by A. J. Cronin
That night, when she returned to Flowers Street and, ascending the chipped and damaged staircase, entered her house, he had returned before her. She paused, her eyes moist with sudden tears. Then she dropped everything she was carrying.
‘Peter,’ she cried, stretching out her arms. ‘Peter.’
Chapter Twenty-Seven
It was here, the great triumphant day!
She was dressing for the ceremony of the graduation, her cheeks somewhat flushed, her movements, from her excitement, a little flustered. Peter, immaculate as a groom, had already departed – drawn by the exigency of hiring a gown – and now, with an eye upon the clock, she began hastily to put on her new dress. Yet, as she pulled the garment over her head, her haste was tempered by a subtle apprehension. She had made that dress herself, out of an odd piece of brown voile – a special bargain at the remnant shop down the street from Tutt’s – cutting it from a patern in the Weldon’s Home Dressmaker and stitching it quickly as best she could without the accessory of a ‘machine’ during the evenings of the past week. She was, in consequence, rather dubious of those stitches, and now, gazing at herself in the mirror, she became, not for the first time, rather dubious of the dress. It was neither worn nor shiny like ‘the relic’, and it covered her. But this, in effect, epitomised its virtues. It was not the dress she wished – something soft and filmy, relieving the outlines of her thickening figure, that would have been – but it was, reluctantly, the best that she could do.
But what matter the dress? It was the graduation that mattered, and the fierce delight of seeing him – her son – capped in open assembly.
For years she had anticipated that scene, and now, triumphantly, it was here. Her triumph it was, equally with his, and, watching, she would share it secretly, in the deep recesses of her heart.
With a final inspection in the mirror she hastened to get her shoes.
She picked up her shoes from the rack above the range, looked at them; then suddenly her face fell, fell miserably.
She had entertained a doubt, a strong suspicion, about those shoes. They were old; they were worn; when damp, they had been dried and dried again at nights on this same rack to facilitate their being comfortable in the morning. And now this last rash drying had consummated their defeat and hers. A frightful disaster! The sole of the right shoe had cracked completely through. It was not so much a crack as a hole – a ragged angular hole in the shoddy sole, through which she might have inserted her little finger. Around that hole the weakened leather – if, indeed, it were leather – peeled and curled, making her eyes widen wretchedly.
She had wanted to buy herself a new pair of shoes, but she simply hadn’t been able to afford them. The extraction of her teeth, the hat, the remnant for her dress – these recent indulgences had ruined her; and now both the time – it lacked but a quarter to eleven, the hour of the ceremony’s commencement – and the day – it was Friday, the barren morning of her pay-day – definitely precluded her obtaining new shoes. She had a sudden wild idea of demanding the loan of a pair from Bessie Finch, but, though Bessie would have been ‘only too glad to oblige’, Bessie’s enormous shoes would be like boats upon her own small feet. And there was no alternative; she would have to make the best of it.
Slowly she went to the bunker – refuge of every oddment – and took out a piece of stiff brown paper. This she folded and refolded, then inserted it – an accessory sole – inside the damaged shoe. She even rubbed a little blacking on the outside, to conceal and perhaps consolidate the junction of the paper with the wreckage. Then she put the shoe on. Tight, it was, much tighter than the other, but it had at least a sense, and a deceptive sense, of tense solidity. Still, what did she care about the shoes? No more than the dress. It was the day that counted – the glorious day!
Outside, as she emerged on to the landing, she found the Finches’ door open, and Mrs Finch herself hovering in the hall beyond.
‘I thought you might like this,’ said the sentimental Bessie. ‘I got it at my mother’s for you – special like – knowing where you were going’; and with a quite romantic air she presented Lucy with a pink rose trimmed with maidenhair. ‘ Here’s a pin, too,’ she pressed, and, before Lucy could protest, she pinned the rose upon the baggy bosom of the ill-made dress.
‘That’s lovely,’ she concluded, throwing back her head admiringly. ‘Just sets you off.’
‘Thank you,’ said Lucy awkwardly. She doubted the wisdom of the adornment, but she nevertheless submitted to it. At one time she had questioned Bessie’s kindness. Did not that soft eye, falling upon Peter, gleam unconsciously with a frustrated ardour? But now, of course, that thought perished. They would so soon be away! With amazing fortune Peter had fallen into a hospital appointment – a ‘stop-gap’ for six months at the Royal Eastern. In the interval she would make her plans. Then they would move.
Then, after a further word, she descended the chipped staircase and, with her head in the air, the rose on her bosom, and the burst shoes on her feet, she set out for the University.
Strange that never before she should have entered this building – that for five years it should have over-topped her life without her once approaching it. Today it seemed – like her – in festival: cabs and motor-cars converging towards its entrance-gate, a crowd upon the terraces, a flag floating languidly upon its high white staff.
Suddenly she had the feeling that she was late, and she quickened her step upon the gravelled drive. It was a rash impetuosity. The rough surface of the drive rent her paper sole unmercifully; like teeth the flints were, chewing her flimsy subterfuge to ribbons. She had not advanced a hundred paces before she walked upon her stockinged sole, nor yet another hundred before that stocking parted, and she felt the cold gravel upon her skin. It was a calamity. But she would not stop. Excitedly, with a mantling colour, she topped the summit of the hill. The clock struck eleven meditative strokes as she entered the quiet of the cloisters.
Following the last stragglers upon the circling stairs, she entered the Bute Hall with a still heightened colour – and by good fortune found a single seat against the wall, high up in the crowded gallery. Here she drew a deep breath, feeling herself secure and unobserved.
She looked around, but she could not see Peter. The place was filled by a stylish gathering. Unconsciously she hid her damaged shoe, kept herself erect proudly in her seat.
Suddenly an organ pealed – a high, triumphant note, which drowned the hum of conversation, and, rising, swept the hall in a rushing ecstasy. She was lifted up by that soaring sound. It became the symbol of her victory, a wind on which her spirit suddenly took wings.
The music ceased, and, with a start, she came back to the hall. Dreamily, almost, she observed the entry of the professors, passing pair by pair, following the mace-bearer along the aisle, sedate and learned in their gowns and curious caps. Their hoods made vivid slits of colour – scarlet and blue and yellow – as they ranged themselves in their dark stalls. The Principal, a short-necked figure with a peering eye and a pointed beard, mounted the daïs. There was a Latin prayer; singing.
Then the capping ceremony began.
She leaned forward eagerly in her back seat, watching one after another the gowned figures advance to the daïs, where, kneeling in a suppliant attitude, each was touched by the Principal and solemnly presented with his parchment. Impressive sight!
Suddenly her body grew tense – rigid with expectancy. At last – Peter’s name had been called. A high colour leaped into her cheeks as she saw her son emerge from beneath the gallery and advance to the daïs, his figure erect, his gown sustained behind him smoothly. He was pale, she saw, but collected; and he performed with perfect poise the ritual required of him; kneeling, bowing, rising – he did it all so well! Her heart thrilled within her – no mere beats but a flutter, like the flutter of wings. Quite a burst of clapping greeted him as he arose; a loud applause which almost startled her, coming from somewhere in the body of the hall. For herself, she did
not move her hands, which lay stiffly upon her lap. She was too proud, too conscious of the moment, and too overwhelmed by it. She would tell him afterwards what she had felt. It was an emotion too deep, too secret, to be openly expressed.
Well, it was done! The final seal was set upon him. For her, the proceedings terminated in a daze of sound and movement. Once again that organ pealed – now it was a paean of thanksgiving – then with the others she rose and began to make her way out of the hall.
It was a slow progress. People stood and talked and laughed; they were in no hurry; they made little groups, little parties barring her way. Some looked at her curiously, she thought – an up and down survey, then a quick removal of the eyes. She did not like to press past them, and yet she wanted to get out. She had promised to meet Peter outside – in the cloisters.
At length she reached the cloisters, which were not now quiet, but crowded by part of the same well-dressed throng. She saw that she was out of place, utterly incongruous, her travesty of a dress as unbecoming as a piece of sacking tied about her. What did she care? Soon those things would be of the past: satin, not sacking, for her then! She was waiting for her son. They would go away together.
She waited with her back against one of the arches, surveying the animated scene with an impressive face. Then, all at once, the crowd parted, and she saw him. Immediately her eyes began to smile; then, suddenly she started and drew herself up. Her hands clenched, her brows came together in a sudden dark perplexity which merged slowly into a fixed and brooding stare. Her son was there, bare-headed, his gown floating easily about him; he was talking, laughing, the centre of a group. As her astounded eyes envisaged that group, her lips tightened with a sort of grim repulsion. She passed her hand slowly, dazedly, over her eyes. Yes, it was incredible; she had not dreamed it possible – but it was so. They were all there – all her relations were there, all those who had conspired to defeat her – Richard, with Vera and Charles and, inevitably, Eva; Edward, too; and, lastly, Joe, accompanied by his sister Polly. It was Joe, indeed, who saw her first, and waved his large hand with a sheepish gesture of invitation. Every eye turned towards her. Immovable, she stood for a long moment; then slowly, like a woman in a dream, she advanced towards them.
‘Allow me to congratulate you also, Lucy,’ said Richard immediately, with what she felt to be an odious pretence of candour. ‘A remarkably fine achievement on the part of your boy.’
She took his hand stiffly, mechanically, still dazed by the shock of seeing them.
‘And a very fitting time for a family reunion,’ said Edward, with suave urbanity. He indicated Joe and Polly. ‘When Peter wrote me, I decided we should all meet here. We’re all proud of him.’
‘Sure – we was only too glad to come along,’ blurted out Joe, in an excess of affability. ‘And I’m goin’ to stand a feed at the Grosvenor for the whole shoot.’
‘If we couldn’t come along to give you a clap,’ remarked Eva agreeably, pinching Peter’s arm, ‘simply too unkind, it would have been.’ She smiled at Lucy from under her elegant floppy hat, and, with a wave of her gloves towards some young people behind her – merely a blur they were to Lucy – she added sweetly: ‘We brought some of Peter’s tennis friends to swell the cheering.’
She murmured, in introduction, some names which Lucy, still confronting the group stiffly, did not hear. Nor did she wish to hear. A slow anger burned within her, an animosity which again sent the colour surging into her pale cheeks. What right had these people to come here, under the specious pretence of friendship, to interfere with her son? What had they to do with him – or, indeed, with her? By what authority did they presume, now, at this juncture, to participate in her desperately-won victory? It was she who had led the van in battle, and now they came, these others, to share unjustly in her triumph. They had ignored her; they had despised her; they had left her to fight alone. A memory of her struggle – in all its bitterness, its anguish, and its grinding poverty – rose swiftly before her. She clenched her teeth to keep back a rush of stinging-tears. A reunion, indeed. Good God! It was unbearable!
‘It seems rather late in the day for your reunion,’ she heard herself say to Edward, in a voice of ice.
‘It’s never too late to mend,’ said Eva, with a little titter; and at the vacuous absurdity the tension was broken by a general laugh.
‘Come, mother,’ whispered Peter anxiously in her ear, ‘ don’t be queer – especially today. They all mean well by us.’
She threw him a burning glance.
‘And what about that feed, now?’ broke in Joe hastily, with a pacific jocularity. ‘I’m starving meself. We’ll have a proud spread at the Grosvenor. McKillop’s a good friend of my own; he’ll give us a private room. And as for the drinks, there’s goin’ to be champagne – lashin’s of it.’
He turned sheepishly to Lucy, and added: ‘We’re all friends, now, aren’t we? And it’s a poor heart that never rejoices.’
There was a general laughing murmur of approval, and a general movement towards the quadrangle – a movement which swept Lucy onwards with the group. Her eyes were hard; something within her breast was rending her.
‘We were delighted to hear of your promotion,’ said Eva, with an ogling, appreciative eye upturned towards the princely purple of the Canon’s stock. ‘ When we want a new Archbishop in the diocese –’ She paused significantly.
He waved a pearly, deprecating hand.
‘The Grosvenor’s the place, sure enough.’
‘Peter, who was the youth who tripped over his gown?’
‘I’m very partial to Veuve Cliquot – if it’s dry enough.’
‘Luck, your getting into the Eastern!’
They were all talking at once; she could not get a chance to speak.
‘We’ll pack into the car,’ said a voice from behind her. ‘It’ll be a lovely jam, but Peter can sit on your knee, Rosie.’
A shiver ran through Lucy; she wanted to turn around, but could not. She was walking with Polly – yes, Polly, fatter than ever, wheezing under her panoply of vulgar, expensive clothes. And Polly, looking at her solicitously, was enquiring: ‘What’s wrong with your foot? You’re lame, as though you’d got varicose.’
She made no answer to the abominable words; she wanted to get to Peter, to take him away from here, to be alone with him – the two of them – by themselves. But she was swept along, through the archway, to the drive, where, amongst a row of cars and cabs, a big red motor stood, its brass-bound radiator glittering in the sun.
‘All aboard, now!’ exclaimed that same voice. ‘We’ll pack up the old waggon.’
It was a young man who spoke, and now, with an encouraging smile, he threw open both doors of the car, and jumped into the driving-seat. ‘Come along, Rosie – you can stand a crush – you’re the first sardine.’
‘Won’t you go in, Mrs Moore?’ said someone close to Lucy. She turned swiftly. A tall, well-rounded girl, with the same hair and eyes as the other, was smiling at her pleasantly, a little nervously. But Lucy did not smile back. She was chilled, outraged, infuriated; the whole thing seemed a shameful conspiring to defeat her.
‘I can’t come,’ she answered shortly, torn by her feeling.
A general outcry of protest arose.
‘You must come, though, mother,’ urged Peter gallantly; he had disposed of his gown, and now bent towards her solicitously. But angrily she felt his very solicitude an affectation.
‘You know I can’t come,’ she threw back, giving him a cold look which lacerated her own heart.
‘Come along, Lucy,’ inserted Edward blandly.
‘No, I can’t come,’ she answered painfully.
‘But why not?’ expostulated Joe, his thumb stuck in his arm-hole – how she hated that posture! ‘And all of us not been together for years!’
They looked towards her. ‘I have my work to do,’ she lied, facing them stiffly.
There was an awkward silence; Eva gave a little titter – but it had a
nervous inflection – and she abandoned the pavement for the car. Peter’s face coloured deeply, whilst Rosie looked at him uncomprehendingly.
‘Let those who can get in, then!’ said Richard suddenly, frigidly. ‘We can’t stand here all day, and Lucy knows what she wants to do best.’ As he bent his head beneath the hood he added something under his breath to Eva.
At the words they got into the big car – all but Lucy. The engine raced under the red bonnet: smoke puffed from the exhaust; she felt her son’s eyes upon her in a troubled, magnetised stare. Before the car could leave, she stirred, and, forcing her features to a formal expression of politeness, she said good-bye quickly, turned, and moved off down the road.
She heard the roar and departure of the motor without turning her head; nor, when, from the silence, she knew it finally to have disappeared, did she turn from her path. It was the wrong road she was taking, the long way round to Flowers Street, a further distance of at least a mile, through a maze of the mean streets of Partick. Simply by turning round and retracing her steps she could have avoided this. But no; she would not. With her head in the air, she kept on – going her own way!
Yet, when she reached her house, there was an agonising lassitude upon her, and at once, without removing hat or gloves, she flung herself on to her bed in the kitchen. There she lay, motionless, staring fixedly at the cracked and yellowing ceiling.