The Country House

‘Poor little baby!’ she thought. ‘There must be thousands like that, and I know nothing of them!’

She smiled to the woman, who smiled back at her; and a fat Jewish youth in a shop doorway, seeing them smile, smiled too, as though he found them charming. Mrs. Pendyce had a feeling that the town was saying pretty things to her, and this was so strange and pleasant that she could hardly believe it, for Worsted Skeynes had omitted to say that sort of thing to her for over thirty years. She looked in the window of a hat shop, and found pleasure in the sight of herself. The window was kind to her grey linen, with black velvet knots and guipure, though it was two years old; but, then, she had only been able to wear it once last summer, owing to poor Hubert’s death. The window was kind, too, to her cheeks, and eyes, which had that touching brightness, and to the silver-powdered darkness of her hair. And she thought: ‘I don’t look so very old!’ But her own hat reflected in the hat-shop window displeased her now; it turned down all round, and though she loved that shape, she was afraid it was not fashionable this year. And she looked long in the window of that shop, trying to persuade herself that the hats in there would suit her, and that she liked what she did not like. In other shop windows she looked, too. It was a year since she had seen any, and for thirty-four years past she had only seen them in company with the Squire or with her daughters, none of whom cared much for shops.

The people, too, were different from the people that she saw when she went about with Horace or her girls. Almost all seemed charming, having a new, strange life, in which she – Margery Pendyce – had unaccountably a little part; as though really she might come to know them, as though they might tell her something of themselves, of what they felt and thought, and even might stand listening, taking a kindly interest in what she said. This, too, was strange, and a friendly smile became fixed upon her face, and of those who saw it – shop-girls, women of fashion, coachmen, clubmen, policemen – most felt a little warmth about their hearts; it was pleasant to see on the lips of that faded lady with the silvered arching hair under a hat whose brim turned down all round.

So Mrs. Pendyce came to Piccadilly and turned westward towards George’s club. She knew it well, for she never failed to look at the windows when she passed, and once – on the occasion of Queen Victoria’s Jubilee – had spent a whole day there to see that royal show.

She began to tremble as she neared it, for though she did not, like the Squire, torture her mind with what might or might not come to pass, care had nested in her heart.

George was not in his club, and the porter could not tell her where he was. Mrs. Pendyce stood motionless. He was her son; how could she ask for his address? The porter waited, knowing a lady when he saw one. Mrs. Pendyce said gently:

“Is there a room where I could write a note, or would it be – ”

“Certainly not, ma’am. I can show you to a room at once.”

And though it was only a mother to a son, the porter preceded her with the quiet discretion of one who aids a mistress to her lover; and perhaps he was right in his view of the relative values of love, for he had great experience, having lived long in the best society.

On paper headed with the fat white “Stoics’ Club,” so well known on George’s letters, Mrs. Pendyce wrote what she had to say. The little dark room where she sat was without sound, save for the buzzing of a largish fly in a streak of sunlight below the blind. It was dingy in colour; its furniture was old. At the Stoics’ was found neither the new art nor the resplendent drapings of those larger clubs sacred to the middle classes. The little writing-room had an air of mourning: “I am so seldom used; but be at home in me; you might find me tucked away in almost any country-house!”

Yet many a solitary Stoic had sat there and written many a note to many a woman. George, perhaps, had written to Helen Bellew at that very table with that very pen, and Mrs. Pendyce’s heart ached jealously.

“DEAREST GEORGE” (she wrote),

“I have something very particular to tell you. Do come to me at Green’s Hotel. Come soon, my dear. I shall be lonely and unhappy till I see you.

“Your loving

“MARGERY PENDYCE.”

And this note, which was just what she would have sent to a lover, took that form, perhaps unconsciously, because she had never had a lover thus to write to.

She slipped the note and half a crown diffidently into the porter’s hand; refused his offer of some tea, and walked vaguely towards the Park.

It was five o’clock; the sun was brighter than ever. People in carriages and people on foot in one leisurely, unending stream were filing in at Hyde Park Corner. Mrs. Pendyce went, too, and timidly – she was unused to traffic – crossed to the further side and took a chair. Perhaps George was in the Park and she might see him; perhaps Helen Bellew was there, and she might see her; and the thought of this made her heart beat and her eyes under their uplifted brows stare gently at each figure-old men and young men, women of the world, fresh young girls. How charming they looked, how sweetly they were dressed! A feeling of envy mingled with the joy she ever felt at seeing pretty things; she was quite unconscious that she herself was pretty under that hat whose brim turned down all round. But as she sat a leaden feeling slowly closed her heart, varied by nervous flutterings, when she saw someone whom she ought to know. And whenever, in response to a salute, she was forced to bow her head, a blush rose in her cheeks, a wan smile seemed to make confession:

“I know I look a guy; I know it’s odd for me to be sitting here alone!”

She felt old – older than she had ever felt before. In the midst of this gay crowd, of all this life and sunshine, a feeling of loneliness which was almost fear – a feeling of being utterly adrift, cut off from all the world – came over her; and she felt like one of her own plants, plucked up from its native earth, with all its poor roots hanging bare, as though groping for the earth to cling to. She knew now that she had lived too long in the soil that she had hated; and was too old to be transplanted. The custom of the country – that weighty, wingless creature born of time and of the earth – had its limbs fast twined around her. It had made of her its mistress, and was not going to let her go.

CHAPTER II

THE SON AND THE MOTHER

Harder than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle is it for a man to become a member of the Stoics’ Club, except by virtue of the hereditary principle; for unless he be nourished he cannot be elected, and since by the club’s first rule he may have no occupation whatsoever, he must be nourished by the efforts of those who have gone before. And the longer they have gone before the more likely he is to receive no blackballs.

Yet without entering into the Stoics’ Club it is difficult for a man to attain that supreme outward control which is necessary to conceal his lack of control within; and, indeed, the club is an admirable instance of how Nature places the remedy to hand for the disease. For, perceiving how George Pendyce and hundreds of other young men “to the manner born” had lived from their birth up in no connection whatever with the struggles and sufferings of life, and fearing lest, when Life in her careless and ironical fashion brought them into abrupt contact with ill-bred events they should make themselves a nuisance by their cries of dismay and wonder, Nature had devised a mask and shaped it to its highest form within the portals of the Stoics’ Club. With this mask she clothed the faces of these young men whose souls she doubted, and called them – gentlemen. And when she, and she alone, heard their poor squeaks behind that mask, as Life placed clumsy feet on them, she pitied them, knowing that it was not they who were in fault, but the unpruned system which had made them what they were. And in her pity she endowed many of them with thick skins, steady feet, and complacent souls, so that, treading in well-worn paths their lives long, they might slumber to their deaths in those halls where their fathers had slumbered to their deaths before them. But sometimes Nature (who was not yet a Socialist) rustled her wings and heaved a sigh, lest the excesses and excrescences of their system should bring about excesses and excrescences of the opposite sort. For extravagance of all kinds was what she hated, and of that particular form of extravagance which Mr. Paramor so vulgarly called “Pendycitis” she had a horror.

It may happen that for long years the likeness between father and son will lie dormant, and only when disintegrating forces threaten the links of the chain binding them together will that likeness leap forth, and by a piece of Nature’s irony become the main factor in destroying the hereditary principle for which it is the silent, the most worthy, excuse.

It is certain that neither George nor his father knew the depth to which this “Pendycitis” was rooted in the other; neither suspected, not even in themselves, the amount of essential bulldog at the bottom of their souls, the strength of their determination to hold their own in the way that would cause the greatest amount of unnecessary suffering. They did not deliberately desire to cause unnecessary suffering; they simply could not help an instinct passed by time into their fibre, through atrophy of the reasoning powers and the constant mating, generation after generation, of those whose motto had been, “Kings of our own dunghills.” And now George came forward, defying his mother’s belief that he was a Totteridge, as champion of the principle in tail male; for in the Totteridges, from whom in this stress he diverged more and more towards his father’s line, there was some freer strain, something non-provincial, and this had been so ever since Hubert de Totteridge had led his private crusade, from which he had neglected to return. With the Pendyces it had been otherwise; from immemorial time “a county family,” they had construed the phrase literally, had taken no poetical licences. Like innumerable other county families, they were perforce what their tradition decreed – provincial in their souls.

George, a man-about-town, would have stared at being called provincial, but a man cannot stare away his nature. He was provincial enough to keep Mrs. Bellew bound when she herself was tired of him, and consideration for her, and for his own self-respect asked him to give her up. He had been keeping her bound for two months or more. But there was much excuse for him. His heart was sore to breaking-point; he was sick with longing, and deep, angry wonder that he, of all men, should be cast aside like a worn-out glove. Men tired of women daily – that was the law. But what was this? His dogged instinct had fought against the knowledge as long as he could, and now that it was certain he fought against it still. George was a true Pendyce!

To the world, however, he behaved as usual. He came to the club about ten o’clock to eat his breakfast and read the sporting papers. Towards noon a hansom took him to the railway-station appropriate to whatever race-meeting was in progress, or, failing that, to the cricket-ground at Lord’s, or Prince’s Tennis Club. Half-past six saw him mounting the staircase at the Stoics’ to that card-room where his effigy still hung, with its look of “Hard work, hard work; but I must keep it going!” At eight he dined, a bottle of champagne screwed deep down into ice, his face flushed with the day’s sun, his shirt-front and his hair shining with gloss. What happier man in all great London!

But with the dark the club’s swing-doors opened for his passage into the lighted streets, and till next morning the world knew him no more. It was then that he took revenge for all the hours he wore a mask. He would walk the pavements for miles trying to wear himself out, or in the Park fling himself down on a chair in the deep shadow of the trees, and sit there with his arms folded and his head bowed down. On other nights he would go into some music-hall, and amongst the glaring lights, the vulgar laughter, the scent of painted women, try for a moment to forget the face, the laugh, the scent of that woman for whom he craved. And all the time he was jealous, with a dumb, vague jealousy of he knew not whom; it was not his nature to think impersonally, and he could not believe that a woman would drop him except for another man. Often he went to her Mansions, and walked round and round casting a stealthy stare at her windows. Twice he went up to her door, but came away without ringing the bell. One evening, seeing a light in her sitting-room, he rang, but there came no answer. Then an evil spirit leaped up in him, and he rang again and again. At last he went away to his room – a studio he had taken near – and began to write to her. He was long composing that letter, and many times tore it up; he despised the expression of feelings in writing. He only tried because his heart wanted relief so badly. And this, in the end, was all that he produced:

“I know you were in to-night. It’s the only time I’ve come. Why couldn’t you have let me in? You’ve no right to treat me like this. You are leading me the life of a dog.”

GEORGE.

The first light was silvering the gloom above the river, the lamps were paling to the day, when George went out and dropped this missive in the letter-box. He came back to the river and lay down on an empty bench under the plane-trees of the Embankment, and while he lay there one of those without refuge or home, who lie there night after night, came up unseen and looked at him.

But morning comes, and with it that sense of the ridiculous, so merciful to suffering men. George got up lest anyone should see a Stoic lying there in his evening clothes; and when it became time he put on his mask and sallied forth. At the club he found his mother’s note, and set out for her hotel.

Mrs. Pendyce was not yet down, but sent to ask him to come up. George found her standing in her dressing-gown in the middle of the room, as though she knew not where to place herself for this, their meeting. Only when he was quite close did she move and throw her arms round his neck. George could not see her face, and his own was hidden from her, but through the thin dressing-gown he felt her straining to him, and her arms that had pulled his head down quivering; and for a moment it seemed to him as if he were dropping a burden. But only for a moment, for at the clinging of those arms his instinct took fright. And though she was smiling, the tears were in her eyes, and this offended him.

“Don’t, mother!”

Mrs. Pendyce’s answer was a long look. George could not bear it, and turned away.

“Well,” he said gruffly, “when you can tell me what’s brought you up – ”

Mrs. Pendyce sat down on the sofa. She had been brushing her hair; though silvered, it was still thick and soft, and the sight of it about her shoulders struck George. He had never thought of her having hair that would hang down.

Sitting on the sofa beside her, he felt her fingers stroking his, begging him not to take offence and leave her. He felt her eyes trying to see his eyes, and saw her lips trembling; but a stubborn, almost evil smile was fixed upon his face.

“And so, dear – and so,” she stammered, “I told your father that I couldn’t see that done, and so I came up to you.”

Many sons have found no hardship in accepting all that their mothers do for them as a matter of right, no difficulty in assuming their devotion a matter of course, no trouble in leaving their own affections to be understood; but most sons have found great difficulty in permitting their mothers to diverge one inch from the conventional, to swerve one hair’s breadth from the standard of propriety appropriate to mothers of men of their importance.

It is decreed of mothers that their birth pangs shall not cease until they die.

And George was shocked to hear his mother say that she had left his father to come to him. It affected his self-esteem in a strange and subtle way. The thought that tongues might wag about her revolted his manhood and his sense of form. It seemed strange, incomprehensible, and wholly wrong; the thought, too, gashed through his mind: ‘She is trying to put pressure on me!’

“If you think I’ll give her up, Mother – ” he said.

Mrs. Pendyce’s fingers tightened.

“No, dear,” she answered painfully; “of course, if she loves you so much, I couldn’t ask you. That’s why I – ”

George gave a grim little laugh.

“What on earth can you do, then? What’s the good of your coming up like this? How are you to get on here all alone? I can fight my own battles. You’d much better go back.”

Mrs. Pendyce broke in:

“Oh, George; I can’t see you cast off from us! I must be with you!”

George felt her trembling all over. He got up and walked to the window. Mrs. Pendyce’s voice followed:

“I won’t try to separate you, George; I promise, dear. I couldn’t, if she loves you, and you love her so!”

Again George laughed that grim little laugh. And the fact that he was deceiving her, meant to go on deceiving her, made him as hard as iron.

“Go back, Mother!” he said. “You’ll only make things worse. This isn’t a woman’s business. Let father do what he likes; I can hold on!”

Mrs. Pendyce did not answer, and he was obliged to look round. She was sitting perfectly still with her hands in her lap, and his man’s hatred of anything conspicuous happening to a woman, to his own mother of all people, took fiercer fire.

“Go back!” he repeated, “before there’s any fuss! What good can you possibly do? You can’t leave father; that’s absurd! You must go!”

Mrs. Pendyce answered:

“I can’t do that, dear.”

George made an angry sound, but she was so motionless and pale that he dimly perceived how she was suffering, and how little he knew of her who had borne him.

Mrs. Pendyce broke the silence:

“But you, George dear? What is going to happen? How are you going to manage?” And suddenly clasping her hands: “Oh! what is coming?”

Those words, embodying all that had been in his heart so long, were too much for George. He went abruptly to the door.

“I can’t stop now,” he said; “I’ll come again this evening.”

Mrs. Pendyce looked up.

“Oh, George”

But as she had the habit of subordinating her feelings to the feelings of others, she said no more, but tried to smile.

That smile smote George to the heart.

“Don’t worry, Mother; try and cheer up. We’ll go to the theatre. You get the tickets!”

And trying to smile too, but turning lest he should lose his self-control, he went away.

In the hall he came on his uncle, General Pendyce. He came on him from behind, but knew him at once by that look of feeble activity about the back of his knees, by his sloping yet upright shoulders, and the sound of his voice, with its dry and querulous precision, as of a man whose occupation has been taken from him.

The General turned round.

“Ah, George,” he said, “your mother’s here, isn’t she? Look at this that your father’s sent me!”

He held out a telegram in a shaky hand.

“Margery up at Green’s Hotel. Go and see her at once.

“HORACE.”

And while George read the General looked at his nephew with eyes that were ringed by little circles of darker pigment, and had crow’s-footed purses of skin beneath, earned by serving his country in tropical climes.

“What’s the meaning of it?” he said. “Go and see her? Of course, I’ll go and see her! Always glad to see your mother. But where’s all the hurry?”

George perceived well enough that his father’s pride would not let him write to her, and though it was for himself that his mother had taken this step, he sympathised with his father. The General fortunately gave him little time to answer.

“She’s up to get herself some dresses, I suppose? I’ve seen nothing of you for a long time. When are you coming to dine with me? I heard at Epsom that you’d sold your horse. What made you do that? What’s your father telegraphing to me like this for? It’s not like him. Your mother’s not ill, is she?”

George shook his head, and muttering something about “Sorry, an engagement – awful hurry,” was gone.

Left thus abruptly to himself, General Pendyce summoned a page, slowly pencilled something on his card, and with his back to the only persons in the hall, waited, his hands folded on the handle of his cane. And while he waited he tried as far as possible to think of nothing. Having served his country, his time now was nearly all devoted to waiting, and to think fatigued and made him feel discontented, for he had had sunstroke once, and fever several times. In the perfect precision of his collar, his boots, his dress, his figure; in the way from time to time he cleared his throat, in the strange yellow driedness of his face between his carefully brushed whiskers, in the immobility of his white hands on his cane, he gave the impression of a man sucked dry by a system. Only his eyes, restless and opinionated, betrayed the essential Pendyce that was behind.

He went up to the ladies’ drawing-room, clutching that telegram. It worried him. There was something odd about it, and he was not accustomed to pay calls in the morning. He found his sister-in-law seated at an open window, her face unusually pink, her eyes rather defiantly bright. She greeted him gently, and General Pendyce was not the man to discern what was not put under his nose. Fortunately for him, that had never been his practice.

“How are you, Margery?” he said. “Glad to see you in town. How’s Horace? Look here what he’s sent me!” He offered her the telegram, with the air of slightly avenging an offence; then added in surprise, as though he had just thought of it: “Is there anything I can do for you?”

Mrs. Pendyce read the telegram, and she, too, like George, felt sorry for the sender.

“Nothing, thanks, dear Charles,” she said slowly. “I’m all right. Horace gets so nervous!”

General Pendyce looked at her; for a moment his eyes flickered, then, since the truth was so improbable and so utterly in any case beyond his philosophy, he accepted her statement.

“He shouldn’t go sending telegrams like this,” he said. “You might have been ill for all I could tell. It spoiled my breakfast!” For though, as a fact, it had not prevented his completing a hearty meal, he fancied that he felt hungry. “When I was quartered at Halifax there was a fellow who never sent anything but telegrams. Telegraph Jo they called him. He commanded the old Bluebottles. You know the old Bluebottles? If Horace is going to take to this sort of thing he’d better see a specialist; it’s almost certain to mean a breakdown. You’re up about dresses, I see. When do you come to town? The season’s getting on.”

Mrs. Pendyce was not afraid of her husband’s brother, for though punctilious and accustomed to his own way with inferiors, he was hardly a man to inspire awe in his social equals. It was, therefore, not through fear that she did not tell him the truth, but through an instinct for avoiding all unnecessary suffering too strong for her, and because the truth was really untellable. Even to herself it seemed slightly ridiculous, and she knew the poor General would take it so dreadfully to heart.

“I don’t know about coming up this season. The garden is looking so beautiful, and there’s Bee’s engagement. The dear child is so happy!”

The General caressed a whisker with his white hand.

“Ah yes,” he said – “young Tharp! Let’s see, he’s not the eldest. His brother’s in my old corps. What does this young fellow do with himself?”

Mrs. Pendyce answered:

“He’s only farming. I’m afraid he’ll have nothing to speak of, but he’s a dear good boy. It’ll be a long engagement. Of course, there’s nothing in farming, and Horace insists on their having a thousand a year. It depends so much on Mr. Tharp. I think they could do perfectly well on seven hundred to start with, don’t you, Charles?”

General Pendyce’s answer was not more conspicuously to the point than usual, for he was a man who loved to pursue his own trains of thought.

“What about George?”, he said. “I met him in the hall as I was coming in, but he ran off in the very deuce of a hurry. They told me at Epsom that he was hard hit.”

His eyes, distracted by a fly for which he had taken a dislike, failed to observe his sister-in-law’s face.