“Now, the sooner we face it, the sooner it is past,” said Alfred, guiding Sabine’s steps to the carriage. “I know that dread of facing the unknown at night. My aunt says I am an old woman, and I tell her it is a good thing to be, and I wish she could contrive to be one. It is silly of Chaucer to put his celebration so late. He thinks it is more impressive at night. But I begin to feel excited; I love a village show; it entertains in the extra ways.”
“It is better to start in a mood to be pleased, and not with dour faces, as if nothing in the world could satisfy us,” said Sabine, with allusion to her grandchildren. “It is fairer to those who will be exerting themselves for our entertainment. People who never put themselves out for others, do not understand the point of view of those who do.”
“I am glad we are offending blindly,” said Clare.
“Your grandmother is right,” said Hetta. “Do you want to go, or do you not? Make up your minds and tell me. It is absurd to go in the spirit of martyrs. Come to your decision; I am waiting.”
“We have not been in any doubt,” said her niece. “We do not reject the week’s dissipation.”
“They misinterpret our anxiety for France,” said Chilton. “We must throw it off and live each for himself.”
“I hope you will do so,” said France. “I shall be setting you the example.”
“I am waiting for the rest of you,” said their aunt. “You did not say Clare was to speak for you all.”
“We say it now,” said Chilton.
Sabine took her place in the carriage, motioned her daughter to her side and her granddaughters to the opposite seat, ignoring the latter’s discomfort in sitting three abreast. Alfred put his head through the window to see that all was well, and satisfied, if rather easily, withdrew.
“Grandma will think less and less of us in comparison with Marcon,” said Victor to his brother.
“I don’t grudge him the reward of Grandma’s preference. Of the four women in the house Grandma is his choice: it is fair that he should be hers of the men.”
“She has never taken so to a tutor.”
“No tutor has ever taken so to her. I don’t remember the others showing any weakness for her. Here is Marcon’s scroll of music, by which he will perform between the acts. I expect he will wrest away France’s success. The talent seems to come from our house.”
“It does not matter about her success. It will not alter the play.”
“It will alter it in people’s opinion, though I daresay not in Father’s; he ought to know what he thinks.”
“Now follow your father and me,” said Alfred, setting out with John, without taking his music from Chilton. “We shan’t be much behind the carriage.”
The brothers obeyed, as they found themselves obeying Alfred. He was a successful tutor, with a learning which was sound if not deep, and never presented as deeper than it was. He worked with a nervous force which threatened to exhaust him and explained his frequent collapse. Chilton respected his accomplishment and Victor emulated his general address.
They reached the village hall to find Chaucer welcoming Sabine, with his eyes held from other distractions, until he had honoured womanhood in age.
“This is a privilege, Mrs. Ponsonby. I had hoped against hope that you would bring yourself to tolerate our effort. Subject to your criticism, the seats in the middle of the front row are yours. The position should be a convenient stepping-off ground for your son, against his moment of taking the platform. I trust the anticipation of that ordeal will not interfere with his enjoyment of the preliminaries, which is the rightful term for what leads to such a culmination.”
The party took their seats; the audience settled about them; Rowland found places for his sister and himself and took possession of them; Evelyn stood among the choir-boys, straightening a collar or a coat, talking almost on equal terms and meeting a chorus of response. Jane wore garments which were a somewhat confused compromise between afternoon and evening dress. Miss Marcon wore a gown which was entirely evening, not seeing why charity functions should be treated with less honour than those not meant to do good, and making this observation to her brother. Miss Bunyan handed the programmes in new, cheerful, awkward clothes, which were entirely afternoon, and chosen of this nature owing to her conception of herself rather than the occasion, and with the support of her uncle, who shared the conception. Sabine always dressed as a widow in tribute to her husband, who was entitled to this amount of recognition, as he had been an excellent man, and was accorded no other. Sabine had regarded him first as her husband, then as her subject, and since his death as a conventional character, unrelated to the truth. Clare and France wore good dresses which were out of date, and their aunt a better one which was up to it.
Miss Bunyan came up and shook hands with a cordial ease, keeping her eyes from Sabine.
“How are you, Muriel, and how are you doing? I hope you are two months further than when we were together.”
Muriel, taken aback by allusion to dubious occurrences, looked at her in silence, and Sabine, respecting her for it, exchanged civilities, bearing her no malice, and characteristically neither expecting nor meeting any.
“Now, Chilton and Victor,” said Chaucer, modifying his tone for masculine youth, “you have a choice before you. Do you elect to sit in the front with your family, or at the back as younger members of the audience? Either position is equally honourable in its way.”
“Alfred is in the front with Mrs. Ponsonby,” said Stephen. “Is that position honourable? I suppose in its way.”
“I hope, Chilton”—Chaucer glanced about in apprehension of hearers—“that no breath has come to your father of the revelation awaiting him? Our little plot was well laid and hatched?” He laughed at his sustained metaphor.
“No; we are successful conspirators. But our party is too prominent in the first row. Victor and I will retire from it.”
“Stay, Chilton,” said Chaucer, checking the latter’s movement, “nothing is further from my thoughts than cavalier treatment of your family. I think your ladies may prefer their escort with them. I spoke without due consideration.”
“The programmes are running short, Uncle,” said Miss Bunyan in clear, conscious tones.
“Two will be enough for us,” said Victor. “We can pass them about.”
“You do not think, Victor, that that arrangement might convey a hint that the play was not unknown to some of you? We want the truth to break upon your father, not to creep upon him unawares. It were better and more telling in that way. I think your aunt’s clear judgement, if we could ask it, would be with me.”
“The play is late,” said Rowland.
“You, Sir Rowland, cannot be accused of not being prepared for it,” said Chaucer, laughing at his parishioner’s capture of his seats. “Seriously, is there some hitch?”
“Something has gone wrong with the dresses of the women,” said his niece.
“The women!” said Chaucer, going into further laughter. “That is a hitch indeed, when the ‘women’ depend on their dresses for their very nature. Can anyone be of service to us?”
Evelyn disappeared behind the scenes, and the stir of uneasiness subsided. The curtains parted and the play was under way, Chaucer standing as near as possible to the Ponsonbys, with his eyes on their faces.
The play was a succession of scenes taken from France’s book and following its thread. They were imagined in the family sphere which comprised her experience, and the parts less within her knowledge were those omitted, so that the play gave an impression of a book better than it was. John sat in growing interest, and at length covered his eyes and gave himself to listening, as if shutting out the blur imposed by the actors. At the end of the first act he applauded fully, at the next more gravely, and at last sat up and looked about, as if to seek and recognise his fellow. Chaucer stood with an air of resolute self-control, and the young people kept their eyes from each other. Sabine sensed something in the air and looked about with impatient question.
“What is it? What is the mystery? Let me be told without any beating about the bush. I do not choose to ferret it out; I do not choose to wait for my answer.”
“Stay, Mrs. Ponsonby,” said Chaucer, leaning towards her and lifting his hand; “stay. There is no mystery. The truth is unfolding itself in its own way; let it do so.”
“It is our way,” said Chilton to France. “The truth did not save us so much trouble.”
“It would have done its best to remain hidden.”
“Someone has written the play, I suppose,” said Hetta; “perhaps one of our boys. It is to break on us as a great surprise. They would feel it was very important, and we must play up. We shall have to work as hard as the actors. But it is much better than I should have expected.”
Sabine, too old to consider the play, and conscious of her son and daughter at her side, so that her grandchildren were at a distance, subsided at this and permitted the play to take its course, or felt that she did so. John became excited in its progress, and in the interval walked about and began to question.
“To whom do we owe this? It is a clear and vital thing. I did not look for anything on this level.”
“I am more than gratified to hear you say it,” said Chaucer, standing before him and slowly moving his head. “Personally, I am not qualified to criticise such productions, but I accept from a higher tribunal a verdict which gives me great pleasure.”
“I should be interested to meet the author.”
“You would; I can take upon myself to confirm it.”
“He is an interesting person, is he? Is he here to-night?”
“I hardly know how to answer that question. The answer will out in its own good time.”
John glanced at his sons.
“No, you are not so very warm, Ponsonby, not so very warm. At least, I think not to your own mind.”
“Not so very warm?” said John in a lighter tone. “Well, I should not want so much for myself; I am ashamed of my passing thought. I will meet the author with the greatest pleasure; I have a great desire to meet him.”
“I have seldom listened to words which broke upon me with greater illumination. Truly there are strange and natural affinities.”
“You like the play?” said Chilton to John.
“So much that I was guilty of the egotism of fathering it on you. I am put in my place. I am not to be the founder of a line.”
“I should not write a play: it is not within my scope.”
“My dear boy,” said John, putting his hand on his shoulder, “I should not like you better if you wrote a thousand.”
“That is true,” said Stephen.
“Are people really as wicked as you think?” said his sister. “It is no good to think it, if you feel it may not be true. It would take away all the pleasure.”
“And you are my reader and belong to my larger family,” continued John, “and so are doubly my son. All my children are my children twice.”
“And if he had written the play, in what relation would he stand to you?” said Chaucer.
“Ah, then he would be my fellow and my equal. I confess that for a moment the conception pulled. But I am a foolish man; he is nearer as my son.”
“Ah, Ponsonby,” said Chaucer, looking after him and speaking half aloud, “something of what you would ask is coming to you. It is not only on a son that such a weight may fall: there are shoulders more frail that may sustain it.”
A signal recalled the people to their places; Sabine and her daughter had remained in theirs; Chilton took France’s and no one noticed she had not returned. John gave himself to the play, almost as if some obstacle had rolled away and left him magnanimous and free.
“A good thing,” he said at the end, “coming, I hazard, from a young mind, and promising things beyond itself. But I should not be talking. Who am I upon the occasion?”
“The judge whose verdict we awaited,” said Chaucer, leaning towards him, and then drawing back with a still guarded air.
The curtains met; the clapping ensued; the actors were summoned and applause was bestowed in proportion to their popularity, which seemed, as so often, to coincide with their gifts. There was the call for the author, and Chaucer held himself tense, and John supported the call and sat ready to acclaim, glancing to see if he was noticed. He dropped his hands and stared at his daughter, and renewed his clapping in a steady, even manner, seeming to compose himself under its cover. When France was recalled, Sabine sat up and joined the applause, in a way of one not according excessive praise to her own. Hetta did the same, becoming suddenly vivacious, bending to her nephews and calling attention to the nearness of her guess.
“Well, so she wrote it,” said Rowland. “Yes, so she is her father’s daughter. Or to-night he is her father. Yes, he must be very proud.”
“He must indeed. I wish I had something to be proud of in my family,” said Jane, looking reprovingly at her nephew. “I begin to think I never shall have. Evelyn, are you going to allow yourself to be beaten by a girl?”
“Oh, yes, by a girl, but I am glad it is not Alfred. I was so afraid it was. He makes me feel competitive, and it is a feeling so unworthy of me. He played the piano just as if he had written the play. Of course I knew he was not capable of it, but I am relieved I am not wrong. Anyone may make a mistake, and one never knows with Alfred.”
“So it is nice to know now,” said Miss Marcon.
“I had no suspicion of it!” said Jane. “Most people would like to claim that they had known it all the time. But I enjoy any excitement in life too much to worry about the personal credit.”
“It is absurd of Alfred not to have written the play,” said Miss Marcon. “To be a tutor and give solos between the acts, and then not write it would make anyone ridiculous. And that wonderful child! To write that, sitting at home, and not to have to go by train to get it! I do look up to her. But why do they call for the author last instead of first? The author is really the cause of everything. If I wrote a play, I would come and bow at the beginning. But perhaps I don’t understand the modesty of greatness. If they are arranging for that, it is different.”
“I wonder what her father is feeling,” said Stephen.
“You are not wondering. You have made up your mind. I am talking to cover your thoughts. I hope they are covered.”
“Yes, yes, we both know how to cover them.”
“When anyone has any success, it is natural enough to feel you would rather it were yourself. There is not anyone who would not rather.”
“That is not what I meant.”
“I know it is not. But don’t say it in public; wait until we are at home; I shall love to hear. Ah, Charity, rightly named!”
“Why was it done in this mysterious way?” said Sabine. “I should have taken more pleasure in the play, if I had known. I do not like mysteries in my house; I have said that nothing shall be kept from me. And France should have had a dress for such an occasion. She looked ridiculous, bowing in one she has been known by for years. It shows what happens when I do not manage things myself. I desire that in future I shall have the opportunity.”
“It was known that we should appear in these dresses, if not on the platform,” said Clare. “Aunt Hetta must have realised they were behind the mode, when she attained it herself.”
“Young people are always mysterious over such things,” said Hetta, watching her brother’s reaction to the light upon his daughter. “We have to remember how large it looms in their minds. This is not a trifling thing to France. We must put ourselves in her place.”
“It is not a trifling thing in itself,” said Chilton. “It is a good piece of work, an unusual thing to achieve.”
“That is a good brother,” said Hetta, smiling at him, but still looking at John.
“It is all a compliment,” said Chilton to Clare. “Aunt Hetta is afraid that Father will think too much of France.”
“Whispering here!” said Hetta. “And at your age, Clare! I must break you of these home habits, if they are to catch you out in public. They give you away too much.”
“Our home habits are our only ones. And when that is the case, they do give people away.”
“Smartness, smartness!” said Hetta, still looking at her brother. “I get so tired of it.”
Chaucer came up to John, his eyes moist, and his hands maintaining the act of applause, while he subdued the sound to allow of his speech.
“You said, Ponsonby, that you would be interested to meet the author. How much more interested are you than you foresaw! You caught yourself hoping it was your son. You find it is someone fully as near. You said you were not the founder of a line. It comes to you that you may be even that. I envy you your feelings upon the occasion.”
“Then you understand them,” said John, in a light tone. “I am taken by surprise; I did not know the ambitions had taken such a definite line. And I must be careful what I say, if my words are remembered.”
“I think I congratulate you even more than your daughter. Yours, if I mistake not, is the greater joy.”
“I expect it is,” said John in a tone of recollection. “My poor girl! Of course she is overwhelmed by a rush of doubts. I know how it is, before custom has dulled the feelings. And I am not a foolish father; I feel the criticisms springing to my mind; I have a high standard for my own. Now that the young man has not materialised, I must have what I can from the young woman.”
“That is the tone; that is the bracing note; and I will warrant the heroine of the day has the grit to stand it. Here she is, coming to receive your congratulations. If I am not unwelcome, I will stand by and see the authoress becoming the daughter.”
Chaucer was not so unwelcome as he might have been, as both John and France were glad of his presence.
“Well, little leader of a double life!” said John, drawing her to him. “So you make your beginning without consulting your father. You follow the old, old line. Well, why should you strike a new note, after all? But didn’t you feel me at your elbow, when you wrote those scenes without welding them into a whole? Did you think they were a string of beads? But on the whole, well done, my child, well done.”
“The scenes are taken from a book,” said Chilton. “That is why they give that impression. You must read the whole thing as it is.”
“And when am I to read it? When we get home to-night? Do I not burn enough midnight oil? But I will read it, never fear.” John stroked France’s hair. “There is something in it that appeals to me. Chaucer bears me witness that I spoke my word for it, before I knew that I spoke in a way for myself.”
“And you must not go further and say what is in your heart,” said Chaucer. “That must not be at the moment. And in the meantime our occasion must run its course.”
“Indeed it must, indeed,” said John in a tone of compunction. “We are making it into an occasion for ourselves; we must hang our heads. Boys, remember you are part of an audience; do not conduct yourselves as guests. When it comes to my speech, it shall contain no word to do with my own family.”
The occasion did not seem to be suffering. Alfred was rendering a solo, to which the Seymours gave attention, and inviting support in the chorus. Chaucer withdrew to assume his doctor’s gown for the presentation of some prizes; and returning with a conscious flush, which marked his relation to his niece, waited on the platform with his lips still moving in his own contribution to the sound, until his voice was at his own disposal. John made a considered, clever speech, praised the performers, recognised the efforts behind them, made a light allusion to his daughter, paused with amused deprecation when her name aroused applause.
The people dispersed for supper and became themselves. Sabine was tired and autocratic; France was nervous and aloof; John talked without pause to friend after friend, almost as if to prevent their replies.
“Well done, well done,” said Rowland, coming up to France. “You are a real writer like your father. What does he say to it? Authors and such people are said to be jealous of each other.”
“Sir Rowland, what a very untoward speech!” said Chaucer, laughing. “You do not suggest that our friend, Ponsonby, could so fall short in gallant and fatherly feeling?”
“Men are said to be especially jealous of women in their own sphere.”
“Especially jealous! Surely ordinary jealousy would suffice?”
“That is not true,” said Evelyn. “Men are especially jealous of men in their own sphere. I should have been jealous of Alfred, but I am quite pleased about France. Not so very pleased, of course: I have done nothing myself.”
“Is writing your sphere, then?” said his aunt. “I am glad to hear you have one! There is a second surprise to-day.”
“Of course writing is my sphere, when it is everyone’s. You must have noticed that everyone talks of writing as if he were a writer. It is because people think it needs brains and no training.”
“That would certainly help them to recognise themselves,” said Stephen.
“Yes, you were so ashamed of being trained,” said his sister. “The play is good, France, my dear, and it is done by brains and not by training; we all know you are quite untrained. It is so nice for you to have it really known. I have trained myself to be accurate and industrious and other low things; trained myself; that is the pity of it, for I began by being as untrained as anyone. I am not one of those people who are born trained. And Stephen is even better, for he was impossible to train.”
“Ah, Miss Marcon, we can’t all do our work on your level,” said Chaucer. “Even Miss France does not aspire to that. The British Museum cannot be the sphere for us all. It is a good thing there are lighter matters for lighter efforts; we will not say lower.”
“Wouldn’t he say lower?” said Miss Marcon. “I am surprised.”
“He heard what you said,” said her brother. “He thinks they are lower.”
“I am proud of having lived in the same house as the author,” said Miss Bunyan, referring easily to past conditions.
“I have enjoyed your father’s books,” said Stephen to France; “but I am going to like yours better.”
“Stay,” said Chaucer, lifting his hand, “we will have no comparisons, if you please, and pitting of one against the other. Mr. Ponsonby is our guest, and as such he has addressed us; and we have listened to him, I hope, without placing him in one side of the scales, with his daughter opposite. The fact that she is his daughter, deters us in her presence. As her father she will prefer us to speak of him.”
“Now Stephen must be trained,” said Miss Marcon.
“It was kind of Dr. Chaucer to use your play, France,” said Sabine. “Have you shown him that you think so? I hope people won’t tire of kindness.”
“When people say that, they hope they will tire of it,” said Clare. “There is no hope in this case. People can’t be tired too easily.”
“Victor, you may wait upon your friends,” said Chilton. “Don’t be afraid. We all go through these awkward stages.”
Chaucer went into laughter, standing with his hands thrust into his pockets and negligently displacing his gown, his eyes consciously twinkling on the brothers.
“Chilton, your father is well and in full work?” he said, rather suddenly recovering. “It must be wonderful to have such power with the pen. My recent effort in the field of words”—He flushed as he recalled his own speech—“has helped me to gauge his position, and unhesitatingly do I take my place behind him.”
“I am so enjoying the evening,” said Miss Marcon.
Alfred, who was carrying a coffee-pot, dropped and broke it.
“Dear, dear!” said Chaucer. “That is a breakdown as great as I suffered in my worst dreams.”
“It had no handle,” said Alfred.
“Then it may be said it was not prepared for its part,” said Chaucer, continuing his figure. “So I need not perhaps rank myself with it.”
“Do somebody pay Dr. Chaucer a compliment,” said Miss Marcon.
“We enjoyed your speech very much, sir,” said Evelyn.
“How came the pot to be posing as qualified for its purpose?” said Chaucer, looking at nothing and speaking at once.
“It had been dropped before. One of the women—it was let fall on the floor,” said Alfred.
“It was let fall; that is better. A petticoat should be able to shelter behind so many pairs of trousers. And if the corresponding pairs of hands collect the debris, it will not devolve upon feminine hands, a climax which does not appeal to us.”
“Victor!” said Chilton, signing to his brother.
Evelyn and his father stooped to the ground, and were not left without assistance.
“Stephen, you can get a piece if you try,” said Miss Marcon, looking on.
“It was too hot to hold,” said Alfred, also a spectator.
“Too hot to hold!” said Chaucer, throwing back his head in mirth. “A pretty word for six foot one of English manhood! Come, Marcon, it has cooled for some time, so face the risk, unless you are afraid it will freeze you now.”
“If I were afraid it would either freeze me or scald me, I would not touch it.”
“I don’t see how you are to touch it,” said his aunt. “People are always so selfish over risk.”
“I was the first to push in,” said Rowland, standing up.
“There should have been a holder,” said Evelyn, who was versed in the arrangements.
“A holder!” said Chaucer. “Do you all keep one in your pockets, may I ask, in case of coming upon something too hot?”
“It belongs to Miss Bunyan.”
“Does it indeed?” said Chaucer, shaking from head to foot. “And you purloined it from her, in case you should need it more than she?”
Alfred gazed at the fire.
“You do not take me, Marcon, to be guilty of anything beyond a jest?” said Chaucer, laying his hand on his shoulder.
“No, I knew you meant it for a joke.”
“I am convinced that any real demand upon your fortitude would find you up and willing.”
“Why is he convinced of that?” said Evelyn.
“I make no claim to that kind of fortitude. They say that women feel pain less than men.”
“Do the women say it?” said Rowland. “Do people want to feel pain?”
“Women have more self-control,” said Jane.
“A man would drop a hot plate fifty times to a woman’s once.”
“That may be the reason why my niece has provided this china,” said Chaucer. “Crockery would, I believe, be the term.”
“Oh, is the crockery yours?” said Alfred. “I am sorry about the pot, but it was without a handle.”
“Would you have held to it, if you had known it was mine?” said Chaucer, with rallying eyes.
Alfred leaned against the wall, as if unaware of what was said.
“Come, Marcon, join in the laugh against yourself,” said Chaucer, tapping his shoulder. “It is a further height to reach than may be thought, but you will show it is not beyond you.”
“It cannot be higher than is thought,” said Stephen. “Surely we have made enough of it.”
“We are to base our evening upon a coffee-pot and a play,” said Victor, “and neither of them complete.”
“Come, Marcon!” said Chaucer, his tapping becoming rhythmic.
Alfred turned on him the faint frown which marks the partial catching of a speech.
“Can no one change the subject?” said Stephen.
“I hope no one will,” said Evelyn. “I do enjoy Alf red’s discomfiture.”
“I wonder why Chaucer was a parson,” said Alfred, leaning against the wall and seeming to suppress a yawn.
“I might say, Marcon, why were you a tutor,” said Chaucer, as if the words were addressed to himself, as indeed in a sense they were.
“Because I like teaching and am interested in boys.”
“Those, Marcon, are the right reasons,” said Chaucer, gravely. “I am glad you are not ashamed to state them. It is a strange thing how many of us keep our better reasons to ourselves.”
“Not if you think how we are despised for them,” said Miss Marcon, “though not generally as much as by Dr. Chaucer. To be surprised that someone is not ashamed of them, is going almost too far.”
“Alfred will not bear much more,” said Stephen.
“What will he do then? I thought he was not bearing any more already.”
Chaucer was continuing on his own line.
“We might say, why was Ponsonby a writer. You and he and I, Marcon, must use our gifts, if such a word may be applied to us as well as to him, in the medium in which they find their outlet. I a clergyman, he a writer—or the other order would better become me—as such must we live and move and have our being.”
“Alfred is bearing some more,” said Miss Marcon. “If I were he, I would not.”
“The other order would sound quite wrong in these surroundings,” said Chilton.
“That may be your view, Chilton,” said Chaucer with a gratified flush, “from your position, as we may put it, near the sun.”
“Is the evening never going to end?” said Alfred, turning from the group. “Mrs. Ponsonby will be worn out.”
“Alfred is not ashamed of his position,” said Miss Marcon. “In my heart I am as surprised at it as Dr. Chaucer.”
“I am ashamed of it,” said Stephen.
“Our good Marcon!” said Chaucer, looking after Alfred. “His is not an easy spirit and brooks but little. I trust I have not been guilty of tactlessness.”
“What does Dr. Chaucer call you, Stephen, as he always calls Alfred Marcon?”
“He never speaks to me; I have seen to that.”
“What does he think of your seeing to it?”
“He does not know; I have seen to that too.”
“Girls, how often am I to say it is time to go?” said Hetta. “I speak and speak, and you might all be deaf. You all look as if you were settled here for life. People won’t think we are very used to going out.”
“They will be right,” said Clare, “and they know we are not.”
“We shall seem as if we could not tear ourselves away.”
Victor was talking to strangers and apparently could not do so; Sabine, in a state of exhaustion, was being supported by Alfred; John was walking up and down, as if aloof from the occasion, and the departure seemed as doubtful as Hetta thought. Alfred did not find it beyond him. Keeping his hold on Sabine, he gave the sign for the carriage, summoned the sisters, roused Muriel, and was soon closing the carriage door upon its occupants.
Sabine would not have brooked the delay of her men, and her family soon assembled in her hall.
“It was kind of Dr. Chaucer to use your play, France,” she said, using words she had used before, and unconscious of it. “I hope people won’t tire of kindness.”
“Oh, my girl’s play was up to them,” said John. “They did not want a better. A better would not have done so well. I feel it is we who have done the kindness, and that I should soon tire of it.”
“Did you not think the characters good?” said Chilton.
“I was so glad to see them differentiated. Young authors do so little in that line. There was no wondering who was who to-night. I hardly found myself held up.”
“The actors could not do it justice. That could not be helped.”
“Well, well, if it were not for the actors, it could not have been put on at all. We mustn’t complain there.”
“You must read the novel when you can.”
“I will read it when it is put into my hands. And I hope some day to read one that others will read.”
“This one ought to come to that; I am sure you will say so. Clare and I are quite agreed.”
“It is much better than I expected,” said Victor.
“What you expected is nothing to do with it. The point is that it is good in itself.”
“It is better than I expected too,” said John, looking mildly from one to the other, “if I can say so when I did not expect anything. It was a good idea to spring it upon us, and let us judge it as strangers. I found myself saying it could not be by anyone here.”
“I should have known that by the first line,” said Chilton.
“The first line does not tell much, and you know the others better than I do.”
“I do indeed, if you could put that play down to the neighbours for a second.”
“Well, I did not put it down to them; I have told you. But it is good to see my son supporting his sister. No family striving or man and woman struggle in my house!”
“France must work hard and achieve something worth while,” said Hetta. “She has all her life to herself. She could not have more opportunity.”
“Working hard seems to give such a heavy aspect to it all,” said Victor.
“And I cannot have my girl do that. Why should I work myself?” said John.
“There is work in this book,” said Chilton, “in so far as work makes a difference. The main thing is talent.”
“The elders will think it soon to talk about that,” said Victor.
“No, they will not, if the talent is there. Why should they?”
“We will leave it until to-morrow, when I shall be myself,” said Sabine, in a voice which did not seem personal to her, as it told simply of weariness and age. “Everyone talks and talks and does not tell me, so that I do not know what it is all about. Good night, gapy-face.” Her tone hardly changed, and she repudiated Chilton’s arm and accepted Alfred’s, and mounted the stairs.
“Well, where is the book?” said John, stretching his arms as if in sympathy with her. “Someone give it to me, and then we must to bed.”
“Won’t you wait until the morning, when you will be fresh?” said Chilton.
“I have other things to do in that state,” said John, putting the manuscript under his arm without looking at it. “And why not, when I am the father of you all? I have to pay for my privileges. And I can see you and France want to get this behind: I know what it is to wait for a verdict.”
“We don’t want a bemused one,” muttered Chilton.
“We want verdicts because we expect them to confirm our own opinion,” said Victor.
“If we did not expect that,” said his brother, “we should not have an opinion.”
“You won’t have one from me, if you don’t release me soon,” said John. “And don’t talk as if you were ten years older than you are; I don’t want to lose my boys. I have one finished young man in my house, and find it enough.”
The next day John came to breakfast late. He paused in the doorway, signing to his family to ignore his entrance, and passed his mother’s chair on tiptoe with a humorous gesture of guilt.
“You look as if you had not slept, my son,” said Sabine, passing over these proceedings as utterly as he could have wished.
“Ask that young woman why,” said John, looking at France. “What a manuscript to put on a man in the dead of night! And when he had had the gist of it before his eyes! The book contains the play, my child, and that is what I have to say for it. You gave us the cream last night, and that was wisely done. I give you the congratulations I have given; and I give you also my sympathy for not doing as well without experience as you will with it.”
“Don’t you think the book should come out, Father?” said Chilton. “We wanted your advice about that.”
“No, you don’t want advice. No one does that. You want to give advice to your sister, and I want to give it too. But I will not do so, for I know how unwelcome it is.”
“Don’t you think the book should come out? We wanted to know just that.”
“Of course I think the book should come out, when I think of what I felt about my first book; and of course I think it should not come out, when I think how I wished I had kept mine back and used it later. But as it cannot come out under my name, I may not be the person to consult. I shall not get the credit or discredit.”
“Do you mean that another writer of your name would do you harm?”
“My dear boy, do you want to find yourself without bread to eat? Or, literally, without the advantages you are depending on? It is because I am myself and by myself, that you have been taught they will be yours.”
“It would do you as much harm as that?”
“That would be harm, wouldn’t it?” said John, laughing. “Never mind, my son; we all of us measure things by their effect on ourselves; and it is a good way of gauging them, the way that has our heart.”
“Do you not want France to be a writer, as you are?”
There was a pause, and then John spoke more sharply.
“Do I want her to be a worker, as I am? Why should I want it? What is there to want about it? Can I leave them all to your support?”
“I had not thought of the matter in that light. We must consider it in every light, of course.”
“Your own light will do. If we all do that, we get the light all round in the end.”
“Well, we will leave the matter for the moment.”
“No, we will not: that would mean we should recur to it; and that will not do; you make me see that. We will leave it until one of you can take my place. That is how it sums up. Then we will return to it, and I shall do so gladly, glad to lay down my burdens.”
“What do Grandma and Aunt Hetta think?”
“The women dependent on me,” said John, with a light laugh.
“We are not dependent on you,” said Hetta. “You know that is not the truth. We should have to leave the house if you did not earn, but that is all. And in a way I should not mind. It takes my energy as much as it takes yours. But the boys know what you mean. Why they all pose as being stupider than they are, passes my comprehension. We are all quite stupid enough; that is a good basis to go upon. France has had her play acted; and she must do something more, if she wants to go further.”
“Father’s meaning is simple and clear,” said Victor. “I don’t know why we make a fuss about it. We should not ask him things, if we don’t want him to answer. He is speaking a truth which we might have arrived at by ourselves. Of course his work for us all must come before anything else.”
“I had better go and get on with it,” said John, rising with a faint sigh. “I think it has never been so hard to me as at this moment. You understand I am ready to yield my place to anyone who can take it. That is all there is to the matter. But as in the meantime it has to be filled, I must give it what energy I can muster. My night hours were not my own.”
He left them, waving his hand in his usual way, and his sister followed. Sabine and Alfred continued to talk, but the young people felt there was a silence.
“Well, there is an end of it,” said Victor.
“Of course there is not,” said his brother. “There are other names.”
“You must consult Father before you do anything.”
“We have consulted him, and he made us regret that we did so. We are dependent upon ourselves.”
Victor sauntered up and down, humming in his father’s manner.
“Father has his own way of being the opposing parent,” said France. “The cases on record may have their explanations. I daresay they are natural ones.”
“Are you of the stuff that martyrs are made of?” said Chilton. “I hope not; it is useless stuff.”
“She is of the stuff young women writers are made of,” said Victor. “That is quite different.”
“What are little boys made of? Well, we thought Father would be a help to you, France. And you will have no help.”
“It is the common lot,” said Clare, “and it may be better than a lot moulded by her family. It is probably a good thing that is rare. But it is a pity that Father’s mantle has descended on his favourite.”
“Doesn’t Father like France to write books?” said Muriel.
“He would like you to write one,” said Victor. “Go and attend to the preliminaries.”
“I am to have a holiday until I have a governess. Clare does not like to teach me.”
“I told Grandma I could not bear it. A good-tempered pupil is impossible.”
Muriel looked acquiescent.
“What are little girls made of?” said Chilton.
“Authors have often kept their beginnings secret,” said France. “Who knows what their reason has been? One is criticised for the tendency to secrecy, but the instinct is a true one.”
“Father likes the book enough to feel what he did, and actually to say it,” said Chilton. “You have had great encouragement.”
“It is a piece of sound advice that the book should be boiled down and made more like the play,” said Clare. “If France takes it, Father will have helped her after all. But to take advice, and such advice, may be more than human.”
“I have already taken it in my mind,” said her sister. “It seems dishonest to let Father help me, when we accepted his refusal.”
“Oh, the family moral standard admits of that.”