Lifes Little Ironies | Page 7

so
much educated and I so little that I do not feel dignified enough to be
his mother . . . Well, he would have to be told.'
'Yes. Unquestionably.' Sam saw her thought and her fear. 'Still, you can
do as you like, Sophy--Mrs. Twycott,' he added. 'It is not you who are
the child, but he.'
'Ah, you don't know! Sam, if I could, I would marry you, some day.
But you must wait a while, and let me think.'
It was enough for him, and he was blithe at their parting. Not so she. To
tell Randolph seemed impossible. She could wait till he had gone up to
Oxford, when what she did would affect his life but little. But would he
ever tolerate the idea? And if not, could she defy him?
She had not told him a word when the yearly cricket-match came on at
Lord's between the public schools, though Sam had already gone back
to Aldbrickham. Mrs. Twycott felt stronger than usual: she went to the
match with Randolph, and was able to leave her chair and walk about
occasionally. The bright idea occurred to her that she could casually
broach the subject while moving round among the spectators, when the
boy's spirits were high with interest in the game, and he would weigh

domestic matters as feathers in the scale beside the day's victory. They
promenaded under the lurid July sun, this pair, so wide apart, yet so
near, and Sophy saw the large proportion of boys like her own, in their
broad white collars and dwarf hats, and all around the rows of great
coaches under which was jumbled the debris of luxurious luncheons;
bones, pie-crusts, champagne-bottles, glasses, plates, napkins, and the
family silver; while on the coaches sat the proud fathers and mothers;
but never a poor mother like her. If Randolph had not appertained to
these, had not centred all his interests in them, had not cared
exclusively for the class they belonged to, how happy would things
have been! A great huzza at some small performance with the bat burst
from the multitude of relatives, and Randolph jumped wildly into the
air to see what had happened. Sophy fetched up the sentence that had
been already shaped; but she could not get it out. The occasion was,
perhaps, an inopportune one. The contrast between her story and the
display of fashion to which Randolph had grown to regard himself as
akin would be fatal. She awaited a better time.
It was on an evening when they were alone in their plain suburban
residence, where life was not blue but brown, that she ultimately broke
silence, qualifying her announcement of a probable second marriage by
assuring him that it would not take place for a long time to come, when
he would be living quite independently of her.
The boy thought the idea a very reasonable one, and asked if she had
chosen anybody? She hesitated; and he seemed to have a misgiving. He
hoped his stepfather would be a gentleman? he said.
'Not what you call a gentleman,' she answered timidly. 'He'll be much
as I was before I knew your father;' and by degrees she acquainted him
with the whole. The youth's face remained fixed for a moment; then he
flushed, leant on the table, and burst into passionate tears.
His mother went up to him, kissed all of his face that she could get at,
and patted his back as if he were still the baby he once had been, crying
herself the while. When he had somewhat recovered from his paroxysm
he went hastily to his own room and fastened the door.

Parleyings were attempted through the keyhole, outside which she
waited and listened. It was long before he would reply, and when he did
it was to say sternly at her from within: 'I am ashamed of you! It will
ruin me! A miserable boor! a churl! a clown! It will degrade me in the
eyes of all the gentlemen of England!'
'Say no more--perhaps I am wrong! I will struggle against it!' she cried
miserably.
Before Randolph left her that summer a letter arrived from Sam to
inform her that he had been unexpectedly fortunate in obtaining the
shop. He was in possession; it was the largest in the town, combining
fruit with vegetables, and he thought it would form a home worthy
even of her some day. Might he not run up to town to see her?
She met him by stealth, and said he must still wait for her final answer.
The autumn dragged on, and when Randolph was home at Christmas
for the holidays she broached the matter again. But the young
gentleman was inexorable.
It was dropped for months; renewed again;