Mother and Son (11 page)

“Miss Burke, it was indeed kind of you,” said Rosebery, in a low tone deep with recollection.

“I must go and see about the luncheon,” said Miss Burke. “It will soon be ready.”

“Has it been looking after itself?” said Miranda, her question carrying others.

“No, the maid has been watching it,” said Emma. “But Miss Burke feels herself responsible.”

“You are very comfortable here,” said Miranda, with a faint undertone of surprise.

“Mother, the fact is self-evident.”

“That is what I implied, my son.”

“Ah, Plautus, you have come to speak to me,” said Hester. “Do you know there is another cat where I have been?”

Plautus did know, and acted on the knowledge by putting his nose near her skirt and walking away.

“He is taking his revenge for my desertion. How animals use their reason! They prove it all the time.”

Plautus proved it by taking in the group at luncheon, passing his owners and taking his stand by the guests, with his eyes hovering between them.

“No, Plautus, you should not ask to be fed,” said Emma.

Plautus understood the injunction and deliberately disregarded it.

“Am I allowed to?” said Rosebery, holding a morsel between his finger and thumb.

Plautus rose on his hind legs, took the morsel and sank back, his eyes not losing their alertness.

“Oh, Plautus, you are not as disciplined as Tabbikin,” said Hester. “You are allowed to be a human being.”

“I am fond of tabby cats,” said Emma to Miranda. “They remind me of little tigers.”

“My cat is not a tabby. The servants named it. I don't remember what it is.”

“A tortoiseshell,” said Hester.

“Yes, I think its fur is really rather like tortoiseshell.”

“The difference between the two households stands exposed,” said Rosebery.

“You are a very good cook, Miss Burke,” said Miranda. “That is a thing you did not tell me.”

“No,” said Miss Burke, who had purposely not done so. “I was to come to you as a companion.”

“You are wise to use your talents. To cook well is a great one.”

“It is not uncommon, and it has to be used three times a day.”

“So you dine at night?” said Miranda, as if the words escaped her.

“Mother, you are showing curiosity.”

“I am naturally interested in Miss Wolsey's background.”

“Mother,” said Rosebery, lowering his voice, “it is hers no longer.”

“So you do not find our ways very different from yours, Miss Wolsey?”

“No, they are essentially the same. It is our cats who would find the difference.”

“I am glad you can keep up your home by yourself,” said Miranda to Emma. “Both for your sake and Miss Wolsey's.”

“It would have been the last straw, Miss Wolsey,” said Rosebery, “to feel you were unsettling your friend.”

“I keep it up so that she may return to it at any moment,” said Emma.

“Miss Greatheart, it teaches us how to honour her resolution and independence.”

“How did you spend your time when you were here, Miss Wolsey?” said Miranda.

“I suppose I wasted a good deal. I spent it in reading
and gardening and being a companion to Emma and Plautus.”

“Well, there is no great demand on you now.”

“Mother, that might be taken as an ungrateful speech. Tangible services may not be the most valuable.”

“It does not do to underrate them,” said Miranda, looking with approval at Miss Burke's activities.

“There are supposed to be some leisured people,” said Emma. “And if no one wasted time, there would not be any.”

“I feel that shaft goes home,” said Rosebery. “I, the only male present, must take my stand among them.”

“You are indispensable,” said Miranda.

“And so was Miss Wolsey, Mother.”

“This is excellently made. I congratulate you, Miss Burke. I regard cooking on this level as an accomplishment.”

“There is an especial something about these essentially feminine acquirements,” said Rosebery. “I think we hardly estimate the associations they have for us.”

“You have never wanted to cultivate this one, Mrs. Hume?” said Miss Burke.

“If it had served any purpose for me or anyone else, I would have done so.”

“Well, anyone would do it, who had to. But then it is a duty, not an accomplishment.”

“Miss Burke, in your case it is a signal example of both,” said Rosebery, in a less full tone than he used to the others.

“You have never thought of adopting a niece or
nephew, Miss Greatheart?” said Miranda, looking from the room to the garden.

“No, and for the most ordinary reasons. I don't want my life disturbed, and I like to spend what I have, on myself.”

“Well, the choice is yours,” said Miranda, not without a note of respect for the exercise of it.

“If one wanted a child, it would be better to marry and have one in the ordinary course,” said Hester.

“It might be better,” said Miranda. “But we have to do things as we can.”

“Mother, that is surely a needless implication.”

“What was it?” said Hester, easily. “That we may not have the chance to marry? Or may not take it? Or may recoil from the sacrifices involved?”

“People do not make the last two implications,” said Miranda.

“Well, who would want to make them?” said Emma.

“What man or what woman?” agreed Hester, smiling.

“Miss Wolsey, surely no man would avoid them,” said Rosebery, earnestly. “If he thinks any woman takes any chance of marrying, he is a coxcomb indeed.”

“Well, coxcombry is not a very serious failing.”

“A very ridiculous one,” said Rosebery, with a look of distaste.

“A man does more for a woman in marriage than a woman for a man,” said Miranda.

“Mother, is that your view? Many people would take the opposite one. Would you say that my father had done more for you, than you for him?”

“Yes, I think I should. Though our case is not a usual one. I am twelve years older than he is.”

“What difference does that make?”

“Well, chances get fewer with time.”

“You do not mean to imply that you had not other chances?”

“No one means to imply that. But it is no good to pursue a matter where we have no proof.”

“Mother, would you confess it, if it had been so?” said Rosebery, with a roguish glance.

“I don't know if I should. If I did, I should be unique,” said Miranda, not disclaiming this possibility.

“People would hardly have it to confess,” said Hester, “if you mean no chances at all.”

“More often than would be admitted,” said Miranda.

“Now I am not so sure. I have been surprised by the life-stories that have been unfolded to me.”

“You might have been less so by the actual lives.”

“We may often be surprised by what is unfolded,” said Rosebery, going into mirth.

“Now I do not know,” said Hester. “I may be a person who invites outpourings, but I find I cannot discredit everything I am told. The very improbability sometimes speaks for its truth.”

“You are an ideal confidante,” said Miranda. “To most of us probability would speak louder.”

“Mother, cold reason can play too large a part in things.”

“It does not often do so.”

“Plautus is restless,” said Hester. “My return has excited him.”

Miranda cast a glance at Plautus's recumbent form.

“Oh, you don't know cats, Mrs. Hume. You have no idea how he rests, when his mind is at peace.”

Miranda did not claim to have any.

“You have a very pleasant maid,” she said, passing to a subject which she did know. “She must be a great help to Miss Burke.”

“Yes, that is her work in life,” said Emma. “People are fortunate to have one. I wonder if she knows.”

“We never realise our privileges until it is too late,” said Miss Burke.

“What do you mean, dear? How you frightened me for the moment!”

“Were you imagining yourself without her?” said Hester.

“I almost dared to fear that she was imagining it. And a coward soul is mine.”

“That strikes an echo somewhere,” said Rosebery. “I do not remember who had the coward soul.”

“You should remember who did not have it,” said Miss Burke.

There was a pause.

“Miss Greatheart, the miss of your friend must be great,” said Rosebery, as though seeking a reason for Miss Burke's position.

“I can feel I have a place in two homes,” said Hester. “That cannot be said of many of us.”

“Of a good many who earn our living,” said Miss Burke.

“But, Miss Burke,” said Rosebery, recovering himself and lowering his voice, “I know it is not the case
with you. May I trust that this house may prove a home to you?”

“I am settled and contented here.”

“Which is a braver speech than many would realise.”

“I am glad to see you so happy and valued,” said Miranda to Miss Burke. “I wondered about you, after you had gone. This place makes the demands on you, that you can fulfil.”

“I suppose I shall spend my life in fulfilling them.”

“In a way that is true of all of us.”

“In what way? Some people spend their lives in making them.”

“You think I am among those?”

“Well, you must know you are. You are fortunate to be so.”

“You do not know the problems of my life.”

“No, in a life that appears not to have them, they must be hidden.”

Miranda looked at Miss Burke, as if she might have served her purpose better than she thought, and sent her eyes from her to Hester.

Plautus hastened to the door, evinced spectacular impatience, and after a variously assisted and impeded exit, vanished.

“Oh, what is he doing?” said Emma. “Leave the door open and listen. If Mrs. Hume does not feel the draught.”

“But I am afraid she does,” said Hester, partly closing it.

“What a companion you are! Considering your employer
before your cat! To think I should see such a change!”

Plautus returned with an uneasy aspect, went to the fire and remained on his feet, with his head thrust forward.

“He has eaten a mouse,” said Miss Burke, “or tried to eat one; I don't know which.”

Plautus did not leave her ignorant. He abandoned himself to necessity and laid the result at her feet, with a suggestion of rendering her her due.

“He is repaying you for what you give him,” said Emma. “How much better he is than we are! We are known to resent kindness, and he rewards it.”

“He ate what the could of the mouse,” said Miss Burke. “He thought of himself first.”

“Well, we say he might be a human being.”

Rosebery went into mirth.

“What are we to do with the mouse?” said Miss Burke.

“Can you not throw it away?” said Miranda.

“No, not without touching it,” said Miss Burke, as if Miranda might have seen this.

“What about using the tongs?”

“And feel it soft between them?”

“Everyone has to do an unpleasant thing sometimes.”

“No one else is offering to do this one.”

“It is not everyone's place to do so,” said Miranda, not looking at anyone in particular.

“Ring the bell and ask Adela,” said Hester.

Miss Burke rang the bell, and Miranda regarded the action without expression.

The maid appeared with a faintly incredulous air.

“Do you want me for anything, ma'am?”

“Only the mouse,” said Emma, keeping her eyes from her face. “Nothing else at all, Adela. And only part of it. It is not a whole one. It is on the floor.”

“Oh,
I
could not touch it, ma'am,” said Adela, suggesting her relation to the rest of mankind. “I could never lay a finger on anything dead. And it is in a mangled state.”

“What do you do, when you have to touch meat or fish?”

“Oh, food is different, ma'am. And it comes prepared. Mother never looks at her fish, before it leaves the hands of the fishmonger.”

“Get up and deal with it, my son,” said Miranda.

“I suggest the use of the shovel,” said Rosebery, rising slowly to his feet. “If we insert it in this way under the mouse, it should simplify Adela's task.”

“Oh, I could not even look at it, sir,” said the latter, not accepting this interpretation of Miranda's words.

“There is another fire-iron,” said Emma. “But I forget what it is.”

“The poker will not help us, Miss Greatheart,” said Rosebery, coldly.

Plautus snatched the mouse from the shovel and took it from the room.

“He has settled the matter,” said Hester. “He thought it was only fair. One can see into his mind.”

“He would not let Mr. Hume have it,” said Emma, seeing further into it. “He did not feel he had earned it as Miss Burke had.”

“I do not want to exceed my due in the matter, Miss Greatheart.”

“What do you generally do, when he catches a mouse?” said Miranda.

“He seldom does,” said Miss Burke. “He catches a bird sometimes, but they are different.”

“It occurs to me, Mother,” said Rosebery, “to wonder what happens when our cat at home behaves in a similarly cat-like manner.”

“Someone would deal with it. I should not expect to be troubled. This is an indulged household.”

“Is it?” said Emma. “I am so pleased and proud.”

“It is true that Adela is rather spoilt,” said Miss Burke.

Miranda met her eyes.

“Well, shall we all go to the other room?” said Emma.

“Miss Greatheart,” said Rosebery, “I am grateful for the word, ‘all'. So I am not to be condemned to solitary confinement, which is a situation that does not appeal to me.”