‘I am ready for Aunt Matty’, said Aubrey.
‘Are you, little boy? And very nice and trim you look. I wish I could feel the same. I am done with village dressmakers. I am not much of a woman for personal adornment, but there are stages beyond even me. I ought to think of my family; it was selfish and lazy of me. I certainly can’t expect to rejoice their eyes.’ Justine sighed over her conclusion.
‘Won’t smoothing it make it better?’
‘No, it will not, impertinent child. It will leave it as it is.’ Justine aimed a blow in her brother’s direction without moving towards him.
‘Mark, are you ready for your aunt?’ said Aubrey.
‘As far as the outward man can count. But her eyes may pierce the surface and pounce on what is beneath.’
‘Now I won’t have Aunt Matty laughed at for her penetration,’ said Justine. ‘It is a valuable quality and one which deserves to be reckoned with.’
‘And is more than any other.’
‘She has none,’ said Clement. ‘She attributes motives to people, whether they are there or not. That gets us further from the truth than anything. Mother has really a sounder penetration.’
‘Dear little Mother,’ said Justine, giving a pitying tenderness to the same quality in Blanche.
‘Clement, are you ready for your aunt?’
‘Nothing would prepare me for the manners, the morals, and the methods of such a woman. She is at once super- and sub-human. I always wonder if she is goddess or beast.’
‘Clement, Clement, that is neither gallant nor kind,’ said Justine. ‘A man does not speak of a woman like that, you know. And can’t you brush the collar of your coat? Not that I have any right to speak.’
‘But I think both the boys look very nice, Justine,’ said Aubrey.
‘How does Justine appear?’ said Clement. ‘I will hear the accepted view before I express my own.’
‘Oh, you are right; it is hopeless. It deserves anything you like to say. You need not be afraid that I shall rise up in its defence like a mother with her young.’
‘You might help to smooth it, Clement,’ said Aubrey. ‘It is all that can be done now.’
‘Why don’t you change it?’ said Mark. ‘What about that one you generally wear?’
‘No, I will stick to it now. I will remain in it and face the music. Mother is expecting to see me in something different, and I daresay she will like it. I won’t take refuge in some old one which does not catch the eye. It will teach me a lesson that I deserve.’
‘It is not a matter of such mighty import,’ said Clement.
‘Indeed it is! It should be a point of great interest to you all, how your only sister looks. I will not have it in any other way. I have no patience with that kind of high-and-mightiness. It is the last thing that exalts anyone.’
‘Clement, are you listening to Justine?’ said Aubrey.
‘He does not know how true quality is shown,’ said Mark. ‘That is a thing which cannot be taught.’
‘All Clement’s learning will stand him in but poor stead.’
‘Here are the guests! And Father and Mother are not down!’ said Justine, in a tone of consternation.
‘They are remedying the position,’ said Clement, showing that he did not recommend the feeling.
Blanche led the way into the room, in an old-fashioned gown of heavy material and indifferent cut, which had been altered to show successfully how it should have been made, and which in its countrified quality and stiffness became her well.
‘Well, dear ones, how nice you look! Justine, it is a very pretty colour. I do want Aunt Matty to see you all at your best. And dear Grandpa has seen so little of you for so long.’ Blanche spoke to her children of their relations either from their point of view or her own.
‘Mr and Mrs Middleton,’ said Jellamy.
‘How are you, Mrs Middleton? It is kind of you to adapt yourselves to our early hours,’ said Blanche, who observed the formalities with guests with sincerity and goodwill. ‘My father and sister will be here in a moment. It is a long time since you have met.’
‘Whose idea was it that they should come to live here?’
‘It was their own. But we welcomed it with great delight. My sister and I have missed each other for so many years.’
‘Isn’t the lodge rather small after their old home?’
Sarah Middleton’s questions seemed to come in spite of herself, as if her curiosity were stronger than her will.
‘Yes, it has to be that. They have lost money lately and are obliged to live on a small scale. And it is a nice little house.’
‘Very nice indeed,’ said Sarah, with the full cordiality of relief from pain, which was the state produced in her by a satisfied urge to know.
Sarah Middleton was a tall, upright woman of seventy, strong and young for her age, with a fair, rather empty face and an expression at once eager and soured and kind. Her grey hair was done in some way which seemed to belong to a world where men and women were more different, and her cap had been assumed in her prime in tribute to matronhood, though to Justine and her brothers it was a simple emblem of age. She looked about as she talked, as if she feared to miss enlightenment on any matter, a thing which tried her beyond her strength and which happily seldom occurred. Her husband, who was ten years younger and in the same physical stage, was a tall, spare, stooping man, with a good head, pale, weak eyes, a surprisingly classic nose, and an air of depression and an excellence of deportment which seemed to depend on each other, as though he felt that the sadness of life entitled people to courtesy and consideration. He had wanted to write, and had been a schoolmaster because of the periods of leisure, but had found that the demands of the other periods exhausted his energy. After his marriage to a woman of means he was still prevented, though he did not give the reason, indeed did not know it. Neither did he state what he wished to write, and this was natural, as he had not yet decided. Sarah felt that the desire gave him enough occupation, and he almost seemed to feel the same.
‘Yes, say what you like, Uncle,’ said Justine, standing before Dudley and holding out her skirts. ‘It merits it all and more. I have not a word to say. This will teach me not to waste my time and energy on going backwards and forwards to poor Miss Spurr. She has not an ounce of skill in her composition.’
Blanche looked at the dress with mild, and Sarah with eager, attention.
‘It could be made into a dressing-gown,’ said Dudley, taking a sudden step forward. ‘I see just how it could be done.’
‘My dear, that beautiful material!’ said Sarah, holding up her hands and turning her eyes on Justine to indicate the direction of her address.
‘I am sure it is a very pretty colour,’ said Blanche, implying and indeed feeling that this was a great part of the matter.
‘I knew I could count on a word of encouragement from you, little Mother.’
‘Dressing gowns are always the best colours,’ said Aubrey. ‘I go in and look at them sometimes.’
‘You little scamp,’ said Justine. ‘You are happy in being young enough for that sort of thing.’
‘Dear boy!’ said Sarah.
‘What is the matter with the dress?’ said Edgar, with careful interest. ‘Do you mean that it ought to be better made?’
‘Yes, Father, I do mean that. Everyone means it. We all mean it. Don’t go unerringly to the point like that, as if it were almost too obvious to call for comment.’
‘I don’t think it calls for so much comment,’ said Clement.
‘Well, I daresay it does not. Let us leave it now. After all, we all look ourselves in whatever we wear,’ said Justine, deriving open satisfaction from this conclusion, and taking Aubrey’s chin in her hand. ‘What are you meditating upon, little boy?’
‘I was expecting Aunt Matty,’ said Aubrey, reluctant to explain that he had been imagining future daughters for himself and deciding the colours of their dressing gowns.
‘Well, dear ones all,’ said Matty, almost standing still on the threshold, partly in her natural slowness and partly to be seen. ‘Well, here is a happy, handsome’ - she rapidly substituted another word - ‘healthy family. So much health and happiness is so good to see. It is just what I want, isn’t it?’
Blanche looked up with narrowing eyes at the change of word, though she knew that it was prompted by the sight of more and not less handsomeness than her sister had expected.
‘Is not Father coming?’ she said in a cool tone, putting down her embroidery before she rose.
Sarah looked from sister to sister with full comprehension and the urbanity which accompanied it.
‘Yes, dear, he will not be a moment. He is only rather slow. I came on to get a start of him, as I am even slower.’ Matty kissed Blanche with more than her usual affection in tacit atonement for what had passed, but seemed to feel rather soon that atonement had been made. ‘It seems that I know him better in these days and have to tell you about him. Perhaps he has always belonged to me a little the most. Why, Mrs Middleton, how are you both? So we are to be neighbours as well as friends.’
‘It did not take you long to make up your mind to the change,’ said Sarah, her tone leading up to further information.
‘No, I am a person of rapid decision. Fleet of foot, fleet of thought, and fleet of action I used to be called in the old days.’ Blanche looked up as if in an effort of memory. ‘And I have retained as much of my fleetness as I can. So I made my resolve and straightway acted upon it.’
‘My dear, you have retained so much of what you had,’ said Sarah, shaking her head.
‘Mr Seaton,’ said Jellamy.
‘Now I can barely walk forward to greet you,’ said Oliver, pushing his feet along the ground, ‘but I am glad to find myself welcome as I am. There have come moments when I thought that we might not meet again. So, Middleton, I am pleased to see you once more on this side of the grave.’
Thomas shook hands with an air which accepted and rejected these words in the right measure.
‘Why are people proud of expecting to die soon?’ said Dudley to Mark. ‘I think it is humiliating to have so little life left.’
‘They are triumphant at having made sure of more life than other people. And they don’t really think they will die.’
‘No, of course, they have got into the way of living. I see it is a lifelong habit.’
‘Have we no relations who can enter a room in the usual way?’ said Clement.
‘None in the neighbourhood,’ said his brother.
‘Now, Grandpa, that is naughty talk,’ said Justine, leading Oliver forward by the arm as if no one else would think of the office. ‘Now which chair would you like?’
‘Any one will serve my purpose; I ask but to sit in it.’
‘Dear Grandpa!’ said Justine, keeping her hands on his arms as he sat down, as if she were lowering him into it.
‘That is a fine gown, my dear,’ he said, as he let go the chair and sank back.
‘It is the most fearful thing, Grandpa; I forbid you to look at it. It will be my shame all the evening.’
‘You know why you put it on, I suppose. I should have thought it was intended to catch the eye, as it has caught mine.’
‘I think it is such a nice colour,’ said Blanche. ‘Beautiful,’ said Sarah, shaking her head again.
‘Why, so it is, my dear,’ said Oliver, relaxing his limbs. ‘Your girl looks well in it, and what more would you have?’ ‘But the shape of it, Grandpa!’ said Justine, withdrawing her strictures upon his looking to the extent of disposing herself that he might the better do so. The cut, the hang, the balance, the fit!’
‘Well, I do not see any of those, my dear; I do not know if you are trying to show them to me.’
‘I am trying to show you the lack of them.’
‘Then you do so, child; I see it,’ said Oliver, lifting one leg over the other.
‘Well, if anyone received a snub!’ said Justine, looking about her at the success of her effort.
‘What is the colour?’ said Matty, her easy tone revealing her opinion that enough had been said on the matter. ‘Magenta?’
‘No, dear,’ said Blanche. ‘It is a kind of old rose.’
‘Is it, dear?’ said Matty, contracting her eyes on the dress and looking almost exactly like her sister for the moment. ‘A new sort of old rose then.’ She smiled at her niece, taking her disparagement of the dress at its literal value.
‘Oh, come, Aunt Matty, there is nothing wrong with the colour. It is the one redeeming point.’
‘Yes, dear?’ said Matty, in questioning agreement, her eyes again on the dress.
‘Oh dear, this garment! It is destined to be a bone of contention in addition to its other disadvantages?’
‘I tremble to think about its destiny’, said Clement, ‘as its history up to date is what it is.’
‘Why is magenta an offensive term?’ said Mark. ‘It seems to be.’
‘It is odd how colours seem to owe their names to some quality in them,’ said his aunt.
‘Their names come about in quite a different way.’
‘Now we don’t want a philological lecture,’ said Matty, showing her awareness of this.
‘Magenta can be a beautiful colour,’ said Sarah, in a tone of considerable feeling. ‘I remember a dress I once had of a kind of brocade which we do not see now. Oh, it would have suited you, Mrs Gaveston.’
‘Those old, thick brocades were very becoming,’ said Matty.
‘Aunt Matty does not restrict the application of her words,’ said Aubrey, seeming to speak to himself, as he often did when he adopted adult phrase.
‘I can imagine you looking regal in one of them, Aunt Matty,’ said Justine, in a tone of saying something that was expected.
‘Dinner is ready, ma’am,’ said Jellamy.
‘And not too soon,’ said Clement. ‘I hope that food will be a better subject for our attention than clothes.’
Edgar gave his arm to Sarah and led the way in conventional talk, which he maintained at whatever happened to be the cost to himself. Dudley adapted his step to Matty’s with an exactness which involved his almost standing still, and kept up a flow of conversation at no personal expense at all. Matty was known to prefer Dudley to a son of the house, and her nephews supported her choice. Blanche and her father walked together, as the result of his suggestion that it might be their last opportunity, which was proffered to Thomas as an excuse and duly repudiated and accepted. They were assisted by Justine to link their arms and take their first steps - and indeed there might have been a less perilous association - and checked by her serious hand from a too precipitate advance. Justine herself went with Thomas, placing her free arm in Mark’s.
‘Now I do not require four partners, but I may as well use up one superfluous young man. Follow on, you other two. Aubrey can be the lady.’
‘I place my delicate hand on Clement’s arm and lean on his strength.’
Thomas gave a laugh and Clement shook off the hand and walked on alone.
‘What a really beautiful room, dear!’ said Matty to her sister, with appreciation brought to birth by the lights and wine and the presence of Dudley and Edgar. ‘It is like a little glimpse of home, or if I may not say that, it is like itself and satisfying indeed to my fastidious eye. And my own little room seems to gain, not lose by the comparison. This one seems to show how beauty is everywhere itself. I quite feel that I have taken a lesson from it.’
‘And one which was needed, from what I hear,’ said Mark.
‘Is that how happiness does not depend on surroundings?’ said Aubrey.
Mark and Aubrey often talked aside to each other. Clement would join them when inclined to talk, Justine when inclined to talk aside. Aubrey also talked aside to himself.
‘Naughty boys, making fun of the poor old aunt!’ said Matty, shaking her finger at them without interest in what they said.
‘What was it, Mark?’ said Edgar, with a hint in his tone that his eldest son should speak for the ears of the table.
‘I was agreeing with Aunt Matty, sir.’
‘Yes, yes, we may praise our own home, may we not, when it is as good as this?’ said his aunt.
‘I was doing the same, Father - the same, sir,’ said Aubrey, who had lately followed his brothers in this mode of address.
‘Dear boy!’ said Sarah, moved by the step towards maturity.
Edgar had come as near to reproof as he ever did. His hints were always heeded, and if it was not true that they were followed more than if he had raised his voice or resorted to violence, it was as true as it ever is. To Justine he never hinted a reproof, partly because of her sex and partly because he might have had to hint too much. Edgar did not love his children, though he believed or rather assumed that he did, and meted out kindness and interest in fair measure. He had a concerned affection for his wife, a great love for his brother and less than the usual feeling for himself. Dudley spent his emotion on his brother, and gave any feeling which arose in him to anyone else. Justine believed that she was her father’s darling, and Edgar, viewing the belief with an outsider’s eye, welcomed it, feeling that it ought to be a true one, and made intermittent effort to give it support. Other people accordingly accepted it, with the exception of Dudley and Aubrey, who saw the truth. Clement would have seen it if he had regarded the matter, and Blanche liked the belief and accordingly cherished it.
‘Does Jellamy manage by himself in this room now?’ said Matty to her sister. ‘It seems rather much for one person.’
‘Yes, he has to, dear. It makes us slower, of course, but it cannot be helped. We have to be very economical.’
Matty glanced about the room with a faintly derisive smile.
‘No, indeed, Aunt Matty,’ said Justine, answering the look, ‘you are quite wrong. Mother is speaking the simple truth. Strict economy is necessary. There is no pose about it.’
Matty lifted her brows in light enquiry.
‘Now, Aunt Matty, you made the comment in all good faith, as clearly as you could have made it in words, intending it to be so taken. And that being the case, it must be so answered. And my answer is that economy is essential, and that Jellamy works single-handed for that reason.’
‘Is it, dear? Such a lot of answer for such a little question.’
‘It was not the question. It was the comment upon the reply.’
‘No one is to make a comment but you, dear?’
‘Justine does make them,’ murmured Aubrey.
‘Now, little boy, how much did you follow of it?’
‘Upon my word, I do not follow any of it,’ said Oliver.
Sarah leaned back almost in exhaustion, having followed it all. Her husband had kept his eyes down in order not to do so.
‘Well, we mustn’t get too subtle,’ said Justine. ‘They say that that is a woman’s fault, so I must beware.’
Aubrey gave a crow of laughter, checked it, and suffered a choke which exceeded the bounds of convention.
‘Aubrey darling!’ said Blanche, as if to a little child.
‘Now, little boy, now, little boy,’ said Aubrey, looking at his sister with inflamed cheeks and starting eyes.
‘Now, little boy, indeed,’ she said in a grave tone. ‘Poor child!’ said Sarah.
‘What shall I do when there is no one to call me little boy?’ said Aubrey, looking round to meet the general eye, but discovering that it was not on him, and returning to his dinner.
‘Aubrey has a look of Father, Blanche,’ said Matty.
‘I believe you are right, Aunt Matty,’ said Justine, with more than the usual expression. ‘I often see different likenesses going across his face. It has a more elusive quality than any of our faces.’
‘I mean something quite definite, dear. It was unmistakable for the moment.’
‘Yes, for the moment. But the moment after there is nothing there. It is a face which one has to watch for its fleeting moods and expressions. Would not you say so, Father?’
Edgar raised his eyes.
‘Father has to watch,’ said Aubrey, awaiting the proceeding with a grin.
‘What a gallant smile!’ said Clement, unaware that this was the truth.
‘There, Uncle’s smile!’ said Justine.
The quality of the grin changed.
‘And now Grandpa’s! Don’t you see it, Aunt Matty?’
‘I spoke of it, dear. Yes.’
‘And don’t you, Father? You have to look for a moment.’
Edgar again fixed his eyes on his son.
‘There, it has gone! The moment has passed. I knew it would.’
Aubrey had not shared the knowledge, the moment having seemed to him interminable.
‘Father need not watch any longer,’ he said, and would have grinned, if he had dared to grin.
‘The process does not seem to be attended by adequate reward,’ said Mark.
Clement raised his eyes and drew a breath and dropped his eyes again.
‘Clement need not watch any longer either,’ said Aubrey.
‘Now, little boy, you pass out of the common eye.’
Oliver turned his eyes on his grandson.
‘The lad is getting older,’ he said.
‘Now that is indubitably true, Grandpa,’ said Justine. ‘It might be said of all of us. And it is true of him in another sense; he has developed a lot lately. But do take your eyes off him and let him forget himself. This is all so bad for him.’
‘He could not help it, dear,’ said Blanche, expressing the thought of her son.
‘Now are our little affairs of any interest to you?’ said Matty, who had been waiting to interpose and at once arrested Sarah’s eyes. ‘If they are, we have our own little piece of news. We are to have a guest, who is to spend quite a while with us. I am looking forward to it, as I have a good deal of time to myself in my new life. There are many people whom I miss from the old one, though I have others to do their part indeed. And this is one of the first, and one whose place it would be difficult to fill.’
‘We have found a corner for her,’ said Oliver, ‘though you might not think it.’
‘She will have the spare room, of course, Father,’ said Blanche. ‘It is quite a good little room.’
‘Yes, Mother, of course it is,’ said Justine, in a low, suddenly exasperated tone. ‘But it is to be like that. The house is to be a hut and the room a corner, and there is an end of it. Let us leave it as they prefer it. People can’t do more than have what they would choose.’
Matty looked at the two heads inclined to each other, but did not strain her ears to catch the words. Sarah did so and controlled a smile as she caught them.
‘Well, are you going to let me share this advantage with you?’ went on Matty. ‘It is to be a great pleasure in my life, and I hope it will count in yours. There is no great change of companionship round about.’
‘Well, no, I suppose there is not,’ said Justine. ‘We are in the country after all.’
‘So I am not a host in myself,’ said Dudley.
‘It is known to be better for the country to be like itself,’ said Sarah, who found this to be the case, as it was the reason of her acquaintanceship with the Gavestons.
Thomas looked up with a faintly troubled face.
‘This is a very charming person, who has been a great deal with me,’ continued Matty, as if these interpositions did not signify. ‘Her parents have lately died and left her at a loose end; and if I can help her to gather up the threads of her life, I feel it is for me to do it. It may be a thing I am equal to, in spite of my - what shall I call them? -disadvantages.’
‘I always tell you that your disadvantages do not count, Aunt Matty,’ said Justine.
‘I feel that they do, dear. They must to me, you see. But I try not to let them affect other people, and I am glad of any assurance that they do not.’
‘Do you mean Maria Sloane?’ said Blanche. ‘I remember her when we had just grown up and she was a child. She grew up very pretty, and we saw her sometimes when we stayed with you and Father.’
‘She grew up very pretty; she has remained very pretty; and she will always be pretty to me, though she is so to everyone as yet, and I think will be so until she is something more.’
‘It is odd to see Aunt Matty giving her wholehearted admiration to anyone,’ said Justine to Mark. ‘It shows that we have not a complete picture of her.’
‘It also suggests that she has one of us.’
‘It is pleasant to see it in a way.’
‘We may feel it to be salutary.’
‘She has only seen one or two of my many sides,’ said Dudley.
‘Miss Sloane has not married, has she?’ said Blanche.
‘No, she is still my lovely Maria Sloane. I don’t think I could think of her as anything else. A rose by any other name would smell as sweet, but it seems that marriage might be a sort of desecration of Maria, a sort of plucking of the rose.’ Matty ended on an easy note and did not look into anyone’s face.
Sarah regarded her with several expressions, and Blanche with an easy and almost acquiescent one.
‘Mrs Middleton has been plucked,’ murmured Aubrey. ‘Mr Middleton has plucked her.’
Thomas gave a kindly smile which seemed to try to reach the point of amusement.
‘Is she well provided for, Aunt Matty?’ said Justine in a clear tone.
Sarah nodded towards Justine at the pertinence of the question.
‘I think so, dear; I have not heard anything else. Money seems somehow not to touch her. She seems to live apart from it like a flower, having all she needs and wanting nothing more.’
‘Flowers are plucked,’ said Aubrey.
‘They look better when they are not, dear.’
‘Money must touch her if she has all she needs,’ said Clement. ‘There must be continual contact.’
‘Well, I suppose she has some, dear, but I think it is not much, and that she does not want any more. When you see her you will know what I mean.’
‘We have all met people of that kind, and very charming they are,’ said Justine.
‘No, not anyone quite like this. I shall be able to show you something outside your experience.’
‘Come, Aunt Matty, think of Uncle Dudley.’
‘I could not say it of myself,’ said her uncle.
‘Yes, I see that you follow me, dear. But there is no one else who is quite as my Maria. Still you will meet her soon, and I shall be glad to do for you something you have not had done. I take a great deal from you, and I must not only take.’
‘Is she so different from other people?’ said Blanche, with simple question. ‘I do not remember her very well, but I don’t quite know what you mean.’
‘No, dear? Well, we shall see, when you meet, if you do know. We can’t all recognize everything.’
‘Would it be better if Mother and Aunt Matty did not address each other in terms of affection?’ said Mark. ‘Is it supposed to excuse everything else? It seems that something is.’
‘Well, perhaps in a way it does,’ said Justine, with a sigh. ‘Affection should be able to stand a little buffeting, or there would be nothing in it.’
‘There might be more if it did not occasion such a thing,’ said Clement.
‘Oh, come, Clement, people can’t pick their way with their intimates as if they were strangers.’
‘It is only with the latter that they attempt it.’
‘Father and Uncle behave like friends,’ said Aubrey, ‘Mother and Aunt Matty like sisters, Clement and I like brothers. I am not sure how Mark and Clement behave, I think like strangers.’
‘No, I can’t quite subscribe to it,’ said Justine. ‘It is putting too much stress on little, chance, wordy encounters. Our mild disagreement now does not alter our feeling for each other.’
‘It may rather indicate it,’ said Clement.
‘We should find the differences interesting and stimulating.’
‘They often seem to be stimulating,’ said Mark. ‘But I doubt if people take much interest in them. They always seem to want to exterminate them.’
‘I suppose I spend my life on the surface,’ said Dudley. ‘But it does seem to avoid a good deal.’
‘Now that is not true, Uncle,’ said Justine. ‘You and Father get away together and give each other of the best and deepest in you. Well we know it and so do you. Oh, we know what goes on when you are shut in the library together. So don’t make any mistake about it, because we do not.’
Edgar’s eyes rested on his daughter as if uncertain of their own expression.
‘Do you live on the surface, Aunt Matty?’ said Aubrey.
‘No, dear. I? No, I am a person who lives rather in the deeps, I am afraid. Though I don’t know why I should say “afraid”, except that the deeps are rather formidable places sometimes. But I have a surface self to show to my niece and nephews, so that I need not take them down too far with me. I have a deal to tell them of the time when I was as young as they, and things were different and yet the same, in that strange way things have. Yes, there are stories waiting for you of Aunt Matty in her heyday, when the world was young, or seemed to keep itself young for her, as things did somehow adapt themselves to her in those days. Now there is quite a lot for Aunt Matty to talk about herself. But you asked her, didn’t you?’ Matty looked about in a bright, conscious way and tapped her knee.
‘It was a lot, child, as you say,’ said Oliver.
‘Aubrey knew not what he did,’ said Clement.
‘He knew what he meant to do,’ said Mark. ‘Happily Aunt Matty did not.’
‘We both used to be such rebels, your aunt and I,’ said Blanche, looking round on her children. ‘We didn’t find the world large enough or the time long enough for all our pranks and experiments, I must tell you all about it some time. Hearing about it brings it all back to me.’
‘Being together makes Mother and Aunt Matty more alike,’ said Mark.
‘Suppose Mother should become a second Aunt Matty!’ said Aubrey.
‘Or Aunt Matty become a second little Mother,’ said Justine. ‘Let us look on the bright side - on that side of things. Grandpa, what did you think of the two of them in those days?’
‘I, my dear? Well, they were young then, as you are now. There was nothing to think of it and I thought nothing.’
‘We were such a complement to each other,’ continued Blanche. ‘People used to say that what the one did not think of, the other did, and vice versa. I remember what Miss Griffin thought of us when she came. She said she had never met such a pair.’
‘Miss Griffin!’ said Justine. ‘I meant to ask her to come in tonight and forgot. Never mind, the matter can be mended. I will send a message.’
‘Is it worth while, dear? It is getting late and she will not be ready. There is not much left for her to come for. We will ask her to dinner one night and give her proper notice.’
‘We will do that indeed, Mother, but there is still the evening. And she is just sitting at home alone, isn’t she, Aunt Matty?’
‘Why, yes, dear, she is,’ said Matty with a laugh. ‘When two out of three people are out, there must be one left. But I think she enjoys an evening to herself.’
‘I see it myself as a change for the better,’ said Oliver.
‘Now I rather doubt that,’ said Justine, ‘It is so easy, when people are unselfish and adaptable, to assume that they are enjoying things which really offer very little. Now what is there, after all, in sitting alone in that little room?’
‘Cosiness, dear, perhaps,’ said Matty, with a change in her eyes. ‘I have asked that same question and have had an answer.’
‘The size of the room is well enough for one person,’ said Oliver. ‘That is indeed its scope.’
‘Mother dear, I have your permission to send for her?’ said Justine, as if the words of others could only be passed over.
‘Well, dear, if you have your aunt’s. But I don’t know whom we are to send. The servants are busy.’
‘There is no problem there; I will go myself. I have eaten enough and I will be back before the rest of you have finished.’
‘One of the boys could go,’ said Edgar.
‘No, Father, I will leave them to satisfy their manly appetites. No one else will understand the exigencies of Miss Griffin’s toilet, and be able by a touch and a word to put things right, as I shall.’
‘Certainly no one else will undertake that,’ said Mark.
‘Should I come to help with the toilet?’ said Aubrey.
‘One of you should walk with your sister,’ said Edgar, without a smile.
Aubrey rose with a flush, stood aside for Justine to pass and followed her out of the room.
‘Oh, my baby boy has gone,’ said Blanche, not referring to the actual exit.
‘He has developed very much, dear,’ said Matty. ‘We shall have him like his brothers after all.’
‘Why should he not be like them?’
‘Well, he will be. We see that now.’
‘He has always seemed to me as promising as either of them. A little less forward for his age, but that is often a good sign.’
‘It must be difficult to judge of children’, said Mark, ‘when their progress must count against them.’
‘I can’t think of a childhood with less of the success that spells failure,’ said Clement.
‘Slow and steady wins the race,’ said Oliver, without actually following.
‘He is not particularly slow. He is only different from other people, as all individual people are,’ said Blanche. ‘No one with anything in him is just like everyone else.’
‘That cannot be said of anyone here, can it?’ said her sister. ‘We are an individual company.’
‘Yes, but no one quite so much so as Aubrey. He is without exception the most individual person I have ever met.’
‘Without exception, dear?’ said Matty, bending her head and looking up from under it. ‘Have you forgotten the two young rebels we were talking about just now?’
‘No, but even you and I did not quite come up to him in originality. He is something in himself which none of the rest has been.’
‘I think that is true,’ said Mark.
‘Now what do you mean by that? If you mean anything disparaging, it is very petty and absurd. I wish Justine were here to take my part. I can only repeat that there is something in Aubrey which is to me peculiarly satisfying. Edgar, why do you not support me?’
‘You do not seem - you hardly seem to need my help.’
‘But what do you think yourself of the boy? I know you always speak the truth.’
Edgar, who had lately hoped that his son might after all attain the average, broke this record.
‘I see there is much - that there may be much in what you say.’
‘Aubrey is the one with a touch of me in him,’ said Dudley. ‘I wish Justine were here too.’
‘Hark! Hush! Listen,’ said Matty. ‘Do not make so much noise. Is it Maria’s voice in the hall? Blanche, do ask your boys to stop talking. Yes, it is my Maria; Justine must have brought her. She must have arrived this evening. It is a full moment for me, and I am glad for you all to share it.’ Matty broke off and sat with a listening expression and set lips.
‘What a pity for her to come like this,’ said Blanche, ‘with dinner nearly over! I hope she has had something to eat, but Miss Griffin will have seen to that.’
‘Yes, Miss Griffin will have cared for her, but I am here to give her welcome, And I cannot get my chair away from the table; I cannot manage it; I am dependent upon others; I must sit and wait for help. Yes, it is her voice. Sometimes patience is very hard. Thank you, Dudley; thank you, Edgar; I knew I should not wait long. No one else, Jellamy; too many cooks spoil the broth. I am on my feet now, and I can arrange my lace and touch my hair and make myself look my best, vain person that I am; make myself look like myself, I should rather say, for that is all my aim.’
‘What relation is this friend to you all?’ said Sarah, leaning towards Blanche.
‘No relation, only an old friend. She lived near to our old home and my sister saw a good deal of her.’
Sarah gave a grateful nod and leaned back, ready for the scene.
Justine spoke in the doorway.
‘Now, I am simply the herald. I claim no other part. I found Miss Sloane already in the lodge and Miss Griffin at a loss how to manage the situation. So I took it into my own hands. And I feel a thought triumphant. I induced Miss Sloane, tired as she was, travel-stained and unwilling as she was, harassed and moithered by crossing letters and inconsistent trains, to come and join us tonight. Now do you not call that a success? Because it was a hardly earned one. And now you can all share the results.’
A tall, dark woman of fifty entered the room, came towards Matty with a swift but quiet step, exchanged a natural embrace and looked round for her hosts. Blanche came forward in the character; Matty introduced the pair with an air of possession in each; Miss Griffin watched with the open and almost avid interest of one starved of interest and accordingly unversed in its occasions, and Justine took her stand at her side with an air of easy friendship.
‘I do not need an introduction,’ said Blanche. ‘I remember you well, Miss Sloane. I am afraid that my daughter has asked rather much of you, but we do appreciate your giving it to us.’
‘Miss Sloane has made a gallant capitulation, Mother, and does not want credit for it any more than any other generous giver.’
‘It is more than we had a right to expect,’ said Edgar.
‘It is certainly that, Father. So we will take it in a spirit of simple gratitude.’
‘Well, stolen waters are sweet.’
‘Bravo, Father!’ said Justine, smiling at Miss Griffin. ‘He comes up to scratch when there is a demand on him.’
‘I have less right to expect what I am having,’ said the guest, in a voice which did not hurry or stumble, shaking hands with several people without hastening or scamping the observance. ‘I am a travel-worn person to appear as a stranger.’
‘It is only a family gathering, Miss Sloane,’ said Justine. ‘We honestly welcome a little outside leavening.’
‘We are glad indeed to see you, my dear,’ said Oliver, who had got himself out of his chair. ‘You are a good person to set eyes on. I do not know a better.’
‘For heaven’s sake sit down, Miss Sloane,’ said Justine, when they reached the drawing-room. ‘I shall feel so guilty if you continue to stand.’
‘Now I am dependent upon help to get into a place by my guest,’ said Matty, in a clear tone. ‘I cannot join in a scramble.’
‘Poor, dear Aunt Matty, the help is indeed forthcoming. And, boys, you must see that Miss Griffin has no chair. Thank you, Uncle; I knew you would not countenance that.’
Maria Sloane was a person who seemed to have no faults within her own sphere. She had a tall, light figure, large, grey eyes, features which were good and delicate in their own way rather than of any recognized type, and an air of finished and rather formal ease, which was too natural ever to falter. Matty had said that money seemed not to touch her, and that when they saw her they would understand; and Edgar and Dudley and Mark saw her and understood. Justine and Sarah thought that her clothes were of the kind of simplicity which costs more than elaboration, but she herself knew that when these two qualities are on the same level, simplicity costs much less. Blanche simply admired her and Miss Griffin welcomed her coming with fervid relief. She had lost a lover by death in her youth, and since then had lived in her loss, or gradually in the memory of it. Her parents had lately died, and she had left the home of her youth with the indifferent ease which had come to mark her. She believed that nothing could touch her deeply again, and losing her parents at the natural age had not done so. Her brothers and sisters were married and away, and she now took her share of the money and went forth by herself, seeing that it would suffice for her needs, rather surprised at herself for regretting that they must be modified, and welcoming a shelter in the Seatons’ house while she adapted herself to the change. She had rather felt of herself what Matty said of her, that she lived apart from money like a flower, but she had lately realized that not even the extreme example of human adornment was arrayed as one of these.
‘Confess now, Miss Sloane,’ said Justine. ‘You would rather be in this simple family party than alone in that little house. Now isn’t it the lesser of two evils? I think that nothing is so hopeless as arriving after a long journey and finding the house empty and a cheerless grate, and everything conspiring to mental and moral discomfort.’
‘Has Justine had that experience?’ said Mark. ‘If so, we are much to blame.’
‘That could hardly have been the case, dear,’ said Matty, ‘with Miss Griffin and Emma in the house.’
‘I meant metaphorically empty and cheerless. We all know what that means.’
‘We are even more to blame,’ said Mark.
‘Make up the fire, Aubrey dear,’ said Blanche, following the train of thought.
‘It is metaphorically full,’ said her son from a chair.
There was laughter, which Aubrey met by kicking his feet and surveying their movement.
‘Get up and make up the fire,’ said Clement, who found these signs distasteful.
His brother appeared not to hear.
‘Get up and make up the fire.’
‘Now that is not the way to ask him, Clement,’ said Justine. ‘You will only make him obstinate. Aubrey, darling, get up and make up the fire.’
‘Yes, do it, darling,’ said Blanche.
‘Now I have been called “darling” twice, I will. Why should I be obliging to people who do not call me “darling” or “little boy” or some other name of endearment?’
There was further laughter, and Aubrey bent over the fire with his face hidden. This seemed a safe attitude, but Clement observed the flush on his neck.
‘Don’t go back to the best chair in the room.’
Aubrey strolled back to the chair; Clement intercepted him and put a leg across his path; Justine came forward with a swift rustling and a movement of her arms as of separating two combatants.
‘Come, come, this will not do: I have nothing to say for either of you. Both go back to your seats.’
‘Will one of you help me to move the chair for your mother?’ said Edgar, who did not need any aid.
‘Yes, sir,’ said Aubrey, with almost military precision.
‘Now I think that Aubrey came out of that the better, Clement,’ said Justine.
‘The other fellow doesn’t seem to be out of it yet,’ said Oliver, glancing at his second grandson. ‘I am at a loss to see why he put himself into it.’
‘Miss Sloane, what must you think of our family?’
‘I have belonged to a family myself,’
‘And do you not now belong to one?’ ‘Well, we are all scattered.’
‘I do not dare to think of the time when we shall be apart. It seems the whole of life to be here together.’
Thomas lifted his eyes at this view of a situation which he had just seen illustrated.
‘Do you belong to a family, Miss Griffin?’ said Dudley.
‘I did, of course, but we have been scattered for a long time.’
‘I have lived in the same house all my life, and so has my brother,’ said Edgar.
‘I have lived in two houses,’ said Blanche.
‘I am just in my second,’ said Matty, ‘and very strange I am finding it, or should be if it were not for this dear family at my gates. The family at whose gates I am, I should say.’
‘Why should you say it, Aunt Matty?’ said Justine. ‘What difference does it make?’
‘I too have just entered my second,’ said Oliver, ‘though it hardly seemed worth while for me to do so. I had better have laid myself down on the way.’
‘And you, Miss Sloane?’ said Edgar.
‘I am on my way to my second, which must be a very tiny one. It will be the first I have had to myself.’
‘And you have not had your road made easier,’ said Oliver. ‘You have been dragged out of it in the dead of night, when you thought that one of your days was done. The way you suffer it speaks well for you.’
‘I have an idea that a good many things do that for Miss Sloane,’ said Justine. ‘But you make me feel rather a culprit, Grandpa.’
‘You have done a sorry thing, child, and I propose to undo it. Good night, Blanche, my dear, and good-bye I hope until tomorrow. If it is to be for ever, I am the more glad to have been with you again.’
‘Father is tired,’ said Blanche, who would never admit that Oliver at eighty-seven might be near the end of his days.
‘I am tired too,’ said Matty, ‘but after such a happy evening with such a satisfying end, I thank you all so much, and I am sure you thank me.’
‘We do indeed,’ said Justine. ‘You are tired too, Miss Griffin, and I am afraid after a very brief taste of happiness. But we will make up for it another time.’
‘Oh, I am not tired,’ said Miss Griffin, standing up and looking at Matty.
‘Be careful, both of you, on this slippery floor,’ said Blanche. ‘I always think that Jellamy puts too much polish on it. Do not hurry.’
‘We shall neither of us be able to do that again,’ said Oliver.
Blanche followed her father and sister with her eyes on their steps, and perhaps gave too little attention to her own, for she slipped herself and had to be saved. Justine moved impulsively to Maria.
‘Miss Sloane, I do hope that you are going to spend some time with them? It comes to me somehow that you are just what they need. Can you give me a word of assurance?’
‘I hope they will let me stay for a while. It is what I need anyhow, a home and old friends at this time of my life.’
‘And there are new friends here for you. I do trust that you realize that.’
‘I have been made to feel it. And they do not seem to me quite new, as they are relations of such old ones.’
‘Dear Aunt Matty, she does attach people to her in her own way.’
‘We have enjoyed it so much, Mrs Gaveston. We shall have a great deal to think and talk of,’ said Sarah, able to express her own view of the occasion.
‘We need not thank you,’ said Thomas, uttering the words with a sincere note and acting upon them.
‘You did not mind the inclusion of Aubrey?’ said Justine. ‘It is so difficult to keep one member of the family apart, and we know Mr Middleton is used to boys.’
‘Can that give him only one view of them?’ said Mark.
‘Oh, come, he would not have given his best years to them if they had not meant something to him. I daresay he often finds his thoughts harking back to the old days.’
‘His best years!’ said Sarah, laughing at youth’s view of a man in his prime.
‘Mr Middleton, what do you think of the little boy?’ said Justine in a lowered tone. ‘Don’t look at him; he is enough in the general eye; but would you in the light of your long experience put him above or below the level?’
Thomas was hampered in his answer by being forbidden to look at the subject of it, a thing he had hardly done.
‘He seems to strike his own note in his talk,’ he said in a serious tone, trying to recall what he had heard.
‘Yes, that is what I think,’ said Justine, as if the words had considerable import, ‘I am privately quite with you. But quiet; keep it in the dark; tell it not in Gath. Little pitchers have long ears. You see I feel quite maternally towards my youngest brother.’
Thomas was able to give a smile of agreement, and he added one of understanding.
‘Do you think that we are alike as a family, Miss Sloane?’ said Blanche, willing for comment upon her children.
‘Really, Mother, poor Miss Sloane! We have surely had enough from her tonight.’
Maria regarded the faces round her, causing Aubrey to drop his eyes with a smile as of some private reminiscence.
‘I think I see a likeness between your brother-in-law and your youngest son.’
‘A triumph, Miss Sloane!’ said Justine. ‘That is a great test, and you are through it at a step. Now you can turn to the rest of us with confidence.’
‘But perhaps with other feelings,’ said Mark. ‘Miss Sloane will think that we have one resemblance, an undue interest in ourselves.’
‘In each other, let us say. She will not mind that.’
‘I think there are several other family likenesses,’ said Maria.
‘And they are obvious, Miss Sloane. Quite unworthy of a discerning eye. You have had the one great success and you will rest on that. Well, I think that there is nothing more fascinating than pouncing on the affinities in a family and tracing them to their source. I do not pity anyone for being asked to do it, because I like so much to do it myself.’
‘Must it be a safe method of judging?’ said Clement.
‘Now, young man, I have noticed that this is not one of your successful days. I can only assure Miss Sloane that you have another side.’
It now emerged that Matty and her father had reached the carriage, and the party moved on with the surge of a crowd released. Justine withheld her brothers from the hall with an air of serious admonishment, and assisted Edgar and Blanche and Dudley to speed the guests.
‘Good-bye, Miss Griffin,’ she called at the last moment. ‘That is right, Uncle; hand Miss Griffin into the carriage. Good night all.’
The family reassembled in the drawing-room.
‘Now there is an addition to our circle,’ said Justine.
‘Indeed, yes, she is a charming woman,’ said Blanche. ‘I had not remembered how charming. It is so nice to see anyone gain with the years, as she has.’
‘I believe I have been silent and unlike myself,’ said Dudley. ‘Perhaps Justine will explain to her about me, as she has about Clement.’
‘Indeed I will, Uncle, and with all my heart.’
‘I find that I want her good opinion. I do not agree that we should not mind what other people think of us. Consider what would happen if we did not.’
‘Miss Sloane behaved with a quiet heroism,’ said Mark.
‘Under a consistent persecution,’ said his brother.
‘Oh, things were not as bad as that,’ said Justine. ‘She did not mind being asked to look at the family. Why should she?’
‘She could hardly give her reasons.’
‘And she was not actually asked to look at Aubrey,’ said Mark. ‘If her eyes were drawn to him by some morbid attraction, it was not our fault.’
‘Don’t be so silly,’ said his mother at once.
‘I really wonder that she was not struck by the likeness between you and Uncle, Father,’ said Justine.
‘We may perhaps accept an indifference to any further likeness,’ said Edgar with a smile.
‘We have to make conversation with our guests,’ said his wife.
‘I am glad that my look of Uncle flitted across my face,’ said Aubrey.
‘Little boy,’ said Justine, pointing to the clock, ‘what about Mr Penrose tomorrow? He does not want to be confronted by a sleepy-head.’
‘Good night, darling,’ said Blanche, kissing her son without looking at him and addressing her husband. ‘I do hope Matty enjoyed the evening. I could see that my father did. I am sure that everything was done for her. And Miss Sloane’s arrival was quite a little personal triumph.’
‘I could see it was,’ said Mark, ‘but I did not quite know why. It seemed that it had happened rather unfortunately.’
‘Yes, dear Grandpa was quite content,’ said Justine. ‘He does like to be a man among men. We cannot expect him not to get older.’
‘We can and do,’ said Mark, ‘but it is foolish of us.’
‘I was sincerely glad of Aunt Matty’s little success. It was something for her, herself, apart from what she was taking from us, something for her to give of her own. It seemed to be just what she wanted.’
‘I think Miss Griffin will enjoy having Miss Sloane,’ said Blanche, guarding her tone from too much expression.
‘And I am glad of that from my soul,’ said Justine, stretching her arms. ‘I would rather have Miss Griffin’s pleasure than my own any day. And now I am going to bed. I have enjoyed every minute of the evening, but there is nothing more exhausting than a thorough-going family function.’
‘You need not work so hard at it,’ said Clement.
‘Clement has a right to speak,’ said Mark. ‘He has followed his line.’
‘Yes, anyhow I have done my best. I could spare myself a good deal if I had some support.’
‘Yes, that is true, Clement dear,’ said Blanche. ‘You ought to come out of yourself a little and try to support the talk.’
‘If it is worthy of Justine’s, it is worthy of yours. That goes without saying.’
‘Then why not let it do so?’
‘I had not realized that we were indebted to Clement for any regard of us,’ said Edgar.
‘I believe I had without knowing it,’ said Dudley. ‘I believe I felt some influence at work, which checked my spirits and rendered me less than myself.’
‘Really, Clement, you should not do it,’ said Blanche, turning to her son with a scolding note as she learned his course.
Clement walked towards the door.
‘We will follow - perhaps we will follow our custom of parting for the night,’ said his father.
‘Good night, Mother,’ said Clement, slouching to Blanche as if he hardly knew what he did.
‘Good night, dear,’ said the latter, caressing his shoulder to atone for her rebuke. ‘You will remember what I say.’
‘Father is sometimes nothing short of magnificent,’ said Justine. ‘The least said and the most done. I envy his touch with the boys. Good night, Father, and thanks from your admiring daughter.’
Edgar stooped and held himself still, while Justine threw her arms about his neck and kissed him on both cheeks, a proceeding which always seemed to him to take some time.
‘I was so proud of them all,’ said Blanche, when her children had gone. ‘I do see that Matty has much less than I have. I ought to remember it.’
‘You ought not,’ said Dudley. ‘You ought to assume that she has quite as much. I am always annoyed when people think that I have less than Edgar, because he has a wife and family and an income and a place, and I have not. I like them to see that all that makes no difference.’
‘Neither does it to you, because you share it all.’
‘That is not the same. I like it to be thought that there is no need for me to share it, that that is just something extra. I hope Miss Sloane thinks so.’
‘Has Miss Sloane as much as Blanche?’ said Edgar, smiling.
‘Yes, she has,’ said his wife, with sudden emphasis. ‘She is such a finished, satisfying person that anything she lacks is more than balanced by what she has and what she gives. I am not at all a woman to feel that everyone must have the same. I am prepared to yield her the place in some things, as she must yield it to me in others. And I think she will be such a good example for Justine.’ Blanche put her needle into her work without alluding to her intention of going to bed, and observing Dudley retrieving her glasses and putting them into their case, seemed about to speak of it, but let the image fade. ‘I mean in superficial ways. It is the last thing we should wish, that the dear girl’s fundamental lines should be changed. We are to have breakfast half an hour later: did I remember to tell Jellamy? I must go and see if Aubrey is asleep. Good night, Edgar; good night, Dudley. I hope my father has got to bed. He seemed to be feeling his age tonight. If you are going to talk, don’t sit up too long. And if you smoke in the library, mind the sparks.’
‘We must be a little later than Blanche means,’ said Dudley, as he brought the cigars to his brother and sat down out of reach of them himself. ‘I want to talk about how Matty behaved. Better than usual, but so badly. And about how Miss Sloane behaved. Beautifully. I do admire behaviour; I love it more than anything. Blanche has the behaviour of a person who has no evil in her; and that is the rarest kind, and I have a different admiration for it.’
‘I fear we cannot say much for Clement on the point.’
‘We will not say anything. The less said about it, the better, and it is silly to say that and then talk about it.’
‘Do you think he is developing on the right lines?’
‘People don’t alter at his age as much as older people think.
‘How old is he?’ said Clement’s father, wishing to know at this stage.
‘Twenty-six the month before last. The change now must be slow. Perhaps the lad ought to be a grief to me, but I don’t suffer a great deal; I hardly even think of him as the lad. To tell you the truth, I feel so young myself that I hardly feel I am any older than he is; but you will not tell anyone that. And now I have made one confession, the ice is broken and I should be able to make another. But do not look at me or I could not make it. You are looking at me, and for the first time in my life I cannot meet your eyes. Why don’t you tell me to sit down quietly on that little stool and tell you everything?’
‘Well, do that.’
‘You know my old godfather?’
‘The one who is ninety-six?’
‘Yes, that one; I have no other. At least, of course people have two godfathers, but the other is dead. And now this one is dead too. I hope he was not feeling his age, but I expect he felt as young as Clement. You know he had no children?’
‘Yes, I had heard it, or I think I had. Has he left you any money?’
‘Edgar, is it possible that your thoughts have run on sordid lines?’
‘I had not thought of it until this moment.’
‘I am glad of that. I should not like to feel that I had lost my brother. It would be quite different from losing a godfather.’
‘It would in the matter of money,’ said Edgar, with his short laugh. ‘Is it surprising that a childless man should leave money to his godson?’
‘Yes, very. People have not any money. And they always have a family. It is very rare to have the first and not the second. I can’t think of another case, only of the opposite one. We see that Matty has relations.’
‘I did not know that he had much money.’
‘I see you will feel the shock as well. I am not alone in my distress.’
‘Why is it distress? Why not the opposite feeling?’
‘Edgar, you must know that money is the cause of all evil. It is the root of it.’
‘How did he get so much?’
‘He speculated and made it. I knew he speculated, but I thought that people always lost every farthing. And it is wrong to speculate, and has left the fruits of his sin to me.’
‘The sins of the father are visited upon the children. And in default of them there is a godson.’
‘Unto the third and fourth generation. But I expect they have generally lost it all by then.’
‘Can you bring yourself to tell me how much it is?’
‘No. You have only just brought yourself to ask.’
‘Is it very much?’
‘Yes.’
‘How can I help you?’
‘I must leave it to you. You have never failed me yet.’
‘Shall we wait and look at The Times?’
‘No, that would imply a lack of confidence. There have never been secrets between us.’
‘Is it as much as a thousand a year?’
‘Yes.’
‘As much as fifteen hundred?’
‘Yes.’
‘As much as three thousand?’
‘No. How easy it is after all! It is about two. I am glad you have not failed me. Now our danger point is past, and we know that we can never fail each other.’
‘Those letters you have had in these last days? That one you went away to answer?’
‘I see there has been no secret between us.’
‘It will make a great deal of difference, Dudley.’
‘Yes, it will. I am not going to pretend that I don’t think much of it. I think too much, as is natural. And I am not going to refer to it as a nice little fortune. I think it is a large one, though I am rather ashamed of thinking it. I don’t know why people do such aggravating things. It must be because money brings out the worst in them. I shall never even say that I am a comparatively poor man. I have actually begun to push the thought from me.’
The door opened and Blanche appeared with a lamp, pale and different in the half light, her loose, grey hair and straight garments giving her the look of a woman from another age.
‘What are you talking about all this time? I had no idea that you had not come up. I went to get something from Edgar’s room and thought he must be asleep. I can never get to sleep myself while I know that other people are about. I am so afraid of fire. You know that.’
‘Indeed I did not, Blanche,’ said Dudley. ‘At least I thought that you slept in spite of your fear, like everyone else.’
‘I thought the same, assumed it,’ said Edgar.
‘I cannot sleep when I feel that people are doing their best to set the house in a blaze every moment. How could I?’
‘I don’t see how you could. I did not know that Edgar did that when he sat up. It seems sly somehow, when he never does it in the day. And it does show that he ought to be in bed. But I do my best with quite different things. You can sleep in peace when you know that I am about.’
‘You will accept our excuse when you hear it, Blanche. Dudley has been left a fortune - a sum of money by his godfather.’
‘He hasn’t,’ said Blanche in a petulant tone. ‘Not large enough to make all that talk and keep you up half the night. I know he was quite a poor man; I did not know why anyone had him for a godfather. Now come upstairs, both of you, and put out the lamps and push back the coals, as Dudley implies that he does it, and let us hear about it in the morning.’
The brothers occupied themselves with these measures.
‘How much is it?’ said Blanche, shading the lamp with her hand and speaking as if she might as well hear while she waited.
‘It is a large sum, my dear, really very large. You must be prepared.’
‘How much is it? It is very nice if it is large. I saw his death in the papers, and meant to speak about it and forgot. He was over a hundred, wasn’t he?’
‘He was ninety-six,’ said Dudley, ‘but that is old enough to make it excusable to forget his death.’
‘How much is it? Why do you not tell me? Is there some mystery?’
‘No, there is not; I wish there were; I hate having to manage without one. Edgar, you are tailing me at last.’
‘It is two thousand a year,’ said Edgar, ‘or probably about that sum.’
‘Two thousand pounds a year?’
‘Yes, yes. About that, about two thousand pounds.’
‘Two thousand pounds a year or two thousand pounds?’
‘Two thousand pounds a year.’
‘Why, how very nice!’ said Blanche, turning to lead the way from the room, with her hand still over her lamp. ‘When did you hear? Dear Dudley, I do congratulate you. It is just what you deserve. I never was so glad about anything. And you were wise not to talk about it before Matty. It sometimes upsets her to hear that people have much more than she has. We might be the same in her place. Well, no wonder you stayed up to talk about that. We must talk it over in the morning; I shall quite look forward to it. Well, I shall sleep very soundly after hearing this.’
Blanche, meaning what she said and about to act upon it, went upstairs, guarding her lamp, and the brothers followed, pausing to whisper outside their doors.
‘We have seen things out of their true proportion,’ said Dudley. ‘How is it that our outlook is so material? I was prepared to toss on my bed, and really we ought to sleep particularly well. I thought when I saw Miss Sloane, that she and I lived apart from tangible things. And really we have only been kept apart from them. Well, you can’t separate yourself from me on this occasion. All that I have is yours.’
A flash from Blanche’s door sent Edgar into his room and Dudley on tiptoe to her side.
‘Blanche, I am only waiting for the morrow, to come and pour it all into your lap. And I am sure the house is not in a blaze.’
‘Good night, dear Dudley,’ said Blanche, smiling and closing her door.