The Present and the Past (16 page)

‘You said you might keep a harem, my boy. I don't know how you would have managed with one.'

‘Yes, make a mock of me. It is what I expect. Leave me without a word of human kindness. I should be surprised by anything else.'

‘Then why be surprised by that?' said Mr Clare. ‘But you need not fear I will not serve you. It is the one way left to me to serve myself.'

‘It is a hard thing,' broke out his son, ‘this emptiness in my home. Silence instead of a familiar voice, silence instead of a familiar step, silence, silence, silence wherever I turn. Two women absorbed in each other like this! It is not a wholesome thing, apart from their being wives of the same man. It may set tongues to work.'

‘It is a long time since Catherine has been your wife.'

‘Well, she might almost be my wife again, now that she has a right in my house, or a right of way through it, or whatever it is she has. Whatever it may be, she makes the most of it. I am always encountering her, or her and Flavia together. I hardly dare to set foot in my own hall. They have no eyes or ears for anyone but each other. And I am left high and dry, with my children tossing a word to me out of pity. I wonder you like to see your son in such a plight. If I have no wife, I have the more need of a father.'

‘I wish I could meet the need, my boy. But time is running out. I have reached my useless days.'

‘You might let fall a word to Flavia at some time. Unless you are afraid of her. I believe a man is always afraid of a woman.'

‘We should be afraid of anyone to whom we let fall a word. Hell holds no fury like such a person.'

‘And you would think I might say the word for myself, a great, strong man in the heyday of my life. But my soul shrinks up within me when I think of those two pairs of eyes in those two women's faces. I don't want to see the noble souls behind them. They give nothing to me; they only tear my own soul out of its place. What I want is a little normal fellowship in my middle age.
I thought that Flavia and I would go down the years together, just as I thought it about Catherine. I am not a man to go alone through life. And I get a look or a word thrown to me out of their kindness. Kindness! It is a quality I have come to despise. If ever a man had enough of it, it is I. And you are looking at me as if you hardly saw me. I suppose I must expect nothing.'

‘You must expect it from me, my boy. I am past being of use. I have to ask for your help to me. It is true that I hardly see you. I am in need of the drug that helps me in my bodily decay. It is kept in the drawer of the desk. I am to take one tablet, as it is said that more would harm me. My days of labour and sorrow are to be prolonged.'

‘Do you take them more often than you did?' said Cassius, as he brought the flask.

‘I am not at an age to take less. It is a palliative, not a cure. And as such I am dependent on it. Ten is said to be fatal to us. It is written on the label to protect us from ourselves, or other people from us.'

‘Isn't it dangerous to have such things about?'

‘We do not do so. They are kept under cover. They are necessary in certain cases. You know that, when you are one of them.'

‘It would be an easy way of putting an end to oneself. Why are we not allowed to take our own lives? It seems that they are our own.'

‘We are seen as mattering enough to be forbidden to do so. I agree we should not expect it. Human lives are sacred, and we all have one. A poor thing, but our own.'

‘So I could end my life by taking ten of these,' said Cassius. ‘And I might do so for all anyone would care. It would be a shock to people, I suppose.'

‘But you would not be here to see them suffer it. So it would be wasted.'

‘So it would in a way. I don't mean I want them to have it.'

‘Well, hardly enough to give your life for it.'

‘Oh, well, you have your own way of putting things. And I see it has a certain truth. But it is not the whole.'

‘A certain truth is our own truth, my boy. The whole seldom concerns us.'

‘This house would be a different place without me, though I am held to be of so little account.'

‘You would not see it in that state, however great a treat it would be.'

‘Oh well, well, you are still yourself. We don't know what we shall be able to do in our future state.'

‘Would that be the sort of privilege afforded, things being as you would have them?'

‘I only meant we might be granted a wider range.'

‘Dead men tell no tales, my boy. And they would do that, if they could do anything. And I doubt the advantage of seeing things going on without us. You see, that is what they would be doing.'

‘But in a different way.'

‘No, in the same way, but without us.'

‘You would miss me, if I were dead.'

‘It is you who will miss me. And I do not look to be flattered by it.'

‘I should miss you indeed, my dear old father. I could not face life without you. I can imagine taking ten of these, to go with you wherever it is. And I cannot think it is nowhere. There would be no hope in anything, and we cannot live without hope.'

‘That may be our reason for contriving it.'

‘I wonder what Flavia would think, if I put an end to myself.'

‘No, it is not your solution. You want your reward, and you would not have it.'

‘There is not much to bind me to life,'

‘But no more to tempt you to lose it.'

‘It would be a good lesson for people, to have to do without me.'

‘If you have their improvement enough at heart to die for it.'

‘It would be a kind of revenge on them.'

‘Well, perhaps you might die for that, if you could see it.'

‘Why should I want that so much more?'

‘Well, revenge is sweet, but it is not so true of people's improvement.'

‘I should like to see those two women's faces, if I were found cold and stiff in my bed.'

‘So it is as sweet as that. But you must give up hope. There is no way of arranging to see them.'

‘You must have death the end of everything. I believe we shall pass to a fuller life.'

‘And with your own kind of fullness.'

‘Well, I suppose we shall have passed beyond all personal feeling.'

‘It would be no good to take revenge, if you would not want it any more.'

‘You do not understand me. I was only using my imagination.'

‘Well, let it do the whole thing for you, my boy.'

Cassius heard sounds outside the door and went to open it. Flavia and Catherine were crossing the hall, with the five children about them. Cassius stood and surveyed them.

‘Well, are you all coming to say a word to your father?'

There was no reply.

‘Or is no one coming?' said Cassius, in another tone.

Toby took a few running steps towards him and retreated. Guy looked from his stepmother to his mother and did no more. The other children gave no sign.

‘I suppose they can recognize me when they see me. Anyone would think I was a stranger.'

‘No,' said Flavia gently, ‘I think no one would think that.'

‘So I am a monster, am I?'

‘You need not be that, to be difficult to approach.'

‘Now what a way to talk to me, a father such as I am! Have my children ever had a harsh word from me? If they have had a bitter one, whose fault has it been? Have they ever heard me raise my voice, seen me raise my hand? What would they say to an ordinary father, if I am seen like this?'

‘Ordinary things are sometimes best in their place.'

‘No, they are not. That is a speech without a meaning. You have thought of it at this moment as something clever to say.
Ordinary things are not as good as things above the ordinary.'

‘I said the best in their place.'

‘Things that are best in themselves, are best in any place,' said Cassius on a triumphant note. ‘Quality must hold its own.'

‘Yes, you do well, my boy,' said Mr Clare, as he went to the stairs.

‘Poor Father!' said Toby suddenly.

‘Yes, poor Father!' said Cassius. ‘Toby's poor old father! But Toby loves him, doesn't he?'

‘No. Oh, yes, poor Father!'

‘And Father loves his Toby.'

‘Yes, dear little boy.'

‘And dear Father.'

‘No, dear Toby.'

‘Will you two elder boys come for a walk with me?'

‘Yes,' said Guy, approaching him.

‘We were going for a walk with Mother,' said Fabian.

‘Well, which do you want to do?'

‘Well, we had arranged to go with Mother.'

‘Did you know that, Guy?' said Cassius.

‘No. Yes. Yes, I did.'

‘You are as bad as Toby.'

‘Or as good,' said Flavia. ‘They both tried to give you what you wanted.'

‘Oh, I don't want scraps of attention thrown to me, as if I were a beggar in their path. What a way to regard their father! I am content to go my own way, communing with myself. It may be the best companionship.'

‘It is the only kind we can have,' said Henry.

‘Oh, you have found that, have you? You are in the same plight as I am. Alone amongst many, as is said.'

‘Yes, that is what it seems to be, though I didn't know people said it. Megan and I have found that our minds are different.'

‘How would you like to be really alone as I am?'

‘You and Grandpa are together.'

‘Yes, that is what has to be said of me, a man with wives and children — a man with a wife and family.'

‘Isn't it a good thing for you to be with him?'

‘Yes, indeed it is, my dear old father! It is the thing that binds me to life.'

‘I suppose he must die before long.'

‘Don't speak of it,' said Cassius, putting his hand to his face, as though to ward off a danger, and sending his eyes to his wife behind it. ‘I could only wish to follow him.'

‘Ah, Miss Bennet, we see you,' said Halliday. ‘Open the door and come in to us. You must hear it all before you are at peace. Come in; we understand it.'

Bennet seemed to wander to the table and stood absently fingering it.

‘So nothing really happened,' she said, the words seeming to fall of themselves from her lips.

Ainger, who was string with his chin on his hand, lifted his eyes.

‘Nothing is not the word I should use,' he said, and let them fall.

‘Neither should I,' said Halliday. ‘We need a different one. It is a slur on the house, the master stooping to this.'

‘That may not be the way to see it,' said Kate. ‘It might argue a want in us.'

‘And no reason but discontent with a life that is better than ours.'

‘We have not the insight into things.'

‘I blame myself,' said Ainger, seeming to stifle a sigh.

‘Well, no one else blames you,' said Halliday. ‘What was it to do with you?'

Ainger lifted his eyes and rested them on Halliday's face.

‘My poor master!' he said, and said no more.

‘And “poor man”, it seems.'

‘Yes,' said Ainger, quietly. ‘There is no sting like self-reproach.'

‘And what do you reproach yourself for?'

‘Events cast shadows before. I ought to have foretold it.'

‘Foretold the actual thing?' said Bennet.

‘Perceived the signs. They ought to have put me on my guard. It was in my power to disperse them, as I had done before. But I went on my own way, blind to his need. I have to say it of myself.'

‘You could not watch him as if he were a child,' said Kate.

‘It is what I have always done,' said Ainger, almost giving a smile.

‘Well, it was time you stopped,' said Halliday.

‘And it seems that he thought so,' said Mrs Frost.

Does the master hold it against you?' said Kate.

‘It is a question, Kate. I have asked it of myself. I seem to catch a look in his eye, that speaks to me and says I should have saved him from himself.'

‘He cuts a sorry figure,' said Halliday.

‘And he was prepared to leave his father desolate,' said Kate, as if continuing the thought.

‘Now that is what strikes one,' said Ainger. ‘That is the dark point. The hearts of the two gentlemen are knit to each other. I should not have expected the pitilessness. Things were indeed too much.'

‘It seems there was intervention,' said Kate.

‘It seems so, Kate. That he was frustrated by a higher hand. By his own he would have left us. It chanced that he resisted the fatal amount. The doctor would have been too late.'

‘His time had not come,' said Kate. ‘So it is not for us to decide.'

‘He must be a strong man,' said Bennet.

‘I should hardly say so,' said Ainger. ‘That is more for the outward eye. It vanishes with understanding. I should say I am the stronger of the two.'

‘Can't you think of yourself apart from him?' said Halliday.

‘Well, we are not so often apart.'

‘You talk as if you had no work to do.'

‘He is the main part of it, and becomes more so. He knows it and keeps it in his heart. That is the real reason for Simon's presence.'

‘You expect to become knit closer?' said Kate.

‘Or are arranging it,' said Halliday.

‘Well, nothing stands still in this world,' said Ainger.

‘It usually seems that everything does,' said Mrs Frost.

‘How does Simon get on?' said Bennet, looking at the latter in experienced kindness.

‘He shapes,' said Ainger. ‘And that is all that is required at the moment.'

‘Until the master absorbs all your energy,' said Madge.

‘Until then, if you like.'

‘There will be a wound in Mr Clare's heart that time will not heal,' said Kate.

‘Time won't have much chance at his age,' said Halliday.