A Heritage and its History (22 page)

“I can't understand how you know so much about Marcia, when you have seen her so little.”

“Understanding does not seem to be your strong point,” said Simon, mildly. “I ought to know about her, and so ought we all. If we remember where we are, it is enough.”

“It is too much,” said Graham. “Our debt is too great. We are bowed down by it.”

“I am not,” said his father. “The change was not made in that spirit. A debt has to be repaid.”

“It is a good photograph of her in your study, sir,” said Ralph. “The one that was at first in the hall.”

“Yes, I gave it a more intimate place,” said Simon, in an open tone. “It seemed to deserve it of us. I could not feel at home myself in a public passage.”

“It is strange how a photograph seems to hold something of the person it represents,” said Julia.

“Simon made it sound as if it did,” said Fanny.

“We don't usually have photographs about,” said Ralph. “I thought we never did.”

“Then I have done well by this one. I felt it had a claim. And it is only in my workroom, where it will not be seen.”

“Or only by you,” said Fanny.

“Well, a photograph is not meant to be seen by no one.”

“I would not be without the photograph of my Hamish,” said Julia. “It is what I have left of him. Or rather my memory is what I have left, and that is helped by it.”

“Do we need help?” said Naomi. “No one who is dead can change. It is the living who grow different.”

“So an early photograph may help us,” said Simon. “We shall know what Marcia was like, when she came into our lives; and when she changed them.”

“You ought to exhibit photographs of us all on that basis,” said Ralph. “Those are things we all have done.”

“You have, my boy. And the change goes on, and is with me. I do not need the photographs. I chose to pay this one a tribute.”

“What made Marcia think of giving it to you? It is surely not a thing she does.”

“She did not think of it. Father asked for it,” murmured Naomi. “Will you ever stop pursuing the truth? Cannot you see it?”

“What will Hamish's children say to his giving up his heritage?” said Walter. “It is a question that must be asked. When they know about it, they may feel they are being sacrificed.”

“Their mother will help both Hamish and them,” said Simon.

“They may think it is you whom she has served,” said Fanny.

“They will. They will know it. And that is not all they will learn. You are glad of the change, Fanny?”

“Yes, as you are, and in that measure. That is what makes the difference.”

“I don't mind if we have no right to it,” said Walter. “A thing seems to have more value, when it is not our due. But they may agree that it is not.”

“Then they must learn the truth about Hamish and me,” said Simon, quietly. “And know that he saw a father as coming before his son.”

“But then they may feel that Hamish, as the elder son, should succeed you before Graham,” said Ralph. “There may be troubles ahead.”

“You sound as if you half-hoped there were,” said Simon.

“Well, it seems rather empty without them. We have always had them smouldering underneath.”

“It is I who have suffered them. You can neither need sympathy nor feel you do.”

“I think I sometimes did. And ought troubles brought on ourselves to count as a claim for it?”

“No,” said his father, gravely. “And they do not count. We deserve little pity for them, and have none.”

“You have all mine,” said his brother. “And I thought the troubles brought on ourselves were the worst?”

“The most disturbing,” said Naomi. “But not the worst. We are not quite so careless of our own welfare.”

“I should never bring troubles on myself,” said Graham. “And I hardly think it is often done.”

“It seems it ought to be,” said Walter. “To leave
them to come on other people, and be immune ourselves, seems so self-regarding.”

“The immunity cannot be relied on,” said Julia. “I have not been immune.”

“Then of course it cannot,” said her son; “or you would have been.”

“Hamish is a person I never quite understand,” said Graham.

“Do we understand anyone?” said Julia.

“Yes, many people fairly well, Grandma.”

“You mean you think so.”

“No, I mean what I said. That is what you mean.”

“What is your trouble?” said his father.

“Well, he seems to do and think what I should not myself.”

“Do not most people do that?”

“No, most people do just the same.”

“Most people would have kept their inheritance,” said Walter.

“Yes, and that is the same.”

“But you like your new position, in spite of knowing that,” said Ralph.

“I said I was the same as most people,” said his brother.

“Hamish is easily influenced,” said Fanny. “That is all it is.”

“So it is well that he has come under the influence he has,” said Simon. “And I do not mean what I can be taken to mean.”

“No, I suppose not,” said his wife, smiling. “You would hardly dare to mean it.”

“It is good to be back in this house for the end of my life,” said Julia. “I thought I had left it for ever. It seems to me now that I have hardly been away.”

“It almost does to me,” said Simon. “It is because our hearts were here.”

“So Father's heart was not with us,” said Ralph. “That seems to explain a good deal.”

“What are you whispering?” said Simon. “I suppose you do not say it aloud, in case we should hear. Well, it may be a good reason.”

“Was Father's personality here as well as his heart?” said Graham. “That was not with us, if this is what it is. No wonder he was glad to return, when so much of him was left behind. It must have been awkward to be without it.”

“Well, we know it was,” said Naomi.

“My Naomi is more herself,” said Simon. “Our home gives its help to all of us.”

“It must give the least to her,” said Ralph.

“You cannot leave it unsaid? Ah, well, you have been through a disturbing time.”

“I thought Father's personality was leaving us again for the moment,” said Graham. “We are used to being without it, but where would it go? It would hardly pay a visit to the other house.”

“It was never there,” said Simon, as he overheard. “It never found it a home. It was something torn in two.”

“It is strange that a house should absorb a human being,” said Fanny. “I could have made my home under any roof.”

“If I had not prevented it,” said her husband. “But I could not see you or your children there. To me it was hardly a shelter for you.”

“You saw it as the one we were to have. There was to be no other.”

“I wonder if I did,” said Simon, almost to himself. “Did something tell me that my place was here, that my service to it made it mine?”

“Not until Marcia told you. It is one of the things you learned from her.”

“Walter, you are glad to be here again? It is your home as well as mine?”

“You know I grew up here with you.”

“But I did not,” said Fanny. “The house may be too much for me, as it was for my sister. And as it seems to be to my children.”

“It will be other things,” said Simon. “It is many more.”

“What are they?” said Ralph. “I don't mean I do not see them. But I like to have things put into words.”

“It is beautiful and complete in itself, and tells of a generous life lived in it for centuries.”

“Lived by whom?” said Naomi.

“By a family who thought of the people about them, and strove to meet their needs.”

“And looked for return in good measure. They arranged for the generous life. They must have approved of it.”

“What do you say, Deakin?” said Walter. “You are the authority here.”

“Well, there was dependence on the large house, sir,
when there was such a thing. There was no call on people to be generous. And I would not have applied the term to many.”

“And now they have what they need?”

“Yes, sir, and so the term is not in question.”

“I am glad of that,” said Walter. “I don't like to think of human generosity. I can imagine what a strain it would be. I have never had anything to spare, and it would be one then. But I fear I am a person who finds it difficult to give.”

“You would not have given your mite, if you had been the widow?” said Graham.

“Not unless I had known the credit I should have. I think the mite did well for her. But I feel I should not have had it.”

“Hamish has not had enough for what he has done,” said Julia.

“If he had, we could not accept it,” said Graham. “And he meant us to do that.”

“Or Marcia did,” said Fanny.

“Well, it was the same thing, Mother.”

“Yes, it had come to be.”

“Hamish likes to be led,” said Walter. “I should like it myself, if anyone would lead me. We need not stress it too much.”

“We are not doing so,” said Fanny. “We are like you, and do not want to think of human generosity.”

“He did not wish for credit,” said Simon. “Should we have in his place?”

“We should not have been in it,” said Naomi. “That shows how we should have wished for it.”

“It would have been my reason for being in it,” said Ralph.

“It was not his,” said Simon.

“It seems odd that he should have the title and not the place. Not even Marcia can help that. And it will go to their descendants.”

“Either his branch or mine will be without a son in the end. The two will be united. I have no fear.”

“I suppose you would be glad, if he had no son?”

“I had not thought of it. I see it would simplify things.”

“Would you like to be Sir Simon?”

“If it fell to me. But it will not. And enough has done so.”

“Father's imagination has been at work,” said Ralph to his sister.

“Well, why should it be idle? And it has not gone far beyond the truth.”

“It has had no reason to. Mine would have been of little use, if it had done no more.”

“Well, I daresay it has done you good, whatever it has done,” said Simon. “I think being carried beyond ourselves carries ourselves further.”

“This change that has come over Father! How far can we depend on it? Suppose we put it to the test and found it fail! I wonder he does not feel conscious about displaying it.”

“He is too happy to care,” said Naomi.

“And why should I disguise it?” said Simon. “I did not disguise my unhappiness. And one is as natural as the other. I have my home and my family, and little
fault to find with either. And they fit each other, as I felt they would.”

“We shall soon have to pay Father a return compliment,” said Ralph. “I cannot be the one to do it. I have not his gift for carrying off a personal change. I cannot be his true son. Well, I have never thought I was. And neither has he.”

“What are you saying about me?”

“That I am not your true son, sir.”

“Well, all we have to do is to be ourselves.”

“This above all——“said Julia. “And we know what follows.”

“Is Father true to himself in this house or the other?” said Graham. “If in this one, it follows that in the other he was false to every man. Though perhaps less to the women.”

“I find I almost like the falseness better,” said Ralph. “So it is true that we can like people for their weaker side.”

“You hardly seemed to,” said Naomi. “And when we do that, it is generally their only side. This case is by itself.”

“Well, I must be one of those people who love the old days. And I did not suspect it.”

“You must remember that my youth in this house is the old time to me,” said Simon.

“And to your mother, my son,” said Julia. “You left your real self behind in it. I waited for it to return, for your children to see it, and could not have waited much longer. But when we found it here, waiting for us, I was not surprised. Your mother had understood.”

“And not my wife?” said Simon.

“Well, you had to suffer the lot that carried your livelihood,” said Fanny. “I could not see you as the martyr it seems you were. If that was failing as a wife, I failed. And if your attitude was failing as a husband, you failed also. Yes, what is it, Deakin?”

“A telegram, ma'am. It has come this moment. The boy is waiting.”

Simon tore open the envelope and read the words.

“‘Hamish ill with heart trouble. Very little hope. Marcia Challoner.' ”

There was the silence, the grasp of the truth, the effort to rise to suspense. Julia was the first to speak.

“His mother is with him.”

“And his wife,” said Naomi.

“It is all he can have,” said Simon, thinking, as he spoke, that his father was not, and seeing that others thought it.

“Ought we to go to them?” said Fanny. “Would they wish it?”

“We cannot know,” said Graham. “And you might be too late. Other word will follow.”

“I shall go,” said Simon, moving to the door. “Whether I am in time or not, I can be of help. I will send the message.”

Before it was time for him to leave, the second telegram came.

‘Hamish died easily. No child coming. Marcia Challoner.'

“I must go to my sister,” said Fanny. “I will go with Simon.”

“Yes, go, my dear,” said Julia. “I will do what I can here.”

There was another silence.

“So Hamish has left us,” said Naomi. “Well, he had chosen to leave us. But this is not what he chose.”

“How Marcia is what she is!” said Simon, almost to himself. “To tell the whole, so as to leave no doubt or question.”