5. News of the Engagement

Two days after his proposal to Agnes, Philip has come to spend Christmas with his mother and to tell her about his engagement. He feels excited and a little nervous. To his amazement, he notices that his mother is also more excited than usual. Is that because she already knows about his engagement? Or is there another reason?

My mother never came to meet me at Bursley station when I arrived in the Five Towns from London. She always had other things to do; she was "preparing" for me. So I had the little journey from Knype to Bursley, and then the walk up Trafalgar Road, all by myself. And there was enough time to consider how I should break to my mother the tremendous news I had for her. I had been considering that question since I got into the train at Euston, where I had said good-bye to Agnes; but in the atmosphere of the Five Towns it seemed more difficult, though, of course, it wasn't difficult, really.

You see, I wrote to my mother regularly every week, telling her most of my doings. She knew all my friends by name; I am sure she formed in her mind notions of what sort of people they were. Thus I had often mentioned Agnes and her family in my letters. But you can't write even to your mother and say: "I think I am beginning to fall in love with Agnes," "I think Agnes likes me," "I love her," "I feel certain she loves me too," "I shall propose to her some day." You can't do that. At least I couldn't. Therefore it had happened that on the 20th of December I had proposed to Agnes and she agreed to marry me, and my mother had no suspicion that my happiness was so near. And on the 22nd of December I came to spend Christmas with my mother.

I was the only son of a widow; I was all that my mother had. And I had gone and engaged myself to a girl she had never seen, and I had not told her anything about it. She would certainly be very much surprised, and she might be a little hurt—just at first. Anyhow, the situation was very delicate.

I walked up the white front steps of my mother's little house, just opposite where the electric cars stop, but before I could put my hand on the bell, my little mother, in her black silk and her gold brooch opened to me, having doubtless watched me down the road from the window, as usual, and she said, as usual, kissing me,

"Well, Philip! How are you?"

And I said,

"Oh! I'm all right, mother. How are you?"

I noticed at once that she was more excited than my arrival usually made her. There were tears in her smiling eyes, and she was as nervous as a young girl. And indeed she looked remarkably young for a woman of forty-five, with twenty-five years of widowhood and a short but stormy married life behind her.

The thought flashed across my mind: "By some means or other she has some information about my engagement. But how?"

But I said nothing. I, too, was rather nervous.

"I'll tell her at supper," I decided and went upstairs.

At that moment there was a ring at the door. She ran to the door, instead of letting the servant go. It was a porter with my bag.

Just as I was coming downstairs again there was another ring at the door. And my mother appeared out of the kitchen, but I was before her, and with a laugh I insisted on opening the front door myself this time. A young woman stood on the step.

"Please, Mrs. Dawson wants to know if Mrs. Durance can kindly lend her half-a-dozen knives and forks?"

"Eh, with pleasure," said my mother, behind me. "Just wait a minute, Lucy. Come inside."

I followed my mother into the drawing room, where she took some silver out of the cabinet, wrapped it in tissue paper, and then went out and gave it to the servant, saying: "There! And the compliments of the season to your mistress, Lucy."

After that my mother disappeared into the kitchen. And I wandered about, feeling happily excited, examining the drawing room, in which nothing was changed except the picture postcards on the mantelpiece. Then I wandered into the dining room, a small room at the back of the house, and here a great surprise awaited me.

Supper was set for three!

"Well," I said. "Here's a nice state of affairs! Supper for three, and she hasn't said a word!"

My mother was so clever in social matters, and especially in the planning of delicious surprises, that I believed her capable even of miracles. In some way or other she must have discovered the state of my desires towards Agnes. She and Agnes had been plotting together by letters, or maybe by telegraph to surprise me. Though Agnes had told me that she could not possibly come to Bursley for Christmas, she was probably here, and my mother had concealed her somewhere in the house, or was expecting her any minute. That explained the nervousness and the rushes of my mother to the door.

I went out of the dining room, determined not to let my mother know that I had secretly examined the supper-table. And as I was crossing the corridor to the drawing room there was a third ring at the door, and a third time my mother rushed out of the kitchen.

"By Jove!" I thought. "Suppose it's Agnes. What a scene!"

And trembling with expectation I opened the door.

It was Mr. Nixon.

Mr. Nixon was an old friend of the family, a man of forty-nine or fifty, who owned a hundred and seventy-five small houses in the town. He collected the rents himself, and attended to the repairs himself, and was known as a good landlord. He lived alone in Commerce Street, and, though not talkative, was usually jolly, with one or two good stories to tell. He was my mother's trustee, and had morally helped her in the difficult times before my father's carly death.

"Well, young man," cried he coming in. "So you're back in old Bursley!"

I greeted him as gaily as I could, and then he shook hands with my mother, neither of them speaking.

"Mr. Nixon has come to supper, Philip," said my mother.

I liked Mr. Nixon, but I was not too well pleased by this information, for I wanted to talk confidentially to my mother. And here was Mr. Nixon in to supper! I could not break it gently to my mother that I was engaged to a strange young woman in the presence of Mr. Nixon. Mr. Nixon had been in to supper several times during previous visits of mine, but never on the first night.

However, I had to make the best of it. And we sat down and began on the ham, the sausages, the eggs, and toasts, the jams, and the celery. But we, none of us, ate very much, despite my little mother's protestations.

My suspicion was that perhaps something had gone wrong with my mother's affairs, and that Mr. Nixon was taking the first opportunity to explain things to me. But such a possibility did not interest me, for I could easily afford to keep my mother and a wife too. I was still preoccupied in my engagement—and surely there is nothing astonishing in that—and I began to compose the words in which, immediately on the departure of Mr. Nixon after supper, I would break to my mother the news of my engagement.

When we had reached the Stilton and celery, I said that I must walk down to the post-office, as I had to send off a letter.

"Can't you do it tomorrow, my dear?" asked my mother.

"No, I can't," I said.

Imagine! To leave Agnes two days without news of my safe arrival and without assurance of my love! I had started writing the letter in the train, near Willesden, and finished in the drawing room.

"A lady in the case?" Mr. Nixon called out gaily.

"Yes," I replied with firmness.

I went out, bought a picture postcard showing St. Luke's Square, Bursley, and posted the card and the letter to my dear Agnes. I hoped that Mr. Nixon would have departed before my return; he had not mentioned my mother's affairs at all during supper. But he had not departed. I found him alone in the drawing room, smoking a very fine cigar.

"Where's mother?" I asked.

"She's just gone out of the room," he said. "Come and sit down. Have a cigar. I want to have chat with you, Philip."

I obeyed, taking one of the very fine cigars.

"Well, Uncle Nixon?" I encouraged him, wishing to get the chat over because my mind was full of Agnes. I sometimes called him uncle for fun.

"Well, my boy," he began. "It's no use me beating about the bush. What do you think of me as a stepfather?"

I was struck, when I heard these words.

"What?" I stammered. "You don't mean to say—you and mother—?"

He nodded.

"Yes, I do, my boy. Yesterday she promised that she'd marry me. It's been going on for some time. But I don't expect she's given you any hint in her letters. In fact, I know she hasn't. It would have been rather difficult, wouldn't it? She couldn't have written: 'My dear Philip, an old friend, Mr. Nixon, is falling in love with me and I believe I'm falling in love with him. One of these days he'll propose to me.' She couldn't have written like that, could she?"

I laughed. I could not help laughing.

"Shake hands," I said warmly. "I'm delighted."

And soon afterwards my mother came in, shyly.

"The boy is delighted, Sarah," said Mr. Nixon shortly.

I said nothing about my own engagement that night. I had never realised that my mother was desirable, and that a man might desire her, and that her lonely existence in that house was not all that she had the right to demand from life. And I was ashamed of my characteristic filial selfish egoism. So I decided that I would not intrude my joy on hers until the next morning. We live and learn.

From The World of English, No. 5, 1987.