“We know we should do much better. Though perhaps not as well as in a more usual place.”
“Or as well as we do in our own,” said Angus. “I give myself a great deal of praise in my thought.”
“I don’t,” said Roberta. “I keep my thought away from it. I should take more pride in doing as Hermia has done. We are said to be proud of doing the wrong things, and Madeline may see me as an example of it.”
Chapter VII
Miss Murdoch descended from the Heriots’ carriage and stood with her eyes on her partner’s home.
“Ah, this is your background. It is what it is and would be. You return to it to breathe a different air. To be restored to yourself and to us.”
“Well, perhaps she does,” said Eliza, coming with a smile into the hall. “I hope it will do its work. It is true that this house must be called her background. It is the scene of most of her life.”
“Ah, is it her reality? Is the time with me the shadow time? Well, it is a part of living and moving onward. It is a forward step, however we see it.”
“We hope it is,” said Sir Robert, as they went to the luncheon table. “It is to be one in her case, her step towards independence. She is taking it in a serious spirit.”
“Ah, I have seen her effort. And I have had my thought and doubt. For effort may be danger, movement that is not forward, something that is just our own.”
“This effort is indeed her own. That is why we agreed to it, and did what we could to further it.”
“Ah, yes; so she will not put too much on it. Success or failure for ourselves — it is a doubtful thing. Either may take us forward, either take us back. And which of them is the better for us? Is it in our power to say?”
“I feel it is in mine,” said Eliza, smiling again. “I would put my faith in success. And I don’t feel it would take me back.”
“It may not be easy to compare them, Mater,” said Madeline. “There can seem to be so little difference between them.”
“I should not have thought often. They tend to be the opposite of each other.”
“I suppose extremes may meet?”
“They usually lie far apart.”
“Ah, the simple word,” said Miss Murdoch. “It serves the simple thing. The simple thought must have its place.”
“It must,” said Sir Robert. “It is so often in our minds. I think almost always in mine. Indeed it is there at the moment. We are anxious for our daughter to succeed in this venture. I wish I knew there was a chance of it. She is at her best when she has a free hand. May we feel the hope is there?”
“Ah, a free hand, our own way! Do they give it to us, the forces that point our path? And is it a good thing for us, a good thing in itself? Is it a just guide?”
“It tends to be a safe one,” said Eliza. “We know our bent and do better when we follow it. But we must not labour our point of view. It is good of you to listen to it.”
“Ah, the point of view, the something that is in us, different and deep in us all. Mine comes from the love of the rooted thing, a trust in the past. I will not hide it, will not be ashamed of what I am.”
“Are people ever ashamed of that?” said Angus to his sister. “They are always glad to talk about it, whether we can admire it or not. Of course I am not talking of what they are in their hearts.”
“They would not count that,” said Roberta. “And I don’t see why they should. It can make no difference when it is always hidden.”
“Ah, you are mockers, innocent ones,” said Miss Murdoch, summoning humour to her eyes. “Well, you will be yourselves and go your harmless way. But it is not mine. We shall not go forward together. It would mean acceptance of the surface thought, the surface thing. It may have to come; it may be coming. Let us not think or talk of it.”
They did so no more, the occasion wore to its end, and Hermia returned from escorting her guest to the carriage.
“Well, light has broken,” she said. “You know the whole.”
“There is something I don’t know,” said Eliza. “Of all the schools in the world, what led you to this one, and to the sacrifice of the family money to it?”
“Its need of the money and of me. The trouble is the failure to make use of them. The picture is complete.”
“Miss Murdoch seems in her way an unusual woman,” said Madeline.
“She does,” said Sir Robert. “It is a safe thing to say.”
“She is not unusual in herself,” said Eliza. “She has invented a way to seem so. And I daresay it deceives many people, including herself and Madeline.”
“It is true,” said Hermia. “And people are perceiving the truth. She may have done better at first, when the method was more alive. Before it was an echo of itself.”
“Suppose we had met her then,” said Angus. “We might have been deceived. I believe I should have been.”
“I half thought you were to-day,” said his mother. “I was surprised when you opened your mouth. Why do you and Roberta never do yourselves justice with guests?”
“We don’t dare to, when the guest is Miss Murdoch,” said Roberta. “It is a thing she might not approve. ‘Justice to ourselves’; is it a good thing? Worthy of us, worthy in itself? Do we say it is?”
“Hermia and Madeline make the very most of themselves.”
“Well, perhaps she does not approve. Hermia does seem somehow to have missed her approval.”
“I talked to her a little,” said Madeline. “It seemed to be the thing to do. I had no thought of making the most of myself.”
“I did the same,” said Angus. “And with the same high motive. And I found it was making the very most of myself. And I suppose she saw it. She told me what she thought of me. I could not do the same. But I wished I could tell her that Hermia had had a proposal. We can guess what her response would have been.”
“So you need not tell us,” said Eliza. “We have had enough of her to-day. And if you and Roberta want to copy someone, why not choose a worthier model?”
“It might mean frustration,” said Sir Robert, with a smile. “There would not be a case for mimicry.”
“Is there ever a case for it?” said Madeline. “It never gives a fair impression.”
“It is true,” said Angus. “But we have to be unfair to Miss Murdoch.”
“Of course it is easier to be disparaging than to be just. She is very likely quite a good-hearted woman.”
“Is disparagement easier than that?” said Roberta. “No wonder we all indulge in it.”
“We need do so no more,” said Eliza. “We can put her out of our minds. There is one good point about her. She will be easily forgotten. There is nothing definite to remember.”
“Hermia may be reminded of her, if they happen to pass at the school,” said Angus.
“I shall,” said his sister. “But I hope it will go no further. We shall do our best to keep apart.”
“And that is how you work together for its good?” said Eliza. “She could see no difference between success and failure. And it seems to be true of you both.”
Chapter VIII
“ Well, I am alone,” said Jocasta. “The saddest thing of all to be. My sons are gone and have no more troubles for themselves. It is I who have them, I who am old and unfit for them. Life can bear hardly on us. Death is the easier thing. Some are marked out for sorrow, and I am one of them.”
“For other things too,” said Erica. “For freedom and place and power. And the length of days that most of us would choose. Your sons might have put your fate before their own.”
“Ah, they would, my sons, the boys who made my youth. They have had too little, torn from me, unwilling to go. Your father was called a failure, but he had much that you had not. It has not been nothing to have you, but it has been nothing compared to having him. I have carried the want of him with me, I shall carry it to the grave. And now the first of them, my Hamilton, the support of my age, cut off by sickness in his prime! Yes, it happens to many, but why to him? Why to him, so content with his own kind of success? It will benefit others and not himself. They will be grateful, but not grateful enough. They will forget who gave them what they have, and take it as their right. I know it; I foresee it. There is nothing I don’t know and see. So I will go and be alone. It is what I am. To appear to be anything else is to act a lie. You will be with each other, and I will be with no one. There is no one with whom I can be.”