"We can't. They've seen us."
"Everybody sees us," Roddy said.
He began to walk with a queer, defiant, self-conscious jerk.
Mrs. Waugh came on, buoyantly, as if the hoop of a crinoline still held
her up.
"Well, Mary, going for another walk?"
She stopped, in a gracious mood to show off her son. When she looked at
Roddy her raised eyebrows said, "Still here, doing nothing?"
"Norman's going back to work on Monday," she said.
The son stood aside, uninterested, impatient, staring past them, beating
the road with his stick. He was thickset and square. He had the stooping
head and heavy eyes of a bull. Black hair and eyebrows grew bushily from
his dull-white Frewin skin.
He would be an engineer. Mr. Belk's brother had taken him into his works
at Durlingham. He wasn't seventeen, yet he knew how to make engines. He
had a strong, lumbering body. His heart would go on thump-thumping with
regular strokes, like a stupid piston, not like Roddy's heart, excited,
quivering, hurrying, suddenly checking. His eyes drew his mother away.
You were glad when they were gone.
"You can see what they think," Roddy said. "Everybody thinks it."
"Everybody thinks what?"
"That I'm a cad to be sticking here, doing nothing, living on Mamma's
money."
"It doesn't matter. They've no business to think."
"No. But Mamma thinks it. She says I ought to get something to do. She
talks about Mark and Dan. She can't see--" He stopped, biting his lip.
"If I were like Mark--if I could do things. That beast Norman Waugh can
do things. He doesn't live on his mother's money. She sees that....
"She doesn't know what's the matter with me. She thinks it's only my
heart. And it isn't. It's me. I'm an idiot. I can't even do office work
like Dan.... She thinks I'll be all right if I go away far enough, where
she won't see me. Mind you, I _should_ be all right if I'd gone into the
Navy. She knows if I hadn't had that beastly rheumatic fever I'd have
been in the Navy or the Merchant Service now. It's all rot not passing
you. As if walking about on a ship's deck was worse for your heart than
digging in a garden. It certainly couldn't be worse than farming in
Canada."
"Farming? In Canada?"
"That's her idea. It'll kill me to do what _I_ want. It won't kill me to
do what _she_ wants."
He brooded.
"Mark did what he wanted. He went away and left her. Brute as I am, I
wouldn't have done that. She doesn't know that's why I'm sticking here. I
_can't_ leave her. I'd rather die."
Roddy too. He had always seemed to go his own way without caring, living
his secret life, running, jumping, grinning at you. And he, too, was
compelled to adore Mark and yet to cling helplessly, hopelessly, to
Mamma. When he said things about her he was struggling against her,
trying to free himself. He flung himself off and came back, to cling
harder. And he was nineteen.
"After all," he said, "why shouldn't I stay? It's not as if I didn't dig
in the garden and look after Papa. If I went she'd have to get somebody."
"I thought you wanted to go?" she said.
"So I did. So I do, for some things. But when it comes to the point--"
"When it comes to the point?"
"I funk it."
"Because of Mamma?"
"Because of me. That idiocy. Supposing I _had_ to do something I couldn't
do?... That's why I shall have to go away somewhere where it won't
matter, where she won't know anything about it."
The frightened look was in his eyes again.
In her heart a choking, breathless voice talked of unhappiness, coming,
coming. Unhappiness that no beauty could assuage. Her will hardened to
shut it out.
When the road turned again they met Mr. James. He walked with queer,
jerky steps, his arms bowed out stiffly.
As he passed he edged away from you. His mouth moved as if he were trying
not to laugh.
They knew about Mr. James now. His mind hadn't grown since he was five
years old. He could do nothing but walk. Martha, the old servant, dressed
and undressed him.
"I shall have to go," Roddy said. "If I stay here I shall look like Mr.
James. I shall walk with my arms bowed out, Catty'll dress and undress
me."