A God and His Gifts (19 page)

“It is true. But her life has been a full one. And I feel she knows it.”

“I have no doubt of it. It could hardly have escaped her.”

“You and she might have had a friendship, if you had come together. But it seemed it should not be.”

“It did. You could hardly betray yourself before your marriage.”

“Would you have liked to have sons?”

“I suppose I should. I see people do like it.”

“You would not like the position of my wife?”

“The words can have two meanings. On the whole I should not.”

“On the whole Ada does.”

“Well, she is large-hearted. I think my heart must be only of average size.”

“You can't think that average is the word for you.”

“Not on the whole. No one thinks that of himself. If anyone did, we should sometimes meet it.”

“I believe we meet it in Ada. She does not see herself as above the average.”

“But she knows how rare that is. It is a way of feeling she is above it.”

“I am grateful to her, Rosa. Do not think I am not. But I might have been grateful to you.”

“I don't want gratitude. It is earned too hardly. And people do not give enough.”

“Perhaps not. But I have tried to give it. I believe my wife has found it all worth while.”

“Some of it has been so. She has taken the rough with the smooth. I should have been inclined to reject the rough. I don't know why it always has to be included.”

“Well, I have a good wife, Rosa, dear sons, grandchildren coming. But I hoped to have them through you. And to-day I feel I must imagine it. It is not often in my thought.”

“It hardly ever is. So do not put it into mine. I have no place for it.”

“So you really never feel regret?”

“You think I should imagine what might have been? We found I had not a large heart. Now you must find I have not much imagination.”

“In me it is the force of my life. And to-day it is working on you.”

“What do you mean? You don't want to use me in a book?”

“You would not recognise yourself. Would you not be glad to be of help to me?”

“I am seldom glad to be of help. The gladness would not be on my side. And we are supposed not to write
about a person until the deep feeling is past. So that is what it is.”

“Rosa, I gave you a book before I was married. With a farewell poem on the flyleaf. If you have it, will you lend it to me? It would be of help.”

“I will give it to you. It is yours. It holds something for you and nothing for me. You can put it to your own use.”

Hereward accepted the book, and soon afterwards took his leave. He seemed ready to be gone, as if his thought was pressing forward. His companion let him go and did not look after him.

When he reached his house, he left the book in the hall while he changed his clothes. Ada and Salomon entered from outside, and Ada took up the book and glanced at it.

“What is this? The poem that is written here? What does it mean?”

“Yes, I see it, Mother. It means or has meant what it says. It may mean nothing now. The years have passed.”

“Your poor father! I have wondered what he did before we were married. It seems there must have been something.”

“Considering what he did afterwards? Yes, there must have been. I have wondered too. Well, it seems it was no bad thing.”

“My poor Hereward! I was not the woman for him. So I was not even then.”

“Mother, was he the man for you? Is that someone you have not known? Perhaps that was equal between you. And you have come to a fair end.”

“Other things have not been equal. And there have been things before the end. I do not forget them. I never shall. And there are others who will not forget. But we will not speak of the poem to your father. It was not written for our eyes.”

“Or it would not have told us so much. And it tells us something more. The woman it was written for has parted with it. And to the man who wrote it and gave it. Perhaps we are told enough.”
As they entered the library, Hereward followed with Henry in his arms, having met him as he came from the garden. The latter carried the book, and seemed content with his possession of it.

“Read,” he said as his father sat down.

“No, you read to us,” said Hereward.

Henry leant towards the book and appeared held by its words.

“‘Ride a cock horse

To Banbury Cross,'”

he said, as if struck by them.

“Well, go on, or do you forget?”

“Not forget. Book not tell any more.”

“No, say what is true,” said Nurse. “You often forget just there! ‘And see a fine lady—'”

“‘Get on a white horse',” said Henry, in a painstaking tone, his eyes close to the page.

“There is something written on the blank leaf,” said Sir Michael. “It looks like a poem.”

“That is what it is,” said Hereward. “An effort of my youth. Not to be regarded or revealed.”

“I did not know you wrote poetry.”

“I don't. And I have realised it. I found it was not what I wrote.”

Sir Michael made a movement to take the book, but Henry forestalled him.

“No, not Grandpa's. Take it upstairs. Henry's own book.”

“Well, perhaps you can have it,” said Nurse, with a glance at Hereward. “But you would like to hear a story first.”

“Once upon a time,” said Henry, urgently, turning to his father.

Hereward rose to the effort, and as Henry became absorbed, received the book from Nurse and put it in his pocket.

“Good-Morning, Sir Hereward,” said Galleon.

“Oh, good-morning. So that is what you call me now. I had forgotten about it.”

“It will have to be remembered, Sir Hereward. The change has taken place.”

“It is only a nominal change. It will not affect myself.”

“Well, that is as you feel, Sir Hereward.”

“My life and my work will go on. The difference will only be in name.”

“Names are an indication, Sir Hereward. And this is something further.”

“You feel that work and a title do not go together?”

“Well, there tends to be a gulf, Sir Hereward.”

“This is a very small title.”

“As old as the Tudors, Sir Hereward, I am told.”

“And a writer may be a man without a background?”

“Well, it is as you say, Sir Hereward.”

“I meant it was as you would say.”

“There was no need for me to take it upon myself, Sir Hereward.”

“You would respect me more, if I did nothing?”

“On the contrary, Sir Hereward. There are duties in every sphere.”

“My eldest son represents me. He is my deputy.”

“Yes, Sir Hereward. It can only be the word.”

“We need the money that I earn.”

Galleon paused and then just inclined his head.

“You think that is not a subject for words?”

“It is not always seen as one, Sir Hereward.”

“You feel the fact is a thing to be ashamed of?”

“It is a chance circumstance, Sir Hereward.”

“We could hardly have kept things up, if I had done nothing.”

“These places have their life, Sir Hereward. It involves the power of holding to it.”

“They can lose their life. In a measure they depend on money!”

“You are not of a stock that looks to it, Sir Hereward. There are other standards.”

“But everything has to be paid for.”

“It is true that the world is run on that basis, Sir Hereward.”

“And does our corner not belong to it?”

“It is perhaps apart in more than one sense, Sir Hereward.”

“You feel that I fail it in some way?”

“Well, perhaps that you withdraw from it, Sir Hereward.”

“Won't you get tired of using my name?”

“No, Sir Hereward. The question would not arise.”

“I shall get rather tired of hearing it.”

“It will cease to strike your ear, Sir Hereward. Good-morning, my lady.”

Joanna entered the room by herself, a reminder of how seldom she had done so. She was dressed as usual, but her look was unfamiliar. Her son went to meet her and take her to a seat.

“Mamma, this is brave and wise. The first steps have to be taken. It is like you to know it.”

“It would be like most of us. How can we help knowing?”

“At the moment you wish you had no more to take.”

“No, I wish both your father and I had more.”

“I know what it is to you to be here without him.”

“Well, it is the alternative to being nowhere.”

“You are feeling he is the more fortunate?”

“No, I suppose I am. But it is not the word.”

“We all have to die in our time. There is no escape.”

“When we have had to be alive. And when the two things are so different. We ought not to have to do both.”

“It is true, my lady, if I may interpose,” said Galleon. “The one does not help with the other. It seems to render it unnatural.”

“And in spite of that it leads to it. The position is unreasonable.”

Ada came into the room, and at once turned her eyes on her mother-in-law.

“Mamma, it is what I expected. I meet what I knew I should. May I do as well, when my times comes.”

“Perhaps you may escape it,” said Hereward. “A man may outlive his wife. It is a thing that happens.”

“Not as often as the other thing. It is the woman who is left. Women marry younger, and on the whole have longer lives. It is no advantage to them.”

“I think it is,” said Joanna. “And I am one of them.”

“In a sense you hardly are. You are so much one by yourself. And your courage does not deceive us. We know what is in your mind. That you have come to the end. But you are too brave to allow yourself to betray it.”

“People are always brave in trouble. How can they be anything else? It is brave of them to suffer it.”

“Dear Mamma! You are feeling there is nothing left for you.”

“I do feel there is only a little left.”

“You will live in the past. That will always be your own.”

“I have lived in it. But then it was the present. And that was much better.”

“There is the future,” said Ada, raising her hands, “the great, unforeseeable future. With its hopes and fears, its demands and its duties. You are to have a share of it.”

“It does not sound so very good. But I daresay it would not. This was once the future.”

“Well, we are now in the present,” said Hereward.

“And we all have our duty to that. I must go and attend to mine.”

“No, you must not, Hereward,” said Ada. “You must remain with your mother. No duty is as pressing as that to-day. An exception can sometimes be made. And Galleon is here with the breakfast. Are we to live on air?”

“You may have feared it, my lady. I have had to assert myself. Trouble is taken to mean that life has not to go on.”

“Well, it ought to mean it,” said Joanna. “It should be allowed to prevent it.”

“Oh, that is what I am called now!” said Ada, as if taken aback. “I am not sure that I like it. No, I find I do not. It is someone else's appellation, not mine. I had forgotten, and I shall continue to forget.”

“Other people will remember, my lady. The change cannot be denied.”

“But then there will be two of us. How is that to be arranged? If the title is mine, and I suppose it is, what of the accepted bearer of it?”

“Joanna, Lady Egerton, my lady,” said Galleon, evenly.

“I am too old to have a Christian name,” said Joanna.

“Then you shall not have one,” said Ada. “You shall be what you have always been. And I know the thought in your mind. The name was for Papa's lips and for his alone. And so it shall be to the end. It does not matter what I am. I will be anything that comes about. I have no claim, or anyhow I make none.”

“There is no choice, my lady. And the name is not used in speech.”

“Oh, how we are all under orders! We in the land of the free! Well, we must submit, I suppose. If the change must come, it must.”

“We have made enough of it,” said Hereward. “It is no such great one.”

“It is a mark of the change in our lives. And that is a great one. It will be a shock to Merton. I have sent the message.”

“He and his wife are in the hall,” said Hereward, who now spoke of Hetty in this way.

“Ah, he would come to his mother. My son, I had to send a sad word. Yes, go first to your grandmother. She is the claimant to-day. All our thought centres round her. We take a secondary place.”

“Now this is a relief!” said Merton. “I looked to be without grandparents. Things are only half as bad as I expected. I did not know that could happen. I feel it is too much.”

“And so it is. She comes out high. You must see that her grandsons are worthy of her.—Father, I knew you would be here. Aunt Penelope, I looked for this. It is what we can do for each other. To be ourselves as far as we can.”

“I suppose I am being myself,” said Reuben. “But I half-felt we ought to be different.”

“So did I,” said Salomon. “I felt my ordinary self was not enough.”

“Hereward may not quite come up to himself,” went on Ada. “You may find him a thought aloof and silent. I think we must look for it to-day. His mind is on the past.”

“Mine is being held to the present,” said Merton.

“Well, I will take my cue,” said Hereward. “My wife will fulfil a double part.”

“Well, it is what my hand findeth to do. So I do it with my might. These are difficult moments at the best. And a general silence would not serve. I don't know why we feel a sort of uneasiness and guilt, when we have lost someone near to us. But so it is. There is no eluding it.”

“I know why,” said Salomon. “We are uneasy at the proof that we can die, and guilty because we have not died, when someone else has. It seems ungenerous of us.”