Caroline

by Richmal Crompton

  “I hadn’t realised that you’d actually stored it,” Richard was saying. “Surely Fay will miss it.”

  Caroline smiled at him. Her eyes were a soft grey again. Richard, of course, could never irritate her whatever he said.

  “It was Fay’s own suggestion,” she said. “She knows that she can’t afford to fritter away her energies just now. It was her own idea, too, to give up her music lessons last year. She felt that she hadn’t time for anything but her scholarship work, and, of course, while the piano was there it was a constant temptation. She says that she can always take it up again later on.”

  “That’s what one says of so many things when one’s young,”sighed Richard. “The tragedy is that one so seldom does take up anything again later on.”

  “Well, it won’t matter if she doesn’t,” said Caroline. “I’m sorry I ever let her learn with Mr. Hyslop, but she begged to, and I find it so hard to refuse her anything.”

  “I know you do,” smiled Richard, “and so does she! But why regret that in particular? He’s supposed to be an excellent teacher.”

  Caroline shrugged.

  “I suppose he is, but all his geese are swans. He put the most ridiculous ideas into Fay’s head. The child has just ordinary average talent, and”—she smiled in tender amusement—“he really almost convinced her that she was a genius. She had a crazy idea at one time of taking up music professionally. I didn’t oppose it, of course, but gradually she came to see herself how foolish it would be. And since then she’s worked like a brick at her scholarship work.”

  “Still—it’s a pity for her to give up her music altogether,” said Richard.

  “That, too, was her own choice,” said Caroline. “I think she was right, but it was definitely her own choice. I tried not to influence her in any way at all.”

  Maggie’s face wore the look of ludicrous dismay it always wore when she realised that she had irritated Caroline. Charles could see that she was nervously searching for something to say to propitiate her, but all she could think of was, “She looked so pretty when she played at the Prize-giving last year.”

  Caroline threw her a smile.

  “Dear Auntie!” she said affectionately.

  The maid came in to clear away the tea-things, and when she had gone Caroline’s face grew serious.

  “There’s something I want to tell you all,” she said. “I didn’t want to tell you while Susan was here because she has enough to worry her just at present, and then I thought I’d better wait till after tea. . . . I heard from mother this morning.”

  There was a tense silence.

  Caroline’s mother. . . . Charles’s eyes went to the portrait that hung over the mantelpiece, the pretty characterless face of Nina. But Nina wasn’t Caroline’s mother. She was Robert’s and Susan’s and Fay’s.

  Caroline’s mother was Philippa, who had run away from Gordon more than thirty years ago.

  “You mean—Philippa?” he said at last.

  “Yes.”

  “I didn’t know. . . . Is it the first time you’ve heard since——?”

  “Yes.”

  “Philippa?” said Maggie eagerly. “I remember Philippa. She was so kind. So kind and——” She stopped and her face clouded over. “Oh, but she was wicked. I remember now. She was wicked. She——”

  “One moment, Auntie,” said Caroline clearly. She turned to the others, and Maggie subsided with little nervous flutterings of dismay. “I’ve never heard from her since she left us till today.” She went to her writing-desk and took out a letter. “This is the letter. Her—husband died last month, and she wants to come back to England.”

  She handed the letter to Charles, who read it in silence. It was short and business-like, merely announcing her husband’s death and her intention of coming to live in England. “I should very much like to see you and Marcia again, of course. Perhaps you’ll let me know how you feel about this.” It was signed Philippa Meredith. He stared at it in silence. . . . It seemed to bring the past suddenly to life. . . . Philippa . . . He remembered her now. He used to think what a lucky dog Gordon was.

  “Philippa,” Maggie was saying, “Philippa. . . . But she couldn’t come back. She was wicked. I don’t understand.”

  Thin straying wisps of hair hung about her face, and she was plucking at her necklace and scarf with nervous fingers.

  Richard was reading the letter.

  “Well?” he said. “How are you going to answer it?”

  “I have answered it,” said Caroline. “I’ve asked her to come and make her home here.”

  “Here? With you?”

  “Yes.”

  Caroline’s eyes were bright, her cheeks softly flushed. She looked young and eager and gallant. Charles realised that there had been a suggestion of restrained excitement about her all afternoon.

  “But she can’t come here,” said Maggie almost tearfully. “Not here. Not Philippa. You don’t understand, Caroline. You don’t remember. You were too young. It was so long ago. You were only a baby. She . . .” Her voice trailed off unsteadily.

  She’s getting upset, thought Charles. I’d better take her home to Nana.

  “You’ve actually written?” Richard was saying.

  “Yes. I posted it just before you came.”

  “Caroline, my dear, I wish you’d consulted us first.”

  She smiled again—not her usual grave smile, but an eager tremulous one that made her seem pathetically young despite her thirty-six years.

  “I was afraid you’d advise me not to,” she said, “and I wanted her to come. After all, whatever she’s done, she’s my mother.”

  “I know, but if you’d just suggested meeting first on neutral ground, as it were, to see how the land lay. . . . Then, if you judged that it would be a success, you could have asked her to make her home with you.”

  “Oh, Richard!” she laughed. “What a horribly cautious mind you’ve got!”

  “It’s such a risk, my dear.”

  “I know it’s a risk, but I’m willing to take it. I want to take it.”

  “But, Charles,” burst out Maggie, “tell them about Philippa. They ought to know. She can’t come here. Gordon would never have allowed it. Never. He——”

  “Listen, Auntie,” began Caroline patiently.

  “It’s all right, Caroline,” said Charles, rising. He knew that Caroline’s explanation would only confuse Maggie the more. “She’s a bit tired. It’s rather exciting for her, coming out to tea, in any case. I’ll take her home now.”

  “I’m not a bit tired, Charles. Not a bit.”

  “I know you aren’t, dear. But Nana will be expecting you. I dare say she’ll be wanting your help with something. We oughtn’t to keep her waiting.”

  Maggie rose quickly, forgetting all about Philippa in her pleasure at the thought that Nana might be wanting her help with something.

  On the way home, however, the look of bewilderment crept over her face once more.

  “But, Charles,” she said. “About Philippa. . . . I don’t understand. . . .”

  Charles smiled at her reassuringly. He was enjoying the pleasant summer evening, holding himself very erect, and thinking that he’d look in at the club when he’d taken Maggie home and have a rubber or two of bridge and assure himself once again how much younger than his contemporaries he both looked and felt. It was a pleasure he never tired of.

  “Don’t worry, Maggie,” he said kindly. “Nana will explain it all to you.”

  Chapter Three

  “POOR darling!” said Caroline, as she came back to the drawing-room after seeing Charles and Maggie off at the front door. “She gets so upset over things. . . . Perhaps I oughtn’t to have told her about mother, but I don’t see how I could have avoided it.”

  Richard Oakley, standing by the mantelpiece, absently knocked the ash from his cigarette into the fireplace.

  “I’m worried about this, Caroline,” he said.

  She sank down into a chair and smiled u
p at him.

  “Why should you be?”

  “You know that whatever affects you affects me.”

  “I didn’t mean that. I meant—what aspect of it in particular worries you?”

  “I think you’ve undertaken this responsibility rashly and on impulse. You don’t know what sort of complications it’s going to bring into your life.”

  She looked as grave as he now.

  “It wasn’t rashly or on impulse, Richard. I’ve always known at the bottom of my heart that some time or other she’d want to come back, and that I’d have to let her. After all, she is my mother.”

  “She’s your mother, but she hasn’t the shadow of a claim on you. She didn’t bring you up or make any sacrifice for you, and she deserted you at a time when you most needed her care. As far as having any claim on you goes, she put herself out of court when she left your father for another man.”

  “I’m not pretending that she has any claim on me exactly,” said Caroline slowly. “I’m not even pretending that her coming mayn’t,as you say, bring with it certain complications. But I feel that it’s my duty to ask her here. I know it is. I’ve never questioned it once, since I got her letter. . . . Even the thought of Fay . . .”

  “Yes, there’s Fay to be considered.”

  “I know. I put Fay first. I always put Fay first. I wouldn’t do anything in the world that I thought might harm Fay.”

  “And don’t you think this might harm Fay?”

  “No,” she said proudly. “I know it won’t. Fay’s too—sound to be contaminated, if that’s what you’re thinking of. And she’s loyal to the core. Whatever this means to me, I’m sure of Fay’s support.”

  “Of course. And mine as well.”

  “I know. . . . I admit I did just wonder about Fay at first. I don’t know what sort of life mother’s lived since she went away. But I know she couldn’t do Fay any harm. . . . You never saw her, did you, Richard?”

  He shook his head.

  “And I don’t remember her at all. I’ve never even seen a photograph of her. Father destroyed them all when she went away. I’ve often thought of her, of course. Nina was always kind to me, but I used to long for my own mother when I was a child.”

  He looked down at her compassionately.

  “Poor little Caroline!”

  She drew herself up with a faint smile.

  “No, please. I didn’t mean to be pathetic. I’m not a bit pathetic.”

  “Yes, you are, whether you know it or not,” he burst out. “You’ve carried the whole family on your shoulders ever since you were a child. You’ve given up your youth for them, you’ve given up all your own chances for them. You’ve worked yourself to death for a set of ungrateful brats.”

  “They aren’t ungrateful,” she put in hotly.

  “Well, perhaps they’re not, but that doesn’t affect the case one way or the other. The point is that you’ve literally slaved for those three as long as any of us can remember, and it’s time you stopped. This taking of burdens onto your shoulders is becoming an obsession. You were just winning through to a sort of freedom at last. . . . You’ve got Robert trained and set up in life and married, you’ve got Susan married and off your hands, Fay will be going to college next year. And, just when you should be seeing a little peace ahead, you must needs take on this. Honestly, I feel fed up about it, Caroline.”

  “Oh, Richard!”

  “Yes, I know what you mean,” he said savagely. “It’s sheer selfishness. I hoped that once Fay had gone to college I could manage somehow or other to persuade you to marry me. I’d meant to ask you again this afternoon.”

  She made a little deprecating gesture.

  “Richard dear, don’t start that all over again. We’ve gone over it so often.”

  “I know you couldn’t marry me while you’d got Susan and Fay on your hands. Then it was Fay alone. You wouldn’t ever consider it till Fay had gone to college.”

  “Richard, you said you understood. She had to come first. I couldn’t have done justice to her if I’d been your wife, too. I promised father when he died that I’d look after her.”

  “I know, my dear, and you’ve kept your promise magnificently, but—Caroline, after all, why should your mother’s coming make any difference? We could get married before she came. She could live with us. . . . Caroline . . .”

  His voice pleaded earnestly, but something dreamy and far-away had come into her eyes. She looked at him as if she did not see him.

  “I can’t—promise anything yet, Richard. I don’t know how badly my mother may need me. She’s probably had a terrible time. Life isn’t easy for women like that, you know. I want her to find peace here. I want to—help her. It sounds silly and priggish and sentimental, I know, but that’s what I feel about it.”

  He smiled wryly.

  “What can I do to make you feel like that to me, Caroline? Shall I try going off the rails altogether, or would it do if I broke an arm or a leg?”

  “Richard, please don’t make fun of it.”

  “Does Marcia know about your mother’s coming?”

  Caroline’s face hardened slightly.

  “I don’t suppose so. She’s abroad just now, you know.”

  He looked at her curiously.

  “Why do you dislike Marcia, Caroline?”

  She opened her eyes wide.

  “I don’t dislike Marcia. I’m very fond of Marcia. She wasn’t quite—loyal to me when she lived here, but I’ve never borne her any malice for that.”

  He rose and threw his cigarette end into the fireplace.

  “Well, I must go now, I suppose.” He looked at her in silence for some moments. “I’m still hoping that you’ll change your mind about your mother, Caroline, for your own sake as much as mine.”

  “I’ve posted the letter.”

  “You can post another.”

  She shook her head, tightening her lips.

  “No, I can’t.”

  “Well, goodbye, my dear. I’m a very faithful man, don’t you think? A sort of male Penelope.”

  She laughed.

  “You’re ridiculous . . . and terribly nice. Goodbye, Richard.”

  She returned to the drawing-room when he had gone and stood gazing unseeingly in front of her. Her eyes were still bright and there was a heightened colour in her cheeks. Now that she was alone, the excitement that had smouldered in her heart ever since she received her mother’s letter this morning seemed to blaze out exultantly. The secret dream that she had treasured from the earliest days of her adolescence had suddenly come to life. When she thought of her mother in those days, she had always thought of her as tortured by a bitter remorse and a ceaseless longing for the children she had deserted. She imagined that the memory of them had poisoned all her pleasure and had yet been a sweetening influence in the life of degradation that, she took for granted, had been her lot since leaving them. She had always been convinced that her mother would come back in the end to ask her forgiveness for the wrong she had done her. And she would grant that forgiveness freely, would even go further and hold out hands of love and pity to rescue her from the sordidness into which she had inevitably sunk.

  She had been about thirteen when first she pictured their meeting, but the picture had not altered in any essential detail since then. Her mother—a wretched, broken-down woman—looked at her for a moment in silence, then covered her face with her hands and fell sobbing upon her shoulders, while Caroline held her closely, murmuring words of comfort and reassurance. Sometimes, instead of being broken-down and wretched, the woman had been hard and brazen, but always the end had been the same. She had fallen sobbing into her arms. The more mature and critical part of her had come to realise that the picture was somewhat melodramatic, but she could never bring herself to alter it. It had grown with her from childhood to womanhood. The news of her mother’s marriage had made no difference to her general idea of her. Such women frequently did marry, but they were too hardened to change their ways. And s
he had not married the man for whom she left her husband. That in itself condemned her.

  She took up the letter and looked at it dreamily.

  “Mother darling . . . don’t cry like that. . . . It’s all right. . . . You’ve come home. . . . I’ll look after you now . . . always.”

  So real was the scene that she seemed actually to hear herself say the words, and as she did so the familiar glow of self-sacrifice pervaded her whole being.

  She loved Richard and had looked forward to being able to marry him when Fay had gone to college, but she was accustomed by now to giving up her personal happiness for the sake of others. She’d given up her career for the sake of the children, she’d consistently denied herself luxuries and at times even necessities in order that they might have everything they needed. No sacrifice, not even the sacrifice of Richard’s love, would ever be as great, it seemed to her, as the giving up of her scholarship at her father’s death, for she had been a born student, hard-working and full of an eager zest for knowledge. The last remnants of her youth had died then and had never come to life again. Yet even then a certain fanatical joy had been mingled with the anguish. She had felt that, wherever her father was, he knew about it and was proud of her.

  There had always been a strong bond of affection between herself and her father. Marcia was wilful and difficult, his second wife’s children meant little to him. Caroline had always been his favourite child, the only one of his children, indeed, whom he really loved. His rigidity unbent with her, his harshness softened. He was always ready to listen to her, to grant her wishes if he possibly could. When little more than a child, she had on more than one occasion intervened between him and Nina, shielding Nina from his too great exactions.

  “Do talk to your father about it, Caroline,” Nina would say in her sweet complaining little voice. “He won’t listen to a word I say.”

  His fondness for her did not make him relax his standards in her case, but rather tighten them. As the eldest she had grave responsibilities. Hers must be the stern duty of setting a good example to the others in every detail of her conduct. Duty must come first, self-love must be severely eradicated. He watched her with anxious care, and, aware of this, she made almost superhuman efforts to justify his hopes of her. She gave her favourite toys to the others, spent her pocket-money on treats for them, settled their little disputes with unchildlike wisdom, calmed their tempers with unfailing patience, performed all her tasks with conscientious exactitude. Her reward was to be called “father’s good girl,” his “right hand,” to be told that he “didn’t know what he’d do without her.” There was nothing of the hypocrite about her. She was pathetically earnest and humble, striving with desperate eagerness to conquer her faults and to be worthy of her father’s trust and love. She had inherited from him a strong sense of duty, and his training had magnified it into an obsession. Looking back, she did not seem to herself ever to have been a child. That anxious brooding desire to do her duty, that terror of failing in it, which never left her by day or night, had made her old before she reached her teens. The longing to please her father had persisted even after his death. When she felt most dispirited and exhausted by the task she had set herself, she often seemed to see his slow rare smile, to hear his deep voice, praising and encouraging her (“That’s my good girl”), and she would take up her work again with renewed cheerfulness and vigour. There were other compensations, of course. There was the love and gratitude of the children themselves, which had never failed her.