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 i

Supply Chain
Logistics
Management
 ii

The McGraw-Hill Series in Operations and Decision Sciences

SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT

Benton
Purchasing and Supply Chain Management
Third Edition

Bowersox, Closs, Cooper, and Bowersox

Supply Chain Logistics Management
Fifth Edition

Burt, Petcavage, and Pinkerton

Supply Management
Eighth Edition

Johnson
Purchasing and Supply Management
Sixteenth Edition

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Designing and Managing the Supply Chain: Concepts, Strategies, Case Studies
Third Edition

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Fundamentals of Supply Chain Management

PROJECT MANAGEMENT
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Managing Projects: A Team-Based Approach

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Project Management: The Managerial Process
Seventh Edition

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Bordoloi, Fitzsimmons, and Fitzsimmons
Service Management: Operations, Strategy, Information Technology
Ninth Edition

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Introduction to Management Science: A Modeling and Case Studies Approach with
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Business Research Methods
Thirteenth Edition

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Forecasting and Predictive Analytics
Seventh Edition

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Business Dynamics: Systems Thinking and Modeling for a Complex World

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Fifth Edition
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Seventh Edition

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Thirteenth Edition

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Managing Operations Across the Supply Chain
Fourth Edition

BUSINESS MATH
Slater and Wittry
Practical Business Math Procedures
Thirteenth Edition

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Math for Business and Finance: An Algebraic Approach

Second Edition

BUSINESS STATISTICS
Bowerman, O’Connell, Drougas, Duckworth, and Froelich
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Ninth Edition

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Sixth Edition

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 iii

Supply Chain
Logistics
Management
Fifth Edition

Donald J. Bowersox
David J. Closs
M. Bixby Cooper
John C. Bowersox
Michigan State University
 iv

SUPPLY CHAIN LOGISTICS MANAGEMENT, FIFTH EDITION

Published by McGraw-Hill Education, 2 Penn Plaza, New York, NY 10121. Copyright © 2020 by
McGraw-Hill Education. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. Previous
editions © 2013, 2010, and 2007. No part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Bowersox, Donald J., author.

Supply chain logistics management/Donald J. Bowersox [and three others].
Fifth edition. | New York : McGraw-Hill, [2020] | Includes bibliographical references and index.
LCCN 2018041848 | ISBN 9780078096648 (student edition : alk. paper)
LCSH: Business logistics.
LCC HD38.5 .B697 2020 | DDC 658.7—dc23
 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018041848

The Internet addresses listed in the text were accurate at the time of publication. The inclusion of a
website does not indicate an endorsement by the authors or McGraw-Hill Education, and McGraw-
Hill Education does not guarantee the accuracy of the information presented at these sites.

mheducation.com/highered
 v

This book is dedicated to the memory of

Dr. Donald J. Bowersox, visionary, mentor,
and friend and one of the founders of the
academic disciplines of logistics and supply
chain management. Don passed away as the
fourth edition was being completed, but his
legacy lives on in this fifth edition. Don’s
legacy will live on through the many
contributions to the theory and practice of
logistics and supply chain management that
will continue through his family, students, and
colleagues.
The authors would also like to recognize
their families for their encouragement and
patience because they ultimately pay the
dearest price.
 vi

About the Authors

Donald J. Bowersox (1932–2011) is the former University Professor and
Dean Emeritus at Michigan State University. He received his Ph.D. at
Michigan State and worked with industry throughout this career. He is the
author of numerous articles in publications such as the Harvard Business
Review, Journal of Marketing, Journal of Business Logistics, and Supply
Chain Management Review. Bowersox was the co-author of what is widely
recognized as the first Supply Chain academic text: Physical Distribution
Management—Logistics Problems of The Firm, first published in 1961. He
is the co-author of Start Pulling Your Chain: Leading Responsive Supply
Chain Transformation, published in 2008. Throughout this career,
Bowersox led a number of industry-supported research studies investigating
the best practices of Logisticians in North America and around the world.
Bowersox is recognized by many as the “Grandfather of Supply Chain” and
was recognized by the Council of Supply Chain Management (CSCMP)
receiving both the Distinguished Service Award (1966) and in 2011, after
his death, with the renaming of the annual Doctoral Symposium in his
honor as the Donald J. Bowersox Doctoral Symposium. Don’s memory and
many accomplishments are cherished and live on in his family, friends, and
industry peers.

David J. Closs is the John H. McConnell Chaired Professor of Business

Administration and former Chairperson in the Department of Supply Chain
Management at Michigan State University. He received his Ph.D. in
marketing and logistics from Michigan State. Dr. Closs is the author and
coauthor of many publications in journals, proceedings, and industry
reports. He was also a principal researcher for World Class Logistics: The
Challenge of Managing Continuous Change and 21st Century Logistics:
Making Supply Chain Integration a Reality. Dr. Closs is a frequent speaker
at industry and academic conferences and presenter at executive education
programs. Dr. Closs formerly served as the editor of the Journal of Business
Logistics.

M. Bixby Cooper is an Associate Professor emeritus in the Department

of Supply Chain Management at Michigan State University. He is coauthor
of three texts on distribution and logistics, including World Class Logistics:
The Challenge of Managing Continuous Change and Strategic Marketing
Channel Management. He is also coauthor of Managing Operations Across
the Supply Chain published by McGraw-Hill. He served for four years on
the Executive Board of the International Customer Service Association as
head of the Research and Education Committee.

John C. Bowersox is the Director—Inbound Transportation for True

Value Company. He is a graduate of Michigan State University. John is
currently responsible for the Strategic and Operational oversight of True
Value’s Global Inbound Logistics program. Prior to joining True Value,
John worked for the Kohler Co., where he held positions in Operations,
Customer Service, Logistics, and Strategic Purchasing within the
company’s Kitchen and Bath Americas as well as Ann Sacks Tile & Stone
operating divisions. Mr. Bowersox, in conjunction with his brother Ed and
late father Donald, was the recipient of the DSC Movers and Thinkers
Award for Innovation in Supply Chain Management. He is an active
member of the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals
(CSCMP), a charter member of the Young Professionals Committee, and
prior member of the Board of Directors. A close follower of academic and
industry research, he is a frequent contributor at industry conferences.
 vii

Preface
Over the last eight decades, the discipline of business logistics has advanced
from the warehouse floor and transportation dock to the boardroom of
leading global enterprises. We have had the opportunity to be actively
involved in this evolution through research, education, and advising. Supply
Chain Logistics Management encompasses the development and
fundamentals of the logistics discipline within a supply chain framework. It
also presents our vision of the future for business logistics and supply chain
management and their role in enterprise competitiveness.
Although individually and collectively the four authors have written
extensively on various aspects of logistics and supply chain management,
the decision to initially write and subsequently revise Supply Chain
Logistics Management represents the synthesis of many years of research,
augmenting and, in many ways, supplanting earlier works of the authors
published by McGraw-Hill. The union of ideas presented in this text
provides an integrated supply chain framework for the study of logistics,
serves to expand the treatment of supply chain management by placing it
firmly in the context of integrated business strategy, and highlights the
increasing importance of logistics in the supply chains supporting a global
economy.
Logistics includes all the activities required to move product and
information to, from, and between partners in a supply chain. The supply
chain provides the framework for businesses and their suppliers to jointly
deliver goods, services, and information efficiently, effectively, relevantly,
and in a sustainable manner to consumers. Supply Chain Logistics
Management presents the mission, business processes, and strategies
needed to achieve integrated logistical management. We hope the text
achieves three fundamental objectives: (1) presents a comprehensive
description of existing logistical practices in a global economy, (2)
describes ways and means to apply logistics principles to achieve
competitive advantage, and (3) provides a conceptual approach for
integrating logistics as a core competency within enterprise supply chain
strategy.
This edition has benefited greatly from thoughtful suggestions from
students, colleagues, and reviewers. We note several changes and additions
to this new edition:
Incorporated a section in Chapter 1 that discusses the broad application of
logistics and supply chain management to include other applications beyond
movement of goods.
Incorporated considerations for value chain management in the text.
Reviewed supply chain information technology in Chapter 2 to provide a
broad perspective and then again reviewed the relevant technologies in the
application chapters.
Discussed regarding how consumer and technology disrupters will impact
logistics and supply chain management.
Condensed discussion of procurement and manufacturing into one chapter
focusing on strategy and interfaces with logistics.
Incorporated forecasting and planning into a single chapter focuses on
integrated operations planning.
Included updated materials regarding transportation pricing; negotiation;
regulation; and modern trends, challenges, and opportunities.
Synthesized the discussion of handling and packaging with warehousing.
Expanded the global strategy and operations chapter to include discussion of
compliance.
Expanded the discussion of supply chain network design to include
principles that can be applied in nontraditional settings and the major
drivers in supply chain design.
Discussed the future trends in logistics and supply chain management in the
final chapter.

viii

Over the past 53 years, the business executives who have attended the
annual Michigan State University Logistics Management Executive
Development Seminar have been exposed to the basic concepts presented in
the text and have given freely of their time and experience. We also
acknowledge the long-standing support to Michigan State Department of
Supply Chain Management, through the funding of the endowed chairs,
provided by the late John H. McConnell, founder of Worthington Industries,
and Rob Thull, who is the primary donor for the Bowersox-Thull Chair in
Logistics and Supply Chain Management.
The number of individuals involved in teaching logistics around the
world expands daily. To this group in general, and in particular to our
colleagues at Michigan State University, whose advice and assistance made
it possible to complete and enhance this text, we express our sincere
appreciation.
Teachers receive continuous inspiration from students over the years,
and in many ways the day of judgment in an academic career comes in the
seminar or classroom. We have been fortunate to have the counsel of many
outstanding young scholars who currently are making substantial impact on
the academic and business worlds. In particular, we appreciate the input of
students who have used this text in manuscript form and made suggestions
for improvement. We also acknowledge the contributions of Drs. Judith
Whipple, Stan Griffis, Yem Bolumole, and Thomas Goldsby, who
contributed extensively in case and concept development.
We would like to thank the following instructors for their thoughtful
contributions to the previous edition review: Gurkan Akalin, Joe T. Felan,
EunSu Lee, Penina Orenstein, Thomas Passero, James L. Patterson, Frank
R. Scheer, and George Young.
We wish to acknowledge the contributions of Felicia Kramer and
Pamela Kingsbury, for manuscript preparation on several earlier versions of
this text, and Cheryl Lundeen, who prepared many drafts of the
manuscripts. Without Felicia, Pam, and Cheryl, this long-published text in
its many variations would not be a reality.
With so much able assistance, it is difficult to offer excuses for any
shortcomings that might appear. Any faults are solely our responsibility.
David J. Closs
M. Bixby Cooper
John C. Bowersox
 ix

Supplemental Features
Instructor Library
A wealth of information is available online through McGraw-Hill’s
Connect. In the Connect Instructor Library, you will have access to
supplementary materials specifically created for this text, such as:
Instructor Solutions Manual
PowerPoint Presentations
Problem Set Solutions
Case Solutions
Sample Syllabi
Sample Tests
Data Sets for Cases

Assurance of Learning
Many educational institutions today are focused on the notion of assurance
of learning, an important element of some accreditation standards. Supply
Chain Logistics Management is designed specifically to support your
assurance of learning initiatives with a simple, yet powerful, solution.
Each test bank and end-of-chapter question for Supply Chain Logistics
Management maps to a specific chapter learning goal listed in the text. You
can use the test bank software to easily query for learning goals that directly
relate to the learning objectives for your course. You then can use the
reporting features of the software to aggregate student results in similar
fashion, making the collection and presentation of assurance of learning
data simple and easy.
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For Customer Support, call 800-331-5094 or visit
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able to assist you in a timely fashion.
 x

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“I should like to hear the whole story,” said Lady Aviolet,
determination evident in her deliberate selection of a chair for
herself.
Miss Wade repeated the trivial episode, and its totally
disproportionate climax.
“He was just angry because you laughed at him?”
“I suppose so. Not that I should think so much of that, Lady Aviolet,
in a child that isn’t used to other children and has never learnt to
give and take, or to tease and be teased—but the temper! The
rage!! The expressions he used!!! And worst of all, the readiness to
say what isn’t true. It’s the old, old failing, you know. Declaring that
he’d done it badly on purpose, you know—his mother heard him.”
“He didn’t know what he was saying,” Rose repeated roughly.
“That makes it so much the worse, my dear,” her mother-in-law
unexpectedly remarked. “It’s almost as though the poor child lied by
instinct, not caring what nonsense he may be talking.”
“I thought him nearly cured, too,” said Miss Wade mournfully. “I’m
afraid—I really am afraid, Lady Aviolet—that I’ve failed with Cecil.
It’s the first time I’ve ever had to say such a thing of a pupil, but I
do certainly feel that, except as regards mere book-learning, he’s
made little or no progress since I’ve had him. The truth is, there
have been too many interruptions—a divided authority—” she
glanced resentfully at Cecil’s mother.
Rose, with her arms akimbo, stood staring back at her with
brooding, lowering gaze.
“I’m sure it’s very honest of you, Miss Wade, to tell us what you feel,
like that,” said Lady Aviolet. “It’s not your fault, I feel sure. It’s just
what I’ve always said: Cecil is a spoilt little boy—yes, my dear Rose,
he is—and school is what he requires. He doesn’t know how to stand
being laughed at, he doesn’t speak the truth, and now he’s flying
into these naughty rages. It’s more than time that he left home.”
“Sorry though I am to say it, I quite agree with you, Lady Aviolet. I
should like to look out for another situation at the end of the month,
if you please.”
Thus Miss Wade, very red, and with compressed lips.
“Well, well”—Lady Aviolet rose—“we’re in no hurry to settle that,
Miss Wade, if you’re not. But I certainly do think, after this, that
there can be no question about delaying school any longer. We shall
see what Ford says.”
“Seeing what Ford said” was with Lady Aviolet the inevitable
concomitant to any suggestion. Before he came home again,
however, Rose took the law into her own hands.
She announced abruptly that she was going down to Hurst.
“But, my dear, Ford has already been there. He can tell you all about
it.”
Why on earth couldn’t one be allowed to take any step without this
eternal, relentless, and yet bloodless, opposition, Rose thought
angrily.
“Well, I’m going just the same. I want to see it for myself.”
“Very well, my dear. I suppose you will make an appointment with
the headmaster—I think his name is Lambert. I believe he has a
particularly charming wife, who does a great deal for the boys.”
“Yes.”
“I will come with you, if you like. I should like to see the place.”
Rose looked at her mother-in-law with candid disapproval. “I’d rather
not, thank you. I hope you won’t think me a pig,” she added with an
effort.
Lady Aviolet did not say that she thought Rose a pig. She made an
unsmiling gesture of submission.
“Just as you prefer. I shall get plenty of opportunities later on, I
hope, when the little chap is settled there.”
“I thought Henrietta Lucian could come with me,” said Rose.
“The doctor’s sister? If you wish it, my dear, no doubt she will be
quite ready to do so.”
“I like her very much,” said Mrs. Aviolet aggressively.
“Do you, my dear? Let me know when you want to go, so as not to
clash with any plans. The Marchmonts are coming over to lunch one
day next week, I hope.”
Rose gloomily undertook not to interfere with the visit of the
Marchmonts, inexpressibly dull as she had always felt them to be.
She made an appointment with the headmaster at Hurst, and
obtained the companionship of Miss Lucian on her expedition. She
was fond of Henrietta Lucian, both for a certain terse humour that
was entirely lacking in the society of Squires, and for her matter-of-
fact acceptance of little Cecil’s foible, and robust affection for him.
Rose found it a relief to have her intention of visiting Hurst taken for
granted, without reference to its entailing any future decision. She
felt able to put into words a fact that had hitherto vexed her spirit
almost too deeply for utterance.
“You know they’ve managed to make Ces perfectly wild to come to
this place.”
Rose’s “they” was always unmistakable.
“It’s natural.”
“Of him? I know it is. But it makes it much harder for me to stick to
what I’ve said about his not going.”
“Do you mean to stick to it, then?”
“Well, honestly, I don’t know. I’ll see what this blooming place is like.
If you’d told me a year ago that I’d ever even think of school for
him, after all I’ve said against it, I’d have called you no better than a
liar. But I’ve had to own that I don’t seem to be making a great hand
of keeping him away. I thought at first that if I had him to myself,
it’d be better, but when we were in London, him and me, it wasn’t
really a great success. He wasn’t well, for one thing, and he was
always talking about the games and animals and things at Squires,
poor lamb. And that governess, that Miss Wade, hasn’t done him any
good, for all her rotten little books on education. She hasn’t cured
him of telling fibs.”
“Poor little man!”
“Nothing seems to do him any good, that way. I know they’ve told
him a whole lot about God, and how He hates lies, and always
knows when people aren’t speaking the truth, and so on and so
forth. I never could stuff him up with all that, myself, not knowing
much about it, or caring either.”
“It might be an incentive to Cecil to speak the truth. I shouldn’t
discourage any motive that might help him.”
“I wouldn’t for the world,” said Rose. “Only it doesn’t, you see. Make
any difference, I mean. I can’t see that he cares a hang whether
God minds his telling lies or not. I don’t believe he knows when he’s
telling them.”
“It’s probably a bad habit, like any other. He’ll either grow out of it,
or leave it off when he finds out for himself that the game isn’t
worth the candle. School might teach him that, you know.”
Miss Lucian’s arguments might not be original, but Rose received
them thankfully enough in her new perplexity.
The pleasant, spacious building called Hurst made a favourable
impression on her, and she met Mr. Lambert without any of the
repressed hostility that the mere mention of his name had always
roused in her at Squires.
He was a tall, curly-haired man with an agreeable manner, much
younger than Rose had expected him to be. She was naïvely pleased
and flattered because he spoke to her almost at once of “Cecil,” as
though he felt an interest in the boy sufficiently great to have
remembered his name.
They were shown the class-rooms, dining-room, dormitories,
gymnasium, the Chapel, and the playing-fields, and finally taken
through a red baize door beyond which Mrs. Lambert had her
drawing-room.
“Let me introduce my wife, Mrs. Aviolet and Miss Lucian.”
Mrs. Lambert also looked younger than Rose had expected her to
look, and her round, freckled face was pretty and good-humoured,
with big blue eyes glowing like dark jewels under an open forehead
and curling brown hair.
She talked very freely and enthusiastically about the school, and her
warmth of manner drew Rose towards her very strongly. She
listened eagerly to Mrs. Lambert’s practical assurances.
“They really do get enough to eat, you know. I can so well
understand any mother feeling dreadful about letting her boy go all
by himself to a strange place—but truly, Mrs. Aviolet, I promise you
they’re well looked after. My own little boy is in the school, you
know. You shall see him, and then you can tell whether he’s a good
advertisement.” Her gay, jolly laugh was justified by the appearance
of the boy, a healthy, happy-looking specimen, who ran into the
room, shook hands, and then burst out with some eager petition to
his father.
“Stuff for marking the tennis-court? Of course you can, old chap.
Come along and we’ll find it—if Mrs. Aviolet will excuse us? But I
daresay you’d like a talk with my wife.”
Mrs. Lambert nodded. “Please do let’s, Mrs. Aviolet. I find it’s such a
help with the boys if I can say that I know their mummies a little bit.
And from the other point of view, too, of course it helps one to
understand a boy if one has a talk with the parents.”
“May I come and see the tennis-court?” said Miss Lucian, and she
rose and went out with Mr. Lambert and his son.
Mrs. Lambert sat silent for a moment, looking expectantly at Rose.
At last she said gently: “If you do settle to trust us with your boy, I
do want you to feel happy about him. I’ll write to you myself every
few days, just at first, and tell you how he’s settling down. It’s
wonderful how quickly they get accustomed to it all. Is Cecil fond of
games?”
“Yes, but he’s not good at them, yet.”
“That’s sure to come later. He’s an only child, isn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“So’s mine. I do feel it’s a drawback to them, poor darlings, but at
least it’s better for a boy than for a girl. They do get to school.”
Rose, preoccupied with a newly born impulse, according to her usual
policy, made no effort to disguise her wandering attention.
Mrs. Lambert looked slightly perplexed.
“Won’t you ask me anything you like?” she said at last. “Please don’t
think I shan’t understand. I shall, really. It always seems to me so
hard for the mothers.”
Rose roused herself suddenly, her decision taken at the same
moment.
“You are kind. I never imagined you’d be in the least like this. The
fact is I’ve always been dead against school for Cecil, at all. He’s not
like other children, in a way. I don’t mean that he’s wanting, you
know,” she added hastily.
“I never supposed you did! But what is it, exactly?”
“He doesn’t speak the truth,” said Rose curtly.
There was a pause.
Then Mrs. Lambert nodded her head. Her expression, though graver,
still remained sympathetic and full of optimistic cheerfulness.
“Well, that’s a bad fault, of course, and one’s always sorry to see it.
But, of course, we’ve had boys like that before. It’s quite a common
thing, in fact.”
“You won’t tell your husband, will you? It doesn’t seem fair to Cecil,
somehow.”
“Very well. But I can’t help being glad you’ve told me, Mrs. Aviolet. It
makes it so much easier to help the poor little fellow if one knows
where the weak spot is. My husband will find it out, of course, but I
promise not to tell him a word beforehand, though—honestly—I
think it would be much the best thing if you’d tell him yourself.”
“Perhaps. I don’t know. I’ve been worried to death about the whole
thing,” said Rose with violence. “Everybody talking as though Ces
was the worst and most wicked child in England, just because his
father married me.”
Mrs. Lambert ignored the embarrassing personality. “But heaps of
children tell fibs—some of them go on till they’re quite big. I’ve
known cases, myself——”
“Yes,” Rose said doubtfully. “It isn’t absolutely an unheard of thing,
after all. And they do get cured, don’t they?”
“Oh, but of course. It’s just a fault, like any other. I’m sure it can be
overcome, if one’s patient and hopeful. And especially in the case of
such a young child as your Cecil.”
“And what do you think about school for him? Have you had boys
like that before?”
“Yes,” declared Mrs. Lambert stoutly. “Lots of little boys tell stories, if
they’re constitutionally timid, or if they’ve been left to servants too
much. And Will—my husband—would never be hard on a boy, you
know. He thoroughly disbelieves, and so do I, in frightening
children.”
“What would he do, then, with a boy who didn’t speak the truth?”
“Well, I don’t ever interfere in matters of school discipline, you know,
but I’m pretty sure he’d do every single thing to try and make it easy
for the boy to own up. And if he’d actually told a lie, and Will had to
punish him, he’d talk to him and tell him why it was. Even quite
untruthful children cure themselves in a very short time if they’re put
on their honour, and trusted, we’ve always found. It’s a horrid fault,
but they outgrow it fairly young, as a rule.”
There was an almost casual assurance about Mrs. Lambert’s point of
view that brought a sense of relief, a conviction of having
monstrously exaggerated her problem, to Rose.
“They always do outgrow it, in the end?”
Mrs. Lambert laughed a little, gently. “Oh, I think so, don’t you? The
moral sense develops, later on ... and, besides, to put it on the
lowest ground, they soon find that fibbing isn’t worth while. They
always get found out, bless their hearts, most of them do it so
badly!”
“Cecil’s stories are often very silly ones—things that no one could be
taken in by, seriously.”
“That’s just it!” the schoolmaster’s wife declared briskly. “It shows
they aren’t really deceitful, doesn’t it? And I do honestly think the
school atmosphere is a thoroughly healthy one, you know. They
spend a tremendous amount of time in the open air and they get
keen about the games, and they really haven’t much time for
naughtiness!”
In a vague way, that she did not seek to analyze, it comforted Rose
to hear the reiteration of that trivial adjective, “naughty.”
In Mrs. Lambert’s smiling mouth, it seemed to denude Cecil’s
characteristic of some sinister significance that Rose was not able to
specify.
“I’ve been worried to death about him,” she again admitted. “Have
you truly known boys like that before?”
“My dear Mrs. Aviolet—but of course! I think, between ourselves,
that an exaggerated view is taken of that sort of thing. I don’t mean
for a minute that truth isn’t the most important thing in the world—
of course it is—but quite a lot of children really don’t seem to
understand the value of truth while they’re quite little. It all comes
later, and I do think boys are so good for one another in that way—
the code of honour being so strict, you know, and so much esprit de
corps amongst themselves. We had a boy here once—quite a little
fellow—with exactly your Cecil’s failing. As a matter of fact, he was
half Portuguese, and we don’t take any foreigners at all now—this
was before my husband had the school—so perhaps you couldn’t
expect quite the same training.... But he was much worse than your
little boy can possibly be, I’m sure. He was deceitful, poor little chap
—what one could only describe as an artful child.”
“Cecil isn’t that,” Rose interjected. “Go on.”
“Well, he came very near to being expelled in disgrace. Two or three
of the boys had been up to some mischief or other—something
rather worse than usual—but they’d all have got off lightly if it hadn’t
been that this little chap told lie upon lie, trying to cover up his own
traces, you know, and incriminating others right and left. We only
got at the truth after endless difficulty, when he’d betrayed himself
by half a dozen contradictions. (After all, he was only eleven years
old.) Well, to cut a long story short, he’d have been sent away if it
hadn’t been for my husband. Will was his form-master, and he
begged the Head to give him another chance, and said he’d be
personally responsible for the boy’s future good behaviour. You
understand, it was the lies he’d told that made one so anxious—not
the mischief, which was nothing very bad in itself. His parents were
in Brazil, and he was in charge of an uncle who was very strict, and
altogether one felt dreadfully sorry for the boy. So he was allowed to
stay on.”
“And it answered?” said Rose breathlessly.
“It answered. Of course, he went through a very rough time, poor
little lad. You see, the other boys necessarily knew what had
happened, more or less, and boys aren’t very merciful to that sort of
thing, I’m afraid. They practically sent him to Coventry for the rest of
the term—one couldn’t wonder, altogether. But it was the turning
point in that boy’s life, I do honestly believe. Will kept an eye on
him, and he told me it was piteous to see the poor child trying to
redeem his character, and prove himself trustworthy. You see, it was
a practical demonstration of the fact that a liar is something hateful
to his fellow beings. It might not have been the very highest
grounds for reformation, but, honestly, it succeeded where pretty
nearly everything else had failed.”
“What happened to him afterwards?”
“He got a scholarship, went to Eton, and did extremely well. And I
can answer for it, out of my personal knowledge, that even before
he left Hurst, he’d overcome that tendency absolutely. He was as
truthful as any other boy. Will talked the whole thing out with him in
the end, and traced it to his father having frightened him with
punishments and threats as a mere baby, till the poor child had
absolutely got into the habit of fibbing whenever he thought any one
was going to be angry with him. I’ve made a long story of it, I’m
afraid, but that was far and away the worst case I’ve ever known,
and I’m quite sure Cecil’s mere bad habit isn’t anything like that
now, is it?”
“No, it isn’t. It’s more like a—a sort of trick, with Ces. Quite
meaningless, sometimes—and silly. He isn’t what I’d call deceitful, a
bit. I can’t explain——”
“But, Mrs. Aviolet, I don’t think you need explain any further. I
understand—truly I do. I’ve had heaps of experience with boys, after
all, and I know the kind of thing you mean quite well. Just silly
story-telling—in fact, a bad habit, as I said. I know it must be
worrying for you—dreadfully—but, really and truly, it isn’t very
uncommon. He’ll get out of it. They all do.”
She spoke with breezy certainty.
“You’ve bucked me up,” said Rose simply. “Thank you very much. I
daresay I’ve exaggerated the whole thing in my mind, a bit.
Somehow I hadn’t realized that there was any one else with exactly
the same trouble.”
“Why, of course there is! It’s a thing we’ve had to contend with
again and again. And it always comes right in the end, Mrs. Aviolet.”
The obviously sincere assertion, delivered with Mrs. Lambert’s
honest, friendly blue eyes fixed candidly upon Rose’s, brought a
sudden warmth to her heart.
“Oh, you are kind! I am glad I’ve seen you,” she cried suddenly. “I’ve
been so wretched about the whole thing, and not known what to do.
They—my husband’s people—are determined that Ces ought to go
through the usual mill—preparatory school, public school, university,
and the rest of it. And I’m dead against it. At least I was. But I’m not
so sure now about the preparatory school.”
Mrs. Lambert smiled. “Why not try it, as an experiment, and see how
it answers before you decide about the rest?”
“That’s just what a great friend of mine said—Lord Charlesbury.
You’ve got his boy here, and you know him, don’t you?”
“Yes, he’s charming, isn’t he? So is the boy.”
Easily enough, the schoolmaster’s wife shifted the conversation to
less personal topics, Rose obediently following her lead.
They said not another word in direct relation to little Cecil until the
moment when Rose and Miss Lucian went away.
Then Mrs. Aviolet squeezed the hand of her hostess in her strong,
enveloping grasp and murmured haltingly:
“If he does go anywhere, it’ll be here. I simply can’t tell you what a
relief it’s been, seeing you. I hadn’t any idea that you’d be so—
human!”
Rose laughed slightly as she said it, with an apologetic note in her
laughter, but her brown eyes were oddly misted over. Afterwards she
said to Henrietta Lucian:
“I liked that woman—awfully. You don’t know how encouraging she
was about Ces. So different to that fool of a Ford, talking about Ces
being bullied into telling the truth and kicked into line. I tell you,
Ford makes me sick.”
It was not the first time that Mrs. Aviolet had thus heartily
apostrophized her absent brother-in-law, and it did not embarrass
her to be left without a reply. Her invective, entirely without malice
as it was, was always uttered in a tone that assumed complete
acquiescence on the part of her hearer.
Henrietta Lucian showed no signs of anything else but acquiescence.
“Have you made up your mind?”
“I suppose I have, really. I don’t know that I shall let on to them,
right away. They’re quite aggravating enough without me giving
them the chance of saying ‘I told you so.’ But Ces isn’t getting any
better with me, and that seems to dish the idea of my taking him
away somewhere, and he’s wild to go to school—and I do believe
Mrs. Lambert really would do him good.”
She paused for a moment, then spoke with an effort:
“I say, I don’t believe I ought to have said that about them saying ‘I
told you so.’ God knows they’re trying enough, but I don’t believe
they would mock at me for changing. The old people really do want
what they think is best for Cecil, and that’s all they think of. Besides,
they never have said ‘I told you so’—although goodness knows I’ve
given them every opportunity, the number of times I’ve had to eat
humble pie.”
“I see. No, I’m sure they wouldn’t say anything like ‘I told you so.’
For one thing,” Miss Lucian observed drily, “they might think it rather
bad form.”
They both laughed.
The Aviolets did not say “I told you so” when Rose at last, in tones
truculent rather than submissive, informed them that she approved
of Hurst as a preparatory school for Cecil. They calmly and agreeably
accepted the announcement as a matter of course.
“And what about yourself, my dear? Have you any plans?” amiably
inquired Lady Aviolet. “Can you put up with the dullness of the
country, while Cecil is away?”
“It isn’t so much the dullness——” began Rose, and then checked
herself.
Lady Aviolet overlooked the obvious implication. “We hope, Sir
Thomas and I, that you’ll still look upon this as your headquarters,
and of course spend the holidays here with dear little Cecil.”
“Thank you,” said Rose gloomily.
To herself, she thought that the Aviolets could well afford to be
gracious. She, the boy’s mother, had failed, and they were to be
allowed their own way in the bringing up of Cecil.
 XII
A few weeks after Cecil had been taken to Hurst by Ford Aviolet,
who quietly appropriated the duty, Rose came to see Miss Lucian.
She had announced it to be a farewell visit before her return to
Ovington Street.
“I couldn’t possibly go on slacking about at Squires, the way they all
do,” she declared. “It was bad enough, even with Ces there, but it’s
been perfectly awful since he went. Nothing but Pug and the garden,
and the garden and Pug, till I’m sick of the sound of them both!”
“So you’re going to London?”
“Yes. I can help Uncle Alfred, I daresay, and I’m going to try and find
some work. Of course, I shall come back to Squires in the holidays,
so as to be with Ces. They’ve been very decent about that, I must
say.”
“And don’t they mind your going away?”
“Not a bit, I shouldn’t think. I’m no asset to them,” Mrs. Aviolet
declared frankly. “And they’ll get quite enough of me in the
holidays.”
“Couldn’t you come here for a few days before you go?” said Miss
Lucian.
Rose was like a joyfully surprised child, in her acceptance. “Oh, I’d
love to! How kind of you to want me. You’ll hardly believe it, but I
haven’t once been to stay with any one, except relations, since we
got to England. I have some friends, people we’d known in Ceylon,
retired, with a house at Bexhill, and they always used to say I must
go and stay with them when I came home, but they never asked
me, after all. I wrote to Mrs. Judd, too, from Squires, but she only
wrote back and said how nice it must be for me to be with Jim’s
people, and wasn’t Squires quite a show place, or some rot of that
kind. Not a word about me going to them.”
“Then there was Lord Charlesbury. We were supposed to go and
stay with him, last year, but his boy got measles, so we didn’t go. I
was frightfully disappointed, but they didn’t seem to care a bit. They
never do, about anything.”
Henrietta Lucian shrugged her shoulders. “People are as they’re
made, I suppose,” she said philosophically. “Our sort gets much
more fun out of life than their sort—though it cuts both ways, too.”
“I’d rather Cecil was like me than like them,” said Rose with decision.
“I quite agree with you. Well, tell me about Cecil. How’s he getting
on?”
Miss Lucian’s hearty interest in Cecil always roused in his mother all
the passionate gratitude that the entirely unenthusiastic bestowal of
material benefits from the Aviolets failed to evoke.
“I’ve had such nice letters from that kind Mrs. Lambert. She’s been
so good about writing, and she says he’s getting on very well, and
seems thoroughly well and happy. And his own letters say he’s
happy, too.”
“I’m so glad!” Miss Lucian ejaculated, with the utmost sincerity.
“I suppose it’s much more fun for him to be with other boys. Only I
wish he was better at games.”
“Isn’t he good at them?”
“No, not a bit, and the odd thing is that he really wants to be,
dreadfully—and yet it’s the work of the world to get him to try.”
“He’s so active—I can’t imagine Cecil not good at games.”
Rose shook her head. “He won’t try,” she repeated. “He can’t throw
a ball properly, and when we were first at Squires, his grandfather
tried to show him how, but Ces just wouldn’t learn. I think he didn’t
like to be seen doing it the wrong way, and so he wouldn’t ever do it
at all. But to hear him talk, you’d think he was mad about cricket or
anything like that, and ready to practise his bowling all day.”
“Perhaps he’ll be good at football.”
“Perhaps,” said Rose doubtfully. “Jim was good at games.”
“Yes, I remember. Far better than Ford ever was, but then Ford has
always cared more for other things. He isn’t really very strong,
physically, is he?”
“He looks weedy enough,” said Mrs. Aviolet contemptuously. “He
never offered to teach Ces anything about games, and he never
plays any himself, except tennis, and he always looks superior when
people go on about golf and things—and yet he sneers at poor little
Ces for being no good. It was partly him, I think, that made Ces so
tiresome about not trying to learn.”
“That’ll be different, at school. He’ll do as the others do, and there
are sure to be plenty of beginners. He won’t be afraid of being
laughed at, when he isn’t the only one. Maurice thinks, you know,
that it’s that fear of being laughed at that’s at the bottom of all
Cecil’s troubles.”
“I know what you mean,” said Rose rather gloomily. “His story-
telling. There hasn’t been a word about that, in any of Mrs.
Lambert’s letters. I’m sure I hope there’ll never have to be.”
Mrs. Lambert, indeed, writing intimately of Cecil’s physical welfare,
touched very little upon other subjects.
Rose had left Squires, and gone to pay her promised visit to the
Lucians, before she received confirmation of the fear that had all the
time been lurking at her heart.
At Squires, her farewells had been complicated by a slight tinge of
remorse that she could make them no more cordial.
“Well, good-bye, my dear. We shall expect you for the holidays,
remember. I don’t want to hurry you, but Tucker is at the door, and
you must allow for the hill.”
Rose had heard that information bestowed, identically worded, upon
every departing guest that she had ever seen at Squires.
“Good-bye. Thanks awfully for having had me for such ages—and
Ces, too. I hope I haven’t seemed cross and beastly, very often, but
——”
“My dear, please! (Les domestiques!) Ah, here’s Ford.”
“Good-bye, Ford.”
Rose’s tone had involuntarily altered, and her smile, not involuntarily,
had vanished.
“Good-bye, Rose. If you want any help about Cecil, don’t hesitate to
apply to me.”
Had there been deliberate mockery in his manner, as he made the
suggestion? Rose, at least, had felt no doubt upon the point.
Her ejaculatory reply, a sound rather than a distinct syllable, had
been the “Tchah!” habitual to Mrs. Smith, as a contemptuous retort,
on the rare occasions when words had failed her.
She had shaken hands with Sir Thomas, presented the side of her
face for a slight and meaningless contact with that of her mother-in-
law, and had thankfully been driven away from the door.
With the Lucians she was at her ease, and very happy until a letter
arrived from Mrs. Lambert.
Rose read it with a deepening flush upon her face, and then went
straight to Maurice Lucian.
“Look here, you’ve always known about Ces, and you’ve always said,
like I do, that there’s a sort of kink in him somewhere that makes
him like he is. I’m going to consult you.”
The doctor, seated before his writing-table, swung round in his
revolving chair and faced her without speaking. His kind face and
profound, intelligent eyes seldom showed either surprise or
apprehension. Nevertheless, his expression habitually altered slightly
when he spoke to Rose Aviolet. She had come by unperceived
degrees to count upon that all-but-imperceptible softening of glance,
that greater gentleness in the manner of his speech.
“I want you to read this. It’s from Mrs. Lambert, the schoolmaster’s
wife. I told her about Ces before he ever went there.”
The letter was dated from Hurst.
My dear Mrs. Aviolet,
Your boy is very well, and has quite escaped the prevailing
cold, which so many of them have had. I am still keeping
him on the Extract of Malt, but only as a precaution.
I promised you to write quite fully and frankly, so I will tell
you that Cecil hasn’t been quite so bright lately, and we
are a little bit afraid, my husband and I, that he has been
in some trouble with the other boys. There was some little
want of openness over a game that, I’m afraid, almost
amounted to cheating, and as it isn’t quite the first time
it’s happened with poor little Cecil, he caught it “hot and
strong” from the other lads. It didn’t really come to my
ears, or to Will’s, in any official way, and he has thought it
best not to notice it, but he said that I might write to you.
After the talk we had about Cecil the first time you came
down here, I felt I’d much better write frankly, especially
as it really hasn’t been what you told me about. As far as I
know, he has been quite truthful, but I’m afraid he’s been
caught out cheating over games more than once, and you
know how dreadfully “down” English boys always are on
anything of that kind. It seems such a pity, because Cecil
is a dear little boy and gets on well at his lessons.
My own feeling is that, now there’s been an explosion, so
to speak, poor little Cecil will have learnt his lesson, and
such a thing will never happen again. But I should so
much like to hear what you feel about it, and if there is
anything you would advise.
Forgive me for worrying you with such a long letter.
 Very sincerely yours,
Anne Lambert.
“Have you heard from Cecil?”
“Yes, but he doesn’t say a word about anything of that kind. He
writes just as usual, not telling me anything, poor darling—boy’s
letters never do—but nice and affectionate, and sounding quite
happy.”
“Probably by this time he is quite happy again. Have you any idea
what kind of thing she—Mrs. Lambert—means, about cheating at
games?”
Rose coloured, but faced the doctor unflinchingly as ever.
“Oh, yes. Ces got into trouble about it at Squires once or twice. He
isn’t always straight about games, round games, or anything like
that, you know, with counters—I’ve seen him shove his counter
along with his hand when he thought no one was looking, and the
worst of it is that he doesn’t own up when he’s taxed with it. And
the same at card games. That wretched little Miss Wade played
Beggar-my-Neighbour, or something, with him, and swore he used
to peep at the cards. I think she was probably right.”
“When you say that he doesn’t own up,” said Lucian, in his most
impersonal and judicial manner, “do you mean that he flatly denies
any accusation of cheating?”
“That’s it.”
“When did you first notice anything of that kind?”
“A long time ago, when he was very small, in Ceylon. But I thought
then that it was his native ayah’s fault, and it didn’t seem to matter
so much. Jim never found it out. He’d have been very angry if he
had.”
“I daresay. Was Cecil frightened of his father?”
“Sometimes, but he’s not a cowardly child, you know. When Jim had
been drinking, he used to get angry sometimes, but not often with
Ces.”
“Was it fear of Jim that made Cecil say what wasn’t true?”
“I don’t think so. He did tell extra untruths, if you know what I
mean, when Jim bullied him and tried to catch him out, but as a
general rule, it was just the kind of stories that he told at Squires—
things he invented, you know.”
“I know.”
Lucian’s voice was rather sorrowful.
“I daresay it sounds like nonsense,” Rose said, “but often and often
I’ve thought that Ces couldn’t really help himself. Aren’t some people
born colour-blind, so that they can’t distinguish between colours?”
“Yes.”
“Sometimes it seems to me that Ces was born without any—any
sense of honour at all.”
Lucian nodded, his grave, pitying eyes fixed upon her, and his
implied acceptance of her view filled Rose with terror.
“What am I to do for him?” she cried despairingly.
“I wish I could tell you,” said Maurice Lucian very earnestly. “These
tendencies can be pathologically treated, and more is being learnt
about the right treatment of them every day, but even so, it’s still
working in the dark——”
He broke off, as Rose made a violent gesture of impatience.
“I don’t even know what you mean, when you use words like patho
—what’s-its-name. I wish to the Lord that I’d ever been properly
educated. It’s no wonder that I’m so little use to poor Ces.”
“You’ll be of less use than ever, if you work yourself up like that,”
said Lucian suddenly and sharply.
Rose stared at him, arrested mid-way in the flouncing movement
that denoted the perturbation of her mind. For a moment she looked
angry, and then the fundamental breadth of generosity that lay
beneath all her petulance and her lack of control asserted itself.
“I expect you’re right,” she said, suddenly quiet, and smiled at him
as though in remorseful atonement for her temper.
The doctor rose abruptly to his feet, and stood with his hands in his
pockets, his back against the door. He was as tall a man as Ford
Aviolet, but with a broad, bony frame, and the hair on his temples
was already grizzled.
He looked down at Rose, who remained in her chair, gazing up at
him rather surprised. Although it would not have occurred to her to
make use of the words, she was singularly sensitive to atmosphere,
and beneath the artificial colour upon her cheeks, there presently
surged a warm blush.
Lucian immediately looked away from her. “Has it ever occurred to
you that you might marry again?”
“Of course it has,” said Mrs. Aviolet defiantly. “I thought we were
talking about Cecil.”
“There was nothing irrelevant in my question,” the doctor retorted
caustically, “although perhaps you may reasonably look upon it as an
impertinent one. Rose, I know very well that you don’t care for me
at present, but isn’t there any chance for me at all?”
“I did hope you wouldn’t ask me,” said Rose piteously.
“I didn’t mean to. I’m not such a fool as to have thought you would
listen to me, for a moment. But it’s more than I’d reckoned on,
having you in the house like this, and—and caring for you in the way
I do.”
“Do you, really?”
“Yes, dear. Almost since that very first day I saw you at Squires.”
He drew a long breath.
“Couldn’t you, Rose?”
Rose Aviolet shook her head, and he saw tears in her brown eyes.
“I shan’t ever marry again. You don’t know what my married life was
like. I suppose it’s a most awful thing to own up to, but after I’d
been married to Jim six months, I used to think I’d rather be a
widow than anything else in the world. He was in love with me, at
first anyway, but do you think I was ever anything but a convenience
to him? It was what he wanted, when he wanted it, how he wanted
it, first and last. Some women may like it, if they’re the door-mat
kind, but I’m not. And it wasn’t only that I was very young and self-
willed and spoilt, and Jim more or less of a bad lot—which he was. I
know what other marriages are like, too. There isn’t any freedom for
the woman, only for the man. Why, Ford told me that it’s only the
father that has any legal rights over his children at all.”
“It’s true,” said Lucian. “To the shame of those who tolerate it, the
law of the land only acknowledges one parent for children born in
wedlock, and that is the father. But can’t you trust me, Rose? I can
promise you that it wouldn’t be a case of Jim Aviolet over again,”
said the doctor rather grimly.
She shook her head again. “It isn’t that I don’t trust you. I even
think you’d do better than any one for Ces. But I don’t hold with
second marriages.”
The doctor ignored that pronouncement, which Rose had frequently
heard employed by her mother.
“I am very much interested in Cecil, altogether apart from his
relationship to you, and personally I believe that I could help him.
But, in any case, I want to do that. I’ve wanted to ever since I first
knew the boy.”
“I know that.”
“It isn’t Cecil that’s the obstacle, then?”
“No.”
“But you don’t like me enough? I’m not asking for anything more to
begin with.”
“I like you much better than most other people,” said Rose candidly.
“But I don’t want to marry. I didn’t like it before, and I made a great
hash of it.”
“I’d risk that.”
“But I wouldn’t,” said Rose.
They looked at one another rather helplessly.
“If I loved you,” she said at last, “it would be different. I do trust
you, and I think you’d be good to my Ces. But it wouldn’t be worth
doing, unless I really did care.”
“Mayn’t I try to make you care?”
“I don’t think so,” said Rose slowly.
“Is there somebody else? No, don’t tell me if you don’t want to.”
But his face had altered.
“It’s like this. I don’t hold with second marriages, like I said before,
and I had a rotten time the first time, and if any one had told me,
when Jim died, that I’d ever run the risk of putting my head through
the same noose a second time, I’d have called them a liar. Neither
more nor less. But there’s a—person that I’m sort of attracted by, in
a way, though I don’t know that there’s much sense in it, because
he’s never said a syllable of that sort to me, and so,” said Rose, very
much flushed and implacably straightforward, “if I ever did do
anything in that line, I suppose I should want it to be him. But, mind
you, I haven’t got any reason to think it ever will be, and I should
have to be a long sight surer of myself than I am now.”
“I see,” said the doctor slowly.
“I—I’m sorry,” said Rose.
“Don’t let it make any difference, my dear. I don’t give up hope, but
I shan’t worry you. Honestly, I think you and I could find happiness
together, but these things aren’t lightly come by. Will you go on just
as before and let me see you very often, even if you do leave
Squires? And, above all, let me be of use to you whenever I can?”
“You’ve been the best friend I’ve had, ever since I came to England.”
Rose stood up and gave him both her hands in an impetuous
gesture. “I like you much too much ever to let it be anything but the
real thing—Maurice.”
She had never called him so before.
“Thank you,” said Dr. Lucian.
She stood for a moment, hesitating, and then said with a sort of
rush: “And for goodness’ sake, don’t think too much about what I
said. It seemed fairer to tell you, but I don’t suppose there’s
anything in it, for a moment, and it would take a lot to make me
marry again, especially out of my own class. Once bit twice shy,”
concluded Mrs. Aviolet.
Neither she nor Maurice Lucian referred again to their conversation
during the remaining days of Rose’s visit.
If there were a certain consciousness latent between them, Rose
forgot it speedily enough, in her preoccupation with the question of
Cecil.
“I think I shall go down to Hurst,” she said.
The Lucians, unlike the Aviolets, never proffered advice.
Consequently, Rose felt desirous of it.
“Don’t you think I’d better?”
“For your own sake, or for Cecil’s?”
“Both, I suppose. I can’t bear to think of him unhappy.”
“He wrote you quite a happy letter; and I don’t really think you could
help him by going there and bringing the whole thing up again,” said
Lucian.
“It’s so very hard to do nothing.”
“The hardest thing there is,” agreed the doctor gravely.
She looked at him anxiously.
“Poor little Cecil,” said Henrietta. “Don’t you think he’s probably
learnt his lesson, Rose, if the other boys have found him out in some
trick or other, and have been horrid to him? If you go down there,
it’ll make it all assume enormous proportions to him, and, after all,
even Mr. and Mrs. Lambert aren’t supposed to know about it
officially, as she said in her letter.”
“Then I’d better not go?” Rose repeated slowly, as though she could
hardly believe in the necessity for the discipline, so alien to her, of
inaction.
“I should think, better not.”
Rose, from indignation at the suggestion, passed to unwilling
consideration of it, and still more unwilling conversion to it.
But she made up her mind, at last, that Cecil should be allowed to
weather the storm alone.
It was perhaps the first time that she had deliberately denied herself
the luxury of acting upon impulse.
The next day she went to London.
“We shall see you in the holidays,” Henrietta Lucian said to her
affectionately, “and Maurice says he’s going to be in London a good
deal now—research-work, he calls it—and he wants to go and see
you.”
“Oh, yes. He can come to Ovington Street whenever he likes. I’m
going to stay with my uncle there—for a bit—he’s a pawnbroker.”
Rose had come to add that piece of information, which was by no
means new to Miss Lucian, almost automatically, in her
determination not to risk gratifying Ford Aviolet by suppressing it.
She was very much pleased when she found herself in London
again.
“I declare, I like the good old smell of the gas upstairs,” she
emphatically announced to Felix Menebees, who carried her box up
to her bedroom.
The gaunt youth, panting, and paler than ever from the ascent,
smiled at her rapturously.
“Yes, Mrs. Aviolet, I’m sure we’re all delighted that you’ve come back
again, if I may be allowed to say so.”
It was very evident, indeed, that Felix spoke truth at least as
regarded himself, and Rose, with characteristic catholicity of outlook,
welcomed his obvious admiration with exactly the same
indiscriminate gratification that she had accorded to Charlesbury’s.
But for all her transparent vanity, the daughter of the late Mrs. Smith
did not lack shrewdness. She was perfectly aware that she might
very well find herself falling in love with Lord Charlesbury, and she
knew equally well that, although he had admired her at Squires, it
was scarcely probable that he would ask her to marry him.
“And I don’t know that I’d accept him if he did,” Rose told herself
stoutly. “It would be biting off a good deal more than I could chew,
it seems to me. A place bigger than Squires, and a title, and another
boy as well as Cecil, and perhaps babies of my own as well! There’d
be more sense in taking Maurice Lucian than that!”
She thought very little of the advantages to be derived from
marriage with a man in Charlesbury’s position. Her experience of “a
gentleman” in the person of Jim Aviolet had been calculated to
destroy conventional illusions on that score, and the once magic
words, “my lady,” had lost romantic value in her ears, since hearing
them habitually applied to her mother-in-law.
She resumed her old life over the pawnshop very easily.
In the phraseology of Mr. Smith, an arrangement had been come to
between himself and his niece with no display of false delicacy upon
either side.
“They do give me an allowance,” Rose admitted, “but I can’t say I
enjoy taking it, though well I know they can spare it. However, that’s
neither here nor there. I don’t want you to be out of pocket, Uncle
A., I’m sure, by having me here.”
“That’s common honesty, Rose,” her relative answered simply.
“At the same time, I suppose you don’t want to make out of me?”
Rose suggested, not altogether without a hint of doubtfulness.
“I wish to do what is fair and proper by all parties, myself included,”
said Uncle Alfred with dignity. “The room that you occupy could very
well let at seven-and-sixpence a week, exclusive of light and
heating.”
“There is no heating, Uncle A., as you very well know. I’m not likely
to ask for a fire, and the girl wouldn’t carry the coals up all those
stairs if I did, most likely. As for the light, I can buy my own candles,
and I’ll pay one-fourth of the gas-bill. That’s fair enough, I should
hope.”
“Very well,” her uncle agreed without enthusiasm.
“And if you’ll let me manage the housekeeping, I’ll undertake to
bring the weekly books down and feed myself into the bargain. It
doesn’t cost more to feed five than to feed four.”
“Yes, it does,” said Uncle Alfred.
It was such a long while since Rose had heard any one, herself
excepted, utter a flat contradiction, that she felt quite surprised, and
she admitted to herself in that moment that such a form of
intercourse was, after all, lacking in charm.
“Call it ten shillings a week, Uncle Alfred, and let’s be done with it.”
“Half a guinea, Rose.”
“Oh, well, half a guinea then.”
“And I shall be very glad of your company, my dear niece,” said the
old man, suddenly affable. “The Lord loveth a cheerful giver, and I
trust that you will never find me anything else. Of course, you’ll be
ready to lend Felix a hand with the silver cleaning in the mornings?”
“Yes—well—all right. But one of these days, quite soon, Dr. Lucian,
that I told you about, is going to try and find me some work during
the term-time, that I can do.”
“Charity begins at home,” said Uncle Alfred.
Rose laughed, her ready, easy laughter. She was quite willing to help
Felix in cleaning the silver from the shop, and although she sincerely
intended to undertake any work which Lucian might suggest to her,
there was at the back of her mind an unformulated idea that
circumstances might arise which would render such a course
unnecessary.
When she had paid a visit to Hurst, at Mrs. Lambert’s cordial
suggestion, and found Cecil stronger-looking and more animated
than she had ever seen him, Rose realized herself to be happier than
she had been for many years.
The deepest anxiety in her heart was momentarily quelled, when
Mrs. Lambert had told her that there had been no further signs of a
lack of truthfulness in Cecil.
He seemed to be happy, and although he told Rose that he did not
like games, she could see no mental reservations behind the
ingenuous, uplifted gaze of his brown eyes.
Maurice Lucian was frequently in London, and always came to see
her. She received him in the sitting-room above the shop, introduced
him to the old pawnbroker and to Felix Menebees, and was pleased
when Uncle Alfred chose to annex him as a player of backgammon.
“A sensible, likeable fellow, and I have no doubt that he will be
brought to a knowledge of the Word in due season,” pronounced
Uncle Alfred, who never took for granted the status of any fellow-
creature as a Christian.
Cecil and Rose spent his short Christmas holidays at Squires, and
she received the placid congratulations of his grandparents on the
great improvement which they alleged to have taken place in the
little boy.
Ford and Diana were at their own house, and Rose did not see them
at all.
She took Cecil back to Hurst herself, and returned to Ovington
Street.
There, two days later, she received a letter from Lord Charlesbury, to
tell her that he was just returned from Paris and to ask whether he
might call upon her.
His letter was dated from a London club.
 XIII
“Uncle A., there’s a friend of mine wants to come and see me. Can I
ask him to look in, one evening?”
“Say about nine o’clock—after supper.” Uncle Alfred did not stress
the point, but Rose perfectly understood his reservation. “Yes, if you
want to. Who is the young man?”
“It’s not a young man. It’s Lord Charlesbury. He’s a friend of the
Aviolets.”
“You needn’t tell me that. You didn’t pick up a lord off your own bat,
my girl, and it wouldn’t speak any the better for you if you had.
What are his intentions?”
“Uncle! You don’t understand. It isn’t that sort of thing at all. I never
heard any one so old-fashioned as you are. He just wants to call on
me.”
“Rose, you know what the Apostle Paul says as to the conduct of
widows. At the same time, I should be the first person to rejoice if
you were to find a good husband, and a man who would be a father
—and a better father—to your boy. And the aristocracy of this
country are such——”
“Don’t fly off like that, Uncle,” Rose besought him. She was not
embarrassed, only mildly anxious to restrain the pawnbroker’s
imaginative flights.
“I’m not thinking of marrying anybody—if you remember, poor Jim
wasn’t the sort of husband that would make me want another of the
same kind in a hurry—and I don’t believe Lord Charlesbury is,
either.”
“Has he been married?”
“Yes. He’s a widower.”