Two Worlds and Their Ways (2 page)

“Thank you, Lady Shelley; they make a nice change from toast. Not that that is not the best thing for every day. I say to the children, when they tire of it–” Miss Petticott broke off as Maria's attention failed.

“My dear, Miss Petticoat has no coffee.”

Maria almost raised her eyes.

“My dear, Miss Petticoat has no coffee,” said her husband in the same tone, as though a first appeal hardly qualified for success.

“Do you know you always pronounce Miss Petticott's name ‘Petticoat'?”

“I pronounce it as it is said. Of course I know the name. What does Miss Petticoat say herself?”

“Oh, do not worry about it, Sir Roderick. It has quite a
nice, little, homely sound. I should quite miss my pet name,” said Miss Petticott, hurrying past these words. “Not that it is meant in that way, of course; that is only my way of putting it. But I should quite miss the variation in the name, as you pronounce it. And I believe the derivation is not very different. The name is derived–” Miss Petticott again broke off, finding that inattentiveness, which she had encountered in her pupils, was a family characteristic.

“I shall take matters into my own hands, Miss Petticoat. I am not going to let you be neglected for another moment.”

“Thank you, Sir Roderick. I do not know why I should be spoilt like this,” said Miss Petticott, taking a rather full view of conventional attention. “I cannot say why the children are so late. I cannot explain it.”

“They are puzzled by finding no breakfast in the schoolroom,” said Maria. “If you would ring the bell in the hall, it will suggest that we are downstairs. They do little thinking for themselves.”

“Allow me, allow me, Miss Petticoat,” said Sir Roderick, keeping his eyes averted from Miss Petticott's progress to the door. “I do not know why our duties should devolve upon you.”

The latter returned with the brisk steps of relief of mind. She saw every reason why duties should fall to her share, or saw the one reason, that they gave her her foothold in the house. She was a buxom, cheerful woman of forty-six, with cheeks of unvarying red, hair turning grey, bright, full, brown eyes, and features of the shapeless kind that involves so many shapes. She had the fewest wishes of any person in the house, indeed, had one wish, that she would have enough money for her old age; and this was eased by the hope that, if she remained long enough with the Shelleys, they would provide it.

Voices sounded on the stairs and Maria raised her eyes.

“The children are talking to Aldom again. I do not know how to prevent it.”

“Neither do I, Lady Shelley, as you do not wish it to be forbidden.”

“I can hardly wish that. There is nothing against their talking to him. But they talk to nobody else. I suppose they do need more companionship.”

“I do my best for them, Lady Shelley.”

“You do too much, Miss Petticoat. Do not give them another thought,” said Sir Roderick. “The little ruffians prefer the servants' company. It is more on their own ground. They are all equally uneducated. I mean, you have not had time to get them up to your level. We hope they may reach it in the end.”

A girl and boy entered and advanced to embrace their parents. They came to their father first, but he motioned them to pass him and give Maria the first greeting. They took no notice of Miss Petticott, an omission that neither she nor they nor anyone else observed. Sir Roderick's face lit up with affection and pride, Maria's with affection and pride and eager hope, Miss Petticott's with reflected light.

Both children resembled both their parents, but they showed less likeness to each other. Clemence looked her father's child, but her build was shapely and her own, and her features had a sharper mould. Sefton, still in a childish stage, already showed his mother's massiveness. His features seemed to be Maria's before life had changed them. They both had their mother's grey-green eyes, Sefton's the wider and more simply expressive. His sister's seemed a veiled and deeper edition of them, but when the veil was lifted, held their own light. There was something uncertain and wary about them, and while they hardly saw Miss Petticott, they saw their father often, and their mother whenever her eyes fell upon them or attracted theirs.

“Aldom says the walls of the house are rotten,” said Sefton, in clear, conscious tones.

“I expect he said that the wall of the schoolroom had
some rot in it,” said Maria. “Now is not that what he said?”

“Yes, I think it was.”

“We must quote people correctly another time. That is only fair to them, isn't it? We must not give a wrong impression. Would you have waited upstairs until someone came to fetch you?”

“We thought the breakfast might come up. It is sometimes late.”

“Not as late as this. You are a very dependent pair. Would you like to go somewhere where you would learn to rely more on yourselves?”

“No,” said Sefton, his eyes changing.

“Go where?” said Clemence.

“Maria, say what you mean,” said Sir Roderick. “Children do not need to have things made puzzling for them.”

“Do they know what I mean?” said Maria, smiling.

“Oliver's aunts have written again,” said Clemence, looking at the letters.

“They hardly need things to be made so easy,” said Maria. “And what have Oliver's aunts to say, Clemence?”

“They want us to go to their schools.”

“Well, they think it would be better for you.”

“Then they ought to want it.”

The parents laughed, Maria with an exultant note, and Clemence smiled and avoided their eyes. Miss Petticott saw their amusement and showed some herself.

“I think they feel a real concern,” said Maria. “Indeed they show that they do. It is kind of them to take an interest in you.”

“We don't want them to take it,” said Sefton. “Wouldn't they be paid, if we went to their schools? Then it would be a good thing for them as well as for us.”

“We do not talk about that side of things,” said his mother.

“If you talk about one side of a thing and not the other, you only talk about half of it,” said Clemence. “Would
they be paid as much for us as for children that were not related?”

“The same,” said her father. “You need have no doubt on that score.”

“Might it be better to go to people who were nothing to do with us?”

“You think that things would be less likely to be brought home, in more than one sense?”

“Well, that is what you think.”

“What could Miss Petticott do, if we went?” said Sefton.

“How do you mean? Do?” said Maria.

“She would do less, and that might be good for her,” said Sir Roderick.

“She would not leave us, would she? I mean, she would be here when we came home?”

“Now do you think we could spare her?” said Maria.

“No. That is why I wanted to know.”

“We should want her in the holidays,” said Clemence, feeling the need of one adult who made for ease.

“And we want her all the time,” said Maria. “You are not the only people whom she is glad to help.”

“They did not think they were,” said Sir Roderick. “They were afraid of her having the feeling in too wide a sense.”

“Well, you go and tell Miss Petticott how much you feel for her, and how glad you are that you can still depend on her,” said Maria. “Come, that is not too much to do for someone who has done so much for you.”

It was more than the children saw as within their power. Their code was rigid and immutable, and admitted of no breach. No word of sentiment, no gesture of affection escaped them. On the occasion of Miss Petticott's holiday they had recourse to manifold ruses to avoid what threatened to be an annual embrace. She accepted a position whose nature forbade change, and on this occasion rose to it. She got up and brought a hand down on a shoulder of each.

“Oh, we understand each other. We should not do any better for putting it all into words.”

“But we ought to be able to express our feelings sometimes,” said Maria. “A reluctance to do so really comes from thinking of ourselves.”

“It would be hard to put an end to everything of which that may be said, Lady Shelley.”

“Is it all settled then?” said Sefton, looking at his mother.

“No, no, my dear. We are only talking about it. But you are a boy, and Clemence is getting older. It seems that a change will have to come before long.”

“You would not like always to be at home, would you?” said Sir Roderick.

“Yes,” said Sefton, looking him in the eyes.

“My little son!” said Maria.

“Why isn't it a good thing always to be at home?” said Clemence with equal innocence.

“My little daughter!” said Maria.

A manservant, who had followed the children into the room, winked at them from behind the table. He was a small, insignificant man about thirty, with a sallow, crooked face, small, supple features that seemed to vary their form, and an oddly boyish look that suggested it would never leave him. His eyes watched the doings at the table from lowered lids, while his ears were always alive. He was the companion of Clemence and Sefton to an extent known only to Miss Petticott, who observed silence on matters beyond her control. He accorded her the easy respect that he saw as her due, but did not disguise his knowledge of his power. Some of it he used, and some he might not have known he possessed, as his sense of his obligations was not less, that he would not have acknowledged it.

“Where have you been, Aldom?” said Maria.

“Well, my lady, the workmen may not be any the worse for an eye upon them.”

“Did they do any better?” said her husband.

“Well, Sir Roderick, they might have made more confusion than was the case.”

“And did you help to make things right?”

“The moment was hardly ripe, Sir Roderick, some things having to get worse before they are better.”

“You might as well have been down here,” said Maria.

“Yes, my lady, though the day's routine may be none the worse for the exchange of a word,” said Aldom, with a momentary exposure of eyes as blue as his master's.

“Well, you can attend to your work now.”

Aldom carried a dish from the room, and Maria waited for the door to close.

“You should not exchange glances with Aldom, my dears. It is not a thing that is done by people who know how to behave. And to do it with a servant before your parents! Aldom himself would not think any more of you for it. And Miss Petticott must have been quite ashamed after the trouble she has taken with you. Do you think it is fair to her to do her so little credit?”

“I am glad I did not see it, Lady Shelley,” said Miss Petticott, who was expert at avoiding such sights, and had not done much more than feel it. “I. should have been as ashamed as you say.”

“Well, we will not think any more about it, except to be sure it will not happen again. Go on with your breakfast, my dears. Do not hurry because there has been a mistake, that will soon pass from our minds.”

Aldom returned and felt Maria's eyes, knew what had passed, and continued his duties with an air of being unconscious of it.

“My boy, attend to Miss Petticoat,” said Sir Roderick to his son. “Keep your eye on her, and see she has what she needs. We shall think you do not look after her upstairs.”

Sefton had seen the obligation as reversed, and passed Miss Petticott something in an unaccustomed manner, and found it received in a similar one.

“My little son!” said Maria, leaning forward to take his hands and look into his face.

Sir Roderick looked at Clemence, as though he might do the same to her, but went no further. Sefton remained with his eyes and smile fixed, until his mother released him and looked round the table.

“How nice it would be, if this were our family! I forget how different my life is from other women's.”

“Why do you suddenly remember it?” said her husband. “You know I do not forget. It is not the least thing you have done for me.”

“It has been a hard thing in my life,” said Maria, who found little difficulty in revealing herself. “And it is not like something that is over and behind. It goes through the past and future. What do you think of it, Miss Petticott?”

“That it is so well done, Lady Shelley, that I did not know it went against the grain.”

“I ought not to betray it. What is the good of undertaking a thing and then failing in it? And what a way to talk before the children! Not that there is anything that Clemence does not know.”

“I knew you did not want Oliver and Grandpa here, when I was a child.”

“And when was that?” said Sir Roderick, who had no aspirations for himself.

Maria made a warning gesture, and the subjects of the discussion entered the room, two large, dark men with heavy, aquiline faces, dark, heavy-lidded eyes, thick, white, noticeable hands, and such a likeness between them, that the discrepancy in years might have been the only difference. It was not a negligible one, as the dividing years were forty-eight.

Oliver Firebrace and his grandson, Oliver Shelley, were the former father-in-law and the elder son of Sir Roderick, the thorns in Maria's flesh, and the half-brother and adopted grandfather of Clemence and Sefton. Sir Roderick
had waited many years between his marriages, and his first wife's father had so long made his home in his house, that Maria, in the exaltation of her own romance, had suggested his retaining the place. He had accepted the offer and hardly modified his life; presumed on his knowledge of the past; given all his feeling to his grandson, and done no more for Maria's children than accept their adoption of their brother's name for him. Maria regretted her generosity, but enjoyed her husband's appreciation of it. Sir Roderick had a pitying tenderness for such creatures as aged men and children and women, and shrank from breaking his tie and, as it seemed to him, his faith with his earlier mate. He had no beliefs remaining, but could not rid himself of a feeling that she could observe him from some vantage-ground and approve or condemn his course.