The Mighty and Their Fall (16 page)

“You cannot know what you are implying, Ransom.”

“Well, you know. And so does Lavinia. That is enough. And I am implying nothing. I have used plain words.”

“I had no time to read two wills. They are the last things to read at a glance. They are so obscured by legal jargon.”

“You had time. I measured the minutes. You are familiar with them, as you said. And these were short and clear.”

“You have no proof of what you say. None that would count in a court of law.”

“It counts in this house. And that is where we are.”

“You can't really think that I read them. This is just an act.”

“If you can tell me what is in this one, I will let it stand.”

Ninian smiled and shook his head.

“Then I will make the other again.”

“I do not grudge anyone what you leave her. I should wish the choice to be yours.”

“
Her
? And you did not read the wills.”

“Oh, it was an obvious guess. Anyone would have made it.”

“It was a slip, not a guess. It is hard to keep a hold on
everything. Both of you found it so. Neither of you is versed in ill-doing. Each of you has something of the other.”

“Are you versed in it yourself, Ransom? That you prepare the way for it for someone else? It was a poor idea. Are you not ashamed of it?”

“I am not as ashamed as you must be. As I see you are. But we do not leave the matter there. You know what should be said: we have heard you say it; you have done our part. But you have not done your own. You have still to admit the truth.”

“Well, then we are a pair, Lavinia and I,” said Ninian, putting an arm about his daughter. “She thought it best to prevent my marriage. I thought it best to save her and others from her having powers beyond her. We meant well by each other and by those about us. And if we meant well by ourselves too, well, it was hardly being done for us. We could not help the breach of faith. I see now that she could not help it. Only we know how much we wished we could. We should be drawn closer, if we were not already so close.”

“So I have done what I wanted,” said his brother.

“It was an unworthy thought, to put temptation in someone's way. To set a trap where it would not be suspected. Neither she nor I would have done it. Our trial was thrust upon us; hers by the hand of chance, mine by that of a brother. Which is the sadder thing?”

“So you are in the pulpit, Ninian? You feel it is your place?”

“You have been in it yourself. And it emerges that it is not yours.”

“Because I trusted my brother?”

“Because you did not trust him. And so exposed him to something that assumed trust. I might have read your thought. To fail was simple of me.”

“It was your saving grace. It showed you believed in innocence. That means you are not without it.”

“And you do not believe in it?”

“Well, have I met it? Here in this kind of place? In many parts it would have no meaning.”

“Is everyone to know of this?” said Lavinia.

“When you were in similar trouble, everyone knew,” said her uncle.

There was a pause.

“No one need know of it,” said Ninian, in a gentle tone. “No one should know. A wrong meaning would be read into it. My motives would be misjudged, as they have already been. There is no point in essential falseness.”

“They do say that honesty is best,” said Ransom.

“Ransom, you left us for many years. You came back to find welcome, affection, support. Is this your return?”

“Yes, it is. I make it to the girl. You get your reward as her father.”

“A part of what you have would give her freedom, if that is what you want.”

“So you know what I have,” said Ransom, smiling. “You have not learned it from me. And you see what I want. And I see what you do. And if I am the one to have it, well, I am to have nothing else.”

“She might marry and take the money from the place. Then you would not have saved it.”

“I should have saved her,” said Ransom.

“She is too young and untried for such a position.”

“She will grow older; and to my mind she has been tried.”

“You were to leave everything to me. You came home with that intention.”

“It is true. And in the will you preserved, I did so. In the other I left it to Lavinia, to make my test of you a real one. You see I had a certain trust in you. I shall now make a third, leaving it equally between you.”

“Oh, leave it all to her. It is what you want. And you have every right to do it. I should rather like to expiate an alien impulse by a natural sacrifice. It puts things in a truer light.”

“That is your real word? And your last one?”

“If it were not, should I say it? It would carry too great a risk.”

“Then mind you never forget it.”

There was a pause.

“Well, shall I destroy this will for you?” said Ninian, in another tone. “It will serve no purpose.”

“No, I will not trouble you again. And it will be a foundation for the next. It will supply the legal jargon.”

“Well, destroy it in the end. We don't want it lying about.”

“No, people might seek a reason for the change.”

“No. Your feeling for Lavinia was enough. It is known that you have none for me. But gossip is to be avoided.”

“It is the chief of my pleasures,” said another voice. “And few people take your view of it.”

“Who is at the door?” said Lavinia. “I thought it was ajar.”

“Other people were more fortunate,” said Ransom. “They knew it was.”

“So you have been eavesdropping,” said Ninian, in a stern tone.

“No, that is hardly true,” said Hugo. “We came back on an errand, and found ourselves rooted to the spot. What else could have happened to us?”

“My word was the right one. Well, I need not mind any exposure of myself. No one is any better placed. I had both reason and temptation on my side. You had neither.”

“They had the last,” said Ransom. “And it proved too strong. That appears to be its tendency.”

“Or what would be its relation to us?” said Lavinia. “It seems to have no other.”

“So it is a matter for jest,” said Ninian. “Well, it was not for me. I met it and felt I did better to yield to it. It was in a way a temptation not to yield. It would have spared me much.”

“I have never felt that sort of temptation,” said Hugo. “Perhaps I am above some kinds of it.”

“You are silent, Egbert,” said Ninian. “What have you to say to me?”

“Very little, Father. It is true that we left you and returned. But we might have stayed, as you did. We could not foresee what was to come.”

“You knew we did not see you. You were hidden by the door.”

“Not quite,” said Hugo. “Lavinia saw it was ajar. I feel that was honest of us.”

“I am talking to Egbert,” said Ninian.

“I am coming to his help. We were petrified and unable to stir.”

“Well, that is almost the truth, Father.”

“It could be put in other words. But we will not press on each other. We all learn by our stumbles. I am not above doing so.”

“Learning in that way seems hard on other people,” said Lavinia. “Does it suggest an inordinate desire for self-improvement?”

“So it is all a jest,” said Ninian, again. “Well, I see it has that side. We need only say one more word. We must forget it and keep our own counsel.”

“You have the power to say it, Father. I was without it.”

“We will share it now,” said Ninian, putting his hand on her shoulder.

“Did this have to happen, to bring Father and Lavinia together?” murmured Egbert.

“You need not comment on what is beyond you,” said Ninian.

Egbert paused before he answered.

“Is it not soon to take this line with us, Father? We may fall back into our old ways, and shall probably do so. But is it the moment?”

Ninian turned aside and seemed to be hiding a smile, as though seeing his son as a child.

“So you are having a further jest,” said Hugo.

“Sometimes one is presented to us,” said Ninian, with his lips still unsteady. “But do not provide me with any more. And be sure that is how you see them.”

“There is something we can hardly see in that way,” said Egbert.

“Yes, yes?” said Ninian, in a perfunctory tone, nodding towards him as if to pacify him. “Well, there is to be silence on these matters to the end. That is agreed upon as best for us. We have all shown our weaker side.”

“Well, let it be silence,” said Ransom. “Except between those of us here. That is a thing that could not be.”

“Should we speak of it to anyone else? To my mother or the children or Miss Starkie? What would you think?”

“That we should speak of it to all of them without the agreement. And with it to most of them in the end.”

“Oh, we are not such unscrupulous people,” said Ninian, and came to a pause.

“Yes, would it need such unusual unscrupulousness?”

“Shall you speak of it to Teresa, Father?” said Egbert. “It is a thing we should know.”

“Surely you do know. I shall not, and neither will anyone who has any goodwill towards her.”

“Goodwill can take many forms,” said Ransom.

“Well, well, then, gossip if you must. I can keep silence.”

“We do not suggest that you will bring up the matter.”

“Is Lavina coming home with me?” said Ninian, with a retaliatory note.

“No, this is her home until I die. Then she will do what pleases her.”

“She has no young companions here.”

“Why do you say it? Egbert is here each day. At home she has no other.”

“I hardly think this atmosphere is a good one for her.”

“What of the one she was in, when I first saw her? You
talked of long results and altered lives. In a similar place yourself you have asked for silence.”

“I may know more than I did. I realise I do know more. I must have the chance to show it. Lavinia will come home with me.”

“I am staying here, Father. I also have learned more.”

“So you want the inheritance,” said Ninian, gently, looking into her face. “You feel you must earn it?”

“She has done so,” said Ransom. “We have seen that it is hers.”

“And
Father
?” said Ninian, even more gently. “Who is that to you now?”

“Perhaps not anyone. I cannot alter the name. My uncle is something different, something I needed and was without. Something I will hold to while I can.”

“Well, may it be long before you lose it. From my heart I wish it. What hope could go deeper in me? So it is goodbye, my daughter. You are still that to me. Your future calls for your thought. Rely on my help, if you need it.”

“I don't know why Father should be actually exalted,” said Egbert. “Even granting that he cannot be judged.”

“He knows that he is not exalted,” said Lavinia. “That is what he is dealing with. And with his normal success. If he could fail, he would have done so. To think what our memories will be! And how we shall wish they could fade!”

“I believe I am arranging them for future use,” said Hugo.

“You will be talking of it, if you don't take care. Father was right to be afraid of it.”

“Well, it does seem that he might suffer some sort of qualm. What would have happened to anyone else in such a place?”

“You can think you would have stood the trial,” said Ransom.

“Well, I have pictured myself quietly turning away.”

“That is the instinct to dramatise ourselves, that is in all of us.”

“Is it? Do you all think of yourselves as coming out well under a trial? I do think it is conceited of you.”

“Do you feel you are different from us?”

“Well, yes, when I come out so well.”

“In that case he would be different,” said Lavinia.

“Here is Father coming back!” said Egbert. “This is a trial.”

“Well, it is not as late as I thought,” said Ninian. “So there is a word I should say. The subject of wills is never mentioned by people in our sphere of life. No word is said of them until they are revealed. It is a principle that should be observed.”

“Like other principles to do with them,” said Ransom.

Ninian seemed not to hear.

“And we had better go home together, and not as if we were not on good terms. There is little point in posturing. The wrong I did—and I now see it as a wrong—was done for you all. It does not render me an outcast.”

“And if you appear as one, our mother will question you,” said Ransom.

“Any more than my daughter was rendered one,” continued Ninian, without looking at him. “I remain her father. You remain my son and my brothers.”

“I feel I have stood a trial,” murmured Hugo. “I don't know how.”

The three men left the house, and Ransom turned to his niece.

“I have my own word to say. Remember it, when I am dead. What I leave you will be yours in your own hands. In anyone else's it will be his and used as his own. Do not be wise too late.”

“So it is over,” said Ninian. “The too brief, but we may feel brave life. We do not know its efforts and trials. My brother did not exhibit himself. We owe him our future, the firmness of our roots in the soil. We take it as a gift from him. In a sense he will not die.”

“In a poor sense,” said Teresa, “as he will not be alive.”

“In the sense he chose. He will share our life, as we live it. What he leaves us remains his own. We shall see it as his.”

“We see it as Lavinia's. As she sees it, and he saw it.”

“Yes, she represents him. We feel it is her place. I take what he gives me, at her hands. He chose her as the intermediary, to add something to the gift. She has the generous part.”