Adrienne Toner: A Novel

by Anne Douglas Sedgwick

Oldmeadow found it extremely difficult to think of Adrienne as a mother; it was much easier to think of her as a shepherdess. Such solidities of experience gave her even a certain pathos in his eyes, though he was in no whit dislodged from his hostility to her. She was as mild, as satisfied, apparently, with herself and with existence, as ever, yet her eyes and lips expressed fatigue and a purely physical sadness that was uncharacteristic, and it was uncharacteristic that she should be rather thickly powdered.

They had not really met since the morning of her adjuration to him at Coldbrooks and he wondered if she remembered that little scene as vividly as he did. She would be very magnanimous did she not remember it unpleasantly; and he could imagine her as very magnanimous; yet from the fact that she had kept Barney from him he could not believe that she was feeling magnanimously.

She watched Barney and Mrs. Aldesey now, as they stood before her portrait, and he fancied that the sadness in her eyes, whatever might be its cause, deepened a little. When she turned them on him it was with an effect of being patiently ready for him. Perhaps, really, she had been more patient than pleased all evening.

“So you are settled here for the winter?” he said. “Have you and Barney any plans? I’ve hardly seen anything of him of late.”

“We have been so very, very busy, you know,” said Adrienne, as if quite accepting his right to an explanation.

She was dressed in pale blue and wore, with her pearl necklace, a little wreath of pearls in her hair. In her hands she turned, as they talked, a small eighteenth-century fan painted in pink and grey and blue, and he was aware, as he had been at Coldbrooks, of those slow and rather fumbling movements.

“We couldn’t well ask friends,” she went on, “even the dearest, to come and sit on rolls of carpet with us while we drank our tea, could we? We’ve kept our squalor for the family circle. Meg’s been with us; so dear and helpful; but only Meg and a flying visit once or twice from Mother Nell. Nancy couldn’t come. But nothing, it seems, will tear Nancy from hunting. I feel that strange and rather sad; the absorption of a fine young life in such primitiveness.”

“Oh, well; it’s not her only interest, you know,” said Oldmeadow, very determined not to allow himself vexation. “Nancy is a creature of such deep country roots. Not the kind that grow in London.”

“I know,” said Adrienne. “And it is just those roots that I want to prevent my Barney’s growing. Roots like that tie people to routine; convention; acceptance. I want Barney to find a wider, freer life. I hope he will go into politics. If we have left Coldbrooks and the dear people there for these winter months it’s because I feel he will be better able to form opinions here than in the country. I saw quite well, there, that people didn’t form opinions; only accepted traditions. I want Barney to be free of tradition and to form opinions for himself. He has none now,” she smiled.

She had been clear before, and secure; but he felt now the added weight of her matronly authority. He felt, too, that, while ready for him and, perhaps, benevolently disposed, she was far more indifferent to his impressions than she had been at Coldbrooks. She had possessed Barney before; but how much more deeply she possessed him now and how much more definitely she saw what she intended to do with him.