Parents and Children (3 page)

Sir Jesse Sullivan was a large, strong man of seventy-nine, whose movements were surprisingly supple for his build and age, perhaps the result of his frequent mild exercise, and perhaps the cause of it. His small, dark, deep-set eyes looked out under a jutting, almost jagged brow, and his blunt, bony features seemed to mould themselves to his mood in a manner inconsistent with themselves. This element of inconsistence seemed to go through him. His solid, old hands had a simple flexibility, and his hard, husky voice had vibrations that suggested another being. His eyes were familiar and fond on his wife, less familiar and faintly admiring on Eleanor, comradely and somehow unrelenting on his son, indulgent on Luce, and sharp and piercing on his grandsons, who as males dependent on their education, and dependent on him for its cost, struck him as suitably occupied only at their books. The expense of the training that produced schoolmasters and curates and such dependent men, was so startling to Sir Jesse, who had himself had little education and no thought that he required more, that he put it from his sight; and it seemed inconsiderate and almost insubordinate in his grandsons to act as a reminder.

‘Is Father ready for luncheon, Grandpa?' said Luce.

‘He is, my dear,' said Fulbert, running into the room, ‘and he hopes it bears the same relation to him.'

‘It will be ready at the right time, Father,' said Luce, folding her arms round her knees in preparation for waiting.

‘I suppose Graham must come to meals,' said Daniel. ‘There ought to be some other way of managing about him.'

‘We must eat to live,' said Fulbert.

‘But is that necessary for Graham, Father?'

Luce gave a quick look at her second brother.

‘The gong gets a little later every day,' said Fulbert consulting his watch.

‘It is the someone behind the gong, Father,' said Luce, and in a tone so light and even that it might have escaped notice. ‘And then the someone behind that.'

‘You would think it would help the household to have things on time.'

‘Such a household would be above help,' said Daniel.

‘It is a tribute to Grandma's management that you can talk like that, Father,' said Luce.

‘Well, I may be allowed to pay her the compliment.'

Regan looked touched beyond the demand of the occasion.

‘The gong must soon sound with so much behind it,' said Graham, in his toneless voice.

‘It will sound when luncheon is ready,' said Eleanor.

‘It will be our last luncheon without the babies at the end,' said Luce. ‘Their holiday ends today. I cannot get used to being without them.'

‘Luce has not forgotten her brothers and sister in three weeks,' said Daniel. ‘It must be the depth of her nature.'

‘You did not remember them enough to speak of them,' said Sir Jesse.

As the gong sounded through the house, Fulbert walked swiftly to the door and held it open for the women, sending his eyes to different objects in the room, as if he felt no inclination to hurry this part of the proceedings. He rather enjoyed any duty that had a touch of the formal or official. At the table he did the carving, a duty deputed by his father, and performed it with attention, swiftness and skill, supplying his own plate at the end with equal but not extra care. Daniel and Graham were talking under their breath, and their mother threw them a glance.

‘You need not concern yourself with them,' said Sir Jesse. ‘They are about to address themselves to their business.'

‘Isn't it a repellent trait in my brother?' said Daniel.

‘So is Grandpa,' murmured Graham. ‘He and I are of the same old stock.'

‘Any word you have to say of me, you can say to my face,' said Sir Jesse.

Graham was about to reply, but his mother's eyes prevented him. He was dependent on Sir Jesse for most of what he had, and this was not a forfeiture it was wise to incur. Daniel took his grandfather in an easier spirit and reckoned with him in so far as he served his purposes. Sir Jesse thought him better behaved, a not uncommon result of this attitude of youth.

‘Well, my boy, we must break our news,' said Sir Jesse to his son.

‘Of the prospect that takes me from the bosom of my family,' said Fulbert, looking with mingled apprehension and resolution at the faces round him.

‘Mother, Grandpa,' said Luce, turning steady eyes upon them, ‘we should be glad to have this thing cleared up, whatever it is. We have been living for days under the sword of Damocles, and it will be a relief to have it fall. What is this threat of losing Father for some reason unexplained? We should be grateful for the truth, and we feel we have a right to it.'

‘Your father has to go to South America to look into the estate,' said Eleanor. ‘Your grandfather had the final letters today.'

‘Thank you, Mother. That is at once a shock and a satisfaction. We had no idea what the dark hints might portend, and imagination was outstripping the truth. Now we may hope that the exile will not be long.'

‘A matter of six months,' said Fulbert, with courage and ease.

‘Thank you, Father. That would have been a blow not so many days ago. As it is, we chiefly experience relief.'

‘You could have asked before,' said Eleanor.

‘No, Mother, we could not,' said Luce, meeting her eyes. ‘There was that about you, that precluded approach of the subject.'

‘What led our elders to conceal the simple matter?' said Daniel, in a low tone.

‘The instinct to keep all things from the young,' said Graham. ‘Even a temporary concealment was better than nothing.'

‘Six months is a moderate sentence,' said Daniel. ‘We can hardly expect Graham to show a new son to Father on his return.'

Graham glanced at Regan in imagination of her feeling.

‘I shall not live six months many more times,' she said.

‘Yes, you will, Grandma,' said Luce, in an even tone. ‘Probably a good many more.'

‘What about me in exile?' said Fulbert.

‘Poor Father! You did not expect to have to ask that question.'

‘I would go myself if I were younger by a few years,' said Sir Jesse, with an undernote of inflexibility that revealed his true relation with his son. ‘And it is not only for that reason that I wish I were.'

‘I cannot imagine you in a stage more becoming, Grandpa,' said Luce.

‘I have liked others better, my dear,' said Sir Jesse, smiling to himself as he recalled these.

‘Perhaps I ought to pay Grandpa an occasional compliment,' murmured Graham.

Regan made an emotional sound, and Luce came and stood behind her, stroking her shoulders as she continued to talk.

‘A great part of Father's duty must devolve on Mother.'

‘And she will be equal to it,' said Fulbert, in a tone of paying the fullest tribute.

‘She will have but little support in one of her sons,' said Daniel.

‘I wish the time were behind us,' said Eleanor. ‘And I may make other people wish it more.'

‘A mother's life is not all sacrifice,' said Fulbert.

‘It is not indeed,' said Regan, in allusion to her own lot.

Luce gave Regan's shoulder a final caress, and left her as if her attendance had done its work, as it appeared it had.

‘Father, perhaps a word from you would touch Graham at this time,' said Daniel.

‘Nothing is asked of either of you, but that you shall consider your future,' said Sir Jesse.

‘Grandpa, that is rather hard,' said Luce. ‘More than that must be expected of everyone. And long months spent over books may not strike young men in that light.'

‘Then they are not what you call them.'

‘Well, they scarcely are as yet,' said Eleanor.

‘Mother, that is even harder,' said Luce, with a laugh.

‘The mot abandoned youth is a child to his mother,' murmured Graham.

‘Mother, you are setting a gallant example,' said Luce. ‘Father has not a wife who will make things harder for him.'

‘We are none of us taking the line of showing him how much we are affected.'

‘No, we are not engaging in that competition, Mother. But we might not follow the other course with so much success.'

‘Those who show the least, feel the most,' stated Fulbert.

‘That is not the line to take with me,' said Regan, with smiling reference to her swift emotions.

‘You are a self-satisfied old woman,' said her son.

‘Grandma has no need to wear a disguise,' said Luce.

‘And have the rest of us?' said Eleanor.

‘Well, Mother, many people do wear one. That is all I meant.'

quoted Fulbert, in conclusion of the matter.

‘Why is that so?' said Graham. ‘It might be true to ourselves to do all manner of wrong to other people.'

‘The only thing is to conquer that self, Graham,' said Daniel.

‘It depends on the sense of the word, true,' said Eleanor. ‘It means it would be dealing falsely with our own natures to do what degrades them.'

‘I expect it does mean that, Mother,' said Luce, in a tone of receiving light and giving her mother the credit. ‘No doubt it should be taken so.'

Sir Jesse broke into a song of his youth, a habit he had when he was not attentive to the talk, and sang in muffled reminiscent tones, which seemed at once to croon with sentiment and throb with experience. He glanced at the portraits of his dead son and daughter, as if his emotion prepared the way for recalling them; and sang on, as though the possession of life overcame all else.

His wife followed his look and his thought, though her eyes were not on him. She would have given her life for her children's,
and knew he would have done this for nothing at all, and accepted and supported his feeling. The pair lived with their son and his family, feeling amongst and not apart from them. They saw themselves as so young for their age, that they shared the common future. They were neither of them quite ordinary people, but they were ordinary in this.

‘Well, don't I deserve a word to myself on the eve of my banishment?' said Fulbert.

‘You do, Father,' said Luce, ‘and you would have had it, if you had not contrived to forfeit it. I cannot see how we are to live the next six months. We shall have to take each day as it comes.'

‘Why is that a help?' said Graham. ‘It seems to spin things out. It would be better if we could compress the days.'

‘Graham, are you going to let these months be different?' said Daniel.

‘I have not heard either of you say a reasonable word for days,' said Eleanor.

‘Mother, let them veil the occasion in their own way,' said Luce.

‘Our boyish folly covers real feeling,' said Graham, stating the truth of himself.

‘Would you like to be going with your father, Daniel?' said Eleanor.

‘Mother, don't speak in that cold voice,' said Luce, laughing, ‘It is not Daniel's fault that Father has to leave us.'

‘He can answer my question nevertheless. Your father is going partly for his sake.'

‘It is a good thing that everything is easier when it is shared,' said Daniel. ‘If there were enough of us, I suppose it would disappear.'

‘You would think there were enough,' said Graham, dreamily.

‘I am tired of hearing nothing but nonsense,' said Eleanor, with a break in her voice.

‘Graham, how many young men have heard their mothers use that tone!'

‘I daresay the larger number,' said Eleanor, sighing.

Sir Jesse broke again into song, and sang very low, as if unsure
of the fitness of the words for the audience. Regan smiled with an indulgence that was more apposite than she knew, or betrayed that she knew; and Fulbert took up the song in a strong, metallic voice and with a certain gusto. Graham kept his eyes down, as if he could only meet the manifestation with discomfiture, and Sir Jesse flashed his eyes into his son's and turned to his luncheon.

Luce had sat with her eyes on the men, and now addressed her father, as if quietly putting behind her what she saw.

‘Father, is there any writing to be done? I had better undertake it, as my hand is clear.'

‘This is an awkward moment for Graham,' said Daniel.

‘After my advantages,' said Graham, in his absent tone.

‘I had a reminder of those only this morning,' said Sir Jesse. ‘An account came with my breakfast. You had nothing at yours but what you could swallow.'

‘It is impossible of Graham,' aid Daniel. ‘Simply eating at the table! He seems to live by bread alone.'

‘Be silent,' said Sir Jesse, with sudden harshness. ‘I blush to think you have been brought up in my house.'

‘We have always had to blush for that,' muttered Daniel. ‘But I did not think Grandpa would ever do so.'

‘Will neither of you speak again until you have something to say?' said Eleanor.

‘Would you have the lads dumb?' said her husband.

‘It might strike many people as an improvement.'

‘Mother, you don't mind what you say,' said Luce, laughing under her breath.

‘You must grow up, my sons,' said Fulbert. ‘I am leaving burdens upon you.'

‘I need not become a baby again to comfort Mother,' said Graham.

‘It does not seem to have that result,' said Fulbert. ‘Well, do any of you give a thought to my exile?'

‘Many thoughts, Father,' said Luce, ‘but we are not to help it. We are sad to our hearts, but we do not feel guilty.'

‘That must be wonderful,' said Graham.

‘We ought to feel grateful,' said Eleanor.

‘That involves guilt,' said Daniel. ‘It seems grasping to have so much done for you.'

‘I suppose that is what it is about gratitude,' mused Luce. ‘I have wondered what it is, that takes from it what it ought to have.'