1
ELIZABETH sat alone in her brother's study. Books lined the walls from
floor to ceiling; Ralph's books and some of her own that she had brought
with her from Cambridge.
This was Sunday. Ralph had gone to church. "Such a good little man,"
thought Elizabeth to herself; but she had not gone to church, she had
pleaded a fictitious cold. Ralph Rodney was still youngish, not more
than forty-five, and doing fairly well in the practice which he had
inherited from his uncle. But there was nothing beyond Seabourne--just
Seabourne, nothing beyond. Ralph would probably live and die neither
richer nor poorer than he was at present; it was a drab outlook. Yet it
was Ralph's own fault, he might have done better, there had been a time
when people thought him clever; he might have started his career in
London. But no, he had thought it his duty to keep on the business at
Seabourne. Elizabeth mused that it must either be that Ralph was very
stupid or very good, she wondered if the terms were synonymous.
Their life history was quite simple. They had been left orphans when she
was a year old and he was twenty. She had been too young to know
anything about it, and Ralph had never lived much with his parents in
any case. He had been adopted by their father's elder brother when he
was still only a child. After the death of her parents, Elizabeth had
been carried off by a cousin of their mother's, a kind, pleasant woman
who divided her time between Elizabeth and Rescue Work.
They had been very happy together, and when Elizabeth was twenty and her
cousin had died suddenly, she had felt real regret. Her cousin's death
left her with enough money to go up to Cambridge, and very little to
spare, for the bulk of Miss Wharton's fortune had gone to found
Recreation Homes for Prostitutes, and not having qualified to benefit by
the charity, Elizabeth was obliged to study to earn her living.
Her brother Ralph she had scarcely seen, he had gone so completely away.
This was only natural; and the arrangement must have suited their
parents very well, for their father had not been an earner and their
mother had never been strong.
Elizabeth was now twenty-six. The uncle had died eighteen months ago,
leaving Ralph his small fortune and the business. Ralph was a confirmed
bachelor; he had felt lonely after the old man's death, had thought of
his sister and had besought her to take pity on him; there it had begun
and there so far, it had ended.
Yet it need not have ended as it had done for Ralph, but Ralph was a
sentimentalist. He had loved the old uncle like a son, and had always
made excuses for not cutting adrift from Seabourne. Uncle John was
growing old and needed him in the business; Uncle John was failing--he
had been failing for years, thought Elizabeth bitterly, a selfish,
cranky old man--Uncle John begged Ralph not to leave him, he had a
presentiment that he would not last much longer. Ralph must keep an eye
on the poor old chap. After all, he'd been very decent to him. Ralph
wanted to know where he'd have been without Uncle John.
Always the same excuses. Had Ralph never wanted a change; had he never
known ambition? Perhaps, but such longings die, they cannot live on a
law practice in Seabourne and an ailing Uncle John; they may prick and
stab for a little while, may even constitute a real torment, but
withstand them long enough and you will have peace, the peace of the
book whose leaves are never turned; the peace of dust and cobwebs. Ralph
was like that now, a book that no one cared to open; he was covered with
dust and cobwebs.
At forty-five he was old and contented, or if not exactly contented,
then resigned. And he had grown timid, perhaps Uncle John had made him
timid. Uncle John was said to have had a will of his own--no, Elizabeth
was not sure that it was all Uncle John, though he might have
contributed. It was Seabourne that had made Ralph timid; Seabourne that
had nothing beyond. Seabourne was so secure, how could it be otherwise
when it had nothing beyond; whence could any danger menace it? Ralph
clung to Seabourne; he was afraid to go too far lest he should step off
into space, for he too must feel that Seabourne had nothing beyond.
Seabourne had him and Uncle John had him. It was all of a piece with
Uncle John to leave a letter behind him, begging Ralph to keep the old
firm together after he was dead. Sentiment, selfish sentiment. Who cared
what happened to Rodney and Rodney! Even Seabourne wouldn't care much,
there were other solicitors. But Ralph had thought otherwise; the old
man had begged him to stick by the firm, Ralph couldn't go back on him
now. Ralph was humbly grateful; Ralph felt bound. Ralph was resigned
too, that was the worst of it. And yet he had been clever, Elizabeth had
heard it at Cambridge; but Cambridge that should have emancipated him
had only been an episode. Back he had come to Seabourne and Uncle John,
Uncle John much aged by then, and needing him more than ever.
When they had met at Seabourne, her brother had been a shock to her. His
hair had greyed and so had his skin, and his mind--that had greyed too.
Then why had she stayed? She didn't know. There was something about the
comfortable house that chained you, held you fast. They were velvet
chains, they were plush chains, but they held.
Then there was Uncle John. Uncle John's portrait looked down from the
dining-room wall--Uncle John young, with white stock and keen eyes. That
Uncle John seemed to point to himself and say: "I was young too, and yet
I never strayed; what was good enough for my father was good enough for
me and ought to be good enough for my nephew and for you, Elizabeth."
Then there was Uncle John's later portrait on the wall of the
study--Uncle John, old, wearing a corded black tie, his eyes rather dim
and appealing, like the eyes of a good old dog. That Uncle John was the
worse of the two; you felt that you could throw a plate at the youthful,
smug, self-assertive Uncle John in the dining-room, but you couldn't
hurt this Uncle John because he seemed to expect you to hurt him. This
Uncle John didn't point to himself, he had nothing to say, but you knew
what he wanted. He wanted to see you living in the old house among the
old things; he wanted to see Ralph at the old desk in the old office. He
needed you; he depended on you, he clung to you softly, persistently;
you couldn't shake him off. He had clung to Ralph like that, softly,
persistently; for latterly the strong will had broken and he had become
very gentle. And now Ralph clung to Elizabeth, and Uncle John clung too,
through Ralph.
Elizabeth got up. She flung open the window--let the air come in, let
the sea come in! Oh! If a tidal wave would come and wash it all away,
sweep it away; the house, Uncle John and Elizabeth to whom he clung
through Ralph! Tradition! She clenched her hands; damn their tradition;
another name for slavery, an excuse for keeping slaves! What was she
doing with her life? Nothing. Uncle John saw to that. Yes, she was doing
something, she was allowing it to be slowly and surely strangled to
death, soon it would be gone, like a drop squeezed into the reservoir of
Eternity; soon it would be lost for ever and she would still be
alive--and she was so young! A lump rose in her throat; her hopes had
been high--not brilliant, perhaps--still she had done well at Cambridge,
there were posts open to her.
She might have written, but not at Seabourne. People didn't write at
Seabourne, they borrowed the books that other people had written, from
Mr. Besant of the Circulating Library, and talked foolishly about them
at their afternoon teas, wagging their heads and getting the foreign
names all wrong, if there were any. Oh! She had heard them! And Ralph
would get like that. Get? He was like that already; Ralph had
prejudices, timid ones, but there was strength in their numbers. Ralph
approved and disapproved. Ralph shook his head over Elizabeth's smoking
and nodded it over her needlework. Ralph liked womanly women; well,
Elizabeth liked manly men. If she wasn't a womanly woman, Ralph wasn't a
manly man. Oh, poor little Ralph, what a beast she was!
What did she want? She had the Ogden children, they were an interest and
they represented her pocket money--if only Joan were older! After all,
better a home with a kind brother at Seabourne than life on a pittance
in London. But something in her strove and rent: "Not better, not
better!" it shouted. "I want to get out, it's I, I, I! I want to live,
I want to get out, let me out I tell you, I want to come out!"
2
"Elizabeth, dear, how are you?" Her brother had come in quietly behind
her.
"Better, thank you. You're not wet, are you, Ralph? It's been raining."
"No, not a bit. I wish you'd been there, Elizabeth. Such a fine sermon."
"What was the text," she inquired. One always inquired what the text had
been; the question sprang to her lips mechanically.
"'Cast thy bread upon the waters for thou shalt find it after many
days!' A beautiful text, I think."
"Yes, very beautiful," Elizabeth agreed. "Curious that being the text
to-day."
"Why?" he asked her, but his voice lacked interest; he didn't really
want to know.
She thought: "I suppose I've cast my bread upon the waters, it must be a
long way out at sea by now." Then she began to visualize the bread and
that made her want to laugh. A crust of bread? A fat slice? A thin
slice? Or had she cast away a loaf? Perhaps there were shoals of sprats
standing upright on their tails in the water under the loaf and nibbling
at it, or darting round and round in a circle, snatching and quarrelling
while the loaf bobbed up and down--there were plenty of sprats just off
the coast. Anyhow, her bread must be dreadfully soggy if it had been in
the water for more than two years. "For thou shalt find it after many
days!" Yes, but how many days? And if you did find it, if the sprats
left even a crumb to be washed up on the beach, how would it taste, she
wondered. How many days, how many days, how many Seabourne days, how
many Ralph and Uncle John days; so secure, so decent, so colourless! The
text said, "Many days;" it warned you not to grow impatient, it was like
young Uncle John in the dining-room, taking it for granted that time
didn't count--Uncle John had never been in a hurry. And yet they were
beautiful words; she knew quite well what they meant, she was only
pretending to misunderstand, it was her misplaced sense of humour.
Ralph had cast his bread upon the waters, and no doubt he expected to
retrieve it on the shores of a better land; if he went hungry meanwhile,
she supposed that was his affair. But perhaps he was expecting a more
speedy return, perhaps when Ralph looked like old Uncle John his bread
would be washed back to him; perhaps that was how it was done. She
paused to consider. Perhaps your bread was returned to you in kind; you
gave of your spirit and body, and you got back spirit and body in your
turn. Not yours, but someone else's. When Ralph was sixty she would be
forty-one; there was still a little sustenance left in you when you were
forty-one, she supposed, though not much. Perhaps she was going to be
Ralph's return for the loaf that had floated away.
It was all so pigeon-holed and so tidy. She was tidy, she had a tidy
mind, but the mind that had thought out this bread scheme was even more
tidy than hers. The scheme worked in grooves like a cogwheel, clip,
clip, clip, each cog in its appointed place and round and round, always
in a circle. Uncle John and his forbears before him had cast away their
loaves turn by turn; it was the obvious thing to do; it was the
Seabourne thing to do. Father to son, uncle to nephew, brother to
sister; a slight difference in consanguinity but none in spirit. Uncle
John's bread had gone for his father and the firm; Ralph's bread had
gone for Uncle John and the firm, and she supposed that her bread had
gone for Ralph and the firm. But where was her return to come from? In
what manner would she find it, "after many days?" Would the spell be
broken with her? She wondered.