Relationships were somewhat strained in the Vane household during the
next few weeks, the two elder members being banded together in an
unusual partnership to bring about the confusion of the younger.
"I can't understand what you are making such a fuss about. You'll have
to give in, in the end. You a poet, indeed! What next? If you would
come down to breakfast in time, and give over burning the gas till one
o'clock in the morning, it would be more to the point than writing silly
verses. I'd be ashamed to waste my time scribbling nonsense all day
long!" So cried Agnes, in Martha-like irritation, and Ronald turned his
eyes upon her with that deep, dreamy gaze which only added fuel to the
flame.
He was not angry with Agnes, who, as she herself truly said, "did not
understand." Out of the storm of her anger an inspiration had fluttered
towards him, like a crystal out of the surf. "The Worker and the
Dreamer"--he would make a poem out of that idea! Already the wonderful
inner vision pictured the scene--the poet sitting idle on the hillside,
the man of toil labouring in the heat and glare of the fields, casting
glances of scorn and impatience at the inert form. The lines began to
take shape in his brain.
"...And the worker worked from the misty dawn,
Till the east was golden and red;
But the dreamer's dream which he thought to scorn,
Lived on when they both were dead..."
"I asked him three times over if he would have another cup of coffee,
and he stared at me as if he were daft! I believe he _is_ half daft at
times, and he will grow worse and worse, if Margot encourages him like
this!" Agnes announced to her father, on his weary return from City.
It was one of Agnes's exemplary habits to refuse all invitations which
could prevent her being at home to welcome her father every afternoon,
and assist him to tea and scones, accompanied by a minute _resume_ of
the bad news of the day. What the housemaid had broken; what the cat
had spilt; the parlourmaid's impertinences; the dressmaker's
delinquencies; Ronald's vapourings; the new and unabashed transgressions
of Margot--each in its turn was dropped into the tired man's cup with
the lumps of sugar, and stirred round with the cream. There was no
escaping the ordeal. On the hottest day of summer there was the boiling
tea, with the hot muffins, and the rich, indigestible cake, exactly as
they had appeared amidst the ice and snows of January; and the
accompanied recital hardly varied more. It was a positive relief to
hear that the chimney had smoked, or the parrot had had a fit.
Once a year Agnes departed on a holiday, handing over the keys to
Margot, who meekly promised to follow in her footsteps; and then,
heigho! for a fortnight of Bohemia, with every arrangement upside down,
and appearing vastly improved by the change of position. Instead of tea
in the drawing-room, two easy-chairs on the balcony overlooking the
Park; cool iced drinks sipped through straws, and luscious dishes of
fruit. Instead of Agnes, stiff and starched and tailor-made, a radiant
vision in muslin and laces, with a ruffled golden head, and distracting
little feet peeping out from beneath the frills.
"Isn't this fun?" cried the vision. "Don't you feel quite frivolous and
Continental? Let's pretend we are a newly-married couple, and you adore
me, and can't deny a thing I ask! There was a blouse in Bond Street
this morning... Sweetest darling, wouldn't you like me to buy it to-
morrow, and show me off in it to your friends? I told them to send it
home on approval. I knew you couldn't bear to see your little girl
unhappy for the sake of four miserable guineas!"
This sort of treatment was very agreeable to a worn-out City man, and as
a pure matter of bargaining, the blouse was a cheap price to pay for the
refreshment of that cool, restful hour, and the pretty chatter which
smoothed the tired lines out of his face, and made him laugh and feel
young again.
Another night Mr Vane would be decoyed to a rendezvous at Earl's Court,
when Margot would wear the blouse, and insist upon turning round the
pearl band on her third finger, so as to imitate a wedding-ring, looking
at him in languishing fashion across the table the while, to the delight
of fellow-diners and his own mingled horror and amusement. Then they
would wander about beneath the glimmer of the fairy-lights, listening to
the band, as veritable a pair of lovers as any among the throng.
As summer approached, Mr Vane's thoughts turned to these happy
occasions, and it strengthened his indignation against his son to
realise that this year a cloud had arisen between himself and his
dearest daughter. Margot had openly ranked herself against him, which
was a bitter pill to swallow, and, so far from showing an inclination to
repent as the prescribed time drew to a close, the conspirators appeared
only to be the more determined. Long envelopes were continually being
dispatched to the post, to appear with astonishing dispatch on the
family breakfast-table. The pale, wrought look on Ronald's face as he
caught sight of them against the white cloth! No parent's heart could
fail to be wrung for the lad's misery; but the futility of it added to
the inward exasperation. Thousands of men walking the streets of London
vainly seeking for work, while this misguided youth scorned a safe and
secure position!
The pent-up irritation exploded one Sunday evening, when the presence of
Edith and her husband recalled the consciousness of yet another
disappointment. Mr Vane had made his own way, and, after the manner of
successful men, had little sympathy with failure. The presence of the
two pale, dejected-looking young men filled him with impatient wrath.
At the supper-table he was morose and irritable, until a chance remark
set the fuse ablaze.
"Yes, yes! You all imagine yourselves so clever nowadays that you can
afford to despise the experience of men who knew the world before you
were born! I can see you look at each other as I speak! I'm not blind!
I'm an out-of-date old fogey who doesn't know what he is talking about,
and hasn't even the culture to appreciate his own children. Because one
has composed a bundle of rhymes that no one will publish, he must needs
assume an attitude of forbearance with the man who supplies the bread
and butter! I've never been accustomed to regard failure as an instance
of superiority, but no doubt I am wrong--no doubt I am behind the
times--no doubt you are all condemning me in your minds as a blundering
old ignoramus! A father is nothing but a nuisance who must be tolerated
for the sake of what can be got out of him."
He looked round the table with his tired, angry eyes. Jack Martin sat
with bent head and lips pressed tightly together, repressing himself for
his wife's sake. Edith struggled against tears. Agnes served the salad
dressing and grunted approval. Margot, usually so pert and ready of
retort, stared at the cloth with a frown of strained distress. Only
Ronald faced him with steady eyes.
"That is not true, father, and you know it yourself!"
"I know nothing, it appears! That's just what I say. Why don't you
undertake my education? You never show me your work; you take the
advice of a child like Margot, and leave me out in the cold, and then
expect me to have faith enough to believe you a genius without a word of
proof. You want to become known to the public? Very well, bring down
some of that precious poetry and read it aloud to us now! You can't say
then that I haven't given you a chance!"
It was a frightful prospect! The criticism of the family is always an
ordeal to the budding author, and the moment was painfully unpropitious.
It would have been as easy for a bird to sing in the presence of the
fowler. Ronald turned white to the lips, but his reply came as
unwavering as the last.
"Do you think you would care to hear even the finest poetry in the world
read aloud to-night? Mine is very far from the best. I will read it to
you if you wish, but you must give me a happier opportunity."
Agnes laughed shortly.
"Shilly-shally! I can't understand what opportunity you want. If it's
good, it can't be spoilt by being read one day instead of another; if
it's bad, it won't be improved by waiting. This is cherry-pie, and
there is some tipsy cake. Edith, which will you have?"
Edith would have neither. She was still trembling with wounded
indignation against her father for that cruel hit at her husband. She
sat pale and silent, vowing never to enter the house again until Jack's
fortunes were restored; never to accept another penny from her father's
hands. She was comparatively little interested in the discussion about
poetry. Ron was a dear boy; she would be sorry if he were disappointed,
but Jack was her life, and Jack was working for bread!
If she had followed the moment's impulse, she would have risen and left
the room, and though better counsel prevailed, she could not control the
spice of temper which made the cherry-pie abhorrent.
Jack, as a man, saw no reason why he should deny himself the mitigations
of the situation; he helped himself to cream and sifted sugar with
leisurely satisfaction, and sensibly softened in spirit. After all,
there was a measure of truth in what the old man said, and his bark was
worse than his bite. If his own boy, Pat, took it into his head to go
off on some scatter-brain prank when he came of age, it would be a big
trouble, or if later on he came a cropper in business-- Jack waited for
a convenient pause, and then deftly turned the conversation to politics,
and by the time that cheese was on the table, he and his father-in-law
were discussing the mysteries of the last Education Bill with the
satisfaction of men who hold similar views on the inanities of the
opposite party. Later on they bade each other a friendly good-night;
but Edith went straight from the bedroom to the street, and clung
tightly to her husband's arm as they walked along the pavement opposite
the Park, enjoying the quiet before entering the busy streets.
"We'll never come again!" she cried tremulously. "We'll stay at home,
and have a supper of bread and cheese and love with it! You shan't be
taunted and sneered at by any man on earth, if he were twenty times my
father! What an angel you were, Jack, to keep quiet, and then talk as
if nothing had happened! I was choking with rage!"
"Poor darling!" said Jack Martin tenderly. "You take things too much to
heart. It's rough on you, but you must remember that it's rough on the
old man too. You are his eldest child, and the beauty of the family.
He hoped great things for you, and it is wormwood and gall to his proud
spirit to see you struggling along in cheap lodgings. We can't wonder
if he explodes occasionally. It's wonderful that he is as civil to me
as he is; he has put me down as a hopeless blunderer!"
There was a touch of bitterness in the speaker's voice, for all his
brave assumption of composure, and his wife winced at the sound. She
clung more tightly to his arm, and raised her face to his with eager
comfort.
"Don't mind what he says! Don't mind what any one says. I believe in
you. I trust you! The good times will come back again, dear, and we
will be happier than ever, because we shall know how to appreciate them.
Even if we were always poor, I'd rather have you for my husband than
the greatest millionaire in the world!"
"Thank God for my wife!" said Jack Martin solemnly.