Two Worlds and Their Ways Page 4

  “This time seems to be different,” said Maria. “I suppose the day must come.”

  “I used to suppose it until I perceived it was not the truth.”

  “Do you want to be rid of them?”

  “I have no feeling on the matter. The idea did not come from me. The question is whether you do.”

  “It is whether it is best for them. Your daughters think it is.”

  “I should pay them no heed. They have to gain their bread.”

  “What do you think, Miss Petticott?” said Oliver.

  “That does not bear on the matter either, Mr. Shelley, and so has no point in being thought, if I may express it as the children would. And I do agree that Sefton is a boy, and that Clemence is getting older.”

  “Well, yes, so do I,” said Oliver.

  “It may sound an obvious thing to say, but it has its own truth as obvious things so often have.”

  “I should have thought it had only ordinary truth.”

  “Well, truth of any kind should be enough for us, Mr. Shelley.”

  “Oh, who has taken the last jam tart?” said Maria in rallying reproach.

  Sefton restored the tart to the dish.

  “But what can we do with it now that those grubby hands have been over it?”

  Sefton resumed possession of the tart.

  “Did you ask Miss Petticott if she would like it?”

  Sefton looked uncertain whether to proffer it at this stage.

  “I could not eat any more, Lady Shelley.”

  “But conventions should be observed. Sefton must remember another time.”

  The latter began to eat the tart, uncertain what other course to take.

  “It is nice?” said his mother, with the same touch of reproach.

  “Yes.”

  “You do not sound very sure about it?”

  This was natural, as Sefton was eating the tart without tasting it, in his desire to be rid of it and be at ease.

  “So it has gone,” said Maria, in the same manner. “It did not take long, did it?”

  “No.”

  “My dear, the boy must have his tea,” said Sir Roderick. “And surely the morsel has played its part.”

  “ ‘The evil that things do, lives after them,’” said Clemence.

  “How many tarts were there in the dish?” said Maria. “Did you happen to notice, Miss Petticott?”

  “Well, I actually did, Lady Shelley. They were arranged in a pattern. Five pairs and one in the middle.”

  “Very good taste,” said Oliver.

  “Did you have one, Roderick?”

  “No, they did not come my way.”

  “Did you, Miss Petticott?”

  “No, Lady Shelley. But I had quite enough without them. I could not have managed any more.”

  “I had two,” said Oliver, “and so did Clemence”

  “Then Sefton had seven. Really, Sefton, you should pass things to other people, and not just sit in front of them and despatch them yourself.”

  Clemence and Sefton laughed at the phrase, and Maria looked faintly gratified.

  “Where is the boy to sit, if not at the table?” said Sir Roderick.

  “He should remember there are other people there. I am afraid he does not get much discipline upstairs.”

  “He behaves very nicely, Lady Shelley,” said Miss Petticott. “He always does as he is told.”

  “He waits to be told. I suppose that is it.”

  “He did not think of passing the things on this table,” said Clemence. “He thought they were nothing to do with him. He is not used to being down here.”

  “Is that it, my little son? Come and give your mother a kiss,” said Maria, holding out her arms.

  Sefton went and stood within them. Sir Roderick beckoned to Clemence and accommodated her in the same way. Mr. Firebrace and Oliver rose one accord, linked their arms and danced to the door, keeping in step with each other. Miss Petticott’s were the only eyes that followed them.

  “A queer household, Miss Petticoat?”

  “Well, it is individual, like all households, Sir Roderick. We should not like them without their little idosyncrasies. It would take from the variety and zest of life. The world would be a poorer place.”

  The children remained in their parents’ embrace, uneasy in it, willing to escape, but feeling its safety in view of the menaced future. When release came, Sefton went at once to the door.

  “Go after him and comfort him, Clemence,” said Maria. “He is upset by being convicted of greediness.”

  “By being accused of it,” said Sir Roderick. “What would you have a boy do with the food in front of him?”

  “I do not want him to be a copy of other boys. But no doubt they will make him so. He will be spoiled; both of them will. But I suppose it cannot be helped.”

  “Of course it can,” said her husband, his eyes following his daughter. “There is no need for them to leave their home.”

  Maria saw his look and knew she had given him the first thing in his life, knew too that she had never held the place. She gave a sigh, honest, discouraged, resigned, and Sir Roderick heard it and bowed to fate.

  “I will go and attend to my flock, Lady Shelley,” said Miss Petticott. “I have a feeling that they are in need of their shepherdess.”

  “Yes, go and make things comfortable for them, Miss Petticoat,” said Sir Roderick.

  Miss Petticott mounted to the schoolroom, now restored to its normal use. Sefton was standing by the table with emotion on his face. Clemence regarded him with easy sympathy, and Adela, sunk in the armchair on the hearth, with question.

  “I hope we are not to have supper downstairs,” he said.

  “It would be the most dangerous of all the meals,” said his sister. “It would be dinner, and we should be particularly unworthy of it.”

  “Well, I expect you will have it up here,” said Miss Petticott, taking a chair with a glance at the one in use. “And our manners may be the better for a touch of polish. Perhaps we are sinking too much into our own groove.”

  Adela indicated her lap to Sefton, but as it was not accepted, had no choice but to rise and yield the seat.

  “Thank you, Adela,” said Miss Petticott, taking it as something that was due.

  “Children are better in their own quarters, ma’am.”

  “That does seem to be so. But they must learn to be happy and easy anywhere. Miss Clemence is getting older.”

  “I wonder why people are so struck by that in my case. It must be a common thing.”

  “To hark at her!” said Adela. “She does not need to be hurried forward. And she will never have to fend for herself.”

  “She will have to do other things. And going to school may be the right beginning.”

  “It is the beginning of the end,” said Clemence.

  “Now what do you mean by that?” said Adela.

  “What I may.”

  “I don’t think she needs so much school to help her.”

  “We shall have to be brave, you and I, Adela, and put ourselves in the background. What is best for the children is best for us. That is how we must see it.”

  “There are places I like better than a background, ma’am. And I am not so sure about its being best. It may not amount to that.”

  Sefton took a book and leaned back and crossed his legs. Adela spoke to Clemence with an elaborate movement of her lips, and enough sound coming from them to render the pantomime meaningless.

  “Did anything go wrong downstairs?”

  “Something about a plate of tarts. Nothing that meant anything.”

  “Well, I should hope he is allowed to help himself at the table in his own home!”

  “I had seven,” said Sefton, looking up to throw light on the matter.

  “To think of him! Doing that of his own accord! And everyone’s eyes on him! And him not downstairs above once or twice a year!”

  “It was Mother’s eyes that were on me,” said Seft
on, with a hint of a smile.

  “And they are not coming on fast enough at home.”

  “Come and sit here, Sefton, and have a luxurious hour,” said Miss Petticott, rising from her chair. “I am going to my room for a time.”

  Miss Petticott had hardly closed the door, when it opened to the sound of Maria’s voice.

  “Oh, who has taken the best armchair for himself?”

  There was scarcely a pause before Adela spoke.

  “And who shows he doesn’t dare to meet the governess? That doesn’t suggest the character that is intended.”

  Sefton drew a breath, and Clemence sprang on to the table and swung her legs as though from a rash height.

  “Aldom, do the scene at the inn, when you fetched your father from the supper,” said Sefton.

  “And not too many of the words, with Miss Clemence here,” said Adela. “She won’t have to get used to what you had to.”

  “Miss Clemence all of a sudden!”

  “And time you said it, being what you are, a man and not of any age.”

  The children stood, absorbed in the scene. Adela sat with her mouth open in mingled interest and lack of it. It held its own until it seemed to sustain a sudden shock. A change seemed to shiver through it. The innkeeper spoke with another voice, lived and moved as another man. Clemence and Sefton glanced at each other and the door.

  “A scene from the village school?” said Maria. “What a life-like master!”

  “Yes, my lady,” said Aldom, with a sheepishness that involved acting equal to any he had shown.

  “And what put that into your heads?”

  “They have heard some talk about school, my lady,” said Adela, in bustling explanation. “And that set their thoughts running on the line. And Aldom is something of a mimic and was a character when he was at school.”

  Maria did not question the account, being unaware of the duration of this period.

  “It was something of Master Sefton’s, my lady, that I was mending for him. And my memory having played me false, I have come up without it,” said Aldom, naturally looking rather distraught, as his memory was doing him even less service than he said.

  “I think some people need a good deal of amusing,” said Maria, with her reproachful note, and no thought that in this case her children might hardly be provided for. “And I think we must all go about our duties. Aldom can bring the toy another time. It was kind of him to mend it, but he will be late in setting the dinner.”

  “Not beyond what a little haste will obviate, my lady, it being possible to put out an effort even at the end of the day.”

  “Where is Miss Petticott?” said Maria, seeming not to hear.

  “She went to her room for something,” said Clemence, giving the impression of a transitory errand.

  “And has found the something and brought it down with her, and here it is!” said Miss Petticott, holding up an atlas in the doorway, her ear having caught Maria’s step on the stairs. “And now a gap in our life can be filled, and a hiatus can disappear, and all those things can happen that I have been desiring for some time. I am a happy and contented woman.”

  “Can you come downstairs and help me with these envelopes, Miss Petticott? I seem to have got behind. It is so difficult to keep up with everything.”

  “Certainly, Lady Shelley. I am always glad of a little occupation at the end of the day, when the real work is done,” said Miss Petticott, holding her hands as if their idleness were a source of discomfort to her.

  “I hope we give you enough time to yourself,” said Maria, feeling that the expression of the hope was a substitute for its fulfilment, and finding it so accepted. “Aldom in the schoolroom! I suppose we cannot do anything. I hope it does not often happen.”

  “No, not too often, Lady Shelley. And only in the most casual way. Just a man’s line of interest or a piece of instruction that I cannot give. I am a woman and Sefton is a boy, and it is surprising how early the difference asserts itself.”

  “Clemence is a girl; that is our problem,” said Maria, accepting a gulf between Miss Petticott and her son. “I suppose the change will have to come, though it breaks my heart.”

  “Indeed, Lady Shelley, it almost breaks mine. I shall find myself living for the holidays, when my work will begin.”

  “We shall find some for you at the other times. Never fear.”

  “Then I will not, Lady Shelley. I will depend on you. I know you are a person to be trusted.”

  Adela and the children confronted the fact that danger had approached and passed.

  “Mother might have heard the drunken talk,” said Sefton, in an awed tone.

  “Well, she did not; so we need not build up on that.”

  “She might have asked what the toy was.”

  “Well, she knew what no one else did, that it was a toy. She did not need to ask so much.”

  “And Aldom could have told her, though we could not,” said Clemence. “And the Petticoat is a great support. When she cannot help things, she shuts her eyes to them. And she might do worse.”

  “The Petticoat! So that is the latest.”

  “We often called her that, when we were young.”

  “Oh, did you? Then it is your proper nickname for her,” said Adela, in a serious tone.

  “We even said it to her face,” said Sefton.

  “Most children nickname the governess,” said Clemence.

  “And I should like to know how much you know about most children.”

  “What we hear and what we read, and what we know by the light of nature, and our own light.”

  Adela’s silence did not challenge this account.

  “Oh, is that the way we talk about Miss Petticott, who has been so kind to us?” said Maria’s voice. “Now suppose we tell her about all we feel for her.”

  “Now that is enough,” said Adela. “There must be an end to cleverness when it is all of one kind.”

  “Go on with the talk at the inn, Aldom,” said Sefton, who reacted swiftly from emotion that was past.

  “Mother and the Petticoat will be closeted together for some time,” said Clemence.

  “Yes, that is the newest thing,” said Adela, “and they are supposed to have done it all the time.”

  “Well, so they have, off and on.”

  “Clemence told you, Adela,” said Sefton.

  “Poor old Petticoat!” said Clemence.

  “So it has come to stay,” said Adela, “whether it was here before or not.”

  “Are we expected to go down to dinner?” said Clemence.

  “Hark at her! Expected to go! So they can’t do without them all of a sudden.”

  “No, your supper will be brought up here,” said Aldom. “What is wrong with the room now?”

  “Then go on with the scene, Aldom,” said Sefton. “There is time before Miss Petticott comes back.”

  “The Petticoat, if you please,” said Adela. “Pray let us have it right, if we have it at all.”

  The children resumed their survey of the scene, became involved in it, and finally relieved Aldom of two of the parts. Adela sat between them and the door in the combined capacity of sentinel and spectator. As the excitement waxed, precautions waned; Adela allowed one character to supersede the other; the open door did its work. Maria stood on the threshold with Miss Petticott behind, the latter’s relief that she had not been in charge, the only enviable feeling on the occasion.

  “Well, what a commotion for two small people to make!” said Maria.

  The children felt a shock they did not define. Was the protagonist to be passed over? Was their behaviour beyond the pale of words? Was he himself struck dumb, petrified, dissolved by shock? The last appeared to be the case; Aldom was no more; and advantage might be taken of it before the long grief supervened and held its course. And Adela’s voice was her own.

  “They get excited, my lady. They were acting a scene. It is what they learn with Miss Petticott that puts it into their heads. I got qu
ite lost in it, sitting and watching them.”

  “They had the door wide open,” said Maria, taking this safeguard of guilt as a proof of innocence. “We heard the noise and could not think what it was. I suppose it is a sort of play. Go on from where you were, my dears; and if it is good enough, I will bring Father up to see it.”

  The children cast about in their minds for words—of Aldom’s, of Shakespeare’s, of Miss Petticott’s—to meet the need; took a step towards Maria and uttered some sounds, and looked at Miss Petticott with their hearts in their faces.

  “Oh, come, Lady Shelley, you do not know how sensitive we are about our artistic efforts. I am afraid self-conscious is the word, but that is no help, as we cannot get away from ourselves. We must accept the artistic temperament and take what it has to give us in its own good time. It is a tax on patience, but we do not make such demands on you in vain.”

  “Well, I will be patient, though I do not think the noise I heard, quite bears out that view. Thank you for all your help, Miss Petticott. Good-night, my little shy actor and actress.”

  The children received the caress with as much consciousness as could have resulted from any dramatic gift. Miss Petticott followed Maria to the staircase and engaged her in talk, bringing her pencil down at intervals on some papers in her hand. Her eyes remained on the papers as she retraced her steps, so that a figure that flashed from behind the sofa to the stairs, escaped her notice.

  “Well, you are a nice pair,” she said to her pupils. “Keeping your artistic efforts for when I am away, instead of giving me the benefit of them! I shall not expect such scurvy treatment another time. I feel I have deserved better at your hands.” The pupils had something of the same feeling. “And I should not act any more tonight. Miss Clemence is flushed, Adela, and Sefton is pale, and you are rather pale yourself. I recommend a rest to you all, before you go to bed. And I expect my advice to be followed.”

  Chapter II

  “I Have Come to offer you myself,” said Lesbia Firebrace, as she mounted the Shelleys’ steps. “Because I have nothing else to offer. When people say that, they are content with their offering and expect other people to be.”

  “This is, indeed, a pleasure, Lesbia,” said Sir Roderick, with a simple air of welcome.