The Mighty and Their Fall (11 page)

“So you can say such a thing to me. I could not to you. I somehow feel I am returning good for evil.”

“Does anyone ever do that?” said Selina.

“Not you, Grandma, if you can't believe in it,” said Lavinia. “And it is hard to see why anyone should. It may be a sign of weakness.”

“It must be,” said Egbert. “No one could want to do it.”

“People might do it out of their strength,” said Teresa.

“I will not imagine them,” said Hugo. “I should not dare.”

“We might do it for our credit or self-esteem,” said Ninian. “Perhaps that should hardly count.”

“We should feel the last,” said Egbert. “I don't see how it could be avoided.”

“What other reasons are there?” said Hugo. “I cannot think of any.”

“It is not as plain as you all think,” said Lavinia.

“Why, have you personal knowledge or experience?” said Ninian.

“You should not ask dreadful questions,” said Hugo. “You deserve to have a dreadful answer.”

“He will not have one,” said Lavinia. “It would not do for us to meet our deserts.”

“So he has had one,” said Selina, almost to herself.

“Are we talking of actual evil?” said Ninian, as if he had not heard. “Or of natural effort for our own welfare?”

“Oh, that is almost too evil to speak about,” said Hugo. “Some subjects should be forbidden.”

“Well, are we to talk about ourselves and each other? Is that a better or safer thing? People might take the chance to speak the truth.”

“Only terrible people. But of course that is nearly everyone.”

“Is our choice of subjects so small?” said Egbert.

“Well, it is for me,” said Hugo. “I only like the personal ones. And no one really seems to introduce any others.”

“Then would you like to speak the truth about people?”

“Yes, if I were not afraid to. But I think it is a wholesome fear.”

“Why should the truth be against them?” said Lavinia.

“We meant the truth that is spoken about them. That deals with what they think is hidden. And it ought to be hidden no doubt. They are the ones to judge.”

“Is it often spoken?” said Teresa. “I suppose when it is forced out of people.”

“It is terrible how little force is needed. Our self-knowledge takes us such a long way.”'

“I don't think I have learned much from mine,” said Lavinia.

“It can teach us all a good deal,” said her father.

“It might lead us to judge other people by ourselves. And that might make us too gullible.”

“That suggests that we are better than they are. And of some of us it may be true.”

“It is,” said Teresa, looking at Lavinia. “And it is not their fault if they know it.”

“My sister understands about the hidden things,” said Egbert, “though she herself may not have them.”

“They would not remain hidden,” said Lavinia, laughing. “In my case they would emerge.”

“They would not in mine,” said Hugo. “They are far too securely hidden. I hardly dare to recognise them myself. I might betray them.”

“I know all about mine. And I fear so do you all. I have not the gift of hiding them.”

“Fancy not having to cultivate it! I thought that became our second nature. I did not know we ever showed our first one.”

“You are patient with my family,” said Ninian to his wife. “They love words for their own sake.”

“So do I, when they come from them. But they must not expect them from me. I cannot emulate them.”

“You will not try. To emulate may be to copy. That is not for you.”

“No, people have to take me as I am.”

“As you really are?” said Hugo. “I have only met your case and Lavinia's. There should be a bond between you.”

“Perhaps there will be,” said Lavinia.

“Not too strong,” said Ninian, looking at her. “You both belong to me. That is where the bond lies.”

“Fancy daring to ask so much for yourself!” said Hugo.

“The more we ask, the more we have. And it is fair enough: asking is not always easy.”

“And it is said to be hard to accept,” said Lavinia. “So no wonder we have so little.”

“‘Nothing venture, nothing have' is a heartless saying,” said Egbert. “Fancy recognising that we may have nothing.”

“And we are to value things more when they don't come easily. There is no limit to the heartlessness.”

“When we really feel that everything is our due,” said Ninian.

“That ought to fill you with humility,” said Hugo. “As artists are filled with it, when they are praised.”

“Don't they take praise as their due?” said Lavinia. “When they are not praised, they hardly seem filled with humility.”

“I suppose it means they are filled with pride,” said Teresa.

“Who said she could not use words like any one else?” said Ninian.

“I hope she will not go on doing it,” said Hugo. “Another person to put me into the shade!”

“Don't you like the shade?” said Teresa.

“Well, no one is filled with humility to overflowing.”

“Now I am going to claim an hour with my wife alone,” said Ninian. “That is due to us on our first day.”

“As many hours as you like on every day, Father,” said Lavinia. “That is why we did not offer them on the first.”

“Will you come and share the hour with us?” said Teresa.

“No,” said Ninian, at once. “The hour is yours and mine. We will share others later.”

“What irony of fate!” said Egbert, looking after them. “The usurper of a place invites her predecessor to share it. Would that lead to less trouble or more?”

“More,” said Selina. “It is not a case for sharing. There are very few.”

“The very word repels me,” said Hugo. “Why should
we not have what is our own? There is no good reason.”

“That is Father's feeling,” said Egbert. “But Teresa seems to be without it. Perhaps she is a high type. We may meet one too seldom to recognise it.”

“Why are types only high and low?” said Hugo. “Cannot an ordinary person belong to them? Or do they only embrace extremes?”

“You can be a mediocre type,” said his mother.

“Oh, I am sure I can't. I am sure nobody could. That is why we never hear of one. There is such a thing as going too far.”

“Father wants Teresa for himself,” said Egbert. “But he can hardly keep her from Lavinia. The feeling has no reason in it.”

“It has other things,” said Selina.

“You don't mean I am to regard it, Grandma? He should be glad for Teresa to have a friend in me. It would ease the path for them both.”

“It might fill it, when he wants it free.”

“He is not a man to ask everything for himself.”

“No, but he asks one thing.”

“The whole of Teresa? She hardly seems to want the whole of him.”

“No, that is true. We remember her letter.”

“Her letter? Oh, yes he read it to us.”

“It was you who asked him to.”

“Yes, it was. It seemed best for us to hear it. I remember now.”

“It is easy to forget what we have not read ourselves.”

“Yes, but we remember the gist of it.”

“Perhaps not as well as Grandma does,” said Egbert in a whisper.

Lavinia seemed not to hear.

“Agnes!” said Miss Starkie's voice. “What are you doing down here? Why did you not come with the others?”

“You didn't tell me to.”

“You knew I meant all three of you.”

“I don't see how I could know.”

“Agnes, you are not Hengist.”

“As near as makes no matter,” said Ninian. “What is the difference?”

“They are all themselves, Mr. Middleton. It is for me to remember it.”

“I am old enough to be here,” said Agnes. “I understand most of the talk.”

“Agnes, you are not Lavinia,” said Miss Starkie, true to her idea of her duty.

“How can I be like her, if we are kept apart? I don't learn so much upstairs.”

“Well, tell us what you have learnt,” said Miss Starkie, as though disposing of the matter.

“They are not things that go into words.”

“There, I thought so. So there is an end of it.”

“And they are not things you would ever need,” said Agnes, as if to herself.

“They are not, if they cannot be expressed. True and definite things for me! The others can go by the board.”

“I thought you would think in that way. It is not only those things that are true.”

“Agnes, I don't understand your mood.”

“A mood can't be understood. I am not in one as often as the others.”

“I should have thought they were always in one,” said Selina.

Her grand-daughter gave a laugh.

“And how am I to get to know Mamma, if I am never with her?”

“You will know her in time,” said Miss Starkie. “She does not want you always at her elbow.”

“She would not say that kind of thing. I know that already about her.”

“Agnes!” said Selina, sitting up and deepening her tones. “Are you going to obey Miss Starkie or are you not? It is time we knew.”

“I shall have to. But it won't be for always. I can think of that.”

“Agnes, you are not yourself today,” said Miss Starkie, as if finding this unnatural thought.

“I am beginning to be. That is what it is. Not my full self yet, of course,” said Agnes, following Miss Starkie, and leaving her to fill in the gap suggested.

“Which of them won?” said Egbert.

“Agnes,” said Selina. “She is growing up. And that is our first victory. I suppose it is right.”

“I should not have thought a victory was ever right,” said Lavinia. “To judge from what I have read. But sometimes it is essentially justified.”

“It is a pity the child is the father of the man,” said Hugo. “Its being the other way round is quite enough.”

“I would never acknowledge my early self as my father,” said Egbert “I should be ashamed.”

“What of yours, Lavinia?” said Selina.

“Well, there has been a certain change, Grandma. But shame is a strong word.”

“It is not only the early self that causes that.”

“Egbert felt it caused the most. And it may be true.”

“I think a later one may cause us more.”

“So it has come” said Selina, “come at last! What might have come each day for years. He will not let me die without him. That is how I have lived. Why is it thought that death is what counts? Why is the end of life the meaning of it?”

“Ransom is returning!” said Ninian. “After so much of his life and ours! Now we have so much to forget.”

“So I can say I can depart in peace,” said Selina, taking the initiative upon herself.

“This is not the time to say it,” said her son. “The letter will be his own. He will depend on a welcome, as if he had always wanted it.

So change is upon us. And he himself will find a change.”

“I wish I had altered,” said Hugo. “It will be humbling to be the same.”

“It will not only be you,” said Ninian. “Ransom is not different, and does not claim to be.”

“Why can he be proud of his failings? Most of us have to disguise them. That may be his reason for pride. He dares to be himself.”

“It might need courage. But he is what he has always been. He says it himself, and we need not doubt him. My mother is to wait in suspense until he comes. His mother too, and a woman of her age! And her age is a thing he does not forget or expect her to.”

“I don't want him to be different,” said Selina. “I want him as he was, as I have thought of him. Why should you all be the same? You are yourselves and must be what you are.”

“If we were the same as Ransom, you would have had no sons. We accept the exaltation of the wanderer. He was lost and is found. And we are glad he is to give you what he has left, and has something left to give. But those who have not forsaken you have given more.”

“My sons, you are ever with me. All that I have is yours. But Ransom has never been dead to me. His life has gone on with mine. I don't look for the young man who left me. I look for a man in middle age, as he looks for an old woman. But I can't have him die before me. When I die, I must leave him to his life. He will get strength from his mother. I can't have him back to lose him. Do you think he means what he says?”

“He would hardly say it otherwise. It would be too heartless a thing. But we will hope he is mistaken. We must wait to judge. Waiting is what he has arranged for us.”

“Ah, you have never cared for him. You have never seen him as a brother. But to me you are both my sons.”

“He has been the first to you. And he will be so again,
when he is with you. He will be a change for you. You are not wearied of him and his ways. But what if it was so with all of us? What if we had all left you?”

“What reason is there to imagine it? Your lives and needs were different. You have been held by your inheritance. Hugo has been glad of a home. He has not earned as Ransom has. I wonder how Ransom has done it. Well, we are soon to know.”