“Yes,” said Ursula, quietly. “He did. He destroyed it in order to hurt me, because he hates me. And he hates me because I try to discipline and civilize him.”
“What damned rot!” exclaimed William. He stood up. He was really infuriated now. “You know that is untrue. And, again, I accuse you of hating Tommy. Can you deny it?”
Ursula cried: “I hate what you are making of him!” She went on: “But we are getting nowhere. I deny that the children have the right to ‘roam’ freely all over the house, when the notion takes them. After all, we, as parents and human beings, have rights, too. We have the right to talk tranquilly with our guests, without interruption. William, people despise our children.”
She added, quickly: “If our children are hated by our friends, it is not their fault, and it breaks my heart. It is your fault, because you refuse to allow them to be trained to behave properly.”
He lowered over her wrathfully. “I don’t care a damn what prim fools think of our children. You talk of our ‘rights’. Only children have ‘rights’, because they are defenseless and weak and must be protected from the abuse of adults.”
Ursula looked down at her clasped hands. It was no use, no use at all.
William threw himself into his chair. “I’ll go over all the children with you, since you have given me such a long recital of their ‘crimes’. Julie. You accuse her of being demanding, bad-tempered, artful. She is just a gay and lively little girl. All children are more or less selfish. That is natural. She’ll get over it. And if she is ‘artful’, as you say, well, then I can only reply that it is a female trait.” He smiled, with sudden fondness. “I don’t mind her cajoling me. I find it lovable.”
Ursula stared at him, her lips tight and drawn. “I find it ugly. No woman can be happy who thinks only of herself, and what she can snatch from the world. When she is no longer young and pretty and ‘lovable’, she will be abandoned, no matter how much money you leave her.”
“You talk like a fool,” said William, with hard emphasis. “Give the child time. She is full of affection.”
Ursula opened her mouth to speak, then closed it. Her eyes were suddenly wet with a tearing despair and anguish for her husband.
William continued: “Matt. What about Matt? He is a quiet and thoughtful boy. He is a genius. That is why he ‘withdraws’, as you say. Do you deny, after what has been told you by competent artists, that Matthew is a potential artist, too?”
Ursula brought herself out of aching lethargy to speak with vigor. “But you are killing his potentialities, William. Do you remember how, a few years ago, he could not live away from the piano? You did not let him dream on for a while, content with what he was trying to learn by himself. No, you immediately swamped him with teachers. You gave him such tremendous ‘opportunities’, as you called them, that he lost interest. Don’t you know that artists, like young trees in a forest, grow only by struggle for existence, that they become strong by resistance, that they triumph only by conquering difficulties? The budding artist should walk part of the way by himself. But Matthew gathered the impression that he had to do nothing by himself, that he was already perfect, that he had learned all that anyone could teach him. Why, then, continue?
“And now he is beginning to draw and paint. I admit he shows more than talent. Oh, William, I wish I had kept you from knowing. But it is too late. Now he has drawing lessons from the best teacher you could import. He is praised to the very skies for his most meagre effort. He is beginning to believe that this gift, too, is already perfect, that he need learn no more. He is losing interest in this, also.”
“Indeed, is that so?” said William, with enraged sarcasm. “How much you know about art, Ursula! Have you never heard of art being crushed and lost by neglect and lack of opportunity?”
“That is foolishness, William. No real art is ever lost by neglect or ‘lack of opportunity’. If it is lost, and never sees the light, then it is, in itself, lifeless and weak and unworthy. But art can be destroyed by too much pampering, too much care.”
William compressed his lips. He glared down at his wife. But he could not seem to find words.
Ursula hurried to speak again: “I am not going to talk too much as yet about Matthew’s potentialties as an artist. He is elusive, William; he is dangerously uninterested in others, in life. That is deadly for him, both as a person and as an artist. I am afraid for him, William. He is becoming barren and bodiless.”
“An artist owes nothing to anyone or to anything, except his art.”
Ursula shook her head. “You are wrong, William. An artist is first a human being. He cannot even develop as an artist unless he has contact with humanity.”
“You would deprive him of his whole life!” said William. “You would keep all encouragement from him. Let him dream; let him believe the world is beautiful.”
“He will become—nothing,” said Ursula.
“You are a wonderful optimist,” returned William, with contempt. He stared at Ursula with a kind of pent-up animosity. “What are you trying to do to my children? Are you trying to beat them into a faceless conformity? Are you trying to form them on the colorless or stupid patterns of other children?”
“William, that is silly and childish!” cried Ursula.
William felt he had triumphed. He even sat down again, and smiled at Ursula unpleasantly. “You haven’t said much about Barbie, I think.”
“Barbie? Barbie imitates the others. She has more character in her small body than all the rest of them have together. I have great hopes for Barbie. Yet I am afraid that she, too, will become just like the others. I am going to try, William, and you may as well know it now, to save Barbie, to save all my children.”
“You’ll not destroy them as long as I am alive,” said William, as quietly as she.
They gazed at each other in a deep and dangerous silence. They did not move, yet both had the impression that there was a tremendous pressure in the dank air.
Then Ursula said: “I am not going to say much more, William. I only want to tell you that Miss Andrews has left us. Even she, in your pay, and dogging your footsteps as she did, agreeing with you in everything pertaining to the children, could endure them no longer. She has gone. Tommy blacked her eye one day, when she tried to make him study. I had to give her two hundred dollars to soothe her feelings.”
William’s face changed.
“As for Mrs. Templeton, she keeps away from the children as much as possible. She is a fool, but in this I think she is being very sensible. Julie kicked her last week. Even Mrs. Templeton, though she is even more servile than Miss Andrews was, will not stand much more. Moreover, I have had to hire another maid to replace Ruth, who helps Nancy. I had to increase Nancy’s salary, in order to induce her to stay. I think, too, that the gardeners are going to be difficult. They want to see you tomorrow. They don’t like the children tramping over the flower-beds and destroying shrubbery with what you consider ‘lively spirits’.”
William looked at the windows in somber gloom. Ursula waited. She waited a long time before he spoke again. He said: “Oliver goes to Landsdowne’s school. Tommy and Matt will be ready for that school this fall. I have already entered them there. Only Julie and Barbie will be left—to trouble you.” He sneered suddenly. “You will have the house all to yourself, most of the day. The children are growing up. Soon, they won’t bother you so much.”
He stood up. Ursula rose, also. “William, you don’t know, of course, that what you are trying to do is to possess the children, body and soul. You can’t do that. You are always talking about their being ‘free’. You have imprisoned them in their own ugly faults, and they may never escape. You don’t know anything about freedom; freedom imposes obligations to the world. The man who feels he has no obligations knows nothing about liberty. William, you are driving the children from you. They do not love you.”
He was so completely enraged that he looked insane. Without speaking, and as if he dared not speak, he went ou
t of the room and closed the door behind him.
She went to the closed door, her knees shaking. She listened. William was entering the children’s playrooms. They greeted him with joyful shouts. She could even hear Matthew’s low voice. The children were now directing at their father a stream of insistent demands. The voices became loud and imperious. William’s voice answered, soothing and full of rough endearments, full of promises.
Ursula closed the door. She went to the windows and looked down at the thrashing trees and the wet earth and the rushing wind and rain. Faintly, she could hear the children’s voices. She put her hands over her ears.
There should be, she thought despairingly, something inviolable between a man and his wife, something private and unshakeable, something nothing could breach or sunder. That something was sacred. No child should be allowed to touch it with his hand or, with his voice, cause it to tremble. There was a temple which should forever be closed to the rioting footsteps of children. There was a fire upon which children should never be permitted to breathe. To ignore this was to ravage forever not only marriage but the children of that marriage.
Whatever could once have been between William and his wife, Ursula, now could never be. It had been too late, in the very beginning.
CHAPTER XXXII
Ursula sat alone in the morning room, embroidering and listening to the autumn wind. She heard the dry crackle of leaves blown across the driveways. The draperies at the windows stirred; the fire threw out a spray of sparks. The house was quiet, blessedly quiet. It would be a little while before the boys returned from school. The girls were still upstairs at their lessons.
It was pleasant to be alone. Only a mother of several children could understand that, thought Ursula. Loneliness was another thing. Loneliness was in her bones and in her heart. She would have to endure it. She had endured it so long, and there was no cure for it.
She glanced up at the sky, the color of old milk-glass. The long rains of the autumn would soon be here, washing the brownness of the earth, running over the gaunt fields, roaring down the brown mountains. It was a time for sadness. Ursula resolutely plied her needle. She deliberately turned her thoughts from melancholy, remembering that the mind could hold but one thought at a time. But it was useless.
William had been gone to Oklahoma Territory for several weeks now. She had heard from him but twice, and then only brief notes. He had inquired about the children. In a postscript, he had uninterestedly inquired about her own health.
The door opened softly and, with a dismay she could not help but feel, Ursula thought: Have they been dismissed earlier? It was Oliver who stood there, looking at her smilingly, Oliver now almost a man.
“Come in, dear,” said Ursula, with real happiness in her voice. She hesitated a moment. “Are Tommy and Matthew home too?”
“No, Mama. I had a talk with Mr. Landsdowne this afternoon, and he suggested that I come home earlier and talk with you, also.”
Ursula put aside her embroidery. “Is something wrong, Oliver?” Her eyes, chronically uneasy, searched his face.
“No, Mama, nothing is wrong.” Oliver’s voice, a man’s voice, answered her reassuringly. “It is just that I want your advice.”
Ursula put her hands in her lap and prepared to give Oliver her complete attention.
“Sit down near me, dear,” she said, motioning to a chair near the window. She never tired of looking at her adopted son, who had become closer to her than her own children.
“What is the matter, Mama?” asked Oliver, growing aware of Ursula’s earnest scrutiny.
“Nothing,” she replied. “Nothing at all, Oliver. But you said you wanted my advice, dear.”
“Yes.” He paused. He had a firm voice, deep and thoughtful. “You remember the time, a year ago, when Pa suggested I go to Harvard later and then enter the lumber business?”
“Yes, I remember.” Ursula thought of the scene between William and Oliver then. For the first time in years, William had appeared to become acutely aware of Oliver, but only because Oliver had obtruded himself vigorously into William’s awareness.
“But I told him I preferred to study law,” said Oliver.
“I remember,” repeated Ursula.
To Ursula’s surprise, William’s first reaction had been a kind of inexplicable relief. She did not at first know the reason, and when she did know it she was filled with anger and distress. William did not want Oliver with him. Oliver, said William, not looking at the boy, had a right to choose his own future. If the lumber business did not appeal to him, then he certainly would not be forced to enter it.
“Mr. Landsdowne agrees with me that I would make a good lawyer.” Oliver’s smile now was comforting, when Ursula made a concerned sound.
“But your father always expected that all his boys, or I should say, you and Tommy, would go into the business with him,” said Ursula. “Matthew, of course, was never even considered.”
Oliver said: “But, I don’t think I want to go into the business, Mama. Father has Tommy. He also has Eugene Arnold.”
The name lay before them, like something visible and evil.
“Gene,” said Ursula.
“He is Father’s assistant, and there is no doubt that he is more than competent, and that he will continue to serve Father very well indeed,” said Oliver.
“I have never liked him,” said Ursula. Oliver made no comment.
“As for Tom, though he is just sixteen, he is already deeply interested in the business,” said Oliver at last. “I’m not really needed. And I’m afraid I’d be no good at it. It doesn’t appeal to me. I want to study law.”
Ursula clasped her hands on her knees. “I wish Alice and Eugene had left Andersburg!” she said, vehemently. “I wish we had never seen him again. I ought not to have let Eugene live in my house after his mother died!”
Oliver smiled at her indulgently. “That wouldn’t have sent him away from Andersburg, Mama,” he said. “He could always have found another place to live. Anyway, he takes good care of your house, and has a fine housekeeper.”
“I can’t bear to think of him living there, now that Alice is dead.” Ursula knew she was speaking childishly, but again she was afraid.
Oliver took out his watch and turned it, unopened, in his hands.
“My head aches,” Ursula murmured helplessly.
Oliver stood up. “Let me get you one of your powders,” he suggested sympathetically.
But she stopped him, lifting her hand. “No, dear. I think it is more than my head that aches.” She tried to smile. She sighed. “Well, Oliver, if you wish to study law, I shan’t object.”
Oliver tried to cheer her. He said, with humor: “Father employs very good lawyers, I know. Mr. Jenkins, and his partner. Just the same, it won’t do any harm to have a lawyer in the family.”
Ursula joined in his laughter, but without heart.
“It might be a very excellent idea,” she said.
“And then, when Julie and Barbie marry, their husbands might also want to enter the business,” said Oliver. “So Father will have enough of the family around him.”
“Why, Julie isn’t quite fifteen yet,” said Ursula. “They won’t be marrying for years. Dear me, how times flies,” she added, banally, for her thoughts were very distressing. “Barbie is just thirteen. It will be years before they marry,” she repeated.
“Not too many years. Julie is such a belle. She’ll marry young, perhaps in two or three years. And Barbie.” Oliver paused. He turned the watch over and over in his hands, looking down at it.
“Oh, Barbie,” said Ursula, with impatience. “I hardly know Barbie any more. I had such hopes for her. She seemed, when she was younger, to have such common-sense. Now she is almost like Julie. I expected too much of her, I suppose.”
“Barbie hasn’t really changed much,” said Oliver, very quickly. “She is just imitating Julie now. I suppose girls always try to imitate their elder sisters. And Julie is a beauty; it is natural that B
arbie should want to be like her. She’ll get over it when she’s older.”
Ursula’s eyes had darkened. “No,” she said, in a dull voice. “I have lost all hope for Barbie. Her character has changed. Perhaps I was wrong from the very beginning—”
“No, Mama, you weren’t,” said Oliver. He seemed troubled. “Barbie is really a wonderful girl.”
“Thank you, dear Oliver,” said Ursula, mechanically. She knew he was trying to comfort her. She sighed; her drawn face became a little more weary. Her tawny eyes, by comparison, had gained in a kind of feverish brilliance so that they dominated all her other features. At forty-five, though there were long ribbons of white in her russet hair, she was still firmly slender and lithe.
After a short period of sad reflection, Ursula looked up swiftly at Oliver. “Oh, Oliver, how I shall miss you! You’ll be away from home—it has just occurred to me. How am I going to get along without you, my dear?”
“I’ll be home for all the holidays,” he said. “And I’ll write regularly.”
“But,” Ursula began. Then she stopped. There were light running footsteps in the hall outside the morning room. Two young girls appeared precipitately on the threshold. Julia in the bright flush of her girlhood, dimpled and vivid, her auburn hair tied back from her lovely face with a blue ribbon to match her light-blue wool frock, and Barbara, sensitive and quick and dark, her large gray eyes expressive and shining. Her red hair-ribbon was somewhat awry, and the white pinafore over her dark brown frock was stained with ink, as were her fingers.
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