The Eldest Son Part 31

"Oh yes, I would," she said. "And I will, d.i.c.k, when this trouble is over. If she will love me I will love her. Yes, I have seen her, twice."

"Thank you very much, mother," he said quietly, after a short pause.

"d.i.c.k," she began again, "you know your father. You know how unhappy it must make him to be parted from you. You are bearing very hardly on him."

"And he on me, mother," said d.i.c.k. "What do you want me to do? Give up Virginia? You haven't come here to ask me to do that?"

"No, not that, d.i.c.k."

"Or to wait for a year? That's Walter's scheme--at least, I believe it's Herbert Birkett's. Very kind of him to take a hand in the discussion. But I'm not going to wait a year. I'm not going to wait any time. Why should I? If I make concessions of that sort I'm giving away my case, I'm admitting that there's some sense in the objections made--some reason in them. There's none. I won't submit Virginia to the indignity. I'm sorry now I ever got her down to Meads.h.i.+re. I did that because I knew what--what his prejudices would be, and I thought he should have a chance of getting over them."

"Then you did think, at first, that there was something to be said for his prejudices."

"Er--yes--to the extent that if I had put it baldly that I was going to marry a widow, an American, who had been for a time on the stage--years ago--although I confess I didn't think that would be known--there might be trouble. I thought then, and I think now, that if he had given her a fair chance--if he had got to know her, he _couldn't_ possibly take the line he has. There isn't a soul down there--I've heard all about it--who isn't at her feet. It makes me furious--I hardly let myself think about it--that he should behave as he does. No, mother, it has gone too far. There is nothing I can do now, after all that has happened, that wouldn't be an admission of weakness."

She did not speak immediately. "Have you made up your mind," she asked, "to cut yourself off from all of us--never to come to Kencote again until your father dies--never to see him again?"

"When I am married," he said, rather sullenly, "he will come round--sooner or later."

"Not to make the first advance, d.i.c.k. If you marry now, without his consent, definitely against his wishes, he will make the alteration as to the succession that he has threatened. That will be between you.

He will be very unhappy--for the rest of his life--but he will have taken a step that will make it ten times more difficult for you to come together than it is now, and----"

"As far as the alteration in his will goes," d.i.c.k broke in on her, "I have thought all that over. As I say, it's a step he has no right to take under the circ.u.mstances, but if it is to come, if I am to come into the place--or what's left of it--with my wings clipped for money, then I say I'm ready to face it, and I don't mind as much as I thought I should. Perhaps I've thought too much about money--having everything cut and dried, and nothing to do for it. It was that that made me make the mistake of getting Virginia to go down to Blaythorn. I was afraid of what might happen--what he might do. It was rather mean, in a way.

I don't care what he does. At least, I care, but it isn't a thing one ought to think too much about. Other fellows work to give their wives a home. I'm going to do that, and I like the idea of it."

"I think that is a good thing to do," she said rather slowly.

"But--well, you mustn't mind my speaking, plainly, d.i.c.k--I think, too, that in your case you may make too much of it. I mean that your mind is probably full of it now, and it is a great relief to you that you have found a way out of what might have been a serious difficulty, and that you are not dependent on your father in your marriage. But there is Kencote to be thought of. You are the eldest son, and your natural place in the world is there. At present, with your new happiness coming to you, you are able to detach your mind from it. But when the novelty of your new life has worn off----"

"Oh, mother, I am not a child," he interrupted her. "I know there is Kencote to be thought of, but not for many years yet--at least, I hope so. And if I am to be partially disinherited, you know"--he looked at her with a smile--"I think I had better detach my mind from it as much as possible, don't you?"

Again she was silent for a time, and then she said, "Do you remember when you were a little boy, d.i.c.k, and we were together in the garden one summer evening, and I was telling you about the Clintons, who had lived at Kencote for so many hundreds of years, and you asked me why some people lived in beautiful places like that and others were poor and had no nice homes? And your father had come out to join us--he was a young man then--and he answered your question, and told you that things were arranged like that, and some day Kencote would be yours, and you must learn to love every acre of it, and know all the people who lived about you and do the best you could for them when you were grown up and were the master of Kencote."

"Yes, I remember quite well," said d.i.c.k. "It was the first lesson I had in the duties of a landowner."

"We were very happy then," she said. "We used to talk over things together, and father took a pride in you, and did all he could to make your childhood happy and make you take a pride in Kencote."

"Yes, he did," said d.i.c.k. "He gave me a very good time as a boy. And so did you, mother. I remember our talks in the garden and in the old schoolroom, and going to church with you, and about the village. I shall never forget those days."

"You grew up at Kencote," she said. "I know you have always loved it, and have come home to us whenever you could. d.i.c.k, you can't give it up, and give us up, your parents who both love you. You will make yourself unhappy, as well as us."

He was thoughtful and uneasy. "Of course, it's a blow," he said. "I do love the place."

"And us too, d.i.c.k, don't you--a little?"

"Oh, mother!" he said. "You have always been very good to me. Perhaps I've been rather a brute to you--taking things for granted, and not showing that I remembered. I do remember, you know. I had a good time as a child, and I owe a lot to you."

"And to father too," she said. "Think of all he did for you and how proud he has always been of you. He has made a mistake now--I think he has, and I tell you so--but, d.i.c.k, you are not going to punish him--and me and yourself--by destroying, for always, everything that keeps us united as a family?"

Again he moved uneasily. "Well, what on earth am I to do?" he asked.

"I've told you what I feel about it all."

"Well, don't you feel exactly as your father does? Aren't you acting just as you blame him for acting? Don't you see how like you are to him in many ways?"

"The poor old governor!" said d.i.c.k. "I'm sorry for him in a way. But I hope I don't act with quite such disregard for common sense as he does."

"You act from pique. He thinks you are in the wrong, and won't give way, although he would like to. And you think he is in the wrong and you won't move towards him. There's something better even than common sense, d.i.c.k, which he shows and you don't. It is love."

"I don't think you can reasonably say he has shown me much of that lately, mother," said d.i.c.k.

"You keep away from him," she said. "If you were to come home you would see how he has been longing for you, and you would be sorry for him. Even if people wrong us, if they love us and we see it, it is not difficult to forgive them. If you would come home I think all your anger would disappear, however much you may think you are justified in it. I have never seen your father so unhappy and so troubled. For his sake, d.i.c.k, for the sake of all that he has done for you, come home to us. That was what I came here to ask of you."

He was silent for some time, struggling with himself. "I'll come," he said shortly, "but you must tell him, mother, that I am going to be married soon. I can't come to enter into that question again with him.

It is settled."

"Very well," she said quietly, and there was silence between them for a time.

"And now tell me of your plans, d.i.c.k," she said presently in a lighter tone. "You must remember that I have heard nothing, and I want to hear everything."

"Oh, I'm going up to Yorks.h.i.+re next week to get the house ready.

Virginia is coming with me and we are going to stay with Spence. It is a nice old stone house with a big garden and a view of the moors, and the sea beyond. Look here, mother, can't you do anything? You have brought _me_ round, you know. I'm going to do what you want, against my own inclinations. I shan't be very comfortable at Kencote. Can't you go and see Virginia? It's rather hard luck for her, poor girl, to be treated as if she were a pariah by all my people. Something's owing to her, and a good deal, I think."

"I should like very much to know her," she said. "Whether I can go definitely against your father's wishes, whether I should do any good by doing so, is a difficult question to decide."

"Well, I suppose I can see that," he said. "You have got to live with him. But if we are to make it up at all, he and I, which I own I haven't much hope of, there'll have to be give and take on both sides.

You ought not to get me down to Kencote and then take his part against me."

"We must wait a little," she said. "What I can do I will do. Oh, d.i.c.k dear, I am so glad you are going to be happy. I have thought about you such a lot."

He came over to her and kissed her. "You're a good little mother," he said. "I wish I'd carried you off bodily to see Virginia when she first went down there. You would have got on well together."

"Oh, and we shall," she said, "as soon as these unhappy difficulties are over. Now I shall go back home with a quiet mind. I'm sure, d.i.c.k, if you are patient with your father, all the difficulties will melt away. It rests with you, dear boy, and I'm sure you will act wisely.

Now I must be going back, if you will send for a cab for me."

"I'll take you back," said d.i.c.k. "I want to tell you all about everything, mother."

CHAPTER XX

AUNT LAURA INTERVENES

For an old lady who did not enjoy the best of health, who had lived all her life in an atmosphere of congenial companions.h.i.+p and now lived alone, who had no place of importance to fill in the world, and small occupation except what she made for herself, Aunt Laura pa.s.sed her days in unusual contentment.

The life of an old maid blessed with a sufficiency of this world's goods is a cheerful if rather pathetic object of contemplation. You would think they missed so much, and they seem to miss so little.

There is nothing that seems much worth their doing, unless they are particularly gifted, and yet they are always busy. If you had paid a visit to Aunt Laura at any time of the day you would never have found her sitting with her hands in her lap, idle, unless it happened to be at those times, after a meal or, as she would say, between lights, when a short period of contemplation was as ordered a part of the day's duties as any more active occupation. After breakfast she would be busy with household duties, "ordering," or pa.s.sing in review some or other of her possessions, one of her three servants in attendance, giving her whole mind to it, although the weakness of her ageing body made it inc.u.mbent on her now chiefly to superintend from her habitation in front of the parlour fire. Sometimes she was induced to stay in bed until the morning was well advanced, but it was a great trial to her.

"If the mistress is not about," she would say, "all the house goes to pieces. And although I have good and trustworthy servants, who have been with me a long time, things go wrong if they are left too much to themselves." So even when in bed, she would sit propped up by pillows with a dressing-jacket round her shrunken old shoulders, giving her orders for the meals of the day to the stout, friendly cook, who stood by her bedside with her head on one side and made suggestions, which were sometimes accepted and sometimes overruled, and after that important duty was over, go through the linen with Hannah, the parlour-maid, or arrange with Jane, the housemaid, what room should be "turned out," and when, or other matters of like moment.