Love

XVIII

Meanwhile the morning at the Manor was passing in its usual quiet yet busy dignity. Virginia attended to her household duties, while her mother and Stephen were at church, and herself cut the sandwiches that Stephen was to take up with him to London, because the ones the week before had been, he told her, highly unsatisfactory.

The cook looked on with the expression natural to cooks in such circumstances, and Virginia, who had never made sandwiches, but knew what they ought to taste like, was disconcerted by their appearance when she had done.

‘It’s how the master likes them,’ she said rather uncertainly, as she herself arranged the strange-shaped things in the aluminium box they were to travel in.

‘Yes, m’m,’ said the cook.

She came out of the kitchen and into her own part of the house with a sigh of relief. It was always a relief to get through those baize doors. The servants made her shy. She wasn’t able, somehow, to get into touch with them. What she aimed at in her relations with them was perfect justice and kindness, combined with dignity. She most earnestly wished to do her duty by them, and in return it seemed merely fair to demand that they should do their duty by her. Her mother’s reign had been lax. She had found, on looking into things on her marriage, many abuses. These she had removed one by one, and after much trouble had put the whole household on a decent economic footing.

Up to now the servants hadn’t quite settled down to it, but her mother-in-law, who was experienced in frugalities, assured her they would in time, and be all the happier and the better for it. She had gone so far as to explain to them, her serious young face firm in the belief that once they were told they would understand and even co-operate, that the more carefully the house was run the more would the poor, the sick, and the aged of the parish benefit. ‘No one,’ she said, earnestly striving to make herself clear, ‘has more than a certain amount of money to spend, and if it is spent in one way it can’t possibly be spent in another.’

The servants were silent.

She even tried, overcoming her shyness, to talk to them of noble aims, and love for one’s fellow-creatures.

The servants continued silent.

She went further, and in a voice that faltered because of her extreme desire to run away and hide, talked to them of God.

The servants became really terribly silent.

Carrying her aluminium box, she passed on this Saturday morning, with her customary sigh of relief, through the baize doors that separated the domestic part of the house from the part where one was happy, and went into the study to put the sandwiches in Stephen’s suit-case, along with his sermons and pyjamas. He, she knew, would only be back a short time before starting for the station, because of the sick-bed he had to visit, poor Stephen, but her mother would be back.

Virginia had made up her mind to devote herself entirely this week-end to her mother, and do her best to remove any suspicion she might have that she had not been, perhaps, quite wanted; and having shut the sandwiches in the suit-case she went in search of her.

Poor mother. Virginia wished, with a sigh, that she need never be hurt. She was so kind, and so often so sweet. But what problems mothers were after a certain age! Unless they were as perfectly sensible as Stephen’s, or else were truly religious. Religion, of course, was what was most needed, especially when one was old. Virginia had, however, long felt that her mother was not truly religious—not truly and seriously, as she and Stephen were. No doubt she thought she was, and perhaps she was, in some queer way; but were queer ways of being religious permissible? Weren’t they as bad, really, as no ways at all?

Virginia sighed again. One did so long to be able to look up to one’s mother, to revere....

The house seemed empty. All the big rooms, glanced into one after the other, were empty. Nothing in them but the mild spring sunshine, and furniture, and silence.

She went upstairs, but in her mother’s bedroom was only Ellen, arranging another bunch of flowers—another, when yesterday’s were still perfectly good—on the writing-table. Stephen disliked flowers in bedrooms, but suppose he hadn’t, would Ellen so assiduously see that they were always fresh? Virginia thought she wouldn’t, and very much wished at that moment to point out the extravagance of picking flowers unnecessarily at a time of year when they were scarce; but she was handicapped by their being for her mother.

She said nothing, therefore, and went away, and Ellen was relieved when she went. Just as Virginia was relieved when she got away from the servants, so were the servants relieved when they saw her go.

She fetched a wrap from her bedroom—the room already looked forlorn, as if it knew it was to be empty of Stephen for two whole nights—and went downstairs and out on to the terrace. Probably her mother was lingering in the garden this mild morning, and Virginia took two or three turns up and down, expecting every moment to see her approaching along some path.

Nobody approached, however: the garden remained as empty as the house. And time was passing; Stephen would be due soon to come back; her mother would want to say good-bye to him, and couldn’t have gone for a walk on this morning of departure. She would particularly want to say good-bye, quite apart from the fact that she would be gone before his return on Monday, because she wasn’t letting him stay in Hertford Street over the week-end. Stephen did so hate hotels. It seemed hard when no one was in the flat that he couldn’t use it. Her mother had made excuses—said something or other about Mrs. Mitcham having a holiday, but Virginia didn’t think she had felt quite comfortable about it. She would therefore certainly wish to make him some parting little speech of more than ordinary gratitude for his hospitality, seeing how from him she was withholding hers. And here was Stephen, coming across the grass, and in a few minutes he would have started, and her mother still nowhere to be seen.

‘What has become of mother?’ she called, when he was within earshot.

He didn’t answer till he was close to her. Then he said, looking worried, ‘Isn’t she back yet?’

‘No. Where is she?’

He stared at Virginia a moment, then made a gesture of extreme impatience. ‘I can’t imagine,’ he said, pulling out his watch and beginning to walk quickly across the terrace to the open windows of the drawing-room, for he hadn’t much time, he saw, before his train left, ‘what possessed your mother.’

‘Possessed her?’ echoed Virginia, her eyes and mouth all astonishment.

‘Anything more unsuitable——’ said Stephen, quickly going through the drawing-room, followed by Virginia. ‘Tut, tut,’ he finished, in a most strange way.

Virginia’s heart gave a queer kind of drop. ‘Unsuitable?’ she repeated faintly.

It was the word of all others she dreaded hearing applied to her mother, and applied by Stephen. She herself had felt many little things unsuitable in her mother during this visit, the first real visit since her marriage, but she had so much hoped Stephen hadn’t noticed, and she did so much want him to continue in the warm respect and admiration for her mother he had felt before. What had she done now? What could she have done to produce this fluster of annoyance in the quiet, controlled Stephen?

‘She all but ran over me in my own village street,’ he said, going into the study and hastily collecting his things.

Virginia could only again echo. ‘All but ran over you?’ she repeated blankly.

‘Yes. You know how strongly I feel about motor-cycles, and the type of scallywag youth who uses them. Where is my muffler?’

‘Motor-cycles?’ said Virginia, her mouth open.

‘I naturally hadn’t the remotest idea it could be your mother, but mother—our mother—met me and told me—yes, yes, Kate, I know—I’m coming immediately. Good-bye, my love—I shall miss my train——’

‘But Stephen——’

‘Mother will tell you. Really I find the utmost difficulty in believing it. And not back yet. Still scorching——’

He was out in the hall; he was in the car; he was gone.

Virginia stood staring after him. Stephen gone, and in such a way. No good-bye hardly, no lingering, sweet farewell, nothing but hurry and upset. What had happened? What had her mother done?

His incredible last word beat on her ears—scorching. She wished she had flung herself into the car and gone with him to the station, and so at least had a little more time to be told things. But Stephen disliked impetuosity, and, for that matter, so did she. There were, however, moments in life when indulgence in it was positively right.

Virginia stood there feeling perhaps more unhappy than she had ever yet felt. One couldn’t have a mother all one’s life and not be attached to her; at least, she couldn’t. She was made up of loyalties. They differed in intensity, but each in its degree was complete. Passionately she wanted the objects of her loyalties to have the invulnerableness of perfection. Stephen had it. She had supposed, till this last visit, that her mother had it—in an entirely different line, of course, with all sorts of little things about her Virginia didn’t understand but was willing to accept as also, in their way, in their different way, good. There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, Virginia, observing her mother, had sometimes quoted to herself. Both of them glories, but different,—greater and lesser. Stephen had the glory of the sun; her mother had the moon one. During this unlucky visit, though, how had it not, thought Virginia standing on the steps, looking down the empty avenue, been obscured. And now, just at the end, just as she was going to make such an effort to set everything right again, her mother had evidently done something definitely dreadful, with a motor-cycle. Her mother, her mouse-like mother. What could she possibly....

She turned away and went indoors, her eyes fixed on the carpet, her brows knitted in painfullest perplexity.

Should she go and meet Stephen’s mother, who was coming to lunch and evidently knew what had happened? There was still half an hour before lunch, and before Stephen’s mother, who never came a minute sooner or a minute later than the exact appointed time, would arrive. But her own mother might come back at any moment, and it would be better to hear things from her, wouldn’t it, than from Stephen’s mother. She was very fond of Stephen’s mother,—indeed, how should she not be, when he was?—and admired her many qualities excessively, but she didn’t love her as she did her own mother. One began so young with one’s own mother, of course one felt differently about her from what one did about any one else’s. She shrank from hearing, from Stephen’s mother, whatever it was her own mother had done.

Family pride, loyalty, and the queer little ache of love, sometimes disapproving, sometimes wistful, sometimes disappointed, sometimes pitiful, but always love, that she felt for her mother, made her not want to hear Stephen’s mother tell her what had happened. Stephen was different. If he told and blamed he had a right to, he belonged. It would be painful to her to the point of agony, seeing how much she loved them both, but he had the right. His mother, though, hadn’t. She felt she couldn’t bear to listen to even the most tactful disapproval from his mother. No, she wouldn’t go to meet her. Her mother would certainly be in in time for lunch, and get there before Stephen’s mother. Oh, all these mothers! There were too many of them, Virginia thought with sudden impatience, and then was ashamed,—she, the wife of one of God’s priests.

The drawing-room door was open, and opposite it was the widely-flung-up William and Mary window, and through the window she saw, coming across the terrace and walking with even more than her usual briskness, Stephen’s mother.

Such a thing had never happened before, that she should arrive before her time. What had her mother done?

Virginia stood in the hall, rooted, wanting to run up to her bedroom and hide, but unable to make up her mind quickly enough, and Mrs. Colquhoun saw her the minute she was through the window, and it was too late.

‘Oh, my dear Virginia,’ she cried out, ‘I am concerned for your mother. I hope she got home safely? I couldn’t rest. I had to come and hear that she wasn’t too much shaken. The young man went off at such a pace. And Stephen told me they nearly ran over him in the village. I thought it so courageous of Mrs. Cumfrit. I do hope she is none the worse?’

‘I haven’t seen mother yet,’ said Virginia, getting nearer prevarication than in her transparent life she had yet been.

But Mrs. Colquhoun was not to be put off by prevarication. ‘What? Isn’t she back?’ she exclaimed.

‘I haven’t seen her,’ said Virginia obstinately.

Mrs. Colquhoun stared at her. ‘But then, where——?’ she began.

‘I don’t see,’ said Virginia, very red, and straight of eyebrow, ‘why mother shouldn’t motor-cycle if she wants to.’

‘But of course not. Certainly not. And Mr. Monckton is an old friend, isn’t he—that’s to say, as old a friend as one can be at such a very young age. I expect he’s your friend really, isn’t he? Though I don’t remember seeing him at Chickover before.’

‘Tell me what happened, mother,’ said Virginia, leading the way to her boudoir.

‘But is Mrs. Cumfrit safely back yet? That’s what I’m really anxious to hear,’ said Mrs. Colquhoun, taking off her gloves and woollen scarf, and sitting as far from the fire as she could, so as to convey, with the delicacy of action rather than the clumsiness of words, that a fire on such a sunny morning was unnecessary.

‘No,’ said Virginia.

‘Well, you mustn’t be agitated, dearest child. Mr. Monckton is a safe rider, I’m sure. And careful. Young, of course, and in so far headstrong, but I’m sure careful. Especially when taking some one of your mother’s age with him. How long have you known him?’

‘I haven’t known him,’ said Virginia stiffly.

She wouldn’t admit to herself that all this amazed and shook her. She would let no thought get through into her mind except that it was natural and perfectly ordinary, if one wanted to, to go off motor-cycling, natural and perfectly ordinary for anybody, her mother included.

‘Not known him?’ exclaimed Mrs. Colquhoun.

‘Mother has many friends I haven’t met,’ said Virginia, sitting very straight.

‘Quite. Of course. In London.’

‘Yes. You haven’t told me what happened, mother.’

‘Well, this very tall and quite good-looking Mr. Monckton was waiting in the churchyard at your poor father’s tomb, when we came out after the service——’

‘Waiting for mother?’

‘Yes. He said he had come down on purpose to drive her up to London in his side-car——’

‘But mother isn’t going till Monday.’

‘Exactly. Nor, he said, was he. His motor-cycle was outside the gate, and he persuaded your mother to get in and let him drive her back here, and she did, and off they went. Off, really, like a flash. Such courage in your dear mother. I did so admire it at her age. Perfectly splendid, I thought. It means, you know, Virginia, vitality—the most important of all possessions. Without it one can do nothing. With it one can do everything. However—to go on. I watched them, and saw they didn’t take the first turning home, and then I met Stephen in the village, and they had been through it and just missed running over him by inches. Now, now, Virginia, don’t turn pale, dear child. They didn’t run over him, or of course I wouldn’t have told you. Now, my dearest child, there’s nothing at all exciting and upsetting in this, so don’t allow yourself to be upset. It’s very bad for you, you know——’

‘I’m not upset, mother. Why should I be?’ said Virginia, holding herself up. She hadn’t been able to help turning pale at the terrible idea of Stephen so narrowly missing being run over by her mother—oh, what a horrible combination of circumstances!—but what else, she asked herself, was there to mind in this? Why shouldn’t her mother, meeting a friend, go for a little turn in his side-car on such a fine morning?

‘I never knew your mother do anything in the least like this before,’ said Mrs. Colquhoun.

‘No,’ said Virginia. ‘But don’t you think there always has to be a beginning?’

‘A beginning?’

Mrs. Colquhoun was surprised. Virginia was almost arguing with her. Besides, it was an unexpected view to take. Beginnings were not suitable, she felt, after a certain age, especially not for women. Mothers of the married, such as herself and Mrs. Cumfrit, should be concerned rather with endings than beginnings.

But she would not be anything but broad-minded; she was determined to remain, however much surprised, broad-minded. So she said, ‘Certainly,’ with hearty agreement. And repeated, ‘Certainly. Certainly there must be a beginning. Always. To everything. Only—I was wondering whether perhaps—well, anyhow it shows a wonderful vitality, and as no one recognised your mother in the village——’

‘Is it wrong to go in a side-car?’ asked Virginia, again surprisingly.

‘My dearest child, of course not. It’s only that—well, it’s a little unusual for your mother. It’s not quite what people here are used to in her, is it. It’s a—a young thing to do. Girls go in side-cars, and other wild young persons, but not—well, as I say, one can but admire such vitality and courage. I confess I wouldn’t have dared. I do believe there isn’t the young man living who could have induced me to.’

Virginia felt very unhappy. Fancy having to sit there defending her mother—her mother, who had always been on such a pinnacle. It was like a bad dream. And where was she? Why didn’t she come back? Suppose something had happened to her? Something must have happened to her, or surely she wouldn’t have missed saying good-bye to Stephen?

A sick little fear began to creep round Virginia’s heart. She hadn’t much imagination; she didn’t dramatically visualise an accident, her mother lying crumpled up and lifeless in some lonely lane, but she did think it possible something unpleasant might have happened, and it made her look with very wide, anxious eyes at Mrs. Colquhoun, and wonder what in the world it could matter really whether her mother got into fifty side-cars and rushed through fifty villages as long as she safely got out of them again.

The gong sounded.

‘Lunch,’ said Mrs. Colquhoun brightly, for Virginia’s expression rather startled her, and it was above all things necessary that the child should, in her present condition, be kept calm. ‘Shall you wait?’

‘Listen,’ said Virginia, holding up her hand.

In another moment Mrs. Colquhoun heard it too—the noise of a motor-cycle, far away but coming nearer.

‘What quick ears,’ she smilingly congratulated her daughter-in-law; but Virginia was on her feet, and running out to meet her mother.

She ran through the hall and on to the steps, expecting to see the motor-cycle careering along the avenue; and there was nothing to be seen, and the noise had left off too. It must have been some one else’s. The avenue was empty.

She stood staring down it, thrown back on her fears. Then in the distance, round the bend, she saw a small figure walking quickly towards the house. It was her mother, safe and sound.

Virginia’s immediate impulse in her glad relief was to run down the steps to meet her and hug her, but instantly the reaction set in. Nothing had happened, her mother was unharmed, and it was really too bad that she should have gone in the foolish side-car. One surely had a right to expect at least dignity in one’s mother, a sense of the suitable; especially when she belonged, too, to Stephen, a man in a public position, with a sacred calling.

Sore and puzzled, Virginia stood stiffly on the steps. Her mother came along very quickly and lightly, like a little leaf being blown up the avenue; and when she got nearer, and began to wave her hand with what appeared to be, and no doubt was, forced gaiety, Virginia noticed her face had the look on it she had seen once before during this unfortunate visit, the look of a child caught by its elders stealing the jam.