The Mighty and Their Fall Page 2

“People are always taught, when they are young,” said Leah.

  “Ah, the person who lays the foundation, Mr. Middleton! It is not there that the credit accrues. It is the finishing part that earns it, the part that shows.”

  “Do you think you are a conceited person?” said Hengist.

  “Well, I may have a healthy share of self-esteem. We are none of us the worse for it.”

  “I think some people might be.”

  “Why is it healthy?” said Leah.

  “Oh, I think you must wait to understand that.”

  “I hope your patience will meet success,” said Ninian. “I have no great hope of it.”

  “It rests with me to see that it does. We must look into the distance,” said Miss Starkie, suggesting the scope of her effort. “It can only come with time. We will not push too far forward. We must not wish our lives away. And school cannot have the fine edge of family life. But we must not complain. It does not claim to have it.”

  “It is the other side that seems to make the claims,” said Selina.

  “Well, well, we know our aims, Mrs. Middleton, and see no reason to hide them. And if we sometimes fall short of them, well, we are the better for having them. And now we must start for our walk. Is Lavinia coming with us?”

  “No, I am staying indoors. Father is at home today.”

  “Are we to have your escort, Egbert?”

  “No, four charges might be too much for you.”

  Miss Starkie walked after her pupils, upright and conscious after her self-exposure.

  “I will be the first to speak,” said Hugo, “and will spare the rest of you. Few of us dare to voice aspirations. And I see the reason.”

  “We can hardly criticise these,” said Ninian.

  “Or any others,” said Lavinia. “Aspirations are always high. I hope something will come of them.”

  “My children hardly have what I had myself. It is the last thing I wished. But the land does poorly, and giving it my life does not better it. There is little help for my girls or hope for Hengist. I must face the truth and so must they.”

  “I have taken no harm, Father. I have been able to grow into myself. It has been best both for you and me.”

  “It could be put in another way. As you grow up, the wrong becomes greater. We should think how to amend it.”

  “I have no tenderness for my age. I have become unfitted for it. And I can be old or young at will. It is what the house requires of me.”

  “You should always be young. You have been forced out of your time. In your childhood it was a small thing. It becomes a grave one now.”

  “We can’t retrace our steps. And I have always seen my way. Miss Starkie is outside and will second me.”

  “Lavinia’s way was straight and firm from the first, Mr. Middleton. I can hardly look back without a smile at the sturdy figure forging onwards,” said Miss Starkie, right in her mistrust of herself. “Speaking metaphorically, of course.”

  “I am glad it is not literally,” said Hugo. “I could not bear to think of anyone as sturdy, least of all Lavinia. Of course there are people who might be described in that way. But I should not refer to it any more than to any other disability. I should seem to be unconscious of it.”

  “How much sense do you think you are talking?” said Selina.

  “Now that is not fair, Mrs. Middleton,” said Miss Starkie. “To sit there in your easy-chair, appearing to be half-asleep—appearing to be absent-minded, and to be alert and critical all the time! We had better set out before we betray ourselves further.”

  She left the house with her pupils, and Selina moved to the window to observe their progress. Agnes walked in front with Miss Starkie, and Hengist and Leah together behind, indeed arm-in-arm, though this was not their habit. Selina beckoned to her son and returned to her seat. Ninian succeeded her at the window and in a moment leaned out of it.

  Something depended from Miss Starkie’s skirts, of a nature to unravel when pulled, and her pupils were putting a foot on it in turn, and receding as its length increased.

  “Miss Starkie, you have suffered a mischance! Some part of your dress is disintegrating. The mischief should be arrested.”

  Miss Starkie turned, paused and stooped, and set off in another direction.

  “Oh, a bush will serve me, Mr. Middleton. I can manage in a moment. Why did you not tell me, children?”

  “For a reason that is clear,” said Hugo. “Some chances do not come again. Sometimes I regret my childhood. But only for light reasons.”

  “I regret it for deeper ones,” said Selina. “Children are always with us. Now one of mine has left me.”

  “Well, I must go to my work,” said Ninian. “I shall soon have Egbert’s help. His playtime is nearly over.”

  “We are too used to the idea of work to realise its meaning,” said Hugo. “I had early suspicions of it, and dared to act on them.”

  “What a comment on life,” said Lavinia, “that to be out of work is held to be sad and wrong!”

  “Satan lies in wait for idle hands,” said Selina.

  “But only Satan, Grandma. And he is hardly seen as a model of behaviour.”

  “My playtime, Father!” said Egbert. “What a description of an Oxford life! And I am sure I am a person who has never played.”

  “I believe I am too,” said Lavinia, “or have come to be.”

  “It may be true of you both. It comes of the motherless household. It is strange that I have a mother, and you have not.”

  “I do not fill the place,” said Selina. “I have left it empty. I am not a woman who loves her grandchildren as her own. They are further down the scale.”

  “The two youngest almost too far,” said Ninian. “It is Miss Starkie’s task to force them up. Few people could undertake it. She seems to be bringing them back. It has begun to rain.”

  Selina went into the hall, fixed her eyes on her two youngest grandchildren and spoke in deep tones.

  “Hengist and Leah, come in where we can see you. And look me in the face. Can you say you did nothing wrong when you were out today?”

  There was a pause.

  “We could,” said Hengist. “But it would not be true.”

  “And that would be doing wrong indoors as well,” said Leah.

  “Hengist, you thought we did not know. But there was Someone Who knew. Can you tell me Who saw what you did, and saw into your hearts as you did it?” Selina had no religion herself, but feared to let her grandchildren do without it.

  “Well, God sees everything. And so in a way he can’t see anything. He must pass it over.”

  “Leah and Hengist, He passes over nothing. What is there in your minds and lives that He does not know?”

  “There isn’t much in our lives. Even Miss Starkie can’t say there is.”

  “And she sometimes says there is nothing in our minds,” said Leah. “So he must have put it into them to do what we did.”

  “I don’t think you needed help,” said Ninian.

  “But he knows that children are innocent,” said Leah, her face grave.

  “Well, of course he is one by himself,” said Hugo.

  “What has Miss Starkie to say?” said Selina, resorting to the human sphere.

  “Well, I am surprised and disappointed, Mrs. Middleton. I should be sorry to say I was not. I am glad Agnes did not join.”

  “I thought something was happening,” said the latter. “But it seemed better not to look behind.”

  “Ah, let us keep our eyes straight in front of us,” said Miss Starkie, illustrating the suggestion with her own. “That will be the way to steer our course.”

  “Miss Starkie is very kind to you,” said Ninian. “I hope you know it.”

  “She has to take us as we are,” said Leah.

  “Indeed she does not. She will be wise to insist on a difference.”

  “She might suppress our natural selves,” said Hengist. “And there is never gain without loss.”

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sp; “I think there are cases of it.”

  “My lessons keep turning up, Mr. Middleton. They will find their setting in time.”

  “Self-satisfaction is their snare,” said Selina, addressing her grandchildren’s backs, as they left the room. “That is what they should pluck out and cast from them.”

  “But it does not offend them,” said Lavinia. “The condition is not met. And we all have our share of it.”

  “I am surprised by mine,” said Hugo. “I should not have thought I should have any. I don’t know why I have.”

  “Perhaps this pair are entitled to it,” said Selina, turning her eyes on her elder grandchildren.

  “They are indeed by themselves,” said Ninian. “I fear I bear heavily on them. Lavinia would have had a different life, if her mother had lived.”

  “Perhaps not a better one. She may not look back and wish it different.”

  “It is for me to do that. For her and myself and all of us. I live with the might-have-beens.”

  “Oh, I hope not, Father,” said Lavinia. “They should be left where they are, in the receding past.”

  “They may be a guide for the future. There are lessons in our memories.”

  “There is usually reproach in them,” said Hugo. “It may be the same thing. Is it not time for tea? I did not have very much luncheon. It was Hengist who did.”

  “There was cold food on the sideboard,” said Ninian.

  “I saw there was. And I saw it was cold. You are always so right, Ninian.”

  “You can ring for tea, if you want it,” said Selina. “It is almost time.”

  The bell was answered by the young butler, who glanced at Selina, turned to the door, and transferred a tray from an unseen hand to the table in one smooth movement.

  “Did a spirit bring it?” said Hugo.

  “It was Percival, sir,” said Ainger, in a tone that deprecated both the name and its bearer. “The new boy, if you have happened to notice. He is a pair of hands.”

  “Then is he a sort of spirit? That he is so nearly disembodied.”

  “You should see him at table, sir. You would hardly apply the term.”

  “Must we call him Percival?” said Selina. “What about the name of the last boy?”

  “I made the suggestion, ma’am. And the rejoinder was that he was himself. A small point compared to others’ convenience!”

  “The other name was James,” said Selina, considering it by itself.

  “That is the case, ma’am. And it could well be the present one.”

  “Well, arrange it in that way. And if necessary, refer to me.”

  “I will exert my authority, ma’am,” said Ainger, as he left the room.

  “Ainger does well in life,” said Hugo. “I wonder if he thinks the same of me. I can hardly bear the stamp of success.”

  “It may be true of us all,” said Ninian. “The future does call for help. It is our time to move forward. We must remember the years ahead. There must be change in life. Indeed life itself is change.”

  “It ends in death,” said Lavinia. “There is no need for haste. We go forward only too surely.”

  “You talk in borrowed words,” said her father, smiling.

  “And you talk in riddles,” said Selina.

  “Well, the answer will come in its time.”

  “Have your father’s words a meaning?” said Hugo to Lavinia. “Is anything coming that will throw us on each other?”

  “I don’t think there is any fear.”

  “I thought there might be hope.”

  CHAPTER II

  “Something is on us,” said Ainger. “There is something in the air. Well, we shall soon find out.”

  “I am not one to ferret,” said the cook. “As I am not made on that line.”

  “Well, he who has ears to hear! I am not sorry to have them.”

  “You need not continue, Ainger. I am not a party to it.”

  Ainger took his place by the kitchen fire, and Cook stood by him with a severe expression. She was a thin, sallow, middle-aged woman, with odd but definite features, undisguisedly toil-worn hands, and small, grey eyes that seemed to pierce any surface, and generally did so. Ainger was a tall man of twenty-eight, with a fresh, florid face, a broad, boyish nose, and blue eyes that penetrated nothing, which was perhaps why he used his ears. The bond between them did not come from their difference, but from their position above their fellows, which held them to a life apart.

  “Well, the truth will come out,” said Ainger, turning on his heels. “Not that much seems to come to me.”

  “Some things are withheld,” said Cook, looking unsympathetic towards this bearing. “We need not overestimate ourselves.”

  “Well, no one saves us the trouble,” said Ainger, correcting it as if unconsciously. “And we can make a guess. Perhaps Mr. Hugo is going to be married. Well, he is not too young.”

  “You need not make comments. And that is not my conjecture.”

  “And you could not ever be wrong?”

  “It might constitute an exception. But I take no credit.”

  “Well, any change is better than none.”

  “It depends on the nature. You should weigh your words.”

  “The master will be in for luncheon. Straws point the way of the wind. It may mean the revelation. I aim to set the table for the whole party.”

  “For the family,” said Cook, looking at him.

  “And I shall be on the alert. Either at the table or behind it.”

  “Ainger, you are in a mood. I pay no regard, as I see no reason.”

  “Well, we have had no event for a long time.”

  “And does that indicate that one is imminent?” said Cook, in a severe tone. “Not that I am without an opinion.”

  “You are afraid to state it, in case it is erroneous.”

  “I await what comes from the source. It is as yet sealed from our eyes.”

  This was not to be the case much longer.

  Ninian joined his family at the table, but was silent during the meal. At its end he rose, clenched his hands unconsciously, and spoke in a high, even tone, with a forced note of ease.

  “I have a word to say. You have been expecting to hear one. I have felt something on my side, as you have on yours. Shadows are cast before. You know what my life has been. It is to be that no longer. You are to welcome someone in the stead of the mother you have lost. I do not say to replace her. That could not be, either for you or for me. But the blank in our life will be disguised, if not filled. And I will not deny that for me it is in a measure to be filled.”

  The silence was broken by Selina.

  “So that is what it is. We might have known. We shall soon feel we did know. So you are what you would naturally be. That is what we should have known. My son, may it all go well with you.”

  “I knew my mother would wish it. And I want to hear that my children do. When a thing goes without saying we like the better to hear it said.”

  “We can only say it does go without saying, Father,” said Egbert.

  “He speaks for us all, Father,” said Lavinia. “And that does the same.”

  “Thank you, my dear ones,” said Ninian, just turning his eyes on his daughter. “I looked to hear it, and am happier for having heard.”

  “If you are happy, Father, we have what we want,” said Agnes.

  “You sound as if you are excited,” said Hengist.

  “She may be,” said Ninian. “And so may you all. It is a great change that is coming.”

  “I am not excited,” said Leah. “We don’t know what the difference will be.”

  “Well, you will soon know,” said Selina. “It will not be kept from you.”

  “Do you wish me well, Hugo?” said Ninian.

  “I have no thought over from myself. Does she know about me?”

  “Know that you exist?”

  “Yes, there is nothing else to be known.”

  “I have told her about us all.”
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br />   “A mother-in-law and five stepchildren cannot be helped. But it must seem to her that I could have been avoided.”

  “Fifty-four years have made their claim,” said Ninian.

  “To justify my being here? Well, it might take as long. I am fortunate if it takes no longer.”

  “Will Father still like Lavinia as much?” said Hengist.

  “I shall like her better,” said Ninian, at once. “I shall see her as the first of my little daughters, instead of the one I have forced out of due time. My reproach will be taken away.”

  “What will be taken from me, Father?” said Lavinia, in a light tone. “Perhaps not a reproach.”

  “What has been taken is your childhood. It is I who have taken it. It is for me to give it back, before it is too late.”

  “It is too late,” said Hengist. “She can’t be a child now.”

  “She can to her father. In a sense she has always been. Another relation has been imposed on the real one. And it is the second that goes deep.”

  “Perhaps that is why it was harder to see it,” said Hugo.

  “Lavinia and I will be more equal,” said Agnes. “There are only six years between us.”

  “I have forgotten it,” said her father. “I must remember it now.”

  “You know what you ask of Lavinia, Father?” said Egbert. “We wish you all that is good. We accept many of your words. But we must say one of our own.”

  “Oh, all’s fair in love and war,” said Ninian, in a light, almost ruthless manner, admitting a stress on the word, love. “She is a person who would know that.”

  “Would a child know it?” said his daughter.

  “I felt you would. I have found I can depend on you. You have wanted me to find it.”

  “She is to have her wish,” said Hugo.

  “Will Grandma still live with us?” said Agnes. “Or will she have another house?”

  “Perhaps the new wife will not want her,” said Hengist.

  “Or want you either,” said Selina. “Or want any of us. We are not what she wants.”

  “But a father has to keep his children.” said Leah.

  “Well, I want all of you,” said Ninian. “And she is ready to share you with me. And I will share her with you, if you do not take too much of her.”

  “Why should we want to share her?” said Leah. “When we haven’t seen her, and she doesn’t want any of us.”