Ivy Compton-Burnett - Two Worlds and Their Ways

“Goodbye, my boy, goodbye,” said Mr. Firebrace, grasping the guest’s hand with a feeling that seemed to transcend the occasion. “You will carry my gift to your mother with the word from me. I shall picture her receiving both.”

He rested his eyes on the closing door, as though it shut off some vista from his sight. Sir Roderick moved towards the library, picked up a scarf of his wife’s that lay on the threshold and beckoned the older man within.

“I must say a word to you, sir. It cannot be left unsaid. It would be, if I had the choice.”

“Well, what is it, my boy. You are not afraid. So why talk as if you were?”

“The three of you walking together,” said Sir Roderick, with the feeling that he was carried forward on a flood of common experience. “That look you all have; that heavy, swinging movement; the ridge beneath the eyes, and the way the lids fall over them; even the shape of the hands. If it suggested anything, it could only be one thing.”

The pause seemed too inevitable to carry any uneasiness. As he waited, Sir Roderick glanced through the door, saw Oliver and Aldom crossing the hall, and Sefton leaving the hiding-place where he had caught a glimpse of Mr. Spode; and felt the current that bore him rise and swell. Mr. Firebrace’s voice recalled him.

“Did it suggest it to anyone?”

“As far as I know, only to me. But it would be wise not to repeat the risk. You should not encourage the visits. The danger is not only for yourself.”

“You mean it might spread to her and to him. I see there is the chance.”

“I remember the matter, as I said. It was all those years ago, the right number of years; the young man is of that age. You were in trouble about the woman and needed money for her. It was a thing I understood, as I had the same need. It was to help her with some debts, you said. So it was also to pay your own. I sold the farm to meet the claims on us both. So she has lived as a widow; the son does not know; it is possible that no one knows. Anyhow no one can tell her that he does.”

“So I can tell you nothing. You have told it all to me. It is a good deal to see and sum up. It shows someone else might do it. You are not such an astute man. I cannot deny it; I will not condone it; I do not know that I regret it. My heart has been stirred today.”

“Well, let this meeting be the first and last. Let it stand by itself. It will hold the better place.”

“The first and the last. My hail and farewell,” said Mr. Firebrace to himself, and also to Sir Roderick. “My ‘ave atque vale’. Well, we will leave it so. I have sent my message, sent my token across the years, seen — well, that is enough, I will be content.”

“We must serve the past and present as we can,” said Sir Roderick, catching the note.

“There is a truth that I see. The closer tie of blood counts less than the feelings that the years have fed. The one does not threaten the other. The place that is filled, remains.”

“It is the hidden thing that does not flourish,” said Sir Roderick. “Nothing can grow without the light. We can only tend it as we can, leaving it safe in the dark. And although ‘out of sight’ may not mean ‘out of mind’, this talk must be as if it had not been. We must trust each other.”

“You speak wisely, my boy. You speak well. You might speak from experience.”

“We should be able to use our imagination,” said Sir Roderick, suggesting another source of success. “I am sorry for you and also glad. And I might be sorry for many, and sorry without gladness. In future our lips are closed. We are not women, that we cannot seal them.”

“No, we are both men,” said Mr. Firebrace.

“Will you leave this scarf in Maria’s room? I picked it up in the hall. I am remaining here to write to the bailiff. I am increasing the price I am giving for Aldom’s farm. His mother seemed to think it fair, as they have put work into it.”

“And also got their living out of it. The two things fit with each other. But fulfil your obligations. You know what they are.”

Mr. Firebrace left the room, leaving Sir Roderick uncertain if he also knew, with a suspicion that he had always known. He put it from his mind and sat down to express himself on paper, a thing not among his gifts. It never struck him that he could write the word he spoke.

Mr. Firebrace carried the scarf upstairs and met Maria on her way to recover it. She took it as if she hardly saw him, and entered the drawing-room, where Juliet was sitting alone.

“Well, Maria, the guest has gone and the house is itself again. I forget I am a guest myself. I expect that is paying you the truest compliment, a thing that always has a selfish sound. I hope you have had a sleep?”

“Yes, but it has made me restless. I think a sleep in the day often does that.”

“Other things that happen in the day may do it. Things quite different from sleep. I am going to talk of some of them. My reason is that a question will always pursue you, if it is not answered. Will you sit down and hear me?”

“I would rather stand.”

“I daresay you would. I expect you would choose to pace the room. But your attention will soon be arrested.”

“I may not listen.”

“I will take the risk. Just let me begin at the beginning. A young man went into a shop to sell an earring. Now do not be too much arrested, Maria. If you are in my hands you are safe in them. There is no need to describe the young man. Someone else came in while he was there, and said she had an earring like it. There is no need to describe her either.”

“How do you know it was me?”

“No one else knows. No one else need ever know.”

“I went into the shop for something on the day when I visited Sefton. The young man was there with the earring, and the jeweller said the pair would have great value. I meant to tell your father, and suggest that he should send his own.”

“And then you sent it yourself. Of course second thoughts are best. And the pair of earrings was put in the window for sale. I saw them and was reminded of some of my mother’s, and bought them at the price. You know I have money to spare. The man had the case that originally held them. It was wrapped in one of your large, grey envelopes and directed in your hand. I thought you had sold them for my father, and assumed they must be the actual ones I remembered. I forgot the matter until today, when it was brought to my mind. The truth was clear to me in time to prevent my betraying it.”

“You told me to go and rest.”

“You could not meet Mr. Spode. And I could not have him meet you. You had to have some reason for going.”

“But what of the earring on the floor? Were there three? Was one of them a different one?”

“That is what we are to think. The one that was sent to the shop. It is what my father thinks, though he clearly has other thoughts. But there were only the original two.”

“Then how did it get on the floor?”

“Well, who saw it there?” said Juliet.

“Oh, you put it there! You brought it back when you went out of the room on some pretext. And you put it between the boards, when you moved those rugs. I thought you were restless; I remember wishing I had as little reason to be. No wonder the earring was polished, when it had so lately come from the shop. And you would not have noticed that one of them was marked. And you did not think of the case. What a clear and complicated tale! So you brought the earrings here.”

“To wear them. I thought it would please my father. I supposed he had sold them from necessity, and would be glad to see them rescued.”

“It is true that I am in your hands, Juliet.”

“I never know why people say that, when someone knows something to their disadvantage. Anything she said, could be denied, and she would get great discredit. I would never risk my fair name just to blot somebody else’s, however nice it would be. And why should I want to blot yours? It would put you in a pathetic position, and I dislike feeling pity.”