Two Worlds and Their Ways (30 page)

“You have confused the two,” said Sir Roderick. “It would be an easy thing to do.”

“Too easy. I have not done it. Even though I am an old man, with a mind already confused.”

“The thing has its own reminders and sets off your imagination.”

“Thank you, my boy, for seeing that I know what you do.”

“Grandpa, please do not frighten me,” said Oliver.

“It is very highly polished,” said Lucius.

“Fancy speaking so little for so long and then saying that!” said Juliet.

“It is on the point,” said her father. “It has not lain there for years. That is what he meant.”

“Did he? I am proud of him. How inferior women are!”

“Do you think you took it out yourself, sir, and forgot about it?” said Sir Roderick.

“I have no doubt that you do. So that can be your solution.”

“You may have put the open case somewhere, with the earring in it. Think along that line and see if it stirs your memory.”

“It does so, and shows me I have touched neither.”

“If the case should turn up, it would support that view,” said Sir Roderick, looking round as if in hope.

“Well, there may have been some oversight, my boy. Perhaps it will appear.”

“Well, now the earring can go out on its journey,” said Juliet.

“It has come on one,” said her father, balancing it on his hand. “I have a feeling that it should rest now.”

“You assign it a human personality,” said Sir Roderick. “That would lead you into all kinds of ways.”

“In which case it could lead me out of them.”

“We think of earrings as a pair,” said Lucius. “The sight of one would suggest the other. They would hardly give a separate impression.”

“I knew them apart. That is the simple truth,” said Mr. Firebrace.

“Almost too simple to be believed,” said Lesbia. “Well, there must be mysteries in life.”

“I do not know why, my dear. Secrets are not the same thing.”

“Pray do not be so sinister, Grandpa,” said Oliver. “And before me, whom you knew as a helpless child.”

“It is ungrateful to say there are no mysteries,” said Juliet, “when we have such a good one, and are making the most of it. Maria, you are pale. I have noticed it all day. The household has been too much, and you are fidgeted by these problems. Why not go and rest, and miss Oliver's friend? You can see him on another day.”

“Yes, do, my pretty,” said Sir Roderick. “You are not yourself. We have hardly heard your voice. I wondered what the difference was. Go and rest and take a weight off my mind.”

Maria left the room. Sir Roderick threw off the weight. Mr. Firebrace handled the earring. Juliet walked to the window. Oliver and Lucius looked at the crevice in the floor, where the earring had lain.

“Come, sir,” said Sir Roderick, “admit you have made a mistake. Admit it to yourself, if to nobody else. There is no need to be prodigal with the confession. One earring was marked; the other was not. You thought of them together and confused the pair. It is not such a great matter. There is no need to make too much of it.”

“And the other earring may have acquired a mark,” said Lesbia. “Metal can be scratched, or anyhow this metal can be.”

Her father held the earring to the light, turned it and looked at the back, seemed to be trying to accept the account, seemed to be tired and to wish to end the matter.

“Well, a mark might come, I suppose. What has been done can be done again. And I do not remember its shape.”

“And the earring had been on the floor,” said Oliver, “wedged into that crevice between the boards. It may have got rubbed against the broken oak. The polish on it suggests it.”

“Well, you suggest it, my boy. And the idea does as well as any other. I do not think much of any of them, but I have no proof, even for myself. I am old; the earring was between the boards; metal may be marked; the case may be about somewhere; it is all true. We will say that the earring was dead and is alive again, and was lost and is found.”

“So we will,” said Oliver. “I wish I had said it.”

“Mr. Spode!” said Aldom at the door.

“Well, Mr. Spode, this is a great pleasure,” said Sir Roderick, as though glad to address himself to another
matter. “We give you our first welcome, and hope it will not be the last.”

“There cannot be many, good as you are. I am leaving the school this term. I could not remain without your son. I could not do what I once did.”

“This is not good hearing, Spode,” said Lucius.

“So Oliver has been an upsetting influence,” said Juliet. “We might have known what would come of employing a relation.”

“What a way to talk, when I obliged you for a term! Why have you returned so early, Spode?”

“The other masters are not there. Miss James and I are by ourselves.”

“There are two good reasons, but surely there is another.”

“My mother and I are estranged.”

“Why, that is not good hearing either,” said Mr. Fire-brace. “I remember your mother. She is an old friend of mine. I am interested to meet her son, and to have news of her. But your news is not of the best.”

“It means nothing, sir. It is only that difference is not a basis for companionship. That is an error. And she chooses her words to wound me. She stoops to that.”

“What are her words?” said Oliver. “I always like to hear them.”

“You have heard these before. That I am afraid to hunt. I am glad they give someone pleasure. They give me none.”

“Well, that is not true. I am sure,” said Sir Roderick, heartily.

“It is true,” said his guest. “There lies the meanness of saying it.”

“You do not understand Spode, Father,” said Oliver. “It cannot be done all at once.”

Sir Roderick did not question this.

“Your son and I are good friends because we are cast in the same mould. The soul of Spode was knit unto the soul of Shelley.”

“You are certainly alike. You might be taken for brothers.”

“And my mother and I might be strangers. Anyhow when we pass each other without speaking.”

“I am sure that does not often happen.”

“Never until the latter half of the holidays. Then it does.”

“Do you call each other ‘Oliver'?” said Sir Roderick, looking from one young man to the other.

“We call each other Shelley and Spode, as is necessary in a school. It is a hard and hardly judging world.”

“That is why our intercourse was suspect in it,” said Oliver. “Suspicion must flourish in a school. There is so much ground for it.”

“I shall be sorry to lose you, Spode,” said Lucius. “It will not be easy to fill your place.”

“I fear it may not, sir, with my being a just man.”

“We shall miss you both,” said Juliet. “The two tall, ponderous figures will no longer pace arm-in-arm along the corridors.”

“They would not have done that anyhow,” said Oliver. “Uncle Lucius had forbidden it. They say it is nice to be missed, but I never understand how one knows about it. I wish I had known that the passages were corridors, before it was too late.”

“So your brother will return alone?” said Mr. Spode.

“He is not returning either. The experiment for both of us has failed.”

“Oh, that is how it has turned out.”

“How what has turned out?” said Sir Roderick at once.

“The trouble,” said Mr. Spode, on a deeper note.

“Yes, it was a great and sad trouble to us all, and to the poor little boy as well.”

“It must have been to him.”

“We tried to make it a light one.”

“And you did not succeed. You attempted the impossible. But the attempt should be honoured.”

“Perhaps it was a case where failure was greater than success,” said Oliver. “I had not ever met one.”

“Success would have been greater,” said Mr. Spode. “Success is very great. We were right about it when we were young, as we were about so many things. Not that we are not right about more now.”

“What did you think of the boy and the trouble and all of it?” said Sir Roderick, as if the words broke from him.

“You could not repress the question,” said Oliver. “It would come out. Why do we talk as if questions should not do that? What else should happen to them? And if they did not, the answers would not come out either.”

“And answers to questions always contain some truth,” said Mr. Spode.

“So they do,” said Oliver. “People are so cruel.”

“Do you see your way to answering this question?” said Sir Roderick, seeming to control his voice.

“I thought badly of the trouble,” said Mr. Spode. “I do think ill of such things. But the boy only tried to command success, when he should have done more, deserved it. He may have thought people would not think it was more. He may, indeed, have noticed it. I pitied the boy, and it was pity with equal feeling in it. It was the kind I give myself. I am often in need of it.”

“Would you advise me to keep him at home?”

“Roderick, ought you to ask advice from our masters, when you have taken your son from the school?” said Juliet.

“I am asking the advice of Oliver's friend. And he will be leaving himself at the end of the term.”

“I love to give advice,” said Mr. Spode. “It makes me feel so much at home. I advise you to keep him where memories are shortest. That would probably be at school. But the matter is in your hands.”

“I understand you. I will see that the thing is forgotten.”

“My father takes advice without resenting it,” said Oliver. “You can cast your bread upon the waters, and see it return on the same day.”

“The seed falls upon good ground and brings forth fruit,” said Lesbia, half to herself. “Sixty and an hundredfold.”

“No wonder Shelley does not apologise for his home,” said Mr. Spode.

“Do most people do that?” said Lesbia.

“Everyone but your nephew.”

“How do you know of our relationship?”

“He has told me about his home life,” said Mr. Spode, with a note of reproach.

“I expect the apology for home comes from a sort of pride in it.”

“No, it comes from a sort of shame. The simplicity of life is inescapable.”

“The two feelings probably have the same source.”

“They have opposite sources. Life is as simple as that.”

“Do you apologise for your home?”

“I owe it to myself. Apology is called for.”

“You despise yourself, and yet you find yourself doing it?”

“I do not despise myself. It is my home that I despise.”

“I daresay there is not as much reason as you think,” said Sir Roderick.

“I know the reasons. It is economical and comfortless, and my mother says the things that——”

“That are not always said,” said Sir Roderick, on an understanding note.

“That people's parents say,” said Mr. Spode.

“Well, those are not such terrible things.”

“No, they are not. One would not apologise for those.”

“I hope you can go round the place with my son. It is to be his home for life.”

“If I may send a telegram to my mother.”

“Of course, if it will ease her mind.”

“It will ease mine. The manner of our parting weighs on it.”

“If you will dictate the telegram, it will go at once.”

“I would rather write it, as it is a message from the heart.”

“You will retract every word you said?” said Oliver.

“I said no words. That is what I retract. But those minutes will never come again.”

Sir Roderick put writing materials on the desk, and Mr. Spode sat down. As he rose he suddenly exclaimed.

“Why, there is my earring!”

“One like it. I knew it was,” said Oliver.

“So it is a stock pattern. My mother will never believe it.”

“And she will be right,” said Mr. Firebrace, coming to the desk. “The one that was matched with yours could not have been the same. As you say, this one is yours, or rather it is hers. Take it to her from me as my message from the past. I gave her the other all those years ago, and this one was to have made the pair. But it can take its place.”

“I think she deserves this one, if she has the other,” said Lesbia. “The separation was a mistake.”

“She has not the other,” said Mr. Spode. “But she always gets more than she deserves. That is a tribute to her.”

Aldom entered to take the telegram and spoke to his master as he passed.

“My mother has come to see you about the farm, Sir Roderick. I have shown her into the library.”

“Oh, yes, Aldom. I will go to her at once. I am sorry to leave you, Mr. Spode. I was not the object of your visit, but you make us feel you came to see us all. I hope you will be here when I return. We will shake hands, in case I am not so fortunate.”

“I should hardly have known your father was a parent, Shelley,” said Mr. Spode.

“No, he has not been a father to me. And you make me feel I should be glad. You take a load of bitterness from my heart. The old, sad burden is rolling away.”

“I have never had a mother.”

“And I have not been a son. I have only just realised it.”

“You have been a good stepson and a kind nephew,” said Lesbia. “We cannot all fulfil ourselves in the deeper relations of life.”

“Thank you, Aunt Lesbia. I have heard there is good in everyone.”

“I do not think your father would change you, Oliver.”

“Only for Sefton. He wishes that Sefton could inherit the place.”

“A thing that Maria does not wish,” said Juliet. “How Maria is a person by herself! I think we take it too much for granted.”

“It is the best way to take it,” said Oliver. “Of course I am attached to Maria. I say that, to show I did not mean anything disparaging. Or rather in case I did.”