“Well, we have been weighed in the balance,” said Erica. “And not found too wanting. Lady Heriot found us unexpectedly like themselves. I saw her being baffled by it.”
“Why should you be different?”
“I can see some reasons. And so could she. Not of a kind she would mention to us.”
“Well, things are on foot at last. It is a step forward.”
“That implies steps to follow. And there may be none to follow this.”
“We can’t tell, and neither can she. These things come about of themselves. They are out of our hands.”
“Those that you mean are not out of Lady Heriot’s. They are securely in them.”
“Well, the future will show.”
“We may not be in the future. It is one of the things in her hands. You and she have met your match in each other. And I think she knows it.”
“Was any mention made of the daughter’s school?”
“There was a little talk of it. Nothing very much.”
“She came and listened to the classes to-day,” said Amy. “The mistresses didn’t seem to like it.”
“I daresay not,” said Jocasta. “It must have seemed unspoken criticism.”
“It was not always unspoken,” said Amy with a smile.
“What kind of thing does she say?”
“She wants to change things that have always been done in one way.”
“That does not mean it is the best one.”
“That is what she says. They say it must be good to have served for so long.”
“I think she is right.”
“So does she,” said Amy, smiling again.
“It is never too late to mend,” said another voice, as a slow step was heard. “It appears, Mamma, that that must be her motto. She sounds to me rather a gallant figure. She may be meeting the recognised fate of the reformer. If she fails to reinstate the school, we may be able to account it a great failure.”
“I will go to the breaking-up concert,” said Jocasta, “and judge of things for myself. And also judge of Miss Heriot. We can’t gather much from hearsay.”
“I think I might perhaps accompany you, Mamma, and support you in your project. If I should not introduce too discordant an element into the feminine function.”
“Oh, there won’t be any men there!” said Amy, looking up with startled eyes, her thoughts on her uncle’s appearance for which familiarity had had no need to do its accustomed work. “It would really be as you said. Only women seem to come.”
“The fathers of the girls are sometimes there,” said Jocasta. “I expect there will be a few.”
“And in default of a father an uncle may be accepted. As also the spice of variety that he brings. And there will be a protector for Amy and an escort for yourself.”
“You would have to sit through the concert, Uncle. And it will not be at all what you would like. And it is to be a long one.”
“I shall hardly attend in a critical spirit, when my niece is doing her best to ease the hours for me.”
“Oh, I am not playing, Uncle. No one is to play who is not up to a certain standard. Miss Heriot has been firm about it.”
“She is unwise,” said Jocasta. “The parents pay fees for flattery, not for firmness, and they have no standard. And it is they whom she has to please.”
“She may not recognise the obligation,” said Hamilton. “She elects to please herself. Or rather to satisfy her own instinct for quality.”
“Oh, it will not be what you think, Uncle. It is just the usual school concert.”
“But Miss Heriot is not bound by the usual view of it. Or it seems by anything usual. I have a curiosity to encounter this scorner of convention, both in her family and out of it.”
“And now in a girls’ school,” said Jocasta. “There won’t be much scorn of convention there. She will have to come to terms with it.”
“An experience that her catholic spirit may lead her to accept. She may even welcome the completion of her knowledge.”
“If that is what it is. It is not what was in my mind. I shall be glad to meet her and see how the school is run. I may send Amy to another.”
“Would that enhance our position with the Heriot family?”
“No, perhaps not. Well, she can stay,” said Jocasta, accepting this view of education. “So you are not to play at the concert? Do you make any progress? Would it be any good to speak to Miss Murdoch or Miss Heriot?”
“No, they can’t make me more musical. And I think Miss Heriot might say so. She talks to people as if she was one of themselves.”
“She can hardly be called anything else,” said Hamilton. “That is the ground I shall take in my intercourse with her.”
“Oh, I don’t think she would talk to you, Uncle,” said Amy, upholding the theory of the meeting as hypothetical. “She will just move about among the people and hardly speak to them.”
“I think my conspicuous appearance in the gathering may arrest her attention and lead to an interchange.”
“But only for a minute or two,” said Amy, who thought the same. “It would just be a word in passing, nothing worth while.”
“I flatter myself that I may detain her further. Anyhow, I shall be at your side, Mamma, to meet the redoubtable character.”
“What does redoubtable mean?” said his niece, in an empty tone.
“I am not ready with a definition, but I feel it would describe Miss Heriot.”
“Then it does what people are not able to.”
“Amy, you are not so stupid,” said Jocasta. “Why are your reports so poor? Perhaps Miss Heriot will alter them. Though I suppose it would mean altering you.”
“I am not one of the things she wants to alter.”
“Education ought to have some result. Or why does everyone have it? What do you think about it, Hollander? Do you feel it did anything for you?”
“It may have, ma’am, in proportion to what it was.”
“You have managed well. You can feel you have had success.”
“Well, ma’am, if you would apply the term.”
“You have light work and earn a good living,” said Jocasta, suggesting that she would.
“It is honest employment, ma’am. And a living as an adjunct can hardly be dispensed with.”
“Well, it is not,” said Jocasta, as if it was far from being so. “You can have very little to complain of.”
“Well, ma’am, it might be a case of nothing or everything.”
There was a pause.
“You mean you would choose to do different work?” said Jocasta.
“Well, if there was choice, ma’am, it would hardly fall on the manual. I am not ashamed of a taste for leisure.”
“So I have seen,” said Jocasta, offering no support to pride in it. “So surely this work is right for you. It is less arduous than most.”
“And accorded less esteem, ma’am. I admit I don’t concede it myself.”
“To what kind of work do you concede it?”
“To that which is done at a desk, ma’am, and nearly approaches leisure. I had no chance of the line myself, and so remain what you see.”
Jocasta made no comment on what she saw.
Chapter V
“I find myself in a state of trepidation, Mamma. I regret my rashness in imposing my presence on this company. It seems to offer me but a dubious welcome.”
“They will be glad to see you. They like to have some men. And I don’t want to be alone in this atmosphere. It is more forbidding than I thought.”
“Than your memory of it,” said a soft, flat voice. “Yes, a memory remains itself. We find it has travelled with us. We are in the power of the past. How do you do, Mrs. Grimshaw? Tell me of yourself.”
“Grimstone. No wonder you forget. We have not met for so long. I felt such a stranger here, that I took a moment to recover. It means I should come more often.”