Ivy Compton-Burnett - Two Worlds and Their Ways

“Well, anyhow you know what to think of me.”

“I don’t feel I know much more than before. Might not many people do what you did? To take something that someone did not want, to give someone something that he did — was it so bad? It sounds as if it was almost right?”

“You cannot think the same of me.”

“Not the same; I do think differently. But I don’t know that I think any less; I am not quite sure. I rather like your anxiety to serve Roderick to be stronger than your respect for yourself. Self-respect is too common a thing to rouse my feeling; people have so much. You may have acted rather nobly. I do not mean that Shakespeare would have thought so; he took the accepted views; but I am inclined to think so myself. And I don’t mean that all crime is noble. I am not a modern person.”

“You are making it easy for me, Juliet.”

“Well, it would be unkind to do anything else.”

“You would not have done such a thing yourself.”

“I wonder if I should. I always wonder if I should withstand temptation. I never seem able to meet any. I should like to be put to the test. I am so interested in myself.”

“I am not,” said Maria, with a sigh. “I have never met a drearier subject. And I reproached those poor children for doing as I had done, when they did it for my sake!”

“As you did it for Roderick’s. There must be a strain of pure nobility in you.”

“It is a thing we must hide and be ashamed of.”

“Well, that does happen to nobility. People are always disconcerted when it is found out. I suppose they feel it makes their ordinary life so inexplicable. Not that that is true in your case.”

“You are trying to comfort me, Juliet.”

“Well, my dear, you seem to need comfort.”

“Suppose something of the kind happened in your family?”

“Well, people are known to be harsh judges of their own families.”

“You and Lesbia are upright people,” said Maria. “I never feel so sure about your father. I do not feel I know him, though he has lived in my house longer than I have. You do not mind my saying that?”

“That is what people say, when they know it is not the truth. But I do not mind very much.”

“Of course I am not without affection for him.”

“I wonder if you know how unusual you are, Maria?”

“Do you feel you know so much about him yourself?”

“I have come to know more lately.”

“In the last few months?”

“In the last few hours,” said Juliet, throwing her eyes over Maria’s face. “It was seeing him with Oliver’s friend.”

“It did show him in a new light. He was really almost fatherly. The three men made quite an impressive group, and he seemed to fit in as the head of it. If they were related, we should remark on the family likeness. It shows how types can repeat. I suppose I owe your father money for the earring. Though not any more than if I had not been found out. How confused our minds are!”

“Yours certainly is. Of course you did owe it, but you do not now. The earring on the floor was mine, and he gave it away as his own. The score has been paid.”

“So it is to you that I owe the money.”

“Yes, but I forgive you the debt.”

“What will you do with one earring?”

“Keep it in case some use for it arises. I can hardly believe it will not fulfil some need.”

“Suppose you showed it to them all! They would think it was a stock pattern indeed.”

“I shall not show it to them. They might not think only that. Indeed, too much thought would be involved. It is a subject that always entails a good deal.”

“I wonder if Roderick is worthy of what I did for him.”

“If he is not, it is the better to have done it. If he is, it is no more than you ought to have done. And we do feel it was a little more?”

“I do not mean I am proud of it. I should not like to tell him the truth. But I daresay he has not told me everything about himself.”

“Well, we all keep some things to ourselves, those little, mean things that cause us more shame than big ones, though we do not know why. Not that we do not really know.”

“The big ones cause us shame,” said Maria with a sigh.

“I do not believe you commit the small ones. And that is almost unique. Though this thing is not a big one of course. You have simply committed one small thing.”

“I am grateful to you from my heart, Juliet. If the earring had not been found, the quest and cry would have continued. And what should I have done, if the cloud had fallen on Aldom?”

“Left him under it, as you did when it did fall on him. What else could be done? And protested your own trust in him, and probably protested a thought too much. You almost did that today. It put me on the track and prepared my mind for the truth.”

“Other people are not as alert as you are.”

“Oh, no, they are not,” said Juliet.

“Your father does not suspect me. It makes me feel I have sailed under false colours.”

“We could not sail under our true ones. It would mean sailing under too many.”

“Was your sister, Mary, like you, Juliet?”

“A little. More than Lesbia is. And we were greater friends. And my father loved her the most of the three. Of course, she was the best.”

“Why ‘of course’? Because she is dead?”

“Yes,” said Juliet.

“I wish I had known her, though it is an odd thing to say.”

“I wish she had known you. And I do not think it is odd.”

“Well, my pretty, you had your rest,” said Sir Roderick, leading in his household. “You had a sleep and feel the better for it. I feel rather fatigued myself. It has been an exhausting day.”

“I have been wondering,” said Maria, with an impulse to hasten into talk, “if the children might ask their friends at school to spend a day here at some time. They seem to have liked some of them. And there is no need for them to disappear from sight, as if they had been expelled.”

“No need at all,” said Lesbia, “as that was not the case.”

“You would allow your girls to come?”

“But by all means, Maria. I have advocated companionship for Clemence, and half a loaf is better than no bread. And I hold no brief for all work and no play.”

“And you would let the boys come, Lucius?”

“Yes, if someone may bring them.”

“Of course. But it had better not be Oliver’s friend. Now he has been here as a guest, I would rather have someone else in the other character.”

“Miss James will be the right person.”

“I may also send a mistress, Maria?” said Lesbia. “The ewe lambs do not go out unshepherded from the fold.”

“If you will not come yourself.”

“I will come with pleasure, if it does not preclude the mistress. I have no experience in daily superintendence. It is outside my sphere.”

“Will you come, Juliet?”

“No, I am afraid I should superintend, and appear to disadvantage. I do forget myself so easily. It might seem to be within my sphere, when honestly it is not. And the boys will be happier without Lucius or me.”

“And the girls will not without Lesbia?” said Sir Roderick.

The faint smile came to Lesbia’s lips without her summoning it.

“I do not know, Roderick. I do not concern myself with the matter. That is the best way to be free of them, and have them free of me.”

“Perhaps that nice woman, Miss Chancellor, will come,” said Maria. “We met at thestation and had a talk. We should meet as friends. And she seemed to be fond of Clemence.”

“She was fond of Clemence, Maria. It is probable that she would like to come. Her duties will be in abeyance. I will make the suggestion.”

“Cannot you just tell her to come, as her time is yours?” said Sir Roderick.