第32章

How fantastic these theories of fire and passion must seem, he amused himself by considering, to any one who knew his mother only from the outside.She was sitting to-day as always in her little pink and white chintz drawing-room, a bright fire burning and a canary singing in a cage beside the window.The rest of the house was ugly and strangely uninhabited as though the Warlocks had merely pitched their tents for a night and were moving forward to-morrow, but this little room, close, smelling of musk and sweet biscuits (a silver box with lemon-shaped biscuits in it stood on a little table near the old lady), with its pretty pink curtains, its canary, and its heavy and softly closing door, was like a place enclosed, dedicated to the world, and ruled by a remorseless spirit of comfort.

Mrs.Warlock was only sixty years of age, but she had, a number of years ago, declared herself an invalid, and now never, unless she drove on a very fine afternoon, left the house.Whether she were truly an invalid nobody knew; she presented certainly a most healthy appearance with her shell-pink cheeks, her snow-white hair, her firm bosom rising and falling with such gentle regularity beneath the tight and shining black silk that covered it, her clear bright eyes like shining glass.She always sat in a deep arm-chair covered with the chintz of the curtains and filled with plump pillows of pink silk.A white filmy shawl was spread over her knees, at her throat was a little bright coquettish blue bow that added, amazingly, to the innocent charm of her old age.On her white hair, crinkled and arranged as though it were some ornament, not quite a wig but still apart from the rest of her body, she wore a lace cap.She was fond of knitting; she made warm woollen comforters and underclothing for the children of the poor.She was immensely fond of conversation, being of an inquisitive nature.But above all was she fond of eating.This covetousness of food had grown on her as her years had increased.The thought of foods of various kinds filled many hours of her day, and the desire for pleasant things to eat was the motive of many of her most deliberate actions.She cherished warmly and secretly this little lust of hers.None of the family was aware of the grip that the desire had upon her nor of the speed with which the desire was growing.She did not ask directly for the things that she liked, but manoeuvred with little plots and intrigues to obtain them.The cook in the Warlock household had neither art nor science at her disposal, but as it happened old Mrs.Warlock lusted after very simple things.She loved rice-pudding; her heart beat fast in her breast when she thought of the brown crinkly skin of the rich warm milk of a true rice-pudding; also she loved hot buttered toast, very buttery so that it soaked your fingers; also beef-steak pudding with gravy rich and dark and its white covering thick and heavy; she also loved hot and sweet tea and the little cakes that Amy sometimes bought, red and yellow and pink, held in white paper--also plum-pudding, which, alas! only came at Christmastime and wedding-cake, which scarcely ever came at all.

This vice, of which she was almost triumphantly conscious as though it were a proof of her enduring vitality, she clutched eagerly to herself.She did not wish that any human being should perceive it.

Of her husband she was not afraid--it would never possibly occur to him that food was of importance to any one; Amy might discover what she pleased, she was in strong alliance with her mother and would never betray her.

Her fear was of Martin.She feared very deeply his influence upon her husband.During Martin's absence she and Amy had managed very successfully to have the house as they wished it; John Warlock, the master, had been too deeply occupied with the affairs of the soul to be concerned also with the affairs of the body.

She had, she believed, exercised an increasing influence over him.

She had always loved him with a fierce and selfish love, but now, when he was nearly seventy, and to both of them only a few years of earthly ambition could remain, she desired, with all the urgent ferocity of a human being through whose fingers the last sands of his opportunity are slipping, to seize and hold and have him entirely hers.He had always eluded her; although he had once certainly loved her with, at any rate, a semblance of earthly passion, his spiritual life had always come between them, holding him from her, helping him to escape when he pleased, tantalising, sometimes maddening too.She was certainly now not so ready to dismiss that spiritual life as once she had been.She was herself an old heathen; for herself she believed in nothing but her earthly appetites and desires, but for him and for others there might be something in it,...and perhaps some day some dreadful thing would occur...a chariot of Fire descend upon the Chapel and some sort of a fierce and hostile God deliver judgment; she only hoped that she would be dead before then.

Meanwhile she and Amy had, undoubtedly, during these last years, increased their influence over him.He was not aware of it, but as he was growing now older and weaker--he had had trouble with his heart--he inevitably depended more upon them.The old lady began to count upon her triumph.Then came Martin's return.