Part 9

As they walked back to the Vicarage through the warm afternoon, Dora thought vaguely of how crossing these fields an hour ago, she had been disconsolate, futureless, forlorn.

The miseries of her immediate past were already dimming; her facile and slovenly character found in her present triumph enough satisfaction to obscure the legitimate rancour of six sordid years.

III

Shortly after his marriage which took place in the Spring of 1901, Edwin Greene found that the qualms which had shaken him at the very moment of proposing to Dora Pilkington were amply justified.

His father had increased his allowance in order to make it possible for him to marry and take a small house while waiting and hoping for work to materialise. Dora, who had chosen the house in Maida Vale, furnished it with the help of her mother who since the announcement of the engagement had been her daughter's admirer and ally, and had thrown herself with zest into preparations for the wedding.

It was an inconvenient little house, made still more inconvenient by the profusion of small tables, ornaments and unnecessary objects which cluttered up the floor space and made it impossible to cross the room with any ease. To Dora these represented the perfection of gentility; this picture was a signed water colour, that vase a wedding present from the choir, the rug in front of the fire superimposed on a larger rug of different pattern, had come from Dora's own home which gradually acquired in her mind an aura of sanctified sentimentality.

Three months after her marriage she referred to "my old home in the country" in such languishing tones that Edwin, who had been the easy victim of the old home's cruelty could not restrain himself, and burst out, "My dear Dora, for goodness sake don't talk like that; you know perfectly well you were utterly miserable at home."

Resentful of this plain-speaking, not even recognising its truth, Dora shed a few tears through which she contrived to utter: "You do exaggerate shockingly, Edwin. I really think you might try and spare my feelings more."

"Well, I'm sorry, and I don't say it wasn't a better home than this."

Edwin looked gloomily round the crowded little drawing-room, but Dora immediately flamed up in its defence.

"There you are, criticising again. You only do it because Mother and I chose it. It's a lovely little house, and I'm sure I take enough trouble to keep it nice. Look at the way I dust all the china myself every morning."

Her sobs redoubled in vigour, but Edwin sat humped up in his chair.

He wondered if all young wives cried on an average three times a day and if all women twisted every remark into an insult directed against themselves, their taste, or their relations. There must be some who don't, he thought drearily; some women that you can talk to without having to remember not to say this or that. Oh well, it's my own fault, I suppose; I must make the best of it.

He got up, came over to where Dora sat, and awkwardly patted her bowed head.

"Don't cry," he said, and even as he said the words he wondered savagely how often he had said them since the day of his engagement. He pushed the thought away.

"Don't cry," he repeated mechanically. "I must go and do some work in my study."

"But you do like the house?" Dora looked up at him plaintively.

"Of course I do," he answered reassuringly, and when he stumbled over a footstool on the way to the door, he put it tidily on one side instead of kicking it under the nearest table as he was tempted to do.

By 1904, when Dora was expecting her first child, their positions were reversed. After one visit to her sister-in-law's new house in Sussex Square, Dora came back to Maida Vale discontented and jealous. She attacked Edwin that night after dinner with a complaint which could not fail to arouse his annoyance.

"Oh, Edwin I went to tea with Edith to-day, and I do think it's dreadfully unfair that she and Rodney should have so much more money than we have."

Edwin felt completely helpless. He knew by this time that if Dora felt a thing to be unfair, no amount of proof to the contrary would convince her, but he felt constrained to reason gently with her petulance which he supposed to be in part due to her condition.

"I don't think you see it quite clearly," he urged, "Rodney and I both have the same allowance from Father, but for one thing he is three years older than me, and then being in the Works with Uncle Hugh he is bound to make more money than I am at first."

"I don't see why," said Dora rebelliously.

"The Bar's always slow at the beginning," explained Edwin. "You know I've often told you it may be a long time before I make a decent income."

"It seems very cruel to me," said Dora, her voice trembling with self-pity. "Here am I boxed up in this little house, and there's Edith with her lovely new drawing-room and two perfect nurseries."

"But I thought you liked this house?" Edwin was upset at the new development.

"I don't; I hate it. It's a mean little house, and I know perfectly well that Edith looks down on it, and me, and you, and everything. But there's no use speaking to you; you won't do anything about it."

She left the room, holding her handkerchief to her eyes in a gesture so familiar that Edwin did not notice it.

He sat still, oppressed by the bitterness of his thoughts. All his youthful flamboyance was gone, and with its going he had gained immensely in appearance.

Edwin Greene at twenty-nine was extremely good-looking in the austere manner affected by young barristers. He looked older than his age and the lines from nose to mouth were deeply carved, but the modelling of his face, with its unmistakable resemblance to his mother, was excellent.

I'm damnably handicapped, he thought, and there's no way out. I'm beginning to get on now; with luck another five or six years will see me with as much work as I can tackle, but what's the use of it all?

The door opened gently, and Dora came in and knelt by his side.

"Oh, Edwin, dear," she said. "I never meant to get so cross; I am sorry. But I feel so ill and miserable these days, and it was just too much for me to see Edith's beautiful new house."

At the recollection her mouth trembled again, and Edwin roused himself from his abstraction.

"Don't worry," he said heavily. "We'll be able to have a house like that later on. But in the meantime you must try not to make yourself so wretched over things."

"Oh, Edwin, I do try, but I feel so terribly ill; you can't possibly understand what I'm feeling."

"I'm sure it's perfectly rotten for you, but do you think you go out enough? It's supposed to be good to take a little exercise, isn't it?"

"I do go out a little of course, but I really don't like to be seen very much."

"I think that's nonsense, Dora. Edith tells me that before her two babies were born she used to go out every day, and just not think of it, and she's having another now, isn't she, but she seems quite bright."

Dora's face flamed. "It's all very well for Edith," she exclaimed loudly. "She's got other nice things to think about, and anyhow she's as strong as a horse. But it's very different for me."

She flounced from the room for the second time, and listening to the sounds overhead, Edwin judged rightly that this second flight was final and that she would now withdraw for the night.

Their son, Edwin Pilkington, was born and lived for the first five years of his life in the same small house that had provoked so many battles between his parents.

Dora was an injudicious mother, prodigal of caresses, bribes, scoldings and injunctions. Nurses and nursery governesses succeeded each other so rapidly that the little boy had no sooner got used to eating, sleeping, and going for walks with one person than another was immediately substituted. This was partly because no one could put up for long with the suspicions and jealousies of such an employer and partly because Dora suffered so intensely when she saw her son developing any affection for whomsoever was in charge of him, that she immediately trumped up some excuse for getting rid of the interloper.

The small Edwin, living in this state of emotional bewilderment gradually grew to rely on his quiet and repressed looking father as the one normal steady person in an otherwise chaotic existence.

Edwin himself who had looked forward with foreboding to the birth of the child was surprised and amused when he found what pleasure he gained from his son's companionship.

By 1909 he was a busy man with a steadily increasing income, and Dora was able to move to the larger house on which her heart had been set since Edith's move to Sussex Square. For a time she was so happily occupied in furnishing and decorating that life flowed more evenly for both husband and son. The former was spared anything in the nature of a scene for some months; days and even weeks went by without Dora having recourse to her favourite weapon--tears--and the younger Edwin for nearly a year enjoyed the ministrations of the same nursery governess.

This tranquil state of things was only a lull. It occurred to Edwin one day that the time had come for his son's education to begin. He mooted the project very tentatively to Dora, hoping that the idea of looking for a suitable kindergarten would prove some solace for what he knew she would regard as a tragic break in her relationship with the little boy.

His hopes were unfounded. As he mentioned the word "school," she produced her handkerchief, and before the end of his sentence she was sobbing bitterly.

"It's the beginning of the end," she wept, "the beginning of the end. He'll never be mine again; once he goes to school he is lost to me."

In vain Edwin pointed out half-jocularly that it was the inevitable destiny of mothers to lose their sons in this way; in vain he attempted to console her by saying it would only be for a few hours daily. She was inconsolable.

"It's the beginning of the end," she repeated. "You don't understand how a mother feels, but at least you might postpone it for a year or two."

But Edwin was determined that some consistent influence should be brought to bear on his son's impressionable nature and he persisted.

A satisfactory kindergarten was decided on, and this in turn was succeeded by a day-school.

The younger Edwin adapted very easily to school life, but retained an immense admiration for his father which at times provoked his mother to jealous annoyance.

"You're silly about your father," she would say. "It's all very well for me to take you about with me, but it isn't manly to hang round your father as you do."

However, Edwin, so easily swayed in many ways, presented a quietly stubborn front to her on this point, and continued to seek his father's company.

In the summer of 1914 when he was nearly ten, a severe battle raged over his head.

He had been entered for a preparatory school for the Lent Term of 1915, but a vacancy had unexpectedly occurred and Edwin was anxious for the boy to take advantage of it and go one term earlier than had been arranged.

Dora set her face against it.

"You really are very unreasonable," said Edwin at last, thoroughly exasperated.

"I may or may not be," answered Dora, always ready to complicate the issue, "But Edwin's not looked so well lately, and after all I'm his mother, and I ought to know whether or not he's ready for a boarding school."

"I know he isn't looking too well; that's another reason why I'm keen for him to start next term. He'll be better out of town."

"You mean he'll be better away from me?" asked Dora on that rising note which preceded a hysterical outburst.

"I mean nothing of the sort. I mean precisely what I say; that he'll be better out of town, and I've decided once and for all that he is to go at the end of these holidays."

"So I'm to have no say in it; I'm only his mother to be pushed aside and ignored."

"I'm extremely sorry you take it like this, Dora, but I'm not open to changing my mind this time," answered Edwin, and left the house for Chambers before the storm of tears, which was the conclusion of all arguments, burst over the household.

The subject was not, however, finally disposed of till the evening in August when Edwin, who had felt it impossible to leave London at the outbreak of war, came home and said rather abruptly:

"I'm afraid you won't approve of what I've done, Dora, but I felt I really couldn't keep out of things so I applied for a commission a few days ago, and have got it all right."

To his surprise, Dora answered quietly: "Oh, Edwin, that's splendid," and then fell silent.

He eyed her distrustfully. He could have understood a manifestation of emotional patriotism that would have culminated in a fit of sobbing on his breast, or a paroxysm of sentiment and pride, but what he really expected was an impassioned reproach for his cruelty and selfishness in being willing to abandon her.

This quietness and restraint was the one attitude he had not dared to hope for.

Dora was obviously making a determined effort at self-control. She stood in front of him, twisting her hands a little, but showing no signs of hysteria.

"I'm glad about it," she said at last, "I think it will be good for us to have a big break like this. You know, Edwin, things haven't gone quite as I meant. I know I've never really pleased you and yet I meant to try so hard when I married you. But I think perhaps after this it will be different."

Edwin looked at her curiously.

"It's been my fault," she continued simply, "so it's I who must change myself and in the meantime I'll do all I can to help instead of hindering."

"You've helped me enormously by the way you've taken this," said Edwin warmly. "I was afraid you'd be very upset. You see, dear----" he hesitated and then plunged, "I'm afraid it means I must be off to a training camp the day after to-morrow."

Dora's newly discovered composure appeared unshakable.

"We'll have a good deal to do getting you ready," she said, "but don't worry, we'll manage all right."

Throughout the three months of Edwin's training in England, even during the trying days of his last leave, she maintained this admirable self-command.

It lasted indeed until the Spring of 1915 when she received news of Edwin's death.

At that her resolution broke. It seemed to her that Providence had played her an unwarrantable trick. She had vowed to be a different woman; she had been a different woman, and this was her reward: that her husband had been taken from her.

She sat looking dumbly at the telegram, while floods of self-pity rolled over her. Suddenly she realised that nobody knew yet, that Mr. and Mrs. Greene and Rodney ought to be told at once. At the thought of Rodney working hard but in safety at his engineering works, she was suddenly seized by a fervour of hysterical resentment.

Unclenching her damp hands she went to the telephone and rang up his house.

"I want to speak to Mrs. Rodney, please," she said, "Mrs. Hugh speaking."

In a moment she heard Edith's voice.

"Hullo, Dora, did you want me?"

"Edwin's dead," she stated baldly into the telephone.

"What did you say?" asked Mrs. Rodney, for once at a loss.

"Edwin's been killed," said Dora, her voice rising dangerously.

"My dear Dora," she heard, "This is terrible. I'll come round at once. I'm dreadfully sorry."

"Oh, are you?" shouted Dora, "It's an easy thing to be. You've got your husband at home safely tied to your apron strings. You can afford to be sorry for me, can't you?"

"Hush, Dora," Mrs. Rodney's voice sounded authoritatively down the wire. "You must control yourself. I'll come round to you at once."

But it was too late to stop the outburst.

"Come if you like; I won't see you," Dora was screaming now. "You've always done your best to spite me, and you needn't pretend now that you've ever cared for Edwin or me. You've always had more luck and more money and now I've lost Edwin too, and I know perfectly well you think I deserve it, but at least my husband doesn't hide like a coward in his engineering works."

Her voice died away, as it dawned on her that Edith had rung off. She was speaking to nobody.

As she hung up the receiver she caught sight of the parlourmaid's scared and anxious face looking over the banisters.

"When Mrs. Rodney calls, tell her I can't see her," she said harshly. "Mr. Greene's dead; he's been killed."

She pushed past the maid on the stairs, and burst into her own room, wringing her hands and crying loudly.

IV

After his father's death young Edwin Greene found school holidays very trying. He continued to miss his father both as an actual presence and as the restful element in the house, and he found himself embroiled in a series of exhausting scenes with his mother. These scenes ended in still more exhausting reconciliations, during which she would hold him, clasped in her arms while she repeated that she was now a widow and he her only hope, in accents varying from the genuinely tearful to the luxuriously sentimental.

The fact that Edwin was only a child of ten did not deter her from reproaching him bitterly when he wriggled, embarrassed, from her embrace, and stood sullenly beside her, anxious only to get away from an emotional situation with which he could not cope.

Exasperated by what she took to be indifference, she would stress still further the note of affection.

"You're all I've got now, Edwin, and it seems as though you don't care about me at all. Surely you can tell me that you'll love me and look after me now your father's gone."

Shifting his weight from one foot to the other, staring at the carpet in an agony of uneasy bewilderment, Edwin would mutter: "Of course I shall."

"Is that all you can say?" Dora would cry, the familiar note of hysteria creeping into her voice. "Leave me then; I'm better alone than with a son who doesn't love his mother."

Guiltily conscious that something was expected of him, but not knowing what it was, Edwin would seize his opportunity to escape from the room, and the whole scene would be renewed later.

In time, however, Dora found it impossible to feed the flames of despair on Edwin's mute discomfort, and she resigned herself to a state of aggrieved self-pity.

A year or two after his father's death, Edwin, who had grown wary and perceptive, realised that his mother's greatest pleasure in life was to invite a few women friends to tea, to play bridge, or to spend the evening, and then to embark on a prolonged and enjoyable narration of her grievances; which was sure to be followed by an equally prolonged recitation of similar grievances endured by one or other of the ladies present. Conversation would continue along these lines until everyone had exposed to their satisfaction, the more intimate difficulties, annoyances and sorrows of their private life.

Expressions of sympathy having been exchanged, the depressing coterie would break up, to meet again a few days hence and go over the same ground with undiminished ardour.

On one occasion Edwin found himself involved in a painful scene not only with his mother, but with one of his mother's friends, a Mrs. Pratt, whom he instinctively disliked and distrusted. It was during the summer holidays of 1917. For the last few years the person with whom he had most in common, apart from his school-friends, was old Mrs. Greene, his father's mother.

He was invited regularly to spend part of his holidays with his grandparents in the country, and the tranquil undisturbed atmosphere of their house was very welcome to him. He was on terms of easy intimacy with both grandparents; they accepted him unquestioningly without any of these probing enquiries into the state of his emotions which made life at home so difficult for the rapidly developing boy.

At the beginning of these holidays he had already spent a week with Mr. and Mrs. Greene before going to Bournemouth for a month with his mother. But now there still remained a fortnight before going back to school, and a letter had come from his grandmother inviting him to stay again for as long as he could.

He opened the subject at breakfast.

Dora had been frowning over her newspaper as he read his letter, and she suddenly burst out: "Well I must say I don't see why _The Times_ should report that Rodney and Edith were at the Ledyard wedding, and leave my name out of the list. But some people always manage to get their name in the papers."

Edwin realised that the moment was not propitious, but his eagerness carried him beyond the need for discretion.

"I say, Mother," he began, "I've got a letter from Grannie asking me to stay for a bit. Could I go to-morrow do you think? There isn't very much of the holidays left."

Dora put down her paper and looked at him.

"You want to go then, Edwin?"

"Rather," Edwin assented heartily. "I'd love it."

He stopped dismayed as he saw his mother's hand grope for her handkerchief, and her face slowly crumple into misery.

"I did enjoy Bournemouth," he began, "but I just think a little while with Grannie would be nice."

Dora burst into tears.

"Oh, Edwin," she sobbed, "oh, Edwin. This is a terrible blow to me. You're all I've got, everything I do is for you, and now you say you'd rather be with your Grannie than with me."

She sobbed on, as Edwin got up and came round to her end of the table.

"Of course I don't mean that," he said. "I'm awfully sorry, Mother; I won't go if you don't want me to, but of course it would be rather decent there."

"This is my reward. This is what comes of all my devotion to you. Oh, Edwin, I didn't think you could have hurt me so."

"But I've said I won't go. I can't help wanting to, but I've said I won't and I don't see why that hurts you."

Dora dried her tears and took his hand.

"Oh, my dear," she said, "you'll never know what pain a mother feels when her child wants to leave her. But when I'm dead you'll be glad you offered to stay." She put away her handkerchief and added heroically. "You may go, Edwin; I like you to do what makes you happy."

Edwin's face brightened.

"May I really, Mother? Thanks most awfully; I'd love it. Do you think I may go to-morrow?"

Dora Greene looked pained, but only answered in a fading voice:

"Yes, Edwin, you may go to-morrow," and left the room.

Edwin felt a little damped, but when he sat down to write to Mrs. Greene that he would arrive the following day, his spirits rose again.

His mother was out for lunch, so he ate it alone, and afterwards went for a solitary walk, elated to think that there would be no more hanging about in London with nothing to do. The ten days before school began stretched pleasantly ahead and as he came quietly into the drawing-room for tea, his cheeks flushed with walking, he looked a happy, carefree, small boy.

Mrs. Pratt was sitting on the sofa beside his mother.

"How do you do, Edwin?" she said gravely, "your poor Mother's just been telling me how upset she is."

Edwin looked both surprised and concerned.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

Mrs. Pratt looked at him reproachfully and shook her head slowly from side to side as she said:

"Oh, Edwin. To think you've forgotten already how you grieved her this morning."

"Don't say anything more," interrupted Dora, smiling bravely. "I suppose it is weak of me to be so hurt, and since Edwin wants to go and leave me, he must just do it."

"Listen to your mother," urged Mrs. Pratt admiringly. "Never thinking of herself, always planning for your happiness, and then see if you've the heart to go against her wishes."

Edwin felt that he had been treated with some sort of subtle treachery. His brows were drawn into a scowl, and he looked sullen and resentful as he said stubbornly:

"I don't know what you mean. I told Mother I wouldn't go to Grannie if she didn't want me to, but she said I might, and I've written and now I'm going."