Mother and Son Page 2

  “You need not concern yourself with his future,” said Miranda, her tone perhaps sharper for the allusion to her own.

  “Francis, I must deprecate the voicing of that thought,” said Rosebery, in troubled remonstrance. “It is enough that I carry it with me. I should undoubtedly—perhaps I should say ‘shall’—find my life lonely without her; but it would not in my case constitute a reason for marrying. Rather should I walk with my loneliness as a companion.”

  “I would rather have ordinary work,” said Adrian. “I could not be assistant to Francis. I should always know he was my brother.”

  “I should feel the same about a cousin,” said Francis. “We should be too much on a level.”

  “Your cousin is not on your level,” said Miranda. “He is thirty years older than you, and a weightier personality.”

  “A weightier person perhaps we should say, Mother,” said Rosebery, with his slow laugh. “That will not be disputed.”

  “The boys can do boys’ work for the present,” said Julius. “And it is not the easiest kind.”

  “And work of any kind is a privilege,” said Rosebery. “I often regret that I am in a measure denied it.”

  “You could do more, if you would,” said his father. “I thought it was your object to escape it.”

  “I need his companionship until my own companion comes,” said Miranda. “I am doing my best to get her. I cannot help the low quality of people. They seem to be of a different order from myself.”

  “She does not want one of the same order,” said Alice, aside. “She was explaining it to Miss Burke.”

  “It grieves me, Mother,” said Rosebery, “that you should want a companion of any kind, when you have two able and willing men at your disposal.”

  “That is why I want one. I am old and weak, and able men do not meet my need. I am twelve years older than your father, and I have resolved never to be a burden on him. The time has come to avoid it. I want someone who will adapt herself to me and accept my words and ways. It is not much to ask in return for what she will be given.”

  “Can Aunt Miranda mean what she says?” said Francis.

  “She should advertise for a martyr,” said his sister. “But I suppose she has done so. She wants a companion, and the two things are known to be the same.”

  “What are you whispering about?” said Miranda. “You are too old to get into corners and snigger like stable boys. When you are given a home like this, the least you can do is to deserve it.”

  “People seem to have to do a good deal for a home,” said Alice. “And it does not seem an unnatural thing to have.”

  “You have a right to this one,” said Julius. “You are my brother’s children.”

  “But not your own,” said Miranda. “They tend to forget that.”

  “It is the last thing I want them to remember.”

  “I did not know that stable boys sniggered,” said Alice. “They always seem so grave.”

  “They certainly swear very earnestly,” said her brother.

  “Francis, I have never heard it,” said Rosebery, on a note of consternation.

  “They know what is fit for your ears,” said Julius.

  “I do not disclaim the suggestion that I should be discountenanced by it, Father. Swearing and the like are no part of manliness to me.”

  “We have seen they are the part of stable boys.”

  “It seems that several things are,” said Francis.

  Miranda did not look disturbed. She did not grudge the children their affinity with her husband, or resent its being greater than her son’s. It was the meaning of her life that Rosebery should belong to herself. Between the mother and son there vibrated an active emotion, that the children took for granted, and Julius met with dry acceptance. Rosebery poured out on Miranda all his feeling for womanhood, which was the thing that chiefly occupied his thoughts.

  The last person to share them thanked him at the door, received his half-sorrowful disclaimer and went into the library. She was received by Bates in a manner equally suggestive of attendant and hostess.

  “So you did not come to an understanding, miss?”

  “Yes, we did and soon. Mrs. Hume said I should not suit her.”

  “It is not everyone who would suit the mistress,” said Bates, standing with her rising nose and beetling brow seeming to glow with self-complacence, while her small, honest, black eyes actually did so. “It is not for me to judge, and what is not for me is omitted in my case. But having suited her since the year eighteen sixty, my words speak.”

  “I did not suit her for as many minutes. And she did not suit me as long. I do not envy the thirty-seven years.”

  “Oh, you will secure a position, miss,” said Bates, in recognition of this spirit. “I entertain no doubt. And if it was ordained, it was to be.”

  “I wish I had known it was ordained, in time to be spared the interview. Happily it was short.”

  “Short and sharp,” agreed Bates, as if she visualised it. “It was not prolonged.”

  “Mrs. Hume thought I should profit by it. I think she even hoped I should. She seemed to wish me well in her way.”

  “There is her bell,” said Bates. “I am used to exactions. I must leave you for the moment.”

  She did so, and Miss Burke looked about her without curiosity. She seldom felt it, as she attached no importance to what she saw. She had learned that the setting of human experience was no key to itself.

  Bates returned and continued, as if no break had occurred.

  “There is another position in the neighbourhood, miss; as housekeeper to two single ladies; on a smaller scale, but not enough to be a detriment.”

  “I would rather be with two women than with a married couple and a family,” said Miss Burke, as though the latter struck her as an abnormal situation, as possibly it did.

  “One can feel among the superfluous,” said Bates. “Which is not as it should be, the truth being otherwise.”

  “I suppose one has to be that. It is a condition of being needed. No one wants a person who is necessary to someone else.”

  “Which is deep,” said Bates. “Well, I hope we shall meet again. We share the dignity of earning bread.”

  “If dignity is what it is. I should prefer other kinds of it.”

  “I will give you the ladies’ address, miss. It is some stations along the line. You could mention that I sent you. The houses do not visit, but my name will speak.”

  Bates accompanied Miss Burke to the door, but found she was anticipated. Rosebery stood ready to open it, and having done so, took his hat from the stand and stepped after the stranger out of the house.

  “You would not ask me to countenance your walking alone in the dusk? It would indeed be much to expect.”

  “It is very kind of you, Mr. Hume.”

  “Rather is it a matter of course and a privilege. It may happen that the two things coincide.”

  “The days are shortening, but I am not a nervous person.”

  “It is an eerie road,” said Rosebery, glancing behind him in a manner that precluded his making a similar claim. “I do not lose that impression, familiar though I am with it.”

  “I am not troubled by eeriness. I am concerned with more definite things.”

  “But for ladies the vaguer ones have their menace.”

  “Well, men may be inclined to think so.”

  “And may be right,” said Rosebery, who went further than this and enjoyed the thought. “It is easy to imagine footsteps behind one, when they are echoes of one’s own.”

  He proved his words when he turned homewards, and hastened his steps until he had escaped from the pursuing echoes into the house.

  “Where have you been?” said Miranda.

  “Along the road as far as the village, Mother.”

  “With Miss Burke?”

  “With whom else? Who but her was in a similar plight?”

  “You looked disturbed when you came in,” said Francis.

  “And I was disturbed, Francis, or had been so. By the idea of a woman walking alone along a deserted road at dusk. I accompanied her as far as the houses, where the lights begin.”

  “And had to come back by yourself,” said Julius.

  “Well, naturally, Father. I could hardly expect her to perform the same office for me. It would have been a case of our going to and fro ‘ad infinitum.’”

  “One of the boys could have gone with her,” said Miranda.

  “But one of the boys did not offer to, Mother. So the privilege fell to me. And I can claim that I found it such.”

  “You have a lofty character,” said Francis.

  “Well, I hope an ordinary manly one.”

  “There seems little difference,” said Alice.

  “Perhaps there should not be too much,” said her cousin.

  “Bates, what did Miss Burke say to you?” said Miranda, who changed the talk at will.

  “There were casual words, ma’am.”

  “Did she speak about me?”

  “Well, ma’am, she alluded to the outcome.”

  “What else did you talk about?”

  “Topics arose, ma’am.”

  “Where was she going after this?”

  “There is a position, ma’am, in the vicinity.”

  “You mean she is going to apply for it?”

  “Well, to appraise it, ma’am.”

  “Was she upset by my refusing her?”

  “Well, ma’am, it was in the course of things.”

  “Did she have a good tea?”

  “I trust she was refreshed, ma’am.”

  “That is not what I asked you.”

  “There was the cake and bread-and-butter, ma’am.”

  “Well, was not that
enough?”

  “We cannot know to what she is accustomed, ma’am.”

  “I know exactly; but I should know more than you; it would be strange if I did not. Now surely you children should go to your books? Mr. Pettigrew comes this afternoon. We do not go to the expense of a tutor, to have you fritter away your time.”

  “We do not do much for him,” said Francis. “We allow his progress to be slow. He has made a good deal since he came to us.”

  “Is he an expensive tutor?” said Adrian.

  “Expensive enough for a penniless boy,” said his aunt.

  “He is the only tutor in the neighbourhood,” said Julius. “It is a very cheap way of having you taught.”

  “I am glad of that,” said Francis. “It is as it ought to be.”

  “I am sometimes troubled about it. But it means I have you at home.”

  “I have sometimes thought of returning to the pupillary status myself,” said Rosebery, “and refreshing my early memories. One is never too old to learn.”

  “That is untrue,” said Francis. “People are soon too old. That is how pupils catch up their teachers.”

  “You implied that your teacher was engaged in catching up you,” said Miranda.

  “You must admit, Francis,” said Rosebery, “that my mother is the logician on this occasion, far though it is from being the reputation of her sex.”

  “Well, go and catch up Mr. Pettigrew as quickly as you can,” said Miranda. “We have had enough of you down here.”

  “Are you really catching him up?” said Adrian to his brother and sister on the stairs, not entertaining the idea of himself.

  “We do not consider so low an ambition,” said Francis.

  “He is waiting for us,” said Alice. “I saw his hat in the hall. It is a good thing Aunt Miranda did not.”

  “I wonder she did not feel it was there. I think there were signs that she almost did.”

  Chapter II

  “It would be nicer, Miss Alice,” said Mr. Pettigrew, “if you did not make faces when my back is turned.”

  This statement, though there seemed no reason to dispute it, caused an outbreak of mirth from the hearers.

  “It would indeed have been nicer, if it had happened like that,” said Francis under his breath.

  “Now I have observed before,” said Mr. Pettigrew, “that there is no point in meaningless hilarity. When a gentleman is constrained to make a criticism, it is only polite to accept it. Now can you tell me what you are laughing at now?”

  His pupils could not tell him that it was his manner of alluding to himself.

  “Well, I shall not ask you,” he said, perhaps warned by experience. “It would lead to frivolity and waste of time. Will you begin to construe, Miss Alice?”

  The latter did so, with less than average success.

  “Have you prepared this?”

  “No,” said Alice, unsteadily.

  “How did you spend the time assigned to your work?”

  Alice made no reply.

  “Do I assume that you wasted it in idle talk?”

  “I don’t know if you do.”

  “How old are you now, if I may ask?”

  “Thirteen and a half.”

  “Then your brothers are fifteen and twelve. You are too old for this flightiness and irresponsibility. It is not fair to your parents or to me.”

  “We have no parents,” said Alice.

  “To those who stand to you in their stead. To your aunt and uncle, who afford you every advantage. Now there can be no reasonable cause for amusement there.” Mr. Pettigrew flushed, as he realised the actual cause. “We will proceed to our work, and I hope there will be less frivolity; no more indeed than if your aunt were present.”

  The next outbreak was induced by the latter’s entrance, as it resulted in the boys’ rising to their feet and Mr. Pettigrew’s failing to do so. Miranda looked as if she understood it, and did not wholly disapprove.

  “Well, how are they getting on, Mr. Pettigrew?”

  “I think the progress is satisfactory, Mrs. Hume, in spite of occasional unsteadiness. I should say that the standard is up to their ages and maintained at that level. And I make a point of adding to my own knowledge, as we advance.”

  There was mirth at this admission, as the pupils’ view of the tutor did not prevent their regarding omniscience as due from him.

  “They are silly children,” said Miranda. “I fear they must try your patience.”

  “Our relation has been long enough to result in mutual understanding,” said Mr. Pettigrew, with truth.

  Miranda went to the door, and Francis opened it for her, Mr. Pettigrew moving in his seat to allow him to do so, and keeping his eyes on his books until it closed.

  “I did not mention, Adrian, that your standard is relatively lower than your brother and sister’s. I hope we may remedy the position and avoid the disclosure.”

  “He is not on our level,” said Francis.

  “Yes I am,” said his brother. “I am only different.”

  “And that is what the difference consists in.”

  “It is that in which the difference consists,” said Mr. Pettigrew. “We do not end a sentence with a preposition.”

  “Great writers do not worry about that sort of thing,” said Alice.

  “Well, when you join their ranks, you can follow their example. Until then we will observe the accepted usage.”

  Mr. Pettigrew was a small, neat, middle-aged man, with careful, dark clothes and hair and beard, features that fulfilled their purpose, and small, blue, spectacled eyes, that tended to light with curiosity. As a thought occurred to him, they did so.

  “You have had a visitor this afternoon. I saw your cousin accompanying a lady to the station. I should say to the village, but as the directions coincide, it occurred to me that the station might be their object.”

  “Aunt Miranda wanted a companion,” said Francis. “But when she saw her, she changed her mind. And everyone but Rosebud thought the matter had ended.”

  “Your cousin certainly followed his own course. I noticed he was showing the stranger the same degree of attention, as if their positions had been reversed.”

  “Why should he show her any less?” said Alice.

  “He saw no reason. That is why he merits the description.”

  “Rosebud should have been a woman,” said Francis, “he takes so much interest in them. Or perhaps it is the last thing he should have been.”

  “Do you like opening doors for women?” said Adrian to the tutor.

  There was a pause before the latter spoke with a faint flush.

  “I think, Adrian, that you and your brother might use the term, ‘sir’, in addressing me. There seems no reason to deviate from the usual custom.”

  “Alice does not say it.”

  “Convention does not require it, or indeed permit it, in her case. I was referring to you and Francis, as I made clear. Now what was your question?”

  “I asked if you liked opening doors for women?” said Adrian, not using the suggested mode of address, as it seemed to him to have a menial significance.

  “I hope I have the proper feelings on such occasions, those of a normal gentleman. I trust I do not let such opportunities pass. It would not be so, unless through absence of mind. I think that is a fair claim to make on my own behalf.”

  “Rosebud opens the door for Aunt Miranda, as if it were the first time in his life,” said Francis.

  “There are some feelings that never lose their freshness, if the possessors of them are fortunate. I cannot but realise whom you indicate by your abbreviation, and it is perhaps not inconsistent with your youthful view of your cousin. But we will proceed to our work, before we accuse ourselves of wasting time.”

  The accusation was to come from another quarter. Miranda ordered tea for Mr. Pettigrew, in the belief that it would stimulate his efforts; and on this occasion, when Bates entered with the tray, her mistress followed her.

  “Well, you hardly seem to have settled down to work.”

  “We always make up any time we have missed, Mrs. Hume. I find that effort is easier to me, when I have had the tea you considerately provide. I can say I have never curtailed the appointed time.”

  “Well, I suppose you have not. It would be natural to work the full time, and necessary for the children’s progress.”

  “And that is great enough to preclude that manner of referring to them, though I may always be likely to return to it in my thoughts.”