His Might-have-been Mother-in-law.
At Woodhouse, Patty opened the door to him. She started, and looked embarrassed.
“Is it you Mr Noon! Come in.” Then in a lower tone: “I’ve got Mrs Bostock here. Poor thing, I’m sorry for her. But perhaps you’d rather not see her?”
“What do you think?” he said.
Patty pursed up her mouth.
“Oh — as you please. She’s quite harmless.”
“All right.”
He took off his hat and marched into the room. Mrs Bostock fluttered from her chair. Patty came in wagging herself fussily as she walked, and arching her eyebrows with her conspicuously subtle smile.
“What a coincidence, Mrs Bostock! This is Mr Noon.”
Mrs Bostock, who at a nearer view was seen to have a slipshod, amiable cunning in her eyes, shook hands and said she hoped she saw him well. Patty settled herself with her ivory hands in her dark-brown lap, and her ivory face flickering its important smile, and looked from one to the other of her guests.
“How remarkable you should have come just at this minute, Mr Noon! Mrs Bostock has just brought this book of yours. I believe you lent it Emmie.”
Gilbert eyed the treatise on conic sections.
“Yes,” he said, “I did.”
“It was my mistake as did it,” said Mrs Bostock, with that slip-shod repentance of her nature. “I picked it up and said ‘Whose is this book about Comic Sections?’ I thought it was a comic, you see, not noticing. And our Dad twigged it at once. ‘Give it here,’ he said. And he opened it and saw the name. If I’d seen it I should have put it back on the shelf and said nothing.”
“How very unfortunate,” Patty said. “May I see?”
She took the book, read the title, and laughed sharply.
“A mathematical work?” she said, wrinkling up her eyes at Gilbert. Not that she knew any more about it, really, than Mrs Bostock did. She saw the Trinity College stamp, and the name, Gilbert Noon, written on the fly leaf.
“What a curious handwriting you have, Mr Noon,” she said, looking up at him from under her dark brows. He did not answer. People had said it so often. He wrote in an odd, upright manner, rather as if his letters were made up out of crochets and quavers and semibreves, very picturesque and neat.
“If I’d opened it I should have guessed, though I didn’t know the name any more than he did. But our Dad was too sharp for me. I tried to pass it off. It was no good though,” said Mrs Bostock. She had a half-amused look, as if the intrigue pleased her.
“So it all came out?” asked Patty.
“Ay, I’m sorry to say. As soon as our Emmie come in he showed it her and said ‘I’m goin’ to Haysfall Technical with this.’ And she, silly like, instead of passing it off, flew at him and tried to snatch it from him. That just pleased our Dad. I said to her after: ‘Why you silly thing, what did you let on for? Why didn’t you make out you knew nothing!’ And then she flew at me.”
“You must have had a trying time between the two,” said Patty, wrinkling her brows at Noon.
“Oh, I have, I can tell you. He vowed he’d go up to the Tech. with the book, and she said if he did she’d jump in th’ cut. I kept saying to her, why don’t you pass it off with a laugh. But she seemed as if she’d gone beyond it. So he kept the book till this morning. She told me she’d promised to leave it here.”
“You knew,” said Patty; “that Emmie had run away?”
“No,” said Gilbert.
“Gone to our Fanny’s at Eakrast,” said Mrs Bostock. “I had a letter from our Fanny next day, saying she was bad in bed. I should have gone over but I’ve got Elsie with measles.”
“You have your hands full,” said Patty.
“I have, I tell you. I said to our Dad, you can do nothing but drive things from bad to worse. Our Fanny had had the doctor in to her, and he says it’s neuralgia of the stomach. Awful, isn’t it! I know neuralgia of the face is bad enough. I said to our Dad, well, I said, I don’t know whether she’s paying for her own wickedness or for your nasty temper to her, but she’s paying, anyhow.”
“Poor Emmie. And she’s such a gay young thing by nature,” said Patty.
“Oh, she’s full of life. But a wilful young madam, and can be snappy enough with the children. I’ve said to her many a time, you’re like your Dad, you keep your smiles in the crown of your hat, and only put ’em on when you’re going out. She can be a cat, I tell you, at home. She makes her father worse than he would be.”
“I suppose she does,” said Patty.
“Oh, he gets fair wild, and then tries to blame me. I say to him, she’s your daughter, I didn’t whistle her out o’ th’ moon. He’s not bad, you know, if you let him be. He wants managing, then he’s all right. Men doesn’t have to be told too much, and it’s no good standing up to them. That’s where our Emmie makes her mistake. She will fly back at him, instead of keeping quiet. I’m sure, if you answer him back, it’s like pouring paraffin to put a fire out. He flares up till I’m frightened.”
“I’m afraid,” laughed Patty grimly, “I should have to stand up to him.”
“That’s our Emmie. I tell him, if he will make schoolteachers of them, he must expect them to have tongues in their heads.—” Then she turned to Gilbert. “He never did nothing about your book, did he?”
“Yes,” said Gilbert. “I’ve got the sack.”
“Oh how disgusting!” cried Patty.
“Ay, a lot of good that’ll do,” said Mrs Bostock. “It’s like him though. He’ll pull the house down if the chimney smokes.”
“When are you leaving?” said Patty.
“This week-end.”
“Can you believe it!” said Mrs Bostock.
Patty mused for a time.
“Well,” she said, “I must say, your husband has caused a marvellous lot of mischief, Mrs Bostock. He’s fouled his own nest, indeed he has; done a lot of damage to others and no good to himself.”
“No, it’s just like him — but there you are. Those that won’t be ruled can’t be schooled.”
“What is Emmie going to do then?” Gilbert asked.
“Don’t ask me, Mr Noon. She’ll come back when she’s better, I should think: silly thing she is, going off like it.”
“What is her address?”
“Were you thinking of going over on your motor-bike? Well, I’ll back she’ll be pleased. Care of Mrs Harold Wagstaff, School House, Eakrast. He’s one of the schoolmasters, you know, Fanny’s husband. A clever young fellow, come out first class at college. I’m sure you’d get on with him. It’s the fourth house down the lane after the church — house and school combined. You can’t miss it. But it’s a very quiet place, you know. I bet they’re not sorry for a bit of company.”
Gilbert looked down his nose rather, for Mrs Bostock continually glanced sideways at him, approvingly, and he knew she was quite comfortable, assuming in him a prospective, or at least a possible son-in-law. Not that she was making any efforts herself towards the status of mother-in-law. But there was never any knowing what the young people would do, and she was quite willing, whichever way it was. She was quite ready to be agreeable, whichever way things went.
And this was almost as disconcerting to Mr Gilbert as the old man’s tantrum of hostility had been. Moreover that neuralgia of the stomach was worrying him. How easily it might mean an incipient Noon — or, since it is a wise father that knows his own child — an incipient little Emmie, an Emmeling. The thought of this potential Emmeling was rather seriously disconcerting to our friend. He had certain standards of his own, one of them being a sort of feeling that if you put your foot in it, you must clean your own shoe, and not expect someone else to do it. At the same time he was determined to clear out of the whole show.
Mrs Bostock rose, and must be hurrying back to her home. Gilbert rose too.
“Oh but you’ll stay and have a cup of tea,” Patty cried. “You’re sure you can’t stay, Mrs Bostock?”
“I can’t, thank you. I s’ll have our master home at half-past five, and the children’s teas to get, besides our Elsie. Thank you all the same, I’m sure. I’m sure you and Mr Goddard has been very kind to our Emmie. I’m sure I don’t know what she’d have done without Mr Goddard.”
“Oh he’s a friend in need,” said Patty, with a curl of the lip.
“He is, bless him.”
And the mother of the Bostocks took her leave.
Patty rang at once for tea, and sat herself down by the fire in the twilight. Gilbert had remained. It was too late to get to Eakrast that night.
“Well,” said Patty, settling her skirts over her knees in a way she had: “you’ve had quite an adventure.” And she smiled her wrinkled smile. She reminded Gilbert for a moment of one of those wrinkle-faced ivory demons from China. But that was because he was in a temper, and rather in a funk.
“If you look on it as an adventure,” he said.
“Well — how else? Not as a tragedy, I hope. And not altogether a comedy. Too many people have had to smart. I guess Emmie Bostock feels anything but comic at this moment.” This in an admonitory tone.
“Why?” said Gilbert.
“Why!” replied Patty, curling her lip in some scorn of such a question. “I should have thought it was very obvious. A poor girl lying ill—”
“What of?”
“Well — neuralgia of the stomach, they say. I expect it’s some sort of gastritis—”
“You don’t think it’s a baby—”
Even Patty started at the bluntness of the question.
“No. I can’t say. I’ve had no suggestion of such a thing. I hope not, indeed. That would be a calamity. Did you say you were going over?”
“Yes. I’m going to ask her.”
“Yes. So you should. And if it were so — would you marry her?”
“What do you think?”
“I don’t know. What do you fee?”
“Me? Nothing very pleasant.”
“No — so I should imagine, so I should imagine. You’ve got yourself into a nasty position—”
“Not I. If a lot of fools make a lot of fuss, why should I blame myself for something that’s only natural, anyhow.”
“Natural — yes — maybe. But if Emmie Bostock is going to become a mother, and you’re not going to marry her — or perhaps you are—”
“No I’m not.”
“No, you’re not! Well then!”
“I can’t help it,” said Gilbert.
“That is no solution of her problem,” said Patty.
“I didn’t invent the problem,” said Gilbert.
“Who did then?”
“Her father, society, and fools.”
“You had no hand in it, then. You had no finger in the pie?”
“Be hanged to fingers,” said Gilbert.
“Well then!” said Patty, starting and looking round as the woman came in with the tray.
“Do you mind lighting up, Mrs Prince!”
Then, changing the subject slightly, she spoke of Lewie and his doings, until the woman went out of the room.
“Mind,” said Patty, pouring out the tea. “I’m not so foolish as to think that you ought to marry the girl, if she is in trouble—”
“Thank you,” said Gilbert, taking his cup.
“No. I think that would be throwing good money after bad, so to speak. But surely some of the responsibility is yours. The woman isn’t going to be left to suffer everything.”
“What a damned lot of fool’s rot it is,” said Gilbert, becoming angry as he felt the crown of fatherhood being pressed rather prickly on his brow.
“Yes, it is! It is! There should be a provision for the woman in these matters. There should be a State Endowment of Motherhood, there should be a removal of the disgraceful stigma on bastardy. There should be. But there isn’t. And so what are you going to do?”
“Find out first,” said Gilbert, rising and buttoning his coat.
“Oh, but finish your tea,” said Patty.
“I’ve done, thank you.”
“But you can’t ride to Eakrast tonight.”
“Yes I can.”
“Dear me. But leave it till tomorrow — do. Wait till Lewie comes.”
“No thanks. I’ll go and make sure, anyhow.”
As a matter of fact, State Endowment of Motherhood and the stigma on bastardy had done for him. The wind had gone all out of his sails as completely as if Patty had put two cannon-balls through him, and the ship of his conversation could make no more headway on the ruffled waters of her tea-table. Was he to lie there like a water-logged hulk? Was he to sit in that smothering arm-chair with his cup on his knee and a scone in his fingers, sinking deeper and deeper through the springs of the chair like a leaky wreck foundering? Thank Goodness his legs had taken the matter into their own hands — pardon the Irishism — and had jerked him on to his feet.