Parents and Children (25 page)

‘You will tell me if I can be of any use to you, Ridley,' said Faith, in a gentle tone, after a moment's communing with herself.

‘Faith's best seems to improve with every moment,' said Hope. ‘And Ridley has only to use his as it is. He will have to decide when to do it.'

‘That was not left to me, Mrs Cranmer. If it had been, I fear I might have taken some way out. As it is - ‘ Ridley straightened his shoulders and made his way from the house.

‘Ridley's best is rather unfitted for daily life,' said Hope. ‘This is the first time I have seen it in thirty years. It might be better to have one that came in oftener. But I suppose it is meant for an emergency.'

‘We must hope it will do its work on this occasion,' said Faith. ‘After all, Mr Sullivan depended on it.'

‘I am sure it will,' said Hope. ‘You see that my best is as good as yours.'

‘Are we not rather running this idea to death, Mother?'

‘My best is better than yours. It is never used for people's embarrassment. My worst is used for that. I am right not to like the
best in people. Why should I, when it is put to a mean purpose? And I believe it generally is.'

‘I hope my worse side did not creep out for the moment,' said Faith, in a lighter tone.

‘I don't think so, dear; I am sure you were at your very best.'

‘Father,' said Faith, ‘I think Mother is much more upset by this news than she shows.'

‘She has shown it to me,' said Paul.

‘The best in you both is better than I have ever imagined,' said Hope. ‘I am really comforted by it, and I did not know it ever did that. If Ridley's is doing the same for Eleanor, I see what Fulbert meant.'

‘Well, now don't you think we might consider if there is anything we can do, Mother?'

‘I think we might; I should agree with anything you said. If we don't put ourselves forward, and don't fancy we are the sort of people who could be tolerated at such a time, I think we might do what we can. But I don't quite see what that is.'

‘Need we be quite so unsure of ourselves? If we took that line, we should never do anything for anyone.'

‘And that is too high a standard for us. So we will go and do the womanly duties that are borne at these times. I suppose people do put up with them. It is known that the well-meant offices aggravate sorrow, so no doubt they must. And we will leave your father to suffer in a man's simplicity. I feel rather anxious about him, and it is the irritation in anxiety that is the worst part.'

‘I am coming with you,' said Paul.

‘Now I can throw myself into serving others. I will make it all as easy to bear as possible. Ridley must be breaking the truth by now. I have heard that that is harder than hearing it, but I do not agree.'

Ridley had reached the Sullivans' house and asked for Eleanor. He was shown to the drawing-room, where she was with Luce and Regan. He had depended on seeing her alone, and had to adjust his words. He met her eyes and then advanced and laid a hand on her shoulder. She looked up, alarmed, but her voice was forestalled by Regan's.

‘He is dead, is he? He has gone after the others. Well, I can live in peace now. There is no one else.'

Eleanor was standing, pale and still, heedless of those about her. Luce took the letter from Regan's hand, and went and put her arms about her mother. Regan spoke again, neither to herself nor the others.

‘It wasn't much good to have them, for my husband to be left without a son. We have wasted it all, our time and our feeling. All our feeling has gone. And we have only each other at the end.'

‘Lady Sullivan,' said Ridley, in a low tone, ‘we have to tell your husband.'

Regan made a movement that would have been a spring, if she had had youth and strength, and was gone from sight. It was not from Ridley's hps that Sir Jesse would hear of the death of his son.

Daniel and Graham came from their grandfather, with the truth in their faces, and the thought in their minds that they were tied to Sir Jesse now. They gave their attention to their mother, while they imagined their own future; the full manhood, the loss of their father, the service to two generations; and saw the truth of their father's life, which they had deemed so easy.

Eleanor looked up and spoke in her natural tones.

‘We had better send for the children. It is no good to put off their knowing.'

Her words revealed herself, and her children confronted their knowledge of her. She felt real grief, made no pretence of despair, tried to face her loss and her duty, could not follow children's suffering. Luce looked in mute appeal at Ridley.

‘Mrs Sullivan,' he said, bending towards her, ‘would you not leave them a while in their happiness? That is the way to spare yourself.'

‘I must not think of that. The thing will have to be done.'

The schoolroom children were summoned. They caught the threat in the message, and came with fear in their eyes. Their mother put her arms about them.

‘My little son and daughters, there is a great sorrow come to us today. Father will not return to us. We are to be alone.'

The children broke into weeping, at first without character or difference. James was the first to recover, and to try to realize his new life. Venice looked at her mother, as though with an instinct to help her. Isabel stood as if she were alone. Ridley remained with his eyes on Eleanor, and wore a look of venerating sympathy.

Regan returned to fetch the letter for her husband, took it from Ridley and went from the room. As she passed, she cast on the group a glance without hope or gentleness, almost without pity, a glance of hard resignation to the helpless suffering.

‘My children,' said Eleanor, ‘will you do your first thing for your mother? Will you break it to the little ones for me? Will you begin to help?'

Venice went to the door, as if to fulfil the request. James made a movement to follow her, glancing at his mother. Isabel met her eyes, but seemed not to hear what she had said.

‘Is it too much for you, my dear?' said Eleanor, looking at Isabel. ‘Then I will do it myself. Why should I put my duty on to those weaker than I? It is for their mother to spare them. James, will you bring them to me?'

James began to run from the room, checked himself and subdued his pace, and looked in appeal at his brothers.

‘I can go and tell them, Mother,' said Graham.

‘No, Graham,' said Luce, moving forward with her eyes on her mother. ‘It is natural for them to hear the truth amongst us all. It will make one shock and one memory, and will spare them the meetings afterwards. We must think of the things that make children suffer.'

‘We cannot save them the one thing,' said Eleanor, with a faint smile. ‘I should not think those will count beside it. But do as you will, my dear. I am grateful for any help.'

A message was sent upstairs. Hatton entered with the children, and remained in the room, as though she would not withdraw the protection of her presence. James seemed to drift towards her, and stood at her side, suggesting the sphere with which he identified his life. Eleanor drew the children to her, and said the
words she had said to the others. Honor wept in startled despair and grasp of a changed life; Nevill in abandonment to the general sorrow, and sympathy with it; Gavin did not weep, and looked at the older faces in resentment and question. Daniel put a hand on his head and said an encouraging word. His mother looked up, unsure of this line, but let her eyes fall, as if offering no judgement. Sir Jesse and Regan entered and went to their chairs by the hearth, acquiescing once again in the old customs in a different life. Sir Jesse laid his hand on Eleanor's shoulder as he passed, and Regan gave her grandchildren a smile that did not touch her own experience beneath. Luce waited for the tension to relax, and then moved towards Daniel, who knew that she put him in his father's place.

‘We must make an effort, Mother,' he said. ‘It is the only thing. We must leave this moment behind. Life will not wait for us.'

‘When life has done what it has, it might have the grace just to do that,' said Graham.

Gavin gave a loud laugh, and his mother turned her eyes on him. She did not know that he was hailing the first break in the oppression. Nevill left Hatton and went up to Daniel.

‘He won't cry any more,' he promised, and looked round the room. ‘All stop now.'

Venice took his hands as if in play, but he seemed to feel some lack in her, and returned to Hatton. Eleanor gave Venice the smile of approval that she gave to this child's courage.

‘Did Father have an ordinary illness like an English one?' said Gavin. ‘Or are the illnesses different there?'

‘We do not know yet, my boy,' said Eleanor. ‘I think it was different. We shall hear soon.'

‘How do we know he is dead?'

‘He is not dead, my child. He is more alive than he has ever been.'

‘But how do we know he is what we call dead?' said Gavin, with a faint frown.

Eleanor explained and Gavin listened until he understood, and then moved away.

‘What is the good of his being more alive, when he is not with
the people who belong to him?' said Honor, in a tone that seemed to anticipate a mature one of the future. ‘And he is always more alive than other people. He ought not to be even what we call dead; he ought not to be.'

‘Mrs Sullivan,' said Ridley, as if the words broke from him, ‘what a duty you have to live for! We see how much your husband had.'

‘I am not a person fitted to carry such a burden.'

‘I have my grandchildren,' said Sir Jesse's voice from the hearth. ‘I do not go empty to the grave.'

Nevill looked in the direction of the voice, and going to a vase on a table, drew out some flowers and thrust them towards his grandfather.

‘They are all for Grandpa.'

‘Won't you bring me some flowers too?' said Regan, turning more slowly than usual, as if her response were feebler.

Nevill returned to the vase, looked back at the flowers in Sir Jesse's hands, and ran and transferred them to Regan's.

‘All for Grandma,' he said, wiping his hands down his garments, as though the office were distasteful.

‘Isabel dear, sit down and try to stop crying,' said Eleanor. ‘You know you do not help us by making yourself ill.'

Isabel obeyed as if all things were indifferent, and her mother gave a sigh as she withdrew her eyes.

‘I wonder when I shall be able to get to my own sorrow,' she said to Ridley, with a faint smile.

Ridley met her look and swiftly touched his eyes, and Nevill ran up to him and looked up into his face.

‘All stop now,' he told him for his guidance.

Ridley gave a smile at Eleanor.

‘“
O sancta simplicitas”,'
he said.

‘What does that mean?' said Gavin.

‘It means that childhood is sacred,' said Eleanor.

‘You don't think it is, do you?' said her son.

‘What will happen when they have all stopped?' said Graham to Daniel. ‘Is there anything left?'

‘Is there?' said Eleanor to herself, in a tone only partly designed for the ears of others.

Daniel led her to a seat; Ridley looked at him with a change in his face; Regan turned her eyes from the hearth, and rested them for a moment upon Ridley.

Gavin detached himself from the group and went towards the door.

‘Where are you going, my boy?' said Eleanor.

‘Upstairs.'

‘But you will be alone up there.'

Gavin continued his way.

‘Wouldn't you rather stay down here with all of us?'

‘I don't much like seeing people when they are like this.'

‘We cannot help being sad for Father. But we are going to do our best to be brave.'

Gavin waited as if to weigh the evidence of this, and then proceeded.

‘Don't you mind being alone?'

‘I shouldn't be alone, if Honor came with me.'

‘Do you want to go up, Honor?'

‘I don't mind.'

‘It is all too much for them,' said Luce.

‘Of course it is, my dear,' said her mother, with a sharper note. ‘How could it not be?'

‘Always cry now,' said Nevill, sadly. ‘It is because Father goes away.'

‘Mother, I think we must release them,' said Luce. ‘It is all beyond their age.'

‘If release is the word, let them go, my dear, of course. But Nevill is the only one who is too young to understand.'

‘That does not make it better for them, Mother.'

‘It is him that is young,' said Nevill.

‘We are so glad you are what you are,' said Eleanor, smiling at him.

‘So better now,' said Nevill, in a tone that lost its cheerfulness as he looked at Regan. ‘But not poor Grandma.'

‘Can't you go to her and do something to make her better?' said Luce.

Nevill went up to Regan and paused at her knee, while he considered his course. His earnest eyes fixed on her face made her
smile and finally give a little laugh, and he ran back to Luce to report on his success.

‘Grandma laugh now. All laugh now,' he said, looking round to witness the change.

Sir Jesse beckoned to him and lifted him to his knee.

‘What should we do without our little lad?'

‘Grandpa loves him too,' said Nevill, in some surprise.

‘Hatton, I think you can take them,' said Eleanor. ‘I am not being much help to them.'

Nevill ran towards the door with a feeling of achievement; Gavin walked out of the room and towards the stairs; Honor looked round as if she hardly realized what was happening, and got off her chair in a dazed manner and followed.

‘Come and kiss your mother, Gavin,' said Eleanor, as if this observance might be omitted with the others.

Gavin returned, took a passive part in the embrace, and retraced his steps.

‘You will like to think of Father when you are upstairs.'