“Do you like the head master?” said Ada. “Reuben does not very much.”
“No. I am afraid he will ask me how the boys are getting on.”
“And can you not tell him?”
“Well, I can’t say I don’t see how they can be. He would only be surprised.”
“You could make up something that would satisfy him,” said Salomon.
“I think he would be able to tell. A schoolmaster would be so used to it.”
“I suppose it is dreadful to work? I am the one of us who has never done it.”
“Yes, it is,” said Trissie, soberly.
“My son knows quite well what it is,” said Hereward. “He does the work I should do, if I had the time.”
“You do not call that work?” said Salomon to Trissie.
“Well, it is just looking after what is your own.”
“You will have a house to look after, if you marry Reuben.”
“Yes, and that will be the same.”
“A poor thing but our own,” said Reuben. “That is what you feel it will be. I have found it. That is what it is.”
“I daresay no one else would want it,” said Trissie. “But I always like what is mine. It isn’t very nice when nothing is.”
“Where is your home?” said Zillah.
“In a country village. My father is the clergyman. That is why I had to work.”
“And you were busy in the parish as well?” said Sir Michael.
“Well, we did sometimes take things to the poor.”
“That must be a pleasant thing to be able to do.”
“Well, we really weren’t able to. A clergyman has to do it, even when he isn’t.”
“Is your father pleased for you to marry?”
“Yes. It lessens his anxieties.”
“I hope you don’t mind all these questions,” said Ada.
“No. Not if you don’t mind the answers.”
“We find them very interesting.”
“I don’t think they are,” said Trissie.
“Have you ten brothers and sisters?” said Joanna.
“Well, I have a great many. How did you know?”
“Well, a clergyman in a country village! He does have eleven children. It comes in the great books. I think it is so dignified.”
“It is not. It is different.”
“And I am afraid your mother is dead?”
“She is. But how do you know? And why should she be?”
“She should not. It is sad that she is. It is in the books. All human life is in them.”
“You must have great knowledge of that,” said Sir Michael.
“No, we couldn’t have any. Or only one kind.”
“Well, you can support yourself,” said Hereward. “That is a thing to be proud of.”
“No one has been proud of it.”
“I am sure your father must have been.”
“No, he seemed rather ashamed that I had to.”
“Well, I am proud of it for you.”
“I don’t think anyone else is.”
“People are not proud of the right things.”
“They are proud of the same ones. It doesn’t seem they can all be wrong.”
“Most of them are wrong about everything,” said Merton.
“I don’t think they are about this. Why should they be proud of what does no good to anyone?”
“Well, you look things straight in the face,” said Hereward. “And there is something in what you say.”
“There must be in what ordinary people say. They don’t invent it, because there is no need.”
“Reuben will live with a fount of wisdom.”
“It is the kind I have had to get. It is only knowing what some people don’t have to know.”
“You are young to be married,” said Sir Michael.
“I am nearly as old as Reuben. I know I shall never look mature. It does not matter now. It will be different when I am middle-aged.”
“Well, he will not mind how you look. He likes you to look as you do. And he is not much to look at himself. I mean, it does not matter for a man. I have never found it did.”
At this moment Henry entered, flushed and disturbed, followed by Nurse in a similar state.
“Naughty dog! Nurse run away. Henry did too.”
“A dog ran after him, ma’am, and I had to follow them,” said Nurse, in an incidental tone. “The young dog from the stables. It was only in play.”
“Bark at Henry! Bite him!”
“No, no. You know he did not bite.”
“He want to. Breathe at Henry. Look at Henry with his eyes.”
“Bring the dog in here,” said Salomon. “He must learn not to be afraid of it.”
The dog entered in a friendly spirit, and Henry looked at it with a reverent expression.
“Dear, dear doggie! Wag his tail. Look very kind.”
“Yes, dear doggie. Stroke him,” said Nurse.
“No,” said Henry, recoiling with his hands behind him.
“He does not want to bite any more than you do.”
“Not want to,” said Henry, in a shocked tone.
“You never bite, do you?” said Ada.
“Yes, poor Nurse! Only once. Never any more.”
“Come and say how-do-you-do to sister Trissie.”
“Not sister,” said Henry, looking at her. “Come to see us.”
“No, not sister yet,” said Trissie.
“No,” said Henry, nodding.
“Well, say how-do-you do?” said Nurse.
Henry looked up at Trissie, smiled and turned away.
“What a darling!” she said.
“Yes,” said Henry, glancing back.
“You must come for your walk now,” said Nurse.
“No,” said Henry, going up to Joanna.
“I can’t do anything. I am too afraid of Nurse.”
Henry went on to Trissie, as someone less likely to have developed this attitude.
“Don’t you like going for a walk?” she said. “I don’t like it much.”
“No,” said Henry, sympathetically.
“Does walking make you tired?”
“No. Very big boy. Yes, very tired. Poor Nurse carry him.”
“You are getting too heavy for that,” said Ada.
“No, he is not heavy yet, poor little boy.”
“He is like you,” said Trissie to Salomon.
“He is an adopted child. But he copies us all. And that gives him a likeness.”
“You are fond of children?” said Hereward to Trissie.
“Yes. But not of teaching them what I don’t know myself.”
“You felt you were sailing under false colours?”
“I don’t think I have any true ones. Or I don’t know what they are.”
“Do you always speak the truth?”
“If I can. Then there is nothing to remember. And words mean something.”
“Your true colours are clear to me. I shall be envious of Reuben.”
“With all the people in your life?” said Trissie, looking round.
“I would not be without them. But there is something that is not there. Perhaps you will give it to me.”
“I don’t know what it is.”
“You need not know. I can take it for myself. You may not understand what you give.”
“Then it will not matter. It will have no meaning. But it must not be much, because of Reuben.”
“It will not be much to you. If it is more to me, he will not mind.”
Chapter XI
Reuben did not mind at first. But there came a time when he did; another when a sense of danger dawned and grew; and one when his feelings rose and carried him beyond himself.
He spoke to his father in front of everyone, as though meaning openness to ease the moment.
“Father, I must say a word to you.”
“As many words as you please. The more, the merrier,” said Hereward, who was in the mood of stirred emotions.
“You will not misunderstand me?”
“Why should I? You can be plain.”
“Or read more than you must into what I say?”