A God and His Gifts (8 page)

“I am sure it is not,” said Joanna. “An ambition would not be. Nothing can be said against ambitions. They are worthier than anything I know.”

“Not unworthy on its narrow scale,” said Sir Michael. “But there is something more generous about serving the larger body. It commands more sympathy.”

“It is true that it does,” said Merton.

“I can't think a son of mine would go far along either road,” said Ada. “There is too much of myself in them. My father's gifts are of another kind, but they too have passed them over.”

“It is a habit of gifts,” said Salomon.

“But broken in Merton's case,” said Reuben.

“Not by the second kind,” said their brother. “I lay no claim to that. The two kinds of gifts are wide apart, and the gulf is seldom crossed.”

“Well, it need not concern us,” said his mother. “For us the gulf may be all there is.”

“Well, that may be true,” said Sir Michael, laughing.
“Gifts must be rare, of course. But to have a father and a grandfather endowed like theirs is a unique position. Ah, they have a fine heritage. Something ought to come of it.”

“Merton has come,” murmured Reuben.

“Still we can't choose the kind of people we are to be.”

“Some of us feel we can,” said Hereward.

“If you are thinking of me, you are wrong,” said Merton. “I know what I am, as everyone must. How can we escape the knowledge?”

“Mr. and Miss Merton,” said Galleon at the door.

“Why, Father, you were in my mind,” said Ada. “I was thinking of your having only daughters. We are facing the future for our sons. And daughters are allowed to disregard it.”

“I would have faced it for and with any sons of mine.”

“Father, you have had a disappointment! How wonderfully you have hidden it! How grateful we ought to be!”

“Father and Mother have had one,” said Reuben. “And I suppose it could hardly be hidden. It was me.”

“Yes, I did want a daughter,” said Ada. “But I would not change my sons. Or change anything about them.”

“Father should emulate a mother's feelings,” said Merton. “They are much respected.”

“What about you, Aunt Penelope?” said Ada. “Would you have liked to have great-nieces?”

“I am content with what has come to me. I have taken no steps myself.”

“And how grateful for it we should be! Ah, our unmarried women! Where should we be without them? What a place they fill!”

“It is not always so highly considered.”

“Oh, but it is. By people who take the broader view. And in this matter they are many. What would Father say about it?”

“The place I fill for him was left empty. That is how I came to be in it.”

“Honest and clear as always! How we should miss the light you shed! There will be a void one day.”

“You don't mean that she will die?” said Joanna. “You know she will not. You must know no one will, who is here.”

“I mean that she will live on in our memories and our lives, as long as we breathe ourselves. That is what I mean.”

“It is what you suggested,” said Hereward.

“Oh, you are a sardonic, carping creature to-day. You are not fair on anyone. If the boys want to escape to their own sanctum, you must not blame them. They may have had enough of you.”

“I should not blame them. I daresay they have had too much. They can go and forget us. And we will go our several ways.”

“Well, Galleon,” said Sir Michael. “You have heard the talk. What do you say to a second writer in the family?”

“Well, ‘like father, like son', as was said, Sir Michael. Or that at the moment. It is a stage that may pass.”

“And you feel it better that it should?”

“Well, one irregularity in the family, Sir Michael. It is no great thing.”

“You still see writing in that way?”

“Well, hardly Mr. Alfred Merton's, Sir Michael. Involving what it does. This of ours is of a lighter nature,” said Galleon, trying to take a step forward.

“But that is not against it.”

“On the contrary, Sir Michael. It has its own purpose.”

“Well, you know, Galleon,” said Sir Michael, lowering his tone and glancing round the empty room, “I half-feel it myself. There might be something more solid, and without the personal touch. But I am wrong you know. Utterly off the truth. I understand that now. And there is no prouder father.”

“And there is no point in a prouder butler, Sir Michael,” said Galleon, smiling. “There would be no place for pride.”

“And we welcome the help with expenses. They grow with every year.”

“I have heard of a lady who made a fortune by the type of writing, Sir Michael,” said Galleon, with another effort to adapt himself.

“Well, I hope my grandson will make one. And in the same way. Though there seems somehow to be a doubt of it.”

The grandsons had gone to the room that was known as their study, on the assumption that it earned the name. They took their accustomed seats and leaned back in silence.

“Strength will return,” said Salomon at last. “We have found it does. What if a time came, when it did not?”

“For me it has come,” said Merton. “Virtue has gone out of me.”

“It has,” said Reuben. “We saw and heard it going out. I suppose you will never smile again. I hardly feel that I shall.”

“Father will not, if I follow in his sacred steps. No one else is to tread in them.”

“Is anyone else able to?” said Salomon. “It is on that score that he is troubled.”

“He may feel some doubt of his work, and not welcome a competitor.”

“Whom does he see in that light? His doubt takes another direction.”

“He must be conscious of his failings. He may feel that I may avoid them.”

“He is conscious of other things that you may avoid.”

“I would rather write nothing than write as he does”

“Well, that should offer no problem.”

“I have already written, you know.”

“Nothing we may see. We could all say that.”

“Well, the future will show.”

“I can't bear the future,” said Reuben. “Why must we always harp on it?”

“There is a past as well,” said Merton. “We have
had new light on Father's. No wonder you are his favourite, with your likeness to Aunt Emmeline. We feel how little we have known him. And feel there may be more to know. We can see that the trouble lives in Mother's memory.”

“That would not matter,” said Salomon. “But it lives in Father's.”

“He ought to have a strange, mixed feeling for me,” said Reuben. “Perhaps he has.”

“His feeling is mixed for all of us,” said Merton. “It is not pure fatherly affection, as we have seen.”

“No, it is also anxiety and fear for your future,” said Hereward's voice. “You are taking hasty steps on the path of life. I watch them with misgiving.”

“You know what it is to have taken them,” said Merton.

“And so do not want you to know it. You will be wise to move with care. The forces about us are many. We have need of a sure foothold.”

“I wish Father would not talk as he writes,” murmured Merton, looking down.

“We write from within,” said Hereward, keeping his eyes on his son. “We write as we feel and live. It is the way to be honest and ourselves. It is as ourselves that all is done.”

“I have no doubt that I shall write as myself, Father.”

“My boy, I wish you would. I hope you will. But you may be afraid of the natural springs and deeps. If you are, you fear yourself.”

“We must know ourselves to write as them,” said Salomon. “And that might arouse fear.”

“It means we must have courage,” said Hereward, as he closed the door.

“We often need it,” said Merton. “I feel I have shown it to-day.”

“We feel with you,” said Salomon. “We wondered how much you would show. We did not show it. But we had to have it.”

“Well, I have a word to say,” said Merton at the table, using a conscious tone and throwing up his brows. “It may cause some surprise.”

“It can only cause me pleasure,” said his mother. “I wondered if we should ever hear a word from you again.”

“A voice from the silence,” said Reuben. “With a strangely familiar sound.”

“I have had to give some thought to my own life. It is a thing that no one will do for me. And I am about to tell you the result. You can hardly guess it.”

“You have had a book accepted,” said Reuben. “No, we should hardly have guessed it. I do feel some surprise.”

“I have not offered one. And when I spoke of my own life, I meant something that went deeply into it.”

“Your books should do that,” said Hereward. “If they are to find a place in other lives.”

“You are going to be married?” said Ada. “No, no, my boy, you are too young.”

“Women and their wits!” said Merton. “How these things are true! But you are only partly right. I am twenty-four.”

“That may confirm what your mother said,” said Hereward. “And how will you support a wife?”

“When you have not had a book accepted,” said Reuben.

“It is not a joke,” said Merton. “I don't know why you think it is.”

“Your becoming a family man! What else can it be?”

“And the support of a family!” said Salomon. “There is no reason for thinking it a joke.”

There was a pause.

“I am going to hang up my hat in my wife's hall,” said Merton.

There was another pause.

“I always think that sounds so comfortable,” said Joanna. “And then you will go in to her fire.”

“Yes, that is what I should do,” said Reuben.

“Ah, ha! So should I,” said Sir Michael. “And that is not all it would be. Let us hear about everything.”

“Yes, tell us the whole,” said Herward. “It concerns us as much as it does you. We are deeply involved, my boy.”

“My son, may it all go well with you,” said Ada.

“It sounds as if it is doing so,” said Salomon.

“It is going well,” said Merton, in an even tone. “I am happier than I thought I could be. And I welcome the material ease. It is a great thing, as you all agree. She is an orphan, without near relations, and has inherited the family money. I feel no scruple in sharing it. I am taking deeper things. And we must be able to accept.”

“We most of us are,” said Salomon. “And we must be, as you say. I have always been equal to it.”

“You earn what you take, by filling my place,” said Hereward. “It enables other people to accept.”

“She will take something herself,” said Reuben. “Merton will provide the relations. I hope she will find me a brother.”

“I shall have a daughter,” said Ada. “It will be a long wish fulfilled. How it makes us talk of ourselves! But Merton knows our hearts.”

“I shall go on with my writing,” said her son. “I hope I shall go further with it. It will be a help to feel there is no haste. It should mean work of a deeper quality.”

“Urgency is said to be a stimulant,” said Salomon. “It seems it is not a dependable one.”

“Writing is not breaking stones,” said his brother.

“That sounds as if it must be true,” said Joanna.

“It is only partly so,” said Hereward. “Everything is breaking stones, up to a point.”

“When are we to meet her?” said Ada. “What a moment it will be!”

“I have asked her to dinner to-morrow,” said Merton. “And we will ask Grandpa Merton and Aunt Penelope. And kill all the birds with one stone.”

“There are a good many birds,” said Joanna. “I feel rather ashamed of being one.”

“Will you be living near to us?” said Zillah. “The questions must follow each other.”

“Not far away. In the house in the bend of the hills. The small one in the curving road.”

“I don't call it small. How your ideas are enlarging! And at what a pace!”

“My son, it is a great step,” said Hereward. “You will let us take it with you? There is indeed a place for her.”

“Would you be annoyed if I asked her name?” said Salomon. “I don't mean it as a joke. Everyone has one.”

“Yes, even I have,” said Reuben. “But I feel it is rather a joke.”

“You will know it to-morrow. And part of it will cease to be hers.”

“And may we ask her age? She has lived for some years, as we all have.”

“I hardly know it. That is, I am not quite sure. It is a little more than mine, and so will balance the lack in it.”

“You can now be any age you please,” said Zillah. “It is true that everything has to be paid for.”

“Well, Merton has outdistanced you, Salomon,” said Sir Michael. “The one of you who seemed at a standstill. That is, there hasn't been much about him of late.”

“It is no great feat, as I am always at a standstill.”

“I am not,” said Reuben. “I take my brave, little steps forward.”

“I feel I have outdistanced everyone,” said Merton. “I am uplifted to a height I had not known.”

“Well, make the most of it,” said Sir Michael. “It will not last. Well, we hope it will. I mean, may it last, of course.”

“How quickly you have found a house!” said Ada. “Have you been looking for one?”

“No, it is her own. She is living in it. I shall join her there. When I said I should hang up my hat in my wife's hall, I meant it.”

“Well, your path is smooth,” said Sir Michael. “It might have been a rough one, as your parents feared.”

“It might. And I should still have taken it. I am not blind to my good fortune.”

“Merton is softened, like his path,” said Reuben.

“As he would be,” said Zillah. “We must be influenced by the ways we take.”