The Present and the Past Read Online Free PDF Page B

‘She seems to me to want all she can get, as in her way she always did. She and I parted by mutual consent, but no one was to know that but ourselves. Oh, no, she was the martyr and I the culprit, and the world had to see it like that. And now she thinks she can call the tune, as if it were the truth. It is a thing that makes my blood boil.’
    Cassius was a broad, solid man about fifty, with a broad, fair face, small, light eyes, thick, uncertain hands, and flat, not uncomely features, that responded to his emotions. His father, who was like him, had a stronger growth of bone, that raised and strengthened his features to the point of handsomeness. Flavia looked a creature of another blood between them. She seemed to watch her husband, while her father-in-law simply accepted him. Mr Clare saw his son as he was, and kept his feeling for him, and Flavia seemed to fear to do the one, in case she should cease to do the other.
    Cassius was the master of the place, which he had inherited from a godfather, and Mr Clare on the death of his wife had joined his fortunes with his son’s.
    â€˜Read the letter to us, my boy. Then we shall know our ground.’
    â€˜â€œDear Cassius,”’ read his son, in a voice that challenged them to form their own opinion, ‘“I am breaking my word. I have not strength to keep it. I cannot be parted longer from my sons. It is not in me to suffer it.
I
am coming back to my home. I must be within daily distance of them. Indeed I have come back.I ask you to allow me access to them. If you will not, I shall still seek it. I do not ask for forgiveness. I see there can and could be none. I do not ask for what is beyond people’s power. I am the last person who should do that. Catherine Clare.”
    â€˜There is a letter for you. What do you think of that as a threat to our lives? Catherine sneaking in and out of our home, and none of us knowing whether to accept her or not! And an atmosphere of discomfort and uncertainty over everything.’
    â€˜She would hardly do that,’ said Flavia. ‘I know her only by hearsay, but enough to know that.’
    â€˜Yes, stand up for her. Put yourself in her place. I might have foreseen this. Two women against one man, when two men against one woman would be the better match! And two mothers for those boys! What a state of things!’
    â€˜I hope both mothers will be real ones. And I see no reason why they should not.’
    â€˜Well, I do. From what I know of you both I see no hope of it. Oh, I am not a stranger to either of you. And I don’t see you working together, and there is the truth.’
    â€˜There should not be any problem, if there is goodwill on both sides. And there is no reason against it.’
    â€˜No reason? Well, you are a simpler woman than I thought you. So you can honestly say that. Well, I believe you are simpler. I believe you put a veneer on yourself and deceive us all. I believe people often do that.’
    â€˜It is an example that might be followed,’ said Mr Clare.
    â€˜Your willingness to let her see the boys puts the matter on its foundation,’ said Flavia.
    â€˜My willingness? Who said I was willing? I tell you I am not. I don’t want to have her in my home, looking as if she would penetrate into the heart of things, and as if she were too sensitive to look at them when she had done so. Oh, she has her own view of herself. Just as you have, for the matter of that. Women think much more of themselves than men.’
    â€˜Well, that does no harm,’ said Mr Clare, ‘if it leads them to live up to it.’
    â€˜Well, it casts an atmosphere of falseness and consciousness over everything,’ said Cassius, in an easier tone. ‘And now Isuppose I am to answer this letter. And say — well, say what I can. Just to accept what she says would make me cut a poor figure. Or is that what I am to do? Can’t either of you utter a word, or have a