_ PHASE II. THE VISIONARY GLEAM
CHAPTER VI
"Qui n'accepte pas le regret, n'accepte pas la vie."
Nevil's fears were justified to the full. Lady Roscoe was one of those exasperating people of whom one can predict, almost to a word, a look, what their attitude will be on any given occasion. So Nevil, who shirked a "scene"--above all when conducted by Jane--put off telling her the unwelcome news as long as he dared, without running the dire risk of its reaching her "round the corner."
Meantime he was fortified and cheered by a letter from Cuthbert Broome--a shrewd, practical letter amounting to a sober confession of faith in Roy the embryo writer, as in Roy the budding man.
"I don't minimise the risk," he concluded, with his accustomed frankness (no relation to the engaging candour that dances a war-dance on other people's toes), "but, on broad lines, I hereby record my conviction that the son of you two and the grandson of Sir Lakshman Singh can be trusted to go far--to keep his head as well as his feet, even in slippery places. He is eager for knowledge, for work along his own lines. If you dam up this strong current, it may find other outlets, possibly less desirable. I came on a jewel the other day. As it's distinctly applicable, I pass it on.
"'The sole wisdom for man or boy who is haunted with the hovering of unseen wings, with the scent of unseen roses, and the subtle enticement of melodies unheard, is
work. If he follow any of these, they vanish. If he work, they will come unsought ..."
"Well, when Roy goes out, I undertake to provide him with work that will keep his brain alert and his pen busy. That's my proposed contribution to his start in life; and--though I say it!--not to be despised. Tell him I'll bear down upon the Beeches the first available week-end, and talk both your heads off!--Yours ever, C.B."
"After
that," was Nevil's heroic conclusion, "Jane can say what she damn well pleases."
He broke the news to her forthwith--by post; the usual expedient of those who shirk "scenes." He furthermore took the precaution to add that the matter was finally settled.
She replied next morning--by wire. "Cannot understand. Coming down at once."
And, in record time, on the wings of her new travelling car--she came.
As head of the Sinclair clan--in years and worldly wisdom at least--she could do no less. From her point of view, it was Nevil's clear duty to discourage the Indian strain in the boy, as far as that sentimental, headstrong wife of his would permit. But Nevil's sense of duty needed constant galvanising, lest it die of inanition. It was her sacred mission in life to galvanise it, especially in the matter of Roy; and no one should ever say
she shirked a disagreeable obligation. It may safely be added that no one ever did!
Nevil--who would have given a good deal to be elsewhere--awaited her in the library: and at the first shock of their encountering glances, he stiffened all through. He was apt to be restive under advice, and rebellious under dictation; facts none knew better than Jane, who throve on advice and dictation--given, not received! She still affected the neat hard coat and skirt and the neat hard summer hat that had so distressed the awakening beauty-sense of nine-year-old Roy: only, in place of the fierce wing there uprose in majesty a severely wired bow. Jane was so unvarying, outside and in; a worse failing, almost, in the eyes of this hopelessly artistic household, than her talent for pouncing, or advising or making up other people's minds.
But to-day, as she glanced round the familiar room, her sigh--half anger, half bitterness of heart--was genuine. She did care intensely, in her own way, for the brother whom she hectored without mercy. And he too cared--in his own way--more than he chose to reveal. But their love was a dumb thing, rooted in ancestral mysteries. Their surface clash of temperament was more loquacious.
"I suppose we're fairly safe from interruption?" she asked, with ominous emphasis; and Nevil gravely indicated the largest leather chair.
"I believe the others are out," he said, half sitting on the edge of the writing-table and proceeding to light a cigarette. "But, upon my soul, I don't know
why you put yourself out to come down all this way when I told you plainly everything was fixed up."
"You thought I'd swallow that--and keep my mouth shut?" she retorted, bristling visibly. "
I'm no fool, Nevil, if
you are. I
told you how it would be, when you went out in '99. You wouldn't listen then. Perhaps you'll at least have the sense to listen
now?"
Nevil shrugged. "As you've come all this way for the satisfaction of airing your views--I've not much choice in the matter."
And the latitude, thus casually given, she took in full measure. For twenty minutes, by the clock, she aired her views in a stream of vigorous colloquial English, lapsing into ready-made phrases of melodrama, common to the normally inexpressive, in moments of excitement....
To the familiar tuning-up process, Nevil listened unmoved. But his anger rose with her rising eloquence:--the unwilling anger of a cool man, more formidable than mere temper.
Such fine distinctions, however, were unknown to Jane. If you were in a temper, you were in a temper. That was flat. And she rather wanted to rouse Nevil's. Heated opposition would stiffen her own....
"India of all countries in the world!" she culminated--a desperate note invading her wrath. "The one place where he should
not be allowed to sow his wild oats--if the modern anaemic young man has enough red blood in his veins--for that sort of thing. And it's your obvious duty to be quite frank with him on the subject. If you had an ounce of common-sense in your make-up, you'd see it for yourself. But I always say the clever people are the biggest fools. And Roy's in the same boat--being your son. No ballast. All in the clouds.
That's the fruits of Lil's fancy education. And you can't say I didn't warn you. What he needs is discipline--a tight hand. Why not one of the Services? If he gets bitten with India--at his age, it's quite on the cards that he may go turning Hindu--or even repeat
your folly----"
She paused, simply for lack of breath--and became suddenly alive to the set stillness of her brother's face.
"
My folly--as you are pleased to call it," he said with concentrated scorn, "has incidentally made our name famous, and cleared the old place of mortgage. For that reason alone, you might have the grace to refrain from insulting my wife."
She flung up her head, like a horse at a touch of the curb.
"Oh, if it's an insult to speak the simple truth, I'm
quite out of it. I never could call spades agricultural instruments: and I can't start new habits at my time of life. I don't deny you've made a good thing out of your pictures. But no one in their senses
could call your marriage an act of wisdom."
Nevil winced visibly. "I married for the only defensible reason," he said, in a low controlled voice. "And events have more than justified me."
"Possibly--so far as
you're concerned. But you can't get over the fact that--even if Roy marries the best blood of England--his son may revert to type. Dr Simons tells me----"
"
Will you hold your tongue!" Nevil blazed out, in a white fury. "I'll thank you
not to discuss my affairs--or Roy's--with your damned Doctor. And the subject's barred between us--as you're very well aware."
She blenched at the force and fire of his unexpected onslaught, never dreaming how deeply her thrust had gone home.
"Goodness knows it's as painful for me as it is for you----"
"I didn't say it was painful. I said it was barred."
"Well, you goad me into it, with your unspeakable folly; too much under Lil's thumb to check Roy, even for his own good. For heaven's sake, Nevil, put your foot down firmly, for once, and reverse your crazy decision."
He gave her a long, direct look. "Sorry to disappoint, after all the trouble you've taken," he said in a level tone, "but I've already told you the matter's settled. My foot is down on that as firmly as even
you could wish."
"You
mean it?" she gasped, too incredulous for wrath.
"I mean it."
"Yet you see the danger?"
"I see the danger."
The fact that he would not condescend to lie to her eased a little her bitter sense of defeat.
She rose awkwardly--all of a piece.
"Then I have no more to say. I wash my hands of you all. Until you come to your senses, I don't cross this threshold again."
In spite of the threadbare phrases, genuine pain vibrated in her tone.
"Don't rant, old thing. You know you'll never keep it up," Nevil urged more gently than he had spoken yet.
But anger still dominated pain.
"When
I say a thing, I mean it," she retorted stiffly, "as you will find to your cost." Without troubling to answer, he lunged for the door handle; but she waved him aside. "All humbug--playing at politeness--when you've spurned my advice."
"As you please." He stood back for her to pass. "Sorry it's upset you so. But we'll see you here again--when you've got over it."
"The
boy would have got over it in no time," she flung back at him from the threshold. "Mark my words, disaster will come of it. Then perhaps you'll admit I was right."
He felt no call to argue that point. She was gone.... And she had carefully refrained from slamming the door. Somehow that trifling act of restraint impressed him with a sense of finality oddly lacking in her dramatic asseveration.
He stood a few moments staring at the polished oak panels. Then he turned back and sat down in the chair she had occupied; and all the inner tension of the last hour went suddenly, completely to pieces....
It was the penalty of his artist nature, this sharp nervous reaction from strain; and with it came crowding back all the insidious doubts and anxieties that even Lilamani's wisdom had not entirely charmed away. He felt torn at the moment between anger with Roy for causing all this pother; and anger with Jane, who, for all her lack of tenderness and tact, was right--up to a point. It was just Family Herald heroics about "not crossing the threshold." At least--rather to his surprise--he found himself half hoping it was. Roy and Lilamani could frankly detest her--and there an end. Nevil--in spite of unforgiveable interludes--was liable to be tripped up by the fact that, after all, she was his sister; and her aggression was proof that, in her own queer fashion, she loved him. Half the trouble was that the love of each for the other took precisely the form that other could least appreciate or understand: no uncommon dilemma in family life. At all events, he had achieved his declaration of independence. And he had not failed to evoke the "deuce of a row."
With a sigh of smothered exasperation, he leaned forward and hid his face in his hands....
The door opened softly. He started and looked up. It was Roy--in flannels and blazer, his dark hair slightly ruffled: considered dispassionately (and Nevil believed he so considered him) a singularly individual and attractive figure of youth.
At the look in his father's face, he hesitated, wrinkling his brows in a way that recalled his mother.
"Anything wrong, Daddums? I'm fearfully sorry. I came for a book. Is it"--still further hesitation--"Aunt Jane?"
"Why? Have you seen her?" Nevil asked sharply.
"Yes. Was it a meteoric visitation? As I came up the path, she was getting into her car.--And she cut me dead!" He seemed more amused than impressed. Then the truth dawned on him. "Dad--
have you been telling her?
Is she 'as frantic as a skit'?"
Their favourite Hardy quotation moved Nevil to a smile. "She's angry--naturally--because she wasn't consulted," he said (a happy idea). "And--well, she doesn't understand."
"'Course she doesn't. Can she ever?" retorted impertinent youth. "She lacks the supreme faculty--imagination." Which was disrespectful, but unanswerable.
Nevil had long ago recognised the futility of rebuke in the matter of "Aunt Jane"; and it was a relief to find the boy took it that way. So he smiled, merely--or fancied he did. But Roy was quick-sighted; and his first impression had dismayed him.
No hesitation now. He came forward and laid a hand on his father's shoulder. "Dads, don't get worrying over me--out there," he said with shy tenderness that was balm after the lacerating scene Nevil had just passed through. "That'll be all right. Mother explained--beautifully."
But louder than Roy's comfortable assurance sounded within him the parting threat of Jane: "Disaster will come of it.
Then perhaps you'll admit I was right." It shook the foundations of courage. He simply could not stand up to the conjunction of disaster--and Roy. With an effort he freed himself of the insidious thing,--and just then, to his immense surprise, Roy stooped and kissed the top of his head.
"Confound Aunt Jane! She's been bludgeoning you. And you
are worrying. You mustn't--I tell you. Bad for your work. Look here"--a portentous pause. "Shall I chuck it--for the present, anyhow?"
The parental attitude of the modern child has its touching aspect. Nevil looked up to see if Roy were chaffing; and there smote him the queer illusion (rarer now, but not extinct) of looking into his own eyes.
Roy had spoken on impulse--a noble impulse. But he patently meant what he said, this boy stigmatised by Jane as "all in the clouds," and needing a "tight hand." Here was one of those "whimsical and perilous moments of daily life" that pass in a breath; light as thistledown, heavy with complex issues. To Nevil it seemed as if the gods, with ironical gesture, handed him the wish of his heart, saying: "It is yours--if you are fool enough to take it." Stress of thought so warred in him that he came to himself with a fear of having hurt the boy by ungracious silence.
The pause, in fact, had been so brief that Roy had only just become aware that his cherished dream was actually trembling in the balance--when Nevil stood up and faced him, flatly defying Jane and Olympian irony.
"My dear old boy, you shall
not chuck it," he said with smiling decision. "I've never believed in the older generation being a drag on the wheel. And now it's my turn, I must play up. What's life worth without a spice of risk? I took my own--a big one--family or no----"
He broke off--and Roy filled the gap. "You mean--marrying Mother?"
"Yes--just that," he admitted frankly. "The greatest bit of luck in my life. She shared the risk--a bigger one for her. And I'm damned if we'll cheat you of yours. There's a hidden key somewhere that most of us have to find. Yours may be in India--who knows?"
He spoke rapidly, as if anxious to convince himself no less than the boy. And he had his reward.
"Dad--you're simply stunning--you two," Roy said quietly, but with clear conviction.
At that moment the purring of the gong vibrated through the house, and he slipped a hand through his father's arm. "That reminds me--I'm
starving hungry! If they're still out, let's be bold, and propitiate the teapot on our own!"
Lady Roscoe was, after all, a benefactor in her own despite. Her meteoric visitation had drawn these two closer together than they had been since schoolroom days. _