“Well, shall we ever make any progress with this book?” said Miss Petticott, her voice betraying that she had waited for this dialogue to end. “I do not think we will make our third attempt to-night. And we shall have plenty more opportunities. I will tell them to bring your supper. And then you will go to bed.”
When the children came out of the room with this purpose, a shape that was almost a shadow, moved across their path, and a sound that was hardly a voice, came on their ears.
“Clemence, there is a word I have to say to you, a word I want to say. No, do not start and shrink, my child; there is no need; I am here to tell you there is none. There will be no further word from me on this that is between us, to you or your father or your mother or anyone that is yours. I am your guest in this house, and need not be anything more. Good-night, my child.”
“Good-night, Miss Firebrace.”
Sefton crept after his sister and put his hand in hers.
“That is the last thing we had to dread.”
“We have had too many things to keep count of them. I hope I shall not grow up like that, boastful and self-satisfied and proud of being it. Why should she be complacent about doing no harm to us, when we have done none to her? But I would do it now, if I could. I would break up her school and throw her out to beg her bread, except that Father might have to support her.”
“But we have really conquered her, haven’t we? Father does not like her so much, and she has not had things as she meant to. She really helped Father to take us away from school. If they had not told about us, we should still be there. It fits in like things in a book. And we can rest now for the first time for months. There is nothing more on our minds. And we have Miss Petticott and Adela, and Aldom too. And Father and Mother will soon be the same. I think Father is now.”
Sir Roderick’s voice on the stairs supported this view.
“Well, we made the right choice in Miss Petticoat. We were not wrong there. Our mistake was in letting other people supersede her. Poor Miss Petticoat! It was a shabby return. We must do what we can to atone.”
“What is this in my hand?” said Maria, leaning against the balusters and moving something before his eyes.
“I do not know. A bundle of something.”
“A bundle of what?”
“Money notes. What a number! What is their meaning, my dear?”
“Money is something else in another form. What would you like this to be? I will tell you what it is. The land cut out of the place.”
“It is the very sum. But my dear, good wife! What is its source?”
“That is my affair. Women have their ways and means. I was not an empty-handed woman, and I have been working up to this. I thought the moment to bestow it was when you were out of heart. Well, does this neutralise the troubles?”
“It does indeed,” said Sir Roderick, with simple truth. “It makes an occasion of rejoicing out of one of sorrow.”
“Well, it helps the sorrow to fall into place. And it will show Lesbia that our lives are our own.”
Sir Roderick was intent on his own line. He entered the drawing-room and walked straight up to his elder son.
“Well, Oliver, what do you say to this? It does as much for you as for me. It is bound up with your future. The price of our lost farmland! It is Maria’s gift.”
“But it is the price of so much else,” said Oliver, as he handled the notes.
“It is, indeed. That is the measure of our debt. The place is whole again, the place I have lived to serve, that I betrayed when I was helpless. It went hard with me to do it. It is whole again, and I am again a whole man.”
Silence followed these words and was broken by Lesbia.
“I suppose these things to which we give our hearts, do take on a sort of human guise, and stand with human creatures in our sight. Their fate takes on the same significance, or perhaps I should say a similar one.”
“We do indeed congratulate you, Roderick,” said Lucius.
“I congratulate myself too much for that to be necessary.”
“That is a good thing,” said Juliet. “Then it does not matter about Lesbia.”
“Do I fail in what was expected of me? Was the transition from the human sphere to the material rather much? Then let me fulfil my part. Roderick, I offer you my felicitations from my heart. It is true that I was troubled by human problems, that I am still troubled by them.”
“They have vanished,” stated Sir Roderick. “They are swallowed up in joy. Anything else would be ingratitude.”
“Have they vanished?” said Lesbia, just contracting her brows.
“Yes, dear. You heard,” said Juliet.
“Roderick waves his wand, does whatever is the proper thing, and troubles are no more! But a wand in the form of a packet of notes is a new idea.”
“No, dear. Things in a fairy sphere always take on some different guise. I think the difference is generally greater than this.”
“A fairy sphere,” said Lesbia, half under her breath. “This hard, unhappy human world.”
“I wish you would stop these innuendoes about the children and their stumble,” said Sir Roderick. “Why do you not use open and honest words? You cannot expect young creatures to steer straight, with such an example.”
Lesbia put back her head.
“Oh, Roderick, Roderick!” she said, contracting her eyes towards him in tearful mirth.
“Let us talk about Maria,” said Oliver. “It is she who waves the wand. Her powers are mysterious and great.”
“Yes, hers is the fairy world,” said Lesbia. “I hope the rain of gold and precious stones will not change into one of toads and snakes, in the approved way.”
“You mean it would be approved by you,” said Sir Roderick.
“No, Roderick, I do not mean that. I mean what I said, if I may still mean it, if your words do not imply that the change has already taken place.”
“The gold is to turn into the farm,” said Juliet. “Are we rejoicing enough about that?”
“I am doing so,” said Sir Roderick. “And it is a pure and personal joy, and that is the one that counts.”
“I have always wondered what was wrong with joys,” said Oliver. “And of course that is it. They do not count. Now I do wish people would sometimes talk about me. I have had a downfall as much as the children, and no one takes any interest in it. I shall begin to think you believe I really had one.”
“I suppose school must be a naughty place,” said Maria. “There is no help for it.”
“So it is as easy as that to lose one’s character. Some things do turn out to be true.”
“Well, we have got away from it,” said Sir Roderick. “And after this paying instead of notice, we shall leave it behind. I suppose we do not go on paying for ever.”
“What ground have you for supposing that, Roderick?” said Lesbia, in a quiet tone.
“Well, you said it would be for a term.”
“Then I do not know where you got the idea of paying for ever.”
“From making you an allowance, and always doing it,” said Sir Roderick, in a burst of irritation to himself, or rather inaudibly to Lesbia; and then glancing to see if Juliet had felt what he said, and perceiving that she had, and smiling.
“I have always thought it would be undignified to quarrel with parents,” said the latter, keeping her eyes from him. “But it seems to bring out all the innate dignity in us.”
“The farm is mine; the children are mine; the future is mine,” said Sir Roderick.
“Roderick, is it simply an occasion for rejoicing?” said Lesbia, just uttering the words.
“I find it so, and I am going to rejoice. We have had enough lamentation and great weeping over nothing.”
“Yes, we made it as little as we could. We drew veils where we could, glossed over what we could, gave the benefit of every doubt. But the main thing remains, inescapable, itself. We do not accept the word, ‘nothing’.”