She did not see Clive or Hester for the next two days. Clive had already
made a habit—she had hoped he would feel it so—of stopping to see her on
his way to and from the station; light, unemphatic, but reviving
moments, allowing no time for any sense of pressure. But he did not come
either of those days and she had no glimpse of Hester; who was, no
doubt, deeply engaged in feminism at Mrs. Travers’s.
From her windows she always watched for Robin being led to and from his
school. His shortest way lay on the other side of the green and she had
suppressed the desire to call out to him and have him stop; Hester, she
felt sure, would not approve of that; but every day the sight of his
little figure was a sad solace to her.
She was returning from her afternoon walk on the Tuesday when she saw
Robin on the other side of the green with his nurse and she paused for a
moment debating whether she might not justifiably cross over and walk
beside him to the turning up to The Crofts; and as she told herself that
abstention was still her wisest course, since the recent storm had
centred round Robin, she saw that he had seen her and heard his silvery
little voice call out: ‘Grannie! Grannie!’ And leaving his nurse’s hand
he came running to her across the short thick grass where geese grazed
and a group of village dogs wrestled together in the sunlight.
Monica stooped and held out her arms to him. It seemed to her as she
enfolded his eager little form that he was far more hers than Hester’s.
What right had dark Hester to this golden little boy? Only the shape of
his eyes reminded her of his mother; the white showing under the iris,
as hers did;—the shape of his eyes and the faint tone of olive colour
where the gold of his cheek merged into his neck.
‘Can’t I come and see the fountain, Grannie?’ he said, while Nurse
followed him smiling. Nurse was a great friend of Monica’s, whose
attitude towards servants was untheoretic and spontaneous. Hester’s
relations with hers, she had observed, were not very successful. Hester
thought, perhaps, too much of their rights and too little of their
happiness; and Nurse, she suspected, was old-fashioned and ignorant like
herself and did not like to have Robin made to tell his dreams. ‘Can he
come in for a moment, do you think?’ she asked. ‘Is Mrs. Wilmott
expecting you back immediately?’ It was grievous to her, bitterly
grievous, that she must ask leave to see Robin.
‘I’m sure he can come in for a little, Ma’am,’ said Nurse.
Fountains on a lawn, especially on a lawn as small as hers, were very
distasteful to Monica, but the cement basin had already been made at the
side of the house, where cook and Miriam could see it from the kitchen
window, and already the pipes were laid and the sods with which the
devastation was to be repaired, piled in readiness. ‘We can’t make the
water play quite yet, I think,’ she said, leading Robin by the hand,
‘and there’s a good deal to do to it still, you see. We must have plants
growing round the edge, and some more, perhaps, at the bottom, for the
fish to hide in. It will all need consideration. But there’s plenty of
time; we shan’t want to put them in till spring. I only wish we could
tell them what is going to happen. It would make the winter pass more
quickly for them.—It’s lovely looking forward to things, isn’t it?’
‘Yes; it will make the winter pass much more quickly for us, too, won’t
it?’ He gazed down into the basin. ‘What are their names?’ he asked.
‘The fishes? Well I never thought of naming them. Can you think of any
good names?’
‘I’d like you to think,’ said Robin.
‘Shall we call them Milly, Tilly, and Lacey, then?’ Robin had loved
reading ‘Alice.’ ‘Alice,’ she trusted, would not be forbidden, though
what the psychological difference between the White Knight and Saint
George might be she did not know.
‘Milly, Tilly, and Lacey—who were in the well. Yes,’ said Robin whose
pleasure was always gentle. He gazed thoughtfully down into the empty
basin. ‘And we’ll give them ants’ eggs instead of treacle.—Can’t we put
in some of the plants now, Grannie?’
He had on a little dark blue hat and coat; the shade was not quite
right; it was in a softer, more Japanese blue that she had dressed Clive
at the same age. Still, in any colour he looked adorable. He stood
beside her holding her hand.
‘Certainly we can put in a few. There they are, in the pots. I’ll get a
trowel and fork, and wouldn’t you like to cut some flowers for your
room, Nurse, while we work? The Michaelmas daisies and chrysanthemums
are still lovely.’
It was like being back in Clive’s childhood again; it reminded her of
Aunt Janet’s, where they had worked together in the garden. Perhaps
Hester would allow gardening as her perquisite. Hope was flowering in
her once more, with a sense of excitement, of elation, as she went into
the little lobby and found the gardening utensils. ‘She can’t say that
gardening and goldfish make him nervous,’ she thought. ‘His eyes are the
same shape as hers, but not in the least the same colour; golden-brown
at deepest: while hers are almost black.’
When she returned, drawing on her gardening-gloves, the basket on her
arm, she saw that Captain Ingpen was leaning on the gate looking over at
Robin, who, all unaware, was earnestly setting the plants in their pots
upright around the edge of the basin. She saw him with no faltering in
her elation. His presence had lost its element of fear. He had been only
kind the other evening, and understanding. She was glad to see him, she
knew that, even as she told herself that she must not ask him to stay to
tea since Clive, to-day, might stop to see her. But she could ask him in
for a little while and going to the gate she opened it, smiling at him
and saying: ‘Come and help us, won’t you? We are making a home for our
goldfish.’
Ingpen remained for a moment standing outside. ‘Is that the grandchild?’
he asked.
‘Yes. That is the grandchild. Do come in.—Or are you busy?’
‘I’m never busy nowadays. I never shall be busy again. But I didn’t stop
to get myself invited. I was only passing and saw the little boy, and
that he had a look of you.—Not much though. He’s more like your
son.—It’s your fault if I stopped—for having such pleasant things to
look at in your garden.’
‘But do come in, if you find it pleasant. Robin, this is Captain Ingpen.
He is going to help us. Here is your basket, Nurse. Pick anything you
like.’
The day was lovely. The pale, high October sky arched benignantly above
them; a robin sang and across the green a bonfire was sending up
indolent curls of smoke and the spicy scent went with that of the
chrysanthemums. Monica, making Robin known to Captain Ingpen, felt a
lightness of heart to which she had long been a stranger. This might
indeed have been her youth again and this child Clive. It was just so
that Clive would have gone forward, shy but courteous, to put out his
little hand and say: ‘How do you do.’
‘But why,’ said Ingpen, after shaking hands with Robin, ‘if it’s a
fountain, is there no water?’ His worn tweeds touched with leather went
with the day; his cap was the colour of old thatch and cast a shadow,
like thatch, over eyes bent on the basin but observant of Robin. ‘I want
to see the water, don’t you?’ he said.
Robin answered, ‘Yes,’ and came to stand beside him, attentive to what
might result from this potent presence.
‘I hadn’t thought of water till everything was finished and the fish
installed,’ said Monica. ‘But I don’t see why it shouldn’t be turned on
now. There must be a tap ready.’
‘Of course there must. Everything essential is ready as far as I can
see. All that’s needed are the fountain and the fish. I remember the
fish. Shall I go and fetch them, and find the tap on my way back? Your
maid will show me,’ and Captain Ingpen, on whom nothing, apparently, was
lost, turned his eyes on Miriam and cook watching at the window.
‘Shall we really put in the fish? Isn’t it rather cold for them?’ Monica
asked, while Robin, between them, turned his gaze from one to the other.
‘Not at all too cold; and by the time winter comes they’ll be
acclimatized. Your basin is too deep for freezing. Let’s set them free
by all means. I don’t like waiting, do you?’ he addressed Robin.
‘No;—but not if the fish will catch cold,’ Robin said, apprehensive yet
trustful, and Ingpen, on his way to the house, replied: ‘I understand
fish. They won’t catch cold.’
‘He looks as if he understood, doesn’t he, Grannie?’ said Robin, when
Ingpen had disappeared. ‘It will be nicer than waiting for spring, won’t
it? And you know we might be dead before spring.’ Robin certainly had an
anxious mind. Monica smiled reassurance at him as she answered: ‘We
might, though it’s not likely; I’m so strong and you’re so young.—But it
will be much nicer not to wait.—Oh, see!—Isn’t it lovely, Robin!’ A jet
of silver had leaped high into the air.
‘There. That’s better, isn’t it?’ said Ingpen. He came from the house
carrying the globe of goldfish in his hands and stood beside them to
look. The slender silver lance wavered and sprang against the blue and
in the basin the water crept higher and higher, reflecting sky and
cloud. Robin stood in an astonishment of gladness and over his uplifted
face the eyes of Monica and Ingpen met in a look of peace and
understanding. Yes; strange, scarred man; his heart was not ungentle. He
understood a child. He understood the day and the fountain’s beauty.
Monica smiled at him. She would never fear him again.
Now he was giving the globe into Robin’s keeping and helping him to tip
the goldfish into the water. Their hands, the small and the large,
dipped slowly beneath the surface and the dark head and the fair bent
together as the fish, amazed, paused at the entrance of their prison and
then sped forth. Round and round they went, and, wildly it seemed, from
side to side, emblems of happiness, and, looking up at her, Robin
whispered: ‘Which is which, Grannie? Which is Milly and which is Tilly
and Lacey?’
‘Robin!’ called an icy voice behind them. ‘Robin! Come at once! You
ought not to be here at this hour!’ Icy. Like a sword; cutting down
happiness. Monica turned to see Hester looking at them over the hedge.
She had come down in haste, for she wore no hat, and she was pale, very
pale; and angry; her eyes were the eyes of the indignant Byzantine
Madonna. ‘Come at once!’ she repeated, looking at her child and setting
the gate open, adding as she just glanced at her mother-in-law: ‘Let me
know, please, when you think of keeping him another time.’
Monica stood silent, gazing at her daughter-in-law. Hester’s tone and
manner so astonished her that she could find no words.
Ingpen had risen to his feet and in the midst of her disarray Monica
noticed that Robin looked up at him, as if for reassurance or
protection.
‘I met him, Hester.—I thought he might come in for a moment and see the
fountain,’ said Monica now. She felt her heart throbbing violently in
her side. She could not apologize to Hester before Captain Ingpen, yet
she was ready to do almost anything rather than display explicit
warfare.
‘I know. So I see. But you ought to have sent Nurse to tell me. I must
always know where he is. Come Robin, do you hear me?—at once.’ And
Hester, standing still outside it, opened the gate more widely. She had
not yet acknowledged Ingpen’s presence; now she nodded, coldly, curtly,
and muttered: ‘How do you do.’
‘Run along then, darling. Good-bye for to-day.’ Monica kissed the
distressed little face.
‘Good-bye,’ Robin murmured. ‘Good-bye,’ he repeated, turning to Ingpen
and lifting his face to be kissed by him also.
Nurse, alarmed, had come running with her flowers, and saying no further
word, Hester took her child by the hand and walked away.
A silence followed this departure. Monica slowly turned and walked down
the garden beside her herbaceous border and, after a hesitation, Ingpen
followed her. She had come to a standstill at the foot of the lawn when
he joined her and was looking out at the fields and hedgerow elms.
‘Shall I go?’ he said. ‘Or may I say I am sorry for grandmothers?’
Half an hour ago it would have been impossible for Monica to imagine
herself allowing Captain Ingpen to say he was sorry. But now their eyes
had met in that look of peace. ‘My little grandson is nervous;—do you
wonder at it?’ she said. ‘Though I own that I never saw Hester lose her
temper with him before.’ She tried to speak quietly, but her voice shook
with shame and fury.
‘She was angry because you had kept him without asking leave,’ said
Ingpen. ‘Isn’t it always so—between a woman and her mother-in-law? I
don’t know anything about these domesticities, but such antagonism seems
to me to be inherent in the relationship.’
‘And what ought mothers-in-law to do?’ Monica questioned, leaning over
to her border and nipping off here and there a withered flower. ‘If they
don’t die when their sons marry—what are they to do?’
‘Withdraw, I suppose,’ said Ingpen after a pause, watching her.
‘Yes, withdraw; that’s what I did. That’s why I am here, in the country.
Only they followed me.’
‘Ah, yes; Norah was telling me yesterday that they had just come.—Was
that against her will? Your son doesn’t look to me a person to force his
will on a recalcitrant wife.’
‘It was by her will.—It was her idea.—It was on my account they came,’
said Monica, and as she broke and broke the withered flowers with
fingers in which she felt her anger still thrilling, she wondered at
circumstance that had brought her to such confidences. ‘I don’t
understand; I can’t understand.—I have never understood her. Perhaps it
is my fault. I never saw her lose her temper before.—Perhaps it’s my
fault. She feels that I don’t care for her.’
Ingpen said nothing to that. He remained, taking a few steps here and
there on the lawn, watching her while she picked the dead flowers,
filling her hand, pressing them together, tossing them out of sight
under the densely growing autumnal plants, and she felt herself quieted
by his silent comprehending presence.
‘Give up hope; that’s your trouble,’ it seemed to be saying to her. ‘You
were foolish enough, my poor friend, to allow yourself hope a little
while ago. There’s no place for it, at our age. If you didn’t go on
hoping you would not suffer so.’ But he himself said nothing.
Presently they walked back towards the house together. The fountain
still held its quivering silver lance against the sky. ‘And you think
the fish are all right?’ said Monica in a deadened voice. ‘Robin is a
sad little boy. He expects things to die. I don’t want to run any risks
with the fish.’
‘They won’t die. They’re all right,’ said Ingpen absently, his eyes on
her. ‘He’s not like you, the little boy, is he? You expect things to go
on.’
‘I want them to go on;—something of them to go on—desperately,’ said
Monica in a low voice. She was betraying herself to Captain Ingpen. She
was saying exactly what he expected her to say. But he would not mock
her now. He was suffering with her. He walked on with her to the gate.
‘Yes. He’s sad; but you’re desperate,’ was what he said. And looking
round at her, with a twist of his bitter smile, he added: ‘That’s why we
understand one another, you and I. Think over what I said. I mean it.
Come to France.’