A reversion to type

by E. M. Delafield

VI

Maurice Lucian could only remember having dined at Squires once or twice before, although he had sometimes played billiards with the young men there. It was, he imagined, in order to afford another game of billiards, that he had been invited there now.

It interested him to see the drawing-room at Squires, when he entered it at a quarter past eight that evening.

The pictures on the walls, nearly all of them rather old-fashioned water-colour copies “from the flat,” were carefully lit up by candles in sconces grouped amongst them.

Very beautiful hot-house plants were arranged here and there in stiff groups.

Also arranged in stiff groups, and very much less beautiful than the hot-house plants, were the inmates.

He saw Rose Aviolet, of whom he was thinking most, directly.

Whereas the square neck of Lady Aviolet’s black velvet gown was carefully filled in with equally black net, and Miss Grierson-Amberly’s plain white satin displayed only a tiny triangular patch of fair, sunburnt red neck, Rose Aviolet’s evening dress was cut low, showing her fine neck and shoulders to great advantage. There was a great deal of jet about it, that jingled when she moved, and the doctor noticed that she wore a ring on her middle finger, and that the other women did not, and that instead of a pearl necklace, she had on a string of carved black wooden beads.

Her lips were not more heavily rouged than he had previously seen them, and the powder on her face was, on the whole, less conspicuous than that which lay in rather ineffectual patches on the red splotches of sunburn on Diana Grierson-Amberly’s delicate, mottled skin.

But Miss Grierson-Amberly sat erect on her chair, and her clear blue eyes looked out politely and interestedly from the smooth vacuity of her young face, and her voice was very low, and distinct, and well-bred.

Perhaps Rose Aviolet’s voice——?

It certainly rang out above any other voice in the room.

“I always think it’s an awfully difficult name to pronounce if you’ve only seen it written,” came over audibly from Rose. “Someone in Colombo once read out a letter from me, and she said the signature as if it was Rosa-Violet!”

Diana Grierson-Amberly smiled, looking at Sir Thomas. He remained entirely grave, and Lucian surmised that he saw no cause to be anything but pained at the idea that people should exist who did not know how his name should be pronounced. Moreover, the personal note, never long absent from Rose’s conversation, had sounded oddly out of place.

The others, collectively, were saying:

“There was certainly a touch of frost the other night—not a doubt of it.”

And: “You must take a cutting next time you’re in the garden.”

And from Sir Thomas: “What do you think of the chances of this bye-election?”

Very much the same topics, so far as Lucian could hear, seemed to prevail at the dinner table. He sat next to Lady Aviolet, and she talked about the housing of the poor.

“They want more fresh air. I hardly ever see an open window when I go into a cottage,” she said impressively.

The doctor had often heard her say the same thing before, and he replied mechanically, having long since outgrown the delusion that to reiterate words of pain and indignation at a regrettable state of affairs, is a step towards redressing it.

The sound of Rose Aviolet’s voice reached him very often, and he detected in it presently a new note that caused him to bestow at least half of his attention upon her, instead of the whole of it upon his hostess.

Already she had turned most of the contents of a glassful of sherry into her soup plate, and she was now freely drinking glass after glass of Sir Thomas’s admirable hock.

Lucian could see that her colour had deepened, and could hear that her voice and her laughter were rising steadily. She exchanged loud and rather elementary pleasantries with her partner, the youth Toby. By the time that Lady Aviolet rose from the table, Lucian felt tolerably certain that although Rose Aviolet was not intoxicated, neither was she entirely sober.

Except for his attentive, and far from unkindly, interest in watching her, Lucian would have found his evening very dull.

The four men sat round the dinner table for some time, and their slow talk was confined almost entirely to matters of agriculture.

When they adjourned to the billiard-room, Rose and Lady Aviolet had already taken places on the raised red leather-cushioned seats against the wall. The elder lady, knitting, sat upright. Rose lounged back, her knees crossed, and polished the nails of one hand against the palm of the other.

Diana offered to mark for the players.

Ford stood beside her, ostensibly watching the game, but every now and then, as though by stealth, he turned his eyes and fixed them upon her smooth fair hair and pleasantly serious face, with its slightly open mouth.

From against the wall, Rose’s voice and her laughter cut across the room all too frequently, with an effect of stridency.

Lucian saw that Sir Thomas glanced at her once or twice, frowningly.

“You’re too good for me, doctor,” said Toby good-humouredly.

It was undeniably true.

“Shall we come back into the drawing-room?”

Lady Aviolet led the way, talking to her guest.

“Curiously enough, Lord Charlesbury, who does everything else so well, is not a billiard-player. He left us this morning, I’m sorry to say. Such a delightful man.”

“A short visit,” said Ford curtly, “and I saw less of him than I should have liked. However, he and I had some instructive conversation on the subject of preparatory schools.”

He laughed softly as though at some amusing thought.

Something in the doctor’s mind seemed to leap to attention. As he held open the drawing-room door, he glanced sharply at Rose.

“We’re all interested in the subject of schools just now,” said Lady Aviolet very placidly, “on little Cecil’s account, you know.”

Rose stared rather stupidly at her mother-in-law out of her big brown eyes, and after an instant Diana Grierson-Amberly broke the awkward little silence.

“But of course——”

The inane little civility seemed to rouse Rose Aviolet.

“There’s no ‘of course’ about it,” she remarked, still in that over-loud voice. “I told Lord Charlesbury that Cecil wasn’t going to be sent to school at all, and what’s more, I’ll tell all of you the same. You needn’t trouble to talk to any more people about it, Ford. It won’t be any use.”

As soon as they had rallied their perceptions—and none of them, the doctor saw, except Ford Aviolet, did so within the first second or two of amazement—the atmosphere became electric as though charged with the force that lay behind Rose’s trenchant syllables.

The boy Toby, with the instincts of his kind, stifled a whistle as it left his lips, and swiftly retreated from the threshold of the room where emotion threatened. Lucian, acutely interested, unconsciously took two steps forward and shut the door.

He saw that Rose Aviolet, taken unawares, was about to force an issue.

Was there to be a scene at Squires after all? His quick glance took in the setting of the odd little drama.

Lady Aviolet, elderly, squat, and ugly, yet strangely dignified, sat back in an armchair, her dress, in weighty folds, falling about her feet on the parquet floor. Behind her stood Sir Thomas, frowning heavily. His shirt-front bulged a little, and his heavy shoulders were bowed.

Ford stood upon the hearthrug, one arm resting on the marble carving of the mantel. His eyebrows were moving slightly up and down, but otherwise his finely chiselled face, like and yet so unlike his mother’s, was expressionless. One hand held his eyeglasses.

Opposite to Lady Aviolet sat the girl Diana. Her hands were folded in her lap. She looked perplexed, but not at all perturbed. Her lax mouth, with its narrow formation of palate, and two prominent, white front teeth, looked quite ready either to smile, or to droop slightly in dismay.

Rose Aviolet was standing. She looked big and heavy, with her square shoulders almost bare, her large proportions contrasting with Lady Aviolet’s shortness, Ford’s narrowness of shoulder, and Diana Grierson-Amberly’s flat-chested figure and slender neck and arms.

One strand of hair lay loose across her forehead, and she kept on pushing it back into place again angrily. Her whole appearance was untidy, lacking entirely the repose that kept Lady Aviolet unmoved, and the girl Diana trim and well-groomed-looking at the end of the evening. Her condition, that barely verged upon insobriety, was perfectly evident to Lucian and, he felt sure, to Sir Thomas also. Lady Aviolet and Diana, he was equally convinced, had noticed nothing. Whether or not Ford had a suspicion, Lucian could not tell. But at least it seemed certain that they must all realize that Rose Aviolet was on the brink of making the “row” that she had threatened. Her high voice, pitched higher than usual, broke upon the big, echoing room once more.

“I may just as well say this now, mayn’t I? Ces isn’t going to be sent to any school.”

The challenge was flung at her brother-in-law, but it was Lady Aviolet who replied in a quiet, unruffled voice:

“We can talk about it later, my dear. There’s no hurry.”

“Yes, there is.” Rose contradicted the elder lady flatly, making Ford wince at the crudity.

“There’s this amount of hurry, that I’m not going to stand being badgered about it any longer. Cecil’s my child, and I won’t have him sent to school.”

“We can think about it when the time comes. He won’t be ready for another five or six months, perhaps not even then.”

Lady Aviolet spoke with the same perfect placidity.

“I’ll never consent.”

“Indeed, my dear? We must talk it over and see if we can persuade you to alter your views. Meanwhile, I think we’d better go to bed.”

The anti-climax seemed to madden Rose.

“I’ll discuss it now, while you’re all here. I’m not going on day after day with this hanging over me. We’ll have it out now, and have done with it.”

Whether by accident or design, she was standing in a direct line with the big double-doors that Lucian had closed, so that no one could easily go out.

“I don’t think there’s anything to discuss,” said Lady Aviolet. “But if you propose to keep us all out of our beds, Rose, perhaps someone will be good enough to reach me my knitting. It’s on the little table. Thank you, Diana.”

The girl was hesitating, as though wondering whether to leave the room, but the elder woman invited her, with an amiable gesture, to remain beside her.

She took up the scarlet mass of wool and began unhurriedly to ply the wooden needles. From time to time she counted stitches, half under her breath.

Then Sir Thomas spoke, also unhurried, but with his coarse grey eyebrows drawn close together and coming down well over his wrinkled lids.

“What’s all this nonsense about? Of course the boy goes to school—all boys go to school.”

“It’ll ruin Ces,” said Rose, panting. “Look here, I’d not say a word if he was like other boys. But he isn’t, and he’ll get worse and worse if he’s put with people who don’t understand him. There’s a kink in him somewhere, and he’s not fit for the sort of treatment that runs all boys into a mould and turns them out to pattern.”

“Your opinions of the English public-school system are extremely interesting, Rose,” said Ford with great suavity, “but perhaps you’ll allow me to ask what experience you have had on the subject. Your father was not a public-school man, I believe?”

“He was a bankrupt North London tradesman, and you know it.”

“Quite so. Your other relations?”

“We needn’t go into all that, my boy. Rose has a very natural objection to parting from her only child, but I hope we can make her realize that it’s all for the boy’s own good in the end.”

Sir Thomas’s intention was obviously conciliatory, but Lucian realized, and saw that Ford realized, that his implication of amiable maternal weakness was infuriating to Rose Aviolet’s vanity.

“I’m not a fool,” she cried out. “I’ve told you before that if Ces was an ordinary child, I’d be the first person to say he should go to school.”

Ford’s low, slight laugh jarred on the doctor with a sudden intensity that surprised himself.

“It’s extremely easy to say ‘if,’ isn’t it?”

“Thirty-four—thirty-five—” came softly from his mother. Then she raised her eyes.

“Children never seem ordinary to their parents,” she remarked comfortably. “I had to part with both my boys, Rose, my dear, and you’ll find that poor little Cecil will be much easier to manage after he’s seen something of other boys.”

Rose clenched both hands, as though the sense of being at cross-purposes might drive her to physical violence.

It was evident enough to Lucian that her fierce arguments had conveyed no slightest sense of her meaning to any one in the room save to himself and to Ford Aviolet.

It was again to Ford that she addressed herself, although the light in her eyes as she faced him held something very like hatred.

“You know what I mean. You know perfectly well. I’m not just a fool of a mother saying that she won’t let her little darling go and rough it. I’d let Ces go to school to-morrow, if he wasn’t what he is. You all know what’s wrong with him. He can’t tell the truth. How do you suppose they’ll deal with that at a big school?”

“Successfully, I hope,” said Ford, with an emphasis on the first word. “On your own showing, a home education hasn’t cured the boy of an extremely unpleasant trick. It’s a very good argument for trying a new system.” He looked round, very quietly triumphant, and as his eye caught that of Diana Grierson-Amberly, he smiled slightly.

Then the girl spoke, suddenly and rather breathlessly, turning with a little air of pleading, to Rose Aviolet.

“You know, my brothers are awfully happy at school. Tony’s at Eton still, and he simply loves it. The games and things, you know.”

Now that she, who was, though not in the same sense of the word as himself, an outsider, had made her small, inefficient contribution of words, Lucian felt that he, also, might speak. He, like Rose, chose to address Ford Aviolet, as the only possible interpreter between Rose’s vehemence and the unimaginative, unruffled obtuseness of the old people.

“As I understand it, Mrs. Aviolet’s contention is that her boy, individually, is unsuited for the system of education that the average English boy profits by. Is there no possible alternative?”

His glance involuntarily shifted, almost pleadingly, to Lady Aviolet.

“Do you think little Cecil delicate?” she said in a surprised way. “Some boys are too delicate for school-life, but it always seems such a pity.”

The doctor was silent.

“Pray let us know, Lucian, if the boy looks to you physically unfit?” said Ford. The irony in his tone was most delicate.

The doctor understood perfectly that his interference was being punished. He knew, and Ford Aviolet knew that he knew, that Cecil was a strong and a healthy child.

“Physically, he seems perfectly sound as far as I can tell.”

Rose Aviolet snatched at the cue he had given her.

“His little body’s all right. It’s his mind, or his soul—whatever you like to call it.”

Sir Thomas abruptly emitted a sound which appeared to imply that his grandson had no business to possess anything but a body.

“If he were a hunchback, you wouldn’t send him to school. Why should a mental deformity receive less consideration than a physical one?”

“What’s the use of talking like that, Rose?” said her mother-in-law. “(Fifty—fifty-one—fifty-two) Cecil isn’t a hunchback, or anything in the least like it, thank Heaven!”

Ford Aviolet smiled again.

“Tell them what I mean!” Rose hurled at him, with an intensity that made the girl Diana shrink back, looking bewildered.

Ford’s eyeglasses swung gently to and fro. His eyebrows were raised.

“Plead your own cause, my dear Rose,” he said easily. “You know I don’t see with you. In my humble opinion, school is exactly what Cecil requires.”

“All boys go to school,” Sir Thomas again reiterated. “It’s the greatest disadvantage in the world to a boy to be brought up in any other way. I used to know an unfortunate Roman Catholic fellow who’d been brought up by monks—put him at the greatest disadvantage with other fellows all his life. Of course, a delicate lad may have to be educated at home, but it’s a great disadvantage. I couldn’t allow it for my grandson.”

“You heard Dr. Lucian say Cecil wasn’t delicate, Rose,” said Lady Aviolet.

They were imperturbable in their lack of comprehension.

Rose Aviolet’s breast was rising and falling as though she breathed with difficulty.

“Why don’t you sit down, my dear?” inquired Lady Aviolet.

Rose turned to Lucian as though she had not heard.

“You say Cecil’s bodily health is good, as far as you know. Can you say the same of his soul?”

Her eyes challenged him.

“Rose, Rose—(sixty-eight—nine—and seventy)——Please!——”

The doctor made his voice expressionless as he replied: “You must remember that I’ve only hearsay—except for one instance that might happen with any child—on which to form an opinion. But if the boy, as you say, seems incapable of speaking the truth, then, certainly, morally, he’s unsound!”

“But oh!——” The gasp came from Diana Grierson-Amberly. “Wouldn’t—wouldn’t school be the very thing to cure him of that?”

“I can’t tell.”

“No,” said Rose Aviolet swiftly, “you can’t tell. You’ve studied the subject, and you’re an expert, but you can’t tell off-hand. It’s only people who think in a rut and never get out of it, that don’t know there are two sides to every question. I’m Cecil’s mother, and I’m not a fool about things that really matter, but my opinion goes for nothing!”

“There’s no need to raise your voice, my dear,” said Lady Aviolet. “Of course you’re Cecil’s mother, and we shouldn’t think of doing anything inconsiderate by you, I hope, but you know, poor Jim did leave his boy to Ford’s guardianship. That shows that he wanted him brought up as he’d been brought up himself; now, doesn’t it?”

Jim Aviolet, however brought up, had, the doctor well knew, barely escaped expulsion from school on at least two occasions. He thought Rose Aviolet capable of voicing the fact then and there, and spoke before she could do so.

“Given time, isn’t there the possibility that this tendency may be eradicated?”

Rose looked at him eagerly.

“The study of psychology is taking immense strides, especially on the Continent. Have you ever heard of treatment by auto-suggestion?”

Lady Aviolet made a low sound, something between a cluck and an inarticulate ejaculation.

“I could never approve of that,” she said firmly.

They stared at her, Ford and Sir Thomas no less than the others.

“Anything to do with spiritualism,” said Rose Aviolet’s mother-in-law, shaking her head. “Quite against the teachings of religion, and great nonsense besides.”

Ford Aviolet looked at the doctor.

“Is it necessary to make such a mountain out of a molehill?” he inquired. “My little nephew tells lies. Excuse me, Rose, for saying so, but I think we have your word for it. It is quite a common failing amongst children. His contemporaries will teach him the disadvantages attached to fibbing in a very much more practical manner than we can. Need we discuss it any longer? Lucian, a whisky-and-soda? Mother, you must be tired.”

“Yes.” The old lady rolled up her knitting. “Think it over quietly, Rose. There’s no hurry.”

Rose’s dilated eyes were fixed upon her brother-in-law, and Lucian made one movement forward.

He felt a rush of relief when the tension snapped with a torrent of words, hurled straight at Ford Aviolet.

“You snob—you prig! You could help me—and you won’t. You only care that your nephew should do what every other boy does—so that he shall turn out a little gentleman, able to play games, and talk the right slang, and get the rotten public-school point of view. You don’t care what he’s like, so long as he never gets found out. That’s what your public-school education will teach him: that he may go on telling lies, so long as nobody catches him at it—that sex is just a dirty sort of joke—that religion is going to church in a top hat—that the only thing that matters is to conform—conform—conform to type, all along the line.”

Rose Aviolet had made her scene.

She had hurled her fury, her passionate invective, like a wave against the rock of their immoveable good breeding.

Lucian, the sharpness of his perceptions seeming doubly intensified, could view the wreckage. It was Rose that was spent and broken.

Lady Aviolet, he guessed, had been offended and alienated by Rose’s mention of sex. It was a word that she had hitherto probably only met, and then with reluctance, in literature. She had changed countenance.

The girl Diana, her mouth fallen wide open, had sidled furtively along the floor until she stood beside Ford.

Sir Thomas emitted a sharp sound of disgust.

“You’re not yourself, Rose. Be quiet,” he commanded her.

His arm swept her aside as he opened the door.

Ford moved slowly from his place at the marble mantelpiece.

As he passed Rose he said pleasantly: “You’ll feel upset about this, I’m afraid, when you come to yourself again. But pray let us have no apologies. Personally, I’ll take them as said, if you’ll spare us another dramatic display. These things, you know, really aren’t done.”

That was it: these things weren’t done.

Lucian realized it very thoroughly, as he saw the contemptuous distaste evident on the habitually inexpressive face of Sir Thomas when the women had passed out of the room.

Rose had flung down her gage with all the violence of the strong, undisciplined feeling that governed her. These people had been too well-bred to pick it up. To them, there was never anything to be angry, or noisy, or emotional, about. They were self-controlled by instinct. Their spirits knew no revolt at all. Nothing mattered to them, as almost everything mattered to Rose, the vulgar, the vehemently alive.

He made no doubt that they would not talk very much about her outburst, even amongst themselves. He, the outsider, would never hear any more of it from them. He had no right to have been present.

Prompted by the thought, he began his farewell, taking it as the measure of Lady Aviolet’s perturbation that she had only bowed a mechanical good-night to him as she left the room, forgetting that he was not a guest in the house.

“No hurry,” growled Sir Thomas. “I’m going to get a drink in the smoking-room. Come along.”

A gesture from Ford detained the doctor.

“One moment. I really should like to consult you on this absurdly magnified subject now that it has been raised.”

The doctor’s experience, both of Ford and of humanity, was too large to allow of his being greatly surprised when the consultation took the form of a very lucid résumé of Ford Aviolet’s own impressions.

“In a sense, the boy is certainly abnormal. He has never been taught the value of truth. He romances. But I refuse to regard it seriously.” Ford made his characteristic gesture, a small, elegant waving of his pince-nez.

“My dear mother is hyper-sensitive on the subject. She imagines that it denotes an ineradicable tendency to criminal deceit. That was the old idea, I suppose. What he needs is to me perfectly obvious.”

So few things were, in the doctor’s opinion, perfectly obvious, that he waited with some curiosity to be enlightened.

“School,” said Ford. “School. A thoroughly healthy English atmosphere, where he’ll get plenty of wholesome knocking about, and be called a little liar when he deserves it.”

“A bloody little liar,” Lucian corrected, and Ford, as the doctor had expected, winced slightly.

“Boys are very brutal, no doubt. But brutality of that kind is exactly what Cecil needs. And, my dear fellow, between ourselves, it’ll be half the battle to get him away from his mother.”

“You think she spoils him?”

“No,” said Ford, in a reasonable voice. “No. In the vulgar sense of over-indulgence, she does not spoil him. But her ideas are quite horribly crude, and she is, as you must have perceived, a—an uneducated—how shall I put it? Let us say that hers is a third-rate mind. Look,” cried Ford with a slight shudder, “at her taste in literature.”

“Tout les goûts sont respectables. What is her taste in literature?”

“What, indeed!”

Lucian waited, a flippant desire crossing his mind to inquire whether Ford Aviolet was feeling sick.

“She weeps over the early death of a mawkish infant in a work of fiction that I believe is called ‘Misunderstood.’”

“I’ve read the book.”

The tone of the doctor’s reply implied, as indeed he meant it to imply, that he considered “Misunderstood” to be a highly respectable subject for emotion.

“Then I will say no more.”

“What are you going to do if Mrs. Aviolet still refuses to let the boy go to school?”

“She can’t refuse. Fortunately she hasn’t a penny. One hates to emphasize it, but my father gives her an allowance, and is, of course, undertaking the whole expense of Cecil’s education. Personally, I advise sending him to his preparatory school at once. It’s the very best chance of breaking him of this silly, vulgar habit of telling lies.”

“You think so?”

The eyeglasses described their graceful little curve once more.

“The only hope, I may say. He’ll get kicked out of it.”

“Unless he’s kicked further into it. What’s the alternative to school?”

“There isn’t one.”

“But what does his mother suggest?”

“Oh, a home education. A tutor. No doubt she visualizes him as Little Lord Fauntleroy on a pony riding about amongst the tenants. Very typical of her ideals, poor thing.”

Ford’s tone was tolerant in the extreme.

“So you are very much in favour of the public-school system of education, are you?” inquired the doctor.

To himself, he added:

“And yet, my fine fellow, I’m very much mistaken if your own life at school was anything but a misery and a degradation.”

“Don’t you agree with me?”

“I’m not a public-school man.”

Lucian was conscious of having evaded the question, but he did not think that Ford would remark it. Nor did he.

“It will make a gentleman of the boy, as the odious expression is. My dear man, I’m not one of those people who can see nothing admirable in the institutions of their own country. To my mind, a fine Englishman is the finest man in the world.”

As he spoke, he threw back his slender shoulders in a gesture that was evidently an unconscious one. It struck Lucian rather strangely, as though it were the almost automatic expression of a desire for reassurance.

It was as if Ford was trying to impress Ford with his own claim to be a “fine Englishman.”

“I’m sorry if I sound—er—disgustingly snobbish, but the fact remains that Rose is entirely unfitted, by birth and education, to bring up my father’s grandson. You’ve seen for yourself what she’s like.”

“Very devoted to the boy.”

“Oh, very. I’ve not a word to say against that. The maternal instinct in women and animals is generally in inverse ratio to the intellectual development. But we’re having this difficulty with her on that very account. She raves, as she did to-night, about his temperament requiring a home education and special supervision—but in reality it’s simply class-prejudice. She dreads sending him to acquire a veneer that she knows she doesn’t possess herself—it will separate them. It’s instinctive, of course.”

He shrugged his shoulders, as though dismissing a competently analyzed problem.

“That be damned for a tale,” said the doctor curtly. “You won’t make me believe that—and, what’s more, you won’t make yourself believe it. She was in dead earnest to-night, and whether her view is right or wrong, she’s sincere. She does believe that child to be unfitted for school-life, and there’s a considerable chance that her view may be the right one. I tell you professionally that you’ll be taking a big risk if you disregard it.”

The doctor, under lowered brows, looked full at Ford, but Ford, as usual, was looking down.

Presently he made a low sound like a laugh, that was nevertheless singularly devoid of amusement.

“A storm in a tea-cup, isn’t it? Children have been known to tell fibs before now. Rose may, as you say, be in earnest, but surely that is only one proof the more of her utter lack of balance. If Cecil’s life were at stake, her tragedy-queen airs might be justifiable—but then Cecil’s life is not at stake.”

“I wonder,” said the doctor.