Dangerous Ages Part 26

And then Rosalind's letter came. It came by the afternoon post--the big, mauve, scented, sprawled sheets, das.h.i.+ngly monographed across one corner.

"Gilbert's wife," p.r.o.nounced Grandmama, non-committally from her easy chair, and, said in that tone, it was quite sufficient comment. "Another cup of tea, please, Emily."

Mrs. Hilary gave it to her, then began to read aloud the letter from Gilbert's wife. Gilbert's wife was one of the topics upon which she and Grandmama were in perfect accord, only that Mrs. Hilary was irritated when Grandmama pushed the responsibility for the relations.h.i.+p onto her by calling Rosalind "your daughter-in-law."

Mrs. Hilary began to read the letter in the tone used by well-bred women when they would, if in a slightly lower social stratum, say "Fancy that now! Did you ever, the brazen hussy!" Grandmama listened, cynically disapproving, prepared to be disgusted yet entertained. On the whole she thoroughly enjoyed letters from Gilbert's wife. She settled down comfortably in her chair with her second cup of tea, while Mrs. Hilary read two pages of what Grandmama called "foolish chit-chat." Rosalind's letters were really like the gossipping imbecilities written by Eve of the Tatler, or the other ladies who enliven our s.h.i.+nier-paper weeklies with their bright personal babble. She did not often waste one of them on her mother-in-law; only when she had something to say which might annoy her.

"Do you hear from Nan?" the third page of the letter began. "I hear from the Bramertons, who are wintering in Rome--the Charlie Bramertons, you know, great friends of mine and Gilbert's (he won a pot of money on the Derby this year and they've a d.i.n.ky flat in some palace out there--), and they meet Nan about, and she's always with Stephen Lumley, the painter (rotten painter, if you ask me, but he's somehow diddled London into admiring him, don't expect you've heard of him down at the seaside).

Well, they're quite simply _always_ together, and the Brams say that everyone out there says it isn't in the least an ambiguous case--no two ways about it. He doesn't live with his wife, you know. You'll excuse me pa.s.sing this on to you, but it does seem you ought to know. I mentioned it to Neville the other day, just before the poor old dear went down with the plague, but you know what Neville is, she always sticks up for Nan and doesn't care _what_ she does, or what people say. People are talking; beasts, aren't they! But that's the way of this wicked old world, we all do it. Gilbert's quite upset about it, says Nan ought to manage her affairs more quietly. But after all and between you and me it's not the first time Nan's been a Town Topic, is it.

"How's the psycho going? Isn't Cradock rather a priceless pearl? You're over head and ears with him by now, of course, we all are. Psycho wouldn't do you any good if you weren't, that's the truth. Cradock told me himself once that transference can't be effected without the patient being a little bit smitten. Personally I should give up a man patient at once if he didn't rather like me. But isn't it soothing and comforting, and doesn't it make you feel good all over, like a hot bath when you're f.a.gged out...."

But Mrs. Hilary didn't get as far as this. She stopped at "not the first time Nan's been a Town Topic...." and dropped the thin mauve sheets onto her lap, and looked at Grandmama, her face queerly tight and flushed, as if she were about to cry.

Grandmama had finished her tea, and had been listening quietly.

Mrs. Hilary said "Oh, my G.o.d," and jerked her head back, quivering like a nervous horse who has had a shock and does not care to conceal it.

"Your daughter-in-law," said Grandmama, without excitement, "is an exceedingly vulgar young woman."

"Vulgar? Rosalind? But of course.... Only that doesn't affect Nan...."

"Your daughter-in-law," Grandmama added, "is also a very notorious liar."

"A liar ... oh yes, yes, yes.... But this time it's true. Oh I feel, I know, it's true. Nan _would_. That Stephen Lumley--he's been hanging about her for ages. ... Oh yes, it's true what they say. The very worst...."

Grandmama glanced at her curiously. The very worst in that direction had become strangely easier of credence by Mrs. Hilary lately. Grandmama had observed that. Mr. Cradock's teaching had not been without its effect. According to Mr. Cradock, people were usually engaged either in practising the very worst, or in desiring to practise it, or in wis.h.i.+ng and dreaming that they had practised it. It was the nature of mankind, and not in the least reprehensible, though curable. Thus Mr. Cradock.

Mrs. Hilary had, against her own taste, absorbed part of his teaching, but nothing could ever persuade her that it was not reprehensible: it quite obviously was. Also disgusting. Mr. Cradock might say what he liked. It _was_ disgusting. And when the man had a wife....

"It is awful," said Mrs. Hilary. "Awful.... It must be stopped. I shall go to Rome. At once."

"That won't stop it, dear, if it is going on. It will only irritate the young people."

"Irritate! You can use a word like that! Mother, you don't realise this ghastly thing."

"I quite see, my dear, that Nan may be carrying on with this artist. And very wrong it is, if so. All I say is that your going to Rome won't stop it. You know that you and Nan don't always get on very smoothly. You rub each other up.... It would be far better if someone else went. Neville, say."

"Neville is ill." Mrs. Hilary shut her lips tightly on that. She was glad Neville was ill; she had always hated (she could not help it) the devotion between Neville and Nan. Nan, in her tempestuous childhood, flaring with rage against her mother, or sullen, spiteful and perverse, long before she could have put into words the qualities in Mrs. Hilary which made her like that, had always gone to Neville, nine years older, to be soothed and restored to good temper. Neville had reprimanded the little naughty sister, had told her she must be "decent to mother--feel decent if you can, behave decent in any case," was the way she had put it. It was Neville who had heard Nan's confidences and helped her out of sc.r.a.pes in childhood, schoolgirlhood and ever since. This was very bitter to Mrs. Hilary. She was jealous of both of them; jealous that so much of Neville's love should go elsewhere than to her, jealous that Nan, who gave her nothing except generous and extravagant gifts and occasional, spasmodic, remorseful efforts at affection and gentleness, should to Neville give all.

"Neville is ill," she said. "She certainly won't be fit to travel out of England this winter. Influenza coming on the top of that miserable breakdown is a thing to be treated with the greatest care. Even when she is recovered, post-influenza will keep her weak till the summer. I am really anxious about her. No; Neville is quite out of the question."

"Well, what about Pamela?"

"Pamela is up to her eyes in her work.... Besides, why should Pamela go, or Neville, rather than I? A girl's mother is obviously the right person.

I may not be of much use to my children in these days, but at least I hope I can save them from themselves."

"It takes a clever parent to do that, Emily," said Grandmama, who doubtless knew.

"But, mother, what would you _have_ me do? Sit with my hands before me while my daughter lives in sin? What's _your_ plan?"

"I'm too old to make plans, dear. I can only look on at the world. I've looked at the world now for many, many years, and I've learnt that only great wisdom and great love can change people's decisions as to their way of life, or turn them from evil courses. Frankly, my child, I doubt if you have, where Nan is concerned, enough wisdom or enough love. Enough sympathy, I should rather say, for you have love. But do you feel you understand the child enough to interfere wisely and successfully?"

"Oh, you think I'm a fool, mother; of course I know you've always thought me a fool. Good G.o.d, if a mother can't interfere with her own daughter to save her from wickedness and disaster, who can, I should like to know?"

"One would indeed like to know that," Grandmama said, sadly.

"Perhaps you'd like to go yourself," Mrs. Hilary shot at her, quivering now with anger and feeling.

"No, my dear. Even if I were able to get to Rome I should know that I was too old to interfere with the lives of the young. I don't understand them enough. You believe that you do. Well, I suppose you must go and try. I can't stop you."

"You certainly can't. Nothing can stop me.... You're singularly unsympathetic, mother, about this awful business."

"I don't feel so, dear. I am very, very sorry for you, and very, very sorry for Nan (whom, you must remember, we may be slandering). I have always looked on unlawful love as a very great sin, though there may be great provocation to it."

"It is an awful sin." Mr. Cradock could say what he liked on that subject; he might tell Mrs. Hilary that it was not awful except in so far as any other yielding to nature's promptings in defiance of the law of man was awful, but he could not persuade her. Like many other people, she set that particular sin apart, in a special place by itself; she would talk of "a bad woman," "an immoral man," a girl who had "lost her character," and mean merely the one kind of badness, the one manifestation of immorality, the one element in character. Dishonesty and cruelty she could forgive, but never that.

"I shall start in three days," said Mrs. Hilary, becoming tragically resolute. "I must tell Mr. Cradock to-morrow."

"That young man? Must he know about Nan's affairs, my dear?"

"I have to tell him everything, mother. It's part of the course. He is as secret as the grave."

Grandmama knew that Emily, less secret than the grave, would have to ease herself of the sad tale to someone or other in the course of the next day, and supposed that it had better be to Mr. Cradock, who seemed to be a kind of hybrid of doctor and clergyman, and so presumably was more discreet than an ordinary human being. Emily must tell. Emily always would. That was why she enjoyed this foolish psycho-a.n.a.lysis business so much.

At the very thought of it a gleam had brightened Mrs. Hilary's eyes, and her rigid, tense pose had relaxed. Oh the comfort of telling Mr.

Cradock! Even if he did tell her how it was all in the course of nature, at least he would sympathise with her trouble about it, and her annoyance with Grandmama. And he would tell her how best to deal with Nan when she got to her. Nan's was the sort of case that Mr. Cradock really did understand. Any situation between the s.e.xes--he was all over it.

Psycho-a.n.a.lysts adored s.e.x; they made an idol of it. They communed with it, as devotees with their G.o.d. They couldn't really enjoy, with their whole minds, anything else, Mrs. Hilary sometimes vaguely felt. But as, like the G.o.ds of the other devotees, it was to them immanent, everywhere and in everything; they could be always happy. If they went up into heaven it was there; if they fled down into h.e.l.l it was there also. Once, when Mrs. Hilary had tentatively suggested that Freud, for instance, over-stated its importance, Mr. Cradock had said firmly "It is impossible to do that," which settled it once and for all.

Mrs. Hilary stood up. Her exalted, tragic mood clothed her like a flowing garment.

"I shall write to Cook," she said. "Also to Nan, to tell her I am coming."

Grandmama, after a moment's silence, seemed to gather herself together for a final effort.

"Emily, my child. Is your mind set to do this?"

"Absolutely, mother. Absolutely and entirely."

"Shall I tell you what I think? No, you don't want to hear it, but you drive me to it.... If you go to that foolish, reckless child and attempt to interfere with her, or even to question her, you will run the risk, if she is innocent, of driving her into what you are trying to prevent. If she is already committed to it, you run the risk of shutting the door against her return. In either case you will alienate her from yourself: that is the least of the risks you run, though the most certain.... That is all. I can say no more. But I ask you, my dear.... I beg you, for the child's sake and your own ... to write neither to Cook nor to Nan."

Grandmama's breath came rather fast and heavily; her heart was troubling her; emotion and effort were not good for it.

Mrs. Hilary stood looking down at the old shrunk figure, shaking a little as she stood, knowing that she must be patient and calm.

"You will please allow me to judge. You will please let me take the steps I think necessary to help my child. I know that you have no confidence in my judgment or my tact; you've always shown that plainly enough, and done your best to teach my children the same view of me...."

Grandmama put up her hand, meaning that she could not stand, neither she nor her heart could stand, a scene. Mrs. Hilary broke off. For once she did not want a scene either. In these days she found what vent was necessary for her emotional system in her interviews with Mr. Cradock.

"I daresay you mean well, mother. But in this matter I must be the judge.