Three Sons (Timeless Classics Collection)

by Ursula Bloom

  ‘That’s possibly because you’re so secretive about it?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’ And then, ‘It is as much your book as mine, I suppose. Our book.’

  ‘Then let me read it.’

  ‘One day,’ she promised.

  He chose his own day, seeing that she did not seem to be disposed to do so. It was the day when she had been writing in it, and he had seen that it made her unhappy. Her mouth twisted, her eyes filled. He could not comfort her because he could not imagine why it should make her sad. The thing to do was to read it and then know how to comfort her. When she went to her bath he saw her clothes lying in her room and the key on top of them, and stood staring down at it, hating to cheat her, yet knowing that unless he did cheat her, he would never understand her fully. He touched the key. He went to the book and unlocked it; then, ashamed, he put the key back. He couldn’t go on with it. It was cheating and he couldn’t cheat Carolyn of all women!

  But again fate played into his hands.

  She was sick that day, she had gone out in the glare without her dark glasses, her own fault, and she was paying for it.

  Luke took the diary down into the sitting room, and sat down to it. There was comfortable warmth from the big closed-in stove, with the carving about it, its dark, rich brown. Beyond the window he could see the alps, the Jungfrau pointed against the sky, her sisters linking white arms about her.

  Then he opened the book.

  It had no title, just starting straight away, and as he read, he realised that here was the link-up of the three arts in the family. Marty’s acting, his own painting, his mother’s immense talent for writing which she had never exploited save here. It was her own story. The first entry was headed:

  October 1913.

  I never thought that I’d see Arthur again. I wonder how much I have thought about him really, a lot more than I ever supposed, for he has been always in the back of my mind. As though he stood there watching me. All the time. Never trespassing, just watching.

  I have James, and the little boys; I ought to be happy with them, and in some intangible way I have been half-heartedly happy, until to-day, when I met Arthur. To-day I ought to have been elated and joyous, but to-day I believe I am more miserable than I have ever been before.

  Because I know what I have missed. I haven’t James, and the little boys. I have nothing.

  It was in Regent Street. I should have known Arthur anywhere, he hasn’t changed, only he is better dressed and has done away with that terrible forelock. We stopped simultaneously. It was then that I knew he had been in my heart all the time. Always. Perhaps because we are both older we have learnt to forgive, but there was no bitterness or rancour, it was such sheer joy to talk, and we went into the Café Royal and had lunch.

  First of all we talked of the old times. His mother is dead, and half River Street has been pulled down; I think that is a good thing, and Arthur thinks so too, he is so anxious to see better living conditions for everybody. He has recovered from any bitterness he may have felt when I married James, and wishes that he had never sent me that dreadful letter.

  He knows now that the affair all started because I did not get on well with my mother, though I believed that I did. After all, I had no standards by which to compare my love for her. I knew no other children. I am afraid that I admitted many things about my marriage, things that I thought I would never admit to anyone, but it is so difficult when one meets a very very old friend.

  And a dear old friend! I’ve discovered that now.

  It was so pleasant sitting in the Café Royal with Arthur. So very pleasant. We hope to meet again.

  November 1913.

  I mentioned Arthur to James, thinking that he would be annoyed and forbid us to meet, but he doesn’t mind. He is an extraordinary man in many ways. He says that everything I ever felt for Arthur was in the form of an adolescent reaction (hardly complimentary!) and that it is over. How unemotional James can be! Adam is like him in that, although he is such a small child, he has no emotions either. Martin has emotions, but he can rein them in, which I think is wrong too.

  Arthur is doing some brilliant work. I went to lunch with him the other day at his beautiful house in Glebe Place, and saw some of his plans. He has gone a long way from River Street in these years, but he says that it was the misery of River Street that bore him along.

  How difficult it is to write of my own feelings! How very difficult! Arthur bought me this book in Bond Street, he said that it must be our book, and it is fitted with a key. It is going to be my companion and some comfort, I believe.

  What is happening to me?

  I suppose being so restrained with James all these years, and suddenly finding that I need not be restrained with Arthur, makes an enormous difference. I feel like a river, which having been dammed, suddenly finds the narrow ditch of escape; first a trickle, then the full flood. I’m afraid of nearing that flood. I think Arthur knows it. James doesn’t.

  December 1913.

  Mother was taken very ill the first week of this month. She has, of course, been failing for some time, and there is no hope, but then she is old, much older than my mother ought to be. Perhaps that is the root of the whole trouble, she had me too late.

  The journey there was cold, and the drive from the station home the worst part of it. When I got to the house she was already dead; half of me was thankful, it would have been so terrible to watch her die, more particularly as I have never cared deeply for her and am always ashamed of this. I would have liked to love my mother.

  I went into the dining-room and found a meal prepared for me, but I could not eat it. I could hardly recognise the still, barnlike room as once having been my home. The place seemed to be as dead as my poor mother.

  I was afraid of the silence, and more so of the terrible stillness behind her bedroom door. I dared not show my fear because of the maids, and perhaps that was the worst part of it. I rang up James at Dedbury, imploring him to come to me, but ‘it is impossible’ was the reply. He hoped to be with me for the funeral, but what I needed was support at that moment. The funeral would have been easier, that meant all the epoch was passing out of my ken, but then, at that particular moment, the ghost of it haunted me.

  I was afraid, yet I knew that it could not hurt me, in particular that poor quiet creature in the bedroom. I had to deal with the undertakers and was afraid of them. I thought of them as being ghouls, yet I am sure that they were really nice men, and that I was the one who was wrong.

  Arthur came to me. He discovered that Mother had died, and knew instinctively that I would be afraid. I am even more afraid that Arthur should understand me so much better than my own husband, who does not understand me at all.

  Arthur managed everything for me.

  On the day of the funeral, James could not get down after all. He wired that he had laryngitis, and as he is due to plead at the end of the week had to get it well. His throat is tremendously important to him.

  Arthur came with me.

  Later in the month.

  I feel that I can never go back to Dedbury. I told James that I had to stay on to see to the solicitor’s business, but I did not stay at home; I came to this little hotel in the Cotswolds. Arthur knew of it. It was he who brought me here.

  I needed rest and a little time to think. Unfortunately in the big crises of life there never is any time. Inside me a tempest was beating, but I have quietened that now.

  Arthur and I dined by a big log fire, in a small oak-panelled parlour which smelt of old wine, and wood smoke, and chrysanthemums.

  It was snowing outside. It seems strange to have snow so early in December, but I have always loved it, and cannot think why people dislike it. We talked ghost stories, because the landlady believes in them and told us that the Inn is haunted. Although I talked happily enough, I believe that I deliberately made myself very nervous; perhaps it is being so recently associated with death, it must have played on my nerves. I said ‒ laughingly ‒ that I sh
ould need to keep a candle alight all night and was afraid that my one candle would never last. Arthur said that there was another in his room and I could have that also. He brought it to me on the landing, a tall candle in a pewter sconce. He gave it to me, then hesitated.

  I knew.

  I wish that I understood myself, but then does anybody understand themselves? I believe that half the time they cheat into believing that they do, but honestly know very little of the spirit that lives within them.

  Pointers show me what is happening to me. I have always been in love with Arthur, and he with me, but at the same time I am now married to James. Last night ought never to have happened. I love Arthur so much that if it were not for the little boys I would go away with him to-morrow. I want him.

  James could never face an emotional crisis like this would bring into his life; if it did not kill him it would ruin his career and completely break him up. I couldn’t do it. He must not suffer for the fact that I have met Arthur again.

  This morning as I stood at the window of the inn looking out at the snow (there had been a deep fall during the night), I found myself asking Arthur the one question that troubled me. Supposing I had a child? He says that could not be.

  Later.

  I have come back to James. One half of me wishes to dismiss the episode as something which happened through the force of circumstances, and must be forgotten, the other half wants to keep Arthur in my life because he means so much to me.

  Perhaps I know that I could not dismiss Arthur if I wanted to. I love him too much.

  The whole affair sounds sordid on paper, foreboding, almost as if it had been a common liaison, yet it has none of the qualities that build up the common liaison, it is the most beautiful thing that has ever happened to me. But we must not hurt anybody else.

  In future I must see Arthur seldom, and never alone. It must never happen again. All the rest of my life will be matterless, compared to those few hours. What a horrible thought! But it’s true.

  March 1914.

  James wanted another child, I don’t think I did, unless it is a little girl, and the fortune-teller in Venice said I should have all sons. It is queer how a stray remark like that should stay in one’s head.

  The little boys want another brother, I don’t know what I want. Children are a kind of sweet folly, a harvest that never ripens. I doubt if they bring their parents much save suffering, and this sounds bitter, and is a sentence I ought not to write. Adam and Marty are daily growing away from me. Marty is more like me than Adam is, but even he is not entirely my own child. Perhaps the new one will be all mine.

  If I had really loved James fully, I might have cared for his children more; when I think of Arthur and what he could have meant to me, I am very unhappy. I must not think of Arthur.

  June 1914.

  I have been staying in Margate with little Marty who has had a bad attack of measles. It was very pleasant there, and Arthur came down. You would not believe how lovely Margate can be and I enjoyed every minute of it.

  We went over to Birchington to see the windows in the church; they are very beautiful, and I liked the blue in them, even though Arthur said that he thought it crude. We went to Sandwich too; seeing architecture with Arthur is like seeing a new world. To him pillars and walls become alive, and he can make them live for me. It is a pity that James’s wall does not become alive. It is worse than ever.

  I shall always think of Margate affectionately, even though there is a lot of pink rock, and hokey-pokey carts, and crowds of rather messy people, but I did enjoy it enormously. So did little Marty.

  July 1914.

  Maybe it is the new baby, but I feel so depressed and tired, and see no use in living. This is ridiculous when I am about to produce new life, as the maternity nurse keeps on saying. She is really a very annoying woman!

  I think it is that my personal pattern of living has become so involved; James helps me so little. Marty is interesting. To-day he and Adam acted a play under the trees in the garden; Marty is the most surprising little child, because he actually acts quite well. I cannot imagine where he found any talent to inherit.

  August 1914.

  It is war. Some people say that it is a good thing and will clear the air, but I wonder if ever war is a ‘good’ thing, and if it does clear the air. However, everybody says that with modern warfare it is bound to be over by Christmas.

  I am sorry that it has ever been.

  Later in August.

  I came in from the garden half an hour ago, and I know that the new baby will be born to-day. I asked that annoying nurse if I might write up my diary and she said there was no hurry; anyway they’ve sent for Dr. Twedesdale.

  It is curious to sit here with this book which is so much me, and know that every now and then I feel birth approaching. I do pray that it is a girl; surely this time it must be? I shall call her by some fancy name. I am sure that she will be my daughter all her life. That’s a lovely thought … a lovely …

  A fortnight after.

  It was a boy. He is like the others, yet different in that he is all my child, and I knew that at once. I knew when Dr. Twedesdale said, ‘Oh dear, another boy!’ and later when Nurse brought him to me, and I looked at him and knew that he was a very nice one. Much like the other two to look at, all of them were born with black hair.

  I wanted him to be called Arthur, but James dislikes the name, says there has never been an Arthur that wasn’t a fool. I wonder what he means by that? So we are calling him Luke, because I like the name, and Francis after James’s father. I am happy lying here with him. And yet I wanted him to be a girl. I don’t understand myself quite.

  February 1916.

  For two years I have hardly written a line, because I could not bring myself to do it. My little girl was born dead last year, and I shall have no more children, I know. I hardly see James, and our conversation is completely monosyllabic. I have no husband, little companionship, just the three boys.

  Adam is a good lad, almost too good, his virtue actually rubs me up the wrong way. Marty is a far nicer child, but little ’Ukef’ancis is sweet.

  He laughs when the others cry, and has little gentle ways that make me adore him. There is something utterly different about him.

  The war goes on and on. I don’t think it will ever end, it seems quite impossible to imagine a world without it.

  May 1916.

  I have been away and met Arthur. We went back to the Inn where we dreamt that crazy dream after Mother died. It seems to be an overwhelmingly long time ago, but probably that is because of the war. In war I am convinced the years are much longer.

  Arthur is working on the plans for a cathedral; it is the biggest job he has yet had, and I know that he will do it magnificently, but he is not well. There in the same ingle we talked, and I felt that he had need of me.

  Arthur’s father died young with T.B. and he tells me that one of his lungs is infected. He has had a test and the result is positive. They want him to have immediate treatment, but he wishes to get the plans for the cathedral through, and we discussed what he should do. It is only a matter of a few weeks. After that he intends going into a sanatorium (it sounds frightful, of course) and getting the lung dealt with. Nowadays they have got the complaint conquered, and it is merely a matter of treatment, I am sure. The infection is so slight; if it had not been already in his family, I should not have worried at all.

  We decided that he must finish his plans first.

  Now he will not even kiss me; he says it isn’t safe. As though I would care! Life without any warmth of contact is so barren and I am starved for emotion and feel it more and more.

  I cannot see now why I ever married James, save that life drives us hard, and at the time everything points to the one line of action. I should have done better to marry Arthur, for that at least would have been love.

  August 1916.

  The plans are finished.

  I have seen them and they are wonderful, but the
trouble in Arthur’s lung has increased far more rapidly than they anticipated. I’m afraid it will take longer than we thought to clear up.

  He is in the sanatorium now, and I must not even write to him, because he isn’t allowed letters. They want him to be kept completely quiet, with no contacts. It is difficult for him, for me too.

  I do love him so much.

  Now turning the pages, Luke read of a long and tragic love story, in and out of sanatorium, hope facing despair, and hope gradually weakening, as the truth dawned on Carolyn.

  In the inn, she and Arthur had made the wrong decision and had left the treatment too late. Through it all her strong love for her youngest son stood staunch. She was devoted to the lover, and behind it for background was the dark wall of a man, who appeared to take no part in her life.

  She referred to Adam’s escapade.

  I always knew that Adam would fail me. He is the virtuous, too good kind, but it is sickening that he should get involved with this sort of girl, and be difficult about his career at one and the same moment. I am convinced that he will eventually make the right marriage, because men like Adam always do.

  It’s Luke I’m worried about; he doesn’t seem to be very well, and I cannot think what is the matter with him.

  Later.

  I took Luke to see a specialist today, and he asked all kinds of irrelevant questions. Really these big doctors are completely maddening. He wanted tests. I was terrified of them, but of course I had to pretend that it would be all right, and they were taken.

  The result is positive.

  I know now.

  I think probably I knew that first time when they put the baby into my arms, something inside me knew, though the other part was blind to it. He is like the others, but different.

  I ought to have known the first time he took up a pencil in the nursery and drew a picture on the wall paper. Arthur did that as a child too.

  I ought to have known that day I went down to his prep, and took him out to tea and he ate four cakes and an ice cream, and then wanted a pork pie which I would not let him have. The way he shrugged his shoulders and gave me a small laughing look, like Arthur does when he is annoyed, but amused about it.