“Your qualities would be wasted, if there was no demand on them,” said her husband.
“I suppose they were wasted in Mary’s case, if she had them. Well, it is no good to go on for ever.”
“None at all,” said Mr. Firebrace.
“Why did Father marry twice?” said Sefton.
“He got very fond of someone twice,” said Maria.
“It is a good thing it did not happen with both at the same time,” said Clemence.
“Shouldn’t we be here, if the first wife had not died?” said Sefton.
“Of course not. Things are like that with second marriages. Anything that happens brings a lot of other things with it. And marriages do it especially.”
“Thirteen and three-quarters,” said Maria in a low tone. putting her finger-tips together and looking into space.
“Then is Father sorry we are here, glad that she is dead?”
“No, no, my little son,” said Maria. “Having you makes up to him for what he lost.”
“If you are sure of that, you are sure of all you need to be,” said Mr. Firebrace.
“That is true,” said Maria, meeting his eyes. “Now Lesbia and Juliet want to come on a visit next week. I must write and say they will be welcome.”
“And not the other governess?”
“Lucius will come with Juliet, if that is what you mean.”
“Then we shall have four with Miss Petticott. And only one genuine example among them.”
“I hope I am that one, Mr. Firebrace?” said Miss Petticott, almost with archness.
“Yes, yes, that is so. I never mind the real thing.”
“You children may run upstairs now,” said Maria, willing for a withdrawal that included Miss Petticott. “We have had two pairs of eyes fixed on us long enough. And what has been happening to two pairs of ears, I do not dare to think.”
Miss Petticott rose and clapped her hands to marshal her pupils, and withdrew the third pair of eyes and ears with deliberation and ease. She allowed a group to gather on a landing without appearing to notice it. It consisted of her pupils, their nurse and Aldom, who had left the dining-room with an air of sudden purpose. The four voices, full and clear and with an undeniably similar note, followed her to the schoolroom, but she had learned when eyes and ears should cease to function.
“So school is in the wind again,” said Aldom. “I am glad I cannot be sent to right and left at other people’s will. I belong to myself.”
“And to Sir Roderick and her ladyship, while you are in this house,” said Adela. “And you can be sent where they like, as far as I can see. And you will soon be sent for to the dining-room. What do you think you are?”
“A prince in disguise,” said Aldom.
“Well, the disguise goes deep enough.”
“And are you a princess, Adela?” said Sefton.
“No. Servants are as good as anyone else,” said Adela, disposing of any need for the flight of fancy.
“Well, no one seems to know it,” said Aldom.
“Well, you would not expect them to act up to it, if you have noticed anything.”
Adela was a lively, healthy-looking woman of thirty-five, with interested, busy eyes, a confident cast of feature, and an independent mien that could be decorous. She was one person with the children, another with their parents, with Miss Petticott a third, and with Aldom herself, though through all the characters went something of the same essence.
Aldom had two characters, of which one was his own. Whether or no he was a prince in disguise downstairs, he was someone in disguise.
“I expect we can do as we like about going to school,” said Clemence, swinging her feet from a window-seat.
Sefton looked at her in question.
“Then you will stay at home,” said Adela. “So we shall see if that is the truth.”
“One begins to look at the matter all round. There is more than one side to everything.”
“She has come on since I first knew her,” said Adela, looking at Aldom.
“As is natural, as that was thirteen years ago,” said Clemence.
“He is still a little boy,” said Adela, putting her arm round Sefton.
“Oh, look at the love,” said Aldom.
“It seems a shame to send a child like him away from his home.”
Sefton proved his agreement by showing some emotion.
“There, there, perhaps it won’t happen. I don’t feel as if it would,” said Adela, successfully checking it.
“You won’t say anything to Mother or Father to make them send us,” he said to Clemence.
“No, I shall just let matters take their course.”
“He is going to school at eleven. I left school then,” said Aldom. “It was nearly twenty years ago, in the year eighteen hundred and seventy-five. I had gone as far as was required.”
“Oh, you!” said Adela, not accepting any parallel.
“And how far had you gone?”
“We left in the end, wherever we were,” said Adela, leaving anything incidental to be inferred. “I never could see that schoolbooks led to anything. They are nothing to do with life, and it is life we are concerned with, not the records of what it used to be. And why send the two at the same time, when one of them is three years older?”
“Clemence is a girl,” said Aldom.
“You should really call me ‘Miss Clemence.’”
“Oh, the grandeur!” said Adela. “Not that you shouldn’t, Aldom. I wonder how you think of yourself.”
“I told you as a prince in disguise.”
“You would not say ‘Clemence,’ if Mother or Father were here.”
“Well, we shouldn’t, any of us, be quite the same then,” said Adela. “I daresay you are not the same in the dining-room as you are up here. What would you say, Aldom?”
“Well, you might not say that I was the same then either.”
“The prince is even more disguised,” said Clemence. “I expect we shall get to be more the same, if we go to school.”
Sefton looked at her with trouble in his eyes at her acceptance of the threat to their lives.
“So you are going to leave us behind, are you?” said Adela.
“Well, of course, our position is different.”
“The person whose position I should not like, is Miss Petticott,” said Adela. “I would rather be one thing or the other, and know where I stood.”
“I don’t find knowing it such an advantage,” said Aldom. “I would not mind its being a little less to the fore.”
“I wish we could always go on in the life we know,” said Sefton. “We have not learned what to do in any other.”
“It may be time you did,” said Aldom. “Changes must come. I may get to be known for what I am.”
“I should think that is taking place,” said Adela. “If it has not already done so.”
“Are you really something we don’t know?” said Sefton.
“I am the general man, called by courtesy the butler. And not always so much courtesy either.”
“Oh, Father and Mother are much better than most people,” said Clemence.
“And quite right that she should think so,” said Adela, looking into Aldom’s eyes. “And I am not saying it is not the case.”
“Well, I mightn’t be better than they are, in their position.”
“Are you better now?” said Sefton.
“Well, I am a useful person, ready to soil my hands.”
“So that is what he thinks of himself,” said Adela.
“Trial by ordeal,” said Clemence.
“What is that?” said Adela. “And where have you got hold of it?”
“Oh, one hears all sorts of things between daybreak and dusk.”
“It is my belief that most of what she says, comes out of her own head.”
“It is talking to Mr. Oliver,” said Aldom. “That gives her an opportunity. But it may be better for her to go where there are more and different.”