“But then you had three expensive daughters,” she suggested. That was the odd thing about herself, she thought. Even if she criticised someone, the minute he admitted his mistake, she rushed in to give him excuses.
“And no son,” he added quietly. “That made a difference in all my plans, Sylvia.”
And even the plans he had made, she thought, have been altered. Two of the daughters had come back to live with him; two grandchildren had been added to his family.
“I ought to have made the change,” he said. “I talked it over with Ben, several times. But somehow, nothing came of all our talk.”
“Ben liked Whitecraigs as it was. He wouldn’t give you good advice.”
“It suited me,” he admitted wryly. “I liked the place as it was, too.”
“I think you’d have liked the feeling of being a successful farmer. Uncle George has found it a good kind of life.”
“Successful,” he repeated slowly. “Yes... That’s something I would like to have been, just once in my life.”
“Oh, what nonsense,” she said, but it was only an equivocation. “Look, you’ve dropped some paint. Where’s that rag you have for the brushes?”
He looked down at the dried spatters of colour on the porch around his feet. “Another spot won’t hurt,” he said. “It makes a prettier picture than I’ve ever painted.” Then he glanced up at his daughter. “I was wrong,” he said. “I’ve had one success.” He reached out and touched her arm. “Sometimes I wonder if Milly and I were to blame. Perhaps we didn’t bring up the girls in the right way. And then, just as I’m getting depressed, I think about you. There’s one at least, I tell myself, who’s happy and well-balanced. One out of three. Not good, but not bad either, I suppose.”
Then he stared at her, watching the sudden trembling on her lips. She turned away quickly, feeling the tears come to her eyes. “It’s too cold out here,” she said, and shivered.
“Then go inside and talk to Milly.” His voice was sharp, impatient. He had guessed that she brought bad news. “I want to finish this before the light fades altogether.” He began painting again with thin fine strokes, adding exact detail to over-emphasised patterns.
“Father, I’ve got to tell you something—I’m sorry, but I’ve got to tell you.”
He waved her away. He didn’t look at her. “Later,” he said, “later.”
She hesitated, and then she left him. Later... That was the way it had always been. Later, later.
The large front door was ajar. She pushed open its heavy bulk and entered the shadowed hall. The wooden floor was no longer slippery with polish, the rugs were thinner to her tread, but everything else was the same—the table lying littered against the wall, the sombre ticking of the grandfather clock which stood under the curving staircase, the carved chest with coats piled on top, the rubbers discarded at the side of the chair, the walking sticks clustered in a corner. It was the same, only more so; as if people had given up putting coats into closets or picking up rubbers or clearing the table of keys, unopened circulars and half-empty match-folders.
From the sitting-room came the sound of her mother’s voice, speaking firmly. “And I want to point out,” Milly was saying, “that although I may have been a member of this organisation, I never attended any of its meetings. Therefore, I refuse to be held responsible for any of its policies and I insist—”
Sylvia entered the room. Millicent Jerold was seated on the edge of her chair in front of her small writing desk. Her thick rust-coloured hair, now heavily streaked with white, was disarranged more than usual. She glanced around at the intruder, her head tilted forward, her blue eyes looking over the top of her reading glasses, her round white face drawn into an anxious frown.
“Oh, it’s you, Sylvia,” she said, waving a greeting with the sheet of paper she held in her hand. “Come in, come in. Sit down. I’m writing a letter. Listen! Do you think I’ve made it strong enough?” She adjusted the desk lamp and began to read the letter again. “Well?” she asked as she ended, pushing the glasses back into position as they slipped down over the short bridge of her nose. “Is that clear enough?”
“The letter is clear enough.”
Mrs. Jerold picked it up once more, and again read aloud the last phrase: “—and I insist that you stop perpetrating this most uncalled-for persecution.” She nodded a decided agreement, and then hastily pushed back a lock of heavy hair. “That ought to settle them,” she said.
“But I don’t know if your position is as clear as the letter,” Sylvia said. “Perhaps it would be easier to admit you belonged to the organisation, but that you were completely unaware of its true aims. Or words to that effect. I suppose it is one of those things you joined without checking up thoroughly? Is it in trouble?”
“Yes, it’s The Association for the International Understanding of Democratic Peoples. Honestly, I don’t understand what we are all coming to. You can’t even join a society in peace, nowadays... No, you’re wrong, Sylvia, I’m going to send the letter just as it is. I really must make a very firm protest.”
“To whom?”
“To the editor who printed this article—” She began searching through the wild confusion of papers on her desk. “I cut it out. It’s some place here. A most denunciatory article.”
“But if you were a member—”
“I never attended a meeting.”
“Well, I think you ought to have, and then you would have known more about everything. Did you pay dues?”
“I didn’t pay dues,” Mrs. Jerold said irritably, and pushed back her glasses into place.
“You most certainly did,” a weary voice said at the door. “Or else your bank is cheating you.” It was Jennifer. She came slowly into the room. “Hallo, Sylvia. Are you staying for dinner?”
“No, I have to leave at six.”
“Too bad,” Jennifer said, but a look of relief passed over her worried face. In these last few years, her figure had grown thicker. Her blonde hair had faded and showed white at the temples. It was badly cut, as if she had hacked it into a short bob with a pair of blunt scissors. Her cheeks were pale, her eyes had lost their brightness, her lips were now held tightly, and a permanent little furrow had formed between her eyebrows. She wore no make-up, and her grey flannel skirt needed pressing.
“I paid no dues,” Millicent Jerold said firmly. “I only donated funds for certain charitable projects connected with the A.I.U.D.P.”
“Such as kid gloves for kangaroos.”
“Well, it’s my own money,” Mrs. Jerold said placidly.
“What’s left of it,” Jennifer added.
“When I took you and Annabel to Paris and Rome you didn’t object to spending it.”
“I didn’t know anything about spending capital then,” Jennifer said sharply. “I was seventeen.”
“My dear, surely I can spend it in the way I like?”
Jennifer said, “You certainly do. When I think of what has gone to Eskimos and Calabrians and Armenians and Central Africans—”
“Well, there are always so many starving children in these places,” Mrs. Jerold said mildly. “Or bad landowners, or earthquakes, or persecutions, or something. Besides, your father didn’t marry me for my money. He would never use a penny of it. Where is he, anyway?”
“He’s sitting out on the porch, and it’s much too cold for him,” Sylvia said.
“He’s upset, today,” Mrs. Jerold said. “All because Whitestar died. Really, it was to be expected. Twenty-four years old. And the strange thing was that your father wouldn’t go to the funeral. I must say I thought it was a pity that Peter and Cordelia wanted to attend. Death isn’t a subject for children to face. They’ll be awake all night with bad dreams.”
“I’ll go and get Father,” Jennifer said and left the room.
“Really, it was very strange,” Millicent Jerold repeated, “he just wouldn’t go.”
“Not so strange,” Sylvia said. “He would only have seen another part of his
life buried under the earth.” Twenty-four years of it.
Millicent Jerold finished addressing the envelope, studied it, and then laid it aside with regret. She picked up some other letters and glanced through them.
“Mother,” Sylvia began, “I need your help.”
“Do you, dear?” Millicent Jerold sighed and jammed the letters back into their pigeon-hole. “I suppose these can wait.” She rose and came forward to the fireplace.
A shapeless black spaniel rose from the shadow of the desk and followed her wearily. She took off her glasses and laid them on the mantelpiece, and stood looking down at the unlighted fire. She was a small woman, smaller still in her curious flat-heeled sandals that seemed so incongruous with her tight tweed suit. “How do you like my shoes?” she asked, extending a neat little foot. “The Indians make them. In Arizona, aren’t they clever? Sylvia—”
“I wanted to tell you that—”
“Yes, yes. One thing at a time, Sylvia. First of all, can you do something about Jennifer?” She looked at the black spaniel. “Hannibal, sit down! You know it’s bad for you to stand. All right then, I’ll sit if that’s what you want.” She chose a chair at the corner of the hearth, and Hannibal flopped at her feet.
“Jennifer?” Sylvia was startled.
“Yes. Haven’t you noticed? She’s changed so much. Worrying, grudging, pinching every penny. What kind of life is that? Just look at the fire—or rather, no fire.”
“We light it later in the evening,” Jennifer said, coming back into the room. “Father’s gone upstairs,” she told Sylvia. “He had some work he wanted to finish. Also,” her voice became suddenly bitter, “we heard Annabel’s car returning. And what’s more,” and now she looked at her mother, “since we are on the subject of your daughters, I’ve got to watch every penny and grudge and worry all the time. Someone has to do it.”
“Yes, yes. But you order us all around much too much. I never brought you up that way, Jennifer.”
“It’s a pity you hadn’t. We might have made fewer mistakes.”
Millicent Jerold sighed. “I gave you every freedom to develop your own personality. If you made mistakes, it was your own choice. I only wish you’d allow your children as much freedom as you got. Really, Jennifer, it’s dangerous to repress them the way you do. It—it hurts me to watch you.” She pressed her small thin hand to her breast in a vague search for her heart.
“I don’t repress—” Jennifer broke off to listen to the sounds on the porch. “There are the children, with Annabel,” she said, relief in her voice. She went into the hall to welcome them. “Oh, Peter,” Sylvia heard her say, “you’re filthy! You’d better go right upstairs and wash and get all that mud off you. And you, too, Cordelia. Supper is almost ready... Then you’ll see Aunt Sylvia.”
“That’s what I mean,” Millicent Jerold said, shaking her head. “The poor infants have to have supper at six, whether they want it or not. Jennifer gives herself twice the work—they could easily eat with us at half-past seven.”
Sylvia glanced at her watch. It was six o’clock. “I’ll have to leave soon.”
“Why the hurry?” Annabel asked as she came into the room. “Rushing home to give Payton a nice cheery welcome after a hard day at the office? Hallo, Milly. How’s the soapbox?” Annabel never expected an answer to her questions, Sylvia reflected, as she watched her oldest sister. Annabel’s conversation had always been a monologue delivered in a husky monotone. People once had thought it amusing: perhaps some still did.
“Do I look as bad as all that?” Annabel wanted to know, returning Sylvia’s stare. “What’s wrong now? My hair? Or is it the dress? You were always the critical one.” She moved over to a small cupboard. “What about a drink?”
“No, thanks,” Sylvia said.
“Of course, you always were careful about your driving, weren’t you?” Annabel was amused. “I’ll have one if you don’t object. Or rather, if Jennifer doesn’t. Why should she? I buy my own liquor, don’t I?”
Sylvia watched her eldest sister worriedly. Annabel was thin now: her slender figure had become brittle and sharp. The flesh was tightly drawn over her cheeks, her brow was too prominent. Her hair was a brilliant gold, and she still wore it long and loose in the style of her successful years. Her dress was fortunately simple, yet the neckline was pointed too low and its colour was red. But it was the puffiness under her sister’s large blue eyes that horrified Sylvia most. She looked at her mother, but Milly seemed perfectly unconcerned. Then, involuntarily, she glanced up at the picture which hung over the mantelpiece. It was a portrait of Annabel and Jennifer, dressed alike in white chiffon, their round shoulders bared, their necks slender and graceful, their faces glowing with youth, their blue eyes filled with merriment.
“Don’t rub it in,” Annabel said bitterly, watching Sylvia. “Don’t rub it in.” She took a long drink from her glass and then came forward to stand in front of the fireplace and look up at the picture. “Why do we keep the damned thing up there, Milly? Some day I’ll—” She raised her glass as if she were about to throw it. “Oh,” she said, turning away, “it ought to be buried along with old Whitestar. God—what a fuss! Can you imagine? A funeral for a horse. Complete with trimmings. Old Ben was in tears. Rose sobbed. The children cried too. And a good time was had by all.”
“Did you go to the funeral?” Sylvia asked curiously.
“Me? My God!”
Jennifer had come back into the room. “Annabel was over at Blairton,” she said. She gave her first smile. “Tell Sylvia all about your new beau, Annabel.”
Annabel scowled, chose a couch where she could stretch her body full length, and placed the half-finished drink down on the floor within easy reach of her dangling arm.
“He’s a garage attendant,” Jennifer said. “He changes tyres, and—”
“Shut up!” Annabel said savagely. “He’s a good joe. Because your love life is all shot to hell, why should you tilt that snooty little nose of yours at other people’s affairs?”
“Really,” Millicent Jerold said mildly. “That’s scarcely the language you learned either at your expensive schools or in this house.”
“And where did that get me?”
“Four husbands,” Jennifer said. “And a fifth being chosen before you are even properly divorced from the fourth.”
“Look,” Annabel said, sitting up on the couch, “I’m not going to take that kind of talk from anyone, not even from the virtuous widow faithful to the memory of her second husband, who forgets her own first marriage so easily. That was a bigger mess than I ever landed in. So, my little ray of sunshine, shut up! For good.” Her voice calmed down. “Don’t we shock you, Sylvia. We always did, didn’t we? Right into Payton’s respectable arms. Well, chacun à son gout. I’ll stay this way and you keep Payton Pleydell.” She raised her drink ironically. “To the Jerold sisters, gay or rueful.”
Sylvia gathered up her coat and bag.
Her mother said, “Must you leave, darling? Oh well, we can have our little chat next time you come. It wasn’t anything important you had to tell me, was it?” She rubbed the toe of her sandal against Hannibal’s tangled coat. “He likes that. Don’t you, Hannibal?”
Sylvia hesitated. “You ought to know, all of you. You’re the family and you should know before anyone else.” She took a deep breath. “I’m leaving Payton,” she said quietly.
There was a long silence.
“My God!” Annabel said. Then she stared at Jennifer.
“Why?” asked Jennifer. “But why, Sylvia?”
“Another man?” Annabel asked. “Certainly, it can’t be that Payton is interested in another woman.” She began to laugh and then stopped. “I’m sorry, Sylvia,” she said awkwardly. “But in some ways, I congratulate you.” She rose to pour herself another drink.
“I’m sorry, too,” Jennifer said.
Millicent Jerold stared at each of her daughters in turn. “But what is Sylvia going to do?”
“Live he
re?” Jennifer asked slowly. “Why, we’re crowded out—the children must have separate rooms and—”
“I might say,” Annabel said, “that Milly asked the one practical question. You’re a damned Yankee after all, Milly. I used to think that you were spinning fancy tales when you talked about your girlhood in New York, and Grandpa who was such an astute business-man, amassing hordes of money. But tonight, I know I was wrong. That’s the complete platinum-lined question. What is Sylvia going to do?”
“You shouldn’t be too rash about this,” Millicent Jerold said anxiously. “Please think, darling!... Have you told your father?”
Sylvia shook her head.
“And here’s another question,” Annabel said thoughtfully. “Will Payton give you a divorce? What did he say?”
“I—I haven’t told him yet.”
“He’ll never let you go, baby. Not Payton!”
“Then perhaps,” Jennifer said hopefully, exchanging glances with her mother, “perhaps it will all end well. When you’ve calmed down, Sylvia, you may decide to stay with him. After all, you’ve so much to lose...”
“I’m perfectly calm,” Sylvia said. She added bitterly, “And I promise I shan’t add to your troubles.”
“Let me give you one tip,” Annabel said. “Don’t be noble about any settlement. Here’s one girl who was, and now she has run out of alimony.”
“I hope you won’t be too rash,” Millicent Jerold repeated unhappily. “Please, Sylvia.” She smiled wanly, her cheerful round face puckered with bewilderment. She sighed. “But I suppose it’s really your problem. Oh dear...” She shook her head sadly and then gave Sylvia a cheek to kiss.
Sylvia turned away. That had always been her mother’s answer to all her questions: Well, darling, I suppose that’s really your problem, isn’t it?