“There are the children,” said Ninian. “I will call them in. They will be a change for you.”
“A change?” said Selina, drawing in her brows. “I often see them.”
“They will help you to forget what you should not have heard. Their world is still an honest one.”
“Agnes and Hengist and Leah!” said Selina, sitting up, and then breaking off with an empty look in her eyes.
“Come in and talk to your grandmother,” said Ninian. “Say something to interest her.”
“Did you not hear what your father said?” said Miss Starkie, speaking from safety herself.
“I did not hear,” said Selina, shaking her head. “Not so that I knew what it was.”
“Grandma, you are tired,” said Agnes. “You don’t seem like yourself.”
“She told you to say it,” said Selina, looking at Miss Starkie.
“Oh, I could have managed better than that, Mrs. Middleton.”
“You tell us a good deal about yourself. It never comes to an end.”
“Leah, you can say something,” said Miss Starkie, hesitating to go any further herself.
“So you put it on to her. That is not doing so well. And it is the other who says the right thing, and knows it is better than the wrong one.”
“It might not be true,” said Hengist.
“Would you like me to die?” said Selina, as if catching his meaning.
“No, I don’t think so. Why should I?”
“You know you would not,” said Miss Starkie, hardly able to fall short of this.
“When I am dead, will they remember me?” said Selina, to herself.
“Yes, we shall,” said Hengist. “Father will be sad, and so will Lavinia. And that will remind us.”
“You would not need reminder,” said Miss Starkie.
“I only said we should have it.”
“Tell us what you think of our real question, Grandma,” said Egbert.
“You mean the money? It must happen as it will. They all want everything. We don’t know who should have it.”
“There are always different claims,” said Ninian. “And always the one real one.”
“You must not be selfish, Ninian,” said Selina, as if saying an accustomed word to a child.
“That is true. I have a chance to serve them all. I must not lose it.”
“It is easy to give what falls into your hands.”
“It might be easier to keep it. But I am not one of your people who want everything.”
“You always seem to have it,” said his mother.
“And we seldom do that without wanting it,” said Hugo.
“Hugo, I have never said what I hesitate to say now. This house is mine. I have never grudged you a place in it. You have not found the talk of my grudging true. Do not force it to be so now.”
“Your parents gave me the place and enough to keep it. I have cost you nothing.”
“Money!” said Ninian, sadly. “So there is nothing else. No affection, no sharing of deeper things, no place in family life. And I must answer your words with my own. I have not gained anything either. Not that I wished to gain.”
“You knew I had nothing over. Anything I had, you would have taken. You have given the proof.”
“You all want it all,” said Selina. “And Ninian has the most. He has had the chance, and that is what it is. No one gives until he must. We find that is true when we make a will. I have tried to do it wisely. And I think I have been wise. But you all want everything, and no one can have it or give it. I will go now.”
She rose from her chair, and as Ninian went to help her, looked up into his face.
“I wish it was yours, my son. It would be better so. But if it is not, you will give it to them. They will have what is theirs.”
“Yes, yes, I will,” said Ninian, stooping over her. “It is mine, but I will not remember. I will say no more, and that means that it is given. And that it is taken. That is the certain thing. And I should not have used it for myself. It is other people who give. And it is my daughter who takes. I am content, if others are.”
“I am content,” said Hugo to Lavinia. “But I did not know I should be so ashamed of it. Can it be true that self-denial is its own reward? Even when it is forced on us.”
Selina went to the door, and her son followed with his eyes on her, as if oblivious of anything else. Miss Starkie manœuvred her charges in front of them, and urged them to the stairs.
“Why is there a hurry?” said Hengist, on an upper floor.
“You might not have known what to say to your grandmother. She is overtired.”
“She didn’t seem to like you, did she?” said Leah.
“She is not herself today,” said Miss Starkie, in explanation of this.
“She seemed to be herself,” said Hengist.
“No one who cared for her could think so.”
“Do you care for her yourself?” said Leah.
“I appreciate what she is. Of course she is not my grandmother.”
“No. She couldn’t be as old as that.”
“Well, it would be possible,” said Miss Starkie, seeing no reason to disregard the truth.
“Would it?” said Hengist. “You haven’t even any parents.”
“Well, they did not live to be old.”
“Did your being a governess break their hearts?”
“And bring their grey hairs with sorrow to the grave?” said Leah. “That would have been a pity, if they weren’t even grey.”
“What kind of a person is Grandma?” said Hengist. “Very good or very bad?”
“She is good, of course. No one can be perfect,” said Miss Starkie, forced to a reservation in Selina’s case.
“Why isn’t she perfect? Because she does not like you?”
“We are good friends when she is herself.”
“Can people be good friends, when one is despised and rejected of the other?”
“You don’t attend to what I say,” said Miss Starkie, with justification.
“I have always been Grandma’s favourite,” said Agnes.
“When people are that, they sometimes deserve to be,” said Miss Starkie, tired of too little effort in this direction.
“Leah and I would not stoop to fawn on people.”
“Some people’s level does not admit of much stooping.”
“She means our level is low,” said Leah.
“Well, so is everyone’s. Only some people have more power. People are really all the same.”
“Indeed they are not,” said Miss Starkie. “There can be a great difference.”
“Well, Grandma said they were,” said Leah. “She kept on saying it.”
“I should not remember what she said today,” said Miss Starkie, in favour of a general forgetfulness.
“Do you mean what she said about you?” said Hengist.
“No. What did she say? I hardly recall it. I meant what she said about you, if I am to speak the truth.”
“We might not recall that.”
“No. It is best to put it all out of your minds,” said Miss Starkie, on a sympathetic note.
“If Grandma dies, wouldn’t you have to remember her last words to you?” said Leah.
“I am afraid I already forget them. And we hope they are not her last.”
“Does she really hope it?” said Leah.
CHAPTER XII
“It is a strange feeling,” said Ninian. “To be no longer a son. It is the deepest of all changes. It has torn up my roots, thrown me solitary into the future. It will be hard to feel anchored again.”
“I should be proud if it did so much to me,” said Hugo. “The part it has done shows me what the whole must be.”
“Proud? I am lonely, bereft, uncertain. In a measure it must be so with you all.”
“There is a cause for pride, Father,” said Lavinia. “To be such things beyond a measure.”
“Ah, you would once have been with me. At a time not so far away. Now I must see you move to a distance. Well, in a sense I shall go with you.”