The Present and the Past (8 page)

‘And they not on good terms?' said Madge.

‘It is complex, Madge; a term I have used before.'

‘Will someone fetch me some apples from the storehouse?' said Mrs Frost.

Ainger gave a nod to Simon, and he rose and left the room. In the hall he encountered the sons of the house on their way to the garden.

‘Well, Simon,' said Fabian.

‘Good afternoon, sir,' said Simon.

‘Can you have a game with us?' said Guy.

‘I have left school, sir,' said Simon, with a note of surprise.

‘Very nice boy,' said Toby, whose hand was held by Fabian.

‘What do you want to be when you grow up?' said Henry.

‘Very nice buttons,' added Toby.

‘A butler, sir,' said Simon.

‘Would you rather be a butler, than a king?' said Henry, struck by something in the tone.

‘Well, perhaps not, sir,' said Simon, brought to face with another kind of advancement.

As the talk went on, Toby disengaged his hand and wandered about the hall. He saw a vase on the table and sent his eyes from it to his brothers. Then he werit behind the table and threw it on the ground, and as it broke, gave himself to guarded mirth, hampered by further glances. Then he rejoined the group and placed his hand in Fabian's.

Bennet came singing down the stairs.

‘Why, look at that vase! Has any one of you touched it?'

‘We did not know it was there,' said Fabian.

Toby kept his eyes on Simon.

‘Oh, dear, oh, dear!' said Henry, looking after the latter. ‘I don't want to be a servant. And if I did, I could be one and be happy.'

‘Fabian hold Toby's hand too tight,' said Toby, frowning and pulling it away.

‘It kept you out of mischief,' said his brother.

‘Very good boy,' said Toby.

‘Ursula, our hour has come,' said Elton Scrope. ‘I mean, of course, that the hour has come. The occasion is upon us.'

‘And we do not deserve an occasion. No one deserves anything so good or so bad. We all deserve so little.'

‘A sister is returning to us, who was said to be our second mother, and who must have been that, as what is said is always true; a sister who wrote weekly letters and watched over us from afar.'

‘And now will watch over us in our own home. No, we do not deserve it.'

‘We have had such a dear, little, narrow life. Will Catherine
broaden and enrich it? I could not bear a wealth of experience. It will be enough to live with someone who has had it.'

‘She will be too occupied with adding to it to want to share it,' said Ursula.

‘So we do want the occasion. My heart told me we did. We are jealous of her other life. It is a natural, ordinary emotion, but I do think we can claim it.'

‘What is the good of a second mother, if she becomes the first mother of other people? No one likes the second place. No place at all is different. We will not say if we should like that.'

‘Will you give up the housekeeping?'

‘Yes. I resent being supplanted, but I am glad to give it up. I don't mind the trivial task, but I dislike being known to do it. I am sensitive to opinion.'

‘Most people are that.'

‘I don't think they can be, when I am.'

‘Don't you take any interest in household things? I take so much.'

‘I want to have a soul above them, and to be thought to have one.'

‘I have a soul just on their level. Do you think we have souls?'

‘No,' said Ursula.

‘Do you mind that?'

‘Not yet; I am only thirty-two; but when I am older I shall mind it; when extinction is imminent. Now it is too far away.'

‘We may die at any moment.'

‘Not you and I. It is other people who may die young.'

‘Why should we be exceptions?'

‘I don't know. I wonder what the reasons are?'

‘You don't think you and I will have an eternity together?'

‘No; but we shall have until we are seventy. And there is no difference.'

‘Can you bear not to have the real thing?'

‘No,' said his sister.

‘Then when you are older, will you begin to have beliefs?'

‘No, I shall realize the hopelessness of things. I shall meet it face to face.'

‘And will you be proud of doing that?'

‘Well, think how few people can do it. And I must have some compensation; it will not be much.'

‘I shall not be able to face it. I shall begin to say we cannot be quite sure.'

‘And I shall like to hear you say it. Even a spurious comfort is better than nothing.'

‘Is it unusual to dread the return of someone to whom we owe so much?'

‘We do dread people to whom we owe things. The debt ought to be paid, and anyone dreads that. But our debt to Catherine is of the sort we cannot repay.'

‘That is the most difficult kind,' said Elton.

‘That is the conventional view. And convention is usually so sound that it is right to be a slave to it. But it is not in this case.'

‘Then we should look forward to her coming.'

‘I am getting quite excited,' said his sister.

‘Not as excited as I am. I must rise and pace the room.'

‘And I will keep my seat by an effort.'

Ursula Scrope had a tall, thin figure, narrow, dark, spectacled eyes, features of regular type, but displaying sundry turns and twists, long, useless-looking hands, and limbs so loosely hung that they seemed to be insecurely joined to her body. Her brother was two years younger and of similar type, with a rounder, fuller face, rounder, lighter eyes, and the peculiarities of feature modified. It was clear that their relation went deep and would last for their lives.

‘Ought we to count the minutes to the arrival?' he said. ‘I believe we should have had a calendar and crossed out the days.'

‘How does one get a calendar?'

‘I think they are sent at Christmas, though I don't know why. I suppose Catherine will know.'

‘So she will. How restful it will be! We shall cease to think for ourselves. We ought never to have done so. What was the good of a second mother?'

‘We shall relapse into childhood,' said Elton. ‘No one ever
really comes out of it. That is why life is such a strain. We have to pretend.'

‘And why people's stories of their childhood are always their best. They don't really know about anything else. To write about it, they would have to be original. And they cannot be that.'

‘Will Catherine be proud of us?'

‘No. Why should she be?'

‘Ursula, don't you see any reasons?'

‘Yes, but she will not see them. Her children will take all her pride.'

‘And yet you are excited by her coming?'

‘Well, it will take away that strange nostalgia for something that has no name.'

‘Will it? I thought I had just to carry it with me.'

‘The arrival!' said Ursula, looking out of the window. ‘What a good thing the luggage takes the whole of the trap! It is dreadful to meet people at the station. They see you as you really are. It is a thing that does not happen anywhere else.'

‘I thought it happened chiefly in our own homes.'

‘People learn to ignore things there. And at a station they simply confront them.'

‘Well, my brother and sister!' said a quick, deep voice, as a small, dark woman came rapidly into the room, talking in short, quick sentences. ‘My desertion of you is over. Have you minded it as much as I have? If so, you are as glad as I am. But the culprit is the one who suffers. It is one of the fair things in life. And I shall alter it all for you. I shall tell you its meaning. And you will see it as I do.'

‘I always fail at moments of test,' said Ursula, as she bent towards her sister. ‘I cannot carry things off.'

‘You are yourself. As I looked to find you. I would not have you rise to an occasion. I should feel you were someone else.'

‘But a more manageable person.'

‘Not the person I looked to see. Not my sister.'

‘Do you think I am a success?' said Elton. ‘I have meant my silence to cover so much.'

‘You are both yourselves. You have stood the years. My
anxiety was in myself. I felt that change had come to me. I feared it might threaten you. But the onslaught of life has been easier on you. May it always be.'

‘But we do not seem people who have not lived?' said her brother.

‘You have not lived much yet. Your time is to come.'

‘Mine is not,' said Ursula. ‘I tolerate nothing that looms ahead. I will not be threatened by life.'

‘I am rather flattered by that,' said Elton. ‘I should have thought it would pass me by.'

‘There is no threat yet,' said Catherine. ‘Your sky is clear. May it never darken. And now we leave the heights and depths. I see we are rescued from them. Ursula will deal with the tea today. I will be the guest. Anything she has done for years, she can do once more.'

Ursula made some adjustment on the tray and yielded her place to her brother.

‘Does Elton pour out the tea?'

‘Yes,' said the latter, with his eyes on doing so. ‘My touch is as sensitive as any woman's.'

‘More sensitive than Ursula's?'

‘No, but more successful.'

‘This is a thing I had not imagined. I suppose there will be others.'

‘No,' said Ursula, ‘I think this is the only one.'

Catherine looked from her brother to her sister.

‘You have had your feeling for each other. I did not take that. What if you had not had it? What should I have done?'

‘Would you not have done what you have now?' said Ursula.

‘I should. It is the truth. I will not fear it. But how we should have suffered, both of you and I!'

‘Are you going to see Cassius?' said Elton. ‘The question does not savour of curiosity.'

‘It simply contains it,' said Catherine, smiling. ‘I shall see my sons. I shall know them. They will know me. I may or may not see their father. That means nothing.'

‘You have taken a brave step. Fancy my being able to say a
thing like that! I don't think Ursula's lips could have framed the words.'

‘It was easy to take the step. I had to do so, knowing I was breaking faith. That had been a thing I could not do. I found I could do nothing else.'

‘I wonder if I could face reality,' said Elton.

‘What do you call this?' said Catherine, taking his hand and laying it on Ursula's. ‘The feeling between you. What is that?'

‘The foundation of our life. All lives must have a foundation. I was thinking of the things that come after it.'

‘It is best to have a foundation and not to build on it,' said Ursula.

‘Foundations! Mine were torn from under me. I allowed it myself. I confused the incident with the essence. I have paid the price.'

Catherine Clare had a short, spare figure, straight, rather handsome features, iron-grey, curling hair and dark eyes that seemed to realize their own swift glance. Her voice was a quick, deep monotone, and all her movements were directed to what she did.

‘You are an accomplished tea-maker, Elton. I shall hesitate to take your place.'

‘I have always hesitated,' said Ursula. ‘I am uncertain of myself. It is a thing that is known about me, I think the only one.'

‘You are proud of it,' said Catherine, smiling.

‘Well, I hope people think I am. They don't despise you for things, if you are proud of them. They don't seem to mind a low standard.'

‘It is important to rinse every cup with hot water,' said Elton, doing as he said.

‘You will find my casual methods a change,' said Catherine. ‘I hope you will not mind them.'

‘Ursula will not. I shall mind them very much. But wild horses would not drag it from me. Though I hardly think wild horses do as much to drag things from people as is thought.'

Catherine gave her quick, deep laugh.

‘I could never give anything more attention than I felt it deserved,' she said.

‘But food deserves all attention. And tea is an Englishwoman's favourite meal. And her standard is mine.'

‘And is it also Ursula's?'

‘I strive to make it so,' said the latter, ‘and I am proud if I succeed. I am a person with my own pathos. But I hope no one knows that.'

‘I wonder if I am,' said Elton. ‘Or is my pathos so much my own that it does not count?'

‘What does it consist of?' said Catherine.

‘Of asking so little of life. Of feeling that is all I deserve. Of being afraid to publish what I write, for fear people should read it. Of being glad that I cannot afford to marry, in case I should do so.'

‘You would not have to marry because you could afford to.'

‘People do seem to have to,' said Elton.

‘Would you like to marry, Ursula?'

‘No, but I wish people believed it. I don't like to have any pathos but my own.'

‘Why do you not want to?'

‘I could not give a house those unmistakable signs of a woman's presence. I do not even recognize them.'

‘I hardly think I gave my house those signs.'

‘Then perhaps Cassius had his own pathos. And I see it must have been his own. I don't wonder you could not bear it.'

‘There were things I could not bear,' said Catherine, in a just audible tone.

‘I could not bear anything. I shut my eyes to that side of life.'

‘What do you know about life?' said her sister.

‘Everyone knows all about it. It is impossible to help it, though it is best not to put it into words.'

‘Tell me what you know.'

‘Let me do it,' said Elton. ‘It is not short and will not soon be gone. It is longer than anyone can realize. And it is very brave to end it. To say it is cowardly is absurd. It is only said by people who would not dare to do it.'