Men and Wives Read online

  Mellicent Hardisty was a contented young woman of twenty-six, very like and nearly as plain as her father, except that her eyes, as small and pale as his, were alive and clear. Jermyn’s face lit up at her coming with welcome for a congenial presence. Polly at nineteen was a simpler version of the portrait that hung before her father’s eyes. Her changing, unfinished face seemed to say that it would be equal to her mother’s, if as much were done for it. Sir Percy’s portraits were not on a level with Sir Godfrey’s, and much had been done.

  “Well, now, I am going to get up and go,” said Sir Percy, carefully adapting his actions to his words. “And you know an old friend meant nothing, Jermyn, about things beyond his scope. It is for you and Mellicent to teach me; it is for me to learn. Now Griselda and Polly will chatter in the garden, and their voices will come in to Rachel and me, and be all the poetry we shall want. And you and Milly will settle it all, because these things involve too much.” Sir Percy’s voice died away on a murmur as he disappeared. “Yes, they involve a great deal in many ways.”

  “Mellicent, what heavy work is made for a poor young man who wants to justify his own sorry little tastes!”

  “That doesn’t sound as if it mattered much.”

  “Well, his own deep, serious tastes, then. And why shouldn’t I mean that after all?”

  “No reason at all. It is all or nothing with people with these things. But for most people it is nothing. We have to remember that.”

  “It is not the moment for remembering it, when you feel yourself on the verge of accomplishment.”

  “That is great news,” said Mellicent. “We can’t help getting a tendency to wait and see.”

  “I should say not,” said Jermyn. “To think of the stuff that comes out!”

  “People talk as if that showed the thing was easy. Really it shows it is too hard for most of us. It is not to be wondered at that gifts are rare.”

  “No, no, it is not,” said Jermyn, his voice rising. “It is a great piece of fortune to be above most men, for those that are.”

  “It is a good thing to feel you are that. I don’t think a strong conviction is ever based on nothing.”

  “Well, yours will be the first opinion I shall want, when the verses are ready for the human eye.”

  “We only really want one opinion.”

  “I know you have written yourself, Mellicent. And your writing has my gravest respect; and I am not given to easy praise of the artist.”

  “The other kind of praise is the thing,” said Mellicent. “Here is Griselda, threatening to take you home.”

  “Jermyn, we shall soon have had a day of happiness. Lady Hardisty is sending us back in the carriage in the hope of saving us. And it is our duty to relieve Gregory.”

  “Does Gregory want to be relieved?” asked Polly.

  “Yes. He is on duty with Mother,” said Griselda.

  “On duty?” said Polly with her eyes wide.

  “We haven’t your easy life, Polly,” said Jermyn.

  Polly wore a look of living sympathy as her friends drove away.

  “Don’t Jermyn and Griselda and Gregory much like being at home?”

  “Their mother’s nerves must be a cloud over everything,” said Mellicent. “They were in real alarm at the thought of not being back in time.”

  “But they will be in time, now they have the carriage,” said Polly, springing to take her father’s arm.

  Sir Percy looked down on his younger child with an emotion that forced its way to his eyes. He believed that his joy in life had ended with the death of her mother nineteen years before, and the conviction was the chief ground of his self-esteem, a feeling that had never had a strong foundation. If he had realised that a little later his contentment had begun, it would have failed to survive; and his second wife, knowing its right to its life, left the truth in silence.

  When Jermyn and Griselda reached their home, Buttermere was stationed at the door of the house.

  “Well, we are a little later than we expected,” said Jermyn.

  “Good-afternoon, sir,” said Buttermere.

  “Yes, yes, we have come home in the later half of the day. Is Mr. Gregory still with her ladyship?”

  “Not after the first few hours, sir.”

  “How has her ladyship been spending the time?”

  “Getting through it by herself in the garden, miss.”

  “Mr. Gregory is out, I suppose. How long has he been gone?”

  “I cannot approximately say, miss.”

  “Mother, Mother, spare a glance for your children,” called Jermyn, as Harriet came round the house from her garden. “We thought we should be at home before. How long has Gregory been gone?”

  “Only about ten minutes, dear. I don’t quite know what time it is. Have you noticed my borders this year?”

  “Buttermere, what do you mean by giving a wrong impression?” said Jermyn, following the attendant into the hall.

  Buttermere paused with the suggestion of a bow.

  “Will you kindly answer me?”

  “If you will kindly repeat your question, sir.”

  “I asked you why you could not speak the truth.”

  “I should be sorry ever to have done anything else, sir,” said Buttermere sincerely.

  “You knew Mr. Gregory had only just left her ladyship.”

  “I stated that he had been with her ladyship for the first few hours, sir. I was under the impression that you had not been gone for a longer period,”

  “You know quite well that you meant to mislead.”

  “I know only what I said, sir.”

  “Well, darlings, discussing your day?” said Harriet, with a nervous glance in the direction of Buttermere, whose disturbance always transferred itself to her. “Have you a morning’s happiness to tell me of?”

  “Yes, that is just what we have. Buttermere implied that we had deserted you for about twelve hours.”

  “Well, that would hardly have mattered, my son. There is no reason why you should be tied to me. If you are enjoying your day, that is all your mother asks. And Father is always ready to come to me, if we should need each other. I don’t know why you should have two settled married people on your minds. It is we who should have you on ours, and so we have. But as it happens, Gregory and I have had a day together. He is just setting out to have tea with Mrs. Calkin. There he is, hurrying out of the house.”

  Chapter III

  Gregory Waved His hand to Harriet as he hastened down the drive. In placing high for himself the appeal of experienced women, he made no exception of his mother. His tastes were well met at the house to which he was bound.

  His hostess was a massive widow of sixty, with hair brushed back from a solid brow, as if to reveal its proportions, and indeed with this purpose, and a broad-featured, honest, forbidding face, which changed with her every feeling. Her name of Agatha Calkin seemed to represent the two sides of her character. Her unmarried sister, Geraldine Dabis, who had taken the place of the younger for fifty-eight years, willingly for the last forty of them, was tall and thin and plain, and of a conscious elegance, with a habit of gesticulating with her long hands, and raising her voice to hold her position in talk. The youngest of the three, Kate Dabis, sister by half-blood to the other two, was an alert little woman of forty-six, with a dark, pleasant face, a quick, deep voice, and a studied kindliness and tolerance, which gained her less appreciation than if they had cost her nothing.

  “You are all of you here. Not one of you ill or absent,” said Gregory, his manner addressing each.

  “Oh, I was ill the last time you came!” said Geraldine in her carrying tones.

  “You are thinking of the day when I was at the committee,” said Agatha, her voice of gentle comment holding its own.

  “I am never the interesting one, never frail or public-spirited,” said Kate.

  “I hope you are not anxious about your mother at the moment?” said Agatha, seeming to broach a matter between herself and G
regory.

  Geraldine leant forward.

  “No, not more than usual. There is no definite reason for anxiety, or for expecting to be free of it.”

  “I think there is the especial something between you and your mother,” said Agatha.

  “We are great friends; I am always hanging on to apron-strings. People with apron-strings know so much.”

  “Oh, that is not the kind of thing we generally hear! It is a most refreshing point of view,” exclaimed Geraldine, raising her hands and dropping them on to her lap. “What we generally have to face, is the view that women of our age are too out-of-date and outside the scheme of things to be taken into account! Mercifully it is chivalrously unspoken. That is one advantage of belonging to the fairer sex.”

  “Young people have not always much imagination,” said Agatha.

  “Or have they too much?” said Kate.

  “No, not enough,” said Gregory. “Well, they don’t get anything, and serve them right.”

  “You must be a great comfort to your mother,” said Agatha with quiet understanding. “I can follow so well the feeling between you, because of myself and my dear absent son.”

  “It is hardly an exact parallel,” said Geraldine.

  “I never think,” continued Agatha, her eyes not diverted from their course, “that there is the same bond between mother and daughter. It never seems to me to be quite the same.”

  “There should be, there should be,” said Kate.

  “Now between father and daughter,” said Agatha in full admission; “between father and daughter. Yes.”

  “Do you find that is so between your father and your sister?” asked Kate.

  “Yes, in a way. He is bursting with pride in her. But his real crony is Matthew. Jermyn gets hold of Griselda.”

  “Ah, these young families! What complex and significant things!” said Kate, giving full due to what she had missed.

  “The most complex, the most significant, the most deep-rooted in the world,” said Agatha, giving it to what she had had. “The only thing is, when the break comes.”

  “Have you seen the Hardistys lately?” said Geraldine to Gregory, revealing that her attention was not commanded by this topic.

  “Griselda and Jermyn had luncheon with them today. I am so enchanted by the difference between them and us. We have pulled up enough to make it really subtle. Have you compared their pictures and ours?”

  “All my pictures were given to me by my dear husband,” said Agatha, regarding walls that were a simple record of open-handedness; “given to me by him, one by one, as our life went on. Year by year we added to them together.” She put on her glasses and surveyed them, and took up her needlework. “Yes.”

  “We ought to be thankful to them for ornamenting our home,” said Geraldine. “I confess to a preference for bare walls myself. I sound very ungrateful. I know many people prefer a complicated effect.”

  “Oh, well, you have not the associations,” said Agatha, her eyes down.

  “Have you heard that Mr. Spong’s wife is dead?” said Geraldine to Gregory.

  “No, but I knew she was very ill,” said Gregory.

  “Yes,” said Agatha. “Yes. She is gone. Last night at nine o’clock. They feared it. I heard from Mr. Spong to-day. He must have written almost immediately.”

  “Well, there were three of us to break it to. That accounts for our coming early on the list,” said Geraldine.

  “Ah, yes. Poor Mr. Spong!” said Agatha, shaking her work.

  “Do put away that sewing, and give the whole of your mind to the talk,” said Gregory. “I hate you to be only half attending.”

  Agatha laid the work aside, it seemed with some pleasure in submission to Gregory, drew off her glasses and faced her audience.

  “Only last week I spent an hour with her. We had tea together on Thursday, just she and I. We had a very long talk. I am very glad I had it. I was very fond of her. Poor Lucy Spong! Yes, it is a terrible change for her husband. If anyone knows what that blank means, it is I.”

  She made as if to resume her work, but folded her hands as if finding unemployment in tune with her mood.

  “It is said that these things fall to our lot,” said Geraldine.

  “Not everything to everyone,” said Kate; “not this to us, not just this. Some of us may be better without the best and worst. We avoid one with the other.”

  “Yes, I think that is very true,” said Agatha in a cordial tone. “We are all built for different parts of the scheme.”

  “You think an easy emotional life is the best, Kate?” said Gregory.

  “Not perhaps the best, but the most fitting for some of us,” said Kate.

  “I did not know we any of us ever had it,” said Geraldine, glancing over the back of her chair. “We can never leave the other side with nothing to compensate. There must be both sides to all these emotional experiences.”

  “I am going to ask you all to excuse me, while I turn my back on you for a minute and write a word to Mr. Spong,” said Agatha, who had considerately concealed that she was preoccupied. “I should not like him not to hear from me as promptly as he wrote. Then I will ask you to post it, Gregory.”

  She sat down at her desk, and took paper and pen, seeming conscious of eyes upon her. “It is a difficult letter to write on the spur of the moment. I don’t know how one can avoid saying something that will jar. One can only do one’s best.” She wrote with a rapid hand, fastened the letter without glancing at it again, and handed it to her guest. “I have done as well as I could in a minute, and without any preparation. Thank you, Gregory.”

  “Ought we all three of us to write?” said Geraldine, leaning back.

  “No. We will let Agatha represent. The easiest again,” said Kate.

  “I think it must always fall to one member of a family to act on certain occasions,” said Agatha.

  “The pains and privileges of the eldest!” said Geraldine.

  “Poor Mr. Spong!” said Agatha, holding an open letter in her hand. “He is sadly cut up, I am afraid. I feel so much for him. He knew I should, I think. I gather he guessed that, from his way of expressing himself.” She turned the letter over. “‘I know I can rely on an old friend’s heart being with me.’ ‘My dear Mrs. Calkin’”—the impulse conquered that had hardly commended itself— “’My beloved wife passed peacefully away this evening at nine o’clock. I am writing first of all to you; and I know I can rely upon an old friend’s heart being with me. I am a broken man. Yours in grief, and I am sure in gratitude, Dominic Spong.’ Yes, poor Dominic Spong! Poor Dominic! I think of him by his name now he is in this trouble. I remember him as a boy, before he became the experienced lawyer he is now. Only forty-five and a widower! Well, it is not for us to interpret these things.”

  “I don’t know whether he meant the letter for public recitation!” said Geraldine in an amused confidence to Gregory.

  “Dominic Spong ought to be more than forty-five. He ought not to be a year younger than I am,” said Kate.

  “When you are so emphatically the baby of a household,” said Geraldine.

  “Ah, he will age quickly now,” said Agatha, as though granting a tribute. “There are some things that do not leave us our youth.”

  “Some of us ought to be perennially young,” said Kate.

  “Well, I think you are younger,” said Agatha, with definite concession. “That is one advantage that you have.”

  “I ought to be going back to Mother,” said Gregory. “She has not heard about Mrs. Spong, and will want to write. Spong relies less on us than he does on you.”

  “It was simply in his mind that I have had the same loss,” said Agatha.

  “Have you read anything interesting lately, Gregory?” said Geraldine.

  “No. No improper books have come my way. And I am too young to read anything suitable for me. If I don’t have to hide my books from my mother, I can’t take any interest in them.”

  “That is what you say
,” said Agatha, smiling into his face as she shook his hand. “I don’t think you keep anything much from your mother. I don’t see sons doing that, the sort I have any experience of. I don’t fancy so.”

  Chapter IV

  “Well, My Dear Matthew, you have come back to your father!” said Godfrey, greeting his son after his absence of eight hours. “Now I am never the same man without my Matthew, never quite myself with my firstborn away from me. How has your day gone, my boy?”

  “It has been very interesting, thank you, Father.”

  “It has been to your mind, has it? That is good news to me. Your research and all of it has been successful, has been what you call satisfactory? Because you don’t set out to discover anything as a general thing. That is not exactly your purpose for your day?”

  “No, Father,” said Matthew, with his rough, deep laugh.

  “Ah, now you’re laughing at your father. That is what you do when I come out with one of my speeches. Well, I don’t grudge you your crow over me. I am a proud man when I think of you and Jermyn. I don’t regret that you took after your mother. You made the right choice.”

  “I am not so sure,” said Matthew.

  Godfrey, with a rather pathetic flush creeping over his face, strode on with his arm in his son’s.

  “Well, and what do you think of your mother lately, Matthew?”

  “I don’t think she is any better, Father.”

  “Not any better? You mean you regard her as ill? I have been intending to ask your serious opinion for a long time, but I haven’t been able to bring myself to it. You think she is ill, my son?”

  “I think she is threatened with mental illness. She might avoid it if she tried. But I cannot imagine her trying.”

  “Do you think she could try?” said Godfrey.

  “That is at the bottom of things. You are on the point, Father.”

  “Ah, you see, I don’t miss as much as you think. I am not blind where your mother is concerned, whatever else doesn’t strike me as calling for notice. People are not always on the point about me. Whatever hint of a change comes over her, I am alive to it. In a moment my life is dark or light as the case may be. I speak the simple truth.” Godfrey, though speaking what he said, came to as sudden a pause as if it were falsehood, as Harriet came from her garden into his sight.