CHAPTER VII
BARBARA’S SON
The months following Anthony’s death were to Barbara as a bad dream. Like one in a dream she saw that open, wintry grave beneath the tall church tower about whose battlements the wind-blown rooks wheeled on their homeward way. She noted a little yellow aconite that had opened its bloom prematurely in the shadow of the wall, and the sight of it brought her some kind of comfort. He had loved aconites, and planted many of them, though, because of his winter absences, years had gone by since he had seen one with his eyes, at any rate in England. That this flower among them all should bloom on that day and in that place seemed to her a message and a consolation, the only one that she could find.
His sad office over, her father accompanied her home, pouring into her ear the words of faith and hope that he was accustomed to use to those broken by bereavement, and with him came her mother. But soon she thanked them gently and bade them leave her to herself. Then they brought her son to her, thinking that the sight of him would thaw her heart. For a while the child was quiet and subdued, for there was that about his mother’s face which awed him. At last, weary of being still, he swung round on his heel after a fashion that he had, and said, “Cook says that now father is dead, I’m master here, and everyone will have to do what I tell them.”
She lifted her head and looked at him, and something in her fawn-like eyes, a mute reproach, pierced to the boy’s heart. At any rate he began to whimper, and left the room.
There was little in the remark, which was such as a vulgar servant might well make thoughtlessly. Yet it brought home to Barbara the grim fact of her loss more completely than perhaps anything had done. Her beloved husband was dead, of no more account in the world than those who had passed from it at Eastwich a thousand years ago. He was dead, and soon would be forgotten by all save her, and she was alone, in heart utterly alone.
The summer came and everyone grew cheerful. Aunt Thompson arrived at the Hall to stay, and urged Barbara to put away past things and resign herself to the will of Providence—as she had done in the case of the departed Samuel. “After all,” she said, “it might have been worse. You might have been called upon to nurse an invalid for twenty years, and when at last he went, have found the best part of your life gone, as I did,” and she sighed heavily. “As it is, you still look quite a girl, having kept your figure so well; you are comfortably off and have a good position, and in short there is no knowing what may happen in the future. You must come up and stay with me this winter, dear, instead of poking yourself away in this damp old house where everybody seems to die of consumption. Really it is a sort of family vault, and if you stop here long enough you will catch something too.”
Barbara thanked her with a sad little smile and answered that she would think over her kind invitation and write to her later. But in the end she never went to London, at least not to stay, perhaps because it reminded her too vividly of her life there with Anthony. At Eastwich she could bear such memories, but for some unexplained reason it was otherwise in London.
Indeed, in course of time her aunt gave up the attempt to persuade her, and devoted herself to forwarding the fortunes of her other pretty nieces, Barbara’s sisters, two of whom, it should be said, she had already settled comfortably in life. Also she took a fancy to the boy, in whose rough, energetic nature she found something akin to her own.
“I am sick of women,” she said; “it is a comfort to have to do with a male thing.”
So it came about that after he went to school young Anthony spent a large portion of his holidays at his great-aunt’s London house. It may be added that he got no good from these visits, since Lady Thompson spoilt him and let him have his way in everything. Also she gave him more money than a boy ought to have. As a result, or partly so, Barbara found that her son grew more and more uncontrollable. He mixed with grooms and other low characters, and when checked, flew into fits of passion which frightened her.
Oddly enough, during these paroxysms, which were generally followed by two or three days of persistent sulking, the only person who seemed to have any effective control over him was a certain under-housemaid named Bess Catton, the daughter of a small farmer In the neighbourhood. This girl, who was only about three years older than Anthony, was remarkable for her handsome appearance and vigour of body and mind. Her hair and large eyes were so dark that probably the local belief that she had Spanish or other foreign blood in her veins was true. Her complexion, however, was purely English, and her character had all the coarseness of those who have lived for generations in the Fens whence her father came, uncontrolled by higher influences such as the fellowship of gently-bred and educated folk.
Bess was an excellent and capable servant, one moreover who soon obtained a sort of mastery in the household. On a certain occasion the young Squire, as they called him, was in one of the worst of his rages, having been forbidden by his mother to go to a coursing meeting which he wished to attend. In this state he shut himself up in the library, swearing that he would do a mischief to anyone who came near him, a promise which, being very strong for his years, he was quite capable of keeping. The man-servant was told to go in and bring him out, but hung back.
“Bless you,” said Bess, “I ain’t afraid,” and without hesitation walked into the room and shut the door behind her.
Barbara, listening afar off, heard a shout of “Get out!” followed by a fearful crash, and trembled, for all violence was abominable to her nature. “He will injure that poor girl,” she said to herself, and rose, proposing to enter the library and face her son.
As she hurried down the long Elizabethan corridor, however, she heard another sound that came to her through the open window, that of Anthony laughing in his jolliest and most uproarious manner, and of the housemaid, Bess, laughing with him. She stayed where she was and listened. Bess had left the library and was coming across the courtyard, where one of the other servants met her and asked some question that Barbara did not catch. The answer in Bess’s ringing voice was clear enough.
“Lord!” she said, “they always gave me the wild colts to break upon the farm. It is a matter of eye and handling, that’s all. He nearly got me with that plaster thing, so I went for him and boxed his ears till he was dazed. Then I kissed him afterwards till he laughed, and he’ll never be any more trouble, at least with me. That mother of his don’t know how to manage him. She’s another breed.”
“Yes,” said the questioner, “the mistress is a lady, she is, and gentle like the squire who’s gone. But how did they get such a one as Master Anthony?”
“Don’t know,” replied Bess; “but father says that when he was a boy in the Fens, they’d have told that the fairy folk changed him at birth. Any way, I like him well enough, for he suits me.”
Barbara went back to her sitting-room, where not long afterwards the boy came to her. As he entered the doorway she noted how handsome he looked with his massive head and square-jawed face, and how utterly unlike any Arnott or Walrond known to her personally or by tradition. Had he been a changeling, such as the girl Bess spoke of, he could not have seemed more different.
He came and stood before her, his hands in his pockets and a smile upon his face, for he could smile very pleasantly when he chose.
“Well, Anthony,” she said, “what is it?”
“Nothing, mother dear, except that I have come to beg your pardon. You were quite right about the coursing meeting; they are a low lot and I oughtn’t to mix with them. But I had bets on some of the dogs and wanted to go awfully. Then when you said I mustn’t, I lost my temper.”
“That was very evident, Anthony.”
“Yes, mother; I felt as though I could have killed some one. I did try to kill Bess with that bust of Plato, but she dodged like a cat, and the thing smashed against the wall. Then she came for me straight and gave me what I deserved, for she was too many for me. And presently all my rage went, and I found that I was laughing while she tidied my clothes. I wish you could do the same, mother.”
“Do you, Anthony? Well, I cannot.”
“I know. Where did I get my temper from, mother? Not from you, or my father, from all I have heard and remember of him.”
“Your grandfather would say it was from the devil, Anthony.”
“Yes, and perhaps he is right; only then it is rather hard luck on me, isn’t it? I can’t help it; it comes.”
“Then make it go, Anthony. “You are to be confirmed soon. Change your heart.”
“I'll try. But, mother dear, although I am so bad to you, you are the only one who will ever change me. When that wild-cat of a girl got the better of me just now, it was you I thought of, not her. If I lost you I don’t know what would become of me.”
“We have to stand or fall alone, Anthony.”
“Perhaps, mother. I don’t know, I am not old enough. Still, don’t leave me alone, for if you do then I am sure which I shall do.” And bending down he kissed her and left the room.
After this scene Anthony’s behaviour improved very much; his reports from school were good, for he was quick and clever, and his great skill in athletics made him a favourite. Also his grandfather, who prepared him for confirmation, announced that the lad’s nature seemed to have softened.
So things remained for some time—to be accurate, for just as long as the girl Bess was a servant at the Hall.
Anthony might talk about his mother’s influence over him, and without doubt when he was in his normal state this was considerable. Also it served to prevent him from breaking out. But when he did break out Bess Catton alone could deal with him. Naturally it would be thought that there was some mutual attraction between these young people. Yet this was not so, at any rate on the part of the girl, who had been overheard to tell Anthony to his face that she hated the sight of him and “would cut him to ribbons” if she were his mother.
At any rate there were others, or one other, of whom she did not hate the sight, and in the end her behaviour caused such scandal that Barbara was obliged to send her out of the house.
“All right, ma’am,” she said, “I’ll go, and be glad of a change. You may ring your own bull-calf now, and I wish you joy of the job, since there’s none but me that can lead him.”
A few days later Anthony returned from school. With him came a letter from the head master, who wrote that he did not wish to make any scandal and therefore had not expelled the boy. Still he would be obliged if his mother would refrain from sending him back, as he did not consider him a suitable member of a public school. He suggested, in the lad’s own interest, that it might be wise to place him in some establishment where a speciality was made of the training of unruly youths. He added that he wrote this with the more regret since Anthony’s father and grandfather had been scholars at in their day, and her son possessed no mean intellectual abilities. This would be shown by the fact that he was at the head of his class, and might doubtless, under other circumstances, have risen to a high place in the sixth form.
Then followed the details of Anthony’s misdoings, of which one only need be mentioned. He had fought another boy, who, be it added, was older than himself, and beaten him. But the matter did not end there, since after his adversary had given up the fight, he flew at him and maltreated him so ferociously before they could be separated, that for a while the poor lad was actually in danger of collapse. When reproached, he expressed no penitence, but said only he wished that he had killed him. This he repeated to his mother’s face; moreover, he was furious when he found that Bess Catton had been sent away, and demanded her return. When told that this was impossible, he announced quietly that he would make the place a hell, and kept his word.
For a year or more before this date Barbara had not been well. She suffered from persistent colds which she was unable to shake off, and with these came great depression of spirits. Now in her misery the poor woman went to her room and, falling on her knees, prayed with all her heart that she might die. The burden laid upon her was more than she could bear. Only one consolation could she find, that her beloved husband had not lived to share it, for she knew it would have crushed him as it crushed her.
Her father was now very old and so feeble that every one screened him from trouble so far as might be. But this trouble could not be hid, and Barbara told him all. “Do not give way, my dearest daughter,” he said, “and above all do not seek to fly from your trial which doubtless is sent to you for some good purpose. Troubles that we strive to escape nearly always recoil upon our heads, whereas if they are faced, often they melt away. If you remain in the world to watch and help him, your son’s nature, bad as it seems to be, may yet alter, for after all I know that he loves you. But if you give up and leave the world, who can tell what will happen to him when he is quite uncontrolled and in possession of his fortune?”
Barbara recognised the truth of her father’s words, and while he lived tried to act up to them. But as it happened Mr. Walrond did not live long, for one evening he was found on his knees in the church whither he often went to pray, quite dead.
About this time also the doctors told Barbara that her condition of health was somewhat serious. It seemed that her lungs showed signs of being affected. Perhaps she had contracted the disease from her husband, and now that she was so broken in spirit it asserted itself. They added, however, that if she took certain precautions, and above all went away from Eastwich, there was every reason to hope that she would quite recover her health.
In the end Barbara did not go away. At the time Anthony was being instructed by a tutor who resided at the Hall to prepare him for the University, and ultimately for the Army. Needless to say she was continually employed in trying to compose the differences between him and this tutor. How, then, could she go away and leave that poor gentleman and her old mother, who, when she was not staying with one of her other married daughters, now made her home at the Hall?
Thus Barbara argued to herself, but the truth was, she did not wish to go. Her dearest associations were in the churchyard yonder, the churchyard where she hoped ere long she would be laid. She hated life, she craved for death.
This was her sin.
Night by night she lay awake and thought of Anthony, her darling, her beloved. She remembered that dream of his about a home that awaited him in another world, and she loved to fancy him as dwelling in that place of peace and making ready for her coming.
Nobody thought of him now except herself and his old dog Nell. The dog thought of him, she was sure, for it would sleep beneath his empty bed and at times sit up, look at it and whine. Then it would come and rest its head upon her as she slept, and she would wake to find it looking at her with a question in its eyes. One night in the darkness it did this, then left her and broke into a joyous whimpering, such as it used to make when its master was going to take it out. She even heard it jumping up as though to paw at him, and wondered dreamily what it could mean.
When she woke in the morning she saw the poor beast lying stiff and cold upon the bed that had been Anthony’s, and though she wept over it, her tears were perhaps those of envy rather than of sorrow. For she was sure that it had found Anthony.
More and more Barbara threw out her soul towards Anthony. Across the void of nothingness she sent it travelling, nor did it return with empty hands. Something of Anthony had greeted it, though she could not remember the greeting, had spoken with it, though she could not interpret the words. Of this at least she was sure, she had been near to Anthony.
Once she seemed to see him. In the infinite, infinite distance, millions of miles away, the sky opened, as it were. There in the opening was Anthony talking with one whom she knew for their daughter, the baby that had died, talking of her, Barbara. In a minute they were gone, but she had seen them, she was sure that she had seen them, and the knowledge warmed her heart.
So there was no error: the Bible Was true, more or less; Faith was not built on running water or on sand. Life was not a mere hellish mockery where tiaras turned to crowns of thorns and joy was but an inch-rule by which to measure the alps of human pain. Life was a door, a gateway. The door dreadful, the gate perilous if you will, but beyond it lay no dream, no empty blackness. Beyond it stretched the Promised Land peopled with the Lost who soon would be the Found.
Barbara’s last illness was rapid. When she began to go she went swiftly.
“Can’t you save her?” asked her son of one of the doctors.
“The disease has gone too far,” he answered. “Moreover it is impossible to save one who wants to die.”
“Why does she want to die?” blurted Anthony, glaring at him.
“Perhaps, young gentleman, you are in a better position to answer that question than I am,” replied the doctor, who knew of Anthony’s cruel conduct to his mother and had reproached him with it, not once, but on several occasions.
“You mean that I have killed her,” said Anthony savagely.
“No,” replied the doctor, “she is dying of tuberculosis of the lungs. What were the primary causes which induced that disease I cannot tell. All I said was that she appears to welcome it, or rather its issue. And I will add this on my own account, that when she dies the world will lose one of the sweetest women that ever walked upon it. Good morning.”
“I know what he means,” said Anthony to himself as he watched the retreating form. “He means that I have murdered her, and perhaps I have. She is sick of me, and wants to get back to my father, who was so different. Well, what made me a brute and her an angel? And when she’s gone how will the brute get on without the angel? Why should I be filled with fury and wickedness and she, of whom I was born, with sweetness and light? Let God or the devil answer that if they can. My mother, oh! my mother!” And this violent, sinister youth hid his face in his hands and wept.
Barbara sank down and down into a very whirlpool of nothingness. Bending over it, as it were, she saw the face of her aged mother, the faces of some of her dear sisters, the face of the kindly doctor, and lastly the agonised face of her handsome son.
“Mother! Don’t leave me, mother. Mother! for God’s sake come back to me, mother, or we shall never meet again. Come back to save me!”
These were the last words she heard.