“They are coming,” said Miss Marcon, standing in the Ponsonbys’ hall. “Let us move to the back. Our being asked to dinner does not mean we are to be continually to the fore. Stand here with me, Alfred, in case we seem to be in evidence. The tutor and his aunt are not the family, because no difference is made. If they were, people would not have to trouble about the difference. Miss Blake is not even here; she is showing true dignity; but I always wonder if the true kinds of dignity, the dignity of toil and simplicity and frugal independence, are as good as the other kinds. Edith seems to like the ordinary dignity of being married to John: I have noticed how well ordinary dignity sits on people. Now we turn our eyes on a simple, family scene. I don’t know why simple is so often coupled with family. Simple family affection, simple family life; yes, it is wrong. We ought to surprise a tear in Stephen’s eye; disillusioned people are so often surprised in that way.”
“Well, my three generations!” said John, embracing in turn his mother, sister and daughters. “Well, my two fellow men! So we return to play our part in our complicated family.”
“Complicated! There, I knew it,” said Miss Marcon.
“Not so complicated,” said Hetta, coming to the fore. “Only one more than it has always been. And I am used to the complication. Now I have put dinner early, in case you need it, and Charity and Stephen are here to welcome you. You need not at once confront the domestic round.”
“It is the best welcome in the world,” said John. “It is one of the better thoughts that strike my sister.”
“I have not managed for you all these years without knowing what you like. We need not behave as if this were a working day. Now I have put you and Edith in the adjoining rooms which have been the spare rooms, and I am using your bedroom and dressing-room as spare rooms instead. You want to start afresh and not repeat past history.”
“History repeats itself,” murmured Clare.
“We are starting afresh anyhow. Rooms make no difference,” said John; “but it is as well to have them well chosen.”
“Then what is the difference between his view and Aunt Hetta’s?” said France.
“Rooms which have been the spare rooms!” said Clare. “It is an office easily filled.”
“Away with you all!” said Hetta. “Away to your own places. We do not want groups of you about. We want to have air to breathe.”
“What of you and Alfred and me, Stephen?” said Miss Marcon. “There is clearly a group of us; and when you are told to come early, it is difficult not to breathe the air. When dinner begins, we shall feel more natural and justified.”
Dinner soon began. It seemed as if Hetta had foreseen the hour of strain. Sabine and her daughter took their ends of the table. The Marcons had their recognised seats. John went to his place by his mother, and was turning to summon his wife, when Hetta smilingly motioned her to his side, and signed to the others to adjust their seats, making this the only change. Miss Blake unobtrusively entered and approached her place with short, quick, noiseless steps. John had a friendly manner to his wife, as if they had found their relation. Hetta watched the servants and seemed to manage the meal, giving more directions than were needed.
“Have you all met Miss Blake?” said Sabine.
“No, but we know her by name,” said Miss Marcon. “We do so hope she will stay. People put a new pupil back to the beginning, and it is time for Muriel to advance.”
“I am glad she is here too,” said Edith. “I should not have known how to come by her. I only know the other side of the process.”
“You would not have had to trouble about it,” said Hetta. “Mater and I are not shirking our responsibilities. We shall not bother you with all our workaday arrangements.”
“Did the station master admire you for being married to John?” said Miss Marcon to Edith. “He does not admire me for going to the British Museum. He thinks I may be earning my living. I would tell him how far it is from being the case, if I were not ashamed of it. It is known to be odd, what different things people think shameful.”
“Considering his views, his manner to me has done him credit,” said Miss Blake with a laugh.
“He always admires me for being the head of things,” said Hetta.
“I am that,” said Sabine.
“Oh, well, the actual and ultimate head. It makes no difference to him.”
“It makes a difference to me, my dear, whether I am alive or dead.”
“Won’t Miss Hallam be the head of things next to Grandma now?” said Muriel.
“She will be busy with her own work,” said Hetta, turning round. “She should not have wasted her time in teaching you. That is not her province.”
“Wasted her time! Come, come!” said Miss Blake.
“Do you like the beginning, dear?” said Miss Marcon.
“Muriel, look a little brighter and answer Miss Marcon.”
Muriel modified her expression.
“I suppose Muriel’s face is speaking,” said France. “Indeed we see it doing so.”
“You need not make a grimace,” said the grandmother.
“She has no choice,” said Stephen. “It is what she was told to do.”
“Father’s train was late, Grandma,” said Muriel.
“We must teach Muriel another speech,” said France, “one of more general application.”
“It is surprising how this has come in,” said Clare, “considering the extent to which we are addicted to travel.”
“You observe, Miss Blake,” said Victor, “that Muriel is the exception among my sisters in the matter of a tongue.”
“Well, women have the reputation of a tongue. We will not have the discredit and not the licence.”
“We will continue this meal in silence,” quavered Sabine.
“Indeed we will not,” said her son. “We will continue it in the social intercourse which celebrates my return.”
They continued the meal in a condition between the two, and were relieved when it ended and the women left the men.
“May I come and sit with you presently, Miss Blake?” said Edith. “Then I shall not look as if I did not know what to do on my first night, and as if I were lost in my own home.”
“It would be better to disguise it,” said Miss Marcon.
“Indeed you may,” said Miss Blake, very low.
“All your problems were mine, so if mine have to be yours, it is only fair.”
“They shall be mine indeed.”
“I do like to hear you talk like this,” said Miss Marcon. “I have not held a post in the house, but being the tutor’s aunt is not very different. It makes all the problems mine. So what is the first?”
Miss Blake turned obviously away to talk to someone else.
“I think you know it,” said Edith.
“Yes, that is why I want to deal with it.”
“I have heard of wives who did not tolerate the husband’s sister in his home, but not of a sister who did not tolerate the wife.”
“It is a unique problem,” said Miss Marcon. “I am glad it is mine.”
“If I come second to Hetta in everything, will it solve it?”
“Well, that is what they all do, and you are one of them now. And it seems to be a solution.”
“Father ought to like Miss Hallam best now,” said Muriel’s voice. “Isn’t a wife better than a sister?”
“I will have this problem for mine,” said Miss Marcon.
“I think I will go and sit upstairs,” said Miss Blake, with a movement to rise.
“You need not go,” said Miss Marcon in an encouraging manner. “It is one of those things when a threat is enough.”
Miss Blake looked at her and sat down.
“You see a threat was enough.”
Miss Blake laughed freely at herself.
“Mrs. Ponsonby will settle all the problems,” said Miss Marcon. “I suppose they are not really mine.”
“I am sorry for the poor old lady,” said Miss Blake, in a tone of stating a view which would not be general.
“Well, it is a tragic house. But I think it attains to the dignity of tragedy. I think we are allowed to pity. Anyhow you were allowed to.”
“I meant nothing disparaging.”
“Well, pity does mean you don’t find things satisfactory,” said Edith.
“Well, well!” said Miss Blake.
“Do you like teaching Muriel?” said Miss Marcon. “Is she good at the beginning?”
“Not very,” said Miss Blake with a smile. “Perhaps she is tired of it. She seems to have reason to be.”
“I am sure you meant nothing disparaging. How she despised Miss Bunyan, dear child! She did mean something disparaging.”
“What became of Miss Bunyan?”
“Nothing became of her,” said Edith. “She is Dr. Chaucer’s niece. That is her tragedy.”
“What are you all laughing at?” said Sabine.
“We have so much in common,” said Miss Marcon, “we women who go forth from the home.”
“I am sure you know a great deal the rest of us do not. I wish I had had more opportunity. I should have made the most of it.”
“Is Grandma not satisfied with herself as she is?” said Victor. “This is a new idea.”
“I have seen her so under the most unlikely circumstances,” said Clare.
“More opportunity!” said Chilton. “More!”
“You must all forgive my sister and me for talking apart,” said John. “Our reunion brings us many problems.”
“So many, that we question the wisdom of having been apart,” said Hetta.
“The chief is so pressing that we question the wisdom of facing it.”
“Then do not face it,” said France. “Facing things is the least likely way to elude them.”
“I don’t know,” said Miss Marcon. “When people have faced things like risk and danger and death, they always have eluded them.”
“Well, we may elude this,” said John, “but I don’t see how. To-morrow we will face it and trust to the efficacy of the method. To-night we will forget.”
“It is money, I suppose,” said Victor. “If Father was going to forget it, I wish he had done so.”
“I suppose France’s money has come to an end,” said Clare.
“I had better send the rest,” said her sister in an offhand manner. “Shall I send it all at once or in thrifty instalments?”
“Oh, at once. You may as well save postage, when you are going to the expense of a thousand pounds.”
“Thrift does not come into the matter,” said Chilton.
“It may do more good all at once,” said France. “Every little may help, but it cannot help much. ‘Take care of the pence’ is a foolish saying. Pence do not come to pounds.”
“And pounds certainly do not take care of themselves,” said Chilton, “even a thousand together.”
“A pound is two hundred and forty pence,” said Muriel.
“Muriel knows the beginning,” said Miss Marcon, drawing nearer. “She can go on now.”
“A pound is surely not so many pence,” said John. “If it were, it would have to do more.”
“Father is going too far in dragging forward his poverty,” said Victor. “It seems that France may do more harm than good. He will have to adapt himself to his position.”
“People very seldom do harm, when they try to do good,” said France. “Even temporary benefit is benefit while it lasts. People want some reason for not doing good. Or they would have to do it, as I have to.”
“The difference will have to come,” said Victor. “Is it any better a few months later?”
“It is a little better, and anyhow it is later.”
“Death comes to us all soon or late,” said Chilton. “Yes, that shows us. Things are better late.”
“Now, Muriel, you may run to bed,” said Sabine. “You have been up much too long.”
Miss Blake rose also, but with hesitation, from her seat.
“I will go with Muriel,” she said in a low, quick tone, glancing round without raising her eyes.
Sabine made no demur; Muriel performed her good nights; Miss Blake stood for a moment and then murmured, “Good night,” and rapidly followed her.
“Ought Alfred to go too?” said Miss Marcon to her brother.
“Alfred’s charge is still here. Mrs. Ponsonby is not going to bed.” Stephen changed his tone as Hetta drew near. “So John and his wife will be a pair of writers together.”
“Not together,” said Hetta, lightly. “You do not know the ways and needs of writers. Strictly apart, and neither of them pushing in upon the other! That is how it will be, or I shall hear about it. But I am used to it. John has made me an indulgent assistant, I am afraid.”
“You will be attached to John, and Edith will manage by herself?”
“Yes. Women are much more independent than men. I always say so.”
“It would seem so, as France also manages by herself.”
“Of making many books there is no end,” said John. “Does anyone not try to make them?”
“I do not,” said Alfred. “I am a reader of them, and fulfil a humble but essential part.”
“Humble!” said John. “You are the paymasters, the employers, you people who read. We are your hired servants.”
“Does Alfred think he is living a human life?” said Stephen to his sister.
“I don’t think so. He feels he is avoiding one, as he meant to.”
“What does it lead to?”
“To being dismissed, when Chilton and Victor are grown up. It does not seem true that the whole of life is education.”
“The boys are twice the man he is.”
“I am sure he would insist on that. In his way he is conscientious.”
“He seems content with himself and his position.”
“Everyone is content with himself, which is odd, when you think he knows all the hidden, petty evil in him.”
“But everyone is not content with his position.”
“No one but Alfred. Do you suppose the hidden, petty evil in everyone is the same?”
“I should think it is a little different in different people.”
“I should think it is. You can tell that by Mrs. Ponsonby, who does not hide the petty evil in her. It is such a good thing it is petty. I never know why people think pettiness makes evil worse instead of better. Let us say goodbye, before she shows she wants us to say it. We will go while that petty evil is hidden. Goodbye, Mrs. Ponsonby. We have enjoyed it so much. We have taken everything and given nothing, which must be enjoyable. Goodbye, my dears. Thank you for making Alfred at home. Stephen and I behaved so much like his uncle and aunt, that he could not forget it; and now we regret it, when it is too late. But I never heard of anyone who regretted anything in time.”
Miss Marcon vanished, followed by her brother, and as the door closed, it seemed to the family that this was the real moment of John’s return.
The next days passed in a tentative following of the old routine. John depended on his sister, sought his wife, and seemed uneasy and uncertain of his course. Hetta spent her former hours with him, indicated to Edith when she should take her place, and organised the life of the household from morning till night. She had even taken the sorting of the letters from Sabine, who seemed to acquiesce in the gradual yielding of her place. Alfred spent more time with Sabine, and it became an accepted companionship.
It was a few days later when John received his second gift. He opened the letter at breakfast, and, except to those aware of his experience, gave no sign. When all had left the table but the three older women, he rose to his feet and paused.
“I have a great reason for thankfulness. And I am thankful. It is what I can do on my side.”
“What is it?” said his mother.
John handed her the letter and cheque.
“This has happened again, and as it happened before. It seems almost too much. There is a word saying it must be the last time, and I am glad indeed it must. This is all I can take in simple gratitude. But I can take this and be grateful.”
Sabine looked up at the letter and cheque without putting out her hand for them.
“Yes, yes,” she said, nodding her head; “yes, so it has come. Yes, it is a wonderful thing. Who would have thought it would happen twice? It is a wonderful surprise, wonderful. But it is blessed to give.”
She sat murmuring and nodding to herself, and her son handed the letter across his wife to his sister, unconsciously acting on his hidden knowledge.
“It is wonderful indeed! What a thing to take so calmly!” said Hetta. “You will be missing it when it does not come, if you get used to it. It cuts a great many knots, but if the labourer is worthy of his hire, we have deserved it. I am glad someone holds that opinion.”
She passed the letter to Edith, accustomed to her own precedence, and the latter read it and did her part.
“It is blessed to give,” repeated Sabine.
“It seems so,” said Edith, “as the person has done it twice.”
“The person!” said Sabine in a tender tone, taking up the paper.
“I never knew people so calm over such an event,” said Hetta, looking from one to another.
“They say it is easy to get used to pleasant things,” said Edith, “and a thousand pounds is so very pleasant.”
“It is, my dear, it is,” said Sabine, looking up over her glasses. “But it is blessed to give.”
“It is blessed to receive as much as this,” said John, with his forced liveliness. “It is blessed to see the obstacles rolling away and the future clear.”
“Yes, yes, we know, my son,” said Sabine. “There is no need to say it. We know, all of us who need to.” She rose to leave the room, and on passing Edith, laid a hand on her shoulder and at once withdrew it. “We do not need to be told.”
Hetta observed the instinctive action, and saw a sudden wave of comprehension surge over Edith’s face. She waited for her brother and his wife to leave her, and sat alone with her thoughts. She saw that light had come to Edith on the matter of the gifts to her husband; she thought of the words and action which had shed the light. She had not sorted the letters without doing so as her mother’s daughter, though Hetta never broke the accepted code. She knew that Edith heard from a publisher, and, struck by a thought, she rose and found a paper. She saw by an advertisement that the same firm had issued the book by Edith’s namesake, which had won the prize. The amount of the prize was that of the sums which had come to her brother. Many things rose up before her and fell into place. The scene when she surprised her mother tampering with the letters; her mother’s subsequent willingness that Edith should marry her son; Edith’s willingness to marry him; her mother’s feeling to Edith—it all stood in relation and made a whole.
Later in the day she drove to the town on some regular errand, and obtained the book by Edith’s namesake, or, as she now believed, by Edith. She read it in her room, assigning it to her brother’s wife, but found that the book was based on the play which France had written and which they all had seen. Her mind was swift, and the lines of the truth were clear. She saw her mother’s mistake, the cover which her niece had taken, Edith’s belief that John had married her without ulterior motive; saw how her own life was altered by the blind and blindly crossing forces.
When she met her family, she felt an urge to probe the hidden danger.
“I have mapped out the uses for the thousand pounds. It has been even easier the second time. The point of the sum seems to be that it should fall in regularly.”
“Twice is the right number of times,” said Chilton. “It would not do to form the habit. Our benefactor has naturally broken it.”
“What is the good of postponing what will be the worse for the postponement?”
“You have found what good it is,” said Clare, “and found it, as you say, easily, and would choose to continue to do so.”
“You seem up in arms for the benefactor, as you call him,” said Hetta, smiling.
“It is natural to be prejudiced in his favour.”
“If you mean things like economies and discomforts,” said Chilton, “they are far from being worse for postponement.”
“I hope you will find that is so,” said Sabine. “We must remember your view. It is the right one, but you must hold to it.”
“Postponement of something may mean avoidance of it,” said John. “And it must mean the hope of it, and hope is sweet.”
“What do you think, France?” said Hetta. “You are not often so silent.”
“I think with Father and Grandma and Clare and Chilton. It hardly needed saying again.”
“I wonder if we shall discover the benefactor. I should like to pry and probe and bring him to light.”
“Surely you would not,” said Chilton, “when you have used the money, and the condition of doing so was ignorance.”
“What a proper young man!” laughed his aunt. “I have not used the money for myself. It would make no difference to me, if it was forfeited.”
“Your aunt said she would like to discover, Chilton,” said Alfred. “She did not say she thought of doing so. We are all in her place.”
“They cannot understand anything that is said to them,” said Hetta. “It must be heavy work to teach them. I would rather do everything else, as I do.”
“People have to do what they can, Miss Ponsonby. I could not do everything else.”
“Well, let us return to the subject. Has anyone any suspicion? Have you, Edith?”
“No, do not let us return to it,” said Clare. “Let us by all means avoid it. We see the result of not doing so.”
“Our suspicions could only be of the pleasantest,” said John, “but we are not allowed to have them.”
“The subject seems to trouble you all,” said Hetta. “Surely Edith has something to say?”
“It does not trouble me,” said John. “It fills me with relief and thankfulness. I do not wish for more congenial feelings.”
“Let Edith speak,” said Hetta.
But someone else wished to do this.
“Can I speak to you, Mrs. Ponsonby?” said Miss Blake at the door.
“Why, yes, of course, Miss Blake. I hope nothing is amiss. Is it Muriel?”
“No, indeed it is not. It is something else, someone else. I would rather not speak of it; I hardly know what I can do.”
“I hardly know either,” murmured Chilton.
“I have no choice but to say something. I must ask to leave at once. I do not know how I sound.”
“We do not know either, Miss Blake,” said Hetta. “Can you not be a little clearer?”
“I cannot; I must ask indulgence; I do ask it. There is not only myself involved.”
“You cannot go like that, when we have come to know you,” said John. “Neither of the boys has annoyed you?”
“No, indeed not. I really cannot explain.”
“It was gallant to attempt the impossible,” said France. “So Muriel is again at the beginning.”
“Has anyone been in the house but ourselves?” said Sabine, with weary shrewdness.
“I am glad Victor is here,” said Chilton, “or suspicion might have fallen on him.”
“The man came about the roof,” said Hetta, “and I saw him myself, as usual. The woman came about the carpets, and I saw her. Dr. Chaucer was coming to bring some books, and I suppose I shall see him. I know no more.”
“And you now see Victor,” said Chilton. “My brother is cleared—cleared!”
“Let me go and talk to Miss Blake,” said Edith. “I must have the most understanding of her problems.”
“That is no good,” said Hetta, looking after them. “I had better have gone on managing the matter, as I manage everything. It is the only thing that works.”
“But you were not managing it,” said John. “It was baffling you, as it was baffling us all.”
“Do you suppose Edith is doing any more?”
“She cannot be doing less, and Miss Blake seemed willing to go with her.”
“Well, if Miss Blake does leave, either Clare or France will teach Muriel. I will not have another stranger in the house; I have made up my mind.”
“It seems she is leaving,” said Chilton. “That did emerge.”
Edith and Miss Blake had reached the schoolroom.
“Is it Dr. Chaucer?” said Edith.
Miss Blake stared at her in silence.
“Did he do anything worse than propose? That is said to be the greatest honour a man can do a woman, so you should not resent it too much.”
“He came up here—”
“Of course. That was the place to find you. But did he do worse than propose?”
“No—yes—well, yes, he did worse. He went too far, considering I had not accepted him, that he did not wait—”
“Of course he should have waited. It was worse than proposing, not to wait. It must have been trying.”
“Yes, it was trying,” said Miss Blake with her normal terseness.
“How did he do when you refused him?”
“He did fairly well,” said Miss Blake in a low, quick tone, dropping her eyes. “And he had offered me all he had; I must remember it; I will remember it.”
“I should forget it. It is what he would like, and I see you want to consider him. It is not as good as it sounds, to be offered all a person has.”
“Did he ever propose to you?” said Miss Blake.
“It is odd it should be so awkward to admit that someone has offered you everything. It doesn’t sound anything to be ashamed of.”
“One feels ashamed,” said Miss Blake very low. “One wonders if one has done anything—but no.”
“It is odd too that it should be awkward to tell anyone he is not all the world to you. It is really a great deal to expect.”
“Does he always propose to the governess?” said Miss Blake in a lightened spirit. “Does it throw light on the changes?”
“I have only met Miss Bunyan, and she is his niece and can be his housekeeper anyhow.”
“Well, I shall not supplant her.”
“It would be unfair to her to accept him. It is a pity we did not think of that reason.”
“I have only had one proposal in the house. You fared twice as badly. I have nothing to make a fuss about; I am ashamed of making a fuss. But I think I must go; I should have to meet him; I feel I have given him away; and your telling me what you have, does not make it better.”
“No. One’s being the one woman in the world to him would have been his excuse. And it was not his excuse. I wonder where we come on the list. I hope we were fairly high.”
“You are one in advance of me. But it was hardly fair, your being here first.”
“If he gets so much worse every time, think what our successors will suffer! You won’t stay for their sakes?”
“No,” said Miss Blake, in her normal low, terse tones, “I could not do it. Perhaps a better woman could; I cannot. I am doing the second-rate thing and running away. Perhaps I could not be behaving worse.”
“It sounds as if you could be easily replaced, but you know it is not the case.”
“And there are other reasons; I did not tell Mrs. Ponsonby.”
“Oh, of course, the post is not possible. I did not know you saw it as it was. If your eyes are open, of course you cannot stay. I don’t see how Muriel can have any education. What reason shall I give for your going? Is Dr. Chaucer to have his due?”
“He may have his due,” said Miss Blake after a moment, shaking Edith’s hand and going with an air of knowing what she did, out of the room and out of her life.
Edith went down to the family.
“Miss Blake is going as suddenly as Miss Bunyan. But Dr. Chaucer is playing a different part. He offered her a home before she decided to go, and not after.”
There was a pause.
“Proposed to her?” said Clare.
“Yes, and she did not like the manner of his doing it, and will not be where she may meet him.”
“Proposed!” said Sabine, her voice dying away after its first sharpness, as if the scene were coming before her eyes.
“What utter nonsense!” said Hetta, who was standing against the chimney-piece, looking cold and aloof. “What silly trumpery! You did not believe it? Why does she not say she wants to leave, without putting it on to a false, romantic footing? I would soon have had some truth out of her, if I had dealt with it.”
“You would,” said Edith. “The truth soon came out.”
“Surely truth is what we have from Miss Blake,” said Victor.
“I am going to have this from her; truth or not,” said Chilton. “I am enchanted by the scene which is brought before my eyes.”
“Is it brought before your eyes?” said France. “You are fortunate. I cannot imagine it.”
“How absurd of her!” said Sabine, who saw the whole thing as it was, and impatiently excused Chaucer and more impatiently condemned Miss Blake. “Refusing one provision for herself is not a reason for giving up another.”
“Oh, enough of it,” said Hetta. “She has her reasons for leaving, and if anyone wants to know them, I will find them out. But it is not worth while; I do not wish her to stay; I don’t want fibbings and falseness in my house. It is not fair to our friends to have cock-and-bull stories made about them out of nothing. She must be a woman who thinks a man is proposing to her, if he is polite in passing on the stairs.”
“I hardly think it happened on the stairs,” said Clare.
“It quite well may have. Dr. Chaucer was bringing some books, and would not have met her anywhere else. But why be so literal? If you would be less so, and Miss Blake more, I should have an easier house.”
“You seem in an odd mood, Hetta,” said John. “Don’t you feel yourself?”
“Of course I feel myself. If I did not, things would soon show it. But I do not know how I can manage, if I am to be confronted by things done behind my back. I did not want Miss Blake to go at the moment; I am not prepared for another stranger.”
“It is no good to have someone who is unsettled.”
“She would not have been unsettled, if I had dealt with her.”
“She was clearly unsettled when she appeared at the door,” said Victor. “It is the word for her state.”
“Oh, my dear boy, if you don’t know what I mean, you don’t. I won’t try to teach you.”
“You could have interviewed Miss Blake yourself,” said John. “You did not suggest it.”
“How could I suggest it, when there was not a moment? The two of them disappeared”—Hetta gave a laugh, as if recalling the scene—“before anyone could get in a word. Not that Edith did not mean to help; she did not understand the workings of the house; that is all. A house is a complicated organism and needs understanding.”
“I don’t know why our house is so much more complicated than other houses.”
“Think of it, and you will know.”
“Why not go after Miss Blake and see what you can do now?”
“Oh, Edith has surely not done her work with as little thoroughness as that!”
“Perhaps the work I could do with most success,” said Edith, “would be to take Muriel beyond the beginning.”
“That would be a real help,” said Hetta. “It is something no one else could do. I should be sorry to attempt it.”
“Edith may be sorry to attempt it too,” said Clare.
“It would be kind of you, my dear,” said Sabine.
“Now why so kind?” said Hetta. “Am I so kind to organise everything for everyone, and do the thousand and one things which come to my hand every day?”
“I hardly think you are,” said her brother, in the cool, drawling tone which marked his rare loss of temper. “You want recognition to an extent which constitutes a reward.”
“Why should I not have reward?” said Hetta, in an easy tone with another note underneath. “Why should you want people to work without it? You want reward yourself for what you do; I never knew anyone want more: and you will go to any length to get it too.” Her tone became ruminative and she gave a slow smile. “I don’t know nothing about you. Why should your sister be so different? Why should you want her to be?”
“Edith and Clare and France will take your duties off you, if you wish. It would be nothing for the three.”
“Nothing for the three!” said Hetta with almost a scream in her voice, though she hardly raised it. “Nothing for the three! Of course it would be nothing. How could it be anything, when it is generally done by one? You show what you think of it. That is not the way to prove it does not count. Though why you should want to prove it, I do not know. I have never tried to prove that your work does not count, or done anything but help you with it.”
She ended with tears in her voice, and Sabine kept her eyes from her face, as if she could not bear the sight.
“I do not want a third part of Aunt Hetta’s duty,” said France. “It would not be nothing to me. I did not know duty was ever nothing, and a third is a large proportion.”
Sabine turned on France a look almost of gratitude.
“You know a woman’s work is the highest in the world, Father,” said Chilton. “You have said it in your books, in the hope that it may be immortal. You must not be too different in your books from your life.”
“He thinks the work should be divided by three, anyhow,” said Hetta. “That is a better summing up of it than any in his books, I think.” She drew in her brows, as if recalling the passages.
The door opened and Miss Blake stood just within it, and spoke swiftly, deep and low.
“I have come to say goodbye. To thank you for your kindness. For your friendship. To ask you to let me hear of Muriel. I thank you for that and all other kindness; I say goodbye and thank you.”
The door closed.
“Will she want the trap?” said Sabine, breaking the tension and showing she had not suffered from it.
“Grandma has freed our tongues,” said Chilton. “It is a pity she did not do it a minute earlier.”
“I hope the silence was eloquent,” said France. “I should think it was.”
“Ought we to send Muriel to help her to pack?” said Clare. “It seems an accomplishment which comes in useful.”
“It is only unpacking she has been taught,” said Chilton. “When the time comes to pack, things have become strangely different.”
“Muriel, here is a chance to learn to pack,” said Victor. “It is a rarer opportunity.”
“And Grandma would wish you to make the most of Miss Blake until the last,” said Clare.
“Would you like to go and help Miss Blake, Muriel?”
“No, thank you, Grandma.”
“Are you sorry she is going?”
“I don’t mind, Grandma.”
“She has been very kind to you, hasn’t she?”
“Yes, Grandma.”
“Do you feel you have learnt anything from her?”
“Yes, Grandma.”
“What have you learnt?”
Muriel paused, burst into laughter and struggled into speech.
“The beginning, Grandma.”
Sabine smiled; the others did the same; and Muriel fell into the background, flushed by success but willing to abandon the question.
“Will Miss Blake want the trap?” said Sabine. “Will someone answer me? I suppose she will.”
“I suppose so too,” said France. “She cannot carry her luggage to the station.”
Muriel laughed anew at this picture of the person whose kindness she acknowledged.
“I had better go and see about it,” said Hetta in a sighing tone, seeming to drag herself from her chair.
“Ring and order it,” said John, going to the bell. “We need not make work.”
“The work is there, isn’t it?” said his sister, looking at him amusedly. “If you call ordering a trap work; I do not myself. The work of running up and down stairs you are making yourself, and I do call that work.”
“You seemed so tired.”
“I am tired,” said Hetta, folding her hands above her head.
“Yes, ma’am?” said the maid to Sabine.
“Miss Blake will want the trap for her luggage for the next train. She has been called home. See that she has any help she needs, and that she gets off in time. The young gentlemen will see her off at the door. The rest of us have said goodbye. You understand?” Sabine ended in a rapid tone and turned away, as if putting Miss Blake completely from her mind, as indeed she was doing for ever.
“That is it, Mater,” said Hetta, in an amusedly approving tone, turning her eyes on her mother without moving her hands or her head. “That is it. I could not have done it better.”
John sent his sister a cold, appraising glance, and Sabine did not move her eyes.
“No one helped me to unpack, Mrs. Ponsonby,” said Alfred. “But Chilton and Victor shall both help me to pack. I shall be a pathetic figure. ‘Are you sorry to lose Alfred, boys?’ ‘We don’t mind, Grandma.’”
“We won’t talk about that time,” said Sabine. “I hope it won’t come in my lifetime. I think we must see it does not.”
“Are Alfred and I to see Miss Blake off, Grandma?” said Chilton.
“No, you and Victor. Why should Alfred trouble? It is time you learned to behave like gentlemen. You won’t always be awkward boys.”
“So you still have hope of Victor, Grandma? He has not quite killed it?”
“I have hopes of you both,” said Sabine with rare indulgence.
“It is women’s faith in men that brings out the best in them. Victor, I have felt you may have a better side, and now Grandma with the eyes of love has glimpsed it.”
“What has Grandma with the eyes of love glimpsed in Alfred?” said France. “I suppose it is his better side. Anyhow it is much better. I wonder if she will ever find out how much better it is. But it would take some time and she is eighty five.”
“You should not have given Dr. Chaucer away, Edith,” said Hetta, keeping her hands behind her head and turning smilingly to Edith, “especially as you thought Miss Blake’s story was true. We might have believed it. I believe some of us did.”
“I believe it,” said John. “Why should she not give her reason for going?”
“There you see. What did I say?”
“You said what was nonsense and you knew to be nonsense.”
Hetta remained in her position, with her eyes fixed on space and her foot tapping it.
“Isn’t it fatiguing to sit in that attitude?” said her brother. “Why do you consider it your duty to keep to it?”
Hetta sat up, a little trill of laughter coming from her lips.
“Why is a proposal a reason for going?” said Clare. “It is not an insult.”
“It seems to have been in this case,” said John.
“Chaucer forgot what was due to womanhood,” said Chilton. “Victor, that is the last thing which should be said of a man.”
“I think a proposal is often an insult,” said Hetta in a dreamy tone, her hands again behind her head. “I always wonder women do not see it. But they do not. And I daresay it is a good thing. The world has to go on.”
“Miss Blake’s perceptions were above the average,” said Clare.
“And the world has received a check,” said Chilton. “Muriel is again at the beginning.”
Muriel burst into laughter at the reminder of her late humour.
“I did not mean that kind of insult,” said Hetta, still dreamily.
“It is a good thing she is going,” said Sabine in an ordinary tone. “Whatever Dr. Chaucer meant, it was less than she thought, and he is glad of his escape. It means he is in the mood for marriage and does not meet a woman to his mind.”
“The proposal was clearly an insult,” said France.