"Entirely."
"Well, Augustine," Mrs. Grey turned to the young man again, "I don't
succeed with your mother, but I hope for better luck with you. You're a
man, now, and not yet, at all events, a monk. Won't you dine with us on
Saturday night?"
Now Mrs. Grey was kind; but she had never asked Lady Channice to dinner.
The line had been drawn, firmly drawn years ago--and by Mrs. Grey
herself--at tea. And it was not until Lady Channice had lived for
several years at Charlock House, when it became evident that, in spite
of all that was suspicious, not to say sinister, in her situation, she
was not exactly cast off and that her husband, so to speak, admitted her
to tea if not to dinner,--it was not until then that Mrs. Grey voiced at
once the tolerance and the discretion of the neighbourhood and said:
"They are on friendly terms; he comes to see her twice a year. We can
call; she need not be asked to anything but tea. There can be no harm in
that."
There was, indeed, no harm, for though, when they did call in Mrs.
Grey's broad wake, they were received with gentle courtesy, they were
made to feel that social contacts would go no further. Lady Channice had
been either too much offended or too much frightened by the years of
ostracism, or perhaps it was really by her own choice that she adopted
the attitude of a person who saw people when they came to her but who
never went to see them. This attitude, accepted by the few, was resented
by the many, so that hardly anybody ever called upon Lady Channice. And
so it was that Mrs. Grey satisfied at once benevolence and curiosity in
her staunch visits to the recluse of Charlock House, and could feel
herself as Lady Channice's one wholesome link with the world that she
had rejected or--here lay all the ambiguity, all the mystery that, for
years, had whetted Mrs. Grey's curiosity to fever-point--that had
rejected her.
As Augustine grew up the situation became more complicated. It was felt
that as the future owner of Charlock House and inheritor of his mother's
fortune Augustine was not to be tentatively taken up but decisively
seized. People had resented Sir Hugh's indifference to Charlock House,
the fact that he had never lived there and had tried, just before his
marriage, to sell it. But Augustine was yet blameless, and Augustine
would one day be a wealthy not an impecunious squire, and Mrs. Grey had
said that she would see to it that Augustine had his chance. "Apparently
there's no one to bring him out, unless I do," she said. "His father, it
seems, won't, and his mother can't. One doesn't know what to think, or,
at all events, one keeps what one thinks to oneself, for she is a good,
sweet creature, whatever her faults may have been. But Augustine shall
be asked to dinner one day."
Augustine's "chance," in Mrs. Grey's eye, was her sixth daughter,
Marjory.
So now the first step up the ladder was being given to Augustine.
He kept his vagueness, his lightness, his coolly pleasant smile, looking
at Mrs. Grey and not at his mother as he answered: "Thanks so much, but
I'm monastic, too, you know. I don't go to dinners. I'll ride over some
afternoon and see you all."
Mrs. Grey compressed her lips. She was hurt and she had, also, some
difficulty in restraining her temper before this rebuff. "But you go to
dinners in London. You stay with people."
"Ah, yes; but I'm alone then. When I'm with my mother I share her life."
He spoke so lightly, yet so decisively, with a tact and firmness beyond
his years, that Mrs. Grey rose, accepting her defeat.
"Then Lady Elliston and I will come over, some day," she said. "I wish
we saw more of her. John and I met her while we were staying with the
Bishop this Spring. The Bishop has the highest opinion of her. He said
that she was a most unusual woman,--in the world, yet not of it. One
feels that. Her eldest girl married young Lord Catesby, you know; a very
brilliant match; she presents her second girl next Spring, when I do
Marjory. You must come over for a ride with Marjory, soon, Augustine."
"I will, very soon," said Augustine.
When their visitor at last went, when the tramp of her heavy boots had
receded down the hall, Lady Channice and her son again sat in silence;
but it was now another silence from that into which Mrs. Grey's shots
had broken. It was like the stillness of the copse or hedgerow when the
sportsmen are gone and a vague stir and rustle in ditch or underbrush
tells of broken wings or limbs, of a wounded thing hiding.
Lady Channice spoke at last. "I wish you had accepted for the dinner,
Augustine. I don't want you to identify yourself with my peculiarities."
"I didn't want to dine with Mrs. Grey, mother."
"You hurt her. She is a kind neighbour. You will see her more or less
for all of your life, probably. You must take your place, here,
Augustine."
"My place is taken. I like it just as it is. I'll see the Greys as I
always have seen them; I'll go over to tea now and then and I'll ride
and hunt with the children."
"But that was when you were a child. You are almost a man now; you are a
man, Augustine; and your place isn't a child's place."
"My place is by you." For the second time that day there was a new note
in Augustine's voice. It was as if, clearly and definitely, for the
first time, he was feeling something and seeing something and as if,
though very resolutely keeping from her what he felt, he was, when
pushed to it, as resolutely determined to let her see what he saw.
"By me, dear," she said faintly. "What do you mean?"
"She ought to have asked you to dinner, too."
"But I would not have accepted; I don't go out. She knows that. She
knows that I am a real recluse."
"She ought to have asked knowing that you would not accept."
"Augustine dear, you are foolish. You know nothing of these little
feminine social compacts."
"Are they only feminine?"
"Only. Mere crystallised conveniences. It would be absurd for Mrs. Grey,
after all these years, to ask me in order to be refused."
There was a moment's silence and then Augustine said: "Did she ever ask
you?"
The candles had been lighted and the lamp brought in, making the corners
of the room look darker. There was only a vague radiance about the
chimney piece, the little candle-flames doubled in the mirror, and the
bright circle where Lady Channice and her son sat on either side of the
large, round table. The lamp had a green shade, and their faces were in
shadow. Augustine had turned away his eyes.
And now a strange and painful thing happened, stranger and more painful
than he could have foreseen; for his mother did not answer him. The
silence grew long and she did not speak. Augustine looked at her at last
and saw that she was gazing at him, and, it seemed to him, with helpless
fear. His own eyes did not echo it; anger, rather, rose in them, cold
fierceness, against himself, it was apparent, as well as against the
world that he suspected. He was not impulsive; he was not demonstrative;
but he got up and put his hand on her shoulder. "I don't mean to torment
you, like the rest of them," he said. "I don't mean to ask--and be
refused. Forget what I said. It's only--only--that it infuriates me.--To
see them all.--And you!--cut off, wasted, in prison here. I've been
seeing it for a long time; I won't speak of it again. I know that there
are sad things in your life. All I want to say, all I wanted to say
was--that I'm with you, and against them."
She sat, her face in shadow beneath him, her hands tightly clasped
together and pressed down upon her lap. And, in a faltering voice that
strove in vain for firmness, she said: "Dear Augustine--thank you. I
know you wouldn't want to hurt me. You see, when I came here to live, I
had parted--from your father, and I wanted to be quite alone; I wanted
to see no one. And they felt that: they felt that I wouldn't lead the
usual life. So it grew most naturally. Don't be angry with people, or
with the world. That would warp you, from the beginning. It's a good
world, Augustine. I've found it so. It is sad, but there is such
beauty.--I'm not cut off, or wasted;--I'm not in prison.--How can you
say it, dear, of me, who have you--and _him_."
Augustine's hand rested on her shoulder for some moments more. Lifting
it he stood looking before him. "I'm not going to quarrel with the
world," he then said. "I know what I like in it."
"Dear--thanks--" she murmured.
Augustine picked up his book again. "I'll study for a bit, now, in my
room," he said. "Will you rest before dinner? Do; I shall feel more easy
in my conscience if I inflict Hegel on you afterwards."