Mother and Son (2 page)

“There is no question of that. The gain would be yours.”

“Well, if it is for your convenience, ma'am, I could give it a trial.”

“It is ‘yes' or ‘no',” said Miranda.

“Well, it may as well be in the affirmative, ma'am.”

“Is Miss Burke still with you?”

“She has not yet gone out into the dark, ma'am. Someone met his end on that road last week.”

“Yes, through a runaway horse. That would not happen again.”

“Many things can happen, ma'am. It is not always given to foresee them.”

“Well, she is used to looking after herself.”

“I would not go alone along that road at night.”

“Well, you are not so used to it. You are too well looked after here.”

“It is my lot to look after other people, ma'am. And I have not murmured.”

“You have very little to murmur about.”

“I implied that I was inured, ma'am.”

“How do you come home from your chapel on
Sunday nights?” said Miranda, her tone not exalting this manner of worship.

“Someone comes forward, ma'am. There is no lack of what is due. Shall I tell the housemaid to bring the tea? The lady is still under our roof.”

“And so entitled to your attendance?”

“It is one of the unspoken words, ma'am.”

“But Aunt Miranda spoke it,” said Alice.

Miranda frowned at her niece and beckoned her husband from the window. He came across the room, a vigorous man of sixty-eight, with high, hard features, pallid face and hair and hands, and deep, narrow eyes that carried an easy cynicism. He looked with equality at his wife, with acceptance at his son, and with a guarded feeling at his orphan niece and nephews. The latter were like him and like each other, with darker hair and eyes than his, and a livelier aspect. They seemed to welcome his approach and to be easier for his presence.

Julius Hume's eyes rested more seldom on his son. Rosebery's large, heavy frame, full, heavy face and hands, rather elementary features and weak, emotional eyes aroused no pride in his father; and the latter's instinctive feeling for him was tinged with discomfort and pity. Rosebery saw his father as a weightier being than himself, and accepted his dubious affection. He felt no jealousy of him, having no desire for his qualities.

“Why did you not want Miss Bark as a companion, Aunt Miranda?” said Francis.

“It is Miss Burke, as you know. And you know the answer to your question.”

“So he does,” said Alice. “That is why he wants to hear you give it.”

“She would strike the wrong note, and she would not be alive to our atmosphere. And she has the wrong sort of outlook. That is a thing I could not bear.”

“No one is perfect,” said Adrian.

“Now why feel you must say that? Should I think anyone was? What ground have I for thinking so?”

“It would not become us, Mother, to give any reasons,” said Rosebery, leaning forward with a smile.

“Would the right person wish to come,” said Julius. “What would be her object?”

“That she would want a life of ease in return for nominal services. The post of companion does not deserve its name. Fewer people would want it, if it did.”

“Just as many people would be obliged to have it. And you refused to guarantee that the services would be nominal.”

“I would rather give real services than nominal ones,” said Alice.

“No, you would not,” said her aunt. “You would do anything rather than that. Or you would be a more unusual person than you are.”

“Now why should people have this aversion to manual employment?” said Rosebery, looking round. “I have often asked myself the question, and been at a loss for the answer.”

“I will give it to you,” said his father. “It is because it is seen as requiring a lower intelligence, and because it does require it. And because it is dull and unrewarding in itself.”

“I would do anything rather than adapt myself to a single human being,” said Francis.

“Adapting oneself to human beings is the essence of usefulness,” said his aunt. “And you will have to be useful to earn your bread. There will be no money apart from a little for your sister. We have nothing except what comes from the place, and goes back into it.”

“That may not put it so far from Francis,” said Julius. “He comes into things after Rosebery.”

“And I am so likely to be a bachelor, Father, indeed am so far established in that character, that it is natural to nominate my successor. And I welcome my cousin as heir presumptive, and after him his brother. And I think we may say that our line is secure.”

“You may marry at any time and have a son,” said Francis. “You are not the type of man that is indifferent to women.”

“Rather would I say, Francis, that I am too little indifferent to them,” said Rosebery, smiling and then altering his tone. “I think almost any woman could find her way to my heart, indeed would find it open to her; and that might not be the safest road towards matrimony. And talking about my type, I belong to the one that is faithful to the one woman, and that the one who fills the earliest memories.” He smiled at his mother.

“So it is Adrian who will face the stress of things,” said Alice. “And he is not the most fitted for it.”

“I suggest that he should prepare himself for the secondary duties, that I now discharge for my father;
and that he should moreover perform them with more success than his cousin.”

“He might do something less suitable,” said Julius.

“We cannot plan our lives on the basis of Rosebery's remaining a bachelor,” said Francis. “He might marry after Aunt Miranda's death. He would find his life lonely without her.”

“You need not concern yourself with his future,” said Miranda, her tone perhaps sharper for the allusion to her own.

“Francis, I must deprecate the voicing of that thought,” said Rosebery, in troubled remonstrance. “It is enough that I carry it with me. I should undoubtedly—perhaps I should say ‘shall'—find my life lonely without her; but it would not in my case constitute a reason for marrying. Rather should I walk with my loneliness as a companion.”

“I would rather have ordinary work,” said Adrian. “I could not be assistant to Francis. I should always know he was my brother.”

“I should feel the same about a cousin,” said Francis. “We should be too much on a level.”

“Your cousin is not on your level,” said Miranda. “He is thirty years older than you, and a weightier personality.”

“A weightier person perhaps we should say, Mother,” said Rosebery, with his slow laugh. “That will not be disputed.”

“The boys can do boys' work for the present,” said Julius. “And it is not the easiest kind.”

“And work of any kind is a privilege,” said
Rosebery. “I often regret that I am in a measure denied it.”

“You could do more, if you would,” said his father. “I thought it was your object to escape it.”

“I need his companionship until my own companion comes,” said Miranda. “I am doing my best to get her. I cannot help the low quality of people. They seem to be of a different order from myself.”

“She does not want one of the same order,” said Alice, aside. “She was explaining it to Miss Burke.”

“It grieves me, Mother,” said Rosebery, “that you should want a companion of any kind, when you have two able and willing men at your disposal.”

“That is why I want one. I am old and weak, and able men do not meet my need. I am twelve years older than your father, and I have resolved never to be a burden on him. The time has come to avoid it. I want someone who will adapt herself to me and accept my words and ways. It is not much to ask in return for what she will be given.”

“Can Aunt Miranda mean what she says?” said Francis.

“She should advertise for a martyr,” said his sister. “But I suppose she has done so. She wants a companion, and the two things are known to be the same.”

“What are you whispering about?” said Miranda. “You are too old to get into corners and snigger like stable boys. When you are given a home like this, the least you can do is to deserve it.”

“People seem to have to do a good deal for a home,”
said Alice. “And it does not seem an unnatural thing to have.”

“You have a right to this one,” said Julius. “You are my brother's children.”

“But not your own,” said Miranda. “They tend to forget that.”

“It is the last thing I want them to remember.”

“I did not know that stable boys sniggered,” said Alice. “They always seem so grave.”

“They certainly swear very earnestly,” said her brother.

“Francis, I have never heard it,” said Rosebery, on a note of consternation.

“They know what is fit for your ears,” said Julius.

“I do not disclaim the suggestion that I should be discountenanced by it, Father. Swearing and the like are no part of manliness to me.”

“We have seen they are the part of stable boys.”

“It seems that several things are,” said Francis.

Miranda did not look disturbed. She did not grudge the children their affinity with her husband, or resent its being greater than her son's. It was the meaning of her life that Rosebery should belong to herself. Between the mother and son there vibrated an active emotion, that the children took for granted, and Julius met with dry acceptance. Rosebery poured out on Miranda all his feeling for womanhood, which was the thing that chiefly occupied his thoughts.

The last person to share them thanked him at the door, received his half-sorrowful disclaimer and went
into the library. She was received by Bates in a manner equally suggestive of attendant and hostess.

“So you did not come to an understanding, miss?”

“Yes, we did and soon. Mrs. Hume said I should not suit her.”

“It is not everyone who would suit the mistress,” said Bates, standing with her rising nose and beetling brow seeming to glow with self-complacence, while her small, honest, black eyes actually did so. “It is not for me to judge, and what is not for me is omitted in my case. But having suited her since the year eighteen sixty, my words speak.”

“I did not suit her for as many minutes. And she did not suit me as long. I do not envy the thirty-seven years.”

“Oh, you will secure a position, miss,” said Bates, in recognition of this spirit. “I entertain no doubt. And if it was ordained, it was to be.”

“I wish I had known it was ordained, in time to be spared the interview. Happily it was short.”

“Short and sharp,” agreed Bates, as if she visualised it. “It was not prolonged.”

“Mrs. Hume thought I should profit by it. I think she even hoped I should. She seemed to wish me well in her way.”

“There is her bell,” said Bates. “I am used to exactions. I must leave you for the moment.”

She did so, and Miss Burke looked about her without curiosity. She seldom felt it, as she attached no importance to what she saw. She had learned that the setting of human experience was no key to itself.

Bates returned and continued, as if no break had occurred.

“There is another position in the neighbourhood, miss; as housekeeper to two single ladies; on a smaller scale, but not enough to be a detriment.”

“I would rather be with two women than with a married couple and a family,” said Miss Burke, as though the latter struck her as an abnormal situation, as possibly it did.

“One can feel among the superfluous,” said Bates. “Which is not as it should be, the truth being otherwise.”

“I suppose one has to be that. It is a condition of being needed. No one wants a person who is necessary to someone else.”

“Which is deep,” said Bates. “Well, I hope we shall meet again. We share the dignity of earning bread.”

“If dignity is what it is. I should prefer other kinds of it.”

“I will give you the ladies' address, miss. It is some stations along the line. You could mention that I sent you. The houses do not visit, but my name will speak.”

Bates accompanied Miss Burke to the door, but found she was anticipated. Rosebery stood ready to open it, and having done so, took his hat from the stand and stepped after the stranger out of the house.

“You would not ask me to countenance your walking alone in the dusk? It would indeed be much to expect.”

“It is very kind of you, Mr. Hume.”

“Rather is it a matter of course and a privilege. It may happen that the two things coincide.”

“The days are shortening, but I am not a nervous person.”

“It is an eerie road,” said Rosebery, glancing behind him in a manner that precluded his making a similar claim. “I do not lose that impression, familiar though I am with it.”

“I am not troubled by eeriness. I am concerned with more definite things.”

“But for ladies the vaguer ones have their menace.”

“Well, men may be inclined to think so.”

“And may be right,” said Rosebery, who went further than this and enjoyed the thought. “It is easy to imagine footsteps behind one, when they are echoes of one's own.”

He proved his words when he turned homewards, and hastened his steps until he had escaped from the pursuing echoes into the house.

“Where have you been?” said Miranda.

“Along the road as far as the village, Mother.”

“With Miss Burke?”

“With whom else? Who but her was in a similar plight?”

“You looked disturbed when you came in,” said Francis.

“And I was disturbed, Francis, or had been so. By the idea of a woman walking alone along a deserted road at dusk. I accompanied her as far as the houses, where the lights begin.”

“And had to come back by yourself,” said Julius.

“Well, naturally, Father. I could hardly expect her to perform the same office for me. It would have been a case of our going to and fro ‘ad infinitum.'”