There was a pause.
“Well, she has come on,” said Adela.
“As far as she needs to,” said Aldom, examining his boot.
“Adela, you still like us?” said Sefton. “You will always feel the same?”
Clemence drew an audible breath and began to weep.
“There, there,” said Adela, putting her arms about them. “I don’t care what you did, if you don’t do it any more. Miss Petticott will see it doesn’t happen again. You want someone’s eye on you, of course. The mistake was your going away from home. And they have lost you by complaining about you, as is quite right. If they can’t manage their pupils, and look to the parents to do it, why take them from the parents at all? That is what I should like to know.”
“I think that is what Father thought,” said Clemence, in a steadier tone. “And I daresay it helped him to bring things to the pass.”
“Oh, Roderick, Roderick, will anything serve your purpose?”
Aldom’s voice, or rather Lesbia’s, was faint.
“There isn’t so much you can tell them now,” said Adela. “They know it better than you do. And their kind of school is not yours. That is how it must strike them. They must wonder why you think you know about it. And you heard what Miss Clemence said. Well, it is a good thing the trouble came at once, as it had to come. And putting off would have made a harder reckoning.”
“It did not exactly have to come,” said Clemence. “It was not that everything was bad. There was another side.”
“Oh, was there? And what was that?”
“Well, there were the girls. And Miss Tuke and Miss Chancellor were nice. And so was Miss Marathon in a way.”
“Well, all those Misses! And now only Miss Petticott. It shows how much good they were.”
“And there was Miss Laurence as well. And, of course, Miss Firebrace. And several other mistresses. And some more came by the day.”
“Well, to think what she has seen! And her looking just the same. Well, she can only see it once. She knows about it now.”
“And there were eighty girls, and most of them were taller than I am. You should have seen them going downstairs in their party clothes! All the dresses were as good as mine. And we never had the same person to teach us for more than an hour. And no one taught more than one or two things. Everything was done by specialists. That is how it is in these days.”
“Well, I must say it does Miss Petticott credit,” said Adela. “To take the place of all that. And no wonder you could not keep up with it!”
“You are contradicting yourself,” said Clemence. “And I did keep up with a good ideal. And in some things I did better than the others did, only Mother wanted me to do too much. And there were nearly a hundred people at every meal. And the break-up party was a sight you would not believe, with all the girls and mistresses and guests.”
“And what of Sefton’s school?” said Adela.
“We had most of those things,” said Sefton, with startled eyes on his sister. “But I don’t think it was really the same. I should not like to go back to it.”
“Of course it was different,” said Clemence. “Yours was a school for younger boys. I don’t suppose there was anything to learn, apart from books. Or, if there was, you did not see it. But there is not much that I don’t know now. I know such a lot of unexpected things. Things that are said and not thought, and things that are thought and not said. And there are so many of both. I should never have known, if I had stayed at home, or never have known that I knew. That is another thing you learn, to know what you know.”
“Well, one term has been enough,” said Adela. “Or you might begin to know what you didn’t know.”
Clemence was approaching this stage when Miss Petticott returned. She at once broke off, and Adela looked at her and gave a laugh. Aldom withdrew without furtiveness or haste. Sefton looked at Miss Petticott in mute appeal, seeking some ground beneath his feet.
“Well, shall I read to you before you go to bed?” said the latter, keeping her eyes from Clemence, whose mood she divined. “We were in the middle of this book when you went away. Shall we go on from there, or begin at the beginning?”
“Begin at the beginning,” said her pupils, feeling this would be the case with many things.
Maria and Sir Roderick, yielding to temptation, came up to the schoolroom and opened the door. Miss Petticott was reading in a fluent, distinct voice, now and then making a gesture in accordance with her words. On either side of her, sunk back in their upright chairs, were Clemence and Sefton, asleep.
“Poor little creatures!” said Maria. “It has all been too much for them.”
“Worn out by things foreign to them,” said Sir Roderick, taking the appearance of innocence as proof of it.
“Speak softly. Try not to wake them. They might be embarrassed by being discovered asleep.”
Miss Petticott sat with her eyes rather wide, finding that this feeling resulted also from causing the state.
“I thought a little reading aloud might rest their nerves, Lady Shelley. And I seem to have been almost too successful.”
“You were right, Miss Petticoat. Here is the proof. You understand what they need.”
“And that comes from understanding them, Sir Roderick.”
“I wish Lesbia could see them now,” said Maria, as though the sight must in some way confute the former’s position. “They should all be coming downstairs at any moment. I have a good mind to call them in.”
“The sight would convey nothing to her, my dear. She is blunter than the run of women.”
Maria was listening for sounds on the stairs, and tiptoed to the door with a beckoning movement.
“Come and look, all of you,” she said, as though further words were needless.
The group hushed their steps at the sight of her raised hand.
“And no one will ever call me ‘Mother’,” said Juliet.
“I would I were alone,” said Oliver, “so that I could weep.”
“Cannot someone take them to bed?” said Mr. Fire-brace. “Are there no women about their business?”
“I am glad, Roderick, that they are in their own home,” said Lesbia, just shaking her head. “Whatever their general need, that is their need now. You and I are at one.”
Sefton opened his eyes.
“Good-night, Mother dear,” he said, and smiled at Maria and closed them.
“Lucius, must you be silent?” said Juliet. “My feelings are too deep for words, but I don’t think yours can be.”
“Lesbia’s word will do for me.”
“We must be careful not to see them as martyrs,” said Maria, in a tone of repressing any rising pride.
“Well, that is better than seeing them as evil-doers,” said Sir Roderick, as if this were the last of possible views. “Good-night, Miss Petticoat. Good-night, good-night. Thank you for letting us intrude on your domain.”
“Cannot you even say it once, Miss Petticott?” said Leslia, smiling.
“Good-night, Sir Roderick,” said Miss Petticott, accompanying the group to the door in her character of hostess.
Sefton opened his eyes again and found they met his sister’s.
“Were you awake when they were here?”
“Not at first. I did not hear them come in. Then I heard their voices.”
“We could not be really asleep in these chairs. But they would not know.”
“Did you say what you said to Mother, on purpose?”
“Yes, in a way. My eyes were open and I had to say something. And that sounded as if I were partly asleep.”