Lesbia raised her hand.
“Stay, Maria. Do you know the questions you will ask, the answers you expect? We must not plan answers to our questions. That is not our part. The part of the questioner is to accept the replies.”
“Could you really bear to hear them?” said Oliver.
“We can have neither questions nor answers until the people concerned are here,” said Sir Roderick.
“People concerned!” said Juliet. “It seems such a callous way to refer to the young.”
“They will have to face the tribunal of seven grown people. There is no help for it.”
“Of course there is,” said Oliver. “We can all do what we can. I withdraw from the tribunal, and so do Aunt Juliet and Grandpa.”
“I am not part of it,” said Maria. “I am simply their mother.”
“And I am their father. But certain things are binding on me as that. They must face their ordeal. They cannot have their chance without it.”
“Then I am the tribunal,” said Lesbia. “I will not disclaim the part. It may be mine.”
“So a thing can be said between a smile and a sigh,” said Oliver.
“It was nearer to the sigh, Oliver,” said Lesbia, coming nearer even to it.
“I may not withdraw,” said Lucius. “My place is with Lesbia.”
“Thank you, Lucius.”
“I cannot bear the spectacle of wasted nobility,” said Oliver. “I would so much rather not see it at all. Indeed, I would always rather be spared the sight. I only admire it when it is hidden.”
“Do not be hard on us, Oliver,” said Lesbia. “We have but a thankless part.”
“When people are thanked too little, they ought to pause and think.”
“And you think we have not done so, Oliver?”
Miss Petticott led the way into the room, unaware that the summons did not include herself, and advanced at once to Lesbia.
“How are you, Miss Firebrace? There is a closer bond than ever between us, now that we actually share a pupil.”
“How do you do, Miss Petticott?” said Lesbia, simply returning the handshake.
Miss Petticott cast her eyes over her face. The children came forward as though hardly conscious what they did. The parents’ eyes sought their faces, and Sir Roderick’s fell.
“Tell the tale again, Lesbia, and we will see if the children corroborate it.”
“No, I do not think I will ‘tell the tale again’, Roderick,” said Lesbia, just moving her lips. “I did not know that I had told a tale. What I said, remains. It does not need repeating, certainly not corroboration.”
“But the children did not hear it.”
“No. We were able to spare them that. But they could have told it themselves. I hoped to hear they had done so.”
“I wonder if you did. Your own account had been prepared, and one from them would have forestalled it. It would have rendered your effort meaningless.”
“Yes, it had been prepared, Roderick. It told the truth in the fewest words, with the least possible hurt in them. I had given thought to it. It is the last thing I wish to deny. I should not approach the matter in a careless spirit, or claim to do so. It would seem to me a strange claim.”
“Have you said ‘how-do-you-do’ to the guests?” said Maria to the children, in an empty tone.
“How do you do, Clemence? How do you do, Sefton?” said Lesbia, shaking hands with them in turn.
No one else offered to do the same, and the children approached no one. Everything seemed to be centred in Lesbia, and Sir Roderick and Maria appeared to accept the view. Sefton gave a glance at Lucius, who stood aloof.
“Now let the children tell the tale in their own words,” said Sir Roderick, not shaken in his own conception.
“No, pray do not,” said Oliver. “No one could bear it, and naturally they could not. And we must not see people as culprits, and then expect them to rise to the heights.”
Lesbia looked at her nephew, and then gravely bowed her head.
“Were you going just to say nothing about it, Clemence?” said Maria.
“Well, we knew the people from the schools were coming, and that it would be on the reports. It was no good to say anything.”
“So you talked about it to each other?”
“Yes, we did that.”
Lesbia drew the reports from her bag, and held them in her hand, as though rendering them available for anyone concerned, and in a moment passed them smoothly to Miss Petticott.
“Miss Petticott may see them, Maria?” she said, in incidental question. “There are things that might interest her. The one thing is not the whole.”
Miss Petticott looked at them uncertainly, and Mr. Firebrace intercepted them, put on his glasses and scrutinised them.
“It reminds me of my young days. How the old generation passeth away, and the new generation cometh!”
“Did you cheat?” said Oliver.
“Why, yes, my boy. We could not have managed without it. Everything was in Latin and Greek, you know. And it was not thought so much of in those days, not taken so hard. And it was the masters we were outwitting, not each other.”
“Did you do it, Oliver?” said Maria, at once.
“Maria, I wish I could tell you that I did. But I did not. There was no need. You see, I had no mother. But I have a word of comfort for you. I have met a downfall.”
“What was your trouble?” said his father.
“I feel guilty in drawing attention from the children’s trouble to my own. I made a conspicuous friendship.”
“With a boy?”
“No, no, Father. You and Grandpa have your own knowledge of life; no doubt you have gained it; but there is no need to drag it in. Only with another master.”
“The young man, Oliver Spode?” said Mr. Firebrace.
“It sounds like the Bible and goes on sounding like it. The only son of his mother, and she is a widow.”
“Did your friendship attract attention?” said Sir Roderick.
“I think only that of Uncle Lucius.”
“I was afraid it might do so,” said the latter, “and lead to unfounded suggestions. I had no personal uneasiness.”
“How much less well you think of other people than of yourself!” said Oliver. “I suppose that is a tribute to anyone.”
“What did you mean by saying you had no mother?” said Maria. “What difference did that make?”
“Well, no one cared whether I was a success or not.”
“So I am the culprit. I see that the guilt is mine, and I am glad to see it. You see it too, Oliver, and I see you are glad, though I do not know your reason.”
“It is the same as yours. We are glad that no helpless person is cast for the part. We see that it is good.”
Sefton threw himself into his mother’s arms and broke into weeping. She held him close and looked at Lesbia over his head. Sir Roderick beckoned to Clemence, and drew her on to the sofa at his side.
“They are ours, Maria. They owe us life, and therefore we owe them everything. Their sins and sorrows are ours. Who else are the authors of them?”
Clemence leant against her father and sank into tears, and he kept his arm about her.
“So it is all true,” said Juliet, “all that we have tried to disprove. A mother does love her erring children best, and it seems that a father does too, though no one has thought about it. We may be the first people to see an instance. And men do not have to hide their feelings, and mothers are not the last people to bring up their own children, and there is no hostility between fathers and sons, and home life is best. And keeping a school is a thing to be ashamed of. Not that people have ever thought it anything else, but their reasons were not the right ones. Schoolkeepers should be despised on quite different grounds, or anyhow on some extra ones. And cynicism has no place in life, though it will make conversation very difficult. No one will be able to be clever.”