A Family and a Fortune (2 page)

‘Oh, I am not as young as all that. A ripe thirty, and all my years lived to the full! I would not have missed out one of them. I don't rank myself with the callow young any longer.'

‘Always Father's little girl,' murmured Aubrey.

‘What, my son?' said Edgar.

‘I still rank myself with the young,' said Aubrey, as if repeating what he had said. ‘I think I had better until I go to school. Anything else would make me look silly, and Clement would not like me to look that.'

‘Get on with your breakfast, little boy,' said Justine. ‘Straight on and not another word until you have finished.'

‘I was making my little effort to keep the ball of conversation rolling. Every little counts.'

‘So it does, dear, and with all our hearts we acknowledge it.'

Blanche smiled from her eldest to her youngest child in appreciation of their feeling.

‘Aubrey meets with continual success,' said Mark. ‘He is indeed a kind of success in himself.'

‘What kind?' said Clement.

‘Too simple, Clement,' said Justine, shaking her head. ‘How did you sleep, Uncle?'

‘Very well until I was awakened by the rain. Then I went to the window and stood looking out into the night. I see now that people really do that.'

‘They really shut out the air,' said Clement.

‘Is Clement a soured young man?' said Aubrey.

‘I had a very bad night,' said Blanche, in a mild, conversational tone, without complaint that no enquiry had been made of her. ‘I have almost forgotten what it is to have a good one.'

‘Poor little Mother! But you sleep in the afternoon,' said Justine.

‘I never do. I have my rest, of course; I could not get on
without it. But I never sleep. I may close my eyes to ease them, but I am always awake.'

‘You were snoring yesterday, Mother,' said Justine, with the insistence upon people's sleeping and giving this sign which seems to be a human characteristic.

‘No, I was not,' said Blanche, with the annoyance at the course, which is unfortunately another. ‘I never snore even at night, so I certainly do not when I am just resting in the day.'

‘Mother, I tiptoed in and you did not give a sign.'

‘If you made no sound, and I was resting my eyes, I may not have heard you, of course.'

‘Anyhow a few minutes in the day do not make up for a bad night,' said Mark.

‘But I do not sleep in the day, even for a few minutes,' said his mother in a shriller tone. ‘I don't know what to say to make you all understand.'

‘I don't know why people mind admitting to a few minutes' sleep in the day,' said Dudley, ‘when we all acknowledge hours at night and indeed require compassion if we do not have them.'

‘Who has acknowledged them?' said Clement. ‘It will appear that as a family we do without sleep.'

‘But I do not mind admitting to them,' said Blanche. ‘What I mean is that it is not the truth. There is no point in not speaking the truth even about a trivial matter.'

‘I do not describe insomnia in that way,' said Mark.

‘Dear boy, you do understand,' said Blanche, holding out her hand with an almost wild air. ‘You do prevent my feeling quite alone.'

‘Come, come, Mother, I was tactless, I admit,' said Justine. ‘I know people hate confessing that they sleep in the day. I ought to have remembered it.'

‘Justine now shows tact,' murmured Aubrey.

‘It is possible - it seems to be possible,' said Edgar, ‘to be resting with closed eyes and give the impression of sleep.'

‘You forget the snoring, Father,' said Justine, in a voice so low and light as to escape her mother's ears.

‘If you don't forget it too, I don't know what we are to do,' said Mark, in the same manner.

‘Snoring is not proof of being asleep,' said Dudley.

‘But I was not snoring,' said Blanche, in the easier tone of one losing grasp of a situation. ‘I should have known it myself. It would not be possible to be awake and make a noise and not hear it.'

Justine gave an arch look at anyone who would receive it, Edgar did so as a duty and rapidly withdrew his eyes as another.

‘Why do we not learn that no one ever snores under any circumstances?' said Clement.

‘I wonder how the idea of snoring arose,' said Mark.

‘Mother, are you going to eat no more than that?' said Justine. ‘You are not ashamed of eating as well as of sleeping, I hope.'

‘There has been no question of sleeping. And I am not ashamed of either. I always eat very well and I always sleep very badly. There is no connexion between them.'

‘You seem to be making an exception in the first matter today,' said her husband.

‘Well, it upsets me to be contradicted, Edgar, and told that I do things when I don't do them, and when I know quite well what I do, myself,' said Blanche, almost flouncing in her chair.

‘It certainly does, Mother dear. So we will leave it at that; that you know quite well what you do yourself.'

‘It seems a reasonable conclusion,' said Mark.

‘I believe people always know that best,' said Dudley. ‘If we could see ourselves as others see us, we should be much more misled, though people always talk as if we ought to try to do it.'

‘They want us to be misled and cruelly,' said his nephew.

‘I don't know,' said Justine. ‘We might often meet a good, sound, impartial judgement.'

‘And we know, when we have one described like that, what a dreadful judgement it is,' said her uncle.

‘Half the truth, the blackest of lies,' said Mark.

‘The whitest of lies really,' said Clement. ‘Or there is no such thing as a white lie.'

‘Well, there is not,' said his sister. ‘Truth is truth and a lie is a lie.'

‘What is Truth?' said Aubrey. ‘Has Justine told us?'

‘Truth is whatever happens to be true under the circumstances,' said his sister, doing so at the moment. ‘We ought not to mind a searchlight being turned on our inner selves, if we are honest about them.'

‘That is our reason,' said Mark. ‘“Know thyself” is a most superfluous direction. We can't avoid it.'

‘We can only hope that no one else knows,' said Dudley.

‘Uncle, what nonsense!' said Justine. ‘You are the most transparent and genuine person, the very last to say that.'

‘What do you all really mean?' said Edgar, speaking rather hurriedly, as if to check any further personal description.

‘I think I only mean', said his brother, ‘that human beings ought always to be judged very tenderly, and that no one will be as tender as themselves. “Remember what you owe to yourself” is another piece of superfluous advice.'

‘But better than most advice,' said Aubrey, lowering his voice as he ended. ‘More tender.'

‘Now, little boy, hurry up with your breakfast,' said Justine. ‘Mr Penrose will be here in a few minutes.'

‘To pursue his life work of improving Aubrey,' said Clement.

‘Clement ought to have ended with a sigh,' said Aubrey. ‘But I daresay the work has its own unexpected rewards.'

‘I forget what I learned at Eton,' said his uncle.

‘Yes, so do I; yes, so to a great extent do I,' said Edgar. ‘Yes, I believe I forgot the greater part of it.'

‘You can't really have lost it, Father,' said Justine. ‘An education in the greatest school in the world must have left its trace. It must have contributed to your forming.'

‘It does not seem to matter that I can't go to school,' said Aubrey. ‘It will be a shorter cut to the same end.'

‘Now, little boy, don't take that obvious line. And remember that self-education is the greatest school of all.'

‘And education by Penrose? What is that?'

‘Say Mr Penrose. And get on with your breakfast,'

‘He has only had one piece of toast,' said Blanche, in a tone which suggested that it would be one of despair if the situation were not familiar. ‘And he is a growing boy.'

‘I should not describe him in those terms,' said Mark.

‘I should be at a loss to describe him,' said Clement.

‘Don't be silly,' said their mother at once. ‘You are both of you just as difficult to describe.'

‘Some people defy description,' said Aubrey. ‘Uncle and I are among them.'

‘There is something in it,' said Justine, looking round.

‘Perhaps we should not – it may be as well not to discuss people who are present,' said Edgar.

‘Right as usual, Father. I wish the boys would emulate you.'

‘Oh, I think they do, dear,' said Blanche, in an automatic tone. ‘I see a great likeness in them both to their father. It gets more striking.'

‘And does no one think poor Uncle a worthy object of emulation? He is as experienced and polished a person as Father.'

Edgar looked up at this swift disregard of accepted advice.

‘I am a changeling,' said Dudley. ‘Aubrey and I are very hard to get hold of.'

‘And you can't send a person you can't put your finger on to school,' said his nephew.

‘You can see that he does the next best thing,' said Justine. ‘Off with you at once. There is Mr Penrose on the steps. Don't keep the poor little man waiting.'

‘Justine refers to every other person as poor,' said Clement.

‘Well, I am not quite without the bowels of human compassion. The ups and downs of the world do strike me, I confess.'

‘Chiefly the downs.'

‘Well, there are more of them.'

‘Poor little man,' murmured Aubrey, leaving his seat. ‘Whose little man is he? I am Justine's little boy.'

‘It seems - is it not rather soon after breakfast to work?' said Edgar.

‘They go for a walk first, as you know, Father. It is good for Aubrey to have a little adult conversation apart from his family. I asked Mr Penrose to make the talk educational.

‘Did you, dear?' said Blanche, contracting her eyes. ‘I think you should leave that kind of thing to Father or me.'

‘Indeed I should not, Mother. And not have it done at all? That would be a nice alternative. I should do all I can for you all, as it comes into my head, as I always have and always shall. Don't try to prevent what is useful and right.'

Blanche subsided under this reasonable direction.

‘Now off with you both! Off to your occupations,' said Justine, waving her hand towards her brothers. ‘I hope you have some. I have, and they will not wait.'

‘I am glad I have none,' said Dudley. ‘I could not bear to have regular employment.'

‘Do you know what I have discovered?' said his niece. ‘I have discovered a likeness between our little boy and you, Uncle. A real, incontrovertible and bona fide likeness. It is no good for you all to open your eyes. I have made my discovery and will stick to it.'

‘I have always thought they were alike,' said Blanche.

‘Oh, now, Mother, that is not at all on the line. You know it has only occurred to you at this moment.'

‘No, I am bound to say', said Edgar, definite in the interests of justice, ‘that I have heard your mother point out a resemblance.'

‘Then dear little Mother, she has got in first, and I am the last person to grudge her the credit. So you see it, Mother? Because I am certain of it, certain. I should almost have thought that Uncle would see it himself.'

‘We can hardly expect him to call attention to it,' said Clement.

‘I am aware of it,' said Dudley, ‘and I invite the attention of you all.'

‘Then I am a laggard and see things last instead of first.

‘But I am none the less interested in them. My interest does not depend upon personal triumph. It is a much more genuine and independent thing.'

‘Mine is feebler, I admit,' said Mark.

‘Now, Mother, you will have a rest this morning to make up for your poor night. And I will drive the house on its course. You can be quite at ease.'

Justine put her hand against her mother's cheek, and Blanche lifted her own hand and held it for a moment, smiling at her daughter.

‘What a dear, good girl she is!' she said, as the latter left them. ‘What should we do without her?'

‘What we do now,' said Clement.

‘Indeed we should not,' said his mother, rounding on him at once. ‘We should find everything entirely different, as you know quite well.'

‘Indeed, indeed,' said Edgar in a deliberate voice. ‘Indeed.'

Edgar and Blanche had fallen in love thirty-one years before, in the year eighteen hundred and seventy, when Edgar was twenty-four and Blanche thirty; and now that the feeling was a memory, and a rare and even embarrassing one, Blanche regarded her husband with trust and pride, and Edgar his wife with compassionate affection. It meant little that neither was ever disloyal to the other, for neither was capable of disloyalty. They had come to be rather shy of each other and were little together by day or night. It was hard to imagine how their shyness had ever been enough in abeyance to allow of their courtship and marriage, and they found it especially the case. They could only remember, and this they did as seldom as they could. Blanche seemed to wander aloof through her life, finding enough to live for in the members of her family and in her sense of pride and possession in each, it was typical of her that she regarded Dudley as a brother, and had no jealousy of her husband's relation with him.

Edgar's life was largely in his brother and the friendship which dated from their infancy. Mark helped his father in his halting and efficient management of the estate, and as the eldest son had been given no profession. Clement had
gained a fellowship at Cambridge with a view to being a scholar and a don. Each brother had a faint compassion and contempt for the other's employment and prospect.

‘Mother dear,' said Justine, returning to the room, ‘here is a letter which came for you last night and which you have not opened. There is a way to discharge your duties! I suggest that you remedy the omission.'