Two Worlds and Their Ways (3 page)

Her son was the less to him, that he bore no deep resemblance to her. He was the less to Maria, that he bore none to his father, and had acquired a feeling that he meant rather little in his home. He was scarcely fifteen years younger than Maria, had dropped any filial mode of address, treated her as a friend, and on the whole found her such. She had a vein of humility that subdued her personal claims, and he had one of self-confidence that saved him from mistrust of himself. Maria had also a vein of justice, and though she regretted his existence and his grandfather's, never questioned their right to it.

Her life was dominated by her love for her children, and her desire for them to advance and impress their father rose to a passion and held its threat. Sir Roderick had no great feeling for personal success, but Maria had no suspicion that they did not see things through the same eyes. That her children should excel their brother in his sight was the ambition of her life and of her heart.

“So my governesses have written again,” said Mr. Fire-brace, looking at her letters. “I remember those envelopes in Oliver's youth. They wrote at the same time and never knew it. Laid their plans together and forgot to plan ahead.
A pair of simple women. You had the best of the three, Roderick.”

“I was never in any doubt of it.”

“They are anxious for Clemence and Sefton to go to their schools,” said Maria, with a suggestion that the relations of the first wife had claims to make on the second.

“Peddling their wares! You would think they would have more opinion of themselves, when they hold their heads so high.”

“One of the letters is from Oliver's uncle,” said Sefton.

“An upright person and a worthy governess.”

“He is a man and a schoolmaster, Grandpa.”

“Well, that may be part of the truth.”

“Miss Petticott is a governess.”

“Good morning, Miss Petticott. I did not know you were here. It is your habit to be elsewhere. What does the boy mean by what he says of you?”

“He means that Miss Petticott is like anyone else,” said Clemence. “And you seemed to think a governess was different.”

“I was talking of the male of the species.”

“The masculine of governess would be governor,” said Sefton.

“There is no such thing, as Miss Petticott will tell you. Not that you do not show she has told you many things.”

“I see what you mean, Mr. Firebrace. And you are right in a sense.”

“Yes, yes. You are a sensible girl, my dear. And now what causes your pupils to mock at me?”

“They are amused by your calling me a girl, Mr. Firebrace.”

“And you are not to them. Well, no doubt you would have them remember it.”

“You went to your uncle's school, Oliver. I forgot that,” said Maria. “Of course that was in its early days. But what would you say of it?”

“That I gave it nothing, and took what it had to give. I liked that, or I like looking back on it.”

“Your uncle was a young man then,” said Sir Roderick, “though he did not seem so to you.”

“I despised him for his youth.”

“He was over thirty,” said Maria. “How do you feel about him now when he is sixty-two?”

“I pity his age.”

“The prime of life is short according to your view.”

“According to anyone's.”

“Well, what did the school give you?” said Maria.

“It taught me to trust no one and to expect nothing,” said her stepson, in his deep, smooth, rapid tones. “To keep everything from everyone, especially from my nearest friends. That familiarity breeds contempt, and ought to breed it. It is through familiarity that we get to know each other.”

“I dislike that sort of easy cynicism.”

“So do I, but because it is not easy. It is necessary, and necessity is the mother of invention. The hard mother of a sad and sorry thing.”

“I wonder if you know what you mean. I certainly do not. Can you tell me plainly if you were happy at the school?”

“I learned to suffer, and that is the basis of happiness. It teaches the difference, which is the deepest of all lessons.”

“I cannot think how you can be your father's son.”

“I am my mother's son, and the nephew of her sisters, and her father's grandson. You see how I can be those.”

“You are a family I do not understand. Do you understand them, Roderick?”

“Well, we are used to each other. And probably no one fully understands anyone else.”

“My father spoke there,” said Oliver. “I do sometimes hear his voice. It is partial understanding that carries danger. It suggests more than the truth.”

“Which of your aunts do you like the better?” said Maria.

“I should like to prefer Aunt Lesbia, because of her esteem for herself. Most of us despise ourselves because we have such good reason, and admire other people because they cannot be as bad as we are. To admire oneself is a great sign of quality. But I find that Aunt Juliet is more to me.”

“Do you admire yourself?”

“Be careful, Maria; I might dare to tell the truth.”

“On which side?” said Sir Roderick.

“On either side. There my father spoke again.”

“I do not admire myself so much,” said Maria.

“Do not dare too far,” said her stepson. “Beware of revealing what you do not admire. Other people might not admire it either.”

“I do not see why they should.”

“And neither would they. Be in no doubt about it.”

“I am not in any doubt.”

“You are in more than you know. Or have any right to be. We think our little failings have their own charm. And they have not. And they are great failings.”

“I wish I knew whether to trust Sefton to your aunt and uncle.”

“You cannot do that. You can put him into their charge.”

“It does not seem a fair thing to do.”

“It is not. The system is part of a great wrong.”

“Are boys happier at home?”

“Well, I would not say that.”

“Were you happier here?”

“Well, I had no mother. I was left to servants, and that is the best of all fates. I took everything from them and gave them nothing. It seems I have a habit of doing that.”

“Were you happier after your mother died?”

“I ceased to give anything, and that was a burden lifted. But I have never got over it. No one has taken her place.”

“You mean that I have not.”

“That is what I mean.”

“You would like her to be here instead of me and my children?”

“Well, I remember how I did like it.”

“And you think your father would like it too?”

“I had not thought about him. My thoughts run on myself. And most people cannot relive the years. Only gifted people with empty lives can do so.”

“And that is how you would describe yourself?”

“Well, you often talk of my empty hours. And my gifts are fluency, perception, music, an exotic charm.”

“You mean that you think so?”

“No. That is what you mean.”

“Well, should not they help to fill the hours?”

“They do fill them. They are only empty in a sense that does not count. Though I know that you count it. And now the little unspoken things are out between us. They might just as well not have been unspoken. And we shall have a better relationship, which is a pity, as we have had an easy one. I should hate things to go deeper between us.”

“They are only out on your side.”

“Maria, you sail under false colours. You are as dangerous as anyone else. Well, let that be our safeguard. Let those hidden things lie between us and keep us apart. It would be so awkward to come closer.”

“The boy talks in his own way,” said Mr. Firebrace.

“I never know what the two of you talk about upstairs,” said Maria.

“If you did, the talk would not be upstairs,” said Clemence, causing her parents to exchange a smile, or causing her mother to turn one on her father.

“We do not know either,” said Oliver. “If we did, we should not talk. We should tell each other of matters, which would be quite different.”

“ ‘Sefton' is a nice name, isn't it?” said Maria, on a sudden note of content, induced by the sight of her son.

“Is it a name?” said her husband. “I forget why we thought it was.”

“It is the surname of my father.”

“Had he no baptismal name to serve your purpose?” said Mr. Firebrace.

“It was Peter, and I do not like names of disciples.”

“That does put a dozen out of court.”

“Don't you like the name, ‘Sefton,' Roderick?”

“It has come to suggest the boy to me. It has settled into its place.”

“Who gave me my name?” said Clemence.

“I did,” said her mother. “I named you both. It is a common name in my family. Your father could only suggest the name of ‘Anne.'”

“It was my mother's name,” said Sir Roderick, as if he supported the suggestion. “ ‘Clemence' has a flavour of your puritan background, or had before it took on its own meaning.”

“Well, that is not a thing to be ashamed of.”

“Father can hardly agree,” said Oliver. “Disadvantages do not count in the woman he makes his wife, but they remain disadvantages. How otherwise can he arrange for them not to count?”

“I did not come to you empty-handed,” said Maria. “The sober background prevented that. I do not see why we should not talk of money, if we can use it.”

“If we could not, we could use nothing else,” said Mr. Firebrace. “The position is not our choice.”

“You would have to have a great deal of money, never to talk about it,” said Clemence. “And I daresay none at all, never to think of it.”

Maria sought her husband's eyes.

“Money is said to be power,” said Miss Petticott. “But it seems to me a superficial view. And such power is often misused.”

“Well, it is used,” said Sir Roderick. “And we prefer that that should not be the case.”

“So much of my money has gone into the place,” said his wife. “Anything that the land takes, it never seems to return. I wonder if we should have been happier without it.”

Sir Roderick gave her a dumb look and turned his eyes to the window. That he had put her on his land seemed to him the thing he had done for her. Her yielding it her money had been the fair return. As he asked himself what he had done, he knew he did not wish it undone.

“Ah, your life calls for gratitude as well as mine,” said Mr. Firebrace. “And we neither of us give it. We should be more grateful to have no reason for it.”

“We cannot have everything as we should choose,” said Maria.

“No, that is so. I do not take another view.”

“I do not have it myself.”

“No, no. I know I am here, my dear.”

“You are very ill-mannered, Grandpa. Speaking the truth from your heart,” said Oliver. “You should speak half-truths with your lips like any other man.”

“I do not know it was much more than half, my boy.”

Sir Roderick gave a covert glance at his elder son, the only person to earn from him so uncharacteristic a thing. He knew he had suffered from his second marriage, had been superseded in his heart. He knew that his own compunction severed them further, that he had found himself wishing that Sefton was his heir. His homage to the past was the homage of the living to the dead.

“Are you looking back a score or two years, my boy?” said Mr. Firebrace, who liked to detect Sir Roderick in doing this.

“Well, not so much less than that. I was thinking of my Naboth's vineyard. That piece of land that I sold from the heart of the place,” said Sir Roderick, whose thoughts reverted so readily to this, that he hardly had a sense of violating truth. “That farm where Aldom has his home. I was hoping that Oliver might buy it back one day.”

“Or wishing that Sefton could,” said Mr. Firebrace.

“Wishing he could himself,” said Oliver. “Hoping that Maria would. I hardly know where the farm lies, or where to look for it. And I don't think I knew that the place had a heart.”

“Oh, you are not my son,” said Sir Roderick, saying the last thing he would have had himself say.

“That has been so since Sefton was born,” said Mr. Firebrace. “But no one need be a thing twice over, and he has been mine.”

“Aldom's mother wants to sell the farm,” said Sir Roderick. “Or so Aldom tells me; I have never seen the woman. She wants to have a shop in the village. I live in fear that someone will buy it and put it from my reach.”

“Why did you sell it?” said Oliver.

“Come, my boy, you can guess as much as that,” said Mr. Firebrace.

“I wonder what it is like to lead a simple life with only one marriage involved in it,” said Maria. “It is odd to think that most people have it.”

“Your qualities would be wasted, if there was no demand on them,” said her husband.

“I suppose they were wasted in Mary's case, if she had them. Well, it is no good to go on for ever.”

“None at all,” said Mr. Firebrace.

“Why did Father marry twice?” said Sefton.

“He got very fond of someone twice,” said Maria.

“It is a good thing it did not happen with both at the same time,” said Clemence.

“Shouldn't we be here, if the first wife had not died?” said Sefton.

“Of course not. Things are like that with second marriages. Anything that happens brings a lot of other things with it. And marriages do it especially.”

“Thirteen and three-quarters,” said Maria in a low tone. putting her finger-tips together and looking into space.

“Then is Father sorry we are here, glad that she is dead?”

“No, no, my little son,” said Maria. “Having you makes up to him for what he lost.”

“If you are sure of that, you are sure of all you need to be,” said Mr. Firebrace.