A God and His Gifts (15 page)

“Merton, I am grateful,” said Hetty, going to his side. “I care for you more for this. I care in that way
for no one else. The moment in the past is dead. I can hardly believe in the memory. I can't wish that Henry was not with us. There is no one here who can wish it. But that is all that is left.”

“We know who Henry is,” said Merton, almost to himself. “We thought we should never know. It seems strange that we thought it. He will come to think in his time. When he asks who he is, who will answer him?”

“The time is not yet,” said Salomon. “Is not the present enough?”

“My wife, it is,” said Sir Michael to Joanna. “It is much for us at our age. We must not judge, and will not; we must still look up to our son. This does not alter what he has been to us and done for us. But I wish we had not known. I wish I could have spared you at the end of your life.”

“There was nothing to spare me. It is what I have thought. It is too late to say it now. It would be seen as wisdom after the event, and make people unkind. But not much wisdom was needed. I saw and heard and knew. And I am glad to be sure, and to see Henry as our grandson. And as I am glad, I will not complain, though I see that perhaps I should. I see how nicely you complain for me. But you need not talk of the end of my life. I like to feel I am in the middle of it.”

“Am I utterly alone?” said Ada, standing apart. “Does anyone think of me, of my place in the grievous story? Is it only my son who has been wronged, and left to live under the wrong? I have to see the truth for myself, to face the difference. Henry has belonged to us all. Now he is Hereward's son and not mine. The same change goes through everything. This house is my home no longer. It has always held a life without foundation. I have felt the emptiness underneath. I forgave the trouble with my sister. But I cannot always forgive. It becomes a weakness and an indifference to wrong. And this wrong was deliberate and furtive, and the deception was to last my life. And further
wrong was on the way. I cannot live in dishonour, with a husband I cannot trust. I will return to my father, to rectitude and strength, to a man who can rule himself. I feel I am under an alien roof. My younger sons have left it. My eldest must make his choice.”

“I hardly can, Mother,” said Salomon. “This house is at the root of my life. It is bound up with my being, with my boyhood, with all I have ever had. It is the scene of the only life I have known. I will be honest; of the life I have wearied of, but would not leave. My brothers have lives of their own. This is the whole of mine. The choice is made for me. Or rather I have no choice.”

“Well, your mother believes in honesty,” said Hereward, keeping his eyes from his son. “She will not find fault with that.”

“I find none, Hereward. I see it is straight and clear. And I see its truth. And I can keep in touch with Salomon. You would not put trouble in the way. You would not fail us there.”

“You will think again, Mother,” said Salomon. “What will you lose, if you leave us? Your life with your husband and sons, your place as a wife, as a woman who has done well, and won return. These things are not nothing to any honest woman, or in the eyes of any honest man. And in themselves they are much. You have lived with the wrong for years. It is no greater than it has been. What would you gain but loneliness and a sense of being revenged? Are these things worth so much to you, being the woman you are? We have seen what you would lose. Think of me and of your other sons. Think—I will say it—of my father. His weakness needs your strength. His kind of helplessness needs your help. This last threat shows his need. Will you not give it to him? Ask your father. We know his home is yours. But ask him if you do not need your own.”

“What do you say to it, Father? They are plausible words. But is not their danger there?”

“They might be mine,” said Alfred.

“But, Father, what of the wrong to me, and so to you? Is it nothing to you? Are you untouched by it?”

“I am touched to the heart. I am your father. But I have long known of this. When I have come, I have seen and heard what escaped those who lived with it. When I was once alive to the truth, it lay before my eyes. No one can be always on his guard. The moment when your sons heard incautious words, was not one by itself. I hoped it would not escape. I feared it would. It has, and we can only face it.”

“Aunt Penelope, what do you say? I know you will speak the truth. I know that Father has spoken it. I must steer my way between you. Have you known what he thought?”

“No, he has been silent. I did not know. I have known only with you. When I knew, I felt at first with you. I saw myself in your place. And then I felt with your son, and then with your father. Their words convinced me. I feel they should convince you. It is a poor account of myself.”

“No, it is an honest one. One that few people would have given. So you all advise me to accept the truth, and to begin my life again?”

“No, to go on with it,” said Alfred. “There has been no change.”

“There has been a hidden one. And there might have been another.”

“My dear, it is all the same thing. Your husband has his powers and his weakness. You are faced with one; you are still dependent on the other. I am grieved and angry. I did not wholly like the marriage. But it is late to undo it; we know it is too late. For you own sake, for his, for your sons', for your father's, you must take it as it is.”

“Well, I will be guided by you, Father. I have lived by your guidance and never found it fail. I will stay with my husband and my son. It may be the better thing.”

“Do not stay for my sake,” said Hereward. “Do
nothing that is not for your own. I will fall in with either course.”

“I suppose it is for my own sake, Hereward. It is taking what is left. I will be honest; it is keeping what I have. There would be nothing in its place. And it is better for my sons. And I feel it is better for you, though you may not say it.”

“I should not say what does not need to be said.”

“And shall I do and say likewise?” said Merton, in a tone of self-mockery. “Am I also to retract my hasty words? ‘I will try to be a son to you, Father. Better perhaps than I have been. If I had not failed you, you yourself might not have failed. Let us learn from each other'.”

“I am glad, Merton,” said Hereward, as if accepting the literal words. “I will not say more. Again it need not be said.”

“Zillah, how much have you known?” said Ada. “Hereward keeps nothing from you.”

“Nothing. He did not keep this.”

“And you accepted and condoned it?”

“He is himself, as we are all ourselves. He too may have had to condone. He too may have wished for a difference.”

“You mean I have not been the wife for him?”

“I mean you must accept him as he accepts you. The demand is the same on you both.”

“To you that is fair,” said Ada, sighing. “It would not be to everyone. It is not to me. What we are and what we do are separate things. We can control the one and not the other. I shall have to try to forget.”

“It is not fair,” said Alfred. “You have done your part. And Hereward has not done his. And you will not forget. But a wrong is better suffered as it is, than carried beyond itself. That you must suffer is no reason for suffering further.”

“How wonderful everyone is!” said Joanna to her husband. “I did not know they were all like this. I know
that some troubles bring out the best in people. But I should not have thought this was one of them. I suppose, when there is so much quality, anything does to bring it out. I am so proud of everyone.”

“Well, I am proud of everyone but Hereward,” said Sir Michael in a low tone. “I can't reconcile myself to this. I had had no thought of it. I am not a person who suspects such things. I can't understand the excuses made for him. Though of course as his father I am grateful.”

“Oh, but isn't it better to be proud of him too? We should not like him to be left out. And a mother has to forgive everything. It has always been recognised.”

“I suppose a father should too.”

“I don't think it matters about a father. Anyhow there is no rule. Perhaps we only have rules that can be kept.”

Henry ran into the room and paused with his eyes on Trissie's face.

“Poor sister—!” he said, at a loss for the name. “Come to stay with us and then cry.”

“I can't help it,” she said, speaking to anyone who heard her. “It is all through me. You were happy, and you will never be again. And I have not done anything. I never have. I am not a person who could. When people are kind to me, it is because I am less than they are. I did not want to be. I wish I was not. How could I think it was anything more, when it has never been?”

Henry waited for her to pause, placed a doll on her lap, and went on to Hereward. He was not taken up as he expected, as his father was conscious about showing his feeling for him.

“Dear, dear doggie!” he said, looking round. “Not run after Henry any more.”

“So you met the dog again?” said Ada.

“Oh, yes, met him.”

“No, you know we did not,” said Nurse. “You must say what is true.”

“Oh, yes, always say it.”

“You only thought about the dog?” said Hereward.

“Yes, think about him. And he think about Henry.”

“What a nice doll it is!” said Trissie.

“It is mine, you know,” said Henry, glancing back.

“Will you give it to me for Maud?” said Merton.

“Oh, yes, he will.”

“Are you quite sure you don't want it?”

“New one,” said Henry.

“Oh, you are a spoilt little boy,” said Nurse.

“Yes, he is. Not Maud; just Henry.”

“Well, you can buy a doll to-morrow,” said Hereward, his voice seeming to assume a return to normal life.

“To-day,” said his son.

“No, the shop is shut,” said Nurse.

“No,” said Henry, whose disregard of truth was equalled by his suspicion of it.

“It will be open in the morning.”

“Very nice shop. Very large. Buy a train.”

“No, no. You are to buy a doll.”

“A kite,” said Henry, with humour in his eyes.

“No, a doll. You must not be greedy.”

“Oh, no. Give one to Maud.”

“Will you give her the new one?” said Merton.

“No, Maud like this one better.”

“Well, let me have it for her.”

“No, one, two. Henry have them.”

“So there is not one for Maud after all?”

“Yes, poor Maud!” said Henry, offering the doll.

“You had better seize the moment,” said Hereward, smiling at Merton, and going to the door.

“Well, what a scene!” said Salomon to Reuben. “What power we had, that we thought we should not use! I suppose people always use it. The sense of having it leads to one end.”

“I was driven to it. And no wrong is done. We were living over a morass. The surface was already broken. Uncle Alfred and Grandma knew.”

“I can say nothing,” said Merton. “There is nothing that can be said. What is unspeakable must be unspoken. It will be in the end. It is not that it throws Father off the heights. He was never on them to me. It has done something that will never be undone.”

“But he is to return to the heights,” said Reuben. “You are to find you have never liked him so well. You gave your own hint of it.”

“And it is what happens when wrong-doers are exposed,”
said Salomon. “I always feel I should like them less. But it seems to be unusual.”

“You must go, Aunt Penelope?” said Ada. “It has been a strange day for you. You will come in future with a new knowledge. You will know what lies under the surface of our life. Well, we shall talk with a full understanding. And Father will not carry hidden thoughts.”

“It seems that a good deal of good has been done,” said Joanna. “Of course we know that truth is best. But sometimes it hardly seems it would be. I am rather surprised that it is.”

“You feel the moment is a light one, Grandma?” said Merton.

“What a word for a writer, Merton! Surely you know about the melancholy that underlies all humour.”

“It now underlies everything for me. Nothing can be set apart.”

“There may be little outward change,” said Zillah. “We shall know what we do, and never mention it. The subject will protect itself.”

“Then it is not like other subjects,” said Joanna. “But then I suppose it is not. There would not be any subjects, if we had not developed the power of speech. They are not really natural!”

“It does not seem the word for this one,” said Salomon. “And the guests will be gone and leave us with it. How will Father meet the occasion? He may be equal to it. He must have carried off a good many.”

Hereward carried off this occasion by at once ignoring and accepting it. He joined in the talk as it arose, neither alluding to the disclosure nor avoiding what it involved, and as soon as it was natural, spoke of his work and left them.

Sir Michael had sat by himself, hardly glancing at his son, and speaking barely enough to avoid the effect of silence. He leaned back with an open sigh.

“Well, this is a relief. It is a chance to sort our thoughts.
We have to get used to the truth. I admit I find it much. I feel I shall never see Hereward without remembering it. And perhaps we ought not to forget. It is sad knowledge for his sons. And my Zillah has had to carry it alone. She could not turn to her father.”

“Hereward and I shared it, Father, as we have shared everything.”

“You were nearer to him than his wife,” said Ada. “It was as it had to be. I suppose it is how it has always been.”

“His wife was hardly the person to share this secret,” said Salomon. “It was largely because of her, that it had to be one.”