Adrian Glynde (29 page)

One evening about this time he had dined alone in Lennox Street and was reading in his usual armchair when there was a tap at the door and Esmé came in. He had not noticed the front-door bell.

She stopped short when she saw that he was alone. “Oh, I'm sorry,” she said. “Isn't Ronny in?”

She waited, ready to go if Adrian said that he was not; but Adrian, getting up from his chair, found himself replying: “He's out at present, but he said he'd be in early. Won't you wait?”

She hesitated. “Well … thank you.… Yes, I will,” she said. “But don't let me interrupt your reading.”

“I was only reading because I was alone,” said Adrian and to his surprise he found that he no longer mistrusted and disliked her.

“You've known Ronny for some time, haven't you?” she asked after they had talked of other things.

“Yes, I was at school with him.”

She sat silent for a moment, contemplating with a half wistful, half scornful smile some image of her mind. “What was he like as a boy?” she said.

“Exactly like what he is now,” said Adrian, “except for the moustache. If he shaved that off there'd be almost no difference.”

“Ah, but in himself, I mean,” she said; “in character.”

“Exactly the same in character too,” said Adrian. It seemed to him that he saw Ronny quite clearly, knew him inside out.

“Except that now he's grown up,” she said.

“No,” said Adrian, “not even that. He's just what he always was.”

She paused, her face melancholy with thought. “The trouble with Ronny is,” she said, as if suddenly resentful, “that you can't pin him down, you can't catch hold of him. If you try to, he slips through your fingers.”

“He doesn't want you to catch hold of him,” said Adrian. “Ronny likes, and in fact expects you to fish for him, but if you try to catch him he's … well, he's bored and, as you say, slips through your fingers.”

Esmé smiled bitterly. “You know our Ronny very well,” she said.

He could see that she was depressed, thwarted, disillusioned, and his heart ached for her. So Ronny produced that effect, it seemed, on girls too who ventured too near him. That he should have been bored by the sentimental importunities of boys like himself and Ellenger was only natural. It was their own faults, not his. But there was also, it seemed now from the case of Esmé, some vital quality lacking in him. “I know him well enough to know that.…” He hesitated, broke off,
and then said: “He's a delightful chap, but I wouldn't bother about him too seriously, if I were you.”

Esmé sighed. “Easier said than done, worse luck!” she said.

She waited till a quarter to eleven. Then, there being still no sign of Ronny, she went disconsolately away.

Minnie Clandon had so many social engagements after her return to England that it was not until over a month after obtaining Adrian's address from Clara that she found time to write to him. When she did so she told him that she would be in London on the following Wednesday, that she was simply longing, after all these years, to see him again, and that she wanted to have a very particular talk with him. She asked him to meet her for lunch.

Adrian turned up at the appointed hour in the restaurant she had named, but when she arrived, twenty minutes late, he would have failed to recognise her if she had not picked him out; for her hair, under the influence no doubt of Indian suns, had changed to a subdued auburn and she was much altered. Though she had now reached an age that was neither young nor old, she had the appearance of an old woman who looked wonderfully young. He had come to the meeting with few other feelings than idle curiosity and a determination not to be imposed upon, yet the change in her shocked him so much that, as he followed her to the table she had reserved, he would have given much to be able to slip away and abandon her.

“Well, my dear boy,” she said, eyeing him with bird-like admiration as she sat down, “how you have blossomed out. I wasn't prepared for you to be quite so … what shall I say? … impressive.”

Adrian smiled a little awkwardly. “I'm sorry,” he
said, with an attempt at jocularity, “if I've provided a shock.”

“Shocks are not always unpleasant,” said Minnie archly, “though I must say you make me feel a hundred. However, one must be prepared for that after … what is it? Five? Six? Seven years?”

“Isn't it seven?” said Adrian, imitating her vagueness.

She was taking off her gloves with little fluttering movements, and, having dropped them lightly on the table, she began to burrow in a little bead bag, and at last fished out a slim gold lorgnette. “My sight is getting quite hopeless,” she said pleasantly, screwing up her eyes, applying the lorgnette, and glancing critically at the other tables.

“What a funny, silly little thing she is,” thought Adrian, half amused and half disgusted. Then, feeling suddenly aggressive, he asked point blank: “Did you enjoy that visit to the Crowhursts?”

Minnie came out of her lorgnette, and frowned as if trying to recall the occasion. She was taken aback by Adrian's extraordinary question. The Crowhurst episode she considered, was not a theme for levity, and it was difficult on the spur of the moment to decide how to take Adrian's glib reference to it. She decided to take it with dignity.

“I was disappointed last time we met, Adrian,” she said.

“We were both disappointed, Mother,” Adrian replied, “but fortunately disappointments don't last for ever, do they?”

Minnie frowned again. Though Adrian had improved in appearance, he had not, it seemed, improved in the matter of discipline. To put an end to the subject she summoned the waiter and asked for red pepper.

“Your Aunt Clara tells me,” she said, “that you're taking up music. Isn't that rather a pity?”

“A pity?” echoed Adrian.

“Yes, as a profession. It's all very well, of course, as a hobby in one's spare time. But as a profession! We must really get you into something a little more … what shall we say? … solid! Gentlemanly! My … er … your … er … The General has of course a good deal of influence. We must all three discuss it.”

“But what is there to discuss, Mother?” said Adrian. “It's too late now to discuss. I've chosen music, as you've heard, and I've already been working at it for over two months.”

“Still, you will admit, won't you, that there are two sides to the question?”

“Two sides? Certainly, in the sense that some people like it and others don't. But, as it happens, I do.”

“What I mean is, my dear boy,” said Minnie, placing her hand emphatically on his for a moment as if patiently to check his impertinence, “that I, as your mother, must be allowed some say in the matter. Remember, you are not yet of age. And there's another thing I want to talk over with you. Your … your stepfather and I, now that we are settling in England, are anxious for you to join us.”

Adrian remained silent. He felt suddenly tired. He had determined, if his mother showed any signs of interfering with him, to make it clear at once that he would not allow it, but he wished, if possible, to do so pleasantly and politely. How curious it was to be sitting opposite this woman—a stranger once more, a woman as different from the one he had seen seven years ago as that one had been from the mother of his early childhood—and listen to her and watch her with so absolute
a detachment. She must even now, he noted, be attractive to many men in her vivacious, imperious, old-young fashion. But what would his father think of her if he could see her now? It was impossible to imagine. But now he was embarrassed by her question and the necessity of answering as he was determined to answer it. He blushed and unconsciously stroked the back of his head with his left hand.

“It's too late for that, Mother,” he said at last. “You see, your … my stepfather and I are complete strangers and even you and I are almost strangers, aren't we?”

“Adrian!” Minnie's intonation, by a slight misjudgment, missed the note of pain and sounded that of resentment.

“Well, we are. Honestly, aren't we? What would be the point of my … er …?”

“Because I wish you to.”

Adrian shook his head, “I'm afraid …” he began, but Minnie interrupted him.

“Remember,” she said, “that I have a right to insist. You're not yet of age.”

“Listen, Mother,” said Adrian. “Can't we be reasonable about it? You had a right to insist about the Crowhursts, but it's next to impossible to make use of such a right. It would be much pleasanter for both of us to meet from time to time like this and talk. Then we would get along splendidly. But if I came to live with you, I should get on your nerves horribly. Yes, I should! I couldn't possibly help it.”

“What you mean is, I gather, that you
won
'
t
come.”

Adrian looked at her, smiling. “Well, you must admit I didn't put it so rudely.”

She returned his gaze, and by degrees her eyes began
to twinkle, and at last she broke into a laugh. “I can't help liking you, you perfectly horrid boy,” she said; “which is more than I did last time we met. Then I thought you a dreadful little thing. But if I were to tell the General he would be furious, simply furious.” She was serious, very serious now, as if touching on an impressive theme.

But Adrian continued to smile. “And apparently,” she said, her eyes twinkling again, “you wouldn't care two straws.”

“Won't you describe the General's fury, Mother,” he replied. “Then perhaps I might be able to … er …”

“What you want, sir, is a year or two in the Army. And I must say,” she added, inspecting him through her lorgnette, “you would look well in uniform. You would look “—she paused and her eyes suddenly swam with tears—“exactly like your father.”

She took up the menu, studied it for a moment, and then handed it to Adrian. He understood that he must not pursue the subject of his father.

“What will you tell the General about my … disobedience?” he asked.

Saucy questions such as this were exactly what Minnie appreciated. She sparkled immediately. “I shall tell him,” she said, “that, after seeing you, I decided not to resume possession; and that will serve you right.”

The rest of their
tête-à-tête
passed gaily and they parted on the best of terms. “What fun she is, so long as you give her back tit for tat,” thought Adrian as he got on to a'bus. It would be nice to meet her occasionally and chatter. Now that it was clearly understood that neither had anything but friendly amusement to give the other, they would, he knew, become excellent friends. She was
like Ronny in a way, as jolly as could be so long as you gave liberally and demanded nothing in return. She too liked to have admiring people dancing round. What fun to put them both on a desert island and let them dance round each other. There would be some famous collisions during the process.

There was a tinge of early spring in the air, and it was pleasant to sit idle and let the'bus carry him through the roaring traffic, to let the shops and houses slowly pass in a continually varying show, and to feel himself a small, whirling electron of happiness and strength in the middle of that busy flux. His meeting with his mother had, it seemed, added to his already overflowing well-being. For now he liked her. The last traces of his resentment had vanished: he felt for her now an amused affection. He and she understood one another remarkably well: her shortcomings could no longer hurt him and he could see and enjoy her merits. She liked aggressiveness and insubordination, he had discovered, so long as they were gay. He had shown her that he was not to be exploited, and so she would not longer demand filial duty. What she did demand and what he was quite ready to give was filial flirtation. Their escape from one another had drawn them together.

He had escaped from Ronny too, but in the case of Ronny the reaction from that escape was still too new to enable to meet him on the equal terms of independent friendship: he still felt himself impelled to parade his liberty in small acts of aggression which surprised Ronny and ruffled for a moment his good humour, for Ronny was not accustomed to insubordination among his subjects.

The effects on Adrian of these escapes from old,
crippling bonds into his new rapture were profoundly beneficial. They roused him from his state of suppression and prolonged immaturity and brought health and vigour to his mind and body. He began at last to live life in its fullness. Seated now on the top of the'bus, he thought with secure and gleeful anticipation of the coming evening, for Lucy and he were dining and going to a concert together.

Lucy too looked forward to the evening with pleasure, for she enjoyed being with Adrian. More and more she valued the frank, lively friendship which was such a welcome change from the wearisome blend of intensity and aggressive frivolity which other young men offered her. She had never yet seriously fallen in love. Occasionally she had felt a pleasant sentimental preoccupation with a young man, sometimes with more than one at once, which she knew herself too well to take seriously. She discussed these passing sentiments light-heartedly with her mother, confessing to each new “flame “with a pantomime of rapture and heart-ache which amused them both. But Adrian was not a “flame.” Mrs. Wendover remarked on it, and Lucy replied that he was too nice. “I'm really fond of him, you see,” she said.

“And not of the flames?” asked her mother.

“Not
really
,” she said. “They're just an extra lump of sugar in one's tea—nice, but not the least bit necessary.”

Months passed. Adrian made new friends. Friends of his grandfather and of Clara and Bob invited him to their houses, and as Ronny's free evenings were few and
unpredictable Adrian did not hesitate to make evening engagements. At last it seemed to Ronny that Adrian's liberty was exceeding due bounds, and one evening, when he himself had dined alone at Lennox Street and Adrian returned late, he remarked upon the state of things. “Well,” he said, looking up from his novel with less than his usual amiability, “we don't seem much use to one another nowadays, Little Man, do we?”