‘Is it, dear? I am afraid they do not convey much to me, these differences between these very large sums. They have no bearing upon life as I know it.’
‘But it is just as well to be accurate.’
‘Well, you have been so, dear. So now tell me all about it. The exact sum makes no difference.’
‘Of course it does. The one is precisely four times the other.’
‘Well, but we don’t have to think of proportions, after people have everything that they can have,’ said Matty, giving a glance round the room, as if this appeared to her to be already the case.
‘But you can’t have everything you can have, from a moderate fortune belonging to somebody else.’
‘Oh well, dear, moderate. Your life has altered you more than I thought. Altered your attitude: of course you yourself are always my old Blanche. But a quarter of a million or some other proportion of one! We were not brought up to differentiate between such things. And belonging to somebody else! Dudley and I know better.’
‘It is not a quarter of a million or some proportion of one. I said it was barely a twentieth,’ said Blanche, her voice unsteady.
‘You might say that fifty pounds is a proportion of one,’ said Mark.
‘I had better go and lie down,’ said Dudley. ‘I may feel better when I get my head on the pillow.’
‘I don’t care which it is,’ said Justine. ‘A simple life for me.’
‘Yes, and for me too, dear,’ said her aunt. ‘I always feel that in my heart.’
‘And keep it in your heart then,’ said her father.
‘Well, let me hear all about it,’ said Matty, tapping her knee. ‘I have asked more times than I can count.’
‘Calculation does not seem to be Aunt Matty’s point,’ said Mark.
‘I want to hear the beginning, the middle, and the end. Not the exact sum; I won’t press that; but the romance of it from the first. That would be a small thing to deny your invalid, who is dependent on you for the interest of her life.’
‘Oh, how is Miss Sloane this morning?’ said Justine, reminded of her aunt’s other interests.
‘That is another question, dear. Thank you, she is well and rested. And now for my own answer.’
‘My godfather died and left no heir. That is the romance,’ said Dudley.
‘Left no heir!’ said Matty, with a roguish look. ‘He has left an heir indeed, and very much we all rejoice with him. There is the romance in truth.’
‘That very old fellow,’ said Oliver, ‘who lived not far from us?’
‘Yes, dear Grandpa, he was ninety-six,’ said Justine, smoothing Oliver’s sleeve in tender recognition of an age that was approaching this.
‘He must have seen a lot,’ said Oliver, making his own comparison.
‘I remember him,’ said Matty. ‘Edgar and Dudley were staying at his house when Edgar and Blanche first met. I don’t know why you object to the word romance. It all seems to me to fit together in quite a romantic way. So now tell me all about it. When you heard, what you heard, how you heard. How you felt and what you said. You must know all the things I want to be told.’
‘They must by now,’ said Oliver. ‘I agree.’
‘We heard at breakfast this morning. Mother and Father had heard from Uncle last night,’ said Justine, in a running tone with a faint sigh in it. ‘It is only an hour or two ago. And what did we feel? I declare it already eludes me.’
‘That is really not fair on Aunt Matty,’ said Mark.
‘Then I heard nearly as soon as you,’ said Matty, turning her eyes from her niece and nephew. ‘But my feelings do not play such tricks on me; no, they were too strong and eager for you for that. But I want to know how Dudley felt when the truth broke upon him. That is the main issue of the story.’
‘We heard last night, Edgar and I,’ said Blanche. ‘Edgar and Dudley sat up late, and when I came down to scold them, I was met by this piece of news. I told them it was quite a tonic. I slept so well after hearing it.’
Matty loked at her sister and simply turned to other people.
‘But what did you feel, Dudley? That is the main point.’
‘Uncle, gratify Aunt Matty’s curiosity,’ said Justine. ‘She has every right to feel it.’
‘Well, dear, more than a right, I think, and curiosity is an odd word. It is natural and sympathetic to feel an interest in an important change for a friend. It would not even be quite affectionate not to feel it.’
‘No, no, Aunt Matty, you are all on the safe side. So now, Uncle.’
‘I heard a few days ago and kept the matter in my heart.’
‘Ah, that shows how deep it went.’
‘Oh no, does it? If I had known that, I would have brought it out. I thought it showed that I did not attach enough importance to it, even to mention it. I meant it to be showing that.’
‘Ah, we know what that kind of indifference means. Keeping the matter in your heart, indeed! And at last it got too big even for your big heart’ — Matty gave Dudley a smile — ‘and you revealed it to your second self, to Edgar. And didn’t you have the tiniest feeling of interest? Not the least spark of excitement?’
‘I had all the natural feelings. Shock, delight, excitement; compunction at having so much; worry lest I should be thought to have more than I had, though I did not know then how much reason there would be. Pleasure in what I could do for people; fear lest they should take it all for granted, or think I was conferring favours, and it does seem unlikely that they should avoid both. And then I told it all to Edgar, and the matter assumed its just proportions — you will remember that the sum is a twentieth of a million — and I went to bed feeling that my little affairs had a small place in the general scheme, and that it would all be the same a hundred years hence; which is not true, but it was right for me to feel it. And now I ought to say that that is the longest speech I have ever made, but I never know how people can be sure of that.’
‘There, Aunt Matty, there is a proper effort,’ said Justine.
Matty’s swift frown crossed her face.
‘You don’t any of you seem to feel quite what I should have expected.’
‘Well, no, child, I am rather of your mind,’ said Oliver.
‘We have not inherited anything,’ said Blanche. ‘It is Dudley who has had the good fortune,’
‘A good fortune in two senses. And what do the two young men feel, whose prospects are now so different?’
‘They are nothing of the kind,’ said Blanche, with both her voice and her needle rising into the air. ‘This had nothing to do with them, and they are not giving a thought to it, except to rejoice in their uncle’s happiness.’
‘I am not as bad as that,’ said Dudley. ‘Happiness depends on deeper things. Love in a cottage is the most important kind of love; no other kind is talked about so much. I can only hope to be allowed to share what I have with other people, and of course I shall feel that the generosity is theirs.’
‘I am sure you will,’ said Matty. ‘And now what about the unchanged positions of the two young men? Was I right or wrong in saying what I did?’
‘You were wrong in saying it,’ said her father. ‘It was not a thing to say.’
‘Well, was I wrong — incorrect in thinking it?’
‘Your sister says that you were, her brother-in-law that you were not. You must decide.’
‘Well, I decide that it was a true and natural thing to think, and therefore to say. And most heartily do I rejoice with them in the truth of it.’
‘Clement and I have all we need,’ said Mark. ‘We should have no right or reason to ask for more.’
‘And the people who do not ask for things, are the people who have them, I have heard. You would not ask, I am sure. Yes, I must not be denied my little bit of excitement for you. It is the one kind I have left, to let my spirits soar for other people, and I must be allowed to make the most of it. It is the best kind.’