‘Yes,’ said Janet sedately, ‘for I’m growing up now, and mother says I want her most——’
‘Isn’t it awful sap?’ said Tom, which was Eton (at that time) for boredom and hard work. He had the grace to speak low, and Janet gave him a glance upward with raised eyelids, and they both laughed, but softly that no one might ask why.
‘She thinks of such a lot of things that no one can be expected to know,’ said Tom; ‘not that I mind, for she lets me alone now. But I suppose you’ve got to read books all day.’
‘Oh, no. Oh, Tom, we oughtn’t to talk like this and laugh, for she’s—mother’s very kind. She is indeed. She sees in a moment if I’m tired.’
‘She’d need to,’ said Tom, ‘but I don’t suppose girls mind. You come out now and have a game. Will she let you? If she won’t, just steal away—— ’
‘Oh, Tom,’ cried Janet again, ‘how can you speak of mother so? She never stops any fun, never—when there is any,’ the girl added after a pause.
Lady Car was at the other end of the room, seated in the recess of a broad window which looked over the wide landscape. She had been waiting for Janet, who had asked her assistance in some work she was doing—trumpery work such as disturbed all Carry’s prejudices. Janet was painting flowers upon some little three-legged stools for a bazaar, and though she only copied the ‘patterns,’ she required in the execution some hints from her mother, who had once made considerable progress in the study of art. Janet was entirely unaware that Lady Car’s dreamy landscapes, which were full of distance and suggestion if nothing else, were in any way superior to her ‘patterns,’ and had made her call for aid with the frankest confidence that what she was doing was excellent art. And Carry had prepared the palette from which the dahlias and red geraniums were to be painted with as much care as if it had been wanted by Raphael. When she saw the two, after their whispered conversation at the door, suddenly disappear, perhaps she was not altogether sorry. It is possible that the painting of the stools was ‘sap’ to the mother also. She smiled at them with a little wave of her hand and shake of her head as they passed the window, in mild allusion to the abandoned work; but perhaps she was as much relieved as Janet was. She laid back her head upon the dim-coloured satin of her chair, and watched the two young creatures with their racquets, Janet carrying in her apron a supply of balls for their game. Seventeen and a half, fifteen and a half—in the bloom which was half infantile, half grown up, all fresh about them, nothing as yet to bring in black care. They were not handsome, but Tom had a sturdy manliness and strength, and Janet, her mother thought, looked everything that was simple and trustworthy—a good girl, not clever—but very good-natured and kind; and Tom not at all a bad boy—rough a little, but that was mere high spirits and boyish exuberance. They were neither of them clever. She said to herself, with a faint smile, how silly she had been!
How she had worshipped talent—no, not talent, genius—and had hoped that they would surely have had some gleam of it—the two whom she had brought into the world. They had been surrounded with beautiful things all their lives. When other people read foolish nursery stories to their children she had nourished them upon the very best—fables and legends which were literature as well as story—yet Janet liked the patterns for her stools better than all the poems and pictures, and Tom never opened a book if he could help it. And what matter? she said to herself, with that faint smile of self-ridicule. The children were none the worse for that. Her fantastic expectations, her fantastic disappointment, what did they matter? She was altogether a most fantastic woman—everybody had said it all her life, and she recognised fully the truth of the accusation now. Who should be so happy as she? Her husband so kind, always with her, thinking of everything that would make her happy. Her children so good (really so good!), nice, well-conditioned—Tom so manly, Janet all that a girl should be, very, very different indeed from Carry as a girl. But what a good thing that was; Janet would have no silly ideal, would desire no god to come from the skies, would not torment herself and every one about her with fantastic aspirations. She would love some good honest young fellow when her time came, and would live the common life, the common happy life, as the family at Easton were doing now. Edward, gone over to Codalton to the county club—the natural resource of a man in the country; the brother and sister playing tennis on the lawn—the boy expecting to get into the boats, the girl delighted with a new pattern for her stools. And no cloud anywhere, no trouble about settling them in life, no embarrassment about money or anything else. How happy a family! Everything right and pleasant and comfortable. As Carry lay back in her chair, thinking all these happinesses over, her eyes ran over with sudden tears—for satisfaction surely and joy.
When the tea-tray came in the young ones appeared with it, very hungry, and ready for the good things which covered the little table. Lady Car watched them consume the cakes with the same smile which had puzzled Beaufort. ‘Would you really like so very much,’ she said with a little hesitation, a lingering in her voice, ‘to go to the—Towers for the next holidays, Tom?’
‘Should I like!’ cried the boy, jumping up with his mouth full of bread and butter. ‘Why, mother, better than anything in the world!’