Melia was frankly annoyed with herself for not having put up a better
resistance. The sight of her father strutting down the street with
the honors of war upon him was a little too much for her. He had been
guilty of sixteen years of tyrannical cruelty and she was unable to
forgive. In those sixteen years she had suffered bitterly and her
stubborn nature had great powers of resentment.
Who was he that he should walk down Love Lane not merely as if he owned
it--in sober truth he now owned half--but also the souls of the people
who lived there? She could not help resenting that invincible flare,
that overweening success, particularly when she compared it with the
fecklessness of the man she had so imprudently married. After all, she
was the first-born of this vain image and she knew his shortcomings
better than he knew them himself. He had had more than his share of
luck. No matter what the world might think of him, however fortune
might treat him, he was not worthy of the position he had come to
occupy.
As soon as the ponderous broadcloth back had turned the corner of Love
Lane and was lost in that strong-moving stream, Mulcaster Road, she
made up her mind that she would not go up to tea on Sunday afternoon.
It was not that he really cared whether she went or not; had he done so
he would have asked her sooner. Maybe his conscience was pricking him
a bit, but he was not one to be much troubled in that way. In any case
let it hurt him--so much the better if it did. This was a matter in
which she would like him to be hurt as he had never been hurt before.
Here again, however, her father had an unfair advantage. If she stayed
away on Sunday she might punish him a little--and even that was
doubtful--but she would certainly punish her mother far more. And she
had not the slightest wish to do that. She was sorry for her mother,
whose sins of omission sprang from weakness of character. Nature had
placed her in a very different category. She had fought this tyrant as
hard as it was in her to fight any one, but she was one of nature's
underlings whose lot was always to be trampled on.
Alas, if Melia didn't turn up on Sunday it was her mother who would
suffer. And it was a matter in which she had suffered too much already.
Melia had no particular affection now remaining for her mother; she
even despised her for being so poor a creature, but at least her only
crime was weakness and it was hardly fair that she should endure more
than was necessary. Melia's was rather a masculine nature in some ways;
at any rate her father and she had one trait in common. They had a
sense of justice. Hence she was now on the horns of a dilemma.
It was not until Sunday itself, after morning service at Saint
George's, that the decision was finally made. And then fortified by
Mr. Bontine, a clergyman for whom Melia had a regard, she decided much
against her inclination to go up to The Rise in the afternoon. It was
a reluctant decision, made in soreness of heart; the only satisfaction
to be got out of it would arise from the dubious process which the
reverend gentleman described as "conquest of self."
She set out rather later than she meant to, in a decidedly heavy mood.
And it was not made lighter by the fact that the afternoon was sultry
with the promise of thunder, and that the long and tedious climb to
The Rise had to be made without the help of the tram on which she had
counted. Long before the trams from the Market Place had reached the
end of Love Lane they were full to overflowing, as she ought to have
known they would be on a fine Sunday afternoon in the middle of the
summer. In the process of painfully mounting the stuffy length of mean
streets to achieve the space and grandeur of The Rise she grew vexed
and hot. When at last she reached the famous eminence she was far
indeed from the frame of mind proper to the paying of a call in its
exclusive society. But it served her right. She should have stayed at
home, or at least have allowed the motor to be sent for her.
As it was, it was nearly five o'clock when, limp and fagged, she
came at last in view of the many-windowed, much-gabled elevation of
Strathfieldsaye. In spite of herself the sight of it made her feel
nervous. It was the home of her father and mother, but its note
of grandeur gave her a cruel sense of her own inadequacy. At the
brilliantly painted gate she lingered a moment. Courage was called for
to walk up the broad gravel path as far as the porch with its fine oak
door studded with brass nails.
At last, however, she went up and rang the bell. An extremely grand
parlor maid received her almost scornfully, and led her across
a slippery but superb entrance hall which was disconcertingly
magnificent. It was hard to grasp at that moment that such an interior
was the creation of her commonplace parents, harder still to believe
that this servant whose clothes and manners were superior to her own
was at their beck and call.
However, she would go through the ordeal now she had got so far. But
this afternoon luck was heavily against her. The ordeal proved to be
more severe than even her gloomiest moments had foreshadowed. She was
ushered just as she was, in her shabby hat and much mended gloves,
straight into the drawing-room into the midst of company. And the
company was of the kind she would have given much to avoid.
She had hoped that she might find her mother alone, or at the worst,
drinking tea with her father. Instead, the first person she saw was
the insufferable Gertrude Preston, that mass of airs and graces which
always enabled their wearer to stand out in Melia's mind as all that
a woman ought not to be. And as if the sight of Gertrude was not
sufficiently chilling and embarrassing, the second person she realized
as being present was her own stuck-up sister Ethel, invariably known
in the family as Mrs. Doctor Cockburn. She was accompanied, however,
by her two children, little peacocks of six and seven, spoiled fluffy
masses of pink ribbons and conceit.
Last of all was her mother. She was always last in any assembly.
Somehow she never seemed to count. In the old days even in her own
home she could always be talked down, or put out of countenance or
elbowed to the wall; and now, after the flight of years, in these grand
surroundings, she had not altered in the least. She still had the eyes
of a rabbit and a fat hand that wobbled; and on Melia's entrance into
the room Gerty and Ethel at once took the lead of her in the way they
had always taken it.
"Why, I do declare!" Gerty rose at once with cleverly simulated
surprise tempered by a certain stock brand of archness, kept always on
tap, and unfailingly effective in moments of sudden crisis or emotional
tension. "How are you, Amelia?" She would have liked to offer her
cheek, but the look in Amelia's eyes forbade her risking it. Therefore,
a hand had to suffice, an elegant hand, but a wary one which met with
scant ceremony.
Ethel, Mrs. Doctor Cockburn, also rose, but not immediately. "Glad to
see you, Amelia."
Melia knew it was a lie on Ethel's part, and had she had a little more
self-possession might have been moved to say so.
The three daughters of Mr. Josiah Munt marked three stages in his
meteoric career. Melia, the eldest, was the child of the primitive
era. Compared with her sisters she was almost a savage. Between her
and Ethel had been a boy, Josiah, whose birth had nearly killed Maria
and who had died untimely in his babyhood. She was not allowed in
consequence to bear any more children for ten years, and Ethel was the
natural fruit of the interregnum. Ethel was generally allowed to be
the masterpiece of the family. Five years after her had come Sally who
perhaps in point of time and opportunity should have put out the light
even of Ethel; but in her case it seemed the blessed word progress had
moved a little too fast. Sally, as the world knew only too well, was
over-educated; from the uplands of high intellectual development Sally
had slipped over the precipice into a mental and moral abyss.
From the social and even the physical standpoint Ethel was indubitably
the pick of Mr. Josiah Munt's three daughters. And Mrs. Doctor's rather
frigid reception of her eldest sister showed a nice perception of
the fact. Amelia had thrown her back to a prehistoric phase. She had
something of the air and manner of a charwoman. When she entered the
room, little shivers had crept down Ethel's sensitive spine. She could
hardly bear to look at her.
Melia also felt very uncomfortable. She couldn't find a word to say
and the children stared at her. But she sat on the edge of a chair
that Gerty provided; tea, bread and butter and cake were given her;
she began to eat and drink mechanically, but still she felt strangely
hostile and unhappy. She resented the bright plumage, the amazing
prosperity of those among whom she had been born; above all, she
resented Ethel's superciliousness and Gerty's patronage. Ethel, of
course, had a right to be supercilious, and that fact was an added
barb. Her light shone. SHE was the only one who had shed any luster
on the family; her marriage with a doctor rising to eminence in the
town was a model of judicious ambition. Ethel "had done very well for
herself," and even the set of her hat, black tulle and white feathers
and the opulent lines of her spotted muslin dress, seemed to proclaim
it. Her bearing completed the picture. She had not been in the same
room with Amelia for many years, although she had passed her once or
twice in the street without speaking; and at the moment her judicious
mind was fully engaged with the problem as to whether Gwenneth and
Gwladys could or could not call her "Auntie." Finally, but not at
once, the answer was in the negative.
Amelia, without a word to say for herself, and suffering acutely from
a social awkwardness which a lonely life in sordid circumstances had
made much worse, was altogether out of it. Ethel and Gerty had charm
and elegance; they spoke a different language; they might have belonged
to a different race. Amelia's natural ally should have been her mother.
They had much in common but that depressed and inefficient woman was
nearly as tongue-tied as her eldest daughter. Ethel and Gerty were
almost as far beyond the range of Maria as they were beyond the range
of Amelia; their expensive clothes and their correct talk of This and
That and These and Those, with clear, high-pitched intonation filled
her with dismay. Maria, even in her own drawing-room, was in such awe
of them that she could make no overtures to Amelia, although she simply
longed to point to the vacant sofa beside her and to say, "Come and sit
over here, my dear."
The eldest daughter of the house bitterly regretted the folly that had
brought her among them again after so many years of outlawry. But in
a few minutes her father came in and then she got on better. He was
the real cause of her present sufferings, but his own freedom from
self-consciousness or the least tendency to pose amid surroundings
which seemed to crave that form of weakness was exactly what the
situation called for.
"Hulloa, Melia," he said heartily. "Pleased to see you, gel." His lips
saluted her cheek with a loud smack. There was not a suspicion of false
shame about him. He was master in his own house at any rate. And when
he made up his mind to do a thing he did it thoroughly. "What do you
think on 'em?" He pointed to his grandchildren rather proudly. "That's
Gwennie. And that's Gladdie. This is your Auntie Melia."
The ears of Mrs. Doctor Cockburn began to burn a little as the eyes of
Gwennie and Gladdie grew rounder and rounder.
"Gladdie favors her ma. Don't you think so, eh? And they've both got a
look of Grandma--what?"
"I see a look of you, you know, Josiah," said Auntie Gerty with an air
of immense discretion.
"Um. Maybe. Have they had any strawberries, Grandma?"
Their mother thought they ought not to have strawberries, but their
grandfather was convinced that a few would not hurt them and chose half
a dozen himself from a blue dish on the tea table and presented them
personally.
"There, Gwenneth, what do you say?" Mrs. Doctor Cockburn's own mouth
was full of prunes and prisms. "Thank you what--thank you, Grandpa."
"That's a good little gel." There was a geniality, an indulgence, in
the tone of Josiah that he had never thought of extending to his own
children in their nursery days. "And I tell you what, Ma--if they get a
pain under their pinnies they must blame their old grand-dad."
Altogether, a pleasant episode, and to everybody, Gwenneth and Gwladys
included, a welcome diversion.
"Have some more tea, Melia." Her father took her cup from her in spite
of the protest her tongue was unable to utter and handed it to the
inefficient lady in charge of the teapot. "And you must have a few
strawberries. Fresh picked out of the garden. Ethel, touch that bell."
Mrs. Doctor, with an air of resolute fineladyism, pressed the electric
button at her elbow. The grand parlor maid entered with a smile of
imperfectly concealed cynicism.
"Alice, more cream!"
Melia wondered how even her father was able to address Alice in that
way; but his coolness ministered to the reluctant respect he was
arousing in her by his manly attitude to his own grandeur.
The cream appeared. Gwenneth and Gwladys were forbidden to have
any--their lives so far had been a series of negations and
inhibitions--but Melia had some, although she didn't want it, but the
will of her father was greater than her powers of resistance. And then
he said to her, "When you've had your tea, I'll show you the greenus."
"Conservatory, Josiah," said Aunt Gerty with an arch preen of features
and a show of plumage. "Much too big for a mere greenhouse."
"Greenus is more homelike, Gert. What do you say, Mother?" He laughed
almost gayly at Maria. The eldest daughter was amazed at the change
that seemed to be coming over her father. In the dismal days of
drudgery and gloomy terrorism at the public house in Waterloo Square
which now seemed so far away in the past, there was not a trace of this
large and rich geniality. Prosperity, power, worldly success must have
mellowed her father as well as enlarged him. He seemed so much bigger
now, so much riper, he seemed to care more for others.
Ethel and Gertrude were quite put into the shade by the force and the
heartiness of Josiah, but Mrs. Doctor was not one lightly to play
second fiddle to any member of her own family. "I hear," she said,
pitching her voice upon an almost perilous note of fashion--there
was even a suspicion of a drawl which brought an involuntary curl to
Melia's lip--"that young Nixey, the architect, has been recommended for
the M.C."
"Has he so?" Josiah's eye lighted up over his suspended teacup. "I've
always said there was something in that young Nixey. And I'm not often
mistaken. He designed that row of cottages I built down Bush Lane."
"A row of cottages in Bush Lane, have you, Josiah?" said Aunt Gerty
with an air of statesmanlike interest. "You seem to be what they call
going into bricks and mortar."
"You bet I am--for some time now. And bricks and mortar are not going
to get less in value if this war keeps on, take it from me."
"I suppose not," said Mrs. Doctor Cockburn, a judge of values.
"I've one regret." It was not like Josiah to harbor regrets of any
kind, and Aunt Gerty visibly adjusted her mind to hear something
memorable. "That young Nixey's as smart as paint. I nearly let him
have the contract for this house. In some ways he might have suited us
better."
"But this house is splendid," said Gerty with flagrant optimism. She
knew in her heart that the house was too splendid.
"Young Nixey's idea was something neater, more in the Mossop style. I
didn't see at the time, so I got Rawlins to do it to my own design. Of
course, what I didn't like about Nixey was that he would have it that
he knew better than I did, and I'm not sure----" Josiah hovered on the
brink of a very remarkable admission.
"I don't agree, Josiah. This house is almost perfect." The specious
Gertrude was amazed that he of all men should be so near a confession
that he might have been wrong. Dark influences were at work in him
evidently.
"I agree with you, Father." Mrs. Doctor had nothing of Gerty's finesse.
"The Gables is so refined, a house for a gentleman."
"Don't know about that," Josiah frowned. "Never heard of a house being
refined. Comes to that, this place is good enough for me, any time." If
he went so far as to own that he might have been wrong it was clearly
the duty of others to hasten to contradict him. "But The Gables is more
compact. More comfort somehow, and less show."
"Stands in less ground, must have cost less," said Gerty softly.
"Compared to Strathfieldsaye, The Gables to my mind is rather
niggardly."
"That is so, Gert." He nodded approvingly. She was always there with
the right word. "All the same I believe in that young Nixey. Started,
you know, at the Council School. Won a scholarship at the University.
Why, I remember his mother when she used to come to the Duke of
Wellington and sew for Maria. Done everything for himself. And now he's
a commissioned officer in the B.B. Give honor where honor's due, I say."
Gerty and Ethel agreed, perhaps a little reluctantly. Maria expressed
a tacit approval. And then Melia made the discovery that her mind had
wandered as far as France; and for a moment or so the world's pressure
upon her felt a little less stifling.
"Wonderful, how that young man's got on!" There was reverence in the
tone of Gerty whose religion was "getting on."
"It is." Josiah was emphatic. "You can't hold some people back. I give
him another ten years to be the first architect in this town ... if he
comes through This."
"It's a big 'if.'" Before the words were out of Gerty's mouth she
remembered Amelia's husband and wished them unsaid. She had not had the
courage to mention William Hollis with poor Amelia so rigidly on the
defensive, but she had hoped that some one would introduce the subject
so that a tribute might be paid him. But no one had done so, and now
that Josiah was there the time seemed to have gone by. His views in
regard to Amelia's husband were far too definite to be challenged
lightly.
Interest in young Nixey, the architect, began to wane and then suddenly
Ethel startled them all by the statement that she had just had a letter
from Sally.
Josiah's geniality promptly received a coating of ice. His mouth closed
like a trap. Sally had not been forgiven by her father and those who
knew him best had the least hope that she would be. Her conduct had
struck him in a very tender place, and Gerty could not help thinking
that it was most imprudent of Ethel to mention Sally in his presence
in any circumstances.
Ethel, however, had long ceased to fear her father. For one thing, in
the eyes of the world her position was too secure. Besides, she was
obtuse. Where angels, etc., Mrs. Doctor could always be trusted to
walk with a certain measure of assurance, mainly because she didn't
see things and feel things in the way that most people did. For that
reason she was not at all disconcerted by the silence that followed
her announcement. And she supplemented it with another which compelled
Gerty, the adroit, to steal a veiled glance at the sphinx-like face of
her brother-in-law.
"She writes from Serbia, giving a long and wonderful account of her
doings with the Red Cross. I think I have her letter with me." Ethel
opened a green morocco bag that was on the sofa beside her. "Yes ...
here it is ... a long account. Care to read it, Father?" She offered
the letter unconcernedly to Josiah.