Parents and Children (8 page)

‘It is a real achievement, the way you all work together,' said Fulbert. ‘I mean to pay you a serious compliment.'

‘You talk as if you were a creature apart,' said Eleanor.

‘Yes, you do, Father,' said Luce.

‘Have you two lads forgotten your tongues?' said Fulbert.

‘I had a hope of it,' said Sir Jesse.

‘I don't think I forbade you to speak, Graham,' said Daniel.

‘Did you change your room, Luce, my dear?' said Regan.

‘Yes, I am having Graham's, Grandma.'

‘What is this about changing rooms?' said Eleanor. ‘It is the first I have heard of it.'

‘Luce wants more light,' said Daniel. ‘So we are arranging for Graham to do without it.'

‘Well, what use is it to him?' said Sir Jesse, who resented any aspersion on his house. ‘To look at himself in the glass? He can give way to his sister there.'

‘I was the natural person to consult,' said Eleanor.

‘Well, Mother dear, Grandma seemed just as much so,' said Luce. ‘Perhaps more, as the house is hers.'

Eleanor was silent, submitting to the place she had accepted, and Regan gave her an almost sympathetic glance.

‘The children are on the stairs,' said Daniel. ‘They will have their dessert at an odd time today.'

‘They had better dispense with it,' said Eleanor.

‘That is seldom a happy solution,' said Fulbert. ‘Things in the wrong order won't hurt them for once.'

Nevill ran into the room in the manner of a horse, lifting his feet and head in recognizable imitation.

‘So you are a horse today,' said his mother.

‘A charger, a little charger.'

‘Chargers are big,' said Gavin.

‘No,' said Nevill, shaking his head in a manner at once equine and negative; ‘a little charger.'

‘A pony,' suggested Daniel.

‘A pony,' agreed Nevill.

‘Ponies are always small,' said Regan.

‘Always small,' said Nevill, on a contented note.

‘Do you want me to go on with the tale?' said Luce.

Nevill trotted to her side and stood with his hand on her knee, and his eyes on her face.

‘I don't remember if I like it,' said Gavin.

‘It is Nevill's tale,' said Honor.

‘But you can all listen,' said Eleanor.

‘His tale,' said Nevill, throwing them a look.

‘Can you tell me where we left off?' said Luce.

‘No,' said Nevill, rapidly moving his feet. ‘Don't let Gavin tell you. Luce tell Nevill.'

‘Don't you remember yourself?'

‘No.'

‘And it is your tale,' said Eleanor.

‘He doesn't remember,' said Nevill, striking Luce's knee.

‘Read us a piece out of the book,' said Gavin.

‘Well, get it and find the place,' said Luce. ‘We have only a few minutes.'

Honor obeyed with speed and success, and Gavin waited while she did so, and joined her to listen.

‘Why do you leave it all to Honor?' said Eleanor, who was not happy in the child whom she singled out for achievement.

Gavin kept his eyes on his sister's face. Nevill turned away and resumed his imitation of a pony, trying to distinguish the movements from those of a horse.

‘Well, is no one coming to talk to me?' said Eleanor. ‘Why did you all come down?'

Gavin did not allow his attention to be diverted, and Luce read on, as if she would not undertake a thing and not accomplish it.

‘I must ring for Hatton to fetch you, if you haven't any reason for being here. Luce can read to you upstairs.'

‘She never does,' said Gavin, in a parenthetic tone.

‘We can't have your mother left out in the cold.'

Nevill paused in his prancing and glanced at Eleanor; Sir Jesse and Regan remained aloof, claiming no part in the separate family life; Fulbert beckoned to Honor and lifted her to his knee; Gavin did not move his eyes and frowned at the interruptions.

‘Now we don't want any fallen faces,' said Eleanor, putting her arm round Nevill, and looking for the change which she described, or rather suggested. ‘You will know how to stay another time.'

‘Go with Hatton,' said Nevill, in an acquiescent tone.

‘We should have had to go soon because of our dinner,' said Honor, in a confident manner from Fulbert's knee.

‘Don't you want to go, my boy?' said Eleanor to Gavin.

‘I don't mind.'

‘Well, run away then.'

Gavin looked at her and sank into tears.

‘Honor, is Gavin quite well?'

‘Yes, I think so, Mother.'

‘Then what is the matter with him?'

Honor met her mother's eyes.

Daniel and Graham picked up Honor and carried her round the room. She put her arms round their necks and laughed and shouted in reaction. Eleanor looked on with an indulgent smile, and Gavin with an expectant one. Nevill beat his hands on his sides and moved from foot to foot; and when his brothers took Gavin in Honor's stead, broke into wails and maintained them until they came to himself, when he repulsed them and stood abandoned to his sense that nothing could wipe out what had taken place. When Eleanor and Luce had expostulated in vain, and Regan explained with some success, he raised his arms and allowed himself to be lifted, leaning back in his brother's arms with an air of convalescence. They tightened their hold and quickened their pace, and he held to their shoulders and accepted this compensation for what he had borne, while Honor watched with bright eyes, and Gavin with a smile of gentle interest.

‘Give Gavin one little turn, and then that is enough,' said Eleanor.

Nevill stood with his arm on Regan's knee, and his eyes on his brothers with a watchful expression. Hatton arrived in response to the sounds that had reached her ears.

‘Say “Thank you”, Gavin dear. You heard Honor say it,' said Eleanor.

Gavin did so.

‘And look at Daniel and Graham while you speak.'

Gavin turned his eyes on his brothers, content with fulfilling his obligations separately.

‘It was him that ran,' said Nevill, with a sigh.

‘I suppose it is still the journey, Hatton,' said Eleanor, with another.

‘It was best to cry it out, madam, whatever it was.'

‘He cried it out,' said Nevill, in information to Hatton.

‘Come and give me a kiss, and then run away,' said Eleanor.

Nevill went to her with a trotting step, took Hatton's hand and proceeded in this way towards the door.

‘So you are a horse again. Daniel and Graham have been your horses, haven't they?'

‘Pony, little pony,' said Nevill, seeming oblivious of his brothers.

‘Isn't the little pony going to trot to say good-bye to Father?'

‘Only to Grandma,' said Nevill, and trotted past Regan and then through the door.

Honor and Gavin kissed their parents and frolicked from the room, their voices sounding high and continuous until they reached the upper floor.

Regan had witnessed the scene with interest, and Sir Jesse without attention. The latter seldom noticed children, rather because it did not occur to him to do so, than because he disapproved of the practice.

‘Their new governess is coming tomorrow,' said Luce. ‘I do trust she will be a success.'

‘Why doesn't Miss – Miss who teaches the others, teach them?' said Sir Jesse.

‘Grandpa, you must know Miss Mitford's name after all these years,' said Luce. ‘I expect she knows yours.'

‘Why, so do I, my dear. And in that case she does the better, as you say.'

‘I don't know who would dare to make the suggestion,' said Eleanor.

‘Why, is there any risk?' said Sir Jesse. ‘If so, I beg no one will take it. But isn't teaching her business? What she does – what she chooses to do, I should say?'

‘I doubt if there is so much choice about it,' said Regan.

‘In so far as there is, she exercises it,' said Eleanor. ‘Her pupils must be in a certain stage. James had to go to school, because she found him too young.'

‘I daresay the girls give her less trouble,' said Sir Jesse. ‘If she has the right to choose, let her use it. But wouldn't one woman for the lot cost less?'

‘We should have to increase her salary by as much as we are to give the other,' said Regan.

‘So the other has not much choice,' said her husband, with amusement and no other feeling. ‘Have as many as you like, if it is all for the same expense. I would rather be in a place where I got it all. But as you say, or as Miss Mitford says.'

‘Grandma does not shrink from exposing the whole of her mind,' said Graham. ‘That is a very rare thing.'

Regan smiled at her grandson before she resumed the subject.

‘Miss Mitford would never take a hint,' she said.

‘I hardly like to do so myself,' said Daniel.

‘She is quite right,' said Luce. ‘If we are ashamed of what we ask, there is no reason to help us. And it would be more strain to teach three extra children.'

‘I don't think Miss Mitford suffers much in that way,' said Regan. ‘She takes great care of herself.'

‘There is nothing wrong in that, Grandma.'

‘We do find the habit unengaging,' said Fulbert. ‘But in Miss Mitford's place I should recommend it.'

Regan gave her son a look of admiration for his freedom from her own failings.

‘Isn't the little fellow too young to learn?' said Daniel.

‘Why can't you call your brother by his name?' said Eleanor. ‘He would not forget yours.'

‘We have not had him long enough to get used to him.'

‘It is not good for him to be actually kept young,' said Luce.

‘He seems all in favour of it,' said Daniel.

‘Gavin has the most in him of the three,' said Eleanor.

‘You mean you think so, my dear, or perhaps that you hope so,' said Fulbert. ‘And he has his own ways, I admit. Or rather he has not any ways, unless that constitutes one. But I put my Honor down as the highest type.'

‘Girls are more forward than boys. Gavin has more to come.'

‘I am only talking of what is there. I find that the most good to me.'

‘You are a partial parent, Mother,' said Luce. ‘It is a good thing Hatton is free from the failing, a serious one with children.'

‘It was I who chose Hatton.'

‘Fortune favoured you, my dear,' said Fulbert.

‘My own sense and judgement did so.'

‘Well, we cannot find a ground for disputing it.'

‘You sound as if you would like to do so.'

‘Well, I hardly support you, my dear.'

‘Isn't that one of them crying?' said Regan.

‘It is only Nevill,' said Luce. ‘It does not mean much with him. And we can rely on Hatton's ever-listening ear.'

‘If you begin on Hatton again, do not rely on mine,' said her mother.

Fulbert and his father laughed, and Eleanor looked rather gratified. She was unusually sensitive to approval or appreciation. The schoolroom children entered the room, in accordance with the custom that allowed or required their presence at dessert. They came to established places at the table. Only the nursery children were expected to stand, and they would presumably continue to do so, as there was no further provision of seats.

‘Who came in last?' said Eleanor, almost at once.

‘James,' said Daniel. ‘He has reached that stage.'

‘Then go back and shut the door, my boy. Doors do not shut themselves, do they?'

James was enabled by experience to agree.

‘It is a pity they do not,' said Isabel. ‘It is absurd not to invent one that does, considering how often the process takes place.'

‘Well, you have done a good morning's work,' said Sir Jesse, disposing of this question for his grandchildren, and pushing a dish towards them, before withdrawing his thought.

‘Grandpa means you to help yourselves,' said Eleanor, in almost disapproving congratulation.

‘They are old enough, Mother,' said Luce.

‘If they were not, I should not allow it, my dear. That was a needless speech. James, don't you want any?'

James hesitated to say that the delicacy in question upset him, and helped himself.

‘Venice looks well, doesn't she?' said Eleanor, willing for notice of her daughter's looks.

Venice turned her eyes to the wall and struck the ground with her foot.

‘What is there on the wall that interests you?' said her mother.

‘I am looking at the pictures of Aunt Lucia and Uncle Daniel.'

‘You must know them very well,' said Eleanor, forgetting that Regan would be moved to emotion, and Sir Jesse to consequent concern, and averting her eyes as the scene took place.

The portraits of the dead son and daughter were rendered with the simple flattery of mercenary Victorian art, and Regan accepted the improvement not so much because it had come to her to be the truth, as because nothing seemed to her to be too good for the originals. That a portrait of Fulbert had a less honourable place, was due less to its obvious discrepancy with truth, than to the fact that he was not yet dead. Regan carried the loss of her children as she carried her body, always suffering and sustaining it.

‘James,' said Eleanor, taking any chance to end the pause, ‘you must not put things in your pocket to take upstairs. That is not the way to behave. Take what you want and no more. Grandpa did not mean that.'

‘Isn't that the thing that makes him sick?' said Graham.

‘Is it, James? Then why did you take it? You must know when you do not want something. What was your reason?'

James had several reasons, a reluctance to appear to fuss about himself, a fear lest allusion to his health should in some way expose his morning's leisure, a purpose of transferring his portion to his sisters, and a hesitation to meet his grandfather's kindness with anything but gratitude. He did not state them, though some were to his credit, but some of his experience, of which there was enough and to spare, welled over into his eyes.