‘We will act no more,’ said Sir Jesse, suddenly striding forward with a scowl on his face. ‘We will cease to parade the tears of women and teach young men to make a show of themselves. My son can go to his duty without that. I have left my family in my time, and without exposing them to this. Does no one think of anything but disburdening himself? Let him think of other things.’
He drew back, breathing deeply. Fulbert looked up with an expression that made his face a boy’s; Regan surveyed them both with a look that also came from the past; and in the silence that followed, Luce approached her mother.
‘Mother, I am going to end the scene. For the sake of Father and ourselves. It is losing weight and meaning. It will be less significant, not more, for being prolonged. I take it upon myself to say that time is up.’
‘Time, is it?’ said Fulbert, turning and beginning on the round of his farewells, as if seeing the mistake of prolonging them. ‘Time for me to enter on the months which are to restore me to you. I am like a criminal anxious to begin his sentence; I am one, in that I should have served it years ago.’
He went the course of his family with a sort of resolute ease, embraced the women and girls with a suggestion of an especial meaning for each, and left before emotion could be manifest. Regan stood and stared before her with a face that was suddenly blank and old, and Sir Jesse was silent and almost absent, as if withdrawing from further part in the scene. Eleanor was pale and controlled; Isabel and Honor were lost in the struggle with their tears; Venice and James were conscious of themselves and nervous of the attention of others; Gavin appeared to be unaffected; and the two young men devoted themselves to the duties of the moment.
Nevill ran up to Fulbert as he reached the door, and thrust his paper into his hand.
‘A picture of Father,’ he said.
‘Nevill has made the supreme sacrifice, that of Hatton,’ said Graham, and brought a smile to Regan’s face.
Luce stood in the hall and motioned her father onward in a manner that gave no quarter, and as Daniel held open the carriage door, entered almost with alacrity and took her seat. Fulbert followed with his usual springy gait; the brothers sat at the back; Fulbert raised his hand to his mother and his wife, or to one or the other, as each took the salute to herself. Of the group in the hall Regan was the first to speak.
‘Well, the children will be back, I suppose. There is no danger of our losing them.’
Sir Jesse turned and walked to the library, with a lack of expectance about him, that sent his wife after him with an altered face. Eleanor was the next to utter her first words.
‘James, I do not believe you uttered a syllable during the whole of Father’s last half-hour with us.’
James looked at his mother and maintained this course.
‘Why did you suppose you were here?’
‘Hatton told us to come down.’
‘Then did you not want to say good-bye to Father?’
‘Yes, but we did it last night.’
‘But wouldn’t you have liked a last word?’
‘Well – but we had it last night – it was better – then we had it by itself,’ said James, in a barely articulate tone.
‘Oh, that is what it was. Well, I can understand that.’
James simply relaxed his body and his face.
‘You did not speak to Father, either, did you, Gavin?’ said Eleanor, in an almost expressionless tone, as if she hesitated to commit herself on her sons’ motives.
Gavin looked at her in silence.
‘Of course you were making a picture of him,’ said Eleanor, seeking his corresponding justification.
‘He was too,’ said Nevill, beginning to look about for the paper, which he knew his father had not taken.
‘We can’t help Father’s going to America,’ said Gavin.
‘No, but it is because of you in a way,’ said Eleanor, at once. ‘It is because he wants to make the future safe for us.’
‘Then it is because of you too.’
‘Of course, it is especially because of me. But I did not think it was not.’
Gavin considered for a moment and then left the subject.
‘Isabel, you seem in a state of utter exhaustion,’ said Eleanor, in a sharper tone. ‘How you are upset by any little strain! Everything seems too much for you.’
‘The last half-hour has been,’ said Isabel, for her sister’s ears.
‘Venice, take her upstairs, and tell Miss Mitford that I said she was to go to Hatton and lie down.’
Isabel proceeded to her rest; the circuitous method also disposed of Venice; James stood with a sense of personal justification; Nevill ran up to Eleanor and offered his paper.
‘A picture of Mother,’ he said.
‘My dear, little, comforting boy!’
‘A picture of Mother; Father come back soon; all gone away, but come back tomorrow,’ said Nevill, rapidly enumerating grounds of consolation.
‘Luce and Daniel and Graham will come back in a few minutes,’ said Gavin.
‘Come back in a few minutes,’ said Nevill, passing on this information to his mother before he left her.
‘Honor, hadn’t you and Gavin better have some game?’ said Eleanor, looking at the silent children.
‘He will be a horse,’ suggested Nevill.
‘Would you like to get that photograph from Father’s room?’ said Eleanor, seeing the need of another solution.
Honor and Gavin sprang towards the stairs, and Nevill gave them a glance and continued his exercise.
James made a movement of sudden recollection and ran up after them, producing in his mother the impression that he had some object in view, and no curiosity concerning it, which were results that he had intended.
Nevill suddenly realized that he was alone with his mother in the hall.
‘Go with Hatton,’ he said, in a tone of giving the situation one chance before he despaired of it.
‘I will take you to her,’ said Eleanor, offering her hand.
Nevill accepted it and mounted the stairs with an air of concentrating all his being on one object. When they reached the nursery, he looked up at his mother.
‘Father come back tomorrow, come back soon,’ he said, and ran through the door.
Eleanor satisfied herself that Isabel was asleep, and paid a visit to Venice and Miss Mitford as she passed the schoolroom.
‘Are you standing about doing nothing, dear? Is she, Miss Mitford?’
‘Yes.’
‘Is that the way to keep up her spirits?’
‘I do not think she is in spirits.’
‘Cannot she find some occupation?’
‘Girls of her age have no pursuits.’
‘Could she not make something to do?’
‘That is beneath human dignity.’
‘Is it so dignified just to stand about?’
‘It is more so. And she is accustoming herself to the change in the house. Surely that is quite reasonable.’
‘I think we shall have to let time do that for us.’
‘Well, that is what she is doing. Half-an-hour cannot do much.’
‘Is James anywhere about?’
‘He is with the children in the nursery. He had a holiday because his father was going.’
‘He will no doubt have one when he comes back. I don’t know how he makes any progress. I don’t suppose he does make much. Are the girls resting too today? Isabel is asleep.’
‘I hope that is resting,’ said Miss Mitford, ‘I hope it is not one of those heavy, unrefreshing sleeps.’
‘Can Isabel and I have a photograph of Father, like Honor and Gavin?’ said Venice, in a sudden tone.
‘Yes, of course you can, dear child. I will put one out for you. There is sure to be a frame that will fit it.’
‘Is there?’ said Miss Mitford, seeing this question in Venice’s eyes. ‘I should think that is unusual.’
‘I don’t know of one, certainly. But we shall find one.’
&nb
sp; ‘I should not know where to look for such a thing.’
Eleanor’s face revealed that this was the case with herself.
‘I have a pair of frames that I do not want,’ said Miss Mitford.
‘Whom have you had in them?’ said Venice.
‘My father and mother. But I am inclined to take them out, because they stir the chords of memory.’
‘Venice dear, do not ask questions,’ said Eleanor. ‘Just say you will like to have the frames, if Miss Mitford has no use for them. And then you may come and get the photograph.’
‘Whom will you put in the second frame?’ said Miss Mitford. ‘I could give you a photograph of myself, to balance your father’s.’
Venice hesitated with a half-smile, and Miss Mitford suddenly gave a whole one.
‘Come with me and I will give you one of my own photographs,’ said Eleanor. ‘Then you can have your parents on either side of your fireplace. It is kind of you to amuse them, Miss Mitford. She is quite cheered up.’
Isabel awoke to find her sister disposing the photographs on the mantelpiece.
‘What are those?’ she said, and heard the account. ‘I would as soon have had Mitta as Mother,’ she said.
‘We could not put her to correspond with Father,’ said Venice, not criticizing the view on any other ground.
‘I think I shall say I am too tired to come down to dessert.’
‘Can you be as tired as that, after your rest? Mother saw you were asleep.’
‘I can after these last days.’
‘Well, if you want to explain that!’ said Venice, causing her sister to rise from her bed.
‘Now remember,’ said the latter, as they left the schoolroom later, ‘I am quite myself and not at all depressed, and I wanted to come downstairs. I was only tired and upset by Father’s going.’
‘And what if I am asked what you ate at dinner?’
‘Oh, just tell a fib,’ said Isabel, as if her previous injunctions had not involved this step.
‘Well, my weary girl,’ said Eleanor, ‘are you quite yourself again?’
‘Yes, thank you, Mother.’
‘Did she have a good luncheon, Venice?’
‘Yes.’
‘And James? How is he? Doesn’t he think he might go to school this afternoon, and do some hours of work? It would be a little thing he could do for Father.’
‘When we have a holiday, we are supposed to have one,’ said James in a faint voice.
‘Do you mean you would find it embarrassing to go back?’
‘No,’ said James, who would have found it even more so to admit this.
‘What does he mean, Isabel?’
‘Well, he is not expected, and they are supposed to keep to what they say.’
‘Mother, I think Father has unwittingly put enough on the children today,’ said Luce, with an unconscious glance at Sir Jesse.
‘The boy is right that he should do one thing or the other,’ said the latter, with a suggestion of seeking to counteract his outbreak. ‘If he has begun the day in one way, let him finish it.’
‘Then he must have a walk and a rest,’ said Eleanor, who seemed to consider widely varying courses adapted to her son. ‘He is not having a holiday in the ordinary sense.’
‘James would not dispute it,’ said Graham.
‘I don’t think he ever has one,’ said Isabel. ‘Does he know what an ordinary holiday means? To him a holiday must be a sort of tribute paid to other people’s experience.’
James gave his sister a look of seeing someone familiar passing out of his sight.
‘Wouldn’t any of you like to hear about your father’s last moments?’ said Eleanor.
Her chance use of words with another association caused some mirth.
‘What an odd thing to laugh at, if you really took the words as you pretend!’
‘It is their bearing that interpretation that constitutes the joke,’ said Daniel.
‘Joke!’ said his mother, drawing her brows together.
‘We had an ordinary little talk,’ said Luce, in a tone unaffected by what had passed. ‘We found ourselves discussing the best time for leaving England. The last moments’ - her voice shook on the words - ‘tend to lack vitality and interest.’
‘Why did you insist on being present at them?’ said Eleanor.
‘To prevent them from being worse for Father than they had to be, Mother.’
‘Sit on Grandma’s knee,’ said Nevill.
Regan lifted him and he settled himself against her in dependence on the effort to support his weight, and closed and opened his eyes.
‘He has missed his sleep,’ said Venice. ‘It was because of saying good-bye to Father.’
‘Sleep, school, everything missed,’ said Eleanor, with a sigh.
‘Good-night, Grandma,’ said Nevill, meeting Regan’s eyes with a smile.
‘The child will be a burden. Can’t somebody fetch him?’ said Sir Jesse, seeming to find no fault with a burden, if it were suitably disposed.
‘Let him lie down, Grandma,’ said Luce, with her eyes on the pair.
‘No,’ said Nevill, struggling to his former position.
‘Hatton can carry him without waking him, when he is once asleep,’ said Venice.
It was decided to rely on this power, making a temporary sacrifice of Regan, and Eleanor turned to her sons.
‘Have you your father’s directions clear in your minds?’
‘Yes. Habit has not yet overlaid them,’ said Graham.
‘I wish he had told you to learn to answer a serious question. It grows wearisome, this taking everything as an excuse for jaunt-iness. It will become a recognized affectation.’
‘We will not look at Graham at his hard moment,’ said Daniel.
‘I am glad to bear it for us both,’ said Graham.
‘Mother, that is too severe,’ said Luce, laughing. ‘It is natural to the boys to be as they are.’
‘We cannot always leave our natural selves unmodified, and expect other people to bear with them.’
‘It is about what most of us do,’ said Sir Jesse, with some thought of his own illustration of the point.
‘I suppose it is,’ said Eleanor, with a sigh that seemed to refer to herself.
‘Are our natural selves so bad?’ said Isabel.
‘More petty and narrow than bad,’ said her mother. ‘Not that that is not poor enough.’
‘Mother, you have your own opinion of yourself and other people,’ said Luce.
‘Do you show your natural self, James?’ said Eleanor, with one of her accesses of coldness.
‘No; yes; I don’t know,’ said James, looking surprised and apprehensive.
‘Do you pretend to be different from what you are?’
‘Oh, no,’ said James, suddenly seeing his life as a course of subterfuge.
‘Do you, Venice?’
‘No, I don’t think so.’
‘Do you, Isabel?’
‘I don’t know. I have not thought. And I do not intend to think. Probably most of us do the same thing.’
‘That is not a gracious way to talk.’
‘It was not that sort of question. It was one to make people admit what they had better keep to themselves.’
‘You have answered it more plainly than you know.’
‘Well, I suppose that was your object in asking it.’
‘You think people do disguise themselves?’
‘Up to a point, of course. We should be sorry if they did not. I should be grateful if you would resume your disguise.’
‘Isabel, you must remember you are speaking to your mother.’
‘It is not a moment when I should choose to do so.’
‘My dear, I know you are tired and upset, but there is reason in everything. Do you think it is nice to take advantage of Father’s going at once like this?’
‘No, not at all, but you were the first person guilty of it. And in James’s case you wreaked your feelings on a help
less child.’
Graham rested his eyes on Isabel, as if he thought these words did not only apply to James.
‘Isabel, I shall have to ask you to go upstairs,’ said Eleanor.
‘I have not the least wish to remain.’
‘Then do not do so, my dear.’
Isabel rose and bursting into tears, ran out of the room. Luce rose at almost the same moment and went with a movement of her shoulders after her.
‘Well, what a lot of smoke without any flame!’ said Eleanor, not looking into anyone’s face.
‘There was a certain amount of flame,’ said Daniel. ‘And you put the match, Mother.’
‘It was very inflammable material.’
‘That did not make it wiser.’
‘Venice, go and see what is happening,’ said Eleanor.
Venice went out and found her sister weeping on the stairs, with Luce standing over her; and not being inclined to return and describe the scene, she simply joined it. The same thing happened to James, who was the next emissary, and to Honor, who succeeded him. Gavin was the first to report on the situation.
‘Isabel is sitting on the stairs, crying, and the others are standing near.’
Nevill struggled to the ground and ran up to Eleanor.
‘Isabel is crying, but stop soon, and Father soon come back and put his arm round her.’
Eleanor stroked his hair.
‘Do you think you can go to Isabel, and try to bring her back to Mother?’
Nevill ran to the door, waited for it to be opened without looking at the operator, mounted the stairs to his sister, took her hand and tried to drag her to the dining-room. Luce came behind, as if not yet relaxing her vigilance, and Venice and James and Honor rather uncertainly followed. Sir Jesse put some viands on a plate and pushed it towards his granddaughter, who was moved to uncertain mirth by this method of encouragement, and Nevill took his stand at her side, with his eyes going from the plate to her face.
‘Now you had better go upstairs and enjoy your good things there,’ said Eleanor. ‘Here is another plate for the nursery children.’
Honor took it and Nevill ran by her side, openly yielding himself to the occasion. Hatton appeared in response to a summons, took both the plates in one hand, and Nevill’s hand in the other, and led the way from the room. The other five children followed. Luce lay back in her chair and gave a sigh.
Parents and Children Page 16