Edgar and his wife were left looking at each other. Maria was the first to speak.
‘We must go on as if nothing had happened. We could not help it. I do not think we could. We might have seen it had to come. But I thought it would not come, with Dudley. Did you think that?’
‘I thought it,’ said Edgar, hardly parting his lips. He was summoning up his brother’s experience, grasping at its meaning as his brother had lived it. He had taken from him the thing he had asked, taken and held it for himself, and let him move aside to walk alone, but near him that he might give his support. The demand was exposed, and he felt that he could not believe in the sight. Maria saw that it was useless to be with him, that each was alone.
By common consent they remained apart that night. When they met in the morning they felt it was a new meeting, that it came after a sudden separation and brought them to a new future. It almost made a fresh bond between them, giving them a common knowledge out of all they knew.
‘Well, this is a sobering morning,’ said a voice, which seemed to be neither Aubrey’s nor Justine’s, but was really the former used in imitation of the latter. ‘But we shall be stimulated by it. We must live in Father’s life and not allow ourselves to cross the bound. I will take it all at one fell swoop and lead the way into the room.’
‘You both look tired after your long day,’ said Mark.
His father felt that his words should cover that part of the day he did not know.
‘Maria is tired,’ he said.
‘She will soon be rested in her own home,’ said Justine. ‘I already enjoy a personal sense of relief. I am a mere unimportant child of the house again.’
‘Will you wait breakfast for Mr Dudley, ma’am?’ said Jellamy.
‘No. He is not coming back so early.’
‘Where has he gone?’ said Clement.
‘Away for a time, I am afraid,’ said Edgar. ‘He felt he wanted a change. I fear that he found the sight of the two of us together too much.’
‘Well, I think it is a thoroughly good idea,’ said Justine at once. ‘Uncle has been attempting altogether too much of late. He can’t go on being superhuman. Even he is subject to the rules of mortal life. I wanted to suggest his having a break, and would have done so if I had dared.’
‘He has done his duty in giving you a welcome, and feels he is free,’ said Mark, realizing the false impression he gave.
‘He has taken no luggage, ma’am,’ said Jellamy.
‘And does that prevent your bringing in the breakfast?’ said Edgar.
‘He will be sending for what he wants, I expect,’ said Maria. ‘He had to get away at once. Yes, bring in the breakfast.’
‘I thought it might imply that he would be back this morning, ma’am.’
‘You heard that he was not coming back,’ said Edgar.
‘Bring in the breakfast, Jellamy, and make no more ado,’ said Justine. ‘You will forgive me, Maria; the words slipped out. I can’t keep my tongue from leaping out at that man sometimes.’
‘I feel with Jellamy,’ said Mark to Clement, as they followed the others to the table. ‘He wants to know why Uncle has suddenly gone, and so do I. And the luggage is a point. Either he is coming back at once or he has left in storm and stress.’
‘Don’t whisper, boys,’ said Justine, turning and lowering her own voice. ‘Things are difficult and we must do our part. Pull yourselves together and remember that we are mere pawns in the game of skill and chance which is being played.’
‘Are we as essential to the game as that? I feel a mere spectator. And it is really a simpler game.’
‘Well, don’t look as if we were making some mystery.’
‘We could hardly contrive to do so. It is clear on what lines the break came, if break there has been.’
‘Shall I remove Mr Dudley’s place, ma’am?’
‘No,’ said Edgar, as he saw the traces of his brother about to be obliterated. ‘Leave it as it is. It is likely - it is possible that he may come back.’
‘We will all take our own places,’ said Justine. ‘Then Uncle can return and find his place ready for him, and the others occupied round him, as will be right and meet.’
‘Not a gap in the circle,’ said Aubrey, flushing as he realized his words.
‘No one can be expected to show himself in Uncle’s place,’ said Mark.
‘Yes, to take it would be even less easy - would be almost as difficult,’ said Justine - ‘oh, what a time this is for innocent and inapposite speeches!’
‘No one tries to take anyone’s place,’ said Maria. ‘Empty places remain and new people make their own.’
‘Of course. Why cannot I put things as you do?’
‘If you knew the reason,’ said Clement, ‘I am sure you would deal with the matter.’
‘Well, that comes well from you. We don’t see much sign in you of a gift for words.’
‘Should we have said that silence was golden, if we had only known Clement?’ said Aubrey.
Maria laughed, and Edgar looked up and smiled more at the sound than at his son’s words.
‘Yes, cheer up, Father,’ said Justine. ‘You have not lost everything with Uncle. And he will be back and everything will be as it has always been - everything will be straight and well.’
‘Silence is golden,’ murmured Aubrey.
‘Oh, I don’t know. I believe I would give all the silence in the world for a little healthy, natural speech.’
‘Well, you have always done so,’ said Clement.
‘And I do not regret my choice.’
‘Clement raises his brows,’ said Aubrey.
‘Aubrey is readier with his words than you will ever be, Clement.’
Aubrey looked at the window.
‘Can you see through the curtain?’ said his brother. ‘If you can, it is still dusk outside.’
‘I can see the wide, wintry expanse with my mind’s eye.’
Edgar looked up, with his mind following his son’s, and meeting the picture of his brother with no refuge before him or behind. He turned to his wife and knew that she saw the same.
‘Did Uncle say anything?’ said Justine. ‘Did he - oh, I will take the bull by the horns, as he does. Has he any plans? Did he leave any address?’
‘He had none to leave. He went suddenly,’ said her father. ‘He may - it will be possible for him to send one later.’
‘We know all,’ murmured Mark to Clement.
‘You know all we can tell you,’ said Edgar.
‘A flush mantles Mark’s cheek,’ said Aubrey.
Maria was again amused, and her stepson showed his nonchalance by rising and walking to the window and pulling the curtain aside.
‘Aunt Matty! Coming across the snow!’
‘Across the snow? Aunt Matty?’ said Justine.
‘She must be coming across the snow if she is coming,’ said Mark.
‘Did you know she was coming, little boy? Why did you go to the window?’
Aubrey did not give his reason.
‘Boys, get your coats and go to meet her. Perhaps she has some news of Uncle.’
Edgar rose.
‘I hardly think so,’ said Maria. ‘She would not be coming herself.’
Matty was approaching with her halting step, holding a wrap across her breast, holding something to her head in the wind, pressing forward with a sort of dogged resignation to her slow advance. She gave a faint smile to her nephews as she suffered them to lead her in.
‘You have come alone, Aunt Matty?’
‘Yes, I have come alone, my dears. I had to do that. I shall be alone now. My dear father has left me, and left me, as you say, alone.’ Matty sank into a chair and covered her face. ‘I must be content alone. I must learn another hard lesson after so many.’
‘She kept her hand to her brow and sat without moving, as the family gathered about her.
‘Yes, I have had a life of deep and strange experiences. It seems that I ought to be used to them, that I ought to have that sad protection.’
There was silence.
‘Losing her father when she is over sixty herself is not a startling one,’ said Clement.
‘Is Grandpa dead?’ said Aubrey.
‘That is a better way of putting it,’ said Mark.
‘Well, his life was over,’ said Justine. ‘It was not hard to see that.’
Matty was continuing to Edgar and his wife.
‘He had gone to bed early as he was very tired. And I sent up something, hoping that he would eat before he slept. And it was found that he was already sleeping, and that he would not wake again.’
‘We cannot improve on that,’ said Mark.
‘Yes, it was a good way to go,’ said Matty, misinterpreting his words. ‘He was full of years. His harvest was gathered; his sheaves were bound. For him we need not weep. But I must grieve for myself, and you will grieve for me a little.’
‘Dear Aunt Matty, we do indeed,’ said Justine. ‘And Mother would have suffered equally with you.’
‘Yes, dear. That is my saddest thought, that I have no one to do that. But I will be glad that yours is the lighter part. I had thought that my sister and I would sorrow together in this natural loss. But so much was not to be for me.’
Maria took the seat by Matty, and Matty gave her her hand, putting the other over her eyes, but in a moment laid both hands on her friend’s and looked about with a smile.
‘Well, I must not fail in resolution. I must be myself. I must be what I always was to my father. I must not be lonely when I am not. I will not be.’
‘Look round and see the reason,’ said her niece.
‘Yes, I see all my reasons,’ said Matty, looking about as if to discover the truth. ‘All the dear reasons I have for clinging to life, the dear faces which I have seen growing into themselves, the dear ones whose link I am now with one side of their past. Well, it should forge the link strongly. We shall go forward closely bound.’
‘How was dear Grandpa found? Did Miss Griffin go in to him?’
‘No, dear, the maid went in and found him as I say. As she thought at first, sleeping; really in his last sleep.’
‘Poor Emma, it must have been a shock for her. Was she very much upset?’
‘Well, dear, I was the more upset, of course. She was troubled in her measure. And I was sorry for her, and glad that she only had her natural share of the shock. Your grandfather had been always good to her. But she is not a young woman. There was nothing unsuitable in her being the one to find him. One of us had to do so, and I am not in the habit of going up and down stairs, as you know.’
‘And now Miss Griffin is managing everything?’
‘No, dear; Dr Marlowe is seeing that everything is done for me. He is a good friend, as you have found. There would not have been much for Miss Griffin to do.’
‘She will feel it very deeply. I daresay she is too upset to be of much use. It is a long relation to break.’
‘Yes, well, now I must tell you,’ said Matty, sitting up and using an open tone. ‘You will think that I have had a stranger life than you thought, that I seem to be marked out for untoward experience. Well, I was sitting in my little room alone, waiting for the shadows to close in upon me. It seems now that I must have had some presentiment; I had been so wrought up all day; you must have had your glimpse of it. And it was found that Miss Griffin had left me, that my old friend with whom I had shared my life for thirty years had vanished and left me alone in my grief. Well, what do you think of that for an accumulation of trouble, for what the Greeks would have called a woe on woe? I seem to be a person born for trial by flame. I hope I may emerge unscathed.’
There was silence.
‘When did Miss Griffin go?’ said Justine. ‘Did anyone know when she went? Did she suddenly disappear?’
‘Well, I must try to answer all those questions at once. But I only know what I have told you., I was sitting alone in the parlour, as you call it, finding the time rather drag as it moved on towards my trouble. I see that the boys are smiling, and I should not have wished to hasten it, if I had known. And I seemed to need the sound of a human voice, and I opened the door of the house - Miss Griffin had run into the garden on some pretext that I had sent her out, or something. You know I left you rather out of sorts; things here had upset me - and I found - Well, you find my tale amusing? I am making a mountain out of a molehill? It is a trifle that I am exaggerating because I am personally involved? Well, we have all done that. You will not find it hard to understand.’
‘Then Miss Griffin did not leave you after Grandpa died? She had gone before? Yes, I know you implied that she had. But you said that you were alone in your grief. I did not quite follow.’
‘I meant my grief for your mother, dear. I happened to be remembering. But it was not the time for you to do so, as I had found. Well, I will get on with my story. So I found that was how it was, that my old friend had left me - well, we won’t say alone in my grief - alone in a dark hour. And what do you say to that for a sudden revelation? I won’t say that I have nourished a viper in my bosom; I won’t say that of Miss Griffin, who has been with me through so many vicissitudes, and whom I have spared to you in yours. I will just say - well, I will say nothing; that is best.’
‘I don’t think we can say anything either. We must find out where she has gone unless she returns very soon. But in the meantime tell us how you are yourself, and if you are staying here for the time.’
‘Well, it is to Maria that I must answer that question,’ said Matty, turning to her friend. ‘Answer it as a matter of form, because I must remain with you. I cannot go back to that house alone. So the formal question is answered, and I can settle down in as much content as I can, in as much as will prevent my being a damper on other people.’
‘Would you like anything fetched from your house?’ said Maria.
‘No, dear, no; Justine can lend me things of her mother’s. I need not trouble you for anything.’
‘I hope you will trouble anyone for anything you need.’
‘Yes, dear, I know it would not be a trouble,’ said Matty, with a faint note of correcting the term. ‘But I am a person of few wants, or have learned to be. Now shall we leave me as a subject and go on to all of you? Or would you like to hear more of the old friend, or old aunt, or old responsibility, or whatever you call me to yourselves?’
‘We should like to know all we can. Have you given any thought to the future? You clearly have not had time. But will you settle down in your house or will you be too much alone? Did you mean to stay there after your father died?’
‘One moment, Maria. One thing, Aunt Matty,’ said Justine, leaning forward with a hand on Maria’s arm. ‘Is Emma alone in that house? Let us get that point behind.’
‘No, dear, she has a sister with her. You have not reached the stage of arranging such things for other people as a matter of course. And that being so, it was a natural anxiety. Well, what was Maria saying? Yes, I was to stay here after my father died. He meant me to, and so did my sister. And I shall follow what I can of their wish. It will seem to bind me to them closer, to carry out our common plan. So I shall be too much alone: I must answer “yes” to that question. But I shall not be too proud to accept any alleviation of my solitude.’ Matty smiled at the faces about her. ‘I have no false notions about what exalts people. I have my own ideas of what constitutes quality.’
‘We will do all we can for the sake of the past, for your sake,’ said Edgar. ‘Maria will do it with us, as she will do everything.’
‘Thank you. So we shall all have helped each other. We have done our best with Blanche’s place in filling it and finding that we cannot fill it.’ Matty turned the smile on Maria. ‘And now we must do what we can with another, and I know you will do your part. We are used to striving together to meet a common loss.’
‘I read Aunt Matty like a book,’ murmured Aubrey. ‘I wonder if it is suitable for Justine’s little boy.’
‘And we hope that Miss Griffin will come back and be with you, Aunt Matty,’ said Justine. ‘I cannot imagine the two of you apart.’
‘It is a relief not to have to think of them together,’ said Aubrey, turning to meet his brothers’ eyes. ‘Yes, I am sure that is what Uncle would have said. You can see that I am trying to prevent your missing him.’
‘Cannot you, dear?’ said Matty to her niece. ‘I have had to go a little further. You see I am having the experience. But shall we leave my prospects to the future, as we cannot in the present say much for them? I am holding you up in your breakfast. I will sit down and try to go on with it with you. I must make as little difference as I can.’
‘Here is a place all ready for you.’
‘Is there? How does that come to be? Had any news reached you? No, you were unprepared. Did you expect me to stay last night and order a place for the morning? Well, I must be glad that I went home to my father. Something seems to guide us in such things.’
‘The something took a clumsy way of doing its work,’ said Mark.
‘So it was to be my place?’ said Matty, seeming pleased by the thought. ‘Perhaps you hoped that the truant guest would return and expiate her sins?’
‘It is Dudley’s place,’ said Maria, knowing that the truth must emerge. ‘We thought that you would not be here. But he has followed Miss Griffin’s example and left us for the time.’
‘Has he? Dudley? Has he run away and left you? Do we all manage to make ourselves impossible to those near and dear to us?’ said Matty, her voice rising with her words. ‘Is it a family trait? Well, we can all assure each other that our bark has quite wrongly been taken for a bite.’
‘Barking may be enough in itself,’ said Mark. ‘It may not encourage people to wait for the next stage.’
‘Our Dudley? Has he found things too much? Well, I can feel with him; I find things so sometimes. But running away is not the best way out of them. They will not get the better of him, not of Dudley. I should have been glad to get a sight of him, and borrow a little of his spirit. It seems that people who show the most have the most to spare. Theirs must be the largest stock. Well, I must have recourse to my own, and I have not yet found it fail. It is not your time to need it, but you may look back and remember your aunt and feel that you took something from her.’
‘Why had Aunt Matty not enough spirit to give some to Miss Griffin?’ said Aubrey.
‘She gave her a good deal, or she got it from somewhere,’ said Mark.
‘Yes, it is Miss Griffin, is it?’ said Matty, with a different voice and smile. ‘Miss Griffin who takes the thought and takes the interest? That is how it would be. The person who has suffered less makes less demand. And we who suffer more must learn it. Well, we must not make a boast of spirit and then not show it.’
There was silence.
‘I think we ought to find out where Miss Griffin has gone,’ said Justine. ‘I do really think so, Aunt Matty.’
‘Yes, dear, I said she would be in your minds. And I think as you do. I shall be so glad to know where she is, when you can tell me.’
‘I suppose we have no clue at all?’
‘That I do not know, dear; I have none.’
‘You have no idea where she may have gone?’
‘None as she has not come here. I had a hope that she might have. I am so used to finding the house a refuge myself - Matty gave her niece another smile - ‘that I did not think of her being perhaps struck by it differently. Especially as she has spent her time in it in another way.’
‘We are all very grateful to her. I am very hurt that she has not come here.’
‘Yes, dear? She has hurt us all.’
‘Has she any home?’ said Mark.
‘Her home has been with me. I know of no other.’
‘She has no relations she could go to?’
‘She has relations, no doubt. But, you see, to them she would be, as you say, a relation. It is to you that she is the person outside the family.’
‘She has no friends in the neighbourhood?’
‘She has those to whom you may have introduced her. She can have no others.’
‘Aunt Matty, I know that you think we might have introduced you to more people,’ said Justine. ‘But the truth is that when the house was running at full pressure, with all of us at home and you and Grandpa coming in, Mother could manage no more. It worked out that your coming here to meet our friends meant that you could not meet them, it implied nothing more and I am sure you know it, and Maria may manage better; but as concerns the past that is the truth. It seemed to be a rankling spot, and so I have let in a little fresh air upon it.’
‘No, dear, that is not the line on which my thoughts were running,’ said Matty, lifting her eyes and resting them in gentle appraisement on her niece. ‘They were on the death of my father, as they hardly could not be. And friends and houses and Miss Griffin all came second to it. Indeed only Miss Griffin came in at all.’
‘We have no clue either to my brother’s whereabouts,’ said Edgar, taking the chance of opening his mind. ‘It is a strange fashion, this silent disappearance. We must try to get on the tracks of them both. Was Miss Griffin prepared for going? It is very cold.’
‘As far as I know, she went out of the garden without hat or coat or anything. The action was sudden and unpremeditated and she will probably be back at any time. She may be back now, in which case my father’s death will have been a great shock to her.’
‘Did she wander in the garden without hat or coat in this weather?’ said Clement.
‘Take care; Aunt Matty must have driven her out,’ said Mark. ‘And she did not wait to be called back, but went on her own way. And if she freezes or starves or dies of exposure, and it seems that she must do all those things, she will be better off than she has been.’
‘Had she money, Aunt Matty?’ said Justine.
‘I do not know - yes, dear, more than I have at the moment.’
‘And had she it with her?’
‘I can only know that when you find out and tell me. That thought has been in my own mind from the first.’
‘She cannot have gone far,’ said Maria, who had listened in silence. ‘We could send someone to drive about the country and look for her. We had better do it at once.’
‘May I interpose, ma’am?’ said Jellamy.
‘Yes, if you have anything to tell us.’
‘Mr Dudley and Miss Griffin were perceived to be walking together last night, ma’am.’
‘Oh, they were together. That is a good thing. How did you hear?’
‘The information came through, ma’am.”
‘You are quite sure?’
‘The authority is reliable, ma’am.’
‘Well, that is the worst off our minds about both,’ said Justine. ‘We need not worry about anyone who is in Uncle’s charge, or about anyone in Miss Griffin’s. Each is safe with the other. They both have someone to think of before themselves, and that will suit both of them.’
‘It is a mercy that their paths crossed,’ said Mark ‘What would have happened to Miss Griffin if they had not?’
‘She would have gone home, dear,’ said Matty, with a change in her eyes.
‘Well, they did cross, so we need not think about it,’ said Justine.
‘We can hardly help doing that,’ said Maria. ‘It was the purest chance that your uncle passed at the time.’
‘There are inns and other shelters,’ said Edgar, glancing at the window.’
‘For people who have money with them. She seems to have gone out quite unprepared.’
‘I told you that the action was unpremeditated,’ said Matty. ‘But they would have trusted her as she is known to live with me.’
‘People might not trust a person who was leaving the house where she was employed.’
‘Maria, it is a great feat of courage,’ whispered Justine, ‘and I honour you for it. But is it wise? And is it not an occasion when indulgence must be extended?’
‘Your aunt had not lost her father when she turned Miss Griffin out of doors.’
‘Oh, you have your own touch of severity,’ said Justine, taking a step backwards and using a voice that could be heard. ‘We shall have to beware. It may be a salutary threat hanging over us.’
‘Well, what of Dudley?’ said Matty. ‘Are we to hear any more about him, now that Miss Griffin is disposed of? Have you any room for him in your minds? Do you take as much interest in his comings and goings? Did he go out prepared for the weather? Had he any money? Did you have notice of his going? Tell me it all, as I have told you. We must not deal differently with each other.’
‘We will tell you, Aunt Matty. We admit that he went suddenly,’ said Justine. ‘And that we do not know the manner or the wherefore of his going.’
‘Mr Dudley was sufficiently equipped for the weather, ma’am,’ said Jellamy. ‘Miss Griffin was perceived to be wearing his coat when they were observed together.’
‘Was she? Then he was no longer in that happy state,’ said Matty, going into laughter rather as if at Jellamy and his interruption than at Dudley’s plight. ‘We can keep our anxiety to him. Miss Griffin no longer requires it. What about scattering some coats and hats about the road, for people to pick up who have fared forth without them? It is really a funny story. Somebody from the large house and somebody from the small, running away into the weather without a word or a look behind! Well, people must strike their own little attitudes; I suppose we none of us are above it; but I cannot imagine myself choosing to posture quite like that. And if I had had to pick out two people to scamper off into the snow with one coat and hat between them, I should not have pitched on Dudley and Miss Griffin.’ Matty bent her head and seemed to try to control her mirth. ‘It was a good thing that the coat belonged to Dudley, if they were to wear it in turns. He could not have got into hers.’
No one joined in the laughter, and Matty wiped her eyes and continued it alone, and then stopped short and adjusted her skirt as if suddenly struck by something amiss.
‘I have heard better jokes,’ said Mark. ‘The weather is icy cold and one coat is not enough for two.’
‘I wonder who was wearing the hat,’ said his aunt in a high voice which seemed to herald further laughter.
‘Miss Griffin was perceived to be wearing a shawl about her head, ma’am.’
‘Oh, what a picture! It sounds like a gipsy tableau. I wonder if they intended it like that. I wonder if they had a caravan hidden away somewhere. I know that Miss Griffin has plenty of hats in her cupboard. Some of them I have given her myself. What can be the reason of this sudden masquerade?’
‘Perhaps she had none in the garden,’ said Clement.
‘We know they have not a caravan,’ said Mark. ‘And it is hard to see how they are to manage without one.’
‘There is the inn,’ said his father, in a sharp tone.
‘Of course there is, Edgar,’ said Matty in a different manner. ‘They all seem to think that the scene is staged on a desert island. But the scene itself! I can’t help thinking of it. I shall have many a little private laugh over it.’
‘But no more public ones, I hope,’ muttered Mark.
Maria rose from the table, and Justine, as if perceiving her purpose, instantly did the same. Matty followed them slowly, using her lameness as a pretext for lingering in Edgar’s presence. She came to the drawing room fire in a preoccupied manner, as if the cares of her own life had returned.
‘Well, you are well in advance of me. I came in a poor third.’
‘We know you like to follow at your own pace,’ said Justine.
‘I do not know that I like it, dear. My pace is a thing which I have not been able to help for many years.’
‘Well, we know you prefer people not to wait for you. Though Father and the boys have waited. I suppose they saw that as unavoidable.’
‘Yes, I expect they did, dear. I don’t think we can alter that custom.’
‘No, naturally we cannot and we have not done so. But poor Aunt Matty, of course you are not yourself.’
‘No, dear, of course I am not,’ said Matty, with full corroboration. ‘And it has been silly of me to be surprised at seeing all of you so much yourselves. This morning is so different from other mornings to me, that it has been strange to find it so much the same to other people. You have not had days of this kind yet. Or you have put them behind you. Sorrow is not for the young, and so you have set it out of sight. And you have filled your empty place so wisely and well, that I am happy and easy in having helped you to do it. Any little shock and doubt and misgiving has melted away. But my father’s place will be always empty for me, and so I must remain a little out of sympathy - no, I will not say that - a little aloof from the happiness about me. But I am glad to see it all the same. I must not expect to find people of my own kind everywhere. They may not be so common.’
‘I should think they are not,’ said Clement.
‘You mean you hope not, naughty boy?’ said Matty, shaking her finger at him in acceptance of his point of view.
‘You do not want to think they are.’
‘I only found myself noticing that they were not.’
‘We might - perhaps we might see ourselves in other people more than we do,’ said Edgar.
‘We all have our depths and corners,’ said Justine.
‘And we all think that no one else has them,’ said Mark.
‘Dear, dear, what a band of philosophers!’ said Matty. ‘I did not know I had quite this kind of audience.’
‘Do you see yourself in us more than you thought?’ said Clement.
‘No, dear, but I see a good many of you at once. I did not know you were quite such a number on a line. I had thought of you all as more separate somehow.’
‘And now you only see yourself in that way?’
‘Well, dear, we agreed that I was a little apart.’
‘I don’t think we did,’ said Mark. ‘You implied it, but I don’t remember that you had so much support.’
‘I am going to end the talk,’ said Maria, rising. ‘Your aunt is more tired than she knows and must go and rest. And when I come down your father and I will go to the library, and you can have a time without us.’
‘How tactless we have been!’ said Justine. ‘We might have thought that they would like an hour by themselves. But what were we to do while Aunt Matty was here?’
‘What we did,’ said Mark. ‘No one could have thought that the scene was to our taste.’
‘I do admire Maria when she gives a little spurt of authority.’
‘She did not like to think of Miss Griffin wandering by herself in the snow,’ said Aubrey, bringing this picture into the light to free his own mind.
‘Little tender-heart!’ said Justine, simply evincing comprehension.
‘Without a coat or hat, and I suppose without gloves or tippet or shawl,’ said her brother, completing the picture with ruthlessness rather than with any other quality.
‘It is odd that we feel so little about Grandpa’s death.’
‘Aunt Matty’s life puts it into the shade,’ said Mark.
‘Well, he was old and tired and past his interests, and we really knew him very little. It would be idle to pretend to any real grief. It is only Aunt Matty who can feel it.’
‘And it does not seem to drown her other feelings.’ ‘Perhaps that is how sorrow sometimes improves people,’ said Aubrey.
‘No, no, little boy. No touch of Uncle at this moment. It is too much.’
‘We might all be better if our feelings were destroyed,’ continued Aubrey, showing that his sister had administered no check.
‘Poor Aunt Matty! One can feel so sorry for her when she is not here.’
‘You do betray other feelings when she is,’ said Mark.
‘I suppose I do. We might have remembered her trouble. Even Father and Maria seemed to forget it.’
‘Well, so did she herself.’
‘She will be very much alone in future. I don’t see how we are to prevent it.’
‘Will grief be her only companion?’ said Aubrey.
‘Well, she has driven away her official one,’ said Mark.
‘She will be confined to rage and bitterness and malice,’ said Clement.
‘So she will be alone amongst many,’ said Aubrey.
‘No, no, I don’t think malice,’ said Justine. ‘I don’t think it has ever been that. I wonder what Miss Griffin and Uncle are doing. But their being together disposes of any real problem. I think Uncle may safely be left to arrange the future for them both.’
‘Uncle has been left to do too much for people’s futures,’ said Mark. ‘And not so safely. We can only imagine what happened last night.’
‘You are fortunate,’ said Clement. ‘I cannot.’
‘Or unfortunate,’ said Aubrey, who could.
‘I have been keeping my thoughts away from it,’ said Justine.
‘They have had enough to occupy them,’ said Mark. ‘But they will return. Grandpa’s death, Miss Griffin’s flight, even Aunt Matty’s visit will all be as nothing. We may as well imagine the scene.’
‘No, my mind baulks at it.’
‘Mine does worse. It constructs it.’
‘Maria was there,’ said Aubrey.
‘Yes, poor Maria!’ said Justine. ‘What a home-coming! It never rains but it pours.’
‘I think it nearly always rains. We only notice it when it pours.’
‘Yes, it is Uncle. Clear, natural and incontrovertible,’ said Justine, with a sigh, as if this fact altered no other. ‘Well, you may be clever boys, but you have a depressed sister today.’
‘How would it all have been if Maria had kept to Uncle?’ said Aubrey.
‘That is not Uncle,’ said Clement.
‘Little boy, what a way of putting it!’
‘Miss Griffin would still have run away; Grandpa would still have died; Aunt Matty would still have paid her visits,’ said Mark. ‘Only it might have been Father instead of Uncle who met Miss Griffin. And that might not have worked so well. He would have been more awkward in offering her his coat. So perhaps it is all for the best. That is always said when things are particularly bad, so there could hardly be a better occasion for saying it.’
‘Look,’ said Justine, going to the door and holding it ajar. ‘Look at those two figures passing through the hall, as two others used to pass. What an arresting and almost solemn sight! Do we let our hearts rejoice or be wrung by it?’
‘We will take the first course if we have the choice.’
‘Which is better, the sight of two beautiful men or of a beautiful man and a beautiful woman? I do not know; I will not try to say.’
‘I am letting my heart be wrung,’ said Aubrey, grinning and speaking the truth.
‘Will they ever be three again? Ought we to wish it? Or ought we just to hesitate to rush in where angels fear to tread?’
‘We might be imagining them four,’ said Aubrey, in a light tone.
‘How I remember Mother’s slender figure moving in and out between the two taller ones! That is a different line of thought, but the picture somehow came. And it brings its own train. Mother would have wished things to come right between them. And it may be that they will do so, and the three tall figures move together through life. But I fear it cannot be yet. Uncle was heading for trouble, and at the crucial moment it came. He could not go on too long, keyed up to that pitch. The strain of the last months can only be imagined. None of us can know what it was.’
‘Is Justine transfigured?’ said Aubrey.
‘Well, I am affected by the spectacle of intense human drama. I do not deny it.’
‘It were idle to do so,’ said Clement.
‘It would have been better to go away at once,’ said Mark, ‘and not attempt the impossible.’
‘I don’t know,’ said his sister, gazing before her. ‘It was a great failure. Surely one of those that are greater than success.’
‘I never quite know what those are. I suppose you mean other kinds of success. The same kind involves the same effort and has a better end.’
‘And a much more convenient one,’ said Clement.
‘Yes, yes, more convenient,’ said Justine. ‘But what we have seen was surely something more than that.’
‘Something quite different indeed,’ said Mark.
‘Surely it was worth it.’
‘From our point of view, as spectators?’
‘Well, in the sense that all human effort must achieve something essential, even if not apparent.’
‘Well, now the human drama goes on in the snow,’ said Aubrey.
‘Oh, surely they have got under shelter by now,’ said Justine, laughing as she ended. ‘Oh, what intolerable bathos! You horrid little boy, pulling me down from my heights!’
‘You could not have gone on too long any more than Uncle.’
‘I don’t know. I felt I was somehow in my element.’
‘That may have been what Uncle thought. I believe it was,’ said Mark.
‘A greater than Uncle is here,’ said Aubrey.
‘And they are different heights,’ said Clement.
‘I think Clement is making an effort to conquer his taciturnity, Justine.’
‘Oh, don’t let us joke about it. Do let us turn serious eyes on a serious human situation.’
‘Miss Griffin and Uncle walking through the snow, with Miss Griffin wearing Uncle’s coat and hat!’ murmured Aubrey.
‘She was not wearing his hat. She - she -’ said Justine, going into further laughter - ‘had a shawl round her head. Oh, why are we laughing? Why cannot we take a serious view of what is serious and even tragic in itself? Miss Griffin’s long relation with Aunt Matty broken! Because I suppose it is the break. And her life at sixes and sevens, because that must be the truth. And we cannot see it without being diverted by silly, little, surface things which in themselves have their tragic side, just because they touch our superficial sense of humour.’ Justine’s voice quavered away as this again happened to her. ‘I suppose we are half hysterical; that is what it is.’
‘That is the usual explanation of unseemly mirth,’ said Mark.
‘Well, happiness is a good thing,’ said Edgar, smiling in the door, his voice as he said Matty’s words illustrating the difference between them. ‘Maria and I are going to walk outside - that is, we are going for a walk before Mark and I begin to work. Your aunt is resting upstairs.’
‘Oh, Father, it seems that we ought not to be in spirits on the day of Grandpa’s death and Aunt Matty’s desolation, and all of it,’ said Justine, taking hold of his coat. ‘But we are in a simple, silly mood. We have agreed that we must be hysterical.’
‘Your grandfather’s death can only seem to you the natural thing it is. He has not been much in your life and he has had his own.’ Edgar’s voice was calm and almost empty, as if his feelings on one thing left him none for any other.
‘But Aunt Matty’s loneliness and all that has happened,’ said Justine, standing with her face close to the coat and bringing the lapels together. ‘You do feel that you have an anchor in your children?’
Edgar turned and walked away.
‘Oh, I suppose I have said the wrong thing as usual. I might have known it was hopeless to attempt to do anything for him. In my heart I did know.’
‘It is good to follow the dictates of the heart,’ said Clement.
‘Yes, you can be supercilious. But what did you attempt after all? I did try to show Father that he had something to depend on in his home.’
‘And he showed you that he could not take your view.’
‘I suppose Maria has taken my place with him. Well, it would be small to mind it. I have never done much to earn the place. And it is better than her taking another. She does not feel she has taken that. We can think of that little place as open and empty, free for Mother’s little shadow.’
Aubrey turned and slouched out of the room, kicking up his feet. He came upon Maria, who had been to fetch a cloak and was following her husband.
‘Are you going upstairs?’ she said. ‘What is the matter? Come back in a minute and tell me.’
Aubrey threw back his head, thrust his hands into his pockets and turned and sauntered back.
‘Odd days these.’
‘Yes, they are strange and disturbed. But they will pass.’
‘Days have a way of doing that. It is the one thing to be said for them.’
‘Too much happened yesterday indeed.’
‘Indeed.’
‘Your grandfather had had his full share of everything. And there is no greater good fortune than sudden death.’
‘No,’ said Aubrey, his face changing in a manner which told Maria her mistake.
‘And he knows nothing now,’ she said, ‘not even that he is dead. And that can be said of all dead people.’
There was a pause.
‘You have had your share of things,’ said Aubrey, with terse and equal understanding.
‘We have all had that and found it enough.’
‘Too much for me. Quickly up and quickly down at my age. But if I am thought callous one minute, I am thought sensitive the next.’
‘We need not mind being thought callous sometimes,’ said Maria, seeing the aspect preferred.
‘No. The heart knoweth,’ said her stepson, turning away.