Chapter VII: Et Cetera (4)

"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."

Dinner was a miserable meal. When Lavinia had gone to the dance, Rodney came over and sat on the sofa beside Edith who looked tired and worn.

"What's wrong, Edith?" he asked. "What's worrying you?"

"I'm desperately worried, Rodney. It's Lavinia. I do everything I can to amuse the child, I arrange parties for her, and welcome her friends here, and now to-night she doesn't feel quite happy about a dance she is going to, and she accused me of interfering and deceiving her, and I don't know what else."

"She's spoiled I expect," suggested Rodney comfortably. "She's pretty and she's having a good time and people running after her and her head is a bit turned, don't you think? It's natural to kick over the traces now and again."

"No, Rodney, it isn't natural for any child to speak to her mother as Lavinia spoke to me to-night. I was only acting for the best when I accepted this invitation for her; I like her to get all the fun she can, but it clashed with some idea she has in her head, and she simply turned on me."

"She'll be sorry when she cools down. She's devoted to you, you know, Edith."

"I can't believe it now. I don't feel things will ever be the same again. I really am utterly wretched; in fact I think I'll go up to bed now if you don't mind."

Some hours later Edith was wakened by a gentle touch.

A finger of moonlight lying across the floor, showed Lavinia in white frock and cloak, standing by the bed.

"Mother," she said urgently, "I'm so sorry for what I said; I'm glad now that I went, terribly glad."

Edith's sensibilities were fully roused by the deep, excited note in Lavinia's voice.

"Your father's asleep," she whispered. "I'll slip out and come up to your room for a minute or two."

Lavinia stole quietly away, and Edith followed her up to her own bedroom where she found her sitting on the bed in the dark.

"Don't put the light on, Mother," she said. "I'd rather talk in the dark, and there's a lovely moon. You sit down in my chair and I'll curl up on the bed."

"Lavinia dear," said Edith, "I've had a most miserable evening. You hurt me very cruelly; I almost began to feel I had failed with you."

"I know, Mother; I'm so sorry." Lavinia's voice was dreamy. "I didn't really mean it, and it all seems years ago anyhow. It was wonderful to-night at the dance. There was a man there--" She stopped, "his name was Martin Peile," she added in a whisper.

"My dearest," began Edith, but Lavinia's soft voice hurried on.

"Lady Olivia introduced him to me at the very beginning; there were programmes, and he asked for the third dance, and then after that we didn't dance with anyone else; we sat out together in the little garden. It wasn't very cold, and then at the end we danced again together. I've fallen in love with him, and he has, too, with me." She leaned forward and caught her mother's hand. "Isn't it lucky he did," she said fervently. "I couldn't have borne to live another week if he hadn't."

"Lavinia, what are you telling me? My brain's reeling. Do you mean what you say?"

"Oh I know it's fearfully sudden. I didn't mean to fall in love for years and years. I know I'm only nineteen and it must be a shock to you and all that, but Mother, it really has happened; I'm engaged to him."

"You can't be engaged," said Edith, utterly bewildered. "Who is he? We don't know him or anything about him. You're quite wild and unlike yourself Lavinia, my child."

"I know I am; I've never been in love before, you see."

"But really darling, you're going much too fast. Things can't be done all in a hurry like this."

Lavinia did not seem to hear.

"It's too amazing," she said. "Mother, I'll never be able to thank you enough for sending me to the dance. I might easily never have met him. It's terrible to think I might have gone on for years and never known Martin. He says so too. He says we'll never be able to be grateful enough to you. I told him how dreadful I'd been, and he is longing to meet you. In fact he's coming to-morrow morning. But really Mother, I do thank you."

Shattered as she was by the thought of the stranger who had so suddenly entered Lavinia's life and so entirely absorbed it, Edith nevertheless tasted to the full the sweetness of her child's gratitude.

"My darling," she said tenderly, "we really mustn't go too fast, but I want you to know one thing: Everything I've done has always been in the hope of giving you happiness, and if this turns out satisfactorily it will be the most beautiful thing for me to know that it was I who brought it about."

Lavinia's voice rang with assurance.

"It will turn out all right, Mother, there can't be a hitch or a flaw. You'll see to-morrow."

"Yes, I'll see to-morrow," said Edith. "And now, dear child, I must go back to your father. Sleep quietly and well, and don't be excited."

She kissed Lavinia and held her face for a moment between her hands.

"I'm a very happy mother," she said, "and a very proud one, too, to think I've been able to give you what may very well prove to be the best thing in your life. Good-night, and God bless you."

MRS. EDWIN GREENE

MRS. EDWIN GREENE

I

There hung about Dora Greene an atmosphere of moribundity and stagnation that inevitably led her relations and acquaintances to classify her as a bore.

Her conversation was monotonous, self-centred, and wound its interminable way in and out among the intricacies of her numerous afflictions. The neglect from which she was convinced she suffered, the slights she so patiently endured, and the difficulty of making ends meet on a reduced income formed the dim tapestry of her life.

The genuinely tragic accident which had robbed her of her son, lost most of its poignancy by being endlessly referred to in this ignoble context, and the one consistently vivid emotion in her life was her passionate unsleeping jealousy of her sister-in-law, Mrs. Rodney Greene. Apart from this and from the frequent scenes which it occasioned--scenes of hysterical reproaches met reasonably though unsympathetically--Dora Greene fumbled her way through each day, accumulating new grievances and brooding over old ones.

Nevertheless, three times in her life she had lived purposely and intensely: for half an hour before her first and only proposal; during the few months that her husband was at the front; and for a moment when her son was dying.

II

Dora Pilkington at twenty-four had been that pitiful thing, the victim of an ill-natured mother. Mrs. Pilkington was obsessed by social ambitions which had been persistently thwarted; some at their tenderest stage of growth; some more cruelly, when they held out promise of fulfilment.

There had been a bazaar; the celebrity who was to open it failed to arrive. The committee approached Mrs. Pilkington, the vicar's wife, and had in fact asked her to perform the ceremony, when another member hurrying up had announced the appearance of a certain lady, wife of a commercial knight well established in the county. With murmurs of "Thank you so much," and "Then we needn't trouble you now," the anxious ladies had fluttered away, intent on higher prey, and the vicar's wife was left with her words of acceptance bitter on her lips.

Of the multitude of obstacles which nullified her social projects, the most permanent and unsurmountable were her own over-zealous opportunism, her daughter's inertia, and her husband's earnest single-mindedness. The Reverend Edward Pilkington was a man of limited outlook but sincere purpose. The country parish in which he worked, not cognisant of his limitations, appreciated his sincerity, enjoyed his ministrations, and made endless demands on his time and sympathy.

For the most part, enjoying his work as he did and capable of estimating its usefulness, Edward Pilkington was a happy man. His home certainly lacked serenity, but he asked little of life, and if he was sometimes shamed by his wife's scornful refusal of invitations, and even more shamed by her gushing acceptances, still she was an admirable housewife, and there was always some sick parishioner to provide a ready means of escape from her tongue. When she saw him adjusting his old scarf, and searching helplessly for a pair of gloves, Mrs. Pilkington would raise her eyebrows and enquire acidly: "What! Am I to be left again this evening?" To which Mr. Pilkington contented himself by replying vaguely and apologetically:

"I'm afraid so my dear. You know a clergyman's time is not his own."

Dora had no means of escape. She returned at eighteen from the rather cheap boarding school where she had spent the last four years, with a vague idea of helping her mother, being useful to her father, and ultimately marrying some delightful and desirable young man. In point of fact neither parent required her assistance, and her mother who had hoped with an almost savage intensity for a daughter pretty and clever enough to make a place for herself in the county, was disappointed by Dora's uncertain looks and complete lack of initiative. Gradually Mrs. Pilkington became so embittered by her daughter's inadequacy that a stumbling reply, any manifestation of the gaucherie natural to unsophisticated eighteen was enough to provoke an outburst of taunts and ridicule.

The reason for this was incomprehensible to Dora. She knew only that she was a failure, and having tried the effect of an incipient rebellion against her mother in the form of a muddled and consequently fruitless appeal to her father, she sank little by little into a state of apathy.

It was in the spring of 1900 when Dora was twenty-four, that Mrs. Pilkington's hitherto diffused and generalised unkindness crystallised into a passionate desire to marry her daughter with whatever difficulty, to any man, however unsuitable. It was intolerable to her to be the only woman for miles around with a marriageable and unmarried daughter. Dora by this time was conscious of but one wish; to escape as much as possible from her mother's criticism. With this object it was her custom to absent herself for the greater part of the day on long rambling walks. On her return she was always sharply questioned as to where she had been and whom she had seen, and the replies, nearly always unsatisfactory, were greeted with derision and annoyance.

"You've just been wandering about, have you? You didn't see anyone but old Mr. Crowther and you didn't speak to him. I wonder what good that will do. You know, Dora, it's all very well to idle about, but a girl with no looks and no money can't afford to pick and choose. You're not getting any younger, are you?"

There was no answer to this type of question. Dora would mumble something about there being no one to marry anyhow, and her mother would take her up. "Well, there's young Mr. Lawson at the Bank. I don't say he's anything very much, but what do you expect?"

"You know he's utterly impossible, Mother," replied Dora, her face scarlet with indignation and embarrassment.

"Well, Dora, I don't really see why you should look for anything better, and you may as well know that I'm tired to death of having you always hanging round the house."

"Father doesn't feel like that anyhow," retorted Dora, with some courage which was quelled by her mother's reply.

"Your father agrees with me that is a great pity you are never likely to attract any young man whom we could welcome as a son-in-law."

There were many such conversations, always ending in a decisive victory for the mother, and in the daughter's abandonment to resentful tears.

In May when Mrs. Pilkington heard that The Hall, the only large house in their parish, had been taken by a Mr. and Mrs. Greene with two grown-up sons, she felt that at last her efforts must be crowned with success. The further discovery that both sons were unmarried lashed her to an unprecedented exhibition of vulgarity.

"That doubles your chances, Dora," she said triumphantly.

Later, when the news filtered through that the elder son was engaged to a Miss Beckett and would be married in the autumn, she was wrought to a pitch of nervous exacerbation that found vent in threats.

"Well, this is the end, Dora. Unless you manage to get engaged this summer, something will have to be done about you in the autumn."

Part of Dora's brain registered quite accurately the baselessness of these threats; she knew there was nothing that could be done about her, she knew that her father cared for her, but something in her cringed at the scope that would be added to Mrs. Pilkington's insults after a summer during which she would certainly be thrown into continual companionship with the younger Greene boy.

Shortly after the Greenes' arrival at the end of June, Mrs. Pilkington, unaccompanied by Dora, went up to call at The Hall in order to review the position. She found it eminently satisfactory. Mrs. Greene was unmistakably a gentlewoman, and both sons, who appeared at tea, were good-looking and well-mannered. Edwin, the younger, was charmingly diffident, but his face lit up ingenuously when Mrs. Pilkington replied to a remark of his as to the scarcity of young people in the neighbourhood:

"Why, that's what my young daughter is always complaining about. You must meet and have a good grumble together."

"It's selfish of you to complain, Edwin," Mrs. Greene interposed briskly. "You know we've come here in the hope of your father being able to get a little peace to finish his book."

"Is Mr. Greene an author then?" asked Mrs. Pilkington, delighted to find that he belonged to a profession so distinguished, and still more delighted when she elicited the fact that he was the Geoffrey Greene whose literary public consisted of a small but solid body of good opinion, ready to welcome anything from his pen.

"Of course my husband writes mostly essays and articles," said Mrs. Greene explanatorily, "but at present he's engaged on something more ambitious, and he felt it would be a help to get out of town away from people and things."

"Of course," agreed Mrs. Pilkington, "I quite understand his point of view. You'll find this quite a nice quiet neighbourhood, but we must try and provide a little amusement for your sons."

She smiled at Edwin as she spoke. Everything seemed very hopeful to her. It was obvious that Edwin was a little bored and restless. His work at the Bar was as yet negligible, and the prospect of three months' idling in the country was considerably brightened by the thought of the Pilkington girl who apparently felt as bored as he did.

He accepted eagerly Mrs. Pilkington's invitation to tennis and supper at the Vicarage a few days hence, but the elder boy, Rodney, refused. He was only spending a few days at The Hall and was then obliged to return to the engineering works where he was a very junior partner with his uncle.

That evening Dora wandered out into the garden face to face with a clear-cut issue. Her mother's injunctions were perfectly definite; every effort was to be made to attract Edwin Greene and if Dora could not succeed in eliciting a proposal she must at least entrap him into some unwary declaration which could be taken advantage of.

The sordid meanness of the project was evident, but Dora Pilkington after six years of endurance, decided that she was willing to fall in with any scheme that would lead to freedom from the incessant taunts and nagging to which she was subject.

As she looked at the moon she thought vaguely and sentimentally that perhaps he would fall in love with her, and it would turn out all right; as she thought of her awkwardness and badly made clothes, this faint hope died, and was succeeded by a resolution to capture by hook or crook the one eligible man within reach.

The afternoon when Edwin came to tennis was a success. Dora played passably, and the only other woman was the doctor's young wife, absorbed in herself and her husband. Edwin stayed on to supper, an unusually pleasant meal at which Mr. Pilkington expanded conversationally, and Dora and her mother formed a smiling and apparently harmonious background.

It was a lovely night.

"Would you two young people like to walk down to the river?" asked Mrs. Pilkington.

"May we? That would be more than charming," answered Edwin, and in a few moments Dora found herself strolling through the murmurous summer fields, with a young man saying to her ardently:

"Do let's have a lot of tennis and walks and picnics, Miss Pilkington; there are so few people round here that you really must put up with me a good deal this summer."

She felt a strange movement in her blood. It was going to be all right then; no need to plot and plan; she, Dora Pilkington, was embarking on a genuine romance. Her heart beat unevenly, and as she looked at Edwin's young face, clear and dark in the yellow moonlight, she thought suddenly: I love him; I'll do anything for him.

The days that followed were busy and happy, but July merged into August and August into September, and the harvest was stacked in the fields among the shorn poppies.

"Is nothing ever going to happen, Dora?" asked Mrs. Pilkington, and Dora asked herself the same question, still more bitterly.

Apparently nothing was going to happen. Edwin Greene enjoyed and sought her company, but by no word had he ever suggested that his feelings for her were stronger than affection and gratitude towards an acquaintance who was making a dull summer less dull.

One Saturday after a particularly trying lunch alone with her Mother, Dora walked by herself towards the river where she and Edwin had gone on that first most hopeful night. Edwin, lying in a canoe tethered to an overhanging tree, saw her white frock coming along the bank above him. He felt comfortably lazy and disinclined to make any move to greet her, but the disconsolate swing of the hat which she was carrying in her hand, touched him. He knew by this time that the relations between Dora and her mother were not of the happiest, and he guessed at the trouble that had marred the drowsy afternoon.

When she drew near to the tree under which he was lying, he called softly. Startled, she looked around in every direction but the right one, until guided by his laughter she parted the branches and leaned through, looking down into the cool gloomy green cavern.

Edwin sat up suddenly with a quick intake of breath as he looked at her face framed by leaves and twigs that caught at her tumbled fair hair. Dora had been crying, she was flushed and tremulous, but as she looked at Edwin her eyes brightened and she smiled. In her dishevelment she achieved an unusual warm prettiness, heightened by the contrast between smiling mouth and tear-stained eyes.

"You look simply stunning, Dora," he said eagerly; "but I can see that something is wrong: you must let me help you, you really must. Wait a minute till I come up beside you."

This unprecedented offer of help combined with Edwin's flattering words and look, broke down completely Dora's already shaken self-control. She felt, as on their first walk together, that strange surging in her veins, and her response to it was one of courage and sincerity; virtues as a rule quite alien to her unreliable and compromising nature.

"You can't help me," she said desperately turning to him with tears streaming unheeded down her cheeks. "You mustn't even try; you of all people must keep clear of me; you don't understand at all; Mother is determined that you should marry me."

Dora was sobbing loudly and her words were only spasmodically audible.

"You don't know how dreadful Mother is," she gasped between sobs. "She's always going on at me about you. You mustn't come and see us any more; it isn't safe for you; I don't know what she mayn't do; she's quite set on it."

Emotions and ideas were crowding in on Edwin: surprise, amounting to amazement, genuine sympathy with the helplessly sobbing girl, pride at the thought that he and he alone could turn her misery to bliss, and at the same time, against these, the urgings of common-sense.

He recognised clearly that he was not in love with Dora Pilkington; he visualised the family difficulties that must inevitably present themselves if he adopted the heroic attitude to which he was drawn. He had shown no inkling of anything beyond the most casual affection for Dora; in conversation he had referred to her as a nice girl and a good companion, but he knew that his mother would certainly perceive an engagement between him and Dora to be the result of some transitory passion which had led to a declaration.

He hesitated, automatically patting Dora's shoulder with murmurs of sympathetic encouragement.

Suddenly she caught his hand, and held it to her hot wet cheek.

"You've been wonderful to me," she said, "nobody has ever been so kind before, but this is the end now."

This, however, proved not to be true. At the unsolicited tribute Edwin's young breast swelled with the desire to make a heroic gesture. He thought of the duty that the strong owe to the weak; visions of gallant men and kneeling beggar-maids floated cloudily in his brain; he drew himself up, and strove for his most resonant chest-notes as he said gravely:

"Please don't say anything more, Dora. You will make me very happy if you will consent to be my wife."

It was a magnificent gesture and it had its instant reward.

"No, no," cried Dora through her tears, "I couldn't take advantage of your kindness; you don't mean it; it's only that you're so good."

This protest, these doubts hazarded as to his resolution, only served to intensify it, the more so as the sound of his own voice making its formal proposal had struck chill upon Edwin's heart.

"You wrong me," he protested. "Indeed I mean it; it will make me very happy if your answer is yes."

Dora had lived her moment; she had flung away weapons and armour and renounced her hopes. It had been an impulse and she was incapable of carrying it to a conclusion of sustained unselfishness. She knew that Edwin did not love her and that the whole situation was false and garish, but the chance was too good to be let slip.

"Oh, Edwin," she gasped, "indeed it is yes," and then relapsed into further sobbing.

Edwin too had had his moment, but his was no isolated detachable fragment of his life. The results of it had closed on him like a trap; all that he could do was to follow up the line of conduct imposed on him by his own act. He put his arm round Dora, and kissed her gently.

"My dear," he urged, "don't cry any more. Please try not to; it does upset me to see you, and surely everything will be all right now. Let's sit down on the bank and discuss things.

"I'm only crying because I'm so happy," said Dora attempting to dry her tears. "It's all so wonderful. Mother and Father will be so pleased."

Edwin was conscious of a tremor of disgust at the thought of Mrs. Pilkington, but Dora seemed to have forgotten the prelude of frankness which had led to his proposal.

"Will Mr. and Mrs. Greene mind your getting engaged to me?" she asked tentatively, and Edwin's doubts were lulled by pleasure in her humility and dependence, and in his own protectiveness.

"They won't interfere," he assured her stoutly. "Mother will say I'm too young and we must wait a little and are we sure we know our own minds and so on, but Father won't take any part. He never does; he says everyone must buy their own experience."

At his own careless words, Edwin again felt chilled and dismayed; he was buying his so dear, at the cost perhaps of all his future happiness.

Suddenly in a fever of impatience to make it irrevocable and be quit of doubts and tremors, he dragged Dora to her feet.

"Let's go home at once," he said, "and tell them we're engaged; let's get all the fuss over and be married as soon as we can; I'm not earning any money yet, but I shall soon, and Father gives me a decent allowance."

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: