BOOK II CONSTANCE - CHAPTER VI - THE WIDOW - PART II

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_ When the shop had been closed, under her own critical and precise
superintendence, she extinguished the last gas in it and returned
to the parlour, wondering where she might discover some entirely
reliable man or boy to deal with the shutters night and morning.
Samuel had ordinarily dealt with the shutters himself, and on
extraordinary occasions and during holidays Miss Insull and one of
her subordinates had struggled with their unwieldiness. But the
extraordinary occasion had now become ordinary, and Miss Insull
could not be expected to continue indefinitely in the functions of
a male. Constance had a mind to engage an errand-boy, a luxury
against which Samuel had always set his face. She did not dream of
asking the herculean Cyril to open and shut shop.

He had apparently finished his home-lessons. The books were pushed
aside, and he was sketching in lead-pencil on a drawing-block. To
the right of the fireplace, over the sofa, there hung an engraving
after Landseer, showing a lonely stag paddling into a lake. The
stag at eve had drunk or was about to drink his fill, and Cyril
was copying him. He had already indicated a flight of birds in the
middle distance; vague birds on the wing being easier than
detailed stags, he had begun with the birds.

Constance put a hand on his shoulder. "Finished your lessons?" she
murmured caressingly.

Before speaking, Cyril gazed up at the picture with a frowning,
busy expression, and then replied in an absent-minded voice:

"Yes." And after a pause: "Except my arithmetic. I shall do that
in the morning before breakfast."

"Oh, Cyril!" she protested.

It had been a positive ordinance, for a long time past, that there
should be no sketching until lessons were done. In his father's
lifetime Cyril had never dared to break it.

He bent over his block, feigning an intense absorption.
Constance's hand slipped from his shoulder. She wanted to command
him formally to resume his lessons. But she could not. She feared
an argument; she mistrusted herself. And, moreover, it was so soon
after his father's death!

"You know you won't have time to-morrow morning!" she said weakly.

"Oh, mother!" he retorted superiorly. "Don't worry." And then, in
a cajoling tone: "I've wanted to do that stag for ages."

She sighed and sat down in her rocking-chair. He went on
sketching, rubbing out, and making queer expostulatory noises
against his pencil, or against the difficulties needlessly
invented by Sir Edwin Landseer. Once he rose and changed the
position of the gas-bracket, staring fiercely at the engraving as
though it had committed a sin.

Amy came to lay the supper. He did not acknowledge that she
existed.

"Now, Master Cyril, after you with that table, if you please!" She
announced herself brusquely, with the privilege of an old servant
and a woman who would never see thirty again.

"What a nuisance you are, Amy!" he gruffly answered. "Look here,
mother, can't Amy lay the cloth on that half of the table? I'm
right in the middle of my drawing. There's plenty of room there
for two."

He seemed not to be aware that, in the phrase 'plenty of room for
two,' he had made a callous reference to their loss. The fact was,
there WAS plenty of room for two.

Constance said quickly: "Very well, Amy. For this once."

Amy grunted, but obeyed.

Constance had to summon him twice from art to nourishment. He ate
with rapidity, frequently regarding the picture with half-shut,
searching eyes. When he had finished, he refilled his glass with
water, and put it next to his sketching-block.

"You surely aren't thinking of beginning to paint at this time of
night!" Constance exclaimed, astonished.

"Oh YES, mother!" he fretfully appealed. "It's not late."

Another positive ordinance of his father's had been that there
should be nothing after supper except bed. Nine o'clock was the
latest permissible moment for going to bed. It was now less than a
quarter to.

"It only wants twelve minutes to nine," Constance pointed out.

"Well, what if it does?"

"Now, Cyril," she said, "I do hope you are going to be a good boy,
and not cause your mother anxiety."

But she said it too kindly.

He said sullenly: "I do think you might let me finish it. I've
begun it. It won't take me long."

She made the mistake of leaving the main point. "How can you
possibly choose your colours properly by gas-light?" she said.

"I'm going to do it in sepia," he replied in triumph.

"It mustn't occur again," she said.

He thanked God for a good supper, and sprang to the harmonium,
where his paint-box was. Amy cleared away. Constance did crochet-
work. There was silence. The clock struck nine, and it also struck
half-past nine. She warned him repeatedly. At ten minutes to ten
she said persuasively:

"Now, Cyril, when the clock strikes ten I shall really put the gas
out."

The clock struck ten.

"Half a mo, half a mo!" he cried. "I've done! I've done!"

Her hand was arrested.

Another four minutes elapsed, and then he jumped up. "There you
are!" he said proudly, showing her the block. And all his gestures
were full of grace and cajolery.

"Yes, it's very good," Constance said, rather indifferently.

"I don't believe you care for it!" he accused her, but with a
bright smile.

"I care for your health," she said. "Just look at that clock!"

He sat down in the other rocking-chair, deliberately.

"Now, Cyril!"

"Well, mother, I suppose you'll let me take my boots off!" He said
it with teasing good-humour.

When he kissed her good night, she wanted to cling to him, so
affectionate was his kiss; but she could not throw off the habits
of restraint which she had been originally taught and had all her
life practised. She keenly regretted the inability.

In her bedroom, alone, she listened to his movements as he
undressed. The door between the two rooms was unlatched. She had
to control a desire to open it ever so little and peep at him. He
would not have liked that. He could have enriched her heart beyond
all hope, and at no cost to himself; but he did not know his
power. As she could not cling to him with her hands, she clung to
him with that heart of hers, while moving sedately up and down the
room, alone. And her eyes saw him through the solid wood of the
door. At last she got heavily into bed. She thought with placid
anxiety, in the dark: "I shall have to be firm with Cyril." And
she thought also, simultaneously: "He really must be a good boy.
He MUST." And clung to him passionately, without shame! Lying
alone there in the dark, she could be as unrestrained and girlish
as her heart chose. When she loosed her hold she instantly saw the
boy's father arranged in his coffin, or flitting about the room.
Then she would hug that vision too, for the pleasure of the pain
it gave her. _

Read next: BOOK II CONSTANCE: CHAPTER VI - THE WIDOW: PART III

Read previous: BOOK II CONSTANCE: CHAPTER VI - THE WIDOW: PART I

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