Poor Relations Read online

  CHAPTER XIV

  The buzz of gossip, the sting of scandalous paragraph, even theblundering impertinence of the actor-knight were all forgotten thefollowing afternoon when a telegram arrived from Hampshire to say thatold Mrs. Touchwood was dying. John left London immediately; but when hereached Ambles he found that his mother was already dead.

  "She passed away at five o'clock," Edith sobbed.

  Perhaps it was to stop his wife's crying that Laurence abandoned at anyrate temporarily his unbelief and proclaimed as solemnly as if he werestill Vicar of Newton Candover that the old lady was waiting for themall above. Hilda seemed chiefly worried by the fact that she had neverwarned James of their mother's grave condition.

  "I did telegraph Eleanor, who hasn't come; and how I came to overlookJames and Beatrice I can't think. They'll be so hurt. But Mama didn'tfret for anybody in particular. No, Hugh sat beside the bed and held herhand, which seemed to give her a little pleasure, and I was keptoccupied with changing the hot-water bottles."

  In the dining-room George was knitting lugubriously.

  "You mustn't worry yourself, old chap," he said to John with his usualpartiality for seductive advice. "You can't do anything now. None of uscan do anything till the funeral, though I've written to Eleanor tobring my top-hat with her when she comes."

  The embarrassment of death's presence hung heavily over the household.The various members sat down to supper with apologetic glances at oneanother, and nobody took a second helping of any dish. The children wereonly corrected in whispers for their manners, but they were given tounderstand by reproachful head-shakes that for a child to put hiselbows on the table or crumble his bread or drink with his mouth fullwas at such a time a cruel exhibition of levity. John could not helpcontrasting the treatment of children at a death with their treatment ata birth. Had a baby arrived upstairs, they would have been hustled outof sight and sound of the unclean event; but over death they wereexpected to gloat, and their curiosity was encouraged as the fitexpression of filial piety.

  "Yes, Frida, darling, dear Grandmama will have lots and lots of lovelywhite flowers. Don't kick the table, sweetheart. Think of dear Grandmamalooking down at you from Heaven, and don't kick the table-leg, myprecious," said Edith in tremulous accents, gently smoothing back herdaughter's indefinite hair.

  "Can people only see from Heaven or can they hear?" asked Harold.

  "Hush, my boy," his Uncle Laurence interposed. "These are mysteries intowhich God does not permit us to inquire too deeply. Let it suffice thatour lightest actions are known. We cannot escape the omniscient eye."

  "I wasn't speaking about God," Harold objected. "I was asking aboutGrandmama. Does she hear Frida kicking the table, or does she only seeher?"

  "At this solemn moment, Harold, when we should all of us be dumb withgrief, you should not persist. Your poor grandmother would be pained tohear you being persistent like this."

  Harold seemed to think he had tricked his uncle into answering thequestion, for he relapsed into a satisfied silence; Edith's eyes flashedgladly through her tears to welcome the return of her husband's truantorthodoxy. All managed to abstain while they were eating from any moreconspicuous intrusion of the flesh than was inevitable; but there was apainful scene after supper, because Frida insisted that she wasfrightened to sleep alone, and refused to be comforted by the offer ofViola for company. The terrible increase of Grandmama's powers ofhearing and seeing might extend to new powers of locomotion in themiddle of the night, in which case Viola would be no protection.

  "But Grandmama is in Heaven, darling," her mother urged.

  "I want to sleep with you. I'm frightened. I want to sleep with you,"she wailed.

  "Laurence!" murmured Edith, appealingly.

  "Death is a great leveler," he intoned. Grateful to the chance of beingable to make this observation, he agreed to occupy his daughter's roomand thereby allow her to sleep with her mother.

  "You're looking sad, Bertram," John observed, kindly, to his favoritenephew. "You mustn't take this too much to heart."

  "No, Uncle John, I'm not. Only I keep wishing Grandmama had lived alittle longer."

  "We all wish that, old man."

  "Yes, but I only meant a very little longer, so that I needn't have goneback for the first week of term."

  John nervously hurried his nephew up to bed beyond the scorching ofLaurence's rekindled flames of belief. Downstairs, he tried to extractfrom the attitude of the grown-up members of the family the attitude hewould have liked to detect in himself. If a few months ago John had beentold that his mother's death would affect him so little he would havebeen horrified by the suggestion; even now he was seriously shocked athimself. Yet, try as he might, he could not achieve the apotheosis ofthe old lady that he would have been so content to achieve. Undoubtedlya few months ago he would have been able without being conscious ofself-deception to pretend that he believed not only in the reality ofhis own grief, but also in that of the others. He would have taken hispart in the utterance of platitudes about life and death, separation andreunion. His own platitudes would have been disguised with poetictropes, and he might have thought to himself how well such and such aphrase was put; but he would quickly have assured himself that it waswell put because it was the just expression of a deep emotion. Now hecould not make a single contribution to the woeful reflections of thoseround him. He believed neither in himself nor in them. He knew thatGeorge was faintly anxious about his top-hat, that Hilda was agitated atthe prospect of having to explain to James and Beatrice herunintentional slight, that Laurence was unable to resist the opportunityof taking the lead at this sorrowful time by reverting to his priestlyoffice. And Hugh, for whom the old lady had always possessed a fondunreasoning affection, did his countenance express more than a hardlyconcealed relief that it was all over? Did he not give the impressionthat he was stretching his legs after sitting still in one position fortoo long? Edith, to be sure, was feeling some kind of emotion thatrequired an endless flow of tears, but it seemed to John that she wasweeping more for the coming of death than for the going of her mother.And the children, how could they be expected to feel the loss of the oldlady? There under the lamp like a cenotaph recording the slow hours ofage stood her patience-cards in their red morocco case; there they wouldbe allowed to stand for a while to satisfy the brief craving forreverence, and then one of the children realizing that Grandmama had nomore need of playing would take possession of them; they would becomegrubby and dog-eared in younger hands; they would disappear one by one,and the memory of that placid presence would hardly outlive them.

  "It's so nice to think that her little annuity died with her," sighedEdith. She spoke of the annuity as if it were a favorite pug that haddied out of sympathy with its mistress. "I should hate to feel I wasbenefiting from the death of somebody I loved," she explained presently.

  John shivered; that remark of his sister's was like a ghostly footstepupon his own grave, and from a few years hence, perhaps much less, heseemed to hear the family lawyer cough before he settled himself down toread the last will and testament of John Touchwood.

  "Of course, poor Mama had been dreadfully worried these last weeks,"Hilda said. "She felt very much the prospect of Hugh's going abroad--andother things."

  John regarded his elder sister, and was on the point of asking what shemeant to insinuate by other things, when a lament from upstairs startledthe assembled family.

  "Come to bed, mother, come to bed, I want you," Frida was shrieking overthe balustrade. "The door of Grandmama's room made a noise just now."

  "You had better go," said Laurence in answer to his wife's unvoicedappeal; and Edith went off gratefully.

  "It will always be a consolation to me," said Laurence, "that Mama wasable to hear _Thomas_ read to her. Yes, yes, she was so well upon thatmemorable evening. So very well. By the way, John, I shall arrange withthe Vicar to read the burial service myself. It will add the last touchto the intimacy of our common grief."

  In his own roo
m that night John tried hard not to criticize anybodyexcept himself. It was he who was cynical, he who was hard, he who wasunnatural, not they. He tried to evoke from the past early memories ofhis mother, but he could not recall one that might bring a tear to hiseye. He remembered that once she had smacked him for something Georgehad done, that she had never realized what a success he had made of hislife's work, that she was--but he tore the unfilial thoughts from hisbrain and reminded himself how much of her personality endured in hisown. George, Edith, and himself resembled her: James, Hilda, and Hughresembled their father. John's brothers and sisters haunted thedarkness; and he knew that deep down in himself he blamed his father andmother for bringing them all into the world; he could not help feelingthat he ought to have been an only child.

  "I do resent their existence," John thought. "I'm a heartless egotist.And Miss Hamilton thinks I'm an egotist. Her manner towards me latelyhas been distant, even contemptuous. Could that suggestion of Hilda'shave had any truth in it? Was Mama worried to death by Hugh's goingabroad? Did James complain to her about my taking the portraits and thesilver? Is it from any standpoint conceivable that my own behavior didhasten her end?"

  John's self-reproaches were magnified in the darkness, and he spent arestless and unhappy night, trying to think that the family was moreimportant than the individual.

  "You feel it terribly, don't you, dear Johnnie?" Edith asked him nextmorning with an affectionate pressure upon his arm. "You're lookingquite worn out."

  "We all feel it terribly," he sighed.

  During the three days before the funeral John managed to work himself upinto a condition of sentimentality which he flattered himself wasoutwardly at any rate affecting. Continuous reminders of his mother'sexistence culminating in the arrival of a new cap she had ordered justbefore her last swift illness seemed to induce in him the illusion ofsorrow; and without the least idea of what he intended to do with themafterwards he collected a quantity of small relics like spectacle-casesand caps and mittens, which he arranged upon his dressing-table andbrooded over with brimming eyes. He indulged Harold's theories about thepsychical state of his grandmother; he practiced swinging a golf club,but he never once took out a ball; he treated everybody to magnificentwreaths, and presented the servants as well as his nephews and nieceswith mourning; he ordered black-edged note-paper; he composed an epitaphin the manner of Sir Thomas Browne with cadences and subtlealliterations. Then came the funeral, which ruined the last few romanticnotions of grief that he had been able to preserve.

  To begin with, Beatrice arrived in what could only be described as atowering rage: no less commonplace epithet would have done justice tothe vulgarity of her indignation. That James the eldest son and she hiswife should not have been notified of the dangerous condition of Mama,but should have been summoned to the obsequies like mere friends of thefamily had outraged her soul, or, as Beatrice herself put it, hadknocked her down like a feather. Oh yes, she had always been consideredbeneath the Touchwood standard of gentility, but poor Mama had notthought the worse of her for that; poor Mama had many times gone out ofher way to be specially gracious towards her; poor Mama must have "laid"there wondering why her eldest daughter-in-law did not come to give herthe last and longest farewell. She had not been lucky enough to beblessed with children, but poor Mama had sometimes congratulated herupon that fact; poor Mama had realized only too well that children werenot always a source of happiness. She knew that the undeserved povertywhich had always dogged poor old Jimmie's footsteps had lately caused tobe exacted from him the family portraits and the family silver pressedupon him by poor Mama herself; but was that a reason for excluding himfrom his mother's death-bed? She would not say whom she blamed, but shehad her own ideas, and though Hilda might protest it was her fault, sheknew better; Hilda was incapable of such barbarity. No, she would _not_walk beside James as wife of the chief mourner; she would follow in therear of the funeral procession and hope that at any rate she was notgrudged that humble place. If some people resented her having bought thelargest wreath from a very expensive flower-shop, she was not too proudto carry the wreath herself; she had carried it all the way from townfirst-class to avoid its being crushed by heedless third-classpassengers.

  "And when I die," sobbed Beatrice, "I hope that James will remember weweren't allowed to see poor Mama before she went to Heaven, and will letme die quite alone. I'm sure I don't want my death to interfere withother people's amusements."

  The funeral party gathered round the open grave; Laurence read theservice so slowly and the wind was so raw that grief was depicted uponevery countenance; the sniffing of many noses, above which roseBeatrice's sobs of mortification and rage, mingled with the sighing ofthe yews and the sexton's asthma in a suitably lachrymose symphony.

  "Now that poor Mama has gone," said Hilda to her brother that afternoon,"I dare say you're anxious for me to be gone too."

  "I really don't think you are entitled to ascribe to me such unnaturalsentiments," John expostulated. "Why should I want you to die?"

  He could indeed ask this, for such an event would inevitably connote hisadoption of Harold.

  "I didn't mean you wanted me to die," said Hilda, crossly. "I meant youwould like me to leave Ambles."

  "Not at all. I'm delighted for you to stay here so long as it suits yourconvenience. And that applies equally to Edith. Also I may say toGeorge," he added with a glance at Eleanor, who had taken theopportunity of mourning to equip herself with a new set of blackbearskin furs. Eleanor shook herself like a large animal emerging fromthe stream.

  "And to me?" she asked with a challenge in her eyes.

  "You must judge for yourself, Eleanor, how far my hospitality is likelyto be extended willingly to you after last week," replied John, coldly.He had not yet spoken to his sister-in-law about the interference of SirPercy Mortimer with his private affairs, and he now awaited her excusesof reproaches with a curiosity that was very faintly tinged withapprehension.

  "Oh, I'm not at all ashamed of what I did," she declared. "George can'tspeak up for himself, and it was my duty to do all I could to help himin a matter of life and death."

  John's cheeks flushed with stormy rose like a menacing down, and he wasabout to break over his sister-in-law in thunder and lightning whenLaurence, entering the room at the moment and only hearing imperfectlyher last speech, nodded and sighed:

  "Yes, yes. Eleanor is indeed right. Yes, yes. In the midst of life...."

  Everybody hurried to take advantage of the diversion; a hum ofplatitudes rose and fell upon the funereal air. John in a convulsion ofirritability ordered the dog-cart to drive him to the station. He wasdetermined to travel back to town alone; he feared that if he stayed anylonger at Ambles his brother-in-law would revive the discussion abouthis play; he was afraid of Hugh's taking advantage of his mother's deathto dodge British Honduras and of James' trading upon his filial piety torecover the silver and the family portraits.

  When John got back to Church Row he found a note from Miss Hamilton tosay she had influenza and was unlikely to be back at work for at least aweek--if indeed, she added, she was able to come back at all. Thisunpleasant prospect filled him with genuine gloom, and it was with greatdifficulty that he refrained from driving immediately to Camera Squarein order to remonstrate with her in person. His despondency was notlightened by Mrs. Worfolk's graveside manner and her assumption of ablack satin dress hung with jet bugles that was usually reserved to markthe more cheerful festivals of the calendar. Worn thus out of seasonhung it about the rooms like a fog, and its numerous rustlings coupledwith the housekeeper's sighs of commiseration added to the lugubriousatmosphere a sensation of damp which gave the final touch to John'sdepression. Next morning the weather was really abominable; the viewover London from his library window showed nothing but great cobwebs ofrain that seemed to be actually attached to a sky as gray and solid as adusty ceiling. Action offered the only hope of alleviating life uponsuch a day, and John made up his mind to drive over to Chelsea andinquire
about his secretary's health. He found that she was better,though still in bed; being anxious to learn more about her threateneddesertion he accepted the maid's invitation to come in and speak to Mrs.Hamilton. The old lady looked more like a clown than ever in theforenoon while the rice-powder was still fresh upon her cheeks, and Johnfound her humor as irritating as he would have found the humor of a realclown in similar circumstances. Her manner towards him was that of aperson who is aware of, but on certain terms is willing to overlook agrave indiscretion, and she managed most successfully to make him feelthat he was on his defense.

  "Yes, poor Doris has been very seedy. And her illness has unluckilycoincided with mine."

  "Oh, I'm sorry ..." he began.

  "Thank you. I'm used to being ill. I am always ill. At least, as luckwill have it, I usually feel ill when Doris has anything the matter withher."

  This John was ready to believe, but he tried to look at once shocked andsympathetic.

  "Do not let us discuss my health," Mrs. Hamilton went on scorching hereyebrows in the aureole of martyrdom she wore. "Of what importance is myhealth? Poor Doris has had a very sharp attack, a very sharp attackindeed."

  "I'm afraid that the weather...."

  "It's not the weather, Mr. Touchwood. It is overwork." And before Johncould say a word she was off. "You must remember that Doris is not usedto hard work. She has spent all her life with me, and you can easilyimagine that with a mother always at hand she has been spared the leasthardship. I would have done anything for her. Ever since my husbanddied, my life has been one long buffer between Doris and the world. Youknow how obstinately she has refused to let me do all I wanted. I referto my brother-in-law, Mr. Hamilton of Glencockie. And this is theresult. Nervous prostration, influenza, a high temperature--and sharppains, which between ourselves I'm inclined to think are perhaps not sobad as she imagines. People who are not accustomed to pains," said theold lady, jealously, "are always apt to be unduly alarmed and toattribute to them a severity that is a leetle exaggerated. I suffer somuch myself that I cannot take these pains quite as seriously as Dorisdoes. However, the poor child really has a good deal to put up with, andof course I've insisted that she must never attempt such hard workagain. I don't suppose you meant to be inconsiderate, Mr. Touchwood. Idon't accuse you of deliberate callousness. Please do not suppose that Iam suggesting that the least cruelty in your behavior; but you _have_overworked her. Moreover, she has been worried. One or two of ourfriends have suggested more in joke than in earnest that she might becompromised by her association with you. No doubt this was said in joke,but Doris lacks her mother's sense of humor, and I'm afraid she hasfretted over this. Still, a stitch in time saves nine, and her illnessmust serve as an excuse for what with a curiously youthfulself-importance she calls 'leaving you in the lurch.' As I said to her,'Do not, my dear child, worry about Mr. Touchwood. He can find as manysecretaries as he wants. Probably he thought he was doing you a goodturn, and you've overstrained yourself in trying to cope with duties towhich you have not been accustomed. You cannot expect to fly before youcan walk.'"

  The old lady paused to fan back her breath, and John seized theconversation.

  "Does Miss Hamilton herself wish to leave me like this, or is it onlyyou who think that she ought to leave me?"

  "I will be frank with you," the old lady panted. "Doris has not yet madeup her mind."

  "As long as she is allowed to make up her own mind," said John, "I havenothing to say. But I hope you are not going to overpersuade her. Afterall she is old enough to know what she wants to do."

  "She is not as old as her mother."

  He shook his head impatiently.

  "Could I see her?"

  "See her?" the old lady answered in amazement. "See her, Mr. Touchwood?Didn't I explain that she was in bed?"

  "I beg your pardon. I'd forgotten."

  "Men are apt to forget somewhat easily. Come, come, do not let us getbitter. I took a great fancy to you when I met you first, and though Ihave been a little disappointed by the way in which you have takenadvantage of Doris's eagerness for new experiences I don't really bearyou any deep grudge. I don't believe you meant to be selfish. It is onlya mother who can pierce a daughter's motives. You with your recent lossshould be able to appreciate that particularly now. Poor Doris! I wishshe were more like me."

  "If you really think I have overworked her," said John, "I'm extremelysorry. I dare say her enthusiasm carried me away. But I cannotrelinquish her services without a struggle. She has been, and she _is_invaluable," he added, warmly.

  "Yes, but we must think of her health. I'm sorry to seem so_intransigente_, but I am only thinking of her."

  John was not at all taken in by the old lady's altruism, but he wasentirely at a loss how to argue in favor of her daughter's continuing towork for him. His perplexity was increased by the fact that she herselfhad written to express her doubtfulness about returning; it mightconceivably be that she did not want to return and that he wasmisjudging Mrs. Hamilton's sincerity. Yet when he looked at the old ladyhe could not discover anything but a cold egotism in every fold of thoseflabby cheeks where the powder lay like drifted snow in the ruts of asunless lane. It was surely impossible that Doris should willingly havesurrendered the liberty she enjoyed with him; she must have writtenunder the depressing effects of influenza.

  While John was pondering his line of action Mrs. Hamilton had fannedherself into a renewed volubility; finding that it was impossible tocross the torrent of words that she was now pouring forth, he sat downby the edge of it, confused and deafened, and sometimes gasping a faintprotest when he was splashed by some particularly outrageous argument.

  "Well, I'll write to her," he said at last.

  "I beg you will do nothing of the kind. In the present feeble state ofher health a letter will only agitate her. I hope to persuade her tocome with me to Glencockie where her uncle will, I know, once moresuggest adopting her as his heiress...."

  The old lady flowed on with schemes for the future of Doris in whichthere was so much talk of Scotland that in the end his secretaryappeared to John like an advertisement for whisky. He saw herrosy-cheeked and tam-o-shantered, smiling beneath a fir-tree whilemockingly she quaffed a glass to the health of her late employer. He sawher as a kind of cross between Flora Macdonald and Highland Mary by thebanks of Loch Lomond. He saw her in every guise except that in which hedesired to see her--bending with that elusive and ironical smile overthe typewriter they had purchased together. Damn!

  John made hurried adieus and fled to his taxi from the little house inCamera Square. The interview with Mrs. Hamilton had cost himhalf-a-crown and his peace of mind: it had cost the driver one halfpennyfor the early edition of the _Star_. How much happier was the life of ataxi-driver than the life of a playwright!

  "I wouldn't say as how Benedictine mightn't win at Kempton thisafternoon," the driver observed to John when he alighted. "I reckon I'llhave half-a-dollar on, any old way. It's Bolmondeley's horse and boundto run straight."

  Benedictine did win that afternoon at six to one: indubitably the lifeof a taxi-driver was superior to his own, John thought as he turned witha shudder from the virgin foolscap upon his writing-desk and with a lateedition of the _Star_ sank into a deep armchair.

  "A bachelor's life is a very lonely one," he sighed. For some reasonMaud had neglected to draw the curtains after tea, and the black yawningwindow where the rain glistened drearily weighed upon his heart with asense of utter abandonment. Ordinarily he would have rung the bell andpointed reproachfully to the omission; but this afternoon, he feltincapable of stirring from his chair to ring a bell. He could not evenmuster enough energy to poke the fire, which would soon show as littlelife as himself. He listened vainly for the footsteps of Maud or Mrs.Worfolk that he might call out and be rescued from this lethargy ofdespair; but not a sound was audible except the dripping rain outsideand the consumptive coughs of the moribund fire.

  "Perhaps I'm feeling my mother's death," said John, hopefully.
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  He made an effort to concentrate his mind upon an affectionateretrospect of family life. He tried to convince himself that the deathof his mother would involve a change in the attitude of his relations.Technically he might not be the eldest son, and while his mother hadbeen alive he had never assumed too definitely the rights of an eldestson. Practically, however, that was his status, and his acquisition ofthe family portraits and family silver could well be taken as thevisible sign of that status; with his mother's death he might surelyconsider himself in the eyes of the world the head of the family. Did hewant such an honor? It would be an expensive, troublesome, andungrateful post like the Lord-Lieutenancy of Ireland. Why didn't Maudcome and draw those curtains? A thankless job, and it would be morecongenial to have a family of his own. That meant marriage. And whyshouldn't he get married? Several palmists had assured him he would bemarried one day: most of them indeed had assured him he was marriedalready.

  "If I get married I can no longer be expected to bother about myrelations. Of course in that case I should give back the portraits andthe silver. My son would be junior to Bertram. My son would occupy analtogether inconspicuous position in the family, though he would alwaystake precedence of Harold. But if my son had a child, Harold wouldbecome an uncle. No, he wouldn't. Harold would be a first cousin onceremoved. Harold cannot become an uncle unless Hilda marries again andhas another child who has another child. Luckily, it's all veryimprobable. I'm glad Harold is never likely to be an uncle: he wouldbring the relationship into an even greater disrepute. Still, even nowan uncle is disreputable enough. The wicked uncle! It's proverbial, ofcourse. We never hear of the wicked cousin or the nefarious aunt. No,uncles share with stepmothers the opprobrium and with mothers-in-law theridicule of the mob. Unquestionably, if I do marry, I shall still be anuncle, but the status may perhaps be merged in paternity. Suppose Imarry and never have any children? My wife will be pitied by Hilda,Edith, and Eleanor and condoled with by Beatrice. She would find herposition intolerable. My wife? I wish to goodness Maud would come in anddraw those curtains. My wife? That's the question. At this stage theproblem of her personality is more important than theoreticalspeculation about future children. Should I enjoy a woman's bobbing inand out of my room all the time? Suppose I were married at this moment,it would be my wife's duty to correct Maud for not having drawn thosecurtains. If I were married at this moment I should say, 'My dear, Mauddoes not seem to have drawn the curtains. I wonder why.' And my wifewould of course ring the bell and remonstrate with Maud. But suppose mywife were upstairs? She might be trying on a new hat. Apparently wivesspend a great deal of time with hats. In that case I should be no betteroff than I am at present. I should still have to get out of this chairand ring for Maud. And I should have to complain twice over. Once toMaud herself and afterwards all over again to my wife about Maud. Thenmy wife would have to rebuke Maud. Oh, it would be a terriblycomplicated business. Perhaps I'm better off as a bachelor. It's an oddthing that with my pictorial temperament I should never yet havevisualized myself as a husband. My imagination is quite untrammeled inmost directions. Were I to decide to-morrow that I would write a playabout Adam and Eve, I should see myself as Adam and Eve and the Serpentand almost as the Forbidden Fruit itself without any difficulty. Whycan't I see myself as a husband? When I think of the number of peopleand things I've been in imagination it really does seem extraordinary Ishould never have thought of being a husband. Apparently Maud hascompletely forgotten about the curtains. It looks as if I should have togive up all hope now of her coming in to draw them of her own accord.Poor Miss Hamilton! I do trust that horrible old clown of a mother isn'tturning somersaults round her room at this moment and sending up hertemperature to three figures. Of course, she must come back to me. Sheis indispensable. I miss her very much. I've accustomed myself to asecretary's assistance, and naturally I'm lost without her. These morbidthoughts about matrimony are due to my not having done a stroke of workall day. I will count seventeen and rise from this chair."

  John counted seventeen, but when he came to the fatal number he foundthat his will to move was still paralyzed, and he went on toforty-nine--the next fatal number in his private cabbala. When hereached it he tightened every nerve in his body and leapt to his feet.Inertia was succeeded by the bustle of activity: he rang for Maud; hepoked the fire; he brushed the tobacco-ash from his waistcoat; he blewhis nose; he sat down at his desk.

  My dear Miss Hamilton, [he wrote,] I cannot say how distressed I was tohear the news of your illness and still more to learn from your motherthat you were seriously thinking of resigning your post. I'm alsoextremely distressed to hear from her that there are symptoms ofoverwork. If I've been inconsiderate I must beg your forgiveness and askyou to attribute it to your own good-will. The fact is your example hasinspired me. With your encouragement I undoubtedly do work much harderthan formerly. Today, without you, I have not written a single word, andI feel dreadfully depressed at the prospect of your desertion. Do let meplead for your services when you are well again, at any rate until I'vefinished Joan of Arc, for I really don't think I shall ever finish thatplay without them. I have felt the death of my poor mother very much,but I do not ascribe my present disinclination for work to that. No, onthe contrary, I came back from the funeral with a determination to burymyself--that might be expressed better--to plunge myself into hard work.Your note telling me of your illness was a great shock, and yourmother's uncompromising attitude this morning has added to my dejection.I feel that I am growing old and view with horror the approach of age.I've been sitting by the fire indulging myself in very morbid thoughts.You will laugh when I tell you that amongst them was the idea--I mightcall it the chimera of marriage. Do please get well soon and rescue mefrom myself.

  Yours very sincerely,

  JOHN TOUCHWOOD.

  I do not, of course, wish to disturb the relationship between yourselfand your mother, but my own recent loss has reminded me that mothers donot live forever.