Two Worlds and Their Ways (38 page)

“Well, Sir Roderick, I did not know what to do. I was following the children upstairs, when Mrs. Cassidy arrived; and I paused to say the conventional things, and found myself involved in the group before I knew. I could not escape without attracting attention, and it seemed better to avoid that. No one seemed to notice me, and I hoped I was such a familiar figure, that I should not be noticed any more than the furniture——”

There was silence, as it was realised that this had largely been the case.

“Oh, come, Miss Petticoat, you are more to us than that,” said Sir Roderick. “And as regards discretion, we can rely on you as much—you will not betray us any more than … than as you say.”

“Need you ask, Sir Roderick? Am I a stranger to you?”

“Of course she is not,” murmured Juliet. “She has told him what she is.”

“And he seemed to follow her,” said Oliver.

“Do you feel you can remain with me, Miss Petticott?” said Maria.

“Do not hurt me, Lady Shelley. What do I know of your mutual lives, or of your claims upon each other?”

“That is a wise word,” said Mr. Firebrace. “After all
I have taken here, anything that is mine is theirs.”

“He gave what was his to Spode,” murmured Oliver. “But it is nice to give it twice, so ungrudging. How the best is being brought out of everyone! Generally it only comes out of one person, as it did out of Maria.”

“Miss Petticott knows better,” said Maria. “And I am glad she does. If she did not, I could not leave the children in her hands.”

“Poor Miss Petticott! A middle course is so unrewarding. Or anyhow so unrewarded.”

“I do not ask reward, Mr. Shelley.”

“But you have it, Miss Petticoat,” said Sir Roderick, in a rather loud tone. “In our trust and affection and the other things worth having.”

“Father, do think what you are saying,” said Oliver. “We shall not know where to look.”

“I wish Lucius was here,” said Juliet. “We could depend so upon his silence.”

“It would be no good to us,” said her nephew. “Silence never does what has to be done. It would not show that we think nothing of the matter. It is not true that it is golden.”

Sir Roderick looked at his son with the expression that was almost of gratitude. He had not wished for his silence.

“There is almost too much of this generosity,” said Maria, with a break in her voice. “It would mean more, if there were less. All this care to avoid looking at the truth only means it cannot be faced.”

“But it can be,” said her stepson. “It has to be, to be grasped at all. I have never met a matter that called for closer attention.”

“There, there, my pretty, we have been clumsy, have we?” said Sir Roderick.

“You may have, Father. It is a thing I could not be. It is a quality that Maria likes, and I do see her point of view.”

“She does not want a too tactful and easy smoothing over of things. She is too honest to want anything but honesty in other people.”

“Honest!” said Maria.

“We never get honesty by itself,” said Juliet. “It is inseparable from other things, and the last ones to be coupled with it. Do not insist upon it, Maria. It would show us in such a bad light, and we have been so careful to present ourselves in a good one.”

“Yes, care has been taken,” said Lesbia.

“By you as well, Aunt Lesbia.”

“No, I do not think so, Oliver. I think I have appeared in an unconsidered one.”

“I am not going to pose as an authority upon honesty,” said Maria.

“Or to pose at all, my pretty. It is not in you. I know how you have wanted to make a clean breast of it all.”

“Have you really, Maria?” said Oliver. “I should so like to know.”

“Of course I have not. I could easily have done it. I meant the truth to remain hidden.”

“Easily have done it! No, no, no,” said Mr. Firebrace.

“Well, most truth does remain so,” said Oliver. “Think what would happen if it did not.”

“I do want to think,” said Juliet. “I have often thought.”

“We know in one case,” said Maria.

“There, there, my dear. Your nerves are all on edge,” said Sir Roderick. “And I do not wonder.”

“Ought you not to wonder, Father? You are losing the thread of things. I am in rather a carping mood. It is because I was accused of clumsiness.”

“It seems to me a mild accusation,” said Maria. “What could I be accused of? I have been accused of clumsiness all my life, and never been the worse.”

“Not by me, my pretty, not by me,” said Sir Roderick.

“Anyone who finds you so in any deep matter must be a poor judge, Lady Shelley,” said Miss Petticott.

“And it is a disgrace to excel in anything on the surface,” said Juliet.

“When people are sound at bottom,” said Mr.
Firebrace, “who cares for so much smoothness on the top?”

“Now they have all accused Maria of clumsiness,” said Lesbia to Juliet, hardly moving her lips. “And, as she says, she is none the worse. I wonder if she is better.”

“My children will not know what I have done,” said Maria. “And they had to face my knowing what they had. How the heavier burdens fall on the helpless!”

“People who are not helpless would avoid them,” said Oliver.

“I actually did not think of my own stumble, when we were dealing with theirs. I gave the money to Roderick on that very day. I was as dishonest with myself as I was with other people.”

“Then clearly they have no cause to complain,” said Juliet. “That is a very rare equality.”

“You are upset, Maria, and hardly know what you say,” said her husband. “And I am sure you have every reason.”

“Of course she has not,” said Juliet. “She has so little reason, that I am going to give her more trouble and stay for the night.”

“I also should like to stay with you, Maria,” said Lesbia.

“Well, that is good news,” said Sir Roderick. “It will help us through what might have been an awkward evening. I mean it will be good for Maria to have your company, as she has been out of heart.”

“I wish Father would say what he means,” said Oliver.

“Does Lucius know you are here, my dear?” said Mr. Firebrace to Juliet.

“Yes, I told him I was coming. He did not ask for reasons. If he ever does, he can have one.”

“There is to be a secret between husband and wife,” said Lesbia.

“There is none between my wife and me,” said Sir Roderick. “And I do not thank Mr. Spode for it. I do not call this thing a secret. Maria did not want the left hand to
know what the right hand was doing, did not want me to know how much she had done for me.”

“Of course it is not a secret,” said Juliet. “No one would count it.”

“I did not see Miss Petticoat go,” said Sir Roderick.

“I think I felt she was gone,” said Juliet. “We know that we do not see her. She has explained.”

“A nice woman,” said Sir Roderick. “Sound at heart. I was glad there were some people on her own level here for her to-day.”

“I had forgotten it was a festal occasion,” said Oliver. “Somehow nothing reminds me of it.”

“We ought to compare her to Miss Chancellor,” said Maria. “She manages the children's education. The people she talked to were the matrons.”

“And none the worse for that,” said Sir Roderick. “Any more than the other one was the better for what she was. Of all the people here today, she was the one I was not quite sure of. I am a judge of people in my way.”

Lesbia rested her eyes on him with uncertain lips, as though he might not be this in other people's.

“This hopeless trouble of mine has prevented our discussion of everything,” said Maria.

“Postponed it,” said her husband. “It will last us for several days. There were eleven guests without Spode. I counted them.”

“You are so thorough, Father,” said Oliver.

“I did not have to do that, as I had arranged for them all,” said Maria.

“That gave you an advantage,” said Lesbia. “I did have to.”

“How did you manage it without looking at them?” said Oliver.

“It was only at the girls that she did not look,” said Sir Sir Roderick. “And she knew the number of those.”

“People certainly looked at me,” said Lesbia, laughing. “I wonder I did not get counted twice.”

“Those dear little boys!” said Maria. “I only just kept from embracing them.”

“Grandpa kept from embracing several people,” said Oliver. “I saw him keeping from it.”

“And that was a dear child with the round face.”

“Gwendolen,” said Lesbia, easily. “We have had her with us for years. It has been interesting to see her go from stage to stage.”

“She seemed so fond of Clemence. I wonder if Clemence would really be better with friends about her.”

“This day has put us back for months,” said Oliver. “I knew it would.”

“Not if you hold to your advance,” said Lesbia. “Do not let it go.”

“She is better at home,” said Sir Roderick. “The life amongst numbers is too much for her. She was pale and tired at the end of today. I noticed it. If anyone understands her, I do.”

“Miss Chancellor and Miss Petticott hardly exchanged a word,” said Maria. “I do not know how that happened. They were the natural pair to come together.”

“Ah, Miss Petticott knew better,” said Sir Roderick. “She knew where she was safe. Trust a woman's instinct. And you were talking to Miss Chancellor, or she was to you. Someone had to talk to the housekeepers. Miss Petticoat threw herself into the breach, and enjoyed her day. And I was glad for her to have a change.”

“It seems that a man's instinct would have done as well,” said Oliver.

“You put her on the housekeepers' level,” said Maria. “And she should rank with the mistresses, if she is in her place.”

“Well, we have settled that,” said Lesbia. “We will not throw doubt on it.”

“If Miss Chancellor is a mistress, I rank her above them,” said Sir Roderick.

“I know what you mean,” said his wife, “But you know what I mean too.”

“You are right, my boy. The day has put us back,” said Mr. Firebrace.

“Do not let it, my dear. Keep a hand on yourself,” said Sir Roderick, with some urgency. “We cannot keep on going backwards and forwards. Our family life is settled. Let it be.”

“It is good advice, Maria,” said Lesbia.

“We behave as if nothing had happened,” said Maria. “But I know what must be in your minds.”

“Forget it, my pretty. You will soon get used to the feeling.”

“It had gone from my mind,” said Juliet, “and left a sense of blank. And I mean a real blank with nothing in it. But it seemed such a stimulating thing, and it is fading away.”

“Yielding to temptation seems so natural, that I was hardly stimulated,” said Oliver.

“There, my pretty!” said Sir Roderick.

“Are there any cases of resisting it?” said Juliet. “We never hear about them, but it does not seem there can be none.”

“We all withstand it all the time,” said Sir Roderick.

“Well, we cannot be expected to admit that,” said his son.

“We are people who are not assailed by it,” said Lesbia with a smile.

“I yielded to the first real one I ever had,” said Maria.

“And I suppose it hardly matters if we yield to the others,” said Juliet. “That is just living day by day.”

“Are we to discuss now the difference between the real ones and the others?” said Maria, on a weary note.

“Well, it would be your fault if we did,” said Oliver. “And Aunt Juliet and I may be going to.”

“I will take you away, Maria,” said Sir Roderick. “You have borne enough. We will go away together and leave them to discuss what they must.”

“They are entitled to the opportunity. And they must be ready to make the most of it. They have restrained themselves long enough.”

“And if anyone is grateful to them, I am,” said Sir Roderick.

“Well, we the survivors,” said Oliver.

“And from what a sad, little wreck!” said Mr. Firebrace. “And the rock we struck was the young man, Spode.”

“Do we think more or less of Maria?” said Juliet. “That is the interesting thing.”

“We will not say we have never liked her so well,” said Oliver. “That means we like people in humility and self-abasement. It is sad that it should be so common.”

“Well, well, it was a woman's slip,” said Mr. Firebrace. “I grudge no woman a trinket.”

“No, that is true, Grandpa. You tend to be lavish with them.”

“How much are we attached to Maria?” said Juliet. “I hated the idea of her being exposed.”

“So did I,” said Oliver. “I really admired myself for hating it so much.”

“You will keep your tongue still, my boy,” said Mr. Firebrace. “Your stepmother has a right to it.”

“This is the first time you have given Maria that name. Is it a mark of respect at this time?”

“Well, if it is, there is no harm in it.”

“I do look up to you, Grandpa. Ought I to make an effort to call her ‘Mother'?”

“Can it be that you have never liked her so well, Father?” said Lesbia.

“It is himself he has never liked so well,” said Oliver. “And I am sure I do not wonder.”

“I wonder if we really see it as a joke,” said Lesbia. “If we do not, is there any reason to pretend to?”

“If it is not a joke, there is no advantage in talking about it,” said her nephew. “Understanding and pity will not give us any pleasure. They have given us none.”

“They only show that we can imagine ourselves doing the same thing,” said Juliet.

“Can you imagine it?” said Oliver.

“I am not sure. But I cannot imagine Maria.”