Two Worlds and Their Ways (29 page)

“She has never made up her mind, I suppose. I got a wrong impression.”

“Well, a shop in the village would suit her, and suit her health. She finds the farm life rough-and-ready, with her being withdrawn and reserved.”

“She must be past the age for heavy work.”

“Well, Sir Roderick, it is contrived to spare her. And she shows no sign of her years, as she has herself remarked. The words have passed her lips.”

“And what is your view of the matter?”

“Well, I sometimes feel that I have the easy life, and she the hard one, which is not your choice when you have been a good son. Though neither her work nor mine is of the kind that is ever done. And she might miss the country life, if she were to leave it.”

“You would be nearer to each other, if she were in the village.”

“Yes, Sir Roderick, though distance is soon covered. And the shop suits our requirements, though the rooms are what we see as dark and small. It might have been made for us, as we say. And so the matter goes on. And we often say we may as well continue as we are.”

“Perhaps your mother will come and see me.”

“Well, Sir Roderick, it is the quiet season. And if you are going to leave a place, why go on putting your strength into it when you have put in enough? It is like throwing good money after bad.”

“Dear, dear, people should be educated,” said Lesbia, as Aldom left them. “Roderick and I must be one of mind at last.”

“Oh, the question of education does not fill the whole of my horizon.”

“It ought to have its place in it,” said Lesbia, just shaking her head, as she rose and passed from the room. “No, do not be afraid; I have said all I have to say.”

“We do not often have a chance of doing that,” said Sir Roderick. “But I do not grudge it to Lesbia. She has so much more to grudge to me.”

“Something Normal Is going to happen to me to-day,” said Oliver.

“Do not normal things usually happen?” said Maria.

“Surely you have noticed they do not. It is easy to see I have no mother.”

“Well, what is to happen?”

“Thank you for trying to fill the place. I do like swift compunction. Well, the friend I made at the school is coming to see me. It may be an odd way to make a friend, but otherwise the incident is ordinary. He is returning to the school early, and coming to see me on his way.”

“Well, he is welcome,” said Sir Roderick.

“That shows how you see the occasion. What a thing to say about a guest! It shows that the shock and effort of having him might have been too much.”

“That could hardly occur to any of us,” said Lesbia, “when we are housed and sustained without sign of either.”

“I have been grateful for the echo of my own home life,” said Mr. Firebrace.

“I have felt uneasy,” said Juliet. “I have not the generosity that can accept. It seems to give someone else the superior place. I believe it does.”

“The young man, Oliver Spode, the only son of his mother, and she a widow,” said Mr. Firebrace, in a rapid undertone. “To say the truth, my thoughts have run on that young man. I think he may owe me his name, as Oliver does. The name has stirred my memories. His mother is an old friend of mine, unless I mistake. And I do not see why I do so.”

“Someone you have not seen for years, or wanted to see, and would not have thought of by yourself,” said Oliver.
“That is what an old friend is. I would not ask an old friend to my home. This friend is new enough to be made a stranger of, and what could be nicer for him, or become us better? It is dreadful to do things on the ground of having known some one for so long.”

“His mother and I were hardly such ships in the night. We served a purpose for each other. It was after your grandmother died, when you were young. I came to this house, feeling alone and homeless, though I was given a home. That is the truest homelessness.”

“How can you be so absurd, Grandpa? The truest homelessness is not to be given one.”

“Well, I was glad of a friend who wanted something from me, whom I could know on terms of give-and-take.”

“It was on terms of give, wasn't it?” said Sir Roderick. “I remember the matter now. You made over some money to the lady; a Miss Spode; yes, that was the name. She must have been in some sort of trouble. In one sort anyhow.”

“You made it easy for me. And I did not know then that for you it was not so. I had the poor man's ignorance. It was a Mrs. Spode, whose husband died a little later. We came together and went apart. As the boy says, we name that an old friendship.”

“You were a friend in need,” said Juliet. “That would lead to going apart. When the need is ended, both sides want a different sort of friend. And one sees the reasons.”

“A sense of obligation seems a hard thing to carry,” said Lesbia. “I have always found the benefit worth it. I have not that sort of pride. When gratitude has been the payment I could make, I have made it willingly. Not that I have felt the other side was so much richer for it.”

“But you yourself were richer,” said her father. “You had paid your debt.”

“Of course she had not,” said Oliver.

“I shall like to see this young man and send my word to his mother,” said Mr. Firebrace, moving to a desk. “There
is a trinket that I will send to her, an old jewel that I have by me, an old earring that has lain idle through the years. I gave her its fellow the last time I saw her. It was a parting token. This one can be a greeting.”

“Oh, Spode has sold that earring,” said Oliver. “He showed it to me and said it was unique, but I knew I had seen one like it. Of course it was the one I played with as a child. He took it to a shop near the school, that deals in such things. Someone came in while he was there, and said she had a duplicate of it, and the man said the pair would fetch a price, and it worked out well. It must really be a stock design. Spode was very pleased, as his mother was in debt, and if the earring had not got her out of it, he might have had to do so. It sounds as if she is still the person she was.”

“How soon will he be coming?” said Maria.

“By the afternoon train. He will not be here yet.”

“He is right that the earring is unique,” said Mr. Firebrace, searching in the desk. “The one supposed to be a duplicate cannot be the same. This one of mine is its mate. They were made for my family, to a special design and of rare stones, but, of course, in the fashion of the day. One might be found that could be used to make a pair. So she still lets the money slip through her hands. She never kept a hold on it. I will send this earring to take the place of the other. One does as well as two. They are too large to wear as the fashion goes, and it can be made to hang on a chain. That is its natural destiny.”

“But that is a thing that is never done,” said Oliver. “Spode told me about it. It had not been done through all those years.”

“Well, it can be done now. It will awaken memories and start the train of thought, and probably will be done. But I cannot find the thing at the moment; I do not put my hand on it. It was in this drawer in its case, and neither is there. And no one knows of this drawer but you and me. The secret drawer we call it.”

“I know of it,” said Sir Roderick, “and so do Maria and Aldom. We all call it that.”

“It seems kind of us,” said Oliver.

“But no one uses it or thinks of it, except that some things of Maria's are there. The desk is hers and she gives me the use of it. What should I have, if she did not give it to me? The drawer is supposed to ensure absolute safety.”

“Of which we may all avail ourselves,” said Sir Roderick.

“But I hope only in a certain way. Has any of you put the earring to some use? You knew I had none for it.”

“What purpose could it serve?” said Maria. “No one could wear one earring. It is a useless thing, unless it is made into something else. And, as Oliver says, that is a thing that is never done.”

“Then Aldom must come into our minds. There is no help for it. I hope no murkiness is brewing.”

“Aldom has not touched it,” said Maria, “if that is what you mean.”

“Well, it has gone, and the case with it, and it cannot have taken up its bed and walked.”

“Aldom is as honest as you or I, as anyone else in the house.”

“Then let him say an honest word to us. He may have taken it for some lawful purpose, let us say to clean it. That can be our cover and his. I do not suggest there is any black stain on him, but people are not as white as snow.”

“Of course you suggest it, if you broach the matter. The question would be an insult.”

“Well, I ask you all to consider. Did anyone take it to use in any way, any time in the last score of years?”

“Neither Maria nor I wear earrings,” said Lesbia, “and neither Juliet nor anyone else could wear a single one.”

“I suppose Aldom does not wear them either. But the thing has found some escape. So no one had any purpose for it? Anyone may have had one. I have found one for it myself.”

“You are the most likely person to have disturbed it,” said Sir Roderick. “When did you see it last?”

“But I am not the actual person. I saw it last in Oliver's hands, when he was a child.”

“That was probably the means of its escape.”

“No, I locked it up when he put away childish things. To him it was one of those.”

“Earrings always seem of those to me,” said Lesbia. “As far as I am concerned, it could remain locked up for ever. But I remember my mother's wearing these, if I am thinking of the right ones.”

“It is a long time to depend on your memory, sir,” said Sir Roderick.

“It may be failing, but not as much as that.”

“I am going to fetch my glasses,” said Juliet. “I want to feel that nothing can escape me.”

“I did not know you wore them,” said her father.

“I did not mean you to know. It is a thing we are ashamed of without any reason. They make us look older and plainer and suggest mortal decay. And I should almost have thought those were reasons.”

“Well, the intended recipient does not know of her misfortune,” said Lesbia, “and need never know.”

“It is not nothing to me, my dear,” said her father. “I remember, as you do, your mother's wearing the earrings. My not touching this one for so long did not mean that I did not keep it safe. It should have been the safer.”

“You remember that, and you were going to give it away!” said Oliver. “And you gave one away all that time ago, when the memory was fresher! I am quite ashamed of you, Grandpa. I wonder you confess it.”

“I saw nothing against the simple truth. Things are of no use to the dead, and may do what they can for the living.”

“They seem to be of use to them for some while after they are dead. They are always kept intact at first.”

“I do not gain much from mementoes. And it is no good to manufacture sentiment.”

“I think you ought to manufacture a little. Indeed you seemed to be doing so.”

“Why did you not give the earrings to your daughters?” said Sir Roderick.

“I do not know. I wish I had. It would have saved this trouble.”

“It would have given pleasure to your own family,” said Juliet, as she returned. “And you felt you had done enough for them. The pleasure of people we have not seen for many years seems really Worth while. Perhaps we want to make up to them.”

“I fear it escaped from the desk in Oliver's childhood,” said Lesbia, “and has remained at large. And it must have got a taste for liberty by this time.”

“I wonder why it is a jest to all of you,” said her father.

“Your purpose for it was a sudden one, and will soon pass,” said Sir Roderick.

“Might the children know anything?” said Lesbia. “If it was ever about the house, they may have come on it.”

“I will not have them asked,” said Maria. “Why should they be the target for anyone's chance suspicions?”

“They could not be for mine, as I had none. Neither the word nor what it carries comes from me.”

“No one can be asked about it. No one should have taken it, and therefore no one has done so.”

“And no one who had taken it, would admit it,” said Sir Roderick. “The person who would do the one thing, would not do the other. There is no use in questions of that kind; I never know why people ask them.”

“They want to clear up a mystery and cannot believe that people will not help them,” said Oliver. “They want the truth and are vexed that they do not have it. And, of course, it is vexing.”

“So it is, my boy,” said Mr. Firebrace.

“Is that it?” said Juliet, pointing to the floor. “There in that crevice between the boards, a sort of gleam! It seems to come and go. There it is again, a sudden spark!”

Oliver followed the direction of her eyes, picked up the earring and laid it on the desk. His grandfather took it in his hand.

“Well, will that ever be explained?”

“It will, in many ways and many times,” said Lesbia. “I am trying to think of the first.”

“It will not be by me. But I make no protest, as I have no proof.”

“But that is when protest is useful,” said Oliver. “You would not need them both.”

“It may have lain there for years,” said Sir Roderick.

“Someone would have seen it,” said Mr. Firebrace, “as someone saw it today.”

“Perhaps some dust was swept away, and left it exposed,” said Lucius.

“It was certainly exposed, my boy. The more so, that it was without its case.”

“Grandpa, you have a dark, sad mind,” said Oliver.

“He cannot take his eyes off the earring,” said Lesbia. “When he did not look at it for twenty-five years or more!”

“It would be a wonder if I could. This is not the earring that was lost. It is the other, that I gave away all that time ago. I know it by a mark on the back.”