“If it were not, should I say it? It would carry too great a risk.”
“Then mind you never forget it.”
There was a pause.
“Well, shall I destroy this will for you?” said Ninian, in another tone. “It will serve no purpose.”
“No, I will not trouble you again. And it will be a foundation for the next. It will supply the legal jargon.”
“Well, destroy it in the end. We don’t want it lying about.”
“No, people might seek a reason for the change.”
“No. Your feeling for Lavinia was enough. It is known that you have none for me. But gossip is to be avoided.”
“It is the chief of my pleasures,” said another voice. “And few people take your view of it.”
“Who is at the door?” said Lavinia. “I thought it was ajar.”
“Other people were more fortunate,” said Ransom. “They knew it was.”
“So you have been eavesdropping,” said Ninian, in a stern tone.
“No, that is hardly true,” said Hugo. “We came back on an errand, and found ourselves rooted to the spot. What else could have happened to us?”
“My word was the right one. Well, I need not mind any exposure of myself. No one is any better placed. I had both reason and temptation on my side. You had neither.”
“They had the last,” said Ransom. “And it proved too strong. That appears to be its tendency.”
“Or what would be its relation to us?” said Lavinia. “It seems to have no other.”
“So it is a matter for jest,” said Ninian. “Well, it was not for me. I met it and felt I did better to yield to it. It was in a way a temptation not to yield. It would have spared me much.”
“I have never felt that sort of temptation,” said Hugo. “Perhaps I am above some kinds of it.”
“You are silent, Egbert,” said Ninian. “What have you to say to me?”
“Very little, Father. It is true that we left you and returned. But we might have stayed, as you did. We could not foresee what was to come.”
“You knew we did not see you. You were hidden by the door.”
“Not quite,” said Hugo. “Lavinia saw it was ajar. I feel that was honest of us.”
“I am talking to Egbert,” said Ninian.
“I am coming to his help. We were petrified and unable to stir.”
“Well, that is almost the truth, Father.”
“It could be put in other words. But we will not press on each other. We all learn by our stumbles. I am not above doing so.”
“Learning in that way seems hard on other people,” said Lavinia. “Does it suggest an inordinate desire for self-improvement?”
“So it is all a jest,” said Ninian, again. “Well, I see it has that side. We need only say one more word. We must forget it and keep our own counsel.”
“You have the power to say it, Father. I was without it.”
“We will share it now,” said Ninian, putting his hand on her shoulder.
“Did this have to happen, to bring Father and Lavinia together?” murmured Egbert.
“You need not comment on what is beyond you,” said Ninian.
Egbert paused before he answered.
“Is it not soon to take this line with us, Father? We may fall back into our old ways, and shall probably do so. But is it the moment?”
Ninian turned aside and seemed to be hiding a smile, as though seeing his son as a child.
“So you are having a further jest,” said Hugo.
“Sometimes one is presented to us,” said Ninian, with his lips still unsteady. “But do not provide me with any more. And be sure that is how you see them.”
“There is something we can hardly see in that way,” said Egbert.
“Yes, yes?” said Ninian, in a perfunctory tone, nodding towards him as if to pacify him. “Well, there is to be silence on these matters to the end. That is agreed upon as best for us. We have all shown our weaker side.”
“Well, let it be silence,” said Ransom. “Except between those of us here. That is a thing that could not be.”
“Should we speak of it to anyone else? To my mother or the children or Miss Starkie? What would you think?”
“That we should speak of it to all of them without the agreement. And with it to most of them in the end.”
“Oh, we are not such unscrupulous people,” said Ninian, and came to a pause.
“Yes, would it need such unusual unscrupulousness?”
“Shall you speak of it to Teresa, Father?” said Egbert. “It is a thing we should know.”
“Surely you do know. I shall not, and neither will anyone who has any goodwill towards her.”
“Goodwill can take many forms,” said Ransom.
“Well, well, then, gossip if you must. I can keep silence.”
“We do not suggest that you will bring up the matter.”
“Is Lavina coming home with me?” said Ninian, with a retaliatory note.
“No, this is her home until I die. Then she will do what pleases her.”
“She has no young companions here.”
“Why do you say it? Egbert is here each day. At home she has no other.”
“I hardly think this atmosphere is a good one for her.”
“What of the one she was in, when I first saw her? You talked of long results and altered lives. In a similar place yourself you have asked for silence.”
“I may know more than I did. I realise I do know more. I must have the chance to show it. Lavinia will come home with me.”
“I am staying here, Father. I also have learned more.”
“So you want the inheritance,” said Ninian, gently, looking into her face. “You feel you must earn it?”
“She has done so,” said Ransom. “We have seen that it is hers.”
“And Father ?” said Ninian, even more gently. “Who is that to you now?”
“Perhaps not anyone. I cannot alter the name. My uncle is something different, something I needed and was without. Something I will hold to while I can.”
“Well, may it be long before you lose it. From my heart I wish it. What hope could go deeper in me? So it is goodbye, my daughter. You are still that to me. Your future calls for your thought. Rely on my help, if you need it.”
“I don’t know why Father should be actually exalted,” said Egbert. “Even granting that he cannot be judged.”
“He knows that he is not exalted,” said Lavinia. “That is what he is dealing with. And with his normal success. If he could fail, he would have done so. To think what our memories will be! And how we shall wish they could fade!”
“I believe I am arranging them for future use,” said Hugo.
“You will be talking of it, if you don’t take care. Father was right to be afraid of it.”
“Well, it does seem that he might suffer some sort of qualm. What would have happened to anyone else in such a place?”
“You can think you would have stood the trial,” said Ransom.
“Well, I have pictured myself quietly turning away.”
“That is the instinct to dramatise ourselves, that is in all of us.”
“Is it? Do you all think of yourselves as coming out well under a trial? I do think it is conceited of you.”
“Do you feel you are different from us?”
“Well, yes, when I come out so well.”
“In that case he would be different,” said Lavinia.
“Here is Father coming back!” said Egbert. “This is a trial.”
“Well, it is not as late as I thought,” said Ninian. “So there is a word I should say. The subject of wills is never mentioned by people in our sphere of life. No word is said of them until they are revealed. It is a principle that should be observed.”
“Like other principles to do with them,” said Ransom.
Ninian seemed not to hear.
“And we had better go home together, and not as if we were not on good terms. There is little point in posturing. The wrong I did — and I now see it as a wrong — was done for you all. It does not render me an outcast.”
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