Collected Works of E M Delafield

by E M Delafield

  III

  “Dear Lucilla,

  “I think you’d better not expect me till you see me, if that’ll be all right. I may be going up to London for a day or two when the party breaks up here tomorrow, as I really must see about a job of some kind. I’m sure Father will approve of this, so mind you tell him it’s the reason. I hope he wasn’t frightfully sick at the way we all played the fool the night of the show, but really it was his own fault for coming, and if he didn’t like it, he must just do the other thing.

  “Cheerio.

  “Yours,

  “Adrian.”

  “My Dear Adrian,

  “It would be better if you could come back here before deciding to go to London. Father is writing to you, and you will probably see from his letter that he particularly wants you at home. I hope you are not in trouble, but Father is certainly upset about something, and you will only make matters worse by going off in a hurry. Besides, I think he would quite likely follow you.

  “Your affectionate sister,

  “Lucilla Morchard.”

  “Dear Lucilla,

  “If you hear of me doing something desperate, you may tell Father that he has only himself to thank! I now know what he and old Duffle have been up to, between them, and I may tell you that I do not intend to put up with this sort of thing any longer. Father doesn’t seem to realize that I am a man, and in grim earnest over some things, and he and old Duffle have now utterly scotched my chances of happiness for life, although I daresay without realizing what they were doing. Olga is the only girl I shall ever love, and if I have lost her I do not care what I do or what becomes of me, and you may tell Father so. If this is what religion leads to, you can also tell him that I am utterly off it for life. That is what they have done, by their interference with my affairs, because I am almost sure Olga would at least have become engaged to me, if she had been let alone, and not bullied by her father and mother, and threatened with poverty if she married me. As you know, it needn’t have been anything of the sort, if my plans had worked out all right, and we could have had Stear, but I am completely off the Church, in any shape or form, so that is what Father has done, whether he knows it or not!!!

  “You will, I suppose, be upset at this letter being so bitter in tone, but I may say that my faith in human nature is utterly shattered for good and all, and this has been done by my own father!! I am coming home on Monday and not before, so it’s no use father dictating to me.

  “Yours,

  “Adrian.”

  “My Dearest Adrian,

  “I don’t understand why Lucilla tells me that you are returning home on Monday, when you know it is my wish, distinctly expressed in my letter to you two days ago, that you should be here on Saturday, so that we may spend the Sunday together. Unless you have a very valid reason for disregarding my wishes, I must insist, for your own sake, upon your complying with them. I do so want you to be considerate, quite apart from the question of dutifulness — for instance, it is quite a little thing, but you don’t say what time you are arriving here, and yet you surely know that this makes a difference with regard to questions of meals, etc. in a small household such as ours. It is only want of thought, dear lad, but do try and correct this fault. I have so often had to reprove myself for the like small negligences that it makes me anxious to see the same tendency in you. This is not a lecture, my dear boy, but only a reminder, from one who has had to be both mother and father to you.

  “I have other, and very much more serious, matters to talk over with you when we meet, but all shall be done in the spirit of love and confidence, I do trust, and if I am obliged to inflict pain upon you, you must remember that it is multiplied ten-fold upon my own head.

  “I shall expect a line, sent either to myself or to Lucilla, announcing the hour of your arrival on Saturday. God by you, dearest of lads, until we meet.

  “Your devoted

  Father.”

  “Dear Lucilla,

  “On second thoughts, I shall come home on Saturday, in time for dinner. Most likely I shall go straight off to London on Monday morning, but you needn’t say anything to Father about this. If you can, persuade him to have up the port on Sunday night.

  Yours,

  Adrian.”

  “Dear lad! He is all anxiety to do right, at bottom,” said the Canon tenderly to Lucilla, when a censored version of this communication had been passed on to him. “You see how readily he submits to returning on Saturday, in order to please me.”

  If Lucilla thought this act of submission inspired by fear, rather than by a desire to please, she did not say so.

  The Canon had said nothing to her of his interview with Mr. Duffle, and made only one remark which might be held to refer to his visitor:

  “We are all of us apt to set a false value on appearances, I suspect. Aye, my daughters, in spite of his ‘forty years in the wilderness,’ it is so with your father. Trivial vulgarities, or mere superficial coarseness, have blinded one time and again, till some sudden, beautiful impulse or flash of generous delicacy comes to rebuke one. Well, well — each mistake can be used as a rung of the ladder. Always remember that.”

  That trivial vulgarities and superficial coarseness were characteristics of Mr. Duffle was undeniable, but Lucilla deduced that these had been redeemed in the manner suggested, since the builder’s prolonged visit to her father had left him, though grave, singularly calm. He had, indeed, summoned Adrian to St. Gwenllian, but his manner showed none of the peculiar restrained suffering that was always to be discerned when the Canon felt one of his children to be in serious fault.

  “It is more than time that Adrian found his vocation, said the Canon. “I have been to blame in allowing him to drift, but it has been an unutterable joy to have him with us, after these terrible war-years. However, there is no further excuse for delay. He and I must have a long talk.”

  Lucilla could surmise only too well the effect of a long talk upon Adrian, if his frame of mind might be judged correctly from his impassioned letter to her.

  As usual, however, she said nothing.

  The Canon’s mood of mellow forbearance continued to wax as the day went on, and he met his favourite son with a benign affectionateness that contrasted strangely with Adrian’s dramatically-restrained demeanour.

  Flora, as a rule utterly incurious, asked Lucilla what was the matter.

  “I don’t quite know. Something to do with Olga Duffle, I imagine. Probably Adrian has proposed to her, or something foolish of the kind, and the Duffles want it stopped.”

  “Has he said anything more about his idea of taking Orders?”

  “I hope not,” said Lucilla rather grimly.

  She preferred not to imagine the Canon’s probable reception of an ambition thus inspired.

  The long talk projected by Canon Morchard was impracticable on a Sunday, always his busiest day, until evening.

  As the Canon rose from the late, and scrupulously cold, evening meal, he said:

  “Daughters, you will not sit up beyond your usual hour. Adrian, my dear — come.”

  The door of the study shut, and Lucilla and Flora remained in the drawing-room.

  Lucilla occupied herself with note-books and works of reference, and Flora, in the exquisite copper-plate handwriting that the Canon had insisted upon for all his children, in close imitation of his own, wrote out an abstract of her father’s sermon, as she had done almost every Sunday evening ever since she could remember.

  The silence was unbroken till nearly an hour later, when Lucilla observed:

  “Do you know, Flossie, that Father’s book is very nearly finished? There are only two more chapters to revise.”

  “‘Leonidas of Alexandria’” said Flora thoughtfully.

  The subject of the Canon’s exhaustive researches and patient compilations was known to the household. “He’ll publish it, of course?”

  “He hopes to. But Owen told me that there isn’t a very great demand for that kind of work, nowada
ys.” Flora looked inquiringly at her sister.

  “I hope Father isn’t going to be disappointed,” she said, half interrogatively.

  “I’m very much afraid that he is.”

  On this encouraging supposition of Miss Morchard’s, the conversation ended.

  In accordance with their father’s desire, both sisters had gone upstairs before the conference in the study came to an end.

  There came a knock at Lucilla’s door.

  She opened it.

  “Come in, Adrian.”

  “It’s all up,” said Adrian, in the eloquent idiom of his generation, and made a melodramatic gesture of desperation.

  Lucilla closed the door and sat down, seeming undisturbed by so cataclysmic an announcement of finality.

  “I’m off on my own, after this. Father has utterly mucked up my entire life, as I think I told you in my letter, and he can’t see what he has done!”

  Lucilla wondered whether Adrian had spent two and a half hours in endeavouring to open his parent’s eyes to his own work of destruction.

  “Would you mind telling me exactly what has happened?”

  Adrian embarked upon a tone of gloomy narrative.

  “Well, I don’t know whether you had any idea that I am — was — well, frightfully hard hit by that girl Olga. Not just thinking her pretty and clever, and all that sort of thing, you know, though of course she was — is, I mean. But simply knowing that she was the one and only person I should ever care for. Of course, I know now that I was mistaken in her, to a certain extent, and I can tell you, Lucilla, that it’s very hard on a man to be as thoroughly disillusioned as I’ve been. It’s enough to shatter one’s faith in women for life.”

  “But what did Father do?” said Lucilla, as her brother seemed inclined to lose himself in the contemplation of his own future misogyny.

  “What did he do?” echoed Adrian bitterly. “He and old Duffle had the — the audacity to meet together and discuss my private affairs, and take upon themselves to decide that anything between me and Olga ought to be put an end to. I must say, I thought that kind of thing had gone out with the Middle Ages, when people walled up their daughters alive, and all that kind of tosh. And how Olga, of all people, put up with it I can’t imagine; but they seemed to have pitched some yarn about my not being able to afford to marry, and frightened her with the idea of my being after her money, I suppose.”

  “But Adrian, had you asked her to marry you?”

  “No, of course not. But I did think we might have been engaged. Then I wouldn’t have had to put up with seeing a lot of other fellows after her,” said Adrian naively.

  “And did you explain that to Father?” Lucilla inquired, not without a certain dismay in picturing the Canon’s reception of these strange ideals.

  “More or less; but you know what he is. He always does most of the talking himself. I can quite understand why we were so frightened of him as kids, you know. He seems to work himself up about things, and then he always has such a frightfully high-faluting point of view. We might really have been talking at cross-purposes, half the time.”

  “I can quite believe it.”

  “Of course, I’m not exactly afraid of him now, but it does make it a bit difficult to say what’s in one’s mind.”

  “That’s just the pity of it, Adrian. He always says that he does so wish you were more unreserved with him. He does very much want you to say what’s in your mind.”

  “But he wouldn’t like it if I did — in fact, he probably wouldn’t understand it.”

  Few things could be more incontrovertible.

  “The fact is that father has quite a wrong idea of me. He seems to expect me to have all the notions that he had, when he was a young high-brow at Oxford, about ninety years ago. As I told him, things have gone ahead a bit since then.”

  Lucilla, for her consolation, reflected that few people are capable of distinguishing accurately between what they actually say, and what they subsequently wish themselves to have said, when reporting a conversation. It was highly probable that Adrian had been a good deal less eloquent than he represented himself to have been.

  “You didn’t say anything, did you, about your idea of taking Orders?”

  “No,” said Adrian rather curtly. “I did begin something about it, just to show that I hadn’t been the unpractical ass he seemed to think I was, but he went off at the deep end almost directly. I said something about going into the Church, you see, and he didn’t wait for me to finish, but started away about our all being ‘in the Church’ from the day of our baptism, and so on — splitting hairs, I call it. As if everyone didn’t know what is generally meant by going into the Church.”

  “Well, in this case, I really hope he didn’t know. Flossie and I always told you that Father would be very much shocked at your way of looking at the priesthood.”

  “Anyhow, it’s all off now,” said Adrian gloomily. “There wouldn’t be the slightest object in it, and besides I’m thoroughly off religion at the moment, as I think I told you. No, I shall go to London.”

  Lucilla looked further inquiry.

  “No, I’m not going after Olga; you can be quite easy about that. In fact, I may say I don’t ever want to set eyes on her again, after the way she’s let me down. No, I’m going to try journalism, or something like that. Anyhow, I mean to be a free lance for a bit.”

  The first note of real resolution that Lucilla had heard there, crept into Adrian’s young voice.

  “Father really can’t go on running the show for me like this. It’s me that’s got to decide what to do with my life, and I’m going to get a bit of experience on my own. I know I had six months in France, but that isn’t going to be the whole of my life. In fact, Lucilla, I’ve decided, though I’m sorry in a way, to say such a thing, that Father has got to be taught a lesson, and it’s me that’s going to do the teaching.”

  Iron firmness, denoted by a closely compressed mouth and a rather defiant eye fixed glassily upon Lucilla’s, characterized Adrian’s announcement.

  “Listen,” said Lucilla.

  They heard a heavy footfall, eloquent of weariness, outside the door. It was followed by the sound of an imperative tap.

  Adrian’s face relaxed and a more normal expression succeeded to the compelling one that had petrified his gaze.

  “Adrian, my son, are you there?”

  “Yes, father.”

  “Dear lad, how thoughtless you are! Your sister is tired, and it is already very late. Finish your talk tomorrow, my dear ones.”

  There was a pause.

  Then Adrian said:

  “Well, I suppose Time is on the wing, as usual. Good-night, Lucilla.”

  He went out.

  Lucilla heard the Canon bid him good-night, and his voice held profound sadness, rather than-the vexation that she had feared.

  She moved swiftly to the door.

  “Father, I have found that reference in Origen.”

  The Canon’s face, drawn and tired, lightened on the instant.

  “My indefatigable searcher after truth! Lucilla indeed casts light into dark places — you were well named, my daughter. That is good news indeed — good news indeed.”

  “Should you like me to come down again, or are you too tired?”

  “Nay, Lucilla, you heard me bid Adrian to his room. Would you have me transgress my own regulations?

  That would be inconsistent indeed. We will investigate our Origen tomorrow.”

  “You are so near the end of it now, Father.”

  “Aye, the work has progressed wonderfully these last few months. And I have been wonderfully blessed in your help, my child — my right hand! It has been a labour of love indeed.”

  Lucilla hoped that he would go to his room still cheered by the thought of the book. But the Canon lingered, to enquire sadly:

  “You have talked with Adrian?”

  “A little.”

  “Dear fellow, one must make all allowance for his disappointme
nt of his first fancy, but there is a want of stability — what I can only call a levity of spirit — that distresses one beyond words. He was all submission and deference, but there was not the spontaneous calling of deep unto deep that one somehow looked for.... And yet Adrian is the one of you all from whom I had hoped for the greatest unreserve, the most ideal companionship....”

  Lucilla knew it, had always known it, only too well. Not one of his other children had been treated with the indulgence that the Canon had always displayed towards his youngest born.

  The Canon’s next words chimed in oddly with her thoughts.

  “Perhaps I have condoned too much in Adrian. It is not a strong character — but the strongest are not always the most lovable. He talks now of going to London.”

  “So he told me.”

  “One can only trust,” said the Canon with a heavy sigh. “I must bid you good-night, dear daughter. It is not right that you should be kept up in this fashion.” Lucilla was left to seek what repose she might.

  The next day at St. Gwenllian was one of constraint. Adrian was silent in his father’s presence, and full of adamantine resolution in his absence. At meal times, the subjects to be avoided — which now included the Admastons, their theatricals, and the Duffle family, as well as Valeria’s marriage — seemed unduly numerous. In the evening, the Canon made a great and evident effort, that struck Lucilla as infinitely pathetic, to readjust matters.

  His show of laboured brightness could deceive no one, but Lucilla and Mr. Clover seconded his attempts at general conversation with determination, and Flora was not more silent than was her wont. Adrian, manifestly sulky at first, awoke presently to a change in the atmosphere, and thereupon erred rather upon the side of garrulity than on that of restraint.

  His face darkened, however, when the Canon after dinner suddenly said with pseudo-heartiness:

  “I am about to call one of our old-time family councils, young people. What say you, Adrian, to a little friendly discussion of your future plans? Time was, perhaps, when these things were settled rather in a long, heart-to-heart talk between father and son; but times change, and we must move with them — we must move with them.”