Two Worlds and Their Ways (4 page)

“That is true,” said Maria, meeting his eyes. “Now Lesbia and Juliet want to come on a visit next week. I must write and say they will be welcome.”

“And not the other governess?”

“Lucius will come with Juliet, if that is what you mean.”

“Then we shall have four with Miss Petticott. And only one genuine example among them.”

“I hope I am that one, Mr. Firebrace?” said Miss Petticott, almost with archness.

“Yes, yes, that is so. I never mind the real thing.”

“You children may run upstairs now,” said Maria, willing for a withdrawal that included Miss Petticott. “We have had two pairs of eyes fixed on us long enough. And what has been happening to two pairs of ears, I do not dare to think.”

Miss Petticott rose and clapped her hands to marshal her pupils, and withdrew the third pair of eyes and ears with deliberation and ease. She allowed a group to gather on a landing without appearing to notice it. It consisted of her pupils, their nurse and Aldom, who had left the dining-room with an air of sudden purpose. The four voices, full and clear and with an undeniably similar note, followed her to the schoolroom, but she had learned when eyes and ears should cease to function.

“So school is in the wind again,” said Aldom. “I am glad I cannot be sent to right and left at other people's will. I belong to myself.”

“And to Sir Roderick and her ladyship, while you are in this house,” said Adela. “And you can be sent where they like, as far as I can see. And you will soon be sent for to the dining-room. What do you think you are?”

“A prince in disguise,” said Aldom.

“Well, the disguise goes deep enough.”

“And are you a princess, Adela?” said Sefton.

“No. Servants are as good as anyone else,” said Adela, disposing of any need for the flight of fancy.

“Well, no one seems to know it,” said Aldom.

“Well, you would not expect them to act up to it, if you have noticed anything.”

Adela was a lively, healthy-looking woman of thirty-five, with interested, busy eyes, a confident cast of feature, and an independent mien that could be decorous. She was one person with the children, another with their parents, with Miss Petticott a third, and with Aldom herself, though through all the characters went something of the same essence.

Aldom had two characters, of which one was his own. Whether or no he was a prince in disguise downstairs, he was someone in disguise.

“I expect we can do as we like about going to school,” said Clemence, swinging her feet from a window-seat.

Sefton looked at her in question.

“Then you will stay at home,” said Adela. “So we shall see if that is the truth.”

“One begins to look at the matter all round. There is more than one side to everything.”

“She has come on since I first knew her,” said Adela, looking at Aldom.

“As is natural, as that was thirteen years ago,” said Clemence.

“He is still a little boy,” said Adela, putting her arm round Sefton.

“Oh, look at the love,” said Aldom.

“It seems a shame to send a child like him away from his home.”

Sefton proved his agreement by showing some emotion.

“There, there, perhaps it won't happen. I don't feel as if it would,” said Adela, successfully checking it.

“You won't say anything to Mother or Father to make them send us,” he said to Clemence.

“No, I shall just let matters take their course.”

“He is going to school at eleven. I left school then,” said Aldom. “It was nearly twenty years ago, in the year eighteen hundred and seventy-five. I had gone as far as was required.”

“Oh, you!” said Adela, not accepting any parallel.

“And how far had you gone?”

“We left in the end, wherever we were,” said Adela, leaving anything incidental to be inferred. “I never could see that schoolbooks led to anything. They are nothing to do with life, and it is life we are concerned with, not the records of what it used to be. And why send the two at the same time, when one of them is three years older?”

“Clemence is a girl,” said Aldom.

“You should really call me ‘Miss Clemence.'”

“Oh, the grandeur!” said Adela. “Not that you shouldn't, Aldom. I wonder how you think of yourself.”

“I told you as a prince in disguise.”

“You would not say ‘Clemence,' if Mother or Father were here.”

“Well, we shouldn't, any of us, be quite the same then,” said Adela. “I daresay you are not the same in the dining-room as you are up here. What would you say, Aldom?”

“Well, you might not say that I was the same then either.”

“The prince is even more disguised,” said Clemence. “I expect we shall get to be more the same, if we go to school.”

Sefton looked at her with trouble in his eyes at her acceptance of the threat to their lives.

“So you are going to leave us behind, are you?” said Adela.

“Well, of course, our position is different.”

“The person whose position I should not like, is Miss Petticott,” said Adela. “I would rather be one thing or the other, and know where I stood.”

“I don't find knowing it such an advantage,” said Aldom. “I would not mind its being a little less to the fore.”

“I wish we could always go on in the life we know,” said Sefton. “We have not learned what to do in any other.”

“It may be time you did,” said Aldom. “Changes must come. I may get to be known for what I am.”

“I should think that is taking place,” said Adela. “If it has not already done so.”

“Are you really something we don't know?” said Sefton.

“I am the general man, called by courtesy the butler. And not always so much courtesy either.”

“Oh, Father and Mother are much better than most people,” said Clemence.

“And quite right that she should think so,” said Adela, looking into Aldom's eyes. “And I am not saying it is not the case.”

“Well, I mightn't be better than they are, in their position.”

“Are you better now?” said Sefton.

“Well, I am a useful person, ready to soil my hands.”

“So that is what he thinks of himself,” said Adela.

“Trial by ordeal,” said Clemence.

“What is that?” said Adela. “And where have you got hold of it?”

“Oh, one hears all sorts of things between daybreak and dusk.”

“It is my belief that most of what she says, comes out of her own head.”

“It is talking to Mr. Oliver,” said Aldom. “That gives her an opportunity. But it may be better for her to go where there are more and different.”

“And what do you know about what is better for her? Children do not need to get old before their time. And what does she want with common knowledge? She is not in the position of Miss Petticott. It would only reduce her level.”

A step sounded on the stairs, and a change took place in the atmosphere that was almost tangible.

“No, Miss Clemence, this is a different sort of wall. No damp could come in here,” said Aldom, in an instructive tone. “You see, the bricks are not just painted. They are covered with cement.”

“Do you understand now, Master Sefton?” said Adela, in an almost severe manner.

“Yes,” said Sefton, in a tone of just coming to this point.

“A lesson in building?” said Maria, smiling as she reached them. “But what about the other lessons that are waiting? And Miss Petticott waiting too! This is not the way to prepare for school.”

“Poor little things! To have that thrown at them, whatever they do or say!” said Adela, looking after them. “When I was their age, I was welcome under my father's roof.”

“I don't know that I was,” said Aldom. “My father did not do much for me.”

The children certainly had a feeling of hardly being this, as the day wore on, and the idea of exile sank into their minds. The feeling was heightened by the necessity of having meals where their presence seemed superfluous, if not unsuitable. Tea at an earlier than their usual hour enhanced the position, especially as Maria appeared reluctant to assume the duties involved. She stood in the hall with a list in her hand, and her mind distracted by something that eluded it.

“Is her ladyship coming to make the tea, Aldom?”

“I cannot say, Sir Roderick,” said Aldom, glancing through the door, and then applying a light to the lamp under the kettle, a duty that Maria saw as her own. “She is within sight and hearing.”

“And might be a thousand miles away.”

“Not as far as that,” said his wife, coming suddenly into the room, and at once going to the lamp to reverse the arrangements. “The kettle here and the lamp underneath
it, Aldom. Not here and here, so that half the heat is wasted. I have explained that before.”

“Yes, my lady.”

“There would be nothing else except expenses and enough refreshments to prevent any feeling,” said Maria, letting go her pencil and holding out her hand for Aldom to restore it, and bringing her eyes to rest on Miss Petticott as the likely source of attention.

“I do not know who is to have that,” said Sir Roderick, “but we do not appear to be among them.”

“You do not have things always going on in your head.”

“And I do not wish to. A free mind makes an alert, attentive person.”

“Would you describe yourself as that?”

“I have done so.”

Maria took up the teapot and smiled at the faces round her.

“One, two, three, four, five, six cups to be filled before I reach my own! And though I may not be an attentive person, I happen to be a thirsty one. What would you all do without me?”

“We should fill the cups,” said her husband. “And what is to happen with us with you, I do not know.”

“Do not lose your sense of proportion. Tea is not such an important thing.”

“It is the need of all of us at the moment. Your own as well.”

“Pray, let me pour out the tea for you, Lady Shelley,” said Miss Petticott.

“No, I must not shirk the duties of my place.”

“That is the feeling of us all,” said Sir Roderick.

“Of course not, Lady Shelley. I did not mean to usurp those. Indeed, it would not be possible. I only thought I might save you trouble.”

Maria smiled and handed her her cup.

“Now, why should I come first, Lady Shelley? I refuse to drink my tea until you have had yours.”

Maria filled the other cups, supplied her own and sat in disregard of it, and incidentally in disregard of Miss Petticott. Sir Roderick drank with relief and without compunction, and looked towards the teapot.

“Some more tea, Roderick?”

“Thank you, my pretty.”

Miss Petticott indicated Maria's cup.

“Some more tea, Miss Petticott?”

“Lady Shelley!” said the latter, still pointing.

Maria moved a hand towards her cup, but allowed it to waver and receive her stepson's, and Miss Petticott sat back in her chair.

“Aldom,” said Maria, “what do you think we should want at this stage, being the number of people that we are?”

“Fresh tea, my lady?”

“Then might you not bring it to us?”

Aldom left the room.

“Now, Miss Petticott,” said Maria, when the tea was brought.

Miss Petticott handed her cup in simple resignation.

“You are incorrigible, Lady Shelley.”

“Now, my girl and boy. Now Roderick again and Oliver.”

“And now Lady Shelley,” said Miss Petticott. “We have earned it. Do not play us false.”

Maria drained her cup, replenished it and drained it again.

“Suppose I were to desert you all,” she said, looking over it. “What would you do?”

“Why do people say such things?” said Oliver. “At the moment we should be doing what we are now.”

“I cannot help imagining it sometimes,” said Maria, with a sigh for the picture evoked.

“We are not ungrateful, my pretty.”

“Why does Father call Mother that?” said Sefton.

“He got into the way of it when they were younger,” said Miss Petticott, in a low, explanatory tone. “And he has
never given it up. There are often little habits like that between happily married people.”

“Then isn't she pretty any longer?”

“That is not for me to say. No doubt she is pretty to him,” said Miss Petticott, looking nowhere in particular with distending eyes.

“Then you don't think she is pretty?”

“She has not asked me what I think.”

“But the boy has,” said Mr. Firebrace, with enjoyment.

“I cannot answer him. He is old enough to know that.”

“What do you think yourself, Mother?” said Clemence.

“I am pleasant to look at. I was never any more.”

“Thank you, my dear,” said Sir Roderick, extending his cup.

“And now, Miss Petticott,” said Maria.

“No, thank you, Lady Shelley, no more,” said Miss Petticott, with a sense of retaliating for personal discomfiture.

“Come, change your mind, Miss Petticoat,” said Sir Roderick. “Do not leave me drinking alone.”

“Well, in that case, Sir Roderick.”

“I suppose the children are not going to school this time any more than at any other?” said Mr. Firebrace.

“This time seems to be different,” said Maria. “I suppose the day must come.”

“I used to suppose it until I perceived it was not the truth.”

“Do you want to be rid of them?”

“I have no feeling on the matter. The idea did not come from me. The question is whether you do.”

“It is whether it is best for them. Your daughters think it is.”

“I should pay them no heed. They have to gain their bread.”

“What do you think, Miss Petticott?” said Oliver.

“That does not bear on the matter either, Mr. Shelley, and so has no point in being thought, if I may express it as
the children would. And I do agree that Sefton is a boy, and that Clemence is getting older.”