The Mighty and Their Fall (2 page)

“I would rather go to school than learn at home,” said Agnes.

“Well, nothing more will be spent on you,” said Selina. “You cost enough.”

“Only her food and clothes and her share of Miss Starkie,” said Hengist.

“Children do not think about such things.”

“They think about everything.”

“Well, they never talk about them.”

“You know they do,” said Leah. “You hear them.”

“Hengist and Leah,” said Selina, in a deep, sudden tone, “you will accept what I say. You will not differ from me or voice thoughts of your own. When I have spoken, I have spoken. And you must know it.”

“I envy you,” said Hugo. “When I have spoken, I hardly like to know it myself. It always seems so unnecessary.”

“I fear I am late, Mrs. Middleton,” said Miss Starkie, who had hesitated on the threshold during Selina's speech. “I should say that I know I am. My landlady was behind the time. But I see that you are still at the table.”

Miss Starkie returned to her lodgings for her meals, thereby escaping Selina's eye, and allowing the latter some household economies unsuitable for her own. Ninian's income was derived from the estate, and had lessened in the manner of its kind. It seemed to return to its source, taking his energy with it; and his mother kept a hand on the household expense, not suspecting how little it counted in the main stream.

“Well, what is the subject?” said Miss Starkie, ignoring the conclusion of it.

“There have been more than one,” said Hengist.

“Well, may I thrust myself in on the last?” said Miss Starkie, speaking as if her words were humorous.

They might have been so in this case, as Hengist and Leah began to laugh.

“What is the jest?” said Miss Starkie, turning her bright, brown eyes from one to another. She was a short, brisk woman of forty-five, with a full, ruddy face, unrelated features, clothes that were never remembered, though they varied with every occasion, and a general aspect almost improbably true to type.

“There is none,” said Selina, her voice implying that this was to be the case.

“Were you planning to play some trick on me?” said Miss Starkie, modifying Selina's expression with this light on her experience.

“No, we weren't talking about you,” said Leah.

“Then in what way am I involved, that I cannot know the subject?”

“You might not have been so much involved,” said Hengist, smiling.

“Miss Starkie is not concerned with your chatter,” said Selina. “You need not trouble her with it.”

“Oh, I am not curious, Mrs. Middleton,” said Miss Starkie, her voice betraying that she had no need to be. “Children's talk means less than nothing, as you say.”

“She didn't say it,” said Leah. “And it couldn't mean less than that.”

“She feels she had better not be curious,” said Hengist.

“And why should she feel that?” said Selina. “Tell us the reason.”

“She might feel her living was at stake,” said Hengist, as if a question should stand its answer.

“Well, that might be a tiresome threat,” said Miss Starkie.

“I don't think she is really so unconcerned,” whispered Leah.

“Why should she be anything else?” said Selina.

“Well, if Agnes went to school, a governess might cost too much.”

“As necessities have a way of doing,” said Miss Starkie, lightly.

“And you might teach the others yourself, to save expense.”

“Well, there is an idea,” said Miss Starkie. “It would be a novel arrangement. I have been successful in my efforts. You have your own ideas and express them.”

“It is not my idea,” said Leah. “In old books a mother or grandmother do sometimes teach the girls.”

“Does teach,” said Miss Starkie, smiling at Selina. “So you have reached the stage of reading books and remembering them. That is encouraging for me.”

“It is not for me,” said Ninian. “I would not have credited such foolishness. It is too kind to put up with it. I hope it does not mean it is familiar.”

“Well, I did not feel much pride in them then, Mr. Middleton. It is not their usual level. Egbert and Lavinia know when to be silent. That is a great thing to have learnt.”

“You talk as if people learn everything from you,” said Hengist.

“Well, everything is a large order, Hengist.”

“What other sources of information have you had?” said Ninian.

“A good many things come to people of themselves.”

“And those sometimes need correcting,” said Miss Starkie, shaking her head.

“Hengist's destiny is school,” said Ninian. “He will get his correction there. He will find a change.”

“Ah, it will be deflating, Mr. Middleton. Sometimes I think too much so. The balance may be better kept elsewhere. It is only my own view, of course.”

“It is mine,” said Egbert. “It is the only civilised one.”

“And mine,” said Hugo “I have never joined the herd.”

“Girls do as well as they need at home,” said Selina.

“So they will always be here,” said Hengist. “It is better to be a girl.”

“Oh,
always
is a long word,” said Miss Starkie, in an easy tone that covered relief. “As far as we need look forward.”

“I wish I could be here too. I would rather learn from a woman.”

“Well, I can understand that, Hengist. And I think the view has thought in it.”

“It has,” said Ninian. “We see the line it takes. I hope he will remember his debt to you.”

“People are always taught, when they are young,” said Leah.

“Ah, the person who lays the foundation, Mr. Middleton! It is not there that the credit accrues. It is the finishing part that earns it, the part that shows.”

“Do you think you are a conceited person?” said Hengist.

“Well, I may have a healthy share of self-esteem. We are none of us the worse for it.”

“I think some people might be.”

“Why is it healthy?” said Leah.

“Oh, I think you must wait to understand that.”

“I hope your patience will meet success,” said Ninian. “I have no great hope of it.”

“It rests with me to see that it does. We must look into the distance,” said Miss Starkie, suggesting the scope of her effort. “It can only come with time. We will not push too far forward. We must not wish our lives away. And school cannot have the fine edge of family life. But we must not complain. It does not claim to have it.”

“It is the other side that seems to make the claims,” said Selina.

“Well, well, we know our aims, Mrs. Middleton, and see no reason to hide them. And if we sometimes fall short of them, well, we are the better for having them. And now we must start for our walk. Is Lavinia coming with us?”

“No, I am staying indoors. Father is at home today.”

“Are we to have your escort, Egbert?”

“No, four charges might be too much for you.”

Miss Starkie walked after her pupils, upright and conscious after her self-exposure.

“I will be the first to speak,” said Hugo, “and will spare the rest of you. Few of us dare to voice aspirations. And I see the reason.”

“We can hardly criticise these,” said Ninian.

“Or any others,” said Lavinia. “Aspirations are always high. I hope something will come of them.”

“My children hardly have what I had myself. It is the last thing I wished. But the land does poorly, and giving it my life does not better it. There is little help for my girls or hope for Hengist. I must face the truth and so must they.”

“I have taken no harm, Father. I have been able to grow into myself. It has been best both for you and me.”

“It could be put in another way. As you grow up, the wrong becomes greater. We should think how to amend it.”

“I have no tenderness for my age. I have become unfitted for it. And I can be old or young at will. It is what the house requires of me.”

“You should always be young. You have been forced out of your time. In your childhood it was a small thing. It becomes a grave one now.”

“We can't retrace our steps. And I have always seen my way. Miss Starkie is outside and will second me.”

“Lavinia's way was straight and firm from the first, Mr. Middleton. I can hardly look back without a smile at the sturdy figure forging onwards,” said Miss Starkie, right in her mistrust of herself. “Speaking metaphorically, of course.”

“I am glad it is not literally,” said Hugo. “I could not bear to think of anyone as sturdy, least of all Lavinia. Of course there are people who might be described in that way. But I should not refer to it any more than to any other disability. I should seem to be unconscious of it.”

“How much sense do you think you are talking?” said Selina.

“Now that is not fair, Mrs. Middleton,” said Miss Starkie. “To sit there in your easy-chair, appearing to be half-asleep—appearing to be absent-minded, and to be alert and critical all the time! We had better set out before we betray ourselves further.”

She left the house with her pupils, and Selina moved to the window to observe their progress. Agnes walked in front with Miss Starkie, and Hengist and Leah together behind, indeed arm-in-arm, though this was not their habit. Selina beckoned to her son and returned to her seat. Ninian succeeded her at the window and in a moment leaned out of it.

Something depended from Miss Starkie's skirts, of a nature to unravel when pulled, and her pupils were putting a foot on it in turn, and receding as its length increased.

“Miss Starkie, you have suffered a mischance! Some
part of your dress is disintegrating. The mischief should be arrested.”

Miss Starkie turned, paused and stooped, and set off in another direction.

“Oh, a bush will serve me, Mr. Middleton. I can manage in a moment. Why did you not tell me, children?”

“For a reason that is clear,” said Hugo. “Some chances do not come again. Sometimes I regret my childhood. But only for light reasons.”

“I regret it for deeper ones,” said Selina. “Children are always with us. Now one of mine has left me.”

“Well, I must go to my work,” said Ninian. “I shall soon have Egbert's help. His playtime is nearly over.”

“We are too used to the idea of work to realise its meaning,” said Hugo. “I had early suspicions of it, and dared to act on them.”

“What a comment on life,” said Lavinia, “that to be out of work is held to be sad and wrong!”

“Satan lies in wait for idle hands,” said Selina.

“But only Satan, Grandma. And he is hardly seen as a model of behaviour.”

“My playtime, Father!” said Egbert. “What a description of an Oxford life! And I am sure I am a person who has never played.”

“I believe I am too,” said Lavinia, “or have come to be.”

“It may be true of you both. It comes of the motherless household. It is strange that I have a mother, and you have not.”

“I do not fill the place,” said Selina. “I have left it empty. I am not a woman who loves her grandchildren as her own. They are further down the scale.”

“The two youngest almost too far,” said Ninian. “It is Miss Starkie's task to force them up. Few people could undertake it. She seems to be bringing them back. It has begun to rain.”

Selina went into the hall, fixed her eyes on her two youngest grandchildren and spoke in deep tones.

“Hengist and Leah, come in where we can see you. And look me in the face. Can you say you did nothing wrong when you were out today?”

There was a pause.

“We could,” said Hengist. “But it would not be true.”

“And that would be doing wrong indoors as well,” said Leah.

“Hengist, you thought we did not know. But there was Someone Who knew. Can you tell me Who saw what you did, and saw into your hearts as you did it?” Selina had no religion herself, but feared to let her grandchildren do without it.

“Well, God sees everything. And so in a way he can't see anything. He must pass it over.”

“Leah and Hengist, He passes over nothing. What is there in your minds and lives that He does not know?”

“There isn't much in our lives. Even Miss Starkie can't say there is.”

“And she sometimes says there is nothing in our minds,” said Leah. “So he must have put it into them to do what we did.”

“I don't think you needed help,” said Ninian.

“But he knows that children are innocent,” said Leah, her face grave.

“Well, of course he is one by himself,” said Hugo.

“What has Miss Starkie to say?” said Selina, resorting to the human sphere.

“Well, I am surprised and disappointed, Mrs. Middleton. I should be sorry to say I was not. I am glad Agnes did not join.”

“I thought something was happening,” said the latter. “But it seemed better not to look behind.”

“Ah, let us keep our eyes straight in front of us,” said Miss Starkie, illustrating the suggestion with her own. “That will be the way to steer our course.”

“Miss Starkie is very kind to you,” said Ninian. “I hope you know it.”

“She has to take us as we are,” said Leah.

“Indeed she does not. She will be wise to insist on a difference.”

“She might suppress our natural selves,” said Hengist. “And there is never gain without loss.”

“I think there are cases of it.”

“My lessons keep turning up, Mr. Middleton. They will find their setting in time.”

“Self-satisfaction is their snare,” said Selina, addressing her grandchildren's backs, as they left the room. “That is what they should pluck out and cast from them.”

“But it does not offend them,” said Lavinia. “The condition is not met. And we all have our share of it.”

“I am surprised by mine,” said Hugo. “I should not have thought I should have any. I don't know why I have.”