Part 12

He left me thinking that the chances are that if I live on another twenty years, to be ninety—which I trust may not happen, even with the assistance of the new monkey-gland treatment—and I still retain a few faculties of hearing and speech and the simulacrum of a sympathetic heart, some young spark of the future will endeavour to engage my interest to help him in his courtship of Rose’s daughter—some young spark not yet born, desiring a bride not yet born. That would seem to be my destiny. But perhaps by 1940 there will be no such tedious preliminaries: nothing but capture and possession—and awakening. Or will the rhythm of life have reasserted itself and old-fashioned prejudices have returned? We move in circles.

* * * * *

During dinner that evening I said to Rose: “There was a young fellow here this afternoon asking after you.”

“Archie Sebright, I suppose,” she said.

“No,” I said. “Some one who dances with you, and—”

“Reggie Saunderson, of course.”

“No.”

“Who was it, then?”

“He had a very small moustache,” I said, “and he came in an even smaller car.”

“Oh, Jack Nimmo.”

“No,” I said. “He had purple socks, with clocks, and showed too much of them.”

“That must have been Claude Musters.”

“No,” I said.

“You must tell me,” she insisted. “Why are you such a tease?”

“His name was Sibthorp,” I said.

“Oh!” Rose replied, “he’s staying with the Wilkinsons. He’s rather a nuisance, but he did well in the War, every one says. It’s terrible, the bores that did well in the War! What did he want?”

“Nothing much,” I said. “Only to marry you.”

Rose laughed. “Like his cheek,” she said.

“None the less,” I said, during our dessert—and I have some rather good Taylor 1880 which deserves to be sipped slowly—“this question of marriage is bound to crop up now and then.”

“Why?” Rose asked.

“Because you’re a not repellent young woman, and the neighbourhood appears to be infested by Claudes and Reggies, and Nature is always urgent.”

“But I don’t want to marry any of them,” she said, “or in fact anyone at all. Why can’t we go on as we are? Why is life always changing?”

“I wish it wasn’t,” I said; “but the law of life is change. We either go forward—or backward. Every quiet little time such as this that I spend with you, alone, talking and not (which is the true curse of Adam) getting ready to do anything else, I am full of fearfulness, just because I know that there is no standing still. They are all stolen. To you they may be dull; to me these moments are beautiful.”

Rose put her hand on mine. “They’re not dull,” she said. “I love them too.”

She glanced at the clock.

“There!” I said. “You’re spoiling it! It is exactly as I said. What do you look at the time for?”

“Well,” she replied, “I promised Claude I’d show him a new step to-night; but he’s not coming till half-past nine. We’ve got nearly a whole hour.”

I sighed. But what’s the use?

“Let’s go on talking about marriage,” she said, drawing her chair closer. “Why should I marry? Every girl doesn’t. Why should I? Some one in the paper said only the other day that there are many more women than men and therefore lots of them must be single. Why shouldn’t I be one?”

“If you want to, there’s no earthly reason why you shouldn’t,” I said. “But we can’t arrange these things. At any moment you may fall in love, and what then? Marriage has a way of following love.”

“Ye-e-s,” said Rose. “But one needn’t fall in love. Lots of people don’t. You never did—at any rate, if you did, marriage didn’t follow it.”

“No,” I said, “I didn’t. Nature marked me for a bachelor, and destiny made me a vicarious father. I have been more or less of a vicarious father, Rose, ever since I was twenty-seven, and now I’m sixty-eight: forty-one years of it! I’ve had no time to fall in love, your mother and you have kept me so busy. But tell me about this young warrior. Why should he want to marry you? Have you given him any encouragement?”

“No,” said Rose. “Except to listen to him and show him steps. They all want to talk and be shown steps.”

“It’s a country fit for heroes to dance in,” I said. “And what about the poultry farm?”

“O he told you that, did he?” Rose asked.

“Yes, he told me that. The demand for eggs is something priceless, what?”

“Let’s forget him,” said Rose. “Anyway,” she resumed a moment later, “why must there always be marriage? Marriages so often go wrong. Look at Dulcie Lenox—she’s left her husband already. Look at the divorce cases! Why can’t two people love and get the best of life and then go their own way again?”

“It’s for the sake of society,” I said, “the human family. We’ve all got to help to keep that together.”

“Why should we?” Rose asked. “We didn’t ask to be born.”

“No, but being born, we must play the game. It’s part of the contract. It’s our payment for the privilege of existing at all.”

“Just chivalry?”

“If you like to put it like that. But most of us are rather proud of the obligation.”

“And if we say no; that we don’t care a pin about the human family; all we care about is our own happiness, what then?”

“Well, then we’re traitors, that’s all. We’ve been found wanting.”

“It’s rather a shame, isn’t it, to force so much responsibility on people who never asked for it?”

“Yes, I think it is. But life without responsibility wouldn’t be worth anything. That’s a conclusion I’ve reached after sixty-eight years.”

“Oh, don’t count up! You’re much too proud of those figures. But when did you discover it? When you were eighteen, like me?”

“No, when I was eighteen I thought more or less as you do; only not quite so freely, because there had been no great war to break down our ideals and set up materialism and belief in the divine right of every individual to be selfish and anti-social.”

“Do you think that’s what we are?”

“Too many people are. But I’m quite conscious that they may be right and the others wrong. In fact, the older I grow, the more convinced I am that everyone, however wrong, has some right in him, and every one, however right, some wrong.”

“Well I’m not going to marry for years and years,” said Rose. “I’m going to paint first. Art will be my husband.”

“With a little dancing with human partners thrown in?” I suggested.

“Yes, of course.”

At this moment the bell rang, indicating that the pupil had arrived, and for the next hour my would-be Rosa Bonheur was showing steps.

* * * * *

How few things we should do if we had time to examine carefully every action and its possible consequences before we committed ourselves to it! I for one, probably—but one never knows—instead of encouraging Rose in her drawing and painting should have discouraged her; for it led straight to London, and when your children, your own or your foster-children, get to London, they are lost. New lives begin, with new parents—for London is father and mother too. Careers have to be, I suppose, and leading strings must be cut—but O! the severance of heart-strings that that operation involves as well!

Anyway, I had taken an immense interest in Rose’s sketches, and often sat with her while she made them, and marvelled—being a hopeless duffer at such work—as the swift deft touches transferred the landscape to the paper: sky and earth and water. She may not have been remarkable, but to my eyes she was as clever as anyone sketching nature need be. Her portraits were good too: at any rate, lifelike enough to provoke cries of delight from the villagers as they recognized their neighbours. She was a straightforward performer: she cubed nothing and abhorred a vortex; but artists are curiously impressionable people, visitors to this planet rather than dwellers upon it, and at any moment she might become as wild as the wildest. And I am not surprised: the power to splash colour about must naturally lead to experimentalism.

In those days, however, Rose was in the old and sober tradition, and the desire to paint filled her soul.

* * * * *

At last the go-fever broke out. She had been to London—that promoter of restlessness—to stay with a girl artist friend and show her work to some experts and see the exhibitions, and she came back glowing with excitement and plans. She returned with her hair intact too, to my great joy. I had nursed a terror that she might bob it.

“How much money have I got?” was one of the first things she said to me after dinner.

During the meal I had heard the story of her adventures. How she had stayed with her friend Vera Gray in her studio at Chelsea. It was on the Embankment, looking out on the river.

“And O!” she exclaimed, “the river is exactly what Whistler made it. I mean—exactly how he painted it.”

I interrupted her to say that no studied compliment could ever have pleased that painter so much as her hurried slip; but she didn’t want to hear me; she wanted to talk and tell.

They had slept in the studio, in a little gallery up a ladder, where there was also a bathroom. They had cooked their own breakfast, but had gone out for other meals. I had no idea what Vera’s coffee was like! And her cups and saucers and plates: all blue and white, from Portugal: it cost—well, I’d never guess how cheap it was.

I asked her if she had called on her father.

“No”

“Oughtn’t you to have done so?”

“I suppose I ought,” she answered, “but—well, as a maffact, he would probably have disapproved of Chelsea and made me stay with him. For another reason, I didn’t really think he wanted to see me. We’ve very little in common, you know, Dombeen.”

“It’s a wise child who knows when she doesn’t want her father to know she’s in town,” I said. “I’m afraid you’re right,” I added: “you haven’t much in common. But you oughtn’t to presume on that, ought you?”

“Why not?” she asked, and upon my word, I couldn’t reply. Why should children be dutiful any more than their parents?

If Eustace took no interest in Rose, why should Rose take interest in him? Logically, it is the older who should set the example: the more mature, the person who is responsible for the child’s existence. I doubt very much if there is any natural affinity between parents and children: pride of ownership on the one side and dependence on the other leads to the creation of a bond. Remove babies at birth and do not let them meet their mothers again until they are grown up, and (in spite of the romantic and sentimental novelists) I doubt if there would be any natural recognition, any calling of the deeps.

Vera, Rose went on, had done a little work—not much—and then they had gone out to visit other studios, where Vera’s friends lived. I could have no idea how jolly they all were. People talked about the jealousy of artists, but for her part she didn’t believe a word of it. There they were, all so keen and simple, wearing the most delightful old clothes, pleased to see each other, pleased to praise each other’s work—genuinely, too—absolutely genuinely—and then directly it was too dark to go on, or they didn’t feel in the mood, off they went to dinner at one of the Soho places, and then they either talked about painting, ever so interestingly, or danced or sang. It was the most wonderful life.

But I mustn’t think for a moment that they were slackers. Not a bit of it. As a maffact, they worked frightfully hard. But artists, I must remember, don’t divide up their lives into work and play as other people do—clerks and merchants and lawyers and so on: they mix the two together. That’s what makes them so delightful.

“They all have such charming things,” she said, looking round at my furniture—Victorian mostly, not old enough to be beautiful—with a kind of disdain. “No matter how poor they are, they always seem to have money for ‘bits.’ They’re always on the look-out for them, and they have such wonderful eyes. They can see things under inches of dust. Going about among the old furniture and old curiosity shops with Vera and her friends was an education, and such a lark too! You and I must go over to Lowcester, Dombeen, and rout about in the old shops there. I know so much more about things than I did a month ago. I know the difference between Heppelwhite and Chippendale and Spode and Crown Derby. And I mean to learn it all.”

She had been to the National Gallery three times, and to the Tate, and to several little exhibitions, and to the Café Royal one evening, and to two plays. But the most terrific thing of all was this—she had seen John.

“John who?” I asked.

“Not John anything,” she replied, shocked at my ignorance. “It’s his last name, but no one ever calls him anything else—John the artist: much the strongest painter we’ve got. Vera asked him to come and see my things, and he came and he likes them. He says I ought to make a real name if I study properly and go to a life class and devote myself to drawing for a while. It’s my drawing that’s weak, he says.”

It was then that Rose suddenly asked, after a brief silence, “How much money have I got?”

I told her that she had no money at all, unless her father chose to give her any. He reimbursed me more or less for what she cost me, and her school accounts and so forth had gone to him. It was all very irregular; of course she ought to have an allowance by this time. She was eighteen.

Her face lost its radiance. “Must I ask him?” she said.

“It depends on what you want it for,” I answered.

“I want to live in Chelsea,” she said, “and really learn to paint.”

“O!” I said. “If it had been for anything else I might have been able to contribute, but I can’t for that. That is too drastic. You must ask your father. Besides,” I said, “I could hardly bring myself to finance a scheme which leaves me so high and dry.”

“Poor Dombeen!” she said. “But you’d soon get used to being alone. And I’d come down often for the week-end. As a maffact, you’d hardly miss me.”

“Train up a child and away she goes,” I quoted.

“But you wouldn’t have me not be independent?” she asked.

“No,” I said. “Everything is all right: just as it should be. An old man must expect to lose a young girl just when she is most companionable. But you must concede him a little melancholy. After all, it is a compliment to you, so concede it purely in that light. It’s as proper for me to regret your going as for you to want to go.”

“You dear old thing!” she said. “I hate to leave you, but what should one do? If you absolutely needed me, of course . . . but you don’t. You’re strong, you go about, you have your prints and your gardening.”

“And even if I hadn’t,” I said, “I should not allow you to stay. If I am to collapse, it shall not be an artist on the threshold of life with a passion to express herself in oils who shall bring my beef-tea. That would be too unfair. But you must understand that nothing can be done until your father consents.”

“I’ll write to him to-night,” she said. “Unless you will?”

“No,” I replied firmly. “I’ll go a long way to help you, but I won’t sign my own death warrant. No seaman beseeches to be marooned.”

* * * * *

Eustace replied that he thought he might be willing, but it would be well to discuss the matter properly. Would she stay with him for a few days and bring some of her work with her.

“How can I show it to him?” she asked.

“You must,” I said. “After all, he is your father.”

“But it’s so—so—personal,” she said.

* * * * *

“Well?” I asked, when she came back a few days later.

“I’ve bored him terribly,” she said.

“What makes you think so?”

“He never knew what to say. Besides, his habits are fixed. I ruined his breakfast because he couldn’t read the paper. I would much rather he had read it, but he was trying to behave so beautifully and he made conversation instead. This means that he never caught up with the news all day, and that’s a very serious thing. I made the awful mistake too of opening the paper before he did, before he came in—this was on the first morning—and no woman, it seems, must do that.

“O dear, I’m not right at all. As a maffact, Dombeen, you’ve spoilt me. And I’m too impulsive. You mustn’t be impulsive with men, except perhaps just one or two, and those only for a little while and when they’re very pleased with themselves.

“I did other terrible things too. I used the telephone frivolously. I even rang up the exchange once just to ask the time, and he heard me. I had done it often enough when he was out, because my watch had stopped and his clock was away being mended; but he came in just as I was ringing and I never saw anyone so pained.

“And O! I left the electric light burning in the hall all one night. He was perfectly nice and kind and polite, but I could see that every day something new was being inscribed on his heart, like Queen Mary’s. I don’t mean our Queen Mary. I mean the Queen Mary who lost Calais—the bloody one.

“He didn’t like my painting at all,” she went on, “but he was very gentle about it. He was always gentle—gentle and cool—and that is so depressing after a while. Disturbing, too. He took me to the Tate Gallery on Saturday afternoon, and to the National on Sunday, and showed me the pictures he likes best. He has two photogravures after Leader in his bedroom.”

“But have you decided anything?” I asked. It was all I wanted to know and she was postponing and postponing the moment of the verdict.

“Yes,” she said, but without much enthusiasm.

“Well?”

“Well, he won’t hear of independent rooms in Chelsea. He doesn’t like Chelsea. It’s too irresponsible, he says. But he agrees to a Hostel—he’s inquiring about them now—and the Slade, I may go to the Slade and live in a Hostel, for three years. It isn’t what I wanted, of course, but it’s the thin end of the wedge. I’ll be able to go to Chelsea to see Vera and the others pretty nearly whenever I like, and the Slade isn’t so bad. Orpen was there and John was there. What do you think?”

“When do you want to begin?” I asked dully.

“Well, the next term,” she said. “Isn’t it wonderful?”

* * * * *

It was our last evening. To-morrow the little mawf was to fly away towards those great flames, London, Art, and Independence, all capable of scorching very acutely. To Rose the hours were all a prelude to adventure; to me a promise of loneliness. For so long this graceful, gay enthusiast had been lighting up my house; and now I was to be forsaken. At seventy that is no particular joke.

To what extent Rose had pondered on what might lightly be called the selfishness of her programme, I cannot say. Perhaps not at all, but I think that very unlikely. My own attitude to her desertion, although I did my best to make it whimsical, must have turned her thoughts that way. But having pondered, might she not very properly have decided that such selfishness was her only course? Our duty is not always to others. Comparatively lost as I was going to be, I certainly did not want her to make the sacrifice of remaining. Why should she? What right has seventy to cramp the style of twenty? Too many young people are harnessed—more than harnessed, shackled—to the old, for me to be willing to add to their number. I have watched youthful lives being sapped and thwarted in this way ever since I have been in practice, and I had always vowed that never would I be guilty of a similar tyranny. And now here I was with the temptation!

But it was not the temptation that it might have been had Rose come to me and said, “Look here, Dombeen, I can’t leave you all alone. It isn’t fair. I’ll give up this London scheme and we’ll go on being happy together.” Even then, however, I hope I should have been strong enough to say No. In fact, I know I should; for what is the use of binding a girl of eighteen, or letting her bind herself? Art she might relinquish; but what would happen when Love appeared? How could I keep her to her promise then? Better face the music, take the fence, cut the knot now, and be brave about it.

* * * * *

We sat long after dinner on that last evening. Rose’s boxes were packed, her room at the Hostel and her easel at the Slade awaited her. She had said all her good-byes in the neighbourhood, and no doubt more than one of her dancing friends had her address in his pocket-book. In short, practically every boat was burnt. All our talk, therefore, was of the future. If Eustace was not too unwilling, she said, she should go to Paris after a while. As a maffact, Paris was, of course, the place. London was only a makeshift. She would probably go on to Paris anyway—father or no father. Because one must be thorough. London was looking up—everybody said so—Chelsea had produced some wonderful things—but for an artist Paris was the true Alma Mater. Even Chelsea had had to go to Paris first.

It was all a question of money. Surely when she was twenty-one her father would allow her something reasonable?

“Not for the purpose of doing anything of which he might disapprove,” I said.

O well, she would see. She would begin at the Slade, anyway, and make up her mind gradually. “But of course,” she repeated, “Paris is the place. Sooner or later I must be there. I can hear it calling all the while.”

Having said those words, Rose left the window where she had been standing and walked into the garden, whither no doubt she expected me to follow her.

I was about to do so when there was a knock at the door and Suzanne entered, with a curious excited flush on her face.

She stood there a moment, as though trying to speak, and then, stepping aside, made room for some one in a black dress and veil, and was gone.

“Dombeen!” cried the stranger, and buried her thin, tired face on my shoulder.

Of what I said I have no memory. I can remember only stroking her head and hushing her like a child.

“Don’t cry, don’t cry,” I may have murmured; but it was foolish, for tears were her best friends.

* * * * *

“Rose?” she asked at last. “Is she here?”

I nodded.

“If only I could see her without her seeing me!”

“Wait a moment,” I said, and went to the garden to look for Rose, but she had disappeared.

I returned to her mother and began to be practical. She had come in a car, and the first thing to do was to take her bag out and send it back. Then she consented to eat something, and while it was being prepared I had the story.

Ronnie and she had been on their way back to England. He had wanted to see his mother again, and his father’s executors too. But at Marseilles Ronnie had died. It was where her father had died thirty-six years before—how strange a coincidence!

Ronnie’s death followed up a chill, which he had taken, she feared, on a visit to Theodore’s grave. They had gone to see it directly after landing, and Ronnie now lay in the same cemetery, close by. Was not that remarkable?

Since then she had been travelling steadily towards her daughter and me. No one knew of her presence in England but Ronnie’s mother, living now permanently at Torquay, who had been written to.

It was at this point that Rose the other Rose—came back. I saw her across the lawn—her dress shone among the shadows—but her mother’s back being to the window, she could not see her too.

Making some excuse, I slipped out.

“Who is it?” Rose asked, with a startled look, and a voice almost of fear. “Is it—?”

“Yes,” I said.

“What has happened? Is—is he dead?”

“Yes,” I said.

She gave a little wailing cry and was gone.

“Rose! Rose!” I called, but she did not reply.

I went back to her mother and urged her to go to bed.

“Not yet,” she said, adding that she would not be able to sleep. “There is so much to say, so much to know.”