"Charmed to make your acquaintance," said Pierre, bowing.
Jemmie shook hands with English awkwardness, evidently wondering how on earth he was expected to reply to the exaggerated courtesy of the stranger.
"I was wondering what night would suit Monsieur Menard to come and dine with us."
Jemmie glared at his wife in amazement; but without being openly rude he did not know how to dispose of the unwelcome invitation.
"What in creation put it in your head to ask that fellow to dinner?" he demanded when Pierre was gone. "You might have guessed that he would accept. He was probably afraid to refuse for fear of being rude."
"On the contrary, I think he was agreeably surprised to find that somebody in this house was polite enough to invite him," said Mary.
"That's meant for me, I suppose? If I were you, Mary, I should keep a check on my tongue. A sharp tongue doesn't add to a woman's charm. Where did you pick this fellow up?"
"I told you. He used to visit us at King's Gate before we were married."
"I don't see why we should have all your grandmother's foreign friends and acquaintances foisted on us for the rest of our lives," Jemmie grumbled. "And I wish you'd answer my question. Where did you meet him again?"
"At a lecture on Madagascar to which I took my girls."
Jemmie threw up his eyebrows to express compassion for human folly.
"You'll be bringing Barnum and Bailey back to dinner next," he prophesied. "Or one of the keepers at the Zoo. I don't want this house filled with showmen and cranks. I knew what it would be when you started that club of yours. I should have thought three children was enough for any woman. But go your own way. Don't let anything I say interfere with your pleasures. From what I can see of it the women will be ruling the men before long."
Mary let her husband grumble on for a while. Then she suggested a few names for a dinner-party.
"I don't want a dinner-party," he declared angrily. "I'm terribly overworked just now, and I like to rest whenever I can. You know how late I've been kept every day this week at the office. We get quite enough dinner-parties that we have to give and go to without letting ourselves in for any more than are necessary."
"Very well then," said Mary, "I'll ask nobody else."
"A jolly evening for me to look forward to," grumbled her husband. "Very jolly."
"You'll find Monsieur Menard most interesting, I assure you. His adventures in Madagascar...."
"Madagascar!" Jemmie interrupted angrily. "What do I care about Madagascar! I'm not a girl's club. You'll be suggesting in a minute that I should readRobinson Crusoeon my way to the office."
Mary began to laugh, upon which her husband retired in dudgeon to the billiard-room, where he succeeded in making a break of thirty-one by the indiscriminate use of both white balls and was comparatively pleasant when he emerged again.
On the evening that Pierre was invited to dinner at eight, Mary began to dress at half-past six; by a quarter-past seven Adèle was in despair, and the room was littered with discarded frocks. While the discussion was proceeding, with Adèle becoming more voluble every moment, a note arrived by messenger boy from Jemmie to say he was afraid that he should not be able to get home to-night, as he had to go down into the country upon very important business. He asked Mary to make his apologies to Mr. Menard.
"Unusually polite," she thought, and went back to a consideration of her dress for to-night. Since her husband's note that problem assumed an even greater importance. In the end she chose light blue as the color, and the sash of a darker shade tied in alarge bow over her left hip made her seem much younger. Adèle declared that she had not changed in ten years, and Mary blushed with pleasure at the obvious compliment.
"And I really do feel quite young to-night," she assured her maid.
During dinner Pierre talked away about Madagascar as if there were no other topic in the world. Mary, watching him in the rubied shadow above the candles, did not really pay much attention to what he was saying, but thought all the time how distinguished he looked and how like an Englishman in evening dress, notwithstanding the imperial. And Grandmamma had laid stress on his inferiority to herself. What a fool she had been to listen to her! In any gathering who would have stood out more clearly, Jemmie or Pierre? Why, Jemmie looked like a poulterer beside him. If only she had known enough about the world to argue with her grandmother then! How Pierre must have despised her! Did he despise her now, or was he simply not interested in her? Perhaps he was interested in nothing except Madagascar. He never seemed to look at her while he was talking, but always at an audience; he must have fallen into that habit from lecturing. Or perhaps he did not wish to embarrass her. Yes, probably that was the reason why he continued to talk about Madagascar without looking at her. She must remember that eleven years had gone by. Eleven years, during which he had had all theseadventures of which he was talking. Eleven years, during which she had married and had had three children. It was only the suddenness of meeting again after so long which made her forget the sundering years ... the years ... the irrevocable years.... Odd that Jemmie should have decided not to come back to-night. Would he have come back if he had known that once, eleven years ago, this despised Frenchman had possessed her heart and that no one else had ever touched it since? Would he be jealous? Pierre was pledging her in a glass of port wine. She never drank red wine, but to-night she must take a sip in response. Would the maids think it odd if she drank Pierre's health? No, no, they would attribute it to foreign ways.
"Salut," she murmured.
"Trinquez," he laughed, raising his glass to meet hers. There was a faint tinkle, and for a brief moment their fingers touched.
"Let us go into the drawing-room for coffee," she said, "unless you would rather sit here and finish your wine."
He shook his head and followed her from the table.
"Enfin," he said when the coffee had been brought in and they were sitting alone together in the drawing-room. "Enfin, here we are!"
"After eleven years, Pierre."
"After eleven years, Mary. Yet you have scarcely changed."
"Oh yes, I have changed a great deal, Pierre."
"Is the old lady still alive, Mary?"
"She died last autumn, Pierre."
"She was no friend to me, Mary."
Each of them used the other's Christian name in every sentence as if the uttermost advantage must be taken of an opportunity that neither of them had hoped to enjoy over again. Each of them seemed to feel the propriety, the necessity indeed, of giving way to sentiment on such an occasion.
"She believed that she was acting for the best."
"And was she?" he asked, looking at the woman of whom, once the illusion of her love was shattered and the first chagrin was allayed, he had scarcely thought in all those years.
"It's hardly fair to ask me that now, Pierre. You forget that I am married and the mother of three children."
"I am not married," he murmured, drawing his chair a little closer.
"You have been otherwise occupied."
"I had to occupy myself."
By now Pierre's chair had made a ruck in the carpet, at which he would have to put it like a horse at a fence if he wished to draw still closer to Mary; but rising boldly he seated himself in another chair at least three feet nearer.
"I had to occupy myself," he repeated. "When you wrote me that letter I was ... but what right have I to speak of my feelings now? I must consider myself lucky that I was able to forget them in my new career."
"Time works miracles," Mary sighed. "I've often wondered where you were and what you were doing."
"I have wondered about you.Mon Dieu, how I have wondered! And I used to think about Mac."
Mary's eyes filled with tears.
"Pierre! You remembered my little dog! He only died last week. He was run over, and my husband had to shoot him."
"Your husband," he repeated in gloomy tones. "I do not have to refer to my wife. I have never married."
"You did not remain single on my account," she said.
Pierre paused for a moment as if he were trying to resist the temptation to tell her that it was on her account. But the forms of Malagasy maidens floated within the smoke of his cigarette, and forbade him to claim too straight a fidelity.
"If I had ever found the right woman, I suppose I should have married. But the kind of life I was leading demanded the right kind of woman to share it. Ah, Mary, if only you could have shared it! If only...."
He leaned over, and taking her hand from the arm of her chair upon which it was resting he raised it slowly to his lips.
Mary was not so much astonished at herself asshe felt she ought to be, as perhaps she would have been if Jemmie had not shown so clearly his indifference to her during these last few months. Pierre could not have been holding her hand like this if Jemmie had come back to dinner.
"Ought you to be taking my hand like this?" she asked.
He paid no attention to the question, but went on talking.
"With the right kind of woman at one's side what might not a man achieve?" he demanded. "Here are you in London leading the life of thousands of other women, when with me you might have become as famous as the wife of Garibaldi."
"I don't think I should care to be famous, Pierre," she murmured with a shake of the head. "I'd like you to be famous. But I don't want fame."
"No, no, you want love," he cried. "And it is not too late even now."
"Oh yes, it is," she whispered with a sad smile. "Years too late, Pierre. Besides, I'm not the sort of woman who could bear the burden of an illicit love-affair. I should be afraid of it. I did wrong in thrusting myself into your life again. I had no courage then. I have no courage now."
When she spoke thus, he rose from his chair and kneeling beside her drew her lips down to meet his own.
"Are you sure you have no courage?" he asked breathlessly. "Mary, we are still young. We couldstill be happy together. In my life there has been no other woman but you. Have you loved any one as you loved me, as you still love me at this moment while I hold you closer to my heart than I have ever held you? Come away with me, Mary. Come away with me to-night, now. Leave behind you all this."
While Pierre was talking, Mary felt that she was nothing more than a doll that a child was vainly trying to wake to life.
A child?
"Hush! Did you hear somebody calling?" she asked in sudden apprehension.
"Come to the open window. The air in this room is hot. Come and look at the May moon,ma bien aimée".
She let him draw her arm through his and lead her to the window, where they stood a while in the lilac-scented hush of what could scarcely be imagined a London night.
"The world is so much bigger than this room," he proclaimed.
"I need no lover to tell me that," she whispered.
How wonderful it would be to go right away ... right away....
She allowed herself to be enfolded in his arms. Moonlight and the perfume of lilac and a tale of green islands murmured in her ear held her entranced. Bewitched by the imagination of love enduring forever, she looked up at him. Her hands were upon his shoulders in appeal, and then therewas a tap on the door. Mary sprang away from Pierre and stood quivering like a sapling released from the woodcutter's grasp.
"What is it, nurse?"
"If you please, ma'am, I shan't rest till you've had a look at Master Richard. After he came back from school he said he had a headache, but I didn't like to worry you without cause. Only now he says his throat is so bad, and really I don't like the looks of him at all."
Mary did not wait to make any apologies to Pierre, but hurried upstairs to where in his little room, of which he was so proud, her eldest son was tossing upon his bed and muttering rapid nonsense with fever's thick and troubled accents.
"Dearest boy, is your throat very bad? Let me look at your chest. Turn the gas higher, nurse. I want to see if there's any rash. Give me your hand, Richard. Lie still, my darling, a minute. Mother wants to feel your pulse. Nurse, ring for Pinkney and tell her to go at once for Dr. Marlow."
Nurse hurried away.
"Is your throat very bad, Richard darling?"
"Worse and worse," the little boy whispered.
"My loved one, mother's so dreadfully sorry. Never mind. The doctor will soon be here. Could you open your mouth and let mother look at it? All right, my sweetheart, don't agitate yourself. I won't fuss you, but when the doctor comes you musttry to let him see what's the matter. Darling boy, mother's so dreadfully sorry it hurts."
She sat by the bed keeping the yellow curls from his eyes and soothing him with her voice.
Presently nurse came back.
"Pinkney's gone just as she is, ma'am, without waiting to pop on anything. Let's hope Dr. Marlow is at home. And what about the gentleman in the drawing-room, do you wish for him to do anything?"
"Apologize to him, please, nurse, from me for leaving him so abruptly and explain about Master Richard. Say how sorry I am not to be able to say good night myself. How very sorry.... What is it, Richard darling? It's mother beside you. Try to lie still, dearest. I know it hurts horribly. But try to lie still."
Chapter Five
THE MOTHER
Chapter Five: The Mother
In the rich light of a September afternoon of the year 1900 Mary Alison slowly paced the grass walk along the phlox border at High Corner, wondering why everybody was so late for tea, even Jemmie, who nowadays was not often late for a meal. At that moment her husband appeared, looking as hot and red as the reddest phlox in the border.
"Tea ready?" he gasped. "By George, I'm baked!"
He slipped his overheated tweed-covered arm into hers so cool in its muslin; thus, affectionately, they strolled together in the direction of the big mulberry tree on the lawn, beneath whose shade, notwithstanding the way the ripe fruit at this season sometimes tumbled into the cups, they always sat for tea.
"You know, I'll tell you what it is," said Jemmie, cramming his mouth with bread and butter. "I'll tell you what it is, Mary. I took up golf too late. That's what I did. Too old. I shall never be any good at it. I'd give it up, if I didn't think it kept my weight down."
"But I think it's so clever of you to play at all," said his wife consolingly. "I was thinking I should have to take it up myself. Women are beginning toplay quite a lot everywhere. I'm sure I should never get on half so well as you did when you began."
"Ah, you're too sympathetic, my dear. Yes, that's what you are. You should hear Muriel sneering at her poor old father's efforts. As for Geoffrey, he declines to play with me. 'Pon my word, he does. Yes, he told me last week that people on the links stared so. I said, 'They stare at your ties, my boy.' Ha-ha! I rather had him there, I flatter myself. Ha-ha-ha! Yes, I said, 'It's your ties and stockings that make 'em stare, my boy, not your father's driving.' By the way, where are the two of them?"
"I was wondering," Mary said. "It's odd, isn't it, dear, that neither of them ever seems to bother at all about us? You'd think when Muriel was going back to school next week that she'd want to spend some of her time with her father and mother. She does giveyoua little of it; but I hardly see her between breakfast and dinner."
"Young, you know. She's young," the father apologized. "We must try to remember that. You'd think that Geoffrey would be glad to play a round with me; but if he can dodge it, he will. I saw a bit of him last week, because there was a fellow staying at the hotel who offered to give me some advice about the proper allowance to make him at Oxford when he goes up in October. I can't help feeling that two hundred and fifty pounds a year is enough. But this fellow says, 'No, you can't do on less than three hundred pounds at a college like St. Mary's.'Well, I suppose I shall have to give it to him."
"Yes," Mary sighed, "children are strange. They seem quite suddenly not to belong to one, and to be almost complete strangers. Thank heaven, Richard at any rate has never learnt to do without me entirely."
"Ah, Richard!" her husband laughed. "But we were discussing ordinary boys and girls, common or garden boys and girls, not paragons. Though, by George, I've no right to tease you about him, for he is a fine lad. There's no doubt about that. Well, he'll be here to-morrow. Yet not for long, I'm afraid. You mark my words, he'll be gazetted almost at once. They've a good many losses to make up in South Africa."
"Jemmie, don't! It's too horrible to think of."
"Duty, my dear," said the father sternly. "You must be glad in your heart that Richard is going to do his duty. We shall be proud of him if he gets out there."
"I should be just as proud of him at home," said the mother.
Further discussion of Richard was interrupted by the arrival of Geoffrey and Muriel, who immediately sat down to tea and exclaimed at the coldness of the scones.
"Did you expect us to wait any longer?" their mother asked. "It's half-past five, dear children."
"Sorry," muttered Geoffrey, who was a plump youth, but good-looking in a fair florid style. Hegreatly resembled his father at the same age; and though to hear Jemmie talk about his youth now was to conjure up a half-heroic figure of mythical prowess and virtue, it is probable that the son equally resembled in character his father at the same age. Muriel, who was fifteen, did not resemble either of her parents much, although in figure, if the figure of a girl of fifteen may be granted the name, she seemed likely to take after her father. She was very fair, round-faced and blue-eyed, reputed clever, an admirable athlete, and immensely popular at school. Her mother never felt really at ease with Muriel, though she never could satisfactorily explain to herself why this should be so; it seemed absurd to allow herself to bow embarrassed before that pitiless judgment of youth; but bow she did, and the consciousness of her position often made her irritable. Not that any display of irritation affected Muriel, who would merely stare at her mother, slightly knitting the fair brows above those eyes of porcelain blue.
"I'm beginning to be afraid that Muriel may be difficult," Mary confided in her husband that evening, when she came to bid him good night.
"Oh no, I don't think so. Several of my family have been very clever, but it never led to anything unpleasant. They were clever, but always very womanly women. I think she's a nice straightforward, clean-minded English girl. Oh no, I don't believe she'll be difficult."
"I find her very hard to understand," Mary complained. "All the time I have a feeling that she is building up a wall between herself and me."
"Know what it is?" Jemmie asked. "Know what's the matter with you? You're growing old."
"Jemmie, what a horrible thing to tell me."
"Never mind, old lady. It's got to be. We're both growing old. I tell you I realize it more and more when I'm playing golf. Good night, my dear."
He offered himself to her salute without rising from the chair in which he was smoking his final cigar before a light autumnal fire in the library—the Badminton Library, as Muriel called it, for that collection of authoritative treatises on sport, together with some bound volumes ofPunchand theIllustrated London News,Handley Cross, and a few novels by writers like Frank Smedley, constituted her father's literary environment.
"Growing old?" Mary repeated to herself on the way upstairs to her room. "Growing old?" she echoed once more when she stood in front of her mirror. The candlelight, apricot-shaded, flattered her reflection. Growing old at forty? What nonsense Jemmie talked! He forgot that he was fifteen years older than she. Now he certainlywasgrowing old. How much he had aged just lately and how much he had improved with age! Dear old Jemmie, he really needed her far more than Geoffrey or Muriel needed her. He was much more a child to her than either of them. If it were not for Richard, she might begin to wonder if children weremuch of a consolation for growing old. And Richard would be here to-morrow. But for how long? Mary felt sick and dizzy in a sudden thought of how brief his stay might be. If he really were ordered to the front? Was it credible that he should be? Richard in danger, and Richard how many thousand miles away! She had been proud and glad when he chose to be a soldier; but war had been so remote then. It seemed only yesterday that Jemmie bought High Corner, so that the children might always spend their holidays out of London. And now the eldest of those children was liable to be sent abroad to fight for his country. High Corner without children would not be High Corner any longer. But perhaps the war would soon be over. She must read the papers more carefully. She must not skip them as she did now. She must not rely on gossip about the duration of the war. She must learn to judge for herself. And Richard would be here to-morrow.
"I must not lie awake fretting," she decided. "I must get to sleep quickly. It will be time to fret when Richard is ordered abroad."
He arrived when the sun was driving away the wraiths of morning mist and when the others were all at golf. For her, when she saw him, so tall and straight and slim and fair, coming toward her along that green walk by the phloxes, he was more radiant than the sun.
"Hark, mother, do you hear that robin? That'sthe first I've heard this autumn," he exclaimed as he bent to kiss her.
In the silence of their first embrace the birdsong passed into the dim green recesses of the day, vanishing like the voice of her son's vanishing childhood.
"Do you remember that fatal day when I killed a robin?" he asked.
"No, dearest, I'd forgotten that you'd ever killed anything."
"Why, mother, when I had that air-gun I killed everything I saw until that day."
"How you exaggerate, my Richard."
"Yes, I did indeed. But that day I'd missed everything, and then sitting on a branch of that oak, the one Geoff and I planted to shade us in our old age, I saw a robin. I fired and killed him, and I was so shocked at what I'd done that I've never really been able to kill even a partridge since with any pleasure."
"Always such a dear little boy," she exclaimed, holding tight to her son's arm.
"Was I?" Richard laughed. "I'm afraid I must always have kept my good behavior for you. Aren't your phloxes splendid this year? Best I've ever seen."
They paced the walk arm-in-arm, admiring the glow of color. At last Richard said:
"Mother, I've got something to tell you."
She knew immediately what it was.
"You're going to South Africa."
"Yes. I'm in theGazettethis morning. I thought you'd all have seen it."
"They went out to golf without reading the papers," she said, trying to keep her voice from trembling. "What regiment, darling?"
"Rifle brigade."
"Are you pleased?"
"Pleased to be a rifleman? Mother, of course I am!"
"I'm glad you're pleased about it, darling. I'm glad you've got what you wanted."
"My battalion is at the front."
She braced herself for the next question.
"And when do you think you'll have to go, darling?"
"Rather soon," he told her in his gentlest voice.
"Rather soon," she echoed in a whisper. "Shall we go and sit somewhere in the shade? The sun is so hot along this wall. I wonder the phloxes can stand it without wilting."
"There was a heavy dew this morning," he reminded her.
A heavy dew this morning? It was a day then, a real day in time. The date was in the almanac. It was not a dream. There was a heavy dew this morning, and Richard would be on his way to South Africa rather soon.
"And I suppose you'll have to go up to town about your uniform?" she asked.
"Yes, I shall have to see about my kit."
"And that will mean some of the little time we have left will be taken away from us."
"You could come up to town with me and we could have lunch somewhere," he suggested.
Yes, they could have lunch together, and then a week or two later he would be gone.
"Richard!"
He looked round in astonishment at the poignant exclamation of his name.
"No, I did not want to say anything," she told him with a sad smile. "Nothing more than 'Richard,' while you can still look round at me like that, while you are still here to look round at me."
The fine autumn weather lasted until Richard left for South Africa. His mother at his earnestly expressed desire did not go to Southampton to wave the last farewell. When he was trying to dissuade her from the journey, she felt as she used to feel when as a boy he had always tried to dissuade her from coming to Paddington to bid him good-by on the platform before he went back to Eton. They parted on the steps of Woodworth Lodge, and the carriage drove off with ghostly quietude along the road that was littered with dead leaves, drove off with her Richard in the yellow light of an October morning.
"Seems strange without him," said Jemmie, taking his wife's arm affectionately and guiding her when she stumbled on the stairs because the tears in hereyes obscured all objects familiar and unfamiliar, all life indeed for the moment.
"Geoffrey's off to Oxford to-morrow, and then you and I shall be all alone, old lady, just as we used to be when we were first married twenty years ago."
Jemmie was evidently anxious to free his mind of the emotional discomfort that Richard's departure provoked by directing his emotion into the channels of a sentimentalized past; but Mary refused to follow his lead. She had only one idea, which was to be alone with her grief. She had no superfluity of idle regret, no lachrymatories of stale tears to be unsealed for Jemmie's gratification. She was inconsolable.
My darling Mother,I hope you got my post-card from Capetown. Here I am at last with my regiment in the field. It was awfully nervous work finding out where they were, and I felt an awful fool when I had to walk into the mess after riding about ten miles and explain who I was. They were awfully decent to me, however, and luckily there was quite a decent dust-up with the Boers soon after I arrived. I was glad to get it all over at once. I mean both my joining up and going into action for the first time. Love to everybody and lots to yourself. I'll write a better letter when I'm more settled. I hear that we are going off chasing De Wet presently. They say we've really got him in a corner this time. It doesn't lookas if the war would go on for much longer. I'm really a year too late. That's the bad luck of it. Of course, there's still plenty to do, but it's nothing to what it was, they tell me. The regiment fought splendidly at Spion Kop. I wish I'd been there!Don't read this letter to anybody except Father, and don't let him have it to take with him when he goes to golf. Just read it to him at home. Once more with lots of love,Your loving son,Richard.
My darling Mother,
I hope you got my post-card from Capetown. Here I am at last with my regiment in the field. It was awfully nervous work finding out where they were, and I felt an awful fool when I had to walk into the mess after riding about ten miles and explain who I was. They were awfully decent to me, however, and luckily there was quite a decent dust-up with the Boers soon after I arrived. I was glad to get it all over at once. I mean both my joining up and going into action for the first time. Love to everybody and lots to yourself. I'll write a better letter when I'm more settled. I hear that we are going off chasing De Wet presently. They say we've really got him in a corner this time. It doesn't lookas if the war would go on for much longer. I'm really a year too late. That's the bad luck of it. Of course, there's still plenty to do, but it's nothing to what it was, they tell me. The regiment fought splendidly at Spion Kop. I wish I'd been there!
Don't read this letter to anybody except Father, and don't let him have it to take with him when he goes to golf. Just read it to him at home. Once more with lots of love,
Your loving son,Richard.
My dearest Mother,I've quite settled down at St. Mary's. I'm sorry I've not written more often this term. I shall be going down next week and I've been asked to spend the week before Christmas with a man in my year called Whittington-Jones, an old Carthusian. His people have a rather decent shoot in Norfolk. I wonder if you could get Father to lend me his guns. He practically never shoots now. I suppose you wouldn't mind if I asked Whittington-Jones to come to Woodworth Lodge soon after Christmas? He is rather keen to trot around the theaters, and so am I, I'm bound to admit.I wonder if you could manage to lend me £100? I know this sounds rather a large sum to want in my first term, but the fact is I seem to have spent rather more than I meant, and I had to borrow £75 from a man in my year. I bought one or two pictures for my rooms, and I also lost a bit at roulette one nightat the House. I didn't really mean to play, but I couldn't very well sit looking on without seeming rude, because I had been dining with a House man. I lost more than I meant. I don't like to ask Father for the money because he'll jump to the conclusion that I'm gambling, which of course I need hardly say is not the case. If you could manage to get me out of rather an awkward hole just this once I promise not to run any risks again. Will you let me know as soon as you can about Whittington-Jones coming to us after Christmas and also about the £100? The extra £25 is for expenses during the vac. I shall have some tipping to do in Norfolk. If Father consults you about a present for me at Christmas, would you mind suggesting a check? It's awfully hard to choose a suitable present, though of course there are lots of things I should like for my rooms. But a check would really be more useful. I don't think there's much to tell you about Oxford. It's been very foggy there for the last few days.Your loving son,Geoffrey.
My dearest Mother,
I've quite settled down at St. Mary's. I'm sorry I've not written more often this term. I shall be going down next week and I've been asked to spend the week before Christmas with a man in my year called Whittington-Jones, an old Carthusian. His people have a rather decent shoot in Norfolk. I wonder if you could get Father to lend me his guns. He practically never shoots now. I suppose you wouldn't mind if I asked Whittington-Jones to come to Woodworth Lodge soon after Christmas? He is rather keen to trot around the theaters, and so am I, I'm bound to admit.
I wonder if you could manage to lend me £100? I know this sounds rather a large sum to want in my first term, but the fact is I seem to have spent rather more than I meant, and I had to borrow £75 from a man in my year. I bought one or two pictures for my rooms, and I also lost a bit at roulette one nightat the House. I didn't really mean to play, but I couldn't very well sit looking on without seeming rude, because I had been dining with a House man. I lost more than I meant. I don't like to ask Father for the money because he'll jump to the conclusion that I'm gambling, which of course I need hardly say is not the case. If you could manage to get me out of rather an awkward hole just this once I promise not to run any risks again. Will you let me know as soon as you can about Whittington-Jones coming to us after Christmas and also about the £100? The extra £25 is for expenses during the vac. I shall have some tipping to do in Norfolk. If Father consults you about a present for me at Christmas, would you mind suggesting a check? It's awfully hard to choose a suitable present, though of course there are lots of things I should like for my rooms. But a check would really be more useful. I don't think there's much to tell you about Oxford. It's been very foggy there for the last few days.
Your loving son,Geoffrey.
My dear Mother,I'm sorry I have waited so long to answer your last letter, but we have been fearfully busy rehearsing for our Break-up. I am acting Gratiano in the trial scene from "The Merchant of Venice." Celia Wentworth, the girl who plays Shylock, is most dreadfully good. Miss Bewick considers her simply marvelous. She says that ever since she has beenelocution mistress at the school she never has known such a good Shylock. I wonder if I could invite Celia to spend a few days with us during the Christmas holidays. She is fearfully keen to see some theaters, and we've made out a gorgeous list of things we're simply dying to see. Celia says that the way I play Gratiano helps her most frightfully, and Miss Bewick was tremendously complimentary. The blot on the performance is the Doge played by a girl I hate called Marjorie Lane. She simply won't learn her words, and at the first rehearsal without books she cut out all the middle of her long speech and said "the world thinks and I think so too, we all expect a gentle answer, Jew." You should have seen Miss Bewick's face. Of course we all snorted like anything, and Marjorie could only sit there and giggle in that affected way she does. Celia says she hopes she won't do that on the afternoon of Break-up, because the audience is sure to laugh, and Celia thinks it may spoil her performance. I hope you and Father are going to turn up in force, and when you come do please invite Celia to stay with us in January.Your loving daughter,Muriel.
My dear Mother,
I'm sorry I have waited so long to answer your last letter, but we have been fearfully busy rehearsing for our Break-up. I am acting Gratiano in the trial scene from "The Merchant of Venice." Celia Wentworth, the girl who plays Shylock, is most dreadfully good. Miss Bewick considers her simply marvelous. She says that ever since she has beenelocution mistress at the school she never has known such a good Shylock. I wonder if I could invite Celia to spend a few days with us during the Christmas holidays. She is fearfully keen to see some theaters, and we've made out a gorgeous list of things we're simply dying to see. Celia says that the way I play Gratiano helps her most frightfully, and Miss Bewick was tremendously complimentary. The blot on the performance is the Doge played by a girl I hate called Marjorie Lane. She simply won't learn her words, and at the first rehearsal without books she cut out all the middle of her long speech and said "the world thinks and I think so too, we all expect a gentle answer, Jew." You should have seen Miss Bewick's face. Of course we all snorted like anything, and Marjorie could only sit there and giggle in that affected way she does. Celia says she hopes she won't do that on the afternoon of Break-up, because the audience is sure to laugh, and Celia thinks it may spoil her performance. I hope you and Father are going to turn up in force, and when you come do please invite Celia to stay with us in January.
Your loving daughter,Muriel.
Geoffrey and Muriel had their friends to stay with them as they wanted; and continuous chatter about the world of Oxford and the world of school, from both of which worlds their mother perceived herself infinitely remote, made her feel still morehopelessly banished from the only world where she cared to live, the world of South Africa and war. Perhaps if her two younger children had been able or anxious to appreciate what she was suffering from Richard's absence she would not have grudged them their gayety. It was not that she wanted them to devote themselves entirely to her. That would be an unworthy maternal egotism. But such a complete absorption already in other interests was surely not what most mothers had to endure from their children.
"Muriel, haven't you anything to tell me about your life at school?"
"Oh, mother, I'm always telling you things."
"But only about the other girls, dear child."
"Well, what else is there to tell you?" Muriel countered.
"Don't you ever want to tell me anything about yourself and your thoughts and what you would like to do when you grow up?" her mother persisted.
Muriel frowned.
"I wish you wouldn't always be imagining that I have any thoughts as you call them. You always ask such impossible questions, mother."
Mary turned away with a sigh. It was not thus that she had pictured her daughter at fifteen when ten years ago she used to enter the nursery on tiptoe and steal through the dim hush to where in her cot Muriel lay sleeping as still as a gathered carnation.It was not for this Muriel that she had peered into the future, not for this Muriel that she had stood in the door on her way out and looked back to see that the night light was burning faithfully in the glimmering saucer.
"Geoffrey, you and your friend Mr. Whittington-Jones, never seem to talk about anything except horses and cards."
Geoffrey, remembering that he owed his mother a hundred pounds and that a time might come when he should wish to extend this obligation, tried not to look irritated by the question. The result was an expression of patient long-suffering, which irritated her.
"Really, my dear boy," she exclaimed, "there is no occasion for you to assume that expression of injured innocence. You do talk a great deal about horses and cards."
"Well, the men I know best are interested in horses," Geoffrey muttered. "And surely one can be interested in horses without being jumped on?"
"I'm not jumping on you, dear Geoffrey. I don't think I ever jumped on anybody. Sometimes I think it would be better if I did jump on people. I do hope that you will try to make the best of your time at Oxford. It would be such a pity if you wasted these years. You would always regret them and wish you could have them all over again."
Geoffrey removed his weight from his right leg and put it upon his left.
"I know it's boring," his mother went on, "very boring to have a mother who tries to interfere with a young man's natural amusements. I don't a bit want to be a spoil-sport, but you know how horrified father would be if he thought you were gambling. Luckily I was able to help you out with that money. But I shan't always be able to help you, and I do so want you to help yourself."
Mary had tried not to bring Richard into the conversation in order to make a comparison. But before she could stop herself the comparison was made.
"Richard!" Geoffrey echoed, flushing. "I've never pretended to compete with him. And anyway you wouldn't expect a soldier on active service to have the temptations I have at the 'Varsity."
"What a mean remark! Unworthy of a brother!"
Geoffrey shifted back from his left leg to his right.
"Whatever I do and whatever I say is sure to be wrong," he muttered.
Mary turned away with a sigh. It was not thus she had pictured her second son at eighteen when ten years ago she had sat in the shade of the mulberry tree at High Corner, during that first delicious summer of their possession, and watched him turning somersaults on the bright lawn. Then her only fear for Geoffrey was that the blood might rush to his head from the energy of his exercise. How foolish an apprehension that seemed compared with the present dread for Geoffrey's future!
Later in that month Queen Victoria died, and on the gray February morning when the funeral procession crossed London Mary found herself kept by the press of people from reaching Grosvenor Place, where Jemmie had been lent a window to watch with his family the passing of a great period, the end of a mighty reign, the obsequies of an august and noble woman. She turned aside into Hyde Park, vexed with herself for making a muddle of the occasion; but when she was out of the crowd and walking in comfort under the bare trees she was glad that she had not succeeded in reaching Grosvenor Place, for out of the gray air beyond the fume of gray boughs sounded the lament of Chopin's Funeral March, not as if it was being played by mortal instruments, but like a coronach wailed by remote winds, a threnody uttered by unimaginable waves.
Mary looked round her. There was no longer a human being in sight; there was only tree after tree in audience of that melodious lamentation. For a while her fancy was caught by the picture of that grave pageant moving across London to the music of those poignant cadences. Her mind went back to a year or two ago when she had seen the Queen driving along Kensington High Street, a little old woman in black nodding to right and left in acknowledgment of her subjects' welcome. Now that little old woman in black was being borne on a gun-carriage, nothing left of her domination save the orb and scepter upon the coffin in which she lay dead. The funeral strains of Chopin died away, and their place was taken by the heavier grief of Handel's Dead March, so solemn that one seemed to hear above the crash of cymbals the tread of mourning emperors and kings. Mary felt it was wrong of her not to have made certain of beholding the procession, that she had no business to be standing here alone among the trees. She started to hurry forward in the direction of the music, so that above the crowd she might catch a glimpse of the plumes and helmets and perhaps even of the white pall itself. It began to seem of the greatest importance that she should have this glimpse, for she was thinking that without it she should miss the most important public event in her time. To-day would surely be a landmark in time to which everything in contemporary life would be referred. She must hurry. Already Handel's solemn beat was becoming muffled and dying into silence beyond the Marble Arch. This silence was tremendous. She hurried on, panting for breath. There at last was that endless mourning edge of black spectators, and there above them the plumes and the helmets of the cavalry flashing and rippling. Had the coffin passed? Once more the silence was rent by the plangent strains of Chopin.
Mary turned away from the people and the procession; with all the air behind her melodious withgrief, she sought again the holy quiet of the bare trees. A little child, too young for the pomps of death, was running after a gay ball, while a Dandie Dinmont jumped in circles round her barking. In a moment Mary was walking under these very trees, herself of twenty years ago! How little they had changed, but herself how much. The melody in which at first she had found the expression of a world's sorrow for the death of a Queen, now rose with its yearning and fell with its despair upon her own life. It was identified with herself and so much the more poignant in consequence. It no longer expressed a nation's grief, but voiced instead all the regrets for what might have befallen herself. She was back again among these trees twenty-one years ago with Mac. It was a month later than this, she reminded herself, and although the trees were just as bare, the crocuses were in full bloom then. Yes, Mac was barking there beside her, and children were running after brightly painted balls. Still that wailing of the Funeral March! What did twenty years ago matter now? What did they count for now? More sharply sad, more passionately wistful in one supreme melodious sigh the refrain, seeking to express an incommunicable grief, died away into silence. If only Richard had not been ordered abroad! He would have been with her to-day. He would have waited for her this morning. Richard was not like Geoffrey and Muriel, not so forgetful of his mother as they were. Yet perhapsshe was unfair to her younger children. Perhaps, in her devotion to Richard, she had let them understand too well that she cared more deeply for him than for them. It might be her own fault if they were forgetful. And ten years ago she had not been fair to Jemmie. She had a great deal for which to blame herself. From to-day onward she would think more about other people and not be so ready to blame them, when it was she herself who was at fault. This was a solemn day in the history of England. She would try to make it a solemn day in the history of herself.
The mellow form of Kensington Palace came into sight. It looked exactly the same as it always looked. It was strange to think that more than sixty years ago the little old woman now being borne to the grave should have been a young girl in that Palace and there received the news of her accession. Here was no noise of music for the dead, but like the sound of running water the ripple of children's laughter. In the precincts of Kensington Palace the children were playing as usual with their hoops and their balls. The Queen herself may have played here as a child long before she was a queen. It was a spot sacred to children, not to the dead; sacred to the future, not to the past.
"Let me remember that thought," Mary said to herself. "And when I think of the day of the Queen's funeral I will always remember that I am not dead yet and that while I am alive I have afuture. I must be more sympathetic with Muriel, more patient with Geoffrey, more solicitous for Jemmie. And I must not fret for Richard, for my boy."
It was a pity that Geoffrey went back to Oxford the day after the funeral and that Muriel went back to school. Mary felt that from the state of mind she had achieved on that day she might have drawn closer to her children.
The first year of the new century came to its Spring, blossomed and shed its blossom, opened to its Summer and reached its Autumn without Mary's hopes of a deeper intimacy being realized. She began to wonder if Richard would return from South Africa as much a stranger as the other two. His letters betrayed no falling off in affection; but affectionate letters might be the result of habit and not reflect the man that was being wrought out of her boy, down there beneath the unfamiliar Southern stars.
In her maternal loneliness Mary found herself more than ever inclined to adopt Jemmie. He would really have been a most satisfactory child if he would only have abstained from continually reminding her that age was creeping fast upon both of them. It was difficult to be motherly to a man who would talk all the time about his stiff joints and hardening arteries, who would grunt and groan when he rose from an arm-chair, and who after dinner had scarcely read half a dozen headlines ofThe Timesbefore he was fast asleep. Mary did not want to be as old as all that, and she wished that her husband would remember that there were fifteen years between them. Fifteen long years. Or was it only because Richard was away that the years seemed longer nowadays? They had fled by so swiftly when he was little. She must go in for gardening more seriously this Autumn. If Richard came back next Spring, he would appreciate her English flowers after Africa; and if he did not come back, the flowers would be a small consolation. It was a pity that she had begun so early to work among girls. That club would have been such an interesting occupation for the present. But if she began again now, it would mean arguments with Jemmie, who would never understand why, when he was always at home, she wanted to wear herself out ministering to a lot of strange girls. Strangeness was Jemmie's bugbear. Strange people, strange ideas, strange manners, strange places, strange clothes, they were all equally abhorrent to Jemmie nowadays.
"I may not be very distinguished or anything like that," he boasted. "But at any rate I'm not always running after new-fangled ideas. Some people would call me old-fashioned and consider me out of date; but I don't care what they call me or what they think me. When I was at school we used to kick fellows who tried to be original. We were rough and ready in those days, my dear, but, byGeorge, we were men! Yes, by George, m-e-n. Men!"
"I thought you were boys," Mary laughed.
"Now, my dear, you know perfectly well what I mean."
"Yes, yes, you foolish old thing, of course I know what you mean. And I wish you could make Geoffrey a little less original."
"Ah, Geoffrey! Geoffrey is becoming a problem. I cannot think where he inherits his low tastes."
"Haven't we agreed to call him original?" said Mary. "Don't let's bother about the hereditary side of his misbehavior. You and I between us must be responsible for him, and we ought to shoulder our responsibility. I really am worried about his future."
They were sitting in the garden of High Corner on a fine afternoon at the end of September, and surely never had the phloxes been finer than they were this Autumn. If Richard admired them last year, what would he have said if he could have seen them now?
Muriel had already gone back to school, so that Geoffrey, as the only child at home, became for the time the chief object of his parents' solicitude.
"You've always taken his part when I've tried to be severe with him," the father pointed out.
"Yes, I know I have, and I think rather foolishly. But I suppose it's natural for a mother. It's what remains of the instinct to defend one's young. Iwish he were a little boy again. I believe I should bring him up quite differently, if I had another chance."
Jemmie shook his head.
"Ah, if," he murmured sapiently. "If if's were horses, old lady, beggars might ride."
"Yes, and I think I've been rather foolish," Mary continued, "in keeping from you certain things about Geoffrey. You know, three times already since he went to Oxford I've lent him comparatively large sums for him to pay his debts. Gambling debts, I'm afraid."
"Gambling debts?" Jemmie echoed. "You don't mean to tell me that the young fool has been gambling? Gambling debts at nineteen? Why, the notion is ridiculous. Think of me. There was I, my own master from the time I left school. But I never had any gambling debts. I never had any debts at all. Why, when I was not much older than Geoffrey, my poor old father died and I was left in sole charge of the business. Suppose I had had gambling debts? A pretty stockbroker I should have made."
"There's no need for you to imagine that I'm trying to defend Geoffrey for running into debt," Mary observed.
"But why did you keep it from me? Why didn't you tell me before?"
"I know it was silly of me. I've admitted it was silly. Let that pass."
"How much have you paid for him?"
"About three hundred pounds."
"Three hundred what? Did you say three hundred pounds, or am I going mad and deaf? Three hundred pounds? Why, that's nearly a whole year's allowance. Do you seriously mean to tell me that you've allowed Geoffrey to play ducks and drakes with three hundred pounds of your money?"
"Frankly, Jemmie, I don't think that the amount matters," she said. "Three hundred pounds or three hundred pence, if he can't pay, the large sum is morally no worse than the smaller."
Jemmie began to splutter.
"Now that's a woman all over. No idea whatever of the value of money. It's not a question of morality, my dear. It's a question of finance. He knows very well, even if you don't, that he has no more business to risk three hundred pounds than I have to risk three thousand. A fine father my children would call me if I started gambling and gambled away all their inheritance."
"Jemmie dear, there is really no need for you to get angry with me," she protested. "I am as well aware as you how wrong it is of Geoffrey to gamble. But I do blame my own indulgence. I ought to have refused to give him the money and sent him to you. I don't know why I didn't. I suppose it was an absurd kind of jealousy. I suppose really that I hoped to make him fonder of me by giving him the money he wanted."
"But why have you told me now?" her husband asked in sudden bewilderment.
Mary looked unhappy.
"Promise me," she began, "that if I tell you something more you won't fly into a rage with Geoffrey and by losing your temper perhaps do him more harm than good. Promise me that, Jemmie, before I tell you anything more."
"He's not been stealing? He hasn't committed forgery or anything like that, has he?" stammered an apprehensive father.
"No, it's not quite so bad as that," she laughed sadly. "But you haven't promised."
"As long as it's nothing criminal, I promise to do my utmost to be patient with the boy."
Mary hesitated for a few moments, half regretting that she had raised the subject of Geoffrey's behavior. Then she plunged.
"It's this girl at the White Hart. Mrs. Woldingham came to see me this morning...."
"Girl at the White Hart?" Jemmie interrupted. "What has Mrs. Woldingham got to do with girls at the White Hart, even if she is the Rector's wife?"
"Jemmie, I must beg you not to interrupt me. If you will have the patience to let me say what I was going to say, you'll hear. Mrs. Woldingham, who came to see me about the Bazaar which is being got up for the debt on the new peal of bells, spoke very nicely about Geoffrey, and I'm sure she had not the least idea of making mischief or repeating villagegossip. But people are beginning to talk about Geoffrey's being seen so often at the White Hart."
"Drinking too!" the father apostrophized. "Great Heavens, my second son appears to have every vice."
"No, not drinking," Mary contradicted irritably. "At least Mrs. Woldingham did not suggest that he was drinking. The attraction is this girl."
"What girl?"
"The girl at the White Hart."
"Do you mean the barmaid?"
"I suppose that's what she is. I really don't know anything more except that Geoffrey is credited with having a love affair with some girl at the White Hart."
Jemmie shook his head to Heaven.
"I really don't know what's happening to the young men of to-day. They stop at nothing. Still, I'm relieved to hear it's only that. At least, I suppose it's only that."
"Only what?" Mary asked frowning.
"Only a flirtation with a barmaid. Of course, he ought not to do that kind of thing in his own village; but I'm relieved to hear it's only that."
"That was all Mrs. Woldingham said."
"She didn't suggest that there was the likelihood of an open scandal?"
Mary looked puzzled.
"Come, come," her husband scoffed. "You are not a schoolgirl. I suppose Mrs. Woldingham didn'tsuggest that the young woman was going to have a child?"
"Jemmie, sometimes you really are unnecessarily coarse in the way you blurt things out. No, Mrs. Woldingham didn't say anything about that or indeed hint anything of the sort. At least, I don't think she did. But, oh dear, what a horrible notion! Please, I do beg of you, speak seriously to Geoffrey. If there were anything like that he would have to admit it to you."
When Mary was alone, she reproached herself for being so disloyal to Geoffrey as to tell his father about the money she had given him. It was no use trying to pretend to herself that her only motive for telling was a desire for Geoffrey to make a complete avowal of everything and after he had been forgiven to be able to start fair in his first encounter with life. She had not had the least temptation to say a word about his debts until Mrs. Woldingham had thrown out those hints about his behavior at the White Hart.
"I really believe I was jealous," she told herself. Jealous? Could she possibly be jealous of this girl? It sounded too absurd when stated in words. But there certainly had been an impulse to hurt Geoffrey and a desire to punish him not for his generally unsatisfactory behavior so much as for presuming at his age to fancy himself in love. It was not the knowledge that people were talking which had roused her indignation, but the suggestion thatGeoffrey was madly in love with this girl, this common, crude, flamboyant creature, this barmaid. Even now her heart was beating fast with rage at the thought of such a disgraceful entanglement.
"Of course, my dear Mrs. Alison, it may be nothing but a youthful infatuation. At the same time I think I ought to warn you that they do say he has proposed to the girl."
She had not told Jemmie that. She had unjustly allowed him to suppose that the only scandal to be feared was Geoffrey's treatment of the girl. Jemmie had jumped to the commonplace conclusion, and she had been able to do no more than simulate the shocked feelings of a prude. She had been annoyed by her husband's clumsy assumption of Geoffrey's guilt, and she had found no better way to display her annoyance than by that pretense of delicacy.
"One always thinks that one is going to find it easier to be better in a few years' time; but, when the few years roll by, there is always a new trap for one's self-confidence," Mary reflected.
She made up her mind to be patient with Geoffrey, and went down to dinner with the intention of persuading Jemmie to be as patient as she hoped to be herself. But her good intentions were frustrated by Geoffrey's failure to appear.
"Keep nothing hot for Mr. Geoffrey," his father commanded.
Mary realized the extent of his wrath from this order, for nothing in life seemed more importantto Jemmie than the temperature of food. Deliberately to let his son's dinner spoil was in his case almost the equivalent of open excommunication. Another sign of his anger was manifested after dinner, when, before he fell asleep in his chair, instead of reading the headlines ofThe Times, the list of killed and wounded in South Africa, and the sum of Roberts' points at billiards, he neither read nor slept; when instead he paced up and down the drawing-room, always tripping on the same head of a grizzly bear shot by himself long ago in the Rocky Mountains, always saying "damn," always begging his wife's pardon for the oath with an implication that Cæsar as well as Cæsar's wife should be above suspicion in dealing with Cæsar's son.
"This is a bit too much of a good thing," he declared when the clock struck ten without Geoffrey's arrival. "A little bit too much of a good thing, by George! He's staying down at that confounded inn till closing-time. That's what he's doing, you mark my words."
Half-past ten struck; but there was still no sign of Geoffrey.
"If his highness thinks that he's going to keep the whole household up while he wanders about with that girl in the moonlight, he's mistaken. I'll lock him out. By George, I will."
"But Jemmie, he may have had an accident."
"Fiddlesticks, my dear. If he'd had an accident, we should have heard of it by now. I'll give himuntil eleven. If he isn't home by then, the house shall be locked against him. I'll give him a lesson. I'll frighten him this time."
The clock struck eleven; but Geoffrey did not come. His father rang the bell.
"Please, Jemmie," his wife expostulated. "I'd rather you didn't say too much in front of the servants."
"You're weakening. You're not backing me up. You're perfectly ready to let him in. I tell you he has got to have a lesson."
"But the servants...."
"Bother the servants. I decline to let Geoffrey flout me, because I'm afraid of the servants."
However, Jemmie did so far humor his wife as to imply when he was giving orders to lock up the house, that he and she knew where their son was.
"Although I was in half a mind to forbid anybody in the house to go downstairs and let him in when he does come."
"I'm glad you didn't," Mary said. "I think that would only have made ourselves look ridiculous."
She resolved not to go to sleep, so that when Geoffrey did come back, she should hear him herself and be able to go downstairs and let him in. She felt certain that she should be able to do this and that Jemmie, who had announced his own intention of admitting this errant son, would be fast asleep by that time. Jemmie must be very sleepy by now, for he had been awake ever since dinner.
But Geoffrey did not come back at all that night, and in the morning his mother received a letter.
Hawkins' Hotel,Buckingham Street, Strand, W.C.Sept. 27th, 1901.My dearest Mother,I find this a very difficult letter to write, but it has got to be written, and you may as well know at once that by the time you get this letter I shall be married to Mary Wyatt who was at the White Hart Inn. I made up my mind to do this a month ago and I would have told you if I had not been afraid that somehow or other I would have been prevented. Of course I know that you and Father will be angry, but it can't be helped. It's done now. At least it will be by the time you get this. I'm going out to make arrangements now. Of course I'm rather worried about what you will say, but she is a charming girl and if you could only get over your prejudice and meet her I think you would agree with me. She is only three years older than me. Of course I cannot dictate what you are or are not to do. But unless you can see your way to being decent to Mary I would rather cut myself off from the family altogether. It would only make me angry if I thought she was being snubbed, and she is very sensitive. I am sorry for the way I am getting married, but please do not think that I am sorry about getting married, if you can understand what I mean. IfI am old enough to know what profession I want to choose, I am old enough to know what wife I want to choose. I mention this because Father said to me last week that if I hadn't made up my mind yet what I wanted to do with my life, I never would make up my mind. I'm afraid this letter sounds rather defiant, but it's not meant to be defiant. Only I do want you both to understand that I'm in earnest. I will spare you the boredom of hearing how fond I am of Mary, partly because I know it would probably bore you and partly because I could not possibly express what I would like to say about her in writing. I know that this will mean giving up Oxford. But I do not mind about that. I think most people stay there too long. It's no good doing nothing for three years. We are going to stay for three or four days in London, and then we are going to spend our honeymoon in the village where Mary lives in Berkshire. After that I had an idea of emigrating to Canada.Your loving son,Geoffrey.
Hawkins' Hotel,Buckingham Street, Strand, W.C.Sept. 27th, 1901.
My dearest Mother,
I find this a very difficult letter to write, but it has got to be written, and you may as well know at once that by the time you get this letter I shall be married to Mary Wyatt who was at the White Hart Inn. I made up my mind to do this a month ago and I would have told you if I had not been afraid that somehow or other I would have been prevented. Of course I know that you and Father will be angry, but it can't be helped. It's done now. At least it will be by the time you get this. I'm going out to make arrangements now. Of course I'm rather worried about what you will say, but she is a charming girl and if you could only get over your prejudice and meet her I think you would agree with me. She is only three years older than me. Of course I cannot dictate what you are or are not to do. But unless you can see your way to being decent to Mary I would rather cut myself off from the family altogether. It would only make me angry if I thought she was being snubbed, and she is very sensitive. I am sorry for the way I am getting married, but please do not think that I am sorry about getting married, if you can understand what I mean. IfI am old enough to know what profession I want to choose, I am old enough to know what wife I want to choose. I mention this because Father said to me last week that if I hadn't made up my mind yet what I wanted to do with my life, I never would make up my mind. I'm afraid this letter sounds rather defiant, but it's not meant to be defiant. Only I do want you both to understand that I'm in earnest. I will spare you the boredom of hearing how fond I am of Mary, partly because I know it would probably bore you and partly because I could not possibly express what I would like to say about her in writing. I know that this will mean giving up Oxford. But I do not mind about that. I think most people stay there too long. It's no good doing nothing for three years. We are going to stay for three or four days in London, and then we are going to spend our honeymoon in the village where Mary lives in Berkshire. After that I had an idea of emigrating to Canada.
Your loving son,Geoffrey.
Mary gave this letter to her husband without comment and left him to read it alone. She did not feel that there was any possible comment except an outburst of bad language, and she was sure that Jemmie would manage that better than herself. When she rejoined him, he was still spluttering with rage, damning and disinheriting his son with equalfervor. For one thing Mary was grateful. He did not say it was all due to the way she had spoilt him. Indeed, he offered no reproaches. The blow was as inevitable as an apoplexy. There was no human being to be blamed apart from the unhappy principal.
"Married at nineteen to a barmaid! What a future! It isn't as if I'd set him a bad example. I can't blame myself. It's his natural wickedness and selfishness. It's the sort of thing young men do nowadays. No sense of decency. Want of proportion. Form ... no good form. Fancy comparing the choice of a profession with the choice of a wife! You can't compare things like that. The boy's mad. He's been touched by the sun playing golf. He's not normal. I consider we might get the marriage annulled on the ground that he wasnon composwhen he committed it. Yes,non compos! We'll shut him up in a nursing-home for a couple of months. A rest cure. He's mad. The damned lunatic! Emigrate indeed? Canada! He might as well talk of emigrating to the moon. In fact, it strikes me that's the place to which his brains have emigrated...."
Jemmie went on railing like this until his wife interposed with a suggestion that she should go up to town this very morning and interview Geoffrey. There was just a chance he was not married yet. He probably had not realized how hard it was to get married without some preparation. Yes, therewas just a chance that he was still free, and that if he were tactfully handled he might consent to remain free.
"You see, he's evidently nervous about us," Mary pointed out. "He had to run away in order to bring himself to do it. I expect the girl is a hussy. I expect she hooked him. Oh dear, how vulgar it makes oneself, when one mixes oneself up with vulgarity. Hooked him! And yet there's no other word for it."
"He's no longer a son of mine," the father swore. "By George, Mary, he is no longer my son. A lazy spendthrift who gets married with less preparation than he would give to ordering himself a lunch. This money he's been wheedling out of you. Depend upon it, his gambling debts were nothing but an excuse, a mean subterfuge. If he'd really been losing money at roulette, he'd have come to me. He'd have known that I wouldn't be hard on him."
"I should prefer to think that the money I gave him was spent upon getting married," said Mary unreasonably. "I loathed the idea of my son's being a weak gambler."
"Well, don't let you and me start arguing. Whatever he did with it, he has had the money. A barmaid! A girl who spends her day listening to beastly chaff! A crimped, corseted, vulgar barmaid to be my daughter-in-law! It's incredible."
"But there is a slight chance that she is not your daughter-in-law yet. So, if you've no objection,dear, I think I'll catch the midday train and go straight to this hotel in the Strand. I will take my dressing-case, and if necessary I can stay in town. I might go to Morley's Hotel. That would be close by."
Hawkins' Hotel was a tall, narrow, gloomy house with a German porter, sluttish chambermaids, and a manageress like a large doll with hair of tow. In the lower half of the house there was a perpetual odor of vegetables being cooked, and in the upper part there was a smell of dusty muslin.
Mary was shown into what was called the writing-room while inquiries were made for Number Nineteen, which was as far as Geoffrey's individuality was recognized. In each of the windows of the writing-room there was a frayed aspidistra growing apparently in a compost of cigarette-ends, matches, and old plaster. In one corner of the room a man in a stained check-suit with cuffs that were continually trying to swallow his hands was seated at a spindle-shanked desk working out from a Bradshaw fifteen months old a railway journey across country.
"Number Nineteen's gone out," announced the waiter, who looked like the negative of a photograph, so black were his face and shirt-front, so greasy and begrimed were his clothes.
Mary told him that she would wait and asked him to bring her a cup of tea, which he brought half an hour later in a breakfast cup with blunted lumpsof dead-looking sugar lying in the saucer beside it, and a hare-lipped jug of pale blue milk.
"I'll bring the bread and butter in a minute," he promised, and though Mary told him that she did not want anything to eat, he brought her four slices a quarter of an hour later.
It was growing dusk in the writing-room of Hawkins' Hotel; the man in the check-suit, unable to read the figures in the railway-guide, was moping in an arm-chair by the empty grate, before Geoffrey came in followed by the waiter, who lighted the two burners of the gaselier which had been fitted with incandescent mantles and pulled down the blinds.
"We can't talk here," said Mary, glancing across at the man in the check-suit, who as soon as the room was lighted up had returned to his railway-guide. "You'd better walk round with me to Morley's Hotel, where I'm staying for to-night."
"I can't leave Mary alone here," Geoffrey replied.
His mother winced at the name.
"If you want to talk private," said the man with the railway-guide, "I'll leave you to yourselves. I've found what I was looking for."
He pushed his cuffs well up with the aid of the edge of the desk, and, whistling "The Honeysuckle and the Bee," went out of the room, leaving mother and son together.
"Geoffrey, are you married?"
"Well, as a matter of fact, no, I'm not," he admitted sulkily. "Apparently you have to live ina parish for a certain amount of time first. One would imagine it was a crime to get married by the difficulties the parson made."