“It is kind of you to welcome us both,” said Miss Marcon, crossing the Ponsonbys’ drawing-room, with her eyes on the chandelier which hung just above her head. “I know I am always welcome, but Stephen is different. It may be my sisterly attitude, but I am afraid it is Stephen. Of course, I love him better for his failings, but I see you do not. And it is trying to have social and other relations with the same person; I don’t think people used to know people with whom they had other relations. But Stephen does all he can to avoid them. I am glad to see you well again: it would be embarrassing if he did not cure you. And he keeps the rest of you well, doesn’t he? That is the best thing doctors do, I think. And as it is done for nothing, even Stephen cannot mind it. It is better than presiding over deathbeds, which ought to be nothing to do with a doctor. He does seem to have failed, if things come to that. But people think it is his natural work; it is so confused and fatalistic.”
“To every man upon this earth death cometh soon or late,” quoted Chaucer.
“Yes. It is simply no use to be a doctor. No wonder Stephen does not like it. I wonder doctors exist.”
“Because of man’s inability to face the truth,” said her brother. “He must pretend there is some way out.”
“Well, he can hardly be expected to adapt himself to it,” said France. “It is too much, coming to an end.”
“Death is coming to me late, thanks to Dr. Marcon,” said Sabine, whose respect for Stephen was not affected by his dislike for herself, which feeling she saw as a wayward force beating against the fundamental and essential.
“Yes. You really owe everything to Stephen, don’t you?”
“You know Miss Hallam, I think, Chaucer?” said John.
“I have made her acquaintance, and I may be the more readily admitted to her friendship, that I have the honour of knowing her predecessors.”
“I don’t think that is an honour,” said Edith to the sisters. “That part of my position seems definitely dishonourable.”
“Miss Bunyan is Dr. Chaucer’s niece!” said Muriel, hastening to Edith and speaking in an audible whisper.
“You have the honour of knowing Miss Hallam now,” said Sabine with a smile.
“You have good news of Miss Bunyan for us?” said Chilton.
“I think I may say so, Chilton. I feel she is happy and useful in my house, and few of us can ask for more.”
“Indeed few of us expect to be both,” said France.
“But I think my niece is of those few. Indeed, she hardly regards herself as of a nature to warrant her being one without the other.”
“She is in many ways very sensible,” said Sabine.
“Well, here I am with my twofold escort!” said Jane. “It is good of you to allow me to arrive thus doubly supported. Though why I am any worse than you are, Hetta, I am at a loss to see. I cannot imagine you without John.”
“It would be a flight of imagination indeed,” said Chaucer.
“Or Charity without Stephen. I only err in the sense of having two followers instead of one!”
“We are all dependent on each other,” said Rowland.
“That is so in this house indeed,” said Chaucer. “I always feel that the old patriarchal system is nobly exemplified in it.” He paused and laughed before his next words. “Or shall we say matriarchal?”
“We will say that,” said Chilton.
“Morbid growths are often the strongest,” said Clare.
“An undertone of complaint is never absent from Clare’s speech,” said Hetta to her brother. “It would be decent to drop it when we have guests.” John did not answer, and she raised her voice and turned to her friends. “It will be easier for me to keep my eye on everything, when I do not alternate between one place and another. Even I cannot be in two places at once.”
“No, Miss Ponsonby. Even to you, as you say, that problem must be insoluble,” said Chaucer. “Though I venture to think that something of your spirit detached itself and held your place.”
“How did he know?” said Victor.
“He did not,” said Clare. “There was complete relief when Aunt Hetta was away. She is a person who takes the whole of her spirit with her.”
“Miss Hallam,” said Chaucer, with a little laugh to give his speech its place, “what do you make of this family?”
“More than of any other. I should already be sorry to leave it.”
“Miss Hallam, I think I may say,” said Chaucer, with an expression of some pain, “that there is no danger of such a contingence. I am not entitled to speak for the family, but I venture to say that something comes through, which points the lie of the land, if I can so express myself.”
“He should not express himself on the matter,” said Clare.
“I should think he may do so with authority,” said France.
“Miss Clare,” said Chaucer, overhearing and turning at once, “I should not. I am rightly pulled up, and hope I may profit.”
“I hope Clare will profit anyhow,” said Sabine. “Do not stand on top of me, you two great boys. Don’t you hear me? Don’t hover over me: I cannot bear it.”
“Victor, keep away from Grandma,” said Chilton. “She finds your proximity intolerable, as she explains.”
“Will you take my mother in to dinner, Stephen?” said John.
“If she can bear it, or pretend she can. I must insist upon a certain appearance.”
“I am too used to great men about me, to have any objection to it,” said Jane. “I don’t know what my life would be, if I had.”
“It will soon not be possible to have guests to the house,” said Clare. “Not that we do it often enough to count.”
“I don’t feel I could be embarrassed outside this house,” said France.
“Or anything but embarrassed in it,” said Victor. “Grandma ought to know better. She will go too far.”
“She could not, if she has not already. She has gone the full length many times and nothing has happened. Miss Bunyan could only leave the house, and we can only stay in it, and both things are agreeable to Grandma.”
“Where is Alfred?” said Miss Marcon. “I hope he has not been dismissed. He is not wandering about, afraid to come home? Perhaps I ought not to ask. It shows how awkward it is to know the tutor’s family.”
“Here I am, Aunt Charity! I am not afraid to come home. You are right that this house is becoming that to me.”
“I am so glad, dear, as ours has never done so.”
“What do you do to make my nephew feel at home?” said Stephen to Sabine. “You have succeeded in a few weeks when we failed in as many years.”
“I expect they succeeded in a few weeks,” said France. “Things do not stand the test of years, certainly not homes.”
“Miss Marcon likes you better than any of us,” said Evelyn to Edith. “How did you get her affection?”
“Perhaps on the basis of the few weeks.”
“No, her feeling does stand the test of years.”
“I see why a portrait of a family group is called a Conversation Piece,” said Rowland, coming to escort Miss Marcon. “They don’t generally have such good names for things.”
“Not such dreadful ones. I daren’t look at those pictures, because of what I might read into them. It is really too morbid to paint family groups, with a father and a mother and children, and no attempt to leave out anything. After all, why dwell on these things? It does not alter them.”
“I had no fault to find with my family life, until my wife died.”
“No, but you would not have made a picture. There would have been nothing to read in. People say, the better a picture is, the more it suggests. I don’t think they even ought to talk like that. Emphasising it does no good.”
John had been aloof and silent, and now led Jane to her seat, and stood while his other guests settled in theirs, as if barely holding himself from his words.
“Now I am going to disregard the laws of civility and talk of myself. I can’t help being the host. My personal life does not stop for that, and it happens to have been going on. I know that shame is due to me, but something else is due to me as well.” He took a letter from his coat, and remained standing to read it, holding it spread between his hands. “‘Will you accept this tribute from a grateful reader, who can sign himself in no other way?’ Just that. And what do you think it is? A cheque for a thousand pounds! My time is not past for giving pleasure to people. It is measured by what they will give, like other things. We are not down to the bottom. People still have their feeling for me, and will show it in the way that counts. For this is the way, say what you will.”
“What should we say?” said Rowland. “Of course it is the way.”
“What a thunderous piece of news!” said Victor.
“Well, it is a unique moment in the lives of us all,” said his brother.
“I have never heard of its raining pounds before,” said Clare. “Cats and dogs, compliments, insults, anything, but never pounds.”
“And it never rains but it pours,” said France. “What a good thing that is!”
“I admit it is a fairy tale moment for me. I have not had too many of late; I have not had many in my life at all. But here is a real one.”
“You have not had many?” said Evelyn. “Do you mean you have had a certain number? How little we know of other lives!”
“Will Father be rich now?” said Muriel.
“No, of course he will not,” said her aunt. “It is because he is poor that this is given to him. But it is a wonderful thing to happen, and you ought to be very proud.”
“It is about time they gave him something for all he has done,” said Sabine.
“So they have seized the moment,” said Stephen.
“Yes, why not after all?” said John. “Why not show their feeling? I have lived my life for them.”
“Of course they ought to pay you a thousand pounds,” said Miss Marcon. “We all ought. I hope you will take the will for the deed? I never understood that phrase before; I thought it was unreasonable. But now I don’t know what I should do without it. You will give me a little of the gratitude? I feel I should not like to have none.”
“Seymour is the only one of us who could afford such a sum,” said Alfred.
“It was not me,” said Rowland, quickly and seriously.
“And when you could have afforded it, Father!” said his son.
“I do not flatter myself that he is my grateful reader,” said John, laughing.
“I will be honest and say I should never have thought of such a thing!” said Jane. “Even if I could have afforded it. People do like to share credit, but I think we are so much more interesting, if we allow our real selves to be seen.”
“Well, you ought to be in spirits now, John,” said Hetta.
“We are all in spirits,” said Sabine, “and most of all his old mother.”
“What is the signature to the cheque?” said Victor.
“Robert Seaton,” said his father. “A genuine name, I hazard, but we respect the virtual anonymity. The donor has a right to it. And I respect it in another sense. It has been a good way to do it.”
“It has indeed,” said Miss Marcon. “It saves you the effort of gratitude. You really don’t have to make any return. Fancy not wanting credit for giving a thousand pounds! I can hardly believe it, when I almost wanted it for not giving anything.”
“It does make one feel one would like to be admired for such a thing,” said Alfred.
“This person does honestly forgo his admiration,” said Stephen. “He is one by himself: I should like to meet him.”
“Fancy Stephen wanting to meet someone!” said Miss Marcon.
“No, no, that is forbidden ground,” said John. “We will not venture on it.”
“Miss Hallam, how are you and I to express our feelings?” said Chaucer. “You may be sharing with me a sense of being somewhat inadequate. But on this point we may follow Miss Marcon, and ask to have the will taken for the deed.”
Chaucer was inclined at this time to fancy that women shared his feelings. The experience of having his niece in his home had suggested a state of the same comfort and more suitable companionship, and he had come to a mind for marriage.
“I hoped my silence was eloquent, and, as I am not one of the family, perhaps golden as well.”
“Well, I know you all rejoice with your father,” said John. “Is your silence golden too? You have not Miss Hallam’s reason of not being one of the family, though I would hardly grant it to her. It is not every day that reward comes on this scale. It may never come to any of you.”
“These things are unfortunately not hereditary,” said France.
“Who knows, Miss France? Your feet are in the same steps,” said Chaucer.
“They are not hereditary,” said John, “but they can be shared. It is a good form for a tribute. I am not one of those who feel that the form of money takes from a gift. What gives a gift its value, is the feeling which prompts it, not the form it takes. If that is chosen in understanding, it only adds to it. I can take it simply, in simple gratitude. If I could not, I were a meaner man.”
“It would be dreadful if you felt you could not accept it,” said Miss Marcon. “We should all be ashamed. It would be so petty not to take a thousand pounds.”
“And the fellow wants you to take it; he wants to give it,” said Rowland. “He sends a cheque and not notes, so that you can have your choice. You need not put the cheque through; he will not force your hand. But he wants his way; you will let the fellow have his way.”
“Now I will not have him continually referred to as a fellow!” said Jane. “He must be such a very good type.”
“To refuse would be to repudiate a man’s generosity,” said John, “to show a hesitation in taking the lower place. That is a lesson we all have to learn.”
“It is not one that comes in very usefully,” said Clare.
“What a good thing it is you have learnt it, Ponsonby!” said Evelyn.
“Why are we so sure the giver is a man?” said Stephen. “The signature on the cheque simply shows that use has been made of a man’s banking account.”
“We are not sure,” said John, “but I somehow think it is. There is the terseness of the letter, the lack of the personal touch, the sacrifice of the acknowledgement; and few women would have as much to give.”
“And women would spend it on people nearer to themselves,” said Rowland, in a tone of understanding.
“It is fortunate that you have come together!” said Jane.
“We have not done that. We shall not do it. I accept the conditions of the benefit. In no other way have I a right to it.”
“I should have thought a woman was as likely to give it,” said Hetta, “though, as you say, less likely to have it to give.”
“I am with you, Miss Ponsonby,” said Chaucer. “I should have thought indeed that the whole idea, the unobtrusive manner of its carrying out, were feminine. I should not claim for my own sex such selflessness and power of taking another’s place.”
“I should not claim it either for that sex,” said Jane, bending her head and looking up from under it. “Though one hardly likes to claim it for the other, as it is one’s own.”
“Well, man or woman, it is a great spur to my effort. There is not so much zest in going on, year in and year out, for things to be taken as a matter of course and judged as a due. But this is a sign of another spirit at work, for many must feel what one has been able to acknowledge and reward.”
“Many indeed must feel it, for one who pays a thousand pounds for it,” said France.
“Many indeed,” said John in a quiet tone. “That is worth more to me than the thousand pounds.”
“It must be worth a good deal,” said Evelyn.
“Evelyn, don’t be foolish,” said his aunt. “Things cannot always be expressed in terms of money.”
“They very seldom are. That is what is remarkable about this,” said Stephen.
“We ought to pay for what we have,” said Rowland. “I am afraid we often don’t. We get it for nothing if we can, and forget someone has to give it.”
“I don’t know how we should have managed without the money,” said Hetta to her mother. “That so often seems to be the case with anything that falls in.”
“We will leave that until we are alone, my dear.”
“No, we will not,” said Hetta, sharply. “It raises an interesting point. Is the giver of the money someone who knows us?”
“We must not find the point interesting,” said John. “The words were ‘a grateful reader.’ That is the given point of connection, and we must be content. We have given him his due in the way he chose it, and in the measure he should have it. He does not have less because it cannot be given to his face.”
“Yes, yes, he must get his way,” said Rowland.
“He does not have it at all. That is the best part of it,” said France. “We don’t have to feel we have paid, and paid too much.”
“No, he has paid,” said Rowland.
“People cannot really give at all,” said Edith. “They can only exchange. This case is an exception.”
“They feel the agony of giving,” said Chilton. “And they want their agony soothed. This man does not seem to feel any agony.”
“Exchange is no robbery,” said Miss Marcon. “We have some dreadful sayings. I have always wondered how the custom of gifts grew up. And now I see there is no such custom. There is just this man by himself.”
“My boy, it is good indeed,” said Sabine, putting out her hand to invite her son’s and also to hold him at a distance. “I feel it, and so would your father. But I am an old woman.” Her tone changed and lost its almost conscious quaver. “I suppose we could trace the cheque?”
Rowland laughed.
“My dear mother, we could or we could not. We do not know. We shall not know. Miss Hallam, you are silent. You find this unusual incident perplexing?”
“Ponsonby,” interposed Chaucer, leaning forward and raising his hand, “you have found me also silent. But I would speak for Miss Hallam and myself, and protest that in some cases silence may convey as much as speech.”
Rowland laughed again and continued to do so.
“I am full of discontent that I have not given the money,” said Alfred, “that I have not received it, that I have not played any part in the matter at all.”
“I have not said what part I have played,” said Evelyn. “And so I do not say what my silence has conveyed.”
“Evelyn, even that kind of joking suggestion is not straightforward,” said Jane.
“Well, well, it has given me a moment’s happiness,” said John. “There is that to be said for it.”
“Are you allowing reaction to set in?” said Evelyn. “And so soon? I am disappointed.”
“So happiness can be bought,” said Miss Marcon, “though they say it cannot. But if a moment costs a thousand pounds, it is too dear to be afforded. It would be bought too seldom to count.”
“I don’t know how much would come from a thousand pounds,” said Alfred, “but a number of thousands would bring a lifetime.”
“My poor thousand pounds!” said John.
“Poor thousand pounds!” said Edith. “What a word for such a sum!”
“This is disheartening for the giver,” said Evelyn.
“Evelyn, Evelyn!” said his aunt.
Sabine smiled and rose from the table, and the women went to the drawing-room. Some rugs and cushions had been laid about which would be removed in the morning. Sabine adjusted the cushions with a careless touch, but put one aside where it would not be handled.
“This is a great encouragement for John!” said Jane. “And I have an idea somehow that he wanted it. A writer’s life is not all success and triumph.”
“A certain amount of it is,” said Sabine.
“Of course money is dross,” said Miss Marcon. “And yet it is accepted in exchange for everything.”
“Why is it called dross and filthy lucre and sordid gain?” said Edith.
“Filthy is really an unnecessary word, when we have to be in constant contact with it. It is said to soil our hands, and I suppose it must. It is deceitful too; the deceitfulness of riches.”
“I cannot understand anybody’s really liking money,” said Jane, “except for the things it brings. I should never like it for itself.”
“I should think not, when it is filthy and sordid and deceitful. And John has a thousand pounds of it. I hope it is all right.”
“I don’t know why Muriel stayed up to dinner, Mater,” said Hetta. “She has not opened her mouth except to eat. Her father’s success has not drawn one syllable from her.”
“It seems to be clear why she stayed up,” said France.
“Muriel, speak to your father about his present, directly he comes in,” said Sabine.
“Yes, Grandma.”
“What are you going to say to him?”
“I don’t know, Grandma.”
“Then how can you say it?”
Muriel did not explain.
“She cannot say it, it is clear,” said Miss Marcon.
“So let it be recognised,” said Clare.
“She must not be allowed to be too boorish, for her own sake,” said Hetta.
“For other people’s, surely,” said Edith. “We should all be boorish for our own.”
“What are you going to say, Muriel?” said Hetta more firmly.
“If we don’t tell her what to say, we shall seem to be in the same position as she is.”
“Muriel, you may say to Father that you are so pleased about his present, and that you think he more than deserves it.”
“I don’t want to, Aunt Hetta.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t say things like that.”
“That is no reason why you should not begin.”
“Of course it is,” said France. “She does not want to present herself as a stranger to her parent.”
“She can ask him what he is going to do with the money,” said Miss Marcon. “I am sure she wants to know that.”
“She does know it,” said Hetta. “He will have to spend it on the household.”
“Does she really know that? How sad at her age! What can we do to make up to her?”
Muriel felt the tension less, and leaned against a cushion, and Sabine stretched forward and drew it from her back.
“Sit up straight, child,” she said in explanation.
“Well, what are you going to say to Father?” said Hetta. “Whatever are you crying for?”
“Because of the hopelessness of the situation,” said France. “Despair is the natural thing.”
“What are you crying for, Muriel?”
“Leave her alone, Aunt Hetta,” said Clare. “What good does it do to torment her?”
“Are you the mistress of the house?”
“Yes, I am, when you and Grandma fail in the part. I come next. Muriel, you can go to bed, and you need not say good night.”
Muriel threw her sister a look of relieved acceptance of the account she gave of herself, and disappeared.
“You think that is kindness to the child?” said Hetta.
“I know it is.”
“You are not generally so concerned about her.”
“There is generally no need to be concerned about her at all. She has the easiest position in the house.”
“That is what she should have, at her age,” said Hetta, with a note of reproof. “We should not grudge it to her.”
“Now adapt your talk to simple, masculine ears,” said John at the door. “To tell the truth, I am excited to-night, and want my family as well as my friends.”
“A disposition which leads to advantage for us all,” said Chaucer.
“We saw Muriel mounting the stairs in tears,” said Chilton.
“Had anything untoward taken place?”
“Grandma has been finding imperfections in the poor young girl,” said Victor. “To Grandma childhood is not innocent, only age.”
“Mrs. Ponsonby is doing her best to get us all perfect,” said Alfred. “I shall love being perfect: I have always enjoyed imagining myself a perfect person.”
“He has got more enjoyment out of being one,” said Victor.
“Victor, was there a flavour of ill nature in your speech?” said his brother.
“Victor,” said Chaucer with a hesitant air, “you will allow me my word? You will remember your grandmother is a very old lady, and, as such, as entitled to your chivalry as she is dependent upon it. We show honour to the weaker vessel.”
“We do not show honour to Grandma in that character,” said Clare. “Hers is the honour paid to power. And it is a better kind of honour.”
“But, Victor, are you listening to Dr. Chaucer?” said Chilton.
“Miss Hallam, I am glad to see it is not incumbent upon you—that you are not desirous of following your pupil,” said Chaucer.
“It does seem that I ought to be more tied to her.”
“It does not seem so to me,” said Chaucer, drawing up a chair to Edith’s, so that they sat apart from the rest. “It would indeed seem to me unfit for you to be in any way dependent upon the movements of others.”
“We must all be that, but I think I have more liberty than anyone else in the house.”
“Miss Hallam,” said Chaucer, leaning forward impulsively, “I had almost said, ‘What liberty?’ Liberty of a kind, yes. Kindness in a measure. But what is such kindness, liberty—courtesy—to anyone strung up to every tone, as you must be?”
“They are everything to her, surely. It is to people like that, they make so much difference. And they are generally given to them.”
“Ah, you prove your mettle; but you do not tell me you would rather be a stranger in the house than a member of it.”
“I would much rather: I could not bear to be a member. You don’t know what it is like.”
“You may say it, but the heart knoweth its own bitterness. What is a little impatience, hastiness—tyranny, if it must be said, compared with a real isolation and loneliness?”
“I am afraid it must be said, and they are a great deal worse.”
“You do not think it,” said Chaucer, almost tenderly, with his eyes on her face. “How different a thing is a woman’s courage from a man’s! How could a man dare the woman’s lot, the little pinpricks and pettinesses, the grinding, pitiless monotony?”
“It is not the stranger who endures the worst of those. I think your niece must have been made more one of the family than I am.”
“May I come to what is in my mind?”
“I think you had better not. There is a story about someone who saw into people’s minds, and it was impossible for him. And what is the good of not being able to see into them, if you are told about it?”
“You would have to be told. You can have no inkling. It would transcend your furthest dreams. And if you could guess it, your tongue would be barred.” Chaucer spoke with a great gentleness of a woman’s further compulsions. “I will go slowly. You shall have time.”
“What can it be? I thought you were going to propose to me. But that has nothing to do with my dreams. Have I not seen into your mind after all?”
Chaucer looked at her in silence.
“You forgot a woman’s intuition, when you enumerated the things about her. And you forgot her tongue. It is not so often barred. It is not really supposed to be. Is it going to be yours that is barred?”
“Did you want me to say it in words?” said Chaucer, struck by a thought.
“No, no, your way of saying it was much better. Your tongue was so nicely barred. I hope it will continue to be. You see how mistaken you were in me. Suppose I were to accept you now?”
“I should be honoured.”
“You would be, I suppose, more than you would have been. But it is no good to marry a dependant, if she is not grateful. You might as well marry someone who had no need to be.”
“Am I to understand you do not wish for what I offer?”
“Well, don’t you understand it? My tongue has not been barred. I hope yours is not going to break its bars.”
“It is not,” said Chaucer, bowing. “I hope I know how to conduct myself under a refusal. I have not much to offer a woman, but some might have found it acceptable.”
“It was to transcend my furthest dreams. So no wonder you thought I should find it so. I quite understand it.”
There was a pause, and then Chaucer spoke.
“Well, perhaps you know what is best for us. I will take your decision as the right one.”
“Will you really? I did not expect you to do that. I did not know that men who were refused, took the decision as the right one. I think it is I who have been refused. It has to be made to appear that it is the man. Perhaps it is really I who have proposed?”
“No, it is I who have done that,” said Chaucer, with grave gallantry. “I do not go back on it. It remains, and will remain. Now should we join the rest, lest our remaining together occasion comment?”
“Yes. It would never do, if it was thought that anything had passed between us.”
“What is your wish with regard to our letting the truth become known? I wish to deal in nothing but the truth.”
“Then we will have a secret between us for ever.”
“What have you two been discussing so earnestly?” said Jane.
“A woman’s lot,” said Edith. “The pinpricks and pettiness of it.”
“Well, I have not much to learn about it, though I have not come in contact with the pettiness. Being always outnumbered by men may tend to prevent it. Women generally find themselves in the majority. I think either sex becomes petty, if left without the other.”
“Well, Father,” said Victor, “you look round on admiring faces. We are unreasonable enough to think more of you for your piece of fortune.”
“It is not unreasonable, my boy. We all have our market value as well as others, and it does not mean nothing.”
“You are not like Stephen, ashamed of taking payment,” said Miss Marcon. “Personally I should love to be paid with a thousand pounds, but then I daresay so would he. Perhaps he is naturally ashamed of what he is paid.”
“I love it indeed,” said John. “To have given pleasure to that extent! That is the thing. And now let us forget me and talk of other people.”
“No, don’t let us,” said Evelyn. “Let us talk of this. We don’t often get such a subject. Why should we not talk of it?”
“Whenever we have an absorbing topic,” said France, “the person most involved says we must leave it and turn to others. There are no others. Nothing has happened to anyone else.”
“I think it is so nice of Ponsonby not to say it is not the gift he values, but the thought,” said Evelyn. “People might anyhow value both, when they accept them.”
“He only nearly said it,” said Stephen.
“Even when they refuse, they explain that it does not alter the thought,” said Edith. “But it does alter it. It makes it unnecessary. And unnecessary is the worst thing for a noble action to be.”
“I don’t know what we should have done, if John had refused,” said Miss Marcon.
“Ponsonby,” said Chaucer, leaning towards him, “the ability to accept simply is a great gift. You teach us all a lesson.”
“Some people have too many gifts,” said Alfred.
“No one accepts simply,” said Stephen, on a high note, though half to himself. “It takes the whole of human effort to accept.”
“Well, you have not said much to congratulate your father,” said Hetta. “Don’t you take more pleasure than this in his success? It is a greater one than you will ever have.”
“Are we to take pleasure in that?” said France.
“We can’t have any fellow-feeling,” said Chilton, “as you explain.”
“You can judge our feelings by your own,” said Clare.
“I don’t know that I can. You don’t seem to me to have the same feelings.”
“Well, you are only Father’s sister, and we are his children.”
Victor gave a faint laugh and received a quick frown from John.
“It is belonging to the same generation that makes the difference,” said Hetta, in an easy tone.
“Or belonging to the generation before,” said Sabine. “That is the only way to be his mother.”
“You are unkind to boast of your generation, Mrs. Ponsonby,” said Alfred, sitting on the arm of her chair. “There are enough matters in which we cannot compete with you, without your finding another, which is no credit to you at all.”
“I do not ask congratulations,” said John. “I have had too many, and given too many to myself. I have only been the object of an individual’s comprehension and generosity. I have had no true success.”
“It is well not to ask congratulations now that they have ceased,” said Chilton.
“The other kind of success is better,” said France. “True success seems to be effort and achievement without any reward. It is as bad as true kindness or honest advice or anything else of that kind.”
“Being cruel to be kind is just ordinary cruelty with an excuse made for it,” said Evelyn. “And it is right that it should be more resented, as it is.”
“You have had kindness without any touch of cruelty at all, John,” said Miss Marcon. “I don’t think I have ever seen any of that kind before. The bitterness of success is a dreadful phrase to have arisen.”
“You do not take part in the badinage, Miss Ponsonby?” said Chaucer.
“No, I feel it would hardly become me. My brother’s success is so much my own, and so much involved with me, that to make too much of it would not do. I must be quiet, as people are when they are receiving applause.”
“You are indeed receiving it,” said Chaucer in a lower tone. “You indeed are your brother’s truest success.”
“Oh well, yes: I don’t think he is in any doubt about that.”
“I should not have thought this was the family to have this kind of success,” said Evelyn. “I am astonished that one of them has it: I can hardly believe it.”
“Now I think we have really felt a friend’s success as if it were our own,” said Stephen to his sister.
“Miss Marcon, you write biographies,” said Chaucer. “Why not consider writing one of John Ponsonby?”
“I only write them of people whose biographies have been written, so that they can be in the British Museum.”
“You cannot give up your erudite tastes even for the sake of a friend?”
“I have thought of writing an autobiography,” said John. “But I think I have not yet reached the age. A life of anyone has to be all looking back.”
“It cannot be looking forward,” said Victor. “Even from a biographer the future is hidden.”
“That is what your father said,” said his aunt.
“But not entirely from an autobiographer,” said Evelyn.
“Evelyn, do not be foolish,” said Jane.
“Well, well, biography has to be looking back, or it may have to be keeping back, anyhow an autobiography.”
“We will go home at once, if you are going to talk on that level,” said Jane, opening her workbag.
“Consider how much Father’s would be the second,” said Chilton to Edith.
“Not more than people’s must be. He would write his own life well enough. He may be the only one who knows it. You all underestimate your father.”
“I do not,” said France.
“I think we only estimate him,” said Chilton.
“It may be the same thing in a man’s children.”
“Jane, must you knit when we are out to dinner?” said Rowland. “So that was the bag I carried.”
“The irony of things,” said Victor.
“Well, well,” said Jane, clicking her needles together, rolling the knitting round them, and leaning back with her hands falling to her lap. “Is that better?”
“It is much better; it is quite perfect; thank you.”
“You are one of those men who believe that a woman exists purely for ornament,” said Jane, sitting up to adjust her hair and her dress, before settling down to fulfil this function.
Her brother turned on her eyes of automatic appreciation.
“Are they never going?” said Sabine, suddenly from her chair, where she sat with her hands on its arms and her head bent forward.
Her guests threw her a glance and rose to their feet, Rowland with concern, Stephen with comprehension, Evelyn with interest and a sparkle in his eyes, and Miss Marcon in a manner of looking down on a phenomenon from a height, as indeed she was doing. Jane snatched up her belongings in the way of one caught by a wave on the shore, and stood as if poised for flight.
“Must you all go?” said Sabine in apparent unconsciousness.
“It appeared that we must,” said Stephen.
“It is early to break up the party.”
“True,” murmured Evelyn. “But we do not set our opinions against those of older people.”
“We must go indeed,” said Rowland, advancing to Sabine. “We have been here too long.”
“It shows we have enjoyed it!” said his sister.
“My mother has surpassed herself,” said John. “We must plead her years.”
“She is a remarkable hostess for her age,” said Jane.
“A remarkable hostess is a good term for her,” said Victor.
“We are always saying she has gone the full length,” said Clare, “but there is always a further. Shall we reach the end?”
“Yes, very soon now,” said Stephen to his sister. “And it will be the end of a good deal.”
“We must cultivate the courage of despair,” said Victor. “I feel I am getting it.”
“Why do you keep talking about yourselves?” said Hetta. “The point of the matter is that your grandmother is tired.”
“The matter has involved us,” said her nephew. “Personally I feel I cannot hold up my head.”
“Victor,” said Chaucer, walking to him and bending his eyes on his face, “there is no need for you to feel embarrassment over the little contretemps. I can assure you that we view it with complete understanding, and with a respect for our hostess that is undiminished.”
“There is no need to view it in any way at all,” said Rowland. “Mrs. Ponsonby is overtired and has told her friends. She knew it would be a cloud in our evening, if she allowed us to see it earlier.”
“I will go to bed,” said Sabine, seeming to struggle in her chair, “and you can go on with everything without me.”
“The only solution, if we insist on staying,” said Stephen.
“We cannot go on with everything without you,” said Alfred, stooping to the chair, “as everything centres round you.”
“That is Grandma’s trouble,” said France.
“Why do we not go?” said Jane. “It is the most absurd thing we can do to stay.”
“And hardly a lovable absurdity,” said Miss Marcon.
“I don’t wonder you are paralysed,” said Chilton. “You must be rooted to the ground by shock.”
“No, no, Chilton, there is no need to take that view,” said Chaucer, shaking his head and taking a step towards him.
“We have so enjoyed the evening,” said Miss Marcon, shaking hands with Hetta. “We are so very sorry we came. It was absurd of us to feel we were really wanted. Of course we are a burden and not a pleasure. And your mother had to tell us, as we could not see it for ourselves. It was like her not to shirk an unpleasant task. Ah, Charity, rightly named!”
“We must say goodbye to Mrs. Ponsonby,” said Jane, pushing forward.
Her brother put out his hand and guided her to the door, and the gesture somehow swept the other guests in her wake.
“Where is the letter you had?” said Sabine, in a sharp, clear tone to her son.
John gave it to her, and she read it through her glasses, dwelling on every word.
“Nothing to take hold of.”
“Nothing.”
“To bed, to bed, all of you!” said Hetta, waving her arms. “We don’t want another word. Unless you would like to say one of congratulation to your father?”
“We have said our word. You are the one of us who has not,” said Clare. “We will leave you to say it.”
“Of course mine waits until we are alone. You might know that by this time. So to bed, one and all, if Miss Hallam and Alfred will excuse my including them with the rest.”
“I don’t see why they should excuse it.”
“Good night, Grandma,” said Chilton.
Sabine made a simple, repulsing gesture, which included all her grandchildren, and dropped her eyes to the letter.
“I shall not be ruined by success,” said John, when he was alone with his mother and sister. “Rather shall I be ruined by the lack of more of it. A thousand pounds does not take me the whole way. It needs twice the amount for that. But what is the good of such talk, unless one of you is my unknown benefactor? I shall certainly be ruined by success, if I begin it.”
“The same person might do it a second time,” said Sabine.
“It is clear you are not the benefactor.”
“It was clear before,” said Hetta. “If Mater could do it, there would be no need of it. I can do more by cutting off every farthing in the house.”
“Money is not spent in farthings, although it is saved in them,” said John.