Part 11

She watched the motor as it drove off to the station. She had had it opened, and had sent a number of coats and rugs with it lest Henry should be cold. By this time she was completely tired out, having pursued her self-imposed business down to its minutest detail, but the consciousness that she had done everything she had to do buoyed her up with the pleasure of virtue. Although she knew that she could not expect the motor back for at least half-an-hour, she enveloped herself in an old brown cape and went to sit on the little bench in the porch. The mist had by now been completely dispersed by the sun, which had rolled it away in curls and shavings of vapour, that clung about the trees as though reluctant to go, and finally melted away, leaving a day full of damp gold, with the pheasants calling in the distance along the margins of the fields nearest to the coppices. Mrs. Martin sat in the porch with her feet propped up on the opposite bench. She rested contentedly, folding her old brown cloak round her, and letting her head nod under its big black straw hat as she dozed. She looked like some old shepherd nodding after his dinner hour. The pigeons came and pecked about under her feet for stray grains of maize, and were joined by some chickens from the farmyard that came scurrying across the court, the big Rhode Island Reds and the white Wyandottes with their bright yellow legs prinking round and squawking as all their heads met in a rush over the same grain. Mrs. Martin smiled as she dozed, like a mother smiling indulgently at the squabble of her children. The sunlight fell in a sharp line across the flag-stone of the porch. Little bright drops of moisture formed on the hairy tweed of Mrs. Martin’s cloak where her gentle and regular breathing blew down the front of it. She had not meant to go to sleep. She would not have believed that she could go to sleep while she was actually waiting for the arrival of Henry. Five years—and then, at the end of it, to sleep! But she was old, and she had been busy all the morning, and she was tired. She slept on, with the pigeons and chickens still pecking, quietly now, under her feet.

IV

Henry was there; he arrived cheerful and full of good-will. If, coming down in the train—three hours; how could anyone, good Lord, so bury themselves in the country when they weren’t obliged to?—if, coming down in the train, he had drilled himself rather deliberately into the suitable frame of mind, at the actual moment of his arrival he found himself unexpectedly invaded by a rush of genuine pleasure. He had been touched by the sudden sight of his mother asleep in the porch, wrapped in the same old cloak which he well remembered; her cheek, when he kissed it, had been so cool and soft and naturally scented; and her confusion and delight had both been so sweet and so candid. They went into the house together, eagerly; he put down his hat and coat on the same coffer which was in its unaltered place, and still the warmth of homecoming had not deserted him. She took his arm and led him towards the sitting-room, “Not much change, you see, Henry; I had to have new covers for the chairs and the sofa, and I thought it would be nice to have them a little different, but everything else is just the same. Now I expect you’d like to go to your room and wash: I’ve had some hot water put there for you; and luncheon will be ready in five minutes.”

He splashed over his basin, looking round his room meanwhile and thinking how clean and fresh it was, and how jolly the view out of the window with the river shining down in the valley, washing his hands with an energy that brought the soap up into an instant lather, and as he dried them on the soft huckaback of the fringed towel he smiled to himself, for he remembered the old joke of his mother’s niceness over such things as linen. He unpacked his brushes and brushed his hair vigorously; it was sleek and black, and he brushed it till it shone like a top-hat. He ran downstairs, jumping the last six steps and shouting out to his mother. He felt quite boyish. He put his hand through her arm and drew her out to the porch, where they stood while they waited for luncheon. He held her arm close to his side in a possessive way. They were both very gay, and rather tremulous.

V

“How well you look, Henry! and so brown; why, you might be twenty instead of nearly thirty. Now what do you want to drink? claret, beer, cider.... Try a little of our cider, it’s home-made, last season’s brew, and I think we have got in exactly the right measure of wheat. It is so easy to make a mistake—to put in too little or too much—but I think last autumn we got it just right.”

But Henry did not care for cider; he preferred whisky and soda.

“Have what you like, of course, dear boy. Here are my keys, Sandford; get the bottle of whisky out of my cupboard, please, and bring it for Mr. Henry, and let me have the keys back. Dear me, Henry, we both have so much to say to one another that it makes us quite silent. I scarcely know where to begin. Never mind, it will all come out little by little, and we have plenty of time before us. I have made a great plan of all I want to show you this afternoon; you must come round to the farm after luncheon and speak to Lynes, and I daresay he will like to have a whole day with you, going over things, to-morrow or the day after that....”

She beamed at him where he sat opposite to her, at the end of the table, and he smiled back at her; she thought how nice-looking he was, with his lean, brown face and black hair. He had the look of hard health; she remembered how well he had always looked in the saddle. It had, indeed, been a great incentive to have this son to work for; to guard his interests, to build up the perfect little estate for him to inherit. The studious evenings she had spent had not been wasted; all that she had learnt, conscientiously—for she would never trust wholly to Lynes’ experience—about manures, the rotation of crops, the value of luzerne, the advantage of fat stock over dairy-produce, all that laboriously acquired knowledge, in the service of such a son, had not been useless. It wasn’t in the nature of women, she had decided long ago, to work solely for the sake of the work; and this was one of the things she often said, particularly when the subject of women’s emancipation was mentioned. How impressed he would be, after luncheon, when she took him out! He would expect her to know about the garden; the garden had always been her speciality; but he should find that she wasn’t a docile ignoramus about the farm, a mere writer of cheques to Lynes’ dictation. She beamed at him again, hugging her satisfaction to herself. She was glad that she had not been born a man, to work for work’s own cold, ungrateful sake, but a woman, to work for the warm appreciation in a fellow-being’s eyes.

And Henry was charming her, as she had expected to be charmed. He chaffed her a little, and she fell into a little confusion, not knowing whether to take him seriously, until she perceived that he was laughing and then she reproached him for teasing an old woman and they laughed happily together. He saw that he was being a success, and expanded under the flattery. He teased her about her old cloak; she found an exquisite thrill in the proprietary intimacy with which this man, who was like a stranger to her, was treating her. She blushed and bridled; and the more she bridled the more fondly he teased. His eyes were narrowed into laughing slits; he leant over to her as he might have leant, confidentially, over to any woman with whom he happened to be lunching. She thought, with a queer envy, of the future Mrs. Henry; and the thought made her ask, abruptly, “You’ve nothing to tell me about yourself? You’re not engaged, I mean, or thinking of it?”

Henry looked taken aback by the question; then he threw back his head and laughed.

“Good Lord, who to? You forget I’ve been in the heart of the Argentine for five years.”

“Oh no, I don’t forget,” she said softly, thinking how little she had forgotten, “but one finds old friends in London.... I don’t know....”

For a moment he seemed embarrassed; it passed.

“I’ve not been in London forty-eight hours and I had plenty of other things to do there.” He said it glibly, hoping she would not wonder what he had done with his evenings. She did not wonder, her imagination not readily extending to restaurants or dancing places, or the bare shoulders of women under a slipping opera cloak. She had forgotten about those things; it was so long since they had come her way, even remotely. And in spite of her benevolence towards Mrs. Henry she was conscious of a fugitive relief.

“Then I needn’t feel selfish about keeping you here,” she said, “and it will be a nice rest for you after your journey and all the business you had to do in London. Now if you have quite finished, we might go out? It gets dark so quickly.” They went out; already the fresh beauty of the day was passing, it was colder, and there was more grey and less gold between the trees. “Let us go up to the top of the garden,” said Mrs. Martin, who felt she could not bear to keep the secret of the three hundred acres to herself a moment longer.

VI

They went slowly up the garden path between the flaming borders, that flamed less now that the sun was no longer on them. She noted the difference, and was sorry they should not be showing themselves off at their best. Nevertheless Henry said, “How jolly your flowers are, mother,” and she was satisfied. She had taken his arm; from her other hand swung her inseparable companion, the garden basket, and from sheer habit she kept a sharp look out for a possible weed. Even though Henry was there. She knew now—now that he was there—how lonely had been her wanderings up that garden path, and how hollow, really, had been her gardening triumphs since there was no one to admire them and to share. Not that she had ever faced the fact; for it was not her habit to face facts. But now, since it had become a fact only in the past, she could allow herself to turn round and wave it a little belated, valedictory gesture of recognition. She pressed Henry’s arm ever so slightly against her side. Not enough for him to notice; only enough to give herself assurance and comfort. Stupid of her not to have realized how much she wanted Henry. He had been always in the background, of course, and she had trained herself to think that that was enough; perhaps it was fortunate, rather than stupid; she would have wanted him too much, if once she had let herself begin to think about it. It was pleasant to have the physical support of his arm to lean on; it was surprisingly pleasant to have the moral support of his presence. She had had to carry all the responsibility herself for so long, the responsibility of decisions, all the loneliness of command; and although she was quite well aware of her own efficiency she felt that she was growing a little tired, and would be happy to let some of the responsibility slide off on to Henry’s shoulders. When Lynes was obstinate, as he sometimes was, it would be a comfort to reply that he must discuss the matter with Mr. Henry. At the end of this train of thought she said confidently to Henry, “You won’t be going back to the Argentine any more, dear, will you?”

Henry emerged startled from a parallel train of thought that he had been following. The first warm excitement of his homecoming had passed, and he was beginning to wonder what he should do, when once his mother had had her fill of showing him all which she had vaguely threatened to show, and which he did not particularly want to see. Already, with reaction, things were a little flat. But he answered, without any perceptible pause, “No, no more Argentine for me. I’m fed up with the place.” He was; the solitude, the rough life, had not been to his taste; he had grown to hate the plains, and the stupid, ubiquitous cattle, and the endless cattle-talk. No more Argentine for him; he had had the experience, he had made the money he wanted to make, now he wanted the pleasure to which he thought he was entitled.

“That’s nice,” said Mrs. Martin comfortably; “it will be nice for me to have you at home in my old age.”

Henry let this remark pass; he hated inflicting disappointment, and there would be plenty of time in which to make his plans clear to his mother. In the meantime she was so obviously happy; a pity to throw a shadow over her first day.

They reached the top of the path and the clump of firs. Mrs. Martin’s heart was beating hard, and a little pink flush had appeared on her cheeks. It was not, after all, every day that one reached a moment one had anticipated for nearly five years. She wished she had had the strength of mind to wait until the following morning before bringing Henry here, for the country was lovelier under the morning mists than now in the cruder light of the afternoon; but she had been too much excited, too impatient. They stood there looking down over the valley, across it to the Downs. She let him look his fill.

“Better than the Argentine, Henry?”

“By Jove, yes, I should think so: better than the Argentine.”

She gave a chuckle of happiness. She dealt her secret out to him in small doses, like the old Epicurean she was.

“Isn’t it nice to think, Henry, that those fields and woods belong to you?”

“But they don’t,” he said, “they belong to you.”

“Well—doesn’t that amount to the same thing?”

“Oh, no,” he said, “not at all the same thing,” and the difference in his mind was that whereas she loved and wanted the fields and woods, their possession would have bored him.

“Dear Henry, that is just an evasion. You know that it amounts to the same thing really. Let us, for the sake of argument, assume that they belong to us both.”

“All right,” he said, humouring her.

“Do you remember,” she went on, “we used to say, how nice it would be if our property went down as far as the river?”

“Did we?—Doesn’t it?—No, I don’t remember,” he said absently.

“But, Henry! Think, darling! Well, it does now: right down to the river.”

“How splendid!” he replied, feeling that he was expected to say something of the sort. “But didn’t it always?”

VII

She went into no explanation; she did not remind him of the three hundred acres required to round off the estate, nor did she make the confession which she had been saving up, like a guilty child, of how she had got round the obstinacy of Mr. Thistlethwaite. She made some quiet reply to his last remark, and went on talking of other things. He was perfectly oblivious to the moment that had come and gone. And she, in her mind, was already making excuses for him; he had been away for so long, he had grown accustomed to such vast districts where three hundred acres must seem paltry indeed! When they had looked sufficiently at the view, she returned down the path beside him, her hand still slipped into the crook of his arm, without the slightest resentment. Henry! she could never harbour resentment against Henry.

But a little of the eagerness was gone; not much; only the first edge taken off. She struggled to restore it; she had an uneasy feeling of disloyalty towards Henry. And really he had been so very charming; nothing could have been more charming or more to her taste than his manner towards her from the very first moment when he had bent to kiss her in the porch, fond but deferential, intimate but courteous. Henry was the sort of man who would always be courteous towards women, even when the woman happened to be his own mother. Mrs. Martin greatly appreciated courtesy. She often said that it was becoming rarer and more rare. Certainly, Henry’s manner had been perfect in every respect, and she was seized with remorse that she could have directed against him so much as the criticism of a passing disappointment. She must not admit to herself that the edge of her eagerness was blunted; and she began forcing herself to talk of Lynes and the farm, and presently, because Henry listened with so much attention and interest, she found her eagerness creeping back. They went round to the rickyard together, where Lynes, in his breeches and leather gaiters, was talking to the carter, but broke off to come towards Henry, who shook hands with him while Mrs. Martin stood by, beaming upon their meeting. She was enchanted with Henry; he asked Lynes questions about the cattle, and followed him into the door of the shed where the afternoon’s milking was in progress. Mrs. Martin waited for them near the ricks, because she did not like the dirty cobbles of the farmyard; she was perfectly happy again; this was what she had always foreseen, and she liked things to turn out exactly according to the picture she had been in the habit of making in advance in her own mind; she was only disconcerted when they fell out differently. How good was Henry’s manner with Lynes! she watched the two men as they stood in the doorway of the cowshed; Henry had said something and Lynes was laughing; he pushed back his cap off his forehead and scratched his head, and she heard him say, “That’s right, sir, that’s just about the size of it.” Her heart swelled with pride in Henry. He was getting on with Lynes; Lynes approved of him, that was obvious, and Lynes’ approval was not easily won. He was a scornful man, not always very tractable either, and very contemptuous of most people’s knowledge of agriculture; but here he was approving of Henry. Her own esteem of Henry rose in proportion as she saw Lynes’ esteem. She felt that a little of the credit belonged to her for being Henry’s mother.

They came towards her, walking slowly and talking, across the soft ground of the rickyard, where the cartwheels had cut deep ruts and the wisps of straw were sodden into the black earth. It was a great satisfaction to her to see Henry and Lynes thus together. She was the impresario exhibiting them to one another. The afternoon was drawing very gently to a close. A little cold, perhaps, a little grey, but still tender; a dove-like grey, hovering over the trees, over the ricks, and over the barn with the yellow lichen on the roof. A tang of damp farmyard was, not unpleasantly, on the air.

“We’ll go in now, shall we, Henry? It’s getting chilly,” said Mrs. Martin, wrapping herself more closely in her brown cloak, and nodding and smiling to Lynes.

As they went towards the house, Henry said, looking down at her in that confidential way he had, “Well, that’s a great duty accomplished, isn’t it?”

“Duty, Henry?”

“Yes. Talking to Lynes, I mean.”

“Oh! talking to Lynes. To be sure—— You were so nice to him, dear boy; thank you.”

Duty—the word gave her a small chill. She bent over the fire in the sitting-room, poking it into a blaze; the logs fell apart and shot up into flame.

“I do like a wood fire,” said Mrs. Martin. She held out her hands towards it; they were cold. She had not known, until that moment, how cold she had been.

VIII

They were at dinner. How nice Henry looked in his evening clothes; she liked his lean brown hands, and the gesture with which he smoothed back his hair. She smiled fondly as she thought how attractive all women must find Henry. Life on a ranch had not coarsened him; far from it. He was sensitive and masculine both, an ideal combination.

“Dear Henry!” she murmured.

He leant over and patted her hand, but there was an absent look in his eyes, and his manner was slightly more perfunctory than it had been at luncheon. Anyone but Mrs. Martin would have suspected that he could assume that manner at will—had, in fact, assumed it often, towards many women who had misinterpreted it, and whom he had forgotten as soon as they were out of sight. They had reproached him sometimes; there was a fair echo of reproaches in Henry’s life. He had always felt aggrieved when they reproached him; couldn’t they understand that he was kind-hearted really? that he only wanted to please? To make life agreeable? He hated saying anything disagreeable to anybody, but greatly preferred enrolling them among the victims of his charm—which he could turn on, at a moment’s notice, like turning on a tap—and if they misunderstood him, he did not consider that he had been to blame. Not that he remained to argue the matter out. It was far easier, in most cases, simply to go right away instead, without giving any explanation, right away to where the clamour that was sure to arise would not reach his ears at all. And sometimes, when he had not managed so skilfully as usual, and things had been, briefly, tiresome, he would criticize himself to the extent of thinking that he was a damned fool to have, incorrigibly, so little foresight of where the easy path was leading him.

Yet he was not quite right about this, for he was perfectly well able to recognize the progress of his own drifting; but he recognized it as though it applied to some other person, in whose affairs he was himself unable to interfere. He watched himself as he might have watched another man, thinking meanwhile, with an amused contempt and a certain compassion, “How the dickens is he going to get himself out of this?”

IX