Sefton had seen the obligation as reversed, and passed Miss Petticott something in an unaccustomed manner, and found it received in a similar one.
“My little son!” said Maria, leaning forward to take his hands and look into his face.
Sir Roderick looked at Clemence, as though he might do the same to her, but went no further. Sefton remained with his eyes and smile fixed, until his mother released him and looked round the table.
“How nice it would be, if this were our family! I forget how different my life is from other women’s.”
“Why do you suddenly remember it?” said her husband. “You know I do not forget. It is not the least thing you have done for me.”
“It has been a hard thing in my life,” said Maria, who found little difficulty in revealing herself. “And it is not like something that is over and behind. It goes through the past and future. What do you think of it, Miss Petticott?”
“That it is so well done, Lady Shelley, that I did not know it went against the grain.”
“I ought not to betray it. What is the good of undertaking a thing and then failing in it? And what a way to talk before the children! Not that there is anything that Clemence does not know.”
“I knew you did not want Oliver and Grandpa here, when I was a child.”
“And when was that?” said Sir Roderick, who had no aspirations for himself.
Maria made a warning gesture, and the subjects of the discussion entered the room, two large, dark men with heavy, aquiline faces, dark, heavy-lidded eyes, thick, white, noticeable hands, and such a likeness between them, that the discrepancy in years might have been the only difference. It was not a negligible one, as the dividing years were forty-eight.
Oliver Firebrace and his grandson, Oliver Shelley, were the former father-in-law and the elder son of Sir Roderick, the thorns in Maria’s flesh, and the half-brother and adopted grandfather of Clemence and Sefton. Sir Roderick had waited many years between his marriages, and his first wife’s father had so long made his home in his house, that Maria, in the exaltation of her own romance, had suggested his retaining the place. He had accepted the offer and hardly modified his life; presumed on his knowledge of the past; given all his feeling to his grandson, and done no more for Maria’s children than accept their adoption of their brother’s name for him. Maria regretted her generosity, but enjoyed her husband’s appreciation of it. Sir Roderick had a pitying tenderness for such creatures as aged men and children and women, and shrank from breaking his tie and, as it seemed to him, his faith with his earlier mate. He had no beliefs remaining, but could not rid himself of a feeling that she could observe him from some vantage-ground and approve or condemn his course.
Her son was the less to him, that he bore no deep resemblance to her. He was the less to Maria, that he bore none to his father, and had acquired a feeling that he meant rather little in his home. He was scarcely fifteen years younger than Maria, had dropped any filial mode of address, treated her as a friend, and on the whole found her such. She had a vein of humility that subdued her personal claims, and he had one of self-confidence that saved him from mistrust of himself. Maria had also a vein of justice, and though she regretted his existence and his grandfather’s, never questioned their right to it.
Her life was dominated by her love for her children, and her desire for them to advance and impress their father rose to a passion and held its threat. Sir Roderick had no great feeling for personal success, but Maria had no suspicion that they did not see things through the same eyes. That her children should excel their brother in his sight was the ambition of her life and of her heart.
“So my governesses have written again,” said Mr. Fire-brace, looking at her letters. “I remember those envelopes in Oliver’s youth. They wrote at the same time and never knew it. Laid their plans together and forgot to plan ahead. A pair of simple women. You had the best of the three, Roderick.”
“I was never in any doubt of it.”
“They are anxious for Clemence and Sefton to go to their schools,” said Maria, with a suggestion that the relations of the first wife had claims to make on the second.
“Peddling their wares! You would think they would have more opinion of themselves, when they hold their heads so high.”
“One of the letters is from Oliver’s uncle,” said Sefton.
“An upright person and a worthy governess.”
“He is a man and a schoolmaster, Grandpa.”
“Well, that may be part of the truth.”
“Miss Petticott is a governess.”
“Good morning, Miss Petticott. I did not know you were here. It is your habit to be elsewhere. What does the boy mean by what he says of you?”
“He means that Miss Petticott is like anyone else,” said Clemence. “And you seemed to think a governess was different.”
“I was talking of the male of the species.”
“The masculine of governess would be governor,” said Sefton.
“There is no such thing, as Miss Petticott will tell you. Not that you do not show she has told you many things.”
“I see what you mean, Mr. Firebrace. And you are right in a sense.”
“Yes, yes. You are a sensible girl, my dear. And now what causes your pupils to mock at me?”
“They are amused by your calling me a girl, Mr. Firebrace.”
“And you are not to them. Well, no doubt you would have them remember it.”
“You went to your uncle’s school, Oliver. I forgot that,” said Maria. “Of course that was in its early days. But what would you say of it?”
“That I gave it nothing, and took what it had to give. I liked that, or I like looking back on it.”
“Your uncle was a young man then,” said Sir Roderick, “though he did not seem so to you.”
“I despised him for his youth.”
“He was over thirty,” said Maria. “How do you feel about him now when he is sixty-two?”
“I pity his age.”
“The prime of life is short according to your view.”
“According to anyone’s.”
“Well, what did the school give you?” said Maria.
“It taught me to trust no one and to expect nothing,” said her stepson, in his deep, smooth, rapid tones. “To keep everything from everyone, especially from my nearest friends. That familiarity breeds contempt, and ought to breed it. It is through familiarity that we get to know each other.”
“I dislike that sort of easy cynicism.”
“So do I, but because it is not easy. It is necessary, and necessity is the mother of invention. The hard mother of a sad and sorry thing.”
“I wonder if you know what you mean. I certainly do not. Can you tell me plainly if you were happy at the school?”
“I learned to suffer, and that is the basis of happiness. It teaches the difference, which is the deepest of all lessons.”
“I cannot think how you can be your father’s son.”
“I am my mother’s son, and the nephew of her sisters, and her father’s grandson. You see how I can be those.”
“You are a family I do not understand. Do you understand them, Roderick?”
“Well, we are used to each other. And probably no one fully understands anyone else.”
“My father spoke there,” said Oliver. “I do sometimes hear his voice. It is partial understanding that carries danger. It suggests more than the truth.”
“Which of your aunts do you like the better?” said Maria.
“I should like to prefer Aunt Lesbia, because of her esteem for herself. Most of us despise ourselves because we have such good reason, and admire other people because they cannot be as bad as we are. To admire oneself is a great sign of quality. But I find that Aunt Juliet is more to me.”