Men and Wives (2 page)

“Matthew,” said his mother, “I don't know if it is anything to you that you add to my burden; that you leave me morning by morning to feel you have had no part in our common preparation for our day?”

“Oh, prayers!” said Matthew. “They hardly seem to serve their purpose. I am not struck by the signs of preparation.”

“No, that is how it must seem,” said Harriet, turning her head. “I am a torment to you all, and a burden on your hours that you never escape ! But I am as much of a burden on my own, ten thousand times more of a burden. Griselda, my darling, don't look distressed; don't waste a thought on your harrowing old mother. Don't think of me. Be happy.”

Griselda gave a response with her lips that did not develop into sound, and Matthew looked at her in gloomy compassion.

“How can her life be her own, when she is told that it is ? The two things are not compatible. None of our lives are our own.”

“Some of them are more your own than I can feel they should be,” said his mother in a different tone.

“You are speaking against me, and not to my face, Mother,” said Jermyn. “That is a mean and unmannerly thing to do.”

“I will say it to your face, my son. It is a sorrow to me that you and Matthew deal with your talents as if they were given you for your own use. I fear that may be your way of hiding them in the earth.”

Harriet's ambition for Jermyn was a fellowship at Cambridge, his own that he should write original verse. Her desire for Matthew was a London practice in medicine, in which he was qualified, his aim for himself scientific research. Harriet's ambitions for her children were so confused with her religious zeal, that her natural sense of values hardly emerged. She was a slave to her feeling that ultimate good depended on effort for others and sacrifice of self. Moreover she alone in the house knew the common fate of such hopes of youth.

“We have a lot of beautiful things in the family,” said Gregory in his dulcet tones. “Poetry and science and Griselda's looks and Father's seat on a horse. I hope I shall be generously proud. It is all wonderful.”

“My darlings, it is,” said Harriet in a deep, vibrant voice. “I should be a happy and grateful mother, and I am. How I should try to remember what I have! How I will try, if my weakness does not overtake me! I wonder if any of you can see me through it.”

Buttermere opened the door and cut through his master's prompt and arduous words.

“Dr. Dufferin, Mr. Matthew!”

“Well, Doctor, how are you?” said Godfrey, who addressed and alluded to his friends according to their callings. “It is good of you to take us on your early ride. You will have some coffee with us before you drag this boy to his work. The young rascal is only just down.”

“I have finished, thank you, Father,” said Matthew, rising to accompany his friend.

“Now, now, don't mouth at me and argue,” said Godfrey, in an easier tone than was warranted by his words. “Your mother wants a talk with the doctor, and if she wants it, she shall have it. The house is not yours. And if the talk is to be about you, be thankful that anyone wants to talk about you, that there are people who take an interest in you. Because you don't take much interest in anyone else.”

Godfrey raised his voice to penetrate the door, and relapsed into mirth at the perception that half his speech was lost.

“Well, now, Doctor, here is my poor wife clucking on the bank, with her ducklings gone to water! Matthew is not starting on his profession, and Jermyn is not writing his what-do-you-call-it for his fellowship. They are deep in science and poetry and I don't know what. How should I know? I never did any of these things. It is not because of me that they do them.”

“No, that is a just claim,” said the guest. “Harriet must know that she is at the bottom of it. That makes her feel the responsibility.”

Antony Dufferin was a dark, vigorous man of thirty-eight, with a broad, humorous nose, a covert quickness of eye, and to those who saw, a strong undercurrent of nervous and productive power. His career as a London physician had been broken by a marriage ending in scandal and divorce. He had not troubled to expose the truth, had given up his work with an easy heart, and settled in his native county near to the Haslams' place, to give his life to a corner of medical research. Matthew had chosen to work under him, rather than accept from his parents a London practice as a gift.

“Now, Doctor, I beseech you to bring home to my wife that she is building troubles out of air. She will give an ear to you, when she won't flicker an eyelid in my direction. I shouldn't think there are more prosperous people in the world than we are; I don't mean in any crude sense; I mean more fortunate in human affection, in family good fellowship, in the things that make life worth living. I should feel more fortunate still if my sons were laying the foundations for future usefulness.”

“Research doesn't often promise usefulness,” said Dufferin, “though you put it with a simplicity. But why shouldn't Matthew have an innocent occupation that he fancies himself? Other people don't give so much sign of
thinking of him. His attitude is more benevolent than theirs.”

“Yes, now, you are right, Doctor,” said Godfrey. “Harriet, you see the force of his words. That is the thought that has been in my own mind, though I couldn't have put it better. I mean, we did well in asking him to sum things up for us.”

“Matthew is serving himself first,” said Harriet.

“Well, that is a true word of all of us,” said Dufferin.

“Ah, so it is,” said Godfrey with a chuckle. “I admit that I think of myself before anyone else comes into my head. I mean with a few exceptions, with the one exception of course; I am a married man.” He looked towards the window, but Harriet did not glance at him.

“A doctor's life has great opportunities,” she said. “We are serious people, Antony, and should take great pride in the serious success of our son.”

“Plenty of preaching to be given in any life. People don't often want it, and they never take it. They don't even need it. If it was any good to them, they would be the first to give it to themselves. Matthew can use his own opportunities. He won't want a profession when he comes after his father here, and what he has chosen will take him to his end. Come and see me out, Haslam.”

Godfrey followed his friend into the hall, and stood as if in doubt.

“What of my poor girl in there?” he said.

“I must be careful of my eyes. You see more with yours than you used. I see you have had to. I think it will be well enough, if she does not come under a real strain. I wouldn't answer for things then: this fighting with everything is strain enough. But I don't see how she can do that, with you all on the watch for her.”

“No, no. We will all watch for her indeed,” said Godfrey in a rather empty voice. “Matthew, here is the doctor waiting for you. Have you said good-bye to your mother, my boy?”

“No, there is no occasion, Father. I shall see her later in the day.”

“But go in and say good-bye to her, my son,” said Godfrey in a coaxing, deprecating tone. “Give her a word to take with her through the day. A word from you is a great stand-by for her. You know that.”

“I haven't observed it,” said Matthew, going down the steps. “Good-bye, Father.”

“Good-bye, my boy, good-bye,” said Godfrey, with cordial appreciation of this farewell. “My blessing goes with you.”

Having uttered these last words in a tone too low to be heard, Godfrey retraced his steps to the dining-room, giving them especial force in case they should falter. Harriet was walking on the gravel outside the house, with Gregory holding her arm and stooping over her, and her face was happy and almost young.

Her husband threw back his shoulders and laid hold of the lapels of his coat, and walked about, swishing his feet on the carpet and breaking into snatches of talk and song. Buttermere entered and conveyed in silence his view of anyone engaged, or perhaps surprised in audible soliloquy.

“Well, Buttermere, so you have caught me in the act. You never talk to yourself, do you? You would be ashamed?”

Buttermere looked as if he could not but allow this to pass.

“You never do things you are ashamed of, do you, Buttermere?” said Godfrey, suggesting the truth, for Buttermere never talked to himself, did a woman's work as distinct from his own kindred duties, addressed his subordinates except with peremptory direction, or committed tangible dishonesty. Of taking pleasure in any human discomfiture, especially in that of the family he served, he was not ashamed, reserving this feeling for such things as threatened his manhood.

Gregory was pacing with his mother on the path.

“I am asking you a question I have never asked before. What do you think about when you are treading the passages at night? Tell me at once and truly. Do you get into a habit of going over the same things ?”

“My darling, what do I think about? I ought not to tell you. I feel sometimes as if the curse were hanging over you, as if only your father were free of it. Yes, I go over the same things. That seems to be my weakness, almost my disease; I believe it is nearly that. I feel I must get something just as it was, and I don't quite reach it, and begin again; and each time something is missed, and never the same thing. And it goes on through the night; and I feel it hanging over me in the day; and the future stretches before me with all the nights. And when I differ from Matthew and Jermyn—and it is not what I want for them, Gregory, what they are doing—and when your father and I are not of one mind, I go over what they have suffered, and what remains in their thoughts. And I feel that if I could once come up with the thoughts, I should not mind what they were; that I could face them, if they were not hanging over me with threat; and they can never be overtaken. And I ought not to tell all this to you, who may be going to suffer it yourself. I never ought to have married, Gregory. But I am easier now you know it, and I am not living alone. It does not seem it ought to be what it is, and yet it is always the same. You could never understand, and yet there is nothing you cannot understand, my dear, dear boy.”

“How clever of you it was to marry Father, when you were both of you as you were!”

“Well, my child, perhaps it was clever. Perhaps he was the right man for me, your dear, good father, my generous, forbearing husband. I may not be the right woman for anyone. But he is stronger than I am, just as he is weaker. I don't think it has hurt him, unless it is that I will not think so. I trust he is happy. How I pray that he is! For I cannot help myself, Gregory.”

“Oh, yes, he is happy, doing such lovely things, shooting and riding and reading prayers,” said Gregory.

“Gregory, you know what our family service represents to your father and me, that it is the visible sign of the deepest things within us?”

“Yes. You are so fortunate to have them represented. Most of us don't get them attended to at all.”

The mother was silent, a complex expression on her face.

“There are Jermyn and Griselda setting off for the moors,” said Gregory.

“Come, come, my darlings,” said Harriet in a passionate, crooning voice, beckoning with a large, maternal gesture. “Come and say good-bye to your mother. Go out into the sun and beauty, and leave uneasiness behind. It is I who have caused it. Leave me and be at peace.”

The intenseness of Harriet's tone brought a change to her children's faces, and Gregory took his arm from hers and sauntered by her side with the eagerness fading from his eyes.

Godfrey, who tended to pair with Matthew, as Jermyn did with Griselda, and Harriet with Gregory, stepped out alone on to the gravel, shading his face.

“Well, my Harriet. Well, my dear, I heard you talking in a way that reminded me of our youth. I said to myself, ‘Why, there is my Harriet chattering like a girl!' This is a brave morning for you.”

“Godfrey,” said Harriet, shrinking back in a manner that made her husband do the same, “I wish you would not comment upon any action of mine that happens to be natural. What would you do, if you could not be yourself for a moment without creating a storm of comment? How can I avoid being unlike other people, if I am to produce stupefaction when I am as they are?”

“Oh, come, Harriet! Storm of comment! Why, what did I say but that you were talking like a girl? You would not expect me to be up in arms, if you said I was talking
like a boy. You are not likely to say it to me. That would produce stupefaction, I can tell you.”

“Godfrey,” said Harriet, laying her hand on his arm, “I am not often myself in these days. Will you bear with me for the sake of those behind while we have a word about the future of our sons?”

“Bear with you? Bear with a word on the future of our sons?” said Godfrey, drawing her arm within his in well-thought-of emulation of Gregory. “I should like it above all things. A talk with you about our dear boys, who hold us together and prevent us from drifting apart; who make it worth while for us to hold together; who make our keeping together for our own sakes a good thing in itself! It is what I have been wanting without knowing what I wanted.”

Godfrey, setting off at his wife's side, observed the sudden pallor of her face, and while keeping on the prudent side of comment upon it, was far from assigning himself as its cause.

“Words Cannot Do justice to my opinion of Gregory,” said Jermyn, as he walked with his sister on the moors. “He seems to ask nothing but to curl up sleekly in other people's minds. I can almost hear him purring in Mother's. Beside him I am a monster of gross egoism.”

“I hope I am too,” said Griselda. “I think that is nicer for us.”

“Matthew and I won't be useless to other people in the end. Far from it, if we are allowed the chance of being what we are. If we are driven to throw our powers into hackwork just when the early forces are in play, the spring might go for ever; it might simply break. You can't get too much into one youth.”