3
The successful animal is that which is adapted to its circumstances. Herbert Spencer would appear foolish and incapable in the society of the young wits who frequent the private bar; he might be described by them as an old Johnny who knew nothing about life. Mrs Gosling in her own home had been a ruler; she had had authority over her daughters, and, despite the usual evidences of girlish precocity, she had always been mistress of the situation. In the affairs of household management she was facile princeps, and she commanded the respect accorded to the eminent in any form of specialized activity. But even on this second morning of their emigration it became clear to Blanche that her mother had ceased to rule, and must become a subordinate. A certain respect was due to her in her parental relation, but if she could not be coaxed she must be coerced.
“She’ll be better when we get her right away from here,” was Blanche’s diagnosis, and Millie, who had also achieved some partial realization of the necessities imposed by the new conditions, nodded in agreement.
“She wants to stop here altogether, and, of course, we can’t,” she said.
“We shall starve if we do,” said Blanche.
From that time Mrs Gosling dropped into the humiliating position of a kind of mental incapable who must be humoured into obedience.
The first, and in many ways the most difficult, task was to persuade her away from Kilburn. She clung desperately to that stronghold of her old life.
“I’m too old to change at my age,” she protested, and when the alternative was clearly put before her, she accepted it with a flaccidity that was as aggravating as it was unfightable.
“I’d sooner die ’ere,” said Mrs Gosling, “than go trapesing about the fields lookin’ for somethin’ to eat. I simply couldn’t do it. It’s different for you two gels, no doubt. You go and leave me ’ere.”
Millie might have been tempted to take her mother at her word, but Blanche never for a moment entertained the idea of leaving her mother behind.
“Very well, mother,” she said, desperately, “if you won’t come we must all stop here and starve, I suppose. We’ve got enough food to last a fortnight or so.”
As she spoke she looked out of the window of that little suburban house, and for the first time in her life a thought came to her of the strangeness of preferring such an inconvenient little box to the adventure of the wider spaces of open country. Outside, the sun was shining brilliantly, but the windows were dim with dust and cobwebs.
Yet her mother was comparatively happy in this hovel; she would find delight in cleaning it, although there was no one to appraise the result of her effort. She was a specialized animal with habits precisely analogous to the instincts of other animals and insects. There were insects who could only live in filth and would die miserably if removed from their natural surroundings. Mrs Gosling was a suburban-house insect who would perish in the open air. After all, the chief difference between insects and men is that the insect is born perfectly adapted to its specialized existence, man finds, or is forced into, a place in the scheme after he has come to maturity....
“I can’t see why you shouldn’t leave me behind,” pleaded Mrs Gosling.
“Well, we won’t,” replied Blanche, still looking out of the window.
“It’s wicked of you to make us stop here and starve,” put in Millie. “And even you must see that we shall starve.”
Mrs Gosling wept feebly. She had wept much during the past twenty-four hours. “Where can we go?” she wailed.
“There’s country on the other side of Harrow,” said Blanche.
The thought of Harrow or Timbuctoo was equally repugnant to Mrs Gosling.
Then Millie had an idea. “Well, we only brought four bottles of water with us,” she said, “where are we going to get any more in Kilburn?”
Mrs Gosling racked her brain in the effort to remember some convenient stream in the neighbourhood. “It may rain,” she said feebly at last.
Blanche turned from the window and pointed to the blurred prospect of sunlit street. “We might be dead before the rain came,” she said.
They wore her out in the end.