by A. J. Cronin
‘Here we are, then!’ she exclaimed, with a cheerfulness belied by the quick anxiety of her gaze. ‘It isn’t much to speak of, but it’s our own place – and that’s the main thing.’ She paused, closed the door, and followed him in. ‘This is your room,’ she explained, ‘and this’ – she indicated the kitchen – ‘this is a sort of sitting-room where I sleep.’
It took him a moment to penetrate the full significance of the establishment; then his eye fell upon her in acute dismay.
‘Is this where we live now?’ he demanded incredulously.
She nodded her head. Somehow she had got used to the place; she had not expected him to take the change so badly. And she had done her best to brighten up things for him, putting new curtains on the windows, polishing the waxcloth till it shone. She had even whitewashed the ceilings during the last week-end.
‘But the furniture! It’s all so bare,’ he almost gasped. ‘A bed and a wardrobe in my room – and next to nothing in the other! There’s an echo like you get in an empty house!’
Her face grew troubled and slowly coloured.
‘We’ll not be here always,’ she declared, ‘and I’ll get more furniture as time goes on.’
‘It’s terrible, mother – really it is. To think of living here – this wretched place – a down-at-heel locality!’
‘It’s the best I could do,’ she answered pointedly. ‘We must put up with it for the time being. It’s not as if we had nothing to look forward to. We’ve got such a lot that we’ve got to make the best of things till we can get away from here.’
He sat down and looked at her. ‘Well,’ he said, at length, ‘ if it must be – then I suppose we’ll have to put up with it.’
Her brow cleared instantly. ‘That’s the spirit!’ she exclaimed. ‘I knew you’d be sensible; and you’ll feel better when you’ve had your tea.’
He turned his head towards the table, which was already laid, then he smiled back at her doubtfully. ‘The sight of the crowd out there was enough to take a man’s appetite away.’
But his appetite was not gone, and later, when they sat at table, he ate with a hearty relish; yet from time to time he glanced at her and at his surroundings with a dubious eye.
‘You can cook, anyway, mother,’ he asserted at length; ‘that’s one thing I will say.’
‘Wait and see what I’ll give you when you’re studying,’ she replied warmly. It roused in her a strong protective instinct, this thought of all the nourishing and tasteful dishes she would make for him. ‘You’ll be glad you’re home then.’
He lay back in his chair. ‘Yes, that’s all very nice,’ he said slowly, ‘but let’s get this thing straight. You seem confident, but – do you know how you’re going to manage?’
‘I’ll manage,’ she declared at once, with that very confidence of which he had accused her; then she broke off, and in a different voice suddenly enquired: ‘But you – you’re not thinking you won’t get the –’
He waved aside her words before she uttered them. ‘I haven’t the least doubt about that! I can put myself through flying. I’ve got the whole thing worked out to the last penny.’ He paused, and continued with a brevity and methodical assurance which thrilled her: ‘I got the University calendar from Brother William. Fees on an average thirty pounds a year; books and sundries – say a total of five pounds. Against that there’s the Carnegie Fund, and of course the scholarship – there’s twenty open to me, and any one of them I can take standing on my head. Well, that’s worth twenty-five pounds, for every one of the five years.’ He advanced an explanatory hand. ‘My income, sixty pounds; my expenditure, say, forty at the outside. Result: I’m twenty pounds to the good to keep me in clothes and pinmoney.’
‘It’s splendid, Peter,’ she breathed, ‘simply splendid.’
She was thrilled by his competent knowledge and his position; thrilled, too, by this intimacy between them which bound them to the same cause.
‘Yes, it’s all right,’ he answered, with a short laugh. ‘But there’s the other side to the question.’
Her eyes puckered. ‘I’ve said I’ll manage,’ she repeated.
‘It’s no good just saying it, mother,’ he returned restlessly. ‘That’s stupid. It’s like a mole burrowing along in the darkness.’
‘The mole gets up to the light in the long run,’ she replied slowly; now she felt his exactitude a chill upon her ardour.
‘Yes, but how? That’s the point. We’ve got to live for five years, you know, and that’s your part of the business.’ He summarised the deficiencies of the room and the meagreness of the table appointments with a pointed glance. He paused. ‘Now tell me outright how much you’re earning.’
She hesitated, her eyes still troubled.
‘Tell me,’ he insisted. ‘How much have you got when the rent of this salubrious palace is paid?’
She raised her eyes, and looked at him. ‘ Eighteen shillings a week,’ she answered steadily.
His face fell instantly; he stared back at her stupidly.
‘Eighteen shillings a week!’ he gasped. ‘Less than fifty pounds a year to keep the two of us on – and buy your clothes!’ He gave a short, sardonic laugh. ‘And pay for your box at the opera – it’s utter madness, mother.’
‘I tell you I can do it,’ she declared firmly.
He shook his head slowly from side to side. ‘It’s utter madness,’ he repeated. ‘It’s an utter impossibility – and I know what I’m talking about. I understand how to put two and two together. You can’t just rush at this with your head down. You haven’t thought enough, mother – all along, I mean. Look at the way you sold your furniture, for example. If I’d been sixteen then, and not simply a kid, I’d never have let you do it. Then that little affair with Miss Hocking – surely you could have foreseen –’ He broke off significantly, and added: ‘But you can’t do this thing by being headstrong.’
A lump of indignation rose in her throat. She felt the bitter injustice of his remarks, of this almost judicial attitude; and after the way she had worked to keep him at the college, after she had planned everything for the best! Yes, and struggled so successfully to maintain their independence! No one but he could have spoken to her like this and escaped the cutting, devastating anger of her reply. But she loved him, and so she said simply: ‘You must let me do as I think fit.’
‘What good is it for me to have everything arranged, and you to spoil it all by being so obstinate?’ he declared petulantly. ‘And what good is it having relations who are decently off if you don’t ask them to stand behind us?’
‘I’ll do my share,’ she answered resolutely, ‘and without their help.’
He looked at her with a sudden plaintiveness, moved by a sense of her inflexibility.
‘Don’t you see that everything centres on me, now? I’m the one that’ll get us both out of this rotten hole,’ he said miserably. ‘It would upset a saint.’ And then, indeed, he was upset, choked all at once by a ridiculous rush of grief.
‘Don’t, Peter dear!’ she cried instantly, melted by his unexpected tears. Despite his size, for all his brilliance, he was still her little boy, the child who had come running to her skirts, eager for her compassion. The sweetness of that thought, following the long separation, made her wish suddenly, inexplicably, to yield to him.
‘We’ll think about it,’ she soothed him, taking his hand in hers. ‘Perhaps I’ll take a run over to Richard or to Edward to see what they say.’
‘You’ll need to do it,’ he said, with a final sniff. ‘I’m telling you it’s the only way.’
‘Yes, yes,’ she answered. ‘ You leave it to me, dear.’
His piteous face, this grief, so strangely reminiscent of Frank’s weakness; this attitude, so close and so dependent; that sweet relationship which she wished always to continue, moved her with a powerful impulse of protection. She comforted him, she felt him close to her; and violently within her there rose the unconquerable impulse of her love.
; ‘Funny thing for me to do a thing like that!’ he exclaimed at length, turning towards her a slightly shamed face, and he made a feeble attempt at jocularity, adding: ‘ It’ll not occur again.’
She pressed his hand, arose. ‘You’re tired, my son,’ she said calmly. ‘I’ll go and turn down your bed.’
She went into the half-empty room – into that travesty of a bedroom – and in a moment he followed her, going to the window, where he stood, idly looking out into the gathering darkness.
‘Look, mother,’ he said, after a moment, ‘ you see it well from here.’
She came beside him and slipped her arm round his shoulder, whilst she followed the direction of his gaze. There upon the hill, vague now and indistinct, yet lit by the last pale lance from the retreating day, stood that edifice, the focus of their ambition and their hope. Sombre now, and to them imposing, even magnificent, it seemed to bestride the mean and shabby district which surrounded them. A few lights pricked bright points from the professors’ houses beside the umbered trees; then, as they gazed, a deep bell from the tower rang out the hour with heavy clanging strokes. A small and undistinguished university, set on the summit of a gloomy provincial city; two ordinary creatures gazing towards it from a dingy room. It was nothing – a commonplace – a matter of no possible importance; and yet, strangely, there was something. It was a poignant moment. In Lucy’s heart there rose that swelling pang of aspiration; her eyes, seeking beyond, fixed themselves upon a faint star, which swung remotely, brightening against the darkening sky.
Chapter Sixteen
She had turned the matter in her mind until her head ached – until she felt the justice of the accusation that she was stupid. She had thrashed it out whilst tramping round her district; had entertained the thought of asking Miss Tinto’s advice, then dismissed it on the grounds that Miss Tinto lived in Ralston and knew, or at least knew of, her brother Richard. For she had, at least, decided that if she took this drastic step she must approach Richard. Edward had no solid means to support his indeterminate goodwill, and he was indeed a quantity to her now strangely unreliable and elusive.
But, viewed from every standpoint, it was a frightful ordeal. To ask for herself was unthinkable; yet to ask for Peter – that was a humiliation which she might perhaps endure.
And here, on this Saturday afternoon in June, she was reluctantly upon the roadway leading from Ralston station to Richard’s house. Now, indeed, she was at the green iron wrought gate, had opened it and entered the garden. As she went up the neat walk, she saw that since her last visit the garden had been altered: the lawn now laid out as a tennis court, a row of young lime trees planted to shade the path; even the small greenhouse wore a coat of fresh white paint. She took heart from these evidences of Richard’s prosperity, and rang the bell firmly.
A maid showed her into the drawing-room, where she sat down by the open window and waited. She waited for five minutes, letting her eyes travel slowly over the figured velvet furniture, the ebony piano, the tall pot of spirea, and the row of photographs upon the mantelpiece. A photograph of herself with Peter stood too prominently in the centre of the row, and she had the instant suspicion that Eva had placed it there for the occasion. She did not like Eva – a fact she admitted frankly – and this was a polite insincerity of which Eva might well be guilty. She had begun to feel herself forgotten when Eva entered the room with outstretched hand and an apologetic patter of her small feet.
‘I’m so sorry to keep your waiting, Lucy,’ she now lisped. ‘ I was resting after lunch – I always have my little siesta, you know. Really, I find it so restoring, and I’m afraid –’ she broke off. She had a convenient habit of, deserting a phrase in a difficulty and diverting her conversation engagingly to another point – the line of Eva’s conversation left an erratic trail. ‘And the children have gone off to play golf,’ she ran on. ‘They’ll be sorry to miss you.’
‘I’m sorry too,’ said Lucy. ‘I haven’t seen them for a long time.’ Had they, she thought, been sent safely out of the way of the poor relations?
‘It’s ages since we’ve seen you. Quite wicked of you to stay away so long,’ said Eva reprovingly. ‘ I’ll ring for tea immediately.’
She rang, with a pretty gesture of her small, well-manicured hands. Tea came upon a tray: a silver service, Wedgwood cups, and a many-tiered cake-stand; there were at least no flaws in Eva’s equipment. With a curious pang Lucy had a quick vision of her own delf cups and earthenware teapot – products of the Caledonian Bazaar; and her lips drew together tightly.
‘You’ve got Peter back now?’ said Eva, offering the cakestand.
‘Yes, he’s back.’
‘Such a nice little boy. I remember. You see, we’ve got this photograph.’ She indicated the mantelpiece pleasantly with a crooked little finger. ‘I had some taken myself at Annan’s the other day.’
‘Did you?’
‘Richard wished it, you see,’ explained Eva coquettishly.
‘Did he?’ returned Lucy. The other’s effusiveness constrained her strangely, made her replies brusque, laconic echoes. But Eva was not constrained; and never disagreeable. She skated along brightly, veering continually, keeping far from the edge of ice which might be dangerous.
After a few moments, the door opened and Richard came in. Perhaps by contrast it gave Lucy a sudden warmth to see Richard again; she knew that his regard for her had never been intense; their natures were set at opposite poles, and they had drifted widely apart in these latter years: but he was her brother, and the relationship, for her at least, still held an indefinable quality of association.
‘Late for tea again,’ twittered Eva. She turned to Lucy in fond explanation: ‘He’s been working in his study – these cases – oh, dear me – what a struggle it is to make ends meet these days.’
‘You’re looking well,’ said Richard, taking his cup of tea and stirring it gradually.
‘She’s looking marvellously well,’ chimed in Eva brightly.
‘I have been rather poorly myself lately,’ said Richard, taking a slow sip of tea over his high-peaked collar. ‘The doctor insists it’s arthritis, but I doubt it.’ Drinking, he sucked in his cheeks: ‘Yes, I very much doubt it.’
‘It’s overwork, my love,’ said Eva. She betrayed unashamedly in her attitude all the touching solicitude of an excellent spouse, and, again turning to Lucy, she remarked, in a confidential aside: ‘Did you know – he’s in the running for the vacancy – fiscal, you know – and no one deserves it more.’
‘That’s good, surely,’ ventured Lucy. She saw that Richard had become more formal, more magisterial than ever; indeed, he filled his chair as ponderously as though already the mantle of the public prosecutor lay upon him.
‘You mustn’t believe all Eva says about me,’ he said with rare indulgence.
‘But you do deserve it, my love. Such an honour.’
‘Well, well! We shall see. I may refuse it. Snap my fingers at the honour. There’s not enough money in it these hard, times.’
A short silence followed, then Eva, assuming an air of extreme tact, rose up and with a sweet smile said:
‘I’ll leave you two together now. You must have lots to say to each other.’ She left the room with almost a prearranged celerity.
‘Well, Lucy, we haven’t seen much of you later,’ said Richard directly, when his wife had gone. ‘How are things with you?’
Lucy was relieved; she had dreaded the prospect of herself broaching the subject; and now she said gratefully: ‘That’s what I’ve come out to see you about.’
He constricted his dark brows in agreement. ‘I was sorry to hear you had lost your connection with Lennox. On the other hand, you’ve done well to get this – this other post. Plucky of you – very plucky!’ He paused, and remarked judicially: ‘But why have you never married again? It would have simplified everything.’
‘I don’t know,’ she answered confusedly.
‘Tut-tut! You’re quite a presentable woman
yet.’
‘I suppose I’ve never had the chance.’
‘It’s the natural law,’ he returned, moistening his vivid lips. ‘ Eva and I are very happy. Yes – I assure you.’
‘I’m quite happy with Peter,’ she replied, ‘ only – I must see him getting on in life.’
‘Quite natural,’ he asseverated, after a pause.
His usual acquiescence gave her encouragement; she gathered herself determinedly, and said – but not without a tremor – ‘We haven’t seen each other for a long time, Richard. Perhaps it’s been my fault. But now that Peter’s left school I want your advice and your help. Will you help me with the boy?’
‘I will,’ he said at once.
‘You’ll help me with Peter?’
‘Yes – I’ll do what I can,’ he returned precisely.
She breathed again. ‘Thank you, Richard,’ she said, with unconcealed emotion. ‘It’s good of you. You don’t know what it’s cost me to come out here. I’m not built for asking, but I must have a little help if I’m to put him through the University.’
‘The University!’ Blasted from his habitual composure, he jerked violently in his chair. ‘Good heavens, woman, what are you talking about?’
‘Yes – that’s what I mean,’ she faltered. ‘I want him to go through as a doctor.’
‘Put him to the University – and for medicine –’ He had lost his imposing manner; he looked at her with startled eyes. ‘You must be crazy.’
‘He’s clever. Richard,’ she said desperately. ‘He could win a scholarship. And I’ve always wanted him to go in for a profession. I want him to go in for medicine.’
‘You’re not serious,’ he reiterated slowly, his heavy brows still elevated.
‘I am serious!’ she insisted urgently. ‘I must give him his chance.’
Her words had given him time to recover; his eyebrows fell; he was himself again.
‘My dear Lucy,’ he said, severely magisterial, ‘ you really cannot understand what you are talking about. Fortunately, I do. You could never put your boy through such an expensive training even with the help I could give you. I am not a wealthy man. I have got my own family to think of.’ He narrowed his eyes and leaned forwards, whilst she watched him with a strained face. ‘Charles, as you know, is articled to Kidston’s. That cost money, I may inform you. Then there are his fees to be considered. Moreover, I’ve got to think of Vera’s art. She has a wonderful talent. She is attending classes now – her mother even wants her to go to Paris if I can afford it. You see, I am not made of money, Lucy. Don’t let our house or our way of living deceive you. We have got to keep that up, whether we like it or not. My position demands it.’ He threw out a protesting hand. ‘I’m not proud. Often I feel that I’d like to live more humbly.’
