Sixteen
It was the next day in the afternoon that as I was walking rather rapidly inthe darkest part of the wood where the shade of the pine trees was moremenacing than anywhere else, I saw the figure of a tall woman standing¹ inthe drive. I took a quick impulsive² step off the path. I’d taken it for grantedthat she was our gipsy but I stopped in sudden recoil³ when I saw who itactually was. It was my mother. She stood there tall and grim and grey-haired.
“Good Lord,” I said, “you startled me, Mum. What are you doing here?
Come to see us? We’ve asked you often enough, haven’t we?”
We hadn’t actually. I’d extended one rather lukewarm invitation, thatwas all. I’d put it, too, in a way which made it pretty sure that my motherwouldn’t accept. I didn’t want her here. I’d never wanted her here.
“You’re right,” she said. “I’ve come to see you at last. To see all’s wellwith you. So this is the grand house you’ve built, and it is a grand house,”
she said, looking over my shoulder.
I thought I detected in her voice the disapproving⁴ acidity⁵ that I’d expec-ted to find.
“Too grand for the likes of me, eh?” I said.
“I didn’t say that, lad.”
“But you thought it.”
“It wasn’t what you were born to, and no good comes from getting out ofyour station in life.”
“Nobody’d ever get anywhere if they listened to you.”
“Aye, I know that’s what you say and think, but I don’t know what goodambition’s ever done to anybody. It’s the kind of thing that turns to dead-sea fruit in your mouth.”
“Ah, for God’s sake don’t croak,” I said. “Come on. Come along up to seeour grand house for yourself and turn up your nose at it. And come andsee my grand wife, too, and turn up your nose at her if you dare.”
“Your wife? I’ve seen her already.”
“What do you mean, you’ve seen her already?” I demanded.
“So she didn’t tell you, eh?”
“What?” I demanded.

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