THEY all came home, as people say—though it was no home to which they were coming, and they had been very much at home in their Swiss villa, notwithstanding the portraits of the Swiss owners of the place on all the walls. It is very delightful after a long absence to come home when that familiar place is open and waiting for you, and the children run about the rooms in a tumult of joy, recognising everything, and you settle into your old chair, in your old corner, as if you had never been away. It is quite a different thing when a family comes home to settle down. Looking for a house is apt to be a weary operation, and a small house in London in autumn, in the meantime, is not very gay. But, on the other hand, in October London is not the dismal place it often appears to the stranger: there are still days of bright and sunny weather; the brown grass in the parks has begun to recover itself a little, the trees grow red and yellow, and lend a little light of their own to supplement the skies. Though St. James’s Park is rarely more than in monotone, like a drawing in sepia, the wider breadths between the Marble Arch and Hyde Park Corner are brighter, and there is a little stir in the air of people coming back. It was rather a depressed and downcast family party that arrived after a brief but rough crossing of the Channel and all the wear and tear of the journey—Lady Car very pale, with lines on her forehead that showed all the freshly awakened anxiety with which the sight of her native country, involving, as it did, the renewing of many responsibilities and of life in its commonplace aspect after a long holiday, had filled her; little Janet, very fretful and tired, almost paler than her mother, with her black brow and black hair, and big blue lips accentuating the whiteness of her face; Tom, distracted with the confinement and the impossibility of any play or commotion beyond that which could be carried on within the limited space of a railway carriage, exasperated and exasperating; and an attendant group of tired maids, rendered half frantic by his pranks and the impossibility of keeping him in order. Mr. Beaufort had an immense superiority amid this group. He had not turned a hair, the rough crossing had no effect upon him. He was very kind to little Janet, who had succumbed, and was quietly miserable, lying on a bench, and he took the tenderest care of his wife, who never at the worst moment lost her air of distinction or was humbled to a common level even by the waves of the Channel. His tall figure, in a long ulster, with his fine brown beard blowing a little in the wind, his cigarette always giving forth a curl of dainty smoke, was a comfort to see, even at a distance, facing the breeze at the other end of the ship. Tom, who would not be kept down, clung to his stepfather, whom on other occasions he showed no great love for, trotting after him, standing in his shelter, with little legs set well apart, and now and then a clutch at the ulster to steady himself, characteristically selecting the most sturdy member of the party to hold by. When the party tumbled into the hotel in the winterly evening, half dazed with fatigue, Beaufort was still the master of the situation. He was quite fresh and self-possessed. Coming back to England, which oppressed Lady Car with so many thoughts, did not affect him any more than crossing to Paris, or to Vienna, or to any other capital. The fact of beginning a new chapter of existence did not affect him. He felt it, indeed, to be no new chapter of existence, only a continuance of the former. He was pleased enough to arrive, not sorry to end the wandering, glad enough to settle down. It meant rather rest to him than any excitement of a new beginning. He was half amused at and altogether indulgent and tolerant of Carry’s fancy about not going to her own house. It was, perhaps, a little absurd, for Scotland, of course, was the right place to go to at this time of the year; and to look for a new house in a new place, when a house that belongs to you, in the most eligible position, is standing vacant, was, no doubt, a strange caprice. But if that was how she felt, far should it be from him to cross her. He was not a great sportsman. A day or two’s shooting, even a week or two, perhaps, could not harm any man, but he did not very much care if he never touched a gun. Still it was so obvious that it was the natural place to go to. He smiled to himself as he walked to the club after dinner, taking himself off that she might get to bed, to the rest she wanted so much, at this caprice of hers. Dear Carry, if it had been a much greater matter, so far as he was concerned, she should have her way; but he allowed to himself, with a smile, that it was a little silly. When you have been married for a time you are able to allow this without any derogation to your divinity. He admired and loved her as much as a man could do, but it was a pleasure to feel that a little indulgence had to be exercised, to mingle now and then with his chivalrous reverence and love. He would do nothing to cross her. She should get her house where she pleased, furnish it—with some aid from his own taste—how she pleased, and be happy as she would. He smiled as he walked along the familiar streets; it was a pleasure to be in London again. It was a pleasure to be so well off, he who had often been poorly enough off, doubtful sometimes whether he could afford to order his dinner at the club. All that was over now, and he had no objection to owe it to his wife. What did it matter which of them had the money? Had he possessed it, how gladly would he have spent it upon Carry, to give her everything that heart could desire! This is, when one comes to think of it, the real generosity, the most noble way of taking such a matter. To think that it was not Carry’s money, but the money of Torrance, that made everything so comfortable for them, happily did not dwell in his mind as it did in hers. He did not even think of it—it was so of course, and of course she had purchased this competence which she shared with her second husband by being an excellent wife to the previous husband, and winning his trust and confidence. Mr. Beaufort luckily did not feel that there was any reason for dwelling upon that side of the question.
Next morning the whole party was revived and cheerful. The children, when they burst into the room, after a long enforced waiting in the temporary nursery which looked to the back, and from which they saw nothing but chimneys and the backs of other houses, rushed to the large window of the room in which Lady Car was breakfasting, with a scream of pleasure. To look out upon the busy road full of carriages and people, and the trees and space of Hyde Park beyond, delighted them. Little Tom stood smacking the whip which was his perpetual accompaniment, and making ejaculations. ‘Oh, I say! What lots and lots of people! There’s a pony! but he can’t ride a bit, that fellow on it. Where’s he going to ride? What’s inside those gates? is it a palace or is it a park, or what is it? I say, Beau!—what a liar he is, Jan! he said there was nobody in London—and there’s millions!’
‘Tom,’ said Lady Car; ‘if you say such things you will be sent away.’
‘Let him talk,’ said Beaufort; ‘he is quite right from his point of view. You must remember, Tom, that, though you’re a clever fellow, you don’t know everything; and there may be millions of people in London though there’s nobody.’
They both turned upon him incredulous faces, with that cynicism of childhood which is as remarkable as its trust, overawed by a sense of his superior knowledge, yet quite unconvinced of his good faith. Their faces were very like each other—rather large and without colour, their eyebrows shaggy and projecting, their large round eyes à fleur de tête. Janet’s little red mouth, which was her pretty feature, was open with suspicion and wonder. Tom’s bore an expression of half-assumed scorn. He was a little afraid of ‘Beau,’ and had an alarmed belief in him, at the bottom of much doubt of his meaning and resistance generally.
‘You seem to have a great budget of correspondence this morning, Car.’
‘From the house-agents; there seem to be houses to be had everywhere. Instead of any difficulty in finding one, we shall only be troubled where to choose. What do you say to Richmond? the river is so lovely, and the park so delightful for the children, and——’
‘If Tom is going to school, as I suppose he is, there will only be one child to consider, and little Jan is not difficile.’
‘Am I going to school, mother?’ Tom faced round again suddenly from the window and stood against the light with his legs apart, a very square, solid little form to reckon with.
‘You must, my dear boy; your education has been kept back so long. To be sure, he knows French,’ said Carry, with a wistful look at her husband, seeking approval, ‘which so few boys of his age do.’ Mr. Beaufort had considered that it would be advantageous for Tom to be at school before now.
‘I don’t mind,’ said the boy. ‘I like it. I want to go. I hated all those French fellows—but they’re different here.’
‘The first thing they will ask you at Eton is whether you will take a licking,’ said Beaufort; ‘that was how it was in my day.’
‘I won’t,’ cried Tom; ‘not if it was the biggest fellow in the school. Did you, Beau?’
‘I can’t remember, it’s so long ago,’ said the stepfather. ‘No, not Richmond, if you please, Car; it’s pretty, but it’s cockney. Sunday excursions spoil all the places about London.’
‘Windsor? One would still have the river within reach, and rides in the forest without end.’
‘Windsor still less, Carry my love. It’s a show place. Royal persons always coming and going, and crowds to stare at them. If you love me, no.’
‘That’s a large argument, Edward. We should not live in the town, of course, and to see the Queen driving about would always be a little excitement.’
‘Does she drive in a big umbrella like the gentlemen upon the omnibus?’ said Janet, whose eyes had been caught by that wonder. Tom had seen it too, and was full of curiosity, but kept his eye upon Beaufort to see whether he would laugh at the question.
‘Much grander, with gold fringe and a little royal standard flying from the top,’ said Beaufort gravely. ‘You know the Doge at Venice always had an umbrella, and other great princes.’
Tom stared very steadily, with his big, round eyes, to watch for the suspicion of a smile, but, seeing none, ventured, with a little suppressed doubt and defiance of the possibly ‘humbugging’ answer, ‘Who are the men on the omnibuses? They can’t all be princes; they’re just like cochers,’ cried Tom.
‘Don’t you trust to appearances, my boy. Did you never hear that the greatest swells drove mail coaches? Not Windsor, Car, not Windsor.’
‘Surrey, Edward? Guildford, Haslemere, Dorking—somewhere in that direction?’
‘At Dorking we should be in the way of the battle, Tom.’
‘I should like that,’ cried the boy; ‘and I suppose you can fire a gun, Beau,’ he added, after a moment’s hesitation, scrutinising his stepfather closely, glad to have the chance of one insult, but something afraid of the response.
‘Tom!’ cried his mother, in a warning tone.
‘More or less,’ said Beaufort languidly; ‘enough to hit a Dutchman if there was one before me—you know they’re very broad. At Guildford people are buried on the top of a hill for the sake of the view. Yes, I think Surrey would do.’
‘Am I to go to Eton straight off, mother—is that in Surrey? I want to go a good long way off. I don’t want to be near home. You would be coming to see me, and Jan, and kiss me, and call me “Tom,” and make the other fellows laugh.’
‘What should you be called but Tom?’ said Lady Car, with a smile.
‘Torrance!’ cried the child with pride, as who should say Plantagenet. She had been looking at him, smiling, but at this utterance of the boy Lady Car started and turned burning red, then coldly pale. Why should she? Nothing could be more fantastic, more absurd, than the feeling. She had done no harm in making a second marriage, in which she had found happiness, after the first one, which had brought nothing but misery. She had offended against no law, written or unwritten. She had wiped out Torrance and his memory, and all belonging to him (except his money), for years. Why should the name which she had once borne, which was undeniably her son’s name, affect her so deeply now? The smile became fixed about the corner of her mouth, but the boy, of course, understood nothing of what was passing in his mother’s mind, though he stared at her a little as if he did, increasing her confusion. ‘The fellows never call a fellow by his christened name,’ said Tom, great in the superiority of what he had learned from various schoolboys on their travels. These were things, he was aware, which of course women didn’t know.
‘You’d better come and have a stroll with me, Master Tom,’ said Beaufort. ‘I’ll show you Piccadilly, which is always something; as for the park, you wouldn’t care for it: there are no riders in the Row now. You see, as I told you, there’s nobody in London. Come, get your hat, quickly.’
‘Me too,’ said little Janet, with a pout of her small mouth.
‘Not any ladies to-day, only two fellows, as Tom says, taking a stroll together.’
‘In a moment, Beau!’ cried Tom, delighted, rushing to get his hat. ‘I told you, Jan, old Beau’s a gentleman—sometimes,’ the boy added, as his sister ran after him to see what arrangements of her own she could make to the same end.
‘You are very good to them, Edward—oh! very good. How can I ever thank you?’ said Lady Car, with tears in her eyes. Her nerves had been a little shaken by that shock, and by the vain perception that stole over her of two parties in the family, two that would become more distinctly two by the progress of years, unlike in nature and constitution, and even in name. It is not necessary to insist upon the family name of children travelling with their mother. No one had been much the wiser during these years of wandering. But Tom’s ‘Torrance!’ was a revelation, and opened before her possibilities unknown.
‘Good, am I? That’s all right, that’s something to the credit side, but I was not aware of it,’ said Beaufort, in his easy way; ‘all the same,’ he added, laughing, ‘Master Tom will want looking after if we are to make anything of him. He will want a tight hand, which, I fear, does not belong either to you or me.’
It cost Lady Car a pang to hear even this mild expression of opinion about her boy. A mother says many things, and feels many things, about her children which no one else may say before her. She looked at him wistfully, with a faint smile, which was full of pain. ‘He is only a child,’ she said, apologetically, ‘and then he will get that at school.’ She could not contradict him, and she could not argue with him. Poor little Tom! he was her own, though he might not be all she wished him to be—the plea rose to her lips unconsciously that he was fatherless, that he had drawbacks to contend against, poor child. What a plea to form even unconsciously in her mind! She looked at her husband with such a troubled and wistful appeal that his heart smote him. He laid his hand upon her head caressingly, and stooped to kiss her.
‘To be sure,’ he said; ‘the boy will be all right, Car. He has plenty of spirit, and that is the best thing, after all. Ready, Tom? Come along, then. I’m ready too.’
Lady Car followed him with her wistful eyes. They were not full of admiring delight, as when a mother watches her children going out with their father, proud of both him and them, and of their love for each other. What it must be to have a life without complications, full of unity, in which a woman can feel like that! Carry longed to whisper in her child’s ear, to bid him, oh! to be good, to mind what Beau said to him, to behave like a gentleman to one who was so kind—so kind! But she had to let him go without that warning, fearing that he would be disrespectful, and come back in disgrace, though Edward was so gentle with him, and never complained, except to say that he would want a tight hand. How well she knew that he wanted a tight hand! and how certain she was that it was not from her he would get that needful restraint! And from whom, then? At school, from some master who would know nothing about him, nor give him credit for the complications in his lot, his having no father. Perhaps, she said to herself in her troubled thoughts, it is better for a boy to have any kind of a father than no father at all. His father would have flogged him, had no mercy upon him, taught him to swear and swagger, and ride wild horses, and run wild about the country. Would that have been better? She stopped, with a shudder, unable to pursue the question. Better—oh heavens! But for her what would it have been? She turned to meet little Janet’s large eyes fixed upon her, and started with alarm and a kind of horror. It seemed to her that the child must have read her thoughts.
‘Are you cold, mozer?’ Janet said. Though she was eight, she had still difficulties with the ‘th,’ difficulties perhaps rather of a foreigner than a child.
‘No, dear,’ said Lady Car, again shuddering, but smiling upon the little girl. ‘It is not at all cold.’
‘Mozer, take me out with you, since Tom has gone with Beau. I don’t want to go out with nurse. I want to be wiz you.’
‘Dear,’ said Carry, wooing her little daughter for a favourable reply with soft caresses, ‘isn’t Beau kind to Tom? Don’t you love Beau?’
The child searched her face, as children do, in an unconscious but penetrating search for motives unknown. Janet saw that her mother was wistful and unassured, though she did not probably know how to name these motives. ‘I do well enough,’ she said. ‘I don’t think of him. Mozer, take me out with you.’
And this was all that could be got out of Janet. The black brow and the dark hair made her look so much more resolute and determined than usual that poor Carry was almost afraid of her little girl, and believed that she hid beneath that careless answer thoughts and feelings which were quite determined and well-assured.