An hour later, when she came downstairs erect and slim in her blue travelling suit, she glanced into the drawing-room to see if they were still there. Varden Cocks was gone, but James was at his post. Sunlight and emptiness filled the room, and a great clamour of conversation, an enormous rattling of spoons and forks in the dining-room below proclaimed the whereabouts of the wedding guests. Anew she felt most anxious to be nice to poor James; to bring balm to that lonely, mutilated mind. She felt indignant with the Clewers for scorning him. It was as if they were all determined to deny to him that dignity and self-respect which is the birthright of the lowest. His sorrowful eyes turned upon her were an accusation.
She advanced into the room.
‘They are all downstairs eating ices,’ he told her.
‘I know. Aren’t you coming?’
‘No! I don’t like them.’
‘Well, James, it’s good-bye for the present, then. You’ll come and pay us a long visit, won’t you, when we get back from Norway.’
‘I shall be in Paris then,’ he stated.
Without conscious readjustment she began to accept his point of view. Of course he would be in Paris. How stupid they all were!
‘We may be stopping in Paris before the end of our honeymoon,’ she said. ‘If you are there, we must meet and go about to things.’
‘What things?’
‘Oh … theatres and things.’
‘But I’m going to paint,’ he objected,
‘But you don’t want to paint all the time, surely? You’ll go round and see the sights, I suppose?’
He thought it over and then said conclusively:
‘I don’t here.’
She felt baffled and wondered what else she could say. There were fresh sounds of a car in the street and he looked out of the window.
‘It’s yours,’ he said. ‘They are putting your luggage on to it.’
Agatha yawned.
‘What are you yawning for?’ he asked sympathetically.
‘I don’t know. I keep on doing it. It’s silly. I can’t help it.’
‘I know,’ he averred.
There were cries for her downstairs, and she thought she heard John’s voice. She stood still, gaping. James, surprised at her rigidity, looked into her face exclaiming:
‘Here! What are you frightened of?’
Turning to rebuff his foolishness, she was silenced by his expression. In that ugly countenance she perceived so much gravity, indignation and concern that she was mute.
‘Look … You woman … Agatha …’ he said urgently, ‘… don’t go if you don’t want to!’
‘Agatha! Are you ready? Agatha!’
People were coming upstairs.
‘Don’t listen to them,’ muttered James, catching her arm. ‘I don’t. They are very silly, you know. You shouldn’t let them …’
A shrill laugh wrenched itself out of her throat. She shook off his hand and admonished him:
‘Don’t talk like that! It’s you who are silly, James!’
For a moment he stood as if barring her way. Then the horrified penetration died out of his eyes and he let her go, indifferently. She ran down to her husband.
5.
Marian Clewer prided herself upon the regularity with which she conducted her household. There was no variation in her iron laws. Immediately after the wedding, therefore, she flogged her family back into the routine of everyday life, sternly checking any attempt to prolong the feast. Upon the return of the Clewers to Eaton Square she demanded whether Lois had read Italian with Miss Barrington. Lois, who resented her Italian lessons more deeply than any of her other shackles, replied sulkily that she had not. She had supposed that John’s wedding would be a holiday.
‘That has nothing to do with it,’ replied Lady Clewer coldly. ‘Go and take off your frock and give it to Peters to put away for you. Put on your green dress and go into the schoolroom for your reading. You can have your tea there today as I want to talk business with Major Talbot and Mrs Cocks.’
The schoolroom was a nice sunny place at the top of the house, well equipped with all the paraphernalia of modern education. Miss Barrington, the notable woman who had succeeded in teaching James to read, was sitting comfortably in a rocking-chair by the window. She also had hoped for a holiday and was engaged upon one of those endless letters to her cousins at Cape Town which occupied her infrequent leisure hours. But when she saw Lois she sprang to her feet with an eager display of activity such as Marian liked to see in her subordinates. She was a sensible, apple-cheeked young woman, with high academic qualifications, a morbid conscience, and great personal humility: an ideal governess for the Clewer household. She belonged to that type of energetic worker for which Marian had a positive cult. There were squads of them down at Lyndon; secretaries, lady gardeners, dairy-women and the like. Lady Clewer was uniformly generous to them, bullied them, nursed them when they were ill, paid for their false teeth, kept them continually on the run in her employ, and, in short, scarcely allowed them to call their souls their own. All that she required in return was loyalty.
Miss Barrington was very loyal. She even thought it necessary to display enthusiasm over the mild pages of I Promessi Sposi, which book it was her duty to read with Miss Martin. She said sometimes that she thought it an interesting story. She looked very unhappy when Lois exclaimed:
‘I suppose it’s because Mother can’t even speak her own language properly that she thinks I ought to know four!’
‘She has a very high ideal of education,’ said the governess.
‘Most people idealize what they haven’t got.’
‘Lois!’
‘Well? I was only generalizing. Where’s the wretched book? Let’s get it over!’
‘Lois! You know quite well that you oughtn’t to talk like that.’
‘I can’t help it. It’s too irritating. Here’s Agatha, two years younger than me, allowed to go to Norway with a strange man she hardly knows….’
‘Let me see! Where did we leave off?’ said Miss Barrington hastily.
‘I don’t want to be married, goodness knows,’ stormed Lois. ‘Except to get a little peace and freedom and quietness. But I never shall, anyway. I never get the chance. I never see any man to speak to.’
‘You go to balls and things. You’ve been presented,’ put in Cynthia from the sofa.
‘What earthly good does being presented do? I’m not going to marry the Prince of Wales. And as for dances, Mother scares away any man who attempts to be at all friendly. I never get the chances other girls do.’
‘Lois! I’ve found the place!’
‘Well, why didn’t you marry John?’ asked Cynthia. ‘I should have, in your position. You could, you know. You aren’t really related. And you’ve had plenty of opportunities.’
Lois, to whom this was a new idea, gasped. So did Miss Barrington.
‘Well, but … John didn’t want to marry me….’
‘That’s your fault. You could have made him…. I think you missed an excellent chance. Just think what fun it would have been taking Lyndon out of Mother’s hands!’
‘Cynthia! I can’t have you talking like that. It isn’t very nice,’ exclaimed the agonized Miss Barrington.
The two girls laughed.
‘How do you mean, I could have made him …?’ pursued Lois.
‘Oh, well! If you don’t know that much!’
‘You don’t know what you’re talking about. You couldn’t, at your age. Why, you’ve not even been confirmed!’
‘I don’t see what that has to do with it.’
‘It shows what a baby you are.’
Cynthia needed occasional repression, but it seldom had any effect on her. She smiled mysteriously and examined the ends of her finger-nails.
‘Well, all things considered,’ she said, ‘I think I’ll get married before I come out.’
‘Nonsense! You won’t be allowed to. Nobody does.’
‘Well, I expect I shall. You see! As for
you…. There’s still James. You’d better take him.’
James, seated at the table, was drawing in a small sketch-book. He was, as usual, absorbed in his work, and did not look up when his name was mentioned. Lois could not avoid an expressive grimace at the idea of marrying him.
‘Lois and Cynthia! You really mustn’t talk in this way. Not in the schoolroom. Cynthia, get something to do! Your mother thinks you are too indolent. It’s nonsense to lie on the sofa doing nothing in the middle of the afternoon.’
‘I’m not doing nothing. I’m polishing my nails.’
‘Lois! Hadn’t you better get on with your Italian?’
The two girls took no notice and calmly continued their argument. Under the eye of their mother they were civil to their governess, but not otherwise. They had, naturally, no idea of obligatory courtesy towards dependants. Marian’s own demeanour to her subordinates, for all her benevolence and generosity, was not calculated to instil such a principle into their budding minds. Lois, who prided herself upon her interest in James’s work, leant over his shoulder to inspect the drawing. It was, she perceived, a pencil study of the Cocks family, presented with the unpleasing bleakness of outline peculiar to James. Mrs Cocks, seated in a magnificent amplitude, more than suggested Mrs Siddons as the Tragic Muse. Behind her chair hovered two shadowy creatures, types of death and despair. Executed by anyone else, the intention of the piece must have been deliberately malicious. But Lois, from long experience, had come to believe that James was incapable of malice. He had too little grasp of situation; too little comprehension of human character. Sketches which looked like caricatures were, for him, a simple exposition of the subject as he saw it.
‘I like the way you’ve put Mr Cocks and Agatha in the background,’ she commented. ‘But you’ve made them too tragic. Agatha does look a little triste sometimes, but in quite a placid way. She never has that crucified sort of look. And Mr Cocks may be ill, but he isn’t dying.’
‘Isn’t he?’ asked James.
‘Not that I know of.’ Lois began to wonder why she had been so sure about it. ‘It may be because his wife looks so lively,’ she concluded. ‘What a splendid creature she is! And just like Mrs Siddons. I love it when she piles up all her hair on that coronet comb. You’ve done it justice, James!’
‘You’d better show it to her,’ advised Cynthia. ‘It may make her speak for you this afternoon.’
‘What’s that?’ exclaimed Lois.
‘Well, she’s having tea in the drawing-room this minute with Major Talbot and Aunt Edith. That’s why you aren’t allowed there. They are settling what’s to be done with James.’
‘But how do you know?’
‘She listened at the door,’ James asserted.
Miss Barrington exclaimed, but Cynthia only laughed. Lois became impassioned:
‘Oh, isn’t it too bad? They’ve no right to do it. No right at all. When you aren’t there! As if you were a child!’
‘It makes no difference,’ said James calmly.
‘But suppose they say you aren’t to go?’
‘Well, they can. I shall go all the same.’
‘It’s doing it behind your back which is so disgusting. They ought to let you speak for yourself.’
‘James isn’t much of a speaker,’ observed Cynthia. ‘Why don’t you do it for him?’
‘I’ve a good mind to. Shall I, James?’
‘You can if you like,’ agreed James absently, as he returned to his drawing.
Lois bounced out of the room and burst like a whirlwind upon the astonished party in the drawing-room.
‘It’s very unfair of you to decide about James without consulting him,’ she stormed. ‘Why should you insult him like that? If you don’t take care he’ll go just to spite you.’
Lady Clewer became crimson.
‘I never heard such a thing in my life!’ she cried. ‘Considering that for sixteen years I’ve done nothing but study his welfare….’
‘You don’t study his feelings….’
‘Will you hold your tongue, Lois?’
‘You’ve no right to discuss him when he can’t speak for himself!’
‘How did you know we were discussing him, my dear?’
The high drawl of Mrs Gordon Clewer cut into the dispute with deadly power. The shrill, angry tones of the mother and daughter subsided. Marian had been so furious that she had overlooked this obvious retort. She now proceeded to make use of it, in her own thorough way, speaking about an octave lower.
‘Yes! You young people think yourselves so important, don’t you? You can’t imagine that we ever have anything else to discuss, can you? But, my dear Lois, when we do discuss James we shan’t ask your advice. We may summon him, but we won’t need to consult you. Have you finished your Italian reading?’
‘No.’
‘Well, then, pray go and do so.’
‘All the same,’ exploded Major Talbot, when Lois had retired in disorder, ‘something’s got to be done about the lad, I suppose.’
He spoke so seldom that the three ladies jumped.
‘We’d better settle it, one way or the other,’ he went on. ‘How, exactly, do you stand, Lady Clewer? I mean, how much legal control have you over his movements?’
‘That’s the difficulty. He’s of age: twenty-one three weeks ago. He seems to have had this extraordinary plan for two years. But he kept it to himself because he had got it into his head that he could do as he liked as soon as he was twenty-one. I don’t know who can have told him that.’
‘Then this isn’t a new idea, this Paris scheme?’
‘It’s the first we’ve heard of it. But he says that he always meant to go when he was twenty-one. It’s been very deceitful of him. And then he has this money of your sister’s. About £400 a year, doesn’t it come to?’
‘But have you … er … no medical certificate?’
‘No. Nothing that really quite justifies …’
‘When did he last see a doctor?’
‘When he was about fifteen, I think,’ said Marian, after reflection. ‘They all had measles and I suppose he saw one then.’
‘He hasn’t been having special medical treatment?’ asked Mrs Cocks in surprise.
‘There was no call for it. Physically he was always very strong and healthy. I took him to a specialist when he was very little, of course. He said that the child was very abnormal.’
‘Quite!’ said Major Talbot judicially. ‘And I suppose from time to time some qualified doctor has had a look at him?’
‘N-no. Where was the use?’ said Lady Clewer in distress. ‘So little can be done for that sort of thing when once you’ve accepted it.’
‘D’ye mean to say you’ve never definitely established what’s wrong with the boy?’ cried Major Talbot.
‘Really!’ Marian became flustered. ‘I should have thought it was obvious to anyone looking at him. It always has been. Directly, the first time I saw him, I guessed that there was something very wrong. But, of course, I never foresaw that he would get these foolish ideas into his head, or I would have been more careful to get the whole thing cut and dried before he came of age. Only I shrank from it. Having these things in the family is so awkward. It’s so painful! I’m not accustomed to it.’
‘Poor Marian!’ murmured Mrs Gordon Clewer.
‘Of course, if you think I’ve been mistaken, I’ve no more to say. I acted for the best, as I thought. It hasn’t been easy; I don’t expect you can realize what a difficulty it’s been. He didn’t even learn to read properly till he was past sixteen. It’s been impossible to teach him civil manners. We couldn’t send him to an ordinary school, or even let him be very much with other children.’
‘Oh, quite! Quite! Quite!’ soothed Major Talbot, who was overwhelmed by this flow of rhetoric.
‘I kept him at home with my girls. It’s often been a little trying for them. But I thought he would be happier. If you think he should have been sent to some institution, I’ve nothing more to
…’
‘Oh, no, indeed!’ protested Major Talbot. ‘I’m sure you did all that was best. It’s only the question of preventing him from making a fool of himself now. This idea of going to Paris! What’s to be done about it?’
‘Of course,’ suggested Mrs Cocks, ‘I suppose it would be better for him to have something to do? Something that really interests him, and gives him an object in life.’
‘Oh, yes! That’s why I have done everything in my power to encourage his drawing. But why Paris? Why not here?’
‘Well,’ said Mrs Gordon Clewer, ‘I think it might have been very much worse. It’s quite respectable to want to draw in Paris. He might have wanted to draw battleships and sections of salmon in crayon on the pavement.’
‘But Paris is such an impossible place.’
‘He’ll have to be looked after wherever he goes, won’t he?’ asked Mrs Cocks. ‘If you gave in on the essential point, and let him go, perhaps you could induce him to stay with people who would look after him a certain amount.’
‘Exactly, Mrs Cocks,’ exclaimed Major Talbot. ‘Exactly! I quite agree with you. It would be much easier to let him go, under proper supervision, than to get a medical certificate to prevent it. Doctors are uncommonly careful who they certify, you know, especially when there’s any money in the case.’
‘Then you all think I should let him go?’ asked Lady Clewer dubiously.
The general opinion seemed to be that James should go if a suitable establishment could be found for him. Presently an idea occurred to Lady Clewer.
‘Somebody now … who was it? … Somebody told me the other day of a family who takes paying guests. Young girls, generally, and there is a certain amount of chaperonage. An old lady and her daughters I think it was. I wonder if they would take a young man! And they were strict Protestants.’
‘French Protestants are always strict,’ said Mrs Gordon Clewer. ‘But it’s a point. We don’t want our James going over to Rome. If he did, he would undoubtedly want to become a Trappist monk, and I don’t know but what the vocation wouldn’t suit him.’
Ladies of Lyndon Page 5