Parents and Children (20 page)

‘I didn't think of it. It was Honor,' said Gavin.

‘Poor little girl, she wanted a portrait to keep,' said Eleanor, making a statement that was natural to the circumstances, but caused her daughter to fall into such violent weeping, that the services of Hatton were called upon and she was led from sight.

‘Here is a dear, bright face for Father to remember!' said Eleanor, taking Venice's cheek in her hand.

Venice stared before her and struck her side, and Eleanor turned to her sons, baffled by her daughter's various responses to the occasion.

‘Have you asked your father if you can do anything for him, as the eldest son?' she said to Daniel, with her vague note of reproof.

‘Yes, I have, and been answered.'

‘And you, Graham?'

‘Yes, with the same result.'

‘I am sure I can depend on my two tall sons.'

‘A conviction that seems to be born of the moment,' said Daniel.

‘Mother, you haven't much hope of your children, have you?' said Luce.

‘I am so used to training and guiding them, that I forget the time has come for results.'

‘The results do not remind you, Mother?'

‘I wish they could sometimes be allowed to appear.'

‘Graham need not be self-conscious about his little efforts at improvement,' said Daniel.

‘Let me see your portrait of Father, Gavin,' said Eleanor, simply passing from her elder sons.

Gavin took the paper from his pocket and handed it to Graham, as if in a near enough approach to obedience, and Eleanor looked at it without moving, seeming to accept this method of putting it at a convenient level.

‘Anyone can see it is a man,' said Graham.

‘That halves the number of people it may represent,' said Daniel.

‘It is a grown-up man,' said Gavin. ‘It has wrinkles.'

‘Perhaps that quarters them.'

‘Let me see myself in my son's eyes,' said Fulbert. ‘I admit the wrinkles, both here and in the original. There is a framed photograph in my dressing room that may pass into Honor's possession, if she so desires.'

Honor, who had been led back in a state of pale calm, raised a lighted face.

‘It has the advantage of having no wrinkles, as the less honest artist took them out.'

‘If the frame is silver, Honor could sell it for a lot of money,' said Gavin.

‘But she will want to keep it,' said his mother. ‘It is a picture of Father.'

‘Can I have it even after Father comes back?' said Honor.

‘It is your very own,' said Fulbert, ‘and the lack of wrinkles will become a more and more distinguishing feature.'

‘Now you feel quite cheered up, don't you?' said Eleanor.

‘Yes,' said her daughter, agreeing that this was a natural result.

‘You will feel you have a little bit of Father always with you.'

‘It is all of him down to his hands,' said Gavin.

Nevill, who had been making rapid but considered marks on the fair side of his paper, now approached and proffered it for inspection.

‘It is Luce; it is Grandma,' he said.

‘It is differentiated to about the same extent,' said Daniel. ‘It indicates age and sex.'

‘It does, Daniel,' said Luce, as if this were an all but incredible circumstance.

‘It is Hatton,' said Nevill, in a settled tone.

‘Poor Father!' said Luce, half to herself. ‘He stands amongst his family on a day when he should be the hero, and everyone seems more in the foreground than he.'

‘He is the basis that everything is built upon,' said Graham. ‘Surely that is enough.'

‘Well, it cannot go on much longer, boys.'

‘If there were any reason why it should stop,' said Graham, ‘surely it would have operated by now.'

‘The train will become due,' said Luce.

‘I suppose it has always been expected at a certain time,' said Daniel. ‘Was no account taken of it, when we assembled for the final scene?'

‘We could have acted a play in the time,' said his brother.

‘We have done so, Graham,' said Luce.

‘Father's wrinkles can hardly be getting less,' said Venice.

‘We have stood and striven faithfully,' said Graham; ‘we have jested with set lips; two of us have wept. Have we not earned our release?'

‘We will act no more,' said Sir Jesse, suddenly striding forward with a scowl on his face. ‘We will cease to parade the tears of women and teach young men to make a show of themselves. My son can go to his duty without that. I have left my family in my time, and without exposing them to this. Does no one think of anything but disburdening himself? Let him think of other things.'

He drew back, breathing deeply. Fulbert looked up with an expression that made his face a boy's; Regan surveyed them both with a look that also came from the past; and in the silence that followed, Luce approached her mother.

‘Mother, I am going to end the scene. For the sake of Father and ourselves. It is losing weight and meaning. It will be less significant, not more, for being prolonged. I take it upon myself to say that time is up.'

‘Time, is it?' said Fulbert, turning and beginning on the round of his farewells, as if seeing the mistake of prolonging them. ‘Time for me to enter on the months which are to restore me to you. I am like a criminal anxious to begin his sentence; I am one, in that I should have served it years ago.'

He went the course of his family with a sort of resolute ease, embraced the women and girls with a suggestion of an especial meaning for each, and left before emotion could be manifest. Regan stood and stared before her with a face that was suddenly blank and old, and Sir Jesse was silent and almost absent, as if withdrawing from further part in the scene. Eleanor was pale and controlled; Isabel and Honor were lost in the struggle with their tears; Venice and James were conscious of themselves and nervous of the attention of others; Gavin appeared to be unaffected; and the two young men devoted themselves to the duties of the moment.

Nevill ran up to Fulbert as he reached the door, and thrust his paper into his hand.

‘A picture of Father,' he said.

‘Nevill has made the supreme sacrifice, that of Hatton,' said Graham, and brought a smile to Regan's face.

Luce stood in the hall and motioned her father onward in a manner that gave no quarter, and as Daniel held open the carriage door, entered almost with alacrity and took her seat. Fulbert followed with his usual springy gait; the brothers sat at the back; Fulbert raised his hand to his mother and his wife, or to one or the other, as each took the salute to herself. Of the group in the hall Regan was the first to speak.

‘Well, the children will be back, I suppose. There is no danger of our losing them.'

Sir Jesse turned and walked to the library, with a lack of expectance about him, that sent his wife after him with an altered face. Eleanor was the next to utter her first words.

‘James, I do not believe you uttered a syllable during the whole of Father's last half-hour with us.'

James looked at his mother and maintained this course.

‘Why did you suppose you were here?'

‘Hatton told us to come down.'

‘Then did you not want to say good-bye to Father?'

‘Yes, but we did it last night.'

‘But wouldn't you have liked a last word?'

‘Well – but we had it last night – it was better – then we had it by itself,' said James, in a barely articulate tone.

‘Oh, that is what it was. Well, I can understand that.'

James simply relaxed his body and his face.

‘You did not speak to Father, either, did you, Gavin?' said Eleanor, in an almost expressionless tone, as if she hesitated to commit herself on her sons' motives.

Gavin looked at her in silence.

‘Of course you were making a picture of him,' said Eleanor, seeking his corresponding justification.

‘He was too,' said Nevill, beginning to look about for the paper, which he knew his father had not taken.

‘We can't help Father's going to America,' said Gavin.

‘No, but it is because of you in a way,' said Eleanor, at once. ‘It is because he wants to make the future safe for us.'

‘Then it is because of you too.'

‘Of course, it is especially because of me. But I did not think it was not.'

Gavin considered for a moment and then left the subject.

‘Isabel, you seem in a state of utter exhaustion,' said Eleanor, in a sharper tone. ‘How you are upset by any little strain! Everything seems too much for you.'

‘The last half-hour has been,' said Isabel, for her sister's ears.

‘Venice, take her upstairs, and tell Miss Mitford that I said she was to go to Hatton and lie down.'

Isabel proceeded to her rest; the circuitous method also disposed of Venice; James stood with a sense of personal justification; Nevill ran up to Eleanor and offered his paper.

‘A picture of Mother,' he said.

‘My dear, little, comforting boy!'

‘A picture of Mother; Father come back soon; all gone away, but come back tomorrow,' said Nevill, rapidly enumerating grounds of consolation.

‘Luce and Daniel and Graham will come back in a few minutes,' said Gavin.

‘Come back in a few minutes,' said Nevill, passing on this information to his mother before he left her.

‘Honor, hadn't you and Gavin better have some game?' said Eleanor, looking at the silent children.

‘He will be a horse,' suggested Nevill.

‘Would you like to get that photograph from Father's room?' said Eleanor, seeing the need of another solution.

Honor and Gavin sprang towards the stairs, and Nevill gave them a glance and continued his exercise.

James made a movement of sudden recollection and ran up after them, producing in his mother the impression that he had some object in view, and no curiosity concerning it, which were results that he had intended.

Nevill suddenly realized that he was alone with his mother in the hall.

‘Go with Hatton,' he said, in a tone of giving the situation one chance before he despaired of it.

‘I will take you to her,' said Eleanor, offering her hand.

Nevill accepted it and mounted the stairs with an air of concentrating all his being on one object. When they reached the nursery, he looked up at his mother.

‘Father come back tomorrow, come back soon,' he said, and ran through the door.

Eleanor satisfied herself that Isabel was asleep, and paid a visit to Venice and Miss Mitford as she passed the schoolroom.

‘Are you standing about doing nothing, dear? Is she, Miss Mitford?'

‘Yes.'

‘Is that the way to keep up her spirits?'

‘I do not think she is in spirits.'

‘Cannot she find some occupation?'

‘Girls of her age have no pursuits.'

‘Could she not make something to do?'

‘That is beneath human dignity.'

‘Is it so dignified just to stand about?'

‘It is more so. And she is accustoming herself to the change in the house. Surely that is quite reasonable.'

‘I think we shall have to let time do that for us.'

‘Well, that is what she is doing. Half-an-hour cannot do much.'

‘Is James anywhere about?'

‘He is with the children in the nursery. He had a holiday because his father was going.'

‘He will no doubt have one when he comes back. I don't know
how he makes any progress. I don't suppose he does make much. Are the girls resting too today? Isabel is asleep.'

‘I hope that is resting,' said Miss Mitford, ‘I hope it is not one of those heavy, unrefreshing sleeps.'

‘Can Isabel and I have a photograph of Father, like Honor and Gavin?' said Venice, in a sudden tone.

‘Yes, of course you can, dear child. I will put one out for you. There is sure to be a frame that will fit it.'

‘Is there?' said Miss Mitford, seeing this question in Venice's eyes. ‘I should think that is unusual.'

‘I don't know of one, certainly. But we shall find one.'

‘I should not know where to look for such a thing.'

Eleanor's face revealed that this was the case with herself.

‘I have a pair of frames that I do not want,' said Miss Mitford.

‘Whom have you had in them?' said Venice.

‘My father and mother. But I am inclined to take them out, because they stir the chords of memory.'

‘Venice dear, do not ask questions,' said Eleanor. ‘Just say you will like to have the frames, if Miss Mitford has no use for them. And then you may come and get the photograph.'

‘Whom will you put in the second frame?' said Miss Mitford. ‘I could give you a photograph of myself, to balance your father's.'

Venice hesitated with a half-smile, and Miss Mitford suddenly gave a whole one.

‘Come with me and I will give you one of my own photographs,' said Eleanor. ‘Then you can have your parents on either side of your fireplace. It is kind of you to amuse them, Miss Mitford. She is quite cheered up.'

Isabel awoke to find her sister disposing the photographs on the mantelpiece.

‘What are those?' she said, and heard the account. ‘I would as soon have had Mitta as Mother,' she said.

‘We could not put her to correspond with Father,' said Venice, not criticizing the view on any other ground.

‘I think I shall say I am too tired to come down to dessert.'

‘Can you be as tired as that, after your rest? Mother saw you were asleep.'

‘I can after these last days.'

‘Well, if you want to explain that!' said Venice, causing her sister to rise from her bed.

‘Now remember,' said the latter, as they left the schoolroom later, ‘I am quite myself and not at all depressed, and I wanted to come downstairs. I was only tired and upset by Father's going.'