The Last and the First Read online

  “Then perhaps there was hardly any need to say it.”

  “Yes, there was need,” said Roberta. “There are things that have to be said. Or they might really go without saying. And if that could be borne, someone would sometimes bear it.”

  “Well, we have had many lessons in our life,” said Madeline. “Perhaps more than we should have had in a more usual one.”

  “And they are seldom happy things,” said Hermia. “When someone has had one, it has never been a congenial experience.”

  “But we may have salutary ones.”

  “I think you must have, to be so improved,” said Roberta! “You could hardly have started like this.”

  Eliza returned to the room, moved about in silence for a minute, and spoke in a cold tone.

  “You seem to have a good deal to discuss. I thought your question was settled.”

  “You were right,” said Hermia. “I am just about to answer the letter.”

  “Let me see it again and I will dictate the answer.”

  “No, it would not be mine. And you can’t think it should be someone else’s, when you see it as you do.”

  Hermia went to a desk and wrote without delay or pause, and was about to fasten the envelope when Eliza turned.

  “The answer must not leave my house without my sanction. I am responsible for what is done under my roof.”

  “But not for what leaves it.”

  “Yes, it was written under my eyes and must be worded as I approve. In such a way that the decision is not final.”

  To the surprise of them all Hermia gave her the letter. They saw it did not reach the foot of the page. Eliza threw her eyes over it.

  “Well, so there it is. You have cut away your future. You have chosen subjection and dependence, as if you were fitted for them. And you are not fitted for them, Hermia. You do not know yourself. You have not the qualities needed for such a life. You will live unhappily and uselessly, a trial to yourself and others, until it ends.”

  “It may be so; perhaps it must be. But it makes no difference. And the matter is only to do with myself. It bears on no one else’s future.”

  “That is true of few things, and not of this,” said Eliza, going to the door. “Well, I have said and done all I can. I will weary myself no more.”

  “Is the letter to go by post?” said Angus, to cover the pause. “Or shall I take it to the house?”

  “By post,” said Hermia. “It will attract less notice. The episode is at an end. I wish it had not happened. It gives me nothing, and shows my future as it is. It shows it even to me. It is not just what Mater said.”

  “But there tends to be something in her words that remains,” said Madeline. “It is a thing we notice about them.”

  “It is,” said Angus. “She notices it herself. I wonder she dares to speak.”

  “She does dare,” said Hermia. “I am the last to dispute it.”

  “There is danger in courage. Cowardice is a power for good. We hardly know what it prevents.”

  “We know what it should have prevented. That is enough.”

  “If we are thinking of Mater,” said Madeline. “Does her courage show a certain quality? She is not ashamed of thoughts and feelings that other people would disguise.”

  “But why is she not ashamed of them?” said Hermia. “Other people would see the reasons.”

  “They may get into the way of hiding themselves. And we see she hardly ever does.”

  “We do. We can’t shut our eyes to it. So we are to congratulate her on it. We can hardly congratulate ourselves.”

  “No, I don’t feel you see her quite justly, Hermia.”

  “Well, how does she show herself to me? And in what light does she see me?”

  “Her view of you may partly result from yours of her.”

  “No, it is the other way round. Her view of me dates from before she saw me. She did not want step-children, and I was the elder and the more to Father. He was to care only for her and her children. And it has almost come to pass. He is not the father to us he should have been.”

  “He has had his personal fulfilment. We should bear that in mind.”

  “Our minds are hardly the place for it. We have our own feelings to suffer.”

  “Yes, it is true,” said her father’s voice, “and true of us all. My feelings have been what Madeline says. Yours are what we know. And Mater’s are what I fear they must be. She advised you for the best as she saw it. Her life has been what it has. And we leave it there. But there is a word for me to say, my dear. Let things be as easy as they may. Old age has come late to me, but it must be at hand. Let me leave peace behind me as the outcome of my days. I once thought to depend on you for more. I thought too far ahead. Life must have its way with us. I see the mistake was mine.”

  “I think you can depend on me, Father,” said Madeline. “I know what you mean and I will do my best. And Hermia will not set herself against me. It is a thing she has never done.”

  “My trustworthy daughters!” said Sir Robert, putting his arms about them, and remaining as he was with his eyes on the door as Eliza appeared within it. “The future is safe in your hands. I look forward with a quiet mind.”

  “Why, what is it?” said Eliza with her eyes on them. “What is it all supposed to be? Are you acting some sort of scene?”

  “Yes, we are,” said her husband, drawing her towards him, and including her in the embrace. “A scene that foreshadows the future, and eases my way towards it.”

  “Well, we are living in the present now. That will be enough for us. And a scene hardly represents anything when it is on this meagre scale. It leaves out too many of us. It tends to provoke a smile.” Eliza proved the tendency and turned aside. “We will go to the library, Robert. You must learn not to indulge in scenes. I shall be afraid to leave you. You talk of trustworthy people. I wish I could do the same.”

  She left the room with her husband. The elder daughters also left, and her own two children were alone.

  “Suppose the scene had not left us out?” said Roberta. “What would you have done?”

  “Comforted myself with awkwardness. I almost did so while I watched it. And it seemed to last so long.”

  “Yes, every minute seemed an hour. So that is a thing that can really happen. And it must have seemed more to Mater. She could not have managed her emotions in the time. Did you see her face?”

  “I did not dare to look at it. My own must have been enough. Father is at an age he should not be. That is the trouble underneath our lives. He has been wise to draw a veil over it. I hope he will not yield to the habit of lifting it. It would not add to his days.”

  “If only something could add to them! We only know of one method. That of making every minute seem an hour. And that is hardly a good one.”

  “Well, my dear ones,” said Eliza, on the threshold. “So you are sunk in earnest talk. You must try to forget that scene. There was no reason at all to have it. Your sisters should have known better, two mature women as they are. It was absurd for them to be grouped with your father as if they were the foremost figures in his life. As if he saw them in that way! We will put it out of our thoughts. And now this offer of Hermia’s and her refusal of it. Can anything be done? Have you any influence with her? I have not sent her answer to the post. The decision is still in abeyance. I cannot have it made certain. It would be a wrong thing to do.”

  “It would not. It would be a right thing. It is the only thing,” said Angus. “The answer must go to the post as Hermia thinks it has gone. Give it to me and she need not know of its setback. You might be a figure in history, corrupted by power. It is what you are, except that you are not in history.”

  “It is a pity I am not. It is where I ought to be. I should do a great deal of good. I daresay you will come to realise it. Whose are the voices in the hall? Not your father’s and Hermia’s and Madeline’s?”

  But these were what they were, and Angus’s voice joined them. And after a minut
e Eliza’s did the same.

  “What are you all doing here? What is all the talk about?”

  “We are doing nothing. We happened to meet,” said Hermia. “The talk is about the letter in Angus’s hand. The letter that should be in the post.”

  “Well, it will soon be there. And it is not where it should be. It should not be anywhere, as you know. I tried to give the matter a chance, and it is taken from my hands. It will be regretted but I can’t help it. I have done my best.”

  “Her best and her worst,” said Sir Robert, putting his hand on her shoulder. “It was never in her hands, except in the sense it should not have been. The matter has ended and has never had any meaning. She tried to give it what was not there. Even she could not manage it.”

  He guided his wife across the hall, and the door of the library closed.

  “So there it is,” said Hermia. “She can do no wrong. In her own eyes, or in his, or even in Madeline’s. The normal rules don’t apply to her. She is somehow outside them,. It is a wonder she is not worse than she is.”

  “Well, that is what I think sometimes,” said Madeline. “Though there could be a kinder way of putting it. We might not do as well in her place.”

  “We know we should do much better. Though perhaps not as well as in a more usual place.”

  “Or as well as we do in our own,” said Angus. “I give myself a great deal of praise in my thought.”

  “I don’t,” said Roberta. “I keep my thought away from it. I should take more pride in doing as Hermia has done. We are said to be proud of doing the wrong things, and Madeline may see me as an example of it.”

  Chapter VII

  Miss Murdoch descended from the Heriots’ carriage and stood with her eyes on her partner’s home.

  “Ah, this is your background. It is what it is and would be. You return to it to breathe a different air. To be restored to yourself and to us.”

  “Well, perhaps she does,” said Eliza, coming with a smile into the hall. “I hope it will do its work. It is true that this house must be called her background. It is the scene of most of her life.”

  “Ah, is it her reality? Is the time with me the shadow time? Well, it is a part of living and moving onward. It is a forward step, however we see it.”

  “We hope it is,” said Sir Robert, as they went to the luncheon table. “It is to be one in her case, her step towards independence. She is taking it in a serious spirit.”

  “Ah, I have seen her effort. And I have had my thought and doubt. For effort may be danger, movement that is not forward, something that is just our own.”

  “This effort is indeed her own. That is why we agreed to it, and did what we could to further it.”

  “Ah, yes; so she will not put too much on it. Success or failure for ourselves—it is a doubtful thing. Either may take us forward, either take us back. And which of them is the better for us? Is it in our power to say?”

  “I feel it is in mine,” said Eliza, smiling again. “I would put my faith in success. And I don’t feel it would take me back.”

  “It may not be easy to compare them, Mater,” said Madeline. “There can seem to be so little difference between them.”

  “I should not have thought often. They tend to be the opposite of each other.”

  “I suppose extremes may meet?”

  “They usually lie far apart.”

  “Ah, the simple word,” said Miss Murdoch. “It serves the simple thing. The simple thought must have its place.”

  “It must,” said Sir Robert. “It is so often in our minds. I think almost always in mine. Indeed it is there at the moment. We are anxious for our daughter to succeed in this venture. I wish I knew there was a chance of it. She is at her best when she has a free hand. May we feel the hope is there?”

  “Ah, a free hand, our own way! Do they give it to us, the forces that point our path? And is it a good thing for us, a good thing in itself? Is it a just guide?”

  “It tends to be a safe one,” said Eliza. “We know our bent and do better when we follow it. But we must not labour our point of view. It is good of you to listen to it.”

  “Ah, the point of view, the something that is in us, different and deep in us all. Mine comes from the love of the rooted thing, a trust in the past. I will not hide it, will not be ashamed of what I am.”

  “Are people ever ashamed of that?” said Angus to his sister. “They are always glad to talk about it, whether we can admire it or not. Of course I am not talking of what they are in their hearts.”

  “They would not count that,” said Roberta. “And I don’t see why they should. It can make no difference when it is always hidden.”

  “Ah, you are mockers, innocent ones,” said Miss Murdoch, summoning humour to her eyes. “Well, you will be yourselves and go your harmless way. But it is not mine. We shall not go forward together. It would mean acceptance of the surface thought, the surface thing. It may have to come; it may be coming. Let us not think or talk of it.”

  They did so no more, the occasion wore to its end, and Hermia returned from escorting her guest to the carriage.

  “Well, light has broken,” she said. “You know the whole.”

  “There is something I don’t know,” said Eliza. “Of all the schools in the world, what led you to this one, and to the sacrifice of the family money to it?”

  “Its need of the money and of me. The trouble is the failure to make use of them. The picture is complete.”

  “Miss Murdoch seems in her way an unusual woman,” said Madeline.

  “She does,” said Sir Robert. “It is a safe thing to say.”

  “She is not unusual in herself,” said Eliza. “She has invented a way to seem so. And I daresay it deceives many people, including herself and Madeline.”

  “It is true,” said Hermia. “And people are perceiving the truth. She may have done better at first, when the method was more alive. Before it was an echo of itself.”

  “Suppose we had met her then,” said Angus. “We might have been deceived. I believe I should have been.”

  “I half thought you were to-day,” said his mother. “I was surprised when you opened your mouth. Why do you and Roberta never do yourselves justice with guests?”

  “We don’t dare to, when the guest is Miss Murdoch,” said Roberta. “It is a thing she might not approve. ‘Justice to ourselves’; is it a good thing? Worthy of us, worthy in itself? Do we say it is?”

  “Hermia and Madeline make the very most of themselves.”

  “Well, perhaps she does not approve. Hermia does seem somehow to have missed her approval.”

  “I talked to her a little,” said Madeline. “It seemed to be the thing to do. I had no thought of making the most of myself.”

  “I did the same,” said Angus. “And with the same high motive. And I found it was making the very most of myself. And I suppose she saw it. She told me what she thought of me. I could not do the same. But I wished I could tell her that Hermia had had a proposal. We can guess what her response would have been.”

  “So you need not tell us,” said Eliza. “We have had enough of her to-day. And if you and Roberta want to copy someone, why not choose a worthier model?”

  “It might mean frustration,” said Sir Robert, with a smile. “There would not be a case for mimicry.”

  “Is there ever a case for it?” said Madeline. “It never gives a fair impression.”

  “It is true,” said Angus. “But we have to be unfair to Miss Murdoch.”

  “Of course it is easier to be disparaging than to be just. She is very likely quite a good-hearted woman.”

  “Is disparagement easier than that?” said Roberta. “No wonder we all indulge in it.”

  “We need do so no more,” said Eliza. “We can put her out of our minds. There is one good point about her. She will be easily forgotten. There is nothing definite to remember.”

  “Hermia may be reminded of her, if they happen to pass at the school,” said Angus.


  “I shall,” said his sister. “But I hope it will go no further. We shall do our best to keep apart.”

  “And that is how you work together for its good?” said Eliza. “She could see no difference between success and failure. And it seems to be true of you both.”

  Chapter VIII

  “ Well, I am alone,” said Jocasta. “The saddest thing of all to be. My sons are gone and have no more troubles for themselves. It is I who have them, I who am old and unfit for them. Life can bear hardly on us. Death is the easier thing. Some are marked out for sorrow, and I am one of them.”

  “For other things too,” said Erica. “For freedom and place and power. And the length of days that most of us would choose. Your sons might have put your fate before their own.”

  “Ah, they would, my sons, the boys who made my youth. They have had too little, torn from me, unwilling to go. Your father was called a failure, but he had much that you had not. It has not been nothing to have you, but it has been nothing compared to having him. I have carried the want of him with me, I shall carry it to the grave. And now the first of them, my Hamilton, the support of my age, cut off by sickness in his prime! Yes, it happens to many, but why to him? Why to him, so content with his own kind of success? It will benefit others and not himself. They will be grateful, but not grateful enough. They will forget who gave them what they have, and take it as their right. I know it; I foresee it. There is nothing I don’t know and see. So I will go and be alone. It is what I am. To appear to be anything else is to act a lie. You will be with each other, and I will be with no one. There is no one with whom I can be.”

  She left them and left a silence, and her grandson broke it.

  “We must hope that Grannie will outlive us. Her opinion of people only improves with their death. Few opinions improve much until then, and hers does not improve at all.”

  “Sometimes she forgets they are dead,” said Amy. “And goes back to what she thinks of them.”

  “It may have been so in Father’s case. But it hardly will in Uncle Hamilton’s. He leaves her what is his, instead of causing inroads in what is hers. And that will make a difference.”