Читать книгу The Way Home - Basil King - Страница 4

Table of Contents

For a few weeks there was no sequel to the foregoing incident, except for certain states of mind excited in Charlie Grace.

He discovered, in the first place, that by taking the initiative and keeping his counsel it was possible to get his own way, even in the teeth of authority. His satisfaction with this result was all the greater since it ranked him with that strong class represented by Freddy Furnival. It took him out of the army of the relatively powerless, into which, he felt, his father and mother had been somehow thrust. He dwelt much on this fact concerning them. He did it a little wistfully, with some sense of being disillusioned. He had taken them hitherto to be immense, majestic creatures, to whom nothing was impossible. He began to see them now as oddly hampered in ways in which he had thought them free. There were things they couldn't command, things they couldn't "afford." The knowledge gave him a twinge of humiliation that amounted to a new sensation. He didn't like it.

Social phenomena he had taken for granted began to assume significance.

"Mamma," he said one evening, when his mother was putting him to bed, "whenever Fanny Hornblower comes to play with me she comes in a carriage with two black horses."

"Yes, dear?"

"Well, why don't I have a carriage and two black horses when I go to play with her? I go on the horse-car, with coloured people in it."

He knew perfectly well by this time what the answer would be. He had asked the question partly for corroboration, partly in the hope of further enlightenment.

"Fanny Hornblower has a carriage, dear, because her papa is rich."

This was the reply he had expected. It would do well enough as a starting-point. "Well, why isn't my papa rich?"

"Because, darling, when anyone becomes a clergyman he makes up his mind to be poor."

"But why doesn't he make up his mind to be rich?"

Here, however, his mother failed him. "You wouldn't understand that now, dear. I must tell you some other time, when you're older."

He sighed the sigh of resignation. He had ceased to combat the obsession of grown-up people that little boys couldn't understand what was properly explained to them. The subject even passed from his mind for several days.

He was a queer lad, with spells of being active and mischievous, and other spells in which he fell into a state of dreamy meditation. His features changed readily with the feeling of the moment. On restless days his look was eager, aggressive, pugnacious. His small deep-set eyes, over which the eyebrows were irregular, would dance then, and become of a steely blue, while his shock of wavy yellow hair, too fair to be red, would be either bristling or tousled. What characterized him even more was the lifting of his chin—the long, rather pointed chin inherited from his mother. In her case the oval of the face would have been perfect had it not been marred by this slight elongation at the tip. The boy had the same oval, with the same irregularity; but he had a habit of thrusting the errant feature forward, of tilting it upwards, in a manner that meant obstinacy or will-power, according to one's point of view. When he was naughty there was no question but that the lifted chin was stubborn; when he was simply trying to do his best it was taken to denote concentration of mind.

Concentration of mind was noticeable chiefly on the days when he was "good." It was real concentration, too. He would sit for long periods—five minutes, ten minutes, a quarter of an hour, perhaps—with no movement to express his feelings but the swinging of his scarlet legs. His mother complained that he wore out his boots on the inner sides by scuffing them together in these fits of meditation. It was curious to see then how the tilting of his chin changed in expression. It became contemplative, yearning, like the chins of the cherubs in the Madonna di San Sisto. His eyes, too, would darken to violet, and his mouth, which always drooped at the corners, would droop more.

"What is my little boy thinking of?" his mother sometimes said, when she found him brooding in this way. But his answer, if he answered at all, rarely gave her the information she desired. He grew shy of asking questions bearing too directly on the problems of life. Nevertheless he responded on one occasion with:

"Mamma, are we like Hattie Bright?"

He was kneeling on his bed, in his night shirt. He was ready for his prayers, though he had not yet begun them. His mother's back was turned as she folded the clothes he had just taken off. She reflected a minute, trying to catch his drift. She was obliged in the end to say:

"I don't know what you mean, dear."

"Why did papa say Hattie Bright's mamma was so—" he stumbled at the word, blushing a little—"so sensifit?"

"Sensitive, darling. Papa did say she was sensitive, because she is."

"What is sen-si-tive, mamma?" He said the word slowly, but correctly.

"It's thinking that people mean to hurt your feelings, when perhaps they don't."

"Does Hattie Bright's mamma think people mean to hurt her feelings?"

"Sometimes, dear."

"Is that because she's poor?"

"It's because she has to work—to keep a boarding-house—and she's afraid some of the other ladies in the church don't think she's just as goo—just the same—as they are."

"And is she just the same as they are, mamma?"

"In God's sight she is, dear. You'd better say your prayers now, darling, and go to sleep."

He knelt erect on the bed, folding his hands, which she covered with one of her own. After he had closed his eyes devoutly he opened them again.

"Mamma, could I say, 'bless Hattie Bright's mamma,' after I've said Bridget and Julia and Remnant?"

"Certainly, darling. You can always pray for anyone."

The prayers proceeded, while the mother pondered over the initial question. More than once of late she had been puzzled in trying to follow the workings of the child's mind. She thought it well to ask, when he had said his Amen, and was curling down into bed:

"What did you mean just now, dear, when you asked if we were like Hattie Bright?"

But shyness had overtaken him again. "Nothing, mamma."

She moved about the room, putting it in order for the night. "Don't you like to play with her?" she persisted.

"I do. Freddy don't. Freddy's mamma won't let him. She says Hattie Bright isn't good enough. Freddy told me. That's what you were going to say just now, mamma, isn't it?—when you changed it to something else."

His perspicacity alarmed her. She wished she could have consulted his father. For the moment she felt it her duty to answer him to the best of her skill.

"That's an expression, dear, which we shouldn't use. That's why I changed it. When you hear people using it—like Freddy, for instance—you may know they don't quite understand—"

"Are people not good when they're poor, mamma? Are they bad?"

"No, darling. Christ was poor—"

"But He could have been rich if He'd liked. It says in my Bible Stories He could."

"And He didn't care to be. That's just it. It shows how little it matters whether people are rich or poor."

"It matters if they're not good enough. If Hattie Bright's mamma wasn't poor she'd be good enough to play with Freddy. Is she good enough to play with me, mamma?"

"She does play with you, doesn't she? And you know she's good."

"She's good when she doesn't spit and say naughty words. She said an awful naughty word the last time. Do you want to know what naughty word she said, mamma?"

"No, dear. It isn't nice to repeat things—"

"It was divil," he insisted. "Wasn't that a awful word, mamma?"

There followed a little homily on the sin of tale-bearing—a subject which the boy found less exciting than the rights of man, for in the midst of it he fell asleep.

The next few days saw him criticizing his mother's words as inconclusive. There was a flaw in her reasoning somewhere, though he couldn't lay his finger on the spot. She was unwilling to be definite as to the status of Hattie Bright, while she dodged the whole question of his own position between Hattie Bright and Freddy Furnival. It was a nice point that—as to whether, if Hattie Bright wasn't good enough to play with Freddy Furnival, she was good enough to play with him. A number of delicate considerations were involved in it. It would have borne discussion—but she had dodged it. He had seen her dodge it as plainly as if she had dodged in a game of "chase." He pardoned it to her, however, as one of the unaccountable weaknesses of grown-up people—part of their curious inability to be frank.

He pardoned it to her the more readily because of his intuitive perception that she was not much clearer on the subject than himself. He had noticed more than once how difficult she found it to answer questions which seemed to him to require but a Yes or a No. Little by little he began to get his mother into perspective. Little by little she ceased to be the supreme, impersonal maternal force, part of the mystery of being, part of the night of time, to take on the form, proportions and character of a woman. She began to detach herself from the chaos of primal things to become a woman among women, a woman different from other women. When he compared her with Miss Smedley, or Mrs Furnival, or Mrs Hornblower, he found her of a finer essence, with a sweeter voice, a lovelier smile, and tenderer ways. He wondered sometimes if all children felt so of all mammas. Fortunately this was a mystery that could be solved by research into the sentiments of Freddy Furnival; and the method was simple.

"I've got a nicer mother than you," he said to Freddy one day when amusements palled in the latter's nursery.

"I guess you haven't," was Freddy's sturdy answer. "My mother says your mother is afraid to call her soul her own."

"I guess she ain't."

The assertion was supported by a rush that bore Freddy to the door. There followed some wild minutes, in which two little sailor-suited bodies rolled together, two little voices yelled, two little heads were pulled, two little faces punched, and four little red legs kicked frantically.

"You say I've got a nicer mother than you," Charlie Grace demanded as the condition of peace.

"I won't. I've got a nicer mother than you."

The battle would have been prolonged if Freddy's French governess hadn't rushed into the room, crying: "Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu! Qu'est ce qu'il y a? Oh, le méchant! Oh, le méchant!" as she shook each of them in turn.

The fight thus being a drawn one, the question was left unsolved. Later experiments on Fanny Hornblower and Hattie Bright were no more successful. To his assertion, "I've got a nicer mother than you," Fanny replied by bursting into tears, while Hattie was content to put out her tongue at him, and say, "Who cares?" In the latter instance, however, there was some concession, as though Hattie had resigned herself to what was beyond dispute.

Nevertheless he observed his mother quietly, in order to assure himself that there was no possible truth in the assertion that she dared not call her soul her own. He didn't need to be told what the charge implied. The figure of speech explained itself. A soul was something inside you, like a sprite or a monkey, that would spring up to heaven when you died. He knew it must be a feeble creature indeed who would not lay claim to so ultimate a possession as that.

He didn't find his mother a feeble creature, but he noticed in her manner hesitations, timidities, misgivings he had never chronicled before. She would keep her sweet, shy eyes on his father, like a dog waiting for the word of command. At table she scarcely ate anything herself, so anxious was she that her husband should have what he liked. She came into the rector's study with a frightened air, and never stayed longer than the time necessary to express her errand. Even with Bridget and Julia she was deferential, and when Julia said one day, "That's something, ma'am, I niver cooked in annyone's house before, and at my time o' life I'm not going to begin," his mother replied, "Oh, very well, Julia," and hurried from the kitchen. With the ladies of the parish she was almost painfully eager to please. She took advice from Mrs Furnival, and complaints from Mrs Bright, and snubs from Mrs Hornblower as though any form of recognition were a kindness. When affection was shown her—as, it must be admitted, was often the case—her gratitude was touching, and generally accompanied by mists of tears.

These indications worried Charlie Grace. He passed many dreamy minutes pondering over their significance. He went so far at last as to bring the subject tactfully before Remnant.

Remnant was in the church, "cleaning the bird." The moment was favourable therefore to confidence.

"Some o' them bosses," he observed, as the little boy drew near, "wouldn't think this here brass eagle was shiny enough, not if it gave 'em sunburn to sit under it. It's a regular idol to 'em, that's what it is. If they'd listen to the words your pa reads to them off it, they'd have more consideration for me."

"My mamma isn't afraid of them."

The aggressive tone caused Remnant to cock his eye over the beak of the lectern, while he said drily, "Ain't she though!"

"No, she ain't."

"Then she's not the woman I took her for."

The boy felt his heart sink, though he stood his ground. "What woman did you take her for, Remnant?" he asked subtly.

Remnant muttered his reply under his breath, while he thrust the chamois leather between the eagle's claws. "I took her for better than some o' them as thought she wasn't good enough to marry your pa—that's who I took her for. But it's something you can't understand, sonny. You're too young. There's a lot of hollerness to religion. You've got to be a sexton to know how some of these old ar-is-tocrats 'ull feel when a country lawyer's daughter is brought in all of a sudden, to rule over them, like. I never see nothing like it—the day the news come. And him a widower for seven years!—just up at Horsehair Hill for a vacation. To be bowled over by a pretty face and a slim figure as if he was a boy, when he might ha' had Miss Smedley and all her money. 'Twas against nature, in a way of speaking. I heard it said that Miss Smedley 'ud hardly come out o' one faint before she'd go off into another—and there was others just as bad. I tell you it was nuts for me, sonny—though it's not to be wondered at that your poor ma don't hardly dare to call her soul her own."

So that was it. The conditions were incidental to his father's second marriage. It was knowledge still recent to him that his father had married two wives. The information when it came had cleared up certain difficulties that had vexed him ever since his mind had begun to grapple with the subject of human relationships. He had never understood why it was that when Freddy Furnival had a sister two years younger than himself, and Fanny Hornblower a brother two years older, his brother, Edward, should be a man grown, and his sister, Emma, a married woman. From such fragments of their letters as he could comprehend, he knew them to be in the course of constructing what seemed like new worlds—Edward at Seattle, and Emma, with her husband, Mr Tomlinson, in Minnesota. He had never so much as seen brother Edward, or sister Emma, or brother-in-law Mr Tomlinson, nor did their correspondence betray inordinate affection toward his mother or himself. Upon these curious conditions, so different from the phenomena of such other domestic circles as had come under his observation, the knowledge that his father had had a wife and family previous to those who now occupied the rectory had produced much the same effect as a candle in a big, dark room—yielding light enough to see by, but leaving vast spaces unillumined.

And now Remnant had lit another candle. There was more light—but light that put all the familiar things out of proportion, and cast grotesque, enormous shadows up and down the walls. He had a distinct sense of entering on a world of things too large for him. Of Remnant's words he seized the gist but vaguely. He might have missed even that had it not been for Remnant's repetition of phrases that had already been disturbing. There was, then, some resemblance between Hattie Bright and themselves. His mother had reasons for being timid in her surroundings. "Your poor ma," Remnant had called her, with a compassion Charlie Grace resented. Nevertheless he found himself using the epithet himself: "Your poor ma." It came to him mentally, as the only sufficient expression for his feelings, when, one day at lunch, he saw her pleading with his father to eat the portion of tapioca pudding he had pushed away contemptuously.

"Do taste it, William. I thought it was what you liked. You said so. You said so the day you said you didn't like apple-sago. Well, then, let me get you some cheese. We've some very good cheese in the house. I think it's French. You like French cheese, William, don't you? Oh, William!"

The protest came when, with a curt, "Nothing, thank you," he rose majestically and marched from the dining-room. He was a big man, who carried himself like a pouter-pigeon. The impression he made was imposing at all times, and crushing when he was annoyed.

To the boy the incident was trivial. It was one of those to be dismissed philosophically with the explanation, "Papa's cross." But he could see from his mother's distressed face that it had inner meanings for her, that she took it as another sign of her insufficiency. "Your poor ma."

He could do nothing but slip his hand into hers, saying, "I like you, mamma."

"Do you, darling?" came tremulously, as she stooped to brush her cheek against his yellow head. "Well, mamma loves her little boy."

There was a repetition of the same emotion, when, some days later, Mrs Hornblower came to call. It being Bridget's afternoon out he was sent into the drawing-room to offer the great lady cake and wine, which he carried carefully on a silver tray. As he approached her knee she waved him aside, like a sovereign satisfied with a symbolistic tribute, while he heard her say, in her deep voice:

"You've doubtless had news of that missionary-box?"

His mother shook her head.

"Then, you've written?"

She confessed that she hadn't. "But I'll ask Dr Grace to write, if you think I ought."

"You won't think me carping, but I should write myself. I think I should write myself. And you'll pardon me if I say I should do it at once. You'll find that we ladies in New York take much of the burden from our husbands' shoulders. It leaves them more free to concentrate on their own affairs. You can always tell when a lady has been used to things by her efficiency."

"I'll write at once, Mrs Hornblower. Indeed I will. I'll write to-night."

"Pray, do," he heard Mrs Hornblower say, as, carefully balancing himself, he carried his tray from the room again. "You'll oblige me."

"Your poor ma," came unbidden to his mind; and it came again when, not half an hour later, he was called on to go through the same ceremony of the cake and wine for Mrs Legrand. He did it the more willingly on this occasion, since he liked Mrs Legrand, and thought her the most beautiful creature in the world, his mamma excepted.

"You dear little boy," she laughed graciously, as he stood before her with his tray. "No thank you. Well, yes, I will. It's so quaint to be taking cake and wine in the afternoon, don't you know it is? You can hardly fancy how quaint it seems to me, now that everyone has five-o'clock tea. I think that's such a nice custom, don't you, Mrs Grace? Comes from England, you know. Lots of people are adopting it—the Prouds and the Louds and all the best houses. I wish you'd set it up, too, Mrs Grace. Won't you? Please do. I'm dying to—only I'm afraid it would look so funny for the assistant's wife to establish it before the rector's."

Her light laugh kept Charlie Grace from listening to his mother's reply. Indeed, he could not have listened in any case; for in the contemplation of young Mrs Legrand his faculties were taxed to the utmost. Politeness obliging him to stand at a distance till she had finished toying with her wine-glass, his position for surveying her was advantageous. There was never anything, he was sure, so delicate as her features, so graceful as her hands. Her chignon seemed of spun-sugar, while her tiny hat, tilted down towards her forehead, was like some pale blue flower. Pale blue were the serrated rows of little flounces that covered her dress in front, and pale blue the billowy effects artfully massed behind. She was sitting now, but the boy looked forward to seeing her walk—she would do it with so gracefully-balanced a Grecian bend.

"You can hardly fancy how funny it is to me to be a clergyman's wife," Mrs Legrand laughed on. "I haven't got used to it though I've been married nearly two months. It's quite different from anything I ever expected, don't you know it is? Papa and mamma would never have let me do it if Rufus hadn't been—well, you know what the Legrands are. I think it's foolish all this caring so much about family, don't you?"

Mrs Grace thought it natural that those who came of old families should be proud of the fact.

"Well, that's what papa says. He's got books and books about our pedigree—patroons and those things, you know—and Rufus is descended from the famous Lady Esther Legrand. You read about her in history—how she came over from the English side and nursed the Revolutionary soldiers. But I do think it's foolish laying so much stress upon it, don't you?—especially when you marry into the Church. Not that I think I have married into the Church. I've married Rufus. I haven't married a clergyman, but a man."

Mrs Legrand had a way of holding her head to one side, with a challenging smile, as though to say, "Now, what do you think of that?" Her words on this occasion had, however, the lack of conviction which comes from saying the same thing too often. In fact, Mrs Grace having heard them before could let Mrs Legrand run on.

"So many people think that because you've married a clergyman you become a kind of curate, don't you know they do? But I don't agree with that at all. Mrs Hornblower doesn't go and help her husband at the bank. I consider a woman's duty is in her home. I consider that a model home is just as much an example to a parish as anything else. I tell Rufus I can't teach a Sunday School or go and read to old women, but I can give him a model home. It would be very funny if I couldn't, don't you think it would? after the homes I'm used to. My aunt keeps thirteen servants, and I visit a great deal there. And in a congregation like St David's I should think it must make a difference to have people at the head of it who are—who are—well, you know what I mean."

Fortunately Mrs Hornblower had supplied the right word. "Who are used to things," Mrs Grace was able to fill in.

"That's just it. You understand so well, don't you know you do? So many of the clergy and their wives nowadays—well, they're not used to things. That's all you can say about them. They come from the queerest sort of families—"

"Dr Grace's father was a carpenter."

Mrs Legrand sprang up, with a ruffle of her tiny flounces. "Oh, well, Dr Grace! He's different. He's so wonderful. And you're so wonderful, too, Mrs Grace, don't you know you are? There are some people who don't have to have the things other people are dependent on. They're enough in themselves. I'm very democratic that way. I think there's a great deal too much made of family, especially in New York. And Dr Grace will be a bishop some day, besides. Oh, I hope he'll be a bishop. Do make him. Rufus says he refused the bishopric of Southern Arizona, or Southern something, when it was offered him, but I hope he won't do it again. I'm going to work on old Mr Legrand—Rufus's uncle, you know—he's something high up in the General Convention, or whatever it is—so that they'll elect Dr Grace to the very first nice thing—really nice thing, you know—not like Southern Arizona—that turns up. Oh, don't thank me. It's quite selfish on my part, because, you see, if Dr Grace was made a bishop, why then Rufus—Oh, well, we won't talk about it yet."

Mrs Legrand set her half-emptied wine-glass on the silver tray, and dusted the crumbs of cake from the tips of the fingers of her pale blue kid gloves.

"Oh, you dear little boy," she cried, patting the youngster on the head. "Isn't he cunning?" she continued, turning to the mother. "Perhaps he'll be a clergyman, too, some day."

Mrs Grace smiled. "I hope so."

It was such a fascinating prospect that, in spite of his shyness before the visitor, the boy couldn't help whispering, "Shall I, mamma?"

"I hope so, dear," was the answer again, in a tone which, as long as he lived, remained a memory in his mental hearing.

He carried his tray to the dining-room sideboard, and when he returned the caller was gone. His mother had reseated herself aimlessly. She rested her arm on a cold marble-topped table, while she looked vaguely out through one of the Gothic windows to a spot of sunlight lying warm on the stunted brownstone transept of Amiens Cathedral. After the youth and beauty of the visitor she struck him for the first time in his life as faded and dejected. In her plain grey dress, which complied with the fashion of the day only to the extent of two meagre rows of frills, she looked old, too, though she was just over thirty. She hadn't seen him return, so that he could watch her from the doorway. He felt once more that fear concerning her which had haunted him now for a week or two. It became alarm. It became panic. He wanted assurance, comfort. He felt his heart swelling to an irresistible need of speech.

"Mamma!" he cried, still from the doorway. "Mamma! You're not afraid to call your soul your own, are you?"

She turned upon him fiercely. She was haggard. Her open hand struck the table. She had never looked at him so before. "Who said that?"

He burst into loud tears. He was too terrified to confess. "No one," he blurted out, digging his fists into his eyes. "No one didn't say it at all."

The sudden storm passed from her face. Look and voice grew gentler. "That isn't true, dear. Someone must have said it. Come here and tell me."

Still weeping, for what he scarcely knew, he dragged himself to her knee. The storm was all over by this time, as she said with her usual tenderness: "Where's your handkerchief, darling? Blow your nose. No; mamma isn't afraid to—to call her soul her own. She's only afraid of not being equal to—"

He dried his tears. His sobs were subsiding. "It's the bosses, isn't it, mamma?"

She looked puzzled. "The bosses? I don't know what you mean, darling."

But he could only wipe his face on her skirt, too shy to explain.