Michael’s train, as his mother had so infallibly pronounced, was late,
and he had arrived only just in time to hurry to his room and dress
quickly, in order not to add to his crimes the additional one of
unpunctuality, for unpunctuality, so Lord Ashbridge held, was the
politeness not only of kings, but of all who had any pretence to decent
breeding. His father gave him a carefully-iced welcome, his mother
the tip of her long, camel-like lips, and they waited solemnly for the
appearance of Aunt Barbara, who, it would seem, had forfeited her claims
to family by her marriage. A man-servant and a half looked after each
of them at dinner, and the twelve Lord Ashbridges in uniform looked down
from their illuminated frames on their degenerate descendant.
The only bright spot in this portentous banquet was Aunt Barbara, who
had chosen that evening, with what intention may possibly be guessed, to
put on an immense diamond tiara and a breastplate of rubies, while Og,
after one futile attempt to play with the footmen, yielded himself up to
the chilling atmosphere of good breeding, and ate his mutton-chops
with great composure. But Aunt Barbara, fortified by her gems, ate an
excellent dinner, and talked all the time with occasional bursts of
unexplained laughter.
Afterwards, when Michael was left alone with his father, he found that
his best efforts at conversation elicited only monosyllabic replies, and
at last, in the despairing desire to bring things to a head, he asked
him if he had received his letter. An affirmative monosyllable, followed
by the hissing of Lord Ashbridge’s cigarette end as he dropped it into
his coffee cup, answered him, and he perceived that the approaching
storm was to be rendered duly impressive by the thundery stillness that
preceded it. Then his father rose, and as he passed Michael, who held
the door open for him, said:
“If you can spare the time, Michael, I would like to have a talk with
you when your mother and aunt have gone to bed.”
That was not very long delayed; Michael imagined that Aunt Barbara must
have had a hint, for before half-past ten she announced with a skilfully
suppressed laugh that she was about to retire, and kissed Michael
affectionately. Both her laugh and her salute were encouraging; he felt
that he was being backed up. Then a procession of footmen came into the
room bearing lemonade and soda water and whiskey and a plate of plain
biscuits, and the moment after he was alone with his father.
Lord Ashbridge rose and walked, very tall and majestic, to the
fireplace, where he stood for a moment with his back to his son. Then he
turned round.
“Now about this nonsense of your resigning your commission, Michael,”
he said. “I don’t propose to argue about it, and I am just going to tell
you. If, as you have informed me, you have actually sent it in, you will
write to-morrow with due apologies and ask that it may be withdrawn. I
will see your letter before you send it.”
Michael had intended to be as quiet and respectful as possible,
consistent with firmness, but a sentence here gave him a spasm of anger.
“I don’t know what you mean, sir,” he said, “by saying ‘if I have sent
it in.’ You have received my letter in which I tell you that I have done
so.”
Already, even at the first words, there was bad blood between them.
Michael’s face had clouded with that gloom which his father would
certainly call sulky, and for himself he resented the tone of Michael’s
reply. To make matters worse he gave his little falsetto cackle, which
no doubt was intended to convey the impression of confident good humour.
But there was, it must be confessed, very little good humour about
it, though he still felt no serious doubt about the result of this
interview.
“I’m afraid, perhaps, then, that I did not take your letter quite
seriously, my dear Michael,” he said, in the bantering tone that froze
Michael’s cordiality completely up. “I glanced through it; I saw a lot
of nonsense--or so it struck me--about your resigning your commission
and studying music; I think you mentioned Baireuth, and settling down in
London afterwards.”
“Yes. I said all that,” said Michael. “But you make a mistake if you do
not see that it was written seriously.”
His father glanced across at him, where he sat with his heavy, plain
face, his long arms and short legs, and the sight merely irritated
him. With his passion for convention (and one of the most important
conventions was that Combers should be fine, strapping, normal people)
he hated the thought that it was his son who presented that appearance.
And his son’s mind seemed to him at this moment as ungainly as his
person. Again, very unwisely, he laughed, still thinking to carry this
off by the high hand.
“Yes, but I can’t take that rubbish seriously,” he said. “I am asking
your permission now to inquire, without any nonsense, into what you
mean.”
Michael frowned. He felt the insincerity of his father’s laugh, and
rebelled against the unfairness of it. The question, he knew well, was
sarcastically asked, the flavour of irony in the “permission to inquire”
was not there by accident. To speak like that implied contempt of his
opposition; he felt that he was being treated like a child over some
nursery rebellion, in which, subsequently, there is no real possibility
of disobedience. He felt his anger rising in spite of himself.
“If you refer to it as rubbish, sir, there is the end of the matter.”
“Ah! I thought we should soon agree,” said Lord Ashbridge, chuckling.
“You mistake me,” said Michael. “There is the end of the matter, because
I won’t discuss it any more, if you treat me like this. I will say good
night, if you intend to persist in the idea that you can just brush my
resolves away like that.”
This clearly took his father aback; it was a perfectly dignified and
proper attitude to take in the face of ridicule, and Lord Ashbridge,
though somewhat an adept at the art of self-deception--as, for instance,
when he habitually beat the golf professional--could not disguise from
himself that his policy had been to laugh and blow away Michael’s absurd
ideas. But it was abundantly clear at this moment that this apparently
easy operation was out of his reach.
He got up with more amenity in his manner than he had yet shown,
and laid his hand on Michael’s shoulder as he stood in front of him,
evidently quite prepared to go away.
“Come, my dear Michael. This won’t do,” he said. “I thought it best
to treat your absurd schemes with a certain lightness, and I have only
succeeded in irritating you.”
Michael was perfectly aware that he had scored. And as his object was to
score he made another criticism.
“When you say ‘absurd schemes,’ sir,” he said, with quiet respect, “are
you not still laughing at them?”
Lord Ashbridge again retreated strategically.
“Very well; I withdraw absurd,” he said. “Now sit down again, and we
will talk. Tell me what is in your mind.”
Michael made a great effort with himself. He desired, in the secret,
real Michael, to be reasonable and cordial, to behave filially, while
all the time his nerves were on edge with his father’s ridicule, and
with his instinctive knowledge of his father’s distaste for him.
“Well, it’s like this, father,” he said. “I’m doing no good as I am. I
went into the Guards, as you know, because it was the right thing to do.
A business man’s son is put into business for the same reason. And I’m
not good at it.”
Michael paused a moment.
“My heart isn’t in it,” he said, “and I dislike it. It seems to me
useless. We’re for show. And my heart is quite entirely in music. It’s
the thing I care for more than anything else.”
Again he paused; all that came so easily to his tongue when he was
speaking to Francis was congealed now when he felt the contempt with
which, though unexpressed, he knew he inspired his father.
Lord Ashbridge waited with careful politeness, his eyes fixed on the
ceiling, his large person completely filling his chair, just as his
atmosphere filled the room. He said nothing at all until the silence
rang in Michael’s ears.
“That is all I can tell you,” he said at length.
Lord Ashbridge carefully conveyed the ash from his cigarette to the
fireplace before he spoke. He felt that the time had come for his most
impressive effort.
“Very well, then, listen to me,” he said. “What you suffer from,
Michael, is a mere want of self-confidence and from modesty. You don’t
seem to grasp--I have often noticed this--who you are and what your
importance is--an importance which everybody is willing to recognise if
you will only assume it. You have the privileges of your position, which
you don’t sufficiently value, but you have, also, the responsibilities
of it, which I am afraid you are inclined to shirk. You haven’t got the
large view; you haven’t the sense of patriotism. There are a great many
things in my position--the position into which you will step--which I
would much sooner be without. But we have received a tradition, and we
are bound to hand it on intact. You may think that this has nothing
to do with your being in the Guards, but it has. We”--and he seemed to
swell a little--“we are bound in honour to take the lead in the service
of our country, and we must do it whether we like it or not. We have to
till, with our own efforts, ‘our goodly heritage.’ You have to learn the
meaning of such words as patriotism, and caste, and duty.”
Lord Ashbridge thought that he was really putting this very well indeed,
and he had the sustaining consciousness of sincerity. He entirely
believed what he said, and felt that it must carry conviction to anyone
who listened to it with anything like an open mind. The only thing that
he did not allow for was that he personally immensely enjoyed his social
and dominant position, thinking it indeed the only position which was
really worth having. This naturally gave an aid to comprehension, and
he did not take into account that Michael was not so blessed as he, and
indeed lacked this very superior individual enlightenment. But his own
words kindled the flame of this illumination, and without noticing the
blank stolidity of Michael’s face he went on with gathering confidence:
“I am sure you are high-minded, my dear Michael,” he said. “And it is to
your high-mindedness that I--yes, I don’t mind saying it--that I appeal.
In a moment of unreflectiveness you have thrown overboard what I am sure
is real to you, the sense, broadly speaking, that you are English and of
the highest English class, and have intended to devote yourself to more
selfish and pleasure-loving aims, and to dwell in a tinkle of pleasant
sounds that please your ear; and I’m sure I don’t wonder, because, as
your mother and I both know, you play charmingly. But I feel confident
that your better mind does not really confuse the mere diversions of
life with its serious issues.”
Michael suddenly rose to his feet.
“Father, I’m afraid this is no use at all,” he said. “All that I feel,
and all that I can’t say, I know is unintelligible to you. You have
called it rubbish once, and you think it is rubbish still.”
Lord Ashbridge’s eloquence was suddenly arrested. He had been cantering
gleefully along, and had the very distinct impression of having run up
against a stone wall. He dismounted, hurt, but in no way broken.
“I am anxious to understand you, Michael,” he said.
“Yes, father, but you don’t,” said he. “You have been explaining me all
wrong. For instance, I don’t regard music as a diversion. That is the
only explanation there is of me.”
“And as regards my wishes and my authority?” asked his father.
Michael squared his shoulders and his mind.
“I am exceedingly sorry to disappoint you in the matter of your wishes,”
he said; “but in the matter of your authority I can’t recognise it when
the question of my whole life is at stake. I know that I am your son,
and I want to be dutiful, but I have my own individuality as well. That
only recognises the authority of my own conscience.”
That seemed to Lord Ashbridge both tragic and ludicrous. Completely
subservient himself to the conventions which he so much enjoyed, it was
like the defiance of a child to say such things. He only just checked
himself from laughing again.
“I refuse to take that answer from you,” he said.
“I have no other to give you,” said Michael. “But I should like to say
once more that I am sorry to disobey your wishes.”
The repetition took away his desire to laugh. In fact, he could not have
laughed.
“I don’t want to threaten you, Michael,” he said. “But you may know that
I have a very free hand in the disposal of my property.”
“Is that a threat?” asked Michael.
“It is a hint.”
“Then, father, I can only say that I should be perfectly satisfied with
anything you may do,” said Michael. “I wish you could leave everything
you have to Francis. I tell you in all sincerity that I wish he had been
my elder brother. You would have been far better pleased with him.”
Lord Ashbridge’s anger rose. He was naturally so self-complacent as to
be seldom disposed to anger, but its rarity was not due to kindliness of
nature.
“I have before now noticed your jealousy of your cousin,” he observed.
Michael’s face went white.
“That is infamous and untrue, father,” he said.
Lord Ashbridge turned on him.
“Apologise for that,” he said.
Michael looked up at his high towering without a tremor.
“I wait for the withdrawal of your accusation that I am jealous of
Francis,” he replied.
There was a dead silence. Lord Ashbridge stood there in swollen and
speechless indignation, and Michael faced him undismayed. . . . And then
suddenly to the boy there came an impulse of pure pity for his father’s
disappointment in having a son like himself. He saw with the candour
which was so real a part of him how hopeless it must be, to a man of his
father’s mind, to have a millstone like himself unalterably bound round
his neck, fit to choke and drown him.
“Indeed, I am not jealous of Francis, father,” he said, “and I speak
quite truthfully when I say how I sympathise with you in having a son
like me. I don’t want to vex you. I want to make the best of myself.”
Lord Ashbridge stood looking exactly like his statue in the market-place
at Ashbridge.
“If that is the case, Michael,” he said, “it is within your power. You
will write the letter I spoke about.”
Michael paused a moment as if waiting for more. It did not seem to him
possible that his appeal should bear no further fruit than that. But it
was soon clear that there was no more to come.
“I will wish you good night, father,” he said.
Sunday was a day on which Lord Ashbridge was almost more himself than
during the week, so shining and public an example did he become of
the British nobleman. Instead of having breakfast, according to the
middle-class custom, rather later than usual, that solid sausagy meal
was half an hour earlier, so that all the servants, except those whose
presence in the house was imperatively necessary for purposes of lunch,
should go to church. Thus “Old George” and Lord Ashbridge’s private boat
were exceedingly busy for the half-hour preceding church time, the last
boat-load holding the family, whose arrival was the signal for service
to begin. Lady Ashbridge, however, always went on earlier, for she
presided at the organ with the long, camel-like back turned towards the
congregation, and started playing a slow, melancholy voluntary when the
boy who blew the bellows said to her in an ecclesiastical whisper: “His
lordship has arrived, my lady.” Those of the household who could sing
(singing being construed in the sense of making a loud and cheerful
noise in the throat) clustered in the choir-pews near the organ, while
the family sat in a large, square box, with a stove in the centre, amply
supplied with prayer-books of the time when even Protestants might pray
for Queen Caroline. Behind them, separated from the rest of the church
by an ornamental ironwork grille, was the Comber chapel, in which
antiquarians took nearly as much pleasure as Lord Ashbridge himself.
Here reclined a glorious company of sixteenth century knights, with
their honourable ladies at their sides, unyielding marble bolsters at
their heads, and grotesque dogs at their feet. Later, when their peerage
was conferred, they lost a little of their yeoman simplicity, and became
peruked and robed and breeched; one, indeed, in the age of George III.,
who was blessed with poetical aspirations, appeared in bare feet and a
Roman toga with a scroll of manuscript in his hand; while later again,
mere tablets on the walls commemorated their almost uncanny virtues.
And just on the other side of the grille, but a step away, sat the
present-day representatives of the line, while Lady Ashbridge finished
the last bars of her voluntary, Lord Ashbridge himself and his sister,
large and smart and comely, and Michael beside them, short and heavy,
with his soul full of the aspirations his father neither could nor cared
to understand. According to his invariable custom, Lord Ashbridge read
the lessons in a loud, sonorous voice, his large, white hands grasping
the wing-feathers of the brass eagle, and a great carnation in his
buttonhole; and when the time came for the offertory he put a sovereign
in the open plate himself, and proceeded with his minuet-like step to go
round the church and collect the gifts of the encouraged congregation.
He followed all the prayers in his book, he made the responses in a
voice nearly as loud as that in which he read the lessons; he sang the
hymns with a curious buzzing sound, and never for a moment did he lose
sight of the fact that he was the head of the Comber family, doing his
duty as the custom of the Combers was, and setting an example of godly
piety. Afterwards, as usual, he would change his black coat, eat a good
lunch, stroll round the gardens (for he had nothing to say to golf on
Sunday), and in the evening the clergyman would dine with him, and
would be requested to say grace both before and after the meal. He knew
exactly the proper mode of passing the Sunday for the landlord on his
country estate, and when Lord Ashbridge knew that a thing was proper he
did it with invariable precision.
Michael, of course, was in disgrace; his father, pending some further
course of action, neither spoke to him nor looked at him; indeed, it
seemed doubtful whether he would hand him the offertory plate, and
it was perhaps a pity that he unbent even to this extent, for Michael
happened to have none of the symbols of thankfulness about his person,
and he saw a slight quiver pass through Aunt Barbara’s hymn-book. After
a rather portentous lunch, however, there came some relief, for his
father did not ask his company on the usual Sunday afternoon stroll, and
Aunt Barbara never walked at all unless she was obliged. In consequence,
when the thunderstorm had stepped airily away across the park, Michael
joined her on the terrace, with the intention of talking the situation
over with her.
Aunt Barbara was perfectly willing to do this, and she opened the
discussion very pleasantly with peals of laughter.
“My dear, I delight in you,” she said; “and altogether this is the most
entertaining day I have ever spent here. Combers are supposed to be very
serious, solid people, but for unconscious humour there isn’t a family
in England or even in the States to compare with them. Our lunch just
now; if you could put it into a satirical comedy called The Aristocracy
it would make the fortune of any theatre.”
A dawning smile began to break through Michael’s tragedy face.
“I suppose it was rather funny,” he said. “But really I’m wretched about
it, Aunt Barbara.”
“My dear, what is there to be wretched about? You might have been
wretched if you had found you couldn’t stand up to your father, but I
gather, though I know nothing directly, that you did. At least, your
mother has said to me three times, twice on the way to church and once
coming back: ‘Michael has vexed his father very much.’ And the offertory
plate, my dear, and, as I was saying, lunch! I am in disgrace too,
because I said perfectly plainly yesterday that I was on your side; and
there we were at lunch, with your father apparently unable to see either
you or me, and unconscious of our presence. Fancy pretending not to see
me! You can’t help seeing me, a large, bright object like me! And what
will happen next? That’s what tickles me to death, as they say on my
side of the Atlantic. Will he gradually begin to perceive us again, like
objects looming through a fog, or shall we come into view suddenly, as
if going round a corner? And you are just as funny, my dear, with your
long face, and air of depressed determination. Why be heavy, Michael? So
many people are heavy, and none of them can tell you why.”
It was impossible not to feel the unfreezing effect of this. Michael
thawed to it, as he would have thawed to Francis.
“Perhaps they can’t help it, Aunt Barbara,” he said. “At least, I know I
can’t. I really wish I could learn how to. I--I don’t see the funny side
of things till it is pointed out. I thought lunch a sort of hell, you
know. Of course, it was funny, his appearing not to see either of
us. But it stands for more than that; it stands for his complete
misunderstanding of me.”
Aunt Barbara had the sense to see that the real Michael was speaking.
When people were being unreal, when they were pompous or adopting
attitudes, she could attend to nothing but their absurdity, which
engrossed her altogether. But she never laughed at real things; real
things were not funny, but were facts.
“He quite misunderstands,” went on Michael, with the eagerness with
which the shy welcome comprehension. “He thinks I can make my mind
like his if I choose; and if I don’t choose, or rather can’t choose, he
thinks that his wishes, his authority, should be sufficient to make
me act as if it was. Well, I won’t do that. He may go on,”--and that
pleasant smile lit up Michael’s plain face--“he may go on being unaware
of my presence as long as he pleases. I am very sorry it should be so,
but I can’t help it. And the worst of it is, that opposition of that
sort--his sort--makes me more determined than ever.”
Aunt Barbara nodded.
“And your friends?” she asked. “What will they think?”
Michael looked at her quite simply and directly.
“Friends?” he said. “I haven’t got any.”
“Ah, my dear, that’s nonsense!” she said.
“I wish it was. Oh, Francis is a friend, I know. He thinks me an odd
old thing, but he likes me. Other people don’t. And I can’t see why they
should. I’m sure it’s my fault. It’s because I’m heavy. You said I was,
yourself.”
“Then I was a great ass,” remarked Aunt Barbara. “You wouldn’t be heavy
with people who understood you. You aren’t heavy with me, for instance;
but, my dear, lead isn’t in it when you are with your father.”
“But what am I to do, if I’m like that?” asked the boy.
She held up her large, fat hand, and marked the points off on her
fingers.
“Three things,” she said. “Firstly, get away from people who don’t
understand you, and whom, incidentally, you don’t understand. Secondly,
try to see how ridiculous you and everybody else always are; and,
thirdly, which is much the most important, don’t think about yourself.
If I thought about myself I should consider how old and fat and ugly
I am. I’m not ugly, really; you needn’t be foolish and tell me so. I
should spoil my life by trying to be young, and only eating devilled
codfish and drinking hot plum-juice, or whatever is the accepted remedy
for what we call obesity. We’re all odd old things, as you say. We can
only get away from that depressing fact by doing something, and not
thinking about ourselves. We can all try not to be egoists. Egoism is
the really heavy quality in the world.”
She paused a moment in this inspired discourse and whistled to Og,
who had stretched his weary limbs across a bed of particularly fine
geraniums.
“There!” she said, pointing, “if your dog had done that, you would be
submerged in depression at the thought of how vexed your father would
be. That would be because you are thinking of the effect on yourself. As
it’s my dog that has done it--dear me, they do look squashed now he has
got up--you don’t really mind about your father’s vexation, because you
won’t have to think about yourself. That is wise of you; if you were a
little wiser still, you would picture to yourself how ridiculous I shall
look apologising for Og. Kindly kick him, Michael; he will understand.
Naughty! And as for your not having any friends, that would be
exceedingly sad, if you had gone the right way to get them and failed.
But you haven’t. You haven’t even gone among the people who could be
your friends. Your friends, broadly speaking, must like the same sort of
things as you. There must be a common basis. You can’t even argue with
somebody, or disagree with somebody unless you have a common ground to
start from. If I say that black is white, and you think it is blue, we
can’t get on. It leads nowhere. And, finally--”
She turned round and faced him directly.
“Finally, don’t be so cross, my dear,” she said.
“But am I?” asked he.
“Yes. You don’t know it, or else probably, since you are a very decent
fellow, you wouldn’t be. You expect not to be liked, and that is cross
of you. A good-humoured person expects to be liked, and almost always
is. You expect not to be understood, and that’s dreadfully cross. You
think your father doesn’t understand you; no more he does, but don’t go
on thinking about it. You think it is a great bore to be your father’s
only son, and wish Francis was instead. That’s cross; you may think it’s
fine, but it isn’t, and it is also ungrateful. You can have great fun if
you will only be good-tempered!”
“How did you know that--about Francis, I mean?” asked Michael.
“Does it happen to be true? Of course it does. Every cross young man
wishes he was somebody else.”
“No, not quite that,” began Michael.
“Don’t interrupt. It is sufficiently accurate. And you think about
your appearance, my dear. It will do quite well. You might have had two
noses, or only one eye, whereas you have two rather jolly ones. And do
try to see the joke in other people, Michael. You didn’t see the joke
in your interview last night with your father. It must have been
excruciatingly funny. I don’t say it wasn’t sad and serious as well. But
it was funny too; there were points.”
Michael shook his head.
“I didn’t see them,” he said.
“But I should have, and I should have been right. All dignity is funny,
simply because it is sham. When dignity is real, you don’t know it’s
dignity. But your father knew he was being dignified, and you knew you
were being dignified. My dear, what a pair of you!”
Michael frowned.
“But is nothing serious, then?” he asked. “Surely it was serious enough
last night. There was I in rank rebellion to my father, and it vexed him
horribly; it did more, it grieved him.”
She laid her hand on Michael’s knee.
“As if I didn’t know that!” she said. “We’re all sorry for that, though
I should have been much sorrier if you had given in and ceased to vex
him. But there it is! Accept that, and then, my dear, swiftly apply
yourself to perceive the humour of it. And now, about your plans!”
“I shall go to Baireuth on Wednesday, and then on to Munich,” began
Michael.
“That, of course. Perhaps you may find the humour of a Channel crossing.
I look for it in vain. Yet I don’t know. . . . The man who puts on a
yachting-cap, and asks if there’s a bit of a sea on. It proves to be the
case, and he is excessively unwell. I must look out for him next time I
cross. And then?”
“Then I shall settle in town and study. Oh, here’s my father coming
home.”
Lord Ashbridge approached down the terrace. He stopped for a moment at
the desecrated geranium bed, saw the two sitting together, and turned at
right angles and went into the house. Almost immediately a footman
came out with a long dog-lead and advanced hesitatingly to Og. Og was
convinced that he had come to play with him, and crouched and growled
and retreated and advanced with engaging affability. Out of the windows
of the library looked Lord Ashbridge’s baleful face. . . . Aunt
Barbara swayed out of her chair, and laid a trembling hand on Michael’s
shoulder.
“I shall go and apologise for Og,” she said. “I shall do it quite
sincerely, my dear. But there are points.”