Anglo-Saxon Attitudes (15 page)

'But, darling,' said Kay, 'really we're not paupers. I get £980 a year from my shares in the firm and then there's what Donald earns with his articles.'

'Now, Kay,' said Ingeborg, 'that
really
makes me sad. It is bad when you feel ashamed and have to tell lies to your mother. I don't mind that Donald does not make any money. It is not always the fine people who make money. I am only sad for him. To have no work is bad for people, and for a little orphan boy ...' She left the horrible possibilities of this situation in the air.

'I don't think,' said Kay, laughing, 'that Donald feels unloved, if that's what you mean.'

'Oh, no!' cried her mother, 'you give him so much. But now there is baby.' She paused and went on with her soup-making lesson, then she said, 'Donald is a little shy with baby, I think. Perhaps he is a little frightened of this new stranger who has come to share his Kay with him.'

'He's just awkward,' said Kay.

'Oh, my dear, you need not tell me such things,' her mother laughed. 'I remember Gerald with little Johnnie. But Donald will be happier now that he has this work to do for Robin. I am so glad that I found this job for him. It will make him feel more a part of the family.'

'Mummy,' said Kay, 'you realize he will only do this lecturing for Robin until a university post comes along. He's not going to give up his academic career.'

'No, of course not,' said Mrs Middleton, 'but since your father did nothing for him in the university world, it was time that your silly old mother thought of something.'

'Oh! I think Daddy did his best, but it's not his subject and Donald's very bad at interviews.'

But Ingeborg had had enough, and, in addition, she had really become interested in the soup-making. She patted her daughter's cheek. 'Always so loyal to your father,' she said.

It was Robin's turn after luncheon. 'Where is Timothy?'  Mrs Middleton asked, finding Robin alone in the drawing-room, when the others had gone to their rooms to sleep.

'Oh! he's gone off to read somewhere, I expect.'

'Robin,' said his mother, sitting down, 'why is Timothy so lonely?'

'Is he?'  said Robin. 'I should have called him unsociable, that's all. Like me.'

Mrs Middleton laughed. 'People don't manage great businesses who are unsociable.'

'My dear mother, I assure you I run a mile from people unless I have to do business with them. There's nothing I hate more than entertaining. Thank God! some of the other directors like it so much.'

'But Marie Hélène,' asked his mother, 'does not feel like that? I have heard so much of her parties.'

'Oh, that's quite different,' said Robin; 'she doesn't have
bores
to the house. She collects all the writers and painters.'

Once again Mrs Middleton laughed. 'Oh, Robin. Fancy hearing
you
exaggerate! The practical man of the family. I'm sure your home is not as bad as that. The wife with her lions - her painters and writers - and the poor business husband, knowing nobody, upstairs alone. No, no, Robin, even I know enough of the American cinema to tell where you have got
that
picture.'

'Did I say I sat alone?'  asked Robin gruffly. 'As a matter of fact, I thoroughly enjoy Marie Hélène's do's.'

Ingeborg got up and altered the position of some of the plants in her long, glass 'tropical garden'. The drawing-room, like the rest of the house, had the mark of
Homes and Gardens
but without any touch of
chichi.
It was a taste which Mrs Middleton had acquired some twenty years before its fashion in England. Her roots lay deep in Scandinavian and German 'modern' comfort. 'Do you like my new curtains, Robin?'  she said, fingering the long crimson velvet hangings.

'Yes,' said Robin, and added with a smile, 'but I miss the old ones.'

Mrs Middleton, too, smiled. 'Men never like changes,' she said, 'but things wear out, Robin, even our dear old silver curtains.' Then, sitting down again, she said, 'But don't think I haven't noticed that you have changed the subject.' Robin looked genuinely puzzled. 'No, Robin, no,' she said, 'you know as well as I do that children are unhappy in loveless homes.'

'Now, look here,' said Robin; 'Marie Hélène and I are perfectly good friends.'

'Yes,' said Ingeborg, 'that I know. Oh, Robin!' she said, flinging one lovely arm towards him, 'you can't expect me to sit by and see it all happening again. Your father and I made such a mistake.
We
thought that love did not matter so long as we kept the home going. You know what that meant for you children. Do you think I don't remember it every hour of the day.'

Robin, touched, said, 'We were happy enough, my dear.'

'No, Robin, no! We should have got a divorce. Your father loved someone else and he did not have the courage of that love. To lack courage is not good. There was no reason, if we had been honest, why your father and I should not have been - what did you call it - good friends. But we were cowards, and now we are hardly even acquaintances. And every hour of the day, too, I remember that poor Dollie. She was not a bad woman, Robin, Dollie Stokesay, not even foolish. Do you think, Robin, that I can be happy to think that because of a mistaken idea, a stupid convention, that poor woman is now a hopeless drunkard?'

Robin saw nothing for it but direct opposition.' The Dollie in question,' he said, 'is quite unlikely to take to drink. She's a very lively, happy young woman.' As he said it, he saw Elvira's laziness and untidiness slipping into drunkenness.

'She is gay!' cried his mother. 'That is good. Youth has such great powers of recovery.'

'Mother,' said Robin, 'you must get this out of your head. Even if there were a hundred more good reasons for divorce than there are, it isn't possible. Marie Hélène is a Catholic.'

His mother stood over him, brushing his curly hair very lightly with her hand. 'Forgive me,' she said; 'it's so difficult, Robin, for me to understand a religion that
denies
life. I am getting old, you know.' Then she walked across to the door and stopped to rearrange some chrysanthemums. 'I don't care so much for anything now except beautiful things,' she said, and smiled across at her son, clear blue eyes and head high, a Nordic Ceres. 'Is she beautiful, your Elvira?'  she asked. 'I wish I could see this girl who has made my solemn Robin lose his head. But that would never do!' And with a sly little smile, like a little girl caught kissing, she had left the room before he could reply.

By tea-time Mrs Middleton felt restored enough to eat hot buttered scones and Christmas cake. 'Look, Johnnie,' she cried, pointing out of the window, 'even the sun refuses to be banished on Christmas Day. Will you not come for a little walk in the garden? I have put up the Christmas sheaf for the little birds as we do at home. Come and see what sort of Christmas the birds have enjoyed. A little walk will help to keep you slim,' she added. 'It needs it, my darling.' Only with John did she allow herself the intimacy of teasing.

As she came downstairs in her heavy fur coat and with a cyclamen silk scarf tied round her head, her complexion seemed restored to dollhood once more.

'Well, Thingy, what are
you
working round for?' John asked. His subjection to her lay on a deeper level of frankness than that of the other two.

Mrs Middleton smiled. 'I am too happy for "working round", Johnnie,' she said. 'Do you know it is now three times in two months that you have been down to see me. That is nice. At first, you know, I was so worried that you had resigned from Parliament. My dear father was thirty years a deputy in the
Rigsdag
and, like you, he was a good Social Democrat. That was fine, Johnnie, to stand for the clean, simple things in life, for a world of peace and good living for all. But now I am glad. You are like your grandfather, but you are also like me. We are very headstrong people, you and I. No whippings for us because we do not think what some party tells us. No,' and she stood for a moment, looking her favourite son in the eyes. 'I am proud of all my children, of course, but especially of my Benjamin. I will even have that awful television in my house so that I can watch him talking to people, helping them in their troubles. Only imagine, I was in the grocer's at Henley and I heard some woman say, "That John Middleton is a good man. We could do with more like him. ..." That's what I always knew people would say of you, Johnnie.' She stopped and bent down to pick up some of the purple-green hellebores. 'But I have a scheme. Yes! I would like you to come here for the summer, Johnnie.'

'Oh, my dear Thingy,' said John, 'I'm afraid that's quite impossible. I've a full programme of radio work and speeches.'

'I see,' said Mrs Middleton. 'What a pity! Larrie will be most disappointed.'

'Larrie?'  asked John in surprise. 'Have you been plotting something with him?'

Mrs Middleton did not answer the question. 'That's a nice boy,' she said. 'He is very fond of you, Johnnie. He is a bit fussy, perhaps. He thinks you don't look after yourself properly in London.'

John laughed aloud. He pictured his mother and Larrie blarneying each other into this scheme. All the same, there were a hundred reasons why he would be glad to see Larrie out of London, if he was willing; but to stay at Thingy's was out of the question.

'Did he not tell you how much he liked the flat?'

'What is all this about?' John cried. 'You are a couple of schemers.' But he was delighted that one afternoon together had brought his mother and Larrie into such agreement.

'That flat over the stables,' Mrs Middleton said, 'it seemed such a pity that it should go begging. I thought perhaps that you would like it.' She paused as though considering whether she should say more, but she only remarked, 'The sun has gone now. We should go in, I think.'

They walked between the box hedges that rimmed the rose-garden, and Mrs Middleton said, 'Larrie will be able to drive you up to London for your talks and so on.'

So that was all fixed, John thought, and, as so often, wondered what his mother would not swallow to accommodate him. 'Larrie never said a word of this to me,' he said.

'No?' said his mother. 'Perhaps he can keep secrets from you better than I can, Johnnie.'

As they passed by the drawing-room, they caught a glimpse of Marie Hélène's long face bent over her needlework. 'How is your secretary?'  said Ingeborg immediately.

John smiled at the thought of how much his mother always knew. 'She's leaving me,' he answered.

'I'm afraid that her troubles are only just beginning, poor girl,' Ingeborg remarked. 'I have always tried, you know, not to be nationalistic about the French. It is a danger for anyone with German blood. But they are so practical, Johnnie, and so proud of it. It is strange to be proud of denying the truth of life. For it is the unpractical things which are the true ones, as you and I know.' John did not reply, he was not prepared to be led into a discussion of his sister-in-law. 'Perhaps it is just as well that that secretary goes. You do not want everything that you do reported all over the family.' Once again, John did not bite; he felt that Thingy should not accept Robin's relations with Elvira quite so easily. She was, after all, their beloved, wronged mother. It was all a little out of place.

'So now,' said Ingeborg, 'you will have a new secretary. I know!' she cried, 'we will get Miss Totton to come over from Reading. She is a very good secretary, I believe, and a most discreet girl. But that is wonderful!'

John laughed. 'I promise nothing,' he said.

Mrs Middleton's spirits, however, were quite restored when they got back to the drawing-room. 'Imagine,' she cried, 'my four little rosebuds have survived the frost. Do you know what I believe about these little rosebuds? No, Donald, you will laugh at me, but I don't mind. I believe they are four little roses that refused to grow in summer because they wanted to see that strange white world they had heard so much about. "We are not frightened," they said ...' Dutifully, the family listened, all except Timothy, who went on reading his book. Marie Hélène, so dexterous with her needle as a rule, pricked her finger.

As Mrs Middleton's mood of distrust melted back into her usual flow of whimsy, her children's rally to placate her dissolved and their natural antipathies came to the surface again. Gerald noticed the change and welcomed it. Apart from his unreturned affection for Kay, he could find no interest in their lives, but their united efforts to assuage their mother's ill-humour had depressed him. It recalled too vividly the whole pattern of his family life: a world of indulgent sweetness and syrupy intimacy. He had done nothing to reform it all these years; he could do nothing now. Nevertheless, the failure of his family life added to his preoccupation with his professional death and closed him round in a dense fog of self-disgust. It seemed to him that his whole life had grown pale and futile because it was rooted in evasion.

After Inge's enormous Christmas dinner, he sat in a deep armchair in the drawing-room, hunched up as far as his great height would allow him, and remote. He seemed even to have barricaded himself from the rest of the family with little tables on which were his brandy glass, his coffee cup, his ashtray.

Marie Hélène felt a special reverence for him as head of the house, university professor, and
homme du monde;
but even her great pertinacity in maintaining social intercourse was no proof against his withdrawal. It was terrible that a stupid woman could age and impair a brilliant man to such a degree, she thought, but then he should not have married a peasant. In stressing her mother-in-law's peasant origin she found it easier to disregard her.

They were not origins that Ingeborg herself chose to disregard, as she was proclaiming at that very moment. 'But, of course, Johnnie must defend this Mr Cressett. He is a gardener, a good man, a peasant. Don't forget, Robin, because you are now the great master, that your ancestors were peasants. My grandfather was just an ordinary small farmer. All his life he lived on his farm in Jutland. He was very proud when his son became a deputy, and he used to come to Copenhagen and point Father out to people and say "That is my son"; but he remained always a peasant, a simple, wise man. And my mother's mother, dear
Grossmütterchen,
too. I can see her now; such a fine, old wrinkled face. She was a Bavarian peasant, a wine-growing peasant. That is the best kind, is it not, Marie Hélène?'