The wedding duly took place in June.
Ford and Diana went to the Channel Islands, and Lady Aviolet, in
a quiet, relentless manner, began to urge upon Rose once more the
question of school for Cecil.
“He’s improving very much in every way, under Miss Wade, but it’s time
he saw something of other boys. It is such a handicap to be an only
child. I don’t say it’s urgent--but I do say, go and look at various
places. There’s Hurst, now----”
It was not Lady Aviolet’s arguments that prevailed upon Rose at last,
but the recollection of her conversation in London with Charlesbury,
and--still more--a renewal of nursery tragedy.
Rose, persisting in a habit that was silently, but intensely,
disapproved of by Miss Wade, and entering the nursery unexpectedly,
discovered the governess in fits of spasmodic laughter before a paper
that she held in her hand.
Cecil, his back turned to her, appeared to be absorbed in gazing out
of the window. He did not turn round at his mother’s entrance. Rose’s
intuition, far more developed than her reasoning powers, warned her of
tension in the atmosphere.
“What’s up?”
“I think this will amuse you, Mrs. Aviolet,” tittered the governess.
She handed to Rose the paper, that bore a strange, pencilled outline,
resembling a depressed fox rather than anything else, with the words,
“This is Puge,” printed underneath in Cecil’s straggling round-hand.
“That is Cecil’s idea of poor Pug,” Miss Wade remarked, in a tone that
exploited the comical inadequacy of the conception. “I tell him that
he must learn the rules of drawing before he tries anything quite so
ambitious as a portrait again.”
Rose gazed at the drawing. It was very poor, indeed, even for eight
years old, but she experienced no particular amusement at the sight of
it.
“Cecil’s like me--can’t draw a straight line,” she said. “Come here,
lovey.”
She had felt dimly afraid that Cecil was resentful of Miss Wade’s
tactless ridicule, but she was not prepared for the furious little face
that he turned upon her.
“You’re not to look at my drawing--Miss Wade isn’t to look at my
drawing!” he cried angrily. “I didn’t say she might look at it!”
The little boy made an ineffectual dash at the paper held above his
grasp by the governess.
“Cecil! That’s not at all the way to speak. Just because you can’t
stand a little chaff.”
“Don’t, Ces--stop that!” Rose caught hold of him.
“You’re _not_ to laugh at my drawing!” he shrieked.
“I’m not laughing at it. Be quiet this instant.” Rose gave him a hearty
shaking, and Cecil burst into tears.
“Good gracious me, what a fuss about nothing! Miss Wade didn’t mean to
hurt your feelings,” Rose rashly asserted.
“Cecil must learn to take a little friendly chaff good-humouredly,”
said Miss Wade in a rather vicious-sounding voice. “I’ve noticed before
that he’s very touchy--absurdly touchy. What will you do at school,
I should like to know, Cecil? To fly out like that just because one
doesn’t think everything that you do is perfect. Silly little boy!”
Cecil, who had been sobbing comparatively calmly after his mother’s
brief and vigorous ministrations, was screaming, quivering, and
stamping with renewed passion by the end of Miss Wade’s speech.
“I never said you might look at my picture! It isn’t fair--you’ve no
right to--pig, pig--I hate you.... It _isn’t_ badly drawn; I drew it
like that on purpose. I spelt ‘Pug’ wrong on purpose.... I----”
“Cecil, you know that’s not true----”
“Oh, shut up,” cried Rose with sudden anger, turning on the governess.
“Mrs. Aviolet!”
“Well, can’t you see he doesn’t know what he’s saying?”
But this was as disastrous as any inspiration of Miss Wade’s.
“I _do_ know what I’m saying.... It is true.... I drew it badly for
fun.... I can draw much better than any one.... I can----”
The nursery door opened again and Lady Aviolet came in.
“What’s this disgraceful noise? I heard you from the garden, Cecil.”
“He’s a very naughty boy indeed, I’m sorry to say.”
Rose picked up the struggling, sobbing Cecil in her strong arms and
carried him bodily into the next room, where she threw him on the bed.
“Don’t you stir from there, now,” she panted.
She stood for a moment by the door, and saw him rolling round, his head
buried in the pillow, before she left him, closing the door behind her.
“I’ve never seen him like that before,” she helplessly declared.
“Neither have I,” Miss Wade admitted. “I’ve never thought him a
passionate child. And all about nothing, as you might say!”
“Is this ridiculous drawing business the only thing that’s gone wrong?
Was there really nothing else?” Rose demanded.
“Nothing.”
They looked at one another in a common dismay.
“I should like to hear the whole story,” said Lady Aviolet,
determination evident in her deliberate selection of a chair for
herself.
Miss Wade repeated the trivial episode, and its totally disproportionate
climax.
“He was just angry because you laughed at him?”
“I suppose so. Not that I should think so much of that, Lady Aviolet,
in a child that isn’t used to other children and has never learnt to
give and take, or to tease and be teased--but the temper! The rage!!
The expressions he used!!! And worst of all, the readiness to say what
isn’t true. It’s the old, old failing, you know. Declaring that he’d
done it badly on purpose, you know--his mother heard him.”
“He didn’t know what he was saying,” Rose repeated roughly.
“That makes it so much the worse, my dear,” her mother-in-law
unexpectedly remarked. “It’s almost as though the poor child lied by
instinct, not caring what nonsense he may be talking.”
“I thought him nearly cured, too,” said Miss Wade mournfully. “I’m
afraid--I really am afraid, Lady Aviolet--that I’ve failed with Cecil.
It’s the first time I’ve ever had to say such a thing of a pupil, but I
do certainly feel that, except as regards mere book-learning, he’s made
little or no progress since I’ve had him. The truth is, there have been
too many interruptions--a divided authority--” she glanced resentfully
at Cecil’s mother.
Rose, with her arms akimbo, stood staring back at her with brooding,
lowering gaze.
“I’m sure it’s very honest of you, Miss Wade, to tell us what you feel,
like that,” said Lady Aviolet. “It’s not your fault, I feel sure. It’s
just what I’ve always said: Cecil is a spoilt little boy--yes, my dear
Rose, he _is_--and school is what he requires. He doesn’t know how to
stand being laughed at, he doesn’t speak the truth, and now he’s flying
into these naughty rages. It’s more than time that he left home.”
“Sorry though I am to say it, I quite agree with you, Lady Aviolet. I
should like to look out for another situation at the end of the month,
if you please.”
Thus Miss Wade, very red, and with compressed lips.
“Well, well”--Lady Aviolet rose--“we’re in no hurry to settle that,
Miss Wade, if you’re not. But I certainly do think, after this, that
there can be no question about delaying school any longer. We shall see
what Ford says.”
“Seeing what Ford said” was with Lady Aviolet the inevitable
concomitant to any suggestion. Before he came home again, however, Rose
took the law into her own hands.
She announced abruptly that she was going down to Hurst.
“But, my dear, Ford has already been there. He can tell you all about
it.”
Why on earth couldn’t one be allowed to take any step without this
eternal, relentless, and yet bloodless, opposition, Rose thought
angrily.
“Well, I’m going just the same. I want to see it for myself.”
“Very well, my dear. I suppose you will make an appointment with
the headmaster--I think his name is Lambert. I believe he has a
particularly charming wife, who does a great deal for the boys.”
“Yes.”
“I will come with you, if you like. I should like to see the place.”
Rose looked at her mother-in-law with candid disapproval. “I’d rather
not, thank you. I hope you won’t think me a pig,” she added with an
effort.
Lady Aviolet did not say that she thought Rose a pig. She made an
unsmiling gesture of submission.
“Just as you prefer. I shall get plenty of opportunities later on, I
hope, when the little chap is settled there.”
“I thought Henrietta Lucian could come with me,” said Rose.
“The doctor’s sister? If you wish it, my dear, no doubt she will be
quite ready to do so.”
“I like her very much,” said Mrs. Aviolet aggressively.
“Do you, my dear? Let me know when you want to go, so as not to clash
with any plans. The Marchmonts are coming over to lunch one day next
week, I hope.”
Rose gloomily undertook not to interfere with the visit of the
Marchmonts, inexpressibly dull as she had always felt them to be.
She made an appointment with the headmaster at Hurst, and obtained
the companionship of Miss Lucian on her expedition. She was fond of
Henrietta Lucian, both for a certain terse humour that was entirely
lacking in the society of Squires, and for her matter-of-fact
acceptance of little Cecil’s foible, and robust affection for him. Rose
found it a relief to have her intention of visiting Hurst taken for
granted, without reference to its entailing any future decision. She
felt able to put into words a fact that had hitherto vexed her spirit
almost too deeply for utterance.
“You know they’ve managed to make Ces perfectly wild to come to this
place.”
Rose’s “they” was always unmistakable.
“It’s natural.”
“Of him? I know it is. But it makes it much harder for me to stick to
what I’ve said about his not going.”
“Do you mean to stick to it, then?”
“Well, honestly, I don’t know. I’ll see what this blooming place is
like. If you’d told me a year ago that I’d ever even think of school
for him, after all I’ve said against it, I’d have called you no better
than a liar. But I’ve had to own that I don’t seem to be making a
great hand of keeping him away. I thought at first that if I had him
to myself, it’d be better, but when we were in London, him and me, it
wasn’t really a great success. He wasn’t well, for one thing, and he
was always talking about the games and animals and things at Squires,
poor lamb. And that governess, that Miss Wade, hasn’t done him any
good, for all her rotten little books on education. She hasn’t cured
him of telling fibs.”
“Poor little man!”
“Nothing seems to do him any good, that way. I know they’ve told him
a whole lot about God, and how He hates lies, and always knows when
people aren’t speaking the truth, and so on and so forth. I never could
stuff him up with all that, myself, not knowing much about it, or
caring either.”
“It might be an incentive to Cecil to speak the truth. I shouldn’t
discourage any motive that might help him.”
“I wouldn’t for the world,” said Rose. “Only it doesn’t, you see.
Make any difference, I mean. I can’t see that he cares a hang whether
God minds his telling lies or not. I don’t believe he knows when he’s
telling them.”
“It’s probably a bad habit, like any other. He’ll either grow out of
it, or leave it off when he finds out for himself that the game isn’t
worth the candle. School might teach him that, you know.”
Miss Lucian’s arguments might not be original, but Rose received them
thankfully enough in her new perplexity.
The pleasant, spacious building called Hurst made a favourable
impression on her, and she met Mr. Lambert without any of the
repressed hostility that the mere mention of his name had always roused
in her at Squires.
He was a tall, curly-haired man with an agreeable manner, much younger
than Rose had expected him to be. She was naïvely pleased and flattered
because he spoke to her almost at once of “Cecil,” as though he felt an
interest in the boy sufficiently great to have remembered his name.
They were shown the class-rooms, dining-room, dormitories, gymnasium,
the Chapel, and the playing-fields, and finally taken through a red
baize door beyond which Mrs. Lambert had her drawing-room.
“Let me introduce my wife, Mrs. Aviolet and Miss Lucian.”
Mrs. Lambert also looked younger than Rose had expected her to look,
and her round, freckled face was pretty and good-humoured, with big
blue eyes glowing like dark jewels under an open forehead and curling
brown hair.
She talked very freely and enthusiastically about the school, and her
warmth of manner drew Rose towards her very strongly. She listened
eagerly to Mrs. Lambert’s practical assurances.
“They really do get enough to eat, you know. I can so well understand
any mother feeling dreadful about letting her boy go all by himself to
a strange place--but truly, Mrs. Aviolet, I promise you they’re well
looked after. My own little boy is in the school, you know. You shall
see him, and then you can tell whether he’s a good advertisement.” Her
gay, jolly laugh was justified by the appearance of the boy, a healthy,
happy-looking specimen, who ran into the room, shook hands, and then
burst out with some eager petition to his father.
“Stuff for marking the tennis-court? Of course you can, old chap. Come
along and we’ll find it--if Mrs. Aviolet will excuse us? But I daresay
you’d like a talk with my wife.”
Mrs. Lambert nodded. “Please do let’s, Mrs. Aviolet. I find it’s such
a help with the boys if I can say that I know their mummies a little
bit. And from the other point of view, too, of course it helps one to
understand a boy if one has a talk with the parents.”
“May I come and see the tennis-court?” said Miss Lucian, and she rose
and went out with Mr. Lambert and his son.
Mrs. Lambert sat silent for a moment, looking expectantly at Rose.
At last she said gently: “If you do settle to trust us with your boy,
I do want you to feel happy about him. I’ll write to you myself every
few days, just at first, and tell you how he’s settling down. It’s
wonderful how quickly they get accustomed to it all. Is Cecil fond of
games?”
“Yes, but he’s not good at them, yet.”
“That’s sure to come later. He’s an only child, isn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“So’s mine. I do feel it’s a drawback to them, poor darlings, but at
least it’s better for a boy than for a girl. They do get to school.”
Rose, preoccupied with a newly born impulse, according to her usual
policy, made no effort to disguise her wandering attention.
Mrs. Lambert looked slightly perplexed.
“Won’t you ask me anything you like?” she said at last. “Please don’t
think I shan’t understand. I shall, really. It always seems to me _so_
hard for the mothers.”
Rose roused herself suddenly, her decision taken at the same moment.
“You _are_ kind. I never imagined you’d be in the least like this. The
fact is I’ve always been dead against school for Cecil, at all. He’s
not like other children, in a way. I don’t mean that he’s _wanting_,
you know,” she added hastily.
“I never supposed you did! But what is it, exactly?”
“He doesn’t speak the truth,” said Rose curtly.
There was a pause.
Then Mrs. Lambert nodded her head. Her expression, though graver, still
remained sympathetic and full of optimistic cheerfulness.
“Well, that’s a bad fault, of course, and one’s always sorry to see it.
But, of course, we’ve had boys like that before. It’s quite a common
thing, in fact.”
“You won’t tell your husband, will you? It doesn’t seem fair to Cecil,
somehow.”
“Very well. But I can’t help being glad you’ve told me, Mrs. Aviolet.
It makes it so much easier to help the poor little fellow if one knows
where the weak spot is. My husband will find it out, of course, but I
promise not to tell him a word beforehand, though--honestly--I think it
would be much the best thing if you’d tell him yourself.”
“Perhaps. I don’t know. I’ve been worried to death about the whole
thing,” said Rose with violence. “Everybody talking as though Ces was
the worst and most wicked child in England, just because his father
married _me_.”
Mrs. Lambert ignored the embarrassing personality. “But heaps of
children tell fibs--some of them go on till they’re quite big. I’ve
known cases, myself----”
“Yes,” Rose said doubtfully. “It isn’t absolutely an unheard of thing,
after all. And they do get cured, don’t they?”
“Oh, but of course. It’s just a fault, like any other. I’m sure it can
be overcome, if one’s patient and hopeful. And especially in the case
of such a young child as your Cecil.”
“And what do you think about school for him? Have you had boys like
that before?”
“Yes,” declared Mrs. Lambert stoutly. “Lots of little boys tell
stories, if they’re constitutionally timid, or if they’ve been left
to servants too much. And Will--my husband--would never be hard on a
boy, you know. He thoroughly disbelieves, and so do I, in frightening
children.”
“What would he do, then, with a boy who didn’t speak the truth?”
“Well, I don’t ever interfere in matters of school discipline, you
know, but I’m pretty sure he’d do every single thing to try and make it
easy for the boy to own up. And if he’d actually told a lie, and Will
had to punish him, he’d talk to him and tell him why it was. Even quite
untruthful children cure themselves in a very short time if they’re put
on their honour, and trusted, we’ve always found. It’s a horrid fault,
but they outgrow it fairly young, as a rule.”
There was an almost casual assurance about Mrs. Lambert’s point of view
that brought a sense of relief, a conviction of having monstrously
exaggerated her problem, to Rose.
“They always _do_ outgrow it, in the end?”
Mrs. Lambert laughed a little, gently. “Oh, I think so, don’t you?
The moral sense develops, later on ... and, besides, to put it on the
lowest ground, they soon find that fibbing isn’t worth while. They
always get found out, bless their hearts, most of them do it so badly!”
“Cecil’s stories are often very silly ones--things that no one could be
taken in by, seriously.”
“That’s just it!” the schoolmaster’s wife declared briskly. “It shows
they aren’t really deceitful, doesn’t it? And I do honestly think the
school atmosphere is a thoroughly healthy one, you know. They spend a
tremendous amount of time in the open air and they get keen about the
games, and they really haven’t much time for naughtiness!”
In a vague way, that she did not seek to analyze, it comforted Rose to
hear the reiteration of that trivial adjective, “naughty.”
In Mrs. Lambert’s smiling mouth, it seemed to denude Cecil’s
characteristic of some sinister significance that Rose was not able to
specify.
“I’ve been worried to death about him,” she again admitted. “Have you
truly known boys like that before?”
“My dear Mrs. Aviolet--but of course! I think, between ourselves,
that an exaggerated view is taken of that sort of thing. I don’t
mean for a minute that truth isn’t the most important thing in the
world--of course it is--but quite a lot of children really don’t seem
to understand the value of truth while they’re quite little. It all
comes later, and I do think boys are so good for one another in that
way--the code of honour being so strict, you know, and so much _esprit
de corps_ amongst themselves. We had a boy here once--quite a little
fellow--with exactly your Cecil’s failing. As a matter of fact, he was
half Portuguese, and we don’t take any foreigners at all now--this was
before my husband had the school--so perhaps you couldn’t expect quite
the same training.... But he was much worse than your little boy can
possibly be, I’m sure. He was deceitful, poor little chap--what one
could only describe as an artful child.”
“Cecil isn’t that,” Rose interjected. “Go on.”
“Well, he came very near to being expelled in disgrace. Two or three of
the boys had been up to some mischief or other--something rather worse
than usual--but they’d all have got off lightly if it hadn’t been that
this little chap told lie upon lie, trying to cover up his own traces,
you know, and incriminating others right and left. We only got at the
truth after endless difficulty, when he’d betrayed himself by half a
dozen contradictions. (After all, he was only eleven years old.) Well,
to cut a long story short, he’d have been sent away if it hadn’t been
for my husband. Will was his form-master, and he begged the Head to
give him another chance, and said he’d be personally responsible for
the boy’s future good behaviour. You understand, it was the lies he’d
told that made one so anxious--not the mischief, which was nothing very
bad in itself. His parents were in Brazil, and he was in charge of an
uncle who was very strict, and altogether one felt dreadfully sorry for
the boy. So he was allowed to stay on.”
“And it answered?” said Rose breathlessly.
“It answered. Of course, he went through a very rough time, poor little
lad. You see, the other boys necessarily knew what had happened, more
or less, and boys aren’t very merciful to that sort of thing, I’m
afraid. They practically sent him to Coventry for the rest of the
term--one couldn’t wonder, altogether. But it was the turning point in
that boy’s life, I do honestly believe. Will kept an eye on him, and
he told me it was piteous to see the poor child trying to redeem his
character, and prove himself trustworthy. You see, it was a practical
demonstration of the fact that a liar is something hateful to his
fellow beings. It might not have been the very highest grounds for
reformation, but, honestly, it succeeded where pretty nearly everything
else had failed.”
“What happened to him afterwards?”
“He got a scholarship, went to Eton, and did extremely well. And I can
answer for it, out of my personal knowledge, that even before he left
Hurst, he’d overcome that tendency absolutely. He was as truthful as
any other boy. Will talked the whole thing out with him in the end,
and traced it to his father having frightened him with punishments and
threats as a mere baby, till the poor child had absolutely got into the
habit of fibbing whenever he thought any one was going to be angry with
him. I’ve made a long story of it, I’m afraid, but that was far and
away the worst case I’ve ever known, and I’m quite sure Cecil’s mere
bad habit isn’t anything like that now, is it?”
“No, it isn’t. It’s more like a--a sort of trick, with Ces. Quite
meaningless, sometimes--and silly. He isn’t what I’d call deceitful, a
bit. I can’t explain----”
“But, Mrs. Aviolet, I don’t think you need explain any further. I
understand--truly I do. I’ve had heaps of experience with boys, after
all, and I know the kind of thing you mean quite well. Just silly
story-telling--in fact, a bad habit, as I said. I know it must be
worrying for you--dreadfully--but, really and truly, it isn’t very
uncommon. He’ll get out of it. They all do.”
She spoke with breezy certainty.
“You’ve bucked me up,” said Rose simply. “Thank you very much. I
daresay I’ve exaggerated the whole thing in my mind, a bit. Somehow
I hadn’t realized that there was any one else with exactly the same
trouble.”
“Why, of course there is! It’s a thing we’ve had to contend with again
and again. And it always comes right in the end, Mrs. Aviolet.”
The obviously sincere assertion, delivered with Mrs. Lambert’s honest,
friendly blue eyes fixed candidly upon Rose’s, brought a sudden warmth
to her heart.
“Oh, you are kind! I am glad I’ve seen you,” she cried suddenly. “I’ve
been so wretched about the whole thing, and not known what to do.
They--my husband’s people--are determined that Ces ought to go through
the usual mill--preparatory school, public school, university, and the
rest of it. And I’m dead against it. At least I was. But I’m not so
sure now about the preparatory school.”
Mrs. Lambert smiled. “Why not try it, as an experiment, and see how it
answers before you decide about the rest?”
“That’s just what a great friend of mine said--Lord Charlesbury. You’ve
got his boy here, and you know him, don’t you?”
“Yes, he’s charming, isn’t he? So is the boy.”
Easily enough, the schoolmaster’s wife shifted the conversation to less
personal topics, Rose obediently following her lead.
They said not another word in direct relation to little Cecil until the
moment when Rose and Miss Lucian went away.
Then Mrs. Aviolet squeezed the hand of her hostess in her strong,
enveloping grasp and murmured haltingly:
“If he does go anywhere, it’ll be here. I simply can’t tell you what
a relief it’s been, seeing you. I hadn’t any idea that you’d be
so--_human_!”
Rose laughed slightly as she said it, with an apologetic note in her
laughter, but her brown eyes were oddly misted over. Afterwards she
said to Henrietta Lucian:
“I liked that woman--awfully. You don’t know how encouraging she was
about Ces. So different to that fool of a Ford, talking about Ces being
bullied into telling the truth and kicked into line. I tell you, Ford
makes me sick.”
It was not the first time that Mrs. Aviolet had thus heartily
apostrophized her absent brother-in-law, and it did not embarrass her
to be left without a reply. Her invective, entirely without malice as
it was, was always uttered in a tone that assumed complete acquiescence
on the part of her hearer.
Henrietta Lucian showed no signs of anything else but acquiescence.
“Have you made up your mind?”
“I suppose I have, really. I don’t know that I shall let on to _them_,
right away. They’re quite aggravating enough without me giving them
the chance of saying ‘I told you so.’ But Ces isn’t getting any
better with me, and that seems to dish the idea of my taking him away
somewhere, and he’s wild to go to school--and I do believe Mrs. Lambert
really would do him good.”
She paused for a moment, then spoke with an effort:
“I say, I don’t believe I ought to have said that about them saying ‘I
told you so.’ God knows they’re trying enough, but I don’t believe they
would mock at me for changing. The old people really do want what they
think is best for Cecil, and that’s all they think of. Besides, they
never have said ‘I told you so’--although goodness knows I’ve given
them every opportunity, the number of times I’ve had to eat humble pie.”
“I see. No, I’m sure they wouldn’t say anything like ‘I told you so.’
For one thing,” Miss Lucian observed drily, “they might think it rather
bad form.”
They both laughed.
The Aviolets did not say “I told you so” when Rose at last, in tones
truculent rather than submissive, informed them that she approved of
Hurst as a preparatory school for Cecil. They calmly and agreeably
accepted the announcement as a matter of course.
“And what about yourself, my dear? Have you any plans?” amiably
inquired Lady Aviolet. “Can you put up with the dullness of the
country, while Cecil is away?”
“It isn’t so much the dullness----” began Rose, and then checked
herself.
Lady Aviolet overlooked the obvious implication. “We hope, Sir Thomas
and I, that you’ll still look upon this as your headquarters, and of
course spend the holidays here with dear little Cecil.”
“Thank you,” said Rose gloomily.
To herself, she thought that the Aviolets could well afford to be
gracious. She, the boy’s mother, had failed, and they were to be
allowed their own way in the bringing up of Cecil.