Part 7

It was difficult to imagine that there had ever been a time when he had smoked upstairs, but for a moment the parallel stood out sharply; both occasions had been used by Edith to gain some small point, and to establish her ascendancy over him. As the recollection faded into dimness he smiled contentedly. Edith had consolidated her position as good wife and good mother, the naturally dominant factor in the home.

IV

The portrait entitled, "Mrs. Rodney Greene with Geoffrey, Lavinia and Hugh," exhibited in the Academy of 1910, was much admired by the public and favourably commented on by the Press. Edith herself, looking at it hung in her own dining-room after it had been returned from Burlington House, felt her eyelids prick with sudden tears at the revelation of her own triumphant motherhood.

She had been painted in a wine-red gown, sitting in a high-backed chair with her face turned a little sideways and downwards, brooding tenderly over Lavinia and Hugh who stood at her left knee, while her right arm was thrown affectionately round Geoffrey's shoulders, as if to compensate for the fact that she had turned away from where he stood on the right.

All three children were in white: Geoffrey and Hugh in sailor suits, Lavinia in a softly hanging silk dress. All three were upright and dark, with clear soft colour in their cheeks, but whereas both the boys were gazing out of the canvas, with serious dreaming faces, Lavinia had looked up at her mother, and her lips were parted in a smile over her small first teeth.

This happy, unstudied little pose was the starting point of all Edith's comments on the portrait, until the day when Mrs. Hugh Greene, her husband's aunt, came to tea and asked to have it shown to her.

"I only went once to the Academy this summer," she explained, "and though of course I saw the portrait and admired it very much, I should certainly like to see it again."

"It looks very nice in the dining-room," Edith answered as they went downstairs. "In fact we are extremely pleased with it, though I think perhaps it flatters me a little." She laughed deprecatingly.

"I didn't think that when I saw it," Mrs. Hugh answered simply. "You are very good-looking, my dear."

At thirty-one Edith Greene was strikingly handsome. Tall, robust, but not yet giving the impression of set solidity that increasingly marred her looks, she carried herself so well that the florid fashions of 1910 did not spoil the lines of her figure. Her colouring was lovely: dark hair and dark eyes deepened by the steady, warm glow in her cheeks; and her features were well marked but not heavy, though the mouth was set in lines of command and resolution.

Mrs. Hugh looking at the portrait of Edith and her children, and then turning to look at Edith standing by her side, noticed this accent of command, of over-emphasised self-confidence, but she only said, "Yes, I think it is an excellent piece of work."

"Of course Lavinia is really the keynote of the whole thing," Edith began eagerly. "You see how she's turned her little head to smile up at me, and how confident she looks. That was quite spontaneous. She was posed looking straight ahead like the boys, but at the second sitting she just put herself like that. It seemed almost a tribute to me, Aunt Sarah; it's wonderful when your child shows its confidence and love."

"Yes, I see," said Mrs. Hugh. "Lavinia is certainly a dear gay little creature."

"Would you call her expression gay?" asked Edith, disappointed. "It seems much more than that to me."

Mrs Hugh turned to Edith.

"My dear," she said, "I don't approve of interfering and giving advice, and I've got no children of my own, so I'm really not qualified to speak, but I've sometimes wondered if you're not perhaps a little greedy with your children."

She spoke gently, but the word struck Edith like a blow. Her face flushed deeply, but she answered coldly and politely:

"I don't think I quite understand you, Aunt Sarah."

"You're an excellent mother, I know," said Mrs. Hugh, "And you must just forgive me for criticising you, but my dear, I think perhaps you enjoy too much the mere fact of being a mother, and that is apt to make you expect too much from your children; not too much affection of course, but too much faith and admiration."

"I think it only natural to encourage my children to have faith in me."

"Of course you do, but let them know you're fallible, Edith. It only makes for unhappiness to bring them up to believe you are always right. It isn't natural."

"I would think it more unnatural if they didn't trust their mother, Aunt Sarah."

"My dear Edith, you don't quite understand me. I'm only hoping that on the one hand you'll let them develop along their own lines, and that on the other hand you won't take their natural love for you as anything so important as a tribute; I think that was the word you used."

"Perhaps it isn't quite easy for us to understand each other on the subject of my feelings for my children. Shall we go upstairs now?"

Edith's voice was icy, but Mrs. Hugh was not daunted by her niece's obvious, though controlled annoyance.

"No," she said briskly, "I'm going now. I suppose it's only natural you should resent what I've said, but think it over, Edith; there's something in it."

Mrs. Hugh retired in good trim, but Edith was unable to sooth the sting left by her criticism.

"By the way, Rodney," she began at dinner, "Aunt Sarah was at tea to-day, and I thought her manner most odd."

"How do you mean, 'odd'? She always seems to me to be full of common sense."

"Well, first of all she asked to see the portrait, and then quite suddenly she attacked me about putting myself on a pedestal and expecting too much from them."

"That sounds very unlike her; she doesn't often butt in."

"I certainly consider that she did to-day. And as a matter of fact, Rodney, I've thought once or twice that she and your mother are both a little sneering and contemptuous about the way I bring up the children."

"Absolute rot I call that. Mother's simply devoted to all three of them."

"Yes, but that's not the point," objected Edith. "I know she likes the children, but I'm not sure that she approves of my attitude to them."

"I don't know anything about that," said Rodney uncomfortably.

"No, but don't you see it's a little hard on me? I have always had such a high ideal of motherhood. I've always tried to live up to it, and I do feel I'm justified so far by the results, but neither your mother nor your Aunt Sarah looks at is quite fairly."

"I think it's a bit difficult for them to appreciate all you do for the kids. Outsiders can only see that you do rather expect all three of them to bow down and worship you, don't you Edith?"

Rodney's words were softened by his smile, but Edith's calm was shattered.

"You're most unjust," she said hotly and confusedly. "I've never had any idea of such a thing. It's a ridiculous phrase to use to me, simply because I hope for a little love and faith from my children, and because I try to influence them in what I think is the right direction. But you will never take it seriously enough, Rodney; it's a constant grief to me that you take their upbringing so lightly."

"Now that is unfair, Edith. I think a lot about their education, but while they are still in the nursery they are in your hands. However, now the point has arisen I might as well say that I do think it would be better if you left them alone a bit more."

"Rodney!" Edith's voice was trembling with anger. "What do you mean?"

"I think they ought to be allowed to think things out for themselves sometimes, and not have to tell you everything and have you discuss it with them. Geoffrey especially; he's quite a big fellow now, he oughtn't to be tied to your apron-strings any longer."

Edith rose and pushed back her chair.

"This is really too much," she said passionately. "First Aunt Sarah, and now you, attacking the things I hold most dear. You must excuse me if I go upstairs; I'm too upset to eat any more dinner."

She left the room, her head held high, and went up to the day nursery, where Geoffrey was having his supper, with a book propped up in front of him.

"Darling," she said sweeping in, her pale frock trailing, "shall I come and sit with you for a little, while you finish your supper?"

As Geoffrey pushed the book away and edged his cocoa forward, she frowned.

"You're not supposed to read at meals, not even at supper," she said sharply. "I've told you that before, haven't I, Geoffrey?"

He did not answer.

"Darling," she went on, unconsciously introducing a grieved note into her voice, "you don't like to vex me I know, but it does vex me when you go against my wishes, and still more when you won't admit to me that you are wrong."

"I like reading," said Geoffrey rebelliously, "and it's only a few minutes anyhow."

"But that doesn't make it any less wrong. You know that, Geoffrey."

Again there was no answer, and Edith sighed.

"I don't know what makes you so unresponsive," she reproached him. "It's only this last few months that you've persistently opposed me. You used to confide in me and trust me, like Hugh and Lavinia."

"They're only babies," muttered Geoffrey, awkward and embarrassed.

"Do you mean that because you're a big boy and go to school you feel you can't be open with me any longer?"

"I don't know," said Geoffrey wearily.

"My dearest boy, it's all so simple," Edith spoke persuasively. "I must be the judge of what is best for you; you must remember I'm your mother." She drew herself up with dignity, and went on, "You can surely understand, dear, that I must know all that my children are doing and thinking so that I can guide them. Now tell me you were wrong, Geoffrey, and hurry into bed."

"I'm sorry," said Geoffrey. "Good-night, Mother." He raised his face to be kissed, but she knew that he had not capitulated; he had merely eluded her.

So far the nursery had not proved as soothing as she had hoped. She went into the night nursery where Lavinia and Hugh were sleeping, and turned on the light. Everything was in order. A little pile of clothes was neatly folded on the rush-bottomed, white-painted chair beside each small bed; the curtains were undrawn; the window open just enough to make the room fresh and sweet. Edith's forehead smoothed itself as she looked about and was satisfied. The small sleepers never stirred; they lay hygienically without pillows, breathing quite correctly through their noses.

Edith felt reassured and quieted. She remembered how difficult it had been for nearly a year to induce Lavinia to go to sleep without sucking a thumb, and how she, alone, had persevered in the attempt to break this habit which nurse was confident would cure itself in time.

This small fact led to a train of thought that restored her shattered prestige. She remembered numberless instances when she had been obliged to exercise tact and perseverance to eradicate some budding trait in one or other of the children. She had noticed Hugh's adenoids before the possibility of trouble in the nose had occurred to nurse. It was she, and not Rodney who dealt with Geoffrey's tendency to deceit and subterfuge, and who was always called upon to arbitrate in any childish difficulty.

Turning off the light she went back to the day nursery where nurse was sitting darning.

"Nurse," she said firmly, "I've said before that Geoffrey is not to read at supper and to-night again I found him with a book."

"Well he only had one page to finish the book, Mrs. Greene, so I thought it wouldn't matter for once."

"I don't believe in that, Nurse," said Edith serenely. "If I make a rule then it is a rule, and there should be no exceptional cases when you allow it to be broken."

"I'm sorry," said Nurse stiffly, and Edith went down to the drawing-room where Rodney was sitting, holding a paper, but looking guiltily over the top of it at the door, evidently expecting her entrance.

"My dear Rodney," she said, "I have been very foolish. It was absurd of me to let myself be vexed by what you said. I know very well that it is only because you cannot possibly enter into my feelings, that you misunderstand and misrepresent me."

Rodney was at a loss. He had been prepared to retract his words but there appeared to be no need to do so. They had already been discounted. He cleared his throat, trying to think of an appropriate and inoffensive reply, but Edith continued her elaborate little speech.

"I ought to realise by now that nobody can share in a mother's responsibility to her children; nobody can appreciate her ideals."

"Well that's putting it a bit strong, you know; after all even a mother is a human being," Rodney spoke with an accent of faint bitterness, but Edith was unperturbed.

"Dear Rodney," she said, "we are a very happy and united family aren't we? I've just been up to the three little people--Hugh and Lavinia sleeping so sweetly--and I feel I need no reward for all I do for them except the consciousness that I mean everything to them. That," she ended nobly, "is all that is necessary to a good mother."

V

As her three children grew older, Edith consciously and tactfully modified her attitude towards them. They had been so accustomed to deferring to her judgment, they had seen their father so constantly adopting her views, and praises of their wonderful mother had rung so continually in their ears that when Geoffrey was eighteen, Lavinia sixteen, and Hugh fifteen, they still kept up the habits of childhood in never opposing her.

She could afford by that time to make a show of consulting them, to appear to ask their advice, safe in the conviction that her choice would ultimately be theirs also.

Geoffrey had certainly come through a period of alienation from her, which had shown itself in subterranean rebelliousness, and surface rudeness, but he had not been proof against her two weapons: the deadly use of personal sorrow, and a skilful trick of light ridicule.

She had seldom been angry with any of the children; it had been enough to induce into her face an expression of pain, into her voice a deep note of suffering, as she said, "Lavinia, dear," or "Hugh, dear" as the case might be, "I'm sure you don't realise how you've wounded me, but we won't talk of it any more; have it your own way."

Hugh and Lavinia desperately conscious of having estranged a mother so beneficent that she would withhold her power and suffer silently, almost invariably gave in immediately for the pure pleasure of sunning themselves once again in her favour. With Geoffrey during what she called "his difficult years," it was otherwise. Sentiment did not move him, but he could not stand up to her gentle, unerring sarcasm, her faculty of being always in the right, and smiling at him as he found himself put in the wrong over some point on which he was convinced he had justice on his side.

There was one occasion on which Geoffrey appealed to his father, but Rodney's reply was final: "Your mother's wishes must be considered, Geoffrey; I could not go against them and I can't imagine that you would care to."

That ended the matter. Geoffrey recognised that his mother had absolute authority over the household, and as he matured he gradually grew to recognise too that after all, even if she were inexorable and unassailable, still, life went smoothly, and so long as her sway was unquestioned the family atmosphere was an entirely happy one.

He came near to understanding her attitude the year he left school and was about to go up to the University. It had always been an understood thing that on leaving Oxford, Geoffrey should join his father in the engineering works founded originally by his great-grandfather, and carried on by his great-uncle Hugh. A few months before his first term began Hugh Greene died suddenly and Rodney Greene asked his son to enter the firm at once.

This was a great delight to Edith.

"My dear boy," she said, "I can't tell you how happy I am that you'll be at home with me now for a few years. I know it's a disappointment to you, but it is a pleasure to your mother."

"Didn't you want me to go up to Oxford, then?" Geoffrey asked.

"Of course I did in one way, but now I feel I'll have three extra years of you, and then later on when you marry, as I expect you will, I shall still have Lavinia and Hugh, but now while they are both away at school I'd have been very lonely."

"I never really thought of that."

"Of course you didn't," Edith patted his hand. "One's children never do, you know, and mothers learn to be put on one side without any fuss."

"You know, Mother, sometimes you talk as if we were frightfully important to you. Are we really?"

Edith looked astounded.

"My dearest Geoffrey," she said at last, "Your father and you three are all I care about in life; all I work for and plan for. Since I married, my one thought has been to be a good wife and mother and I think I can say I've succeeded."

She paused, but Geoffrey did not pay her the expected compliment. He was frowning over his thoughts.

"It doesn't seem quite sound to me; tell me, Mother, haven't you ever had anything of your own in your life?"

"But, darling, what could be more my own than my dear husband and children?"

"I don't mean quite like that. Father is different, of course, but take the three of us. After all, we've our own lives to lead. There are all sorts of things ahead of us, belonging only to us. I really meant, haven't you any interests of your own, intellectual or social or something quite apart from us?"

Edith shook her head.

"No," she said gravely, "I've never been either a bluestocking or a frivolous woman. I can truthfully say that all my interests are wrapped up in you four."

"It sounds dangerous to me," was Geoffrey's abrupt comment.

"Dangerous, Geoffrey? My dear boy, you're all at sea. When you talk of having things in the future belonging only to you, it just shows me how little you understand. Listen, dear. You're all three part of me; I've thought about you and loved you since you were tiny, helpless babies. I've watched your characters unfold and guided you this way and that, and whatever you do in the future will always belong, in part, to me. So long as I live you'll be my little son, and I'll be sharing your life."

"I see," said Geoffrey, "It's difficult to understand how you can feel like that about us, but anyhow I do see that you feel it."

"Wait a few years," Edith smiled. "When you're a father you'll understand me better, though of course," she added, "a mother's claim is always the greatest."

This conversation made a deep impression on Geoffrey. He was surprised to find how repugnant to him was the idea that his life was inseparably bound up with his mother's, entangled in her cloying web of affection, hopes and expectations. But he realised that he could never make his feelings clear to her; no words, however brutal, could establish him as a separate and independent entity; she would only suffer a little at the thought that Geoffrey was going through another of his "difficult times."

Determined to spare himself and her that awkwardness, Geoffrey no longer rebelled against her gentle interference, but accepted it pleasantly and then quietly pursued his own ideas.

Lavinia, vivid, sensitive, and almost always amenable, was the only one who after reaching years of discretion flamed into open defiance, and tried to express some of the dumb imprisoned resentment, that all three felt. Providence, however, stepped in once more, and won for Edith so pretty a victory, that in retrospect the battle-field seemed like a daisied meadow.

Lavinia was nineteen, and had been at home for a year. The whole affair blew up out of a chance invitation to a dance, which Edith was anxious for Lavinia to accept.

"I really don't want to go, Mother," she said. "I don't know them at all, or any of their friends, and I'll have a rotten time. They haven't even asked me to take a partner."

"Well, they did ask Geoffrey; it really is very unfortunate that he has to be away that night. But Lavinia dear, you really needn't worry; I know Lady Olivia quite well, even though you don't know the family, and I'm perfectly sure she will see that you have lots of partners. Besides it's a nice house for you to go to."

"You don't understand in the least, Mother," Lavinia expostulated, "One doesn't go to dances like that nowadays, to be handed over like a brown paper parcel, to a different man for every dance. If you do go to a party out of your own set, you must at least take a partner."

"You know, dear, you're being a little unreasonable. I like Lady Olivia and I think this habit of always dancing with the same few men is being overdone: I don't approve of it at all. Now say no more like a good child, I know you'll enjoy yourself."

"I really can't go," repeated Lavinia obstinately.

"Very well, dear," said Edith, turning away.

The subject was not reopened till the evening of the dance when Lavinia going up to dress for dinner found her white chiffon frock and her white brocade cloak laid out on her bed. She rang for the maid whose services she shared with her mother.

"What are these things for, Stacy?" she asked.

"Mrs. Greene told me you would want your white dress to-night for the dance, Miss Lavinia."

"What dance, did Mrs. Greene say?"

"I think she said it was Lady Olivia Yorke's, Miss, but I'm not sure."

"Oh I see, thank you, that's all right, then."

Lavinia's cheeks were scarlet, but her eyes were stony. She stood for a moment clutching the frock in her hot hand, then laid it carefully back on the bed and went downstairs.

On the way she met Rayner, the butler who had been with them for the last ten years, coming up.

"Would you tell me what time you will need the car, Miss Lavinia? Mrs. Greene said you were going out this evening."

"I'm not quite sure, Rayner," Lavinia spoke steadily, "I'll tell you at dinner. Has Mother gone up to dress, yet?"

"No Miss, not yet."

"Thank you, Rayner," Lavinia went into the library where Edith was sitting at her desk, and quietly closed the door.

"Mother," she said seriously, "did you refuse that invitation for me for Lady Olivia's dance?"

"No dear, I accepted it."

There was a moment's silence then Lavinia burst out, "But how could you, Mother? I said I wouldn't go. I told you why; that it would be hateful and I wouldn't know anyone, and you said you'd refuse it."

"Lavinia dear, I said no such thing." Edith's voice was calm. "I told you I wanted you to go to it, and you said you were unwilling, but I explained my reasons, and that surely ended the matter."

She took up her pen again, but Lavinia interrupted.

"It didn't end the matter," she said. "Surely I have some say in my own life. It's perfectly ridiculous, Mother; this isn't the nineteenth century, and there isn't another girl I know who can't refuse an invitation if she wants to. It's mad, and antediluvian to behave as if I were two."

"You don't know what you're saying," Edith answered sternly. "You're speaking rudely and thoughtlessly. I expect you to fall in with my wishes, and I'm very disappointed at this attitude you've taken up. Perhaps I've been too indulgent with you and given way too much."

Lavinia laughed wildly. "Given way," she repeated, "Oh, no, Mother, you never give way. The boys and Father and I all knuckle under in everything; I've never seen it so clearly before, but it's true what I say, that we aren't allowed to call our souls our own."

"You've said quite enough, Lavinia; I think you'd better ring up Lady Olivia and say you aren't very well and had better be at home to-night."

"No, I'll go. I never wanted to go, but I will. And I'll never be able to forgive you for having cheated me. You made me think you had refused, and all the time you had planned for me to go."