The Mighty and Their Fall (6 page)

“You can feel you are a martyr, Mrs. Chilton,” said Hugo. “So you should be experiencing ecstasy.”

“A martyr also has honour. I have neither the one thing nor the other. But I almost feel it is what I am. And it seems that the same might be said of someone else.”

“Then do not say it,” said Ninian. “That is a reason why you should not. Do you think it is the way to serve her? You are surely too wise.”

“It may serve her in the end.”

“Why do you say so?”

“It was what came into my mind. Well, she has her brother. Perhaps the others need more pity.”

“No, they give it,” said Hugo. “And it does no harm, when it has enough contempt in it. And their pity has.”

“Oh, I have not a brood of little martyrs,” said Ninian to Teresa. “I don't know why you think so.”

“It might be a definition of a young family. Childhood can be a troubled time.”

“The fashion has changed. It used to be the happiest of our lives. Perhaps the truth lies in between.”

“It may lie anywhere. And where it is, it often stays.”

“Does wisdom lie here?” said Selina, smiling at Ninian. “The problems of your household may be safe in these hands.”

“They will not be in them. They are nothing to do with her. She is to be my wife, not the mother of children who are not hers, and the rectifier of mistakes she has not made. That would be a wrong demand. And it seems I have done enough wrong. It is each other we want, not what we can claim from each other. That must be clear.”

“Well, it is, my son,” said Selina.

“Do all men have two wives?” said Leah's voice. “I mean before they die.”

“No, of course not,” said Miss Starkie. “But when they lose the first wife, they sometimes have a second.”

“But they would always like the first one best?”

“No, it would depend on many things.”

“The first would be the real choice,” said Hengist.

“I would never be a second,” said Leah. “I wonder she agreed to it.”

“I wonder she did,” said Ninian. “I am grateful to her. And so should you be, if you think of my happiness.”

“We haven't ever thought of it,” said Hengist. “We didn't know you weren't happy. And we didn't know she was coming.”

“Well, you know she is here now.”

“Yes, we can see her.”

“And she is good to look at, isn't she?”

“Yes, but so is she,” said Hengist, looking at his mother's portrait. “I think she is better. I don't think
she
can ever have been quite so good. Even if she was like her. And they are not.”

“Dear, dear, I find the pronouns too much,” said Miss Starkie. “I wish we could dispense with them.”

“No. I have never been quite so good,” said Teresa.

“It is a pity she can't hear her,” said Leah. “She might be pleased.”

“Now should not little people be seen and not heard?”
said Miss Starkie, seeing no other solution. “I find myself favouring the old ideas.”

“They needn't listen to us,” said Hengist. “I don't think
she
does. She is only looking at Lavinia and her.”

“Cannot they say
Mamma
or
Mother
of their own mother?” said Teresa. “It would be of some help.”

“They do not remember her,” said Ninian, “and so do not speak of her. It makes them uncertain how to do it.”

“Now I am sure that they—your father and Mrs. Chilton have had enough of you,” said Miss Starkie. “It has been kind to be patient with you for so long.”

“Your patience has to hold out,” said Teresa.

“If it did not, I could not be an educationist, Mrs. Chilton.”

“I did not know such people were distinguished by patience,” said Ninian. “It was not my experience.”

“She meant she could not be a governess,” said Hengist to Leah.

“I meant what I said, Hengist. That is what a governess should be.”

“Do other people think she is that?” said Leah.

“Come, speak clearly,” said Miss Starkie.

“She wouldn't have liked it said so that they could hear,” said Hengist.

“And
she
mightn't like us to say it about her, as she seems to like her.”

“Come, open the door, Hengist,” said Miss Starkie, indifferent to anything but exit. “And wait for your sister and me. You know how to behave.”

“I have not met a governess before,” said Teresa. “Are they always built on this scale?”

“There is scope for her qualities,” said Egbert. “We have made our own demand on them.”

“Less than is made now,” said Lavinia. “Unless we idealise our earlier selves.”

“Memory softens the truth,” said Ninian. “But no demand would be denied.”

“Lavinia was beyond Miss Starkie,” said Egbert. “She read by herself, when she was with her.”

“Pronouns worthy of our two youngest,” said his father.

“You are gaining knowledge,” said Hugo to Teresa. “And though I have always lived here, so am I.”

“We want more of everything, the more we have. I am impelled to an inquisitive question.”

“Well, what other sort of question is there?”

“Is Miss Starkie's work worth while? I don't mean in itself. I mean, can she ask enough return?”

“Of course you mean that. I don't think she asks anything. There are subjects she would not broach. I don't know how much she has, though of course I should like to. It might be too little to be revealed. But Ninian will have no secrets from you. I daresay it would have to be a secret from everyone else.”

“I will betray it to you one day,” said Teresa.

“Betray what to him?” said Ninian.

“Something you will tell me, that you have not told him.”

“Well, there may be things of that kind.”

“There must be in a marriage. No doubt you found it in yours. It is a pity the children can't remember their mother.”

“It may be better than remembering and missing her.”

“It is better,” said Lavinia. “Egbert and I know it.”

“Yours can only be an early memory. No doubt you have added to it.”

“We have our picture of her. It may not be the true one, but it is our own.”

“What will Egbert do in the end?” said Teresa.

“He will support me here. He must learn to fill my place. In time it will be his.”

“I shall also be here,” said Lavinia, looking at Teresa. “There is nothing else for me. Or for you.”

“Do not answer things that are not said,” said Ninian.

“The question was there, Father. And there was only one answer.”

“Lavinia, are you doing your best for me?”

“What are you doing for me? Can I feel this is your best? What have you said to me, and of me? And how have you said it?”

“What I have said is true. It should have been said before.”

“But it was not. It has been said too late. You should have known when to be silent.”

“Lavinia, I will not suffer this again.”

“There is no need. You will remember it.”

“It is true that I shall not forget.”

“Then it is over,” said Selina. “It may have had to come. But there can be no cause for it again.”

“Egbert, you will have a care for your sister?” said Ninian, in a tone of genuine appeal. “You see how I am placed.”

“Egbert does not need such a word, Father. Our lives are bound together. But there are some things I have tried to spare him. I have been taken further than he has. I have been used to a man.”

“You force me to say it. I have not been used to a woman. I am glad to be with one now.”

“Nothing should have forced you to say that, Father,” said Egbert.

“Should not they leave us?” said Teresa. “They have their life with each other. I have not brought one with me.”

“You hear?” said Ninian to his children. “We have heard you.”

“I will go in my own time,” said Selina. “You cannot dismiss your mother. And my presence makes no difference. I am on no one's side. I see with the eyes of all of you. It is as if no one was here.”

“It is not to me,” said Ninian. “And so it is not to Teresa. But if you would like to follow the others, I will take you to them. They will be the better.”

The two went out of the room, and Hugo turned to Teresa.

“I am forgotten. But of course I should not like them to waste their thought on me.”

“You feel that a waste?” said Teresa, raising her eyes. “How unlike you are to your brother!”

“He is not my brother by blood. I was adopted by his father, and brought up with the name. And I have remained in the family. I have no other.”

“Ninian has a great affection for you.”

“Yes, he has been more than a brother to me.”

“And Mrs. Middleton?”

“She has been more than a mother. But I used to wish they were not any more. They would not have been so afraid of being any less.”

“And how about the father?”

“He was a little less than a father to me. He left me only just enough for my support. He could not take more from the family. I wish they had all been average.”

“Do you feel I am harming Lavinia?”

“I daresay not in the end. She has been more than a daughter to Ninian. And, as I say, that is not best.”

“You have been a great help in his life.”

“Yes, I have not been more than a brother to him. I have tried to be an ordinary one. But I am hardly bad enough for that.”

“Are you very fond of Lavinia?”

“Yes, more than of anyone. I wish I was young and better off. A competence is known to be a curse.

“If it was not known, would you have guessed it? It is surely a step on the way. I understand your feeling for her. I think I could come to share it. She can't want me at the moment. But perhaps she will.”

“Remember she is mine,” said Hugo. “I would not be more than an uncle to her. And I was not an ordinary one. So there was nothing I could be. But she is mine.”

“You have more to give than Ninian has.”

“Well, I have had less. I am not so used to taking. But
I will not be more than a brother-in-law to you. You need not fear.”

“I should be glad for you to be more.”

“More than what?” said Ninian, returning to the room. “What a deal you have to say! You might be long-lost friends.”

“We are new-found ones,” said Hugo. “And brothers should share everything.”

“Well, I hope, Teresa,” said Ninian, on a mock-serious note, “that our combined influence may do something for Hugo. There are signs of good in him.—And there are signs in my son and daughter, though you have not discerned them.”

The two last had gone to the library to be alone, while Selina went up to the children.

“So you have said it,” said Egbert. “Well, silence would have been no good. It would always have been unsaid.”

“It will never be so now. I can never unsay it. Father will remember. It will always be between us.”

“Not as you think. Things go less deep with him.”

“We like to feel that about people. But I don't know why. It is a thing that does us little good.”

“He is thinking of his own life. And that he has not had what he now thinks he should have had.”

“And does he think of no other life, when he is so given to thought?”

“He believes he has done his best. I think he feels it is a poor one. And he is right that it should have been better.”

“What is Teresa's feeling for him? She does not show herself. There seems to be a calm surface over unspoken things. But whatever she is or feels, what has this house to give her? It is filled with another woman's family. And her husband must always be their father. Even though she has had one life herself, I wonder she could face this one.”

“I wondered too,” said Ninian's voice. “She is facing it for my sake. And finding so much could be done for me, I may have asked more of other people than it was in
them to give. Do what you can; you cannot go beyond yourselves.”

“Neither can anyone,” said Egbert. “Even she will want her own return.”

“And she will have it,” said Ninian, with a flash of his eyes. “All will be done to make this house a home to her, and her own home. It is hers before it is yours or mine. I did not come to say that. It goes without saying. But it is better said.”

“What did you come to say, Father?” said Lavinia.

“That you and Egbert can go your way apart from us. You can make the change as great or little as you please. I shall depend on your thoughts for the children, as I always have. It is true that I forgot you were a child yourself, and that it was late to remember it. But neither can be helped now. And I doubt if either could have been helped.”

“Well, neither was helped, Father. And both have served your ends.”

“Lavinia, you have become a stranger to me.”

“I might say the same to you. I do say it. And, as you might put it, it is better said.”

“Well, no more will be said,” said Ninian, and left the room.

“Well, there are things that have to be,” said Egbert.

“And that is a pity. The worst seem to be included in them.”

“Are we spoiling Father's happiness?”

“No, our happiness belongs to ourselves. Our own things are safe with us. That may be why it is little liked by other people.”

“Teresa hardly seems a happy person.”

“Perhaps it helped Father to fall in love with her. Though I see there might be other reasons.”

Ninian's exit led to the entrance of Ainger, bearing something carefully in his hands, and followed by the boy in mechanical submission.

“The change will be great, miss,” he said, depositing what he held, and standing with considering eyes on it.