Ivy Compton-Burnett - Two Worlds and Their Ways

“Then Aldom must come into our minds. There is no help for it. I hope no murkiness is brewing.”

“Aldom has not touched it,” said Maria, “if that is what you mean.”

“Well, it has gone, and the case with it, and it cannot have taken up its bed and walked.”

“Aldom is as honest as you or I, as anyone else in the house.”

“Then let him say an honest word to us. He may have taken it for some lawful purpose, let us say to clean it. That can be our cover and his. I do not suggest there is any black stain on him, but people are not as white as snow.”

“Of course you suggest it, if you broach the matter. The question would be an insult.”

“Well, I ask you all to consider. Did anyone take it to use in any way, any time in the last score of years?”

“Neither Maria nor I wear earrings,” said Lesbia, “and neither Juliet nor anyone else could wear a single one.”

“I suppose Aldom does not wear them either. But the thing has found some escape. So no one had any purpose for it? Anyone may have had one. I have found one for it myself.”

“You are the most likely person to have disturbed it,” said Sir Roderick. “When did you see it last?”

“But I am not the actual person. I saw it last in Oliver’s hands, when he was a child.”

“That was probably the means of its escape.”

“No, I locked it up when he put away childish things. To him it was one of those.”

“Earrings always seem of those to me,” said Lesbia. “As far as I am concerned, it could remain locked up for ever. But I remember my mother’s wearing these, if I am thinking of the right ones.”

“It is a long time to depend on your memory, sir,” said Sir Roderick.

“It may be failing, but not as much as that.”

“I am going to fetch my glasses,” said Juliet. “I want to feel that nothing can escape me.”

“I did not know you wore them,” said her father.

“I did not mean you to know. It is a thing we are ashamed of without any reason. They make us look older and plainer and suggest mortal decay. And I should almost have thought those were reasons.”

“Well, the intended recipient does not know of her misfortune,” said Lesbia, “and need never know.”

“It is not nothing to me, my dear,” said her father. “I remember, as you do, your mother’s wearing the earrings. My not touching this one for so long did not mean that I did not keep it safe. It should have been the safer.”

“You remember that, and you were going to give it away!” said Oliver. “And you gave one away all that time ago, when the memory was fresher! I am quite ashamed of you, Grandpa. I wonder you confess it.”

“I saw nothing against the simple truth. Things are of no use to the dead, and may do what they can for the living.”

“They seem to be of use to them for some while after they are dead. They are always kept intact at first.”

“I do not gain much from mementoes. And it is no good to manufacture sentiment.”

“I think you ought to manufacture a little. Indeed you seemed to be doing so.”

“Why did you not give the earrings to your daughters?” said Sir Roderick.

“I do not know. I wish I had. It would have saved this trouble.”

“It would have given pleasure to your own family,” said Juliet, as she returned. “And you felt you had done enough for them. The pleasure of people we have not seen for many years seems really Worth while. Perhaps we want to make up to them.”

“I fear it escaped from the desk in Oliver’s childhood,” said Lesbia, “and has remained at large. And it must have got a taste for liberty by this time.”

“I wonder why it is a jest to all of you,” said her father.

“Your purpose for it was a sudden one, and will soon pass,” said Sir Roderick.

“Might the children know anything?” said Lesbia. “If it was ever about the house, they may have come on it.”

“I will not have them asked,” said Maria. “Why should they be the target for anyone’s chance suspicions?”

“They could not be for mine, as I had none. Neither the word nor what it carries comes from me.”

“No one can be asked about it. No one should have taken it, and therefore no one has done so.”

“And no one who had taken it, would admit it,” said Sir Roderick. “The person who would do the one thing, would not do the other. There is no use in questions of that kind; I never know why people ask them.”

“They want to clear up a mystery and cannot believe that people will not help them,” said Oliver. “They want the truth and are vexed that they do not have it. And, of course, it is vexing.”

“So it is, my boy,” said Mr. Firebrace.

“Is that it?” said Juliet, pointing to the floor. “There in that crevice between the boards, a sort of gleam! It seems to come and go. There it is again, a sudden spark!”

Oliver followed the direction of her eyes, picked up the earring and laid it on the desk. His grandfather took it in his hand.

“Well, will that ever be explained?”

“It will, in many ways and many times,” said Lesbia. “I am trying to think of the first.”

“It will not be by me. But I make no protest, as I have no proof.”

“But that is when protest is useful,” said Oliver. “You would not need them both.”

“It may have lain there for years,” said Sir Roderick.

“Someone would have seen it,” said Mr. Firebrace, “as someone saw it today.”

“Perhaps some dust was swept away, and left it exposed,” said Lucius.

“It was certainly exposed, my boy. The more so, that it was without its case.”

“Grandpa, you have a dark, sad mind,” said Oliver.

“He cannot take his eyes off the earring,” said Lesbia. “When he did not look at it for twenty-five years or more!”

“It would be a wonder if I could. This is not the earring that was lost. It is the other, that I gave away all that time ago. I know it by a mark on the back.”

“You have confused the two,” said Sir Roderick. “It would be an easy thing to do.”

“Too easy. I have not done it. Even though I am an old man, with a mind already confused.”

“The thing has its own reminders and sets off your imagination.”

“Thank you, my boy, for seeing that I know what you do.”

“Grandpa, please do not frighten me,” said Oliver.

“It is very highly polished,” said Lucius.

“Fancy speaking so little for so long and then saying that!” said Juliet.

“It is on the point,” said her father. “It has not lain there for years. That is what he meant.”

“Did he? I am proud of him. How inferior women are!”

“Do you think you took it out yourself, sir, and forgot about it?” said Sir Roderick.

“I have no doubt that you do. So that can be your solution.”

“You may have put the open case somewhere, with the earring in it. Think along that line and see if it stirs your memory.”

“It does so, and shows me I have touched neither.”

“If the case should turn up, it would support that view,” said Sir Roderick, looking round as if in hope.

“Well, there may have been some oversight, my boy. Perhaps it will appear.”

“Well, now the earring can go out on its journey,” said Juliet.

“It has come on one,” said her father, balancing it on his hand. “I have a feeling that it should rest now.”

“You assign it a human personality,” said Sir Roderick. “That would lead you into all kinds of ways.”

“In which case it could lead me out of them.”

“We think of earrings as a pair,” said Lucius. “The sight of one would suggest the other. They would hardly give a separate impression.”