Mother and Son (17 page)

“So you have heard again, Miss Wolsey,” said Julius.

“I could not help it. I was crossing the hall and could not pass you. I had no thought of your talking secrets here.”

“You will think we talk them everywhere, that we talk of nothing else. Well, you know more about us than we knew ourselves a day ago!”

“If you will, I will know nothing.”

“You will wonder what families are like, when your first emerges like this. You will not think anyone is what he is supposed to be. You can keep another secret. You see that other people must keep theirs.”

“I will keep it. I feel it is mine. I feel this makes me
one of you. I feel that I follow what has happened, and that no one is to blame.”

“If we accept the normal code, more than one of us has broken it. It is Rosebery who is rather sinned against than sinning.”

“Father, should not Francis hear of the change in his life? I want it to be known and accepted. It somehow seems an obstacle in my path, and I long to relax and be at peace. It has been a hard hour. I may be thinking of myself, but perhaps the time has come for it. I have tried to think of others. May I bring him to learn of his future?”

“You may bring all three. It will affect them all, if you take only what is yours. There is an income apart from the place, though your mother would not have them know it. You are right that the matter is better dealt with and ended. It hinders the real silence.”

As Rosebery left them, Julius spoke to himself.

“I have not lost my son as much as my wife. And I do not mean the loss by death.”

“I know you do not,” said Hester, in a low tone. “And I see that in a way you have lost her, perhaps in the deepest way. You must let it help you in the loss by death. We should lessen our pain in any way we can. It does no good to suffer.”

“We might choose the usual suffering that comes from the usual good. It is something we have missed.”

“Let the feeling pass. We should not clutch at pain. We move to the future, whether or no we will. It is not possible to be still.”

“There are times when we pause and look about us.”

“We think we are pausing, but we are going on. Each minute carries us forward. We find we have taken a step in spite of ourselves.”

“I do not feel I have taken one.”

“But you have, and you are to take another. Here are your son and the children.”

“Yes, my son, Miss Wolsey, my son and my brother's children.”

The latter entered and looked about them, Rosebery silently following.

“So there is something to be said,” said Francis.

“Is it another solemn thing?” said his brother.

“It is a serious one,” said Julius. “It will make a change in your lives. It is no good to think that money does not do that.”

“Does anyone think so?” said Francis.

“I hope you do not. I should like you to value what is yours. I will tell you in a word what it will be. Rosebery is waiving his claim to the place and what it brings, in your favour. He shrinks from the responsibility they involve. He has as much from his mother as he cares to have. He does not ask much for himself.”

“Then he is a rare type. I do not claim to belong to it. I am of ordinary mould. If he is sure of his mind, I welcome the news indeed. But is it not the result of his mother's death? He feels the future is empty, and does not care what becomes of it. But the mood will pass and leave him as other men. I must not build my life on an uncertainty, or on a risk of holding him to a dead resolve.”

“Francis, you may build it with confidence,” said
Rosebery. “You may step without hesitation into my place. I shall not be as other men, except in the sense that I must be as they are. I already see everything as yours.”

“Will Francis have it all?” said Adrian.

“No, not quite,” said Julius. “Only one of you can have the place, and it naturally goes to the eldest. But there will be more for you and your sister, enough to better your lives.”

“Then may I tell Pettigrew that I shall not have to earn my living?”

“You may tell him there will be no absolute need for you to do so.”

“Thank you,” said Adrian, in a tone of gratitude. “But I suppose we must still have him?”

“You must,” said Rosebery. “The need is rather more than less.”

“Did Aunt Miranda want you to give things up, so that you could always think about her?”

“She did not want it. But it may be a true account.”

“It cannot always be so,” said Francis. “We must give it time.”

“Francis, I shall be grieved and baffled, if you do not take me at my word. I did not think to have to force upon you what most men would grasp as a good. I know the term, man, is not properly applied to you, but there is a maturity in your outlook that entitles you to equal dealings. Take what is given and go forward, resolved to use it as best befits yourself and serves others. It is because you will fill the place more worthily than I, that I rejoice to yield it to you.”

“But that is not my reason for taking it. And will not people think it very strange?”

“They will see it as unusual,” said Julius. “We have seen ourselves that it is that. But they will adapt themselves to it. It does not touch their lives. You will find they respect you for your good fortune more than they respect Rosebery for giving it to you.”

“And I think there is something in their view, Father. I too estimate the generosity involved in acceptance, and am grateful to Francis for showing it.”

“It seems to me the easiest kind,” said the latter. “Most people would be equal to it. Such a stroke of fortune is too good a thing.”

“For the person who has it,” said Julius.

“Well, Francis is that person,” said Alice.

“There are things more worthy of esteem. But there is no need to blush for this one.”

“We are supposed to resent people when we owe them gratitude,” said Francis. “But it is not my feeling.”

“Of course we like people who are good to us,” said Adrian.

“I do not wish for more than that,” said Rosebery, looking round in an emotional manner.

“You have paid your price for it,” said Julius.

“A small one for what it is, Father. I am satisfied with the exchange. But now I find a thought occurs to me. Is poor Mr. Pettigrew awaiting his pupils upstairs?”

“Shall we have to go to him?” said Adrian.

“Yes, of course,” said Julius. “You are wasting time that is not yours.”

Adrian turned and ran out of the room, and Julius followed with the others.

Rosebery seemed to debate with himself, and suddenly turned to Hester.

“Miss Wolsey, this may not seem the natural time for what I am about to say. But the double loneliness it brings me, urges me forward. Will you consent to share my life and what is mine? I am conscious it is not what might have been, even as I myself am not that; but I feel that my suit may hardly be weakened in your eyes. It will prevent the imputation of worldly motives that would be such a false one. I do not rank my personal claims high; I know the security I offer must be a factor in the case. But I can trust you not to base your acceptance on that alone. You are not dazzled by advantages so modest. I ask you simply if you will take what I am and what I give.”

There was a pause before Hester spoke in a low, swift tone.

“You say it is not the natural time for you to say this. But I feel it is the best one, if it had to be said. Your troubles are too great for anything to count beside them. You will not rank this one as great. I could not make a fair return for what you gave; you would come to see it as unfair; you may see already that you would. You have had a great thing in your life. You could not be content with a less.”

“It is because I have had it, that I could be content. I should not expect such a thing a second time. It would be a good beyond the lot of man. I ask only for a mild affection and sympathy. Indeed
I could offer no more. As you say, my best is given.”

“We are saying the same thing,” said Hester, in a lighter manner. “Neither has enough to give, and each explains it to the other. And I see it as a loss to us both. I am the poorer for my refusal. But we cannot have what is not ours.”

“I had another motive,” said Rosebery, gravely. “I wished to save you from dependence, and I grieve not to be able to do so. What you could not take from a friend, you could take from a husband. It is a thing apart from my feeling for myself. That feeling I can put aside.”

The door opened and Rosebery turned with a start, and in a moment gave rein to his words.

“Father, I make no attempt to disguise the truth. I stand before you a rejected man. One loneliness on another drove me to seek some help in it, and I have sought in vain. I should scorn to veil the truth.”

Julius looked from one face to another.

“Well, well, my son—well, my boy, it has come and gone. Times of emotion drive us anywhere. The impulse can be taken as what it is.”

“Father, there is a grain of comfort in your words. Your substitute for what you must no longer say, brings its own solace. Gladly do I answer to it, and look to do so.”

“You came on a rough piece of road, and wanted to be helped over it. But you can get along it by yourself. You have left the worst behind.”

“I feel I have, Father. And I feel something else. I feel that you and I are the closer for being torn apart, that our friendship may be the better for being simply what it is. It will be natural to you, and will be based on truth. It is a spar for me to cling to in the whirlpool of my life.”

“You must make things easy for each other. You will be meeting day by day. But I need not doubt.”

“Father, I would not take this except as the man I am. I made the offer in all honesty, and accept the refusal simply. You need have no fear.”

“Miss Wolsey would wish it forgotten, and we must follow her wish.”

“Anything I can do for her, will be done now and always. I take no refuge in dudgeon, bear no ill will. Nothing will be grudged to her, to whom I offered all I could. That it was not all, was not my fault.”

“Yes, yes. And now you would like to leave us. You would like an hour alone. Things are too much for you, as they may well be.”

Rosebery went to the door with his hand to his head and a stumbling gait, and Julius watched him until it closed.

“You have been distressed, Miss Wolsey. I wish I could have spared you. You will wonder what the next thing will be. I begin to wonder myself.”

“It was only a moment, and one to be grateful for. I wish I did not feel convicted of ingratitude.”

“I see how it was. He had had a hard time and little help in it. I could not give it to him. I am glad you kept your hold on yourself.”

“I half wish I had lost it. It would have seemed a better thing. I should have given something on my side. He comes out better than I. He could give; I could only refuse; it is a sorry part. Do you still wish me to stay with you?”

“You will not run away as if something were wrong. Rosebery has done no harm. It seems to be his lot to suffer it.”

“He will hardly take it from this. It was the result of other things. It does not stand by itself.”

“It meant what it did. He speaks the truth. But it is true that he spoke the whole of it.”

“He was seeking a substitute. It was much to be seen as that. And there I must say a word. I shall not see myself in that way. I shall have to do what your wife did, to be seen in her place. But to myself I shall not be in it.”

“We want the place filled as far as it can be. We do not rejoice in its emptiness.”

“I have not been quite honest with you,” said Hester in a low, quick tone. “I mean about this other thing. There had been signs of it before; I have always met signs of it; it has been a problem in my life. I used to wonder if his mother would notice it.”

“She would have seen it as what it was. She had watched him all his life. And he really kept nothing from her. He is in his way an unusual man.”

“That is how it was, and how it should have been,” said Hester, in a tone of accepting relief. “And it will not be long in dying. And now you will let me help you. It is you who need the help. Your son has had a distraction;
I have been useful in being that. I do not think you would have sought one.”

“Miss Wolsey, the children; you know what they are to me. I could not show my feeling; I had to fear to show it. And my wife thought they took my love from her son, and she was right in thinking it. It cannot trouble her now. But the custom has set, and I cannot break it. Will you give them what you can? In a way they have had a father. In a way I have done my part.”

“I will. I see how they need it. They should not be dependent on each other.”

“They are safe enough there. But they need something more. This house that will be their home, what memories will it have for them? They have had so little. And I would give them much.”

“We will do it together. I will break the ice and you will follow. There is no end more worthy, and no two hearts more at one.”

“I have a double knowledge of you all,” said Hester at the breakfast table. “Your portrait looks me in the face, as I sit here. Mrs. Hume must have felt that she lived at two different times.”

“I expect she no longer saw it,” said Julius. “I can hardly remember when I did so.”

“I used to see her turn her eyes on it, Father,” said
Rosebery, resting his own eyes on the group of his parents and himself, that Miranda had caused to be executed. “I think it served a purpose for her.”

“It is a speaking likeness of all three,” said Hester.

“Does that mean that the subjects might be speaking, Miss Wolsey?”

“Well, we know what they might say,” said Julius. “They are not strangers to us.”