“You couldn’t!” she exclaimed. “They would never let you!”
“I don’t know the exact law, but I fancy I could safeguard him and still allow you to see him in an ordinary way without your being in authority. But all this is absurd. We are making ourselves miserable about nothing. Go up to him now and spoil him to your heart’s content. But think over what I have said. You have so much good in you, Evangeline, if you would only not let yourself be carried away by this terror of all pain and discomfort.”
“I didn’t make a sound when Ivor was born,” she said in amazement.
“I know. Don’t think you hadn’t my admiration because I didn’t say so. I was thinking of the pains of self-sacrifice and obedience to rules not understood.”
“If I can keep Ivor by bearing those, too, I will,” she assured him.
“Of course you can, darling,” he said, misunderstanding. “We shall all be happy at last, you will see.”
At Christmas they went again to stay with Evangeline’s parents. Ivor found his grandmother all that he could possibly desire. He fell madly in love with her and she made very little attempt to conceal her triumph from his nurse. Ivor loved the nurse dearly and she loved him, so that altogether he never suffered a moment’s anxiety during his visit. War was declared over him; a long and bitter war as it turned out; yet his life became for the time being all the sweeter in consequence. Susie entered the battlefield on the side of Evangeline and motherhood in general, of “not worrying about things that can’t be helped,” and of opposition to men who “will be disagreeable.” Love, wounded by Ivor’s mischievous treachery at times when his grandmother’s blandishments must be left for sleep and exercise, brought nurse in on the side of the father and discipline. It was she who had to endure the nerve-racking screams and struggles that took place on the other side of the drawing-room door, and the wakeful nights caused by excitement and “the very purest chocolate” from Grannie’s drawer which Ivor had learned to open so cleverly. She had to put up with the gentlest and most persistent advice, with seeing windows covertly opened or shut when otherwise arranged by her with the tenderest care for Ivor’s comfort, with clothes added to or removed from what he was wearing. Mothers of any civilised country will bear witness that such trifles are more dangerous to domestic peace than the franker brawls of the gutter. If Susie and the nurse had let themselves go with the same abandon as the ladies of honest Robert’s beat, Ivor would have suffered less in the end and his father and mother might have called quits after the exchange of a black eye and a broken nose. As it was, Evangeline took no part in the daily duels so long as her son remained unscathed between the contending parties; but she noted Evan’s silent criticism. She saw that every scene of wilfulness strengthened his position against her, and her heart hardened towards him. Once when Mrs. Vachell asked her to lunch she arrived there so discouraged that she could hardly keep up a pretence of other conversation.
“I am very sorry to be so stupid,” she said at last, “but I am tired to death. Mother and Ivor’s nurse do get on so badly, though I believe it is really one-sided because Mother seems not to notice at all; but she puts nurse’s back up and Ivor takes advantage of it to get everything he wants, and I don’t think she would stay through another visit. Evan thinks it is my fault and that I spoil Ivor. I do so hate anger and fuss. What would you do?”
“I should tell the nurse that she must be polite to your mother or go,” said Mrs. Vachell.
“I wouldn’t do that for a thousand pounds,” said Evangeline. “She worships Ivor and would give her life for him I really think.”