Presently, however, this malaise on Robert’s part was elucidated in a way which surprised me. One winter—it was the year my twins first went away to school—poor Edie slipped on a damp pavement, broke her leg, contracted pneumonia and died. Hermia and I were both extremely sorry; I respected and liked Edie, and Hermia, who had turned for help to her practical good sense through all the infant ailments of our children, had a warm affection for her. John and his children mourned Edie very sincerely, and Robert was quite heartbroken.
Her death necessitated various financial rearrangements—a remaking of John’s will, and so on—in which the Hilbert Mills shares were concerned, and accordingly John, Robert and myself, wearing black ties, met in the mill office on the Monday afternoon following her funeral, for discussion. These plunges into family affairs were always very distasteful to me, and the office at Hilbert Mills, though nowadays handsomely redecorated, recalled too many wretched scenes in my youth for me to be at ease there. Also, I was anxious as always to get back to my own work. So I daresay I was rather brusque and snappy, arid more eager to finish the proceedings quickly by agreeing to everything suggested than to listen with proper care to the explanations of the other two. After one of my hasty affirmations Robert, who was clearly still feeling sore and upset about Edie’s death, suddenly lost his temper.
“This is a bit of a change, isn’t it, father?” he said.
“What do you mean?” said I testily.
“You agreeing like this to all these arrangements which benefit me.”
“No, I don’t think so, Robert,” said I more mildly, perceiving that we were on dangerous ground.
“Yes, it is. You’ve never shown any care for my interests before.”
“Now, Bob, that’s enough,” said John sharply.
“I know you don’t care for me as you do for Nick and Chrissie,” persisted Robert to me in a rough angry tone. “I say nothing about Rie—she’s delicate, that’s different, I understand that. But Nick and Chrissie—everything’s done for them, nothing’s for me. You don’t care about me at all, you never did. Whatever I did, good or bad, you never expressed an opinion one way or the other, never gave me any advice. Those letters you used to write me at school—they were like lumps of ice.”
“That’s not fair, Robert,” I said. “I didn’t want to write you commanding letters, I didn’t want to interfere.”
“A father ought to want to interfere in his son’s life,” grumbled Robert. “I bet you don’t write letters like that to Nick and Chrissie.”
But the Jarmaynes have been here before, we are starting the tragedy of my father and Uncle Alfred all over again, I thought in horror; Robert is really jealous, and unhappy about our relationship. I exclaimed:
“But, Robert—you are not my son.”
“What do you mean?” said Robert, springing to his feet.
“My first wife was your mother, but you are not my son.”
“Whose son am I, then?”
“I don’t know,” said I, uncertain whether I ought to speak the truth or not.
“Yes, you do. It’s Uncle John, I suppose,” said Robert angrily, scowling at his father. John, who was sitting with his arms folded, made no reply, but steadily met his gaze.
“Well, I think you’ve both behaved like a couple of children,” said Robert in a scolding tone. “You ought to have told me long ago. What do you think I am? A child, or what? Are we still living under Queen Victoria? I might have wanted to marry Anne or something; and then where would you have been? I never heard such nonsense in my life! You can settle all this business by yourselves without me,” he went on, nodding angrily towards the company’s books and certificates which lay on the desk, and moving towards the door: “If you don’t trust me with my own father’s name you needn’t trust me with this; you can do all the work yourselves.”
“Now, Bob,” said John in a soothing tone.
“Oh, go to hell!” said Robert, slamming the door behind him.
“Well, we’ve been ticked off properly, Chris, it seems,” said John with a grin.
“I hope he won’t—perhaps I shouldn’t,” I stammered. “I’d no idea he cared about me at all.”
“Good heavens, Chris! He adores you. He’s made a sort of fairy tale hero out of you. If you think I’ve enjoyed that, Chris, you’re wrong. That’s why he’s so fond of your Henrietta, because he thinks she’s so like you.”
“I hope he won’t think he ought to rush off and leave Hilbert,” I said anxiously.
“Oh, he’ll calm down. He’s my son, not yours, Chris,” said John sardonically. “It’s best he should know for certain, and now poor old Edie’s gone there’s no reason he shouldn’t. I daresay he’s had some idea before.”
At this point Robert suddenly returned, looking tight-lipped and bad-tempered. He sat down at the desk and drew the papers towards him with a determined air.
“Well, let’s get this finished,” he said angrily. “Those shares that were bought for me with Uncle Chris’s money—I don’t want to have them.”
I myself had come to Hilbert in a bad temper, which the revelations by Robert and John had exacerbated. I now let it off the leash.
“Oh, shut up, Robert!” I exclaimed. “If I adopted you as my son, I did it with my eyes open because I was attached to your mother, and I’m not going to have any nonsense from you about it now.”
John gave a snort of laughter at this explosion and Robert, though he coloured, smiled and fixing his eyes on the papers set amicably to work. From that time onwards he and I were good friends, for our mental conflicts about each other were resolved.
Stephen was a very different kettle of fish. Neurotic, perplexed, uncertain, typical of the generation which found life a waste land full of shivering, guilty men, he did well at Oxford and began well in a Civil Service post, but would never, I thought, rise really high—already a certain sensitive fretfulness about his career appeared in his talk and letters. After old Mrs. Graham died, Netta shared a flat in Hampstead with Stephen, and I occasionally saw them when professional affairs took me to town. Stephen’s relations to his mother were painful to witness; he nagged, Netta suffered and adored. On one occasion when I had called to take Netta out to dine, while I waited for her to put the finishing touches to her hair— she was usually late for any appointment nowadays—Stephen unexpectedly came in.
“Stephen!” exclaimed Netta in dismay.
“Well, what’s the matter, mother? Good evening, Uncle Chris.”
“You said you weren’t coming in to dinner.”
“I changed my mind. I’ll just have a snack here.”
“I do wish you’d told me earlier, darling, then I could have had something ready for you,” said Netta, throwing off her coat in a .flutter and diving towards the kitchen.
“We shall be late for the theatre, Netta, if you delay long,” said I.
“There’s no need for her to delay at all,” said Stephen angrily. “I can get something for myself.”
“It won’t take me a minute,” called Netta, her head in a cupboard.
“Leave me alone, mother, do!” exclaimed Stephen in a rage.
I felt strongly vexed, and words of rebuke rose to my lips. But suspecting that my irritation with Stephen rose in part at least from my old jealousy and fear of his father, which might still perhaps be not quite dead, I commanded myself, and throwing a cordiality I did not quite feel into my tone, said: “You’d better come and dine with us, Stephen.”
“No, thank you, Uncle Chris,” said Stephen. “I won’t spoil your tête-à-tête.”
There was passion in his voice, and it occurred to me that, having no father on whom to vent his spleen, he was visiting the sins of both parents on the head of one, feeling towards Netta both a jealousy of her affection and a resentment of her authority. Netta now came out of the kitchen and stood looking at the pair of us with a perplexed, uncertain and helpless air which wrung my heart.
“Don’t let two rivals for yo
ur company worry you, Netta,” I said on a jocular note.
Stephen gave me a glance of fury; clearly nobody was allowed to show concern for his mother except himself.
“We mustn’t be uncivilized about this, Stephen, must we?” I continued—civilized, I knew, was the fashionable word in Stephen’s circle at the moment.
“I’m not being uncivilized,” said Stephen in the high shrill voice of extreme rage. “I’ve no desire whatever to interrupt your evening’s plans.”
“Right! Then you and I had better start, Netta,” said I, briskly, seeing that Stephen was not to be conciliated. I helped her firmly into her coat.
“Don’t think too hardly of him, Chris. He’s never had a father, you see,” said poor Netta as we went down the stairs.
“I was just as bad when I was a boy,” said I.
I spoke with intent to comfort, but perceived the truth of my remark as soon as I had uttered it, and in that moment it became clear to me that the new generation was indeed afflicted with the same psychological problems as my own.
On the following Sunday afternoon my family and I went out for our usual walk on Bairstow Moor; Hermia and I walked together, the twins in front, while Rie ranged back and forth around us. Suddenly she rushed between Hermia and myself, pushing Hermia rudely from my side, and seized my hand. Hermia, smiling, stretched out her own hand to the child (then some eight years old), but Rie with a look of defiance turned ostentatiously away from her and clung to me. My wife looked hurt though she said nothing and quietly withdrew her hand. Remembering the pain Hermia had suffered to bring the child to birth and the long anxious years she had given to nourish her, Rie’s behaviour struck me as peculiarly wounding, though of course the child was unaware of these facts—there must be many occasions when parents have to murmur to themselves about their children: forgive them, for they know not what they do. I could not bear to think of Hermia suffering as Netta did. If I partly excused Stephen because he had lacked a father to bring him up, I should regard my own paternal position as all the more responsible. Accordingly I said, taking the child’s hand firmly in my own:
“Come with me to the Stone by the quick way, Rie.”
Rie jumped with joy at this apparent mark of favour, and turned on her mother a disagreeable glance of triumph, while a look of pain and then of controlled acquiescence passed over Hermia’s face, as if she suffered because I was supporting Rie against her, yet loyally accepted my decision. To correct this impression I was obliged to add in a rather stern tone:
“Rie and I must have a serious talk about manners.”
To see a child of mine looking up at me with apprehension in its eyes was decidedly painful, but it simply could not be helped on this occasion. Rie and I clambered silently up through the bracken, the rocks and the heather until we stood on the high Bairstow Stone, commanding a superb view of the West Riding massif, which I had selected as a suitably inspiring point for our important interview.
“Sit down a minute, Rie.”
Rie skipped over to a ledge on an overhanging spur of rock. The wind tore at the child’s hair and skirts, and I was not sorry for the excuse to put my arm round her to hold her down.
“Now listen, Rie. You’re an intelligent child and I’m going to talk to you intelligently.”
Rie smiled and snuggled up to me, well pleased by this compliment.
“You’ve been rather ill-mannered and naughty lately, especially to your mother.”
Rie’s face clouded, she pouted and tossed her head.
“In fact, unkind.”
“Unkind!” exclaimed Rie astonished.
“Yes. Now don’t imagine that these jealousies and miseries you feel about your parents and Nick and Chrissie are anything out of the ordinary, Rie, or that you experience them because you’re particularly sensitive or clever.”
Rie looked stunned by this attack on her self-conceit.
“Everybody has these feelings.”
“Everybody?” exclaimed Rie incredulously.
“Pretty well everybody. Some people who have nicer dispositions don’t feel them so strongly, and some people control them better than others, that’s all.”
“Haven’t I a nice disposition?” wailed Rie.
“Your mother and I think you have. But you mustn’t spoil it by giving way to these bitter feelings.”
“But how do you know what kind of feelings I have?”
“I had them myself when I was a child.”
“You did?”
“Certainly. And your mother too. She was not very happy with her mother.”
“Did she tell you so?”
“No, I just saw it.”
“I never thought of grown-ups having feelings,” wept Rie. “Well, think of it now.”
Just then Hermia and the twins appeared at the foot of the rock, having approached it by the longer path. Rie tore herself from my arm and shouting: “Nick! Nick!” bounded down towards them at reckless speed. I sighed as I saw how eager she apparently was to go.
Whether I did right or not to try to appeal to the child’s reason against her deep feelings, I still do not know. Rie, it is true, has turned out well, suddenly in her teens plunging into music with sustained energy and passion, but whether my appeal strengthened or weakened her character I cannot judge. Her conduct to her family on the whole improved after our talk on Bairstow Rock, but what that meant in her mind, I do not know.
But what is one to do for one’s children, after all? Too strict a discipline, such as my father with the best of motives imposed on us, brings fear, with all its wretched consequences; but too lenient an indulgence, such as Netta’s with Stephen, brings fear too, because it offers the child no protective framework, no certainty of cause and effect. Stephen’s leave me alone, mother is no doubt the cry of every adolescent generation to its predecessor; but at what point does leaving alone become neglect? One cannot just abdicate from responsibility. My own scrupulous restraint towards Robert, my indifference towards Stephen, caused them suffering. Children can suffer from lack of love and guidance as well as from too much. The proper degree can surely only be determined, in the conditions of modern civilization, by exercising all the rational powers with which modern civilization has endowed us.
Sometimes, I admit, I have felt that a good hearty slap would do Rie more good than a reasoned argument, and have wondered whether after all the thoughtless spontaneous expression of feeling is not the best way to deal with the young—John’s children, for instance, who were brought up on those lines, though they are not especially attractive to me, seem well-adjusted. There is much truth in Somerset Maugham’s remark that as soon as an emotion becomes conscious it becomes false. But to return at this stage to omitting reason from our dealings with those we love is like attempting to banish anaesthetics or restore the tribal system; we must not sink back towards the animal level; we must go on.
All we can do for our children perhaps is to enable them to start where we left off if they wish. We do this, surely, by exhibiting to them the best knowledge of life and mode of conduct we have acquired. We must leave them free to choose whether to accept these, reject or modify, but at least we have given them .a standard by which to judge, a light by which to see. Those bearing torches must, as Plato remarks, pass them on; what those receiving the torches do with them is their own affair.
11
Age
1
I had laid aside this record some years ago as complete, but life is never complete until it is over, and it seems I had still something to learn, and to say about myself, in my old age.
There are advantages and disadvantages, I find, in growing old.
Age has many temptations. Perhaps the greatest of these is the temptation to sit back and think that no further effort on one’s own part is needed. I am seventy, one reflects—or eighty or ninety or what have you; I have played my part, let others now shoulder the burden and make the running, I needn’t do any more. This is never true; the sphere o
f one’s action may have contracted, but within that sphere the effort to behave rationally, to control the passions, to be unselfish is, I find, always required. Then again, in old age one must guard against the temptation to slip into reactionary or selfish ideas out of sheer fatigue; one must not let the torch drop after trying to bear it aloft all one’s life. (I, for instance, find the bossiness, the bureaucracy, the curtailment of freedom, of the Welfare State and modern Socialism, quite unendurable, altogether too paternal in the worst sense, and I think I am right to do so; nevertheless, it is well for me to examine this view carefully from time to time, to see that it does not spring merely from the dislike for innovation and change, traditional in the old.) I often find in myself, too, a weary impatience when some young man brings forth as a dazzling novelty a stale old fallacy which I exploded years ago—young people are far too highly susceptible to slogans and fashions, it seems to me. I therefore need constantly to remind myself that the act of discovery of the falsity of an opinion is almost as valuable as the content of the discovery itself, and the young must therefore be left to make their own discoveries. I find too that after a lifetime spent in trying to impose pattern on my life and work, I have grown too closely wedded to pattern, that is to order, and am apt to become irritable when this order is interrupted and spoiled, for example by untidiness and unpunctuality. I am well aware that these manifestations of age on my part are precisely the faults in my father which maddened his offspring; that is why I say that struggle with one’s ageing self is always very necessary.
My physical inabilities nowadays are frustrating and vexing, as well as painful. But there are compensations. The angina which now afflicts me with increasing frequency has taken me out of active life, so that I have had time to turn things over in my mind, and try to wrestle out the meaning of some points on which I found I was not quite satisfied.
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