The Last and the First (3 page)

“Would not Madeline like to have the room?” said Hermia.

“You heard what I said. The room is to be Roberta's. She will have some advantage at last. I will hear nothing against it.”

“There is nothing against it, Mater,” said Madeline, gently. “I am quite content with my room. It has somehow become a part of me. That is a thing a room can do. I will help her to move into the other.”

“You have the stronger claim,” said Angus.

“No one has any claim,” said Eliza. “The room is mine, like everything else in the house. And I am giving it to Roberta. When Hermia comes home she can have
one of the spare rooms. She can move into the smaller one tomorrow. That is her place in the house now. It is the one she has chosen herself. She wishes to be a guest and she can be one.”

“My place is to know me no more,” said Hermia. “And the small spare room does not know me either. So I shall be a stranger here. And there need be no talk of the past, as that would mean I was something else. I leave the house, the past forgetting, by the past forgot.”

“Come, what shallow, showy talk!” said Sir Robert. “You sound as if you were not human, and as if no one else was human either. We don't forget thirty-four years. You know you have not forgotten them.”

“Not the first ten of them, Father. They are often in my mind. They are what I take with me.”

“The first ten years of life are largely forgotten by everyone,” said Eliza.

“Not by me. The change that came then cut them off and defined the memory.”

“Such a memory is chiefly made up of what is heard later.”

“Not in my case. It could not be. I have heard nothing of those years since they ended. They have hardly been mentioned.”

“You can't really believe that.”

“I know it. No one could know it better. Who should know as well as I?”

“The two who were thinking of them, and think of them still. And will always think of them,” said Madeline.

“I know what your father is thinking. His mind is an open book to me. And you said yourself that those years were never mentioned. If he was thinking of them, they would have been.”

“They would not, as you know. You know they could
not be. You know they can't be now. The silence deepens the thought.”

“I am giving up,” said Eliza. “It is all too much. First, I have to be a step-mother, and put other children before my own. And then I am a tyrant, because I order the house for the good of us all. And now I can be dealt with as if years of thought and care had not been lived. I have indeed struck a rough road. Well, it is mine, and I must follow it.”

“Oh, come, you are overwrought,” said Sir Robert. “Of course you must follow it. Hermia is not to set a fashion. We could not get along it without you. All roads have their stony places. We don't look for life to be smooth.”

“Why not?” said Roberta. “We are told that it is sweet. It is not fair that it should be so different.”

“That means life as opposed to death,” said Madeline.

“Well, anything might be sweet as opposed to that,” said Angus.

“No, I don't agree. I can think of many things that would not. Death is anyhow natural and innocent.”

“And that is not much to be. The most congenial things may be neither.”

“And seldom both,” said Hermia. “I hardly think ever.”

“When will you be going to the school?” said Madeline, as if willing to change the talk. “It is best to know in good time.”

“As soon as I can. I should be there before the term. There will be things to learn before I can take my part in it.”

“There will be one thing,” said Eliza. “How to consider a number of people besides yourself. It would be less of a change for me.”

“Suppose you succeed in persuading me to stay! How will you feel then?”

“It is your life we are talking of, not mine.”

“We are talking of them both. They have been involved with each other. And it is better that they should not be. That is surely clear.”

“You are not being driven from your home. I will neither admit it nor have it said. And people are so prone to say that kind of thing.”

“Well, they would find it congenial. It is a normal human tendency. And I don't care what they say.”

“When I have said I do care, that is not the right feeling. Well, may your indifference serve you in your new world. May you maintain it in the face of its trials. You have not shown it in much lesser ones here.”

“She may find it a help,” said Sir Robert. “She must know how to use it, and how not to misuse it. She must do both.”

“I have always done both, Father.”

“You are wrong. You have only done one,” said Eliza. “You are only doing one now.”

“Well, it is settled,” said Sir Robert. “We will leave the subject.”

“We will not,” said Angus. “We will continue it and return to it, and prove our appreciation of it. Subjects are rare things.”

“That may be as well,” said Roberta. “We could become exhausted before they were themselves. It is a thing a subject never seems to be.”

“Well, Hermia is to leave us,” said Sir Robert. “But she is not going far. She will come home, and we may go to her. I don't know the customs of a school.”

“They will not want us there,” said Eliza. “We should serve no purpose for them. That is how they would see it. Hermia will come and go here as she wishes. That need not be said.”

“I am glad to feel it,” said Hermia. “It will give me a background and a better place. I am not blind to it.”

“If you are not I wonder you want the change.”

“Well, she does want it,” said Sir Robert. “She must remember it will not always be a change. Nothing can be blamed for that, though many things are.”

Eliza turned to the door, as though choosing to leave the matter, and signed to her husband to come with her. The elder daughters followed, and her own two children were alone.

“What do you think of the family scenes, Roberta? Do you feel degraded by them?”

“No, I feel I am above them. Degradation would become a normal state.”

“If only Mater could accept her life! She is really her own worst enemy. And I thought that was just a saying.”

“It is. Like everyone else she is her own best friend. But that is not to say there might not be a better.”

“Does Father understand the inner truth of things?”

“No, she is too wise, and so is he.”

“Would you like to make your escape?”

“What would be gained? It would be freedom and nothing else. Hermia's escape is accepted and given support. And Madeline is proud of not wishing to make an escape. And I see it is a cause for pride. I could not emulate either.”

“What do you feel about Hermia's desertion?”

“I am very much affected by it. I see that you are too. And we shall not have our mother's sympathy.”

“Father will not have it either. I wonder how much he wants it. Does he often return to the past?”

“It seems to me that he must. If I had a past I would return to it.”

“We should be founding one for ourselves. Here is
Mater to give her help. How she will improve and embitter it!”

“So you are still here,” said Eliza. “What are you discussing with such gravity?”

“What you know we are,” said Angus. “What you know we must be. What you would not believe we were not.”

“Well, what do you think of Hermia's scheme?”

“What you do, and what Father does, and what she does herself. We think it all. We are full of thought.”

“What do you really think? That tells me nothing.”

“Oh, I thought it told you everything.”

“Do you feel that her going is my fault? I know it will be said to be.”

“It is the fault of us all. We have failed to attach her to us. The surprising thing must be said.”

“It is all that will be said, I see. Well, I suppose it is true. But we are all involved. It is not only I who have failed. What are we to say to people about it all?”

“Nothing,” said Roberta. “Silence can say more than words. It will say that we are greatly upset and embarrassed by it. And that is much more than words. We know they would not say it.”

“Suppose they did!” said Angus. “But we will not suppose it.”

“We will not. Imagining something is said to lead to acting on it. Here are Hermia and Madeline and someone with them. It is Mrs. Duff with some matter of daily life.”

“We are sorry to disturb you, Mater,” said Madeline, accepting the check imposed by their presence. “There is something that needs your attention.”

“A good many things do that. I suppose I must hear of this one.”

“Yes, a moment, if you please, my lady,” said another
voice, as there appeared a middle-aged woman in undisguisedly working garb, with an inharmonious face and a responsible aspect. “If there was not a word to be said I would not say it.”

“Why, what is it, Mrs. Duff?” said Eliza, her manner smoother to her housekeeper than it often was to her family. “I hope there is nothing wrong.”

“If I have said it once, my lady, I have said it again. ‘Something will occur,' I have said. Those have been my words.”

“But what has occurred?” said Eliza.

“I am not one to stand by as if nothing was of any account. Self may be in our minds, but need not be uppermost.”

“Well, what is in your mind now as well as self?” said Angus. “It is to your credit that there is room for it.”

“The back staircase, sir, the broken step. It has cried out for repair. ‘We have only to wait,' I said. ‘Something must ensue.' And it proved an apt comment.”

“You did not wait in vain,” said Roberta. “Something has ensued. I hope not a great thing. I suppose there is a human victim.”

“Well, it is Agnes, the under-housemaid, miss,” said Mrs. Duff, as if the position did amount to this. “And we must accept it as an incident.”

“But what is it? Is the girl much hurt?”

“Well, it is hard to say, miss. They make the most of it. Her account is only her own.”

“Should we send for the doctor?” said Angus.

“The message has been despatched, sir. I took it on myself. And after your usual exchange a word can ensue on Agnes. It may be all that is called for.”

“It is a tiresome thing to happen,” said Eliza.

“Well, my lady, the term may suffice.”

“I will arrange for the staircase to be mended.”

“It takes an incident, my lady, to lead to the point of preventing them. But better late than never.”

“I will come and see Agnes.”

“Well, attention is focused on her, my lady. And enough is as good as a feast. There will be the natural effect.”

“She had better rest for a few days.”

“There are light duties, my lady. And things to be done for Miss Hermia before she goes. If she will have the same needs in her new life as she has had in this one.”

“We don't know much about the new life. We have only just heard of it.”

“Yes, my lady, it is outside your range,” said Mrs. Duff in a tone of sympathy as she withdrew. “There is a difference in spheres that you would be alive to.”

“Does Mrs. Duff listen at doors?” said Angus. “Or has she powers of her own?”

“Most of them listen,” said Eliza. “They see no harm in it.”

“What harm does it do them? I should see the good in it.”

“The village carpenter can do the repair. The appearance does not matter for the back staircase.”

“Its users are entitled to safety, and nothing further.”

“They will not mind. They come from simple homes. Mrs. Duff has done better with her opportunities than you are doing with yours, Hermia.”

“I may use them, now they have come. I have her example before me.”

“I wonder if you could say what they will be. Well, it is no good to talk about it.”

“None. If it was any good a fair amount would be done by now.”

Eliza walked out of the room as if she had not heard, and Madeline spoke in a grave tone.

“Hermia, must you go to such lengths with Mater? I don't mean you should not say what you feel, but there is reason in everything.”

“Then what do you mean? I say just what I feel.”

“There is no need to show yourself in this light. It will leave such a sorry memory.”

“It will leave a right one. I have always said it in my heart. And as I am going I dare to voice it. And I should not have escaped without doing so. I see what my bonds have been. And I see they are barely broken.”

“We saw them being assailed and wrenched apart,” said Angus. “And we see no one else will ever break them.”

“There must be bonds in every life,” said Madeline. “There are things in all of us that prove we need them.”

“There are,” said Sir Robert's voice. “And you must cease to break them, Hermia. You are having your wish granted, in the face of Mater's doubt and mine, and should be grateful to me, and more to her. I should not have granted it, if she had pressed her view. She is showing forbearance and tolerance. What are you showing?”

“Neither at the time. But I have had to show them. And I should have to show them again. What I am showing is a resolve to live my own life according to myself. Whose life is it but mine? I am forced to show it and to go on showing it. I should be grateful to pursue my way in peace. There seems no end to it.”

“Well, well, there is an end. You have faced us and conquered us, and take the spoils of the victor. We may live to see you are wise. We hope we shall, my dear. That we did not want the change does not mean we don't
want your success in it. We want it as much as you do. You take that knowledge with you.”

He left them, as if bringing the matter to a fitting end, and Angus spoke at once.