A few weeks after Cecil had been taken to Hurst by Ford Aviolet, who
quietly appropriated the duty, Rose came to see Miss Lucian.
She had announced it to be a farewell visit before her return to
Ovington Street.
“I couldn’t possibly go on slacking about at Squires, the way they all
do,” she declared. “It was bad enough, even with Ces there, but it’s
been perfectly awful since he went. Nothing but Pug and the garden, and
the garden and Pug, till I’m sick of the sound of them both!”
“So you’re going to London?”
“Yes. I can help Uncle Alfred, I daresay, and I’m going to try and find
some work. Of course, I shall come back to Squires in the holidays, so
as to be with Ces. They’ve been very decent about that, I must say.”
“And don’t they mind your going away?”
“Not a bit, I shouldn’t think. I’m no asset to them,” Mrs. Aviolet
declared frankly. “And they’ll get quite enough of me in the holidays.”
“Couldn’t you come here for a few days before you go?” said Miss Lucian.
Rose was like a joyfully surprised child, in her acceptance. “Oh, I’d
love to! How kind of you to want me. You’ll hardly believe it, but I
haven’t once been to stay with any one, except relations, since we got
to England. I have some friends, people we’d known in Ceylon, retired,
with a house at Bexhill, and they always used to say I must go and
stay with them when I came home, but they never asked me, after all. I
wrote to Mrs. Judd, too, from Squires, but she only wrote back and said
how nice it must be for me to be with Jim’s people, and wasn’t Squires
quite a show place, or some rot of that kind. Not a word about me going
to them.”
“Then there was Lord Charlesbury. We were supposed to go and stay
with him, last year, but his boy got measles, so we didn’t go. I was
frightfully disappointed, but _they_ didn’t seem to care a bit. They
never do, about anything.”
Henrietta Lucian shrugged her shoulders. “People are as they’re made, I
suppose,” she said philosophically. “Our sort gets much more fun out of
life than their sort--though it cuts both ways, too.”
“I’d rather Cecil was like me than like them,” said Rose with decision.
“I quite agree with you. Well, tell me about Cecil. How’s he getting
on?”
Miss Lucian’s hearty interest in Cecil always roused in his mother all
the passionate gratitude that the entirely unenthusiastic bestowal of
material benefits from the Aviolets failed to evoke.
“I’ve had such nice letters from that kind Mrs. Lambert. She’s been so
good about writing, and she says he’s getting on very well, and seems
thoroughly well and happy. And his own letters say he’s happy, too.”
“I’m so glad!” Miss Lucian ejaculated, with the utmost sincerity.
“I suppose it’s much more fun for him to be with other boys. Only I
wish he was better at games.”
“Isn’t he good at them?”
“No, not a bit, and the odd thing is that he really wants to be,
dreadfully--and yet it’s the work of the world to get him to try.”
“He’s so active--I can’t imagine Cecil not good at games.”
Rose shook her head. “He won’t try,” she repeated. “He can’t throw a
ball properly, and when we were first at Squires, his grandfather tried
to show him how, but Ces just wouldn’t learn. I think he didn’t like to
be seen doing it the wrong way, and so he wouldn’t ever do it at all.
But to hear him talk, you’d think he was mad about cricket or anything
like that, and ready to practise his bowling all day.”
“Perhaps he’ll be good at football.”
“Perhaps,” said Rose doubtfully. “Jim was good at games.”
“Yes, I remember. Far better than Ford ever was, but then Ford has
always cared more for other things. He isn’t really very strong,
physically, is he?”
“He looks weedy enough,” said Mrs. Aviolet contemptuously. “He never
offered to teach Ces anything about games, and he never plays any
himself, except tennis, and he always looks superior when people go on
about golf and things--and yet he sneers at poor little Ces for being
no good. It was partly him, I think, that made Ces so tiresome about
not trying to learn.”
“That’ll be different, at school. He’ll do as the others do, and there
are sure to be plenty of beginners. He won’t be afraid of being laughed
at, when he isn’t the only one. Maurice thinks, you know, that it’s
that fear of being laughed at that’s at the bottom of all Cecil’s
troubles.”
“I know what you mean,” said Rose rather gloomily. “His story-telling.
There hasn’t been a word about that, in any of Mrs. Lambert’s letters.
I’m sure I hope there’ll never have to be.”
Mrs. Lambert, indeed, writing intimately of Cecil’s physical welfare,
touched very little upon other subjects.
Rose had left Squires, and gone to pay her promised visit to the
Lucians, before she received confirmation of the fear that had all the
time been lurking at her heart.
At Squires, her farewells had been complicated by a slight tinge of
remorse that she could make them no more cordial.
“Well, good-bye, my dear. We shall expect you for the holidays,
remember. I don’t want to hurry you, but Tucker is at the door, and you
must allow for the hill.”
Rose had heard that information bestowed, identically worded, upon
every departing guest that she had ever seen at Squires.
“Good-bye. Thanks awfully for having had me for such ages--and Ces,
too. I hope I haven’t seemed cross and beastly, very often, but----”
“My dear, please! (_Les domestiques!_) Ah, here’s Ford.”
“Good-bye, Ford.”
Rose’s tone had involuntarily altered, and her smile, not
involuntarily, had vanished.
“Good-bye, Rose. If you want any help about Cecil, don’t hesitate to
apply to me.”
Had there been deliberate mockery in his manner, as he made the
suggestion? Rose, at least, had felt no doubt upon the point.
Her ejaculatory reply, a sound rather than a distinct syllable, had
been the “Tchah!” habitual to Mrs. Smith, as a contemptuous retort, on
the rare occasions when words had failed her.
She had shaken hands with Sir Thomas, presented the side of her face
for a slight and meaningless contact with that of her mother-in-law,
and had thankfully been driven away from the door.
With the Lucians she was at her ease, and very happy until a letter
arrived from Mrs. Lambert.
Rose read it with a deepening flush upon her face, and then went
straight to Maurice Lucian.
“Look here, you’ve always known about Ces, and you’ve always said, like
I do, that there’s a sort of kink in him somewhere that makes him like
he is. I’m going to consult you.”
The doctor, seated before his writing-table, swung round in his
revolving chair and faced her without speaking. His kind face
and profound, intelligent eyes seldom showed either surprise or
apprehension. Nevertheless, his expression habitually altered slightly
when he spoke to Rose Aviolet. She had come by unperceived degrees to
count upon that all-but-imperceptible softening of glance, that greater
gentleness in the manner of his speech.
“I want you to read this. It’s from Mrs. Lambert, the schoolmaster’s
wife. I told her about Ces before he ever went there.”
The letter was dated from Hurst.
My dear Mrs. Aviolet,
Your boy is very well, and has quite escaped the prevailing cold,
which so many of them have had. I am still keeping him on the Extract
of Malt, but only as a precaution.
I promised you to write quite fully and frankly, so I will tell you
that Cecil hasn’t been quite so bright lately, and we are a little bit
afraid, my husband and I, that he has been in some trouble with the
other boys. There was some little want of openness over a game that,
I’m afraid, almost amounted to cheating, and as it isn’t quite the
first time it’s happened with poor little Cecil, he caught it “hot and
strong” from the other lads. It didn’t really come to my ears, or to
Will’s, in any official way, and he has thought it best not to notice
it, but he said that I might write to you.
After the talk we had about Cecil the first time you came down here, I
felt I’d _much_ better write frankly, especially as it really hasn’t
been what you told me about. As far as I know, he has been quite
truthful, but I’m afraid he’s been caught out cheating over games more
than once, and you know how dreadfully “down” English boys always are
on anything of that kind. It seems such a pity, because Cecil is a
dear little boy and gets on well at his lessons.
My own feeling is that, now there’s been an explosion, so to speak,
poor little Cecil will have learnt his lesson, and such a thing will
never happen again. But I should so much like to hear what you feel
about it, and if there is anything you would advise.
Forgive me for worrying you with such a long letter.
Very sincerely yours,
Anne Lambert.
“Have you heard from Cecil?”
“Yes, but he doesn’t say a word about anything of that kind. He writes
just as usual, not telling me anything, poor darling--boy’s letters
never do--but nice and affectionate, and sounding quite happy.”
“Probably by this time he _is_ quite happy again. Have you any idea
what kind of thing she--Mrs. Lambert--means, about cheating at games?”
Rose coloured, but faced the doctor unflinchingly as ever.
“Oh, yes. Ces got into trouble about it at Squires once or twice. He
isn’t always straight about games, round games, or anything like that,
you know, with counters--I’ve seen him shove his counter along with
his hand when he thought no one was looking, and the worst of it is
that he doesn’t own up when he’s taxed with it. And the same at card
games. That wretched little Miss Wade played Beggar-my-Neighbour, or
something, with him, and swore he used to peep at the cards. I think
she was probably right.”
“When you say that he doesn’t own up,” said Lucian, in his most
impersonal and judicial manner, “do you mean that he flatly denies any
accusation of cheating?”
“That’s it.”
“When did you first notice anything of that kind?”
“A long time ago, when he was very small, in Ceylon. But I thought then
that it was his native ayah’s fault, and it didn’t seem to matter so
much. Jim never found it out. He’d have been very angry if he had.”
“I daresay. Was Cecil frightened of his father?”
“Sometimes, but he’s not a cowardly child, you know. When Jim had been
drinking, he used to get angry sometimes, but not often with Ces.”
“Was it fear of Jim that made Cecil say what wasn’t true?”
“I don’t think so. He did tell _extra_ untruths, if you know what I
mean, when Jim bullied him and tried to catch him out, but as a general
rule, it was just the kind of stories that he told at Squires--things
he invented, you know.”
“I know.”
Lucian’s voice was rather sorrowful.
“I daresay it sounds like nonsense,” Rose said, “but often and often
I’ve thought that Ces couldn’t really help himself. Aren’t some people
born colour-blind, so that they can’t distinguish between colours?”
“Yes.”
“Sometimes it seems to me that Ces was born without any--any sense of
honour at all.”
Lucian nodded, his grave, pitying eyes fixed upon her, and his implied
acceptance of her view filled Rose with terror.
“What am I to do for him?” she cried despairingly.
“I wish I could tell you,” said Maurice Lucian very earnestly. “These
tendencies can be pathologically treated, and more is being learnt
about the right treatment of them every day, but even so, it’s still
working in the dark----”
He broke off, as Rose made a violent gesture of impatience.
“I don’t even know what you mean, when you use words like
patho--what’s-its-name. I wish to the Lord that I’d ever been properly
educated. It’s no wonder that I’m so little use to poor Ces.”
“You’ll be of less use than ever, if you work yourself up like that,”
said Lucian suddenly and sharply.
Rose stared at him, arrested mid-way in the flouncing movement that
denoted the perturbation of her mind. For a moment she looked angry,
and then the fundamental breadth of generosity that lay beneath all her
petulance and her lack of control asserted itself.
“I expect you’re right,” she said, suddenly quiet, and smiled at him as
though in remorseful atonement for her temper.
The doctor rose abruptly to his feet, and stood with his hands in
his pockets, his back against the door. He was as tall a man as Ford
Aviolet, but with a broad, bony frame, and the hair on his temples was
already grizzled.
He looked down at Rose, who remained in her chair, gazing up at him
rather surprised. Although it would not have occurred to her to make
use of the words, she was singularly sensitive to atmosphere, and
beneath the artificial colour upon her cheeks, there presently surged a
warm blush.
Lucian immediately looked away from her. “Has it ever occurred to you
that you might marry again?”
“Of course it has,” said Mrs. Aviolet defiantly. “I thought we were
talking about Cecil.”
“There was nothing irrelevant in my question,” the doctor retorted
caustically, “although perhaps you may reasonably look upon it as an
impertinent one. Rose, I know very well that you don’t care for me at
present, but isn’t there any chance for me at all?”
“I did hope you wouldn’t ask me,” said Rose piteously.
“I didn’t mean to. I’m not such a fool as to have thought you would
listen to me, for a moment. But it’s more than I’d reckoned on, having
you in the house like this, and--and caring for you in the way I do.”
“Do you, _really_?”
“Yes, dear. Almost since that very first day I saw you at Squires.”
He drew a long breath.
“Couldn’t you, Rose?”
Rose Aviolet shook her head, and he saw tears in her brown eyes.
“I shan’t ever marry again. You don’t know what my married life was
like. I suppose it’s a most awful thing to own up to, but after I’d
been married to Jim six months, I used to think I’d rather be a widow
than anything else in the world. He was in love with me, at first
anyway, but do you think I was ever anything but a convenience to him?
It was what _he_ wanted, _when_ he wanted it, _how_ he wanted it, first
and last. Some women may like it, if they’re the door-mat kind, but
I’m not. And it wasn’t only that I was very young and self-willed and
spoilt, and Jim more or less of a bad lot--which he _was_. I know what
other marriages are like, too. There isn’t any freedom for the woman,
only for the man. Why, Ford told me that it’s only the father that has
any legal rights over his children at all.”
“It’s true,” said Lucian. “To the shame of those who tolerate it, the
law of the land only acknowledges one parent for children born in
wedlock, and that is the father. But can’t you trust me, Rose? I can
promise you that it wouldn’t be a case of Jim Aviolet over again,” said
the doctor rather grimly.
She shook her head again. “It isn’t that I don’t trust you. I even
think you’d do better than any one for Ces. But I don’t hold with
second marriages.”
The doctor ignored that pronouncement, which Rose had frequently heard
employed by her mother.
“I am very much interested in Cecil, altogether apart from his
relationship to you, and personally I believe that I could help him.
But, in any case, I want to do that. I’ve wanted to ever since I first
knew the boy.”
“I know that.”
“It isn’t Cecil that’s the obstacle, then?”
“No.”
“But you don’t like me enough? I’m not asking for anything more to
begin with.”
“I like you much better than most other people,” said Rose candidly.
“But I don’t want to marry. I didn’t like it before, and I made a great
hash of it.”
“I’d risk that.”
“But I wouldn’t,” said Rose.
They looked at one another rather helplessly.
“If I loved you,” she said at last, “it would be different. I _do_
trust you, and I think you’d be good to my Ces. But it wouldn’t be
worth doing, unless I really did care.”
“Mayn’t I try to make you care?”
“I don’t think so,” said Rose slowly.
“Is there somebody else? No, don’t tell me if you don’t want to.”
But his face had altered.
“It’s like this. I don’t hold with second marriages, like I said
before, and I had a rotten time the first time, and if any one had
told me, when Jim died, that I’d ever run the risk of putting my head
through the same noose a second time, I’d have called them a liar.
Neither more nor less. But there’s a--person that I’m sort of attracted
by, in a way, though I don’t know that there’s much sense in it,
because he’s never said a syllable of that sort to me, and so,” said
Rose, very much flushed and implacably straightforward, “if I ever did
do anything in that line, I suppose I should want it to be him. But,
mind you, I haven’t got any reason to think it ever will be, and I
should have to be a long sight surer of myself than I am now.”
“I see,” said the doctor slowly.
“I--I’m sorry,” said Rose.
“Don’t let it make any difference, my dear. I don’t give up hope, but
I shan’t worry you. Honestly, I think you and I could find happiness
together, but these things aren’t lightly come by. Will you go on just
as before and let me see you very often, even if you do leave Squires?
And, above all, let me be of use to you whenever I can?”
“You’ve been the best friend I’ve had, ever since I came to England.”
Rose stood up and gave him both her hands in an impetuous gesture.
“I like you much too much ever to let it be anything but the real
thing--Maurice.”
She had never called him so before.
“Thank you,” said Dr. Lucian.
She stood for a moment, hesitating, and then said with a sort of rush:
“And for goodness’ sake, don’t think too much about what I said. It
seemed fairer to tell you, but I don’t suppose there’s anything in
it, for a moment, and it would take a lot to make me marry again,
especially out of my own class. Once bit twice shy,” concluded Mrs.
Aviolet.
Neither she nor Maurice Lucian referred again to their conversation
during the remaining days of Rose’s visit.
If there were a certain consciousness latent between them, Rose forgot
it speedily enough, in her preoccupation with the question of Cecil.
“I think I shall go down to Hurst,” she said.
The Lucians, unlike the Aviolets, never proffered advice.
Consequently, Rose felt desirous of it.
“Don’t you think I’d better?”
“For your own sake, or for Cecil’s?”
“Both, I suppose. I can’t bear to think of him unhappy.”
“He wrote you quite a happy letter; and I don’t really think you could
help him by going there and bringing the whole thing up again,” said
Lucian.
“It’s so very hard to do nothing.”
“The hardest thing there is,” agreed the doctor gravely.
She looked at him anxiously.
“Poor little Cecil,” said Henrietta. “Don’t you think he’s probably
learnt his lesson, Rose, if the other boys have found him out in some
trick or other, and have been horrid to him? If you go down there,
it’ll make it all assume enormous proportions to him, and, after all,
even Mr. and Mrs. Lambert aren’t supposed to know about it officially,
as she said in her letter.”
“Then I’d better not go?” Rose repeated slowly, as though she could
hardly believe in the necessity for the discipline, so alien to her, of
inaction.
“I should think, better not.”
Rose, from indignation at the suggestion, passed to unwilling
consideration of it, and still more unwilling conversion to it.
But she made up her mind, at last, that Cecil should be allowed to
weather the storm alone.
It was perhaps the first time that she had deliberately denied herself
the luxury of acting upon impulse.
The next day she went to London.
“We shall see you in the holidays,” Henrietta Lucian said to her
affectionately, “and Maurice says he’s going to be in London a good
deal now--research-work, he calls it--and he wants to go and see you.”
“Oh, yes. He can come to Ovington Street whenever he likes. I’m going
to stay with my uncle there--for a bit--he’s a pawnbroker.”
Rose had come to add that piece of information, which was by no means
new to Miss Lucian, almost automatically, in her determination not to
risk gratifying Ford Aviolet by suppressing it.
She was very much pleased when she found herself in London again.
“I declare, I like the good old smell of the gas upstairs,” she
emphatically announced to Felix Menebees, who carried her box up to her
bedroom.
The gaunt youth, panting, and paler than ever from the ascent, smiled
at her rapturously.
“Yes, Mrs. Aviolet, I’m sure we’re all delighted that you’ve come back
again, if I may be allowed to say so.”
It was very evident, indeed, that Felix spoke truth at least as
regarded himself, and Rose, with characteristic catholicity of outlook,
welcomed his obvious admiration with exactly the same indiscriminate
gratification that she had accorded to Charlesbury’s. But for all
her transparent vanity, the daughter of the late Mrs. Smith did not
lack shrewdness. She was perfectly aware that she might very well find
herself falling in love with Lord Charlesbury, and she knew equally
well that, although he had admired her at Squires, it was scarcely
probable that he would ask her to marry him.
“And I don’t know that I’d accept him if he did,” Rose told herself
stoutly. “It would be biting off a good deal more than I could chew, it
seems to me. A place bigger than Squires, and a title, and another boy
as well as Cecil, and perhaps babies of my own as well! There’d be more
sense in taking Maurice Lucian than that!”
She thought very little of the advantages to be derived from
marriage with a man in Charlesbury’s position. Her experience of “a
gentleman” in the person of Jim Aviolet had been calculated to destroy
conventional illusions on that score, and the once magic words,
“my lady,” had lost romantic value in her ears, since hearing them
habitually applied to her mother-in-law.
She resumed her old life over the pawnshop very easily.
In the phraseology of Mr. Smith, an arrangement had been come to
between himself and his niece with no display of false delicacy upon
either side.
“They do give me an allowance,” Rose admitted, “but I can’t say I
enjoy taking it, though well I know they can spare it. However, that’s
neither here nor there. I don’t want you to be out of pocket, Uncle A.,
I’m sure, by having me here.”
“That’s common honesty, Rose,” her relative answered simply.
“At the same time, I suppose you don’t want to _make_ out of me?” Rose
suggested, not altogether without a hint of doubtfulness.
“I wish to do what is fair and proper by all parties, myself included,”
said Uncle Alfred with dignity. “The room that you occupy could very
well let at seven-and-sixpence a week, exclusive of light and heating.”
“There is no heating, Uncle A., as you very well know. I’m not likely
to ask for a fire, and the girl wouldn’t carry the coals up all those
stairs if I did, most likely. As for the light, I can buy my own
candles, and I’ll pay one-fourth of the gas-bill. That’s fair enough, I
should hope.”
“Very well,” her uncle agreed without enthusiasm.
“And if you’ll let me manage the housekeeping, I’ll undertake to bring
the weekly books down and feed myself into the bargain. It doesn’t cost
more to feed five than to feed four.”
“Yes, it does,” said Uncle Alfred.
It was such a long while since Rose had heard any one, herself
excepted, utter a flat contradiction, that she felt quite surprised,
and she admitted to herself in that moment that such a form of
intercourse was, after all, lacking in charm.
“Call it ten shillings a week, Uncle Alfred, and let’s be done with it.”
“Half a guinea, Rose.”
“Oh, well, half a guinea then.”
“And I shall be very glad of your company, my dear niece,” said the old
man, suddenly affable. “The Lord loveth a cheerful giver, and I trust
that you will never find me anything else. Of course, you’ll be ready
to lend Felix a hand with the silver cleaning in the mornings?”
“Yes--well--all right. But one of these days, quite soon, Dr. Lucian,
that I told you about, is going to try and find me some work during the
term-time, that I can do.”
“Charity begins at home,” said Uncle Alfred.
Rose laughed, her ready, easy laughter. She was quite willing to help
Felix in cleaning the silver from the shop, and although she sincerely
intended to undertake any work which Lucian might suggest to her, there
was at the back of her mind an unformulated idea that circumstances
might arise which would render such a course unnecessary.
When she had paid a visit to Hurst, at Mrs. Lambert’s cordial
suggestion, and found Cecil stronger-looking and more animated than she
had ever seen him, Rose realized herself to be happier than she had
been for many years.
The deepest anxiety in her heart was momentarily quelled, when Mrs.
Lambert had told her that there had been no further signs of a lack of
truthfulness in Cecil.
He seemed to be happy, and although he told Rose that he did not like
games, she could see no mental reservations behind the ingenuous,
uplifted gaze of his brown eyes.
Maurice Lucian was frequently in London, and always came to see her.
She received him in the sitting-room above the shop, introduced him to
the old pawnbroker and to Felix Menebees, and was pleased when Uncle
Alfred chose to annex him as a player of backgammon.
“A sensible, likeable fellow, and I have no doubt that he will be
brought to a knowledge of the Word in due season,” pronounced Uncle
Alfred, who never took for granted the status of any fellow-creature as
a Christian.
Cecil and Rose spent his short Christmas holidays at Squires, and she
received the placid congratulations of his grandparents on the great
improvement which they alleged to have taken place in the little boy.
Ford and Diana were at their own house, and Rose did not see them at
all.
She took Cecil back to Hurst herself, and returned to Ovington Street.
There, two days later, she received a letter from Lord Charlesbury, to
tell her that he was just returned from Paris and to ask whether he
might call upon her.
His letter was dated from a London club.