Two Worlds and Their Ways (34 page)

“Yes, they gave him a great brain,” said Holland, “and that large head to keep it in, and give it room to grow.”

“And how did the rest of you come?” said Maria, using the past tense to bring Sefton into the lists.

“Shelley came next, and the rest of us nowhere.”

“And no one near to Bacon?”

“Well, Shelley came up to him in brains, but not in other things.”

“My little son!” said Maria.

“Shelley looks as if he did not like the description,” said Holland.

“Though it cannot be called incorrect,” said Bacon.

“You are in an advantageous position, sir,” said Sir Roderick to Mr. Firebrace, who sat opposite the girls.

“That is so, my boy; and as I am too old to be of account, I avail myself of it.”

“Who is the old gentleman, Clemence?” said Verity.

“Oh, some sort of relation, who lives in the house.”

“Isn't he your grandfather?” said Esther. “Your brother called him that.”

“He is Oliver's grandfather, not mine.”

“How can he be? You must have the same.”

“Oh, I can't keep on expounding it all. If you were interested, you would not need so much explanation.”

“My husband married twice,” said Maria, in a clear, cordial tone, smiling at her daughter's guests. “I am his second wife. Mr. Firebrace is the father of the first, and so Oliver's grandfather and not my children's.”

“Oh, I see,” said Verity. “It is like a lesson.”

“Not at all, Verity,” said Miss Chancellor. “I hope your lessons are not often as simple as that. I cannot understand your difficulty. You are not usually so easily perplexed.”

“These family trees are complicated,” said Sir Roderick, with a note of sympathy. “They are only clear on paper.”

“Then I am right that they are like a lesson, Sir Roderick.”

“Then remember that lessons should be mastered as quickly and thoroughly as possible, Verity.”

“You should not be so harsh, Miss Chancellor, when we are having a day's pleasure,” said Gwendolen.

“You need not give your intelligence a rest, Gwendolen. That is a misuse of a holiday too often made.”

“I wish Miss Chancellor would take a holiday,” said Esther, in a murmur audible to Sir Roderick, who controlled a smile, and to Lesbia, who kept her eyes down and did not do so.

“I think it is dignified of me to have my particular grandfather,” said Oliver. “It is not everyone who can keep his own forbear in the house. Do you not agree with me, Miss Gwendolen?”

Gwendolen was taken aback and made a conscious response.

“I don't think it was dignified to be music master in a school, Mr. Shelley.”

“And why not, Gwendolen?” said Miss Chancellor.

“Well, he must have watched five-finger exercises and heard all kinds of strumming. It was an extraordinary choice.”

“I did not dislike the idea,” said Oliver. “It reminded me of a picture in the Academy. The Music Master. Myself resting my head on my hand and my eyes on the keyboard. And a boy pupil seemed to be a change from a girl, and to have a certain pathos.”

“And had he any?” said Sir Roderick.

“Well, not of the kind I thought.”

“You might as well say my position was undignified, Gwendolen,” said Miss Chancellor.

Sir Roderick raised his eyes.

“She was talking of a man teacher and a boys' school,” said Oliver. “The opposite situation. She thought it suggested poverty and the common task.”

“Well, no one could apply the term, ‘undignified', to such things as those.”

“Isn't it dreadful that people can?” said Oliver.

There was some laughter, in which Miss Chancellor joined a moment later.

“I should be proud if I could teach anything,” said Maria.

“Yes, that is my view, Lady Shelley.”

“Now I am going to desert the boys for the girls,” said Sir Roderick, rising and gathering up the implements at his place.

Aldom came to his aid; other changes of position were involved; and as the stir subsided Maud's voice was heard.

“In using the word, ‘dignified', we should be clear if we are using it in its true sense. Dignity is not synonymous with prosperity.”

“Quite right, quite right,” said Sir Roderick.

“Does it tend to rise out of it?” said Oliver. “Of course I hope it does not.”

“Are you going to take up any work when you leave
school?” said Maria to Maud, unconscious of the sequence of her thought.

“Well, Lady Shelley, that would be my choice in a way. But there will be other claims upon me.”

“Home claims save women from a great deal,” said Sir Roderick.

“And deprive them of as much in some cases,” said Miss Chancellor. “I am afraid in a good many.”

“Well, that may sometimes be so. But what do they deprive them of, now? Incessant work and a daily grind that ages them before their time. What is there to be said for it?”

Miss Chancellor's amusement was so easy that it suggested no prospect of a serious reply.

“Roderick, if you had been a little less foolish, you might have been rewarded differently,” said Maria.

“By that flash of the eyes that carries terror with it,” said Gwendolen. “Miss Chancellor would not do for a picture in the Academy.”

“That would have been a reward indeed,” said Sir Roderick, just bowing towards Miss Chancellor.

“Well, really, Sir Roderick, you are the last person to make a target of people's eyes,” said Miss Chancellor, looking through her glasses at her host. “You have, without exception, the bluest pair it has been my lot to meet.”

“I have never seen such blue ones either,” said Esther to her companions. “And the butler's are just the same. They come suddenly open in just the same way.”

“It may be a mark of the local stock,” said Maud. “The same characteristics do appear in the same place. In some counties the tendency is marked.”

“My husband is not used to compliments on his appearance,” said Maria, as Sir Roderick's eyes fell.

“We ought to talk about the girls' eyes, though we might find ourselves confronted by a row of lashes.”

“Well, if you give warning like that, Sir Roderick,” said Miss Chancellor, looking full at him, as one who had not
received it, “I do not know what you would expect.”

“What colour are your eyes, Miss James?” said Sir Roderick, as the result of looking round the table to see that everyone had full attention.

“Hazel, Sir Roderick, what ever that may be. Or that is what I have been brought up to believe. I am never quite sure what the colour is, or whether it is the colour of my eyes or not. And I have never concerned myself much about it.”

“Hazel,” said Sir Roderick, after leaning forward with an air of concerning himself more.

“No one has dared to tell me that my eyes are green,” said Maria, overestimating the general courage, as no one knew they were.

“Green is a most unusual colour, Lady Shelley,” said Miss Chancellor. “Not that I think it is a fair description.”

“What colour are your eyes, Miss Tuke?” said Sir Roderick, seeing, or rather feeling, an alertness in Miss Tuke's bearing.

“Blue-grey or grey-blue, Sir Roderick. It does not much matter which, and anyhow it cannot be determined.”

Miss Tuke was wrong.

“Grey-blue,” said Sir Roderick, after leaning forward again.

“Now the boys' eyes, Father,” said Oliver.

“What are they?” said Sir Roderick, as if this hardly mattered.

“They are different colours,” said Bacon, as though he did not think it did.

“You have a noble pair, my boy,” said Sir Roderick, as he saw this.

“All the better to see with.”

“And is the noble head the better to think with?”

“Well most people do not think much.”

“Would you put me among them?”

“Well,” said Bacon, after looking into his face, “I don't think it matters with everyone.”

“Do you envy this great man?” said Sir Roderick, to the other boys.

“No,” said Holland. “I only want to be a nice, ordinary person.”

“I don't especially want to be ordinary,” said Sturgeon. “I don't see any good in it. I am rather sorry that I am.”

“I should not call Sturgeon ordinary, Sir Roderick,” said Miss James, from across the table. “I do not think the word gives him.”

“Well, you must know, Miss James. Your word carries weight.”

“Well, I have many opportunities of observing the boys, and it leads to forming an unconscious estimate of them.”

“Where would you put my boy?” said Sir Roderick, in a tone so easy that he hardly seemed to utter the words.

“Well, there is no need to say he was not ordinary, Sir Roderick, as no one thought he was.”

Maria's face flushed, and she seemed to hold herself from moving forward.

“Where would Miss Tuke put my girl?” she said, her tone seeming to echo the easiness of her husband's.

“My work is to look after them, Lady Shelley, and with such a number I find it enough. I do not see their work and play. All I can say of Clemence is that I miss her so much that I could cry when I go into her dormitory.”

“Why did you snatch her from us, Lady Shelley?” said Gwendolen.

“Perhaps for that very reason, that I cried when I went into her dormitory. I hope it was not too much because of that. I thought the life at home would suit her better, kind and clever as you all are.”

“It may suit her health better,” said Miss Chancellor, looking at Clemence. “She was paler and thinner as the term went on, sorry as I am to admit it. My hopes of taking her back with us are fading. I confess I was not quite without them.”

“I did not know we had a traitor in the camp,” said Lesbia.
“Oh, you are the person I ought to have asked about her standing, Miss Chancellor.”

“It is not my habit to talk of the girls to their faces, Lady Shelley. I remember how I disliked it when I was a child. But this hardly comes under the head of what can be termed personal remarks. I will say what Miss James said of your son, that there is no need to say she is not ordinary, as no one thought she was.”

Maria drew a breath and turned her eyes on her husband, as though calling his attention to a vindication of herself.

“What was my standing among the masters?” said Oliver. “I do not like it to be thought that no one wants to know. I am sensitive about my position in my family.”

“We are dependent upon you, Miss James,” said his father.

“Well, Sir Roderick, I can only refer to the humorous and original atmosphere that was diffused through the school in Mr. Shelley's time with us. I cannot say anything more intimate, as I was not thrown with him.”

“Cannot you say a word against the new man?” said Oliver.

“I am not criticising him, Mr. Shelley. He does his work and takes his part in the common life, and that is as much as can be said for most of us. I do not imply any disparagement. There would be no occasion.”

“I think we will have coffee in the drawing-room,” said Maria, rising.

“You cannot give your mind to the talk about me,” said Oliver. “How I am alone amongst many!”

Miss Chancellor followed Maria with an air of ease, and Miss James and Miss Tuke with observation and reproduction of it. The girls appeared accustomed to the ceremony, and the boys to be surprised by it.

“Do you always have coffee with your parents, Shelley?” said Holland.

“No, it is only because you are here.”

“Do you, Clemence?” said Verity, in her idle tone.

“Well, I do sometimes, but I am older than Sefton,” said Clemence, looking to see if her family was in earshot, and seeing only Oliver, who appeared not to hear.

“Are we to see Adela?” said Verity, with her veiled smile. “We have seen Aldom.”

“That suggestion should surely have come from Clemence,” said Maud.

“You can come upstairs, if you like. She will be in the schoolroom. Mother, we are going upstairs to see Adela.”

“Yes, do, my dear. She will be very pleased. But do not exaggerate the entertainment. Bring your friends down when they have had enough.”

The girls linked arms and mounted the staircase, the guests noting its shallowness and breadth, the hostess relieved that no eyes were upon them. She had not reckoned with this transference of school customs to her home. Adela rose at their entrance, set chairs for them, and stood in silence.

“Is this the schoolroom, Clemence?” said Esther, in a tone of lively interest.

“Yes. It used to be the nursery. It still looks rather like that.”

“Of course your brother is only eleven,” said Verity, in smiling quotation.

“The room has grown of itself and never had anything done to it,” said Gwendolen. “It somehow makes me feel homesick.”

“I used to want it sometimes, when I was at school,” said Clemence.

“We have heard so much about you, Adela,” said Maud, her tone suggesting that it was time for such a speech.

“Thank you, miss. No doubt your name is familiar.”

“We grudge you your companion,” said Gwendolen. “I believe you used your influence to wean her from us.”

“Well, miss, I do not take the view that her own home is not the place for her. I do not disguise the opinion.”

“I think you ought to,” said Verity. “It savours of mean triumph.”

“Well, triumph it may be in a sense, miss. But meanness does not come into it, it not being in my nature.”

“You have looked after Miss Clemence all her life,” said Maud. “You have more claim to her than we have.”

“Well, miss, claim is not the word, as I am aware. But a bond remains.”

“Do you help her to choose her clothes?” said Esther.

“Well, miss, she has not reached the stage of interest, as you have no doubt observed. But the time for that is to come.”