Mother and Son (3 page)

“One of the boys could have gone with her,” said Miranda.

“But one of the boys did not offer to, Mother. So the privilege fell to me. And I can claim that I found it such.”

“You have a lofty character,” said Francis.

“Well, I hope an ordinary manly one.”

“There seems little difference,” said Alice.

“Perhaps there should not be too much,” said her cousin.

“Bates, what did Miss Burke say to you?” said Miranda, who changed the talk at will.

“There were casual words, ma'am.”

“Did she speak about me?”

“Well, ma'am, she alluded to the outcome.”

“What else did you talk about?”

“Topics arose, ma'am.”

“Where was she going after this?”

“There is a position, ma'am, in the vicinity.”

“You mean she is going to apply for it?”

“Well, to appraise it, ma'am.”

“Was she upset by my refusing her?”

“Well, ma'am, it was in the course of things.”

“Did she have a good tea?”

“I trust she was refreshed, ma'am.”

“That is not what I asked you.”

“There was the cake and bread-and-butter, ma'am.”

“Well, was not that enough?”

“We cannot know to what she is accustomed, ma'am.”

“I know exactly; but I should know more than you; it would be strange if I did not. Now surely you children should go to your books? Mr. Pettigrew comes this afternoon. We do not go to the expense of a tutor, to have you fritter away your time.”

“We do not do much for him,” said Francis. “We allow his progress to be slow. He has made a good deal since he came to us.”

“Is he an expensive tutor?” said Adrian.

“Expensive enough for a penniless boy,” said his aunt.

“He is the only tutor in the neighbourhood,” said Julius. “It is a very cheap way of having you taught.”

“I am glad of that,” said Francis. “It is as it ought to be.”

“I am sometimes troubled about it. But it means I have you at home.”

“I have sometimes thought of returning to the pupillary status myself,” said Rosebery, “and refreshing my early memories. One is never too old to learn.”

“That is untrue,” said Francis. “People are soon too old. That is how pupils catch up their teachers.”

“You implied that your teacher was engaged in catching up you,” said Miranda.

“You must admit, Francis,” said Rosebery, “that my mother is the logician on this occasion, far though it is from being the reputation of her sex.”

“Well, go and catch up Mr. Pettigrew as quickly as you can,” said Miranda. “We have had enough of you down here.”

“Are you really catching him up?” said Adrian to his brother and sister on the stairs, not entertaining the idea of himself.

“We do not consider so low an ambition,” said Francis.

“He is waiting for us,” said Alice. “I saw his hat in the hall. It is a good thing Aunt Miranda did not.”

“I wonder she did not feel it was there. I think there were signs that she almost did.”

“It would be nicer, Miss Alice,” said Mr. Pettigrew, “if you did not make faces when my back is turned.”

This statement, though there seemed no reason to dispute it, caused an outbreak of mirth from the hearers.

“It would indeed have been nicer, if it had happened like that,” said Francis under his breath.

“Now I have observed before,” said Mr. Pettigrew, “that there is no point in meaningless hilarity. When a gentleman is constrained to make a criticism, it is only polite to accept it. Now can you tell me what you are laughing at now?”

His pupils could not tell him that it was his manner of alluding to himself.

“Well, I shall not ask you,” he said, perhaps warned by experience. “It would lead to frivolity and waste of time. Will you begin to construe, Miss Alice?”

The latter did so, with less than average success.

“Have you prepared this?”

“No,” said Alice, unsteadily.

“How did you spend the time assigned to your work?”

Alice made no reply.

“Do I assume that you wasted it in idle talk?”

“I don't know if you do.”

“How old are you now, if I may ask?”

“Thirteen and a half.”

“Then your brothers are fifteen and twelve. You are too old for this flightiness and irresponsibility. It is not fair to your parents or to me.”

“We have no parents,” said Alice.

“To those who stand to you in their stead. To your aunt and uncle, who afford you every advantage. Now there can be no reasonable cause for amusement there.” Mr. Pettigrew flushed, as he realised the actual cause. “We will proceed to our work, and I hope there will be less frivolity; no more indeed than if your aunt were present.”

The next outbreak was induced by the latter's entrance, as it resulted in the boys' rising to their feet and Mr. Pettigrew's failing to do so. Miranda looked as if she understood it, and did not wholly disapprove.

“Well, how are they getting on, Mr. Pettigrew?”

“I think the progress is satisfactory, Mrs. Hume, in spite of occasional unsteadiness. I should say that the standard is up to their ages and maintained at that level. And I make a point of adding to my own knowledge, as we advance.”

There was mirth at this admission, as the pupils' view
of the tutor did not prevent their regarding omniscience as due from him.

“They are silly children,” said Miranda. “I fear they must try your patience.”

“Our relation has been long enough to result in mutual understanding,” said Mr. Pettigrew, with truth.

Miranda went to the door, and Francis opened it for her, Mr. Pettigrew moving in his seat to allow him to do so, and keeping his eyes on his books until it closed.

“I did not mention, Adrian, that your standard is relatively lower than your brother and sister's. I hope we may remedy the position and avoid the disclosure.”

“He is not on our level,” said Francis.

“Yes I am,” said his brother. “I am only different.”

“And that is what the difference consists in.”

“It is that in which the difference consists,” said Mr. Pettigrew. “We do not end a sentence with a preposition.”

“Great writers do not worry about that sort of thing,” said Alice.

“Well, when you join their ranks, you can follow their example. Until then we will observe the accepted usage.”

Mr. Pettigrew was a small, neat, middle-aged man, with careful, dark clothes and hair and beard, features that fulfilled their purpose, and small, blue, spectacled eyes, that tended to light with curiosity. As a thought occurred to him, they did so.

“You have had a visitor this afternoon. I saw your cousin accompanying a lady to the station. I should say
to the village, but as the directions coincide, it occurred to me that the station might be their object.”

“Aunt Miranda wanted a companion,” said Francis. “But when she saw her, she changed her mind. And everyone but Rosebud thought the matter had ended.”

“Your cousin certainly followed his own course. I noticed he was showing the stranger the same degree of attention, as if their positions had been reversed.”

“Why should he show her any less?” said Alice.

“He saw no reason. That is why he merits the description.”

“Rosebud should have been a woman,” said Francis, “he takes so much interest in them. Or perhaps it is the last thing he should have been.”

“Do you like opening doors for women?” said Adrian to the tutor.

There was a pause before the latter spoke with a faint flush.

“I think, Adrian, that you and your brother might use the term, ‘sir', in addressing me. There seems no reason to deviate from the usual custom.”

“Alice does not say it.”

“Convention does not require it, or indeed permit it, in her case. I was referring to you and Francis, as I made clear. Now what was your question?”

“I asked if you liked opening doors for women?” said Adrian, not using the suggested mode of address, as it seemed to him to have a menial significance.

“I hope I have the proper feelings on such occasions, those of a normal gentleman. I trust I do not let such opportunities pass. It would not be so, unless through
absence of mind. I think that is a fair claim to make on my own behalf.”

“Rosebud opens the door for Aunt Miranda, as if it were the first time in his life,” said Francis.

“There are some feelings that never lose their freshness, if the possessors of them are fortunate. I cannot but realise whom you indicate by your abbreviation, and it is perhaps not inconsistent with your youthful view of your cousin. But we will proceed to our work, before we accuse ourselves of wasting time.”

The accusation was to come from another quarter. Miranda ordered tea for Mr. Pettigrew, in the belief that it would stimulate his efforts; and on this occasion, when Bates entered with the tray, her mistress followed her.

“Well, you hardly seem to have settled down to work.”

“We always make up any time we have missed, Mrs. Hume. I find that effort is easier to me, when I have had the tea you considerately provide. I can say I have never curtailed the appointed time.”

“Well, I suppose you have not. It would be natural to work the full time, and necessary for the children's progress.”

“And that is great enough to preclude that manner of referring to them, though I may always be likely to return to it in my thoughts.”

“I hope it does not give you too low a standard for them. The boys must make their own way. We are anxious for them to get on.”

“On the contrary, Mrs. Hume, it gives me a standard
higher in proportion to my feeling for them, which I may claim to have become almost paternal.”

“Is that the second of those two plain cakes?” said Miranda to Bates.

“Yes, ma'am. We finished the other—the other was finished when the lady had tea in the library.”

“You meant what you said at first, I think. One person could hardly have eaten what was left of that cake. And we never have the plain kind in the drawing room.”

The children recognised with amusement the standing of the provision for the tutor. His continuing to think of them in this way had some excuse.

“I am not proposing to attack the cake today, Mrs. Hume. Mrs. Pettigrew provides so many cakes for me, also of the plain variety, as that happens to be my preference, that I am inclined to confine myself to the bread-and-butter, as a viand of which one never tires.”

“You generally have some cake, I think,” said Miranda, whose claim that she saw into every corner of her house was open and just. “And I hope that you do, if you enjoy it, and that you will continue to do so. I am glad you like the kind our custom assigns to the schoolroom.”

“I have no doubt that I enjoy it, Mrs. Hume, if I happen to take a piece unawares, as I may when my thoughts are elsewhere. I believe it is possible to enjoy a thing without knowing it.”

“No, I hardly think it is,” said Miranda, handing him the cake. “Why not take a piece now, and enjoy it and know that you are doing so?”

Mr. Pettigrew took a piece without looking at it, and put it on his plate, as though he must put it somewhere. He watched Adrian attend his aunt to the door, with an air of superintendence, and then opened a book and made some comment upon it. When a break occurred, he looked up.

“So the stranger who was here this afternoon, is not to take your aunt's post?”

“She was not offered it,” said Francis. “She did not find favour in her sight. But she did not betray any feeling.”

“Am I to understand that the interview took place in the general view?” said Mr. Pettigrew, dropping his eyes to veil his disapproval.

“Yes, Aunt Miranda did not trouble to go to another room.”

“I was making no suggestion regarding your aunt. But surely you young people could and should have withdrawn.”

“We were told to keep at a distance and appear to be occupied. And there was nothing to engage us but the scene. Uncle stayed by the window, and Rosebud was allowed to remain where he was. He would have had the best of it, if he had not been so affected by what happened.”

“I think I find myself in accord with your cousin. It is a great test of personal quality to face rebuff of that kind without self-betrayal. I think we should estimate it at its worth.”

“Pettigrew has had such rebuffs himself,” said Alice, more audibly than she knew.

“No, Miss Alice,” said Mr. Pettigrew, smiling indulgently, “my upward path has been on the whole smooth. I hope the same will be true of your brothers.”

“So he sees us as on his level,” murmured Francis.

“It is true that our circumstances have something in common. But, to be serious for a moment, I think we should view such a person as we are discussing, with all respect and sympathy.”

“I hardly think we do,” said Alice. “We admire success.”

“Well, we have all had a modicum of that,” said Mr. Pettigrew, smiling again. “But success does not impose the same demand, or so I have found from my modest experience of it.”

“It makes a demand on other people,” said Adrian. “They have to be pleased by it, when it does nothing for them.”

“You and I will not put them to the test,” said Alice. “We shall be overshadowed by Francis. He will be an elder son, even though an impoverished one.”

“And that means he can never really be impoverished.”

“Stay, Miss Alice. Are you condemning your cousin to perpetual bachelorhood?”

“It is his own resolve and choice,” said Francis. “All his feeling is given to his mother.”

“But in the nature of things that state of affairs must cease.”

“He has put it into words. And that is so rare that he must be believed. He will be faithful to her memory.”