been known since a woman killed her baby and hid its
body under the kitchen hearth. Thousands of Thrigs-
beians who had never moved out of their ordinary path
to see the Town Hall itself, thronged the new square
day after day to see the dead bird hanging there. And
out of that dead bird grew modern Thrigsby, a city
aware of itself. It and Jamie became aware of them-
selves about the same time and he realised that he was
definitely antagonistic to it. At first he was acutely
miserable and thought that he must fly, but very soon he



174 THREE SONS AND A MOTHER

was good-humoured about it, wrestled with himself, de-
cided that Thrigsby was by force of circumstance
since he could not leave his mother the scene of the
adventure of his life and that he must see it through.
He was not going to surrender his mother altogether
to Tom. He could make her laugh and Tom would
never even try to do that. He wrote a satirical little
poem on the sea-gull for The Critic, but it was rather
obscure in its hint of the soul of the place being impaled
Uipon its pretensions, so that it was neither understood
nor gave offence. Hubert liked it, however, but told
the author that he was too young yet to be thinking of
dead souls and appointed him to do dramatic criticism.
Here was work that Jamie loved. He measured all that
he saw by that first delirious impression when delight
had run through his veins, and though he was drastic,
he was witty and charming. Quintus Flumen became a
name that stood for something in Thrigsby. There was
a battle royal over it with Margaret, who was pleased
that her son should be talked about but horrified by his
being connected with the theatre, an abode of the Devil,
who was an even more real personage to her than God.
"It is the straight road to Hell," she said. "It is the
glittering gate thereof." "But I am trying to persuade
my readers," said Jamie, "to regard it as a glimpse of
Heaven." "Nothing," replied she, "can make wrong
right, good of a painted mummery." "It is only a kind
of picture," he argued, "a picture in which you see liv-
ing men and women and hear the spoken living word."
"Men and women," cried Margaret, "making an in-
decent exhibition of themselves. Say that and you have
said all you need to say." "Read what I have said,
mother." '"In that scoundrel's paper?" She went fur-
ther. She said : "How can you ever offer yourself to



SELINA LESLIE 175



a good woman, coming as you do from that sink of
iniquity? How can you come to me, your mother?" >
Jamie smiled at her extravagance. "Indeed, mother, I
do come to you with more love in my heart for what
my eyes have seen and my ears heard." "Bah! You
talk as though it were a church." "So it is indeed, a
place where the heart can be glad." "Lewd!" she
snapped. "You are too free, Jamie, free in your talk
and in your doings. You are changed altogether since
you left the mill and I knew how it would be." She
took refuge in tears. "Oh ! Lord," he said to himself.
"What does she think a man is made of? Stone?
Putty? Clay? Why won't she see that her church is
only a kind of play-house; mummery without paint, a
mummery that deadens life and not quickens it." "Oh !
mother, mother, mother," he cried. "Why can't you let
me be? I am what I am and you are no longer respon-
sible for me." "I am responsible for you," she said,
"for ever and ever; responsible to the sainted dead and
before God." "By whom all things are forgiven," he
said gently. "Not deliberate wickedness, not a wanton
breach between a mother and a son." "All things,"
cried he. "What authority have you for thinking less?"
"I feel it," said she and not another word could he
get out of her, and she spent the evening hunting through
the Bible for texts to fortify her position. She was in-
exhaustibly ingenious in that pursuit and Jamie, know-
ing that he would be routed as he had no hope of finding
a text in support of dramatic criticism, left her to it.

All the same these disputes with his mother were the
profoundest emotional experiences of that stage of his
life and they were precious to her too and she had far
more satisfaction in them than in all her approbation of
Tom, who never by any chance did anything unexpected



176 THREE SONS AND A MOTHER

or irregular, or, if he did, kept it hidden, even from
himself.

Jamie sought out Selina Leslie at the theatre. He
was admitted to her dressing-room, for the management
courted him and always forgave his unfavourable com-
ments in the hope of praise. He had made an approving
remark of Selina's work in a farce and she had been
promoted. She welcomed him warmly : "Been in front
to-night, Quint?" '"No, I have been at home."
"Home ?" She made a face. "No place like it, is there ?"
"Oh! Are you wanting to go back ?" '"Not I! I've
my mother to come and see me and that's all I care for,
though I don't like my father treating me as though I'd
gone on the streets." "He doesn't think that really."
"No. He'd die if he did. No, he wouldn't. He'd wash
his hands of me and be holier than ever. I do wish
you'd shave those whiskers off, Quint. They don't suit
you a bit." "I like them. I like to sit and hear them
growing." She laughed: "Don't grow a moustache
then. I wouldn't have you hide your beautiful mouth
for worlds. You are a treat for sore eyes, really, and I
do want to know what you've done to yourself because
I used not to be able to talk to you at all." '"We were
both so young and both afraid. Besides we thought we
were in love with each other when we weren't a bit."-
"How do you know that ?" Selina had fine eyes and knew
how to use them. Jamie met them full and his blood
throbbed in his heart. "It's true," he said. Selina
was satisfied with the effect she had produced and did
not press the matter further. "Shall I ever be an ac-
tress, Quint?" "Yes, for comedy. Broaden out a bit."
"I'll keep my figure as long as I can." "That isn't
what I meant: coarsen your methods and you would be
first-rate in farce or burlesque. I think burlesque is what



SELINA LESLIE 177



our stage is best in. We've lost the tragic note."
"How do you mean, lost it?" "That comes clean out
of the human heart at its bravest," he said. "We aren't
brave any more. We have lost confidence." "It isn't
such a rotten world as all that," said Selina. "Much
you know about it, my child." "Child? I'm a wicked
woman. What's more, I'm going to be wickeder." And
she gave a little dance, that was indescribably voluptu-
ous, so swift and subtle was the flicker of defiance and
desire in it. "You wait," she said, "until I get to Lon-
don. I shall set my cap at the Prince of Wales, poor
lamb." "Why poor lamb?" asked Jamie, delighted by
this audacious flight. "The Prince Consort is so like fa-
ther," said Selina. "Can't you see him creeping under
the royal table picking up crumbs? I think father must
be a German and no Scotchman." "The Scotch," said
Jamie, "are the only Continental inhabitants of these
islands. That is why the English cannot get on without
them." "I'm English," said Selina, and Jamie, wanting
to rouse the devil in her again, said: "And you can't
get on without me?" "Well," said Selina, "it would
be nice if I took you to London with me." "And what
would I do there?" "Come here," said Selina. He
obeyed and she made him stand in front of the mirror
with his face next to hers. '"There," she said, "London
doesn't often see a couple like that." "Your face looks
crooked to me." "So does yours to me. Ha! Ha!
Ha!" "And I'd be a dull dog for you to drag about
with you." She put her arm round his neck: "You
are rather a dull old darling," she said, and kissed him,
and in a moment he had her in his arms : "Selina ! Se-
lina!" But she had no thought of surrender: "Quiet!
Quiet !" she whispered. "There! There!" She soothed
him. He was enraged and appalled by the convulsion



178 THREE SONS AND A MOTHER

in his feelings, and broke from her. At the door he
turned and saw her smile at herself in her mirror. O!
the brightness of her eyes! As he left the theatre he
said to himself : "Felt Alexander so ? Was it so that
Antony was enchained by Cleopatra?" It was no re-
lease of his emotions, but rather a confinement of them,
and he in whom emotions had always been so free, so
pure, suffered. It was torture. What his mother had
said of the theatre seemed to him now not a whit too
extravagant. It had magnified Selina's attraction a thou-
sand times. She was now, for him, what she had never
been in his life, a definite and dangerous actuality. He
blamed himself, not her. It was he who had admitted
her, encouraged her. The danger was so immense that
he could not ignore it. Danger to her too, he thought,
in his ignorance of women and their knowledge of their
own power and peril, and he must save her. The obvious
way of doing it, by not seeing her again, never crossed
his mind. Saving her, whether she liked it or not, was
a positive task to which he felt himself committed. He
even prayed to the God of the church for assistance
and strength, never dreaming that the God of the bank
was much more to Selina's liking. She was paid very
little and had discovered that the male sex had deep and
well-lined pockets into which it seemed to give them
pleasure for her to dip, and she had no doubt but that
Jamie, being a Keith and a friend of Hubert Greig's, had
pockets as accommodating as any. Also he was better-
looking than the most of her friends. As for his being
in love with her, that was incidental. She could hardly
remember a time when she had not had some man more
or less in love with her and she regarded it as the normal
condition of a young woman's existence. Sometimes she
let them kiss her; sometimes she kissed them; such flir-



SELINA LESLIE 179



tation kept a flickering zest in her life. She had only
one determination not to marry a man like her father
and not to have a large family. She did not imagine
that other people's lives were very different from her
own or that the men she met would desire other than
to stroll into and out of her gay existence; for she was
extremely happy and only wished to avoid trouble. As
for Jamie, he was still something of the hero he had been
to her as a child. He had grown very big and strong
and pleasing to her eyes. He had left bruises on her
arms and she surveyed them with satisfaction and pressed
them until they hurt her for the pleasure of pain com-
ing from him, and she was sorry when they had disap-
peared. . . . Some months before Jamie's visit, a star
actor, who had been engaged for three weeks with the
company, had seduced her with a promise that she should
go back to London with him. He did not keep his
promise and she regretted the loss of the opportunity
more than that of her virginity, which put an end to her
curiosity about men and made her think that she knew
all about them.

Jamie took some weeks to think out the problem
she had introduced into his life and did not go near her.
Though she preferred him above all other men she did
not allow him to be without a rival and encouraged the
attentions of a new addition to the company, a strange
pale young man, named Henry Acomb, who was the
butt of all the actors because of his mannerisms, and
used to come to her almost in tears and tell her what a
genius he had and how they would one day be on their
knees to him when he had all London at his feet. He
was not peculiar in his convictions but only in his frank-
ness in avowing them, and though he was often ex-
tremely tiresome Selina believed in him and was sorry



i8o THREE SONS AND A MOTHER

for him. He used to inveigh against the rest of the
actors for accepting the disreputable position assigned
to them: "Is not a man an actor by virtue of the fiery
soul within him? Is not he in himself a living vision,
noble in speech, grand in gesture?" Jamie had written
words of warm appreciation of Acomb's strange per-
formances, and the actor carried them about with him
and declared that Quintus Flumen was the only man in
Thrigsby, and that before he left the filthy town he
would like to shake hands with him. He had quarrelled
with Mr. Wilcox, but when he learned that Mr. Wilcox
knew Quintus he made it up with him and begged for
a meeting to be arranged. Mr. Wilcox however thought
Acomb an intolerable bore and a dangerous innovator-
had he not spoken slightingly of Kemble? and would
not inflict him on his friend.

However, Acomb had his desire and met Jamie in Se-
lina's rooms where she lived under the wing of Mrs.
Bulloch who played Shakespearean old women to the
life because she was a Shakespearean old woman in her-
self, though a most respectable party and a most excellent
grandmother. "My dear," she used to say to Selina,
"if I wasn't thinking of your success I would say to
you, Don't marry in the profession. It isn't marriage.
It is a perpetual wondering whose bed he has come from.
But if you marry outside the profession then it is all
U.P. and you won't know the prompt from the O.P.
side of your life. But a good-looking beau like that Mr.
Lawrie is a temptation to any girl, if only to keep him
safe from the married women." -"Oh! cheese it,
Aunty," said Selina. "He's a good young man with a
mother that you'd need a heart of brass to make your
in-law." "Then he's a parable," said Mrs. Bulloch, "if
he is good-looking and good." She had only seen him



SELINA LESLIE 181



at the theatre and now, glancing out of the window, she
saw him coming up the steps and gave a little scream:
"And if he isn't there before my very eyes, and barmy
Henry coming to tea and all." '"My mother is coming
too." "My stars and little fishes if it ain't a party! I
must squeeze into my bombazine though it does burst
open at my bosom." And the old lady trotted upstairs.
Selina composed herself and sat with her hands in
her lap with her eyes gazing down at them. Jamie en-
tered. He was tragical and solemn. "Selina," he said,
"I ought not to have come, I know, but I felt that at
least I must ask your pardon." '"Pardon?" said she,
looking up at him and causing him to shake in his reso-
lution, which was to denounce himself and never see her
again. "Pardon ? Why ?""! I kissed you." "So you
did years ago. But you never asked my pardon then."
"That was different, and you know it." "No. I don't
think I do." "Then you then you ' He strug-
gled hard against the realisation being forced upon him
that she had liked it. O ! he must save her ! On an im-
pulse he said : "I want to ask you to give up the theatre
and then I will m-marry you." Selina rose from her
chair and laid her arm on the mantelpiece, drooped in a
dignified attitude and asked him if he knew what he
was saying. As he hardly did he could make no answer.
He had been giving himself a terrible time, which was
more credit to his morals than to his good sense, and,
as usual, he had complicated his condition with general
ideas and had borrowed from Hubert's rooms a book
by Mary Wollstonecraft which had fired his idealism
but had not eased his real difficulty, namely, that Scotch-
men who come to England to make careers do not marry
actresses. He had evaded it by putting marriage out
of the question, and here it had asserted itself when it



182 THREE SONS AND A MOTHER

became a matter of making an honest woman of Selina
or leaving her to her fate stained with his own embrace.
It was all very serious to him and he could not but
believe it was equally serious to Selina. He wanted an
answer and she was not prepared to give one. Love to
her was a matter of action, of active enjoyment, not
of words, and so far as she had considered Jamie's ab-
stention at all, she had put it down to his liking some-
one else better. She had a respect for him and his pres-
ent proposals had impaired that. He on his part had
recoiled. Marriage was a thing that required careful
consideration and here he had rushed at it without a
thought. In spite of Mary Wollstonecraft he could not
get rid of this notion that women from fifteen to forty-
five think of nothing whatever but marriage. He had
proposed marriage and Selina had been almost shocked
at the suggestion. Perhaps he had been too abrupt, or
lacking in chivalry. Women, he thought, must be sen-
sitive in these matters. But then he had kissed Selina.
He floundered into worse confusion. "Damn it all," he
cried at length, "you might give me an answer." And
Selina, refreshed and relieved by this vigorous outburst,
replied sweetly: "I'm damned if I do." Jamie dropped
down into a chair as though she had pushed him. He
gasped in his astonishment but was saved more by the
entrance of Mrs. Leslie, who, seeing him, raised her
hands in delight, darted to him, kissed him on both
cheeks and, with a more than usually shrill giggle, cried :
"He! He! Jamie! You have come to see my poor
girl! How good of you! How kind of you! She has
shown me the nice things you have written about her,
but I never thought you would come to see her, now that
you are so rich and famous, and everybody talking
about you and saying how rich you are and how clever.



SELINA LESLIE 183



People do forget old friends, you know, and it is no
good pretending they don't. Not that I would blame
anybody about poor Selina. When her own father
won't let her name pass his lips." "Oh! do leave the
poor man alone, mother," said Selina. '"I am sorry to
hear that of Mr. Leslie," said Jamie. "There are ex-
ceptions even among women." "He! He! Jamie, that
is just what I have said time and time again. If you
have a lot of children one of them is sure to be a little
mad." '"Oh! mother, do stop talking. Father thinks
if a person goes on the stage she gets off the earth. You
don't think that. Jamie doesn't think that. I don't think
that." "I brought you some shrimps for tea," said Mrs.
Leslie. So they sat down to the table. Mrs. Bulloch
joined them and the three w r omen talked Jamie out of
his confusion into a rattling gaiety. They talked of dress
and the price of food, of disease and child-birth and
abortions, and Mrs. Bulloch cheerfully told the most
gruesome tales. Selina's mamma was a different per-
son: she seemed to be taking a holiday from her gen-
tility and she forced her mood on the rest. Mrs. Bul-
loch rejoiced in the little woman and said: "It is easy
to see where Selina gets her talent from, and her spirits.
I haven't seen such spirits since my brother Joe went
off to the German wars and came back with a broken
jaw and no pension, and that was when they put pota-
toes in the bread and the poor Irish had nothing to eat."
Jamie began to regret that he had been so solemn, and
was afraid that he had for ever suppressed Selina's in-
terest in him. She never once looked at him but kept
her eyes fixed on her mother, whom presently she took
upstairs to see a new bonnet she had bought. Mrs. Bul-
loch ogled Jamie, and he grinned at her. "Always,"
she said, "look at the mother when you are thinking



184 THREE SONS AND A MOTHER

of the daughter." "Mrs. Leslie is an old friend of
mine," said Jamie. "A fine young gentleman like you,"
said Mrs. Bulloch, "doesn't want to marry into the pro-
fession, though if you're not looking at it in the mar-
rying way I'd be a dragoon, I would." Jamie laughed
and said he did not think Mrs. Bulloch could ever be
very terrifying. "One of my husbands was a very little
man and scared out of his wits. He thought I should
overlay him one of these fine nights. A warm little
feller he was and I never knew him go to bed with cold
feet, which is rare among men. But he knew what the
profession was, having been born, like Moses, in a buck-
basket, on the road. And he used to say, the profession
has its ways and other folks have their ways and they'll
no more mix than oil and water. A beautiful girl like
Selina must have her beaux, but for anything serious, or,
which is more important, satisfactory, she must look to
the profession."

It was then that Henry Acomb came in bearing a
large bouquet. When he knew that he was in the pres-
ence of Quintus Flumen he was so touching, so profuse,
so eloquent in his gratitude that he drove Jamie from
the house before Selina and her mother had returned.
He said : "Your writings have been a revelation to me.
It was my own soul speaking. I have often thanked
God for Quintus Flumen." "Yes, yes," replied Jamie
reaching out for his hat. "We must meet again," said
Henry Acomb. "Often, I hope," replied Jamie, and he
shook Mrs. Bulloch's hands. She followed him to the
door and said: "You mustn't mind him. He's a fine
actor but touched, and he is very much gone on Selina
who won't have a word to say to him."



CHAPTER XVIII
JOHN'S WEDDING



THE fat man who had urged John to hear John
Bright was none other than the manager of Mur-
doch's a regrettable coincidence which no true novelist
would acknowledge, but as it had its influence on John's
career it cannot be avoided. It helped him to a
firm belief in minding his own business, and this led
him to the discovery that his business must be clear
and definite or there was no minding it. What was his
business? To make money, marry, produce sons and
put them in the way of making themselves distinguished.
He flung himself into this undertaking with a cold and
irresistible energy, acclaiming and supporting John
Bright because the reforms advocated by that great
man would make it easier for him and men like him to
turn their abilities into gold. When he was twenty-two
he chose his wife, and at twenty-six he married her. She
had a fortune of six thousand pounds, was not ill-look-
ing and shared his opinion of himself. Other qualities
she had but John was not aware of them. Her father
lived near the Allison-Greigs and was a connection of
theirs and had made his small fortune out of selling
pictures by J. M. W. Turner, William Etty and Madox
Brown to Angus Greig, who, though he understood noth-
ing about art, thought it proper in a merchant prince

185



i86 THREE SONS AND A MOTHER

to encourage artists financially, if not socially. Mr.
Sykes had advised the corporation of Thrigsby in the
institution of its art gallery and he had a reputation.
Wisely he retired before the local painters, whom he
had slighted, began to assail him, persuaded Angus to
build a museum in Westmoreland, stocked it for him and
with the proceeds established himself. His daughter's
name was Sophia; she had been brought up to believe
in great men. Angus was to her the great man, her
father was a great man and John had no difficulty in
persuading her that the younger generation could do
even better in that line. He had become rhetorical, had
John, and would tell her of his ambitions, and as she lived
with old men whose ambitions were fulfilled or with
young men who had none for. the energy of the Allison-
Greigs seems to have been exhausted in Angus she
needed no other witchcraft. Truth to tell life in West-
moreland all the year round, with a month in Thrigsby,
was more than a little dull. John used to say : "I shall
use my money." "How?" Sophia would ask. "When
I have made it I shall develop certain ideas, political
probably. I shall leave them to my sons with enough
money to help them to propagate them. I'm not going
to leave my sons just money and nothing else. Look at
the Allison-Greigs." Sophia considered the Allison-
Greigs, who were indeed amiable but aimless. "Yes,
John," said Sophia. "I see you are different." "I am
that," said John, "and I hold that your Keiths and your
Greigs are on the wrong track altogether. After all a
man owes something to the world more than to get all he
can out of it. Get all you can out of it certainly, but
give something back, something better." "Yes, indeed,
John." "He owes it to himself to win honour as well
as fortune. There's no monument to Angus Greig, and



JOHN'S WEDDING 187

there'll be no monument to Andrew Keith. I mean,
a rich man must be a benefactor." "Oh! John, you
do have beautiful ideas, but cannot a poor man be a
benefactor?" "Not unless he is a genius, and I would
not go so far as to call myself that." "No, John."

His courtship was one long conversation like that,
carried on over years. He did not need to propose, but
slipped into the position of future son-in-law in Mr.
Sykes' house and was free to go there whenever he liked.
He got on very well with Mr. Sykes, who used to amuse
himself with inventing railway couplings and devices
connected with steam-engines for which John used to
procure the iron and steel cheap. With this friendship
John was able to conceal the real object of his visits so