§
Not a father, for he had long been dead, but a mother, whose single joy
and pride he was. There she sat at home by the fire on his wedding
night, thinking of him. No complete half-hour of the day could pass
without the thought of Jocelyn getting into it. Her only child; so
brilliant, so serious, so hard-working, so good. She loved brains. She
loved diligence. She loved the man of the house to be absorbed in his
work. What a halo he was about her head! Everybody round where she lived
knew about him. Everybody had heard of his successes,--‘My son, who is a
scholar of Ananias.... My son, who is a Prizeman of his University....
My son, who won this year’s Rutherford Prize....’ Great was her reward
for having devoted her life to him and his education, and for having
turned a deaf ear to those suitors who had tried to marry her when she
was a young widow. She wasn’t even now, twenty years later, an old
widow, but she was a widow who was less young.
She lived in one of those suburbs where much is done for the mind. She
was popular in it, and looked up to. She was, in fact, one of its
leading lights,--cultivated, lady-like, well-read, artistic, interested
in each new movement that came along. And of a most pleasing appearance,
too, being slender at an age when the mothers of the grown-up are
sometimes so no longer, dark haired among the grey, smooth among the
puckered, and her eyes had no crow’s feet, and were calm and beautifully
clear.
She was serenely happy. The _milieu_ suited her exactly. She had come to
South Winch twenty years before from Kensington--real Kensington, not
West or North, but the part that clusters round the Albert Hall--on her
husband’s death, because of having to be frugal, but soon discovered it
was the very place for her. Far better, she intelligently recognised, to
be a leading light in a suburb, and know and be known by everybody, than
extinguished and invisible in London. Besides, spring came to the
suburbs in a way it never did to London, and it was the custom in South
Winch, where people were determined to think highly, to think
particularly highly of spring. At the bottom of her half acre there was
only an iron railing separating her from a real meadow belonging to the
big villa of a prosperous City man, and spring, she told the Rector, who
was also a Canon, did things in that meadow it would never dream of
doing near the Albert Hall.
‘Look at those dandelions,’ said Mrs. Luke. ‘I do think the meanest
flower that blows in its natural setting is more beautiful than the
whole of those thought-out effects in Kensington Gardens.’
And the Rector--the Canon--said, ‘How true that is,’ and remarked that
she was a Wordsworthian; and Mrs. Luke smiled, and said, ‘Am I?’ and
wasn’t altogether pleased, for Wordsworth, she somehow felt, was no
longer, in the newest opinion, what he was.
While Jocelyn, then, was worshipping Sally across the supper-table of
the private sitting-room he had engaged in the hotel at Exeter, where
they were breaking their journey to Cornwall, which was the place he was
going to hide his honeymoon in, and Sally, unable to make head or tail
of his speech and behaviour, was becoming every minute more uneasy, his
mother sat, placid in the security of unconsciousness, by the fire in
Almond Tree Cottage, a house which used, before the era of her careful
simplicity, so foolishly to be called Beulah.
‘A cottage,’ she observed to her sympathetic friends, ‘is the proper
place for me. I’m a poor woman. Five hundred a year’--why hide
anything?--‘doesn’t go far these days after Income Tax has been
deducted. Jocelyn has his own five hundred, or we would really have been
in a quite bad way. As it is, I can just manage.’
And she did; and in her clever hands frugality merely seemed comfort
gone a little thin, and nobody liked to ask her for subscriptions.
The house was small and very white, and had a small and very green
garden, with a cedar on the back lawn and an almond tree on the front
one. Two front gates that swang back on their hinges, and a half-moon
carriage-sweep. Railings. Shrubs. The yellow sanded road. Houses
opposite, with almond trees too, or, less prettily, in the front gardens
of the insensitive, monkey puzzles. The hall door was blue. Such
curtains as could be seen at the same time as the door were blue too. At
no season of the year was there not at least one vivid flower stuck in a
slender vessel in the sitting-room window. And in the sitting-room
itself, on the otherwise bare walls, was one picture only,--a copy,
really very well done, of a gay and charming Tiepolo ceiling--Mrs. Luke
was the first in South Winch to take up Tiepolo--in which everybody was
delicately happy, in spite of a crucifixion going on in one corner, and
high-spirited, fat little angels tossed roses across the silvery
brightness of what was evidently a perfect summer afternoon. Books, too,
were present; not many, but the right ones. Blake was there; also Donne;
and Sir Thomas Browne; and Proust, in French. A novel, generally
Galsworthy, lay on the little table near the fire, and, by an
arrangement with a circle of friends, most of the better class weeklies
passed through the house in a punctual stream.
Sitting in the deep chair by the fireside table on Jocelyn’s wedding
night, her dark head against the bright cushion that gave the necessary
splash of colour to the restful bareness of the room, her lap full of
reviews she was going to read of the best new books and plays, so as to
be able to discuss them intelligently with him when he came home at
Easter--only a few more days to wait,--his mother couldn’t keep her eyes
from wandering off these studies to the glowing little fire of ships’
logs and neat blocks of peat, for her thoughts persisted in flying, like
homing birds, to the nest they always went back to and so warmly rested
in: Jocelyn, and what he was, and what he was going to be.
Other mothers had anxieties; she had never had one. Others had
disappointments; she had had nothing but happy triumphs. He was
retiring, it was true, and stayed up in his little attic-study when he
was at home, and wouldn’t go anywhere except to a Beethoven
concert--together they had studied all that has been said about
Beethoven, and she had plans for proceeding to the study of all that has
been said about Bach--or for long tramps with her, when they would eat
bread and cheese at some wayside inn, and read aloud to each other
between the mouthfuls; but how much richer was she herself for that. And
the comfort of having a _good_ son, a son who cared nothing for even
so-called harmless dissipations! When she looked round at other people’s
sons, and saw the furrows on their fathers’ foreheads--she smiled at her
own alliterations--and heard a whisper of the dread word Debts, and knew
where debts came from--betting, gambling, drinking, women, in a ghastly
crescendo, how could she ever, ever be thankful enough that Jocelyn was
so good? Never once had he betted, gambled, drunk, or--she smiled again
at her own word--womaned; she was ready to take her oath he hadn’t.
Didn’t she know him inside out? He kept nothing from her; he couldn’t
have if he had wanted to, bless him, for she, who had watched him from
long before he became conscious, knew him far, far better than he could
possibly know himself.
Many, indeed, were her blessings. Great and conscious her content. Her
dark head on the vivid cushion was full of bright--why not say
it?--self-congratulation, which is the other word for thankfulness. And
how not congratulate herself on the possession of that beloved,
brilliant boy? While, to add to everything else, the neighbour, whose
meadow of buttercups she so freely and inexpensively enjoyed from over
the railing on dappled May mornings, was showing unmistakable signs of
wishing to marry her. His year of widowerhood had recently come to an
end, and the very next week he had begun the kind of activity that could
only be described as courting; so that she had this feather, too, to add
to a cap already, she gratefully acknowledged, so full of feathers.
Poor? Yes, she was poor. But what was being poor? Nothing at all, if
one refused to mind it.
A third time she smiled, shaking her head at the neat peat blocks as if
they had been the neighbour. ‘Come, come, my friend--at our ages,’ she
could hear herself saying to him with gentle and flattering raillery--he
must be at least twenty years older than herself--when the moment should
arrive. But it was pleasant, this, to sit in her charmingly lit
room--she was clever at making lampshades--and to know that next door
was a man, well set up in spite of his sixty odd years, who thought her
desirable, pleasant to be certain she had only to put out her hand, and
take wealth.
And who could say, she mused, but that it mightn’t be the best thing for
Jocelyn too, to have a solid stepfather like that at his back, able to
help him financially? She had spent happy years in the little white
house, and it had rarely worried her that she should be obliged to take
such ceaseless pains to hide the bones of her economies gracefully, but
later on she would be older, and might be tired, and later on Jocelyn
might perhaps want to marry and set up house for himself--after all, it
would only be natural--and then she would be lonely, besides being ten
years--she thought in ten years would be about the time he might wish to
marry--less attractive than she was now, and getting not only lonelier
with every year but also, she supposed, less attractive; though surely
one oughtn’t to do that, if one’s mind and spirit----?
Whereas, if she married the neighbour....
§
He came in at that moment, on the pretext of bringing her back a book
she had lent him, though he hadn’t read it and didn’t mean to, for it
was what he, being a plain man, called high-falutin. He didn’t tell her
this, because when a man is courting he cannot be candid, and he well
knew that he was courting. What he wasn’t sure of was whether she knew.
You never could tell with women; the best of them were artful.
He came in that evening, then, to make it finally clear to her. She was
a charming woman, and much younger, he imagined, than her age, which
couldn’t, he calculated, with a son of twenty-two be far short of
forty-two, and he had always greatly admired the pluck with which she
faced what seemed to him sheer destitution. She was the very woman, too,
to have at the head of one’s table when one had friends to
dinner,--good-looking, knowing how to dress, able to talk about any
mortal thing, and a perfect lady. And after the friends had gone, and it
was time to go to bye-bye--such were the words his thoughts clothed
themselves in,--she would still be a desirable companion, even if--again
his words--a bit on the thin side. That, however, would soon be set
right when he had fed her up on all the good food she hadn’t ever been
able to afford, and anyhow she was years and years younger than poor
Annie, who had been the same age as himself, which was all right to
begin with, but no sort of a show in the long run. Also, Annie had
stayed common.
So the neighbour, whose name was Mr. Thorpe, arrived on Jocelyn’s
wedding night about nine o’clock in the restrained sitting-room of
Almond Tree Cottage, determined to make his purpose clear. That he
should be refused didn’t enter his head, for he had much to offer. He
was far the richest man in the parish, his two daughters were married
and out of the way, his house and cars were bigger than anybody’s, and
he grew pineapples. He couldn’t help thinking, he couldn’t help knowing,
that for a woman of over forty he was a catch, and he went into the
room, past the reverent-eyed small maid who held the door open,
expanding his chest. A poverty-stricken little room, he always
considered, with nothing in it of the least account, except the lady.
Yes; except the lady. But what a lady. Not a grey hair in her head,
which he had carefully examined when she wasn’t looking, nor, he would
wager, any tooth that wasn’t exclusively her own. And a trim ankle; and
a pretty wrist. Ruffles, too. He liked ruffles at a woman’s wrist. And
able to talk about any mortal thing. Annie, poor creature, had made him
look like a fool when he had his friends to dinner. This one would be
the finest of the feathers in a cap which, he too gratefully
acknowledged, was stuck full of them.
‘All alone, eh?’ he said cheerily. ‘That’s bad.’
‘I’m used to it,’ said Mrs. Luke, smilingly holding out her slender
hand, on which a single ruby--or was it a garnet? probably a
garnet--caught the light. She had on a wine-coloured, soft woollen dress
that Jocelyn liked, and the ring and the dress went very well together.
A pretty picture; a perfect lady. Mr. Thorpe, determined to waste no
time in making his purpose clear, bent his head and kissed the hand.
‘Being used to a bad thing doesn’t make it better, but worse,’ he said,
drawing up the only other really comfortable chair--Jocelyn’s--and
sitting down close to her.
And he was about to embark then and there on his proposal, for he hated
waste of anything, including time, and Mrs. Luke was already drawing up
her shoulders to her ears in an instinctive movement of defence, for she
would have liked to have had longer to turn the thing over in her mind,
and discover really whether his splendid illiteracy--it was so immense
as to appear magnificent--would be a source of pleasure to her or
suffering, whether the pleasure of filling up his mind’s emptiness would
be greater than the pains of such an exertion, whether, in short, she
hadn’t better refuse him, when the little maid came in with the silver
salver she had been trained to present letters on, and held it out
before her mistress.
‘Letters, eh?’ said Mr. Thorpe, nettled by this interruption. ‘I should
give orders they’re to be left in the--well, you can’t call it a hall,
can you, so let’s say passage.’
The little maid, alarmed, sidled out of the room.
‘I would indeed, if it weren’t that I can’t bear to wait a minute when
it’s a letter from Jocelyn,’ said Mrs. Luke, holding the letter tight,
for she saw it was from him. ‘You wouldn’t be able to wait either, would
you,’ she went on, smiling more brightly even than usual, for the mere
touch of the letter made her more bright, ‘for anything you loved.’
‘No,’ said Mr. Thorpe sturdily, seizing this opening. ‘No. I wouldn’t.
And that’s why I’ve come round----’
But she didn’t hear. ‘You’ll forgive me, won’t you my dear friend,’ she
murmured, slitting the envelope with an enamelled paper-knife lest she
should harm the dear contents, ‘but I haven’t heard from that boy for
over a fortnight, and I’ve been beginning to wonder----’
‘Oh, certainly, certainly. Don’t mind me,’ said Mr. Thorpe, aggrieved.
‘Mark my words, though,’ he added, sitting up very square and broad in
his chair, and giving the knees of his trousers a twitch each, ‘one
shouldn’t overdo the son business.’
She didn’t hear. Her eyes were running down the lines of the letter,
while she muttered something about just wanting to see if he were well.
‘Damned stuck up young prig,’ Mr. Thorpe was in the act of saying to
himself, resentfully watching this absorption, when he was interrupted
by a complete and alarming change in the lady.
She gave a violent shudder; she dropped the letter on the floor, as
though her shaking hands couldn’t hold it; and then, fixing her large
grey eyes on his, opened her mouth and moaned.
He stared at her. He couldn’t think what was the matter.
‘Sick, eh?’ he asked, staring.
‘Oh, _oh_----’ was all she said, turning her face from him, and burying
it in the cushion.
§
Well, what does one do with a woman who buries her face in a cushion?
Comforts her, of course, thought Mr. Thorpe, again seizing his
opportunity. The young ass couldn’t be dead, or he wouldn’t have
written. But he might----
Mr. Thorpe paused at the thought, and withdrew the hand already put out
to pat. Yes; that was it. Better not comfort just yet. For the young
fool had no doubt run into debt, and was being threatened with
proceedings, and was trying to persuade his mother to pay, and Mr.
Thorpe didn’t want to begin his betrothal with having to shell out for
somebody else’s scapegrace son.
His hand, accordingly, slowly redescended on to his knee, where it
rested motionless while he stared at the figure in the chair. Pretty
figure. Nice lines. Graceful, even in her upset. She only needed very
little, just the weeniest bit, fattening up. But she shouldn’t have
spoiled that son. Women were fools about their sons.
Then, noticing that the letter was lying at his feet, and the lady, her
face in the cushion, was incapable of observing what he did, he put on
his eyeglasses, picked it up carefully so that it shouldn’t rustle, and,
remarking to himself that all was fair in love and war, read it.
Having read it, he as carefully replaced it on the carpet, took off his
eyeglasses, and began to comfort.
For it wasn’t debts, it was marriage; the best thing possible from Mr.
Thorpe’s point of view--clearing the field, leaving the mother free to
turn her thoughts to other ties. And a good job too, for the young ass
had gone clean off his head. What a letter. He ought to be ashamed of
himself, writing sick stuff like that to his mother. Married this very
day. Given up Cambridge. Chucked his career. Finished with ambitions.
Going to earn his own living in London. Mother bound to love--no, it was
put hotter than that--worship the girl, who was more beautiful than any
angel----
Tut, tut. Silly young ass, caught by the first handsome slut.
‘Better tell me about it,’ said Mr. Thorpe, leaning forward and laying
his hand with unhesitating kindness on Mrs. Luke’s shoulder. ‘Nothing
like getting things off one’s chest. Count on me. Whatever your son’s
done I’ll help. I’ll do anything--anything at all, mind you, to help.’
And Jocelyn’s mother, completely overwhelmed by the incredible sudden
smash up of everything she had lived for, did, on hearing this kind,
steady male voice through her misery, turn to Mr. Thorpe as the drowning
turn to any spar, and, making odd little noises, stooped down and tried
to pick up the letter.
But her hands shook too much. He had to pick it up for her.
‘Read it----,’ she said in a sobbing whisper.
So he took out his eyeglasses, and read it again.
§
‘Now what you’ve got to do,’ said Mr. Thorpe, folding it up neatly when
he had finished, and laying it down on the little table, ‘is to make up
your mind that what’s done can’t be undone.’
Mrs. Luke, her head buried in the cushions, moaned.
‘That’s it,’ said Mr. Thorpe, a hand on each knee and an eye on her.
‘That’s the ticket.’
‘I know--I know,’ moaned Mrs. Luke. ‘But just at first--the shock----’
‘Shock, eh? I don’t know that there’s much shock about marriage,’ said
Mr. Thorpe. ‘Shouldn’t be, anyhow.’
‘But so sudden--so unexpected----’
‘People will marry, you know,’ said Mr. Thorpe. ‘Especially men. Once
they get set on it, nothing stops ’em.’
‘I know--I know--but Jocelyn--such a boy----’
‘Boy, eh? Age has precious little to do with it,’ said Mr. Thorpe
firmly. ‘In fact, nothing.’
‘But his prospects--his career--all thrown away--ruined----’
‘Marriage never harmed a man yet,’ said Mr. Thorpe still more firmly,
aware that he was being inaccurate, but also aware that no one can
afford to be accurate and court simultaneously. Accuracy, Mr. Thorpe
knew, comes after marriage, not before.
‘Mark my words,’ he went on, ‘that clever son of yours won’t stop being
clever because he’s married. Who’s going to take his brains from him?
Not a loving wife, you bet. Why, a good wife, a loving wife, doubles and
trebles a man’s output.’
‘How kind you are,’ murmured Mrs. Luke, who did find this comforting.
‘But Jocelyn--my boy--to keep it from me----’
‘Bound to keep something from his mother,’ said Mr. Thorpe. ‘Mothers are
all right, and a man has to have them to start with, but the day comes
when a back seat is what they’ve got to climb into. Only as regards
their children, mind you,’ he added. ‘A woman has many other strings to
her bow, and is by no means nothing but a mother.’
‘Oh, but we were everything, everything to each other,’ moaned Mrs.
Luke, stabbed afresh by the mention of a back seat. ‘Always, always. He
never _looked_ at another woman----’
‘Damned prig,’ thought Mr. Thorpe. And said out aloud, ‘Time he began,
then. Though having a woman like you about,’ he added, placing his hand
with determination on hers, which hung limply down holding a
handkerchief while her face was still turned away, ‘ought to keep him
from seeing the others all right. You’re a wonderful woman, you know--a
remarkable woman.’
His voice changed. It took on the unmistakable note that is immediately
followed by love-making.
‘I--think I’ll go and lie down,’ said Mrs. Luke faintly, recognising the
note, and feeling she could bear no more of anything that night. ‘I--I
really think I must. My head----’
She struggled to get up.
He helped her. He helped her by laying hold of both her wrists, and
drawing her upwards and towards him.
‘Head, eh?’ he said, a gleam in his eyes.
‘How kind, how kind----’ she murmured distractedly, finding herself on
her feet and very close to Mr. Thorpe, who still held her wrists.
She wanted her letter. She looked about helplessly for her letter,
keeping her head as far away from him as she could. There was her
letter--on the table--she wanted to snatch it up--to get away as quickly
as possible--to hide in her bedroom--and her wrists were being held, and
she couldn’t move.
‘Kind, eh? Kind, you call it?’ said Mr. Thorpe through his teeth. ‘I can
be kinder than that.’ And he put his arms round her, and drew her
vigorously to his chest.
‘This in exchange for Jocelyn,’ drifted through Mrs. Luke’s wretched and
resisting mind.
But, even through her wretchedness and resistance she felt there was
something rock-like, something solid and fixed, about Mr. Thorpe’s
chest, to which in the present catastrophe, with the swirling waters of
bitterest disappointment raging round her feet, it might be well to
cling.