‘Some more letters,’ said Nevill, striking Miss Pilbeam’s knee.
‘No, you have had enough for today. I am afraid you will forget them.’
‘There are a lot,’ said Nevill in recollection.
‘He thirsts to learn,’ said Hope, ‘You need do nothing for your children, Eleanor. And people say you do so much.’
‘I do nothing for anyone else, I suppose they mean.’
‘Well, if they do, it is not nice of them, dear. I shall know what they mean, another time.’
‘Some more letters,’ said Nevill, with increasing urgency.
‘How many do you think there are?’ said Miss Pilbeam, bending towards him.
‘A hundred.’
‘No, there are twenty-six.’
‘There are twenty-six,’ said Nevill, in an impressed tone. ‘And he will learn them all.’
‘The next one is called e.’
‘A white one,’ said Nevill, looking about for the crayon.
‘Yes, if you like. The letters are called the alphabet.’
‘They are called letters.’
‘Yes, they are called that too.’
‘He calls them that,’ said Nevill.
‘He is the first person I have met who really said “Let me know all”,’ said Hope. ‘And at his age too! I suppose the others do know all by now.’
‘They are just beginning Latin,’ said Miss Pilbeam.
‘Well, isn’t that knowing all? People don’t begin Latin until then. And now we go down and meet those who have been learning even longer. I see it is true that the whole of life is education.’
‘That is a happy thought,’ said Faith, as she turned to follow. ‘It makes me feel less regret that so far I have learned so little.’
‘I am sure you mean you have had no advantages,’ said Hope. ‘And I believe they were equal to Miss Pilbeam. And you have only just begun to want to know all. I don’t know how it is you are so late.’
‘Would you prefer this chair, Mother?’ said Faith at the table, suggesting that she harboured no ill feeling.
‘No, guests always think everything is perfect. Isn’t it nice of her to go on calling me Mother? I always think it is so daughterly.’
‘You are the only mother I can remember.’
‘I appreciate your not recalling other examples of what I am. Your father and Ridley both do it, and it seems such a double course.’
‘Ridley does not do you the same honour,’ said Fulbert.
‘It is a little different,’ said Faith. ‘He is older and a man.’
‘It seems to be quite different,’ said Hope.
‘How was Nevill managing his first day in the schoolroom?’ said Luce.
‘Managing is the word,’ said Hope. ‘He was giving directions and having them followed.’
‘Is Miss Pilbeam a success?’
‘Yes, indeed. They were doing Latin and the alphabet. And those are the foundations of all learning.’
‘I am so glad,’ said Luce. ‘I suggested Miss Pilbeam, because I knew she really needed the employment. It is a relief that the arrangement is a success.’
‘You are unPlatonic, my child,’ said Fulbert. ‘The work does not exist for the man, but the man for the work.’
‘I know nothing about Plato, Father,’ said Luce, illustrating the methods of education in her family. ‘But I do know when a kindness needs to be done. And this was a clear case of it.’
‘I am so glad Miss Pilbeam has a post that suits her,’ said Faith. ‘I have been so sorry for her and her father since Mrs Pilbeam died.’
Fulbert threw his quizzical glance from one young woman to the other.
‘You need not worry about your children’s education, Fulbert,’ said Hope. ‘I saw it going on on every floor. There is a room on each on purpose. I am glad we never go round our house; the difference would strike us too forcibly. I daresay Paul and Ridley go sometimes, to hear the echo of a voice that is still.’
‘Mrs Cranmer, there is room in my heart for more than one person,’ said Ridley.
‘Yes, that is what I was saying, dear.’
‘And I am sure I may say the same of my father.’
‘No, you may not,’ said Hope; ‘I forbid it.’
Faith turned grave, neutral eyes on her stepmother.
‘You will miss the hunting this winter, Fulbert,’ said Paul.
‘I shall, and other things as well.’
‘Yes, that would not be the first thing on his mind, Father,’ said Faith with a smile.
‘We do not talk of the things that go too deep for words,’ said Hope. ‘I suppose it would really be no good.’
‘Will you be hunting, Daniel?’ said Paul.
‘There are other things that he must do,’ said Eleanor at once.
Regan turned eyes of troubled sympathy on her grandson.
‘It is a thing he should not have begun,’ said Sir Jesse.
‘You forget, Paul, that they do nothing but learn,’ said Hope. ‘A person has only to need a post, to be accommodated as a teacher here. I think it is wonderful of Luce to lift weights off people’s minds. If we had not provided for Faith, it might be such a relief.’
‘I am far from regarding myself as fit for such important work as teaching, Mother.’
‘But Luce would regard you as fit, dear. That is what I mean. I said it was wonderful of her.’
Regan laughed in enjoyment of the joke, quite free from uneasiness about her grandchildren’s advantages.
‘I don’t think you hunt, Faith?’ said Fulbert.
‘No, I do not,’ said Faith, in a quiet, pleasant tone.
‘You are like Luce and uncertain of your nerve?’
‘Yes, I make no claim to that kind of courage, Father,’ said Luce, smiling and saying nothing of other kinds.
‘It is not the highest sort,’ said Fulbert.
‘I wonder if there is any other,’ said Graham. ‘I felt it was the lack of the whole of courage that prevented my hunting.’
‘My nerve is quite good,’ said Faith, in the same tone.
‘She thinks it is cruel to the fox,’ said Hope. ‘Isn’t it imaginative of her? She puts herself in his place.’
‘We must set the pleasure to human beings on the other side of the scales,’ said Sir Jesse.
‘She thinks the fox doesn’t count that, or not enough to find it any compensation. She believes he only thinks of himself. And yet she thinks of him. She is a wonderful character.’
‘She thinks of the fox and not of men and women.’
‘No, she thinks of them too. She says that hunting degrades them, that they should get their pleasure in other ways. She wants them to have pleasure.’
‘Hunting takes a lot of qualities,’ said Sir Jesse.
‘Grandpa speaks after a lifetime’s practice of it,’ said Daniel.
‘A way you will never speak,’ said his grandfather.
‘Is this being cruel to be kind?’ said Hope. ‘Or is it just being cruel?’
‘It is being honest,’ said her host.
‘It is showing moral courage,’ said Graham. ‘In other words yielding to temptation.’
‘The qualities might surely be put to better purpose than hounding to death an innocent creature,’ said Faith.
‘Hounding is a good word,’ said Hope. ‘It seems such a right use of it.’
‘I do think, Mrs Sullivan,’ said Ridley, bending towards Eleanor, ‘that there is something repellent in the idea of a little, terrified creature being driven to exhaustion and death. How would any of us like it?’
‘The fox has his own chance,’ said Sir Jesse.
‘He would prefer the one that we have,’ said Daniel. ‘Not that I consider his preferences.’
‘You may do so,’ said his grandfather.
‘You are hunting as usual, Paul?’ said Fulbert, regarding Faith’s scruples as things to be necessarily passed over.
‘More than usual, now that I am my own master.’