Part 8

She could afford by that time to make a show of consulting them, to appear to ask their advice, safe in the conviction that her choice would ultimately be theirs also.

Geoffrey had certainly come through a period of alienation from her, which had shown itself in subterranean rebelliousness, and surface rudeness, but he had not been proof against her two weapons: the deadly use of personal sorrow, and a skilful trick of light ridicule.

She had seldom been angry with any of the children; it had been enough to induce into her face an expression of pain, into her voice a deep note of suffering, as she said, "Lavinia, dear," or "Hugh, dear" as the case might be, "I'm sure you don't realise how you've wounded me, but we won't talk of it any more; have it your own way."

Hugh and Lavinia desperately conscious of having estranged a mother so beneficent that she would withhold her power and suffer silently, almost invariably gave in immediately for the pure pleasure of sunning themselves once again in her favour. With Geoffrey during what she called "his difficult years," it was otherwise. Sentiment did not move him, but he could not stand up to her gentle, unerring sarcasm, her faculty of being always in the right, and smiling at him as he found himself put in the wrong over some point on which he was convinced he had justice on his side.

There was one occasion on which Geoffrey appealed to his father, but Rodney's reply was final: "Your mother's wishes must be considered, Geoffrey; I could not go against them and I can't imagine that you would care to."

That ended the matter. Geoffrey recognised that his mother had absolute authority over the household, and as he matured he gradually grew to recognise too that after all, even if she were inexorable and unassailable, still, life went smoothly, and so long as her sway was unquestioned the family atmosphere was an entirely happy one.

He came near to understanding her attitude the year he left school and was about to go up to the University. It had always been an understood thing that on leaving Oxford, Geoffrey should join his father in the engineering works founded originally by his great-grandfather, and carried on by his great-uncle Hugh. A few months before his first term began Hugh Greene died suddenly and Rodney Greene asked his son to enter the firm at once.

This was a great delight to Edith.

"My dear boy," she said, "I can't tell you how happy I am that you'll be at home with me now for a few years. I know it's a disappointment to you, but it is a pleasure to your mother."

"Didn't you want me to go up to Oxford, then?" Geoffrey asked.

"Of course I did in one way, but now I feel I'll have three extra years of you, and then later on when you marry, as I expect you will, I shall still have Lavinia and Hugh, but now while they are both away at school I'd have been very lonely."

"I never really thought of that."

"Of course you didn't," Edith patted his hand. "One's children never do, you know, and mothers learn to be put on one side without any fuss."

"You know, Mother, sometimes you talk as if we were frightfully important to you. Are we really?"

Edith looked astounded.

"My dearest Geoffrey," she said at last, "Your father and you three are all I care about in life; all I work for and plan for. Since I married, my one thought has been to be a good wife and mother and I think I can say I've succeeded."

She paused, but Geoffrey did not pay her the expected compliment. He was frowning over his thoughts.

"It doesn't seem quite sound to me; tell me, Mother, haven't you ever had anything of your own in your life?"

"But, darling, what could be more my own than my dear husband and children?"

"I don't mean quite like that. Father is different, of course, but take the three of us. After all, we've our own lives to lead. There are all sorts of things ahead of us, belonging only to us. I really meant, haven't you any interests of your own, intellectual or social or something quite apart from us?"

Edith shook her head.

"No," she said gravely, "I've never been either a bluestocking or a frivolous woman. I can truthfully say that all my interests are wrapped up in you four."

"It sounds dangerous to me," was Geoffrey's abrupt comment.

"Dangerous, Geoffrey? My dear boy, you're all at sea. When you talk of having things in the future belonging only to you, it just shows me how little you understand. Listen, dear. You're all three part of me; I've thought about you and loved you since you were tiny, helpless babies. I've watched your characters unfold and guided you this way and that, and whatever you do in the future will always belong, in part, to me. So long as I live you'll be my little son, and I'll be sharing your life."

"I see," said Geoffrey, "It's difficult to understand how you can feel like that about us, but anyhow I do see that you feel it."

"Wait a few years," Edith smiled. "When you're a father you'll understand me better, though of course," she added, "a mother's claim is always the greatest."

This conversation made a deep impression on Geoffrey. He was surprised to find how repugnant to him was the idea that his life was inseparably bound up with his mother's, entangled in her cloying web of affection, hopes and expectations. But he realised that he could never make his feelings clear to her; no words, however brutal, could establish him as a separate and independent entity; she would only suffer a little at the thought that Geoffrey was going through another of his "difficult times."

Determined to spare himself and her that awkwardness, Geoffrey no longer rebelled against her gentle interference, but accepted it pleasantly and then quietly pursued his own ideas.

Lavinia, vivid, sensitive, and almost always amenable, was the only one who after reaching years of discretion flamed into open defiance, and tried to express some of the dumb imprisoned resentment, that all three felt. Providence, however, stepped in once more, and won for Edith so pretty a victory, that in retrospect the battle-field seemed like a daisied meadow.

Lavinia was nineteen, and had been at home for a year. The whole affair blew up out of a chance invitation to a dance, which Edith was anxious for Lavinia to accept.

"I really don't want to go, Mother," she said. "I don't know them at all, or any of their friends, and I'll have a rotten time. They haven't even asked me to take a partner."

"Well, they did ask Geoffrey; it really is very unfortunate that he has to be away that night. But Lavinia dear, you really needn't worry; I know Lady Olivia quite well, even though you don't know the family, and I'm perfectly sure she will see that you have lots of partners. Besides it's a nice house for you to go to."

"You don't understand in the least, Mother," Lavinia expostulated, "One doesn't go to dances like that nowadays, to be handed over like a brown paper parcel, to a different man for every dance. If you do go to a party out of your own set, you must at least take a partner."

"You know, dear, you're being a little unreasonable. I like Lady Olivia and I think this habit of always dancing with the same few men is being overdone: I don't approve of it at all. Now say no more like a good child, I know you'll enjoy yourself."

"I really can't go," repeated Lavinia obstinately.

"Very well, dear," said Edith, turning away.

The subject was not reopened till the evening of the dance when Lavinia going up to dress for dinner found her white chiffon frock and her white brocade cloak laid out on her bed. She rang for the maid whose services she shared with her mother.

"What are these things for, Stacy?" she asked.

"Mrs. Greene told me you would want your white dress to-night for the dance, Miss Lavinia."

"What dance, did Mrs. Greene say?"

"I think she said it was Lady Olivia Yorke's, Miss, but I'm not sure."

"Oh I see, thank you, that's all right, then."

Lavinia's cheeks were scarlet, but her eyes were stony. She stood for a moment clutching the frock in her hot hand, then laid it carefully back on the bed and went downstairs.

On the way she met Rayner, the butler who had been with them for the last ten years, coming up.

"Would you tell me what time you will need the car, Miss Lavinia? Mrs. Greene said you were going out this evening."

"I'm not quite sure, Rayner," Lavinia spoke steadily, "I'll tell you at dinner. Has Mother gone up to dress, yet?"

"No Miss, not yet."

"Thank you, Rayner," Lavinia went into the library where Edith was sitting at her desk, and quietly closed the door.

"Mother," she said seriously, "did you refuse that invitation for me for Lady Olivia's dance?"

"No dear, I accepted it."

There was a moment's silence then Lavinia burst out, "But how could you, Mother? I said I wouldn't go. I told you why; that it would be hateful and I wouldn't know anyone, and you said you'd refuse it."

"Lavinia dear, I said no such thing." Edith's voice was calm. "I told you I wanted you to go to it, and you said you were unwilling, but I explained my reasons, and that surely ended the matter."

She took up her pen again, but Lavinia interrupted.

"It didn't end the matter," she said. "Surely I have some say in my own life. It's perfectly ridiculous, Mother; this isn't the nineteenth century, and there isn't another girl I know who can't refuse an invitation if she wants to. It's mad, and antediluvian to behave as if I were two."

"You don't know what you're saying," Edith answered sternly. "You're speaking rudely and thoughtlessly. I expect you to fall in with my wishes, and I'm very disappointed at this attitude you've taken up. Perhaps I've been too indulgent with you and given way too much."

Lavinia laughed wildly. "Given way," she repeated, "Oh, no, Mother, you never give way. The boys and Father and I all knuckle under in everything; I've never seen it so clearly before, but it's true what I say, that we aren't allowed to call our souls our own."

"You've said quite enough, Lavinia; I think you'd better ring up Lady Olivia and say you aren't very well and had better be at home to-night."

"No, I'll go. I never wanted to go, but I will. And I'll never be able to forgive you for having cheated me. You made me think you had refused, and all the time you had planned for me to go."

Dinner was a miserable meal. When Lavinia had gone to the dance, Rodney came over and sat on the sofa beside Edith who looked tired and worn.

"What's wrong, Edith?" he asked. "What's worrying you?"

"I'm desperately worried, Rodney. It's Lavinia. I do everything I can to amuse the child, I arrange parties for her, and welcome her friends here, and now to-night she doesn't feel quite happy about a dance she is going to, and she accused me of interfering and deceiving her, and I don't know what else."

"She's spoiled I expect," suggested Rodney comfortably. "She's pretty and she's having a good time and people running after her and her head is a bit turned, don't you think? It's natural to kick over the traces now and again."

"No, Rodney, it isn't natural for any child to speak to her mother as Lavinia spoke to me to-night. I was only acting for the best when I accepted this invitation for her; I like her to get all the fun she can, but it clashed with some idea she has in her head, and she simply turned on me."

"She'll be sorry when she cools down. She's devoted to you, you know, Edith."

"I can't believe it now. I don't feel things will ever be the same again. I really am utterly wretched; in fact I think I'll go up to bed now if you don't mind."

Some hours later Edith was wakened by a gentle touch.

A finger of moonlight lying across the floor, showed Lavinia in white frock and cloak, standing by the bed.

"Mother," she said urgently, "I'm so sorry for what I said; I'm glad now that I went, terribly glad."

Edith's sensibilities were fully roused by the deep, excited note in Lavinia's voice.

"Your father's asleep," she whispered. "I'll slip out and come up to your room for a minute or two."

Lavinia stole quietly away, and Edith followed her up to her own bedroom where she found her sitting on the bed in the dark.

"Don't put the light on, Mother," she said. "I'd rather talk in the dark, and there's a lovely moon. You sit down in my chair and I'll curl up on the bed."

"Lavinia dear," said Edith, "I've had a most miserable evening. You hurt me very cruelly; I almost began to feel I had failed with you."

"I know, Mother; I'm so sorry." Lavinia's voice was dreamy. "I didn't really mean it, and it all seems years ago anyhow. It was wonderful to-night at the dance. There was a man there--" She stopped, "his name was Martin Peile," she added in a whisper.

"My dearest," began Edith, but Lavinia's soft voice hurried on.

"Lady Olivia introduced him to me at the very beginning; there were programmes, and he asked for the third dance, and then after that we didn't dance with anyone else; we sat out together in the little garden. It wasn't very cold, and then at the end we danced again together. I've fallen in love with him, and he has, too, with me." She leaned forward and caught her mother's hand. "Isn't it lucky he did," she said fervently. "I couldn't have borne to live another week if he hadn't."

"Lavinia, what are you telling me? My brain's reeling. Do you mean what you say?"

"Oh I know it's fearfully sudden. I didn't mean to fall in love for years and years. I know I'm only nineteen and it must be a shock to you and all that, but Mother, it really has happened; I'm engaged to him."

"You can't be engaged," said Edith, utterly bewildered. "Who is he? We don't know him or anything about him. You're quite wild and unlike yourself Lavinia, my child."

"I know I am; I've never been in love before, you see."

"But really darling, you're going much too fast. Things can't be done all in a hurry like this."

Lavinia did not seem to hear.

"It's too amazing," she said. "Mother, I'll never be able to thank you enough for sending me to the dance. I might easily never have met him. It's terrible to think I might have gone on for years and never known Martin. He says so too. He says we'll never be able to be grateful enough to you. I told him how dreadful I'd been, and he is longing to meet you. In fact he's coming to-morrow morning. But really Mother, I do thank you."

Shattered as she was by the thought of the stranger who had so suddenly entered Lavinia's life and so entirely absorbed it, Edith nevertheless tasted to the full the sweetness of her child's gratitude.

"My darling," she said tenderly, "we really mustn't go too fast, but I want you to know one thing: Everything I've done has always been in the hope of giving you happiness, and if this turns out satisfactorily it will be the most beautiful thing for me to know that it was I who brought it about."

Lavinia's voice rang with assurance.

"It will turn out all right, Mother, there can't be a hitch or a flaw. You'll see to-morrow."

"Yes, I'll see to-morrow," said Edith. "And now, dear child, I must go back to your father. Sleep quietly and well, and don't be excited."

She kissed Lavinia and held her face for a moment between her hands.

"I'm a very happy mother," she said, "and a very proud one, too, to think I've been able to give you what may very well prove to be the best thing in your life. Good-night, and God bless you."

MRS. EDWIN GREENE

MRS. EDWIN GREENE

I

There hung about Dora Greene an atmosphere of moribundity and stagnation that inevitably led her relations and acquaintances to classify her as a bore.

Her conversation was monotonous, self-centred, and wound its interminable way in and out among the intricacies of her numerous afflictions. The neglect from which she was convinced she suffered, the slights she so patiently endured, and the difficulty of making ends meet on a reduced income formed the dim tapestry of her life.

The genuinely tragic accident which had robbed her of her son, lost most of its poignancy by being endlessly referred to in this ignoble context, and the one consistently vivid emotion in her life was her passionate unsleeping jealousy of her sister-in-law, Mrs. Rodney Greene. Apart from this and from the frequent scenes which it occasioned--scenes of hysterical reproaches met reasonably though unsympathetically--Dora Greene fumbled her way through each day, accumulating new grievances and brooding over old ones.

Nevertheless, three times in her life she had lived purposely and intensely: for half an hour before her first and only proposal; during the few months that her husband was at the front; and for a moment when her son was dying.

II

Dora Pilkington at twenty-four had been that pitiful thing, the victim of an ill-natured mother. Mrs. Pilkington was obsessed by social ambitions which had been persistently thwarted; some at their tenderest stage of growth; some more cruelly, when they held out promise of fulfilment.

There had been a bazaar; the celebrity who was to open it failed to arrive. The committee approached Mrs. Pilkington, the vicar's wife, and had in fact asked her to perform the ceremony, when another member hurrying up had announced the appearance of a certain lady, wife of a commercial knight well established in the county. With murmurs of "Thank you so much," and "Then we needn't trouble you now," the anxious ladies had fluttered away, intent on higher prey, and the vicar's wife was left with her words of acceptance bitter on her lips.

Of the multitude of obstacles which nullified her social projects, the most permanent and unsurmountable were her own over-zealous opportunism, her daughter's inertia, and her husband's earnest single-mindedness. The Reverend Edward Pilkington was a man of limited outlook but sincere purpose. The country parish in which he worked, not cognisant of his limitations, appreciated his sincerity, enjoyed his ministrations, and made endless demands on his time and sympathy.

For the most part, enjoying his work as he did and capable of estimating its usefulness, Edward Pilkington was a happy man. His home certainly lacked serenity, but he asked little of life, and if he was sometimes shamed by his wife's scornful refusal of invitations, and even more shamed by her gushing acceptances, still she was an admirable housewife, and there was always some sick parishioner to provide a ready means of escape from her tongue. When she saw him adjusting his old scarf, and searching helplessly for a pair of gloves, Mrs. Pilkington would raise her eyebrows and enquire acidly: "What! Am I to be left again this evening?" To which Mr. Pilkington contented himself by replying vaguely and apologetically:

"I'm afraid so my dear. You know a clergyman's time is not his own."

Dora had no means of escape. She returned at eighteen from the rather cheap boarding school where she had spent the last four years, with a vague idea of helping her mother, being useful to her father, and ultimately marrying some delightful and desirable young man. In point of fact neither parent required her assistance, and her mother who had hoped with an almost savage intensity for a daughter pretty and clever enough to make a place for herself in the county, was disappointed by Dora's uncertain looks and complete lack of initiative. Gradually Mrs. Pilkington became so embittered by her daughter's inadequacy that a stumbling reply, any manifestation of the gaucherie natural to unsophisticated eighteen was enough to provoke an outburst of taunts and ridicule.

The reason for this was incomprehensible to Dora. She knew only that she was a failure, and having tried the effect of an incipient rebellion against her mother in the form of a muddled and consequently fruitless appeal to her father, she sank little by little into a state of apathy.

It was in the spring of 1900 when Dora was twenty-four, that Mrs. Pilkington's hitherto diffused and generalised unkindness crystallised into a passionate desire to marry her daughter with whatever difficulty, to any man, however unsuitable. It was intolerable to her to be the only woman for miles around with a marriageable and unmarried daughter. Dora by this time was conscious of but one wish; to escape as much as possible from her mother's criticism. With this object it was her custom to absent herself for the greater part of the day on long rambling walks. On her return she was always sharply questioned as to where she had been and whom she had seen, and the replies, nearly always unsatisfactory, were greeted with derision and annoyance.

"You've just been wandering about, have you? You didn't see anyone but old Mr. Crowther and you didn't speak to him. I wonder what good that will do. You know, Dora, it's all very well to idle about, but a girl with no looks and no money can't afford to pick and choose. You're not getting any younger, are you?"

There was no answer to this type of question. Dora would mumble something about there being no one to marry anyhow, and her mother would take her up. "Well, there's young Mr. Lawson at the Bank. I don't say he's anything very much, but what do you expect?"

"You know he's utterly impossible, Mother," replied Dora, her face scarlet with indignation and embarrassment.

"Well, Dora, I don't really see why you should look for anything better, and you may as well know that I'm tired to death of having you always hanging round the house."

"Father doesn't feel like that anyhow," retorted Dora, with some courage which was quelled by her mother's reply.

"Your father agrees with me that is a great pity you are never likely to attract any young man whom we could welcome as a son-in-law."

There were many such conversations, always ending in a decisive victory for the mother, and in the daughter's abandonment to resentful tears.

In May when Mrs. Pilkington heard that The Hall, the only large house in their parish, had been taken by a Mr. and Mrs. Greene with two grown-up sons, she felt that at last her efforts must be crowned with success. The further discovery that both sons were unmarried lashed her to an unprecedented exhibition of vulgarity.

"That doubles your chances, Dora," she said triumphantly.

Later, when the news filtered through that the elder son was engaged to a Miss Beckett and would be married in the autumn, she was wrought to a pitch of nervous exacerbation that found vent in threats.