But Charlie won’t be put into his parents’ mould, he refuses to be shoved into their square hole, he utterly declines to be steeped in saints. If he differs from his mother on any subject he is answered with a mass of words and arguments, reproaches, or worse still, tears; consequently Charlie says nothing now and veils all he really feels in a cloak of absurdities or feigned indifference.
At first we couldn’t get him to give an opinion about anything, especially in front of father, but gradually as he got to know us better and found that Ross expressed his views quite freely and that daddy treated them with respect and consideration, even if they were diametrically opposed to his own, Charlie began gradually to develop and say what he really thought, but always with a certain diffidence as if he half expected a storm of opposition. But he is always courteous about his mother—’steeped in saints’ is the only criticism he ever makes. For the rest he is silent and suppressed, but the cold politeness with which he treats his people is quite different from the deference Ross pays to daddy.
Monica, too, is not a bit like me. I always know exactly what I want; she never does—till afterwards. Father says, however, that Monica will be a fine character when she learns that a man can be all the things that really matter, even if he never had a grandfather, and that she will rise to the occasion some day and do the splendid thing even if she doesn’t always know whether she wants to play tennis with Ross or Charlie.
When I was sixteen my governess got married and daddy said it was a good opportunity for me to go to school for a bit. I was therefore sent to the one in London where Monica was. The head mistress was a friend of Aunt Amelia. I suppose that’s why my prickles were always out and my old Adam gave me such a lot of trouble.
There was that last unfortunate Sunday, for instance. It was the 27th April, and Monica and I awoke at four o’clock. We peeped out of the bedroom window just as the dawn was coming. The London garden had all the glamour of the woods at home, and there in the half light we could see the six or seven trees with bluebells growing round—a mist of blue, enchanting, adorable, divine. The scent blew across the grass and the birds called us. We slipped downstairs and ran over the delicious cool lawn into that lovely blue light at the foot of the trees. We gathered handfuls of blossoms and ferns all drowned with dew. We went quite mad with the call of the spring, and danced, for I thought I heard distant music. It may have been only a blackbird; could it have been the pipes of Pan? Anything was possible that morning. We got back, as we thought unseen, stole some scones and milk, and as we tumbled into bed again Monica swore she heard the cuckoo, but I’m certain it was only the clock on the stairs, because this ’Bird’ ooed before it cucked!