Chapter XVI: Sunday Evening

To sit down in your morning clothes, painfully conscious of a blue tie with a pin it, at a decorous dinner-table with three men in correct evening dress, and two ladies--not indeed bare-shouldered according to ancient use, but yet arrayed in all the niceties of that demi-toilette which is the despair of the vulgar--is in itself no small trial to a sensitive and thin-skinned youth. Roger Burchell had not been able to resist the spell which Mrs. Meredith exercised upon everybody who came near her, nor had he been able to count the cost of that evening spent in Cara’s society, and to strike a balance between the pain it would cause him and the pleasure to be procured from it. He was not calm enough to do this. He had not thought of any pain involved, but snatched at the chance of carrying out his hopes and spending the evening in her society without thinking of any results. To be sure, instinctive dislike and repugnance had moved him at the first sight of the two young men. What did they want here? What had Cara to do with them? But that was all; and he had not realised how hard it would be to sit by and see these natural enemies so much nearer and more intimate with Cara than himself, linked to her by ties even of older friendship than he could boast of, poor fellow. All this was unthought-of misery. It was true that after the Merediths went away in the short interval before dinner he had half-an-hour with Cara by herself--but she asked him questions about his aunt and about his little sisters, showing no interest in himself, and at last begged him to excuse her, as she must get ready for dinner. Even then he did not know how dark his fate was to be; but he could not get ready for dinner. He looked at himself in the glass, and at his blue tie which he had thought so well of in the morning. The best that anyone could say for poor Roger was that he looked like a respectable mechanic in his Sunday costume, and a consciousness of this fact impressed itself upon his own mind for the first time. Yes--the long glass in the glimmering half-lighted drawing-room showed him his own image as no glass at home had ever done--like an engineer in his Sunday clothes, one of his practical ‘mates’ in the workshop, who showed him how to make boilers and screws, and asked him for beer--exactly like one of them. While this latter thought was in his mind, Cara came softly into the room in her white dress, the most perfect dainty creature, tearing poor Roger’s heart in two. How unlike she was to himself in his blue tie! he felt as if he could never leave her, and yet wished himself with his aunt in Notting Hill; for what had he to do here?

The dinner was not, perhaps, the abundant meal which Roger had been used to see on occasions when there was company. There was no huge joint, no pair of visible fowls, with a tongue placed between them, which was his mother’s grand dish, but a succession of small matters handed round, which Roger tried to despise. He tried hard to despise everything--the over-dress (as he felt it to be), the flowers on the dainty table, the ready flow of talk. How could these fellows find so much to say? He could have talked to Cara (perhaps) had they been alone together; but to chatter as these fellows did--he could as soon fly, he said to himself. There were no decorous silences, no long pauses, such as he had been used to, but a constant, easy flow of this, which, no doubt, they called conversation! It could not be said that he himself added much to it. Now and then, after considerable pondering, he would fire off a remark, but this seldom happened till after the subject had been dismissed by the others, and when it required a polite effort on their parts to make out what he meant; and he discovered this with a hot blush of shame as soon as his little speech was made. The only comfort he had was that Cara did not talk very much either; but then she listened with pleased looks while the Meredith family chattered. How they all chattered, mother and sons! Roger did not think they could be quite--he did not know what word to use--not quite--. Perfectly respectable people did not, so far as he knew, indulge in such streams of conversation. He felt there was something wrong in so much talk.

And when they went upstairs after dinner it was still worse. Mr. Beresford and the others did not sit over their wine, which Roger would have thought the best thing possible had he found themselves satisfactory; but as this was not the case, and he was sure that the only object of the young Merediths in not staying below and drinking themselves stupid was anxiety to be with Cara, too, he took their quick move as another sign of depravity. It was new-fashioned, it was unEnglish, it was almost wicked. He followed upstairs with a protest in his soul. Cara and Mrs. Meredith were sitting together over the fire. They drew a little apart as the others came in, and Mr. Beresford placed himself by the elder lady, and Oswald by Cara. So! Roger said to himself, that was the habitual way in which they arranged themselves--nothing could be more clear; flirtation, nothing but flirtation, between the old people and between the young people. It was more than wrong, it was monstrous. He supposed such things did happen in London society, where everything that was bad happened; but to think of poor little, innocent Cara being thrown into the midst of such a set of people! Roger could scarcely command his feelings. After standing about behind-backs for a time with Edward, who, to tell the truth, seemed a little ‘out of it’ too, Roger’s sense of horror forced him forward to the front of the fire, where he suddenly placed himself with that temerity of enraged shyness which is bolder than assurance. At all events, there could be no particular conversation between Oswald and Cara while he stood there.

This made a little break in the low-voiced talk. Mrs. Meredith, who sat on the other side in a low chair, with a little table by her elbow, on which stood a lamp, turned from Mr. Beresford to look at him. He could not easily think ill of this soft-smiling lady; but he made an effort, and succeeded even in this.

‘Are you at the University, Mr. Burchell?’ she said, smiling upon him.

There was some work lying upon her little table. He jumped at this evidence of Sabbath-breaking and profanity with inward satisfaction as a sign that she must be bad too.

‘No,’ he said, with unnecessary explanatoriness, ‘I am not so lucky. I have got my own way to make in the world. I have to start work at once. I was afraid you would give me credit for more than I deserved. My brother’s at Cambridge, for he is going into the Church; but as for me, I’ve got my own way to make in the world.’

‘So have the rest of us,’ said Oswald. ‘You must not take such high ground of superiority. We have all got our own way to make in the world.’

‘That is all very well,’ said Roger, determined to separate himself from all resemblance to his companions; ‘but I’m a rough, practical man, not in your elegant way. I’m an engineer--I am going to India, I suppose---- ’

‘And so, I suppose, am I,’ said Edward, looking, as Roger thought, towards Cara with a sigh. ‘But I am not very fond of the idea. I hope you like it better than I do?’

‘Nobody will ask my opinion whether I like it or not,’ said Roger. He caught a glimpse of himself at this moment in a mirror opposite, and his blue tie seemed to glare at him and force him on. ‘I shall have to do whatever will make me independent soonest. They’ve got a number of children at home.’

‘It is very fine to be independent,’ said Mrs. Meredith, in her soft way; ‘or at least so all you boys think. You like to be able to do what you please without reference to your fathers and mothers.’ She looked at her own boys as she spoke, not at Roger, and even this added to his exasperation. How different they were with this soft mother, whose very look was a caress, from what he was, with all the children at home, and a father and mother whom numbers made impartial, and who had few prejudices in Roger’s favour. Poor boy, his heart swelled with a sense of his disadvantages; and naturally he did all he could to make them show the more.

‘Independence don’t mean that sort of thing to me,’ he said; ‘it is taking the expense off my father, that’s what they think of. I must get my own living as soon as I can, that is what it means; and if it is not a very good living so much the worse for me. No one else will pay much attention. Whether one does what one likes or does what one must, makes all the difference----’

‘That is spoken like a philosopher,’ said Mr. Beresford, who had been looking at the young bear thus making uncouth noises of self-assertion with distasteful amusement; ‘but you must recollect that very few of us have the privilege of doing what we like. When we get this advantage, it is generally when we cease to prize it, when we should be thankful to go back to the _must_, and be under force again.’

Under other circumstances Roger could only have been respectful of Cara’s father, but he was otherwise inspired now, and ready to defy even that most privileged of mortals. ‘So you people say, sir,’ he said, with a rough show of respect, ‘who have things all your own way. So long as you don’t know what it is to be under force of circumstances, I suppose it seems rather fine than otherwise to do your duty though you don’t like it. I have thought that myself now and again. It looks self-denying and all that; but if it’s true, as people say, that you do best what you like best, I don’t see the good of self-denial in that way.’

‘I agree with Mr. Burchell,’ said Oswald; ‘but I go further. What is the good of self-denial in any way? It always involves unkindness to somebody. Nature gives you a beautiful day, for instance, and you turn your back upon her and work. What could be more unkind and ungrateful? Or Cara says to me, “Come out and play croquet in the Square----”’

‘I hate croquet,’ cried Cara, indignantly. ‘I never did such a thing in my life; besides, it is winter, and I could not play croquet if I liked it ever so much.’

‘What does it matter about details? I use the word croquet as a symbol--or my mother requires my attendance upon her somewhere. Then the rest of the world turn round and call me idle! Self-denial is a disagreeable quality, Cara. Let us avoid it. At the best it is only extracting merit out of necessity, for nobody denies himself except when he’s obliged to do so.’

‘Sybarite!’ said Mrs. Meredith, shaking her head at her son; and then she turned to talk to Mr. Beresford, and the four young people were left to themselves.

‘Sit down, Roger,’ said Cara; ‘why should you stand up there as if you were defying the world. You are all quite wrong. It is not self-denial to do what you are forced to do. When you give up anything of your own free will because it is right, then perhaps----’

‘Only perhaps, Cara? Don’t take away the little satisfaction one has in doing a thing that is disagreeable. Look here,’ said Edward, suddenly seating himself in the vacant place by her which Roger had neglected to take, ‘going to India is very disagreeable to me. I think I could do just as well at home. My feeling is all against it; I might, perhaps, make more money there, but money is not everything. There is no necessity that I can see, one way or another--but my mother wishes it--that is to say, my mother thinks my father would like it----’

Roger looked quickly at Mrs. Meredith. Is there a father? he said to himself, with a mental whistle of astonishment, to which he dared not give audible utterance. ‘Whew!’ and the astute young man immediately leaped to the conviction that here was something unquestionably wrong.

‘I thought--it was Oswald--whom Mr. Meredith wanted----’

Oswald laughed. ‘Have you not found out, Cara, that Oswald is an individual?’ he said. ‘If Ned likes to be knocked about the world according to other people’s fancies, that is his affair. I don’t. Yes, it was Oswald that was wanted; but I never was a man for competitive examinations, my ideas don’t run in that channel, so I dropped my mantle upon my brother. Oh, he will have compensation; he will be a Member of Council while I am only a briefless barrister. He will move princes about like chessmen while I have no influence with anyone but a stray editor. Ned will be the great man of the family--what, you don’t approve of me! You would rather Ned stayed at home than I?’

Cara had given him a very young girl’s most emphatic sign of disapproval. She turned her shoulder upon him, and averted her head. Poor Roger looked on with a burning heart, seeing the two brothers, one on each side of her, contending, as it seemed, for her approbation. The fact that there were two seemed to shut him out more and more. He was indignant, disappointed, wounded. He said to himself in his heart every ill thing he could think of against this strange house. First, the Sunday dinner-party--even though he had himself condoned it by becoming one of the guests; second, the work left on the table, which he felt sure the mistress of the house was quite capable of taking up, although restrained by his presence from actually doing so. Then the separation of the family--the father in India, the mother here. What a house for Cara to be thrown into! What an example for her! A woman who lived apart from her husband and yet asked people to dinner could not be a proper woman to have the charge of Cara. Of course, she was just the sort of person to encourage a girl in flirting, to put evil into her head. These were the thoughts that kept burning and scorching the brain of poor Roger as he stood before the fire in this strange house, the people on either side of him so much engaged with each other, and he so completely left out. Why did he come here to make himself unhappy? Why build such foolish hopes upon this day? His aunt at Notting Hill would have been a much better companion, a great deal kinder, and she would be wondering now what had become of him, or thinking, perhaps, that he was enjoying himself! Strange enjoyment! He made a distinct pause in his thoughts to realise her, but he made no sort of movement to go away, which was the only thing he could do to relieve her anxiety. She would wonder if he meant to come back; if he was going to stay all night; or if he had gone off straight from his friend’s house to catch the train. There were not all the usual trains on Sunday nights, and this would perplex her, poor lady, still more. All this passed through his mind, and he was very uncomfortable. Yet he made no attempt to go away.

‘Roger,’ said Cara, getting up suddenly, for she felt herself embarrassed on her side, and was glad of a way of escape, ‘are you going back to the College to-night?’

Her question chimed in with his thoughts, but he did not reply in the way that would have seemed most in keeping with those thoughts. ‘It does not matter,’ he said; ‘I think I shall go down by the first train to-morrow.’ As soon as he felt her soft eyes upon him the foolish young fellow thought that all must go well.

‘If I were you I would go to-night,’ she said; ‘you will be obliged to get up so early, and it is so dark in the mornings. You never used to like getting up----.’ Roger felt the light and the warmth coming back to him, flooding him round and round.

‘I don’t mind now,’ he said. ‘It does not matter. To-night is better than to-morrow,’ which was an incoherent utterance that Cara could not understand.

‘Have you been enjoying it, then? I was afraid you did not like them,’ said Cara, very low, so that no one could hear but himself. Then Roger glowed with sudden kindness, and felt ready to embrace the whole party.

‘It is only my bad manners,’ he said. ‘Oh, Cara, have I been making myself disagreeable? You know they always go on at me about my manners at home.’

‘Your manners are well enough,’ she said, with a serious look. ‘I thought you were not--pleased. Come, then, and sit down, and talk with the rest; they are more like you than they are like me. You ought to be friends, for you are all--boys. A girl has less to say to them. And then Edward is going to India, too----’

‘I would rather talk to you; but I will do whatever you like, Cara.’

‘Yes; but do it, then,’ she said with a smile, and, leaving him there she went over to the other side of the fire, and sat down under the shadow of Mrs. Meredith, from whence she looked across placidly at the three whom she had abandoned. Mrs. Meredith smiled upon Cara, putting out her hand caressingly to lay it upon the girl’s shoulder. They made a pretty group; but Mr. Beresford, who was leaning over the little table, talking earnestly, did not care for the interruption. A slight cloud came over his face when his daughter came within hearing. He finished what he was saying quickly, and then was silent; it had not been intended for her ear. While on the other side of the room the young men looked at each other in a kind of armed truce, and a moment of dead silence elapsed, the first that had occurred since they came into the room, in the midst of which Mrs. Meredith was heard saying, ‘I fear you are not amusing yourself, Cara. Are the boys disagreeable? Go and sing something for us. I like your soft little voice on Sunday night. Sing me the “Angels;” that suits you best.’

‘Just what I was going to suggest,’ said Oswald, getting up and going to the piano to open it for her. It was in the back part of the room, which was but partially lighted. Both the others, in their different ways, bestowed a private benediction on Oswald, who was more ready than either of them. They sat looking wistfully into the dimness, listening to Cara’s soft voice, which rose out of it like a bird. ‘Angels, ever bright and fair,’ she sang, looking herself, that little white vision, only half-visible, like anything angelic or fairy-like, which the imagination chose to select. Roger listened with his heart full. But for the apparition of that other figure beside her, behind her, who stood keeping time with an involuntary movement of his head and hand in a way which tempted even his brother to blaspheme, Roger’s heart would have run over with a soft ecstasy. He had never heard Cara sing before, except in her schoolgirl days. As for the other two, the elder pair, Mr. Beresford’s countenance cleared and he resumed his talk, and Mrs. Meredith once more gave him her whole attention, while Edward and Roger stared into the back drawing-room. They did not address nor take any notice of each other, but gazed blankly at Cara, who, having already one attendant, evidently wanted none of them. When she had come to an end of that song, Mrs. Meredith, though she was to all appearance absorbed in what Mr. Beresford was saying, cast a word over her shoulder to the young performer.

‘That was very sweet; thank you, dear. Now sing us something else.’ And Cara went on.

Roger sat and listened, between misery and rapture. He did not know which predominated. Edward, to whose state of mind no one had any clue, turned over a book, and hummed the air she was singing. Not a word passed between the young men, notwithstanding that they were both boys, as Cara had said, both going to India, and with every kind of bond of external resemblance. But Roger did not feel any direct hatred to Edward as he did to the other, who was always thrusting himself forward; and thus an hour passed away. When that was over, Cara rose and said good-night. Then there was a question who was to take her home, which showed as much as did his own attitude--reclining tranquilly in his chair--that Mr. Beresford had no idea of going away. Here Roger sprang to the front, for once forestalling Oswald. He took his leave hurriedly, with confused thanks to Mrs. Meredith, and followed Cara closely as she went downstairs, alarmed lest someone might interfere even at the last moment. It was but a few steps, unfortunately, from one door to the other, and though she lingered a moment on the step, wrapping her shawl closely around her, Cara did not ask him to go in.

‘It was very kind of you to come,’ she said, giving him her hand; ‘and I am afraid you have not enjoyed it, Roger; but you will like them better when you see more of them.’ She said this as people say so many things, apologetic and otherwise, not because she wanted to apologise for the Merediths, but because she did not know very well what to say.

‘I don’t think I shall ever like them,’ said Roger; ‘but that does not matter. Cara, let me just say one word. I don’t think that they are the right kind of people--for you.’

‘For me!’ After the first astonishment Cara laughed. ‘I did not think you set up for being such a critic. What have they done to make you think ill of them? They have been very kind to you.’

‘I did not want their kindness,’ said Roger, hotly; ‘they are not the kind of people I like to see you with, Cara.’

‘I think I will say good-night,’ said Cara, with dignity. ‘It is cold here, and you have a long walk to Notting Hill. It is a pity you missed your train. Good-night.’

She did not so much as look at him, as she turned away and disappeared, the door closing behind her. He had offended her now to make an appropriate finish of this unhappy Sunday! But however cold it might have been to Cara, it was not cold to Roger as he pushed his way at a tremendous pace along the Sunday streets, so much darker than usual on account of the closed shops, and filled with passengers so different from the usual crowd. He would have kept himself warm in Siberia at that pace. His aunt was waiting for him, but half-disposed to give up her watch, and wondering what had become of him, as he thought she would.

‘I am very glad to have you for another night, Roger; but I thought you must have rushed off to catch the train without thinking of your portmanteau,’ she said; and then she gave him a glass of wine, half-proud, half-disappointed to hear that he had dined ‘with his fine friends,’ and sent him to bed with kind good-nights; for he had to start early in the morning, and, no doubt, she thought, the day had been fatiguing, though so pleasant. She was kinder than Cara; perhaps it would have been better for him if he had not gone to the Square at all, but contented himself with Notting Hill.