* * * * *
I was up early the next day, but Rose—the younger Rose—for all her late
hours, was before me.
I found her at the breakfast table dressed in her ordinary morning blue
overall. She was wan.
“But what’s this?” I asked. “Why aren’t you ready for the train?”
“I’m not going,” she said. “I’ve sent some telegrams.”
“But—” I began.
“Please don’t make it more difficult,” Rose replied, and her eyes filled
with tears.
“I hope you haven’t countermanded the car,” I said, after a few moments
of swift thought; for I could see that something must be done.
“No—there was no hurry for that,” she mumbled brokenly.
“Because I’ve got to go to London anyway,” I said. “I was going with
you,” I added, as a mendacious but brilliant afterthought, “but I was
keeping it as a surprise. I’ll be back to-night.”
And it was thus that I got away. I had realized directly I heard Rose’s
decision that this was no place for me. I was an interloper. Mother and
daughter must solve their own problems, and solve them alone; they would
be glad to be unobserved as they reconnoitred to ascertain each other’s
position. I have stumbled upon that military phrase, but on second
thoughts I recognize its fitness; for in a sense they were foes, as most
women can be, and mother and daughter too often actually are. How they
would have adjusted their relations had these fourteen estranging years
not intervened, no one could say. They might have been happy; certainly
they would often have been merry and care-free, for that was the natural
tendency of both. Moreover, there might have been an extra bond—I have
seen it often—in mutual refuge from the Master of the House. But between
mothers and daughters a certain hostility, not unconnected with rivalry,
is only too common, if not inevitable. For a mother, be she ever so
sweet-natured and generous and proud of her daughter, is also a woman,
and women love love, and hate the thought of the shelf, and resent the
younger generation’s vista of triumphs. Not until they are much older
than Rose do they consent to retire from the lists, forgive their
successors, and take with serenity to gardening and cards.
* * * * *
Whether or no Rose knew I was lying, I had no notion; but she acquiesced
naturally enough and waved me a wistful good-bye.
I too had plenty to think of as the train bore me Londonwards. For
everything had changed—Rose’s return was a bomb-shell. Had she come back
a day later when her daughter was established in her Hostel and the
London machinery had begun, all would have been simpler. But now? I
knew them both so well—the mother and the daughter equally determined on
any course they undertook: the daughter, after her vigil, so bent upon
sacrifice and capable even of extracting some pleasurable gall from it,
and the mother so unwilling to cool young ardencies and spoil young
hopes.
To which did I owe the greater allegiance? To the mother, of course.
The girl was at the threshold and had youth and enthusiasm and purpose;
the mother was broken and without a star. If the mother would come to
me, how gladly would I open my arms once more! But would she? No. How
could she, knowing what people would say, having to meet the cold eyes of
the rector and his wife, and seeing children withdrawn from her presence?
Wherever she made her home it could not be in my house.
But—the thought came later, in a flash—it could still be with me: if
somewhere else! Somewhere where her story was not known. Why should I
live all my days in one spot? It is true that I was devoted to it; but
ought one to be so local, so parochial? It was a not too admirable line
of least resistance. Here was the great world open to me, and I had
cowered all my days in one corner. Mrs. O’Gorman had twitted me about
it; and she was a wise woman. How helpful she would be to-day! I had a
few years left, I hoped—why should I not move to London or—or anywhere?
Then Rose and I could be happy together, once more, and the other Rose
could have a room always ready for her. How gay we might all yet be!
But probably to join me again would not be the mother’s wish. She might
prefer to be alone; she might fear that her melancholy would weigh upon
me.
All day long as I moved about London, and even as I turned over the
portfolios, I was picturing the drama in my house, a house that possibly
I was to leave for ever. Rose-the-less, white and tense, passionately,
bitterly determined to be her mother’s companion; her mother gently but
firmly refusing to come into her life. And how would these scenes end?
Would the girl lose all control, and accepting the repudiation rush
angrily off? Might she not indeed be even now in London? Or would the
mother acquiesce? Which was the weaker? I could not tell.
And what did they say of me? They might even fall out over me, each
claiming a bigger share of their poor old foster-father. And, in the
absence of Mrs. O’Gorman, no Solomon to consult! Perhaps I ought not to
have come away after all?
The journey back was an agony, even with some purchases to gloat over,
and my nervousness increased as I approached the house. What should I
find? Would both be there? Would either?
* * * * *
I should have been more trustful of the kindly gods. For Rose and Rose
were waiting for me at the door, smiling at me and at each other.
Whatever solution they had reached satisfied both. I could see that in a
flash, and seeing that, I was happy.
* * * * *
“Rose and I,” said Rose-the-first, later that evening when we were all
cosy, “have had a great talk, haven’t we?”
“Tremendous,” said Rose, laying her hand on her mother’s and stroking it.
“And we’ve decided that nothing must interfere with Rose’s plans to
become an artist.”
“You decided, you mean,” said Rose-the-second.
“We’ve decided,” her mother repeated, “and so Rose is going off almost
directly to her Hostel, just as if no ghost had frightened her.”
“O mother!” said Rose reproachfully.
“And I’m going too,” Rose-the-first continued.
“Both going?” I exclaimed in alarm.
“Only to find a house,” she went on.
“A house?”
“Yes, I’ve only one desire in the world, and that is to have a house, and
the reason I want a house is to be able to invite a guest.”
She paused a moment.
“Dearest Dombeen,” she said, “I want one guest only. You. My greatest
wish is to find a house in some place that pleased you, where you would
come, whenever you cared, to stay with me for a little, or,” she added
with one of her radiant smiles, “if you liked, altogether.”
She placed her other hand on mine.
“Because, you know,” she went on, “I am quite a rich woman now. And we
have been your guests so long, Rose and I. I was your guest for fourteen
years; won’t you be mine in return? Rose has been your guest for
fourteen years; won’t you let her mother put you up now and then just to
show a little gratitude? Won’t you?”
“Yes, Dombeen, won’t you?” said Rose-the-second. “You oughtn’t to refuse
us now. Because although you’re the youngest man in the world you’re not
a boy any more, you know. You’re seventy, and you must be looked after.
You had a horrid, frightening cold last winter.”
“But—” I began. I had no objections to urge, but I wanted to be pressed.
“No ‘buts,’” said Rose. “There’s only one thing that you can be
permitted to say to stop the whole plan. Nothing else will serve.”
“And what is that?” I asked.
“That you’re tired of Roses.”
“Never!” I said.
* * * * *
And that is how it happens that I have left my old home for ever and am
finishing this story in a house overlooking the sea.
But I hear Rose calling.
“Dombeen,” she says, “there’s a telegram from Rose saying she’s coming by
the 5.5, and she can stay a week.”
“Splendid!” I reply.
* * * * *
_Printed in Great Britain by Butler & Tanner_, _Frome and London_