A Heritage and its History (9 page)

“There is nothing to question about her. She is doing her best for my uncle and all of us. She can hardly do more.”

“But is it what is good for herself? It will leave her at a loose end. She will have time on her hands. Your uncle has not much to spare.”

“She has her own resources. She has had to make them. The truth is that we are fortunate. Things might have been so different. With anyone else they would have been.”

“Do not like her too well,” said Walter. “She belongs to Uncle, not to you.”

“Oh, their relation is not romantic. I know what it is. Indeed she herself has told us. She admires and pities my uncle. How could anyone not do so? It is worth her while to succour him, and have him in his last years. Many women might have felt it. But she was the woman he knew.”

“And what does he feel?” said Julia. “You have so much wisdom, that you must share it.”

“He was lonely and aloof from us. He wanted someone for himself. She was a substitute for my father, the likely person, the one at hand. We have few people in our life.”

“Why did he not turn to me,” said Walter, “and ask me to be a son to him?”

“Why you and not me?” said Simon.

“Well, Simon, what are your filial qualities?”

“I am more in the position of a son, as I am to succeed him.”

“And you think that feeling fits you for the place?”

“Now, Simon,” said Julia, “I forbid you to refer again to your uncle's death, to anything before or after it, to the death itself. And I expect to be obeyed.”

“I am to forget the future and live in the present? Well, perhaps it offers more than it did.”

“Rhoda is meeting the crisis as well as she can. It is pleasant not to have to criticise her.”

“So that is what you had in your mind,” said Simon.

“I was looking forward to it,” said Walter. “There is a general sense of blank.”

“There is in a sense,” said his brother. “There is no feeling of anything to come. And something must be coming. We are to have a different life, and can only await it.”

“It will go on, as lives do,” said Julia. “Mine will be the one apart. I shall grow into an old woman, while you move into your prime. And I shall do it without my husband.”

“You exaggerate the tragedy of widowhood,” said Simon. “It is a common enough thing.”

“Yes, my dear, and so is all sickness and suffering. The commonness of a thing leaves it as it is.”

“It must alter the attitude towards it. We cannot respond too much. We should be worn out.”

“Your mother's life should count to you, I suppose. You can respond to that.”

“Mater, your widowhood is not a new thing. Why should it take on this sudden growth?”

“It is a thing that is fresh with every day, my boy.”

“Well, so is the daylight and the dark.”

“Yes, and widowhood belongs to the last. And this marriage may take your uncle's friendship from me. For all this resolve to alter nothing, it may do that.”

“They are coming to the house,” said Walter. “Still walking side by side. And his hand might have been resting on my head. It is astonishing that he never thought of it.”

“Never thought of what?” said Sir Edwin.

There was silence, and Simon gave a laugh.

“It cannot be repeated? Let it rest, if it does not bear it.”

“Uncle, my mother is here. Should I utter a word that was not fit for her ears?”

“It was unfit for mine? Or rather, it was not meant for them.”

“Why should it have been, Edwin?” said Julia. “You were not in the room. It was a piece of boyishness.”

“You grant us perennial youth, Mater,” said Simon. “We are always children to our mothers.”

“It is good to be with a family,” said Rhoda. “To hear men talk as women never do, and women as men never do. It is a good thing.”

“Is there so much difference?” said Julia.

“The difference there has to be, that we want there to be, that there is.”

“And what is that?” said Simon.

“You do not need me to say. You are of those who know.”

“Are we all among them?” said Walter.

“There is so much wisdom here. In the words, in the minds of those about me. I have come to its home.”

“How will you spend your spare time here?” said Simon.

“Simon, there is one of your odd questions,” said Julia. “How does any of us do so? It needs no answer.”

“It shall have one,” said Rhoda. “I shall be with you, listen to you, learn from you. And when Edwin comes, I shall be with you and him. How shall I spend my time? I shall not have enough.”

“I will release him as often as I can,” said Simon.

“It is I who will order things,” said his uncle. “It is still my place.”

“There is not enough work for both of us all the time.”

“Then it is for you to be set free.”

“That is the wrong way round, Uncle.”

“It seems to me the right one. It is only my own opinion.”

“Your sister will be with us soon, Rhoda,” said Julia. “We knew you would wish it; we wished it ourselves; and she was able to come.”

“Then I wish for nothing; I ask for nothing; I am grateful for each thing.”

“If she will come in and out as one of us,” said Sir Edwin, “she will serve us all.”

“People with nothing to wish for are said to be dissatisfied. I am not of them.”

“We shall be equal men and women at the table,” said Simon. “It will be a change for my mother. She has been a woman by herself.”

“Ah, change has come to you. It has come to me. We welcome or suffer it. It still comes.”

“It would hardly do not to have it. Do you think it is a good thing, Uncle?”

“It is not in itself to me. I am an old man. I welcome what is of help.”

“Here is Fanny already coming to us,” said Julia.

“My little one, my sister. We are closer for being apart. We have more to give to each other; we have more to share. You have not been alone. You have been with me, carried in my heart.”

“I would rather be with you in this room,” said Fanny. “I like a more usual resting-place.”

“I hope that means you will often be here,” said Sir Edwin.

“Your voice is tired, Uncle,” said Simon.

“Ah, it is. It must be,” said Rhoda. “We have made our journey to you. We have had our welcome, had our hour. He has lived it for himself and me. Yes, he is tired.”

“It is true,” said Sir Edwin. “And I carry a double weight of years.”

“I think you have borne up surprisingly, Uncle,” said Simon.

“It continues to surprise you? And the feeling has yet to grow. It must become more with time.”

“It was an innocent speech, Uncle.”

“Yes, it was without art.”

“You cannot expect me to forget the gulf between us.”

“I should not remember it so much without reminder.”

“You spoke of it yourself.”

“Yes, I should have known there was no need.”

“Ah, the weight of years!” said Rhoda. “The weight of understanding, of knowledge! The one does not come without the other. It is all or nothing.”

“I have known understanding without years,” said Julia. “If I did not say so, I should be an ungrateful mother.”

“I have known too much of it,” said Fanny. “I am terrified of people's penetration.”

“It sounds as if you had no good qualities,” said Rhoda. “Or as if no qualities were good.”

“Those that incur penetration seldom are. If they were, they would not invite it.”

“This is cynical talk,” said Julia, smiling.

“I am glad,” said Fanny. “I tried to make it so.”

“Why do you like to be cynical?” said her sister. “Why not choose some other quality?”

“Because cynicism seems clever. And I think it often is.”

“Why do we want to be clever?”

“Oh, I think we must want that. And I think we ought. It is good for other people, better than for ourselves.”

“For ourselves it is too much strain,” said Walter. “I wish it was natural to me.”

“It would be an improvement,” said Simon, laughing. “We can often detect the effort.”

“That hardly seems a necessary speech,” said Sir Edwin.

“We must take it as a brotherly one,” said Julia.

“Why is he not content with ordinary intelligence, as I am?”

“Because it is ordinary,” said Walter. “I am not as unusual as that.”

“Then I suppose I am the unusual one.”

“You are in some ways, my boy,” said his mother.

“Walter almost says openly that he is clever.”

“We must have some way of almost saying it,” said Fanny. “We are not allowed to say it quite.”

“Surely we do not all think we are clever,” said Julia.

“Many of us in one way or another,” said Sir Edwin. “Is there anyone here who does not?”

“Well, some kinds of cleverness may help us,” said Rhoda. “And we may need the help. To be wiser and kinder. To others and ourselves.”

“I could not be kinder to myself than I am,” said her sister.

“That may show a knowledge of kindness. It is better that it should be there.”

“How far do we understand it?” said Sir Edwin. “A little meets too much gratitude. And much does not meet enough.”

“It puts people in too humble a place,” said Fanny. “It is not altogether kind.”

“Ah, we have to be generous to be grateful,” said Rhoda. “One has oneself to be a giver.”

“Dinner is ready, ma'am,” said Deakin, to Julia.

“So Deakin has learned his lesson,” said Simon.

“He has not had one to learn,” said Rhoda. “Unless it was to learn that.”

Simon lingered behind with her, as the others passed.

“You cannot be so much of a giver. You must exist of yourself. This will serve as a beginning. But your nature remains your own. It must assert itself in time.”

“I am not here to be myself. I am here for the nearness to your uncle, the power to serve him. That is how I think of his claim on me.”

“Some women have seen him in that way. More would have, if he had known more. But he has wanted no one but his brother, offered little to anyone else. I
have no great affection for him. It somehow seems a case for truth. I am myself dependent on a brother, but we can look outside ourselves. I welcome you and your sister into our life. And I am a better person than is thought. My habit of not editing myself has its own snare. You will have time to yourself. I hope I may share it?”

“You may have what is over from Edwin. It will give me a purpose for it. But I do not see him as you do. To me he is fitly austere and aloof. But you are right in one thing about him. He asks only for what he can use. I would not give him what is of no good. I would not have him contrive a need. I shall have something to share.”

“You have begun to talk in low tones,” said Walter, looking back. “That might be a good thing, if overhearing were not better.”

“The last is never wise,” said Julia. “We none of us talk to people as we do behind their backs.”

“Ah, saying things then! It has a poor name,” said Rhoda.

“And it is easy to see how it got it,” said Fanny, “and how it keeps it. Someone has heard what is said.”

“Some people are described in the same way to themselves and other people,” said Simon.

“I cannot think of a case,” said Fanny.

“What about Simon himself?” said Julia.

“He had come to my mind,” said Rhoda. “What more could be said of anyone?”

“Suppose we described ourselves to our faces!” said Fanny.

“Surely we do,” said her sister. “We live up to our idea of ourselves.”

“I should have thought we were afraid of living according to it.”

“You are silent, Uncle,” said Simon.

“Well, the talk is an exercise of wits, and mine are getting slow. But I listen to it.”

“You talk as if you were eighty, Uncle.”

“I talk as if I were seventy, which I am. And I think you do not underestimate it.”

“Ah, the time of fulfilment,” said Rhoda, “the time of harvest! When the sheaves are gathered, and have not begun to fade!”

“I suppose fading really begins at about forty,” said Simon.

“Then I have suffered thirty years of it,” said Sir Edwin.

“And I have suffered twelve,” said Julia.

“I was not thinking of either of you.”

“Perhaps you should have been, my son, as we were involved in what you said.”

“Do we think about age more than most people?” said Walter.

“Surely Simon does,” said Julia.

“Everyone thinks about it as much as possible,” said Simon. “What concerns anyone so much as the time he has to live?”

“Well, when that is over, nothing will concern him,” said Sir Edwin.

“To young people the future is still long,” said Rhoda.

“Young people forget the gains of experience,” said Julia. “If we went back to youth, we should give up a great deal.”

“What would it be?” said Simon. “What exactly are the gains?”

“An insight into motive,” said Sir Edwin, “a habit of expecting little, an estimate of what is much. Acceptance of fading away, and of other people's acceptance of it.”

“I should not mind giving up most of that,” said Fanny.

“It is an advance towards the truth,” said Rhoda.

“Does it bear out the theory that beauty is truth?” said Walter. “What do you think, Deakin?”

“Well, not only beauty emerges as truth, sir, when you deal with those beneath you.”

“We are not supposed to see people in that way.”

“I do not know how we can shut our eyes to it, sir, when we have to contend with the difference.”