Brackenbury would only talk of increasing expenses and the burden of taxation.
“I could face my operation with an easier mind,” I said, “if I knew that Will would never want.”
“Well, some one has always pulled him out hitherto,” said Brackenbury. “I suppose some one always will.” I had to rack my brains, but honestly truly the only occasion I could remember on which he had come to our assistance was when Will as a mere boy fell in with some men no better than common swindlers who prevailed on him to play cards for stakes which he could not afford … “He won’t want,” Brackenbury went on with the insolence of a man who has never done a hand’s turn in his life, “if he’ll only buckle down to it and work. Or he could spend less money.”
This, I knew, was a “dig” at me. Before my boy had time to learn how very little distance his army pay would take him, I had asked my brother to tide him over a passing difficulty. Would you not have thought that any uncle would have welcomed the opportunity? I said nothing. And then Brackenbury had the assurance to criticize my way of life and to ask why I kept on the house in Mount Street if it always meant “pulling the devil by the tail,” as he so elegantly expressed it. Why did I not take a less expensive house? And so on and so forth. I suppose he imagined that I could ask the princess to come to Bayswater …
“Do not,” I said, “let us discuss the matter any more. It is unpleasant to be a pauper, but more unpleasant to be a beggar. If my boy wins through with his life—”
“Oh, you needn’t worry about that,” said Brackenbury. “They tell me he’s on a staff which has never even heard a shot fired.”
They tell me … Does not that phrase always put you on your guard, as it were? Of course he was quoting Culroyd, who is still young enough to imagine that whatever he does must be right and that every one must do as he does. Ever since Will was appointed to the staff … I should have thought it stood to reason; you keep the brains of the army to direct the war, and the other people … I won’t put it even as strongly as that, but there must be a division of labour. My Lord Culroyd seems to think that any one who has not run away from school and enlisted … Sometimes I have been hard put to it to keep the peace when they have been on leave at the same time. But I could not allow Brackenbury to make himself a ruler and a judge …
“Is it not enough,” I said, “That you have refused the last request I may ever make? Is it necessary to add slander to ungraciousness?”
“Oh, keep cool, Ann, keep cool,” said Brackenbury with his usual elegance. “From all accounts you ain’t going to die yet awhile; and, if you do. Master Will won’t be any worse off in pocket. He can earn his living as well as another. I’ll promise you this, though; if he gets smashed up in the war, I’ll see that he don’t starve, but that’s the limit of my responsibility. Now, does that set your mind at rest?”
I refused to continue the discussion and sank back on my pillows.
“What,” I said, “what have I done to deserve this?” …
And it was I who found Ruth for him …
Do you know, after that, it was on the tip of my tongue to say I could not see Spenworth? He had made such a pother about coming up from Cheniston … If your brother-in-law were faced with an operation and begged to have what would perhaps be his last word with you … and if, through no fault of yours, there had been unhappy differences in the past … The nurse came in to say that he had arrived, and I felt that I must make an effort, whatever it cost me. He was worse than Brackenbury! What they said to each other outside I do not profess to know; but Spenworth came in, bawling in that hunting-field voice of his … Ah, of course, you do not know him! I assure you, it goes through and through one’s head … I begged him to spare me; and, when I had quieted him, I referred very briefly to our estrangement, which, I told him, was occasioned solely by my efforts to do what in me lay to promote peace in the family. Poor Kathleen … betrayed and neglected; the licentiousness of life at Cheniston—eating, drinking, smoking, gambling, racing; those four unhappy girls … A pagan household …
“But,” I said, “I do not want to disinter old controversies. If I have failed in achievement, you must judge me on my intentions. Lying here, though I am not a nervous woman, I have been compelled to think of the uncertainty of life. Let us, Spenworth,” I said, “bury the hatchet. If anything happens to me, you must be our rock and anchor. You are the head of the family; Arthur is your brother; Will is your nephew—”
“No fault of mine,” growled Spenworth in a way that set everything trembling. He is obsessed by the idea that rudeness is the same thing as humour. “What’s he been up to now?”
“He has been ‘up to’ nothing, as you call it,” I said. “But I should face my operation with an easier mind if I knew that Will’s future was assured. When the war is over and if he is spared, it is essential that he should have independent means of some kind. It is pitiable that a man in his position … Do you not feel it—your own nephew? With the present prices, a thousand a year is little enough; but Arthur can do nothing to increase his directorships; and if my poor guidance and support are withdrawn—”
“What is supposed to be the matter with you?,” Spenworth interrupted.
“I can hardly discuss that with you,” I said.
“Well, Brackenbury told me—and Arthur told Brackenbury—,” he began.
“Arthur and Brackenbury know nothing about it,” I said. “For some time I have not been well, and it seemed worth the unavoidable risk of an operation if I might hope for greater strength and comfort. But I could not go under the anæsthetic with an easy mind if I felt that I had in any way omitted to put my house in order. Between us,” I said, “bygones will be bygones. Will you not give me the satisfaction of knowing that, if we do not meet again, I am safe in leaving Arthur and my boy to your care? You are the head of the family. Can my boy’s future not be permanently assured—here and now?”
I was not bargaining or haggling; it was a direct appeal to his generosity … Spenworth hummed and hawed for a while; then he said:
“I don’t feel very much disposed to do anything more for that young man.”
“More?,” I echoed.
“Well, I paid up once,” he said. “Arthur never told you, I suppose? Well, it was hardly a woman’s province. I was acting then as head of the family … about the time when you thought fit to criticize me very frankly …”
I had no more idea what he was talking about than the man in the moon!
“Spenworth! I must beg for enlightenment,” I said.
“Oh, we’ll let bygones be bygones,” he answered. “The case was never brought to trial. But, as long as I’m likely to be called on to wipe up little messes of that kind, I’d sooner make a sinking-fund, to provide against emergencies, than pay Will money to get into more mischief and then have to stump up again.”
More explicit than that he declined to be …
“Then,” I said, “you repudiate all responsibility to your own flesh and blood? Whether I live or die, this is a request I shall never repeat.”
“Oh, we’ll see how things go,” he answered. “You may not be as bad as you think. If I find Will starving at the end of the war, I’d undertake to pay his passage to Australia and give him a hundred a year to stay there …”
Until you know my brother-in-law, you cannot appreciate the refinement of his humour …
“Let us,” I said, “discuss this no further.”
You have probably observed that a man