“Well,” said Josephine, entering the housekeeper’s room, where Miss Rosetti was sitting with Elizabeth, “here is my young gentleman already homesick! Already confessing to it, which is a further step! He wants to come home with Ruth to-morrow; is coming home, for he does not put it as a question. Home is the word that indicates that he is within his rights, I suppose. Is there any objection to it? The matter is more in your province than mine.”
“And so sweet it is to have it there! Here is my dear companion letter! Such a funny round-off it is to our friendship, that we share the married pair! I almost feel that my share is the greater, as one of them is really mine. Any objection to their coming home? Ah, that is what we love them to say. Our two old heads are turned by the mere thought.”
“It would take more than that to turn my head,” said Josephine, smiling at Miss Rosetti whose eyes were on her face; “or it would be like a planet in a state of continual revolution. But in my life anything has to be reckoned with, to be managed. And it seems that we have to manage this: it is taken so very much as a matter of course.”
“Ah, it is better sometimes to be the housekeeper than the head mistress,” said Elizabeth, as Josephine left them.160
“I would choose to be the head mistress,” said her companion.
“Oh, I feel pity for my superior. I would rather welcome my own daughter than somebody else’s son.”
The next day Josephine listened for the sounds of arrival, held herself in check until they had advanced to the hall, and then came forth with a pleasant, casual welcome.
“Well, my punctual travellers! Home, sweet home to the moment! I hardly expected you quite on the stroke of the clock. A minute earlier, and I should have been engaged.”
Gabriel approached to throw himself into her arms, but she held him gently back, and keeping her hand on his, turned to give the first welcome to his wife.
“Why, what a wan and weary-looking bride! I hope you are safe in your husband’s charge. You did not look like that when you were in mine, but we must not expect old heads on green shoulders. We knew he was young to have the care of a wife. So, my boy!” She turned to give Gabriel a tranquil greeting. “It seems so natural to have you here, that I catch myself feeling surprised at having to celebrate such a normal condition of things. Now tell me where you both would like to sleep. The spare room is ready for Ruth; her own old room is occupied; but yours is just as it was.”
“We are easy people, and only want one room or the other,” said Ruth. “We always take our rest side by side.”
“Do you, my dear? It is a short ‘always’, but it is even simpler to arrange, if you actually prefer it so. You will be able to stay in any kind of house, being easy, as you say. Here there will be a dressing room, to prevent the ‘always’ from becoming an oppression. We need not be the slaves of a word.”
“We have never spent an hour apart,” said Ruth.
“Have you not? Then you are not as I was in my early married days. I remember that I used to manoeuvre separations, to come 161upon my husband afresh, and recapture the first fine, careless rapture, emotional young woman that I was!”
“It sounds as if your feelings required a stimulus,” said Gabriel.
“Well, I could not have borne the full flood of them always: I should simply have been shattered.”
“It would not do for them to be too violent to last.”
“I certainly did not discern that possibility,” said Josephine, laughing. “It would not have occurred to me. You cynical, disillusioned young man!”
“It was the natural thing to say at the moment.”
“It hardly seemed so to me, with my old-fashioned ideas. But we will not bear too hardly on a casual word. What does seem natural, is that Ruth should be impatient to see her mother, and be about to turn upon you for your preoccupation with your own home-coming and oblivion of hers.”
“We share our home-coming with other things,” said Gabriel.
“Yes, we promised to rush to Mother’s room,” said Ruth. “We knew you would let us keep the promise.”
Josephine walked to the bell and rang it.
“Now that will not do,” she said. “The housekeeper’s room is as honourable as any room in the house, perhaps the most honourable, as the workings of the house have their source in it; but it is not the recognised background for a welcome; and I think a welcome should be organised fittingly as an important thing.”
She waited with her foot on the fender while Elizabeth was summoned, and then averted her eyes from her meeting with her daughter, but restored them as she turned to Gabriel.
“Such a rich woman I feel, with my son and daughter! Why should I mind the funny housekeeper’s place? What better position could I wish, than the one that puts them in my care?”162
“Well, for all that,” said Josephine, “I do not extend the functions of the housekeeper’s room beyond a point. It is a time-honoured custom to hasten to the hall to our guests; and if I have taken it upon myself to stage your reunion, I have done it according to my own taste, which is the only sincere method in judgement.”
“Such a sweet reunion, such a thoughtfully staged welcome! Such a dear memory it will be, though it yields to the trivial round, the common task!” Elizabeth went to the door kissing her hand. “I will not attend to dear ones with half a mind, who have such a claim on the whole. The long, long talk will wait until the time is ripe—that is to say, free for it.”
Josephine did not look after Elizabeth, but turned at once to Ruth, as to a personal charge.
“I do not think Ruth looks well, Gabriel, now she is out of my hands. Was it wise for her to travel to-day?”
“She has had a chill, and the alternative was to stay at home with servants who are foolish virgins. You will judge that she is better here than there.”
“I always judged that she was well enough here. The suggestion of her making a change was a surprise to me. I hesitate to make much of her looks, as her mother was not struck by them, but I am going to take advantage of her absence and conduct her daughter to bed. Come, my dear.” Josephine held out her hand to Ruth, as if to a child.
“Please let me be ungrateful and cling to the fire, Mrs. Napier.”
Josephine resumed her seat.
“Such a peevish, poorly wife you have brought home, poor, dear Gabriel.”
“We all keep saying the same thing in different words,” said Josephine, laughing a little, and rocking herself without looking at either.163
“Josephine, I think your advice was good,” said Gabriel.
Josephine looked kindly but easily from one to the other.
“I shall have to unpack, I suppose,” said Ruth.
“I will show myself a master of the accomplishment,” said Gabriel. “You shall choose the better part, and sit at Josephine’s feet.”
“My dear boy, what are you saying?” said Josephine. “You cannot unpack for yourself, much less for anyone else.”
“You have no conception of what I can do in these days. I am a qualified family man.”
“I daresay you are,” said Josephine, in a faintly commiserating tone. “Well, go to the duties you have become qualified for, poor, toiling, moiling boy.”
“Shall I leave your things on the sofa, my wife?”
“There, you see!” said Josephine, laughing and rising. “He has learnt how to unpack, hasn’t he, when he does not suspect that putting things in their places is the foundation of it! Keep by the fire, my child, and I will go and superintend this newly learnt accomplishment. I do not expect to recognise the rudiments of it.”
“We could not let you wait on us, Mrs. Napier.”
“Well, we will go and face the herculean task, the three of us together. Not that there is much reason in that. There is hardly scope for a trio in a piece of work suitable for one.” Josephine sat down, and Ruth and Gabriel left her.
“Your aunt wanted a talk with you alone, Gabriel. She gives the impression of a volcano on the verge of becoming active.”
“It seems odd to hear Josephine called my aunt; she has always fulfilled such a different character. You know there is room for more than one person in my life.”
“Only for one chief person. Mother saw that for herself. You can’t put two people into one place.”164
“Gabriel’s taste seems to be for several people in one place,” said Josephine’s voice at the door. “Three people can unpack, and three people will have to, if it is left to the third to supply the keys. These were in the hall, and there is reason in regarding them as a necessary preliminary to unpacking. The third person’s contribution was indispensable.”
“None of our things is locked, Mrs. Napier.”
“Now, now, the third person really was indispensable. You will never be able to accompany Gabriel on further travels. This is the first time he has made a journey in that way.”
“It is the first time he has been married, Mrs. Napier.”
“Yes,” said Josephine, in a tone of pleasant corroboration. “Both are for the first time.”
“I always came down from Oxford with my baggage unlocked. I got quite used to it,” said Gabriel.
“Yes, I was as indispensable as ever then. You never went back with it unlocked. I know that.”
“No harm seems to have come of either method.”
“The large one appears to be locked after all,” said Ruth.
“Ah, you see the keys were necessary,” said Josephine.
Gabriel laughed.
“Gabriel could have fetched them, Mrs. Napier.”
“Did he know where they were?” said Josephine. Gabriel assumed a humorous expression of unconsciousness.
“Ah, you see, you needed me after all.”
“Yes, but I asked you to come,” said Gabriel. “I made no secret of my dependence upon you.”
“Never make a secret of it,” said Josephine, in a voice that suddenly defied his wife’s presence; “and I will never fail you.” She turned and left the room.
“Well, she is failing you over your marriage, Gabriel.”165
“Is she? Ah, my dear,” said Josephine, looking back, “it is failing over a marriage, is it, to sacrifice both tangible and intangible things, to further it? Well, I think with you that it may be failing, that it is doing ill by people to deprive them of their sense of human justice.”
“She must have known she was not meant to hear,” said Ruth.
“No, I hardly knew it,” said Josephine, causing Ruth to clench her hands. “I hardly understand this talking according to whether or no the talk is heard. It makes no difference in speaking the simple truth, as I speak it.”
“Josephine, pray come in or go out,” said Gabriel. “We hardly understand this talking to someone neither here nor elsewhere. It is an unbearable method of communication. Do make up your mind.”
“It is made up for me, my dear. I have gathered—overheard, if you like—that there was some harm in my hearing what was said. Conversation is for me a thing that everyone within earshot may hear; but of course my principles may not be those of other people. I am not saying they should be. Every human being is one by himself in this world.” She ended with a bitter lightness and closed the door.
“This is quite a false augury for the future,” said Gabriel. “You will soon see the side of her that is super-human. You and I will end by vying for her favour.”
“Well, we have not begun by doing that. I cannot face the next meeting without Mother’s protection. I wonder if she has been asked to dinner. I suppose it goes without saying that she has.”
At dinner, where Elizabeth was not present, Josephine appeared oblivious of the scene upstairs. When she caught Ruth’s glance, she leaned towards her and laid her hand on hers.166
“Suppose you give up regarding me as if I were a tigress, because I am not accustomed to having Gabriel belong to anyone but me! You don’t take so very kindly to the idea that he can belong to anyone but you, do you? And you let me see it, as is natural. I am not slow to understand it. I never think it honest or desirable to hide too much of ourselves. You will find me charitable over the darker glimpses, if they are not too dark. And you and I are not dependent for our mutual feeling on our new relationship, are we?”
“No, Mrs. Napier,” said Ruth, in a manner derived from the old relationship.
“It was as much my true self that you saw then, and your true self that I saw, as the selves that we see now; though, of course, my dear, I have my life as a woman, as well as a head mistress. It is because you had your life as a woman, as well as a junior mistress, that all this has come to pass, isn’t it? And it is so bad for this boy to feel that two intelligent people are competing for him, that I for one withdraw from the competition; if I ever entered it, which I doubt. And as I am sure you never entered it either, we are neither of us in it, are we?”
“No, Mrs. Napier.”
“Are you always going to call Josephine Mrs. Napier?” said Gabriel. “She might as well call you Mrs. Swift.”
“Well, hardly quite as well,” said Josephine, laughing.
“She is a matron as much as you are.”
“Well, a good many years less.”
“I do not think of myself as Mrs. Swift,” said Ruth.
“No, my dear, it is premature,” said Josephine in a sympathetic tone. “You are Mrs. Gabriel Swift. My brother and I have several married relations senior to Gabriel. And you and I have known each other by settled names for a long time, haven’t we?”
“Yes, we have, Mrs. Napier.”167
“Well now, your mother will be waiting in the drawing-room. I knew she was too busy to join us at dinner: I did not try to deceive myself about the amount of her work. This is a busy time in a busy house, and I am not one to deny what I have brought about myself. But her free hours have begun; so we will go and take advantage of them.”
“It is dreadful that Mother should work, while we are free,” said Ruth, crossing the hall with her arm in her husband’s.
“No, why is it dreadful?” said Josephine. “I assure you I do not feel that about myself.”
“You are such a powerful person, that it seems to be right that you should use your powers,” said Gabriel.
“That is a good thing,” said Josephine; “or a good deal would seem to be wrong.”
“Well, Mother darling, free at last?” said Ruth.
“Free to take my real look at my boy and girl together. The girl looks as if it were time her mother’s eyes were on her. Such a pale, pale face! The place for that head is on the pillow.”
“I am giving a sad impression of myself,” said Ruth, lifting her arms above her head. “I can’t be bright and entertaining when I am drooping with fatigue.”
“You are a fortunate person, if you are bright and entertaining whenever you are not in that condition,” said Josephine; “or rather other people are fortunate.” She changed her tone. “I am sure they are, my dear.”
“I feel a most unsatisfactory guest, Mrs. Napier.”
“My child, you are in your mother’s home. I do not forget that, if you do.”
“Then I will betake myself with an easy mind to bed.”
“Why not lie up on the sofa,” said Josephine kindly, “and watch us all from there?”168
“No, I would rather go upstairs and get away from human eyes.”
“Be off, before you pay us further compliments,” said her mother. “I will come up in an hour to see that you are asleep.”
“She is paying me a compliment,” said Josephine gravely. “I take it as such, when people in my house are enough at home to do as they like. And the poor child is simply doing what she must. It is easy to see that.”
“I will follow you soon,” said Gabriel to his wife.
“Now you sit down in your chair, and don’t use your domestic gifts to keep her from her sleep.” said Josephine. “We have had enough of those with your unpacking. There is a fire in her room, and a hot-water-bottle in her bed, and a hot drink on the way. I have not had my experience of young people, without becoming qualified to observe that such things would be needed by this young person, as soon as I received her into the house.”
“My dear, those duties were not yours,” said Elizabeth.
“They were of a kind to be anyone’s who chanced to think of them. So as I chanced to do so, they were mine. As I did so, rather; there was not much chance about it.”
There was silence for some moments, while Josephine seemed to be listening. At the closing of Ruth’s door she turned to her friend.
“Now, as this is the cronies’ chance of an evening together, shall we release you from the tedium of their sentimental intercourse? And postpone our general gathering until to-morrow night, when you will be free for dinner, and the child will be able to join us? I think I may say that she will be herself by then.”
Elizabeth rose and went with running steps to the door.
“Yes, yes, I will not delay for a moment. A moment is a large proportion of the length of my sojourn. We know that all things are relative.”169
“They are a difficult pair,” said Josephine, with a sigh.
“Do you mind if I smoke in your face?” said Gabriel, ignoring the words.
“I mind nothing you do, my boy.”
“Even if the pipe burns your cheek?”
Josephine remained as she was, her eyes meeting the pipe as if in submission to his pleasure. Presently Gabriel started and moved aside, and a minute later his wife appeared in the door.
“I am a hopelessly harassing creature, Mrs. Napier. I am too restless to sleep, and I would fain have my husband sit at my side and soothe me. He need not disturb you by coming down again.”
“Need not perhaps; but possibly he would wish to,” said Josephine, mildly meeting her eyes. “He knows I should not be disturbed.”
“He is as tired as I am; he will be better reposing at my side.”
“Well, take him to his repose then, if repose is the word for what you were suggesting. I have yet to learn the effect on him of his new responsibilities; he has never been in need of repose at this hour. But I ought to be up for a while by myself; I have a good deal to get through. I must not forget the new drain on my resources.”
“Good night, Josephine,” said Gabriel, kissing her.
“Good night, my boy. I will try to make it up another time,” said Josephine, patting his shoulder and looking into his face.
Gabriel led the way from the room, and as he disappeared round the door, Josephine came up close to his wife.
“So, my dear, you listened from your room, and heard your mother come upstairs, and knew that Gabriel and I were alone? That was your method of finding it out, was it? Believe me, you were not dependent on it. I would have told you, will always tell you, when it is so, if it causes you uneasiness.”
Ruth looked at her in silence.170
“When you are alone with people, it is safe to leave you, is it not?” said Josephine, bending and speaking gently. “I am not so different from you, in that I thought a private conversation permissible. In fact, you tried to teach me that lesson yourself. And think of the number of times that Gabriel and I, or any other woman and her son or adopted son, must have been alone! If that did him harm, he would not be as you find him, would he; would not be the one man in the world to you? I hope that is how you feel to him? Suppose I could not leave him alone with you?”
“I am his wife,” said Ruth.
“Well, no one will think it, if you go on as you are doing. They will take your marriage for some temporary, passing union. I would not force my worldly wisdom on you, but you must learn to be less afraid, must learn to be sure, or to seem so. Poor little one, you are young for all that. I knew that your time was not yet.”