Two Worlds and Their Ways Page 23

  “Oh, Spode has sold that earring,” said Oliver. “He showed it to me and said it was unique, but I knew I had seen one like it. Of course it was the one I played with as a child. He took it to a shop near the school, that deals in such things. Someone came in while he was there, and said she had a duplicate of it, and the man said the pair would fetch a price, and it worked out well. It must really be a stock design. Spode was very pleased, as his mother was in debt, and if the earring had not got her out of it, he might have had to do so. It sounds as if she is still the person she was.”

  “How soon will he be coming?” said Maria.

  “By the afternoon train. He will not be here yet.”

  “He is right that the earring is unique,” said Mr. Firebrace, searching in the desk. “The one supposed to be a duplicate cannot be the same. This one of mine is its mate. They were made for my family, to a special design and of rare stones, but, of course, in the fashion of the day. One might be found that could be used to make a pair. So she still lets the money slip through her hands. She never kept a hold on it. I will send this earring to take the place of the other. One does as well as two. They are too large to wear as the fashion goes, and it can be made to hang on a chain. That is its natural destiny.”

  “But that is a thing that is never done,” said Oliver. “Spode told me about it. It had not been done through all those years.”

  “Well, it can be done now. It will awaken memories and start the train of thought, and probably will be done. But I cannot find the thing at the moment; I do not put my hand on it. It was in this drawer in its case, and neither is there. And no one knows of this drawer but you and me. The secret drawer we call it.”

  “I know of it,” said Sir Roderick, “and so do Maria and Aldom. We all call it that.”

  “It seems kind of us,” said Oliver.

  “But no one uses it or thinks of it, except that some things of Maria’s are there. The desk is hers and she gives me the use of it. What should I have, if she did not give it to me? The drawer is supposed to ensure absolute safety.”

  “Of which we may all avail ourselves,” said Sir Roderick.

  “But I hope only in a certain way. Has any of you put the earring to some use? You knew I had none for it.”

  “What purpose could it serve?” said Maria. “No one could wear one earring. It is a useless thing, unless it is made into something else. And, as Oliver says, that is a thing that is never done.”

  “Then Aldom must come into our minds. There is no help for it. I hope no murkiness is brewing.”

  “Aldom has not touched it,” said Maria, “if that is what you mean.”

  “Well, it has gone, and the case with it, and it cannot have taken up its bed and walked.”

  “Aldom is as honest as you or I, as anyone else in the house.”

  “Then let him say an honest word to us. He may have taken it for some lawful purpose, let us say to clean it. That can be our cover and his. I do not suggest there is any black stain on him, but people are not as white as snow.”

  “Of course you suggest it, if you broach the matter. The question would be an insult.”

  “Well, I ask you all to consider. Did anyone take it to use in any way, any time in the last score of years?”

  “Neither Maria nor I wear earrings,” said Lesbia, “and neither Juliet nor anyone else could wear a single one.”

  “I suppose Aldom does not wear them either. But the thing has found some escape. So no one had any purpose for it? Anyone may have had one. I have found one for it myself.”

  “You are the most likely person to have disturbed it,” said Sir Roderick. “When did you see it last?”

  “But I am not the actual person. I saw it last in Oliver’s hands, when he was a child.”

  “That was probably the means of its escape.”

  “No, I locked it up when he put away childish things. To him it was one of those.”

  “Earrings always seem of those to me,” said Lesbia. “As far as I am concerned, it could remain locked up for ever. But I remember my mother’s wearing these, if I am thinking of the right ones.”

  “It is a long time to depend on your memory, sir,” said Sir Roderick.

  “It may be failing, but not as much as that.”

  “I am going to fetch my glasses,” said Juliet. “I want to feel that nothing can escape me.”

  “I did not know you wore them,” said her father.

  “I did not mean you to know. It is a thing we are ashamed of without any reason. They make us look older and plainer and suggest mortal decay. And I should almost have thought those were reasons.”

  “Well, the intended recipient does not know of her misfortune,” said Lesbia, “and need never know.”

  “It is not nothing to me, my dear,” said her father. “I remember, as you do, your mother’s wearing the earrings. My not touching this one for so long did not mean that I did not keep it safe. It should have been the safer.”

  “You remember that, and you were going to give it away!” said Oliver. “And you gave one away all that time ago, when the memory was fresher! I am quite ashamed of you, Grandpa. I wonder you confess it.”

  “I saw nothing against the simple truth. Things are of no use to the dead, and may do what they can for the living.”

  “They seem to be of use to them for some while after they are dead. They are always kept intact at first.”

  “I do not gain much from mementoes. And it is no good to manufacture sentiment.”

  “I think you ought to manufacture a little. Indeed you seemed to be doing so.”

  “Why did you not give the earrings to your daughters?” said Sir Roderick.

  “I do not know. I wish I had. It would have saved this trouble.”

  “It would have given pleasure to your own family,” said Juliet, as she returned. “And you felt you had done enough for them. The pleasure of people we have not seen for many years seems really Worth while. Perhaps we want to make up to them.”

  “I fear it escaped from the desk in Oliver’s childhood,” said Lesbia, “and has remained at large. And it must have got a taste for liberty by this time.”

  “I wonder why it is a jest to all of you,” said her father.

  “Your purpose for it was a sudden one, and will soon pass,” said Sir Roderick.

  “Might the children know anything?” said Lesbia. “If it was ever about the house, they may have come on it.”

  “I will not have them asked,” said Maria. “Why should they be the target for anyone’s chance suspicions?”

  “They could not be for mine, as I had none. Neither the word nor what it carries comes from me.”

  “No one can be asked about it. No one should have taken it, and therefore no one has done so.”

  “And no one who had taken it, would admit it,” said Sir Roderick. “The person who would do the one thing, would not do the other. There is no use in questions of that kind; I never know why people ask them.”

  “They want to clear up a mystery and cannot believe that people will not help them,” said Oliver. “They want the truth and are vexed that they do not have it. And, of course, it is vexing.”

  “So it is, my boy,” said Mr. Firebrace.

  “Is that it?” said Juliet, pointing to the floor. “There in that crevice between the boards, a sort of gleam! It seems to come and go. There it is again, a sudden spark!”

  Oliver followed the direction of her eyes, picked up the earring and laid it on the desk. His grandfather took it in his hand.

  “Well, will that ever be explained?”

  “It will, in many ways and many times,” said Lesbia. “I am trying to think of the first.”

  “It will not be by me. But I make no protest, as I have no proof.”

  “But that is when protest is useful,” said Oliver. “You would not need them both.”

  “It may have lain there for years,” said Sir Roderick.

  “Someone would have seen it
,” said Mr. Firebrace, “as someone saw it today.”

  “Perhaps some dust was swept away, and left it exposed,” said Lucius.

  “It was certainly exposed, my boy. The more so, that it was without its case.”

  “Grandpa, you have a dark, sad mind,” said Oliver.

  “He cannot take his eyes off the earring,” said Lesbia. “When he did not look at it for twenty-five years or more!”

  “It would be a wonder if I could. This is not the earring that was lost. It is the other, that I gave away all that time ago. I know it by a mark on the back.”

  “You have confused the two,” said Sir Roderick. “It would be an easy thing to do.”

  “Too easy. I have not done it. Even though I am an old man, with a mind already confused.”

  “The thing has its own reminders and sets off your imagination.”

  “Thank you, my boy, for seeing that I know what you do.”

  “Grandpa, please do not frighten me,” said Oliver.

  “It is very highly polished,” said Lucius.

  “Fancy speaking so little for so long and then saying that!” said Juliet.

  “It is on the point,” said her father. “It has not lain there for years. That is what he meant.”

  “Did he? I am proud of him. How inferior women are!”

  “Do you think you took it out yourself, sir, and forgot about it?” said Sir Roderick.

  “I have no doubt that you do. So that can be your solution.”

  “You may have put the open case somewhere, with the earring in it. Think along that line and see if it stirs your memory.”

  “It does so, and shows me I have touched neither.”

  “If the case should turn up, it would support that view,” said Sir Roderick, looking round as if in hope.

  “Well, there may have been some oversight, my boy. Perhaps it will appear.”

  “Well, now the earring can go out on its journey,” said Juliet.

  “It has come on one,” said her father, balancing it on his hand. “I have a feeling that it should rest now.”

  “You assign it a human personality,” said Sir Roderick. “That would lead you into all kinds of ways.”

  “In which case it could lead me out of them.”

  “We think of earrings as a pair,” said Lucius. “The sight of one would suggest the other. They would hardly give a separate impression.”

  “I knew them apart. That is the simple truth,” said Mr. Firebrace.

  “Almost too simple to be believed,” said Lesbia. “Well, there must be mysteries in life.”

  “I do not know why, my dear. Secrets are not the same thing.”

  “Pray do not be so sinister, Grandpa,” said Oliver. “And before me, whom you knew as a helpless child.”

  “It is ungrateful to say there are no mysteries,” said Juliet, “when we have such a good one, and are making the most of it. Maria, you are pale. I have noticed it all day. The household has been too much, and you are fidgeted by these problems. Why not go and rest, and miss Oliver’s friend? You can see him on another day.”

  “Yes, do, my pretty,” said Sir Roderick. “You are not yourself. We have hardly heard your voice. I wondered what the difference was. Go and rest and take a weight off my mind.”

  Maria left the room. Sir Roderick threw off the weight. Mr. Firebrace handled the earring. Juliet walked to the window. Oliver and Lucius looked at the crevice in the floor, where the earring had lain.

  “Come, sir,” said Sir Roderick, “admit you have made a mistake. Admit it to yourself, if to nobody else. There is no need to be prodigal with the confession. One earring was marked; the other was not. You thought of them together and confused the pair. It is not such a great matter. There is no need to make too much of it.”

  “And the other earring may have acquired a mark,” said Lesbia. “Metal can be scratched, or anyhow this metal can be.”

  Her father held the earring to the light, turned it and looked at the back, seemed to be trying to accept the account, seemed to be tired and to wish to end the matter.

  “Well, a mark might come, I suppose. What has been done can be done again. And I do not remember its shape.”

  “And the earring had been on the floor,” said Oliver, “wedged into that crevice between the boards. It may have got rubbed against the broken oak. The polish on it suggests it.”

  “Well, you suggest it, my boy. And the idea does as well as any other. I do not think much of any of them, but I have no proof, even for myself. I am old; the earring was between the boards; metal may be marked; the case may be about somewhere; it is all true. We will say that the earring was dead and is alive again, and was lost and is found.”

  “So we will,” said Oliver. “I wish I had said it.”

  “Mr. Spode!” said Aldom at the door.

  “Well, Mr. Spode, this is a great pleasure,” said Sir Roderick, as though glad to address himself to another matter. “We give you our first welcome, and hope it will not be the last.”

  “There cannot be many, good as you are. I am leaving the school this term. I could not remain without your son. I could not do what I once did.”

  “This is not good hearing, Spode,” said Lucius.

  “So Oliver has been an upsetting influence,” said Juliet. “We might have known what would come of employing a relation.”

  “What a way to talk, when I obliged you for a term! Why have you returned so early, Spode?”

  “The other masters are not there. Miss James and I are by ourselves.”

  “There are two good reasons, but surely there is another.”

  “My mother and I are estranged.”

  “Why, that is not good hearing either,” said Mr. Fire-brace. “I remember your mother. She is an old friend of mine. I am interested to meet her son, and to have news of her. But your news is not of the best.”

  “It means nothing, sir. It is only that difference is not a basis for companionship. That is an error. And she chooses her words to wound me. She stoops to that.”

  “What are her words?” said Oliver. “I always like to hear them.”

  “You have heard these before. That I am afraid to hunt. I am glad they give someone pleasure. They give me none.”

  “Well, that is not true. I am sure,” said Sir Roderick, heartily.

  “It is true,” said his guest. “There lies the meanness of saying it.”

  “You do not understand Spode, Father,” said Oliver. “It cannot be done all at once.”

  Sir Roderick did not question this.

  “Your son and I are good friends because we are cast in the same mould. The soul of Spode was knit unto the soul of Shelley.”

  “You are certainly alike. You might be taken for brothers.”

  “And my mother and I might be strangers. Anyhow when we pass each other without speaking.”

  “I am sure that does not often happen.”

  “Never until the latter half of the holidays. Then it does.”

  “Do you call each other ‘Oliver’?” said Sir Roderick, looking from one young man to the other.

  “We call each other Shelley and Spode, as is necessary in a school. It is a hard and hardly judging world.”

  “That is why our intercourse was suspect in it,” said Oliver. “Suspicion must flourish in a school. There is so much ground for it.”

  “I shall be sorry to lose you, Spode,” said Lucius. “It will not be easy to fill your place.”

  “I fear it may not, sir, with my being a just man.”

  “We shall miss you both,” said Juliet. “The two tall, ponderous figures will no longer pace arm-in-arm along the corridors.”

  “They would not have done that anyhow,” said Oliver. “Uncle Lucius had forbidden it. They say it is nice to be missed, but I never understand how one knows about it. I wish I had known that the passages were corridors, before it was too late.”

  “So your brother will return alone?” said Mr. Spode.


  “He is not returning either. The experiment for both of us has failed.”

  “Oh, that is how it has turned out.”

  “How what has turned out?” said Sir Roderick at once.

  “The trouble,” said Mr. Spode, on a deeper note.

  “Yes, it was a great and sad trouble to us all, and to the poor little boy as well.”

  “It must have been to him.”

  “We tried to make it a light one.”

  “And you did not succeed. You attempted the impossible. But the attempt should be honoured.”

  “Perhaps it was a case where failure was greater than success,” said Oliver. “I had not ever met one.”

  “Success would have been greater,” said Mr. Spode. “Success is very great. We were right about it when we were young, as we were about so many things. Not that we are not right about more now.”

  “What did you think of the boy and the trouble and all of it?” said Sir Roderick, as if the words broke from him.

  “You could not repress the question,” said Oliver. “It would come out. Why do we talk as if questions should not do that? What else should happen to them? And if they did not, the answers would not come out either.”

  “And answers to questions always contain some truth,” said Mr. Spode.

  “So they do,” said Oliver. “People are so cruel.”

  “Do you see your way to answering this question?” said Sir Roderick, seeming to control his voice.

  “I thought badly of the trouble,” said Mr. Spode. “I do think ill of such things. But the boy only tried to command success, when he should have done more, deserved it. He may have thought people would not think it was more. He may, indeed, have noticed it. I pitied the boy, and it was pity with equal feeling in it. It was the kind I give myself. I am often in need of it.”

  “Would you advise me to keep him at home?”

  “Roderick, ought you to ask advice from our masters, when you have taken your son from the school?” said Juliet.

  “I am asking the advice of Oliver’s friend. And he will be leaving himself at the end of the term.”

  “I love to give advice,” said Mr. Spode. “It makes me feel so much at home. I advise you to keep him where memories are shortest. That would probably be at school. But the matter is in your hands.”