Three Sons (Timeless Classics Collection) Read online

  In the Island nothing ever seemed to change. Although it was late summer, the aubretia and alyssum still flowered in patches of startling white and mauve-pink. The jackdaws still fought one another. The trees and the palms and the yuccas blew in the faint wind. He had always admired the exquisite position of Ventnor, and had disliked the houses of so unfortunate an era spattered about it. But to-day in the sunshine even the slate roofs were pretty, and large purple clematis mingling with cerise button roses, had done their best to dress the facades delicately. The hot flower-scent rose, and as he entered the garden of the little terrace he brushed a spreading bush of ‘Old Man’, and its exquisite smell seemed to linger with him.

  Hilda opened the door; she looked exactly the same, in one of those rather drab cotton frocks of hers, and a pair of linen shoes on her bare feet. Apparently she had not expected him, for she looked at him in amazement, yet quickly recovered herself. He was the one at the disadvantage, which he felt was wrong, for after all he was the innocent party.

  ‘Hello, Marty?’

  She led the way inside, and in the sitting-room her mother was reigning over the head of the table with the Sunday lunch displayed. He had the impression of Mrs. Thorne’s net collar propped by the celluloid supports, and the strong smell of hot roast lamb and mint sauce, and the odour of black currant pie coming from the kitchen.

  ‘We can’t possibly talk here,’ he said angrily.

  Mrs. Thorne looked at him. Always before he had thought of her as being dignified in a particular way, now he considered her to be a vampire. She was probably the one who had sucked the blood out of Hilda, and had persuaded her to stay here. Her Sunday lunch being of some importance to her, she did not intend to miss it because Marty had come down. She said so.

  ‘Well, you lunch with me at the Royal?’ he asked his wife.

  ‘I’d rather not. I’ve got nothing to say to you.’

  ‘But damn it all, I’m entitled to some explanation?’ If he wasn’t careful he would start blustering and he did not want to do that. They ate a laborious lunch, roast lamb, black currant pie, then a long sojourn with cheese and biscuits which irritated him. Afterwards Mrs. Thorne sat back composedly, having topped up the meal with a nice cup of tea as she always did, and he could see the first traces of oncoming repose lying heavily on her eyelids. Marty persuaded Hilda to come out into the little garden to talk.

  The place was sweet with summer, and hot in the sun. They sat uncomfortably on a rustic seat, and he lit a cigarette uneasily, feeling unhappy about the present position.

  ‘Hilda, I can’t possibly let you go like this. I love you too much. I know we’ve made mistakes, but then haven’t we all? Marriage is no good unless there is a certain amount of give and take in it. I’ll start again. I’ll do anything you want, if only you’ll come back, but truly I can’t bear things as they are.’

  ‘It’s too late, Marty.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘I suppose I’m not really of your world. I ought to have known that from the first. I was wrong there.’

  ‘But being of my world was nothing to do with it. I chose you because I loved you so much.’

  ‘I know. We did love one another then, but the career came in the way. You were a stone wall.’

  ‘Damn it all, I don’t understand this stone wall talk. There’s too much of it in our family.’

  ‘You understand it when your father produces it; it is the same to me when you do it, just the same, and it hurts just as much. I’m sorry for all the women in your family; for your mother, for Penelope, and for Luke’s wife when she comes.’

  ‘Mother seems happy enough. She knows how to deal with it.’

  ‘Does she?’ For one instant she looked at him, and he saw on Hilda’s face something that he could not believe to be true. It changed instantly.

  ‘Hilda, I have loved you.’

  ‘But you’ve closed up. There is nothing open and frank and real between us any more. You’ve shut up, and I’m shut out. I’ve tried to tear it down and approach you, I’ve tried to get near you. Heaven knows how I’ve tried! But nothing ever happens; you agree to everything I say and shut yourself up even closer. It isn’t any good, Marty, I’ve only one life to live, and I won’t live it this way.’

  He would never have believed that she could be so obstinate, and the hope died within him. He could feel the wall enclosing him again; hurt, dismayed, even afraid of himself, he was retiring behind it. He couldn’t say the things he had intended to say. The warmth in him which was completely confined called to him to break through and get to her, but he wasn’t strong enough.

  ‘Of course if that’s how you feel, Hilda …’

  ‘It is how I feel. There isn’t any other man, there never will be. I only want to stay here in the Island, and ‒ if I can ‒ to forget you. I don’t believe I can, but I’ll try.’

  ‘And what about me?’

  ‘You’ve got your career, Marty, that’s more than I have got. It must have been the thing you wanted all the time, and you’ve got it. But now you’ve got it without me.’

  She sounded very bitter. ‘I might want a divorce,’ he reminded her acidly; he did not intend to stay single just to please her. The reaction was to run off with somebody else, and quickly, just to show her that he could do it! ‘I suppose you wouldn’t be a dog in the manger?’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t believe in divorce.’

  He got up slowly. Perhaps he’d been a fool in coming down here to-day! He did not say good-bye, he could not do that, but he made a self-conscious exit, a stage exit. As he went down the garden without looking at her, he passed the bush of Old Man, and again caught the strong, sweet fragrance of it which is so sentimental. He would never smell it again without remembering the island and this most dreadful moment.

  He went up the street, blind to the sunlight and the shadow, to the palms rippling in the light wind, and the fritter of linnet’s wings in an acacia. He felt terrible, and in his ears there rang Swinburne’s lines, unforgettable, something that he could not thrust out of his mind, even though he wanted to so desperately:

  O fair green-girdled mother of mine,

  Sea, that art clothed with the sun and the rain,

  Thy sweet hard kisses are strong like wine,

  Thy large embraces are keen with pain.

  Save me and hide me with all thy waves,

  Find me one grave of thy thousand graves,

  Those pure cold populous graves of thine,

  Wrought without hand in a world without stain.

  BOOK FOUR

  LUKE

  X

  THE CHILD

  When Luke was to be born, the first world war started. Carolyn walking clumsily in the garden in the early days of that August, wondering if at last she was to be vouchsafed a daughter, wondering if this was the hour of England’s greatest triumph, wondering if the world would ever be quite the same thing again, came to a halt by the honeysuckle.

  It was the late one, in a tawny riot of amber and coral on the wire arch by the shed. As she stood there she felt that little squirming pain of birth. Within a few hours her girl child would come. Her girl child. She was so hopeful for that.

  Both of them had set their hearts on this one being a girl all through the pregnancy, and Carolyn had noted little differences from the way that she had carried last time, and accepted them each as being hopeful.

  She went indoors, going up the garden as a pilgrim who after long voyagings reaches the shrine that he set out to seek in the beginning. She went up to her room, with the blinds half drawn to keep the heat out. Quietly she began to lay out the baby clothes that had been Adam’s and Marty’s first, then sat down for a last note in her diary. Looking from the tall window, she could see the little boys on the lawn, one on a rug with Nanny, the other on a rug with a maid under the shadow of the beech tree.

  Then, even as she looked, she knew that the new baby was in a hurry, and sent for the nurse, a large, methodical y
oung woman who had gone for a ‘nice lie-down’, with an Ethel M. Dell and three ‘My Queen’s’ bought from the village shop. The house spun into vigorous action, and at six that evening when the little boys were being bathed by their separate nurses, Carolyn heard the wailing of the new baby.

  ‘A girl?’ she besought old Dr. Twedesdale.

  ‘I’m awfully sorry. I’m afraid it’s another boy.’

  Yet, when she saw Luke, she could not regret him. He was much like the other two at the same age; all of them were born nut-brown, changing to blond in a few weeks. He weighed a couple of ounces more than Marty had done, and was quietly good. She had the feeling as she clasped him to her, that this was her own child. More than the other two had been. He was hers.

  James never quite forgave Luke for the fault of his sex. It was even aggravated by the fact that within eighteen months Carolyn gave birth to a premature still born daughter, whilst Luke was cutting his back teeth, and scrambling all over the nursery floor pushing a foot before him. He did not deign to crawl as the others did; he sat down to it, and a very satisfactory mode of progress he found it to be.

  When he learnt to speak, he found that words were difficult, yet in spite of the difficulty, insisted upon calling himself by his two names ‘’Ukef’ancis’ in one long name. For years he was called ’Ukef’ancis by his brothers.

  Gayer than either of them, he took knocks cheerfully; his bump of curiosity which was so highly developed led him into mischief; he could never let anything alone once he became curious about it. Whilst Marty even yet believed in Father Christmas, Luke aged two discovered that it was Daddy, by getting out of bed, and awaiting him at the stair head. Carolyn had told James that he was hurrying things too much, but James had a long law report he wanted to read, and rushed, with the result that his youngest son discovered the truth.

  ‘No wed toat,’ said the indignant Luke.

  ‘I’m only understudying,’ said James, who could not deny the role, being caught with a skin pony under his arm, and a Hornby train, a toy motor-car and several books.

  ‘No wed toat’ was all Luke said mournfully. He took it as an insult that his father had not dressed for the part.

  Adam was wholly his father’s son and exactly like him; Marty had some of Carolyn in him; Luke was entirely hers. Early in life he sided with her. She knew that from the day at lunch when the elder two had mumps, and Luke’s high chair had been brought down to stand beside her own. James was in one of his moods, hardly speaking; she kept saying, ‘Oh James, James, whatever do you think about all the time?’

  Beside her a small voice said, ‘Mummy, I don’t fink James is listening.’

  Once Carolyn said that a son was your son ‘till he gets him a wife’, and she said it rather regretfully. After all, a woman expected her sons to grow up, marry and leave her.

  ‘I shan’t marry,’ said Luke, aged six. ‘I don’t think it’s worth it.’

  ‘Really Luke, do talk about what you understand.’

  ‘Oh, but Mummy, I do,’ said Luke, ‘I’ve watched you and Daddy.’

  She couldn’t stop herself from laughing. Luke had her measure every time. She hoped inside her heart that Luke wouldn’t marry, yet was angry with herself, for every unselfish woman wants her children to marry and be happy, and true happiness lies only in satisfactory marriage. Yet, in spite of that, she wanted ’Ukef’ancis for herself.

  Luke’s career at school was unsatisfactory. He started at a small but select girls’ school in Benfields, taken to and fro at an early age by his mother in a car. They were lovely mornings when he sat beside her, feet stuck straight out, staring earnestly ahead of him whilst she drove.

  ‘Like school, ’Ukef’ancis?’

  ‘Any’fing for a change,’ he replied gravely. He still found words difficult.

  His principle at school seemed to be to learn as little as he could, and kiss all the girls, who apparently liked it very much. The headmistress objected to this outward and visible sign of a strongly affectionate nature; Luke, ignoring her interference, well meant as it might be, was finally asked to take himself elsewhere.

  Too young to join Marty at his prep, a governess was obtained, and she immediately launched herself into a disastrous affair with the gardener, a virile, swarthy young man of great promise. Luke thought this was a great joke, watching the procedure from the rhubarb bed where he played Red Indians under the large concealing leaves. He saw too much and the governess had to disappear. The gardener also, James being scrupulously fair, so that the venture with home tuition was doubly unfortunate.

  Luke ran wild for a term, the best term of the year, Easter with birds’ nesting, primrose collecting, and all the rest of it, then he went off to school with a trousseau of diminutive flannel suits, and a delightful tuck box. At Benfields he suffered agonies, for the porter dropped the tuck box and he was terrified that the jam might be spoilt. In London it was discovered that his trunk had been left behind.

  ‘Oh ’Ukef’ancis, what shall we do now?’ asked Carolyn, really annoyed.

  ‘I’ve got my tuck box,’ he said unperturbed. He had personally superintended that being put into the van.

  His school reports were dreadful.

  He had no sense of responsibility or of tradition, and was quite unashamed if he learnt nothing. Unfortunately he was what is known as a ‘leading spirit’, he influenced other boys, even the ones older than himself, and he took a delight in it. The only talent he had lay with a pencil; he had always been able to draw exceedingly well.

  As he grew older, anxiety was entertained as to whether it would be ever possible to push him through the exam that would get him into Eton where his elder brothers were. The headmaster was firmly convinced that Luke would fail in this, and wrote beseeching letters to his family to influence him in the right direction.

  ‘It would be such a disgrace,’ Carolyn told him. James never dealt with the boys, she always had to do her best by them.

  ‘Why?’ asked Luke.

  ‘Because nice boys don’t fail for the common entrance. Look at your brothers.’

  ‘You can’t count Adam. He’s just a stodge.’

  ‘Adam works very hard.’

  ‘Well, I don’t want to be like him. If that’s where work gets you, I’d rather stay where I am.’

  In her heart she agreed, but Luke always wore her down in an argument. ‘Where do you suppose you’ll go if you don’t go to Eton?’ she asked.

  ‘Borstal!’ said Luke calmly.

  Luke never got the chance to fail, because he became ill the very term that he should have begun his final onslaught, and the school doctor was not satisfied with him. Luke had never been delicate. He was one of those vigorous boys bursting with vitality and keenly alive, much more so than most. It had never occurred to Carolyn that anything could be really wrong with him, and she was annoyed when a specialist was called to him and certain tests made.

  ‘But why? What can be the matter?’ she asked, feeling bemused about it.

  James did not understand it either. But then James was so remote a personality these days, that she did not expect him to help her very much. However, they both took Luke up to the specialist, who kept such a jolly Father Christmassy demeanour throughout the interview that both the grown-ups were surprised that he should drop it the moment they were alone with him. They had thought that it must be part of his personality.

  ‘But it can’t be T.B.?’ said Carolyn. ‘He’s had heaps of fresh air, and good food, and the most healthy life. Just the same life that his two brothers had, and they’re all right.’

  ‘T.B. is born in some of us.’

  ‘But it’s not in the family on either side?’ She turned in horror to James. ‘Is it?’

  ‘I believe that I had a grandfather who died of galloping consumption, but then in those days everybody had it. You were considered rather démodé if you hadn’t got it. Those times were very different.’

  ‘I’m afraid the tests are positive.�
�� The specialist was a nice man, Carolyn felt, but, the Father Christmassy aura having gone, he seemed pale and colourless. For a short while she almost collapsed; her heart was ominous, she could feel it as a cavity, not as a heart any more. She knew that her favourite child was threatened, and the threat terrified her. Adam had never mattered, Marty only a little, but Luke a lot! She had gone along in her fool’s paradise believing that T.B. was out of date; it was a Victorian malady under control a long time since. Great-aunts and grandfathers had undoubtedly died of it, but that surely had been before the cure was discovered. The specialist looked at her.

  ‘Have you realised the number of sanatoriums in England? Crowds of them. Do you suppose that they would be necessary if people did not contract T.B.?’

  The answer was that she hadn’t thought. No excuse, but it was the complaint one believed to be far off and unreal, something already conquered, yet now here it was in her own child. ‘What do we do?’ she asked.

  They did everything possible. One of the wings of the house was altered, a big balcony capable of taking a bed being built out, the sitting-room fitted with special glass, everything prepared. A nurse came for a time, but Luke reacted wonderfully to the treatment, and was a model patient.

  ‘There’s nothing the matter with me, Mummy. It was just that silly old specialist, he had to do something for his money, surely you can see that?’

  ‘I’m so worried for you, ’Ukef’ancis.’

  ‘You needn’t be! I’m fine.’ His face was lightly tanned, by contrast it made his hair look all the blonder. He had that extreme vitality in his eyes, as though a fire burnt within him and lit his way like a torch. The others had never had it. ‘Oh Luke, I wouldn’t have known what to do if you hadn’t recovered so marvellously.’

  ‘Now don’t start being sloppy over me.’ She sat beside him, his head on her shoulder, her hand in his. He always felt hot, burnt with a dry fever; Marty and Adam had had small sticky hands, Luke was different. Sixteen, and growing-up. It all happened at the time when she was having trouble with Adam at Cambridge; he had lost his head over a girl from Garmeisch (when she came to think about it, how ridiculous it sounded!), and was now wanting to take her out of the restaurant where she worked, and marry her; to cap it all he wished to take Orders against his father’s desires. James had gone off to the restaurant, using some of his skill there, had found the girl, but had also discovered that she had never been to Garmeisch at all but lived in Finsbury, or somewhere like it.