The theme of love is rather a bitter one in "The Son's
Veto." Sophy and Sam Hobson love each other when they are young (we know she is
nineteen). Yet Sophy's sense of good breeding and propriety prevents Sam from
successfully professing his love for her on his ill-chosen night on which Mrs. Twycott
died. Later, after Sam does successfully win an engagement from Sophy, they quarrel,
which leads to her staying on with Vicar Twycott, permanently injuring her ankle, and
marrying Twycott.
A day or two after she said: 'I don't want to
leave just yet, sir, if you don't wish it. Sam and I have
quarrelled.'
He looked up at her. ... he had been frequently conscious
of her soft presence in the room. What a kitten-like, flexuous, tender creature she was!
... What should he do if Sophy were
gone?
It is Twycott's love
and care for Sophy that ironically lead to her humiliation and to her long years of
suffering under the conditions of her son's veto of (i.e., rejection of) her marriage
to Sam after Twycott's death left her a widow. It seems Twycott's love for Sophy had a
weak spot that prevented him from teaching his gentleman-to-be son Randolph to love and
respect his mother, regardless of her inelegant country upbringing. It is this weakness
in his love that caused Sophy her humiliation that resulted in being seen as inadequate
and inferior in the eyes of her son.
"_Has_, dear mother--not _have_!" exclaimed the
public-school boy, with an impatient fastidiousness that was almost harsh. "Surely you
know that by this time!"
The
only bright spot in Hardy's theme of love is Sam's devoted and long-suffering love for
Sophy. Yet this too has a painful end. Sophy dies wondering "Why mayn't I say to Sam
that I'll marry him? Why mayn't I?" Sam is left with only tears and his hat in his hands
as the cold-hearted and hypocritical young clergyman, Randolph, drives with his mother's
funeral carriage to her burial place.
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