He and Jack went to Oxford together and did rather well there. Edward took all the necessary examinations and performed all the necessary procedures, and presently found himself a junior partner in the firm of Clarkson, Clarkson and Milner, solicitors, in Southstone. At this point he married Jack’s sister, Dorothy, an extremely nice, honest, good, not especially pretty but very lovable and loyal girl with large brown eyes. Just then the first World War broke out. Jack and Edward were of course involved in it but came back alive; though Jack had lost an arm and Edward had a bad limp, they counted themselves lucky. Coming out of hospital, Edward discovered that both his grandmothers and his father had died of the influenza epidemic of 1918, so he went north to settle the family affairs.
The excellent family solicitor of the Milners, who was Edward’s godfather, had already done this to Edward’s perfect satisfaction, so that only his signature was required, but naturally Edward went through every detail carefully. The textile business had been sold on excellent terms, for the postwar boom was still in being, so there was plenty of money. Edward was, however, rather surprised by the terms of his father’s will. The provision for his mother was just a trifle meagre, he thought, and given to her only for life; Leila fared rather better and the money was her own, but he himself was so very much the largest beneficiary that he felt embarrassed and ashamed. He coloured as he expressed this, stammering, for the family secret laid restraint on his tongue.
“There is a private communication for you from your father, Edward,” said the solicitor drily.
He handed over an envelope addressed simply Edward, sealed rather portentously with a very large blob of red wax.
This obvious demand for secrecy made Edward dread what he should read within. The note was very short and said simply. My dear son, Whatever you may feel, look after Leila. I rely on you. Father.
Edward sprang up and paced the room. His heart was full of rage, humiliation, and—he could not help it—pity. He felt insulted, outraged; the very signature was an agony, for he recalled all too well that he had never called Ted Milner father since Annie’s revelation. (He omitted any name, or said sir; the feeling implied by father had been killed by his father’s other paternity.) And now here was his father making this pathetic appeal. He must have loved Leila’s mother very much, thought Edward. I rely on you.
“Do you know what my father has written to me?” he demanded, standing before the solicitor’s desk with a very stern look.
“No. And I shall not attempt to guess.”
Of course the man, his father’s close friend, must know the whole thing, reflected Edward angrily. With an effort he calmed himself and said stiffly:
“I shall do my best to comply with his request.”
The solicitor bowed his head.
As it turned out, Edward’s promise was more easily given than kept, for Leila proved a thorn in his side for years. He moved his mother and his half-sister to an agreeable old cottage on a hill slope outside Hudley, having first asked Claire whether she wished to keep Leila with her. A spasm of anger crossed his mother’s still-beautiful face.
“I suppose I must,” she said.
“I don’t want to live with you,” said Leila, tossing her head.
Edward took no notice of this petulance, merely observing that the girl’s fair beauty, in the heavy mourning then thought proper, was more remarkable than ever.
Leila was sent to an excellent boarding-school, from which she ran away, journeying homeward by night with a lorry-driver and making no secret of this adventure. (Hudley was shocked to the core.) She was sent to another boarding-school, almost as good, which quite promptly asked that she should be removed as a bad influence, and to a third, which publicly expelled her. Each time, Edward travelled north to cope with the problem.
“What would you like to do, Leila?” he said heavily on the last occasion. “What do you want to do? Tell me, and I will help you.”
“I want to go to London and have a good time,” said Leila, laughing.
“I can’t let you do that,” said Edward gravely, looking at the quite exquisite face turned up to his.
Leila laughed and danced away.
“Why not let her go, Edward?” said his mother.
“She wouldn’t be safe,” said Edward. “We have a duty… I think she must say with you.”
“She’s been a trouble and a nuisance to me always,” said his mother quickly in a very irritable tone. “I didn’t want her, I never have, I should be glad to see her go. Your father—” She bit her lip and broke off.
Edward being what he was, the result of this speech was naturally that Edward took Leila home with him to Southstone. Dorothy, who like many daughters-in-law was not particularly fond of her mother-in-law, welcomed Leila from Mrs Milner’s unkindness with open arms. But after a week she broke into tears and confessed to Edward that she could not bear Leila’s presence any longer. Leila smoked (at her age!), she drank, she lay in bed in the mornings, she used far more cosmetics than Southstone thought allowable; worst of all, when playing with the Milners’ little daughter, she excited her to such a wild pitch of enjoyment that the child became hysterical and could not eat or sleep.
“Leila,” began Edward gravely.
“I know. I’m sorry, Edward,” said Leila sweetly. “I know I’m a nuisance. Dorothy’s done her best.”
Leila went home to Hudley and began an art course at the Hudley Technical College, but was soon reported to be coming to London to attend a school of dancing. Edward went firmly up to London and after a good deal of trouble arranged that Leila should live in a students’ hostel. She soon left this for a flat which she shared with two other girls. Edward went firmly up to London, but Leila looked so beautiful and for the first time so happy, in her leotard, that he gave her a little present (ten pounds) and left her where she was.
Of course this was not the end of Leila. In spite of her nice little income she often wrote and said she hadn’t a bean left to pay the rent—Edward sent a cheque. She wrote and said she thought she was going to need an abortion—what did Edward advise? Edward went swiftly up to London and shouted at the young man concerned (“quite a nice young fellow, really,” he confided to Dorothy, perplexed), so that a marriage ceremony was performed. Shortly after this Leila had a miscarriage (or said so) and lost the child; shortly after this she divorced her young husband—Edward went a great deal to London to get the divorce through. Then Leila married again without telling Edward—or did she just go to live with the man? Edward was never sure. She got a job with a ballet company, and threw it up, breaking her contract, and got another similar job, and lost that. Edward’s legal training stood him in good stead through all her scrapes. At length, if Edward gave a sigh as he opened his letters at the breakfast-table, Dorothy would say mildly;
“Leila again, I suppose.”
And presently even Edward’s son and daughter would laugh:
“Aunt Leila again!”
“It all falls on you, dear,” said Dorothy admiringly. She thought the way he managed the Milner affairs was simply marvellous.
For of course Leila was not the only snag in the quiet waters of Edward’s happy life.
“Every family man has troubling responsibilities,” he said soothingly to Dorothy. “If it were not so solicitors would be out of work.”
His mother, for instance, often spent too much and got into debt. He thought of making her a regular additional allowance, but Jack was against this.
“You’re too good, Edward. If you give her more, she’ll just spend beyond it as before, and be no better off. Better pay what she owes at the end of every year.”
It was good advice. Edward took it, but it meant he had to do the long railway journey to the north, rather often, which now that old Mr Clarkson was dead and the firm extremely busy because of its high repute, became rather too time-wasting.
Then there was Uncle Gerald, who got into a financial mess and went into a rather discreditable bankruptcy wi
th his small wine-business. Since Gerald and Audrey had no children, Edward went north and settled it all up, and found enough money somehow for them to live on. Then Uncle Gerald went senile and had to be settled in a nursing home. Edward went north and attended to the matter. His mother became very petulant, demanding and fretful as the years passed by and her beauty faded; she had to accept paid companions, whom she frequently dismissed, sending Edward frantic telegrams for help in these recurring crises. Edward suggested that his aunt and his mother should live together, but they both hotly refused.
All this was becoming really tiresome, for Edward’s lame leg grew painful when fatigued, when suddenly things took a brighter turn.
His mother died. Edward was ashamed to regard this as a boon, but could not help doing so. She had shown him little love and much grumbling during the past few years. Edward, remembering that he was the son of the man who had been unfaithful to her, could not think this unreasonable, but she was his mother and her indifference hurt him. Its absence was a relief.
Then, Leila appeared in Southstone, really, properly, indubitably and very successfully married. She brought her husband with her, and Edward saw at once that this time the marriage would be permanent. True, Leila’s husband was a foreigner and a good deal older than Leila, but he was a banker, immensely rich, handsome in a sophisticated grey-at-the-temples style, and—above all—a man of iron will. It was obvious that Leila had met her match. Her elegant black frock and hat, her superb furs, her exquisite jewellery, enhanced her fair beauty almost beyond belief.
“This is my dear brother, Edward,” she said.
Edward was pleased by this tribute and shook hands with the financier warmly.
“I’m off your hands now, Edward. André will look after me.”
“But yes,” said André with emphasis, and it was clear that he meant it.
The very next day a telegram came from Aunt Audrey saying that Uncle Gerald had passed away. Edward of course went north, arranged the funeral and settled his uncle’s meagre affairs. Sitting with his aunt by the fire in the evening before he left for the south, he said to her:
“Why don’t you come to Southstone, aunt? I could find you a nice little flat. Dorothy would help you to get settled. I admit frankly that it would make life easier for me, but it would be agreeable to you too, I think.”
“You’re a good man, Edward,” said his aunt. “Like your father.”
Edward started a little, but laid this remark aside.
“Will you come?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
There was a pause. His aunt took up the poker and stirred the blaze.
“How is Leila these days, Edward?”
Edward gave a glowing account of Leila and André.
“It’s more than your mother deserved,” said his aunt grimly.
“You’re wrong there. My mother behaved like a saint to Leila.”
“What are you talking about, Edward? It was your father who was the saint in that matter.”
“I don’t understand you.”
“Ah, you don’t know that sad old story.”
“I know that Leila was an illegitimate child! A by-blow of my father’s,” cried Edward, all the long-concealed anguish of this knowledge bursting from his throat.
His aunt’s face expressed horror. “No, no, Edward! Leila was your mother’s child. Don’t you see? Your father discovered her betrayal—I daresay she told him, calmly and coldly. She never loved him. She married him for his money. It happened while he was on one of his business trips. Your father was a good man. He forgave her, don’t you see? He never told a soul. He sent Claire away to Switzerland, and you and Annie away to Southstone, so there should be no scandal. She came back with the child, everything seemed in order. He adopted Leila, brought her up as his own child, he wanted there to be no scandal. He was terribly sorry for Leila. It was not the child’s fault, after all. Claire hated the child from the moment she knew she was pregnant with her. She could cause such a disaster, you see. Ted Milner was too rich to lose. But Ted loved his wife, you see. He forgave her. He never told a soul.”
Edward took the poker, which his aunt was waving wildly as she poured out these disjointed sentences, from her hand and laid it down.
“Then how can you know all this, Aunt Audrey?” he said sternly.
“My dear, the child was Gerald’s,” said his aunt.
It was a foolish, useless, sentimental thing to do, Edward did not doubt. But all the same, before he left Hudley the following morning he sought out his father’s grave, and taking off his hat, stood there for several moments in respectful, loving silence.
Out to Tea
1903
Millie Kay was a guileless child. If she had lived a little later, she might have been described as “just out of the egg”; but at the beginning of this century she was merely regarded as a sweet little girl, very satisfying in the child image of the day.
The Kays were a happy family. There was Mr Kay, who worked at something in an office in the Hudley Town Hall. Millie did not know what, but he seemed content and had a friend there, Mr Boyd, who worked with him. (Over him? Perhaps.) There was Mrs Kay, a loving wife and mother. There was Millie’s older brother, Roy. Millie adored him, and followed him in all he did. He was at times rather domineering, at times even rather cross, but these bouts of temper were soon over, and it was clear he loved Millie as much as she loved him, and only scolded her when she seemed likely to be straying into danger.
The Kays were a popular young couple, and at times entertained some guests. Not too many, for that would be excessive and extravagant. But there were the Royds, who had a little girl, Lydia, conveniently just the same age as Millie; there were others from the Town Hall, there were some from the tennis club. Mr Kay’s glory was his proficiency at tennis; he played for the club and often won tournaments. It was understood in the family that Mrs Kay had once shone at tennis too; that was in the past, but its passing seemed not to trouble her; she still understood everything about tennis and listened enthralled to her husband’s description of his games.
A newcomer to the Kay circle was Captain Lermont. He was a soldier stationed with his regiment at the local barracks. He was young and handsome, very fair, with a moustache, and kind to a little girl, and Millie liked him. Yes, she liked him very much. He wound the spring of her mechanical cat and set it going; he swung Millie on his shoulder, he “jumped” her over pools, he laughed with her, he mended Queenie’s arm (Queenie was Millie’s most beloved doll) when it came out of the shoulder socket; he did not laugh when Millie cried, but sympathised. Millie liked him. Mr Kay also liked him, largely, perhaps, because he played tennis so well. They made an excellent pair, they entered tournaments together and won; they played matches together and won. But Captain Lermont was not at all conceited or difficult. Millie could not, of course, have described how his behaviour on the courts impressed her, but she knew without thinking that he regarded Mr Kay as an elder brother whose advice he respected, and enjoyed being mothered by Mrs Kay. Millie did not even know at first that Captain Lermont was a soldier, but when one day she ran down the garden path to welcome Roy coming home from school, and told him enthusiastically that father and Mr Lermont were measuring the paved backyard to see if they could squeeze a tennis court out of it, he rebuked her sternly:
“Captain Lermont.”
“Why?”
“He’s a soldier. That’s his rank.”
“He doesn’t wear a soldier’s uniform,” objected Millie.
“He’s off duty now for the day.”
“Oh, I see.”
She did not see, of course, but accepted a senior’s dictum, as children do.
Millie having now reached the age of discretion, was sent to a small private school founded by some friends of Mrs Kay. The school, a private house, stood only a few hundred yards away from Roy’s Grammar School, so he was able to drop her there in the mornings, and he or Mrs Kay picked her u
p at noon. Millie went to school joyously, and was happy there. It was fun to have other children to play with. Lydia Royd was there. Millie had known Lydia and all the Royds, all her life; Mr Royd was, it gradually made itself known to her, in a sense Mr Kay’s boss. Everyone knew that Lydia’s mother was a beauty; very blonde with large blue eyes and slender waist. Lydia was like her, with the same long rippling blonde hair; her eyes were grey, but thick golden lashes accentuated their size. Lydia led and Millie followed.
A new girl now appeared. Her name was Dot Green, which Lydia (and so Millie) thought not very pretty. And Dot herself was (thought Lydia) not very pretty either. She was rather plump, with short thick dark curls and a round, rosy face. She smiled a good deal, and sometimes even laughed aloud.
It turned out that Dot was clever. Her sums were always right, her handwriting was clear and firm, she always knew the answers to the teacher’s questions. Now Lydia, unfortunately, was not very clever. She couldn’t help that, of course, reflected Millie, but she didn’t even try to learn, and would even dash her pencil angily across the page when the answer wouldn’t come out. There was no help from Lydia, obviously. Dot, on the other hand, would often break off her own work to explain to Millie exactly what the arithmetic book meant. The strange thing was that Millie always understood her explanations.
“Dot really is clever,” said Millie to Lydia in a tone of admiration.
“With a name like that you have to be something,” sneered Lydia.
“I expect her name is Dorothy really,” suggested Millie mildly.
Lydia gaxed at her with contempt.
“Of course if you like her best,” she said.
“Oh, I don’t, I don’t,” disclaimed Millie hastily.
A few days later, however, it seemed vaguely to occur to her that perhaps she did. She broached the matter to her mother.
“Can I ask Dot Green to tea?” she said.
Mrs Kay hesitated. She was a good and nice woman, rather less narrow-minded than some, and she found it impossible to explain to such a young child that in politics, religion, income, class and indeed almost everything else, Mr Green and Mr Kay were poles apart. She temporised, and mentioned the matter to her husband.
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