John looked at the drawn curtains of the hall and shuddered.
“I expect they’d rather be alone.” He succeeded in surpassing the gravity of her tone. “I’ll walk round the garden until luncheon.”
Helen and James had been put to sleep in the nursery. Elizabeth was left to play by herself in the garden. She walked proudly amongst the coronation oaks.
“Hullo, George the Fourth. I’m Betsy, and I don’t care a bit about any of you.” She made a face down the line of trees. “Not even you.” She poked the tree that had been planted for Queen Victoria’s crowning.
John came upon Elizabeth without her seeing him.
He watched her in amusement.
“You may think you’re very grand,” Elizabeth went on proudly, “but I like it better where I live, and so I don’t mind a bit about you.”
“Quite right,” John broke in. “Who are oaks, anyway, to put on airs and graces?” Betsy looked surprised.
“Hullo! Daddy. These are the coronation oaks. You ought to know that.”
John slapped the nearest oak affectionately.
“Every oak planted by the heir.” He looked down at his daughter. “For a Torrys you weren’t showing much respect, were you?”
Elizabeth flushed.
“I’m not a Torrys. I’m an England.”
John was amused at the fierceness of her tone. “That’s a most disrespectful way to speak. The Englands are nobody and your Torrys relations are very much somebody.”
“You’re somebody, and you’re an England.”
“That all depends on what constitutes a somebody.” He took her by the hand. “Come for a walk. Are you having fun here?”
“I don’t like it much.” Elizabeth gave two skips to catch up with John, whose strides were too big for her. “You know, Daddy, it’s all terribly old. It smells old. There are some books in the schoolroom that Grandfather had when he was a little boy. I like things new.”
He looked down at her with a twinkle in his eye.
“It will be a, grave mistake, my dear daughter, if you take after your father.” Then he added more seriously: “You ought to try and be fond of the place for your mother’s sake.”
Elizabeth was trotting to keep up with him.
“You know,” she panted, “I think it’s as odd as odd Mummy doesn’t hate it. She was miserable when she was a little girl, she had a cruel nurse and,” she lowered her voice, “she didn’t really like Aunt Agnes, who’s dead.”
There was a pause, then John spoke slowly, thinking out his words:
“What your mother feels about this place has nothing to do with people. It’s as though the house and all this were part of her. She has the same feeling about it as she has about you children.”
“So has Laurie. Of course, he hasn’t got any children, but he feels just like Mummy does.” She held her father’s hand tighter. “Daddy, do you think I could go to school? I’ve been meaning and meaning to ask you, only I never see you.”
John stood still and stared at her.
“Why ask me? Ask your mother. Don’t you do any lessons?”
“Of course!” There was a wealth of scorn at his ignorance in her tone. “I do lessons every day with Mummy. Sums and reading and everything. But she says when I’m ten she’s going to get me a governess. I don’t want one. I want to go away to school like Laurie. Will you ask Mummy if I may?”
John moved on again.
“I shouldn’t dream of doing anything of the sort. I believe in bringing children up in the way you intend them to go on. I shall never at any time do anything for you, not if it meant any effort, for I shall always put my own interests first. It would be a pity if you grew up with that sort of faith in me.”
Elizabeth had not followed a word.
“You went to school. Why shouldn’t I?”
They had reached the terrace steps. John stopped and looked down at her.
“Do you know where I went to school?”
“You were a Blue-coat boy.” He nodded.
“But before that I went to the village school. The sort of one they’ve got here. If your mother were to go in there now, all the children would stand up.” He had forgotten Elizabeth. He was seeing again the small ambitious boy he had been. “I got a scholarship and I found a new world. Then I went up to Oxford. That was a newer world still. Everything I got I fought for.” He broke off suddenly, noticing Elizabeth’s puzzled face. “Just a fairy-tale Betsy. Don’t remember it. But, believe me, you value the things you fight for. So if you want to go to school that’s what you’ve got to do. I shan’t help. I’ve no particular views, and not much interest in the education of girls.”
Elizabeth shook her head at him. “I don’t know what you mean.” John grinned at her.
“Come on, let’s go and find your mother. You get round her. Never bother about your father, he’s a wretched fellow.”
James and John liked each other. James met his son-in-law convinced in his mind that he must ‘make the poor fellow feel at home. Not used to our ways,’forgetful of the fact that, whatever his history, John was an accepted member of society when he married Caroline. John came to the meeting determined not to be snubbed, and ready at the slightest hint of snubbing to use his wit to slash his father-in-law, but his first sight of him disarmed him. James had just put the last nail back into ‘Make them to be numbered with Thy Saints,’ he looked up apologetically as John was ushered into the shrouded drawing-room.
“Bit depressing, I’m afraid. My sister died last night. Mad as a hatter, poor girl, but must show proper respect.” He turned over ‘Make them to be numbered with Thy Saints,’ and pointed to Agnes’s photograph. “Let’s hope she’s numbered all right. Been calling herself ‘The bride of Heaven’ for quite a time.” He lowered his voice. “Thought she had a child by Him. Bit upsettin’, if she didn’t get a halo after believin’ a thing like that.”
John, forgetting all about the drawn curtains and the death in the house, laughed. With his laugh, the last remnant of the pretended gloom of the morning faded. “I’m sorry, sir,” he apologised. “That’s really very funny.”
James laid his hand on his arm.
“Come and have a wash. Glad to see you, my boy. Glad to hear you laugh. Matter of fact, now I come to think of it, it is funny. ‘Bride of Heaven!’” Still chuckling he ushered John into the lavatory.
John teased Caroline. He said, “It’s all very grand, but what’s the good of being a Torrys? What have they ever done but sit on their bottoms on the same bit of earth?” Inside he was admiring. He liked his father-inlaw’s manners, his belief that to be a Torrys was an honour, but an honour which had to be repaid. He liked his sense of duty to his land and everything on it. He was, too, envious. How superb to have either the lack of imagination or the innate courage to face a dreadful future without a sign of fear. Here he was handed a single ticket. He had no qualities of mind to help him on his way. When he used that ticket he was stepping away from a bit of earth that he loved so well that no Heaven could atone. Did he believe in another world? Had he made up his mind to where that ticket took him? If there was a platform at which to get off at the other end?”
On the last night of his two-day visit, John took a turn with James before they went to bed.
“Glad you came, my boy,” said James. “Won’t be so easy after this. My mother’s comin’. Wonderful woman, my mother, but difficult. You’ll come in August for the Coronation? Want you to meet Ellison. He’ll be comin’ into this soon.” John nodded.
“So I hear. I’m sorry.”
“No need to be.” James straightened his shoulders. “Bit soon, perhaps. But I’ve not done so bad. This terrace is mine, and I’ve planted some new trees up in the wood, and all the cottages are in nice order. Nothing to be ashamed of.”
In their bedroom John repeated to Caroline t
his conversation.
“Wonderful fellow your father. That terrace and a few re-thatchings and he’s going out quite pleased.”
Caroline shook her head.
“He isn’t pleased really. He would be if he thought Ellison would be all right.”
John fidgeted with the things on the dressing-table.
“Whether it’s Ellison or a few trees planted, or some books in a shelf, you’re leaving them. How can anything help you when it comes to dying?”
Caroline sat on the chair at her dressing-table. She appeared to be taking off her rings, but she held one so tight that her first finger was white from the pressure. “It’s knowing you’ve not wasted your time.” She steadied her voice. “That although the things you wanted most you didn’t have, you’ve not failed altogether.” John raised her chin.
“What is it? Your eyes are full of tears. I’m sorry darling. I’m a fool to talk about your father.”
She drew her head away and fumbled blindly with the fastening of a brooch.
“How silly I am.”
John strode up the embankment. It was a blustering November day with occasional splutters of rain. The viciousness of the weather fitted exactly with his mood. He had not been able to work for days. Other people’s thoughts and troubles had been pressed so closely to him that he had to take notice and he resented it. It was intolerable to be bothered just when his book was shaping so well. Of course, Caroline’s father dying need not have affected him, but it had. She had not been herself ever since she had stayed at the Manor last June. It was aggravating. He liked his household to be so normal he never had to think about them. If they were ill or had moods it upset him, put him off his work. Then on top of that, Lilias had been tiresome. He had told her he was worried about Caroline. Instead of being interested and using her intelligence, thinking perhaps of some way in which he could cheer Caroline up, she had sulked. He had always placed Lilias as an unmitigated fool, but never until that moment had he supposed she was idiot enough to be jealous of Caroline. Her niche in his life was clearly defined and she was perfect for what she was. That she should suppose that she had any place in his thoughts, or any share in his love, was lunacy. He loved Caroline and always would. Surely any fool could see that. Lilias had been made to behave, of course. Two could play at her game. He made no effort to see her for a week or so and when he had reappeared she was so relieved she forgot to sulk. But it seemed it had got to be a disturbed autumn, for now the old man had died. Caroline had been very good about it, tried not to show she cared, had just gone quietly off to the funeral. But to look at her hurt him. Ever since she had stayed at the Manor her eyes had shown she cried a lot, and there were lines at the ends of her mouth, like strings holding up the corners for fear they would droop. It seemed to him incredible that she could suffer to that extent for a father she had not seen for fifteen years, and who, from her own account, had done little for her when she had been with him. But there it was, she plainly was suffering, and there was nothing else to suffer about. That was what got between him and his work. He hated to think of her at the Manor. Those unpleasant sisters of hers and that wretched brother and the bad-tempered dragon of a grandmother. His poor Caroline being so brave in front of them all, but longing to sneak off and cry. His pity for her was mixed with resentment. How could he be so lily-livered as to let her troubles dominate him.
Thinking these things he had turned from the embankment. His way took him up Swan Walk. Swan Walk had always charmed him, but he knew no one in the houses and had see little more than the closed garden gates. But to-day one of the gates was ajar. He paused, his thoughts switched from his troubles, and peeped in. There was an apple-tree. As he watched four or five finished leaves dropped from it. There was a battered circular seat round the trunk. Two rows of frost-bitten chrysanthemums led up to the front door. He had only seen the Manor for a couple of days in July, but he was at once struck by a likeness. This little house was the more beautiful. It was not disturbed by excrescences. It was the work of one architect and he, dominated by a feeling for dignity. It was reminiscent of one wing of the Manor, and shared with the whole of the Manor its air of permanency. As he considered it a board creaked overhead. He looked up and read “For Sale.”
John drove Caroline to see the house he had bought for her. He watched her like a child who has worked at a surprise. He opened the garden gate as if it was part of a fairy-tale, and if moved too roughly the house and garden would vanish.
“Do you like it?” he asked anxiously as she finished her tour of inspection.
“It’s beautiful.”
He slipped his arm through hers.
“Will it make up a bit?”
She looked consideringly at the really charming Georgian entrance. “Make up for what?”
John squeezed her arm.
“Well, you can’t go much to the Manor now, to be insulted by your old horror of a grandmother, so I thought perhaps it would help if you had a lovely house of your own. Besides, there’s the garden. I know you love a garden.”
Caroline glanced at the frost-bitten patches of earth that would be beds of flowers in the spring. A look of surprise came into her eyes.
“It does look rather comforting.”
The house in Swan Walk was in a way a comforter. Caroline refused to have a gardener. They moved in the early summer, but long before they were in she went there daily with gardening tools and bulbs. Just the manual labour of digging holes in hard earth she found a help. Quite a lot of bitterness that she had buried in herself, she left in the ground with her bulbs. At Christmas, when Laurence came home, the house took its share in consoling. There was such a lot to be done to it and so many ways in which it could be done. She had refused to make up her mind about the decorations for any of the rooms until he came home to take his share in the discussions. She was delighted to have him, because John and Elizabeth had been disappointingly uninterested.
John, having given Caroline a house, had done he felt a nice thing, had stopped worrying about her, and gone back to his book. At meals he did not want to be worried about colour schemes, but wanted to tell her how well this or that character was shaping. She succeeded in getting from him that he wanted his new study as like his present one as possible, and had always thought red nice in a dressing-room and, with a sigh, she asked no more. Elizabeth was equally difficult. She did not like her governess. Miss Brown was charming and did all she could, but Elizabeth, still longing for school, was determined to hate all governesses. Caroline thought the school idea merely a childish whim.
“You wouldn’t like being away from home, darling. Just think if you had no mummy to come and tuck you up and say ‘good night.’”
“I wouldn’t mind.”
“Well, Mummy would. She’d miss her little girl dreadfully. You wouldn’t like poor Mummy to miss you?”
“I’d come home in the holidays, like Laurie does.”
“Laurie has to go to school, but little girls needn’t, and they are much, much happier having fun at home.”Although Caroline was convinced that Elizabeth did not really want to go to school, and would hate it if she found herself at one, she was forced to accept that she believed she was being unfairly treated.
“I can’t make friends with her,” said Miss Brown. “She looks at me as the enemy who’s keeping her from school.”
“Funny little person.” Caroline smiled. “So extraordinary! When I was a child I should have thought her life quite perfect. You’ve no idea how I loved any time I spent with my mother. That’s why I am so careful to have the children with me almost all the time.”
Miss Brown hesitated.
“She’s an aloof little girl. She hates being interfered with.”
Caroline opened her eyes.
“A mother can’t interfere! I just want the children to feel that I share everything with them. All the things they think, and any
little troubles. I remember my own childhood so well, and what a difference it would have made if my mother had lived, and been strong enough to be a companion to us.”
Caroline felt sure that the trouble with Elizabeth was only a passing phase and felt that a mother’s job was to show that she understood a passing phase, however obscure. To all Elizabeth’s moods she turned a smiling face.
“Mummy understands, darling. She felt just like you do when she was a little girl.”
The new house she hoped would be a help. From the beginning she said:
“You and I must plan it all, darling. That’s a lovely bit of fun we can have together.”
The combination of the words ‘lovely’ and ‘fun,’ spoken in Caroline’s mother-love voice, put up Elizabeth’s back. She proceeded to be annoying each time the house was mentioned. She made futile suggestions, and every excuse not to go near the place, and when she was there yawned and grumbled. Caroline, although hurt and puzzled, refused to show any sign of what she felt.
“All these rooms are not very interesting, are they? What is fun are rooms that are really truly your own. I remember feeling just like that when I was a little girl. Now what colour shall we have the schoolroom?”
It was no good. The mere mention of a schoolroom reopened the school argument. Miss Brown, disgusted with Elizabeth, scolded her for her unpleasantness to her mother, but she had to see reason when the child burst out:
“Why should I be pleased? If the schoolroom looks lovely, Mummy’ll think I’ll want to stay in it always. I don’t want a schoolroom. I want to go to school.”
How comforting it was to Caroline to have Laurence home. Laurence, who was charmed with the house. He wanted to spend his days there helping the workmen to strip the old papers, and remove paint from the walls and doors. He had been left various bits of furniture by his grandfather and was terribly eager to have them in a room of his own. He and Caroline spent a whole day measuring the walls and planning how best to fit his things in. He and she pored in the evenings over patterns for curtains and books of wall-papers. She was happy quite a lot that Christmas.
Caroline England Page 17