A Prayer for my Son

This moment of anticipation was the worst of her life--never before
had she been so utterly alone.

Her loneliness now was emphasized by the strange dead-white glow
that seemed to bathe her room. She had just switched off the
electric light, and the curtains were not drawn upon the long gaunt
windows. Although it was after five on that winter afternoon, the
light of the snow still illuminated the scene. Beyond the windows
a broad field ran slowly up to a thin bare hedge; above the hedge,
the fell, thick in snow, mounted to a grey sky which lay like one
shadow upon another against the lower flanks of Blencathra.

Rose had learnt the name of this mountain from the first instant of
her arrival at the Keswick station. She had not known whether she
would be met or not, and she had asked a porter whether he knew of
Scarfe Hall. He knew of it well enough. It lay near the
Sanatorium right under Saddleback. And then, because she was
obviously a stranger, and he unlike many of his countrymen was
loquacious, he explained to her that Saddleback was the common name
for Blencathra. 'What a pity,' she murmured. 'Blencathra is much
finer.' But he was not interested in that. He found the motor-car
from the Hall and soon she was moving downhill from the station,
turning sharply to the left by the river, and so to her
destination.

She had had tea alone with Janet Fawcus in the drawing-room
downstairs; such a strange, old-fashioned, overcrowded room, with
photographs in silver frames and a large oil painting over the
marble fireplace of Humphrey's father. So odd, Rose thought, to
have so large a painting of yourself so prominently displayed. She
had seen before, of course, photographs of Humphrey's father and
had always liked the kindliness, the good-humour in his round
chubby face, the beautiful purity of his white hair, his broad
manly shoulders, but this oil painting, made obviously a number of
years ago, gave him a kind of dignified splendour. She had always
thought him like Mr. Pickwick, but now he was a Mr. Pickwick raised
to a degree of authority that yet had not robbed him of his
geniality.

So she and Janet Fawcus had shared an embarrassed tea. It was no
surprise to her to discover in Janet the perfect spinster--that is,
a woman of middle age whose certainty that virginity is a triumph
is mingled with an everlasting disappointment. Janet was dressed
in the hard and serviceable tweeds of the English dweller in the
country. She talked to Rose with all the kindliness of a hostess
and the patronage of a successful headmistress. Rose saw at once
that Janet had always hated her and that meeting her had not
weakened that emotion.

However, she had expected this, counted on it, in fact, and she sat
now in this old curiosity shop of a drawing-room, the heavy, dark,
ancient curtains drawn against the snow, brightly and falsely
amiable about Geneva and the League of Nations and the selfishness
of France, and what a pity it was that despotism was beginning to
rule the world. It was explained to her that young John was out
with his tutor skating on some pond towards St. John's in the Vale
and that Colonel Fawcus himself was at a meeting in Keswick about
pylons, and that was why Janet must do the honours alone. 'But, of
course,' Janet said, 'you will see John when he comes in. He is so
excited about your coming.' In that last sentence Rose knew there
was something sinister; that immaculate tweed-clad virgin would not
give an inch. 'But then,' Rose thought, 'I have no intention of
asking her. I have not come here to fight. There is no battle in
the air. John's grandfather has invited me out of kindness and
generosity. There was nothing in the signed agreement which
compelled him to do this. It has been simply warm-hearted kindness
on his part. I am not here to fight. I am not here to get my son
back. I am not here to win his affection away from anyone else.
He is not mine. I surrendered him deliberately, fully knowing what
I was about. I am not here for any contest of any kind with this
unagreeable, tiresome, self-satisfied prig of an Englishwoman.'
But as she smiled and said that, yes, she would have another cup of
tea, and how good it was after a long cold journey--she was forced
to repeat to herself: 'I am not a mother. I surrendered John not
only because it would be for his good, and because he would be
given so many many things I could never give him, but also because
I was not meant to be a mother. There were other things that I
could do better. I am not maternal. I am a modern woman of my
time. I do not wish to be hampered with a child.