MRS. VAN CORN HAD NOT BEEN OUT OF THE HOUSE IN SEVEN months. She could walk perfectly well, although she disliked it; she was not particularly afraid of subways or taxis; she was not pregnant, sick, or discouraged with the things she saw. Mrs. Van Corn had simply not been out of the house because she liked staying inside. “It’s the things that happen to me,” she would explain seriously to her few intimate friends who were allowed inside the house to visit her. “I do so detest mud, and people, and so many ugly things happen … like …” And Mrs. Van Corn would allow her voice to trail off significantly, and whatever friend was listening would nod, and shrug sympathetically, and murmur.
Mrs. Van Corn always referred to the incident of the dog by a significant silence, and her friends always understood. The incident of the dog had been the direct cause of Mrs. Van Corn’s deciding to remain inside the house. She had been outside shopping one day, with George, the chauffeur, waiting carefully outside the doors of the shops, and she had been leaving the hairdresser, displeased at something. She had almost reached the car (with George standing carefully by the open door) when a dog—not a Fifth Avenue dog—had come up and put its head under her skirt. “His nose, you know,” Mrs. Van Corn subsequently explained, faintly. It had been necessary for George to help her carefully into the car and take her home immediately. When she reached home and had been assisted to her room, Mrs. Van Corn concluded that she did not belong in the outside world, and made her decision to stay at home.
“After all,” she said, “there’s no need to expose oneself needlessly to these things.” And so Mrs. Van Corn stayed at home. Mr. Van Corn, who went out every day, brought her back news of the outside world (“I saw Mark Carstairs the other day, and he sends his regards and asks may he call …”), and Mrs. Van Corn’s son, Howard, who was usually away at college, brought home occasional college acquaintances to cheer his mother up.
Mrs. Van Corn was never bored. There was much to do around the house, and there were always her friends. She rested comfortably, fragile in lace, in a quiet room and waited for nice people to come to her, and nice people came, chatted, and departed. Rarely was Mrs. Van Corn disturbed by her guests. Perhaps one of them would speak loudly—this happened infrequently—and the guest would not return. “I can’t bear harshness,” Mrs. Van Corn would say afterward, appealingly. “I can’t endure unpleasantness, you know.” And so, when Howard came unexpectedly home from college to meet his mother’s gracious kiss, and her charmed “Oh, is it vacation again, my dear?”—when Howard came home, he hesitated before speaking to his mother about the very urgent matter that had brought him to her. He sat instead at her feet, upon an embroidered pillow that Mrs. Van Corn kept for her lapdog, and spoke to her softly and graciously. But when conversation had died, and Mrs. Van Corn was sitting with her hands in her lap gazing wistfully upon space, Howard ventured:
“Mother … I’m a little worried.”
“Yes, dear?” His mother’s eyes rested upon him tenderly.
“I don’t suppose you’ve heard … It’s about conscription.”
“You see, they want to take people about my age and make them join a sort of army …”
“An army, my dear?”
“Well … yes. A sort of army.”
“But are we at war? I mean … I’m afraid I don’t quite understand, Howard.”
“Not war,” Howard said, stumbling a little. “It’s for peace, somehow, Mother. They take all the boys between the ages of twenty-one and thirty-one, I think, and they train them to be soldiers in case there is a war. Understand?”
Mrs. Van Corn nodded seriously.
“And they make them go, even if they don’t want to go, and I don’t want to go.”
“Why not?”
“Because … well, I want to finish college, and I don’t want to be in an army …”
Mrs. Van Corn was trying very hard to understand. “But, dear, I don’t quite see. Won’t all your young friends be with you? I mean, won’t it be quite gay for you?”
“But it will be so dreadful. I’ll have to drill all day, and work, and learn to shoot a gun …”
Mrs. Van Corn leaned back with her eyes closed, and Howard paused, contrite.
“Mother, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to say anything to distress you. Just, about the guns … Well, you see why I would prefer not to go …”
Mrs. Van Corn lifted her hand to her cheek. “Please, Howard,” she said. “Please don’t discuss the details with me anymore.”
“Will you make my father fix it so I don’t have to go, then?”
“I prefer not to think about it,” Mrs. Van Corn said.
Howard waited for a moment, and then he began again. “Mother,” he said.
“Mother, there’s going to be a war, you know.”
“Is there, dear?” asked Mrs. Van Corn, obviously believing that the subject had been changed.
“Very soon, Mother. Does it worry you?”
“Your father mentioned it. He said it would be a good thing. He said we might do worse than go to war. War, he says, is a noble thing.” Mrs. Van Corn was quite tired out from the effort of remembering all this. She lay back again.
“People like my father,” said Howard desperately, “believe in war as a benefit to mankind, because it solves unemployment and things.”
Mrs. Van Corn nodded. “Perhaps it does,” she said.
“But, Mother,” Howard said, “if I were in this peacetime army thing, I would have to go to war.”
“Is there a war?”
“There will be.”
“And you will go to war, my dear?”
“If I am in the army I will.”
Mrs. Van Corn opened her eyes, and looked seriously at Howard. “My dear,” she said, “I would be proud of you.”
Howard stared. “Why?”
“War is a noble thing,” Mrs. Van Corn said, and closed her eyes again.
“But I might get shot, or wounded, Mother,” Howard said. “Mother,” he added urgently, “you wouldn’t want to see me blind, would you? Or shell-shocked?”
“Please, Howard!” his mother said, sitting up straight.
“But you wouldn’t like to have to take care of me, would you?”
“There are institutions for such cases,” Mrs. Van Corn said vaguely.
Howard took a deep breath. “Suppose I was killed, Mother?”
“Your grandfather fought in the Civil War, my dear,” Mrs. Van Corn said firmly. “And he was a hero.”
Howard stood up. “Very well, Mother,” he said. “There is only one thing for me to do. I shall get married, and so be exempt from conscription.”
“Married?” Mrs. Van Corn exclaimed. “Why, Howard, my dear boy!”
“Immediately,” Howard said.
“Some nice girl,” Mrs. Van Corn said dreamily, “some sweet girl.”
“Then I won’t have to go,” Howard said, almost tearfully.
“Bring her up to dinner soon,” Mrs. Van Corn said.
“But, Mother—”
“After all, my dear, you are getting on to the age when a man must assume his responsibilities. And I think that a wife … and a grandson,” Mrs. Van Corn went on rather more bleakly. “But a young wife,” she added happily. “Bring her soon, really, Howard. Tomorrow?”
“But …” Howard began. Then: “Yes, Mother,” he said, controlling his voice, and then, immediately: “Will you excuse me, please, Mother?”
“Of course, my dear boy,” Mrs. Van Corn said, opening her eyes. “Run along, my dear.”
As Howard left the room, Mrs. Van Corn watched him affectionately. “The dear boy,” she said to herself. “A wife! Such a gay wedding. And clothes!” I shall go out to the wedding, Mrs. Van Corn decided suddenly. I am sure everything will be charming at my own son’s wedding. Then: “The dear boy,” she said, and let her eyes close again.