The Lonely Unicorn. Alec Waugh
round the corner, trying to look dignified in spite of the top hat that bobbed from one side of his head to the other. From nine o'clock till a quarter-past five Mr. Whately worked at a desk, with an hour's interval for lunch. Every evening he went for an hour's walk; for half-an-hour before dinner he read the evening paper. After dinner he would play a game of patience and smoke his pipe. Occasionally a friend would drop in for a chat; very occasionally he would go out himself. At ten o'clock sharp he went to bed. Every Saturday afternoon he attended a public performance of either cricket or football according to the season. Roland often wondered how he could stand it. What had he to look forward to? What did he think about when he sat over the fire puffing at his pipe. And his mother. How monotonous her life appeared to him. Yet she seemed always happy enough: she never grumbled. Roland could not understand it. Whatever happened, he would take jolly good care that he never ran into a groove like that. They had loved each other well enough once, he supposed, but now—oh, well, love was the privilege of youth.
Father and son walked in silence. They were fond of each other; they liked being together; Mr. Whately was very proud of his son's achievements; but their affection was never expressed in words. After a while they began to talk of indifferent things, guessing at each other's thoughts: a relationship of intuitions. They passed along the High Street and, turning behind the shops, walked down a long street of small red-brick villas with stucco fronts.
"Don't you think we ought to go in and see the Curtises?" Mr. Whately asked.
"I don't know. I hadn't meant to. I thought. … "
"I think you ought to, you know, your first day; they'd be rather offended if you didn't. April asked me when you were coming back."
And so Roland was bound to abandon his virtuous resolution.
It was not a particularly jolly evening before Ralph arrived. Afterwards it was a good deal worse.
In the old days, when father and son had paid an evening visit, Roland had run straight up to the nursery and enjoyed himself, but now he had to sit in the drawing-room, which was a very different matter. He did not like Mrs. Curtis: he never had liked her, but she had not troubled him in the days when she had been a mere voice below the banisters. Now he had to sit in the small drawing-room, with its shut windows, and hear her voice cleave through the clammy atmosphere in languid, pathetic cadences; a sentimental voice, and under the sentiment a hard, cold cruelty. Her person was out of keeping with her voice; it should have been plump and comfortable-looking; instead it was tall, thin, angular, all over points, like a hat-rack in a restaurant: a terrible bedfellow. And she talked, heavens! how she talked. It was usually about her children.
"Dear Arthur, he's getting on so well at school. Do you know what his headmaster said about him in his report?"
"Oh, but, mother, please," Arthur would protest.
"No, dear, be quiet: I know Mr. Whately would like to hear. The headmaster said, Mr. Whately. … " Then it was her daughter's turn. "And April too, Mr. Whately, she's getting on so well with her drawing lessons. Mr. Hamilton was only saying to me yesterday. … "
It was not surprising that Roland was less keen now on going round there. It was little fun for him after all to sit and listen while she talked, to see his father so utterly complacent, with his "Yes, Mrs. Curtis," and his "Really, Mrs. Curtis," and to look at poor April huddled in the window-seat, so bored, so ashamed, her eyes meeting his with a look that said: "Don't worry about her, don't take any notice of what she says. I'm not like that." Once or twice he tried to talk to her, but it was no use: her mother would interrupt, would bring them back into the circle of her own egotism. In her own drawing-room she would tolerate nothing independent of herself.
"Yes, Roland; what was it you were saying? The Saundersons' dance? Of course April will be going. They're very old friends of ours, the Saundersons. Mr. Saunderson thinks such a lot of Arthur too. You know, Mr. Whately, I met him in the High Street the other afternoon and he said to me, 'How's that clever son of yours getting on, Mrs. Curtis?'"
"Really, Mrs. Curtis."
"Yes, really, Mr. Whately."
It was at this point that Ralph arrived.
His look of surprised displeasure was obvious to everyone. But knowing Ralph, they mistook it for awkwardness. He did not like company, and his shyness was apparent as he stood in the doorway in an ill-fitting suit, with trousers that bagged at the knees, and with the front part of his hair smarmed across his forehead with one hurried sweep of a damp brush, at right angles to the rest of his hair, that fell perpendicularly from the crown of his head.
"Come along, Ralph," said April, and made room for him in the window-seat. She treated him with an amused condescension. He was so clumsy; a dear fellow, so easy to rag. "And how did your exam. go?" she asked.
"All right."
"No; but really, tell me about it. What were the maths like?"
"Not so bad."
"And the geography? You were so nervous about that."
"I didn't do badly."
"And the Latin and the Greek? I want to know all about it."
"You don't, really?"
"Yes, but I do."
"No, you don't," he said impatiently. "You'd much rather hear about Roland and all the things he does at Fernhurst."
There was a moment of difficult silence, then April said quite quietly:
"You are quite right, Ralph; as a matter of fact I should"; and she turned towards Roland, but before she could say anything, Mrs. Curtis once more assumed her monopoly of the conversation.
"Yes, Roland, you've told us nothing about that, and how you got your firsts. We were so proud of you too. And you never wrote to tell us. If it hadn't been for your father we should never have known." And for the next half-hour her voice flowed on placidly, while Ralph sat in a frenzy of self-pity and self-contempt, and Roland longed for an opportunity to kick him, and April looked out between the half-drawn curtains towards the narrow line of sky that lay darkly over the long stretch of roofs and chimney-pots, happy that Roland's holidays had begun, regretting wistfully that childhood was finished for them, that they could no longer play their own games in the nursery, that they had become part of the ambitions of their parents.
When at last they rose to go, Ralph lingered for a moment in the doorway; he could not go home till April had forgiven him.
She stood on the top of the step, looking down the street to Roland, her heart still beating a little quickly, still disturbed by that pressure of the hand and that sudden uncomfortable meeting of the eyes when he had said "Good-bye." She did not notice Ralph till he began to speak to her.
"I am awfully sorry I was so rude to you, April. I'm rather tired. I didn't mean to offend you. I wouldn't have done it for worlds."
She turned to him with a quiet smile.
"Oh, don't worry about that," she said, "that's nothing."
And he could see that to her it was indeed nothing, that she had not thought twice about it. That nothing he said or did was of the least concern to her. He would much rather that she had been angry.
Next day Ralph came round to the Whatelys' soon after breakfast.
"Well, feeling more peaceful to-day, old friend?" Ralph looked at Roland in impotent annoyance. As he knew of old, Roland was an impossible person to have a row with. He simply would not fight. He either agreed to everything you said or else brushed away your arguments with a good-natured "All right, old man, all right!" On this occasion, however, he felt that he must make a stand.
"You're the limit," he said; "the absolute limit."
"I don't know about that, but I think you were last night."
"Oh, don't joke about it. You know what I mean. I think it's pretty rotten for a fellow like you to go about with a shop-assistant, but that's not really the thing. What's simply beastly is