Mother and Son (9 page)

“What did you have to say to her?”

“Really only one thing. But it took its own kind of saying.”

“You mean it was a thing that really could not be said?”

“By many people perhaps. There is nothing I cannot say.”

“That is what I was thinking,” said her husband.

Rosebery came into the room and looked about him.

“Where is Miss Wolsey, Mother?”

“You can ask your father. I cannot tell everyone who comes in, the same thing.”

“She has gone to her room,” said Julius.

“Will she be down to dinner?”

“Well, she will not want to miss her meals,” said Miranda, just uttering the words. “That is not her object in coming.”

The children entered and also looked about them.

“‘Where is Miss Wolsey?'” said their aunt.

“Well, where is she?” said Francis. “Not fled the house so soon?”

“Gone to her room,” said Rosebery. “A most natural thing to do.”

“In a state of collapse?” said his cousin.

“Why, what should be the reason for that?”

“I thought she had had a talk with Aunt Miranda.”

“You will have one yourself, if you are not careful,” said his aunt.

“Your youth and dependence, Francis, may render
you liable to criticism from which she would be immune.”

“She is coming downstairs,” said Miranda, in a tone of mild caution.

Hester entered, took in the group, and came towards it.

“I have unpacked and settled down and made myself presentable all in an hour. Have I not done well?”

“Answer her, some of you,” said Miranda, wearily. “It is to you she is speaking.”

“You flatter us, as you know, Mother,” said Rosebery. “But if we are to answer, she has done well indeed, and we congratulate both her and ourselves on the result.”

“Go on talking to her,” said his mother, with her hand to her head. “And let her talk to you. Who would want to attend to anyone as old and tired as I am? She does not.”

“It is just what I do want to do,” said Hester. “I find it a most interesting duty. There is great charm for me in experience; and I understand its natural impatience with those who have had less of it. And I have suspected the tiredness all along.”

“It did not account for what I said to you,” said Miranda, on a warning note. “That stands as it did. It was necessary to say it, and no one could do it for me.”

“It is fortunate that the duty did not fall on anyone else,” murmured Francis.

“Is it?” said his sister. “Then it would not have been done. And now nothing can undo it.”

“It has been a long day,” said Miranda. “It seemed
to start again at tea-time. I do not pretend I am not tired out. I am not in the habit of pretending.”

“A statement no one would dispute, Mother,” said Rosebery.

“I fear you have had proof of it, Miss Wolsey,” said Julius.

“Oh, we most of us give proof of what we are.”

“When the obvious course would be to disguise it.”

“Dinner is served, ma'am,” said Bates.

Miranda rose and walked from the room, and Hester looked round and then followed her.

“What have we before us?” said Francis.

“Whatever it is, Francis,” said Rosebery, glancing back, “you will remember that my mother is what she said herself, old and tired; and you will behave to her as a nephew who is indebted to her, would properly behave.”

“It is a hard thing to be indebted to anyone.”

“Wouldn't it be worse not to be?” said Adrian.

“I am glad you realise it, Adrian,” said Rosebery.

“Why are they all downstairs, Bates?” said Miranda. “Is there no schoolroom meal to-night?”

“The sweep has been, ma'am.”

“What is that to do with it?”

“It is how Cook expressed it, ma'am.”

“Well, you will all three sit in silence. I cannot brook forwardness to-night. And you talk to your father, Rosebery. I cannot take any part. Sit down, Miss Wolsey; no, not by me; there, between the men. I am not equal to talking to a stranger, and as yet you are only that.”

“You have found her equal to it, Miss Wolsey,” said Julius.

“Oh, I understood. I am not an unperceptive person, and I am here to understand. And although I am interested in experience, I can realise the burden of it. The interest would not be real, if I could not.” Hester lowered her tone and sent a swift smile into Julius's face. “And I know I am another woman where there has been only one. And I shall know what it explains. It may take another woman to do so.”

“Another woman is what we have needed. My wife has seen it herself. The suggestion was her own. The evil days have come for her, and so for my son and me. It should be for us to help her, but she chose another kind of help. And I am glad of any kind.”

“I think I shall be able to give it. I shall know when the words are to be accepted, and when forgotten. It is my sex that is the trouble. I would alter it, if I could. But it will soon become a matter of course. A woman is not an uncommon thing.”

“A circumstance for which we all have to be grateful,” said Rosebery.

“What circumstance is that?” said Miranda.

“That women are not uncommon, Mother. If they were, we should be sadly placed.”

“They are supposed to be too common in this country,” said Hester. “We hear about superfluous women.”

“Miss Wolsey, it is those we can depend on in our need.”

“Is your friend a superfluous woman, Miss Wolsey?”
said Miranda, with her head again on her hand. “I mean, is she also unmarried?”

“Mother! You should say what you mean,” said Rosebery.

“She did explain it,” said Alice.

“Yes, she is unmarried,” said Hester, smiling with the rest. “That is why our friendship is a good one. There is no better kind than that between two single women.”

“Miss Wolsey, I can believe it to be so,” said Rosebery. “Indeed we have all observed cases of it.”

“Have we?” said Miranda. “I had not. But I have not thought much about single women.”

“Well, Mother, you will think about one now. You will want her to think about you.”

“The cases are not parallel.”

“They are not indeed,” said Hester. “The thinking is my province, and I have been doing it. I hope you will come with me one day, Mrs. Hume, and see my home and my friend, and yes, I must say it, my cat. It would be a pleasure to all of us.”

“I should like to come,” said Miranda, in a different tone. “I should enjoy seeing your background, and it would help me to know you better. You are seeing mine, and it would put us on equal terms.”

“Miss Wolsey, you are much to be congratulated,” said Rosebery, in a low tone.

“Mr. Pettigrew!” said Bates at the door.

“Mrs. Hume, I hope you will excuse this untimely entrance. I came to have a word with my pupils, assuming I should find them upstairs, and was shown in before
I could demur. I had no idea I should intrude upon your evening meal.”

“Sit down and share it with us,” said Julius.

“Thank you, Mr. Hume, but even did my sense of intrusion permit it, I should have to hasten to the corresponding meal in my own house.”

“He is estimating the degree of correspondence,” murmured Alice, as Mr. Pettigrew glanced about the board.

Miranda gave a little laugh.

“You have not met Miss Wolsey,” said Julius.

“No, I have not, Mr. Hume. But I assume her to be the lady, who I understood was to join your household. And I can assure her there is none more considerate to those who are professionally engaged in it.”

“My duties hardly deserve that name,” said Hester.

“Miss Wolsey,” said Rosebery in a low tone, “they deserve another indeed.”

“Let me persuade you to try our fruit,” said Julius. “We can buy much better, but we take a pride in our own.”

“Indeed, Mr. Hume, I see no difference between that on your table and on mine. And the pride of production is wanting in my case.”

“Will you take your wife these grapes?” said Miranda. “We should like her to have them.”

“It is most kind of you, Mrs. Hume, and I will act as bearer willingly. Such fruit is beyond our somewhat modest standard, and I am glad for her to have the benefit of it.”

“Bates will pack them for you, and they should be easy to carry.”

“I have not the least objection to the office. Such sensitiveness would rather deserve the name of self-consciousness. And I shall be supported by the thought of their reception.”

“One of the boys can go with you and take them,” said Julius.

“I will trouble no one, Mr. Hume. My point of view is as I have stated it, and my actions should not be inconsistent with it. And I trust that no one will leave the table to see me to the door. The maid who brings the parcel will incidentally do so, and it is a needless attention.”

“I am going to the village in the morning,” said Hester. “Can I leave the grapes on Mrs. Pettigrew?”

“No, indeed, Miss Wolsey, I would not encumber you further than your duty will have done. I would by no means add to your burdens to walk empty-handed myself. Indeed, were I to meet you, I should be happy to relieve you of some of them.”

“I would relieve her of all of them,” said Francis, as the door closed.

“And I would go with her to prevent her carrying them at all,” said Rosebery. “Indeed I suggest that I should do so.”

“I do not know what she will be carrying,” said Miranda, “unless it is her purse and her umbrella.”

“And convention allows me to carry those myself,” said Hester.

“How do you manage your house, Miss Wolsey? Are you and your friend domesticated?”

“We have someone to do the managing and cooking,
and a housemaid who does the rest. We are not domesticated; we live simply to avoid being so.”

“Miss Wolsey, it must be a great wrench for you,” said Rosebery; “to leave the little home that is the harbourer of all your interests, for a house full of strange people, and things unfamiliar and possibly redundant to you. It must need great courage.”

“Things are not redundant because they are not essential,” said Miranda. “I daresay Miss Wolsey will enjoy them, though she is fortunate to be used to as much as she is.”

“Why?” said Julius. “It is surely a natural thing.”

“The majority of people have less.”

“And I belong to them now,” said Hester, “in the sense that I could not afford so much by myself.”

“Miss Wolsey, you face it in an ideal spirit,” said Rosebery.

“I ought to emulate her,” said Francis. “I go on shutting my eyes to my prospects.”

“And opening your mouth about them,” said his aunt.

“He will always have me behind him,” said Julius.

“Of course he will not,” said Miranda. “You are fifty odd years older than he is.”

“You know what I mean. I am responsible for his future.”

“Your money should go to your son. It will barely enable him to fill your place. His cousins will have it in due course.”

“Miss Wolsey, you will forgive this broaching of family questions in your presence,” said Rosebery. “We
treat you as one of ourselves. Mother, I have no criticism to make of my father's dispositions. My faith in him is absolute.”

“And mine in you in another way,” said Julius. “You will not grudge your cousins their portions. They will not compare to yours.”

“Miss Wolsey, does it strike you as a rare thing or there to be complete confidence between father and son? Between a mother and a son it is an accepted thing.”

“Yes, I think perhaps it does, though I had not thought about it.”

“You have not met many fathers and sons,” said Miranda.

“Perhaps not many fathers. I suppose all the men I have known, have been sons.”

“Miss Wolsey, that is so,” said Rosebery, laughing.

“But there have not been many,” said Miranda.

“Mother, you are getting tired. You will be ceasing to be yourself. And you were being so much so. I will take you to the drawing-room and remain with you.”

“And leave Miss Wolsey here, so that you and I can be alone, and she can be where she likes to be, and where she feels the others like to have her.”

“You are killing many birds with one stone indeed,” said Rosebery, as he followed.

“Are you proof against insult, Miss Wolsey?” said Francis. “Because, if not, this is no place for you.”

“Can you steel yourself to face it?” said Alice. “We ask nothing that we cannot do ourselves.”

“Yes, that kind of insult, the natural antagonism of
a woman in old age to one in her prime,” said Hester, speaking easily and not looking at Julius. “I may come to it myself, though it is hard to think it. Ah, Tabbikin, it is no imagination this time. Here you are, all proud and confident in the flesh!”

She intercepted Tabbikin in a furtive approach to the hearth.

“Is there a good fire in here?” said Rosebery, at the door. “The one in the drawing-room has gone out. Miss Wolsey, my mother is coming. What about the cat?”

Hester relinquished it, and the children appeared to be pursuing it, and Julius to be furthering their effort.

“That cat!” said Miranda. “We shall have to get rid of it. Have you been petting it, Miss Wolsey?”

“It occurs to me, Mother,” said Rosebery, “that it detects the scent of Miss Wolsey's cat in her dress.”

“Oh, that is not a dress she would wear at home,” said Miranda, glancing at it.

There was a pause.

“It is not,” said Hester, “or rather it was not. It has been handed down to save the expense of a new one.”

“So you dress in the evenings at home?”

“We put on something simple, and it sometimes gets replaced by something less simple but shabby.”