The Last and the First (5 page)

“Here is a mild surprise for you,” said Eliza. “Old Mrs. Grimstone has called. Ostensibly to sympathise about the accident. Really to get a step further with our family. She wants you as friends for her grand-children. And it may do you no harm to know them better.”

“Have we to know her better too?” said Angus. “That would do us harm.”

“I know what you mean. One does not forget her presence. And there is the usual coincidence. Her grandchild goes to Hermia's school, and she was struck by the name and asked me about it. Hermia's scheme is going beyond itself. It was inherent in it.”

“That need do no one harm,” said Madeline. “It may even be good for the school. There is no point in keeping it obscure.”

“I am not so sure. It can't be too obscure for me. I wish it would fade away. It will always be raising its head. I have just had it thrust in my face. We have done the thing in the best way. But it remains what it is.”

“We must be grateful to Mrs. Grimstone,” said Angus. “She is helping to keep one of us employed.”

“It is not a joke,” said Eliza. “You cannot make it one.”

“Oh, I thought I had.”

“I thought so too,” said Sir Robert, smiling. “And we need not be too grave. The piece of strategy won't go far. It is late for change.”

“Not too late for Mrs. Grimstone,” said Eliza. “She will build on any foundation. She wants the formal relation
to become an intimate one. And I don't dislike her in herself. There is nothing against her as a friend. She has her own quality. She is by no means an average woman.”

“It seems a many-sided position,” said Sir Robert.

“It is. And the sides don't fit. We shall have to steer between them. We will ask the two young people here sometimes. Not too soon and not too often. Just so as to strike the mean and lead to a friendly relation.”

“She may not want the mean; and she is used to having what she wants.”

“She is certainly a law to herself. In a way I rather respect it.”

“So do I,” said Angus. “Other people are a law to me.”

“Who would have thought Mrs. Grimstone would be a law to Mater?” said Roberta. “I daresay Mrs. Grimstone would. I think it seems she did.”

The day came—not too soon, as Eliza had said—when Osbert and his sister were bidden to the Heriots' house. They were shown to the young people and left with them, on the understanding that they were their guests.

“This is our grandmother's idea disguised as yours,” said Erica. “And it is a kind disguise.”

“It is a most welcome idea,” said Madeline. “We have been looking forward to the day.”

“We would have done so,” said Osbert, “if we were able to look forward. The faculty has faded through lack of use.”

“It is not so vigorous in us,” said Angus. “We were glad for it to have some exercise.”

“Has any of us much to complain of?” said Madeline. “No one should ask too much.”

“We don't ask anything,” said Erica. “We are guilty for having to receive. We can't be quite without requirements, and that is our proper condition.”

“We all have to receive. And it is better to be grateful than guilty.”

“If we can be one without the other,” said Osbert. “We could not.”

“Is Madeline pointing out your path?” said Eliza, entering in the cordial spirit she showed with guests. “You will have to get used to our family ways. I daresay you have some of your own.”

“We have them instead of anything else,” said Erica. “We have nothing but ways.”

“What would your grandmother say to that?”

“She would say nothing. She does not answer words that are unwise. It is one of our ways.”

“There may be ways in a good many households,” said Madeline in a tone without expression.

“Well, it is one of ours to go into luncheon at this hour,” said Eliza. “And I hope one of yours to do justice to it. Here is my husband, glad to welcome guests and have a full table. Are you a large family at home?”

“We are five when my little sister is not at school,” said Erica. “And when my uncle is with us.”

“Oh yes, she is at my daughter's school,” said Sir Robert. “It is true that the world is small. Hermia is on fresh ground there. I hope she is walking warily.”

“She hardly is,” said Osbert. “My sister regards her as a power.”

“That is how she would tend to be regarded,” said Eliza. “But it is soon to have achieved it. I fear she is going too fast.”

“Yes, at lightning speed. The changes are hard on each other. We hear of them day by day.”

“I hope your grandmother approves of them?”

“She does not approve of things,” said Erica. “It is a thing she does not do.”

“Changes have their share of disapproval,” said Sir Robert. “It may not be against them.”

“It is not in their favour,” said Eliza. “And suddenness and self-will are against anything. But I don't know why we talk about the matter. It is not an important one.”

“Are we always to talk about important things?” said Madeline. “I suppose everything has its own importance.”

“What does your grandmother think of the escapade?” said Sir Robert. “No doubt that is how she regards it.”

“It is not as she ought,” said Osbert. “She said she respected all useful work when she made me a country attorney.”

“No doubt she had her own reasons,” said Madeline. “We know she is glad to do all she can for you.”

“She does it, and would like it to be more. But I don't think she is glad. She wishes there was no need for it, as we do.”

“I am sure you are really grateful to her.”

“Are you? She is not. She expresses doubt on the matter.”

“Has your uncle a profession?” said Sir Robert.

“No. A godfather left him money and ended the need for one.”

“That may not be wholly for his own benefit,” said Madeline. “But he is free to share your family life. For you it has its happy side.”

“In varying degrees,” said Osbert. “Erica has his love, and Amy a modicum of it. I have his recognition that I can't help existing, and his suspicion that I would not help it if I could. In my case he would think the worst.”

“Does he manage to fill his time?” said Sir Robert.

“Yes, he does in his own way. He has his great interest and object, his wealth and its increase.”

There was a pause.

“I suppose this is a thing I should not say,” said Madeline, as she prepared to say it. “But that may result in the ultimate good of you all.”

“What good will it result in for him?” said Osbert. “Simply in the present sense of possession. In nothing ultimate at all.”

“He may not know that,” said Roberta. “It is a thing people don't seem to know. We must hope no one will tell him.”

“Suppose someone did?”

“I don't see how anyone could. It would be telling him that one day he would die. And no one tells anyone that.”

“He will have to bequeath his wealth,” said Angus. “That must suggest its being left behind.”

“Has he dared to make a will?” said Erica. “I should not dare to ask him, to seem to picture all he has in other hands. He might never forgive me.”

“His life is a contrast to mine,” said Eliza. “He can let money do nothing and I have to make it do as much as it can.

“My grandmother would respect you,” said Erica. “Indeed she already does.”

“I think we respect each other. Our experience and outlook are alike. It seems we have both done and felt more than other people.”

“And perhaps they in their own ways have gone further than you,” said Madeline, in a light tone.

“Well, we will leave you,” said Eliza, rising from the table. “You will like to be by yourselves. We will give you the library until you desert us. And we hope that will not be soon.”

When the time came she and Sir Robert entered the hall to speed the guests.

“They are a pleasant pair,” she said, looking after them. “And on your own mental level. There is nothing against a friendship with them. It should do something for you all.”

“We must hope the same will be said on their side,” said Madeline, as if this had been forgotten.

“We can't expect to escape judgement,” said Sir Robert. “The judge is Mrs. Grimstone, so we certainly shall not escape it. No doubt she is at the moment asking for the account of us.”

This was the essential, if not the actual truth. On the return of her grand-children Jocasta looked up and waited in silent question.

“Well, we have been weighed in the balance,” said Erica. “And not found too wanting. Lady Heriot found us unexpectedly like themselves. I saw her being baffled by it.”

“Why should you be different?”

“I can see some reasons. And so could she. Not of a kind she would mention to us.”

“Well, things are on foot at last. It is a step forward.”

“That implies steps to follow. And there may be none to follow this.”

“We can't tell, and neither can she. These things come about of themselves. They are out of our hands.”

“Those that you mean are not out of Lady Heriot's. They are securely in them.”

“Well, the future will show.”

“We may not be in the future. It is one of the things in her hands. You and she have met your match in each other. And I think she knows it.”

“Was any mention made of the daughter's school?”

“There was a little talk of it. Nothing very much.”

“She came and listened to the classes to-day,” said Amy. “The mistresses didn't seem to like it.”

“I daresay not,” said Jocasta. “It must have seemed unspoken criticism.”

“It was not always unspoken,” said Amy with a smile.

“What kind of thing does she say?”

“She wants to change things that have always been done in one way.”

“That does not mean it is the best one.”

“That is what she says. They say it must be good to have served for so long.”

“I think she is right.”

“So does she,” said Amy, smiling again.

“It is never too late to mend,” said another voice, as a slow step was heard. “It appears, Mamma, that that must be her motto. She sounds to me rather a gallant figure. She may be meeting the recognised fate of the reformer. If she fails to reinstate the school, we may be able to account it a great failure.”

“I will go to the breaking-up concert,” said Jocasta, “and judge of things for myself. And also judge of Miss Heriot. We can't gather much from hearsay.”

“I think I might perhaps accompany you, Mamma, and support you in your project. If I should not introduce too discordant an element into the feminine function.”

“Oh, there won't be any men there!” said Amy, looking up with startled eyes, her thoughts on her uncle's appearance for which familiarity had had no need to do its accustomed work. “It would really be as you said. Only women seem to come.”

“The fathers of the girls are sometimes there,” said Jocasta. “I expect there will be a few.”

“And in default of a father an uncle may be accepted. As also the spice of variety that he brings. And there will be a protector for Amy and an escort for yourself.”

“You would have to sit through the concert, Uncle.
And it will not be at all what you would like. And it is to be a long one.”

“I shall hardly attend in a critical spirit, when my niece is doing her best to ease the hours for me.”

“Oh, I am not playing, Uncle. No one is to play who is not up to a certain standard. Miss Heriot has been firm about it.”

“She is unwise,” said Jocasta. “The parents pay fees for flattery, not for firmness, and they have no standard. And it is they whom she has to please.”

“She may not recognise the obligation,” said Hamilton. “She elects to please herself. Or rather to satisfy her own instinct for quality.”

“Oh, it will not be what you think, Uncle. It is just the usual school concert.”

“But Miss Heriot is not bound by the usual view of it. Or it seems by anything usual. I have a curiosity to encounter this scorner of convention, both in her family and out of it.”

“And now in a girls' school,” said Jocasta. “There won't be much scorn of convention there. She will have to come to terms with it.”

“An experience that her catholic spirit may lead her to accept. She may even welcome the completion of her knowledge.”

“If that is what it is. It is not what was in my mind. I shall be glad to meet her and see how the school is run. I may send Amy to another.”

“Would that enhance our position with the Heriot family?”

“No, perhaps not. Well, she can stay,” said Jocasta, accepting this view of education. “So you are not to play at the concert? Do you make any progress? Would it be any good to speak to Miss Murdoch or Miss Heriot?”

“No, they can't make me more musical. And I think Miss Heriot might say so. She talks to people as if she was one of themselves.”

“She can hardly be called anything else,” said Hamilton. “That is the ground I shall take in my intercourse with her.”

“Oh, I don't think she would talk to you, Uncle,” said Amy, upholding the theory of the meeting as hypothetical. “She will just move about among the people and hardly speak to them.”

“I think my conspicuous appearance in the gathering may arrest her attention and lead to an interchange.”

“But only for a minute or two,” said Amy, who thought the same. “It would just be a word in passing, nothing worth while.”

“I flatter myself that I may detain her further. Anyhow, I shall be at your side, Mamma, to meet the redoubtable character.”

“What does redoubtable mean?” said his niece, in an empty tone.

“I am not ready with a definition, but I feel it would describe Miss Heriot.”