Ida Fenton, Jimmy's younger sister, was a tall, fair woman with a
beautiful profile and hazel-blue eyes. Women who did not like her called
her a stick, and even her friends admitted that she was severe.
Stiffness was the dominant note in her character. Most men, including
even her husband, wondered that she had ever married. In pre-Reformation
times she would certainly have been a nun, and probably a saint, being
passionless, and therefore able to avoid all carnal sins without effort.
However, she belonged to an age which regarded marriage as the one
vocation for women, at least for those of position, and she had accepted
Joseph Fenton, if not with enthusiasm, at least with satisfaction. He
appeared to fulfil all the necessary conditions, and she had never found
reason to regret her choice. If Fenton himself sometimes appeared hurt
at the fact that she did not display more outward affection towards him
or the children, she seldom worried over the matter, being fully
conscious of her own rectitude of conduct and feeling.
Jimmy felt chilled the moment he entered the Fenton house. Ida's own
personality seemed to be reflected in everything, in the furniture, in
the pictures, and above all in the unnaturally tidy children to whom he
was presently introduced. He could still feel the one cold kiss which
Ida had given him, and, when he was shown up to his room, he
unconsciously gave the spot an extra dab with the sponge.
The weather was bitter, yet there was no fire in the big spare room, Ida
holding that fires in bedrooms were unhealthy and extravagant,
consequently, being still thin blooded as a result of ten years in
tropical climates, he was shivering when he got downstairs again.
"Can I have a little whisky, Joe?" he said to his brother-in-law, whom
he found in the smoking-room. "I've got a bit of a chill on me, and it
takes very little to bring out my malaria."
Ida, who had just entered, frowned slightly. "Ammoniated quinine would
do you more good, Jimmy. Joseph himself never drinks between meals. It's
such a bad example if the children happen to come in."
Jimmy stifled a retort to the effect that the obvious course was to keep
the children out; but he refused the proffered quinine and helped
himself to some of the whisky which his brother-in-law had already
produced.
Ida sighed and went out, whereupon Fenton lost no time in making use of
the second glass which was on the tray.
"Ida likes giving people ammoniated quinine," he remarked.
Jimmy nodded sympathetically, knowing his sister of old. She had managed
their father's household during the period between their mother's death
and her own marriage, and he still had lively recollections of her
regime.
Dinner was a dreary meal. Fenton, who was essentially a cheerful person,
made several spasmodic attempts at conversation, but Ida, cold and
beautiful, seemed to check him by her own silence; whilst Jimmy was
thinking of Lalage, contrasting the luxury of his present surroundings,
the massive plate, the costly dinner service, the deferential,
silently-moving butler, with Lalage's little room, and its hire-purchase
furniture, earthenware plates, and the meal bought at the ham and beef
shop. Now, he was amongst his own people, a Grierson come back to the
Griersons; and yet he hated it all, because he had reached the point of
wanting to share everything with Lalage, whom he could never hope to
introduce into houses like the Fentons'.
The long meal came to an end at last, and they went into the
smoking-room, where Ida joined them. Mrs. Fenton had asked no questions
at dinner, when the servants were present, but Jimmy quickly found that
there were many things she wanted to know, not about the past, but about
his doings since he had come home, and about his plans for the future.
In a flash, he understood that May must have arranged this sudden
invitation to Northampton, and he was on his guard at once. Inwardly, he
was furious and a little uneasy, foreseeing the possibility of future
trouble; but he kept both his temper and his composure, and in the end
he lulled Ida's suspicions. When she had gone, Fenton himself breathed a
sigh, which sounded curiously like one of relief, and, pulling out a
couple of big volumes in the bottom shelf of the bookcase, produced a
bottle of whisky of a brand greatly superior to that which stood on the
tray.
"She doesn't like to see it go too fast." He motioned towards the other
bottle.
Jimmy nodded sympathetically, understanding; then helped himself.
"They're afraid of you going the pace." Joseph Fenton jerked the words
out, looking away almost guiltily.
Once more Jimmy nodded. He liked this brother-in-law, always had liked
him, knowing him to be a man, and, for a moment, he felt inclined to
tell him of Lalage; but, before he could make up his mind, Joseph went
on:
"They don't understand, Jimmy--Ida and May and my own sisters too. Yet,
hang it all, in a way I suppose they're right, because of the kids, you
know." He tossed his cigar into the grate and lighted another, rather
carefully. "You fellows who have knocked about, you get ideas and
ways----. But, they won't do here, Jimmy, believe me." He paused again,
to help himself to another whisky, then went on, hurriedly, "This work
of yours, it's a bit uphill. Are you all right for cash? If not come to
me."
Jimmy flushed. He wanted some money badly, how badly only a man in his
position, the lover of Lalage, could know; but still he could not take
it from Fenton, for that purpose. Joseph would never understand his
motives. So he stood up, suddenly.
"Thanks, very much, Joe; but I can rub along, at least I think so. If I
am dead stuck, I will come to you; but I believe I can pull through."
Then he said good night, and went upstairs, to think of Lalage, and to
curse his own idiocy in not taking the proffered loan. Twenty pounds
would have been nothing to his brother-in-law, yet to Lalage and himself
it would have meant a new start. Before he lay down he had made up his
mind to ask Joseph for it, after all, and he went to sleep with that
resolution in his mind; but when he awoke in the morning things somehow
seemed different, and before breakfast was over he had changed his mind.
This was his world, and these were his own people, living ordered lives,
with soles and grilled kidneys for breakfast, and family plate on the
table, knowing nothing of ham and beef shops, or of milkmen who demanded
cash in exchange for their milk. He belonged to them, he was one of
them, sharing their principles and their prejudices, worshipping their
gods, as his ancestors and theirs had done. What real kinship had he
with Lalage, who made her breakfast tea out of a quarter-pound packet
bought the evening before at the little general shop round the corner,
and took an obvious delight in the sixpenny haddock they had purchased
off the barrow with the glaring oil lamps over it?
And yet, when the postman brought him no letter from that same Lalage,
he grew silent and restless, as his sister's eyes were quick to note.
When Joseph had departed to his office, he himself went to the
smoking-room and wrote three whole sheets to the girl who lived in the
flat, for the first time throwing all prudence to the winds, and saying
the things he felt. His pen travelled quickly, and, whilst he was
writing, he forgot all about his surroundings, his mind being full of
Lalage. When, at last, he had finished and signed his name, in full, as
a sign of his trust in her, disdaining any subterfuge, he looked round
the luxuriously furnished room, and for an instant he was filled with a
sense of his own folly; then, hurriedly, as though ashamed of what he
was doing, he thrust the letter into an envelope and sealed it down,
afterwards posting it with his own hands.
The hours dragged by slowly. The Marlow house had seemed dull; but the
Fentons' was almost unbearable. Ida meant to be kind; but, perhaps,
because she tried to show her intention, she only succeeded in making
Jimmy feel his position as a poor relation. She took him for a drive in
the afternoon to call on one or two elderly ladies in reduced
circumstances, whom she patronised unconsciously, greatly to the
discomfort of her brother, who had a kind of fellow feeling for her
victims. Yet, on the other hand, he was conscious of a grim admiration
for Ida; she was so sure of her own rectitude, so convinced that her
husband's wealth--which meant her own position--entitled her to lecture
and to interfere. It was all interesting, even amusing, or it would have
been so, had Lalage never come into his life, in which case he could
have regarded Mrs. Fenton from a more or less impersonal point of view.
Now, however, she was a possible danger, to be guarded against,
and--though he did not like to put it that way--to be lied to, if
occasion demanded.
That night, Jimmy hardly closed his eyes, being occupied with the
problem of inventing an excuse for getting back to town. The evening
post had brought him no letters; and, though it was improbable that
Lalage would have any real news for him, he was terribly worried at her
silence. Lying then through the long hours, praying for the sleep which
would not come to ease him from the hideous pain of jealousy, he
suffered as few men can suffer in their lives. He had no right to
control Lalage, no more claim on her than anyone else had, he was mad to
trouble about her, knowing what he did of her, and having ten years'
experience of women behind him. Yet he lay there, wide-eyed, wondering,
and tormenting himself. Twice he got up and endeavoured to smoke a
cigarette, but all to no purpose. The tobacco tasted rank, and, after a
few whiffs, he let the thing go out. When, towards morning, he did fall
into a heavy sleep, it was only to dream of Lalage, with the mud and
rain squelching through her shoes, looking for someone to give her
shelter.