IV
Squires, at any rate at the very beginning of the war, maintained its equilibrium. Rose was in London, but Diana and Ford Aviolet drove over from the other side of the county.
“Good Lord, it’s Armageddon!” growled Sir Thomas Aviolet. He was entirely unaware that many hundreds of other people had seized upon the phrase already, and that as many hundreds more would do so within the next few days.
“The whole of the map will have to be re-made,” remarked Lady Aviolet, and sometimes she said instead: “But it can’t last long, that’s one thing. It’s on such a terrific scale that it must be over quickly. It can’t last.”
“They say Kitchener is preparing for a three years’ war.”
“I daresay he has to be on the safe side, Thomas, but it couldn’t possibly last that length of time. Not with all the Russian millions to help us. Why, they say the Russians will be in Berlin before Christmas.”
“I must say, I was frightened that first week-end,” said Diana. “There was a panic in the town, and everyone tried to get food in, for fear of a shortage, you know. And then people were so dreadful about money—one heard of them cashing simply enormous cheques, and taking the gold home with them! Of course, it was the one thing the Government said we mustn’t do—hoard gold. And I’m afraid getting the extra supplies of food wasn’t right, though I did do that myself. I made our grocer give me exactly three times the quantity of everything, and I got a number of tinned things, and a good deal of flour as well. There was actually a queue outside his door, but I’d gone myself, in the car, so, of course, I got in first. After all, it was fair enough in a way, wasn’t it? First come first served, as they say.”
Her husband sneered. “First car first served, Di. You hadn’t come there before they had; but they’d only come on foot.”
“Poor people,” said Diana placidly, although she had coloured faintly at his tone of voice. “Well, I’m sure I hope they got what they wanted, for there was plenty for everybody, as it turned out. And we know, now, that there isn’t going to be any difficulty about supplies, and that people are particularly asked not to hoard.”
“I’m sure we wouldn’t think of such a thing,” said Lady Aviolet. “Though, naturally, nobody wants to go short. That wouldn’t help to end the war. But I’m afraid there’s a dreadful time ahead while it lasts. I wonder we haven’t heard from Cecil about getting a commission.”
“Boys of that age,” said Ford curtly, “won’t be wanted in a show of this kind. They haven’t the stamina, or the experience, or the physique. It’s men that are wanted, not children from school.”
“I expect he’ll want to go, Ford, and one does hear of younger boys——”
“Not of Cecil’s type, Mother. A silly, emotional lad of that kind gives more trouble than he’s worth. Besides, I doubt if he’d be able to stand fire, frankly.”
Lady Aviolet drew herself up. “My dear Ford, you don’t think what you’re saying. Cecil isn’t a coward. You sometimes almost talk as though he weren’t our own flesh and blood.”
“You always are down on poor Cecil, I’ve noticed it myself,” suddenly added Diana.
“I’m sure I don’t know why Ford should give that impression. He’s always been very good to poor Jim’s boy—naturally,” said Lady Aviolet.
She never allowed any one, least of all Ford’s wife, to imply any shadow of criticism of him.
“Cecil isn’t only ‘poor Jim’s’ son.”
“I know, my dear. It was a most unfortunate marriage, of course. But it was all many years ago, and she’s improved wonderfully, poor thing. One may not have very much in common with her, but, at least, she’s a genuinely devoted mother, and she hasn’t stood in the boy’s way.”
“She did her best, when she made difficulties over his going to school.”
“Well, yes,” Lady Aviolet conceded. “She was certainly very tiresome about that, I remember. She had some very odd ideas about his being different to other boys. As though all mothers didn’t think their own children quite different to all other children!”
“But Cecil really was a little bit different, Cousin Catherine,” said Diana. “It seems a shame to say so, but it really was rather dreadful when he was quite little, and wouldn’t speak the truth, or play games without cheating.”
“Little bounder,” muttered Ford between his teeth.
“It’s certainly a very horrid fault,” Diana admitted gravely.
“The streak of bad blood is bound to come out sooner or later. It’s all very well to talk of his being one of ourselves, Mother, but you must admit that there have been times when young Master Cecil showed very decided signs of his Smith ancestry.”
“I’d really rather you didn’t say such things, Ford,” returned Lady Aviolet very placidly.
Her son smiled slightly, raised his eyebrows, and went out of the room.
Diana Aviolet, her face still grave as it had been when she was discussing Cecil, and with a slight additional tinge of colour in it, said to her mother-in-law with an effect of considerable effort:
“You know, I’m afraid that one reason why Ford speaks so bitterly about poor Cecil, is because he feels it so, that he hasn’t got a son himself.”
Lady Aviolet’s own face lengthened—her nearest approach to a change of expression. “Yes, that’s a great disappointment for you both, my dear, and, in fact, for all of us. However, these things are not in our hands, and one can only suppose that Providence has its own inscrutable reasons.”
Diana did not seem to be in any way consoled by the contemplation of such ambiguous wisdom. “Farmers’ wives, and people who really don’t matter a bit, always seem to me to have large families,” she said resentfully. “I don’t know why I can’t have even one child, when it’s so important. I mean, of course, that Ford would like it, and one couldn’t help feeling——”
She broke off, but Lady Aviolet appeared to have understood her meaning.
“Of course, my dear, one had hoped that Ford’s child—and yours—might come after us at Squires, one of these days. After all, he is our eldest son and he’s always been such a good son, too. Poor Jim was very different. Wild, you know. We never say very much about it, but it was his own fault that we were obliged to send him out to the East. And even then, I always think he would have steadied down if only it hadn’t been for that senseless marriage.”
“Of course, it was a pity to marry her, but I quite see—I can understand—I’ve often thought,” said Diana courageously, “that Rose is rather nice, in her own way. What I mean to say is, that in her own way, Rose really is rather nice. Sometimes, anyway.”
“She has improved a great deal,” repeated Lady Aviolet, in very modified approval.
“And she’s good-looking.”
“Men think so, certainly. Laurence Charlesbury admired her. I used sometimes to wonder—however, it would have been very unsuitable, and I imagine he quite realized that. Poor Rose, she was a great deal more impossible in those days than she is now, or else it was that people were so much more particular then. I remember how very much it used to distress me to see her with paint on her face.”
“Bad form,” said Diana judicially.
“Oh, very. And she had a very vehement and emphatic way of talking, that one rather disliked. However, as I say, she has improved very much since then.”
“I wonder what she’ll do now?”
“There’s no reason why she shouldn’t train as a Red Cross nurse, I suppose,” said Lady Aviolet rather doubtfully. “I believe the most unlikely people succeed in passing the examinations, and get their certificates, so I suppose it isn’t very difficult.”
“I’m getting up some ambulance classes at home, of course. If Ford gets a commission, I shall try and arrange to go abroad.”
“Ford, my dear! He’s over the age limit.”
“I know, but, of course, he’s going to move heaven and earth. But I don’t really think he’d ever pass, medically.”
“Does his heart still trouble him?”
“Only sometimes.”
“That was the South African war, poor Ford! Well, he need never feel that he hasn’t done something for his country.”
Lady Aviolet rested in this comfortable conviction.
Diana was less at ease, feeling daily the deepening nervous strain beneath which Ford lived.
When a letter came from Cecil, announcing his intention of at once applying for a commission, Sir Thomas loudly proclaimed the fact, looking Ford in the face fairly and squarely as he spoke. Sir Thomas was much more capable than was Lady Aviolet, of thinking Ford and his criticisms something less than infallible.
“Shall I write to Cecil, Father?”
“No thank ’ee. I’ll write myself. He’s shown a very proper spirit,” said Sir Thomas, “and he’s wanted out there. I shall be proud to let him go.”
Sir Thomas had never before spoken with so much cordiality of his grandson.
“Ford may say what he pleases,” he remarked later to his wife, “but that was a very good letter young Cecil wrote me. He may have his faults, but I must say I like a boy of his age to show the right spirit.”
“He’s very young, Thomas.”
“He’ll mend of that in a month or two, as I said to Ford.”
“Oh, I hope it may be all over before then. It can’t last long.”
“Of course, I know very well what’s upsetting Ford,” pursued Sir Thomas with an air of perspicacity. “He can’t get out himself, and he’s got no son to send.”
“His son would be far too young to go, even if he’d got one,” said Lady Aviolet literally. “Why, he’d be still in the nursery.”
“I daresay, I daresay—but that’s what’s upsettin’ him all the same.”
Lady Aviolet did not deny it.
In the course of the next few days, however, it was Sir Thomas who betrayed vexation of spirit, and Ford who was quietly triumphant.
Cecil wrote another letter to his grandfather, in which he did not mention a commission at all, and earnestly asked for money.
“What’s he want money for? He has a very good allowance, and this is no time for lashin’ out. You can write and tell him so, Ford.”
This time Sir Thomas showed no objection to letting Ford act as his secretary. He also bade his wife write to Rose, in London.
“Ask her if she knows what the young ass is up to, and if she doesn’t, she’d better go and see him. Or Ford. Ford would be the best person. Write to her to-night, Catherine.”
Lady Aviolet obediently did so.
My dear Rose,
I wonder if you get more war news in London than we do here. Of course, the papers can only tell what they are allowed to tell, and I am sure that a great deal is being kept from us. What a dreadful time it all is! Like a nightmare, as I say.
I should like to hear if you know how Cecil’s plans stand. Of course, it was very natural he should be eager to join the Army at once, and Sir Thomas was pleased with his letter. But we should like to hear what steps he has taken. We have felt a little bit anxious at his asking for money, especially as he doesn’t say what he wants it for. His allowance is a very good one, more than either Ford or poor Jim ever had at his age. Sir Thomas suggests that Ford should go up and see him, and perhaps he had better, unless you have anything else to suggest.
I daresay it is all very unsettling for him just now, and perhaps he would like to come straight to us, in which case I hope we shall see you as well.
Diana sends her love. She goes home to-morrow to resume Red Cross classes, etc.
Yours affecly.,
Catherine Aviolet.
Rose’s reply, when it came, was not a source of gratification.
Dear Lady Aviolet,
Thanks for yours of last Thursday. I knew Ces would want to go to the war, and of course he’ll have to go.
I’ve been worried, too, about him asking for money, but I can’t get any sense out of him by letter, though I expect I shall when I see him. I shouldn’t think Ford had better go to see him. In fact, I’d already got Dr. Lucian to say that he’d go, only since the war began he’s been head over ears. I’ve now asked him again, and he’ll be off in a couple of days.
I’ll write again when I hear.
Please give Diana my love.
Yours affly.,
Rose Aviolet.
“It really is very unsatisfactory,” said Rose Aviolet’s mother-in-law.
“What’s all this about Lucian?” Sir Thomas demanded with corrugated brows. “I don’t want Lucian interfering with my family affairs. What the devil have they got to do with Lucian?”
“You’d better ask Rose. She’s always had some fancy that Dr. Lucian understands Cecil better than the rest of us.”
“Understands him?”
Sir Thomas was scornful of any such necessity. “Lucian is the family doctor, that’s all he is. He ain’t my man of business. What does Rose want him poking about with Cecil’s bills for, eh? I suppose bills are at the bottom of it, young fool. Tell Ford he can go up to Cambridge to-morrow, and write to Rose and tell her I don’t want any meddling from Lucian.”
Thus did Sir Thomas command: prepared to overrule any protests. But he was not destined to settle matters with so high a hand.
“I really can’t write to Rose again, dear,” said Lady Aviolet. “I’m sure you don’t realize how much I’ve got to do just now, with the war and everything. Dr. Lucian is quite a sensible man, and if he was going to presume in any way, he’d have done so long ago when we had to take him so completely into our confidence over poor Jim’s affairs. After all, he is a gentleman. I can’t imagine why we don’t hear from Cecil to say what he’s doing about his commission, but very likely he’s made some silly muddle of things through sheer ignorance, and he doesn’t like to say so. Dr. Lucian can see about that quite as well as anybody else.”
“But there’s evidently some trouble about money, the boy writing and asking for it like that. And Rose’s letter reads a bit as though he’d been worrying her in the same way.”
“I hope he isn’t in debt,” said Lady Aviolet vaguely. “But isn’t there this moratorium, or whatever they call it, of the Government, that wipes out all that kind of thing?”
“Fiddlesticks!” said Sir Thomas curtly. “Women don’t understand, my dear. Better leave it alone.”
Lady Aviolet was only too ready to do so, and to return to her knitting, which now took up more of her time than ever.
Ford, to his father’s peremptory injunctions to proceed immediately to Cambridge, politely and coldly presented a refusal.
“I’m not in the least in sympathy with young Cecil, and never have been. I told you at the time that I thought his first letter a piece of emotional bravado. If he seriously intended to join up at once, he only had to ask you, or myself, how to set about it. There wasn’t a single practical suggestion on the subject in the whole letter—mere rodomontade copied from The Daily Mail patriotic flourishes. I daresay he thought himself quite sincere at the time he wrote, but he’s a boaster, and always has been.”
The heavy face of Sir Thomas was gradually becoming suffused, and his dull eyes looked angrier and angrier.
“I don’t believe it,” he said obstinately. “He can’t be playing the fool now, Ford. I don’t know what all this nonsense is about wanting money, but we’d better get to the bottom of it, that’s all I can say. His fool of a mother wants Lucian to go and see to him. Much more sense if the boy came down here, or you went up there.”
“I’m sorry, it’s quite out of the question. I have a good deal to see to on my own account, at present. If Cecil descends from heroics to practical details, I am quite at his disposal. Otherwise, I think he’d better be left to his mother, who plays up to him, and to Lucian—who plays up to her.”
The next day Ford and Diana left Squires.
“I can’t think why Cecil doesn’t come. Of course, I thought he’d come to London. I knew he’d want to join the Army—not like those people at Squires, who write as if they were quite astonished at his suggesting such a thing,” said Rose scornfully.
“But he hasn’t written any more to me, and I’m terribly afraid he’s written to them for money, like he did to Uncle Alfred, only that was before the war had started, so it seems like years and years ago.”
She caught her breath in a deep sigh.
“I’d go to him myself, only I swore when he first went to school that I wouldn’t be for ever trailing after him in the maddening way that widowed mothers always do. I expect he’d much rather see you, Maurice.”
“I can get up there to-morrow, if you really want me to go.”
“You’re a brick,” said Rose simply. “Maurice, you’re the only person I know who doesn’t think he knows what one wants better than one does oneself. Most people would have said, ‘Hadn’t you better telegraph to Cecil to come here?’ or ‘Hadn’t you better go yourself?’ or other rot of that kind. They always make everything as difficult as they can, it seems to me.”
“I suppose that by ‘they’ you mean, as usual, Cecil’s relatives.”
“I suppose I do.”
They both laughed.
“Mind you, Rose, I think the Army would be a very good thing for Cecil, at least in some respects.”
Her eyes widened. “Why?”
“Because it would give him a chance of feeling that he was really doing a fine thing. I think Cecil has been very much absorbed in imaginary achievements.”
“I know he has.”
“Well, I’ve an idea that he wouldn’t depend on his—fancies—nearly so much if his need of cutting a figure, so to speak, could be gratified in real flesh and blood terms. You see, he’s not good at games, he’s never been particularly clever, he hasn’t even got the personality that would enable him to stand out from the crowd. But that’s what he wants, all the time. That’s what he’s looking for—a chance to distinguish himself.”
“Aren’t we all looking for that, more or less?” Her tone was rather defiant, and she had coloured deeply.
“I suppose we are. Only with Cecil, the instinct has always been out of all proportion.”
“He’s much better than he used to be.”
“I’m glad.”
“You don’t believe it!” she cried swiftly.
“My dear, how do I know?” he protested. “I’ve only had glimpses of him in the last year or two, as you know.”
“He’s much better than he used to be,” she repeated wistfully. Then her essential capacity for facing facts asserted itself.
“But it’s never really possible to know the whole truth about what goes on inside other people’s minds, is it, unless they choose to tell one?”
“Not always then,” said the doctor.
Inwardly, he wondered whether Cecil had impulsively enlisted already, but he saw that the possibility had not occurred to Rose.
“I’ll go to-morrow,” he promised her, “and if Cecil takes my advice, he’ll tell Sir Thomas exactly why he wants money, and how much. He’ll probably get it, and his commission into the bargain. You are prepared for that, Rose?”
“Of course I am.”
She spoke proudly, and Lucian’s heart ached for her.
“What are you going to do yourself, Rose?”
“I don’t know yet. I’ve been waiting to hear from Cecil. As soon as it’s settled about him, I can find something to do. It won’t be sitting about at Squires, knitting, anyway. I suppose that’s what poor Diana will end by doing, though Lady Aviolet did write something about Red Cross classes.”
Lucian was rather surprised.
“On the contrary, I should have thought she’d be the very person to go abroad. She has no children, and plenty of money, and let me tell you that she’s an extremely energetic person, and very fairly capable.”
“I know all that,” said Rose calmly, “but you’ll see, Ford won’t let her go. He won’t be able to go himself, because he’s over the age and he’s got a heart or something, and nothing will induce him to let Di go, if he can’t.”
Lucian looked at her reflectively for an instant before he said: “How very much you do dislike Ford!”
“Yes.”
There was a finality in her tone that admitted of no rejoinder.
The doctor, not for the first time, reflected upon the singular un-complexity of Rose Aviolet’s emotions. Her dislikes, to use no more violent term in describing them, were as whole-hearted as were her affections, once given. Either paled to insignificance before the steady, unswerving flame of her passion for her son.
“I’ll go and see Cecil to-morrow,” the doctor repeated, when he said good-bye to her. “Though I don’t suppose the Aviolets will thank me for interfering with their grandson’s affairs, you know.”
“Oh, them,” said Mrs. Aviolet negligently. “Don’t worry about them—they don’t matter.”