There is a tide

by J. C. Snaith

As Lady Kidderminster spoke she sat down on a large, high-backed sofa, very choicely carved, which was placed immediately below Lely’s third marquis. She made a place beside her for Mame, who sat down too. There the sun was very pleasant, as it streamed in through the great window opposite. The trees of the park could be seen and the deer browsing under them. Not so much as the ticking of a clock broke the rapt stillness. What a peace there was upon everything, what order, what a hushed solemnity! It was like being in a cathedral. The aura of this room in its grandeur and stateliness was overpowering.

Mame was seldom at a loss for words. But seated on this sofa by the side of Lady Kidderminster she felt a little shy of the sound of her own voice. Somehow it didn’t seem to belong. She waited for her companion to say something. Those sweet and quiet tones went so much better with the carpets and the pictures and the scene beyond those windows.

Suddenly Mame grew aware that the hand next hers had taken it in its clasp. Then very softly and quietly Bill’s mother began to talk. Her beautiful low voice in its ordered perfection was as much a part of those surroundings as all the other lovely things of which Mame could not help being sensible. Yet the words it wove soon began to press upon her heart.

In a fashion of curious simplicity, which revealed everything in the most practical and matter-of-fact way, Bill’s mother showed what an effort she had made to hold on to this inheritance. Everybody had hoped that he would marry Miss Childwick. She was deeply in love with him, and there was a time, only a short month or so ago, when it was thought that he was in love with her. A marriage had been almost arranged for the early summer, yet for some trivial reason it had been deferred. And now, and now, the gentle tones deepened into tragedy, it would never take place, and Bill would have to give up the last and dearest of his possessions.

Great sacrifices had been made to keep things going against the time when he should marry. They owed it to him to do that. And he, dear fellow, owed it, not to those who were proud to make sacrifices, but to the order of things, so long established, of which he was the clou, to marry in a direction that would ensure their maintenance.

“You see, my dear,” said Lady Kidderminster, and for the first time a faint gleam of humour lit that lovely voice of ever-deepening tragedy, “it is not that we own places like the Towers. They own us. It is Bill’s duty to those who have made this old house what it is”—she waved a gentle hand to those solemn assenting walls “to keep it in the state to which it has pleased providence to call it. I hope you appreciate, my dear, what a dreadful wrench it is going to be, not only for us, but for this old house, with so many historical associations, to pass into other hands.”

Only too well was Mame able to appreciate that. The streak of imagination in her had never been so uncomfortable as at that painful moment.

“I simply cannot bear to think of his losing all this,” Bill’s mother went on. “I simply cannot bear to think of all this losing him. They need each other; they were created for each other; they can never be as they were if they are allowed to drift apart. The Childwicks are excellent people and they have a lien on this house, which may be exercised if dear Gwendolen does not marry Bill. They will, I am sure, do the place no dishonour, but I, for one, cannot bear to think of such a break in a long tradition. The Towers expects the head of the family to do his duty by it, in the way of his forbears who made it the thing it is.”

Mame did not speak. Not only was she seeing certain things at a new angle, she was also seeing the world in general in a new way. The process was distinctly irksome.

“Any girl who really cares for him,” Lady K. went on with that candour which to Mame was so surprising, “will understand what life exacts of him, will understand where his duty lies.”