Michael Part 22

"It doesn't as long as he is not," remarked Michael grimly.

"It doesn't matter much in any case. We're all ugly compared to girls; and why ever they should consent to marry any of us awful hairy things, smelling of smoke and drink, is more than I can make out; but, as a matter of fact, they do. They don't mind what we look like; what they care about is whether we want them. Of course, there are exceptions--"

"You see one," said Michael.

"No, I don't. Good Lord, you've only asked her once. You've got to make yourself felt. You're not intending to give up, are you?"

"I couldn't give up."

"Well then, just hold on. She likes you, doesn't she?"

"Certainly," said Michael, without hesitation. "But that's a long way from the other thing."

"It's on the same road."

Michael got up.

"It may be," he said, "but it strikes me it's round the corner. You can't even see one from the other."

"Possibly not. But you never know how near the corner really is. Go for her, Mike, full speed ahead."

"But how?"

"Oh, there are hundreds of ways. I'm not sure that one of the best isn't to keep away for a bit. Even if she doesn't want you just now, when you are there, she may get to want you when you aren't. I don't think I should go on the mournful Byronic plan if I were you; I don't think it would suit your style; you're too heavily built to stand leaning against the chimney-piece, gazing at her and dishevelling your hair."

Michael could not help laughing.

"Oh, for G.o.d's sake, don't make a joke of it," he said.

"Why not? It isn't a tragedy yet. It won't be a tragedy till she marries somebody else, or definitely says no. And until a thing is proved to be tragic, the best way to deal with it is to treat it like a comedy which is going to end well. It's only the second act now, you see, when everything gets into a mess. By the merciful decrees of Providence, you see, girls on the whole want us as much as we want them. That's what makes it all so jolly."

Michael went down next day to Ashbridge, where Aunt Barbara and Francis were to follow the day after, and found, after the freedom and interests of the last six months, that the pompous formal life was more intolerable than ever. He was clearly in disgrace still, as was made quite clear to him by his father's icy and awful politeness when it was necessary to speak to him, and by his utter unconsciousness of his presence when it was not. This he had expected. Christmas had ushered in a truce in which no guns were discharged, but remained sighted and pointed, ready to fire.

But though there was no change in his father, his mother seemed to Michael to be curiously altered; her mind, which, as has been already noticed, was usually in a stunned condition, seemed to have awakened like a child from its sleep, and to have begun vaguely crying in an inarticulate discomfort. It was true that Petsy was no more, having succ.u.mbed to a bilious attack of unusual severity, but a second Petsy had already taken her place, and Lady Ashbridge sat with him--it was a gentleman Petsy this time--in her lap as before, and occasionally shed a tear or two over Petsy II. in memory of Petsy I. But this did not seem to account for the wakening up of her mind and emotions into this state of depression and anxiety. It was as if all her life she had been quietly dozing in the sun, and that the place where she sat had pa.s.sed into the shade, and she had awoke cold and shivering from a bitter wind. She had become far more talkative, and though she had by no means abandoned her habit of upsetting any conversation by the extreme obviousness of her remarks, she asked many more questions, and, as Michael noticed, often repeated a question to which she had received an answer only a few minutes before. During dinner Michael constantly found her looking at him in a shy and eager manner, removing her gaze when she found it was observed, and when, later, after a silent cigarette with his father in the smoking-room, during which Lord Ashbridge, with some ostentation, studied an Army List, Michael went to his bedroom, he was utterly astonished, when he gave a "Come in" to a tapping at his door, to see his mother enter. Her maid was standing behind her holding the inevitable Petsy, and she herself hovered hesitatingly in the doorway.

"I heard you come up, Michael," she said, "and I wondered if it would annoy you if I came in to have a little talk with you. But I won't come in if it would annoy you. I only thought I should like a little chat with you, quietly, secure from interruptions."

Michael instantly got up from the chair in front of his fire, in which he had already begun to see images of Sylvia. This intrusion of his mother's was a thing utterly unprecedented, and somehow he at once connected its innovation with the strange manner he had remarked already. But there was complete cordiality in his welcome, and he wheeled up a chair for her.

"But by all means come in, mother," he said. "I was not going to bed yet."

Lady Ashbridge looked round for her maid.

"And will Petsy not annoy you if he sits quietly on my knee?" she asked.

"Of course not."

Lady Ashbridge took the dog.

"There, that is nice," she said. "I told them to see you had a good fire on this cold night. Has it been very cold in London?"

This question had already been asked and answered twice, now for the third time Michael admitted the severity of the weather.

"I hope you wrap up well," she said. "I should be sorry if you caught cold, and so, I am sure, your father would be. I wish you could make up your mind not to vex him any more, but go back into the Guards."

"I'm afraid that's impossible, mother," he said.

"Well, if it's impossible there is no use in saying anything more about it. But it vexed him very much. He is still vexed with you. I wish he was not vexed. It is a sad thing when father and son fall out. But you do wrap up, I hope, in the cold weather?"

Michael felt a sudden pang of anxiety and alarm. Each separate thing that his mother said was sensible enough, but in the sum they were nonsense.

"You have been in London since September," she went on. "That is a long time to be in London. Tell me about your life there. Do you work hard?

Not too hard, I hope?"

"No! hard enough to keep me busy," he said.

"Tell me about it all. I am afraid I have not been a very good mother to you; I have not entered into your life enough. I want to do so now.

But I don't think you ever wanted to confide in me. It is sad when sons don't confide in their mothers. But I daresay it was my fault, and now I know so little about you."

She paused a moment, stroking her dog's ears, which twitched under her touch.

"I hope you are happy, Michael," she said. "I don't think I am so happy as I used to be. But don't tell your father; I feel sure he does not notice it, and it would vex him. But I want you to be happy; you used not to be when you were little; you were always sensitive and queer. But you do seem happier now, and that's a good thing."

Here again this was all sensible, when taken in bits, but its aspect was different when considered together. She looked at Michael anxiously a moment, and then drew her chair closer to him, laying her thin, veined hand, sparkling with many rings, on his knee.

"But it wasn't I who made you happier," she said, "and that's so dreadful. I never made anybody happy. Your father always made himself happy, and he liked being himself, but I suspect you haven't liked being yourself, poor Michael. But now that you're living the life you chose, which vexes your father, is it better with you?"

The shyness had gone from the gaze that he had seen her direct at him at dinner, which fugitively fluttered away when she saw that it was observed, and now that it was bent so unwaveringly on him he saw shining through it what he had never seen before, namely, the mother-love which he had missed all his life. Now, for the first time, he saw it; recognising it, as by divination, when, with ray serene and untroubled, it burst through the mists that seemed to hang about his mother's mind.

Before, noticing her change of manner, her restless questions, he had been vaguely alarmed, and as they went on the alarm had become more p.r.o.nounced; but at this moment, when there shone forth the mother-instinct which had never come out or blossomed in her life, but had been overlaid completely with routine and conventionality, rendering it too indolent to put forth petals, Michael had no thought but for that which she had never given him yet, and which, now it began to expand before him, he knew he had missed all his life.

She took up his big hand that lay on his knee and began timidly stroking it.

"Since you have been away," she said, "and since your father has been vexed with you, I have begun to see how lonely you must have been. What taught me that, I am afraid, was only that I have begun to feel lonely, too. n.o.body wants me; even Petsy, when she died, didn't want me to be near her, and then it began to strike me that perhaps you might want me.

There was no one else, and who should want me if my son did not? I never gave you the chance before, G.o.d forgive me, and now perhaps it is too late. You have learned to do without me."

That was bitterly true; the truth of it stabbed Michael. On his side, as he knew, he had made no effort either, or if he had they had been but childish efforts, easily repulsed. He had not troubled about it, and if she was to blame, the blame was his also. She had been slow to show the mother-instinct, but he had been just as wanting in the tenderness of the son.

He was profoundly touched by this humble timidity, by the sincerity, vague but unquestionable, that lay behind it.

"It's never too late, is it?" he said, bending down and kissing the thin white hands that held his. "We are in time, after all, aren't we?"

She gave a little shiver.

"Oh, don't kiss my hands, Michael," she said. "It hurts me that you should do that. But it is sweet of you to say that I am not too late, after all. Michael, may I just take you in my arms--may I?"

He half rose.