‘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.’