“I would not say anything out of keeping with the circumstances of the house,” said Felix, entering Josephine’s library. “But this is quite in keeping. My father’s health is failing, and he may not have long to live. I feel less ashamed of being alive myself, that I can offer you a death in my own family quite soon.”
“That is sad hearing,” said Josephine. “I think I am even sorrier for you than for him.”
“Why? My health is good. You should be sorrier for my father.”
“Well, your father’s hold on life is light. He must be an old man.”
“He is seventy-nine, and I am afraid his hold on life is confirmed. He is very used to living.”
“Will you have to go and see him?” said Gabriel.
“Thank you for making it easy for me to ask for a holiday.”
“I cannot refuse one for such a reason,” said Josephine, moving in front of Gabriel.
“Would you refuse it for other reasons? I might enjoy a holiday more, if I were not in trouble.”
“Are you really in trouble?” said Gabriel.
“The astonishing thing is, that I am. I thought I should have to face the absence of sorrow. And what I am facing, is just the 186ordinary presence of it. One thing about the sorrow is, that it is known not to be the sadder kind.”
“Your mood seems to be one of complete unseemliness,” said Gabriel.
“Surely you know what may be covered by a jesting exterior. You speak as if I had not just told you what is covered by mine.”
“Is your father’s health really failing?” said Gabriel.
“Do you think I would obtain a holiday under pretences?”
“Is your father becoming more resigned to your work?” said Josephine.
“He may be: he has always said it would shorten his life; and we must suppose that he is facing his end with resignation. Not that that seems to me a possible thing to do.”
“Whom has he living with him?” said Gabriel.
“Some servants who are very attached to him. My father is never rude to a servant.”
“Is he rude to you?” said Josephine.
“He has told me that he could not be rude to anyone. So I know he cannot be.”
“There must be good in him, for his servants to be attached to him.”
“Of course there is good in him. Did you think I would suggest there was no good in my father?”
“Well, you have often referred to his failings,” said Josephine, smiling.
“I do not think it is time for remorse yet. It is the dead we do not speak evil of, and I shall treat my father as living for as long as I can. It is treating the old with more sympathy to speak evil of them.”
“It is a change for you to feel sympathy with your father,” said Gabriel.187
“How can you say so? I have always spoken evil of him.”
“What is wrong with his health?” said Josephine, in a gentle tone.
“His heart may fail at any moment, or he may live for years. It is very awkward for me. Behaviour is so different for years and for a moment. You have seen what mine has been for years. I think I must pay him a series of short visits.”
“Won’t he want you to stay?” said Gabriel.
“If I behave as I should for a moment, he can hardly fail to. Unless it is almost too much for him. He would not like me really to shorten his life.”
“I don’t think your father has any great reason to be dissatisfied with his son,” said Josephine.
“I hope you would never think such a thing. My father does not like anyone to criticise me but himself.”
“I suppose he will leave you a great inheritance?” said Gabriel.
“Would your plans change, if he died?” said Josephine, almost at the same moment.
“I never talk about plans for after a person’s death. And I never talk about inheritance at all. I cannot approve of your treatment of my father.”
“You would go to live in your ancestral home,” said Gabriel.
“He could not give up the life he has made for himself, for one simply handed down to him,” said Josephine.
“That comparison might be made in another spirit,” said Gabriel.
“Felix must do the right thing by his own life. That is a serious necessity in itself, apart from any reluctance of mine to make changes in the school.”
“Were you reluctant when you changed to me? I did not suspect it. That makes me feel quite foolish.”188
“Well, I had my moments of anxiety. But while they are having their reward, I see no reason to complain.”
“I will tell my father that I have given no cause for complaint. He sometimes asks me if I have, in a manner meant to wound me. I am glad now that I have so much to forgive. It will soothe me very much to forgive it.”
“You will return to his house, when it becomes your own,” said Gabriel.
“Well, if he returns,” said Josephine, swinging her arms, “I shall give up being a slave to the school, that has only to be set on its proper basis, to get upset again. I have been getting tired for a long time of humdrumming along, and this shows that other people are in similar case. I had got so far a week or two ago, as arranging about a partner, but that has fallen through for the time. It will materialise in the end, and I shall be free to come and go with the rest.”
“You don’t mean that you will give up your work?” said Gabriel. “You have kept all this inner fermentation to yourself.”
“People would not allow me to give it up. And I always keep things to myself until they come to pass. But I see that it does not do for me to be pegged down to one place, and make it a jumping-off ground for other people. So you will soon find yourself with a different aunt-sister, with part of her life in the school, and the rest of it elsewhere, wherever it takes its course.”
“I hold my breath before coming events,” said Gabriel. “And I see my father as the victim of one of them, rather than Felix’s. My heart stands still before the thought of his future.”
“Mine does not,” said Josephine. “He will make his life for himself, as the rest of us do. We cannot check natural progress for people’s dislike of it.”
“I think my father would like us to in his case,” said Felix.189
There was a knock at the door, and Helen came into the room.
“My dear, this is kind,” said Josephine. “People are not always so ready to confer a favour that is asked for. Gabriel, I have persuaded Miss Keats to spare us an hour sometimes. She is without contemporaries in her own sphere, and you are in the same plight. Shall Felix and I remain with you, or retire?”
“I think we have a touch with young people,” said Felix.
“I should be badly off without that in one sense,” said Josephine.
“I think I have it in the other sense.”
“At what age does one cease to be young?” said Gabriel.
“I shall always be young in heart,” said Felix.
“That may be when we cease to be young,” said Helen. “When we are really young, I think our hearts age with the rest of us.”
Josephine turned and gave Helen a smile.
“Yes, we are talking about youth in years,” said Felix; “I must face it.”
“I never think about people’s age,” said Josephine.
“I often think about it,” said Felix; “and hope they show it more than I do, and wonder if they can guess mine.”
“I don’t think it is a compliment to a man to be taken for less than his age,” said Josephine.
“Is it a compliment to a woman?” said Helen.
“I don’t think it is, my dear, though I believe I personally suffer from it. I seem never to be accorded the dignities of middle life.”
“Surely no one is accorded more dignities than you are,” said Gabriel.
“Oh, other dignities. I meant those that definitely pertain to middle age. I hardly take it as a compliment either though I have not given the matter much thought.”
“You and I are so different,” said Felix.190
“Well, we both seem to have our trend towards youth,” said Josephine.
“I think I will go home to Jonathan,” said Felix. “I see that Gabriel shrinks from my company, because of my shallow experience. But I shall be able to take him on equal terms when I have lost my father.”
“I have lost both father and mother,” said Helen.
“Then I think you may take him on equal terms at once,” said Josephine. “We will leave you to take advantage of it, leave him to do so rather. I also have lost both father and mother. We all seem to have a bond of that kind between us.”
A few hours later Felix was greeting Sir Robert Bacon.
“Well, Felix, you have come to see me die?”
“You told me to come, if I wanted to see you alive,” said Felix, sitting down by the invalid chair. “So I have come for that.”
“Well, I am still breathing.”
“I am glad I am in time; I am glad I am not too late. You must see how ill at ease I am in your presence.”
“Ah, you may never live to be my age. It is not every man who lasts nine years beyond the three score and ten.”
“No, I may miss the years of labour and sorrow. But it is not kind to remind me of it, when everyone wants them so much, and you have just had them. And I think you seem to think less of me for it.”
“Ah, people may tell you that you are not equal to your father.”
“Well, of course, they will not know that you have told me.”
“I daresay you are imagining yourself in my place.”
“No, it is you who are doing that. It is not a picture that I should choose to dwell upon.”
“You will not escape hearing of the difference between us.”191
“I don’t believe people will be as careless of my feelings as you think. When you came to the concert at the school, nobody let me hear a word of it.”
“So it will take my death to get you out of that position?”
“Well, I could not tender my resignation on any trivial ground.”
“Well, that will not be trivial.”
“No, no, that will do,” said Felix.
“My son, we may get to know each other better in my very last days.”
“I am sure we shall. I know you better in the very last minute.”
“Felix, would you keep a promise to a dying man?”
“Yes. I am one of the very few people who would. Now do you think you know me a little better?”
“Will you promise me to marry and carry on the place?”
“Do you feel that that would be fair to a woman, when your opinion of me is so low?”
“You will be able to offer your wife a good deal.”
“I don’t think you have a high opinion of my wife, either. As you feel we are so suited, of course we will marry. I am glad that she will accept me, even though it is not for myself.”