Sleep in Peace (63 page)

“Don't fuss, Mother,” he was always saying in a kindly, condescending tone: “I've got hours of time.”

Geoffrey was a stranger to Laura; she had no idea what he felt and thought. She perceived, of course, his surface faults and virtues. He had the Armistead conceit, and an egoism of whose extent she was not yet certain. He was truthful, honourable, well mannered, and a good loser in public though rather peevish in private; also he remained deeply attached to his mother. Laura was particularly glad of this last item, because Gwen's youth was now so definitely over. Her brilliant complexion had dimmed, her hair greyed, her slender body thickened and sagged, under the worry and hard work of the last few years; she was now a faded, dumpy little provincial, quite ordinary except for a rather pretty provocative laugh. But Geoffrey, though he saw this with his clear, dark, long-fringed eyes, loved her still, with a devouring, exacting, jealous, criticising love. He brought her extravagant presents, borrowed the housekeeping money from her, took her about to cricket matches, was rude about her hats, and in return expected her admiring attention every moment he was in the house. He took little notice of anybody else there. He treated his grandfather with a negligent charm, calling him “sir” very politely, but not listening much to what he said; Ludo, Laura and Madeline simply did not exist for him.

Madeline was now a strong solid girl in her 'teens, with bright cheeks and a long thick plait of corn-coloured hair which, since she
refused to cut it, bounced on her back just as Grace's used to do. Or rather, she did not actively refuse to have the plait cut when Gwen commanded it, but simply sat on in silence and let the matter drop. It might be said that Madeline was a stranger to everyone in Blackshaw House, for she was never known to confide in anyone there. She seemed to accept everything planned for her calmly, without comment. It had been found, for instance, quite impossible to send her away to boarding-school in these hard times; Madeline remained at the Hudley Girls' High School, unmoved; it was not possible to tell whether she was glad or sorry. For her part Laura was amazed when it accidentally transpired, owing to some necessary change of a meal-hour, that Madeline was sitting for the School-leaving Certificate examination this term. Had the child really gone so far, while Laura was not looking? Ashamed of the little interest she had shown in her niece's school career, when she had felt so much excitement over her own, she humbly asked to see Madeline's question papers. Madeline, without comment as usual, brought them to her and went away. On the top of the history paper Laura was much struck to see
Grace M. Hinchliffe, M.A
., in the list of examiners. Her generation had reached the stage, then, when they became examiners! And Grace's appointment to that post was so natural to Grace that she had not even bothered to mention it. We're in middle life, thought Laura, we're in full cry; our energies are all kinetic now, potential no longer; we're running the show, she thought; how odd! She felt sober and responsible, went upstairs and put in an extra hour's drawing.

Meeting Madeline on the landing a little later, she asked her, with a smile, whether she had noticed that her aunt was one of the history examiners.

“Yes,” said Madeline, expressionless; and walked on, humming.

Madeline passed her examination in her usual solid, robust way, without distinction but without fuss. Gwen had already given in
notice for her, and on the last day of term she provisionally brought home her books and papers; it was understood, however, that if she did not pass she was to return to school for another year. The news of her, success reached the Armisteads through the columns of the
Yorkshire Post
, at the breakfast table. Madeline's exhalation at the hews was audible, and seemed to betoken a considerable relief. Her family looked at her, in surprised interest at this unusual manifestation of feeling, and Gwen with a smile remarked pleasantly:

“Now I shall have a daughter at home.”

“No, Mother, I'm afraid you won't,” said Madeline.

“What do you mean, Madeline?” demanded Gwen, laughing. “Are you thinking of becoming engaged?”

“I'm going to the Leeds Art School for three years; then I shall get a scholarship and go to London, and then I shall go to the Slade,” said Madeline, brisk but calm.

Her family gaped, aghast. Laura, who had never in all her life once seen the child drawing, stared at her in amazement. But then, she thought, sternly making the analogy as she had taught herself to do, I don't suppose anybody ever saw me drawing either. This mental adjustment took a moment, and meanwhile the inevitable opposition had begun.

“You mustn't think because your Auntie Laura has done well, that you can too,” said Mr. Armistead kindly. “It isn't everyone has her talent.”

“How could you live in London?” said Gwen in a stormy tone.

“With Father, of course,” said Madeline.

“But it's simply delightful that you want to take up drawing,” began Laura warmly.

“I want to be a wood engraver, in point of fact,” said Madeline.

“But why should you go to Leeds? Surely Mr. Quarmby,” continued Laura..

“The Hudley School of Art isn't big enough. I don't want to
be an amateur, playing about; I want to do serious work,” broke in Madeline impatiently.

“And where do you suppose Grandpa will find the money for your course?” began Gwen.

“There'll be no difficulty about that,” said Laura quickly, all the more quickly because her niece's last speech had wounded her: “I—”

“Father will give me the money,” said Madeline.

“Have you been writing to your father about this, Madeline?” enquired Mr. Armistead sternly.

“Yes, Grandpa,” replied Madeline, lifting her wide grey eyes candidly to his face. “He approves.”

“If the Hudley Technical is good enough for Geoffrey, surely it's good enough for you,” objected Gwen.

“Nonsense, Gwen!” cried Laura impetuously. “If the child wants to go to Leeds, of course she must go.”

It was the first time in Laura's life that she had openly defied her sister.

There was a pause. Then tears slowly suffused Gwen's eyes.

“I've given up all my life to you,” she wept, in a low, wailing tone: “First to you, Laura, and then to Madeline, and all my reward is that you join against me to take my daughter away from her home.”

“Oh, Gwen!” protested Laura, touched and grieved.

“Why did you give up your life if you didn't want to? I don't want anyone to give up their life for me,” said Madeline, throwing up her head, so that her plait bounced. “People hate having sacrifices made for them, Mother.”

There was a silence. Then Gwen rose and scrambled from the room, blind with tears.

“You are a cad, Madeline!” said Geoffrey hotly, throwing down his table-napkin and preparing to follow his mother.

“Why? I want to be a wood engraver, and I want to live with Father. What is there caddish about that?” said Madeline.

“Nothing, dear,” said Laura, as Mr. Armistead snorted, incapable of speech. “But you might perhaps have expressed it a little more kindly.”

“The trouble with the previous generation is that you don't understand candour. I don't believe in wrapping things up,” said Madeline. “Why shouldn't one speak the truth?”

Laura seemed to remember having heard something like this before. Truly Edward and Frederick, though absent, thought Laura, make their contribution.

As soon as the shock of Madeline's announcement had subsided, Laura perceived that it was, of course, her duty to foster her niece's talent in every possible way. Whether Madeline had any talent or not, she was not able to judge; she had never seen any of her work, nor talked with the child about art. She was not, indeed, able to feel any confidence that Madeline had talent, for she did not perceive in her any of the marks of the artistic temperament, in the high sense of those words. There was no flash of energy in Madeline's eye, no quick intuition in her speech— and, on the other hand, a determined application, a power of furious work, seemed missing too. When Laura thought of the continual disappointment, the protracted heartbreak, which an artistic career offered to the aspirant of large ambition and small ability, and envisaged Madeline proceeding through all those stages of disillusion, her heart failed her; she groaned to herself at the thought of suffering again, vicariously, those long torments from which she had only just escaped. But those long torments did not deter her from helping Madeline to do what she wished to do; on the contrary Laura, remembering her own young miseries, made up her mind, with an absolutely savage determination, that Madeline should at least never suffer from “home encouragement”. No! She should have every real encouragement and support that could be secured.

Accordingly Laura took Madeline to Leeds to interview the Principal; when she gave her name she was not without hope
that he might recognise it, but she did not receive this pleasure, and was obliged to explain that she herself did black-and-white commercial work.

“Ah,” said the Principal.

Madeline's courses were soon arranged. She accepted a heavy programme, without comment; her replies, when the Principal addressed her directly, were not particularly intelligent. Later, Madeline showed no enthusiasm for the classrooms, though Laura's own pulses leaped with delight at their splendid size and equipment.

What with her resentment at the Principal's ignorance of her own work—which was foolish of her, Laura realised, but natural—and her complicated unhappiness at the forthcoming protracted humiliation for the child of Gwen and Frederick, Laura spent a very uncomfortable afternoon. When she reached home, feeling bleak and uneasy, she went upstairs and looked at her industrial drawings to console her; and she was consoled. They're good, thought Laura with satisfaction. Still in her hat and coat, she improved a line in the sketch on which she was working. Half an hour later she was still at her easel, a low happy humming on her lips. A song called “Time will Tell” often came over the air from the B.B.C. that year, and Laura, humming it, felt that time would certainly tell the Principal of the Leeds School of Art about her industrial drawings. After all, thought Laura, making the imaginative effort and putting herself in his place, he doesn't know about my drawings, I didn't tell him, he regards me quite properly as a mere “commercial”. And then Madeline—Laura sighed; decidedly Madeline had not shone at that interview. But that's not the point, Laura told herself firmly; the point is, what can be done to help Madeline?

She took the child to buy the necessary brushes and paints; Madeline accepted everything calmly, without enthusiasm. Making the necessary imaginative effort—she was always making the necessary imaginative effort nowadays, reflected Laura—she saw
that it might be tiresome to choose one's heart's delight in the presence of an aunt; so she informed Madeline that she could get what she liked from the local colourist's, and put it down to her aunt's account.

“Righty-ho,” said Madeline carelessly.

Madeline never appeared to do any work at home, so Laura was astounded to receive at the end of three months a really heavy bill for artists' materials. Indeed it was so heavy that she had difficulty in meeting it; she wrote firmly to Grace on the subject, who replied with her customary business-like promptitude, sending a cheque. The aunts agreed to share this expense between them in the future. Grace thought Laura should ascertain from Madeline that she had really used the materials supplied, but Laura winced away from the appearance of checking her niece's expenditure; it was a point of honour with her not to be ungenerous with Madeline.

Remembering her own thwarted longing for solitude when young, she had a gas-fire installed in Madeline's room. This brought opposition, not only from Gwen, but, surprisingly, from Ludo.

“We can't afford that sort of luxury nowadays,” said Ludo angrily. “And what about the gas bill?”

Since Laura had paid the last gas-bill and would probably pay the next, she made no reply to this, and the fire was duly installed. As a result the family hardly saw Madeline at all. She went off to Leeds every morning except Saturday, and did not return till evening; presently she began to attend night classes as well on three days of the week. She made friends, it seemed, with other students, and often spent Saturday and Sunday with them on alleged sketching expeditions. When at home, she sat in her own room. Whether the sketching expeditions were in fact sketching expeditions, whether indeed Madeline ever did any work at all, Laura was very doubtful; for Madeline could never be brought to discuss her Leeds activities at any length, while if the conversation
approached drawing she became completely mute. There were moments when the uncertainty of the situation grew almost intolerable to Laura. Once, after long hesitation, she very delicately hinted her trouble to Gwen.

“Well, she's just like you, you know, Laura,” said Gwen comfortably. “You were just the same as a child—stolid and reserved.”

“Stolid!” cried Laura. “Me! Stolid!”

Her face showed such horrified resentment that Gwen laughed. “Yes, you were a stolid little thing,” she repeated. “So was Ludo.”

If Ludo and I appeared stolid, Madeline may very well be concealing torments, reflected Laura, making, as usual, the necessary imaginative effort, and on an impulse she went upstairs and knocked at her niece's door.

“Come in!” sang Madeline. (There was sometimes a hint, just a hint, in her voice of Frederick's golden tones.)

Laura entered. Madeline was leaning on her elbows on the dressing-table, gazing with wide-eyed concentration into the mirror. Laura paused, dismayed.

“Don't look so distressed, Auntie Laura,” said Madeline with a gurgle. “It's upside down, you know.”