George and his friend walked off together. I suppose the Robinson man was too well-bred to ask George who his lady-friend was, as any of Aunt Gerty’s men would do, but he certainly stared a good deal. Of course he knows who we are, everybody in Whitby does, I should think, and they most likely conclude that it is less unkindness than the eccentricity of genius. If you haven’t got that blasted thing called genius, I suppose you can bear to live in the same house with your wife!
We walked slowly home with our purchases. Mother had a headache all dinner, and lay down in the afternoon.
“I met your father, Ben,” she said at supper. “His boots want a little attention.”
“I don’t believe,” said Ben crossly, “that any one ever had a more tiresome man to valet. He will wear his clothes all wrong, and then is always ragging and jawing at a fellow because they don’t look nice.”
“Hush, Ben, he is your father.”
“Hah, I was forgetting!” said Ben, and gave one of his great laughs, as if you were breaking up coal, or something. Ben is now so changeable and nervous that you never know where to have him. He is growing up all wrong, but what can you expect of a boy brought up by women? He never sees a boy of his own position, though I know that in London he has some low companions he daren’t bring to the house. The Hitchings are his only respectable friends, but they live such a long way off now. Jessie Hitchings is devoted to Ben, but she is only a girl like Ariadne and me. Mr. Hitchings told mother, years ago, that the boy was being ruined, and Mother cried and said she knew it, but could do nothing, for his father was by way of educating him at home till something could be settled. Snaps of Latin, and snacks of Greek, that is all George gives the poor boy when he has a moment, and that is never.
This is the only grievance Mother has, although Aunt Gerty is always trying to persuade her she has several, and putting her back up. Mother ends by getting cross with her.
“For goodness’ sake, you Job’s comforter, you, leave off your eternal girding at George. Can’t you see, that as long as a man has his career to establish—his way to make——”
“His blessed thoroughfare is made long ago, or ought to be. That is what I can’t get over——”
“You aren’t asked to get over it. It is not your funeral, it is mine, so shut up. A man like George, who is dependant on the public favour, needs to be most absurdly particular, and careful what he does lest he injure his prestige. Look at yourself! You know very well in your own profession how very damaging it is for an actor to be married; that if an actress marries her manager, he has to pay dear for it in the receipts. She had better not figure as his wife in the bills, if she wants him to get on. You can’t eat your cake—I mean your title—and have it. No, it’s bound to be Miss Gertrude Jennynge on the bills, even if it is Mrs. What-do-you-call-it in the lodgings, with a ring on her finger, and every right to call herself a married woman. The public don’t care for spliced idols. An artist has to stand clear, and preserve his individuality, such as it is!”