Echoes of the War Part 10

She strokes the dress, and waggles her head over the certificates and presses the bonnet to her cheeks, and rubs the tinsel of the cork carefully with her ap.r.o.n. She is a tremulous old 'un; yet she exults, for she owns all these things, and also the penny flag on her breast.

She puts them away in the drawer, the scarf over them, the lavender on the scarf. Her air of triumph well becomes her. She lifts the pail and the mop, and slouches off gamely to the day's toil.

THE NEW WORD

Any room nowadays must be the scene, for any father and any son are the _dramatis personae_. We could pick them up in Mayfair, in Tooting, on the Veldt, in rectories or in grocers' back parlours, dump them down on our toy stage and tell them to begin. It is a great gathering to choose from, but our needs are small. Let the company shake hands, and all go away but two.

The two who have remained (it is discovered on inquiry) are Mr. Torrance and his boy; so let us make use of them. Torrance did not linger in order to be chosen, he was anxious, like all of them, to be off; but we recognised him, and sternly signed to him to stay. Not that we knew him personally, but the fact is, we remembered him (we never forget a face) as the legal person who reads out the names of the jury before the court opens, and who brushes aside your reasons for wanting to be let off. It pleases our humour to tell Mr. Torrance that we cannot let him off.

He does not look so formidable as when last we saw him, and this is perhaps owing to our no longer being hunched with others on those unfeeling benches. It is not because he is without a wig, for we saw him, on the occasion to which we are so guardedly referring, both in a wig and out of it; he pa.s.sed behind a screen without it, and immediately (as quickly as we write) popped out in it, giving it a finishing touch rather like the butler's wriggle to his coat as he goes to the door.

There are the two kinds of learned brothers, those who use the screen, and those who (so far as the jury knows) sleep in their wigs. The latter are the swells, and include the judges; whom, however, we have seen in the public thoroughfares without their wigs, a horrible sight that has doubtless led many an onlooker to crime.

Mr. Torrance, then, is no great luminary; indeed, when we accompany him to his house, as we must, in order to set our scene properly, we find that it is quite a suburban affair, only one servant kept, and her niece engaged twice a week to crawl about the floors. There is no fire in the drawing-room, so the family remain on after dinner in the dining-room, which rather gives them away. There is really no one in the room but Roger. That is the truth of it, though to the unseeing eye all the family are there except Roger. They consist of Mr., Mrs., and Miss Torrance. Mr. Torrance is enjoying his evening paper and a cigar, and every line of him is insisting stubbornly that nothing unusual is happening in the house. In the home circle (and now that we think of it, even in court) he has the reputation of being a somewhat sarcastic gentleman; he must be dogged, too, otherwise he would have ceased long ago to be sarcastic to his wife, on whom wit falls like pellets on sandbags; all the dents they make are dimples.

Mrs. Torrance is at present exquisitely employed; she is listening to Roger's step overhead. You, know what a delightful step the boy has. And what is more remarkable is that Emma is listening to it too, Emma who is seventeen, and who has been trying to keep Roger in his place ever since he first compelled her to bowl to him. Things have come to a pa.s.s when a sister so openly admits that she is only number two in the house.

Remarks well worthy of being recorded fall from these two ladies as they gaze upward. 'I think--didn't I, Emma?' is the mother's contribution, while it is Emma who replies in a whisper, 'No, not yet!'

Mr. Torrance calmly reads, or seems to read, for it is not possible that there can be anything in the paper as good as this. Indeed, he occasionally casts a humorous glance at his women-folk. Perhaps he is trying to steady them. Let us hope he has some such good reason for breaking in from time to time on their entrancing occupation.

'Listen to this, dear. It is very important. The paper says, upon apparently good authority, that love laughs at locksmiths.'

His wife answers without lowering her eyes. 'Did you speak, John? I am listening.'

'Yes, I was telling you that the Hidden Hand has at last been discovered in a tub in Russell Square.'

'I hear, John. How thoughtful.'

'And so they must have been made of margarine, my love.'

'I shouldn't wonder, John.'

'Hence the name Petrograd.'

'Oh, was that the reason?'

'You will be pleased to hear, Ellen, that the honourable gentleman then resumed his seat.'

'That was nice of him.'

'As I,' good-naturedly, 'now resume mine, having made my usual impression.'

'Yes, John.'

Emma slips upstairs to peep through a keyhole, and it strikes her mother that John has been saying something. They are on too good terms to make an apology necessary. She observes blandly, 'John, I haven't heard a word you said.'

'I'm sure you haven't, woman.'

'I can't help being like this, John.'

'Go on being like yourself, dear.'

'Am I foolish?'

'Um.'

'Oh, but, John, how can you be so calm--with him up there?'

'He has been up there a good deal, you know, since we presented him to an astounded world nineteen years ago.'

'But he--he is not going to be up there much longer, John.' She sits on the arm of his chair, so openly to wheedle him that it is not worth his while to smile. Her voice is tremulous; she is a woman who can conceal nothing. 'You will be nice to him--to-night--won't you, John?'

Mr. Torrance is a little pained. 'Do I just begin to-night, Ellen?'

'Oh no, no; but I think he is rather--shy of you at times.'

'That,' he says a little wryly, 'is because he is my son, Ellen.'

'Yes--it's strange; but--yes.'

With a twinkle that is not all humorous, 'Did it ever strike you, Ellen, that I am a bit--shy of him?'

She is indeed surprised. 'Of Rogie!'

'I suppose it is because I am his father.'

She presumes that this is his sarcasm again, and lets it pa.s.s at that.

It reminds her of what she wants to say.

'You are so sarcastic,' she has never quite got the meaning of this word, 'to Rogie at times. Boys don't like that, John.'

'Is that so, Ellen?'

'Of course I don't mind your being sarcastic to _me_--'

'Much good,' groaning, 'my being sarcastic to you! You are so seldom aware of it.'

'I am not asking you to be a mother to him, John.'

'Thank you, my dear.'

She does not know that he is sarcastic again. 'I quite understand that a man can't think all the time about his son as a mother does.'

'Can't he, Ellen? What makes you so sure of that?'