“Well, shall I read to you before you go to bed?” said the latter, keeping her eyes from Clemence, whose mood she divined. “We were in the middle of this book when you went away. Shall we go on from there, or begin at the beginning?”
“Begin at the beginning,” said her pupils, feeling this would be the case with many things.
Maria and Sir Roderick, yielding to temptation, came up to the schoolroom and opened the door. Miss Petticott was reading in a fluent, distinct voice, now and then making a gesture in accordance with her words. On either side of her, sunk back in their upright chairs, were Clemence and Sefton, asleep.
“Poor little creatures!” said Maria. “It has all been too much for them.”
“Worn out by things foreign to them,” said Sir Roderick, taking the appearance of innocence as proof of it.
“Speak softly. Try not to wake them. They might be embarrassed by being discovered asleep.”
Miss Petticott sat with her eyes rather wide, finding that this feeling resulted also from causing the state.
“I thought a little reading aloud might rest their nerves, Lady Shelley. And I seem to have been almost too successful.”
“You were right, Miss Petticoat. Here is the proof. You understand what they need.”
“And that comes from understanding them, Sir Roderick.”
“I wish Lesbia could see them now,” said Maria, as though the sight must in some way confute the former’s position. “They should all be coming downstairs at any moment. I have a good mind to call them in.”
“The sight would convey nothing to her, my dear. She is blunter than the run of women.”
Maria was listening for sounds on the stairs, and tiptoed to the door with a beckoning movement.
“Come and look, all of you,” she said, as though further words were needless.
The group hushed their steps at the sight of her raised hand.
“And no one will ever call me ‘Mother’,” said Juliet.
“I would I were alone,” said Oliver, “so that I could weep.”
“Cannot someone take them to bed?” said Mr. Fire-brace. “Are there no women about their business?”
“I am glad, Roderick, that they are in their own home,” said Lesbia, just shaking her head. “Whatever their general need, that is their need now. You and I are at one.”
Sefton opened his eyes.
“Good-night, Mother dear,” he said, and smiled at Maria and closed them.
“Lucius, must you be silent?” said Juliet. “My feelings are too deep for words, but I don’t think yours can be.”
“Lesbia’s word will do for me.”
“We must be careful not to see them as martyrs,” said Maria, in a tone of repressing any rising pride.
“Well, that is better than seeing them as evil-doers,” said Sir Roderick, as if this were the last of possible views. “Good-night, Miss Petticoat. Good-night, good-night. Thank you for letting us intrude on your domain.”
“Cannot you even say it once, Miss Petticott?” said Leslia, smiling.
“Good-night, Sir Roderick,” said Miss Petticott, accompanying the group to the door in her character of hostess.
Sefton opened his eyes again and found they met his sister’s.
“Were you awake when they were here?”
“Not at first. I did not hear them come in. Then I heard their voices.”
“We could not be really asleep in these chairs. But they would not know.”
“Did you say what you said to Mother, on purpose?”
“Yes, in a way. My eyes were open and I had to say something. And that sounded as if I were partly asleep.”
“Well, shall we ever make any progress with this book?” said Miss Petticott, her voice betraying that she had waited for this dialogue to end. “I do not think we will make our third attempt to-night. And we shall have plenty more opportunities. I will tell them to bring your supper. And then you will go to bed.”
When the children came out of the room with this purpose, a shape that was almost a shadow, moved across their path, and a sound that was hardly a voice, came on their ears.
“Clemence, there is a word I have to say to you, a word I want to say. No, do not start and shrink, my child; there is no need; I am here to tell you there is none. There will be no further word from me on this that is between us, to you or your father or your mother or anyone that is yours. I am your guest in this house, and need not be anything more. Good-night, my child.”
“Good-night, Miss Firebrace.”
Sefton crept after his sister and put his hand in hers.
“That is the last thing we had to dread.”
“We have had too many things to keep count of them. I hope I shall not grow up like that, boastful and self-satisfied and proud of being it. Why should she be complacent about doing no harm to us, when we have done none to her? But I would do it now, if I could. I would break up her school and throw her out to beg her bread, except that Father might have to support her.”
“But we have really conquered her, haven’t we? Father does not like her so much, and she has not had things as she meant to. She really helped Father to take us away from school. If they had not told about us, we should still be there. It fits in like things in a book. And we can rest now for the first time for months. There is nothing more on our minds. And we have Miss Petticott and Adela, and Aldom too. And Father and Mother will soon be the same. I think Father is now.”
Sir Roderick’s voice on the stairs supported this view.
“Well, we made the right choice in Miss Petticoat. We were not wrong there. Our mistake was in letting other people supersede her. Poor Miss Petticoat! It was a shabby return. We must do what we can to atone.”
“What is this in my hand?” said Maria, leaning against the balusters and moving something before his eyes.
“I do not know. A bundle of something.”
“A bundle of what?”
“Money notes. What a number! What is their meaning, my dear?”
“Money is something else in another form. What would you like this to be? I will tell you what it is. The land cut out of the place.”
“It is the very sum. But my dear, good wife! What is its source?”
“That is my affair. Women have their ways and means. I was not an empty-handed woman, and I have been working up to this. I thought the moment to bestow it was when you were out of heart. Well, does this neutralise the troubles?”
“It does indeed,” said Sir Roderick, with simple truth. “It makes an occasion of rejoicing out of one of sorrow.”
“Well, it helps the sorrow to fall into place. And it will show Lesbia that our lives are our own.”
Sir Roderick was intent on his own line. He entered the drawing-room and walked straight up to his elder son.
“Well, Oliver, what do you say to this? It does as much for you as for me. It is bound up with your future. The price of our lost farmland! It is Maria’s gift.”
“But it is the price of so much else,” said Oliver, as he handled the notes.
“It is, indeed. That is the measure of our debt. The place is whole again, the place I have lived to serve, that I betrayed when I was helpless. It went hard with me to do it. It is whole again, and I am again a whole man.”
Silence followed these words and was broken by Lesbia.
“I suppose these things to which we give our hearts, do take on a sort of human guise, and stand with human creatures in our sight. Their fate takes on the same significance, or perhaps I should say a similar one.”
“We do indeed congratulate you, Roderick,” said Lucius.
“I congratulate myself too much for that to be necessary.”
“That is a good thing,” said Juliet. “Then it does not matter about Lesbia.”
“Do I fail in what was expected of me? Was the transition from the human sphere to the material rather much? Then let me fulfil my part. Roderick, I offer you my felicitations from my heart. It is
true that I was troubled by human problems, that I am still troubled by them.”
“They have vanished,” stated Sir Roderick. “They are swallowed up in joy. Anything else would be ingratitude.”
“Have they vanished?” said Lesbia, just contracting her brows.
“Yes, dear. You heard,” said Juliet.
“Roderick waves his wand, does whatever is the proper thing, and troubles are no more! But a wand in the form of a packet of notes is a new idea.”
“No, dear. Things in a fairy sphere always take on some different guise. I think the difference is generally greater than this.”
“A fairy sphere,” said Lesbia, half under her breath. “This hard, unhappy human world.”
“I wish you would stop these innuendoes about the children and their stumble,” said Sir Roderick. “Why do you not use open and honest words? You cannot expect young creatures to steer straight, with such an example.”
Lesbia put back her head.
“Oh, Roderick, Roderick!” she said, contracting her eyes towards him in tearful mirth.
“Let us talk about Maria,” said Oliver. “It is she who waves the wand. Her powers are mysterious and great.”
“Yes, hers is the fairy world,” said Lesbia. “I hope the rain of gold and precious stones will not change into one of toads and snakes, in the approved way.”
“You mean it would be approved by you,” said Sir Roderick.
“No, Roderick, I do not mean that. I mean what I said, if I may still mean it, if your words do not imply that the change has already taken place.”
“The gold is to turn into the farm,” said Juliet. “Are we rejoicing enough about that?”
“I am doing so,” said Sir Roderick. “And it is a pure and personal joy, and that is the one that counts.”
“I have always wondered what was wrong with joys,” said Oliver. “And of course that is it. They do not count. Now I do wish people would sometimes talk about me. I have had a downfall as much as the children, and no one takes any interest in it. I shall begin to think you believe I really had one.”
“I suppose school must be a naughty place,” said Maria. “There is no help for it.”
“So it is as easy as that to lose one’s character. Some things do turn out to be true.”
“Well, we have got away from it,” said Sir Roderick. “And after this paying instead of notice, we shall leave it behind. I suppose we do not go on paying for ever.”
“What ground have you for supposing that, Roderick?” said Lesbia, in a quiet tone.
“Well, you said it would be for a term.”
“Then I do not know where you got the idea of paying for ever.”
“From making you an allowance, and always doing it,” said Sir Roderick, in a burst of irritation to himself, or rather inaudibly to Lesbia; and then glancing to see if Juliet had felt what he said, and perceiving that she had, and smiling.
“I have always thought it would be undignified to quarrel with parents,” said the latter, keeping her eyes from him. “But it seems to bring out all the innate dignity in us.”
“The farm is mine; the children are mine; the future is mine,” said Sir Roderick.
“Roderick, is it simply an occasion for rejoicing?” said Lesbia, just uttering the words.
“I find it so, and I am going to rejoice. We have had enough lamentation and great weeping over nothing.”
“Yes, we made it as little as we could. We drew veils where we could, glossed over what we could, gave the benefit of every doubt. But the main thing remains, inescapable, itself. We do not accept the word, ‘nothing’.”
“The word is mine, not yours,” said Sir Roderick, allowing his eyes to wander. “Well, Aldom, we can give you a piece of news. We shall be able to buy the farm from your mother.”
There was a pause.
“You will, Sir Roderick?”
“Your mother will rejoice to hear it.”
“Well, Sir Roderick, she was thinking of selling it.”
“I thought she was anxious to do so.”
“Well, she thought she might, Sir Roderick, if it turned out to be to her advantage.”
“I thought she wanted to set up a shop in the village.”
“She has spoken about it, Sir Roderick. It seemed that it might be a change. Only when you have done a thing for a good many years, it seems you might as well go on with it.”
“Has your mother changed her mind?”
“Well, not to say that, Sir Roderick. It is only that things look different, the more you think about them. And when you have led a life for so long, it cannot be gainsaid.”
“She has never made up her mind, I suppose. I got a wrong impression.”
“Well, a shop in the village would suit her, and suit her health. She finds the farm life rough-and-ready, with her being withdrawn and reserved.”
“She must be past the age for heavy work.”
“Well, Sir Roderick, it is contrived to spare her. And she shows no sign of her years, as she has herself remarked. The words have passed her lips.”
“And what is your view of the matter?”
“Well, I sometimes feel that I have the easy life, and she the hard one, which is not your choice when you have been a good son. Though neither her work nor mine is of the kind that is ever done. And she might miss the country life, if she were to leave it.”
“You would be nearer to each other, if she were in the village.”
“Yes, Sir Roderick, though distance is soon covered. And the shop suits our requirements, though the rooms are what we see as dark and small. It might have been made for us, as we say. And so the matter goes on. And we often say we may as well continue as we are.”
“Perhaps your mother will come and see me.”
“Well, Sir Roderick, it is the quiet season. And if you are going to leave a place, why go on putting your strength into it when you have put in enough? It is like throwing good money after bad.”
“Dear, dear, people should be educated,” said Lesbia, as Aldom left them. “Roderick and I must be one of mind at last.”
“Oh, the question of education does not fill the whole of my horizon.”
“It ought to have its place in it,” said Lesbia, just shaking her head, as she rose and passed from the room. “No, do not be afraid; I have said all I have to say.”
“We do not often have a chance of doing that,” said Sir Roderick. “But I do not grudge it to Lesbia. She has so much more to grudge to me.”
Chapter VI
“Something Normal Is going to happen to me to-day,” said Oliver.
“Do not normal things usually happen?” said Maria.
“Surely you have noticed they do not. It is easy to see I have no mother.”
“Well, what is to happen?”
“Thank you for trying to fill the place. I do like swift compunction. Well, the friend I made at the school is coming to see me. It may be an odd way to make a friend, but otherwise the incident is ordinary. He is returning to the school early, and coming to see me on his way.”
“Well, he is welcome,” said Sir Roderick.
“That shows how you see the occasion. What a thing to say about a guest! It shows that the shock and effort of having him might have been too much.”
“That could hardly occur to any of us,” said Lesbia, “when we are housed and sustained without sign of either.”
“I have been grateful for the echo of my own home life,” said Mr. Firebrace.
“I have felt uneasy,” said Juliet. “I have not the generosity that can accept. It seems to give someone else the superior place. I believe it does.”
“The young man, Oliver Spode, the only son of his mother, and she a widow,” said Mr. Firebrace, in a rapid undertone. “To say the truth, my thoughts have run on that young man. I think he may owe me his name, as Oliver does. The name has stirred my memories. His mother is an old friend of mine, unless I mistake. And I do not see why I do so.”
“Someone you have not seen for years, or wanted to see, and would not have thought of by yourself,” said Oliver. “That is what an old friend is. I would not ask an old friend to my home. This friend is new enough to be made a stranger of, and what could be nicer for him, or become us better? It is dreadful to do things on the ground of having known some one for so long.”
“His mother and I were hardly such ships in the night. We served a purpose for each other. It was after your grandmother died, when you were young. I came to this house, feeling alone and homeless, though I was given a home. That is the truest homelessness.”
“How can you be so absurd, Grandpa? The truest homelessness is not to be given one.”
“Well, I was glad of a friend who wanted something from me, whom I could know on terms of give-and-take.”
“It was on terms of give, wasn’t it?” said Sir Roderick. “I remember the matter now. You made over some money to the lady; a Miss Spode; yes, that was the name. She must have been in some sort of trouble. In one sort anyhow.”
“You made it easy for me. And I did not know then that for you it was not so. I had the poor man’s ignorance. It was a Mrs. Spode, whose husband died a little later. We came together and went apart. As the boy says, we name that an old friendship.”
“You were a friend in need,” said Juliet. “That would lead to going apart. When the need is ended, both sides want a different sort of friend. And one sees the reasons.”
“A sense of obligation seems a hard thing to carry,” said Lesbia. “I have always found the benefit worth it. I have not that sort of pride. When gratitude has been the payment I could make, I have made it willingly. Not that I have felt the other side was so much richer for it.”
“But you yourself were richer,” said her father. “You had paid your debt.”
“Of course she had not,” said Oliver.
“I shall like to see this young man and send my word to his mother,” said Mr. Firebrace, moving to a desk. “There is a trinket that I will send to her, an old jewel that I have by me, an old earring that has lain idle through the years. I gave her its fellow the last time I saw her. It was a parting token. This one can be a greeting.”
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