Parents and Children (21 page)

‘And what if I am asked what you ate at dinner?'

‘Oh, just tell a fib,' said Isabel, as if her previous injunctions had not involved this step.

‘Well, my weary girl,' said Eleanor, ‘are you quite yourself again?'

‘Yes, thank you, Mother.'

‘Did she have a good luncheon, Venice?'

‘Yes.'

‘And James? How is he? Doesn't he think he might go to school this afternoon, and do some hours of work? It would be a little thing he could do for Father.'

‘When we have a holiday, we are supposed to have one,' said James in a faint voice.

‘Do you mean you would find it embarrassing to go back?'

‘No,' said James, who would have found it even more so to admit this.

‘What does he mean, Isabel?'

‘Well, he is not expected, and they are supposed to keep to what they say.'

‘Mother, I think Father has unwittingly put enough on the children today,' said Luce, with an unconscious glance at Sir Jesse.

‘The boy is right that he should do one thing or the other,' said the latter, with a suggestion of seeking to counteract his outbreak. ‘If he has begun the day in one way, let him finish it.'

‘Then he must have a walk and a rest,' said Eleanor, who seemed to consider widely varying courses adapted to her son. ‘He is not having a holiday in the ordinary sense.'

‘James would not dispute it,' said Graham.

‘I don't think he ever has one,' said Isabel. ‘Does he know what an ordinary holiday means? To him a holiday must be a sort of tribute paid to other people's experience.'

James gave his sister a look of seeing someone familiar passing out of his sight.

‘Wouldn't any of you like to hear about your father's last moments?' said Eleanor.

Her chance use of words with another association caused some mirth.

‘What an odd thing to laugh at, if you really took the words as you pretend!'

‘It is their bearing that interpretation that constitutes the joke,' said Daniel.

‘Joke!' said his mother, drawing her brows together.

‘We had an ordinary little talk,' said Luce, in a tone unaffected by what had passed. ‘We found ourselves discussing the best time for leaving England. The last moments' - her voice shook on the words - ‘tend to lack vitality and interest.'

‘Why did you insist on being present at them?' said Eleanor.

‘To prevent them from being worse for Father than they had to be, Mother.'

‘Sit on Grandma's knee,' said Nevill.

Regan lifted him and he settled himself against her in dependence on the effort to support his weight, and closed and opened his eyes.

‘He has missed his sleep,' said Venice. ‘It was because of saying good-bye to Father.'

‘Sleep, school, everything missed,' said Eleanor, with a sigh.

‘Good-night, Grandma,' said Nevill, meeting Regan's eyes with a smile.

‘The child will be a burden. Can't somebody fetch him?' said Sir Jesse, seeming to find no fault with a burden, if it were suitably disposed.

‘Let him lie down, Grandma,' said Luce, with her eyes on the pair.

‘No,' said Nevill, struggling to his former position.

‘Hatton can carry him without waking him, when he is once asleep,' said Venice.

It was decided to rely on this power, making a temporary sacrifice of Regan, and Eleanor turned to her sons.

‘Have you your father's directions clear in your minds?'

‘Yes. Habit has not yet overlaid them,' said Graham.

‘I wish he had told you to learn to answer a serious question. It grows wearisome, this taking everything as an excuse for jaunt-iness. It will become a recognized affectation.'

‘We will not look at Graham at his hard moment,' said Daniel.

‘I am glad to bear it for us both,' said Graham.

‘Mother, that is too severe,' said Luce, laughing. ‘It is natural to the boys to be as they are.'

‘We cannot always leave our natural selves unmodified, and expect other people to bear with them.'

‘It is about what most of us do,' said Sir Jesse, with some thought of his own illustration of the point.

‘I suppose it is,' said Eleanor, with a sigh that seemed to refer to herself.

‘Are our natural selves so bad?' said Isabel.

‘More petty and narrow than bad,' said her mother. ‘Not that that is not poor enough.'

‘Mother, you have your own opinion of yourself and other people,' said Luce.

‘Do you show your natural self, James?' said Eleanor, with one of her accesses of coldness.

‘No; yes; I don't know,' said James, looking surprised and apprehensive.

‘Do you pretend to be different from what you are?'

‘Oh, no,' said James, suddenly seeing his life as a course of subterfuge.

‘Do you, Venice?'

‘No, I don't think so.'

‘Do you, Isabel?'

‘I don't know. I have not thought. And I do not intend to think. Probably most of us do the same thing.'

‘That is not a gracious way to talk.'

‘It was not that sort of question. It was one to make people admit what they had better keep to themselves.'

‘You have answered it more plainly than you know.'

‘Well, I suppose that was your object in asking it.'

‘You think people do disguise themselves?'

‘Up to a point, of course. We should be sorry if they did
not. I should be grateful if you would resume your disguise.'

‘Isabel, you must remember you are speaking to your mother.'

‘It is not a moment when I should choose to do so.'

‘My dear, I know you are tired and upset, but there is reason in everything. Do you think it is nice to take advantage of Father's going at once like this?'

‘No, not at all, but you were the first person guilty of it. And in James's case you wreaked your feelings on a helpless child.'

Graham rested his eyes on Isabel, as if he thought these words did not only apply to James.

‘Isabel, I shall have to ask you to go upstairs,' said Eleanor.

‘I have not the least wish to remain.'

‘Then do not do so, my dear.'

Isabel rose and bursting into tears, ran out of the room. Luce rose at almost the same moment and went with a movement of her shoulders after her.

‘Well, what a lot of smoke without any flame!' said Eleanor, not looking into anyone's face.

‘There was a certain amount of flame,' said Daniel. ‘And you put the match, Mother.'

‘It was very inflammable material.'

‘That did not make it wiser.'

‘Venice, go and see what is happening,' said Eleanor.

Venice went out and found her sister weeping on the stairs, with Luce standing over her; and not being inclined to return and describe the scene, she simply joined it. The same thing happened to James, who was the next emissary, and to Honor, who succeeded him. Gavin was the first to report on the situation.

‘Isabel is sitting on the stairs, crying, and the others are standing near.'

Nevill struggled to the ground and ran up to Eleanor.

‘Isabel is crying, but stop soon, and Father soon come back and put his arm round her.'

Eleanor stroked his hair.

‘Do you think you can go to Isabel, and try to bring her back to Mother?'

Nevill ran to the door, waited for it to be opened without looking at the operator, mounted the stairs to his sister, took her hand and tried to drag her to the dining-room. Luce came behind, as if not yet relaxing her vigilance, and Venice and James and Honor rather uncertainly followed. Sir Jesse put some viands on a plate and pushed it towards his granddaughter, who was moved to uncertain mirth by this method of encouragement, and Nevill took his stand at her side, with his eyes going from the plate to her face.

‘Now you had better go upstairs and enjoy your good things there,' said Eleanor. ‘Here is another plate for the nursery children.'

Honor took it and Nevill ran by her side, openly yielding himself to the occasion. Hatton appeared in response to a summons, took both the plates in one hand, and Nevill's hand in the other, and led the way from the room. The other five children followed. Luce lay back in her chair and gave a sigh.

‘Dear, dear, the miniature world of a family! All the emotions of mankind seem to find a place in it.'

‘It was those emotions that originally gave rise to it,' said Daniel. ‘No doubt they would still be there.'

‘What a thing to be at the head of it!' said Eleanor.

Sir Jesse looked up, but perceived that the reference was not to himself.

‘I think it is the place I would choose,' said Daniel.

‘I would not,' said his brother.

‘Isabel has a very deep feeling for Father,' said Luce, looking round the table. ‘It seems to be something altogether beyond her age.'

‘It is unwise to imagine the months ahead, if that is her trouble,' said Graham.

Regan covered her face and sank into weeping. Luce left her chair, and with a movement of her brows in reference to the consistent nature of her offices, went to her relief. Sir Jesse beckoned to his grandsons to follow him in Fulbert's stead, and left the women to their ways, as his expression suggested. Luce stood a little apart from Regan, as if the moment to officiate were not yet at hand, and touched her shoulders from time to time in token of
what was in store. Eleanor looked at her mother-in-law with guarded eyes, and Regan felt the gaze and returned it almost with defiance.

‘Don't try to control yourself, Grandma. Let yourself go; it will do you good,' said Luce, taking a sure, if unintended method of inducing recovery.

‘So your grandfather has gone,' said Regan. ‘Men don't feel things like women.'

‘Well, perhaps they don't, Grandma,' said Luce, giving her hands a regular movement. ‘Do you know, I think Isabel is very like you in some ways?'

Regan's face and Eleanor's responded to this suggestion in a different manner.

‘Mother, I don't believe you like people to show their feelings,' said Luce.

‘It depends on their age and other things.'

‘Age hasn't much to do with it, if we are to judge from Isabel and me,' said Regan, with a smile.

‘Grandma, you are yourself again,' said Luce.

‘Shall we go to the drawing-room?' said Eleanor. ‘If we are to support each other, we may as well do it at ease.'

As Regan led the way into the room, Hope sprang from the hearth.

‘I told them I would wait for you. I know I ought not to have come. We do not intrude upon family privacy at such a time. But I know what such a condition can be, and it did seem I ought to prevent it, if I could. If I only annoy you, it will take you out of yourselves. That always seems to have to be done in some unpleasant way. I do want to sacrifice myself for you. I have sacrificed the others by leaving them at home. No sacrifice is too great.'

‘You have made Grandma laugh, Mrs Cranmer,' said Luce, in the tone of one pushing up with an assurance.

‘That shows I have forgotten myself, for I was really out of spirits. I see why the jesters of old were such sad people. If their profession was cheering people who needed it, it would have been unfeeling not to be. They couldn't have had enough sadness in their own lives to account for their reputation.'

‘Comic actors and writers and all such people are said to be melancholy,' said Luce. ‘And they do not come in contact with the people they cheer.'

‘Well, it may just be the contrast of their professional liveliness with their normal human discontent. We might say that wrestlers and acrobats are lazy, because they sit on chairs at home. People do give their spare time to complaining. Well, I saw you and your brothers driving with your father to the station, and I said to myself. There are those dear children facing the hardest moments, and here am I, just running the house, that is, giving spare time to complaining. So I have come here to be rejected and unwelcome, because that will give me a hard moment, and I really cannot go on any longer without one.'

‘Mother is laughing now,' announced Luce. ‘And I did not think that would be contrived today.'

‘I have been a sad, sour woman for a good many hours,' said Eleanor.

‘Well, you have not been yourself,' said Hope. ‘So that shows how different you really are.'

‘There is not much in my life that I can look back on with pride.'

‘What an odd thing to think of doing! I thought people looked back with remorse, and thought of the might-have-beens, and how it was always too late. I should never dare to do it at all.'

‘I have had such sad, little faces round me today, and I have not done much to brighten them.'

‘I am quite above minding the number today, my dear.'

‘They will all be six months older before their father sees them again.'

‘Yes, they will, but does that matter? It is not like being ill or an anxiety.'

‘Nevill will be three and a half,' said Luce, in the same regretful tone.

‘Will that be a disadvantage to him? Is there something about age that I don't understand?'

‘Their childhood is slipping away,' explained Luce.

‘Yes, but it won't do that any more quickly because Fulbert is gone. I expect every day will drag. And doesn't time always stand
still in childhood? I thought it was always those long, summer days.'

‘It has been a chill enough day today,' said Eleanor.

‘So I have come to bring it a little ordinary warmth. I know it is ordinary; I am not making any claim. I enjoy having a talk with women, and I know you will like to give pleasure to another in your own dark hours, because that would be one of your characteristics. I will begin by saying that Faith is so forbearing that it is impossible to live with her.'

‘You go on managing it,' said Regan.