Three Sons (Timeless Classics Collection)

by Ursula Bloom

  ‘You see, dear, Marty has such obvious talent,’ said Carolyn, ‘it does make a difference, you know. Don’t nurse this sense of grievance.’

  ‘Well, it is a bit feeding if a chap can’t be what he wants to be. It is his life.’

  Her own argument, but what could she do? ‘I have tried talking to Daddy for you, Adam, but you know what Daddy is.’

  ‘That!’ said Adam, indicating the high red wall, with the Anchor on the other side of it, merry, friendly, but barred for ever.

  ‘Now don’t be silly, dear,’ she said, stung that the simile should be so apt. ‘It’s just stupid to go about nursing a grievance and getting nowhere with it.’

  He did not tell her that before he had left Eton he and his house master had had what Adam would have called ‘a bit of a set-to’ on the same subject.

  ‘You’ll ruin your life, Hinde, if you can’t learn to bury a hatchet. You sit on an imagined injury and brood. Bring it out into the open and face it, like a man.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘It’s for your own good. You’ll never get very far whilst you encourage this streak. You are your own worst enemy.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Now she was saying it! Her hand on his arm, her very youthful, gay little face turned up to him, a head taller than she was. ‘You know, Adam, you’re such a booby always standing in your own light, being on your dignity, and thinking somebody is trying to get one up on you! Don’t do it. You’ll never have much fun that way ‒’

  He and Carolyn went to Cambridge to arrange about furniture for his rooms. Adam did not want anything too extravagant, curtains of printed linen in a design from the Bayeux tapestries, oak furniture, a Minty chair, a divan.

  ‘You think you’ll be happy here?’ his mother asked him when after they had given the order they wandered on to the Backs. They were fertile and green with the extravagant beauty of a summer fast spending itself.

  ‘Oh, I’ll be happy!’

  ‘Your father and I,’ she always brought James into it, though really she never actually knew how he felt about it, ‘do so want you to be happy. You’re difficult to touch somehow; like Daddy, I suppose. He’s difficult, too.’ She smiled wanly.

  Adam did not think that he was difficult, he could not imagine how it was that people found him hard.

  ‘Adam dear, let’s make this a new beginning. I never felt that you were really happy at Eton.’

  ‘I wasn’t! I loathed the place. Everybody centring on those tommy rotten games of theirs …’

  ‘Games have their uses.’

  ‘What uses?’ he asked abruptly.

  ‘They teach you the team spirit. Sometimes I think that is just where you fall down. You haven’t got the team spirit, Adam. Now Marty and Luke have, and it makes all the difference to them.’

  She wished instantly that she hadn’t said it, for the dark scowl came on to his brow, the dissatisfied you-don’t-understand-me expression that he produced when he felt this way. Perhaps his salvation lay in marriage? She wondered about that with some trepidation. A disastrous marriage would be more fatal to this boy than to most men, and Carolyn had an idea that he might be a poor chooser! They went to tea in a small, crowded cafe, full of people, obviously the mothers of freshmen discussing the arrangement of rooms, and with scraps of conversation going on all around them along the same lines.

  ‘Daddy says you really won’t need brandy as well. He never had it.’

  ‘But times change. Daddy is such a fossil.’

  ‘Yes, dear, but you must remember that we are making sacrifices to send you here. Darling, you’ve got to be reasonable. Daddy says …’

  Or ‒

  ‘I must have a piano. Yes, I realise that they charge the earth, but life wouldn’t be the same without a piano. I’d miss it terribly. I’ll go without that big chair, it’ll only lumber me up, but I simply must have a piano …’

  ‘Other things are more urgent, dear, and you’ll want the chair.’

  ‘No, I shan’t. Really, I shan’t. I’d hate life without a piano, and just at first it’s bound to be a bit sticky, so that a piano would be the greatest companion. Now, Mummy, be a sport.’

  Carolyn got up and they went out into the sunshine of K.P. together.

  ‘Adam, I do so hope that you are going to enjoy all this. I’m hoping that you’ll find your real self here. I have the feeling you never have done yet.’

  ‘It’ll be all right, Mummy,’ he told her. But if only they would let him take Orders …’

  Adam settled down in a comfortable room overlooking a green shaved lawn in a courtyard; a rose wreathed just under the mullions of his window, not unlike the unpruned Gloire de Dijon at Dedbury, and a vine with heart-shaped, clustering leaves, crowning it with a green wreath. He should be very happy.

  On the landing four others ‘kept’, none of them men after his own heart, who, before long had formed a small clique of their own, in which Adam was not included. They were rowing men, anxious to see the Hall the head of the river. Athletically minded, they went in for that strenuous exercise which had never appealed to Adam, who devoted himself to his books, much as his father had done before him. Before long his tutor recognised that here was the perfect swotter, an exemplary young man never likely to be in any serious trouble, probably capable of acquiring honours, but never with his teachers. Contrary to general belief, the tutors prefer the normal young man.

  For a couple of years Adam worked laboriously and painstakingly, handicapped at the end of his first year by the arrival of Marty as a freshman at Pembroke. There Marty started in a cloud of glory with the C.U.D.S. People kept asking Adam if that was his brother who had been so good in The School for Scandal? Adam took this as a personal humiliation. He was indignant at having been unable to persuade his people to allow him to take up a career that at least had the merit of respectability, but Marty had had no trouble at all. He would become an actor and probably do well; he would just scrape through the ‘Big Go’ by the skin of his teeth, whereas Adam who had put in hours of steady slogging would have the greatest difficulty to get any kudos at all.

  Adam was lonely; what was worse, he was making his bogey of loneliness his god. Three incidents with men friends left him friendless. The first was with a fly-away young gentleman called Tony Watson, who started an intrigue with a cafe girl of a dubious nature. He confided this in Adam, who did not want the confidence and said so, but having once received it could not forget it. Tony wasn’t a bad sort, they shared high-brow books, they were both anti-games-minded. Then one day his father appeared at the ’Varsity, rumours having come his way. Tony was out ‒ incidentally with the girl in a brand new car he had bought on instalments, with some money sent him for quite another purpose ‒ and the father, meeting Adam on the landing, came into his rooms.

  ‘Know anything about this wretched business?’ he asked.

  ‘Now please don’t drag me into it,’ said Adam, obviously knowing something.

  When challenged he could not tell a lie, and the father was only too glad to drag the story out of him. He pieced it together. He thanked Adam profusely, and everything would have been quite all right of course had not Tony come charging home in a seventh heaven of glee, to find the two together. Although Adam had thought that he was being subtle, Tony had no difficulty in piecing up the evidence. He went off with his father, to return a few hours later, in a wild fury, and to lay Adam flat on his back, his nose feeling as if the hammer of an avenging Goliath had hit it, and a couple of appalling black eyes. The friendship had gone the way of Adam’s nose, which had to be set in hospital extremely painfully.

  His next friend (after weeks of swearing he would adhere to the loneliness that was far better than a broken nose and a couple of bouncing black eyes) was a young man called Tommy Wilks. Tommy was the same old type; he drank too much, he fluffed his exams; he had an ancient aunt who when she died would leave him an income of enormous proportions, which would undoubtedly be drunk away, and
not in penny numbers, by Tommy Wilks.

  One would have thought that Tommy would have had many companions who shared his ideas on life in general, and in particular his habits, but this was not so. He did not make friends easily because he drank sourly. People resented this. Suddenly one day he came bursting in full of glee because the aunt had been found having had a stroke during the night, and had passed out at dawn.

  ‘And what a dawn!’ said Tommy Wilks.

  The aunt had the money in trust, some comfortable five thousand a year or so, and Tommy wished to celebrate, but, as usual, his finances had already gone down his throat.

  Adam’s quarter’s allowance had come that morning. Tommy saw the cheque lying there amongst the Latin books on the table. ‘Be a sport and lend us something?’ said Tommy, ‘we’ll go out together.’

  Adam did not want to lend it to him, nor did he wish to go out on a pub crawl, but he suffered from the inferiority complex that loathed to be considered mean. Adam was one huge mound of complexity. At first he demurred, but badly. He showed no finesse in his handling of a delicate situation, the cheque was ultimately cashed, and off they went. Adam had a thick head for hours after and felt dreadful; Tommy Wilks disappeared and did not come back for a week.

  At the end of the week Adam asked for his money. Tommy Wilks stared at him helplessly; an awful mistake had been made, the money wasn’t in trust after all, and the whole show had gone to charity!

  ‘Charity, mark you!’ said Tommy Wilks, even now half besotted with drink and misery, ‘and not where charity begins! Isn’t it a sin?’

  ‘But my money?’ said Adam, with a curious restriction in his throat. He did not want to have to take this story home, knowing what his brothers would say about it. Even Luke was growing up these days.

  ‘Can’t do it, old man,’ said Tommy Wilks, ‘V’y sorry, but can’t do it.’

  ‘But you must. You really must do something about it,’ said Adam. He was himself scrupulously honest; he would never have borrowed a farthing that he could not repay, and he did not understand how anybody else could do such a thing. He argued protestingly, and Tommy Wilks took himself off. Adam pursued him closer, after which Tommy Wilks became elusive. The friendship blew away like autumn leaves, and counted for about as much. In the end Adam had to go in confidence to his mother asking her for more.

  ‘But, Adam, surely you don’t go lending your whole quarter’s allowance out like that? I mean, you must have been crazy.’

  ‘It’s no good rubbing it in, Mummy. I thought he was to be trusted. He is one of THE Wilkses.’

  ‘I daresay, but it means that Daddy and I have got to make it good. Times are hard, you know, with the three of you at the most expensive phase of your education, and income tax what it is.’

  Good old mother stuff, coming out! ‘Of course,’ he said dryly, ‘I could come down.’

  ‘Now don’t be silly! There are times when you make me thoroughly angry,’ said Carolyn, because the older her first-born grew the more difficult she found him to deal with. ‘I have tried so hard with you, Adam, and you go on being your own worse enemy. This is your own fault and other people have to pay for it. They are the ones to be martyrs, not you.’

  But of course he was the martyr. He had had no idea that Carolyn could be so mean! If ever he had a son who fell into the hands of a good-natured shark out of sheer misfortune, he would never adopt this vile attitude towards him. But he kept off friends, until he met Hubert Blair, and he basked in his own regrettable loneliness.

  Hubert Blair was a small, dark young man with a soul. The soul of Hubert Blair was lovely and unspotted; he read poetry rather well, he played languorous music on the piano; he talked a lot of high-brow nonsense, that carried away young gentlemen who did not know the technique. One of which was Adam. Hubert used to come and work in his room. It was worth giving up the best chair to Hubert, his drink, his food, his fags, anything that Adam had got, because when he talked to Hubert, he got a strange sense of exhilaration. Other young men talked about Hubert as ‘having a lot of guff’, which was enraging, because to Adam it was very beautiful guff, it was poetry!

  They shared ideas; Hubert understood all about Adam’s longing for the church, for Hubert was deeply religious himself. The monastery attracted Hubert, and he whetted Adam’s whistle for it. Both of them attended a very high church, and were even more elevated by ritual. Adam did not know what he would do when he was forced to go off to the Inner Temple, and Hubert went to his monastery.

  ‘A way will be shown us,’ said Hubert, who believed with childish simplicity in the Divine Providence.

  The way was far simpler than either of them had imagined. They had overestimated the height of their brows. Being subpoenaed to join a party for a May Week dance, a thing they fought hard to escape, but Carolyn and Marty pulling on the other side made this impossible, they had to go. It was the ordinary May Week dance, with a hot, sweet June night, and a lot of champagne. Adam was bored stiff. Before very long he noticed that Hubert was not so bored. The would-be monk was continually dancing with a blonde girl who had a pug nose; rather a clumsy bit of work, Adam thought, but undoubtedly appealing to Hubert. Half way through the evening, Hubert disappeared. He did not appear again until twenty-four hours later, when he came into Adam’s room, his eyes heavy for want of sleep, and started a dissertation on the attraction of pug noses!

  It was a common or garden, every day love affair. Hubert was through with his soul! Having grown up suddenly, he could not understand how he had ever dallied with an idea of a monastery. He must have been crackers, he said.

  Adam did not reply. Suddenly he knew that he was turning very bitter about things.

  At twenty-one Adam had not lived down his curious complexes; if anything, they had increased. Carolyn was deeply anxious about him.

  ‘We ought to do something about Adam,’ she told James one day in the garden at Dedbury.

  ‘What can we do? He’s grown-up now. He was born like that. You can’t change people’s natures.’

  ‘You can help them remould them closer to the heart’s desire.’ The words rang a bell, it seemed to be a very long time since they had uttered those very words; it was in the early days of their engagement, the first time that she had ever come here; the first time that she had looked out across the green and colourful riot of the garden at Dedbury. She glanced at him but James had not even noticed it. The wall was too high!

  We’ve missed so much, she thought hurriedly, almost afraid to think of the emotions and lovelinesses that had never been. She was frightened that now, with age across the next threshold, the opportunity had slipped and would never return. She might look young, she might feel young, she might still have much of that childish yearning and thrill of living which comes to the girl standing with reluctant feet at the riverside. But none of it mattered when the chance could not come again, when all that loveliness that had been only glimpsed for a short space in Venice, was lost behind the remorseless barrier of the years.

  ‘You’ll never change Adam.’

  She had got to change Adam. She had failed to change James, she could not let Adam go the same way. She was about to argue with him when she saw one of the Jersey cows coming rollicking desperately across the parkland with Luke astride it, doing a cowboy act.

  ‘James, look at Luke! He’ll only get himself thrown. Why will he do these crazy things?’

  But Luke did not get himself thrown; the cow plunged and dashed, its eyes gone wild, saliva flecking from its muzzle, and Luke, hanging precariously on to the horns, went on round the park. Now of course the moment had passed and she could not approach James. It was futile. Every time she neared this high wall of his, something happened to set her back. He wouldn’t listen because he didn’t want to listen, and always she was the stranger shut out.

  (Oh James, James, and I did love you so much … she said to herself resignedly.)

  At Cambridge Adam enlisted his tutor’s sympathy. The tutor saw that h
is heart was not with the law; talking to Adam at the right moment, he discovered that the young man had always wanted to take Orders, and as far as the tutor could see, it would be a far wiser course for him to pursue, than struggling along with a career for which he was undoubtedly unfitted. He said that he would write to Adam’s father.

  This was a surprise to Adam, and he felt relieved and decided that he would go up to London for the evening, he’d get a decent dinner and go to a show, for a little music would be pleasant to this mood. It was very unusual for Adam to do anything outside his routine, but on this particular evening, intrigued with all that his tutor had said, he suddenly for no reason at all launched out.

  Adam arrived at King’s Cross in the early evening, with the acrid scent of chrysanthemums from flower baskets at street corners, and the cheerful noise of newspaper boys calling evening editions. He arranged for a room at the station hotel ‒ he had the stereotyped mind ‒ then he sauntered off to look for a meal. He could of course have gone home for the night, but home and Adam were not confrères. A barrier stood between him and his father, and he was for ever aware of it and loathing it, and quite forgetting to recognise its foundations already laid within himself.

  He’d go to Bitter Sweet later on, meanwhile he must get dinner. Soho was bright, and in Frith Street he paused before a small Austrian restaurant that Tony Watson had told him about. Tony was a good judge, his opinion was worth going on. The sound of music came from the restaurant, and peering in, Adam saw a pianist and a little maestro with a violin, on a dais. Sitting beside them, obviously waiting her turn to sing, was another girl, smally made, in a close black evening frock. The place was clean, it smelt of good food and wine, and he went inside.

  It was very full.

  Adam was bustled up to a table in close proximity to the musicians, by a businesslike maître d’hotel.

  ‘M’sieur is alone?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Ah,’ regretfully, and then with hope, ‘Maybe it will not be for long?’

  ‘I’m alone,’ said Adam gruffly.