Dark Hester/Chapter 8

She did not see Clive or Hester for the next two days. Clive had already made a habit—she had hoped he would feel it so—of stopping to see her on his way to and from the station; light, unemphatic, but reviving moments, allowing no time for any sense of pressure. But he did not come either of those days and she had no glimpse of Hester; who was, no doubt, deeply engaged in feminism at Mrs. Travers’s.

From her windows she always watched for Robin being led to and from his school. His shortest way lay on the other side of the green and she had suppressed the desire to call out to him and have him stop; Hester, she felt sure, would not approve of that; but every day the sight of his little figure was a sad solace to her.

She was returning from her afternoon walk on the Tuesday when she saw Robin on the other side of the green with his nurse and she paused for a moment debating whether she might not justifiably cross over and walk beside him to the turning up to The Crofts; and as she told herself that abstention was still her wisest course, since the recent storm ​had centred round Robin, she saw that he had seen her and heard his silvery little voice call out: ‘Grannie! Grannie!’ And leaving his nurse’s hand he came running to her across the short thick grass where geese grazed and a group of village dogs wrestled together in the sunlight.

Monica stooped and held out her arms to him. It seemed to her as she enfolded his eager little form that he was far more hers than Hester’s. What right had dark Hester to this golden little boy? Only the shape of his eyes reminded her of his mother; the white showing under the iris, as hers did;—the shape of his eyes and the faint tone of olive colour where the gold of his cheek merged into his neck.

‘Can’t I come and see the fountain, Grannie?’ he said, while Nurse followed him smiling. Nurse was a great friend of Monica’s, whose attitude towards servants was untheoretic and spontaneous. Hester’s relations with hers, she had observed, were not very successful. Hester thought, perhaps, too much of their rights and too little of their happiness; and Nurse, she suspected, was old-fashioned and ignorant like herself and did not like to have Robin made to tell his dreams. ‘Can he come in for a moment, do you think?’ she asked. ‘Is Mrs. Wil​mott expecting you back immediately?’ It was grievous to her, bitterly grievous, that she must ask leave to see Robin.

‘I’m sure he can come in for a little, Ma’am,’ said Nurse.

Fountains on a lawn, especially on a lawn as small as hers, were very distasteful to Monica, but the cement basin had already been made at the side of the house, where cook and Miriam could see it from the kitchen window, and already the pipes were laid and the sods with which the devastation was to be repaired, piled in readiness. ‘We can’t make the water play quite yet, I think,’ she said, leading Robin by the hand, ‘and there’s a good deal to do to it still, you see. We must have plants growing round the edge, and some more, perhaps, at the bottom, for the fish to hide in. It will all need consideration. But there’s plenty of time; we shan’t want to put them in till spring. I only wish we could tell them what is going to happen. It would make the winter pass more quickly for them.—It’s lovely looking forward to things, isn’t it?’

‘Yes; it will make the winter pass much more quickly for us, too, won’t it?’ He gazed down into the basin. ‘What are their names?’ he asked.

​‘The fishes? Well I never thought of naming them. Can you think of any good names?’

‘I’d like you to think,’ said Robin.

‘Shall we call them Milly, Tilly, and Lacey, then?’ Robin had loved reading ‘Alice.’ ‘Alice,’ she trusted, would not be forbidden, though what the psychological difference between the White Knight and Saint George might be she did not know.

‘Milly, Tilly, and Lacey—who were in the well. Yes,’ said Robin whose pleasure was always gentle. He gazed thoughtfully down into the empty basin. ‘And we’ll give them ants’ eggs instead of treacle.—Can’t we put in some of the plants now, Grannie?’

He had on a little dark blue hat and coat; the shade was not quite right; it was in a softer, more Japanese blue that she had dressed Clive at the same age. Still, in any colour he looked adorable. He stood beside her holding her hand.

‘Certainly we can put in a few. There they are, in the pots. I’ll get a trowel and fork, and wouldn’t you like to cut some flowers for your room, Nurse, while we work? The Michaelmas daisies and chrysanthemums are still lovely.’

It was like being back in Clive’s childhood again; ​it reminded her of Aunt Janet’s, where they had worked together in the garden. Perhaps Hester would allow gardening as her perquisite. Hope was flowering in her once more, with a sense of excitement, of elation, as she went into the little lobby and found the gardening utensils. ‘She can’t say that gardening and goldfish make him nervous,’ she thought. ‘His eyes are the same shape as hers, but not in the least the same colour; golden-brown at deepest: while hers are almost black.’

When she returned, drawing on her gardening-gloves, the basket on her arm, she saw that Captain Ingpen was leaning on the gate looking over at Robin, who, all unaware, was earnestly setting the plants in their pots upright around the edge of the basin. She saw him with no faltering in her elation. His presence had lost its element of fear. He had been only kind the other evening, and understanding. She was glad to see him, she knew that, even as she told herself that she must not ask him to stay to tea since Clive, to-day, might stop to see her. But she could ask him in for a little while and going to the gate she opened it, smiling at him and saying: ‘Come and help us, won’t you? We are making a home for our goldfish.’

​Ingpen remained for a moment standing outside. ‘Is that the grandchild?’ he asked.

‘Yes. That is the grandchild. Do come in.—Or are you busy?’

‘I’m never busy nowadays. I never shall be busy again. But I didn’t stop to get myself invited. I was only passing and saw the little boy, and that he had a look of you.—Not much though. He’s more like your son.—It’s your fault if I stopped—for having such pleasant things to look at in your garden.’

‘But do come in, if you find it pleasant. Robin, this is Captain Ingpen. He is going to help us. Here is your basket, Nurse. Pick anything you like.’

The day was lovely. The pale, high October sky arched benignantly above them; a robin sang and across the green a bonfire was sending up indolent curls of smoke and the spicy scent went with that of the chrysanthemums. Monica, making Robin known to Captain Ingpen, felt a lightness of heart to which she had long been a stranger. This might indeed have been her youth again and this child Clive. It was just so that Clive would have gone forward, shy but courteous, to put out his little hand and say: ‘How do you do.’

​‘But why,’ said Ingpen, after shaking hands with Robin, ‘if it’s a fountain, is there no water?’ His worn tweeds touched with leather went with the day; his cap was the colour of old thatch and cast a shadow, like thatch, over eyes bent on the basin but observant of Robin. ‘I want to see the water, don’t you?’ he said.

Robin answered, ‘Yes,’ and came to stand beside him, attentive to what might result from this potent presence.

‘I hadn’t thought of water till everything was finished and the fish installed,’ said Monica. ‘But I don’t see why it shouldn’t be turned on now. There must be a tap ready.’

‘Of course there must. Everything essential is ready as far as I can see. All that’s needed are the fountain and the fish. I remember the fish. Shall I go and fetch them, and find the tap on my way back? Your maid will show me,’ and Captain Ingpen, on whom nothing, apparently, was lost, turned his eyes on Miriam and cook watching at the window.

‘Shall we really put in the fish? Isn’t it rather cold for them?’ Monica asked, while Robin, between them, turned his gaze from one to the other.

‘Not at all too cold; and by the time winter ​comes they’ll be acclimatized. Your basin is too deep for freezing. Let’s set them free by all means. I don’t like waiting, do you?’ he addressed Robin.

‘No;—but not if the fish will catch cold,’ Robin said, apprehensive yet trustful, and Ingpen, on his way to the house, replied: ‘I understand fish. They won’t catch cold.’

‘He looks as if he understood, doesn’t he, Grannie?’ said Robin,when Ingpen had disappeared.

‘It will be nicer than waiting for spring, won’t it? And you know we might be dead before spring.’ Robin certainly had an anxious mind. Monica smiled reassurance at him as she answered: ‘We might, though it’s not likely; I’m so strong and you’re so young.—But it will be much nicer not to wait.—Oh, see!—Isn’t it lovely, Robin!’ A jet of silver had leaped high into the air.

‘There. That’s better, isn’t it?’ said Ingpen. He came from the house carrying the globe of goldfish in his hands and stood beside them to look. The slender silver lance wavered and sprang against the blue and in the basin the water crept higher and higher, reflecting sky and cloud. Robin stood in an astonishment of gladness and over his uplifted face the eyes of Monica and Ingpen met in a look of peace ​and understanding. Yes; strange, scarred man; his heart was not ungentle. He understood a child. He understood the day and the fountain’s beauty. Monica smiled at him. She would never fear him again.

Now he was giving the globe into Robin’s keeping and helping him to tip the goldfish into the water. Their hands, the small and the large, dipped slowly beneath the surface and the dark head and the fair bent together as the fish, amazed, paused at the entrance of their prison and then sped forth. Round and round they went, and, wildly it seemed, from side to side, emblems of happiness, and, looking up at her, Robin whispered: ‘Which is which, Grannie? Which is Milly and which is Tilly and Lacey?’

‘Robin!’ called an icy voice behind them. ‘Robin! Come at once! You ought not to be here at this hour!’ Icy. Like a sword; cutting down happiness. Monica turned to see Hester looking at them over the hedge. She had come down in haste, for she wore no hat, and she was pale, very pale; and angry; her eyes were the eyes of the indignant Byzantine Madonna. ‘Come at once!’ she repeated, looking at her child and setting the gate open, adding as she just glanced at her mother-in-law: ‘Let ​me know, please, when you think of keeping him another time.’

Monica stood silent, gazing at her daughter-in-law. Hester’s tone and manner so astonished her that she could find no words.

Ingpen had risen to his feet and in the midst of her disarray Monica noticed that Robin looked up at him, as if for reassurance or protection.

‘I met him, Hester.—I thought he might come in for a moment and see the fountain,’ said Monica now. She felt her heart throbbing violently in her side. She could not apologize to Hester before Captain Ingpen, yet she was ready to do almost anything rather than display explicit warfare.

‘I know. So I see. But you ought to have sent Nurse to tell me. I must always know where he is. Come Robin, do you hear me?—at once.’ And Hester, standing still outside it, opened the gate more widely. She had not yet acknowledged Ingpen’s presence; now she nodded, coldly, curtly, and muttered: ‘How do you do.’

‘Run along then, darling. Good-bye for to-day.’ Monica kissed the distressed little face.

‘Good-bye,’ Robin murmured. ‘Good-bye,’ he repeated, turning to Ingpen and lifting his face to be kissed by him also.

​Nurse, alarmed, had come running with her flowers, and saying no further word, Hester took her child by the hand and walked away.

A silence followed this departure. Monica slowly turned and walked down the garden beside her herbaceous border and, after a hesitation, Ingpen followed her. She had come to a standstill at the foot of the lawn when he joined her and was looking out at the fields and hedgerow-elms.

‘Shall I go?’ he said. ‘Or may I say I am sorry for grandmothers?’

Half an hour ago it would have been impossible for Monica to imagine herself allowing Captain Ingpen to say he was sorry. But now their eyes had met in that look of peace. ‘My little grandson is nervous;—do you wonder at it?’ she said. ‘Though I own that I never saw Hester lose her temper with him before.’ She tried to speak quietly, but her voice shook with shame and fury.

‘She was angry because you had kept him without asking leave,’ said Ingpen. ‘Isn’t it alwaysso—between a woman and her mother-in-law? I don’t know anything about these domesticities, but such antagonism seems to me to be inherent in the relationship.’

‘And what ought mothers-in-law to do?’ Monica ​questioned, leaning over to her border and nipping off here and there a withered flower. ‘If they don’t die when their sons marry—what are they to do?’

‘Withdraw, I suppose,’ said Ingpen after a pause, watching her.

‘Yes, withdraw; that’s what I did. That’s why I am here, in the country. Only they followed me.’

‘Ah, yes; Norah was telling me yesterday that they had just come.— Was that against her will? Your con doesn’t look to me a person to force his will on a recalcitrant wife.’

‘It was by her will.—It was her idea.—It was on my account they came,’ said Monica, and as she broke and broke the withered flowers with fingers in which she felt her anger still thrilling, she wondered at circumstance that had brought her to such confidences. ‘I don’t understand; I can’t understand.—I have never understood her. Perhaps it is my fault. I never saw her lose her temper before.—Perhaps it’s my fault. She feels that I don’t care for her.’

Ingpen said nothing to that. He remained, taking a few steps here and there on the lawn, watching her while she picked the dead flowers, filling her ​hand, pressing them together, tossing them out of sight under the densely growing autumnal plants, and she felt herself quieted by his silent comprehending presence.

‘Give up hope; that’s your trouble,’ it seemed to be saying to her. ‘You were foolish enough, my poor friend, to allow yourself hope a little while ago. There’s no place for it, at our age. If you didn’t go on hoping you would not suffer so.’ But he himself said nothing.

Presently they walked back towards the house together. The fountain still held its quivering silver lance against the sky. ‘And you think the fish are all right?’ said Monica in a deadened voice. ‘Robin is a sad little boy. He expects things to die. I don’t want to run any risks with the fish.’

‘They won’t die. They’re all right,’ said Ingpen absently, his eyes on her. ‘He’s not like you, the little boy, is he? You expect things to go on.’

‘I want them to go on; — something of them to go on — desperately,’ said Monica in a low voice. She was betraying herself to Captain Ingpen. She was saying exactly what he expected her to say. But he would not mock her now. He was suffering with her. He walked on with her to the gate. ‘Yes. He’s sad; but you’re desperate,’ was what he said. ​And looking round at her, with a twist of his bitter smile, he added: ‘That’s why we understand one another, you and I. Think over what I said. I mean it. Come to France.’