Men and Wives (33 page)

“It does seem too unchecked of life,” said Rachel, “but it is quite the opposite of you to wish your mother had seen the poems. Do you really want Mellicent to tell you her impression? Wouldn't it be better for her to tell you yours?”

“Very much better. But I hope she will do both.”

“It is a thing we have tried to break her of,” said Rachel. “But if you must encourage her!”

“Yes, I encourage her to the last point. Thank you so much,” said Jermyn, walking away, as his father came rapidly towards Rachel, unmistakably struck by a thought.

“Rachel, is there anything between Jermyn and Mellicent?” he said in a sibilant whisper.

“Nothing between them. Something in Jermyn,” said Rachel. “Percy and I shall never prove to people that Mellicent wants to be a spinster. It has a too impossible sound. We shall have to face the dishonour of having a daughter unsought. Mellicent has inherited nothing from Percy's early self.”

“We Must All find this a trying and exacting occasion,” said Agatha in a voice of fellow-feeling, as she welcomed her gathering flock. “To think that Lady Haslam founded our society, and was the life of it for so long—because I am the first to say she was the life of it at the beginning—and then that it twice has had to hold its way without her, as if her spirit were no longer its vital force! It almost seems that she has died two deaths, and each one a darker death than we shall be called upon to die.”

“It is useful to know about our deaths,” said Rachel. “We have to be so brave, to live with death in front of us, that you are right to give us any comfort you are certain of.”

“Of course I cannot be certain,” said Agatha simply. “I can only say what is, humanly speaking, true.”

“I should have thought it was more than humanly speaking,” said Rachel.

“It won't come just yet for any of us,” said Geraldine, with a note of irritation.

“Won't it? You are an unusual family,” said Rachel. “Now I can make definite plans.”

“Have we any real proof about Lady Haslam's death?” said Geraldine. “We are told that the boy had a delusion, but I don't see how we can feel an absolute certainty.”

“We must not ask to have it absolute; we must do without that,” said Agatha.

“We do need courage,” said Rachel. “Death in front of us and curiosity with us!”

“I am not conscious of curiosity,” said Agatha.

“No, of course you are not,” said Rachel. “Neither can your sister be in her heart.”

“I am personally convinced that the certainty is absolute,” said Mrs. Christy, “simply because it is not in me to think that Lady Haslam passed on at the hand of the son, who was gifted in the nature of things with the family quality. The idea carried its own contradiction. And I wish to say that Camilla's giving up Matthew had nothing to do with his delusion, that she sees it a proof of his devotion and an honour to him. And I should take it as a kindness if no one would hint things against Lady Haslam's family in my hearing. I was so very sensible of the honour of her friendship.”

“We cannot be held responsible for things that happened outside our own control,” said Agatha kindly. “We all saw qualities to admire in Lady Haslam, and we may several of us say we had the honour of her friendship, or the advantage of it. I certainly can say it, and do say it with all my heart.”

“We all have our favourites,” said Kate, “and I suspect Mrs. Christy was one of Lady Haslam's. I was not one myself. Lady Haslam made the mistake of never singling me out at all.”

“Well, I think she did single me out,” said Agatha. “I can remember many instances, more really than I care to count, as such preference must involve corresponding omission for other people.”

“I never notice whether people single me out or not,” Geraldine interposed. “Any effort on my behalf is wasted.”

“But I do not feel that a reason for anything but frankness in dealing with her memory,” Agatha continued. “I should ask nothing but that for myself, and I make it a rule to give other people what I should ask for myself.”

“Of course people with good characters ask very little for themselves,” said Rachel.

“It is best for us all not to make exacting demands, either in life or the dealings we claim after it,” said Agatha.

“I have not given Percy directions about those, though I shall so soon be dependent upon them. Though not just
yet, you say. But he knows we must not speak evil of the dead. It must have been people like Percy who established it. Besides it has less effect than speaking evil of the living.”

“I wonder what the poor boy's feelings are now, whatever the truth is,” said Agatha. “My foremost feeling towards him is compassion.”

“Our feelings must depend on the truth of course,” said Kate.

“There must have been a strange relationship between him and his mother,” said Agatha, “a relationship that no simply natural mother, certainly not myself, could understand. The mere fact of his believing in his own guilt points to it, to my mind. I cannot see that things can have been normal between them.”

“Normality may not always be such a good thing,” said Kate.

“Common is the commonplace,” said Mrs. Christy with a gesture. “I vouch for it that there was nothing average or on the dead level between any of the family.”

“I think the really pathetic figure is Sir Godfrey,” said Agatha. “Whatever he feels the reality to be, he has tragedy added to the last desolation.”

“It seems the part of friendship to do something to help,” said Mrs. Christy. “It means so much to me to know that my friends are a little better because of me.”

“You should have me for a friend,” said Rachel. “I can't tell you how much better I am because of you.”

“Well, I have my department of help,” said Agatha, “handed over to me, clean-cut and settled, the youngest boy. My charge will be to see that he does not suffer more than he must from his family's position; to make up to him, as far as is in me, for his tragic loss. I hope I am qualified to do it. For whether I am or not, he will look to me to accomplish it.”

“My singled-out sister!” said Geraldine, looking round.

“Through no choice of mine. The choice is his. I have not had much say in the matter. It is just assumed that I
am at his disposal; and indeed I am, if I can do any good. I think the most ticklish part of the business will be to convince him that I do not think less of him for this ghastly uncertainty, that I take him on his own merits, as a human being by himself. It must be so hard for a young man to put his mother aside, put her aside in spirit as an ideal, and turn elsewhere. I feel so for him in the adjustment. I hope I shall make it as easy as it can be made.”

Agatha perceived that a silence was attending her words, and looked round to see Gregory standing at her side.

“We have been talking about you,” she said, without a break in her tone. “I have been saying that you and I will have even more between us, now you are to be thrown on your own resources. Shall we arrange our next meeting?” She moved to put herself between Gregory and the onlookers.

“No, I don't think so just now. It is not quite the time for it, not until things are clear between us,” said Gregory, in a voice that would be overheard as conversational. “I daresay you were not thinking of what you were saying, but if you were, I have let you make a mistake. You will allow me to put it right, as the mistake is mine. No one can take the place of my mother to me. You would have seen that, if it had not been for me. She will always be one by herself in my memory; not as an ideal; I do not want an ideal; simply as my mother and as what she was in herself and to me.” He moved away as if his words had been casual, and looked in a friendly way at the other faces.

Agatha, after a moment of standing still, walked in a cheerful way to her work, and settled to it with some appearance of compunction. Looking up at Gregory, she saw the direction of his eyes, and presently rose and stepped out into the room.

“Now, you two young people!” she said, beckoning to Polly, and drawing her to Gregory by the hand. “You
can go off and have a time by yourselves. We don't want to force our middle-aged point of view on you young things. I am sure I don't. You have let me see what you want from me too well. That is what I like from young people, a real understanding of what they want, so that I can give it to them. If I make mistakes, I never hold to them; I know what it is my aim to do in the world better than that.”

She pushed them gently away, and turned to welcome Bellamy, with an air of transferring her interest.

“Mrs. Calkin, I have had reason to complain before of your partial ways. As you are the head of the meeting, you should be more gallant. I have been here several minutes, and you have not dreamed of telling me that I could go away with your sister Kate. You go on as usual, simply favouring Gregory.”

Agatha looked from Bellamy to her sister, who had come up to her at his side.

“Are you two going to be married?” said Geraldine in a sudden, piercing tone.

“Yes, but I never have before, and Ernest has only once,” said Kate. “It is not a matter of forming bad habits. And I promise I never will again. It would not be fair for Ernest to promise that at his age.”

“When you are old enough to be his mother!” cried Geraldine. “Women who are older than their husbands are always old enough to be their mothers. Seven years is quite enough for it.”

“The juxtaposition shows up the difference,” said Kate, smiling.

“And everybody helps to show it up,” said Rachel. “But we will neither of us mind them, my dear.”

“Oh, now, you two, I thought there was something going on,” said Agatha, lifting her finger. “It is extraordinary how we can feel that something is happening, and not put words to it, and then realise we have grasped it in its nature all the time. I don't think I have been in
any essential doubt, though I had a moment's superficial surprise. My state was one of fundamental preparation.”

“I am not very preoccupied with these things,” said Geraldine. “They don't seem to reach the fundamental part of me. But it is all the more interesting when it is a surprise. I feel in quite high spirits. I always think my friends marry simply for my entertainment.”

“Then we are in favour with you,” said Bellamy.

“I do congratulate you, Kate. I am so glad,” said Gregory.

“Ah now, and you, Gregory!” said Agatha. “I don't think you will go on deceiving us much longer. You haven't deceived me for some time, though I own I thought you were still deceiving yourselves. I was not prepared to see it come up to the surface quite so soon. You have ‘had' even me in a way.”

“Well, Polly is not old enough to be Gregory's mother,” said Geraldine.

“No, it will bring everything back to Percy,” said Rachel.

“It is the commoner thing of the two,” said Geraldine.

“Yes, nearly everything brings it back,” said Rachel.

“Well, I suppose I ought to be pouring out sisterly congratulations,” said Geraldine. “I don't know if it is a compliment to Kate to tell her I am glad to be rid of her. She is only going as far as the rectory. It hardly seems a proper marriage at all. I am not good at feminine response to these demands; I don't feel any answering chord is struck. I believe the people are right who say I ought to have been a man.”

“That is very satisfying for you,” said Rachel. “We are often at variance with people who tell us what we ought to have been. Percy cannot agree that he ought to have been a bachelor, and ought to have had a son. Percy would never agree to both. And Polly may not agree that she ought not to have been born.”

“Well, now, I think we ought to be getting on with our
work,” said Agatha, spacing her words. “This is a working party, and I don't see why I should countenance its being used for anything else. Now settle down, all of you, and make up for lost time. And if you two men don't want to make yourselves useful, you can just go away. We don't want you here if you are going to be idle.”

“I am not going to be. I am going to keep handing Kate her scissors,” said Bellamy. “I know a great deal about ladies' sewing, and handing scissors saves a surprising amount of time. Needles and cotton are less elusive.”

“Oh, we shall always be handed things now!” said Geraldine. “We shall have a man in the family.”

“That sounds kind and hospitable,” said Bellamy. “But I hope you will not try to make a man of me, Geraldine. Kate will explain to you that I have to be a clergyman.”

“I have no particular partiality for manly men,” said Geraldine. “They are rather crude creatures, I always think.”

“Yes, so they are,” said Bellamy, “more so than womanly women. Everyone is best in between.”

“That is what I have always been accused of being,” said Geraldine.

“Then there is already a family likeness between us,” said Bellamy. “I am quite settled in my mind about you. But now there is a dreadful thing before me. There is a cause and just impediment. I shall have to call Mrs. Calkin Agatha.”

“We will not expect you to come to that all at once,” said Agatha, smiling at him as if from above. “I am a great many years older than you. I am not going to take up a position of being anything else. I shall expect you to regard me only as a very maternal sister-in-law.”

“Agatha is said to be candid,” said Mellicent, “but I wonder if she knows how candid she is.”

“He will have to rise on the stepping-stone of me to higher things,” said Geraldine. “He got as far as me quite
easily. He is making the most remarkable progress.”

“Mellicent, my dear, why have you stopped working for the poor?” said Rachel.

“Jermyn has come to call for me; I saw him out of the window.”