Two Worlds and Their Ways (32 page)

“It did show him in a new light. He was really almost fatherly. The three men made quite an impressive group, and he seemed to fit in as the head of it. If they were related, we should remark on the family likeness. It shows how
types can repeat. I suppose I owe your father money for the earring. Though not any more than if I had not been found out. How confused our minds are!”

“Yours certainly is. Of course you did owe it, but you do not now. The earring on the floor was mine, and he gave it away as his own. The score has been paid.”

“So it is to you that I owe the money.”

“Yes, but I forgive you the debt.”

“What will you do with one earring?”

“Keep it in case some use for it arises. I can hardly believe it will not fulfil some need.”

“Suppose you showed it to them all! They would think it was a stock pattern indeed.”

“I shall not show it to them. They might not think only that. Indeed, too much thought would be involved. It is a subject that always entails a good deal.”

“I wonder if Roderick is worthy of what I did for him.”

“If he is not, it is the better to have done it. If he is, it is no more than you ought to have done. And we do feel it was a little more?”

“I do not mean I am proud of it. I should not like to tell him the truth. But I daresay he has not told me everything about himself.”

“Well, we all keep some things to ourselves, those little, mean things that cause us more shame than big ones, though we do not know why. Not that we do not really know.”

“The big ones cause us shame,” said Maria with a sigh.

“I do not believe you commit the small ones. And that is almost unique. Though this thing is not a big one of course. You have simply committed one small thing.”

“I am grateful to you from my heart, Juliet. If the earring had not been found, the quest and cry would have continued. And what should I have done, if the cloud had fallen on Aldom?”

“Left him under it, as you did when it did fall on him. What else could be done? And protested your own trust in
him, and probably protested a thought too much. You almost did that today. It put me on the track and prepared my mind for the truth.”

“Other people are not as alert as you are.”

“Oh, no, they are not,” said Juliet.

“Your father does not suspect me. It makes me feel I have sailed under false colours.”

“We could not sail under our true ones. It would mean sailing under too many.”

“Was your sister, Mary, like you, Juliet?”

“A little. More than Lesbia is. And we were greater friends. And my father loved her the most of the three. Of course, she was the best.”

“Why ‘of course'? Because she is dead?”

“Yes,” said Juliet.

“I wish I had known her, though it is an odd thing to say.”

“I wish she had known you. And I do not think it is odd.”

“Well, my pretty, you had your rest,” said Sir Roderick, leading in his household. “You had a sleep and feel the better for it. I feel rather fatigued myself. It has been an exhausting day.”

“I have been wondering,” said Maria, with an impulse to hasten into talk, “if the children might ask their friends at school to spend a day here at some time. They seem to have liked some of them. And there is no need for them to disappear from sight, as if they had been expelled.”

“No need at all,” said Lesbia, “as that was not the case.”

“You would allow your girls to come?”

“But by all means, Maria. I have advocated companionship for Clemence, and half a loaf is better than no bread. And I hold no brief for all work and no play.”

“And you would let the boys come, Lucius?”

“Yes, if someone may bring them.”

“Of course. But it had better not be Oliver's friend. Now he has been here as a guest, I would rather have someone else in the other character.”

“Miss James will be the right person.”

“I may also send a mistress, Maria?” said Lesbia. “The ewe lambs do not go out unshepherded from the fold.”

“If you will not come yourself.”

“I will come with pleasure, if it does not preclude the mistress. I have no experience in daily superintendence. It is outside my sphere.”

“Will you come, Juliet?”

“No, I am afraid I should superintend, and appear to disadvantage. I do forget myself so easily. It might seem to be within my sphere, when honestly it is not. And the boys will be happier without Lucius or me.”

“And the girls will not without Lesbia?” said Sir Roderick.

The faint smile came to Lesbia's lips without her summoning it.

“I do not know, Roderick. I do not concern myself with the matter. That is the best way to be free of them, and have them free of me.”

“Perhaps that nice woman, Miss Chancellor, will come,” said Maria. “We met at thestation and had a talk. We should meet as friends. And she seemed to be fond of Clemence.”

“She was fond of Clemence, Maria. It is probable that she would like to come. Her duties will be in abeyance. I will make the suggestion.”

“Cannot you just tell her to come, as her time is yours?” said Sir Roderick.

“Why, no, Roderick,” said Lesbia, slightly raising her brows. “And her time is her own. I do not know whom you are thinking of.”

Sir Roderick did not tell her.

“Of course we do not mean there is any chance of Clemence's returning to the school. Maria is not making any move towards that.”

“I should hope not, indeed,” said Lesbia, laughing, ‘after all we have been through on the score. It would be a sinister threat.”

“Would you refuse to take her now, if I wanted to send her?” said Maria.

“Yes, I think so, Maria,” said Lesbia, in an incidental manner. “I do not care for uncertain pupils. They have an unsettling influence.”

“And it would not be the right policy to encourage that,” said Sir Roderick.

“It is fairer to the parents not to do so.”

“Would you also repudiate Sefton, Lucius?”

“You can say you would, Lucius,” said Juliet, “as there is no chance of your having the choice.”

“No, I think I should just accept him in the ordinary way.”

“Both courses have their own dignity,” said Oliver. “But I think the second has more.”

“I do not make sacrifices to dignity,” said Lesbia.

“How will you entertain the guests, Maria?” said Oliver.

“They will see the children, and have good things to eat, and wander about the place. That will be enough for them. They are not grown-up. You appear to be amused.”

“I am,” said her stepson.

“Will the girls expect anything more, Lesbia?”

“They will be glad to do as you say, Maria, and will think it kind to ask them,” said Lesbia, in a faintly recitative tone.

“Well, the day will come and go,” said Sir Roderick.

“It will come,” said his son. “And in the end it will go, though Clemence and Sefton will find themselves in some doubt about it. And with them it will remain.”

“Well, Clemence, If we are not to see you at school, we must be content to see you in your home,” said Miss Chancellor, as she entered the Shelleys' hall. “Not that that is not an ungracious way of referring to your invitation. We are most pleased to come, and thank you very much for thinking of us. Are we blocking your path, Miss Fire-brace?”

Lesbia gave Clemence a smile as she passed, and followed Aldom to the drawing-room.

“It is nice of you to want us here, Clemence,” said Verity glancing round the hall.

“I was so upset when you did not come back,” said Gwendolen. “I felt that our lives had gone apart, and that to you it meant nothing.”

“We were all disappointed not to see you, Clemence,” said Maud. “And it came as such a complete surprise. There had been no hint or suggestion of it.”

“Why did you suddenly decide to leave?” said Esther.

“Esther has not lost her abruptness,” said Miss Chancellor.

“I cannot help thinking it was a pity, Clemence,” said Maud, “Of course I know nothing about it, and have no right to form an opinion.”

“Only to express one,” said Verity.

“But you had settled down and got over the uncertain period,” went on Maud, without looking at Verity. “It seems a waste of the initiation stage, of which the point is that it leads to something further.”

“We must hope it will do so,” said Miss Chancellor. “We can build upon foundations anywhere, if they are well and truly laid. Not that a term was not a short time in
which to lay them; which amounts to saying the same thing as Maud.”

“Who teaches you now, Clemence?” said Verity.

“Miss Petticott and my brother's tutor, who taught us before.”

“And taught you well, if I remember,” said Miss Chancellor, with a note of having relegated Clemence to the past. “Miss Tuke, you have not greeted your former charge. It is remiss of you when she is also your hostess.”

“Poor Miss Tuke was ill in the train,” said Gwendolen, as though this explained the omission.

“Yes, Clemence, I was quite poorly,” said Miss Tuke, finding her tongue in this accustomed sphere. “And I felt quite a novice in attending to myself.”

“Would you like to lie down?” said Clemence.

“Dear, dear, no indeed. I should think I was somebody else.”

“And that would not do,” said Miss Chancellor, “when we are all dependent on your being yourself.”

“Shall I ask Adela to come to you?”

“No, no, I should have nothing to say to Adela, whoever she may be. But thank you, Clemence, my dear. I see you would do the right things in illness.”

“Such as fetching someone else to deal with it.”

“Well, that might be the right thing,” said Miss Chancellor, “as you are without experience in such matters. But Adela is baulked of her patient this time. Miss Tuke will have none of her.”

“Didn't you wear that dress in the evenings at school sometimes?” said Esther.

“Yes, I believe I did. Or one something like it.”

“Did you have two dresses made almost alike?” said Gwendolen, looking at it with attention.

“It has been altered, hasn't it?” said Esther.

“Yes, I think it has. Oh, yes, that is it,” said Clemence, looking down at the dress and giving it a careless pull.

“And you do not care whether it has or not,” said Miss
Chancellor. “You will never cure Clemence of her indifference to such things, Esther. You may as well relinquish the effort.”

“She might have taken more trouble for our visit,” said Verity. “We have all made the most of our resources.”

Clemence sent her eyes over the figures before her and gave a faint frown, as though perplexed by the account.

“I cannot help laughing at your expression, Clemence,” said Miss Chancellor, proving what she said.

“Don't you think Miss Chancellor's dress is nice, Clemence?” said Gwendolen.

“Confess now, Clemence. You had no idea whether it was nice or not, and no wish to form one.”

“Don't you like Miss Tuke's new dress?” said Esther, at the same moment.

“Oh, my dress; well, I have to wear something. If I did not, what a saving it would be of time and trouble! It is other people's dresses that are my province, and an interesting one I find it. I am pleased with Esther's dress. Are not you, Miss Chancellor?”

“I could not have it made in the way I wanted; it would have cost too much,” said Esther, in the space of a second.

“Why, what change did you want, Esther?” said Miss Chancellor, surveying the dress.

“I wanted the embroidery carried down the front. It looks so scanty as it is.”

“Well, I do not know that I agree with you. Esther. It is very nice and simple and finished. And suitable for any occasion, when it might easily have been too much.”

“But it has to do for other occasions.”

“And so it should. But it is a good rule to keep one's dressing a little down,” said Miss Chancellor, holding her eyes from her own garments. “Better a little under-dressed than a little over-dressed is a sound motto.”

“Do you still learn Greek, Clemence?” and Verity, tapping her foot on the flags of the hall.

“Yes, with Sefton's tutor, as I did before.”

“And with considerable success, if I remember, Clemence,” said Miss Chancellor.

“And are you as clever as you used to be?” said Gwendolen.

“She can hardly have altered in this time, Gwendolen. Indeed I hope she is cleverer, as she is in the developing stage.”

“Are we all in that? I don't think I get any different.”

“Yes, I think you do, Gwendolen. At your own pace, and in your own way. We must not expect you to be anyone but yourself.”

“I think you ought to expect a little more of me than that, Miss Chancellor. It sounds as if you had given me up. Of course we have no one really clever, now that Clemence is gone.”

“Perhaps we might make an exception of Verity, Gwendolen,” said Maud, “if we are to be open in our discussion, which is a breach of convention, of course.”

“I am not prepared to be drawn into a comparison of the respective gifts of Verity and Clemence,” said Miss Chancellor.

“What is this about Verity and Clemence and their gifts?” said Maria, coming from the drawing-room, and throwing an arm about her daughter, as she surveyed the guests. “I know which one is Clemence. So now which is Verity?”

“We do not meet quite as strangers, Lady Shelley,” said Miss Chancellor, shaking hands. “We had a talk at the railway station at the end of last term. I do not know if you remember.”

“Of course I do. Why should my memory be poorer than yours? I was glad to meet the mistress of Clemence's form. And now I am glad to meet a friend of us both.”