Ivy Compton-Burnett - Men and Wives

“But they will be in time, now they have the carriage,” said Polly, springing to take her father’s arm.

Sir Percy looked down on his younger child with an emotion that forced its way to his eyes. He believed that his joy in life had ended with the death of her mother nineteen years before, and the conviction was the chief ground of his self-esteem, a feeling that had never had a strong foundation. If he had realised that a little later his contentment had begun, it would have failed to survive; and his second wife, knowing its right to its life, left the truth in silence.

When Jermyn and Griselda reached their home, Buttermere was stationed at the door of the house.

“Well, we are a little later than we expected,” said Jermyn.

“Good-afternoon, sir,” said Buttermere.

“Yes, yes, we have come home in the later half of the day. Is Mr. Gregory still with her ladyship?”

“Not after the first few hours, sir.”

“How has her ladyship been spending the time?”

“Getting through it by herself in the garden, miss.”

“Mr. Gregory is out, I suppose. How long has he been gone?”

“I cannot approximately say, miss.”

“Mother, Mother, spare a glance for your children,” called Jermyn, as Harriet came round the house from her garden. “We thought we should be at home before. How long has Gregory been gone?”

“Only about ten minutes, dear. I don’t quite know what time it is. Have you noticed my borders this year?”

“Buttermere, what do you mean by giving a wrong impression?” said Jermyn, following the attendant into the hall.

Buttermere paused with the suggestion of a bow.

“Will you kindly answer me?”

“If you will kindly repeat your question, sir.”

“I asked you why you could not speak the truth.”

“I should be sorry ever to have done anything else, sir,” said Buttermere sincerely.

“You knew Mr. Gregory had only just left her ladyship.”

“I stated that he had been with her ladyship for the first few hours, sir. I was under the impression that you had not been gone for a longer period,”

“You know quite well that you meant to mislead.”

“I know only what I said, sir.”

“Well, darlings, discussing your day?” said Harriet, with a nervous glance in the direction of Buttermere, whose disturbance always transferred itself to her. “Have you a morning’s happiness to tell me of?”

“Yes, that is just what we have. Buttermere implied that we had deserted you for about twelve hours.”

“Well, that would hardly have mattered, my son. There is no reason why you should be tied to me. If you are enjoying your day, that is all your mother asks. And Father is always ready to come to me, if we should need each other. I don’t know why you should have two settled married people on your minds. It is we who should have you on ours, and so we have. But as it happens, Gregory and I have had a day together. He is just setting out to have tea with Mrs. Calkin. There he is, hurrying out of the house.”

Gregory Waved His hand to Harriet as he hastened down the drive. In placing high for himself the appeal of experienced women, he made no exception of his mother. His tastes were well met at the house to which he was bound.

His hostess was a massive widow of sixty, with hair brushed back from a solid brow, as if to reveal its proportions, and indeed with this purpose, and a broad-featured, honest, forbidding face, which changed with her every feeling. Her name of Agatha Calkin seemed to represent the two sides of her character. Her unmarried sister, Geraldine Dabis, who had taken the place of the younger for fifty-eight years, willingly for the last forty of them, was tall and thin and plain, and of a conscious elegance, with a habit of gesticulating with her long hands, and raising her voice to hold her position in talk. The youngest of the three, Kate Dabis, sister by half-blood to the other two, was an alert little woman of forty-six, with a dark, pleasant face, a quick, deep voice, and a studied kindliness and tolerance, which gained her less appreciation than if they had cost her nothing.

“You are all of you here. Not one of you ill or absent,” said Gregory, his manner addressing each.

“Oh, I was ill the last time you came!” said Geraldine in her carrying tones.

“You are thinking of the day when I was at the committee,” said Agatha, her voice of gentle comment holding its own.

“I am never the interesting one, never frail or public-spirited,” said Kate.

“I hope you are not anxious about your mother at the moment?” said Agatha, seeming to broach a matter between herself and Gregory.

Geraldine leant forward.

“No, not more than usual. There is no definite reason for anxiety, or for expecting to be free of it.”

“I think there is the especial something between you and your mother,” said Agatha.

“We are great friends; I am always hanging on to apron-strings. People with apron-strings know so much.”

“Oh, that is not the kind of thing we generally hear! It is a most refreshing point of view,” exclaimed Geraldine, raising her hands and dropping them on to her lap. “What we generally have to face, is the view that women of our age are too out-of-date and outside the scheme of things to be taken into account! Mercifully it is chivalrously unspoken. That is one advantage of belonging to the fairer sex.”

“Young people have not always much imagination,” said Agatha.

“Or have they too much?” said Kate.

“No, not enough,” said Gregory. “Well, they don’t get anything, and serve them right.”

“You must be a great comfort to your mother,” said Agatha with quiet understanding. “I can follow so well the feeling between you, because of myself and my dear absent son.”

“It is hardly an exact parallel,” said Geraldine.

“I never think,” continued Agatha, her eyes not diverted from their course, “that there is the same bond between mother and daughter. It never seems to me to be quite the same.”

“There should be, there should be,” said Kate.

“Now between father and daughter,” said Agatha in full admission; “between father and daughter. Yes.”

“Do you find that is so between your father and your sister?” asked Kate.

“Yes, in a way. He is bursting with pride in her. But his real crony is Matthew. Jermyn gets hold of Griselda.”

“Ah, these young families! What complex and significant things!” said Kate, giving full due to what she had missed.

“The most complex, the most significant, the most deep-rooted in the world,” said Agatha, giving it to what she had had. “The only thing is, when the break comes.”

“Have you seen the Hardistys lately?” said Geraldine to Gregory, revealing that her attention was not commanded by this topic.

“Griselda and Jermyn had luncheon with them today. I am so enchanted by the difference between them and us. We have pulled up enough to make it really subtle. Have you compared their pictures and ours?”

“All my pictures were given to me by my dear husband,” said Agatha, regarding walls that were a simple record of open-handedness; “given to me by him, one by one, as our life went on. Year by year we added to them together.” She put on her glasses and surveyed them, and took up her needlework. “Yes.”

“We ought to be thankful to them for ornamenting our home,” said Geraldine. “I confess to a preference for bare walls myself. I sound very ungrateful. I know many people prefer a complicated effect.”

“Oh, well, you have not the associations,” said Agatha, her eyes down.

“Have you heard that Mr. Spong’s wife is dead?” said Geraldine to Gregory.