Rose and Rose

by E. V. Lucas

“Because I’ve got to go to London anyway,” I said. “I was going with you,” I added, as a mendacious but brilliant afterthought, “but I was keeping it as a surprise. I’ll be back to-night.”

And it was thus that I got away. I had realized directly I heard Rose’s decision that this was no place for me. I was an interloper. Mother and daughter must solve their own problems, and solve them alone; they would be glad to be unobserved as they reconnoitred to ascertain each other’s position. I have stumbled upon that military phrase, but on second thoughts I recognize its fitness; for in a sense they were foes, as most women can be, and mother and daughter too often actually are. How they would have adjusted their relations had these fourteen estranging years not intervened, no one could say. They might have been happy; certainly they would often have been merry and care-free, for that was the natural tendency of both. Moreover, there might have been an extra bond—I have seen it often—in mutual refuge from the Master of the House. But between mothers and daughters a certain hostility, not unconnected with rivalry, is only too common, if not inevitable. For a mother, be she ever so sweet-natured and generous and proud of her daughter, is also a woman, and women love love, and hate the thought of the shelf, and resent the younger generation’s vista of triumphs. Not until they are much older than Rose do they consent to retire from the lists, forgive their successors, and take with serenity to gardening and cards.

Whether or no Rose knew I was lying, I had no notion; but she acquiesced naturally enough and waved me a wistful good-bye.

I too had plenty to think of as the train bore me Londonwards. For everything had changed—Rose’s return was a bomb-shell. Had she come back a day later when her daughter was established in her Hostel and the London machinery had begun, all would have been simpler. But now? I knew them both so well—the mother and the daughter equally determined on any course they undertook: the daughter, after her vigil, so bent upon sacrifice and capable even of extracting some pleasurable gall from it, and the mother so unwilling to cool young ardencies and spoil young hopes.

To which did I owe the greater allegiance? To the mother, of course. The girl was at the threshold and had youth and enthusiasm and purpose; the mother was broken and without a star. If the mother would come to me, how gladly would I open my arms once more! But would she? No. How could she, knowing what people would say, having to meet the cold eyes of the rector and his wife, and seeing children withdrawn from her presence? Wherever she made her home it could not be in my house.

But—the thought came later, in a flash—it could still be with me: if somewhere else! Somewhere where her story was not known. Why should I live all my days in one spot? It is true that I was devoted to it; but ought one to be so local, so parochial? It was a not too admirable line of least resistance. Here was the great world open to me, and I had cowered all my days in one corner. Mrs. O’Gorman had twitted me about it; and she was a wise woman. How helpful she would be to-day! I had a few years left, I hoped—why should I not move to London or—or anywhere? Then Rose and I could be happy together, once more, and the other Rose could have a room always ready for her. How gay we might all yet be!

But probably to join me again would not be the mother’s wish. She might prefer to be alone; she might fear that her melancholy would weigh upon me.

All day long as I moved about London, and even as I turned over the portfolios, I was picturing the drama in my house, a house that possibly I was to leave for ever. Rose-the-less, white and tense, passionately, bitterly determined to be her mother’s companion; her mother gently but firmly refusing to come into her life. And how would these scenes end? Would the girl lose all control, and accepting the repudiation rush angrily off? Might she not indeed be even now in London? Or would the mother acquiesce? Which was the weaker? I could not tell.

And what did they say of me? They might even fall out over me, each claiming a bigger share of their poor old foster-father. And, in the absence of Mrs. O’Gorman, no Solomon to consult! Perhaps I ought not to have come away after all?

The journey back was an agony, even with some purchases to gloat over, and my nervousness increased as I approached the house. What should I find? Would both be there? Would either?