a fair florid style. He greatly resembled his father at the same age;
and though to hear Jemmie talk about his youth now was to conjure up
a half-heroic figure of mythical prowess and virtue, it is probable
that the son equally resembled in character his father at the same
age. Muriel, who was fifteen, did not resemble either of her parents
much, although in figure, if the figure of a girl of fifteen may be
granted the name, she seemed likely to take after her father. She was
very fair, round-faced and blue-eyed, reputed clever, an admirable
athlete, and immensely popular at school. Her mother never felt really
at ease with Muriel, though she never could satisfactorily explain to
herself why this should be so; it seemed absurd to allow herself to bow
embarrassed before that pitiless judgment of youth; but bow she did,
and the consciousness of her position often made her irritable. Not
that any display of irritation affected Muriel, who would merely stare
at her mother, slightly knitting the fair brows above those eyes of
porcelain blue.
"I'm beginning to be afraid that Muriel may be difficult," Mary
confided in her husband that evening, when she came to bid him good
night.
"Oh no, I don't think so. Several of my family have been very clever,
but it never led to anything unpleasant. They were clever, but always
very womanly women. I think she's a nice straightforward, clean-minded
English girl. Oh no, I don't believe she'll be difficult."
"I find her very hard to understand," Mary complained. "All the time I
have a feeling that she is building up a wall between herself and me."
"Know what it is?" Jemmie asked. "Know what's the matter with you?
You're growing old."
"Jemmie, what a horrible thing to tell me."
"Never mind, old lady. It's got to be. We're both growing old. I tell
you I realize it more and more when I'm playing golf. Good night, my
dear."
He offered himself to her salute without rising from the chair in
which he was smoking his final cigar before a light autumnal fire in
the library--the Badminton Library, as Muriel called it, for that
collection of authoritative treatises on sport, together with some
bound volumes of _Punch_ and the _Illustrated London News_, _Handley
Cross_, and a few novels by writers like Frank Smedley, constituted her
father's literary environment.
"Growing old?" Mary repeated to herself on the way upstairs to her
room. "Growing old?" she echoed once more when she stood in front of
her mirror. The candlelight, apricot-shaded, flattered her reflection.
Growing old at forty? What nonsense Jemmie talked! He forgot that he
was fifteen years older than she. Now he certainly _was_ growing old.
How much he had aged just lately and how much he had improved with age!
Dear old Jemmie, he really needed her far more than Geoffrey or Muriel
needed her. He was much more a child to her than either of them. If it
were not for Richard, she might begin to wonder if children were much
of a consolation for growing old. And Richard would be here to-morrow.
But for how long? Mary felt sick and dizzy in a sudden thought of how
brief his stay might be. If he really were ordered to the front? Was
it credible that he should be? Richard in danger, and Richard how many
thousand miles away! She had been proud and glad when he chose to be
a soldier; but war had been so remote then. It seemed only yesterday
that Jemmie bought High Corner, so that the children might always spend
their holidays out of London. And now the eldest of those children was
liable to be sent abroad to fight for his country. High Corner without
children would not be High Corner any longer. But perhaps the war
would soon be over. She must read the papers more carefully. She must
not skip them as she did now. She must not rely on gossip about the
duration of the war. She must learn to judge for herself. And Richard
would be here to-morrow.
"I must not lie awake fretting," she decided. "I must get to sleep
quickly. It will be time to fret when Richard is ordered abroad."
He arrived when the sun was driving away the wraiths of morning mist
and when the others were all at golf. For her, when she saw him, so
tall and straight and slim and fair, coming toward her along that green
walk by the phloxes, he was more radiant than the sun.
"Hark, mother, do you hear that robin? That's the first I've heard
this autumn," he exclaimed as he bent to kiss her.
In the silence of their first embrace the birdsong passed into the
dim green recesses of the day, vanishing like the voice of her son's
vanishing childhood.
"Do you remember that fatal day when I killed a robin?" he asked.
"No, dearest, I'd forgotten that you'd ever killed anything."
"Why, mother, when I had that air-gun I killed everything I saw until
that day."
"How you exaggerate, my Richard."
"Yes, I did indeed. But that day I'd missed everything, and then
sitting on a branch of that oak, the one Geoff and I planted to shade
us in our old age, I saw a robin. I fired and killed him, and I was so
shocked at what I'd done that I've never really been able to kill even
a partridge since with any pleasure."
"Always such a dear little boy," she exclaimed, holding tight to her
son's arm.
"Was I?" Richard laughed. "I'm afraid I must always have kept my good
behavior for you. Aren't your phloxes splendid this year? Best I've
ever seen."
They paced the walk arm-in-arm, admiring the glow of color. At last
Richard said:
"Mother, I've got something to tell you."
She knew immediately what it was.
"You're going to South Africa."
"Yes. I'm in the _Gazette_ this morning. I thought you'd all have seen
it."
"They went out to golf without reading the papers," she said, trying to
keep her voice from trembling. "What regiment, darling?"
"Rifle brigade."
"Are you pleased?"
"Pleased to be a rifleman? Mother, of course I am!"
"I'm glad you're pleased about it, darling. I'm glad you've got what
you wanted."
"My battalion is at the front."
She braced herself for the next question.
"And when do you think you'll have to go, darling?"
"Rather soon," he told her in his gentlest voice.
"Rather soon," she echoed in a whisper. "Shall we go and sit somewhere
in the shade? The sun is so hot along this wall. I wonder the phloxes
can stand it without wilting."
"There was a heavy dew this morning," he reminded her.
A heavy dew this morning? It was a day then, a real day in time. The
date was in the almanac. It was not a dream. There was a heavy dew this
morning, and Richard would be on his way to South Africa rather soon.
"And I suppose you'll have to go up to town about your uniform?" she
asked.
"Yes, I shall have to see about my kit."
"And that will mean some of the little time we have left will be taken
away from us."
"You could come up to town with me and we could have lunch somewhere,"
he suggested.
Yes, they could have lunch together, and then a week or two later he
would be gone.
"Richard!"
He looked round in astonishment at the poignant exclamation of his name.
"No, I did not want to say anything," she told him with a sad smile.
"Nothing more than 'Richard,' while you can still look round at me like
that, while you are still here to look round at me."
The fine autumn weather lasted until Richard left for South Africa.
His mother at his earnestly expressed desire did not go to Southampton
to wave the last farewell. When he was trying to dissuade her from
the journey, she felt as she used to feel when as a boy he had always
tried to dissuade her from coming to Paddington to bid him good-by on
the platform before he went back to Eton. They parted on the steps of
Woodworth Lodge, and the carriage drove off with ghostly quietude along
the road that was littered with dead leaves, drove off with her Richard
in the yellow light of an October morning.
"Seems strange without him," said Jemmie, taking his wife's arm
affectionately and guiding her when she stumbled on the stairs because
the tears in her eyes obscured all objects familiar and unfamiliar,
all life indeed for the moment.
"Geoffrey's off to Oxford to-morrow, and then you and I shall be all
alone, old lady, just as we used to be when we were first married
twenty years ago."
Jemmie was evidently anxious to free his mind of the emotional
discomfort that Richard's departure provoked by directing his emotion
into the channels of a sentimentalized past; but Mary refused to follow
his lead. She had only one idea, which was to be alone with her grief.
She had no superfluity of idle regret, no lachrymatories of stale tears
to be unsealed for Jemmie's gratification. She was inconsolable.
_My darling Mother_,
_I hope you got my post-card from Capetown. Here I am at last with my
regiment in the field. It was awfully nervous work finding out where
they were, and I felt an awful fool when I had to walk into the mess
after riding about ten miles and explain who I was. They were awfully
decent to me, however, and luckily there was quite a decent dust-up
with the Boers soon after I arrived. I was glad to get it all over at
once. I mean both my joining up and going into action for the first
time. Love to everybody and lots to yourself. I'll write a better
letter when I'm more settled. I hear that we are going off chasing
De Wet presently. They say we've really got him in a corner this
time. It doesn't look as if the war would go on for much longer. I'm
really a year too late. That's the bad luck of it. Of course, there's
still plenty to do, but it's nothing to what it was, they tell me.
The regiment fought splendidly at Spion Kop. I wish I'd been there!_
_Don't read this letter to anybody except Father, and don't let him
have it to take with him when he goes to golf. Just read it to him at
home. Once more with lots of love,_
_Your loving son,
Richard._
_My dearest Mother_,
_I've quite settled down at St. Mary's. I'm sorry I've not written
more often this term. I shall be going down next week and I've been
asked to spend the week before Christmas with a man in my year called
Whittington-Jones, an old Carthusian. His people have a rather decent
shoot in Norfolk. I wonder if you could get Father to lend me his
guns. He practically never shoots now. I suppose you wouldn't mind
if I asked Whittington-Jones to come to Woodworth Lodge soon after
Christmas? He is rather keen to trot around the theaters, and so am
I, I'm bound to admit._
_I wonder if you could manage to lend me £100? I know this sounds
rather a large sum to want in my first term, but the fact is I seem
to have spent rather more than I meant, and I had to borrow £75 from
a man in my year. I bought one or two pictures for my rooms, and I
also lost a bit at roulette one night at the House. I didn't really
mean to play, but I couldn't very well sit looking on without seeming
rude, because I had been dining with a House man. I lost more than I
meant. I don't like to ask Father for the money because he'll jump
to the conclusion that I'm gambling, which of course I need hardly
say is not the case. If you could manage to get me out of rather an
awkward hole just this once I promise not to run any risks again.
Will you let me know as soon as you can about Whittington-Jones
coming to us after Christmas and also about the £100? The extra £25
is for expenses during the vac. I shall have some tipping to do in
Norfolk. If Father consults you about a present for me at Christmas,
would you mind suggesting a check? It's awfully hard to choose a
suitable present, though of course there are lots of things I should
like for my rooms. But a check would really be more useful. I don't
think there's much to tell you about Oxford. It's been very foggy
there for the last few days._
_Your loving son,
Geoffrey._
_My dear Mother_,
_I'm sorry I have waited so long to answer your last letter, but we
have been fearfully busy rehearsing for our Break-up. I am acting
Gratiano in the trial scene from "The Merchant of Venice." Celia
Wentworth, the girl who plays Shylock, is most dreadfully good. Miss
Bewick considers her simply marvelous. She says that ever since she
has been elocution mistress at the school she never has known such
a good Shylock. I wonder if I could invite Celia to spend a few days
with us during the Christmas holidays. She is fearfully keen to see
some theaters, and we've made out a gorgeous list of things we're
simply dying to see. Celia says that the way I play Gratiano helps
her most frightfully, and Miss Bewick was tremendously complimentary.
The blot on the performance is the Doge played by a girl I hate
called Marjorie Lane. She simply won't learn her words, and at the
first rehearsal without books she cut out all the middle of her long
speech and said "the world thinks and I think so too, we all expect
a gentle answer, Jew." You should have seen Miss Bewick's face. Of
course we all snorted like anything, and Marjorie could only sit
there and giggle in that affected way she does. Celia says she hopes
she won't do that on the afternoon of Break-up, because the audience
is sure to laugh, and Celia thinks it may spoil her performance. I
hope you and Father are going to turn up in force, and when you come
do please invite Celia to stay with us in January._
_Your loving daughter,
Muriel._
Geoffrey and Muriel had their friends to stay with them as they
wanted; and continuous chatter about the world of Oxford and the world
of school, from both of which worlds their mother perceived herself
infinitely remote, made her feel still more hopelessly banished from
the only world where she cared to live, the world of South Africa and
war. Perhaps if her two younger children had been able or anxious to
appreciate what she was suffering from Richard's absence she would not
have grudged them their gayety. It was not that she wanted them to
devote themselves entirely to her. That would be an unworthy maternal
egotism. But such a complete absorption already in other interests was
surely not what most mothers had to endure from their children.
* * * * *
"Muriel, haven't you anything to tell me about your life at school?"
"Oh, mother, I'm always telling you things."
"But only about the other girls, dear child."
"Well, what else is there to tell you?" Muriel countered.
"Don't you ever want to tell me anything about yourself and your
thoughts and what you would like to do when you grow up?" her mother
persisted.
Muriel frowned.
"I wish you wouldn't always be imagining that I have any thoughts as
you call them. You always ask such impossible questions, mother."
Mary turned away with a sigh. It was not thus that she had pictured her
daughter at fifteen when ten years ago she used to enter the nursery on
tiptoe and steal through the dim hush to where in her cot Muriel lay
sleeping as still as a gathered carnation. It was not for this Muriel
that she had peered into the future, not for this Muriel that she had
stood in the door on her way out and looked back to see that the night
light was burning faithfully in the glimmering saucer.
"Geoffrey, you and your friend Mr. Whittington-Jones, never seem to
talk about anything except horses and cards."
Geoffrey, remembering that he owed his mother a hundred pounds and that
a time might come when he should wish to extend this obligation, tried
not to look irritated by the question. The result was an expression of
patient long-suffering, which irritated her.
"Really, my dear boy," she exclaimed, "there is no occasion for you to
assume that expression of injured innocence. You do talk a great deal
about horses and cards."
"Well, the men I know best are interested in horses," Geoffrey
muttered. "And surely one can be interested in horses without being
jumped on?"
"I'm not jumping on you, dear Geoffrey. I don't think I ever jumped on
anybody. Sometimes I think it would be better if I did jump on people.
I do hope that you will try to make the best of your time at Oxford. It
would be such a pity if you wasted these years. You would always regret
them and wish you could have them all over again."
Geoffrey removed his weight from his right leg and put it upon his
left.
"I know it's boring," his mother went on, "very boring to have a mother
who tries to interfere with a young man's natural amusements. I don't a
bit want to be a spoil-sport, but you know how horrified father would
be if he thought you were gambling. Luckily I was able to help you out
with that money. But I shan't always be able to help you, and I do so
want you to help yourself."
Mary had tried not to bring Richard into the conversation in order to
make a comparison. But before she could stop herself the comparison was
made.
"Richard!" Geoffrey echoed, flushing. "I've never pretended to compete
with him. And anyway you wouldn't expect a soldier on active service to
have the temptations I have at the 'Varsity."
"What a mean remark! Unworthy of a brother!"
Geoffrey shifted back from his left leg to his right.
"Whatever I do and whatever I say is sure to be wrong," he muttered.
Mary turned away with a sigh. It was not thus she had pictured her
second son at eighteen when ten years ago she had sat in the shade of
the mulberry tree at High Corner, during that first delicious summer
of their possession, and watched him turning somersaults on the bright
lawn. Then her only fear for Geoffrey was that the blood might rush to
his head from the energy of his exercise. How foolish an apprehension
that seemed compared with the present dread for Geoffrey's future!
Later in that month Queen Victoria died, and on the gray February
morning when the funeral procession crossed London Mary found herself
kept by the press of people from reaching Grosvenor Place, where Jemmie
had been lent a window to watch with his family the passing of a great
period, the end of a mighty reign, the obsequies of an august and noble
woman. She turned aside into Hyde Park, vexed with herself for making a
muddle of the occasion; but when she was out of the crowd and walking
in comfort under the bare trees she was glad that she had not succeeded
in reaching Grosvenor Place, for out of the gray air beyond the fume of
gray boughs sounded the lament of Chopin's Funeral March, not as if it
was being played by mortal instruments, but like a coronach wailed by
remote winds, a threnody uttered by unimaginable waves.
Mary looked round her. There was no longer a human being in sight;
there was only tree after tree in audience of that melodious
lamentation. For a while her fancy was caught by the picture of that
grave pageant moving across London to the music of those poignant
cadences. Her mind went back to a year or two ago when she had seen the
Queen driving along Kensington High Street, a little old woman in black
nodding to right and left in acknowledgment of her subjects' welcome.
Now that little old woman in black was being borne on a gun-carriage,
nothing left of her domination save the orb and scepter upon the coffin
in which she lay dead. The funeral strains of Chopin died away, and
their place was taken by the heavier grief of Handel's Dead March, so
solemn that one seemed to hear above the crash of cymbals the tread of
mourning emperors and kings. Mary felt it was wrong of her not to have
made certain of beholding the procession, that she had no business to
be standing here alone among the trees. She started to hurry forward
in the direction of the music, so that above the crowd she might catch
a glimpse of the plumes and helmets and perhaps even of the white pall
itself. It began to seem of the greatest importance that she should
have this glimpse, for she was thinking that without it she should
miss the most important public event in her time. To-day would surely
be a landmark in time to which everything in contemporary life would
be referred. She must hurry. Already Handel's solemn beat was becoming
muffled and dying into silence beyond the Marble Arch. This silence was
tremendous. She hurried on, panting for breath. There at last was that
endless mourning edge of black spectators, and there above them the
plumes and the helmets of the cavalry flashing and rippling. Had the
coffin passed? Once more the silence was rent by the plangent strains
of Chopin.
Mary turned away from the people and the procession; with all the air
behind her melodious with grief, she sought again the holy quiet of
the bare trees. A little child, too young for the pomps of death, was
running after a gay ball, while a Dandie Dinmont jumped in circles
round her barking. In a moment Mary was walking under these very trees,
herself of twenty years ago! How little they had changed, but herself
how much. The melody in which at first she had found the expression of
a world's sorrow for the death of a Queen, now rose with its yearning
and fell with its despair upon her own life. It was identified with
herself and so much the more poignant in consequence. It no longer
expressed a nation's grief, but voiced instead all the regrets for
what might have befallen herself. She was back again among these
trees twenty-one years ago with Mac. It was a month later than this,
she reminded herself, and although the trees were just as bare, the
crocuses were in full bloom then. Yes, Mac was barking there beside
her, and children were running after brightly painted balls. Still
that wailing of the Funeral March! What did twenty years ago matter
now? What did they count for now? More sharply sad, more passionately
wistful in one supreme melodious sigh the refrain, seeking to express
an incommunicable grief, died away into silence. If only Richard had
not been ordered abroad! He would have been with her to-day. He would
have waited for her this morning. Richard was not like Geoffrey and
Muriel, not so forgetful of his mother as they were. Yet perhaps
she was unfair to her younger children. Perhaps, in her devotion to
Richard, she had let them understand too well that she cared more
deeply for him than for them. It might be her own fault if they were
forgetful. And ten years ago she had not been fair to Jemmie. She
had a great deal for which to blame herself. From to-day onward she
would think more about other people and not be so ready to blame them,
when it was she herself who was at fault. This was a solemn day in
the history of England. She would try to make it a solemn day in the
history of herself.
The mellow form of Kensington Palace came into sight. It looked exactly
the same as it always looked. It was strange to think that more than
sixty years ago the little old woman now being borne to the grave
should have been a young girl in that Palace and there received the
news of her accession. Here was no noise of music for the dead, but
like the sound of running water the ripple of children's laughter. In
the precincts of Kensington Palace the children were playing as usual
with their hoops and their balls. The Queen herself may have played
here as a child long before she was a queen. It was a spot sacred to
children, not to the dead; sacred to the future, not to the past.
"Let me remember that thought," Mary said to herself. "And when I think
of the day of the Queen's funeral I will always remember that I am not
dead yet and that while I am alive I have a future. I must be more
sympathetic with Muriel, more patient with Geoffrey, more solicitous
for Jemmie. And I must not fret for Richard, for my boy."
It was a pity that Geoffrey went back to Oxford the day after the
funeral and that Muriel went back to school. Mary felt that from the
state of mind she had achieved on that day she might have drawn closer
to her children.
The first year of the new century came to its Spring, blossomed and
shed its blossom, opened to its Summer and reached its Autumn without
Mary's hopes of a deeper intimacy being realized. She began to wonder
if Richard would return from South Africa as much a stranger as the
other two. His letters betrayed no falling off in affection; but
affectionate letters might be the result of habit and not reflect the
man that was being wrought out of her boy, down there beneath the
unfamiliar Southern stars.