Michael felt very shy at the reception and managed to avoid calling Miss Carthew Mrs. Ross; although Alan distinctly addressed her once with great boldness as Aunt Maud, for which he was violently punched in the ribs by Michael, as with stifled laughter they both rushed headlong from the room. However, they came back to hear old Major Carthew proposing the bride and bridegroom’s health and plunged themselves into a corner with handkerchiefs stuffed into their mouths to listen to Captain Ross stammer an embarrassed reply. They were both much relieved when Mr. Merivale by a series of the most atrocious puns allowed their laughter to flow forth without restraint. All the guests went back to London later in the afternoon and Michael and Alan were left to the supervision of Nancy, who had promised to take them out for a day’s shooting. They had a wonderful day over the flickering September stubble. Michael shot a lark by mistake and Alan wounded a land-rail; Nancy, however, redeemed the party’s credit by bagging three brace of fat French partridges which, when eaten, tasted like pigeons, because the boys could not bear to wait for them to be hung even for two hours.
Michael had a conversation with Mrs. Carthew one afternoon, while they paced slowly and regularly the gay path beside the sunny red wall of the garden.
“Well, how do you like school now?” she asked. “Dear me, I must say you’re greatly improved,” she went on. “Really, when you came here five years ago, you were much too delicate-looking.”
Michael kicked the gravel and tried to turn the trend of the conversation by admiring the plums on the wall, but Mrs. Carthew went on.
“Now you really look quite a boy. You and Alan both slouch abominably, and I cannot think why boys always walk on one side of their boots. I must say I do not like delicate boys. My own boy was always such a boy.” Mrs. Carthew sighed and Michael looked very solemn.
“Well, do you like school?” she asked.
“I like holidays better,” answered Michael.
“I’m delighted to hear it,” Mrs. Carthew said decidedly.
“I thought last year was beastly,” said Michael. “You see I was a boarder and that’s rot, if you were a day-boy ever, at least I think so. Alan and me are in the same form next term. We’re going to have a most frightful spree. We’re going to do everything together. I expect school won’t be half bad then.”
“Your mother’s going to be at home, isn’t she?” Mrs. Carthew enquired.
“Yes. Rather,” said Michael. “It will be awfully rum. She’s always away, you know. I wonder why.”
“I expect she likes travelling about,” said Mrs. Carthew.
“Yes, I expect she does,” Michael agreed. “But don’t you think it’s very rum that I haven’t got any uncles or aunts or any relations? I do. I never meet people who say they knew my father like Alan does and like Miss—like Mrs. Ross does. Once I went with my mater to see an awfully decent chap called Lord Saxby and my name’s Saxby. Do you think he’s a relation? I asked the mater, but she said something about not asking silly questions.”
“Humph!” said Mrs. Carthew, as she adjusted her spectacles to examine an espalier of favourite peaches. “I think you’ll have to be very good to your mother,” she continued after a minute’s silence.
“Oh, rather,” assented Michael vaguely.
“You must always remember that you have a particular responsibility, as you will be alone with her for a long time, and, no doubt, she has given up a great deal of what she most enjoys in order to stay with you. So don’t think only of yourself.”
“Oh, rather not,” said Michael.
In his heart he felt while Mrs. Carthew was speaking a sense of remote anxiety. He could not understand why, as soon as he asked any direct questions, mystery enveloped his world. He had grown used to this in Miss Carthew’s case, but Mrs. Carthew was just as unapproachable. He began to wonder if there really were some mystery about himself. He knew the habit among grown-up people of wrapping everything in a veil of uncertainty, but in his case it was so universally adopted that he began to be suspicious and determined to question his mother relentlessly, to lay conversational traps for her and thereby gain bit by bit the details of his situation. He was older now and had already heard such rumours of the real life of the world that a chimera of unpleasant possibilities was rapidly forming. Left alone, he began to speculate perpetually about himself, to brood over anxious guesses. Perhaps his father was in prison and not dead at all. Perhaps his father was in a lunatic asylum. Perhaps he himself had been a foundling laid on the doorstep long ago, belonging neither to his mother nor to anyone else. He racked his brain for light from the past to be shed upon his present perplexity, but he could recall no flaw in the care with which his ignorance had been cherished.
When Michael reached Carlington Road on a fine September afternoon and saw the window-boxes of crimson and white petunias and the sunlight streaming down upon the redbrick houses, he was glad to be home again in familiar Sixty-four. Inside it had all been re-papered and repainted. Every room was much more beautiful and his mother was glad to see him. She took him round all the new
