“Simply a passing gratification of my vanity. I’d better face it,” Laura told herself, with a pseudo-candour that was the height of disingenuousness.
Her method of facing it was to get into bed, blow out the candle, and lie with her hands clasped beneath her head, recalling over and over again phrases and words and intonations, in her conversation with Ayland.
To the apparent interminableness of this exercise the entrance of Laura’s husband put a check.
He seemed surprised, not without reason, to find her wakeful.
“Alfred, I’ve been thinking. Shall I go to London and stay with Christine, for a few days, at the end of the month?”
“Why not? To look at nurses, I suppose?”
“Yes. And I thought I’d go and see the A. B. Onslows.”
“Is that the man with dyed hair that we met at Lady Kingsley-Browne’s ?”
“The author.”
“That’s what I meant.”
“Duke Ayland suggested my dining with him one night and going to a play.”
Alfred made no reply, and Laura’s heart seemed to leap into her throat.
The silence became tense, unbearable.
“Alfred,” said Laura faintly.
He got into bed.
“You don’t mind, do you?”
“Mind what, dear? I’m afraid I didn’t hear what you said.”
“Duke Ayland taking me to a theatre in London,” murmured Laura.
“A very good idea,” said Alfred.
In a spasm of relief, self-reproach and impatience, she leant across the bed and kissed him passionately.
Chapter VIII
Before Laura’s visit to London, that she now looked forward to with a tremulous fervour that seemed to increase in proportion to her own conviction of its irrationality, there stretched a domestic track of more than habitual tediousness.
Christine left Applecourt on the same day as, and in the company of, Duke Ayland.
“I shall see you in a fortnight, darling,” she said to Laura. “It’s been lovely here. The only thing I’m sorry about is that Mrs. Crossthwaite and the son from Uganda didn’t return your call while I was still here. Be sure and follow them up, if she does, and have him to tennis next time I come.”
“Good-bye,” said Duke Ayland in a low voice, gripping Laura’s hand and at the same time looking at her with the kind of look that should—but more often does not—accompany the gripping of a hand.
“Only a fortnight before I see you in town,” said Laura, compromising with her conscience, that officiously smote her at the words, by giving them a jaunty intonation that disgusted her as she heard it.
“I’ll write to you about time and place,” said Ayland, as eagerly as though he had not already said exactly the same thing five times within twenty-four hours.
“Yes, do,” said Laura, with equal fervour and equal lack of originality.
He went.
“If you please, madam,” said nurse, “could I take a day off next week to interview a lady in Bristol?”
“Certainly,” said Laura dejectedly.
Nurse’s day off was no longer the hectic affair that it had been in Johnnie’s babyhood, when Laura had, as it now seemed to her, pushed the pram for hours and hours, in the hope of inducing slumbers that remained elusive, and the clothes of both the children had had to be changed again and again until neither the night-nursery wardrobe nor the linen closet would yield any further contributions, and Laura’s head had ached only less than her back, and from being a bright young mother in the morning, she had degenerated into a whining victim by the evening.
But although that disturbing phase was over, it still remained a fact, partially acknowledged by Laura, that to be in sole charge of Edward and Johnnie, for one entire day, reduced their mother to spiritual pulp and physical exhaustion.
Sometimes Laura addressed herself rhetorically in sentences beginning: “How about the village mothers, with half a dozen tiny children, and all the cooking and cleaning to do as well?”
The picture appalled her—but her own inadequacy remained unaltered, whereas the village mothers went competently through their days.
Nurse went to Bristol.
The lady who wished to interview her chose a Saturday, the only day of the week upon which Miss Lamb did not come to give Edward and Johnnie their lessons, and the house-parlourmaid’s afternoon out. In the morning, the boys played in the garden, and in the afternoon it poured with rain.
“We’ll play with the bricks in the nursery,” declared Laura cheerfully. This was a success for some time, until Fauntleroy, the terrier, dashed gaily into Johnnie’s elaborate construction and reduced it to a jumble of wooden bricks and blocks.
Johnnie’s immediate reaction was to fly into a temper with the blameless Edward, whom he kicked and pummelled viciously.
Edward, who was naturally quite a brave little boy, had learnt by experience that the onslaughts of his younger brother were entirely beyond ordinary methods of self-defence, and exasperated Laura by rushing behind her for protection.
“Johnnie, you can go outside till you—Edward, don’t be such a little coward, stand up to him like a man—go outside till you’re quiet again, Johnnie.”
Never meet opposition with opposition. Always speak quietly and calmly when dealing with a passionate child.
Excerpts from Laura’s little books crowded in upon her mind, but however quiet and calm she might be, it was necessary for her to raise her voice almost to a scream in order to make it heard at all, and this produced the very opposite effect to one of quiet and calm, even to her own ears.
Fauntleroy barked madly.
At last, by exerting considerably more physical force than she herself, let alone the little books, thought really right, Laura got Johnnie and Fauntleroy both outside the door.
Then, as not unusually happened, she vented her disappointment and anxiety about Johnnie in severely rebuking Edward.
Edward sulked mildly, contrived, by a great and obvious effort, to shed a few tears designed to make Laura pity him, and characteristically defeated his own object by suddenly catching sight of a candle-end in the waste-paper basket and exclaiming with enthusiasm:
“Oh, look what I’ve found, mummie! May I have it?”
“What for?” said Laura, listening to Johnnie’s shouts and kicks, now becoming perfunctory and spasmodic.
“To use for my cooking.”
“What?”
“Miss Lamb makes us say ‘Pardon’ when we haven’t heard.”
“Never let me hear you say ‘pardon,’ Edward. Say ‘I beg your Pardon’ or What did you say?’ Or even What?’ But not ‘pardon.’”
“I’ll tell Miss Lamb,” said Edward, much interested in this conflict of authorities.
“No, you needn’t do that. It’ll be enough if you remember what I’ve said.”
Then Johnnie returned, declared himself perfectly good, was thankfully absolved by his mother, and lured by her into exchanging a tepid handshake with his brother as a symbol of renewed friendliness.
The remainder of the afternoon was peaceful in so far as personal relations were concerned.
Laura, dishevelled, unpowdered, and exhausted, shepherded the boys down to the dining-room as the gong rang for tea. As they crossed the hall—Edward and Johnnie vociferous, and Laura limply silent—a shining and completely noiseless car drew up before the open front door.
“Look, a car,” said Edward.
An elegant head was visible, and beyond it another head—less elegant but still unmistakably a head wearing the kind of hat suitable to paying calls.
The elegant head turned in the direction of Edward, and a still more elegant hand waved at him in a beautifully new chamois-leather glove.
Laura caught Johnnie by the shoulder, and said through her teeth:
“Visitors have come. Go and tell cook to put extra cups and plates through the hatch, and anything there is to eat—”
“Visitors
!” echoed Johnnie in dismay. “Then can’t we have tea with you after all?”
“Yes, you can—there’s nowhere else—only be very good. Go and tell cook, like a darling.”
Laura’s urgency communicated itself to her son and he rushed obediently away.
“Go and wash,” hissed Laura at Edward, and herself turned, with determined smiles, and a faux air of astonished welcome, to greet Mrs. Crossthwaite and her elegant friend.
“We’re much later than we meant to be,” apologised Mrs. Crossthwaite. “The chauffeur was so stupid about finding the way—we’ve just been to the Kingsley-Brownes’, and I felt I couldn’t go home without returning your call. May I introduce my friend, Mrs. La Trobe?—Mrs. Temple.”
“Do come in, won’t you?” said Laura, thankfully remembering that at least she had “done” the drawing-room flowers the day before. “I’m afraid you’ve come in for a nursery-tea, my two small boys are on my hands this afternoon.”
“Dear little people!” cooed Mrs. La Trobe in a contralto voice. “I’m so fond of little people.”
Laura, ungratefully, took a violent dislike to Mrs. La Trobe.
“We really mustn’t stay to tea,” said Mrs. Crossthwaite, without very much conviction.
Laura exclaimed as though in dismay, the visitors protested, were over-ruled, yielded. Laura, with every appearance of graceful cordiality, conducted them to the dining-room where Edward and Johnnie waited for tea.
“How do you do?” cried Mrs. La Trobe without delay. “Dear little people!”
The dear little people, Laura was thankful to see, had reduced their persons to something approaching cleanliness, although neither had remembered the use of a hair-brush.
Tea was laid in the meticulously incorrect fashion peculiar to the house-parlourmaid’s afternoon out, with the milk-jug standing in the slop-bowl, and the brown and the white bread-and-butter jostling one another on the same dish.
“You have rawer a jolly view,” said Mrs. Crossthwaite, politely glancing from the window, whilst Laura made the tea and sharply parted the milk-jug from the slop-bowl.
Conversation was rather spasmodic.
Edward, who indiscriminately enjoyed any form of notice, marked his appreciation of Mrs. La Trobe’s advances by becoming slightly noisy and boastful, encouraged by her contralto laughs and ejaculatory praises.
Johnnie, more critical and less susceptible, was nevertheless determined to assert his own claims to attention, and attempted humorous interpolations.
Laura endeavoured to suppress both her sons without embarrassing the visitors, to talk politely to Mrs. Crossthwaite about the Women’s Institute, and to convey to Mrs. La Trobe that it was injudicious to exclaim openly upon Johnnie’s curls and Edward’s quaintness.
She heartily wished that Alfred would come in, and at last he did so.
At least, the children became quiet, although Laura, for the first time giving her full attention to Mrs. Crossthwaite, could dimly hear a further tender-hearted outcry of “Dear little people!” from her other visitor.
Mrs. Crossthwaite was civilly enquiring for Mrs. Temple’s sister.
Christine had returned to London, Laura explained. She was coming back to Applecourt later. By a natural transition of thought, she asked about the son from Uganda.
He was back. In London. He, also, was coming down again later in the summer.
“We hope to have plenty of tennis, when Jim is at home. You and your sister must come over. My girls would be so delighted.”
It faintly pleased Laura to hear herself bracketed with anybody’s girls, and she reflected with mild cynicism that Christine would certainly wish her to accept any invitation that led to “Jim.”
She did so.
Alfred and Mrs. La Trobe were less successful in pleasing one another.
It always took Alfred a little while to establish any sort of rapport between himself and a complete stranger, and it was evident to Laura that he was still rather resentfully wondering what Mrs. La Trobe’s name was, why she had come, and how soon she might be expected to go away again.
Mrs. La Trobe, on the other hand, was endeavouring to charm her host by an excessive display of purely feminine qualities. She said that she loved children, and she “was afraid that she wasn’t at all clever. I hear your wife writes; now that, to me, is so marvellous—” and that she didn’t drive a car because her wrists were really not strong enough for the gears, and that she had a tiny little house, and no servant bothers because she simply loved housework, and was really fond of cooking.
“I’m afraid,” said Mrs. La Trobe, with a smile, “that I’m just what the Americans call a home-maker.”
Laura, who knew her husband’s opinion of any conversation in which personalities played a part, felt sorry for the guest, producing an effect so different from the one that she intended and expected.
She hastily turned Mrs. Crossthwaite over to Alfred, and herself became the recipient of Mrs. La Trobe’s confidences.
“Mummie, may I get down?”
“Not yet, Johnnie dear.”
Alfred rang the bell.
“Let Edward go,” said Laura hastily. “What is it—more milk?”
“Yes. No milk left.”
“Hilda is out,” Laura said, hoping that her husband would grasp the implication that the cook was neither willing, nor even desirable, as an answerer of bells. “Edward, run to the kitchen and get some more milk.”
“Are you a useful boy?” said Mrs. La Trobe. “I’m sure you’re mother’s useful boy.”
“Oh no,” said Laura lightly and insincerely, in order to bridge Edward’s smirking, but unresponsive silence. “Boys are never really useful, unlike little girls. One of them ought to have been a daughter. Run along, darling.”
“Dear little laddies!” ejaculated Mrs. La Trobe.
“Mrs. La Trobe is so devoted to children. I always tell her that I wonder she cares to stay with me at all, where there are no children in the house.”
Laura uncharitably surmised that Mrs. Crossthwaite’s combination of stupidity and good-nature must be valuable to Mrs. La Trobe. It could be trusted to present her in exactly that obvious light in which she wished to be presented.
Edward came into the room again and said brightly:
“There isn’t any more milk. Not a drop in the house.”
“What can have happened?” unhappily ejaculated Laura, although well aware of what had happened, since, owing to her own bad house-keeping, it had happened more than once before.
“If it was on my account, please don’t bovver. I really don’t want any more tea.”
Mrs. La Trobe, evidently anxious to display equal tact, glanced into her cup, which had unfortunately just been replenished from the teapot, and heroically declared that she liked it without milk, and had been told that it was far better for her, and that, in fact, she often did drink it like that.
“May we get down now?” wearily enquired Johnnie.
Laura assented, and almost immediately afterwards followed the example of her sons, unable to bear the sight of Mrs. La Trobe sipping gallantly, but with a wry mouth, at her milkless tea.
“Run upstairs, boys dear.”
“Shall you be able to read to us presently?”
“Yes. Run along.”
Alfred, at the open door of the hall, hesitated wistfully.
“One peep at the garden if I may, and then we really must go,” said Mrs. Crossthwaite.
The rain had long since left off.
The peep was vouchsafed, and Laura, by the time the car had been brought to the door by the uniformed chauffeur, was able to smile, and murmur hopes that next time it wouldn’t be quite so much of a picnic.…
“So lucky to have found you at all,” Mrs. Crossthwaite replied.
“There’s nothing I love like a nursery party. I’m devoted to little people,” declared Mrs. La Trobe, consistent to the last. The car, entirely noiseless, moved away.
Alfred Temple gaz
ed after it disparagingly.
Laura hoped that he was going to speak, and waited, but after a few seconds he merely tipped his hat further over his eyes, and went away into the garden.
Laura sighed, feeling how much she would have preferred reproaches for her inadequacy as a hostess to such complete silence, although she was aware that it did not denote anything more than resignation on her husband’s part.
Then she saw that there was a letter from Duke Ayland lying on the hall-table.
Alfred’s silence, the absence of milk, and the comments that she feared her visitors were exchanging on their way home, all receded into insignificance. Laura, becoming eighteen years old again, caught up the letter and turned instinctively into the quiet of the empty drawing-room.
“Mummie, have the visitors gone?”
“Can you read to us now?”
The boys dashed tumultuously downstairs.
Laura thrust the unopened letter into one of the pigeonholes in her writing-table.
She read to the boys, and played a game of Happy Families with them, and pretended not to hear Johnnie addressing the coloured representations of Mr. Bones the Butcher and his family in a drawling contralto: “Dear little people, I am so fond of you.”
Nurse, who might possibly have got back to Applecourt before six o’clock by catching an early train at Quinnerton, had not elected to do so, and Laura put her sons to bed. Theoretically, this is one of the most joyful and natural events in the day of a young mother and her children.
Laura knew this, and loyally tried to make her own feelings correspond to the knowledge. But, at any rate on nurse’s day out, it was never of any use.
Her back ached, the bath remained just too deep for her to bend over it comfortably, the boys seemed to have got out of hand, and she almost always found that it took her five-and-twenty minutes longer than it should have done to get them into bed.
On this occasion she wanted so dreadfully to read Duke Ayland’s letter that she informed Edward and Johnnie that they might play in the bath, as a treat, until she came back. Then she fled to the drawing-room.
It was not the first letter that she had received from Duke Ayland. It excited her even more than if it had been, because she knew now that it would contain the personal note she desired.
The Way Things Are Page 10
