“Not asked her!” Miss Saltoun exclaimed. And I could see her swiftly
putting two and two together and realizing that it was my deplorable
indulgence that was at the back of everything.
“No,” I said. “She merely said that she could not stay and had therefore
come home.”
“And you allow that? Condone that? It’s too amazing! Is every caprice
of a child like this to satisfy you?”
“I don’t think she is capricious,” I said. “I agree with you that the
occurrence is unfortunate. I wish it had never been. I wish Rose had
not gone to school at all, anywhere. But I would much rather—even at the
risk of being unfair to you—that she were not interrogated.”
Miss Saltoun kept her temper under fair control, but she could not help
indicating that she was glad that all her pupils had not such impossible
parents or foster-parents, and that on the whole she was of the opinion
that she was well out of it.
Nor did I feel particularly pleased with the position I had been forced
to take up. It was not too civil, and I doubt if it was just to the
schoolmistress. But Rose was my first consideration, and I knew with
crystal clearness that no possible good to either could come out of a
cross-examination of her by Miss Saltoun. Miss Saltoun would have been
hostile and suspicious, utterly incapable of understanding the child’s
fundamental honesty and courage, nor would she have had any belief that a
child’s antipathies, a child’s dislike of Dr. Fell, need not be less
sincere or important than an adult’s. To her, children were immature
beings to be taught deportment and the length of rivers; to me, Rose was
an individual, separate and complete, with private sensitivenesses and
loyalties that must not be harmed.
Miss Saltoun caught her train, and I drove over to Mrs. O’Gorman to fetch
Rose back. I had sent her there for the day, to be out of the way and
also to be in the company of the most sensible woman I knew.
I found them turning over old volumes of “Punch,” and having sent Rose
off to help Julia in some capacity or other, Mrs. O’Gorman turned to me
with a smile on her mischievous old face.
“This is a pretty kettle of fish,” I remarked.
“You ought to be proud of yourself,” she said.
“Why?”
“To have brought her up so well. I don’t mean what you’ve taught her,
but to have left so much resolution in her. Most people knock it out.”
“More chance than design,” I said.
“Anyway, she’s got it,” said Mrs. O’Gorman, “and if she always obeys
impulse and cuts her losses so promptly she won’t go far wrong. Her
heart’s true.”
“Meanwhile?” I asked.
“Meanwhile,” she said, “she wants to go to school. When I say ‘wants’ I
mean something very different; I mean she’s willing to go to school and
she knows she ought to go to school. She doesn’t think, and she won’t
admit (you see I’ve been testing her) she did wrong to run away from this
one—and I agree with her—but she knows that if she stayed at home now it
would be a victory wrongly won. And she doesn’t want to do anything
unfair, bless her! although, of course, she’ll have to before she’s
through. The world will see to that!”
“What school?” I asked.
“Well, that’s your affair,” said Mrs. O’Gorman, “but, this time, for the
love of God find it yourself. How you came to let that Stratton woman
pick out the other for you I shall never understand. And you more or
less a sensible fellow too! But there, we’ve all got our blind spots.
Even I can’t bring myself to change my medical adviser.”
* * * * *
At her next school Rose was happy and did well.
While she was away, I gave more time to an old toy of mine—the
microscope—and was gradually, I doubt not, becoming a fossil. I was
beginning also to supplement the collection of prints which my father had
left, and buying experience rather dearly. Between the holidays these
were my indoor hobbies, while there was always the garden for such
daylight hours as my patients left me. Now and then I dined out, at the
Hall or the Rectory or with Mrs. O’Gorman; and so the time wore on. To
be creatures of habit seems to be our destiny, and if we are to escape we
must continually fight. Personally, I did not fight. I was counting on
Rose to be my deliverer when, at the end of her last school term, she
returned to galvanize her old foster-father and keep him gay once more.
Every time Rose came home, three times a year, I saw a change in her, but
it was not until the winter holidays when she was nearly sixteen that I
suddenly realized that she had grown into a beautiful creature, capable
of setting men’s hearts beating, and of disturbing lives and affecting
destinies. Not, of course, that one has to be beautiful to affect
destiny: we can all do that, and all are doing it continually. But
pretty women appear to be busier than other persons, even if they are
not.
There had been a week of clear skies and pure sunshine, and an east wind
blowing with sufficient nippiness to keep the ice hard. Rose had been
skating every day with various neighbours, and she and two or three young
fellows were now walking up the drive jangling their skates and laughing.
Her high gaiters made her look unusually tall, and she came along with
her easy long stride like a conqueror, her face glowing under the frost
and her eyes alight with merriment. She wore a fur cap and a fur jacket
with a high collar, and you know what furs can do for even a plain woman.
Rose’s vivid animation was almost fire; but what struck me most was a new
confidence, unconscious but visible, and the deference and competitive
eagerness which were expressed in her companions. When I had seen her
last, at lunch, she had been a girl; now, only three hours later, she was
an influence.
I don’t suggest that from that moment her life was more mature; I don’t
think that with any steadiness it was; but the dominant woman had flashed
out for a moment, and I never forgot the apparition.
In those days, although Rose had several boy satellites, who seemed to
me, with not too numerous opportunities of observing them closely, to be
on terms of a very simple natural intimacy with her, chief of them was
still Ronnie Fergusson. He was her most constant companion, dropping in
oftener than the others, and taking her on longer expeditions or more
frequently joining in our games at home, whether indoors or out.
Although I was in the forties I was active on the tennis lawn, and at
billiards I could beat anyone in the neighbourhood. I had been coaching
Rose and finding her a much better pupil than I ever expected: perhaps
the vanity in her stimulated her to try the harder, for there were
mirrors at each end of the room in which she could see herself, and there
is hardly a stroke in the game which does not emphasize the beauty of
arms and hands. Ronnie was a billiard enthusiast too, but I kept Rose
ahead of him, and they became very keen combatants. He was at my house
after dinner on most evenings during the holidays.
Ronnie’s parents we did not much care for. Sir Edmund Fergusson, who was
now retired, had been a northern manufacturer and mayor: a roughish
_nouveau-riche_, with a great desire to assimilate county manners and
play as naturally as possible his new role of squire. Lady Fergusson was
an ordinary motherly woman, with a good deal of pride in her husband and
a touch of the snob. Both adored their son, but whereas Lady Fergusson
showed her feelings, Sir Edmund disguised his.
Ronnie, although not to that status born, had become a typical English
public-school boy with an easy manner, a delight in fun and a merry
hair-trigger laugh. Good to look at too, with his fair hair and
lightly-tanned skin and very white teeth. He did not suggest any great
force of character: his blunt little nose was against that; but he seemed
to be an epitome of affection and good humour, and was likely to succeed
in the world by reason of an inherent popularity. The kind of boy and
man that others who might reasonably be envious would go out of their way
to serve, just to have a smile of gratitude and to enjoy the sensation of
having benefited a persuasive creature. However rich Ronnie might become
he would receive more; because of those who have, and to whom therefore
is given, he was among the most attractive.
The world is a strange place; and why some of us are born so that we may
not look over a hedge, while others may steal a whole remount camp and
escape censure, no one will ever understand. But Ronnie was high among
the immune horse-thieves.
He did things well, too. He played games well and looked his best in
flannels. Our village cricket team, which languished through the early
weeks of the season and was too often beaten, rallied when Ronnie came
home for the holidays and had its sweet revenge in the return matches.
If Rose was still defeating him at billiards it was because her tactics
were better. She had more strategy.
The Ronnies of the world usually marry young and go fairly happily
through their wedded life. This perhaps is because their attraction is
neither for very clever women nor for decadents, but for the jolly. The
sporting, adventurous—I might almost say picnic—element in young people’s
marriages lasts with these longer than with more serious or more
brilliant or more passionate couples.
There was, however, no outward sign of anything deeper than the best
good-fellowship between Ronnie and Rose. They liked and laughed, and
handed each other the half-butt, and there it remained.
* * * * *
But a year later there were developments.
England is no country for the skating enthusiast, and Rose continually
mentioned her desire to spend the following Christmas holidays—her
last—at one of the winter-sport centres in Switzerland. To be away at
that time of year, when maladies are most flourishing, was no easy or
prudent course for me; but Rose was set upon it, and one can always get a
locum tenens if one really wants to, and I had not played truant for a
long while, and might be all the better for it after; and so I agreed.
The next thing was—Ronnie must come too. Ronnie, who was now at
Sandhurst, was far more eager to spend his holidays with us than at the
Hall; and the dream of his life was to be in some place where you could
count on the frost lasting till to-morrow. It is always a mystery to me
how in our island, with the Gulf Stream persistently paying attentions to
it, anyone learns to skate at all. Ronnie, however, had had the chance
to become a good skater, and he longed to be better and to do some skiing
and bob-sleighing too. Rose shared his enthusiasm.
I must admit to feeling doubtful as to whether it was the wisest thing to
take a boy of eighteen and a girl of seventeen to Switzerland in this
way; but the fact that their minds were so exclusively set on open-air
activities reassured me. And the Fergussons made no objections, beyond
expressing the regret that their only son should wish to be away for
Christmas.
None the less I carried the matter to Mrs. O’Gorman’s tribunal; for when
in doubt I invariably adopted that procedure.
“Take them? Of course you’ll take them,” she said. “Or rather, they’ll
take you. And it’s high time you got away from this mouldy corner and
allowed some mountain air to get into your fusty old brain!”
“Is it so fusty?” I asked.
“Of course it is. How can it be anything else, considering the life you
lead? Sitting by the bedsides of bores; prescribing physic; talking
weather; pottering about within a radius of five miles when there’s the
whole big world waiting for you. I’ve no great opinion of you, as you
know, but you’ve got the best brains in the place—London brains, in
short—and you do nothing with them. Perhaps when you see Mont Blanc
you’ll get a little ambition. I don’t want you to leave us, but I want
you to do something besides patching up our twopenny-halfpenny bodies.
Write a book.”