Collected Works of E M Delafield

by E M Delafield

  “Look upon me as your best earthly friend, dear lad, as well as your father, for no one can be more eager to sympathize with you on every point than I am — and have always been. It has always seemed to me that the relationship of father and son could — and should — be an utterly ideal one.

  “My love to you, as always, and do write at once. I must not end this without reminding you that business-like habits, which I am so anxious that you should acquire, make it obligatory to acknowledge a cheque by return of post, even were there not other reasons for writing without delay. Anything that you wish treated as confidential will of course be sacred — but that you know already.

  “In all lovingness, dear Adrian, I remain your most devoted father,

  “F. L. M.”

  “Can I say more?” the Canon enquired sadly and anxiously, as Lucilla laid down the letter. To which Lucilla, with restraint, replied by a bald negative.

  “I have weighed every word,” her father repeated, with, as she knew, only too much truth.

  “Perhaps Adrian may feel that you are taking him too seriously altogether. He sometimes seems—”

  “Whom, and what, should I take seriously if not my son, and his earthly and eternal welfare?” the Canon interrupted her rather sternly. “You take a great deal upon yourself, Lucilla, in speaking so. No doubt you say to yourself: T am young, I am of the period, it is for me to act as interpreter between the parent, who is of another generation, and the youth, who belongs to mine.’ But if I read your thought correctly, my child — and I have no doubt that I do — it is an arrogant one, and altogether unworthy of you.”

  Lucilla did not explain that no such determination had crossed her mind as the self-sufficient one ascribed to her. She was aware, in common with all the Canon’s children, that he was prone to attribute to them occasionally motives and attitudes of mind strangely and almost incredibly alien to anything to which they could ever reasonably lay claim. Far more often, did he credit them with aspirations and intentions of a quite undeserved sublimity.

  Her inward fear, that Adrian would probably leave the major part of his father’s letter unread, she did not put into words.

  “Owen tells me that he is shortly going to London, and I shall make a point of asking him to see our dear fellow and bring me a full report,” said the Canon.

  He proffered his request shortly afterwards to Quentillian, by whom it was received with no enthusiasm whatever.

  “Will Adrian like it?”’ he enquired, although fully conscious that Adrian would not.

  “Aye, that he will,” said the Canon with emphasis. “It is just because we feel you to be so thoroughly one of ourselves, dear Owen, that I am asking you to act the elder brother’s part that would be David’s, were he at home.”

  Lucilla could sympathize in the entire absence of elation with which Quentillian took his departure, under the new honour thus thrust upon him.

  There was a certain rueful amusement under his discomfiture when he left St. Gwenllian.

  On his return, Lucilla discovered instantly that any lurking amusement had been stifled under a perfectly real anxiety.

  “What is it?” she almost involuntarily asked, as she mechanically made her preparations at the tea-table for the Canon’s entrance.

  “I’m afraid I have news that will distress you all, about Adrian.”

  “Is he ill?” said Flora.

  “No. I’m sorry if I frightened you. He has taken up some work that I’m afraid the Canon will disapprove of — on the staff of Hale’s paper.”

  “What is that?” Flora asked, with grave, innocent eyes.

  But Lucilla said at once: “That’s the new review that has been so very much criticized for its attitude towards the Church, isn’t it?”

  He nodded.

  “Oh!” Flora caught her breath, and her delicate face expressed the violent and instinctive recoil of her spirit.

  Owen looked at Lucilla.

  Her indignation took a line that was not altogether what he had expected.

  “Well, surely Adrian need not have found a way of asserting his independence that must run counter to everything Father has ever taught!”

  “He isn’t exactly doing it out of the spirit of opposition. Hale has taken a fancy to him, and it’s the first chance Adrian has had of regular, paid work. From a worldly point of view, he’d be a fool not to have accepted it.”

  “A worldly point of view!” echoed Flora. “One doesn’t expect that in Father’s son, somehow.” Theoretically, Quentillian felt, one didn’t.

  “Surely Adrian isn’t capable of controversial writing?” Flora added, with a severity that saw apparently nothing humourous in the suggestion.

  “Nothing of that sort will be required of him. He will only write light articles, like that thing you saw in the Athene. The point is that he is working for a man like Hale, whose reputation — which is fairly considerable in its own way — rests entirely upon his very anticlerical attitude.”

  “But how can Adrian reconcile that with his duty as a Church member?” said Flora tersely.

  “I didn’t ask him,” was Quentillian’s equally terse reply.

  They all three remained silent.

  “Is Adrian going to write to Father, or has he written already?” Flora asked at last.

  “He hasn’t written.”

  Lucilla’s short-sighted gaze, with the rather intent look characteristic of a difficulty in focussing, rested for a moment upon Quentillian’s face. Then she asked quietly:

  “Did he ask you to tell Father for him?”

  “Fie did.”

  “How like Adrian,” said Lucilla.

  She made the statement very matter-of-factly, but Quentillian knew it to be none the less a condemnation.

  “There was — is — no chance of making Adrian give it up?” Flora asked.

  “None, I should think, at present. Hale is a man of great personality, and Adrian is a good deal flattered, naturally enough, at being taken up by him. Of course he knows as well as you or I that it’s the thing of all others to distress the Canon most. He’s genuinely upset about it, in a way, but he struck me as being rather childishly bent on showing that he can strike out a line of his own.”

  “Poor, poor Father! He has had so much to bear lately. Must he be told?” said Flora,

  “Of course he must. But I don’t think Owen is the person to do the telling. Adrian should do it himself.”

  “So I told him,” Quentillian observed rather grimly. “The utmost I could get out of him was a very short note, that I am to give to the Canon when he knows the facts.”

  No comment followed the announcement of so slender an achievement, and they were sitting in silence when Canon Morchard came in.

  He greeted Owen Quentillian affectionately, as he always did, but said quickly:

  “I am afraid that you bear no very glad tidings, dear fellow. No matter. We will have our talk later. Let us forget grave subjects, and partake of ‘the cup that cheers,’ which I can see that Lucilla there has ready for us. What think you of this political crisis?”

  In the ensuing conversation the Canon, if not merry, was at least gravely cheerful.

  Afterwards he took Owen into the garden, his arm laid across the young man’s shoulders in the fashion that he so often adopted.

  They remained out for a long while.

  Lucilla did not see her father again until evening, when it was evident that a weight of unhappiness had descended upon him.

  He read Prayers as usual, and the servants left the room.

  “One moment, my daughters. It is right that you should know the very grievous news I have learnt today. Adrian has definitely adopted a career which must cut him off from those of us who are living members of the Church. He has cast in his lot with an enemy of the Church — a man who makes his living, and has acquired a disgraceful notoriety, by attacking the Church. Your brother has been seduced into a friendship with this man — he is working for him, writing fo
r his paper.”

  The Canon’s voice broke.

  “I am going up to seek him tomorrow, and plead with him, but I have little hope. He does not answer the letters that I write with such yearning anxiety and love — I have lost my influence over him. If it is, as I fear, then— ‘if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off.’ My dear children, I ask you to join with me here and now in intercession for our erring one.”

  He broke down, and the tears ran down his face.

  It was as though Adrian’s defection cost him a double pang: that to his own fatherhood, and that to the ministry of the Church which he felt to be such a living reality.

  III. DAVID AND FLORA

  I

  “It cannot be, my dear,” the Canon repeated. So inexorable was his voice, in all its kindness, that his daughter Flora felt that it could not, indeed be.

  But it was Lucilla who had launched the “it” in question, and it was to Lucilla that the parental negative had been already addressed no less than three times.

  “If I am thus patient with this strange persistence of yours, Lucilla,” said the Canon, his voice deepening after a fashion which indicated not at all obscurely that he might not continue to be patient very much longer, “if I am thus patient, it is because I do you the justice to believe that it is sisterly affection for our poor Valeria and her little one, and not a mere restless desire for change, that has induced you to put forward this astonishing proposal. But consider the folly and selfishness of this scheme, my child. You propose to spend money — which we can ill afford, any of us — and sacrifice time and strength in a wild rush overseas, an insensate dash through an unknown country, in search of your sister’s new home. No doubt you say to yourself ‘I am the winged Messenger of the Gods. I fly to take help and comfort to our erring one.

  I will assist this new little life that is coming into the world.’ You picture to yourself a triumphal progress — a rapturous welcome — the acclamations of a New World. But you deceive yourself, Lucilla. You deceive yourself grossly.”

  Flora felt herself colouring as she bent over her needlework. A display of violent emotion as that into which Canon Morchard was now working himself by force of his own eloquence, was always distasteful to her, and she felt a vicarious shame for Lucilla, convicted of such presumptuous flights of fancy.

  Flora was astonished at the calm of her sister’s reply, when it came.

  “But I don’t, Father. I hadn’t any idea of doing anything but travelling to Canada in the ordinary way, and being with Val when her new baby arrives. You know, it is dreadfully soon after her first one, and she really isn’t—”

  “Have a care, Lucilla! Who are you to question the time and seasons appointed by the All-seeing Wisdom for the bestowal of the infinite blessing of children?”

  If Lucilla represented an infinite blessing to Canon Morchard, the fact was not over evident at the moment. His brow was thunderous as he gazed at her.

  “It is Valeria’s own choice that has sent her into a far country. She might have been at our very gates, had she but willed it so.”

  “Well,” said Lucilla reasonably. “I don’t think if Val had been so near us as all that, she would have written and begged one of us to come to her. It’s just because she’s out there, such a long way off, and with no one to help her, that she’s frightened. Why, she may not even be able to get a servant.”

  “Poor child!” The Canon’s voice softened. “The way of transgressors is hard. But two wrongs never yet made a right, Lucilla. I recognize the generous impulse that moves you — if I spoke sharply just now, it was only from my intense wish to see you do justice to your own really noble character, my child. Believe me, your duty lies here, in the state to which it has pleased God to call you.”

  Lucilla’s brows contracted slightly, after her shortsighted fashion, but it was not at all with an effect of vexation, but rather of some slight perplexity.

  At last she said:

  “Could Flora go?”

  Flora, startled, looked at her father. For a moment it occurred to her that perhaps he would be willing to spare her. Her heart leapt at the thought of seeing Val, and Val’s babies. A vista of new experiences, of hitherto undreamed-of independence, startled even whilst it pleasantly excited her.

  Then her father said: “My dear, of what are you thinking? Your zealous desire to befriend one sister makes you strangely inconsiderate of the other. Flora is neither accustomed to responsibility, nor is she very robust in health. Certainly, were it a clear question of duty, one could put all that aside — but the call would have to be unmistakable, the leading beyond all question. I can see no such indications here.”

  Flora, quietly bent over her needle-work once more, was ashamed of the realization that she was disappointed.

  Inwardly, she offered instant expiation for the rebellious moment, consciously addressing herself to the personal Divinity by whom, she had always been taught, every hair of her head was numbered.

  The reflection came, in immediate consolation, that she was not without her spiritual glory, by this very act of resignation.

  “They also serve who only stand and wait,” she thought.

  The Canon had often quoted this to Flora, and indeed to any of his children who showed a desire for alien activities.

  Flora might be said to have stood and waited for some time now. It occurred to her that if Lucilla went to Canada, responsibilities at home, other than passive ones, would become her own portion. The thought did not displease her. Flora, too, though far less consciously than Valeria, had sometimes glimpsed the sterility of her days.

  “Lucilla, you know where to seek counsel, I believe,” said Canon Morchard gravely. “I make all due allowance for your natural, loving impulse towards our poor Valeria — all due allowance. If your heart bleeds for her, how much more does not mine? But there are times when we must do violence to our natural feelings and I believe that some such necessity is upon you now. Deny yourself, my daughter, and He will bless the sacrifice both to you and to our dear one far away.”

  “But who will look after her when her baby is born?” said Lucilla reflectively.

  “Lucilla, where is your trust?”

  “Mostly in myself, I think,” said Lucilla gently. “I really shouldn’t feel it right not to go to Val, Father. I hope you will forgive me.” She spoke so gently, with so simple a note of sincere regret in her quiet voice, that the Canon, to Flora’s perceptions, appeared to overlook the slightly blasphemous implication in the first words of her sentence.

  “No man is more averse than myself from tampering with another’s conscience,” he said, with gravity and displeasure. “You are no longer a child, Lucilla, but have a care lest self-will should blind you. I have long since warned you of the danger of self-complacency. I lay no commands upon you, but I do most earnestly beg, my child, that you will submit your own judgment to a higher Tribunal than any earthly one, before coming to any decision. Commune with your own heart, Lucilla, and be sure that self-seeking is not lurking under the guise of loving-kindness.”

  The Canon went out of the room and Flora and Lucilla were left together.

  It was evident that Lucilla saw no urgent necessity for complying with her father’s advice and communing with her own heart. She sat down at her writing-table, wrote for a few moments, and read over what she had written. Then she handed the half-sheet of notepaper to Flora.

  It bore the announcement that a lady wishing shortly to travel to Canada, would give her services on the journey in return for part passage.

  “But you mean to go, then?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “I thought Father advised you to think it over?”

  “I did think it over. Didn’t you hear me say just now that I should think it wrong not to go to Val?”

  “You are setting your own judgment up above Father’s,” Flora pointed out coldly.

  “I suppose so,” Lucilla assented, seeming rather surprised, as though such an aspect
of the case had not hitherto presented itself to her.

  Flora softened.

  “I can’t help being glad you’re going to be with poor Val when she wants you. And oh, Lucilla! You’ll see little Georgie!”

  “I know. I wish you could, too.”

  “So do I.” She suddenly caught her breath. “Not that I should do what you’re doing, for a moment. I don’t see how you can, in direct opposition to Father’s advice.”

  “I’m sorry you see it like that,” said Lucilla gently. “Now, Flora, as I may have to take my passage when I can get it, without much notice, I’d like to arrange one or two things with you. Would you like me to give Ethel a month’s notice? She’s a bad housemaid, but if you’d rather she stayed on till—”

  “Lucilla, you talk as though it were all settled!”

  “My dear, it is all settled. I told you that my mind was made up.”

  “You know that Father will miss you most terribly? And, though he never speaks about it, he still grieves dreadfully over Adrian.”

  “I know. That hasn’t really got anything to do with it, though, has it? If you keep on Ethel, you will have to make certain that she—”

  “I can’t talk about Ethel now, Lucilla. I’ll do the best I can, if you really do go. Don’t think I’m unkind, please. I do understand that it must .be a great temptation, after poor Val’s letter saying how much she wants you. I daresay if she’d written like that to me,” said Flora with an effort, “that I might have felt it dreadfully difficult to refuse to go to her.”

  Lucilla paused on her way to the door, and looked at her sister with friendly, reflective interest.

  “But you would have refused?”

  “Isn’t it always safest,” said Flora diffidently, and yet with the implacable certainty of rightness, too, “isn’t it always safest, when there’s a choice — or what looks like a choice — to do whatever one likes least?”