Robin was in his little waterproof hood and cape, all shining in the
rain, and her delight at seeing him was so great that she had not time
for surprise. He was marvellously like Clive at the same
age.—‘Mouse-face,’ she had used to say to her little son, tilting back
the face to kiss it; and Robin’s hood framed the same broad brow and
narrow chin. His eyes were darker than his father’s and his pallor more
golden; but there was the same austerely sweet modelling of the cheek
and lip, the same pale, bright hair. Yes, he, too, was the colour of
amber, exquisite little creature.
And there went Hester’s rubber boots beside him; she still wore rubber
boots in rainy weather and they certainly became her slender form, her
small foot, her indolent and decisive gait. As she glanced up, behind
her rain-driven pane, at Hester’s face, a phrase from a pitiful little
tale of Maupassant’s came to her mind: ‘_Elle est ben trop noire_’ the
old peasant mother had said of the proposed negress daughter-in-law,
reiteration her only argument. What if, on first seeing Hester, she had
relapsed to the same animal antipathy and said to Clive: ‘_Elle est ben
trop noire_’? Could it possibly have parted him from Hester? But Hester
was not _trop noire_. It was absurd and malicious to say it. She was the
nut-brown maid in type.—‘And as sound as a nut,’ Monica muttered. Her
brooding loneliness set her mind singing to these chimes, but this
involuntary tribute cheered her. She did not hate Hester if she thought
her as sound as a nut. And, keeping her place at the window, she heard
her say: ‘Come on, Robin;—don’t dawdle,’ in her rational, unadmonishing
voice. Hester was a just and careful mother, but his grandmother felt
sure that Robin must miss the ardent, playful improvisation and gaiety
that had shone about his father’s childhood.
‘How perfectly delightful of you, my dear!’ Thus she heard herself greet
Hester and felt the sane machinery of life close round and sustain her.
Hester was kissing her cheek, she was kissing Hester’s. ‘And you walked
from the station in all this downpour!—Well, Robin darling.’
‘We were prepared for the rain, and we enjoy it, don’t we, Robin?’ said
Hester. ‘Robin was delighted to come. He is always glad to have tea with
his Grannie.’
Set upon the background of her dark reminiscences, this remark showed
Monica something of which she had not till then been aware. Hester was
changed since that day of their first meeting. She was as assured, as
competent as ever, but she was certainly kinder. Something of her
repellent manner on the first day might be set down to girlish
awkwardness, and perhaps, in spite of the assurance, she had really been
a little frightened. It was possible, if difficult, to believe it.
‘May I see the goldfish?’ said Robin. He was dressed in a little suit of
green. Monica did not think it became him. Clive, she had always dressed
in blue or white.
‘You may; but let me have a look at you first; the goldfish will wait.’
She drew him to her side while Hester leaned to the fire and held out
her hands to the blaze. She had taken off the boots in the hall and
showed slender legs and low-heeled shoes; her dark coat and skirt,
sparse and formal, gave her again the boyish air, though there was
nothing really masculine in Hester’s demeanour. Mingling with the terse
competency, Monica felt always an undertone, repellent to her, of
something soft and smouldering, and over Robin’s head she cast an
oblique glance of the old distaste at her daughter-in-law’s nonchalant
form.
‘Why doesn’t our room turn round like this, Mummy?’ said Robin. He
leaned against his grandmother’s knee and looked about him. ‘I like it.
You can’t tell what’s on the other side, down the steps.’
‘I think I can,’ said Hester. Her reasonableness was only just not a
snub and for a moment Robin was checked by it; but he took up after a
moment: ‘Not if you didn’t know already. If you didn’t know already,
there might be robbers down there; or tigers;—or just a kitten asleep on
a cushion.’ His fancy as it took substance widened his gaze.
‘Well, I shouldn’t care for robbers in my drawing-room, or tigers either
and you’d be the first to be frightened by them if they were there,’
Hester rejoined, turning her head to measure her child with a scientific
eye as though hidden meanings might lurk in these images.
‘But they wouldn’t really be there,’ Robin rejoined, quite as reasonably
as his mother, and without her dryness. ‘That’s what’s so nice; Grannie
might have changed everything and one wouldn’t know.—I do like this
room, Grannie,’ he repeated. ‘It’s like that queer room on the ship you
took me to.’
Monica’s one remaining brother was an Indian judge and Robin had gone
with her to see him off that spring. ‘It _is_ rather like the saloon of
a ship, with the windows all round and the low ceiling,’ she said. ‘And
with such a quantity of rain outside one might fancy oneself on the
waves!’
‘I should call this the cosiest of suburban rooms and anything more
dismal than the saloon of a ship I can’t conceive of!’ laughed Hester,
taking out her cigarette, while Robin, feeling her not at all in the
game, whispered to his grandmother: ‘Perhaps there’s a whale round the
corner that’s been washed on deck.’
‘Let’s go see!’ she said. Hester no more understood a child’s mind than
she understood the drawing-room, which was neither cosy nor suburban.
She was glad she did not; glad that Robin whispered. She took him by the
hand and led him off and as they turned the corner and went down the
steps it seemed to her that she and Robin escaped into fairyland,
leaving Hester behind them. Tranquil, pale, the rain-swept hedgerow elms
outside making it the quieter, the lower room received them as though
with a gentle finger laid on its lips, and in their bowl on the lacquer
table the goldfish glanced and glittered, living so determinedly their
mysterious, circumscribed life. Robin stopped short on seeing them.
‘It’s not a whale:—it’s goldfish,’ he whispered, turning up to her a
face Clive’s to exactitude in its wistful archness. She stooped and
kissed the starry forehead. She felt her love passionately flow over the
little boy, sweeping him and Clive together in its tide, the past and
the present. ‘Much prettier than a whale and much easier to take care
of,’ she said.
‘_Could_ you take care of a whale?’ Robin questioned, still with the
archness that showed his recognition of fairyland and its code.
‘Not very well in here;—but you might in the garden—on such a rainy day
as this the poor thing would hardly miss the sea!’ laughed Monica.
‘But I like these better. There are no whales at the Zoo. There wouldn’t
be room for them.—They’d reach out into the lane if they were in the
garden, Grannie; you couldn’t keep them there.’ And as, absorbed now in
reality he stood beside her, he added: ‘Don’t you think they have dear
little faces? They look so happy as they go round and round and they
open and shut their mouths as though they were singing.’
‘If you ask me, I always think they are melancholy mad,’ said Hester’s
voice, devastatingly. She had come to the steps and stood there above
them, her cigarette in her hand, looking down. ‘I don’t like to see them
going round and round. Their cheerfulness doesn’t deceive me.’
Monica felt something of a shock as she heard these words. It was almost
as though Hester were reading her thoughts of an hour ago. ‘Aren’t even
the fish to be spared psycho-analysis?’ she asked.
‘Well, since they are _all_ repression, I think we need hardly waste our
time on them! They offer no problem!’ Hester returned with a slight
laugh. ‘They are melancholy mad, poor things—as anything shut up with
nothing whatever to do must be. I do hate to see animals shut up.’ She
tossed the end of her cigarette into one of Monica’s Chinese bowls, took
out another, tapped it against the back of her hand and lighted it as
she stood there.
‘If you can call them shut up,’ said Monica. Robin had drawn close to
her and was gazing, very earnestly now, at the ambiguous fish.
‘They are as shut up as the lions at the Zoo, and those always make me
feel sick,’ said Hester, turning away.
Monica and the child stood in a stillness curiously shared.
‘Are they really unhappy, do you think?’ Robin asked, whispering again.
‘Not one bit, darling,’ she assured him—though not herself. ‘They have
been here for three years and get bigger and fatter all the time. They
would pine if they were unhappy.’
‘But why does Mummy think they’re unhappy?—Could they make a noise to
say if they were?’
‘No: they couldn’t make a noise—but they could move slowly and look
dull;—that’s the way a fish would show unhappiness;—and not care to eat
ants’ eggs.—They had a splendid feed of ants’ eggs only a little while
ago and you should have seen them snap them up.’
Still Robin leaned against her and still he gazed at the fish. ‘But I
sometimes eat my tea when I’m very unhappy,’ he said in the lowest
voice. He trusted her completely; he was hers completely; he would never
have said it to his mother—or why the lowered voice? For a moment the
selfish joy of her proved possessorship filled her heart, then drew away
to give place to apprehension. ‘Unhappy? Are you unhappy, darling? Why?
Tell me why,’ she said and looking up at her with Clive’s eyes he said,
faltering a little, ‘I don’t know.’
‘That’s enough about the fish.—Don’t let Robin get sentimental about
them,’ called Hester from above with kindly peremptoriness. ‘I’ve
something to tell you, Monica.’ She had always, from the beginning,
called her mother-in-law by her Christian name, expressing to Monica’s
ear indifference rather than intimacy.
Holding Robin very tightly by the hand, wondering, as she came, about
acquired and innate instincts and their inheritance; wondering whether a
seed of Clive’s dark time had drifted into the soul of his son—Monica
obeyed the summons, drawing Robin to her knee as she took her chair near
the fireplace and looked up at her daughter-in-law. As a little boy,
Clive, too, had known moods, she remembered, of grief and panic. But she
had been there to shield and soothe and understand. He did not hide from
her when he was a little boy; as Robin—she felt sure of it—would hide
from Hester.
‘I’ve something to tell you, that will please you,’ Hester was
repeating. She had taken up her position again at the fireplace, but now
she leaned back against the mantelpiece, raising her cigarette to her
lips, drawing at it, then holding it off as if for scrutiny, her eyes
half closed, her brows slightly knitted. She looked at her cigarette as
if its taste disappointed her;—Monica had often noted the trick. She had
never seen anyone smoke so constantly and with so little air of relish.
‘It’s a very important decision Clive and I have come to,’ Hester went
on, ‘mainly because of you—but because of ourselves as well. We are
tired of London in some ways. I don’t think it’s very good for Robin, or
for Clive either. He still gets those horrid headaches from time to
time.—And since last spring we’ve had our eye on The Crofts—the cottage
on the hill, you know, under the wood:—and now we’ve bought it.—Yes,
actually.—I thought you’d be pleased. We have been very crafty about it
all and said nothing to you lest it should fall through and you should
be disappointed.—There’s been the London house to get rid of and endless
documents to seal and sign. But it’s all done now in law and order, and
you won’t be lonely any more.’ And Hester benevolently surveyed her,
very much, it flashed over Monica, as she might have surveyed the
goldfish, released and making off down stream. She saw the picture of
the hurrying fish, golden and glad, and for a moment felt their
astonished gladness in herself, before she felt a deep drop of dread. It
was not Clive coming back; it was Hester. She had run away; to be safe;
to keep safe with Clive; to hide from Clive; and now Hester followed
her. No; the goldfish were not released; they were drawn out of their
safe retreat in a net.
‘My dear—what wonderful news,’ she said slowly, looking down at Robin’s
head.
‘It _is_ rather, isn’t it? We are rather proud of ourselves. Even Robin
didn’t know.’ Hester tapped her cigarette against the mantelpiece and
again frowned at the tip. ‘You are coming to live near Grannie, Robin;
isn’t that rather jolly?’
Robin, making no reply, turned his eyes up to his grandmother. It was as
though he felt all the unuttered things in her, all the things Hester
would never feel.
‘Isn’t it wonderful; you can see the goldfish every day,’ she said to
him softly. She wanted horribly to cry; to be alone so that she could
think.
‘Not if they’re unhappy,’ said Robin, gazing at her. ‘Not if they’re
going to die.’
‘But they’re not going to die. Why should they die? We’ll make a little
pond for them—since Mummy thinks they’re unhappy in the bowl—and have a
fountain to play over them. Wouldn’t you like a fountain to play with?
Like the princess, with the three golden balls?’
Robin’s eyes still studied her. ‘But Jeremy died,’ he said. ‘And he was
very happy.—Is it true that he’ll never, never come back—however much we
want him?’
‘When things are dead they never come back, Robin; I’ve told you that
already.’ Hester checked the sentimental tendency with decision. ‘It’s
very kind of Grannie to say she’ll make you a pond and a fountain to
play with, and the fish will love it, of course. Jeremy died because he
was old and when things are old it’s much better they should go to
sleep. He had a very happy life and went to sleep. It’s silly, you know,
to go on thinking about things that can’t be helped. Think of all the
nice things that are going to happen instead. You are to have a garden
of your own, as well as Grannie’s, and if you like you shall have a dog
just like Jeremy.’
Robin sat, very straight, on his grandmother’s knee, his eyes downcast,
his little face firmly set, and Monica saw that he was frightened.
‘It’s such a nice garden, The Crofts’s,’ she said, diverting Hester’s
attention from Robin’s case, shielding him, giving him time—with Clive
she had always known that it was merely a question of gently giving him
time.—‘They have done some very funny things to it—the good people who
lived there—but it’s charmingly placed under the hill and almost
anything could be made of it.—You are quite sure it won’t tire Clive to
go up and down every day—or cut you off too much from all your London
occupations?’
‘Not a bit more tiring than it is to get from Chelsea to the city; and
we shall be able to afford a car now that will take us to the station in
ten minutes. He will have tennis here, and he loves that so, and I shall
manage perfectly;—but, you know, we were thinking of you even more than
of ourselves. We didn’t like to think of you all alone down here.’
Hester wanted to make it clear. It was the second time she had said it.
‘I know. It’s too dear of you both. How soon will you move in?’
‘We think we can manage in six weeks’ time; by the end of September.
Eddie and I and Marcia Jessup are coming down on Saturday to go over the
rooms and Beppo Gales, too, perhaps. He says he’ll decorate the
dining-room for us if it’s a possible shape.—We’ll call for you, shall
we?—and have tea here afterwards.’
‘Beppo’ Gales was a young painter whose fame, in Monica’s eyes, rested
upon impudence rather than achievement. He dealt with the human form
singularly displayed and distorted and had been one of the young people
on the stairs who had called Clive the cigarette-holder. Grievous to
think that he was to decorate Clive’s dining-room and that to the end of
her days she must see, at every meal she partook of at The Crofts,
visageless, vast-thighed forms bearing grisly fruits and flowers on
their heads. ‘That will be delightful,’ she murmured.
‘It will be nice for Celia, too, our coming, won’t it?’ said Hester.
The tea-table was now placed before Monica and she still kept Robin on
her lap, saying to him as she warmed the tea-pot: ‘Will you measure in
the tea for me, Robin?’ Robin, she knew, had been on the verge of tears
but was now master of himself.
‘Clive can take her and Miss what’s-her-name out in the car for drives,’
Hester went on. ‘There’s no risk of infection now for Robin, is there?’
‘Not the least.’ Monica heard that she spoke dryly. ‘Her lung healed
before she left Switzerland.—Clive mustn’t have her on his mind. Norah
Unwin has an uncle coming to stay who has a car. He is looking for a
place here, too.’
‘Oh, well; in that case Clive can certainly have her much less on his
mind. He was very much upset by her breakdown. He’s so fond of her, you
know. Lucky we got The Crofts in time if there’s a competitor in the
field.’
‘He wants to rent, not to buy, I gather. He was thinking of the Old
Manor Farm, Norah said.’
‘Well, we certainly shouldn’t have competed with him for _that_. It’s a
dismal place,’ said Hester. ‘Now drink your milk and eat your
bread-and-butter, Robin.—We’ve not much time before our train and you
mustn’t be late for bed.’