Carey Lodge was the name of Myra’s house. It was about eight miles from Birmingham.
A subtle depression always weighed down Vernon’s spirits as he got near Carey Lodge. He hated the house, hated its solid comfort, its thick bright red carpets, its lounge hall, the carefully selected sporting prints that hung in the dining-room, the superabundance of knick-knacks that filled the drawing-room. And yet, was it so much those things he hated, as the facts that stood behind them?
He questioned himself, trying for the first time to be honest with himself. Wasn’t it the truth that he hated his mother being so at home there, so placidly content? He liked to think of her in terms of Abbots Puissants – liked to think of her as being, like himself, an exile.
And she wasn’t! Abbots Puissants had been to her what a foreign kingdom might be to a Queen Consort. She had felt important there, and pleased with herself. It had been new and exciting. But it hadn’t been home.
Myra greeted her son with extravagant affection as always. He wished she wouldn’t. In some way it made it harder than ever for him to respond. When he was away from her, he pictured himself being affectionate to his mother. When he was with her, all that illusion faded away.
Myra Deyre had altered a good deal since leaving Abbots Puissants. She had grown much stouter. Her beautiful golden red hair was flecked with grey. The expression of her face was different, it was at once more satisfied and more placid. There was now a strong resemblance between her and her brother, Sydney.
‘You’ve had a good time in London? I’m so glad. It’s so exciting to have my fine big son back with me – I’ve been telling everybody how excited I am. Mothers are foolish creatures, aren’t they?’
Vernon thought they were rather – then was ashamed of himself.
‘Very jolly to see you, Mother,’ he mumbled.
Joe said:
‘You’re looking splendidly fit, Aunt Myra.’
‘I’ve not really been very well, dear. I don’t think Dr Grey quite understands my case. I hear there’s a new doctor – Dr Littleworth – just bought Dr Armstrong’s practice. They say he is wonderfully clever. I’m sure it’s my heart – and it’s all nonsense Dr Grey saying it’s indigestion.’
She was quite animated. Her health was always an absorbing topic to Myra.
‘Mary’s gone – the housemaid, you know. I was really very disappointed in that girl. After all I did for her.’
It went on and on. Joe and Vernon listened perfunctorily. Their minds were full of conscious superiority. Thank Heaven they belonged to a new and enlightened generation, far above this insistence on domestic details. For them, a new and splendid world opened out. They were deeply, poignantly sorry for the contented creature who sat there chattering to them.
Joe thought:
‘Poor – poor Aunt Myra. So terribly female! Of course Uncle Walter got bored with her. Not her fault! A rotten education, and brought up to believe that domesticity was all that mattered. And here she is, still young really – at least not too terribly old – and all she’s got to do is to sit in the house and gossip, and think about servants, and fuss about her health. If she’d only been born twenty years later, she could have been happy and free, and independent all her life.’
And out of her intense pity for her unconscious aunt, she answered gently and pretended an interest that she certainly did not feel.
Vernon thought:
‘Was Mother always like this? Somehow she didn’t seem so at Abbots Puissants. Or was I too much of a kid to notice? It’s rotten of me to criticize her when she’s been so good to me always. Only I wish she wouldn’t treat me still as though I were about six years old. Oh, well, I suppose she can’t help it. I don’t think I shall ever marry –’
And suddenly he jerked out abruptly, urged thereto by intense nervousness.
‘I say, Mother. I’m thinking of taking Music at Cambridge.’
There, it was out! He had said it.
Myra, distracted from her account of the Armstrongs’ cook, said vaguely:
‘But, darling, you always were so unmusical. You used to be quite unreasonable about it.’
‘I know,’ said Vernon gruffly. ‘But one changes one’s mind about things sometimes.’
‘Well, I’m very glad, dear. I used to play quite brilliant pieces myself when I was a young girl. But one never keeps up anything when one marries.’
‘I know. It’s a wicked shame,’ said Joe hotly. ‘I don’t mean to marry – but if I did, I’d never give up my own career. And that reminds me, Aunt Myra, I’ve just got to go to London to study if I’m ever going to be any good at modelling.’
‘I’m sure Mr Bradford –’
‘Oh, damn Mr Bradford! I’m sorry, Aunt Myra, but you don’t understand. I’ve got to study – hard. And I must be on my own. I could share diggings with another girl –’
‘Joe, darling, don’t be so absurd.’ Myra laughed. ‘I need my little Joe here. I always look on you as my daughter, you know, Joe, dear.’
Joe wriggled.
‘I really am in earnest, Aunt Myra. It’s my whole life.’
This tragic utterance only made her aunt laugh more.
‘Girls often think like that. Now, don’t let’s spoil this happy evening by quarrelling.’
‘But will you really seriously consider it?’
‘We must see what Uncle Sydney says.’
‘It’s nothing to do with him. He’s not my uncle. Surely, if I like, I can take my own money –’
‘It isn’t exactly your own money, Joe. Your father sends it to me as an allowance for you – though I’m sure I would be willing to have you without any allowance at all – and knows you are well and safely looked after with me.’
‘Then I suppose I’d better write to Father.’
She said it valiantly, but her heart sank. She had seen her father twice in ten years, and the old antagonism held between them. The present plan doubtless commended itself to Major Waite. At the cost of a few hundreds a year, the problem of his daughter was lifted off his hands. But Joe had no money of her own. She doubted very much if her father would make her any allowance at all if she broke away from Aunt Myra and insisted on leading her own life.
Vernon murmured to her:
‘Don’t be so damned impatient, Joe. Wait till I’m twenty-one.’
That cheered her a little. One could always depend on Vernon.
Myra asked Vernon about the Levinnes. Was Mrs Levinne’s asthma any better? Was it true that they spent almost all of their time in London nowadays?
‘No, I don’t think so. Of course, they don’t go down to Deerfields much in the winter, but they were there all the autumn. It’ll be jolly to have them next door when we go back to Abbots Puissants, won’t it?’
His mother started, and said in a flustered sort of voice:
‘Oh, yes – very nice.’
She added almost immediately:
‘Your Uncle Sydney is coming round to tea. He’s bringing Enid. By the way, I don’t have late dinner any more. I really think it suits me better to have a good sit down meal at six.’
‘Oh!’ said Vernon, rather taken aback.
He had an unreasoning prejudice against those meals. He disliked the juxtaposition of tea and scrambled eggs, and rich plum cake. Why couldn’t his mother have proper meals like other people? Of course, Uncle Sydney and Aunt Carrie always had high tea. Bother Uncle Sydney! All this was his fault.
His thought stopped – checked. All what? He couldn’t answer – didn’t quite know. But, anyway, when he and his mother went back to Abbots Puissants, everything would be different.
Uncle Sydney arrived very soon – very bluff and hearty, a little stouter than of old. With him came Enid, his third daughter. The two eldest were married, and the two youngest were in the schoolroom.
Uncle Sydney was full of jokes and fun. Myra looked at her brother admiringly. Really, there was nobody like Syd! He made things go.
Vernon laughed politely at his uncle’s jokes which he privately thought both stupid and boring.
‘I wonder where you buy your tobacco in Cambridge,’ said Uncle Sydney. ‘From a pretty girl, I’ll be bound. Ha! Ha! Myra, the boy’s blushing – actually blushing.’
‘Stupid old fool,’ thought Vernon disdainfully.
‘And where do you buy your tobacco, Uncle Sydney?’ said Joe, valiantly entering the lists.
‘Ha! Ha!’ trumpeted Uncle Sydney. ‘That’s a good one! You’re a smart girl, Joe. We won’t tell your Aunt Carrie the answer to that, eh?’
Enid said very little but giggled a good deal.
‘You ought to write to your cousin,’ said Uncle Sydney. ‘He’d like a letter, wouldn’t you, Vernon?’
‘Rather,’ said Vernon.
‘There you are,’ said Uncle Sydney. ‘What did I tell you, miss? The child wanted to, but was shy. She’s always thought a lot of you, Vernon. But I mustn’t tell tales out of school, hey, Enid?’
Later, after the heavy composite meal was ended, he talked to Vernon at some length of the prosperity of Bent’s.
‘Booming, my boy, booming.’
He went into long financial explanations, profits had doubled, he was extending the premises – and so on, and so on.
Vernon much preferred this style of conversation. Not being the least interested, he could abstract his attention. An encouraging monosyllable was all that was needed from time to time.
Uncle Sydney talked on, developing the fascinating theme of the Power and Glory of Bent’s, World without End, Amen.
Vernon thought about the book on musical instruments which he had bought that morning and read coming down in the train. There was a terrible lot to know. Oboes – he felt he was going to have ideas about oboes. And violas – yes, certainly, violas.
Uncle Sydney’s talk made a pleasant accompaniment like a remote double bass.
Presently Uncle Sydney said he must be getting along. There was more facetiousness – should or should not Vernon kiss Enid good night?
How idiotic people were. Thank goodness he’d soon be able to get up to his own room.
Myra heaved a happy sigh as the door closed.
‘Dear me,’ she murmured, ‘I wish your father had been here. We’ve had such a happy evening. He would have enjoyed it.’
‘A jolly good thing he wasn’t,’ said Vernon. ‘I don’t remember he and Uncle Sydney ever hitting it off really well.’
‘You were only a little boy. They were the greatest of friends, and your father was always happy when I was. Oh, dear, how happy we were together.’
She raised a handkerchief to her eyes. Vernon stared at her. For a moment he thought: ‘This is the most magnificent loyalty.’ And then suddenly: ‘No, it isn’t. She really believes it.’
Myra went on in a soft reminiscent tone.
‘You were never really fond of your father, Vernon. I think it must have grieved him sometimes. But then, you were so devoted to me. It was quite ridiculous.’
Vernon said suddenly and violently, and with a strange feeling that he was defending his father by saying so:
‘Father was a brute to you.’
‘Vernon, how dare you say such a thing. Your father was the best man in the world.’
She looked at him defiantly. He thought: ‘She’s seeing herself being heroic. “How wonderful a woman’s love can be – protecting her dead,” – that sort of thing. Oh! I hate it all. I hate it all.’
He mumbled something, kissed her, and went up to bed.
Later in the evening Joe tapped at his door and was bidden to enter. Vernon was sitting, sprawled out in a chair. The book on musical instruments lay on the floor beside him.
‘Hallo, Joe. God, what a beastly evening!’
‘Did you mind it so much?’
‘Didn’t you? It’s all wrong. What an ass Uncle Sydney is. Those idiotic jokes! It’s all so cheap.’
‘H’m,’ said Joe. She sat down thoughtfully on the bed and lit a cigarette.
‘Don’t you agree?’
‘Yes – at least I do in a way.’
‘Spit it out,’ said Vernon encouragingly.
‘Well, what I mean is, they’re happy enough.’
‘Who?’
‘Aunt Myra. Uncle Sydney. Enid. They’re a united happy lot, thoroughly content with one another. It’s we who are wrong, Vernon. You and I. We’ve lived here all these years – but we don’t belong. That’s why – we’ve got to get out of it.’
Vernon nodded thoughtfully.
‘Yes, Joe, you’re right. We’ve got to get out of it.’
He smiled happily, because the way was so clear.
Twenty-one … Abbots Puissants … Music …