Arthur & George

deaf for a moment, then replies, rather stiffly, ‘It is not so pretty. Only the tower is original. Most of it is no more than thirty years old. It is all specious restoration.’
    Jean does not press her interest, deferring to Arthur’s gruff judgement as chief tourist agent. He snaps the reins against the idiosyncratic Mooi, and they drive on. It does not seem the moment to tell her that the church was no more than fifteen years restored when he walked down its aisle, a newly married man, with Touie’s hand on his arm just where Jean’s is now.
    His return to Undershaw this time is not without guilt.
    Arthur’s way of being a father is to leave the children to their mother’s care and then descend from time to time with sudden plans and presents. It seems to him that being a father is like being a slightly more responsible brother. You protect your children, you provide for them, you set an example; beyond that, you make them understand what they are, which is children, that is to say imperfect, even defective, adults. Yet he is also a generous man, and does not believe it necessary or morally improving for them to be deprived of what he was deprived of as a boy. At Hindhead, as at Norwood, there is a tennis ground; also a rifle range behind the house, where Kingsley and Mary are encouraged to improve their marksmanship. In the garden he installs a monorail, which skims and swoops through the hollows and rises of his four acres. Driven by electricity and stabilized by gyroscope, the monorail is the transport of the future. His friend Wells is certain of this, and Arthur agrees.
    He buys himself a Roc motorbicycle, which proves mightily insubordinate, and which Touie will not allow the children near; then a chain-driven twelve-horse-power Wolseley, which is much applauded and does regular damage to the gateposts. This new motoring machine has rendered his carriage and horses redundant; though when he mentions this obvious fact to the Mam, she is outraged. You cannot put a family crest on a mere machine, she argues, let alone one which suffers the regular indignity of breaking down.
    Kingsley and Mary are granted liberties not available to most of their friends. In summer they go barefoot, and may roam anywhere within a five-mile radius of Undershaw as long as they are home for meals, clean and tidy. Arthur has no objection when they make a pet of a hedgehog. On Sundays he will often announce that fresh air is better for the soul than liturgy, and enlist one of them as his caddie; a ride in the high dogcart to Hankley Golf Course, an erratic progress with a heavy golf bag, and then the reward of hot buttered toast in the clubhouse. Their father will readily explain things to them, though not always the things they need or want to know; and he does so from a great height, even when he is on his knees beside them. He encourages self-sufficiency, sports, riding; he gives Kingsley books about great battles in world history, and warns him of the perils of military unpreparedness.
    Arthur’s forte is solving things, but he cannot solve his children. None of their friends or schoolmates has a private monorail; yet Kingsley, with infuriating politeness, lets slip that it does not go fast enough, and perhaps the carriages should be bigger. Mary, meanwhile, climbs trees in a manner incompatible with female modesty. They are not bad children in any way; as far as he can assess the matter, they are good children. But even when they are well-mannered and properly behaved, what Arthur has not counted on is their relentlessness. It is as if they are always expectant – though of what, he cannot tell, and he doubts they can either. They are expectant of something he cannot provide.
    Arthur privately thinks that Touie should have taught them more discipline; but this is a reproach he cannot make, except in the mildest terms. And so the children grow up between his erratic authoritarianism and her benign approving. When Arthur is in residence at Undershaw, he wants to work; and when he stops work, he wants to play golf or cricket, or have a quiet 200-up with Woodie on the billiards table. He has provided the family with comfort, security and money; in exchange he expects peace.
    He does not get peace; still less from inside himself. When there is no chance of seeing Jean for a while, he tries to bring her close by doing what she would like doing. Because she is a keen horsewoman, he enlarges his stable at Undershaw from one