A Heritage and its History (10 page)

“We must not look down on our fellow-creatures,” said Julia.

“We can hardly avoid it in some cases, ma'am, if we look at them at all. The level involves it.”

“Ah, to know all is to forgive all,” said Rhoda.

“I confess I have not found it so, my lady. To forgive, it is best to know as little as possible.”

“Well, my day is ended,” said Sir Edwin. “And, Julia, yours should be. You are looking tired.”

“I will walk home with Fanny,” said Walter, “and prevent Simon from doing so. I must hear what she says about you all.”

“Well, you see what we are,” said Simon to Rhoda, “what we do and say, what you have before you. I will give you any help I can. I fear it will not be much.”

“I may need what it is. If I do, I will ask and take it.”

“There is something I must say to you, Walter,” said Simon. “And you will hear me in silence. You will not betray any feeling. You will not utter a word to exhibit yourself. You will make neither sign nor sound.”

Walter laid a hand on his lips and lifted his eyes to his brother's. But there was a change on his face.

“Rhoda is going to have a child. And I am its father.”

There was a silence.

“Could it be Uncle's?” said Walter.

“No. They have not led a married life.”

“Could they begin to lead one in time?”

“No. There is no question of it. And things have gone too far.”

“How did it come about?”

“You cannot need me to tell you.”

“When is it to be?”

“In a few months. It must soon be known.”

“Does anyone know yet?”

“No one but you. My uncle does not know. My mother does not. It is all before me.”

“We are in trouble, Simon. That is, as you are, I am. Do you want me to break it to Uncle?”

“I want to postpone his knowing. I do not dare to face it. I have hardly faced the truth that he must know.”

“Why did you not tell me before?”

“Should we have run with the news? I put it off, as Rhoda put off telling me.”

“I don't understand it, Simon. She is so much older than you. She is bound to Uncle in every sense.”

“You know that reason has played no part. Would it have happened, if it had?”

“Shall you leave Uncle to find out for himself?”

“You know what I shall do. I shall have to tell him, as I have told you. I cannot leave it to her. I could not have her forced to that. And how will he find out? He will not notice or think of it. He is what he is.”

“But that may not be what you think. You may not have to tell him. He may speak himself.”

Walter knew better than Simon. It was soon after this that Sir Edwin came to his wife, and spoke with his eyes held from her face.

“I suppose it is Simon?” he said.

Rhoda looked up at him with locked hands.

“No, not Simon. Not by himself. Both of us, neither of us. I do not know what to say. It was fate, impulse, force. What can I say or hope?”

“You have said nothing, except that it is Simon.”

“Yes, in the sense you mean.”

“We are thinking of no other sense.”

“I must ask, Edwin. To think that I must! What is to be done?”

“I can give no answer. If you can tell me anything, I will hear.”

“What do you think of us? What can it be?”

“What you know it is. I need not use words that are not mine.”

“What is to happen in the end?”

“We do not know what the end will be.”

“The other word, Edwin! The word that must be said! What of the child?”

“I shall be the legal father. Nothing else would serve you or me. I must accept the place.”

“Are we to tell the truth?”

“To no one. We are both the worse, if it is told. I have no doubt that Walter knows.”

“Is Julia to believe the child is yours?”

“She is to accept it as such. We can say no more.”

“I must say it once. I know you do not want to hear. How you are yourself!”

“Silence is best also for me.”

“Your feeling for me? It must be changed.”

“Yes, and my conception of you. I will not say to you what you would not believe.”

“It alters my conception of myself.”

“It reveals to you what it should be, if you have not known.”

“That is a hard word, Edwin.”

“What words would you expect from me?”

“What will you say to Simon?”

“Nothing. I will await what he says to me.”

Sir Edwin waited without word or sign. And at last the tension and passing time drove Simon to speak. He
rose from his desk at a pause in his work, and faced his uncle.

“Uncle, what am I to say to you?”

Sir Edwin met his eyes at once.

“I will hear what it is.”

“I hardly know what words to use.”

“You would not ask me to help you.”

“Can you not take pity on me?”

“Simon, you are yourself a man.”

“I can only say that youth and instinct did their work.”

“Our instincts are subject to us. That is saying nothing.”

“There is nothing I can say,” muttered Simon, and said no more.

After this the uncle and nephew went their accustomed way, with Sir Edwin behaving as usual, and Simon doing the same under the general eye. Some weeks later Julia spoke at the table.

“We may see the truth, Edwin, and congratulate you on it? It has been like you not to speak of it. But the time is past.”

“Well, you have broken the silence.”

“We can think how pleased Hamish would have been.”

“Would he have? It would have severed my life from his.”

“Surely nothing could have done that.”

“It is said that such things do.”

“I wish you were more uplifted about it. I may say it of you both.”

“Many people might be more so. Perhaps it was hardly thus, that we saw our lives.”

“Rhoda, you will come to be glad. I speak to you as a mother. Even now you would not have it otherwise.”

“I have hardly thought. It is new to me. I have not had your life, your knowledge. I shall learn from you.”

“Have not my nephews their word?” said Sir Edwin, conveying to these that they should do their part.

“It is an event to silence us,” said Walter. “No word of ours would count.”

Sir Edwin gave him a glance and said no more.

Julia waited until she was alone with her sons.

“Must we suppose that the child is unwanted, that they are so unnatural about it?”

“I think we must suppose it,” said Walter.

“What do you think, Simon?”

“That is the impression they give.”

“They will adapt themselves. It is the thing that happens. We need have no doubt.”

Julia spoke more truth than she knew. Sir Edwin and Rhoda accepted their future, forced to it by the ignorance of others. Rhoda and Simon hardly met or spoke, knowing their relation must fade into a memory. Simon turned to Fanny and his brother for companionship.

At the natural time, with no delay or trouble, a boy was born. And a few days later Sir Edwin spoke to his nephew.

“You have to face the future, Simon. It is in your mind. It is what you have said to yourself. You are no longer to come after me. It is a change for you at your age. It could never be an easy one. There is no help for it. And you can ask no help.”

Simon looked at his uncle with startled eyes.

“But—but the boy is mine, Uncle. You and I know it, though others do not. We can only abide by our knowledge.”

“What you and I know is forgotten. The real truth is not the truth to us. We abide by the accepted word.”

“But I cannot come after my own son. It is against nature and reason.”

“You come after mine.”

“But the place is not entailed, Uncle. You can bequeath it as you will. You would not make such a change. It would not be natural or fit. You will provide for the boy in another way, on another scale. Or I will provide for him. It is the only thing.”

“It is a thing that could not be. Think what you say. Think of him as he is thought of. Think of his place. He is to be always with me. All that I have is his. It is natural, inevitable, rooted in the past. Do you mean you have not thought of it?”

“I did not imagine your seeing him as your son. Your dealing with me as a culprit hardly supports it.”

“How else should I deal with you? But we have to veil the truth. I will accept no reproach from you. That is on the other side. I am not an agent in the
matter. I need hardly be brought into it. No one need give a thought to me. No one has done so.”

“You must have your own feeling towards the change.”

“Your son would have come after you. Now he takes your place. It is only a foreshortening of the future, a cutting out of your life.”

“But my life is before me. What is it to be?”

“You expect me to give my mind to it? What is your reason? What should be mine?”

“Uncle, it was the instinct of a moment. I was not master of myself. I meant to do harm to no one. You must understand.”

“I do not. I have been my own master.”

“Your temptations have been different. Such as they were, you have yielded to them. You have lived aloof and for yourself. You failed in courage under grief. Your marriage is part of the failure. You have met tolerance from me. And you should remember that I have served you.”

“In serving your future. I do not forget. You have been open about it.”

“I must ask you again, Uncle. What is my life to be? I shall have to live it.”

“Have you thought what is to be mine? Yours is not a thing by itself. I have also to live, though you have hardly accepted it.”

Simon stood in silence, seeming not to know he did so. Then he spoke with a difference.

“It must be as it must, Uncle. I wonder with you that I have not seen it. I was too sunk in my own life to
reason. I can only confess it and put my mistake behind.”

“And what do you see in front?”

“What other men see. It is time I saw it. I must steer my own course, find work to serve myself and others. I will work for you here until you fill my place.”

“For me and not with me?” said Sir Edwin, almost with a smile. “Perhaps I need not fill it. It will be many years before my son—yes, that is what he is—is old enough to take it. He may never be suited to it. He may never wish to. The estate can carry the post, though the prospect must be different. It would solve your problem, and keep you together as a family.”

There was another silence.

“I accept the offer, Uncle. I should thank you for it. I have brought the change on myself. Without will or purpose, but by no fault of anyone else. I must face it as retribution. But what if I marry?”

“With your mother's help you should be able. You will be glad that the boy is known as mine. We must have forgotten that he is not. He will send a difference through many lives. One should come at once. It will be best for you and your mother to leave this house.”

“For what reason, Uncle? I see there may be many.”

“When I die—and you realise I shall do so—my wife will be its mistress until her son's marriage. As he grows up, he will expect it. She can no longer take matters into her own hands. And if you marry, a second family can hardly be here. It will be well to make the change.”

“I should have seen it, Uncle. But I have thought of things as established. They had always been as they
were. My place will never be here again. As you say, it is a change through many lives.”

“It is a change through yours. And through mine in another degree. Your mother and I have talked of it. She saw what would be involved in my having a son. And she could not know I should have no other children. She did not speak of it to you, fearing to touch on a point that might be a sore one. But she assumed your thoughts were working on the same line.”

“I had better support the theory. She could hardly think anything else. I cannot explain that I was misled by the sense of my fatherhood. I see how simple I have been. She says I am in some ways simpler than other men. But I am not a man who must live a life based on inheritance. I should be ashamed to be.”

“You must discuss things with your mother. Her income will help you, as it has helped me. I shall face a certain straitness. But things should be possible for us all.”

“What is the boy to be called, Uncle?”

“Hamish,” said Sir Edwin, just glancing at his nephew's face.

“I wonder at that. Though it bears out the supposed truth.”

“So you do not wonder at it. No one else will do so.”

“Uncle, may I ask you something once? Are you glad at all to be thought to have a son?”

“It is like you to ask it,” said Sir Edwin, and gave no answer.

Simon went to the room where his mother and brother were alone.

“I have had my talk with my uncle, and settled my fate. I am to continue my work here, on another basis. And we are to leave this house, we must suppose never to return. His wife is its mistress, as the mother of the heir. Nothing else would lead to the future. I am a humbler person, displaced, deposed. But I can make the best of it.”

“So am I,” said Julia. “And I can do the same. My son, I have not spoken of it. You were making the transition in your mind. I knew it was a hard and sad one.”

Simon was silent, seeing how his abstraction had been explained.

“I look up to you both,” said Walter. “I wish I could suffer something, so that I could quietly rise above it.”

“Your poetic talent may desert you,” said Simon, trying to be himself.

“No, it is a part of me.”

“As this house seemed of me,” said Simon, looking round. “Well, I am to leave it and lose it. And so are you, Mater, after as long a time. But it has not been so much your own.”