After three weeks of home life he was compelled to confess that he did not in the least understand his mother. His intuitions about people were not in fact of a very penetrating character.
His mother appeared to all her world as a "sweet old lady," but even Martin could already perceive that was not in the least what she really was. He had seen her old hands tremble with suppressed temper on the very day after his arrival; he had seen her old lips white with anger because the maid had brought her the wrong shawl. Old ladies must of course have their fancies, but his mother had some fixed and fierce purpose in her life that was quite beyond his powers of penetration. It might of course have something to do with her attachment to his father. Attached Martin could see that she was, but at the same time completely and eternally outside her husband's spiritual life. That might have been perhaps in the first place by her own desire--she did not want "to be bothered with all that nonsense." But certainly all these years with him had worked upon her: she was not perhaps so sure now that it was all "nonsense." She wanted, it might be, a closer alliance with him, which she could not have because she had once rejected the chance of it. Martin did not know; he was aware that there was a great deal going on in the house that he did not fathom. Amy, his sister, knew. There was an alliance between his mother and his sister deep and strong, as he could see--he did not yet know that it was founded very largely on dislike and fear of himself.
How fantastic these theories of fire and passion must seem, he amused himself by considering, to any one who knew his mother only from the outside. She was sitting to-day as always in her little pink and white chintz drawing-room, a bright fire burning and a canary singing in a cage beside the window. The rest of the house was ugly and strangely uninhabited as though the Warlocks had merely pitched their tents for a night and were moving forward to-morrow, but this little room, close, smelling of musk and sweet biscuits (a silver box with lemon-shaped biscuits in it stood on a little table near the old lady), with its pretty pink curtains, its canary, and its heavy and softly closing door, was like a place enclosed, dedicated to the world, and ruled by a remorseless spirit of comfort.
Mrs. Warlock was only sixty years of age, but she had, a number of years ago, declared herself an invalid, and now never, unless she drove on a very fine afternoon, left the house. Whether she were truly an invalid nobody knew; she presented certainly a most healthy appearance with her shell-pink cheeks, her snow-white hair, her firm bosom rising and falling with such gentle regularity beneath the tight and shining black silk that covered it, her clear bright eyes like shining glass. She always sat in a deep arm-chair covered with the chintz of the curtains and filled with plump pillows of pink silk. A white filmy shawl was spread over her knees, at her throat was a little bright coquettish blue bow that added, amazingly, to the innocent charm of her old age. On her white hair, crinkled and arranged as though it were some ornament, not quite a wig but still apart from the rest of her body, she wore a lace cap. She was fond of knitting; she made warm woollen comforters and underclothing for the children of the poor. She was immensely fond of conversation, being of an inquisitive nature. But above all was she fond of eating. This covetousness of food had grown on her as her years had increased. The thought of foods of various kinds filled many hours of her day, and the desire for pleasant things to eat was the motive of many of her most deliberate actions. She cherished warmly and secretly this little lust of hers. None of the family was aware of the grip that the desire had upon her nor of the speed with which the desire was growing. She did not ask directly for the things that she liked, but manoeuvred with little plots and intrigues to obtain them. The cook in the Warlock household had neither art nor science at her disposal, but as it happened old Mrs. Warlock lusted after very simple things. She loved rice-pudding; her heart beat fast in her breast when she thought of the brown crinkly skin of the rich warm milk of a true rice-pudding; also she loved hot buttered toast, very buttery so that it soaked your fingers; also beef-steak pudding with gravy rich and dark and its white covering thick and heavy; she also loved hot and sweet tea and the little cakes that Amy sometimes bought, red and yellow and pink, held in white paper--also plum- pudding, which, alas! only came at Christmastime and wedding-cake, which scarcely ever came at all.
This vice, of which she was almost triumphantly conscious as though it were a proof of her enduring vitality, she clutched eagerly to herself. She did not wish that any human being should perceive it. Of her husband she was not afraid--it would never possibly occur to him that food was of importance to any one; Amy might discover what she pleased, she was in strong alliance with her mother and would never betray her.
Her fear was of Martin. She feared very deeply his influence upon her husband. During Martin's absence she and Amy had managed very successfully to have the house as they wished it; John Warlock, the master, had been too deeply occupied with the affairs of the soul to be concerned also with the affairs of the body.
She had, she believed, exercised an increasing influence over him. She had always loved him with a fierce and selfish love, but now, when he was nearly seventy, and to both of them only a few years of earthly ambition could remain, she desired, with all the urgent ferocity of a human being through whose fingers the last sands of his opportunity are slipping, to seize and hold and have him entirely hers. He had always eluded her; although he had once certainly loved her with, at any rate, a semblance of earthly passion, his spiritual life had always come between them, holding him from her, helping him to escape when he pleased, tantalising, sometimes maddening too. She was certainly now not so ready to dismiss that spiritual life as once she had been. She was herself an old heathen; for herself she believed in nothing but her earthly appetites and desires, but for him and for others there might be something in it, . . . and perhaps some day some dreadful thing would occur . . . a chariot of Fire descend upon the Chapel and some sort of a fierce and hostile God deliver judgment; she only hoped that she would be dead before then.
Meanwhile she and Amy had, undoubtedly, during these last years, increased their influence over him. He was not aware of it, but as he was growing now older and weaker--he had had trouble with his heart--he inevitably depended more upon them. The old lady began to count upon her triumph. Then came Martin's return.
She had forgotten Martin. It is true that she had written to him every week during his long absence, but her letters had been all part of the "dear old lady" habit which was put on by her just as an actress prepares herself, nightly, for a character in which she knows she is the greatest possible success. "Thank you very much, Mrs. Smith . . . No, we've not heard from Martin now for three weeks. Careless boy! I always write myself every week so that he may have at any rate one little word from home . . ."
She had never felt that she had any real share in his life; he had always belonged to his father; nor was she a woman who cared about children. Martin had long ago become to her simply an opportunity for further decoration. Since his return it had been quite another affair. In one moment she had seen her power over her husband shrivel and disappear. Martin was home again. Martin must be here, Martin must be there; Martin must see this, Martin must do this. She had seen before in earlier days the force of her husband's passion when it was roused. There was something now in his reception of their son that terrified her. She had at once perceived that Amy was as deeply moved as she. The girl, plain, awkward, silent, morose, had always adored her father, but she had never known how to approach him. She was not clever, she had not been able to enter into his life although she would have done anything that he desired of her. What she had suffered during those early years when, as a little ugly girl, she had watched her brother, accepted, received into the Brotherhood, praised for his wisdom, his intimacy with God, his marvellous saintly promise, praised for these things when she had known all his weaknesses, how he had slipped away to a music- hall when he was only fourteen and smoked and drank there, how he had laughed at Mr. Thurston's dropping of his "h's" or at Miss Avies' prayer meetings! No one ever knew what in those years she had thought of her brother. Then, after Martin had flung it all away and escaped abroad, she had begun, slowly, painfully, but with dogged persistence, to make herself indispensable to her father; Martin she had put out of her mind. He would never return, or, at least, the interval of his departure should have been severe enough to separate him for ever from his father . . .
In a moment's glance, in a clasp of the hand, in a flash of the eye, she had seen that love leap up in her father's heart as strong as ever it had been. Every day of Martin's residence in the house had added fire to that love. She was a good woman; she struggled hard to beat down her jealousy. She prayed. She lay for hours at night struggling with her sins. If Martin had been worthy, if he had shown love in return, but, from the bottom of her soul, as the days increased she despised him--despised him for his light heart, his care of worldly things, his utter lack of comprehension of their father, his scorn, even now but badly concealed, of all the sanctities that she had in reverence.
Therefore she drew near to her mother and the two of them watched and waited . . .
His mother was knitting. She lifted to him her pink wrinkled face and, her spectacles balanced on the end of her nose, smiled the smile of the dearest old lady in the world.
"Well, dear, and have you had a pleasant day?"
"All right, mother, thank you. Funny thing; met a man in the street, hadn't seen for five years. Saw him last in Rio--Funny thing. Well, we lunched together. Not a bad fellow--Seen a thing or two, he has."
Mrs. Warlock counted her stitches. "Fourteen, fifteen, sixteen . . . How nice for you, dear. What was his name?"
"Thompson . . . I say," Martin suddenly raised his head as though he heard something, "where's Amy?"
"Changing. She's been paying a call on the Miss Cardinals. Thought it would be polite because of the new niece.--Six, seven, eight and nine . . ."
"What did she think of her?"
"Of whom, dear?"
"Of the niece."
"Oh, I don't think she liked her very much. She said that she was plain and silent--and looked cross, Amy thought."
"Oh yes, Amy would." His face, as was his way when he was vexed, flushed very slowly, the deeper red rising through the red-brown until, ceasing in the middle of his forehead, it left a white line beneath his hair. "She isn't cross a bit."
"I don't know, dear. It isn't my opinion. I only tell you what Amy said. People here don't seem to like her. Mrs. Smith was telling me yesterday that she's so difficult to talk to and seems to know nothing about anything, poor girl."
"Mrs. Smith!" He swung his body on his hips indignantly. "A lot she knows about anything! I hate that woman and her chattering daughter."
"Well, dear, I don't know, I'm sure; Mrs. Smith always seems to me very kind."
He looked at her as though he had suddenly remembered something.
"I say--is it true what Amy says, that I woke you up this morning when I went out by banging my door?"
"I'm sure you didn't.--Amy shouldn't say such things. And if you did what does it matter? I sleep so badly that half an hour more or less makes very little difference."
"Well, she says so--" He went on, dropping his voice: "I say, mother, what's the matter with Amy? Why's she so sick with me? I haven't done anything to offend her, have I?"
"Of course not. What a silly boy you are, Martin! Nine, ten, eleven . . . There! that's enough for this evening. I'll finish it in another day. You mustn't mind Amy, Martin. She isn't always very well."
The door opened and Amy came in. She was a tall gaunt woman who looked a great deal older than her brother. She did not make the best of herself, brushing her thin black hair straight back from her bony forehead. She had a habit of half closing her eyes when she peered at some one as though she could not see. She should, long ago, have worn spectacles, but from some strange half-conscious vanity had always refused to do so. Every year her sight grew worse. She was wearing now a dress of black silk, very badly made, cut to display her long skinny neck and bony shoulders. She wore her clothes as though she struggled between a disdain for such vanities and a desire to appear attractive. Her manner of twisting her eyelids and wrinkling her nose gave her a peevish expression, but, behind that, there was a hint of pathos, a half-seen glimpse of a soul that desired friendship and affection. She was very tall and there was something masculine in the long angularity of her limbs. She offered a strange contrast to the broad and ruddy Martin. There was, however, something in the eyes of each--some sudden surprised almost visionary flash that came and went that showed them to be the children of the same father. To Mrs. Warlock they bore no resemblance whatever. Amy stopped when she saw her brother as though she had not expected him to be there.
"Well, Martin," she said--then came forward and sat in a chair opposite her mother.
"Mr. Thurston's coming to suppar," she said.
Martin frowned. "Oh, hang it, what for?" he cried.
"He's taking me to Miss Aries' Bible meeting," Amy answered coldly. "What a baby you are about people, Martin. I should have thought all your living abroad so much would have made you understanding. But you're like the rest. You must have every one cut to the same pattern."
Martin looked up for a moment as though he would answer angrily; then he controlled himself and said, laughing: "I suppose I have my prejudices like every one else. I daresay Thurston's a very good sort of fellow, but we don't like one another, and there's an end of it, Everybody can't like everybody, Amy--why, even you don't like every one."
"No, I don't," she answered shortly.
