The Tree of Heaven Part 28

Drayton's forecast was correct; Nicky's brother Michael had not been removed from Nicky's College eight months before letters of apology and rest.i.tution came. But both apology and rest.i.tution came too late.

For by that time Nicky had married Desmond.

XIV

After Nicholas, Veronica; and after Veronica, Michael.

Anthony and Frances sat in the beautiful drawing-room of their house, one on each side of the fireplace. They had it all to themselves, except for the cats, t.i.to and Timmy, who crouched on the hearthrug at their feet. Frances's forehead and her upper lip were marked delicately with shallow, tender lines; Anthony's eyes had crow's-feet at their corners, pointing to grey hairs at his temples. To each other their faces were as they had been fifteen years ago. The flight of time was measured for them by the generations of the cats that had succeeded Jane and Jerry.

For still in secret they refused to think of their children as grown-up.

Dorothy was upstairs in her study writing articles for the Women's Franchise Union. They owed it to her magnanimity that they had one child remaining with them in the house. John was at Cheltenham; Veronica was in Dresden. Michael was in Germany, too, at that School of Forestry at Aschaffenburg which Anthony had meant for Nicky. They couldn't bear to think where Nicky was.

When Frances thought about her children now her mind went backwards. If only they hadn't grown-up; if only they could have stayed little for ever! In another four years even Don-Don would be grown-up--Don-Don who was such a long time getting older that at fourteen, only two years ago, he had been capable of sitting in her lap, a great long-legged, flumbering puppy, while mother and son rocked dangerously together in each other's arms, like two children, laughing together, mocking each other.

She was going to be wiser with Don-Don than she had been with Nicky. She would be wiser with Michael when he came back from Germany. She would keep them both out of the Vortex, the horrible Vortex that Lawrence Stephen and Vera had let Nicky in for, the Vortex that seized on youth and forced it into a corrupt maturity. After Desmond's affair Anthony and Frances felt that to them the social circle inhabited by Vera and Lawrence Stephen would never be anything but a dirty h.e.l.l.

As for Veronica, the longer she stayed in Germany the better.

Yet Frances knew that they had not sent Veronica to Dresden to prevent her mother from getting hold of her. When she remembered the fear she had had of the apple-tree house, she said to herself that Desmond was a judgment on her for sending little Veronica away.

And yet it was the kindest thing they could have done for her. Veronica was happy in Dresden, living with a German family and studying music and the language. She had no idea that music and the language were mere blinds, and that she had been sent to the German family to keep her out of Nicky's way.

They would have them all back again at Christmas. Frances counted the days. From to-night, the seventh of June, to December the twentieth was not much more than six months.

To-night, the seventh of June, was Nicky's wedding-night. But they did not know that. Nicky had kept the knowledge from them, in his mercy, to save them the agony of deciding whether they would recognize the marriage or not. And as neither Frances nor Anthony had ever faced squarely the prospect of disaster to their children, they had turned their backs on Nicky's marriage and supported each other in the hope that at the last minute something would happen to prevent it.

The ten o'clock post, and two letters from Germany. Not from Michael, not from Veronica. One from Frau Schafer, the mother of the German family. It was all in German, and neither Anthony nor Frances could make out more than a word here and there. "Das susse, liebe Madchen" meant Veronica. But certain phrases: "traurige Nachrichten" ... "furchtbare Schwachheit" ... "... eine entsetzliche Blutleere ..." terrified them, and they sent for Dorothy to translate.

Dorothy was a good German scholar, but somehow she was not very fluent.

She scowled over the letter.

"What does it mean?" said Frances. "Haemorhage?"

"No. No. Anaemia. Severe anaemia. Heart and stomach trouble."

"But 'traurige Nachrichten' is 'bad news.' They're breaking it to us that she's dying."

(It was unbearable to think of Nicky marrying Ronny; but it was more unbearable to think of Ronny dying.)

"They don't say they're sending _us_ bad news; they say they think Ronny must have had some. To account for her illness. Because they say she's been so happy with them."

"But what bad news could she have had?"

"Perhaps she knows about Nicky."

"But n.o.body's told her, unless Vera has."

"She hasn't. I know she hasn't. She didn't want her to know."

"Well, then--"

"Mummy, you don't _have_ to tell Ronny things. She always knows them."

"How on earth could she know a thing like that?"

"She might. She sort of sees things--like Ferdie. She may have seen him with Desmond. You can't tell."

"Do they say what the doctor thinks?"

"Yes. He thinks it's worry and Heimweh--homesickness. They want us to send for her and take her back. Not let her have another term."

Though Frances loved Veronica she was afraid of her coming back. For she was more than ever convinced that something would happen and that Nicky would not marry Desmond.

The other letter was even more difficult to translate or to understand when translated.

The authorities at Aschaffenburg requested Herr Harrison to remove his son Michael from the School of Forestry. Michael after his first few weeks had done no good at the school. In view of the expense to Herr Harrison involved in his fees and maintenance, they could not honestly advise his entering upon another term. It would only be a deplorable throwing away of money on a useless scheme. His son Michael had no thoroughness, no practical ability, and no grasp whatever of theoretic detail. From Herr Harrison's point of view this was the more regrettable inasmuch as the young man had colossal decision and persistence and energy of his own. He was an indefatigable dreamer. Very likely--when his dreams had crystallized--a poet. But the idea Herr Harrison had had that his son Michael would make a man of business, or an expert in Forestry, was altogether fantastic and absurd. And from the desperate involutions of the final sentence Dorothy disentangled the clear fact that Michael's personal charm, combined with his hostility to discipline, his complete indifference to the aims of the authorities, and his utter lack of any sense of responsibility, made him a dangerous influence in any school.

That was the end of Anthony's plans for Michael.

The next morning Nicky wired from some village in Suss.e.x: "Married yesterday.--NICKY."

After that nothing seemed to matter. With Nicky gone from them they were glad to have Michael back again. Frances said they might be thankful for one thing--that there wasn't any German Peggy or any German Desmond in Michael's problem.

And since both Michael and Veronica were to be removed at once, the simplest arrangement was that he should return to Dresden and bring her back with him.

Frances had never been afraid for Michael.

Michael knew that he had made havoc of his father's plans. He couldn't help that. His affair was far too desperate. And any other man but his father would have foreseen that the havoc was inevitable and would have made no plans. He knew he had been turned into the tree-travelling scheme that had been meant for Nicky, because, though Nicky had slipped out of it, his father simply couldn't bear to give up his idea. And no wonder, when the dear old thing had so few of them.

He had been honest with his father about it; every bit as honest as Nicky had been. He had wanted to travel if he could go to China and j.a.pan, just as Nicky had wanted to travel if he could go to places like the West Indies and the Himalaya. And he didn't mind trying to get the trees in when he was there. He was even prepared to accept Germany and the School for Forestry if Germany was the only way to China and j.a.pan.

But he had told his father not to mind if nothing came of it at the end of all the travelling. And his father had said he would take the risk.

He preferred taking the risk to giving up his idea.

And Michael had been honest with himself. He had told himself that he too must take some risks, and the chances were that a year or two in Germany wouldn't really hurt him. Things never did hurt you as much as you thought they would. He had thought that Cambridge would do all sorts of things to him, and Cambridge had not done anything to him at all. As for Oxford, it had given him nearly all the solitude and liberty he wanted, and more companionship than he was ever likely to want. At twenty-two Michael was no longer afraid of dying before he had finished his best work. In spite of both Universities he had done more or less what he had meant to do before he went to Germany. His work had not yet stood the test of time, but to make up for that he himself, in his uneasy pa.s.sion for perfection, like Time, destroyed almost as much as he created. Still, after some pitiless eliminations, enough of his verse remained for one fine, thin book.

It would be published if Lawrence Stephen approved of the selection.

So, Michael argued, even if he died to-morrow there was no reason why he should not go to Germany to-day.

He was too young to know that he acquiesced so calmly because his soul was for a moment appeased by accomplishment.

He was too young to know that his soul had a delicate, profound and hidden life of its own, and that in secret it approached the crisis of transition. It was pa.s.sing over from youth to maturity, like a sleep-walker, unconscious, enchanted, seeing its way without seeing it, safe only from the dangers of the pa.s.sage if n.o.body touched it, and if it went alone.