Читать книгу Kitty - Warwick Deeping - Страница 35

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Insistence! A closed door!

Mrs St. George put on one glove, and rising from Mrs Sarah’s sofa, went and stood at one of the windows. Yes, she supposed that she had better see the girl, and get it over. For a thoroughly intolerant woman the situation was sufficiently exasperating. Nor had Vernor Street behaved as she had expected it to behave, or allowed itself to be overrun by the wheels of her chariot. Mrs St. George might be a very angry woman, but she was somewhat a woman of the world, and a part of her had to admit that this stout and coarse-fibred person had behaved better—than—O—well,—better than she had wished her to behave.

Meanwhile, dignity,—dignity! Though she did allow herself some curiosity as to the face and the figure and the manner of her daughter-in-law. She did not think of Alex’s wife as a daughter-in-law, but as an interloper, an adventuress, a little mess of sexual interference.

Yes, she had sneered. But was she not justified in feeling bitter? She stood at the window looking towards the plane-trees and the church, but all that she saw was a plan in ruins, the carefully cherished authority of the mother challenged by a young woman who served in a shop. She looked out past Vernor Street—and beyond Cardigan Square. She was thinking of Melfont St. George’s let to an American for fourteen years, of her ruthless economies, of her wiping out of the debts of her son’s father. The lease of Melfont had another two years to run, and she had seen herself returning there with Alex. Her anger felt a sob in its throat. She saw the green valley, the fish-ponds, the park full of old trees, the house with its white portico, the high woods behind it and sheltering it from the north. She saw it as a stately place with shining water. Its dignity was dear to her, the dignity of its old walled gardens and yew hedges, its peacocks, its lawns, its ancient trees. She seemed to hear the cupola clock striking the hour, the wings of the white pigeons beating the air, and the discordant cries of the peacocks. And she realized that she was standing above a tobacco shop, and that her son had married a girl who belonged to the shop.

How impossible!

But what was she going to do about it? Shrug her shoulders and accept the situation? Allow the nice schemings of twenty years to be reduced to ridicule? Could she see herself living at Melfont with a little common creature as her son’s wife? Surrender? Compromise? But why should she? These people had captured her son, but Alex was still her son. Had she not to think of his future? If—he survived—?

She stood twisting her glove. In her cold, fierce way she suffered, but not with resignation. No, she would fight. She had every right to fight, ruthlessly, and with every weapon, for her son’s sake, for the sake of his future, his future as she had planned it. This abominable war, with its shocks and interferences!

Yes, she would see the girl. That woman had been right in insisting upon it. No doubt the girl was impossible, and there was a part of Mrs St. George that was eager to magnify the impossible. She was shaping her attitude. She would refuse to compromise, and the more impossible her son’s wife should be, the more right would her attitude of no compromise appear.

Money! She controlled the purse. These people were commercialists, though Mrs Sarah might protest that they were not. They had thought her son good value, but if one altered the ticket from fifty guineas to twopence half-penny would not that broad-nosed woman with the bosom and the smile appreciate the difference? Also—her daughter? Value indeed!

As for Alex, he was only a boy. He had fallen to a moment’s infatuation, a war excitement, a sex spasm that would be bitterly regretted. A year hence—if he lived—he would be seeing his shopgirl as a shopgirl, a cheap thing, and boring because of its essential cheapness. He would be saying to her—“Mother, I was mad.”

Yes, she would not assist his madness. She would make a stand for his sanity, for the inevitable reaction. Had not the war taught one the virtues of ruthlessness?

But what a long time that girl was in appearing! Mrs St. George glanced at the black marble clock on the mantelpiece and realized that she had been left alone in the room for more than a quarter of an hour. Well, the debt was accumulating. She felt that she had herself under control. She sat down on the sofa, feeling more and more determined to leave these Greenwood people no illusions.

She supposed that her son’s wife was dressing herself up for the interview, inside and out. As if it mattered!