‘Isn’t that the thing that makes him sick?’ said Graham.
‘Is it, James? Then why did you take it? You must know when you do not want something. What was your reason?’
James had several reasons, a reluctance to appear to fuss about himself, a fear lest allusion to his health should in some way expose his morning’s leisure, a purpose of transferring his portion to his sisters, and a hesitation to meet his grandfather’s kindness with anything but gratitude. He did not state them, though some were to his credit, but some of his experience, of which there was enough and to spare, welled over into his eyes.
‘You are not crying!’ said Eleanor, honestly incredulous. ‘Crying because you have too many good things! Well, what a thing to do.’
‘He has had one thing that is bad for him,’ said Graham.
‘If good things bring tears, he is better without them,’ said Eleanor, giving James a sense that a general impotence did not preclude a mental advantage. ‘And I think they had better go to the schoolroom. Perhaps there are fewer there.’
‘There are fewer bad ones anyhow,’ said Venice, under her breath.
‘What did you say, dear?’ said Eleanor.
‘I said we had not been down here very long.’
‘No, you have not, dear child,’ said Eleanor, changing her tone. ‘But luncheon is dragging on very late. That is why I am asking you to go. Not for any other reason.’
‘Why do you state other reasons, if they do not hold good?’ said Fulbert.
‘Because I am a feeble, querulous mother. So my good children will leave us. I am afraid Grandpa will be getting tired of us all.’
‘Door for the girls,’ muttered Graham, without moving his eyes.
‘What a little gentleman James grows!’ said Regan, as this warning took effect.
‘He is really a dear, well-behaved little boy,’ said Eleanor, as if evidence had been accepted for another conclusion.
‘A nice, mannerly lad,’ said Sir Jesse.
James lingered at the door, prolonging his only moment of enjoyment, and free from any sense that he was not responsible for his own success.
‘If James could purr, he would,’ said Daniel, and sent his brother from the room.
‘You are up very soon,’ said Miss Mitford, raising her eyes from her book.
Her pupils dispersed about the room without replying.
‘A good dessert?’ said Miss Mitford.
‘For Venice and me,’ said Isabel. ‘That thing that James does not like.’
‘And what did James have?’
‘Oh, nothing,’ said Venice, turning her back before she answered.
‘I ended up in favour anyhow,’ said James, throwing himself on the sofa and taking up his book.
‘It is no good to settle down,’ said Miss Mitford, speaking as though she must reduce him to hopelessness. ‘We have to go for our walk.’
‘It is a completely fine day,’ said Isabel, in the same tone.
James did not move his eyes, for the reason that he was not yet obliged to.
Eleanor appeared at the door.
‘Isabel, don’t you remember anything about this afternoon?’
‘No, Mother.’
‘Surely you will, if you think.’
‘You were going out with your father,’ said Miss Mitford, turning away her head.
‘Oh, I was going out with Father!’ said Isabel, in glad recollection. ‘Of course I was. He promised to take me for a walk. I will go and get ready.’
‘It was a strange thing to forget, when he has to leave us so soon.’
‘Oh, I had not really forgotten,’ said Isabel, on her way to the door, affording her mother satisfaction on her mental process, though no impression of it. ‘I will be ready in a few minutes.’
‘Would Venice like to go too?’ said Eleanor, speaking as if this would be almost too much at her daughter’s stage.
‘It would be nice for us both to go,’ said Venice, as though this would be the normal arrangement.
‘Oh, would it?’ said Eleanor, in half-reproving sympathy, as her daughter left the room.
James remained upon the sofa, hesitating to draw attention to his recumbent position by relinquishing it.
‘And James? What about him?’ said Eleanor, using an almost arch manner, as she made this unparalleled suggestion.
‘Yes,’ said James, sitting up straight, and using the movement to hide his book under the cushion. ‘All three of us.’
‘Well, run away then. Don’t keep Father waiting. What is that book?’
James took it up and surveyed it as if for the first time; and indeed it presented a different aspect to him, seen under his mother’s eyes.
‘Is it a book to be about in a schoolroom?’ said Eleanor, in a rapid, even tone to Miss Mitford, handing the book to her without seeming to look at it.
‘I can keep it in my own room,’ said Miss Mitford, in her ordinary manner. ‘If there is any harm in it, you will not mind it for me.’
‘Either schoolroom stories or instructive books are best. But you weren’t reading it, were you, James?’
‘Oh, no,’ said James, with so much lightness that he hardly seemed to grasp the idea.
‘You were reading it, my boy,’ said Eleanor, in a deeper tone, taking a step towards him. ‘There is your penknife in it, keeping the place.’
James took up the knife, propped it against the book, and moved a piece of cardboard up and down against the blade, as if the arrangement were necessary to his purpose.
‘Oh, that is what you are doing,’ said Eleanor, without more idea than James of what this was. ‘But you will spoil books if you do that. Did Miss Mitford know you were doing it?’
‘No,’ said James, with an habitual movement of nervous guilt that came in well.
‘Give it back to her, and go and get ready to go out with Father. Ah, that sends you off like an arrow from the bow.’
Eleanor smiled after her son, whose movement did suggest this simile, and turned to the governess.
‘He is developing better now, isn’t he, Miss Mitford?’
‘Yes, he is, in his own way,’ said Miss Mitford, meaning what she said.
‘It is a pity he is not better fitted for school,’ said Eleanor, unaware that some of her son’s tendencies stood him in good stead there. ‘I wish I understood children as you do. It would be such a help to me.’
Miss Mitford smiled in an absent manner, thinking of the shocks that Eleanor would sustain if this could be the case, and wondering if she had forgotten her own childhood or had an abnormal one. Eleanor saw her children’s lives as so much fuller and less constrained than her own, that her own early temptations could have no place in them.
‘Well, I must go down to my husband. I seem to spend my life in moving from one department of my family to another,’ she said, smiling at Miss Mitford with a suggestion of the difference between their lots. ‘I hope you will do as you like this afternoon, Miss Mitford.’
Miss Mitford did not reassure her, though she might have done so. She settled herself with a book which she did not leave in the way of her pupils, and a box of sweets which she dealt with in the same manner. She was a fairly satisfied person, with a knowledge of books which was held to be natural in her life, and a knowledge of people which would have been held to be impossible, and was really inevitable. She had a carelessness of opinion which protected her against the usual view of her life, and had pity rather than envy of Eleanor, whom she saw as a less contented being. Her influence over her pupils was not much the worse, that she accepted life as it was, and allowed them to see it. She would not speak to James of his duplicity, but he would derive some discomfort from her silence.
Eleanor went to the study she shared with her husband, and waited for the latter to join her. He was still at the luncheon table, whence Regan had departed and her grandsons been dismissed. An allowance of talk without boys or women was Sir Jesse’s acknowledged right, and was daily accorded him. When Fulbert left his father for his wife, he was reminded of his promise to his daughter and informed of the extension of the scheme. He took his stand in the doorway, with his watch in his hand, possibly having faith in the theory that the memory is stronger in youth.