Men and Wives (11 page)

“I wonder if I did,” said Matthew. “Perhaps I was in the furthest stage of it. Extremes meet.”

“Well, then, they met,” said Griselda.

“I am not now quite clear what Matthew has done,” said Gregory.

“His best,” said Jermyn.

“No one can do more,” said Gregory.

“Not more than he did, certainly,” said Griselda.

“I can't even now believe I did it,” said Matthew.

“Shall we go back and realise it?” said Jermyn.

“No, not worth it,” said Matthew.

“Extremes met!” said Gregory.

“I feel that virtue has gone out of me,” said Matthew.

“Well, a good deal did get out,” said Griselda.

“Virtue too,” said Gregory. “No wonder Mother could not bear it.”

“I wonder if I shall be made to pay,” said Matthew.

“I wonder,” said Jermyn. “Let us put it to the vote.”

“What are you putting to the vote?” said Harriet, coming into the room.

“We are voting——” said Jermyn.

“About Matthew's future,” said Gregory. “Will Matthew's efforts win reward or not?”

“I cannot say,” said Harriet, looking at Matthew.

There was a silence.

“Didn't you get off to sleep, Mother?” said Griselda.

“Darling, you see I did not,” said Harriet, stroking her cheek. “I could hardly have got off to sleep, and awakened, and got on my dress, and done my hair, and come down to you here, all in the space of these few minutes, could I?”

“You have been upstairs half an hour,” said Matthew.

“Not since Griselda left me,” said Harriet in a barely articulate tone, as if the words were hardly worth enunciating. “And even if it were half an hour, that is not long for all I said, is it?” She advanced slowly across the room.

“Our vote is decided,” said Jermyn in a low tone to Griselda.

Griselda gave a startled laugh, and her mother looked at her with appraising indulgence, and turned to survey the shelves.

“Well, shall we have our weekly reading? Or are you all settled with books of your own?”

“Don't say things on purpose to make us feel awkward,” said Jermyn. “You can see we are all idling about, doing nothing.”

“And after all you have just come from your bed,” said Matthew.

“Well, as we have all been resting together, let us all begin to read together. I wonder if Matthew would like to keep awake all night with me,” said Harriet in a light tone.

“Here is a lovely book!” said Gregory.
“Lives of Mothers of Great Men.
When Matthew and Jermyn are great, I shall write your life, Mother. I shall have that sort of position in the family. ‘Gregory Haslam was not without his share of the family gifts.' I shall be the ‘not without'. I ought to be collecting material. ‘On Sunday afternoons her sons gathered round her.' I shan't make mention of Griselda; a daughter weakens it. Daughters don't have to owe everything to their mothers. I suppose they don't owe it to anybody. It would have to be their fathers, which is absurd.”

“You begin reading, Matthew,” said Harriet, showing her readiness to place an injunction on her eldest son.

When Bellamy arrived, he stood for a moment regarding the family group; and Godfrey came up behind him and caught his expression.

“Well, now, Rector, you don't often glimpse a scene of this kind. This sort of tableau doesn't come your way. It is a pretty sight, a mother with her ducklings round her, even when the ducklings are getting to be drakes. A sight that never loses its human appeal.”

“Ducklings! Human appeal,” said Gregory.

“You know I don't understand what it is to find my
home looking as if a hearth were part of it,” said Bellamy. “Home life ceased for me when I lost my mother. It makes it all the better to have a glimpse of it now.”

He turned his smile on Harriet, who was regarding him with hospitable kindness.

“Well, come into the drawing-room and have some tea,” said Godfrey. “We will all have tea together, a family party round the fire.”

“Now that will be the nicest thing in the world for me,” said Bellamy.

“Yes, I thought that was the sort of thing you would fancy, Rector,” said his host, leading the way in this undoubting spirit.

“We were all very jealous of the figure you made in the pulpit this morning, Bellamy,” said Jermyn.

“I declare that they were. I give my word that that is so, Rector, Bellamy, Ernest,” cried Godfrey. “They kept on and on about it, the impression you made, the appearance you had, and all of it, until I felt the feeblest little figure beside you. I assure you I did.”

“Oh, well, a little flattery doesn't come amiss. It won't count much in the welter of other things,” said Bellamy. “All that seems to matter, Lady Haslam”—he looked at Harriet and spoke in a deep, sweet, hopeless tone—“is whether a man is prepared to make a complete sacrifice of himself to a woman. His future, his profession, his fair name, his chance of happiness with another woman, that woman's chance of happiness with him is all to go. And I can never take to this view of woman as a prettier, lighter, lower being, with whom men cannot live on terms of give and take. I don't mean that a man can't throw a cricket ball farther than a woman, or a woman watch by a sick-bed better than a man.”

“It is surely something to be prettier and lighter, and to watch by a sick-bed better,” said Matthew.

“Matthew,” said Bellamy with affection on the Christian name, “I am not suggesting that we should not
appreciate women, but that we should not look down on them.”

“It is surely impossible to avoid doing both,” said Matthew.

“Yes, well, there is something in that, Matthew,” said Godfrey with amused rumination. “Of course that is what we do do, how we look at them, if we come to think of it.”

“Godfrey, cannot you fetch me Griselda's cup?” said Harriet.

“Yes, yes. Why, Griselda, you are wanting some more tea?” said Godfrey, attaining the cup without rising. “Well, a man can reach farther than a woman, can't he?'”

Well, Fine Feathers make fine birds, we all know. I don't need to be told that, so you needn't be in a hurry to snap it out at me. But I don't look so little of a fellow, when I have as much done for me as some men take for granted. I only do it for myself for an occasion, not being much concerned with the effect I produce. It doesn't happen to be one of my interests. Do you see I have my newest suit on, my very last? Would any of you have noticed it? Some men don't give the feathers the foundation. Well, my Grisel, what do you think of your father?”

“You don't need to feel any more pride,” said his daughter.

“Oh, well, it was the suit I was thinking of. I was meaning to send it back to be altered, but I don't think there is much wrong with it. I suspected a little something on the shoulder, and I was working myself up into a mood. But I don't fancy there is great room for improvement. What do you say, Jermyn?”

“You must not expect more than the most even from your privy expert,” said Jermyn.

“No, no, I must not. You say the word, Jermyn. And I think it is due to a middle-aged man to have a little more afforded to him than to youngsters. They have youth on their side. Not that the extra years always take from a man's general impression; far from it; that is quite a fallacy. Now do you think I had better wear these studs or not?”

“I like the plain ones better,” said Griselda.

“Yes, so do I; I do too. Your taste is mine, Griselda. We don't care to see tricking out on a man, either of us. You think people will take it in that the plain ones are
put on on purpose. And the effect is not too studied either, the effect of being nothing in a sense. I will change them here, and put the others on the chimney-piece, behind the clock. No one will see them, and they will be quite safe. Now do you think there is anything wrong with your father?”

“It is Grisel's appearance we should be concerned with,” said Jermyn.

“And not that of four hulking males in a uniform,” said Matthew.

“You are unjust to Father. That is not the number of males in his mind,” said Griselda.

“No, no, but Grisel's appearance. That goes without saying,” said Godfrey, settling his cuff with his eyes upon it. “That doesn't need any confirmation, the impression my girl will make. It is an old fogey like myself who has to bestir himself lest people should shudder to look at him. I don't see why they should be struck amiss by me to-night. Do any of you?”

“You are deciding the question for yourself,” said Griselda, as her father adjusted his neck in his collar, but in the direction of a glass.

“Oh, indeed, am I? You monkey of a girl! Gregory, what is your opinion of my new evening suit?”

“A better one than of its predecessor,” said Gregory, hunching his shoulders. “I would rather anyone's mantle descended upon me than yours.”

“Oh, my poor boy!” said his father, surveying him. “Well, it is a nice suit; it really is a passable thing. I rather fancied myself in it at one time. My one before last, isn't it? I don't really know why I gave it up, unless it was getting a little small for me. Though I don't know that it was. I don't think I have got any fatter these last few years. Does it strike any of you that I have?”

“You clearly discarded it on insufficient grounds,” said Gregory.

“I don't like to see a middle-aged man too much of a
scarecrow,” Godfrey continued along his own line. “Harriet, my dear, a very quiet and impressive effect! I never saw you look more yourself.”

“That is a chance I have not had,” said Gregory. “No one ever saw me look more like Father.”

“Well, you should not have left your own suit at Cambridge, my dear,” said his mother. “You could not be seen in the old one you wear or should wear every night.”

“Oh, that is what it is, Harriet?” cried Godfrey. “Here he has been bemoaning himself and playing the martyr because he was made to wear other people's old clothes! I hadn't a thought but what it was that. I declare I have been feeling quite a sense of guilt, for dressing myself up to the hilt, while he was left to appear in cast-offs. And really he has a whole collection of suits, more than I have, I daresay. Well, what a boy!”

“I will give this one back to you to-morrow,” said Gregory.

“Oh, you will, will you? Well, you won't then. I have done with it; I have got too fat for it,” said Godfrey, laughing.

“Sir Percy and Lady Hardisty!” said Buttermere. “Miss Hardisty!”

“Well, my dear Rachel,” said Godfrey, “I have had it in my mind all day that you were to be with us to-night. If there is a thing I like to see, it is you and Harriet together.”

“It does show up Harriet as in her prime,” said Rachel.

“Mellicent, you and I will be absorbed in ourselves the whole evening,” said Jermyn. “People cannot think less of us than they do.”

“It is unfair of them,” said Mellicent. “We could so easily think less of them. Their opinion makes an impression that remains.”

“Harriet, my dear,” said Sir Percy, stooping very low, “you can tell me that things are all right with you? There is nothing for me to be troubled about?”

“Mrs. Calkin, Miss Dabis, Miss Kate Dabis!” said Buttermere.

“Dear me, three whole women!” said Rachel. “The drawback to a party is that it makes you so ashamed of being a woman, and it is paltry to be ashamed of anything that is not really wrong. Look at dear Harriet, greeting them as if they were nothing to be ashamed of!”

“That is the essence of being a hostess,” said Mellicent.

“It is too kind of you to have a welcome for our whole party, Lady Haslam,” said Agatha.

“I really think it is,” said Mellicent. “Mrs. Calkin is known to be honest.”

“No one is all bad,” said Rachel, “though I never know why that is so certain.”

“We felt quite embarrassed by coming in, a group of widows and spinsters,” said Geraldine. “It is too much even of a good thing, people might think.”

“Why is it a good thing?” said Mellicent. “And why do what causes you embarrassment?”

“Hush, my dear. Geraldine really is embarrassed,” said Rachel. “It must be trying to speak true words in jest. It is such a true saying that many are spoken.”

“We cannot have too much of a good thing, Miss Dabis,” said Godfrey. “We are grateful to you for giving it to us.”

“We all came because we were asked,” said Kate. “It is so satisfying to come to a party, that we just thanked and came.”

“Mrs. Christy!” said Buttermere.

“We shall be educated the whole evening,” said Jermyn.

“And amongst old-fashioned men who do not approve of women's higher education,” said Mellicent. “For it will be higher, I am sure. Here is the reason for Camilla's not coming!”

“Mr. Bellamy!” said Buttermere.

“Oh, yes, the reason. Yes, yes,” said Sir Percy.

“They say a parson counts as a woman, but we won't
count him one to-night,” said Rachel. “I am sure Harriet doesn't mean us to, and we should follow the lead of our hostess.”

“He does make rather an effect, coming in,” said Mellicent.

“Yes, an effect, yes. He has rather much manner, hasn't he?” said Sir Percy, peering forward.

“Well, Lady Haslam, I am late,” said Bellamy. “And I was not delayed or called away, or anything useful. I am just shamefully and miserably late.”

“You will take my wife in to dinner, will you, Rector?” said Godfrey.

“The last shall be first,” said Bellamy, bringing his hands together.

“You are not quite the last,” said Agatha, as though content to annul this quotation.

“No, but I am to be quite the first,” said Bellamy.