Mother and Son (4 page)

“You cannot depend on it, Francis,” said Mr. Pettigrew, in troubled warning. “Many people misjudge the permanent effect of sorrow, and their capacity to live in the past. And it is not a course to be wished for them. For example, if I had followed it, Mrs. Pettigrew and I should have missed much happiness; and it is hard to see how it would have benefited those who had gone before.”

“It benefits those who are to come after,” said Alice. “In this case it is Francis. And Rosebud will have what he wants. He will think of Aunt Miranda as existing, and appreciating his faithfulness.”

“But would she appreciate it, Miss Alice? Would she not choose him to be happy and fulfilled in the normal way? If I were a mother—that is rather a feat of imagination, and I see you find it so—if I held any intimate relation to a younger person, I should wish to benefit him without exacting sacrifice to my memory. And I venture to think your aunt would feel as I do.”

A sound of amusement confirmed this view as venturesome.

“She does nothing like anyone else,” said Alice.

“As the applicant for her post would probably concur,” said Mr. Pettigrew, smiling. “But I should hardly have judged from your cousin's demeanour towards her that he was likely to be vowed to bachelorhood. Not that I suggest any especial feeling towards the person in question. The idea had not occurred to me; and it would involve discrepancies that do not concern us.”

“Pettigrew will go any length rather than refer to the companion as a lady,” murmured Alice.

“And yet he refers to himself in the corresponding way,” said Francis.

“What did you say, Miss Alice?”

“Nothing. Nothing that had any meaning.”

“I caught my own name and the word, ‘companion', and fail to see what connection there is between us.”

His pupils yielded to mirth, as the question did not find them at a loss.

“Well, we will resume our work. It was a mistake to interrupt it. I fear the blame is mine.”

The remaining time passed without disturbance, and the tutor apportioned the tasks and took his leave. The pupils at once relaxed.

“What is the meaning of our life?” said Francis. “To keep Pettigrew from want?”

“What will he do when we are grown-up?” said Adrian.

“I suppose he will suffer the want.”

“And his wife and family with him,” said Alice, smiling at the wider possibility.

“Shall we ever have to teach, as he does?” said Adrian. “Perhaps Aunt Miranda will be dead, and Uncle will be willing to support us.”

“So you have death in your heart,” said Francis.

“I should not do anything to make her die. And she has never wanted us to live at all. She is worse than I am.”

“Alice, we must remember that Adrian is our brother. Should not our combined influence do something for him? Is it our fault that it has failed so far?”

“What is this?” said Bates, coming in on some quest. “Now, have you been teasing him?”

“I wish Nurse had not gone,” said Adrian. “It was because Aunt Miranda would not pay her.”

“Now that is an ungrateful way to talk. And you know Bates is always here.”

“Why should we talk gratefully?” said Alice. “Nurse has not stayed.”

“Bates, Alice made faces at Pettigrew, and he saw her,” said Adrian.

“What nonsense! Of course I did not.”

“It was the reflection of your face on hers, that gave the illusion,” said Francis.

“Now if I leave you, will you see he does not tease him?” said Bates, feeling no need to be more specific.

“Don't speak to him, unless I give you permission,” said Alice to Francis, in an incidental tone.

Adrian relapsed in the manner of a person protected.

“Do we have an empty life?” he said.

“Well, that is fair enough,” said Alice. “We don't save anyone else's from emptiness.”

“I think we should save Uncle's, if it were not for Aunt Miranda.”

“Why think of the might-have-beens?” said Francis.

“It is strange that she and Rosebery like each other, when no one else likes either of them.”

“Uncle feels they are his wife and son.”

“He knows it, if he does not feel it,” said Alice.

“He feels it about Aunt Miranda,” said Adrian. “That is the reason of everything.”

The tutor met Julius and his son in the hall, and paused with a flush and start.

“Good-evening, Mr. Hume.”

“How are you, Pettigrew?” said Julius, shaking hands. “I hope my young ones do not trouble you. Remember me to your wife.”

“Thank you, Mr. Hume, I will certainly do so. And she would wish me to give you a similar message. Good-evening, Mr. Rosebery; it is a chilly night; I hope you have been able to remain indoors.”

“Good-evening, Mr. Pettigrew,” said Rosebery, with a full smile and handshake. “I have been out on a mission of my own, but have otherwise been unoccupied. I fear I should be called a less useful person than you.”

“Oh, I do not know. There are many kinds of usefulness.”

“Too many,” said Julius. “It results in a workaday world. Goodbye again. We keep early hours, and my wife is firm about them.”

“Goodbye, Mr. Hume. Mrs. Pettigrew is of a similar mind. Indeed she finds inexactitude about hours more trying than the more serious shortcomings; though the lack of consideration involved should perhaps place it among those.”

Mr. Pettigrew put on his hat and coat with a consciousness that eyes were on him, and Julius withdrew his own and turned to the dining-room.

“There are exceptions to human inconsistency. Pettigrew can only be himself.”

“He was concerned for Miss Burke,” said Francis, “indeed moved by her position.”

“Well, it is really the same as his,” said Alice.

“We should all have a fellow-feeling for those who
are in it,” said Rosebery. “Think how easily we might be in it ourselves.”

“I was thinking it,” said Francis, “and it will indeed be easy.”

“I am not sure I have not missed something in being placed beyond, or shall we say apart from such necessity. It might bring out qualities now unsuspected.”

“Has nothing aroused your own suspicions?” said Julius.

“How mean of people not to suspect them!” said Alice. “It is not a thing we should be left to do for ourselves.”

“People's qualities are clear,” said Miranda, looking from her son to her nephews, as if she saw an illustration of this. “There is no occasion to suspect them.”

“But I think my mother does suspect them in my case,” said Rosebery, smiling. “And I feel it is a natural situation between a mother and a son. If you three had had a mother, which I know not to have been the case, I should not have to suggest that.”

“We have not had one, whom we can remember,” said Francis.

“You have not, Francis. And often have I found my heart bleed for you on that ground. I think the little beliefs and blindnesses between two people so near to each other, are not the least of the things that we may have, and that you have missed.”

“Everything must be forgiven us,” said Alice. “We can never be to blame. Pettigrew ought to know about it.”

“Father,” said Rosebery, “I have often meant to ask
you if you remember my cousins' mother, and if you see any resemblance in them to her. It is a matter of interest to me. I do not know why it has hitherto escaped my memory.”

“Because it was not of enough interest to you. I remember her well. We were intimate with each other. Adrian and Alice remind me of her, though they are all more like their father.”

“And so like you, Father, a thing I cannot claim to be.”

“Perhaps my face is my fortune,” said Adrian, “as I have no other.”

“The first can hardly be said of me,” said Rosebery, with his slow laugh. “Perhaps it is as well that the second cannot either.”

“Your appearance does us credit,” said Francis, looking at his cousin's evening clothes. “You know what is due to yourself.”

“Rather do I know, Francis, what is due to my mother's presence. As I have said, I am protected from the imputation of personal vanity.”

“Appearance has not much to do with that,” said Julius.

“Well, well, you know your own reasons for dressing, Father.”

“Why should they not be the same as yours?”

“Father, I am sure they are,” said Rosebery, with grave compunction. “I must plead guilty to speaking with levity. The companionship of my young cousins may dispose me to it.”

“It does not have any great success,” said Alice.

“Does it not?” said Rosebery. “I sometimes find an idle note creeping into my talk, that is not natural to it.”

“I suppose Miss Burke is at home by now?” said Miranda. “I don't know where she lives.”

“Then how can you assume she has arrived there?” said Julius.

“I understood her to say she had no home,” said Rosebery, on a faintly reproachful note. “And she was to visit another house in the neighbourhood before ending her day.”

“To apply for another post?” said Miranda.

“That is the presumption, Mother. Our acquaintance did not warrant my putting the question. But she had, if I may so express it, the light of battle in her eye.”

“It was very late to go anywhere. What will the people think?”

“If they think what I do, they will estimate the spirit that carries her on in the face of convention and discouragement,” said Rosebery, with the light also appearing in his.

“She ought to have been your companion,” said Alice.

“Well, she was so for a suitable period,” said Rosebery, smiling.

“Pettigrew took a great interest in her,” said Francis. “He saw you escorting her to the village, and was full of curiosity.”

“There is a freemasonry between these people,” said Miranda.

“Now, Mother, whom do you include in that term?
I should not have applied the same to the two in question.”

“Other people would. Unless you mean that one is a woman.”

“It seems strange that you will never see Miss Burke again,” said Adrian to his cousin.

“I gave the conclusion of the matter in my own words: ‘a ship that passed in the night'.”

“The boys need not have that wine,” said Miranda, as she rose from the table. “Do not ply them with it, Julius. They must not depend on such things. They are only downstairs because the kitchenmaid is away.”

“As I am accused of giving preference to women,” said Rosebery, also rising, “I will deserve the reputation and indulge the propensity. I do not grudge my cousins my share of the wine, which to me means nothing.”

“Rosebery will marry some woman one day,” said Francis. “I don't see how he can avoid it. Unless through the impossibility of marrying all women.”

“Aunt Miranda does not know that the heart supposed to be hers is so divided,” said Alice.

“She seems to know everything,” said Adrian.

“Well, she may see it as a safeguard. If he liked one woman, she would lose him. If he liked none, she would never have had him.”

“So you know everything too,” said Francis.

“Yes, I have caught it from Aunt Miranda. And Adrian has begun to. It is a poor foundation for earning his bread. Suppose she had to earn hers! She does not know how bad her influence has been.”

Julius listened to his nephews and niece in silence.
He never checked the use of their wits or noticed the signs of inexperience. He accepted the mingled precocity and childishness that was the result of their life.

“We ought to know a little of one thing and rise to fame,” said Francis. “Eminent people always explain how many things they don't know; and how little they know of the one thing, indeed how little is known of it.”

“What if one knows a little of a good many things?” said Adrian. “That is how it would usually be.”

“Then one is like Pettigrew,” said Alice, “and able to earn a living. It is a good thing it is usual.”

“We will share this wine,” said Julius. “I will not drink it alone, and Rosebery does not know it from any other.”

“And admires himself for it,” said Francis. “How people admire themselves for everything! I find it hard to do so.”

“And admire yourself for it,” said his sister.

“Well, it is something to be a human being,” said Adrian, “and be better than other creatures.”

“You need not put your glass down, Adrian,” said Miranda's voice. “I presume you do not do behind my back what you would not do to my face; so you may go on with what you are doing.”

Adrian did not comply, and Miranda kept her eyes on him.

“Go on with your wine. If you can drink it when I am not here, you can do so in my presence.”

Adrian raised the glass to his lips.

“I suppose the truth is that you cannot drink it at all.
You wanted to be independent and sophisticated. Well, are you having your wish?”

“Adrian is called upon to be other things,” murmured Francis.

“We were saying you knew everything, Miranda,” said Julius. “And it appears we were right.”

“Well, I knew what was happening here. I did not see your faces, when I spoke about the wine, without foreseeing that. I am not an easy person to deceive.”

“And you came back to catch us in the act?”

“Or to give you the chance of showing me my mistake. You have not taken it.”

“No, we have not your gift of foresight.”

“So I can trust no one. No one but my son. Not my husband, not the children whom I took into my house as homeless babes. What would have been their fate, if I had not?”

“What it has been,” said her husband. “I should have taken them in. This house is mine and their natural home. But you have done well by them, and enabled me to do better. We are all grateful to you.”