“You can’t be an usher without it,” said Salomon. “So I suppose ushers’ gifts are always crushed. Before we have the advantage of them.”
“I wonder we risk education,” said Reuben, “when you think where it might lead. You will all remember that my gifts have been crushed.”
“That does not happen so easily,” said Merton. “People are without them, because they have never had them. If they had, they would not be ushers. And the lack of talent in many writers is a part of themselves. Of course I am not talking about Father.”
“Well, I suppose you are not,” said Sir Michael. “Why should you be?”
“I wonder he was not,” said Hereward, smiling. “But I have a word to say of him. They are all to go to Oxford, when they reach the age. It is their mother’s wish, and therefore mine.”
“Yes, my word was the determining factor,” said Ada. “I brought in the ordinary strain. That is my accepted part. My sons cannot follow in their father’s steps. They must see him as widely removed from them, as my sister and I saw mine. They must have the usual training of average men. Why should they be above them? We should not hope, or perhaps even wish for it.”
“There are cases of a literary father and son,” said Merton. “And either of them may be the better. But it is idle to plan the future. It must take care of itself.”
“I did not find it did,” said Hereward. “The effort fell to me. I found it a long, hard service. And you may do the same. I even hope you will. It might be better for you in the end.”
“Why are early struggles so much recommended? They may not lead to success, because they end in it.”
“Well, may you do all you hope, my boy. No one would be prouder than your father.”
“No one is prouder of you, than I am in my way, Father. Of course it must be in my way. Our opinions and aims are different. They would hardly be the same.”
“I thought aims were always the same,” said Joanna. “And I believe they are.”
“They are more so than is thought,” said Zillah. “They tend to meet, as time goes by. They are adapted to achievements, and those do come nearer to each other.”
“Have you found that true, Father?” said Merton.
“I think there is truth in it. But I have never been concerned with aims. We give out what is in us.”
“Is not that saying the same thing?”
“I daresay it is,” said Joanna. “It so often is, when people say different things.”
“Let us leave our aims,” said Salomon. “I like to forget them, as I have none. Mother, you spoke of your sister. Why has she passed from our lives? I remember so well when she was in them.”
“She lives at a distance,” said Hereward. “And her marriage has widened it, as marriages will.”
“My Emmeline!” said Ada. “I hardly feel I have lost her. Reuben gives her back to me. And more with every day.”
“There is a great likeness,” said Zillah. “And it seems to grow with him. I suppose a real likeness would.”
“It is not only in his looks and ways. There is something that defies words. It is the touch I have missed myself. It is impossible to define it. I don’t know if it will lead anywhere.”
“That would need something with more depth and force,” said Merton.
“I don’t think Merton has a touch,” said Reuben.
“It is an elusive thing,” said Ada. “We can’t give it a place.”
“We have given it one,” said Reuben. “It is in Aunt Emmeline and me.”
“Aunt Emmeline! How natural it sounds! How I wish we had heard it oftener!”
“Why have we not?” said Merton. “Why do we never see her? There must be a private reason. I suppose some family trouble.”
“There is or there was,” said his mother. “So that is enough.”
“But it is not,” said Salomon. “Not nearly enough, as you know.”
“We can add to it,” said Merton. “I expect it had to do with money.”
“You are wrong,” said Hereward. “Money is not the whole of life.”
“It is often the whole of quarrels, Father”
“It was no part of this one.”
“I am surprised that there was trouble, Father,” said Salomon. “I remember you and my aunt together.”
“There was no trouble between her and me.”
“Perhaps it was the opposite,” said Merton. “Ah, that is nearer the truth.”
“So it is out,” said Ada. “Well, it had to come. Questions are asked in the end, and carry their answers. Yes, your father and my sister were becoming too much to each other. And it led to a breach that has remained. Not an estrangement, not a silence. But a parting of the ways.”
“How I long to ask a question!” said Reuben.
“Well, what is it?” said his father.
“What do you feel for Aunt Emmeline now?”
“I keep the memory. I cared both for her and your mother. I cared for them both for each other’s sake and their own. We fell in with your mother’s wish and parted. She married later. That is the whole.”
“My wish!” said Ada. “No, it is not quite the whole. Both my father and Aunt Penelope advised the parting. But my sister! How I wish it had been different! I hope and feel so does she. But nothing can be undone.”
“It seems that this might be ended,” said Salomon. “Do you need to remember the past?”
“Now that is enough,” said Sir Michael. “Your parents have told you all they can. You should know better than to ask more.”
“Well, we will be content. It is a relief to know. I have wondered and feared to ask.”
“So have I,” said Merton. “It has been on the tip of my tongue.”
“That does keep people silent,” said Joanna. “It hardly seems that it would.”
“Well, the truth has escaped, Grandma. I admire Mother’s simple courage. It is a thing I am without.”
“And you admire yourself for being without it,” said Ada. “It may not be a high quality. But it is not such a common one.”
“I think it is,” said Reuben. “I am always meeting it.”
“I have to show it now,” said Hereward. “I am reluctant to cloud our reunion. That is how it seems to me when I leave a book. But there is a word that must be said. Your reports are here and cannot be quite passed over.”
“Well, now they have not been,” said Reuben. “We have met the courage.”
“Yours was no worse than mediocre.”
“That is right for me, as I am to educate others. If it was better, I should not educate them. And if it was worse, I could not.”
“There is never any fault to be found with yours, Salomon.”
“None by you, Father. I am steady and of sound intelligence. But they are things that Merton would be ashamed to be.”
“He has his own cause to be ashamed. His is hardly a report at all. It seems there was little to make one. He is said to assume he is a man before his time. He may not have to educate others. But he can hardly do without education himself.”
“So you think I could be improved, Father?”
“It appears to be what is thought.”
“Not by prolonging boyhood. Education so-called does only what it can.”
“And does idleness so-called do so much?” said Sir Michael. “And does ingratitude so-called do any more? Things have to be known by their names. Why should your father immure himself and moil, for you to be a man before your time? ‘So-called’ is the right word there. Why, I am ashamed of being your grandparent.”
“I am not,” said Joanna. “I don’t see how I can help it.”
“Well, I have done what I can,” said her husband, leaning back. “No one can do any more.”
“That is good to hear,” said Merton. “I was fearing you might go to almost any length.”