“I wanted to give him an old-fashioned shore dinner.”
The wistful note in the worried voice suddenly touched Jane’s heart. She looked up and met her mother-in-law’s anxious gaze. The fat, elderly face was creased in lines of vivid disappointment. Old age was pathetic, thought Jane, secure in the citadel of her thirty-six summers. Mothers were pathetic.
“I think he’d love mackerel,” she said warmly.
Mrs. Carver’s face brightened.
“I shall keep on trying for the lobster,” she said solemnly, “until the last minute.”
Suddenly Jane loved her mother-in-law. She loved her for the solemnity. It was touching and disarming. Why didn’t she always say the things that Mrs. Carver liked to hear? It was so easy to say them. She really must reform.
“Is that little Steve on the beach?” said Mrs. Carver.
“Yes,” said Jane.
“Don’t you think the sun is too hot for him?” asked Mrs. Carver.
“No,” said Jane.
“The glare’s very bright on those rocks,” said Mrs. Carver, “and Miss Parrot never seems to notice—”
“The doctor said the sun was good for him,” said Jane tartly. Her moment of reform was short-lived.
“We can’t be too careful,” said Mrs. Carver.
They couldn’t be, of course. Why was she so perverse? Poor little Steve, pulled down, still, from his scarlet fever in June, still watched by his nurse, still worrying them all with that heart that wasn’t quite right yet, but would be, so the doctor said, by next spring!
“I think he ought to come into the shade,” said Mrs. Carver.
Jane rose abruptly and picked up the megaphone behind the hammock.
“Yoo-hoo!” she called. “Miss Parrot!” The white cap turned promptly in response to her call. “Bring Steve up, please!”
She sank on the steps again and picked up her knitting. She could see Miss Parrot’s slender starched figure rise from behind her rock. It assumed a slightly admonitory angle. Steve’s yellow head was raised from the sands in obvious protest.
“She doesn’t know how to manage children,” said Mrs. Carver.
Steve, pad and paintbox in hand, was wading through the beach grass, now, beside his nurse. His thin little voice could be heard, raised in inarticulate argument. Miss Parrot walked steadily on. Steve, reaching the smooth green turf of the lawn, paused to scratch a mosquito bite on his brown little knee.
“Why doesn’t she wait for him?” said Mrs. Carver.
“Oh, he’s all right,” said Jane. “He loves Miss Parrot.”
Mrs. Carver watched her grandson’s approach in silence.
“I don’t want to come up, Mumsy!” he cried. “I was painting the harbour.”
“Don’t run, dear,” said Mrs. Carver.
“You can finish your painting tomorrow,” said Jane.
“The light will be different, Mumsy!” His tanned little nine-year-old countenance was eager with protest.
“Mrs. Carver thinks the sun is too hot on the beach, Miss Parrot,” said Jane.
The trained nurse turned her pretty, pleasant face upon them with a tolerant smile.
“All righty!” she said. “Come on, Stevey, we’ll paint in the garden.”
“I don’t want to,” said Steve. He glared crossly at his grandmother.
Miss Parrot smiled again, throwing a glance of frank, professional understanding at the adults on the verandah.
“Oh, yes, you do,” she said easily. “If Grandma wants you to, Grandma’s the doctor!”
She disappeared around the corner of the house. Steve trailed aggrievedly after her. When he was irritated, reflected Jane, his little nine-year-old figure took on exactly the angle of that of her preposterous father-in-law. Mrs. Carver’s lips were slightly compressed. Jane knew what was coming.
“I don’t like that woman’s tone,” said Mrs. Carver.
“She’s a very good heart nurse,” said Jane.
“She has no proper deference,” said Mrs. Carver.
Jane’s lips, in their turn, were slightly compressed at the familiar phrase. Proper deference! That commodity that the Carvers sought in vain, throughout the world, looking for it, Jane thought, with the most pathetic optimism, in the most unlikely places. In the manners of Irish housemaids, on the lips of trained nurses, and in the emotional reactions of modern grandchildren. They never lost their simple faith that they ought to find it. That it was somehow owing to them. Was it, thought Jane curiously, because they were all over sixty? Or because they were Carvers? Stephen was a Carver, yet proper deference meant nothing in his life.
“Here comes Alden!” said Mrs. Carver suddenly. “Marie, are you ready?”
The figure of Mr. Carver had indeed deserted the pier and advanced to the beach grass. He was waving peremptorily. Aunt Marie rose from the Nantucket hammock a trifle hastily.
“I’ll get my sneakers,” she said, and vanished into the house.
“Now, where is your Uncle Stephen?” said Mrs. Carver. Jane, you’ll need your hat.” She was hurriedly swathing her own with a purple face veil.
“Didn’t you hear the horn?” called Mr. Carver. “I blew it twice.”
“We didn’t, dear,” said Mrs. Carver. “The wind’s offshore.”
“Jane, not much time,” said Mr. Carver. He took out his watch as he spoke. “It’s twenty minutes to three. Where are your rubber shoes?”
“I’ll get them,” said Jane. “They’re in my room.”
“Gall your Uncle Stephen,” said Mrs. Carver. “He’s working in the study.”
“I can’t see why you can’t all be ready at the proper time,” Jane heard her father-in-law observe as she crossed the porch. “I only keep up the launch for the pleasure of the family.” The screened door banged behind her. She crossed the living-room with an air of extreme deliberation. What a ridiculous old man Mr. Carver was! Domestic dictator! Why didn’t they all revolt? Why hadn’t they all revolted, years ago, long before she came into the family?
Jane paused before the living-room chimneypiece to kick, vindictively, a smouldering log back into the ashes and place the screen before the dying fire. Always this fuss about nothing, every Wednesday and Saturday afternoon, at twenty minutes to three! That launch! The Whim! Ironic name! It ought to be called The Duty, The Responsibility, The Obligation. Or perhaps, like a British dreadnought, The Invincible. It was invincible, when manned by Mr. Carver. Those Wednesday and Saturday races! That sacred necessity of following them,
