A Heritage and its History (14 page)

“I am ashamed of being young at these moments,” said Naomi. “No one can speak greatly except from experience.”

“Would you not be ashamed of being as old as Uncle Edwin?” said Ralph, in an undertone. “Of being so soon to die? It seems somehow humbling.”

“Of what should she be ashamed?” said Simon. “Speak so that we can hear you.”

“I heard him,” said Sir Edwin. “It is shameful to be soon to die. Well, I shall not see the future, and I see a shorter past. The place has its lowliness.”

“Did you say that, Ralph?”

“No, not really, sir. I asked a question.”

“How do you think you chose your time?”

“I did not mean to be heard.”

“Have you said before, at the table of someone in old age, that you would be ashamed of being so?”

“I suppose I have not. The question has not arisen. I daresay to be young is just as pitiful.”

“If youth leads you to this, it is what you say. I cannot be proud of my sons.”

“Nor I of my father,” muttered Ralph. “Yes, what did I say, sir? I said I was not proud of you, and I am not.”

“What fault do you find with me?”

“You cannot need me to tell you.”

“I have asked you to do so.”

“You forget you have a duty to us. You forget how you were dealt with yourself. It is not our fault that your life is changed. Our poor outlook is no advantage to us. It is not fair to hold us guilty because of it.”

“It will not be considered a credit to you. It is no good to think it will, or even that it should be. It is for me to prepare you for life, as you will find it. It is my duty to you, and will continue to be.”

“I hope it will,” murmured Naomi. “Suppose he changed, and we had to be grateful! It is better to face our accepted goal. It is anyhow familiar.”

“We must say goodbye,” said Fanny. “The day has been a great one. We shall always remember it.”

“And we shall renew it,” said her sister. “It will come again. I feel it. It is not the last.”

“So it is over,” said Hamish to his cousins. “I fear you cannot regret it. I wish it could have been different. I wish my home was more like yours. I suppose you would say the same to me. We all have our reasons.”

“I hope Father will drop down dead on his way home,” said Ralph. “I really do hope it. I don't know how I am to meet him. And we could repair to the workhouse. It has come to seem homelike.”

“Do you suppose we have to work there?” said Naomi. “Does Father know the meaning of the word? What does he think we can do? He would hardly feel we could be useful. And the people there dislike work. That is how they come to enter. Perhaps the name holds a challenge.”

“What is the subject?” said Simon, overtaking them. “Do not tell me it is the only one.”

“You have said it, sir,” said Graham.

“I suppose your life is narrow,” said Simon, in another tone. “There is the lack of interest, the limited outlook. But the paucity of your ideas, your poverty of thought! It troubles me. I do not know what to say.”

“Then let him avoid the topic,” muttered Ralph. “It is his standby as much as ours. Who else started it?”

“I am not going to bind myself to silence on the subject, to swear that the word shall not pass my lips. If you copy me, it is not my fault. You say it is my main subject. What other have you? You had better let me hear it.”

“Here is Hamish coming back with us,” said Julia, overtaking them with Fanny and her nephew. “To make a happy ending to our happy day.”

“Happy day,” said Emma, who was sitting with her nurse outside the house.

“Is that what you have had?” said Fanny.

Emma made no reply.

“They have had a very nice day, ma'am,” said the nurse.

“Why?” said Claud.

“Well, you have been to see your great-uncle on his birthday.”

“Not birthday,” said Claud.

“Well, perhaps he did not have any presents,” said Julia.

“Oh, yes,” said Claud, in a shocked tone.

“Well, he did not show them to us.”

“Not for us,” said Claud, in admonition.

“All for Uncle Edwin!” said Emma.

“You understand everything, don't you?” said Fanny.

“Clever girl!” said Emma, doing so once again.

“It is dishonest to listen at a door,” said Claud.

“Yes,” said Emma, continuing to do so.

“Miss Dolton says no good person does it.”

“She says it about everything. It can't always be true.”

“Who is talking in the schoolroom?”

“Hamish and Naomi. They are going to marry each other. Hamish will give Naomi his house, when Uncle Edwin dies. And he is glad she hasn't anything to give to him. Then that made endearment that hadn't any meaning. I knew they had that with each other.”

“I don't want Naomi to live with Hamish.”

“Neither do I. She is better than Miss Dolton. It is always the best who have to go. Of course they generally die.”

“She is too old to marry.”

“Not much. She is twenty-one. You can marry when you are older.”

“Then she is too young. She is not like a married person. And Hamish has Aunt Rhoda and Uncle Edwin. Naomi is not his.”

“Everyone belongs to someone before she marries.”

“Father will forbid her to do it.”

“I don't think he can. Marrying is different. And Hamish would not obey.”

“I don't want it to happen,” said Claud, with tears in his voice.

“Neither do I. Why should Hamish take what is ours?”

“Whatever is wrong?” said Simon, from the landing below.

“Naomi belongs to us,” said Claud. “We don't want Hamish to marry her. Her home is here.”

There was a pause.

“Oh, he will not do that. It is not a thing that could happen. They are too nearly related to marry.”

“You will forbid it?” said Emma, her tone rising. “But you don't know how much they will mind.”

“What makes you think they want to marry?”

“I heard them through the door.”

“You must not listen at doors. It is a thing we never do.”

“She doesn't often,” said Claud. “You might almost say never.”

“We must say it quite. And you must not speak of what you heard. That is as wrong as listening. You must just forget it.”

“I can't do that,” said Emma. “I remember everything.”

“She can't help it,” said Claud. “Her memory is above the average.”

“Well, put it out of your minds, and run away and be happy.”

“How can anyone do that?” said Claud.

“You have everything to make you so. A pleasant home and every care and comfort.”

“You could have all that in the workhouse,” said Emma. “I suppose you would, when you were young.”

“And when you were ill,” said her brother.

“You need not think about the workhouse. It is nothing to do with you.”

“It is in our old age, that it will be our refuge,” said Emma, in an informative manner. “And that creeps on us all.”

“So it will not happen,” said Claud, as his father left them. “I somehow knew it couldn't. But it is not true that relations can't marry. The gardener married his cousin. You and I will have to wait, until we are too old for Father to forbid it.”

“Or until he is too old to understand,” said Simon's daughter.

Simon looked quickly at Hamish and Naomi, as they entered the library. The group from the other house had been bidden to luncheon, and the elders had just arrived.

“So you came on before your parents, Hamish. You might have let us have your company. How long have you been in the house?”

“Most of the morning, sir. I have been with Naomi. To me the time seemed short.”

“I missed you in my study. I was to explain something to you.”

“You must forgive me, sir. You will, when you hear my reason. This is a great day to me. It is the day of
my life. I think you understand me. I hope you have nothing against me as a son-in-law?”

“But of course I have,” said Simon, lightly. “You and Naomi are cousins twice over, doubly bound by blood. You might as well marry your sister.”

“I have often wished she was that. But she was not, and I have lived to be glad of it. There is nothing against our marriage. I am sure you will give your consent.”

“You can hardly be saying what you mean. Of course I cannot give it. You must see how unwise it would be, see the folly and the risk. You have wished Naomi was your sister. You have almost had your wish. You can have it now. But it must be enough.”

“You know it cannot be, sir. Your own life must have taught you. As a man yourself, you understand. And as Naomi's father, you cannot be surprised.”

“It is not a thing to be thought of. The tie of blood puts it out of court. I regret that you have been thrown together. But the relationship made it inevitable. And you would naturally have taken it as precluding anything further. I deeply deplore such marriages. I could never give my sanction.”

“Mother, what do you feel?” said Hamish.

“What your cousin does. My son, I have to say it. If only I could think with both of you! How I wish it!”

“What do you feel, Aunt Fanny?”

“What my husband does. I see it would be unwise. But my feeling is hardly so strong.”

“What is yours, Aunt Julia?”

“Those words will do for me. I have no better ones.”

“Father, what do you feel?” said Hamish, with hope in his tone.

“I must agree with Naomi's father. He feels what I should feel in his place. I feel it in my own. Like your mother I have to say it.”

“What do Naomi's brothers think?”

“If I am to lose my sister,” said Graham, “I would rather lose her to someone near and known to me. I do not understand the risk. I did not know it was so great.”

“I will copy my grandmother, and say I have no better words,” said Ralph.

“What does my Naomi feel?” said Fanny.

“What Hamish does. I hardly need to say it.”

“Ah, no, my dear,” said Simon. “You will listen to your father. You are the nearest to him of his children. You will spare him this anxiety and grief.”

“No one has asked me what I feel,” said Walter. “So I am not as sorry as I might be, to say I support my brother.”

“Ah, Walter, how often you have done so!” said Simon.

“You surprise me, Cousin Walter,” said Hamish. “And so does my father. I should have thought you would think for yourselves. I did not know that everyone's words would do for everyone else.”

“They may be the only possible ones,” said Simon.

“You realise that mine were different?” said Graham.

“And I said they could be mine,” said Ralph. “I have a subtle courage.”

“Well, I suppose we may have some luncheon,” said Simon.

“Ought we to eat?” said Ralph. “Until this matter is behind?”

“Our guests should do so,” said Simon, striding to the door. “And the matter is as you put it.”

“How are we to sit?” said Hamish.

“As you always do,” said Simon. “Yes, you may sit by Naomi. You have been brought up as brother and sister, and can feel it is what you are. I have never prevented your friendship.”

“I wonder he has not,” said Graham to Ralph, “as he feels what he does.”

“And I wonder at my father,” said Hamish. “People's actions as well as their words seem the same for them all.”

“Is there so much against the marriage of cousins?” said Ralph. “The Greeks allowed children of the same father to marry.”

“We are not the Greeks,” said Simon, flushing. “And we might be no better, if we were. In that way we should not be.”

“No one can prove he is what he is supposed to be. Every kind of marriage must take place.”

“Few of us need any proof, as you know quite well.”

“So we have reached a deadlock,” said Ralph.

“For the moment,” said Hamish. “But time will pass, and other things with it. People will accept what has to be. We shall not waver or change.”

“Time will work in you as well as in them,” said Simon. “You are right to let it have its way. We find it takes it.”

“We do. And we are ready to trust it. It is the same as trusting each other.”

“You feel that at the moment,” said Sir Edwin. “You would be ashamed not to feel it. But nature has its way as well as time. We can leave them to work together.”

“You seem to think they can only work in one direction, Father.”

“They tend to the one. Things grow and fade; they are born and die. Everything goes the same way.”

“Shall we remember that there are other subjects?” said Simon.

“We hardly can,” said Graham. “There is only this, while it is with us.”

“Perhaps we are doing them no kindness. Our touch on it can hardly be welcome. And I am not talking of mine more than of yours.”

“I think you might be, sir. And so will they.”

“Surely other views can be taken,” said Ralph. “The matter does not go without saying like this.”

“It has not done so,” said Simon. “But perhaps it may go without any more saying.”

“Go in what way?” said Hamish.

“We must leave the matter,” said Sir Edwin. “For us it has come to an end.”

“Mother, would you not like to have Naomi for a daughter?”

“My Naomi! How I should like it! But I have
known her as my sister's. I have liked that too much to end it. Do not take it from me.”

“What is there behind it all? There seems to be a sort of conspiracy. Did you foresee the question, and agree on a common line?”

“We did not,” said Simon. “It was not a thing to be foreseen.”

“There is something I do not understand.”