“I must thank you all for coming to honour my birthday,” said Sir Edwin. “I am old to make a speech, but I feel and acknowledge the honour. I have the guests I should have chosen, my brother’s family. I have been in my place very long. It is soon to know me no more. I thank you who have helped me in it.”
“It will always be empty to us, Edwin,” said Julia. “Hamish will fill another. And that in its turn will be empty, until memories die.”
“What is wrong about lofty words,” said Walter, “is that other people have said them. And when I think of some myself, the moment is past.”
“Do we really think of them?” said Graham. “Or do we just feel the impulse? We should not enjoy it so much, if the effort was involved.”
“I am ashamed of being young at these moments,” said Naomi. “No one can speak greatly except from experience.”
“Would you not be ashamed of being as old as Uncle Edwin?” said Ralph, in an undertone. “Of being so soon to die? It seems somehow humbling.”
“Of what should she be ashamed?” said Simon. “Speak so that we can hear you.”
“I heard him,” said Sir Edwin. “It is shameful to be soon to die. Well, I shall not see the future, and I see a shorter past. The place has its lowliness.”
“Did you say that, Ralph?”
“No, not really, sir. I asked a question.”
“How do you think you chose your time?”
“I did not mean to be heard.”
“Have you said before, at the table of someone in old age, that you would be ashamed of being so?”
“I suppose I have not. The question has not arisen. I daresay to be young is just as pitiful.”
“If youth leads you to this, it is what you say. I cannot be proud of my sons.”
“Nor I of my father,” muttered Ralph. “Yes, what did I say, sir? I said I was not proud of you, and I am not.”
“What fault do you find with me?”
“You cannot need me to tell you.”
“I have asked you to do so.”
“You forget you have a duty to us. You forget how you were dealt with yourself. It is not our fault that your life is changed. Our poor outlook is no advantage to us. It is not fair to hold us guilty because of it.”
“It will not be considered a credit to you. It is no good to think it will, or even that it should be. It is for me to prepare you for life, as you will find it. It is my duty to you, and will continue to be.”
“I hope it will,” murmured Naomi. “Suppose he changed, and we had to be grateful! It is better to face our accepted goal. It is anyhow familiar.”
“We must say goodbye,” said Fanny. “The day has been a great one. We shall always remember it.”
“And we shall renew it,” said her sister. “It will come again. I feel it. It is not the last.”
“So it is over,” said Hamish to his cousins. “I fear you cannot regret it. I wish it could have been different. I wish my home was more like yours. I suppose you would say the same to me. We all have our reasons.”
“I hope Father will drop down dead on his way home,” said Ralph. “I really do hope it. I don’t know how I am to meet him. And we could repair to the workhouse. It has come to seem homelike.”
“Do you suppose we have to work there?” said Naomi. “Does Father know the meaning of the word? What does he think we can do? He would hardly feel we could be useful. And the people there dislike work. That is how they come to enter. Perhaps the name holds a challenge.”
“What is the subject?” said Simon, overtaking them. “Do not tell me it is the only one.”
“You have said it, sir,” said Graham.
“I suppose your life is narrow,” said Simon, in another tone. “There is the lack of interest, the limited outlook. But the paucity of your ideas, your poverty of thought! It troubles me. I do not know what to say.”
“Then let him avoid the topic,” muttered Ralph. “It is his standby as much as ours. Who else started it?”
“I am not going to bind myself to silence on the subject, to swear that the word shall not pass my lips. If you copy me, it is not my fault. You say it is my main subject. What other have you? You had better let me hear it.”
“Here is Hamish coming back with us,” said Julia, overtaking them with Fanny and her nephew. “To make a happy ending to our happy day.”
“Happy day,” said Emma, who was sitting with her nurse outside the house.
“Is that what you have had?” said Fanny.
Emma made no reply.
“They have had a very nice day, ma’am,” said the nurse.
“Why?” said Claud.
“Well, you have been to see your great-uncle on his birthday.”
“Not birthday,” said Claud.
“Well, perhaps he did not have any presents,” said Julia.
“Oh, yes,” said Claud, in a shocked tone.
“Well, he did not show them to us.”
“Not for us,” said Claud, in admonition.
“All for Uncle Edwin!” said Emma.
“You understand everything, don’t you?” said Fanny.
“Clever girl!” said Emma, doing so once again.
Chapter 9
“It is dishonest to listen at a door,” said Claud.
“Yes,” said Emma, continuing to do so.
“Miss Dolton says no good person does it.”
“She says it about everything. It can’t always be true.”
“Who is talking in the schoolroom?”
“Hamish and Naomi. They are going to marry each other. Hamish will give Naomi his house, when Uncle Edwin dies. And he is glad she hasn’t anything to give to him. Then that made endearment that hadn’t any meaning. I knew they had that with each other.”
“I don’t want Naomi to live with Hamish.”
“Neither do I. She is better than Miss Dolton. It is always the best who have to go. Of course they generally die.”
“She is too old to marry.”
“Not much. She is twenty-one. You can marry when you are older.”
“Then she is too young. She is not like a married person. And Hamish has Aunt Rhoda and Uncle Edwin. Naomi is not his.”
“Everyone belongs to someone before she marries.”
“Father will forbid her to do it.”
“I don’t think he can. Marrying is different. And Hamish would not obey.”
“I don’t want it to happen,” said Claud, with tears in his voice.
“Neither do I. Why should Hamish take what is ours?”
“Whatever is wrong?” said Simon, from the landing below.
“Naomi belongs to us,” said Claud. “We don’t want Hamish to marry her. Her home is here.”
There was a pause.
“Oh, he will not do that. It is not a thing that could happen. They are too nearly related to marry.”
“You will forbid it?” said Emma, her tone rising. “But you don’t know how much they will mind.”
“What makes you think they want to marry?”
“I heard them through the door.”
“You must not listen at doors. It is a thing we never do.”
“She doesn’t often,” said Claud. “You might almost say never.”
“We must say it quite. And you must not speak of what you heard. That is as wrong as listening. You must just forget it.”
“I can’t do that,” said Emma. “I remember everything.”
“She can’t help it,” said Claud. “Her memory is above the average.”
“Well, put it out of your minds, and run away and be happy.”
“How can anyone do that?” said Claud.
“You have everything to make you so. A pleasant home and every care and comfort.”
“You could have all that in the workhouse,” said Emma. “I suppose you would, when you were young.”
“And when you were ill,” said her brother.