Lolly Willowes

by Sylvia Townsend Warner

Laura mourned for her mother in skirts that almost reached the ground, for Miss Boddle, the family dressmaker, had nice sensibilities and did not think that legs could look sorrowful. Indeed, Laura’s legs were very slim and frisky, they liked climbing trees and jumping over haycocks, they had no wish to retire from the world and belong to a young lady. But when she had put on the new clothes that smelt so queerly, and looking in the mirror saw herself sad and grown-up, Laura accepted the inevitable. Sooner or later she must be subdued into young-ladyhood; and it seemed befitting that the change should come gravely, rather than with the conventional polite uproar and fuss of ‘coming out’—which odd term meant, as far as she could see, and when once the champagne bottles were emptied and the flimsy ball-dress lifted off the thin shoulders, going-in.

As things were, she had a recompense for the loss of her liberty. For Everard needed comfort, he needed a woman to comfort him, and abetted by Miss Boddle’s insinuations Laura was soon able to persuade him that her comfortings were of the legitimate womanly kind. It was easy, much easier than she had supposed, to be grown-up; to be clear-headed and watchful, to move sedately and think before she spoke. Already her hands looked much whiter on the black lap. She could not take her mother’s place—that was as impossible as to have her mother’s touch on the piano, for Mrs. Willowes had learnt from a former pupil of Field, she had the jeu perlé; but she could take a place of her own. So Laura behaved very well—said the Willowes connection, agreeing and approving amongst themselves—and went about her business, and only cried when alone in the potting-shed, where a pair of old gardening gloves repeated to her the shape of her mother’s hands.

Her behaviour was the more important in that neither of her brothers was at home when Mrs. Willowes died. Henry, now a member of the Inner Temple, had just proposed marriage to a Miss Caroline Fawcett. When he returned to London after the funeral it was impossible not to feel that he was travelling out of the shadow that rested upon Lady Place to bask in his private glory of a suitable engagement.

He left his father and sister to find consolation in consoling each other. For though James was with them, and though his sorrow was without qualification, they were not likely to get much help from James. He had been in Germany studying chemistry, and when they sent off the telegram Everard and Laura reckoned up how long he would take to reach Lady Place, and planned how they could most comfortingly receive him, for they had already begun to weave a thicker clothing of family kindness against the chill of bereavement. On hearing the crunch of the wagonette in the drive, and the swishing of the wet rhododendrons, they glanced at each other reassuringly, taking heart at the thought of the bright fire in his bedroom, the carefully chosen supper that awaited him. But when he stood before them and they looked at his red twitching face, they were abashed before the austerity of a grief so differently sustained from their own. Nothing they had to offer could remedy that heart-ache. They left him to himself, and sought refuge in each other’s society, as much from his sorrow as theirs, and in his company they sat quietly, like two good children in the presence of a more grown-up grief than they could understand.

James might have accepted their self-effacement with silent gratitude; or he might not have noticed it at all—it was impossible to tell. Soon after his return he did a thing so unprecedented in the annals of the family that it could only be explained by the extreme exaltation of mind which possessed him: for without consulting any one, he altered the furniture, transferring a mirror and an almond-green brocade settee from his mother’s room to his own. This accomplished, he came slowly downstairs and went out into the stable-yard where Laura and his father were looking at a litter of puppies. He told them what he had done, speaking drily, as of some everyday occurrence, and when they, a little timidly, tried to answer as if they too thought it a very natural and convenient arrangement, he added that he did not intend to go back to Germany, but would stay henceforth at Lady Place and help his father with the brewery.

Everard was much pleased at this. His faith in the merits of brewing had been rudely jolted by the refusal of his eldest son to have anything to do with it. Even before Henry left school his ambition was set on the law. Hearing him speak in the School Debating Society, one of the masters told him that he had a legal mind. This compliment left him with no doubts as to what career he wished to follow, and before long the legal mind was brought to bear upon his parents. Everard was hurt, and Mrs. Willowes was slightly contemptuous, for she had the old-fashioned prejudice against the learned professions, and thought her son did ill in not choosing to live by his industry rather than by his wits. But Henry had as much of the Willowes determination as either his father or his mother, and his stock of it was twenty-five years younger and livelier than theirs. ‘Times are changed,’ said Everard. ‘A country business doesn’t look the same to a young man as it did in my day.’

So though a partnership in the brewery seemed the natural destiny for James, Everard was much flattered by his decision, and hastened to put into practice the scientific improvements which his son suggested. Though by nature mistrustful of innovations he hoped that James might be innocently distracted from his grief by these interests, and gave him a new hopper in the same paternal spirit as formerly he had given him a rook-rifle. James was quite satisfied with the working of the hopper. But it was not possible to discover if it had assuaged his grief, because he concealed his feelings too closely, becoming, by a hyperbole of reticence, reserved even about his reserve, so that to all appearances he was no more than a red-faced young man with a moderate flow of conversation.

Everard and Laura never reached that stage of familiarity with James which allows members of the same family to accept each other on surface values. Their love for him was tinged with awe, the awe that love learns in the moment of finding itself unavailing. But they were glad to have him with them, especially Everard, who was growing old enough to like the prospect of easing his responsibilities, even the inherent responsibility of being a Willowes, on to younger shoulders. No one was better fitted to take up this burden than James. Everything about him, from his seat on a horse to his taste in leather bindings, betokened an integrity of good taste and good sense, unostentatious, haughty, and discriminating.

The leather bindings were soon in Laura’s hands. New books were just what she wanted, for she had almost come to the end of the books in the Lady Place library. Had they known this the silk and sealskin ladies would have shaken their heads over her upbringing even more deploringly. But, naturally, it had not occurred to them that a young lady of their acquaintance should be under no restrictions as to what she read, and Mrs. Willowes had not seen any reason for making them better informed.

So Laura read undisturbed, and without disturbing anybody, for the conversation at local tea-parties and balls never happened to give her an opportunity of mentioning anything that she had learnt from Locke on the Understanding or Glanvil on Witches. In fact, as she was generally ignorant of the books which their daughters were allowed to read, the neighbouring mammas considered her rather ignorant. However they did not like her any the worse for this, for her ignorance, if not so sexually displeasing as learning, was of so unsweetened a quality as to be wholly without attraction. Nor had they any more reason to be dissatisfied with her appearance. What beauties of person she had were as unsweetened as her beauties of mind, and her air of fine breeding made her look older than her age.