Giant’s Bread · Book II · II · Chapter 2 2 1

I

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 knickknacks 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.