fortune. Even if there were anything in it, who’s going to finance him? Of course he’ll come to me as usual.”
“But he says he’s got the capital.”
“That’s just it—from where? His pocket always had a hole in it. When he says he’s got money, I don’t believe him; when he’s proved his word I grow nervous.”
Barrington leant across the table, rapping with his knuckles. “Ocky’s the kind of amiable weak fellow who can easily be made bad—especially by a woman who refuses to love him. Once a man like that’s gone under, you can never bring him back—he’s lost what staying quality he ever had.”
Nan rarely argued with her husband. Pushing back her chair, she went and knelt beside him, pressing her soft cheek against his hand. “You are a silly Billy, dearest, to be so serious on such a happy morning. There’s no danger of Ocky ever becoming bad; and, in any case, what’s this got to do with the matter? I know he’s foolish and his jokes get on your nerves; but it isn’t his fault that he’s not clever like you. You shouldn’t be gloomy just because he’s going to be daring. I don’t wonder he’s sick of that lawyer’s office. And it’s absurd to think that he’s going to be bad; look how Peter loves him. You like Ocky more than you pretend, now don’t you?”
“If liking’s being sorry. I’m always sorry for an ass; and I’m angry with Jehane because she knows better. She’s doing this because she’s jealous of you—that’s why she clutches at this bubble chance of prosperity.”
“Ar’n’t you a little unjust to her, Billy? Since our marriage, you’ve always been unjust to her. You know why she’s jealous—she wants her husband to be like you.”
Her voice sank away to a whisper. “Oh, Janey, I did, I did play fair,” she had said that night at Cassingland; in her violent assertion of fairness there had been an implied question which Jehane had never answered. Both she and her husband knew that they had never been acquitted.
Barrington drew Nan’s head against his shoulder. “Poor people.” Then he kissed her with new and eager gladness.
“And it isn’t only pity you feel for Ocky?” She persisted. “Now confess.”
He pulled out his watch hastily and, having replaced it, gulped down his coffee. “When I was Peter’s age, we were brought up like brothers together. I loved him then; I’m disappointed in him now. And yet I’m always catching glimpses in him of the little chap I played with. You see, at school I was the stronger and had to protect him. I was always fighting his battles. And one whole term, when his hand was poisoned, I had to take him to the doctor to get it dressed—— No, it isn’t only pity, Pepperminta: it’s memories.”
As he was going out of the door she called after him, “Then, I suppose, I can write and say we’ll have them?”
“While they’re moving—the children? Yes.”
“Jehane doesn’t say how many.”
“She means all, I expect. There’s the garden for them—it’ll be fun for Kay and Peter.”
A week later, Jehane traveled across London to Top-bury Terrace, bringing with her Glory, aged nine, Riska, aged six, and her youngest child, Eustace, who was the same age as Kathleen. Jehane was now in her thirty-seventh year, a striking brooding type of woman. As her face had grown thinner and her cheeks had lost their color, the gipsy blackness of her appearance had become more noticeable. She still had a fine figure, so that men in public conveyances would furtively lower their papers to gaze at her. There clung about her an atmosphere of adventure, of which she was not entirely unaware. She was unconquerably romantic, and would spin herself stories in the silence of her fancy of a love that was crushing in its intensity. No one would have guessed from the hard little lines about the corners of her eyes and mouth that this imaginative tenderness formed part of her character.
Since the birth of Eustace her hair had fallen out in handfuls and she had adopted a style of dressing it that was distinctly unbecoming. She had had her combings made up into an affair which Glory called “Ma’s mat.” It consisted of half-a-dozen curls, sewn together in rows like sausages, which she pinned across the top of her head so that they made a fringe along her forehead. It gave her an old-fashioned look of prim severity. Jehane retained for Nan an affection which was partly genuine and partly habit; but she resented Nan’s youthful appearance with slow jealous anger, attributing it to freedom from anxiety and the possession of money. As for Nan, her attitude was one of gentle and atoning apology for her happiness. “I’m so glad you brought the children yourself, Janey.”
“And who could have brought them? I’m not like you—I only keep two servants. When this scheme of Ocky’s has turned out all right, perhaps it may be different.”
She turned swiftly on Nan with latent defiance, as though challenging her to express doubt.
“I’m sure both Billy and I hope it will. Wouldn’t it be splendid to see Ocky really a big man?”
“It would be a good deal more than splendid. It would mean the end of little houses and cheap servants and neighbors that you can’t introduce to your father’s friends. It would mean the end of pinching and scraping to save a penny. And it would mean a chance for my girls.”
Nan slipped an arm into hers and hugged it. “Dear old thing, I think I understand. And when is Ocky coming over to tell us all about it? He gave us hardly any details in his letter.”
Jehane became evasive. “He’s naturally very busy. The chance developed so suddenly that he’s hardly had time to turn round. It came to him through a client at the office. Mr. Playfair had noticed him at his desk as he passed in and out to see Mr. Wagstaff. He’s told Ocky since that he spotted him at once and said to himself, ‘If ever I want a chap with-business push and legal knowledge, that’s my man.’”
“And he’s never talked with him?”
“Hardly. Not much more than to say ‘How d’you do?’ or ‘Good-morning’.”
“Wasn’t it wonderful that he should have sized him up in a flash?”
Jehane glanced at her narrowly. “It may be wonderful toyou; it isn’t tome. I’m well aware that you and Billy don’t think much of Ocky. Oh, where’s the sense in disowning it? You both think he’s a born fool.”
“I’m sure you never heard Billy say that.”
“Heard him say it! Of course I didn’t. I’d like to hear him dare to say anything like that about my husband. But actions speak louder than words. He thinks it just the same; he thinks that Ocky’s good for nothing But to sit at a desk, taking a salary from another man. P’rhaps, you didn’t know that for years Ocky’s been the brains of that office?”
Nan lifted her honest eyes; she was filled with discomfort. This kind of controversy was always happening when they met; they drifted into some sort of feud for which Jehane invariably held her responsible. “The brains of the office! No, indeed, I never heard that. Why didn’t you tell us?”
“Because you and Billy thought he was incompetent, and it didn’t seem worth the trouble to correct you.”
“I’m sure I’ve always thought him very kind, especially to Peter.”
“Kind! What’s kindness got to do with being clever?” Nan pressed Jehane to stay to dinner. She would send a telegram to Ocky; she would send her home in a cab. But Jehane was in an ungracious mood and eager to take offense. She resented the implication that a cab was a luxury. No, she couldn’t stay; there was too much to do. She had intended to return in a cab, anyhow. In reality she was anxious to avoid Barrington’s shrewd questioning. She was rising to take her departure, when she saw him descending the garden steps.
“Ha, Jehane! This is luck. I’ve had thoughts of you all day. That letter’s got on my nerves. I couldn’t work; so I came home early.—Oh no, we’re not going to let you off now. You’ve got to stop and tell us. By the way, before Ocky actually decides, I’d like to talk the whole matter over with him.”
“He’s decided already.”
“You don’t mean———-”
“Yes. Why not? He’s given Wagstaff notice. Things so happened that he had to make up his mind in a hurry or lose it.—But I really ought to be going. Nan knows everything now.”
Barrington placed his hand on her shoulder arrestingly. At his touch she drew back and colored. “This thing’s too serious, Jehane,” he said, “to be dismissed in a sentence. I have a right to know.”
He spoke kindly, but she answered him hotly. “What right, pray?”
“Well, if anything goes wrong, there’s only me to fall back on. And then there’s the right of friendship.”
“I can’t say you’ve shown yourself over friendly. If you’ve had to meet Ocky, you’ve let all the world see you were irritated. If you’ve ever invited him to your house, you’ve taken very good care that no one important was present. One would judge that you thought he lowered you. I can’t see that you have the right to know anything.”
“That can only be because your husband hasn’t told you. To quote one instance, it was through my influence that he got this position that he’s now thrown over—Wagstaff is my lawyer.”
Jehane tossed her head. “You always want to make out that he owes you everything—— Well, what is it that I’m forced to tell you?”
Barrington kept silence while they walked down the path to where chairs were spread beneath the cedar. The children ran up boisterously to greet him; having kissed them, he told Grace to take them away and to keep them quiet. When he spoke, his tones were grave and measured: “It wasn’t fair of Ocky to send you to tell us; he ought to have come himself.”
“He didn’t send——”
Barrington held up his hand. “You can’t tell me anything on that score; from the first he’s shirked responsibility. He would never fight if he could get anyone else to fight for him. Many and many’s the time I’ve had to dohis dirty work. Now you’re doing it. This is unpleasant hearing, Jehane; but you know it’s true. I’d take a wager that you spent hours trying to screw up his courage to make him come himself.”
She lifted her head to deny it, but his quiet gray eyes met hers. Their sympathy and justice disturbed her. She refused to be pitied by this man——. A great fear rose in her throat. What if his opinion of her husband were correct? It was the opinion she herself had had for years and had tried to stifle. Time and again she had listened to his plausibility—his boastings that he was the brains of the office, that luck was against him and that one day he would show the world. She had used his arguments to defend him to her relations and friends. In public she had made a parade of being proud of him. In private she had tried to ridicule him out of his shame-faced manners. And now she was trying so hard to believe that he had found his opportunity.—It was cruel of Barrington, especially cruel when he knew quite well that it was him she had loved. She could not endure to sit still and hear him voice her own suspicious and calmly analyze the folly of her marriage.
“If you think that my husband was afraid to come and tell you, the only way to prove the contrary is to let him come himself to-morrow.”
“I shall be more than glad to see him.”
But Ocky did not come to-morrow, nor the next day. The day after that Barrington went to see his lawyer.
“Good-morning, Mr. Wagstaff. I should like to speak to you about my cousin, Mr. Waffles.”
Mr. Wagstaff twitched his trousers up to prevent them from rucking as he crossed his legs. “If there’s anything I can do to help you, Mr. Barrington——”
“I understand he’s given you notice.”
Mr. Wagstaff sat up suddenly. “Understand what? He told you that?”
“No, he did not tell me. His wife did.”
“Ah, his wife! He left her to make the explanations. Just what one might expect.”
“Then he didn’t give you notice?”
“Course not.” Mr. Wagstaff spoke testily, as though for an employee to give him notice was an event beyond the bounds of possibility.
“Then he left without notifying you?”
“Well, hardly.”
The lawyer noticed that the door leading into the main office was ajar; he got up and closed it. When he returned he did not re-seat himself, but straddled the hearth-rug, holding up his coat-tails although no fire was burning.
“Mr. Barrington, sir, I put up with your cousin’s shiftlessness for longer that I ought to have done; I did it out of respect for you, sir. There was a time when I hoped I might make something of him. He can be nimble-witted over trifles and his own affairs; but he never put any interest into my work. He was insubordinate—not to my face, you understand, but when my back was turned; he wasn’t a good influence in the office. I tell you this, sir, to prove that I haven’t acted without consideration.”
The lawyer waggled his coat-tails and seemed to find a blemish in his boots, so earnestly did he regard them. When he received no help from Barrington, he suddenly came to the point and looked up sharply.
“He betrayed professional confidence; so I sacked him.”
“Had it happened before?”
“Possibly. He was always garrulous. This time it was an affair of some property at Sandport. Our client had two competing purchasers, one of whom was a Mr. Playfair. Your cousin leaked to Mr. Playfair—kept him informed as to what the other purchaser was doing. Not a nice thing to occur, Mr. Barrington.”
This last remark was as much an interrogation as an assertion. The lawyer waited for his opinion to be indorsed.
“Not at all nice,” Barrington assented. “If it’s lost you any money, I must refund it.”
“‘Tisn’t a question of money. Wouldn’t hear of that.” As Mr. Wagstaff shook hands at parting, he offered a crumb of comfort: “Mind, I don’t say your cousin is dishonest, Mr. Barrington; that would betoo, toostrong. Perhaps, it would be better stated by saying that his sense of honor is rudimentary.”
“Perhaps,” said Barrington brusquely. “I think I catch your meaning.”
People who loved Ocky Waffles always loved him for his good; he would have preferred to have been loved for almost any other purpose. Affection, in his experience, turned friends into schoolmasters. There was Barrington, a fine chap and all that; but why the dickens did he take such endless pains to be so uselessly unpleasant?
Ocky was on the lookout for Jehane when she returned from Topbury. As she turned the corner, he espied her from behind the curtains and lit his pipe to give himself confidence. No sooner had she entered than she commenced an account of her visit, indignantly underlining her interview with Barrington. Ocky seated himself on the edge of the table, puffing away and swinging his legs.
“Wants to see me, does he? He can go on wanting. I’m sick of his interfering. A fat lot he’s ever done to help me! And with his position and friends he could have helped me—instead of that he gives me his advice. Truth is, Jehane, he doesn’t want to see us climb; he’d rather be the patron of the family. With the best intentions in the world, he’s out to put a spoke in my wheel. Oh, I know him!—If he’s so anxious for information, he can come here to get it.”
While he spoke he scrutinized his wife, judging the effect of his blustering independence. She was suspicious of some hidden knowledge; he felt it. Something had been said behind his back at Topbury—something derogatory. Could Barrington have heard already.
Pressing down the ashes in the bowl of his pipe, he struck a match. Jehane was between himself and the door; he wondered whether he could slip past her and make his exit if things became unpleasant. He detested being cornered; he could be so much braver when the means of escape lay behind him. Meanwhile, it seemed good policy to continue talking.
“I don’t like the way they treat you at Topbury; you always come home down-hearted. There’s too much condescension. Nan overdoes it when she tries to be kind. The rich relation attitude! It riles me. When she makes you a present it’s always a dress—might just as well tell you to your face that you’re shabby. And last Christmas, sending Peter’s cast-off clothes to Eustace! Thank God, we’re not paupers and never shall be!”
As he worked himself into a passion Jehane eyed him somberly. The everlasting pipe, dangling from his mouth, annoyed her immensely. His trousers, bagging at the knees, and his pockets, stuffed with rubbish, were perpetual eyesores; she hated his slack appearance. Other men with his income at least attained neatness. It was not that he spared money on his clothes——. She caught herself comparing him with Barrington—Barrington whose tidy body was the outward sign of his well-ordered mind. Her husband went on talking and her irritation took a new direction.
“I’ll bet a fiver what they said when you told ‘em. ‘My dearest, if itcouldonly happen’—that’s Nan. ‘Ah yes! Humph! sand at Sandport! We must talk this over before he decides’—that’s Barrington. We can guess what his advice’ll amount to, can’t we, old Duchess?”
It was safe to venture the endearment now. If they had nothing else in common, they were partners in their animosities. When running down an enemy together, he could dare to express his affection for her; his way of doing this was to call herDuchess. At other times she would brush him aside with, “Don’t be silly, Ocky.” She often called him “silly,” treating any demonstration as tawdry sentimentality. She had no idea how deeply it wounded.
Now, as she sank into the chair, he bent over and kissed her awkwardly. “Poor old gel, they’ve tired you out. Had nothing to eat since you left here, I’ll warrant. Put up your tootsies and I’ll pull off your shoes; then I’ll order some supper for you.”
“I couldn’t eat anything.”
The room was in darkness and the window wide. In the street children were screaming and playing. A mother, standing on her doorstep, called to her truants through the dusk——- Oh, for a gust of silence—a desert of sound without footsteps; Jehane felt that her life was trespassed on, jostled, undignified. Through the cramped suburb of red-brick villas crept the summer night, like a shameful woman footsore and clad in lavender. Red-brick villas! They were so similar that, if you shook them up in a gigantic hat and set them out afresh, the streets would look in no way different. They were all built in the same style. The mortar had fallen out in the same places. The front gardens were of equal dimensions. They had no individuality. If anyone attempted to be original in the color of her paint or the shape of her curtains, next day she was copied.
With the stale odor of tobacco mingled the sweet fragrance of June flowers. She had only to close her eyes and she was back in Oxford—Oxford which she had exchanged for this rash experiment. She wondered, had she been more patient, would something more delightful have happened. The sameness of economy had worn out her strength and its prospect appalled her.—If Ocky could contrive her escape, even at this late hour, what right had Barrington to prevent him?
He had gone to fetch her slippers—that at least was kind and thoughtful. She treated him with spite. She shrank from the familiarity of his touch. She hated herself for it; and yet she eked out the seconds of her respite from him.
A lamp-lighter shuffled by the garden railings; at his magic, primrose pools weltered up in the dusk.—This business of marriage—had she been less hasty, she might have done better for herself. Oh well, the wisdom which follows the event...
Footsteps on the stairs! As he knelt to put on her slippers, she conquered her revulsion and let her hand rest on his head. He started, surprised: it was long since she had shown him affection. His voice was shaky when he addressed her.
“Now you’re better, old dear. More rested, aren’t you?” She held him at arm’s length, her palms flat against his breast. In the darkness she felt the pleading in his eyes. “Oh, Ocky, you’ll do it this time, won’t you?”
“Do what, Duchess?”
“Don’t call me Duchess; just for once be serious.”
“I am serious, darling. What is it?”
“D’you remember years ago, when you asked me to marry you? D’you remember what you said?”
“Might, if you told me. Was I more than ordinarily foolish?”
“You said, ‘I need your strength. With you I could be a man.’”
“I’d clean forgotten. Funny way of proposin’—eh?”
“It wasn’t funny. That was just what you needed—a woman’s strength. I’ve tried so hard. But I’ve sometimes thought——”
“Go on, old lady.”
“I’ve sometimes thought we never ought to have married.”
“Don’t say that. Don’t you find me good enough? Come Jehane, I’ve not been a bad sort, now have I?”
“I’m accusing myself. I’ve tried to help you in wrong ways. I’ve been angry and sharp and nervous. You’ve come home and attempted to kiss me, and I’ve driven you out with my temper. And I don’t want to do it any more, and yet——”
“You’re upset.”
“No, I’m not. I’m speaking the truth. I’ve been a bad wife and I had to tell you.”
“‘Pon my word, can’t see how you make that out. You’ve given me your money to invest through Wagstaff, so he might think I had capital. And you’ve given me children, and——”
“It isn’t money that counts. It isn’t even children. Heaps of women whose husbands beat them bear them children. It’s that I haven’t trusted you sufficiently. I haven’t loved you.”
“I’ve not complained, so I don’t see—— But what’s put all this into your head?”
“D’you want to know? Seeing Billy and Nan together. They’re so different—you can feel it. They’re really married, while we—we just live together.”
Her voice broke. He put his arms about her, but even then she withdrew herself from him.
“Just live together! And isn’t that marriage? Whether you’re cross or kind to me, Jehane, I’d rather just live with you than be married to any other woman.”
“That’s the worst of it—I know you would. And I nag at you and I shall go on doing it. I feel I shall—and I do so want to do better.”
“Won’t money make a difference? That’s what’s the matter with us, Jehane; we’ve not had money.”
She placed her arms about his neck. “And that’s what I started to say, Ocky. You’ll do it this time, won’t you?”
“Make money? Rather. I should think so. Was talking to Playfair only this morning and he—— But look here, what makes you ask that? You’ll take all the stuffing out of me ifyoubegin to doubt. Who’s been saying anything?”
“It isn’t what they said.”
He lit his pipe and crossed over to the window. In the darkness his outlined figure looked strangely round-shouldered and ineffectual. Her heart sank and her hope became desperate. His voice reached her blustering and muffled. She did wish he would remove his pipe when he spoke to her.
“I know. I know. Confound him! He’s been throwing cold water on my plans as usual. Wants to see me, does he? Well, if he wants badly enough to cross London, Ocky Waffles is his man. I shan’t go to him. That’s certain.”
Jehane strove to believe that his opposition to Barrington was a token of new strength.
Four days later a note arrived. She was tempted to open it, but it was addressed to her husband. Directly he came in she placed it in his hands.
“Read it aloud. What does he say?”
She watched Ocky’s face and saw how it faltered; then he hid the expression behind a mask of cynicism.
“If you won’t read it to me, let me read it myself.”
He crumpled it into his pocket hurriedly, as though he feared that she would snatch it from him. When all was safe, he turned toward the mantel-shelf, hunting for a match.
“Why did you do that?”
“It was addressed to me, wasn’t it? Barrington don’t let his wife read his letters, I’ll bet. Neither do I; I’m not a lawyer’s clerk in an office any longer—I’m going to be a big man.”
“But what did he say?”
Forced to answer, Ocky became reproachful. “Duchess, you’re suspecting me again—you remember what you promised the other night. He says he wants to see me—thinks there may be something in my plan. Daresay, he’ll offer to put money into it. You may bet, this little boy won’t let him. Of course on the surface he advises caution.”
“If that’s all, why can’t you let me read his letter?”
“Because if I did, I’d be acting as though you didn’t trust me. You could have read it with pleasure, if you hadn’t made such a fuss.”
Jehane knew his weak obstinacy of old and gave up the contest. “You won’t see him, of course—unless he comes to the house.”
“Don’t know about that.”
“But you were so emphatic.”
“I can change my mind, can’t I? His letter puts a different complexion on it.”
“But, Ocky, Barrington isn’t two-faced. He doesn’t say one thing to me and another thing to you. He may be awkward, but he isn’t underhand. If he’s in favor of your schemes now, he must have heard something that’s changed him.”
“Not a doubt of it. Very soon a good many people who’ve thought me small beer’ll hear something.”
“But you’ve not answered my question. Where are you going to see him?”
“Oh, maybe at his office.”
Whistling, with feigned cheerfulness, he strolled out. As she watched him slouch down the road, her fingers itched to correct the angle of his hat.
That night she searched his pockets and found the letter. It read, “Mr. Wagstaff has told me the truth. You must meet me at my place of business at twelve to-morrow.”
It was capable of the construction her husband had put on it; it was capable of many others.
Feeling through the coat next morning, searching for his tobacco-pouch, Ocky was shrewd enough to notice that the letter was in its envelope. Such neatness was not his habit. When he came back in the evening from seeing Barrington and Jehane enquired what he had been doing, he handed her the letter with generous frankness.
“You can read it now. I wanted to be sure before I told you. I was right. Barrington’s been talking to Wagstaif and has heard all about it. Oh yes, I can tell you, he’s a very different Barrington.”
“How?”
“He’s discovered that Ocky Waffles Esquire is a person to be respected.”
She scorned herself for her mean suspicions. He deserved an atonement. “Ocky, darling, I’m so glad.”
As her arms went about him, he patted her on the back. “That’s all right, old Duchess. You’ll believe in me now—eh?”
She lifted her face from his shoulder. It was tear-stained with penitence. “God knows, I’ve always tried to, Ocky.”
He must go her one better in generosity. Having deceived her, he could afford to be magnanimous.
“You’ve succeeded, old dear. You’ve given me your strength and made a man of me. I’m your doing.”
The bettering of Mr. Waffles marked the beginning of that intimate and freakish association which was to shape the careers of the children of both families. Though their relationship was distant and in the case of Glory non-existent, they had been taught to regard one another as cousins. As yet they had met so occasionally and so briefly that they had not worn off the distrust, half-shy, half-hostile, which is the common attitude of children toward strangers. From now on they were to enter increasingly into one another’s lives.
Though Barrington had said that it would be fun for Kay and Peter to have Jehane’s children to play with in the garden and Nan had assented, neither of them had undertaken to tell Kay and Peter. They had promised them a surprise—that was all. Truth to tell, they had their doubts about Peter and how he would receive their information; his jealous air of proprietorship regarding his little sister gave them moments of puzzled uneasiness.
Years ago, before Kay was born, the doctor had told them, “He’s an imaginative child. Oh dear no, he’s quite well. He’ll grow out of it.” But he hadn’t. He stood by her always, as if he were a wall between her and some threatened danger. He was not happy away from her; his life seemed locked up in her life. His tenderness for her was beyond his years—beautiful and mysterious. In the midst of his play he would still raise his head suddenly, listening and expectant.
He was odd and gentle in many ways; to his mother his oddness was both frightening and endearing. Cookie shook her head over him and sighed, “‘E’s far away from this old world h’already. I doubt ‘e’ll never grow up to man-’ood.”
And Grace would reply sharply, “Wot rot!” But she would wipe her eye.
He had a habit of asking questions before guests with startling directness—asking them with big innocent eyes; they were questions for which his mother felt bound to apologize: “He’s so imaginative; for many years he was our only child.”
Peter, wondering wherein he had done wrong, would sidle up to her when the guests were gone, inquiring, “Mummy, what is a ‘maginative child?”
His father, when he heard him, would laugh: “Now, Peter, don’t be Peterish or you’ll make us all cry.”
So they did not tell him when his cousins were expected.
He was in the garden, on the grass beneath the cedar, with Kay curled against him. He was telling her stories—his own inventions. On the wall, partly hidden in creepers, basking in the sunshine, blinking down on them through slits of eyes, was a great gray tabby. The tabby was the subject of the story. One day, returning along the Terrace he had found her. Her bones were poking through her fur: she was evidently a stray. He had stopped to stroke her and she had followed. After being fed on the doorstep, she refused to set off on her wanderings again. Whenever the door opened, she entered like a streak of lightning. She was determined to be adopted; though cook had broomed her on to the pavement many times, she was not to be dissuaded by any harshness of refusal. It was almost as though she knew that Kay and Peter were her eager advocates.
With a cat so determined there was only one thing to do; take her out and lose her. So she was captured by feigned kindness and tied in a fish-basket; Grace was given a shilling and the fish-basket with instructions to go on a trip to Hampstead and to leave the fish-basket behind. Now, whether it was that Grace was more kind-hearted than her statements, or whether it was that she preferred the company of her policeman to the fulfilling of her errand, the fact remains that the cat got back before her. An incredible performance if the basket had really been left at Hampstead! Grace was circumstantial in the account she gave; there was nothing for it but to accept her word that a cat had traveled more swiftly than a train.
Stern methods were employed. Doors were closed against the cat; things were thrown at it. It was encouraged to go hungry. The children were forbidden to call it.
One morning Peter jumped out of bed and ran to the window attracted by a strange noise. Looking down into the garden, he saw a flurry of fur careering across flowerbeds till it was brought up sharply against the wall with a bang. The bang was caused by a salmon-tin, in which the cat had got its head fastened while foraging in a garbage-pail. Before he could go to its rescue, cook came out with her hostile broom and commenced the chase. The cat, blinded and maddened, by a miracle of agility climbed a tree, leapt into a neighboring garden and vanished.
A week later it returned, with a ring about its neck where the jagged edges of the tin had torn it. Such persistence and loyalty of affection were not to be thwarted. At first the animal was tolerated; then, as its manners and appearance improved, it was taken into the family. Because of its adventures, when a name had to be chosen, Peter’s father suggested Romance. When Romance gave birth to kittens, they were named after various of the novelists.
The history of Romance, where she went and what she did, was a story which Kay was never tired of hearing, nor Peter of telling. Blinking down from the wall on this sunshiny morning, Romance listened with contented pride to the children, much as an old soldier might whose campaigning days were ended.
“And what did putty say when Gwacie twied to lost her?”
The ‘maginative child was about to answer, when his mother came out under the mulberry: “Peter. Kay. Oh, there you are! Here’s your surprise.”
For a day or two, while the cousins were a novelty, there was nothing but laughter and delight; but when Peter understood that their visit was of undetermined length, he began to regard their coming as an intrusion. Kay and Eustace were of the same age and naturally chose one another as playmates. Eustace was a fat, dull boy, prone to tears, with his mother’s black eyes and handsome hair, and his father’s coaxing ways. He was only four, but he had it in his power to make Peter, aged ten, wretched; for Kay developed a will of her own, and cared no more for Peterish stories now that she could have Eustace for her slave.
So Peter was left to Riska and Glory. His old games for two were useless; he had to think up fresh inventions in which three might partake. He had no heart for it; Grace came to the rescue with pious hints from the Bible.
In the stable by a disused tank, they would enact Jacob’s wooing of Rachel; the tank was the well at which Jacob met her and Romance was the sheep brought down to be watered—she was, when they could catch her. But the game nearly always ended in flushed cheeks and protesting voices. Riska would insist on being Rachel, leaving Glory the undesired part of Leah, who was sore of eye. Of his two girl-cousins Peter preferred Glory; Riska was too high-tempered and stormy. So, when he had served for Rachel seven years and instead had won Leah, he not infrequently was content to stop, setting Bible history at defiance.
One evening his father, walking beneath the pear-trees, heard voices in the empty stable. “I won’t. I won’t,” in stubborn tones. “But you shall, you shall,” in a passionate wail.
He opened the door in the wall quietly. Glory was sitting on the ground, placid eyed, watching a hot-faced little boy who held off a small girl-cousin, fiercely determined to embrace him. When matters had been sullenly explained, Barrington drew his son to him: “If a lady asks you to kiss her, you should do it. It’s Peterish not to. But polygamy always ends in a cry. It’s better not to play at it.”
Then came the inevitable question: “What is polgigamy, father?”
Grace was asked for a fresh suggestion; the result was Samson and Delilah. To Peter’s way of thinking Riska was quite suited to the rÃÆôle of Delilah. Too well suited! In revenge, before he could stop her, she cut off Peter’s hair at the game’s first playing.
During her stay at Topbury she committed many such offences. She was a lawless little creature, strong of character, a wilful wisp of a child, and extraordinarily like Jehane. Her fragile eager face, with its coral mouth and soft dark eyes, could change from demure prettiness to a flame of anger the moment she was thwarted. Yet, smiling or stormy, her small-boned body and long black curls made her always beautiful—a wild and destructive kind of beauty. From the first she claimed Peter as her sole possession, and Peter—— Well, Peter did his best politely to avoid her.
Glory was his favorite, though he often seemed to ignore her. She was the opposite to her half-sister in both appearance and temper. She had nothing of Jehane in her; nor did she resemble her soldier father. She was oddly like to Kay and to a man whom her mother had desired with all her heart. It was strange.
She was gray-eyed and her hair was of a primrose shade. She was tall for her age—taller than Peter—and carried herself with sweet and subdued quietness. She said very little and had submissive ways. Her actions spoke loudly for anyone she loved. They spoke loudly for Peter; but he scarcely observed them. His eyes were all for Kay. Glory was like his shadow stealing after him across the sunlight through that month of June. Her hand was always slipping shyly into his from behind. And she understood his love for his sister, accepting it without question.
She would go to her small half-brother, “Come along Eustace; Glory wants to show you something.”
“But Eustace wanth to play wiv Kay.”
“Eustace can play with Kay directly. Just come with Glory, there’s a dear little boy.”
She would nod to Peter knowingly, and smile to him, leading Eustace away and leaving him alone with Kay.
He could fill her eyes with tears at the least show of irritation; her persistent following did irritate him sometimes. Once, cross because she followed, he told her to sit on the stable wall and not to move till he said she might. Tea-time came and there was no Glory. They searched the house for her and went out into the garden, calling. Not till Peter called did she answer; then he remembered why. He remembered years after the forlornness of that tear-stained face. It was Peterish of him to forget Glory, and to remember her almost too late.
Nan, sitting sewing in the quiet sunlight, would often drop her work to watch the children. She noticed how they kept together, yet always a little separate, acting out the clash of temperaments which they had inherited from their parents. And she noticed increasingly something else—something which she never mentioned and which explained Jehane to her: that astonishing likeness of Glory to Kay, as though they had been sisters.
She would call Glory to her and, as the child sat at her feet, would say, “Do you like Peter, darling?”
The honest eyes would be lifted to her own in affirmation.
“Very much?”
“Very much, Auntie.”
The girlish hand would slip into her own and presently a faltering voice would whisper, “But he doesn’t like me always. I worry him sometimes.”
Nan would call to Peter, “Glory’s tired of sitting with mother. She wants her little tyrant.”
As they wandered away across the lawn, she would follow them with her eyes.
“I hope Jehane’s good to her,” she said to Barrington. “Seems to be, in her jealous way.”
“She’s a nice child.”
“Nicer than Riska or Eustace. That’s thanks to Captain Spashett.”
“Ah, yes,” Nan would say.
Mr. Waffles, having moved his belongings to Sandport, came to fetch the intruders. Peter watched them depart with a sense of relief; now things would settle back into their old groove.
In July the house at Topbury was closed and the Barringtons went for their holiday to North Wales. The servants were sent to their homes, with the exception of Grace. Summer holidays were ecstatic times of fishing-rods and old clothes, when parents put aside their busy manners, broke rules and played truant. This particular holiday was made additionally adventurous by a tandem tricycle, on which Peter was allowed to accompany his father when his mother was too tired, trying to catch the pedals with his short legs or riding on the pedals away from the saddle, when his father was not looking.
He was his father’s companion many hours of each day, for Nan was often tired. His father had plentiful opportunities for judging just how ‘maginative was his child.
One morning, on going down to bathe, the sea was rough and Peter, reluctant to enter and still more reluctant to own it, made the excuse that he was frightened of treading on a dead sailor.
Peter, after hearing a sermon at the village chapel, grew profoundly sorry for the Devil. It seemed so dreadful to have to burn for ever and ever. He made a secret promise to God that he would take the Devil’s place. Then he thought it over for some days in horror; he had been too generous—he wanted to go back on his bargain. His mother found him crying one night; she suspected that he had been sleeping little by the dark blue rings under his eyes. She coaxed him, and he told her.
Another sign of his ‘maginativeness was his anxiety to know whether cows had souls.
“That boy thinks too much,” said his father; “he needs to rough and tumble with other boys of his own age. At ten his worst trouble should be tummy-ache.”
Nan smiled. “But Peter’s different, you know.”
“I know. But, if he’s to grow up strong, he must change. Little woman, I don’t like it.”
“Billy boy, I sometimes think it’s our doing, yours and mine. When we put toys in the empty nursery before he was born, before he was thought of, we were making him a ‘maginative child.”
“The sins of the parents, eh?”
“Not that. The love of the parents shall be visited upon the children unto the third and——”
“Pepperminta, you know more about God and Peter and love than I do. You’re right, and you’re always right. How is it that you learn so much by sitting so quiet?”
Matters came to a head through Kay. In the cottage where they stayed, Peter slept with her in the same bed, in a narrow room beneath a sloping roof. She was nervous to be left alone there—it was so dark, so far away, so strange; Peter, a willing martyr, went to bed with her at the same time. Lying awake in the dark or twilight, he would tell her stories.
“Listening, Kay?”
“Yeth,” in a little drowsy voice.
As she grew more sleepy she would snuggle closer with her lips against his face, till at last he knew by her regular breathing that his audience was indifferent to his wildest fancies.
One evening his parents returned from a ride and, entering the house, heard a stifled sobbing.
“What’s that?”
“Must be the children.”
“You wait here, Nan. I’ll go up and quiet them.”
“No, I’ll come, up too.”
As they climbed the stairs and reached the landing, they made out words which were in the wailing: “I don’t want to be a dead ‘un. I don’t want to be a dead ‘un.”
It was Kay’s voice. Peter, leaning over her, was whispering frightened comfort.
When Nan and Billy had taken them in their arms and lit the candle, the tragedy was explained. Peter had been enlarging on the magnificence of heaven and the beauties of the future life. Things went well until Kay realized that there was no direct communication by trains or buses between heaven and her parents. She didn’t want to go there. Its magnificence, unshared by anyone she loved, was terrifying. She didn’t want to be a dead ‘un. She kept repeating it in spite of Peter’s best efforts at consolation.
It was some time before it was safe to blow the candle out and leave them. Death was very imminent in their minds.
Downstairs, when it was all over, Billy looked across at Nan, his brow puckered with annoyance and his lips twitching with laughter. “That decides it.”
“Decides! How? What does it decide?”
“Something that I’ve thought of for a long time. Peter’s too imaginative. He’s not a good companion for Kay.”
“How can you say that? We all know how gentle he is with her.”
“That’s just it. It’s good for neither of them. Now that Jehane and Ocky are at Sandport it makes things easier; they can keep an eye on him.”
“An eye on Peter!”
Billy leant across the table, turning down the lamp and turning it up again. He was gaining time. “It’s for his own good. You don’t suppose I like it. It’ll be hard for all of us.” He spoke huskily.
Nan plucked at the table-cloth. She was almost angry. “You mean that you want to send him to school at Sand-port—send my little Peterkins away?”
“Sandport’s famous for its schools.”
“But Billy, you couldn’t be so cruel. He’s so young and sensitive. His heart would break.”
“Rubbish. I was sent to boarding-school when I was eight. I’ve survived.”
“You! You were different—but Peter!”
She voiced the common fallacy of mothers, that their husbands as boys were of coarser fibre than their children. She bowed her head on her arms beneath the lamp and cried. Her little Peter to be thrust out and made lonely, simply because he had too much imagination! It was cruel!