‘I am just the person who should not be going away,’ said Dudley.
‘Courage, Uncle,’ said his niece. ‘Absence makes the heart grow fond. And we will all keep an eye on her for you.’
‘Do you want to give me any instructions as the person in charge?’ said Matty.
‘I have not had my own yet. I am waiting to be told to take care of myself and to come back as soon as I can. I must take the will for the deed, though that always seems to be giving people too much credit.’
‘Come away from the hall,’ said Justine. ‘Leave the engaged pair to enact their little scene in privacy and peace. They do not want eyes upon them at every moment. Someone give an arm to Aunt Matty.’
‘I think I may stay here, dear. I am not so able-bodied as to keep running away on any pretext. And I am to take Maria home as soon as your uncle has gone.’
‘I think it would be better to forget your office for once. Too duenna-like a course is less kind than it sounds.’
‘It did not sound kind, dear. And the words are not in place. There is nothing duenna-like about me. I have no practice in such things. I have been a person rather to need them from other people.’
‘Yes, I daresay, Aunt Matty. I did not mean the word to be a barbed one. Well, come along, Father. Leave Aunt Matty to carry out her duty in her own way. It would not be my way, but I must not impose my will on hers.’
‘You can only do your best,’ said Mark. ‘And that you have done.’
‘Come, let the engaged couple have anyhow only one pair of eyes upon them.’
‘They are still accustomed to being apart,’ said Edgar, as he moved from his place. ‘Their life together is not to begin yet.’
‘No, but common sense will hardly play much part in their feelings at this time. Whatever they feel, logic will not have much to do with it.’
‘If they don’t want people’s eyes they may not want their tongues.’
‘Father, protect me against this unchivalrous brother.’
Edgar edged by his daughter and walked down the hall. She misinterpreted his abruptness and followed and put her hand through his arm. He shook it off and went on, giving one backward glance.
‘Father’s look at Uncle goes to my heart,’ she said, as she joined her brothers.
Clement looked at her and did not speak. He also had followed his father’s eyes.
‘Some things are too sacred for our sight,’ said Aubrey. ‘They can only bear Aunt Matty’s.’
‘Yes, that is the inconsistence I can’t quite get over,’ said Justine. ‘It does not seem fair, but we are not allowed to prevent it.’
‘They have all their lives to be alone with each other,’ said Mark.
‘Oh, why can’t people see that the whole of their lives has no bearing on this moment?’ said his sister, beating her hands against her sides. ‘All those moments added together will not make this one. It is one of the high water marks of life, the first parting after an acknowledged engagement. Why must we be so uncromprehending about it all?’
‘We need not grasp more than is there,’ said Edgar, who had returned and now spoke with a smile.
‘I told him that we were all boys together,’ said Aubrey, with tears and mirth. ‘That is what he did not like. He tries to think he is a man.’
‘Is anyone hurt?’ asked Edgar at the door.
‘No, Father, only someone’s feelings. And they are already soothed,’ said Justine, encircling Aubrey’s head in a manner which for once he welcomed, as it hid his face. ‘So we need not worry you with it.’
Edgar looked at his eldest and youngest children, as they went together from the room.
‘There is a good deal on your sister. I hope you will be a help to her. I will ask you both to do your best. A house like this goes ill without an older woman. It will run for a time of itself as it has been set on its lines. But if any part goes off, the whole must follow. We must support that one of us who may be destined to strive and fail.’
‘I hope that Uncle will live near to us,’ said Mark.
‘I hope so; I think he will do his best. But a separate household will not keep this one to its course. I trust the lines may run together; I trust they may.’
Edgar left the house and walked on the path where he was used to walking with his brother. He held his head upright and his hands behind his back, as if seeking a position to replace the old one. His face was still and set, as though he would not yield to any feelings that would cause a change. He looked at his watch, surprised by its slowness, and at once replaced it and walked on.
Justine, watching from a window, left her place and hastened to her room. Coming downstairs in outdoor clothes, she passed her brothers with a sign.
‘Do not ask me where I am going. Do not see me. Do not remember I have gone. Go on with what you are doing and leave me to do the same.’
‘Where is she going?’ said Mark. ‘What is the mystery?’
‘I suppose to see Aunt Matty. She may be about to make some scene. It is a good thing to be out of it.’
‘Is Aunt Matty very lonely without Mother?’ ‘She must miss the concern which it had taken sixty years to work up. I should think it could not have been done in less, it is no good for anyone else to begin it.’
‘It is a pity that Grandpa is too old for a companion to Father.’
‘You are less sure of yourself in that character?’
‘That aspect of me does not seem to strike him,’ said Mark, with his easy acceptance of the truth. ‘And I hesitate to bring it to his notice.’
‘We shall be a wretched household if Uncle - when Uncle goes. And I shall be obliged to spend more time in it.’
‘You take your usual simple attitude.’
‘What would happen to me if I did not?’
‘You might devote yourself to doing a mother’s part by Aubrey.’
‘You might have more success in that part yourself than as a wife for Father.’
‘Successful!’ called Justine’s voice, as her rapid feet bore her through the hall. ‘Successful and you need not ask in what way. That is in my own heart and I do not need to reveal it. I am content with my own sense of satisfaction.’
Clement paced up and down, silent and as if preoccupied. When Maria came up the drive he glanced through the window, and continued pacing as if unaware of what he had seen.
Three weeks later Aubrey came to the others.
‘I saw Father and Miss Sloane saying good-bye.’
‘Did you?’ said his sister. ‘Well, that was not much of an event. They must meet and part every day.’
‘Do people - do men kiss the women their brothers are going to marry?’
‘Oh, that is what you saw? So that is what it has come to. Well, I am glad it has. They can carry that off, being the people they are. I don’t know whether it is conventional between brothers and sisters-in-law, but that does not matter with these two. No doubt they felt that. They must know themselves as they are.’
‘Father will miss Miss Sloane when Uncle marries,’ said Clement.
‘And shall we not all miss several people? A great part of our life will be a blank. This is something to be a help to him until the break comes. It is sad that we should think in that way of the consummation of Uncle’s life, but we can hardly help it. I question indeed whether I have been wise in throwing Father and Maria so much together. I meant it for the best; God knows I did; but it will be something else to be relinquished. And I have been so glad to see him brighter and hear the old spring in his step. Well, we will not anticipate trouble. It will be on us soon enough.’
‘He must be better for being helped through the first stage. When that is over, he will have himself in hand and can look to his future. Fie must be used to his loss, before he is master of his own life.’
‘And people get used to anything,’ said Mark. ‘Even if he never gets over it, he must get used to it.’
‘He will get over it,’ said Justine. ‘To be honest, we know he will. His feeling for Mother was sound and true, but it was not that, not the kind to live by itself when its object was gone. You do not misunderstand me?’
They did not, and she stroked Aubrey’s hand to help him over this initiation into the life of truth.
‘We are all leaving our loss behind,’ said Clement. ‘And it is better for us and for other people, the sooner it is done.’
‘I hope it does not mean that our little mother is drifting away,’ said Justine, frowning as she tried to think of another meaning. ‘But what dear, good boys you are in these days! You will not leave your sister alone at the helm. It is only Father whose future troubles me. He does seem to be separated by a wide gulf. Mark and I hoped that we could bridge it, but we found our mistake. That is why I am glad if Maria can get even a little way towards the self which is hidden. Somehow he seems to want to keep it so. Somehow I feel that there is a higher barrier between us than there was. There is something which I can’t put into words about it.’
‘Does Father like Miss Sloane better than Mother?’ said Aubrey.
‘Now, little boy, you know better than to ask such questions. It is not worth while to answer them. But Father’s life is not my affair, if he does not wish it to be. It was presumptuous to feel that I could in any way take Mother’s place. I am content that Maria should do so to any extent that she can. The trouble is that it cannot be for long.’
‘Then Father likes Miss Sloane better than you, Justine.’
‘Oh, come, I am Father’s only daughter, since Mother died the only woman in his family. You will know better when you are older, what that means. He may not want to mix up other relations with it. He has a right to have it by itself, simple and intact, if he wishes.’
‘Uncle is coming back tomorrow,’ said Clement.
‘And Father’s life will be full for the time. And we will not look further.’
‘Uncle has written to Miss Sloane every day,’ said Aubrey. ‘I saw the pile of letters on Aunt Matty’s desk.’
‘Really, little boy, I don’t know what to say to that. I hope they remained in a pile; I am sure they did; but even then I don’t know what has become of my training.’
‘I don’t think she writes to him as often,’ said Mark. ‘I took their letters to the post one day, and there was not one from her to him.’
‘My dear boys, what has come to you? I suppose you must have your little curiosities, but this goes too far. People must have their private lives and you must leave them. In some ways convention is a good thing. Mark, you are too old not to be quite certain about it.’
‘It is a wonder that the young are not worse than they are, when everything is condoned in them,’ said Clement. ‘We do all we can to prevent their improvement.’
‘Do you think Clement is softened lately, Justine?’ said Aubrey.
‘He has been more at home,’ said Mark. ‘I hoped, Justine, that our combined influence might do something for him. And I am not wholly disappointed.’
‘Don’t talk nonsense. It will only end in a quarrel. And one thing I want to say. When Uncle comes back and meets Miss Sloane, don’t all stand round in a circle, gaping at them. Let them have their moment.’
‘I do not remember grouping ourselves in that manner or with that self-indulgence. It was not a conscious effect.’
‘Well, you know what I mean. Anyhow you all seem to know a good deal. Talk about the curiosity of women! I seem to have much the least. Keep away and allow them their first hour. I expect even Father will do that. And it will be more to him, a foretaste of the time when he will be deserted. For that is what I fear he will feel in spite of his children. Dear, dear, I hardly dare to look at the future.’
Edgar did not do as his daughter foretold. He met his brother, standing at Maria’s side, and shook hands with his eyes on his face, as if he felt it was his duty to meet his eyes. Dudley took a step towards them, but stopped short, warned by some instinct that things were not as they had been. He drew back and waited for them to speak, feeling with his natural swiftness that this imposed on them the most demand and gave him the fullest chance. Maria’s letters came to him, and he saw in a flash that this was not how she wrote. He waited to hear that she wanted release and had enlisted his brother’s support. What he heard was always to return to his mind, each word sharp and heavy with all its meaning.
‘Dudley, I must say what I must. Everything comes from me. You must hear it from my lips. Maria wishes to be released from you and has consented to marry me. We would not continue in a lie to you for a day. I cannot ask you to wish us happiness, but I can hardly believe, with my knowledge of you, that you will not wish it. And I can say that I wished it to you, when it seemed that things were to be with me as they are with you.’
Dudley looked at his brother with motionless eyes, and in an instant recovered himself and met the moment, seeming to himself to act a part over unrealized feeling.
‘So I am to be a hero. Well, it will suit me better than it would most people, much better than you, Edgar. I see how unheroic you are. And I return to my life of living for others. I don’t think that they have really liked my doing anything else. And I see that it is nicer for them. And I shall keep you both instead of giving up one for the other. I expect that is what you have been saying, it sounds an improvement, but I shall not let you think it is. I must have some revenge for being put in this position. I shall look so foolish, standing aside in simple renunciation.’
‘You will indeed keep us both,’ said Edgar, in so low a voice that he seemed to feel it unfitting that he should speak.
‘I ought to have thought of this myself. It would have come better from me. It does not come at all well from you, Edgar. I wish I could have the credit of suggesting it. I suppose I can’t have it? We can’t pretend that it did come from me?’
‘It did in a way, Dudley. You gave us so full a share of each other.’
Dudley recoiled but in a moment went on.
‘And you have both taken a larger share than I meant. That is the worst of kindness; people take advantage of it. You really have done so. It will give me a great hold on you both.’
His words, and his voice more than his words, laid a spell on his hearers and kept them still. Maria did not speak. She had nothing to say, nothing to add to what Edgar had said. Dudley looked at her, aloof and silent, and over his tumult of feeling continued to speak. He felt that he must get through the minutes, get them behind, that he must meet his brother’s children and break the truth, before he went away alone to face the years. He could not face them with anything more upon him.
‘I will go and tell Justine and the boys that I am to remain in their home. I suppose you do not wish me to leave it? You don’t feel as guilty before me as that. They will betray their pleasure at the news, and I suppose that will be balm to my sore heart. I may be fortunate that I have never needed any balm before. They would rather have me than you, Edgar. I suppose I have really been the only father they have known. It is a good thing that you have not to face this ordeal. You would be quite unequal to it. You have been very awkward in this last scene. I see what people mean when they say that I am the better of the two.’
Dudley left them with a light step and they still stood apart. But as he paused to get his grasp on himself, he saw them move to each other and lift their eyes. Their ordeal was over: his had begun.
He paused at the door of the upper room and listened to the sound of voices. Justine and Aubrey and Mark were playing a game. Clement was standing on the hearth, as he had stood while the scene went on below. Dudley had not thought to dread this moment as much as he dreaded it. It had seemed that his main feeling must drown any other, and a thought just came that he could not be suffering to the last. He stood just inside the door and said the words which he felt would be his.
‘I bring you a piece of good news. You are not going to lose me. I am to remain the light of your home. You thought that my gain was to be your loss, but I am not going to have the gain. It seemed impossible that I should be going to marry, and it is impossible.’
‘What do you mean, Uncle?’ said Justine. ‘Have you changed your mind?’
‘No, I am better than that. I have been rejected in favour of my brother and I have risen above it. I am the same person, better and finer. The last little bit of self has gone. It was rather a large piece at our last interview, but that does not matter, now it has gone.’
‘Tell us what you mean,’ said Mark.
‘I don’t think I can be expected to say plainly that Maria has given me up and is going to marry your father. Surely you can save me from the actual words. I shall soon have said them. Surely you have taken the hint.’
‘It is really true, Uncle?’
‘Yes, you have taken it,’ said Dudley, sinking into a chair as if in relief.
‘We are to accept this as definite and acknowledged? It affects us as well as you.’
‘It does, doesn’t it? I had not thought of that. I am glad that you are to share the embarrassment. A burden is halved if it is shared, though it almost seems that it would be doubled. And you must be very uncomfortable. It is very soon for your father to want to marry.’
‘But Father can’t marry Miss Sloane,’ said Aubrey. ‘He is married to Mother.’
‘No, dear,’ said Justine, in a low tone. ‘Mother is dead.’
‘But she would not like him to have another wife.’ ‘We do not know, dear, Hush. Mother might understand.’ ‘So that is what it has meant,’ said Mark, ‘their being so much together.’
‘Is that what it was’, said Aubrey, ‘when I saw them -’
Justine put her hand on his to enforce his silence. ‘Yes,’ said Dudley, ‘all of it was that. It is bad enough to bring out the best in me, and it has had to be the very best. And your position is not so good. Your father is losing no time in filling your mother’s place. I must make one mean speech; I can’t be the only person to suffer discomfiture. But of course you see no reason why I should suffer it, and of course I see that your mother would have wished this to happen, and that your father is simply fulfilling her wish.’
‘We cannot but rejoice that we are to keep you, Uncle,’ said Mark.
‘Yes, we must feel that for ourselves,’ said Justine. Clement and Aubrey did not speak.
‘I don’t wonder that you are ill at ease. And I must embarrass you further and tell you that you will have your money back again. I want you to feel some awkwardness which is not caused by my being rejected. No doubt you see that I do. But you will have the money after you have proved that you could give it up. It is just the position one would choose. And I have simply proved that I could take it back. My situation would not be chosen in any way. What do you think people will think of me? Will they despise me for being rejected? I do not say jilted. A vulgar word could not pass my lips.’
‘They will think what they always have of you, Uncle,’ said Justine.
‘That I am second to my brother? Well, they must think that. Do you think a vulgar word could pass their lips?’
‘I am sure it could not in connexion with you.’
‘That is a good thing. Perhaps I am a person who can carry off anything. I must be, because that is what I am doing. You will have to support me and not show it. I should not like it to be thought that I needed help from others. And as I am still well off, people won’t entirely despise me.’
‘You are many other things, Uncle.’
‘They are not the kind of things that people would see. People are so dreadful. I am not like them, after all.’
‘When will Father marry Miss Sloane?’ said Aubrey.
‘We do not know, dear. No one knows,’ said his sister. ‘Some time will have to pass.’
‘That seems so unreasonable,’ said Dudley. ‘Why should people wait to carry out their wishes? Of course they should not have them. I see that; I like to see it. I am not a man without natural feelings. I could not rise above them if I were without them. And that seems the chief thing that I do.’
‘Will you be taking up the repairs to the house again?’ said Justine, in a practical tone, as if to liberate her uncle from the thrall of speech.
‘Your father will think of that. It will be to his advantage. Oh, I must not let myself grow bitter. People are ennobled by suffering and that was not the speech of an ennobled man. And I thought of my advantage when my turn came. That came as a shock to people; I like to remember that it did. I was not a person who could be trusted to think of himself; they actually hardly expected it. If I had not become engaged, my true self would never have emerged. And now I shall never be thought the same of again. But I suppose nobody would be, whose true self had emerged.’
‘Is Father’s self made manifest now?’ said Aubrey.
‘Yes, it is, and we see that it is even worse than mine.’
Justine rose and shook out her skirt with a movement of discarding the traces of some pursuit.
‘People’s weaker side is not necessarily their truer self,’ she said, in a tone which ended the talk and enabled her uncle to leave the room.
A silence followed his going.
‘Are men allowed to marry someone else as soon as they like after their wives are dead?’ said Aubrey.
‘How many weeks is it?’ said Mark.
‘I do not know. We will not say,’ said his sister. ‘It can do no good.’
‘It may have been the emotion of that time which prepared the way for the other.’
‘It may have been. It may not. We do not know.’
‘Is it often like that?’ said Aubrey.
Justine sat down and drew him to her lap, and as he edged away to save her his weight, suddenly raised her hands to her head and burst into a flood of tears. Her brothers looked on in silence. Aubrey put his knee on the edge of her chair and stared before him.
‘Well, that is over,’ she said, lifting her face. ‘I had to let myself go at first. If I had not, it would only have been bottled up and broken out at some inopportune time. Witness my passages with Aunt Matty. Well, I have betrayed my feelings once and am in no danger of doing it a second time. I can feel that Uncle will be able to face his life, and that I shall be able to face seeing him do it.’
‘Shall we all be able to, or must we all cry?’ said Aubrey, who was himself taking the latter course.
‘Well, women look into the depths more than men. But you need not fear that I shall reveal myself again.’
‘Shall we all follow Justine’s example?’ said Aubrey, glancing at his brothers to see if they had done so.
‘Uncle did a difficult thing well,’ said Mark.
‘I wondered when he was going to stop doing it,’ said Clement.
‘Clement! Ah well, it is your feeling that makes you say it,’ said Justine.
‘Justine helped him to stop,’ said Mark. ‘I wonder what would have happened if she had not.’
‘He would have managed for himself. I had no real fear. I only wanted to spare him all I could.’
‘It seems that we have been blind,’ said Clement.
‘Have we?’ said his sister. ‘Did we see anything? Did we foresee it? Shall we ever know?’
‘Of course we shall,’ said Mark. ‘We know now that we have had a shock.’
‘It seems that there must have been signs, even that there were. Well, then, so it was.’
‘I wonder what the scene was like between Uncle and Father,’ said Clement.
‘We need not wonder. We know that it was an exhibition of dignity and openness on the one side and generosity and courage on the other.’
‘Miss Sloane was there,’ said Aubrey. ‘I saw them all go into the library together.’
‘And what quality did she contribute?’ said Mark. ‘But there was surely no need of any more.’
‘I wonder which of them one’s heart aches for the most,’ said Justine.
‘For Uncle. Mine only aches for him.’
‘I don’t know. If I know Father, he has his share of the suffering.’
‘I think it is clear that we did not entirely know him. And Uncle is reaping the reward.’
‘Yes, yes, that in a way,’ said Justine, putting her hands round her knee and looking before her, ‘That, indeed. And yet there is something so stimulating in the thought of Uncle’s course. It is such a tonic sadness. One wonders if such things are ever not worth while.’
‘Not for Uncle, I am afraid. The benefit is for other people.’
‘Do you know, I don’t know?’ said Justine, beginning again to gaze before her but checking herself. ‘Well, I must go and pursue the trivial round. Even such things as these bring duties in their wake. Miss Sloane will be staying to dinner, and I suppose Aunt Matty must come to preside at this further involvement of her fortunes with ours.’
‘Is that the best thing?’ said Mark.
‘Yes, my dear,’ said Justine, simply. ‘It saves Uncle the most. He gets it all over in one fell swoop and has his path clear. Let him go to bed tonight feeling that his hard time is behind, that he has finished with heroism and has only to look forward in his old way to the happiness of others.’
‘Well, begun it then, begun the real part. Begun to serve his sentence, even if it is for life. That is not so foreign to Uncle. We are not on his level. We can trust him to go further than we could.’
‘And fare worse, it seems.’
‘And fare as he may,’ said Justine with a sigh. ‘Now we have to take our thoughts from him and think of Father.’ ‘A less elevating subject.’
‘No, no, Mark. We will not cross our proper bounds. Though Father is changing his life and ours, we are none the less his children.’
‘Will Aunt Matty be any relation of Father’s now?’ said Aubrey. ‘It was because of Mother that he was her brother.’
‘Oh, what a muddle and mix-up it all is! Well, we must leave the future. We have no right to mould or mar it. Aunt Matty is Mother’s sister and has a right in our home. And she is also Miss Sloane’s friend. It is strange that I do not feel inclined to say Maria now. But I daresay that is littleness and perhaps, if I knew, self-righteousness. She has brought this happiness into Father’s life, and we must not forget it, though we have counted the cost. Let me see bright faces now. It is due to Father and to her, yes, and to Uncle too, that we should show a pleasant front to those who are managing their lives in their own way.’
‘Certainly not ours,’ said Mark.
‘The whole point is the feeling between Father and Miss Sloane,’ said Clement. ‘It is best for things to happen according to the truth underneath.’
‘We can’t help resenting the truth; that is the trouble,’ said his sister. ‘We shall have to hide our feelings, and we shall not be the only people doing that. It is surprising how little we are in control of our minds. I found myself wishing that Mother were here, to help us out of the muddle which has come through her death.’
‘Well, she is not, and Father has to make his life without her. And he would be a more tragic figure alone than Uncle, if only for the reason that he would be lonely and Uncle will not.’
‘Not on the surface. We shall all see to that. But there is such a thing as being alone in a crowd. And perhaps we had some feeling that Father ought to be lonely at this time. Well, if we had, we had; I don’t know what it says for us. Now will you walk across to Aunt Matty, and break the news cheerfully, gently - oh, how you please, and come back and tell me if she is coming tonight? To see her friend taking her sister’s place may be a thing she can face, and it may not. Only she can know. Dear, dear, I don’t see how things are to straighten out.’
‘I believe that you are a contributing cause of all this,’ said Mark to Clement as they set off. ‘It was your idea that Uncle should stay away to serve Aunt Matty. That is how things had the chance to turn themselves over. They could hardly have done it otherwise.’
‘It was a good thing they had it, with all this working underneath. It would not have done for the future to go on without any root in the truth.’
‘Have you had any base thoughts in your mind?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Have you begun to think of having your money?’
‘Oh, that. Uncle said something about it.’
‘He said the one significant thing.’
‘I suppose I shall come to it: I see you have done so.’
‘I was wondering if my mind were baser than anyone else’s. I see it is baser than yours.’
‘Oh, all our minds are alike,’ said Clement. ‘Everyone is base in a way.’
Dudley came across the grass behind them, raising his voice.
‘Are you going to see your aunt? Then I will come with you and get the last piece of my ordeal over. I have shown you how a person should bear himself under a reverse, and now I will give the same lesson to Matty. We do seem to feel that she needs lessons, though I begin to see that her failings are not so bad as such things go.’
Matty’s voice came to their ears, raised and almost strident.
‘Of course I should not be treated like this. You seem to be devoid of any knowledge of civilized life. Here have I been sitting alone all day, imagining everything, anxious about everyone, yearning for some word or sign! And here I am left as if I were nothing and nobody, and had nothing to do with the people who are the nearest in my life. I have lost my sister, but her children are my charge, and the woman who is to take her place is my friend. I am deeply involved in all of it and it is torment to be kept apart.’
‘I only said that they must have had a shock, and may not have thought of sending anyone down.’
‘Then don’t say it; don’t dare to say it. Sending anyone down! As if I were some pensioner to be cast a scrap, instead of what I am, the woman who stands to my sister’s children in the place of a mother! You have never felt or had any affection, or you could not say such things.’
Miss Griffin looked at the window, opening her eyes to prevent any other change in them, and Matty broke off, touched her hair, laid her hands on her flushed cheeks, and leaned towards the door.
‘Come in, whoever you are, and find a poor, wrought-up woman, tired of knowing nothing, tired of being alone. You have come to put an end to that. I am not quite forgotten. And do I see three dear faces? I am not forgotten indeed. But I have been feeling quite a neglected, sad person, and I am not going to sympathize with anyone. I have used up that feeling on myself. I know how the day was to go; I had my place behind the scenes; and I am just going to congratulate two of you on keeping your uncle. I know that I am striking the right note there.’
The three men greeted the women, Mark guessing nothing of the scene, Clement part of it, Dudley the whole.
‘Well, so I am to hear what has happened, all of it from the beginning. You tell me, Dudley. You are too interested in the whole panorama of life to be biased by your own little share. You know that I use the word, little, in its relation to your mind, not to mine. So tell me about it, and when it is all to take place, and what you will do with your wealth, now that it has come back into your hands. You won’t think there is anything I do not want to hear. I include all human experience in my range. You and I are at one there.’
‘I think you have got me over my first moment better than anyone,’ said Dudley, reminded of Blanche by her sister and catching the deeper strain in Matty’s nature. ‘I can really pretend that I feel no embarrassment. We ought not to feel any when we have done nothing wrong, but there are so many wrong things people do without feeling it, and so few they can have done to them. And being rejected in favour of a brother is not one of those. People will say that I am behaving well, but that I shall keep the most for myself by doing so, and how wise I am. They said it thirty-one years ago, and I remember it as if it were yesterday, and now it is happening again today. And you just said that my wealth had come back into my hands. And that is one of those words which we carry with us. I have never heard anyone say one of those before.’
Matty flashed her eyes over his face and touched the chair at her side.
‘Now you and I have to suffer the same sort of thing. I feel that my sister’s place will be filled, and that I have not quite the same reason for being here as I had, and not quite the same claim on her family. And people will say the things of me, as you say they will of you.’
‘Do you really think they will? I like someone else to have things said, but I expect we can depend on people.’
‘Miss Griffin, suppose you run away and find something to do,’ said Matty, in such a light and expressionless tone that she might almost not have spoken.
Miss Griffin, whose eyes had been fastened on the scene, withdrew them and went to the door, with her face fallen and a step slow enough to cover her obedience to a command. Matty turned to her nephews.
‘Well, you thought that you were to have a new aunt, and you are to have a new - what can we say? Well, we can’t say it, can we? You and I can’t. So we will just say that you are only to have one aunt after all. We do not want to cloud other people’s happiness, and we will not; we shall be able to steer our way; we will keep to the strait and narrow path. But now we have made our resolve, we will get what we can out of it for ourselves. Let us have our gossip. That is much less than other people are getting, and if we do not grudge them their big share, they must not grudge us our little one. So when did you see the first hint of change, the cloud no bigger than a man’s hand?’
‘We saw no cloud until it broke,’ said Mark.
‘Let me get my word in at once,’ said Dudley, ‘or I shall feel more awkward. It is best to take the bull by the horns. That is a good figure: it shows that we are talking of a terrible thing. Well, the cloud fell on me, sudden and complete, and I lifted my head and went forward. I told people myself; I went through my strange task, shirking nothing, and adding my own note with what was surely the most heroic touch of all. I am sure you would not dare to pity me. If you would, I must just face the hardest part.’
‘Well, you know, I do not feel that about pity. I often feel that I deserve it and do not get my share. People so soon forget to give it.’
‘That is another kind thing to say. But is pity really better than forgetfulness? Then I have still to suffer the worst indeed.’
‘Justine wants to know if you will join us at dinner, Aunt Matty,’ said Mark. ‘We can send the carriage when you like.’
‘Mark thinks I am talking too much about myself. Forgetfulness is already coming, and I see how bad it is. And coming so soon too! It is the only thing that could do that.’
‘What time, Aunt Matty? Justine was firm on the point. She wants an exact answer.’
‘Dear Justine! A time is always exact, I should have thought. Well, a quarter to seven, if that is not too early, if she can do with me so soon. She is still the regent in the house.’
‘I suppose Mark wanted to save me from myself. He is afraid that I may run on and not dare to stop, for fear of the silence that may follow. He has noticed that is my tendency. So will someone speak at once?’
‘Well, perhaps half past six,’ said Matty, with immediate and smiling response. ‘Half past six and brave, bright faces. We have all made up our minds. So good-bye for the moment and good luck to our resolve. And tell Justine exactly half past six.’
‘You go on and take the message,’ said Dudley to his nephews. ‘And I will have a word with Miss Griffin. I find her regard for me very congenial. This trouble has come from someone’s being without it.’
Miss Griffin was lingering in the hall with almost open purpose.
‘Well, you and I have more than ever in common, Miss Griffin. People think too little of both of us. I have been rated below my brother, and I am wondering if it will add to me to accept the view. Everyone feels that that ought to be done for me just now, and keeps trying to do it. And we ought to do what we can for ourselves.’
‘We don’t all think you are below him.’
‘Most people do, and I expect I shall accept the judgement of the many, though it is known to be a silly thing to do. I am glad you are not so foolish.’
‘I am not indeed; I mean, I don’t accept it.’
‘Of course I may be inferior to him. It is true that when I inherited money, I thought it put me on a pedestal. And when I gave it away, I thought it was wonderful. To give away money that cost me nothing to gain. But between ourselves I am still inclined to think it was. And I am not sure that he would have done it.’
‘Anyhow it was unusual.’
‘So now I am going to give it back, because if you can part with money, you can do something that very few people can do.’
‘I suppose people could do it if they liked,’ said Miss Griffin, in sincere thought.
‘No, they could not. They are the slaves of money, not its masters.’
‘It seems funny, doesn’t it?’
‘I used not to understand it. But when I had money myself, I understood. I had to act quickly in case I became a slave. I nearly became one.’
‘No, but soon afterwards I did. I fee! I must speak so that you can only just hear. I asked for the money back again.’
Miss Griffin smiled as if at a child.
‘Did you not know that?’
‘No.’
‘Isn’t it extraordinary that such news does not spread? I should like so much to hear that about anyone. I did not know that people were so unimportant. And they are not: everyone is important.’
‘Of course everyone is.’
‘Do you feel that you are?’
‘Everyone ought to be.’
‘I am afraid I am thought important because of what I can do. And it may be the same with you.’ ‘I cannot do much for anyone.’ ‘I thought you did everything for Miss Seaton.’ Miss Griffin looked aside.
‘It is extraordinary how people put things to themselves. I daresay my nephews will take back their money with a sense of doing something to improve my position. And Miss Seaton probably thinks that you lead the same life as she does. And my brother may say to himself that he is saving me from a loveless marriage, when everyone knows that it is wise to found a marriage on other feelings. And Miss Sloane must have those for me now, when everyone makes such a point of it. And I will tell you something that I have told to no one else. I think it is ordinary of her to prefer my brother to me. It already makes me like her less. Our marriage might not have been loveless, but I think our new relation may be. It seems so obvious to choose the eligible brother.’
‘Is he more eligible? A widower with a family? Everyone would not say so.’
‘Perhaps he is not. Perhaps she really does prefer him to me. Then that makes me like her less still. I am glad if she is making a bad match. I wonder if people will recognize it. People have such average minds. It is something that I can speak of her in this detached way. I wish she knew that I could. Do you like her?’
‘I did very much, until --’
‘Until you heard that she had rejected me. So she has lost some of your affection and mine in the last hours. There is no gain without loss. And I shall make the loss as great as I can. That sounds unworthy, but it is natural. We really only want one word for natural and unworthy.’
‘There is Miss Seaton!’ said Miss Griffin.
Matty came towards them with her slow step, her deep eyes fixed on their faces. Dudley caught a footfall on the stairs and looked up to address her father.
‘We have been waiting for you to come down, sir. Miss Griffin said it would be soon. Are you going to join us tonight and be a witness of my courage?’
‘Your virtues are your own, my boy, and will be no good to me. So I do not look for a chance to enter my daughter’s house, and see her husband cheating himself that he can forget two-thirds of his days. Perhaps you will remain a moment and let me hear a human voice. And then you can take my poor Matty to do what she must in the home that was her sister’s.’
‘Isn’t it nice that we are all in trouble together?’
‘It is better than being in it alone. It is the truth that we find it so. We will remember it of each other.’
‘We are sure to do that,’ said Dudley. ‘I shall not deny myself anything at such a time.’
Miss Griffin and Matty had gone to the latter’s room in silence. During Matty’s toilet they hardly spoke, Miss Griffin fearing to be called to account and Matty uncertain whether to probe the truth. Matty maintained an utter coldness, and feeling for the first time an answering coldness in Miss Griffin, resented it as only someone could who had wreaked her moods through her life. She left her attendant without a word, appearing unconscious of her presence. As she reached the hall and heard her step moving lightly above, she paused and raised her voice.
‘Miss Griffin, will you bring my shawl from the bed. You did not give it to me. I am waiting for it.’
Miss Griffin appeared at once on the landing. ‘ What did you say, Miss Seaton?’
‘My shawl from the bed! It was under your eyes. You can run down with it in a minute.’
Dudley took less than this to run up for it, and more to receive it from Miss Griffin, and Matty turned and walked to the carriage in silence.
‘Oh, my shawl; thank you,’ she said, taking it as if she hardly saw it.
Dudley took his seat beside her, indifferent to her mood, and she felt a familiar impulse.
‘Well, how are things to be tonight? Is it to be an evening of rejoicing or of tactful ignoring of the truth? In a word, are we to consider Edgar’s point of view or yours?’
Dudley read her mind and felt too spent to deal with it.
‘Well, are we not to have an answer to an innocent question?’
‘It was a guilty question and you will have no answer.’
‘Well, we will try to do better. Let us take some neutral ground. Justine remains safe and solid. How does she feel about yielding up her place? Dear, dear, these are days of relinquishment for so many of us.’
‘Justine thinks very little about herself.’
‘Then I know whom she is like,’ said Matty, laying her hand on Dudley’s.
Dudley withdrew his hand, got out of the carriage and assisted Matty to do the same, and, leaving Jellamy to hold the door, went upstairs to his room. Matty passed into the drawing room, unsure of her own feelings.
Maria was sitting alone by the fire. The others had gone to dress, and it was not worth while for her to go home to do the same. And it seemed to her that any such effort for herself would be out of place.
‘Well, Matty, you see the guilty woman.’
‘I see a poor, tired woman, who could not help her feelings any more than anyone else. I began by liking Edgar the better of the brothers, and Blanche liked him better too; so if you do the same, both she and I ought to understand.
And I feel she does understand, somehow and somewhere, my dear, generous Blanche.’
Maria looked up at Matty, sensing something of her mood.
‘I am not troubled by its being a second marriage. That has its own different chance. Nor about having made a mistake and mended it. But I wonder how things will go, with me at the head, and Edgar’s children living under a different hand. It does not seem enough to resolve to do my best.’
Matty regarded her friend in silence. So she did not disguise her own conception of the change. Her simplicity came to her aid. She saw and accepted her place.
‘Perhaps Justine will take most of it off you. She may remain in effect the head of the house. And things will not go far awry while she is there.’
Maria met the open move with an open smile. She knew Matty better since she had lived in her house.
‘She will not do that. Her father would not wish it, and she is the last person to feel against him. And I must set her free to enjoy her youth.’
‘My poor sister! How ready people are to enjoy things without her! But you will not have much freedom for yourself.’
‘I shall give up my freedom. I have had enough and I have made no use of it.’
‘It is dead, dear, the old memory?’ said Matty, leaning forward and using a very gentle tone.
‘It is not dead. But the cause of it is. I ought to have realized that before.’
‘You know it at the right moment. Dear, dear, what a choice you had! Your understanding of yourself came in the nick of time.’
‘That can no longer be said. We must forget that I had a choice, as both of them will forget it.’
‘Stay there, stay there,’ said Justine, entering and motioning to Maria to keep her seat. ‘That is the chair which will be yours. Remain in it and get used to your place. Father will sit opposite, as he always has. There has to be the change and we will take it at a stride. It is best for everyone.’
‘Yes, you do welcome it, dear,’ said Matty. ‘Now, Aunt Matty!’ said Justine, sinking into a chair and letting her hands fall at her sides. ‘Now what, dear?’
‘Already!’ said Justine, raising the hands and dropping them.
‘Already what? Already I face the change in the house? But that is what you said yourself. You called out your recommendation from the door.’
There was silence.
‘Well, it is the replacement of one dear one by another,’ said Matty.
There was silence.
‘It is good that they are both so very dear.’
There was still silence. Maria lifted a fan to her face, screening it from the fire and from her friend. A current seemed to pass between her and Justine, and in almost unconscious conspiracy they held to their silence. Matty looked at the fire, adjusted her shawl with a stiff, weak movement, saw that it stirred a memory in her niece, and repeated it and sat in a stooping posture, which she believed to be her sister’s in her last hours downstairs.
‘No, no, Aunt Matty,’ said Justine, shaking her head and using a tone which did not only address her aunt. ‘That is no good. Conscious acting will do nothing.’
Matty altered her position, and instantly resumed it, a flush spreading over her face. Justine held her eyes aside as if she would not watch her.
As Edgar’s sons entered, Maria rose and went to a bookcase and Justine took her seat.
‘What a long day this has seemed!’ said Mark, speaking to avoid silence.
‘Yes, I expect it has, dear,’ said his aunt with sympathy. ‘It has taken you from one chapter of your life into another. We cannot expect that to happen in a moment. It generally takes many days. This has been a long one to me too. I seem to have lived through so much in the hours I have sat alone. And it has not been all my own experience. I have gone with you through every step of your way.’
‘Yes, we have taken some steps,’ said Justine, ‘and in a sense it has been an enlarging experience. I don’t think Miss Sloane minds our talking about it. She knows what is in our minds, and that we must get it out before we leave it behind.’
‘And she knows she is fortunate that it can be left,’ said Matty.
‘It will fall behind of itself,’ said Maria. The first touch of authority!’ said Justine. ‘We bow to it.’
‘It was not meant to be that. I am here as the guest of you all.’
‘It was just a little foretaste of the future,’ said Matty. ‘And quite a pleasant foretaste, quite a pretty little touch of the sceptre. I think we must hurry things a little; I must be taking counsel with myself. We must not leave that capacity for power lying idle. Now this is the sight I like to see.’
Edgar and Dudley entered, at first sight identical figures in their evening clothes, and stood on the hearth with their apparent sameness resolving itself into their difference.
‘This is what I used to envy my sister in her daily life, the sight of those two moving about her home, as if they would move together through the crises of their lives. I used to feel it was her high water mark.’
‘And they have just gone through a crisis and gone through it together,’ murmured Justine. ‘Yes, I believe together. Miss Sloane, it must be trying for you to hear this family talk, with my mother always in the background as if she still existed, as of course she must and does exist in all our minds. But if it is not to your mind, put a stop to it. Exert your authority. We have seen that you can do so.’
‘I should not want to do so, if I had it. I know that I have not been here for the last thirty years. I shall begin my life with you when I begin it. That is to be the future. We all have our past.’
‘And we will share with you what we can of ours.’
‘I hope you will. I should like it.’
‘Is Justine glad that Father is going to marry Miss Sloane?’ said Aubrey to Mark.
‘She is glad for Father not to be alone. It is wise to make the best of it. We can do nothing for people who are dead.’
‘It is a good thing that Mother does not know, for all that,’ said Aubrey, with an odd appeal in his tone.
‘Yes, we are glad to be sure of it.’
Aubrey turned away with a lighter face.
‘Edgar,’ said Matty in a distinct tone, ‘I have been thinking that I must be making my plans. Come a little nearer; I cannot shout across that space; and I cannot get up and come to you, can I? The wedding will be my business, as Maria’s home is with me. And I think I can make the cottage serve our needs. You will like a simple wedding, with things as they are? And it cannot be for some months?’
‘I shall know about such things when I am told,’
‘I thought we ought to save you that, Aunt Matty,’ said Justine, sitting on her aunt’s chair and speaking into her ear. ‘It does not seem that it ought to devolve on Mother’s sister.’
‘Why, you are not sparing yourself, dear, and you are her daughter. And that is as close a tie, except that its roots are of later growth. I shall be doing what I have done before for your father. It is fortunate that I am so near. And I think we need not be troubled for your mother. If we feel like that, this should not be happening. And she will go forward with us in our hearts.’
‘No,’ said Edgar, suddenly. ‘She will not go forward. We shall and she will not.’
‘Her wishes and her influence will go on.’
‘They may, but she will not do so. She has had her share, what it has been.’
‘I can see her in all her children,’ said Maria. ‘I shall get to know her better as I get to know them.’
‘And yet Edgar can say that she does not go on.’
‘She does not, herself. It will make no difference to her.’
‘We cannot serve the past,’ said Mark, ‘only fancy that we do so.’
‘Only remember it,’ said Justine, looking before her.
Maria and Edgar exchanged a smile, telling each other that these days had to be lived. Matty saw it and was silent.
‘I shall be best man,’ said Dudley. ‘I think that people will look at me more than at Edgar. I shall be a man with a story, and he will be one who is marrying a second time, and the first is much the better thing.’
‘You need not worry about any of it,’ said Matty, with apparent reassurance. ‘People’s memories are short. They too will feel that they cannot help what is gone, and they will not waste their interest. You will soon be a man without a story again.’
‘Do you resent a tendency to look forward?’ said Clement.
‘No, dear, but it seems to me that people might look back sometimes. Not for the sake of what they can do for the past, of course; just for the sake of loyalty and constancy and other old-fashioned things. My life is as real to me in the past as it is in the present, my sister as much alive as she was in her youth. But all these things are a matter of the individual.’
‘Aunt Matty,’ said Justine, in a low tone, bringing her face near to her aunt’s, ‘this house is moving towards the future. It is perhaps not: a place for so much talk of the past.’
‘They are a matter of age, I think,’ said Mark. ‘The young are said to live in the future, the middle-aged in the present, and the old in the past. I think it may be roughly true.’
‘And I am so old, dear? Your old and lonely aunt? Well, I feel the second but hardly the first as yet. But I shall go downhill quickly now. You won’t have to give me so much in the present. I shall be more and more dependent upon the past, and that is dependent upon myself, as things are to be.’
‘People are known to be proud of odd things,’ said Dudley, ‘but I think that going downhill is the oddest of all.’
‘Yes, you forget about that, don’t you?’ said Matty, in a sympathetic tone. ‘About that and the past and everything. It is the easiest way.’
‘Miss Sloane, what has your life been up till now?’ said Justine, in a tone of resolutely changing the subject. ‘We may as well know that piece of the past. You know our corresponding part of it.’
‘The man whom I was going to marry died,’ said Maria, turning to her and speaking in her usual manner. ‘And I did live in the past. It may not have been the best thing, but it seemed to me the only one.’
‘Then long live the future!’ said Justine slipping off her aunt’s chair and raising her hand. ‘Long live the future and the present. Let the dead past bury its dead. Yes, I will say it and not flinch. It is better and braver in that way. Mother would feel it so. Aunt Matty, join with us in a toast to the future.’
‘Aunt Matty raises her hand with a brave, uncertain smile,’ said Aubrey, as he himself did this.