“As I feel mine is in another way. I know what I think about both. There seems no room for doubt. I recognise their moral claim, as I recognise my legal one. I shall make over half of the money to them, as a former will was in their favour. And the rest is mine to use as I will, for my own or family purposes. That is how I see the matter.”
“And as I do,” said her father. “I think it is a good way to see it. If I did not agree with your view I should not dispute it. You have a right to it, and the power to form it. But I see the matter with your eyes. It is to me as it is to you.”
“She has always been able to judge for herself,” said Eliza. “And this calls for the power and brings a use for it. It seems she has been working towards her destiny.”
“I am glad the Grimstones are not to suffer,” said Madeline. “It would have been the unwelcome drop in the cup for me. It seemed so undeserved.”
“It is my part in things that seems to be that,” said Hermia. “But I am not going to be troubled. Good fortune has come to me, and I have only welcome for it. I have not always had it. And it will not only serve myself.”
“The unwelcome drop in the cup for me is that you are not to have the whole of it,” said Angus.
“And for me,” said Roberta. “And half of it seems rather a large drop.”
“They want you to have all you can,” said Eliza, smiling at her children. “It is a good way to feel and would not be everyone’s. I suppose it is the right amount for you to give up? Are you sure about it? Have you taken advice?”
“You know she has not,” said Sir Robert. “When have you known her take it? This will not alter her, simply give her scope for being what she is. We do not always have it. It is a thing we can’t depend on.”
“I think I have had it, and been forced to use it. It might have been better for me to have less. It would have saved me from a good deal.”
“Have you thought any further, Hermia?” said Madeline. “Or will you live in the moment and leave the future? It seems a natural course.”
“It is the right one,” said Sir Robert. “The future will move of itself. It holds its own life. There is no need for us to urge it. And there may not be any future. She need not be thinking of any change.”
“What I have to do is to prevent one, Father. The one that was coming here. I did not know it was upon us, though I had had my fears. That gives me the line of the future, and there is no need of more than one. I will end the money troubles, and so end the need for the move. That will serve you and me and all of us, and be the thing that is most worth doing, and most asks to be done.” There was silence as she paused, and her hearers looked at each other.
“But have you thought?” said Eliza, speaking with her eyes on her husband, as though the words came from them both. “Are you quite sure you have? Thought of yourself and your future? Of your life in the years to come? Regret in the end would be regret on the same scale for us all. You may not want or seek advice, but you need it here.”
“The words might be mine,” said Sir Robert. “I feel they should have been. See that you hear and heed them. This may be the climax of your youth. You must not lose its meaning for yourself in the onset of family claims, strong and worthy though they be. We can regret our good actions, and it is an unhappy kind of regret. Take care that you do not suffer it. A thing of this kind once done is not easy to undo.”
“I should not want to undo it. What is the good of anything that is undone? Few people have any great object in their lives, and I have none. I ask ease and independence, and I could ensure those. And the main thing would be as I have said. Surely too good a thing for there to be any need of a better.”
“It is a good thing,” said her father. “Too good to accept without doubt. Taking so much from you at such a time must arouse questions in ourselves and of ourselves. I don’t know how to answer them. And there is something else to be said. What will be the end for yourself? What might you feel, when other lives were moving on and yours was standing still or running down? The time might come when you saw things as they were. Indeed the time would come. It is possible to be blinded by the zest of giving, when the object is so good. You must think as you have never thought before.”
“I have thought, Father. It was clear in my mind from the first. I foresaw the trouble, and could do nothing to help it. It is the better to be able to help it now. As for my own life’s doing as you say, it is natural and usual for all lives. I should not think of it.”
“Mater and I must think the more. And there is still something else. The position of benefactor might not last. When the money is transferred, the status in a way goes with it. It would be a real giving up. The memory would live, but the ways of memory are what we know. The truth might be in your thought, when it was in no one else’s. It would be at times. It is almost a certainty.”
There was a pause and Hermia spoke without changing her tone.
“Well, the money need not be legally transferred, if that is too definite a giving up. And if the position of benefactor would be better kept by holding it. I have not anything against the position. I don’t suppose anyone would have. And the money could be depended on. There would be no doubt.”
“It is for you to say,” said Sir Robert. “We should anyhow be taking it from you.”
“It is,” said Eliza. “And it has been said. By the person who has a right to say it. We know how it is to be.”
“We do,” said Angus. “And how good it is. We take it from Hermia’s hands as from those of a goddess.”
“We do. That is how we are to take it. It is not often that something falls from nowhere and confers the place.”
“From nowhere? Well, from Hamilton Grimstone. Did he know he was creating a goddess?”
“He recognised one,” said Roberta. “And was enabling her to be herself.”
“In the event of his death. But he might have lived for years. Why did he not give her some of his wealth in some way?”
“In what way?” said Sir Robert. “By marriage, of course. But the method failed.”
“I hardly support the goddess conception,” said Madeline. “Hermia is enough for me in herself. Of course I am glad and grateful. It need not be said. But the aloofness is there. I don’t disguise it.”
“Had you not better try to?” said Roberta. “It seems that would be best. Aloofness from what meets expenses is aloofness from a good deal. It is a great thing that we have a goddess.”
“I wish I knew we ought to have one,” said Sir Robert. “It is a daughter, a single woman, who holds the place. It is much to be on her, much to take from her, much to owe her in the end. We can hardly know our own thoughts.”
“We had better settle them,” said Eliza. “They are naturally in confusion. Yours and mine are those that may count the most. Perhaps we could be left to get them clear.”
Madeline led the way to the door, and the married pair were alone.
“So this is what it is, Robert. This is the change that has come. Hermia is to be over us, to be the giver and the goddess, and have us at her feet. I wish it had not happened. I would rather that things went on as they were, that you changed your home and remained its head. I would rather go to the other house and hold my own and be myself. She did not want to make the sacrifice. I knew she did not want to. She saw the chance to evade it and took it at once. What she is doing is not sacrifice. It is something else. We shall find what it is. We are not to be ourselves, and she is to be more than herself. She is paying for the position. She has been given the means to pay for it. Madeline is right. Money holds too large a place.”
“Everything has to be paid for, Eliza. Times and customs change and that does not. I fear it is the truth.”