“What time does our late employer arrive, Helen?” said Felix, entering the drawing-room in his own house. “As I do not keep my least thought from you, I confess that I hope she will be impressed by what she sees. That is really my least thought. I have no other quite so small.”
“I have one smaller. I hope she will suffer a personal pang.”
“Must you have one as small as that?”
“Yes, I must, because of the thought you do keep from me. You can’t pretend that you did not suspect the truth.”
“Of course I pretend that I did not suspect it. Would you have me behave in a natural manner?”
“You need not improve on yourself when you are with me.”
“I meant that for the height of sensitive chivalry.”
“It was anyhow the height of self-esteem.”
“The very height. I could only just attain to it. But chivalry rises out of esteem for others, even less than other virtues.”
“I almost admired Mrs. Napier, when she proved that the truth did not exist,” said Helen.
“I am going on with my chivalry,” said Felix. “What could she do more than give us proof? The odd thing is that none of the other 232women gave us any truth to suspect. Eligible bachelors are not prepared for life as it is. They ought to be trained quite differently.”
“Most of them were older than you.”
“Yes, but that was not their reason. They did not need any reasons. Their attitude to me was the same as mine to them; and that was much less natural than it sounds.”
“I am not the person to explain it. I showed the natural attitude.”
“I should not mind, if they had not been sensible of my charm. But they were sensible of it, and yet they did not want to spend their lives with me. I think they must have thought that charm was not everything. So they were content with their lives as they were, though the neighbours here would never believe it.”
“I was not so content.”
“It will be wiser to give the impression that you were. Doing something derogatory is better if you enjoy it. It is a mistake to think it would be worse. Of course it would be best to have done nothing at all.”
“Neighbours don’t seem to hold the Greek view of the nobility of suffering.”
“Neighbours are English,” said Felix.
“There is no disgrace in honest poverty.”
“You can’t really think that. There is no point in being too Greek.”
“Well, there is none in useful work.”
“You can’t separate the two things,” said Felix.
“No. No one calls wealth honest, though its honesty is above the average. It is like talking about the dignity of grey hairs.”
“You put me in mind of Jonathan, though his grey hairs have no dignity. I hope we shall be able to carry off his visit. It is more awkward to meet the person you have lived with for twenty-three years, than it sounds as if it would be.”233
“He knows your feeling for him will never change.”
“He knows it is changing. Things are easier for us, for being put into words. And I daresay they are easier for him than we think. They so often are.”
“Did he feel your leaving him less than you expected?”
“Yes; I almost thought it would kill him. I suppose I was just going to let it. Engaged people are supposed to be selfish, and I think this shows that they are. But he is still looking forward. He has a wonderful hold on life.”
“People have. What kills them is their own death, and not the loss of anyone else at all.”
“Yes. My desertion never killed my father. What killed him was his own heart at seventy-nine.”
“There is the carriage!” said Helen. “We must hasten to the hall. If we let Johnson announce them, it will look as if we were conscious of our new position.”
“As if we thought living in a family home with family servants different from teaching Latin and drawing in a school. It would never do to seem to think that. And I really do not think it, as much as many people.”
“I wonder what difference we may be conscious of?”
“Of being everything to each other. It does not seem suitable, when we greet our guests; but it is what they will expect of us.”
“Well, my bride and bridegroom!” said Josephine, coming up the steps in full and fresh garb of widowhood.
“I have managed to get away to pay my visit. It has not the most spontaneous sound, but ‘managed’ is the word. With this house on your hands, you will understand the demands of mine.”
“My boy, we see you in your proper surroundings at last. We do not grudge you to them,” said Jonathan.234
“That is shallow of you, after only five weeks. My father comes out better and better.”
“Ah, well, your father was your father,” said Jonathan, moving forward with a steady, deliberate tread and a roving eye.
“You never used to think that,” said Felix. “I used to wonder that you did not see it.”
“Ah, blood is thicker than water,” said Fane.
“I used to think water was thicker,” said Felix. “And I am sure Jonathan did. But if he has changed his mind, so have I.”
“Well, you will both have new duties to take the place of the old,” said Josephine, allowing herself to glance round for the first time.
“And it won’t be all duty, if I can judge by the look of it,” said Fane, having already judged by this means.
“You don’t any of you understand the value of leisure,” said Gabriel.
“Oh, do I not understand it?” said Josephine. “I had been making plans to get a little more of it; but they have met the fate of the majority of human plans. I have been sucked back into the vortex. I need not have thought I could extricate myself.”
“Does not Miss Rosetti make a difference?” said Felix.
“Indeed she does. Indeed she must, being as she is, being as you remember her. But the difference seems to be absorbed somehow in the oncoming force of things, in the flood of progress. In a word, the school is growing.”
“But it was not put in a word,” said Helen to Felix.
“You are getting accustomed to your new form of address, Bacon?” said Fane.
“Yes, but I find it is not true that pleasure is blunted by custom.”
“It is after all a superficial difference.”
“I seem as if it were no difference at all.”235
“Well, I should not like to change my appellation,” said Josephine. “I have found doing so once quite enough.”
“I have no prospect of changing mine, as I happen not to be heir to a title,” said Fane.
“Is the temporary drawing mistress as popular as I was, Mrs. Napier?” said Felix.
“No, I think she is not,” said Josephine, meeting a question with the simple truth.
“Are the men generally more popular than the women?” said Gabriel.
“I think women in life are more popular,” said Felix.
“I often hold unusual opinions.”
“Do you know, I think they are?” said Josephine.
“It is not an unusual opinion,” said Gabriel.
“Well, I still hold it,” said Felix. “I do not change it. Mrs. Napier, we are a little hurt that our places have to be filled.”
“Your places will not be filled,” said Josephine. “No one who makes a place of his own, leaves it without leaving also his own void. And you must remember that you neither of you went at my request.”
“Oh, of course we were not dismissed,” said Felix.
“I did not tell you at the time quite how much I regretted you.”
“Ordinary people would have chosen that time to tell it,” said Helen.
“I thought it might cloud your going forth,” said Josephine simply. “But I am prepared to admit it was unimaginative to fancy you would give a thought to it.”
“We always give thought to things,” said Helen. “People always do, really.”
“Why not leave the wedded pair to their mutual regard, Mrs. Napier?” said Fane.236
“I never mind telling people my good opinion of them.”
“I have never met another case of it,” said Felix. “I don’t wonder at Fane’s surprise.”
“You have not had all the praise you could do with, in your life?” said Fane.
“I did not know people ever had praise, except from Mrs. Napier.”
“Well, I have had very kind things said to me on occasions,” said Fane.
“I have met great generosity in thought, word and deed,” said Josephine.
“I have met it in deed,” said Gabriel.
“You have, young man,” said Fane, moving towards him and lowering his voice. “I should have offered my congratulations, if I had felt that the matter came within the bounds of comment. In my mind I have done so each time an instalment of your dues has left our office.”
“It is a roundabout way for them to come, when their source is in the house.”
“Oh, you know it now, do you? The mystery is out?”
“Yes, it is out. And I am betraying no scruple in benefiting by a woman’s toil.”
“Now I think that is wise. I congratulate you both upon your good sense and your good fortune. A man must have his own views about being the slave of convention. You have come to the decision that gratifies both yourself and your benefactress. Though she is no relation of yours, she is an old friend of your father’s, and your aunt’s partner. She has not many claims upon her resources. To my mind you have nothing to be sensitive about.”
Gabriel was silent, suppressing the words that sprang to his lips.237
“Her business affairs are in our hands, in common with those of most of the people in the neighbourhood. Not every woman is as capable of being her own lawyer as your aunt.”
“Of course the fact that I am aware of this truth, does not mean it is to be public property.”
“My dear young man, you are talking to a partner in a reputable legal firm,” said Fane.
“Do you get on well with your household?” said Josephine to Helen. “A new mistress is the object of a critical regard.”
“Helen passes every test,” said Felix.
“Well, I should find it go rather against the grain to face all the responsibility under the cloak of ease. I would rather have the responsibility naked and unashamed, as I am used to it.”
“People despise responsibility less under a cloak of ease,” said Felix.
“That seems to me a strange view,” said Josephine.
“And yet it is almost universal,” said Felix. “How long can you all stay with us?”
“I must go back to-night, as I have told you. I go because I am needed, and for no other reason.”
“We did not expect that you would go because you could not bear to be here,” said Felix. “You have not made things any better.”
“Things are bad, as I have explained. I hoped for more ease and leisure, and see no prospect of them. You, who are more fortunate, ought to pity me.”
“Ought we to pity people who have less leisure than we have? I used to be rather annoyed with people who did that. When my father warned me that I should be an object of pity, I think he meant me to be annoyed.”
“Well, I am content with my lot in life,” said Fane, “though 238I also am called back to-night by my duties. May I offer you my escort, Mrs. Napier?”
“You are feeling settled in your new surroundings, my dear?” said Josephine to Helen, as she adjusted her cloak. “I should be so glad to feel that, before I leave you.”
“I am not feeling so very settled yet.”
“It will come, it will come,” said Josephine, letting go her cloak to place her hands on Helen’s shoulders. “I remember my early restless time. Believe me, it will pass, and the other time will come.”
She embraced Helen with simple affection, and took her leave of Felix with almost indifferent friendliness.
“We were too homesick to be at our best, Helen,” said Felix.
“Yes. Seeing Mrs. Napier made us feel terribly out of it all.”
“We ought to ask the mistresses to visit us.”
“But it might bring on the first feelings. It will be braver to settle down into our new life, and remember it is all we have.”