The Eldest Son Part 30

MRS. CLINTON IN JERMYN STREET

It was about seven o'clock in the evening. Mrs. Clinton stood for a moment on the pavement, on which the light of a street lamp shone and was reflected from the wet stone, and paid her cabman. Then she turned to the tall dull house and rang the bell. In this house, in one of the narrow streets just off St. James's, d.i.c.k had had rooms for many years, but his mother had not been able to correct the cabman when he had first stopped at a wrong number. She had time to reflect on this fact before the door was opened to her. Captain Clinton was not in, said the man, but he generally came in to dress not later than half-past seven; and she said she would go to his room and wait.

The hall was narrow and dimly lighted. On a table under a tiny gas-jet were a dozen or so of bedroom candlesticks, and hanging on the wall a rack for letters and telegrams. The stairs were darkly druggeted. The man opened a door on the first floor, turned on the light and retired, and she found herself in a furnished apartment such as is occupied by men of fas.h.i.+on in London. There was nothing to mark it off from superior furnished apartments anywhere. The furniture was of the solid Victorian type, the paper on the walls ugly, the carpet of a nondescript colour. There was a gilt clock on the mantelpiece and two coloured gla.s.s vases. The pictures had no value or beauty. On a marble-topped sideboard were a collection of gloves, caps, and hats, the silk ones beautifully ironed and brushed, and on the sofa were two or three carefully folded overcoats. These were all that spoke of d.i.c.k's occupancy of the rooms, on which otherwise he had made no sort of personal impress in a tenancy ranging over twelve years. There were no books, and not even a photograph belonging to him. Yet he paid the rent of a good house for this room and a bedroom behind the grained and varnished folding-doors, and was quite content with them. There was no bathroom in the house, and he had to go out for all his meals except breakfast; but he was valeted as well as if he had been at home.

Mrs. Clinton sat down in an easy-chair before the fire and looked around her once, her gaze resting for a minute on the closed doors between the two rooms. She might have wished to see what sort of bedroom d.i.c.k occupied, but she did not do so. She sat still and waited for half an hour, and then d.i.c.k came in. She heard him humming an air as he ran upstairs, but when he entered the room and saw her, half risen from her chair to receive him, he stopped short in utter surprise. "Why, mother!" he exclaimed, and for a moment his face was not welcoming. Then he came forward and kissed her. "Whatever wind blows you here?" he asked lightly.

"I am staying with Eleanor Birkett," she said. "I have come up to engage a governess for the children."

"Time to break them in, eh?" he said. "How are the young rascals?

Still raking in coins for their camera?"

She allowed herself a faint smile. "They are very well," she said.

"Well, shall we go and have a little dinner somewhere together, or are you dining in Queen's Gate?"

"I said I might not be back to dinner," she said. "I didn't know whether you would be engaged or not."

"No, I was going to dine at the club. That's capital. I'll just go and s.h.i.+ft, if you don't mind waiting, and in the meantime you consider what Epicurean haunt you would like to go to." He went into his bedroom, giving her no time to say anything further if she had wished to, and left her to sit by the fire again and wait for him.

He came out again in a quarter of an hour, during which time she had heard splas.h.i.+ngs and movements, but no further humming of airs.

"Verrey's, I think," he said. "You'll want to go somewhere quiet, eh?"

"d.i.c.k," she said, "I should like to have a little talk with you before we go out."

He was already putting on his scarf. "Let's dine first, mother," he said. "It's just upon eight, and I'm hungry. We can come back here afterwards, if you like."

Perhaps it was better that he should dine first, especially if he was hungry. "Very well," she said, and rose to go with him.

Driving through the streets, sitting over their dinner for an hour, and driving back again, nothing was said between them of what was certainly occupying Mrs. Clinton's mind, and must have been in d.i.c.k's. It was difficult for her to talk; they had so little in common besides the externals of home life, and at every turn in the conversation something came up that must not be said if there was to be no mention yet of the only thing that mattered at Kencote. But d.i.c.k seemed determined that there should be no mention of it, and by and by they got on to the subject of the twins and their new governess, and then the conversation was easier. She told him about the ladies she had interviewed, and he laughed at her descriptions of them. "Capital, mother!" he said. "You ought to write it all down." He was pleased with her. She was entertaining him, where he had thought she would be a drag on his well-meant efforts to entertain her. And because he was very well disposed towards her, it was gratifying to be able to feel that they were getting on happily together. His manner became warmer as the dinner proceeded, reflecting his feelings, which also became warmer.

They had some quite sensible conversation about the twins and their education. d.i.c.k thought that the governess who had taught in the High School--Miss Phipp--was the right one. "They want discipline," he said. "That's what's missing in girls' education, especially when they are taught at home. It won't do those young women any harm to be made to grind at it. I'm for the school-marm, mother."

As they waited for a minute for a cab to be called up to take them back to Jermyn Street, d.i.c.k said, looking at her appreciatively, "What a pretty gown that is, mother! I've never seen it before." She flushed with pleasure, but said nothing. He handed her into the cab, and took his seat beside her. "We must have another little evening together before---- When are you going back, by the by?"

"To-morrow," she said.

"What a pity! Can't you stay till the next day, and come and do a play? I've got to-morrow night free."

But she said she must go back, and he did not press her further.

When they reached d.i.c.k's rooms and got out of the cab he told the man to wait and then turned to the door with his latch-key in his hand.

"Please send him away," said Mrs. Clinton. "I came on purpose to have a talk with you, d.i.c.k."

"You needn't hurry away, mother," he said. "But you will want a cab by and by to go home in."

"I shan't feel comfortable while the minutes are ticking away," she said. "You can get me another one presently."

d.i.c.k laughed at her, but he paid the cabman, and they went up to his room together.

"Now, then, little mother," he said, as he took off his overcoat and scarf, "let's have it out. I'll mix myself a little liquid refreshment, and if you don't mind my smoking a cigar, I shall be in a mood to give you my whole attention."

Now that the time had come to speak she was nervous, and did not know how to begin. d.i.c.k, apparently thoroughly at his ease, good-humoured with her, but not prepared, it seemed, to take her very seriously, lit another cigar, poured himself out whisky and undid the wire of a soda-water bottle before she spoke, and as she was beginning he spoke himself. "I'm going to be married next month," he said; "will you come to my wedding?" As he spoke the cord of the soda-water bottle flew out with a pop, and he said, "Steady now, steady!"

There was a pause, filled only with the sound of the water gurgling into the gla.s.s. Then Mrs. Clinton spoke. "Oh, d.i.c.k!" she said, "why do you treat me like this?"

He threw a glance at her, half furtive. He had never heard her speak in that tone. She was looking at him with hurt eyes. "I am your mother," she said. "Do you think I have no feeling for my children?

Have I been such a bad mother to you that it is right to put me aside as if I were of no account when a crisis comes in your life?"

He walked to the chair on the opposite side of the fire to hers, his gla.s.s in his hand, and sat down. There was a frown on his face. Like his father, he hated a scene, unless it was one of his own making, and especially he hated a scene with a woman. But it was true that he had treated his mother as if she were of no account. In the presence of the pain which her face and her voice had shown, he felt a sense of shame at the easy mastery he had displayed towards her during the evening, putting her wishes and her feelings aside, thinking only that it was rather tiresome of her to have intruded herself into his plans, and that her intrusion must be repelled with as little disturbance as possible.

She spoke again before he could reply to her. "You are always very charming to me, d.i.c.k--on the surface. You treat me with the greatest possible politeness, always, as you have done this evening. I know that many young men do not behave with such courtesy towards their mother, especially those who do not live in the same world as they do.

But that charming behaviour is a very poor return for what a mother does for her children when they are wholly dependent on her. You used to come to me with all your troubles when you were a little boy, d.i.c.k.

Am I so changed that you must shut me out of your life altogether, now?"

Conflicting emotions caused him intense discomfort. "No, mother, no,"

he said. "But----"

She took him up. "But you don't want me any longer," she said, "and you haven't enough kindness in you to think that I may want you."

Underneath her smooth-flowing speech there was bitterness, almost cruelty; certainly cruelty, if deliberately to pierce self-satisfaction is cruel. For if there were any qualities in d.i.c.k against which he might have thought that no accusation could lie, they were his att.i.tude towards women and the essential kindness of his heart. But she had shown him that external courtesy towards her had only hidden a deep discourtesy, and his kindness was base metal, not kindness at all.

But she had aroused, if not resentment, opposition. Her words had stung. If she wanted anything from him, that was not the way to get it. "Oh, come now, mother," he said, with some impatience. "I----"

But she would not let him go on until she had said all that she had to say. "If you don't care for me, d.i.c.k, if you have lost all the love you had for me when you were a child, then I know it is of no use saying these things. Words can't bring back love, nor reproaches. And after all, it wasn't about myself that I came here to speak to you.

Your indifference has caused me pain, but I should not have taxed you with it now; I should have kept silence as I have done for many years, if it had not been that my love for you has been there ready for you if you had ever wanted it, and I thought you might want it now. But I can do nothing to help you if you won't let me a little way into your heart. I must just stand aside and see the breach between you and your father widen, when it might be healed, and you could restore him to happiness as well as take your happiness yourself."

d.i.c.k's face became harder as she mentioned his father, who had not been mentioned between them during the evening. "What can you do with him?"

he asked, with a shade of scorn in his voice. "He is utterly unreasonable. He gets an idea into his head, and nothing will get it out."

Her voice was softer as she replied. "d.i.c.k dear, you know that isn't true."

He stirred uneasily in his chair. "It is true in this case," he said.

"I suppose you mean that as a rule if you give him his head about anything you can pull him up and make him go the other way if you treat him carefully. I know you can, as a rule. This is an unfortunate exception to the rule."

"You have driven him into opposition by everything you have done," she said. "If you had been a little patient----"

"Oh, I was as patient as possible, at first," he interrupted her. "But he went beyond everything. The only thing was to go away until he had come to his senses. From what I have heard, through Walter, he is worse than ever. He is going to cut me off with a s.h.i.+lling. Well, let him. I can't imagine anything that will bother him more during the rest of his life than to have the prospect of Kencote divided up after his death. I can't imagine him thinking of such a thing. I'm not thinking of myself and what I'm going to get when I say it's a wicked thing to do. He's always looked upon the place as a sort of trust. It _is_ a trust, and he is going to betray it for the sake of scoring off me. He must know that a threat of that sort would be the last thing to move me. It is spite, and spite that hurts him as much as it hurts me."

"Oh, d.i.c.k! d.i.c.k!" she said.

He gave another uneasy hitch to his body. Her gentle admonition showed him as no argument could have shown him from what source his speech had come.

"Of course I'm sore," he said, answering her implied reproach. "Any man would be sore in such a case. I believe you have seen Virginia. I ask you plainly, mother, if you are on his side--the sort of mud he throws at her--you know. Because if you are----"

"No, d.i.c.k dear," she said. "I have seen her, and I am not--not on his side, in that."

Her words, and the tone in which they were spoken, softened his anger.

"You would welcome her as my wife?" he asked.