“Any length! Well, I went a certain way. I felt it was my part. It is my duty to second your father. I see it as the least I can do. The brunt of things falls on him. I take any chance to support him.”
“Well, I give you one by speaking the truth. I am not afraid of it. I can’t be a slave to what is called my work. I know where my real talent lies, and what I owe to it.”
“What is called your work! Is everything to be so called? What do you do with your so-called leisure, may I ask? Perhaps it is the word there.”
“It is. I give it to the writing that is to be my life, and to last it. And not more for my own sake than for other people’s.”
“Oh, well, for other people’s. Well, if that is what it is. Well, it is a thing I am used to. I am no stranger to it. This working for the world outside, and forgetting the one you live in. Like father, like son, I suppose. Well, we must not find fault with it.”
“I fear I must,” said Hereward. “Though I may not seem the person to do it. I am troubled for Merton’s future. The likeness between us is not so great. It should have a better basis than these early efforts and hopes.”
“What basis did you have for your own, Father?”
“That of a stronger brain and greater creative force,” said Hereward, in an almost ruthless tone. “I will say the truth, as you do. It is time it was said. We are right not to be afraid of it.”
“But just afraid enough,” murmured Salomon.
“I am terrified,” murmured Reuben.
“I am untouched,” said their brother. “If it is the truth to you, you are right to say it, Father. It is the honest thing. Indeed I admire your courage.”
“I admire Merton’s,” said Salomon.
“But I have no fear. There are different kinds of brain. The one that is known as powerful, may not be the best.”
“You would not like to have written my books?” said Hereward, meeting his eyes.
“Well, to be as honest as you are, Father. I should not.”
“We are told not to be afraid of the truth,” said Joanna. “But no one is.”
“No one who speaks it,” said Reuben. “Everyone else.”
“The people who speak it can be the most afraid,” said Hereward. “But at times it must be said.”
“There is nothing in Merton’s feeling,” said Zillah.
“No writer goes the whole length with any other. Each of them shivers at the lapses of the rest, and is blind to his own. And the youngest shiver the most. And the greatest writers have them.”
“And I daresay the smaller ones too,” said Sir Michael. “And a boy who would not like to have written a mature man’s books, is a queer example of one to my mind. Why, I should like to have written them myself. I should be proud to have written a word. And he can think what he likes of it.”
“I think it is quite reasonable, Grandpa.”
“The less we can do a thing ourselves, the more we should appreciate it in other people. To fail is to grudge someone else the better place. We should be ashamed of it.”
“Grandpa need not be ashamed,” said Reuben. “He tells us about it.”
“Well, I need not either,” said Merton. “I simply want to write for a body of readers neglected because it is small. It is not an unworthy ambition.”
“I am sure it is not,” said Joanna. “An ambition would not be. Nothing can be said against ambitions. They are worthier than anything I know.”
“Not unworthy on its narrow scale,” said Sir Michael. “But there is something more generous about serving the larger body. It commands more sympathy.”
“It is true that it does,” said Merton.
“I can’t think a son of mine would go far along either road,” said Ada. “There is too much of myself in them. My father’s gifts are of another kind, but they too have passed them over.”
“It is a habit of gifts,” said Salomon.
“But broken in Merton’s case,” said Reuben.
“Not by the second kind,” said their brother. “I lay no claim to that. The two kinds of gifts are wide apart, and the gulf is seldom crossed.”
“Well, it need not concern us,” said his mother. “For us the gulf may be all there is.”
“Well, that may be true,” said Sir Michael, laughing. “Gifts must be rare, of course. But to have a father and a grandfather endowed like theirs is a unique position. Ah, they have a fine heritage. Something ought to come of it.”
“Merton has come,” murmured Reuben.
“Still we can’t choose the kind of people we are to be.”
“Some of us feel we can,” said Hereward.
“If you are thinking of me, you are wrong,” said Merton. “I know what I am, as everyone must. How can we escape the knowledge?”
“Mr. and Miss Merton,” said Galleon at the door.
“Why, Father, you were in my mind,” said Ada. “I was thinking of your having only daughters. We are facing the future for our sons. And daughters are allowed to disregard it.”
“I would have faced it for and with any sons of mine.”
“Father, you have had a disappointment! How wonderfully you have hidden it! How grateful we ought to be!”
“Father and Mother have had one,” said Reuben. “And I suppose it could hardly be hidden. It was me.”
“Yes, I did want a daughter,” said Ada. “But I would not change my sons. Or change anything about them.”
“Father should emulate a mother’s feelings,” said Merton. “They are much respected.”
“What about you, Aunt Penelope?” said Ada. “Would you have liked to have great-nieces?”
“I am content with what has come to me. I have taken no steps myself.”
“And how grateful for it we should be! Ah, our unmarried women! Where should we be without them? What a place they fill!”
“It is not always so highly considered.”
“Oh, but it is. By people who take the broader view. And in this matter they are many. What would Father say about it?”
“The place I fill for him was left empty. That is how I came to be in it.”
“Honest and clear as always! How we should miss the light you shed! There will be a void one day.”
“You don’t mean that she will die?” said Joanna. “You know she will not. You must know no one will, who is here.”
“I mean that she will live on in our memories and our lives, as long as we breathe ourselves. That is what I mean.”
“It is what you suggested,” said Hereward.
“Oh, you are a sardonic, carping creature to-day. You are not fair on anyone. If the boys want to escape to their own sanctum, you must not blame them. They may have had enough of you.”
“I should not blame them. I daresay they have had too much. They can go and forget us. And we will go our several ways.”
“Well, Galleon,” said Sir Michael. “You have heard the talk. What do you say to a second writer in the family?”
“Well, ‘like father, like son’, as was said, Sir Michael. Or that at the moment. It is a stage that may pass.”
“And you feel it better that it should?”
“Well, one irregularity in the family, Sir Michael. It is no great thing.”
“You still see writing in that way?”
“Well, hardly Mr. Alfred Merton’s, Sir Michael. Involving what it does. This of ours is of a lighter nature,” said Galleon, trying to take a step forward.
“But that is not against it.”
“On the contrary, Sir Michael. It has its own purpose.”
“Well, you know, Galleon,” said Sir Michael, lowering his tone and glancing round the empty room, “I half-feel it myself. There might be something more solid, and without the personal touch. But I am wrong you know. Utterly off the truth. I understand that now. And there is no prouder father.”
“And there is no point in a prouder butler, Sir Michael,” said Galleon, smiling. “There would be no place for pride.”