Chapter III: Book I: Abbots Puissants (2)

"Are you very fond of your father, Vernon?"

"I love Mummy best, of course. Mummy says little boys always love their mothers best. I like _being_ with Father, of course, but that's different. I expect it's because he's a man. What shall I be when I grow up, do you think? I want to be a sailor."

"Perhaps you'll write books."

"What about?"

Nurse Frances smiled a little.

"Perhaps about Mr. Green, and Poodle and Squirrel and Tree."

"But everyone would say that that was silly."

"Little boys wouldn't think so. And besides, when you grow up you will have different people in your head--like Mr. Green and the children, only grown-up people. And then you could write about them."

Vernon thought for a long time, then he shook his head.

"I think I'll be a soldier like Father. Most of the Deyres have been soldiers, Mummy says. Of course you have to be very brave to be a soldier, but I think I would be brave enough."

Nurse Frances was silent a moment. She was thinking of what Walter Deyre had said of his small son:

"He's a plucky little chap--absolutely fearless. Doesn't know what fear is! You should see him on his pony."

Yes, Vernon was fearless enough in one sense. He had the power of endurance, too. He had borne the pain and discomfort of his broken leg unusually well for so young a child.

But there was another kind of fear. She said slowly after a minute or two:

"Tell me again how you fell off the wall that day."

She knew all about the Beast, and had been careful to display no ridicule. She listened now to Vernon, and as he finished she said gently:

"But you've known for quite a long time, haven't you, that it isn't a real Beast? That it's only a thing made of wood and wires."

"I do _know_," said Vernon. "But I don't dream it like that. And when I saw it in the garden coming at me----"

"You ran away--which was rather a pity, wasn't it? It would have been much better to have stayed and _looked_. Then you'd have seen the men, and would have known just what it was. It's always a good thing to _look_. Then you can run away afterward if you still want to--but you usually don't. And Vernon, I'll tell you something else."

"Yes?"

"Things are never so frightening in front of you as they are behind you. Remember that. Anything seems frightening when it's behind your back and you can't see it. That's why it's always better to turn and face things--and then very often you find they are nothing at all."

Vernon said thoughtfully: "If I'd turned round I wouldn't have broken my leg, would I?"

"No."

Vernon sighed.

"I don't mind having broken my leg very much. It has been very nice having you to play with."

He thought Nurse Frances murmured "Poor child" under her breath, but that, of course, was absurd. She said smiling:

"I've enjoyed it too. Some of my ill people don't like to play."

"You really do like playing, don't you?" said Vernon. "So does Mr. Green."

He added rather stiffly, for he felt shy:

"Please don't go away very soon, will you?"

_4_

But as it happened, Nurse Frances went away much sooner than she might have done. It all happened very suddenly, as things in Vernon's experience always did.

It started very simply--something that Myra offered to do for Vernon and that he said he would rather have done by Nurse Frances.

He was on crutches now for a short and painful time every day, enjoying the novelty of it very much. He soon got tired, however, and was ready to go back to bed. To-day his mother had suggested his doing so, saying she would help him. But Vernon had been helped by her before. Those big white hands of hers were strangely clumsy. They hurt where they meant to help. He shrank from her well-meant efforts. He said he would wait for Nurse Frances, who never hurt.

The words came out with the tactless honesty of children, and in a minute Myra Deyre was at white heat.

Nurse Frances came in two or three minutes later to be received with a flood of reproach.

Turning the boy against his own mother--cruel--wicked. They were all alike--everyone was against her. She had nothing in the world but Vernon and now he was being turned against her too.

So it went on--a ceaseless stream. Nurse Frances bore it patiently enough, without surprise or rancour. Mrs. Deyre, she knew, was that kind of woman. Scenes were a relief to her. And hard words, Nurse Frances reflected with grim humour, can only harm if the utterer is dear to you. She was sorry for Myra Deyre for she realized how much real unhappiness and misery lay behind these hysterical outbursts.

It was an unfortunate moment for Walter Deyre to choose to enter the nursery. For a moment or two he stood surprised, then he flushed angrily.

"Really, Myra, I'm ashamed of you. You don't know what you're saying."

She turned on him furiously.

"I know what I'm saying well enough. And I know what you've been doing. Slinking in here every day--I've seen you. Always making love to some woman or other. Nursemaids, hospital nurses--it's all one to you."

"Myra--be quiet!"

He was really angry now. Myra Deyre felt a throb of fear. But she hurled her last piece of invective.

"You're all alike, you hospital nurses. Flirting with other women's husbands. You ought to be ashamed of yourself. Before the innocent child too--putting all sorts of things into his head. But you'll go out of my house. Yes, you'll go right out--and I shall tell Dr. Coles what I think of you."

"Would you mind continuing this edifying scene elsewhere?" Her husband's voice was as she hated it most--cold and sneering. "Hardly judicious in front of your innocent child, is it? I apologize, Nurse, for what my wife has been saying. Come, Myra."

She went--beginning to cry--weakly frightened at what she had done. As usual, she had said more than she meant.

"You're cruel," she sobbed. "Cruel. You'd like me to be dead. You hate me."

She followed him out of the room. Nurse Frances put Vernon to bed. He wanted to ask questions but she talked of a dog, a big St. Bernard that she had had when she was a little girl, and he was so much interested that he forgot everything else.

Much later that evening Vernon's father came to the nursery. He looked white and ill. Nurse Frances rose and came to where he stood in the doorway.

"I don't know what to say. How can I apologize--the things my wife said----"

Nurse Frances replied in a quiet matter-of-fact voice:

"Oh! it's quite all right. I understand. I think, though, that I had better go as soon as it can be arranged. My being here makes Mrs. Deyre unhappy, and then she works herself up."

"If she knew how wide of the mark her wild accusations are. That she should insult _you_----"

Nurse Frances laughed--not, perhaps, very convincingly.

"I always think it's absurd when people complain about being insulted," she said cheerfully. "Such a pompous word, isn't it? Please don't worry or think I mind. You know, Mr. Deyre, your wife is----"

"Yes?"

Her voice changed. It was grave and sad.

"A very unhappy and lonely woman."

"Do you think that is entirely my fault?"

There was a pause. She lifted her eyes--those steady green eyes.

"Yes," she said, "I do."

He drew a long breath.

"No one else but you would have said that to me. You----I suppose it's courage in you that I admire so much----your absolutely fearless honesty. I'm sorry for Vernon that he should lose you before he need."

She said gravely: "Don't blame yourself for things you needn't. This has not been your fault."

"Nurse Frances." It was Vernon, eagerly from bed. "I don't want you to go away. Don't go away, please--not to-night."

"Of course not," said Nurse Frances. "We've got to talk to Dr. Coles about it."

Nurse Frances left three days later. Vernon wept bitterly. He had lost the first real friend he had ever had.

chapter 5

The years from five to nine remained somewhat dim in Vernon's memory. Things changed--but so gradually as not to matter. Nurse did not return to her reign over the nursery. Her mother had had a stroke and was quite helpless and she was obliged to remain and look after her.

Instead, a Miss Robbins was installed as nursery governess. A creature so extraordinarily colourless that Vernon could never afterward even recall what she looked like. He must have become somewhat out of hand under her régime for he was sent to school just after his eighth birthday. On his first holidays he found his cousin Josephine installed.

On her few visits to Abbots Puissants, Nina had never brought her small daughter with her. Indeed her visits had become rarer and rarer. Vernon, knowing things without thinking about them, as children do, was perfectly well aware of two facts. One, that his father did not like Uncle Sydney but was always exceedingly polite to him. Two, that his mother did not like Aunt Nina and did not mind showing it. Sometimes, when Nina was sitting talking to Walter in the garden, Myra would join them, and in the momentary pause that nearly always followed she would say:

"I suppose I'd better go away again. I see I'm in the way. No, thank you, Walter [this in answer to a protest, gently murmured], I can see plainly enough when I'm not wanted."

She would move away, biting her lip, nervously clasping and unclasping her hands, tears in her brown eyes. And, very quietly, Walter Deyre would raise his eyebrows.

One day Nina broke out: "She's impossible! I can't speak to you for ten minutes without an absurd scene. Walter, why did you do it? Why _did_ you do it?"

Vernon remembered how his father had looked round, gazing up at the house, then letting his eyes sweep far afield to where the ruins of the old Abbey just showed.

"I cared for the place," he said slowly. "In the blood, I suppose. I didn't want to let it go."

There had been a brief silence and then Nina had laughed--a queer short laugh.

"We're not a very satisfactory family," she said. "We've made a pretty good mess of things, you and I."

There was another pause and then his father had said: "Is it as bad as that?"

Nina had drawn in her breath with a sharp hiss. She nodded.

"Pretty well. I don't think, Walter, that I can go on much longer. Fred hates the sight of me. Oh! we behave very prettily in public--no one would guess--but my God, when we're alone!"

"Yes, but my dear girl...."

And then, for a while, Vernon heard no more. Their voices were lowered, his father seemed to be arguing with his aunt. Finally his voice rose again.

"You can't take a mad step like that. It's not even as though you cared for Anstey. You don't."

"I suppose not--but he's crazy about me."

His father said something that sounded like Social Ostriches. Nina laughed again.

"That? We'd neither of us care."

"Anstey would in the end."

"Fred would divorce me--only too glad of the chance. Then we could marry."

"Even then----"

"Walter on the social conventions! It has its humorous side!"

"Women and men are very different," said Vernon's father dryly.

"Oh! I know--I know. But anything's better than this everlasting misery. Of course, at the bottom of it all is that I still care for Fred--I always did. And he never cared for me."

"There's the kid," said Walter Deyre. "You can't go off and leave her?"

"Can't I? I'm not much of a mother, you know. As a matter of fact, I'd take her with me. Fred wouldn't care. He hates her as much as he hates me."

There was another pause, a long one this time. Then Nina said slowly:

"What a ghastly tangle human beings can get themselves into. And in your case and mine, Walter, it's all our own fault. We're a nice family! We bring bad luck to ourselves and to anyone we have anything to do with."

Walter Deyre got up. He filled a pipe abstractedly, then moved slowly away. For the first time Nina noticed Vernon.

"Hullo, child," she said. "I didn't see you were there. How much did you understand of all that, I wonder?"

"I don't know," said Vernon vaguely, shifting from foot to foot.

Nina opened a chain bag, took out a tortoise-shell case, and extracted a cigarette which she proceeded to light. Vernon watched her, fascinated. He had never seen a woman smoke.

"What's the matter?" said Nina.

"Mummy says," said Vernon, "that no nice woman would ever smoke. She said so to Miss Robbins."

"Oh! well," said Nina. She puffed out a cloud of smoke. "I expect she was quite right. I'm not a nice woman, you see, Vernon."

Vernon looked at her, vaguely distressed.

"I think you're very pretty," he said rather shyly.

"That's not the same thing." Nina's smile widened. "Come here, Vernon."

He came obediently. Nina put her hands on his shoulders and looked him over quizzically. He submitted patiently. He never minded being touched by Aunt Nina. Her hands were light--not clutching like his mother's.

"Yes," said Nina, "you're a Deyre--very much so. Rough luck on Myra, but there it is."

"What does that mean?" said Vernon.

"It means that you're like your father's family and not like your mother's--worse luck for you."

"Why worse luck for me?"

"Because the Deyres, Vernon, are neither happy nor successful. And they can't make good."

What funny things Aunt Nina said! She said them half laughingly, so perhaps she didn't mean them. And yet, somehow, there was something in them that, though he didn't understand, made him afraid.

"Would it be better," he said suddenly, "to be like Uncle Sydney?"

"Much better. Much much better."

Vernon considered.

"But then," he said slowly, "if I was like Uncle Sydney----"

He stopped, trying to get his thoughts into words.

"Yes, well?"

"If I was Uncle Sydney I should have to live at Larch Hurst--and not here."

Larch Hurst was a stoutly built red brick villa near Birmingham where Vernon had once been taken to stay with Uncle Sydney and Aunt Carrie. It had three acres of superb pleasure grounds, a rose garden, a pergola, a goldfish tank, and two excellently fitted bathrooms.

"And wouldn't you like that?" asked Nina, still watching him.

"No!" said Vernon. A great sigh broke from him, heaving his small chest. "I want to live _here_--always, always, always!"

_2_

Soon after this something queer happened about Aunt Nina. His mother began to speak of her and his father managed to hush her down with a sideways glance at himself. He carried away only a couple of phrases: "It's that poor child I'm so sorry for. You've only got to look at Nina to see she's a Bad Lot and always will be."

The poor child, Vernon knew, was his cousin Josephine, whom he had never seen, but to whom he sent presents at Christmas and duly received others in return. He wondered why Josephine was "poor" and why his mother was sorry for her, and also why Aunt Nina was a Bad Lot--whatever that meant. He asked Miss Robbins, who got very pink and told him he mustn't talk about "things like that." Things like what? Vernon wondered.

However, he didn't think much more about it till four months later, when the matter was mentioned once more. This time no one noticed Vernon's presence--feelings were running too high for that. His mother and father were in the middle of a vehement discussion. His mother, as usual, was vociferous, excited. His father was very quiet.

"Disgraceful!" Myra was saying. "Within three months of running away with one man to go off with another. It shows her up in her true light. I always knew what she was like. Men, men, men, nothing but men!"

"You're welcome to any opinion you choose, Myra. That's not the point. I knew perfectly how it would strike you."

"And anyone else too, I should think! I can't understand you, Walter. You call yourself an old family and all that----"

"We are an old family," he put in quietly.

"I should have thought you'd have minded a bit about the honour of your name. She's disgraced it--and if you were a real man you'd cast her off utterly as she deserves."

"Traditional scene from the melodrama, in fact."

"You always sneer and laugh! Morals mean nothing to you--absolutely nothing."

"At the minute, as I've been trying to make you understand, it's not a question of morals. It's a question of my sister being destitute. I must go out to Monte Carlo and see what can be done. I should have thought anyone in their senses would see that."

"Thank you. You're not very polite, are you? And whose fault is it she's destitute, I should like to know? She had a good husband----"

"No--not that."

"At any rate, he married her."

It was his father who flushed this time. He said, in a very low voice:

"I can't understand you, Myra. You're a good woman--a kind honourable upright woman--and yet you can demean yourself to make a nasty mean taunt like that."

"That's right! Abuse me! I'm used to it! You don't mind what you say to me."

"That's not true. I try to be as courteous as I can."

"Yes. And that's partly why I hate you--you never do say right out. Always polite and sneering--your tongue in your cheek. All this keeping up appearances--why should one, I should like to know? Why should I care if everyone in the house knows what I feel?"

"I've no doubt they do--thanks to the carrying power of your voice."

"There you are--sneering again. At any rate I've enjoyed telling you what I think of your precious sister. Running away with one man, going off with a second--and why can't the second man keep her, I should like to know? Or is he tired of her already?"

"I've already told you, but you didn't listen. He's threatened with galloping consumption--has had to throw up his job. He's no private means."

"Ah! Nina brought her pigs to a bad market that time."

"There's one thing about Nina--she's never been actuated by motives of gain. She's a fool, a damned fool, or she wouldn't have got herself into this mess. But it's always her affections that run away with her common sense. It's the deuce of a tangle. She won't touch a penny from Fred. Anstey wants to make her an allowance--she won't hear of it. And, mind you, I agree with her. There are things one can't do. But I've certainly got to go and see to things. I'm sorry if it annoys you, but there it is."

"You never do anything I want! You hate me! You do this on purpose to make me miserable. But there's one thing. You don't bring this precious sister of yours under this roof while I'm here. I'm not accustomed to meeting that kind of woman. You understand?"

"You make your meaning almost offensively clear."

"If you bring her here, I go back to Birmingham."

There was a faint flicker in Walter Deyre's eyes, and suddenly Vernon realized something that his mother did not. He had understood very little of the actual words of the conversation though he had grasped the essentials. Aunt Nina was ill or unhappy somewhere and Mummy was angry about it. She had said that if Aunt Nina came to Abbots Puissants she would go back to Uncle Sydney at Birmingham. She had meant that as a threat--but Vernon knew that his father would be very pleased if she did go back to Birmingham. He knew it quite certainly and uncomprehendingly. It was like some of Miss Robbins's punishments, like not speaking for half an hour. She thought you minded that as much as not having jam for tea, and fortunately she had never discovered that you didn't really mind it at all--in fact rather enjoyed it.

Walter Deyre walked up and down the room. Vernon watched him, puzzled. That his father was fighting out a battle in his own mind, he knew. But he couldn't understand what it was all about.

"Well?" said Myra.

She was rather beautiful just at that moment--a great big woman, magnificently proportioned, her head thrown back and the sunlight streaming in on her golden-red hair. A fit mate for some Viking seafarer.

"I made you the mistress of this house, Myra," said Walter Deyre. "If you object to my sister coming to it, naturally she will not come."

He moved toward the door. There he paused and looked back at her. "If Llewellyn dies--which seems almost certain--Nina must try to get some kind of a job. Then there will be the child to think of. Do your objections apply to her?"

"Do you think I want a girl in my home who will turn out like her mother?"

His father said quietly: "Yes or No would have been quite sufficient answer."

He went out. Myra stood staring after him. Tears stood in her eyes and began to fall. Vernon did not like tears. He edged toward the door--but not in time.

"Darling, come to me."

He had to come. He was enfolded--hugged. Fragments of phrases reiterated in his ears:

"You'll make up to me--you, my own boy. You shan't be like them--horrid, sneering. You won't fail me--you'll never fail me--will you? Swear it--my boy, my own boy!"

He knew it all so well. He said what was wanted of him--Yes and No in the right places. How he hated the whole business! It always happened so close to your ears.

That evening after tea Myra was in quite another mood. She was writing a letter at her writing table and looked up gaily as Vernon entered.

"I'm writing to Daddy. Perhaps, very soon, your Aunt Nina and your cousin Josephine will come to stay. Won't that be lovely?"

But they didn't come. Myra said to herself that really Walter was incomprehensible. Just because she'd said a few things she really didn't mean....

Vernon was not very surprised, somehow. He hadn't thought they would come.

Aunt Nina had said she wasn't a nice woman--but she was very pretty.

chapter 6

If Vernon had been capable of summing up the events of the next few years, he could best have done it in one word--scenes! Everlasting and ever-recurring scenes.

And he began to notice a curious phenomenon. After each scene his mother looked larger and his father looked smaller. Emotional storms of reproach and invective exhilarated Myra mentally and physically. She emerged from them refreshed; soothed--full of good will toward all the world.

With Walter Deyre it was the opposite. He withdrew into himself, every sensitive fibre in his nature shrinking from the onslaught. The faint polite sarcasm that was his weapon of defence never failed to goad his wife to the utmost fury. His quiet weary self-control exasperated her as nothing else could have done.

Not that she was lacking for very real grounds of complaint. Walter Deyre spent less and less time at Abbots Puissants. When he did return his eyes had baggy pouches under them and his hand shook. He took little notice of Vernon, and yet the child was always conscious of an underlying sympathy. It was tacitly understood that Walter should not "interfere" with the child. A mother was the person who should have the say. Apart from supervising the boy's riding, Walter stood aside. Not to do so would have roused fresh matter for discussion and reproach. He was ready to admit that Myra had all the virtues and was a most careful and attentive mother.

And yet he sometimes had the feeling that he could give the boy something that she could not. The trouble was that they were both shy of each other. To neither of them was it easy to express his feelings--a thing Myra would have found incomprehensible. They remained gravely polite to each other.

But when a scene was in progress Vernon was full of silent sympathy. He knew exactly how his father was feeling--knew how that loud angry voice hurt the ears and the head. He knew, of course, that Mummy must be right--Mummy was always right, that was an article of belief not to be questioned--but all the same, he was unconsciously on his father's side.

Things went from bad to worse--came to a crisis. Mummy remained locked in her room for two days--servants whispered delightedly in corners--and Uncle Sydney arrived on the scene to see what he could do.

Uncle Sydney undoubtedly had a soothing influence over Myra. He walked up and down the room, jingling his money as of old, and looking stouter and more rubicund than ever.

Myra poured out her woes.

"Yes, yes, I know," said Uncle Sydney, jingling hard. "I know, my dear girl. I'm not saying you haven't had a lot to put up with. You have. Nobody knows that better than I do. But there's give and take, you know. Give and take. That's married life in a nutshell--give and take."

There was a fresh outburst from Myra.

"I'm not sticking up for Deyre," said Uncle Sydney. "Not at all. I'm just looking at the whole thing as a man of the world. Women lead sheltered lives and they don't look at these things as men do--quite right that they shouldn't. You're a good woman, Myra, and it's always hard for a good woman to understand these things. Carrie's just the same."

"What has Carrie got to put up with, I should like to know?" cried Myra. "_You_ don't go off racketing round with disgusting women. _You_ don't make love to the servants."

"N-no," said her brother. "No, of course not. It's the principle of the thing I'm talking about. And mind you, Carrie and I don't see eye to eye over everything. We have our tiffs--why, sometimes we don't speak to each other for two days on end. But bless you, we make it up again, and things go on better than before. A good row clears the air--that's what I say. But there must be give and take. And no nagging afterward. The best man in the world won't stand nagging."

"I never nag," said Myra tearfully, and believed it. "How can you say such a thing?"

"Now don't get the wind up, old girl. I'm not saying you do. I'm just laying down general principles. And remember, Deyre's not our sort. He's kittle cattle--the touchy sensitive kind. A mere trifle sets them off."

"Don't I know it?" said Myra bitterly. "He's impossible. Why did I ever marry him?"

"Well, you know, Sis, you can't have it both ways. It was a good match. I'm bound to admit it was a good match. Here you are, living in a swell place, knowing all the county, as good as anybody short of royalty. My word, if poor old Dad had lived, how proud he'd have been! And what I'm getting at is this--everything's got its seamy side. You can't have the halfpence without one or two of the kicks as well. They're decadent, these old families, that's what they are--decadent, and you've just got to face the fact. You've just got to sum up the situation in a businesslike way--advantages, so and so; disadvantages, ditto. It's the only way. Take my word for it, it's the only way."

"I didn't marry him for the sake of 'advantages,' as you call it," said Myra. "I hate this place. I always have. It's because of Abbots Puissants he married me--not for myself."

"Nonsense, Sis, you were a jolly pretty girl--and still are," he added gallantly.

"Walter married me for the sake of Abbots Puissants," said Myra obstinately. "I tell you I know it."

"Well, well," said her brother. "Let's leave the past alone."

"You wouldn't be so calm and cold-blooded about it if you were me," said Myra bitterly. "Not if you had to live with him. I do everything I can think of to please him--and he only sneers and treats me like this."

"You nag him," said Sydney. "Oh! yes, you do. You can't help it."

"If only he'd answer back! If he'd say something--instead of just sitting there."

"Yes, but that's the kind of fellow he is. You can't alter people in this world to suit your fancy. I can't say I care for the chap myself--too ladida for me. Why, if you put him in to run a concern it would be bankrupt in a fortnight! But I'm bound to say he's always been very polite and decent to me. Quite the gentleman. When I've run across him in London he's taken me to lunch at that swell club of his, and if I didn't feel too comfortable there that wasn't his fault. He's got his good points."

"You're so like a man," said Myra. "Carrie would understand! He's been unfaithful to me, I tell you. Unfaithful!"

"Well, well," said Uncle Sydney, with a great deal of jingling and his eyes on the ceiling. "Men will be men."

"But Syd, you never----"

"Of course not," said Uncle Sydney hastily. "Of course not--of course not. I'm speaking generally, Myra--generally, you understand."

"It's all finished," said Myra. "No woman could stand more than I've stood. And now it's the end. I never want to see him again."

"Ah!" said Uncle Sydney. He drew a chair to the table and sat down with the air of one prepared to talk business. "Then let's get down to brass tacks. You've made up your mind? What is it you do want to do?"

"I tell you I never want to see Walter again!"

"Yes, yes," said Uncle Sydney patiently. "We're taking that for granted. Now what do you want? A divorce?"

"Oh!" Myra was taken aback. "I hadn't thought...."

"Well, we must get the thing put on a businesslike footing. I doubt if you'd get a divorce. You've got to prove cruelty, you know, as well, and I doubt if you could do that."

"If you knew the suffering he's caused me----"

"I daresay. I'm not denying it. But you want something more than that to satisfy the law. And there's no desertion. If you wrote to him to come back he'd come, I suppose?"

"Haven't I just told you I never want to see him again?"

"Yes, yes, yes. You women do harp on a thing so. We're looking at the thing from a business point of view now. I don't think a divorce will wash."

"I don't want a divorce."

"Well, what do you want, a separation?"

"So that he could go and live with that abandoned creature in London? Live with her altogether? And what would happen to me, I should like to know?"

"Plenty nice houses near me and Carrie. You'd have the boy with you most of the time, I expect."

"And let Walter bring disgusting women into this very house, perhaps? No, indeed, I don't intend to play into his hands like that!"

"Well, dash it all Myra, what do you want?"

Myra began to cry again.

"I'm so miserable, Syd, I'm so miserable. If only Walter were different!"

"Well, he isn't--and he never will be. You must just make up your mind to it, Myra. You've married a fellow who's a bit of a Don Jooan--and you've got to try and take a broad-minded view of it. You're fond of the chap. Kiss and make friends--that's what I say. We're none of us perfect. Give and take--that's the thing to remember--give and take."

His sister continued to weep quietly.

"Marriage is a ticklish business," went on Uncle Sydney in a ruminative voice. "Women are too good for us, not a doubt of it."

"I suppose," said Myra in a tearful voice, "one ought to forgive and forgive--again and again."

"That's the spirit," said Uncle Sydney. "Women are angels and men aren't, and women have got to make allowances. Always have had to and always will."

Myra's sobs grew less. She was seeing herself now in the rôle of the forgiving angel.

"It isn't as if I didn't do everything I could," she sobbed. "I run the house and I'm sure nobody could be a more devoted mother."

"Of course you are," said Uncle Sydney. "And that's a fine youngster of yours. I wish Carrie and I had a boy. Four girls--it's a bit thick. Still, as I always say to her: 'Better luck next time, old girl.' We both feel sure it's going to be a boy this time."

Myra was diverted.

"I didn't know. When is it?"

"June."

"How is Carrie?"

"Suffering a bit with her legs--swelled, you know. But she manages to get about a fair amount. Why, hullo, here's that young shaver. How long have you been here, my boy?"

"Oh! a long time," said Vernon. "I was here when you came in."

"You're so quiet," complained his uncle. "Not like your cousins. I'm sure the racket they make is almost too much to bear sometimes. What's that you've got there?"

"It's an engine," said Vernon.

"No, it isn't," said Uncle Sydney. "It's a milk cart!"

Vernon was silent.

"Hey," said Uncle Sydney. "Isn't it a milk cart?"

"No," said Vernon. "It's an engine."

"Not a bit of it. It's a milk cart. That's funny, isn't it? You say it's an engine and I say it's a milk cart. I wonder which of us is right?"

Since Vernon knew that he was, it seemed hardly necessary to reply.

"He's a solemn child," said Uncle Sydney, turning to his sister. "Never sees a joke. You know, my boy, you'll have to get used to being teased at school."

"Shall I?" said Vernon, who couldn't see what that had to do with it.

"A boy who can take teasing with a laugh, that's the sort of boy who gets on in the world," said Uncle Sydney, and jingled his money again, stimulated by a natural association of ideas.

Vernon stared at him thoughtfully.

"What are you thinking about?"

"Nothing," said Vernon.

"Take your engine on the terrace, dear," said Myra.

Vernon obeyed.

"Now I wonder how much that little chap took in of what we were talking about?" said Sydney to his sister.

"Oh! he wouldn't understand. He's too little."

"H'm," said Sydney. "I don't know. Some children take in a lot--my Ethel does. But then she's a very wide-awake child."

"I don't think Vernon ever notices anything," said Myra. "It's rather a blessing in some ways."

_2_

"Mummy," said Vernon later, "what's going to happen in June?"

"In June, darling?"

"Yes--what you and Uncle Sydney were talking about."

"Oh! that----" Myra was momentarily discomposed. "Well, you see--it's a great secret."

"Yes?" said Vernon eagerly.

"Uncle Sydney and Aunt Carrie hope that in June they will have a dear little baby boy. A boy cousin for you."

"Oh!" said Vernon, disappointed. "Is that all?"

After a minute or two he said:

"Why are Aunt Carrie's legs swelled?"

"Oh! well--you see--she has been rather overtired lately."

Myra dreaded more questions. She tried to remember what she and Sydney had actually said.

"Mummy?"

"Yes, dear."

"Do Uncle Sydney and Aunt Carrie want to have a baby boy?"

"Yes, of course."

"Then why do they wait till June? Why don't they have it now?"

"Because, Vernon, God knows best. And God wants them to have it in June."

"That's a long time to wait," said Vernon. "If I were God I'd send people things at once, as soon as they wanted them."

"You mustn't be blasphemous, dear," said Myra gently.

Vernon was silent. But he was puzzled. What was blasphemous? He rather thought that it was the same word Cook had used speaking of her brother. She had said he was a most--something--man and hardly ever touched a drop! She had spoken as though such an attitude was highly commendable. But evidently Mummy didn't seem to think the same about it.

Vernon added an extra prayer that evening to his usual petition of "God bless Mummy and Daddy and makemeagooboy armen."

"Dear God," he prayed. "Will you send me a puppy in June!--or July would do if you are very busy."

"Now why in June?" said Miss Robbins. "You _are_ a funny little boy. I should have thought you would have wanted the puppy now."

"That would be blamafous," said Vernon, and eyed her reproachfully.

_3_

Suddenly the world became very exciting. There was a war--in South Africa--and Father was going to it!

Everyone was excited and upset. For the first time, Vernon heard of some people called the Boers. They were the people that Father was going to fight.

His father came home for a few days. He looked younger and more alive and a great deal more cheerful. He and Mummy were quite nice to each other and there weren't any scenes or quarrels.

Once or twice, Vernon thought, his father squirmed uneasily at some of the things his mother said. Once he said irritably:

"For God's sake, Myra, don't keep talking of brave heroes laying down their lives for their country. I can't stand that sort of cant."

But his mother had not got angry. She only said:

"I know you don't like me saying it. But it's _true_."

On the last evening before he left, Vernon's father called to his small son to go for a walk with him. They strolled all round the place, silently at first, and then Vernon was emboldened to ask questions.

"Are you glad you're going to the war, Father?"

"Very glad."

"Is it fun?"

"Not what you'd call fun, I expect. But it is in a way. It's excitement, and then, too, it takes you away from things--right away."

"I suppose," said Vernon thoughtfully, "there aren't any ladies at the war?"

Walter Deyre looked sharply at his son, a slight smile hovering on his lips. Uncanny, the way the boy sometimes hit the nail on the head quite unconsciously.

"That makes for peace, certainly," he said gravely.

"Will you kill a good many people, do you think?" inquired Vernon interestedly.

His father replied that it was impossible to tell accurately beforehand.

"I hope you will," said Vernon, anxious that his father should shine. "I hope you'll kill a hundred."

"Thank you, old man."

"I suppose----" began Vernon, and then stopped.

"Yes?" said Walter Deyre encouragingly.

"I suppose--sometimes--people do get killed in war."

Walter Deyre understood the ambiguous phrase.

"Sometimes," he said.

"You don't think you will, do you?"

"I might. It's all in the day's work, you know."

Vernon considered the phrase thoughtfully. The feeling that underlay it came dimly to him.

"Would you mind if you were, Father?"

"It might be the best thing," said Walter Deyre, more to himself than to the child.

"I hope you won't," said Vernon.

"Thank you."

His father smiled a little. Vernon's wish had sounded so politely conventional. But he did not make the mistake Myra would have done, of thinking the child unfeeling.

They had reached the ruins of the Abbey. The sun was just setting. Father and son looked round and Walter Deyre drew in his breath with a little intake of pain. Perhaps he might never stand here again.

"I've made a mess of things," he thought to himself.

"Vernon?"

"Yes, Father?"

"If I am killed Abbots Puissants will belong to you. You know that, don't you?"

"Yes, Father."

Silence again. So much that he would have liked to say--but he wasn't used to saying things. These were the things that one didn't put into words. Odd, how strangely at home he felt with that small person, his son. Perhaps it had been a mistake not to have got to know the boy better. They might have had some good times together. He was shy of the boy--and the boy was shy of him. And yet, somehow, they were curiously in harmony. They both of them disliked saying things.

"I'm fond of the old place," said Walter Deyre. "I expect you will be too."

"Yes, Father."

"Queer to think of the old monks--catching their fish--fat fellows. That's how I always think of them--comfortable chaps."

They lingered a few minutes longer.

"Well," said Walter Deyre, "we must be getting home. It's late."

They turned. Walter Deyre squared his shoulders. There was a leavetaking to be got through--an emotional one, if he knew Myra--and he rather dreaded it. Well, it would soon be over. Good-byes were painful things--better if one made no fuss about them, but then of course Myra would never see it that way.

Poor Myra! She'd had a rotten deal on the whole. A fine-looking creature, but he'd married her really for the sake of Abbots Puissants--and she had married him for love. That was the root of the whole trouble.

"Look after your mother, Vernon," he said suddenly. "She's been very good to you, you know."

He rather hoped, in a way, that he wouldn't come back. It would be best so. Vernon had his mother.

And yet, at that thought, he had a queer traitorous feeling. As though he were deserting the boy....

_4_

"Walter," cried Myra, "you haven't said good-bye to Vernon."

Walter looked across at his son, standing there wide-eyed.

"Good-bye, old chap. Have a good time."

"Good-bye, Father."

That was all. Myra was scandalized. Had he no love for the boy? He hadn't even kissed him. How queer they were--the Deyres. So casual. Strange, the way they had nodded to each other across the width of the room. So alike....

"But Vernon," said Myra to herself, "shall not grow up like his father."

On the walls around her Deyres looked down and smiled sardonically.

chapter 7

Two months after his father sailed for South Africa Vernon went to school. It had been Walter Deyre's wish and arrangement, and Myra, at the moment, was disposed to regard any wish of his as law. He was her soldier and her hero, and everything else was forgotten. She was thoroughly happy at this time. Knitting socks for the soldiers, urging on energetic campaigns of "white feather," sympathizing and talking with other women whose husbands had also gone to fight the wicked ungrateful Boers.

She felt exquisite pangs parting with Vernon. Her darling--her baby--to go so far away from her. What sacrifices mothers had to make! But it had been his father's wish.

Poor darling, he was sure to be most terribly homesick! She couldn't bear to think of it.

But Vernon was not homesick. He had no real passionate attachment to his mother. All his life he was to be fondest of her when away from her. His escape from her emotional atmosphere was felt by him as a relief.

He had a good temperament for school life. He had an aptitude for games, a quiet manner, and an unusual amount of physical courage. After the dull monotony of life under the reign of Miss Robbins, school was a delightful novelty. Like all the Deyres, he had the knack of getting on with people. He made friends easily.

But the reticence of the child who so often answered "Nothing" clung to him. Except with one or two people, that reticence was to go through life with him. His school friends were people with whom he shared "doing things." His thoughts he was to keep to himself and share with only one person. That person came into his life very soon.

On his very first holidays he found Josephine.

_2_

Vernon was welcomed by his mother with an outburst of demonstrative affection. Already rather self-conscious about such things, he bore it manfully. Myra's first raptures over, she said:

"There's a lovely surprise for you, darling. Who do you think is here? Your cousin Josephine, Aunt Nina's little girl. She has come to live with us. Now, isn't that nice?"

Vernon wasn't quite sure. It needed thinking over. To gain time, he said:

"Why has she come to live with us?"

"Because her mother has died. It's terribly sad for her and we must be very, very kind to her to make up."

"Is Aunt Nina dead?"

He was sorry Aunt Nina was dead. Pretty Aunt Nina with her curling cigarette smoke.

"Yes. You can't remember her, of course, darling."

He didn't say that he remembered her perfectly. Why should one say things?

"She's in the schoolroom, darling. Go and find her and make friends."

Vernon went slowly. He didn't know whether he was pleased or not. A girl! He was at the age to despise girls. Rather a nuisance having a girl about. On the other hand, it would be jolly having _someone_. It depended what the kid was like. One would have to be decent to her if she'd just lost her mother.

He opened the schoolroom door and went in. Josephine was sitting on the window sill swinging her legs. She stared at him, and Vernon's attitude of kindly condescension fell from him.

She was a squarely built child of about his own age. She had dead black hair cut very straight across her forehead. Her jaw stuck out a little in a determined way. She had a very white skin and enormous eyelashes. Although she was two months younger than Vernon, she had the sophistication of twice his years--a kind of mixture of weariness and defiance.

"Hullo," she said.

"Hullo," said Vernon, rather feebly.

They went on looking at each other, suspiciously, as is the manner of children and dogs.

"I suppose you're my cousin Josephine," said Vernon.

"Yes, but you'd better call me Joe. Everyone does."

"All right--Joe."

There was a pause. To bridge it, Vernon whistled.

"Rather jolly, coming home," he observed at last.

"It's an awfully jolly place," said Joe.

"Oh! do you like it?" said Vernon, warming to her.

"I like it awfully. Better than any of the places I've lived."

"Have you lived in a lot of places?"

"Oh! yes. At Coombes first--when we were with Father. And then at Monte Carlo with Colonel Anstey. And then at Toulon with Arthur--and then a lot of Swiss places because of Arthur's lungs. And then I went to a convent for a bit after Arthur died. Mother couldn't be bothered with me just then. I didn't like it much--the nuns were so silly. They made me have a bath in my chemise. And then, after Mother died, Aunt Myra came and fetched me here."

"I'm awfully sorry--about your mother, I mean," said Vernon awkwardly.

"Yes," said Joe. "It's rotten in a way--though much the best thing for her."

"Oh!" said Vernon, rather taken aback.

"Don't tell Aunt Myra," said Joe. "Because I think she's rather easily shocked by things--rather like the nuns. You have to be careful what you say to her. Mother didn't care for me an awful lot, you know. She was frightfully kind and all that--but she was always soppy about some man or other. I heard some people say so in the hotel, and it was quite true. She couldn't help it, of course. But it's a very bad plan. I shan't have anything to do with men when I grow up."

"Oh!" said Vernon. He was still feeling very young and awkward beside this amazing person.

"I liked Colonel Anstey best," said Joe reminiscently. "But of course Mother only ran away with him to get away from Father. We stayed at much better hotels with Colonel Anstey. Arthur was very poor. If I ever do get soppy about a man when I grow up, I shall take care that he's rich. It makes things so much easier."

"Wasn't your father nice?"

"Oh! Father was a devil--Mother said so. He hated us both."

"But why?"

Joe wrinkled her straight black brows in perplexity.

"I don't quite know. I think--I think it was something to do with _me_ coming. I think he had to marry Mother because she was going to have me--something like that--and it made him angry."

They looked at each other, solemn and perplexed.

"Uncle Walter's in South Africa, isn't he?" went on Joe.

"Yes. I've had three letters from him at school. Awfully jolly letters."

"Uncle Walter's a dear. I loved him. He came out to Monte Carlo, you know."

Some memory stirred in Vernon. Of course, he remembered now. His father had wanted Joe to come to Abbots Puissants then.

"He arranged for me to go to the convent," said Joe. "Reverend Mother thought he was lovely--a true type of high-born English gentleman--such a funny way of putting it."

They both laughed a little.

"Let's go out in the garden. Shall we?" said Vernon.

"Yes, let's. I say, I know where there are four different nests--but the birds have all flown away."

They went out together, amicably discussing birds' eggs.

_3_

To Myra, Joe was a perplexing child. She had nice manners, answered promptly and politely when spoken to, and submitted to caresses without returning them. She was very independent and gave the maid off to attend to her little or nothing to do. She could mend her own clothes and keep herself neat and tidy without any outside urging. She was, in fact, the sophisticated hotel child whom Myra had never happened to come across. The depths of her knowledge would have horrified and shocked her aunt.

But Joe was shrewd and quick-witted, well used to summing up the people with whom she came in contact. She refrained carefully from "shocking Aunt Myra." She had for her something closely akin to a kindly contempt.

"Your mother," she said to Vernon, "is very good--but she's a little stupid too, isn't she?"

"She's very beautiful," said Vernon hotly.

"Yes, she is," agreed Joe. "All but her hands. Her hair's lovely. I wish I had red-gold hair."

"It comes right down below her waist," said Vernon.

He found Joe a wonderful companion, quite unlike his previous conception of "girls." She hated dolls, never cried, was as strong if not stronger than he was, and was always ready and willing for any dangerous sport. Together they climbed trees, rode bicycles, fell and cut and bumped themselves, and ended up by taking a wasp's nest together, with a success due more to luck than skill.

To Joe, Vernon could talk and did. She opened up to him a strange new world, a world where people ran away with other people's husbands and wives, a world of dancing and gambling and cynicism. She had loved her mother with a fierce protective tenderness that almost reversed the rôles.

"She was too soft," said Joe. "I'm not going to be soft. People are mean to you if you are. Men are beasts anyway, but if you're a beast to them first, they're all right. All men are beasts."

"That's a silly thing to say, and I don't think it's true."

"That's because you're going to be a man yourself."

"No, it isn't. And anyway I'm not a beast."

"No, but I daresay you will be when you're grown up."

"But, look here, Joe, you'll have to marry someone some day, and you won't think your husband a beast."

"Why should I marry anyone?"

"Well--girls do. You don't want to be an old maid like Miss Crabtree."

Joe wavered. Miss Crabtree was an elderly spinster who was very active in the village and who was very fond of "the dear children."

"I shouldn't be the kind of old maid Miss Crabtree is," she said weakly. "I should--oh! I should do things. Play the violin, or write books, or paint some marvellous pictures."

"I hope you won't play the violin," said Vernon.

"That's really what I should like to do best. Why do you hate music so, Vernon?"

"I don't know. I just do. It makes me feel all horrible inside."

"How queer! It gives me a nice feeling. What are you going to do when you grow up?"

"Oh! I don't know. I'd like to marry someone very beautiful and live at Abbots Puissants and have lots of horses and dogs."

"How dull!" said Joe. "I don't think that would be exciting a bit."

"I don't know that I want things to be very exciting," said Vernon.

"I do," said Joe. "I want things to be exciting the whole time without ever stopping."

_4_

Joe and Vernon had few other children to play with. The Vicar, whose children Vernon had played with when he was younger, had gone to another living, and his successor was unmarried. Most of the children of families in the same position as the Deyres lived too far away for more than a very occasional visit.