They reached the bedroom and Edgar took his daughter’s arm. Justine pushed Aubrey back into the passage and then walked forward with her father. Her brothers stood with them, and Dudley a step behind. Maria drew back and waited with Aubrey on the landing.
‘You feel hot, Blanche, my dear?’ said Edgar.
‘Yes — yes, I do feel hot,’ said his wife, looking at him as if she barely saw him and hardly wished to do more. ‘What have you all come for?’
‘To say good night to you, Mother dear,’ said Justine.
‘Yes, I am better,’ said Blanche, as if this accounted for their presence. ‘I shall soon feel better. Of course it must be slow.’
‘Yes, you will be better, Mother dear.’
‘But I don’t want Miss Griffin to go,’ said Blanche, with a sharpness which was her own, though her voice could hardly be heard. ‘I don’t want to have to get well all at once. I am not going to try.’
‘Of course you are not,’ said her husband. ‘You must just lie still and think of nothing.’
‘I don’t often think of nothing. I have a busy brain.’
Edgar took her hand and she drew it away with a petulance which was again her own.
‘Is Aubrey in bed?’
‘He will be soon. He wanted to come and see you, but we thought you were too tired.’
‘Yes, I am very tired. Not so much tired as sleepy.’
‘Shut your eyes, Mother, and try to sleep,’ said Mark.
Blanche simply obeyed but opened her eyes again.
‘I want Miss Griffin to be where I can see her. You make her go away.’
Miss Griffin drew near and Blanche gave her a smile.
‘We are happy together, aren’t we? My sister does not know.’
‘I am very happy with you.’
‘My bed is right up in the air. Are you all up there too?’
‘We are with you, dear,’ said Edgar. ‘We are all here.’
‘It is too many, isn’t it?’ said Blanche, in a tone of agreement. ‘Has Matty been here today?’
‘She is downstairs, waiting to hear how you are.’
‘She cannot come up here,’ said his wife, with a note of security.
‘No, she will wait downstairs.’
‘Her brain is not really so much better than mine.’
‘No, we know it is not.’
‘Father does not know that I am really a nicer person. But it does not matter, a thing like that.’
‘We all know it, Mother,’ said Mark.
‘But you must be kind to Aunt Matty,’ said Blanche, as if speaking to a child.
‘Yes, we will be, Mother.’
‘She wants too much kindness,’ said Blanche, in a dreamy tone.
‘Shut your eyes, dear, and try to sleep,’ said Edgar.
‘Are you that tall man who asked me to marry him?’ said Blanche, in a very rapid tone, fixing her eyes on his face.
‘Yes, I am. And you married me. And we have been very happy.’
‘I did not mind leaving Father and Matty. But I don’t think that Father will die.’
‘No, not for a long time.’
‘Dr Marlowe is watching me. A doctor has to do that. But I don’t like it when Jellamy does it.’
‘He shall never do it again,’ said Edgar, stumbling over the words.
The doctor moved out of her sight, and Dudley felt his brother’s hand and came to the bed.
‘They are not really so alike, when you get to know them,’ said Blanche to Miss Griffin.
‘Mother, try to rest,’ said Mark.
‘Try to rest,’ echoed his mother, looking before her.
‘Perhaps you are a little near to the bed,’ said the doctor.
They moved away.
‘Where have you all gone?’ said Blanche at once.
‘We are here, dear,’ said Edgar. ‘You are not alone.’
‘Alone? That would be an odd thing, when I have a husband and four children.’
‘We are all here, Blanche, all with you.’
‘Matty does not mind not having any children. Some women do not mind.’
Justine came closer and her mother saw her face.
‘Are you my beautiful daughter?’ she said, again in the rapid tone. ‘The one I knew I should have? Or the other one?’
‘I am your Justine, Mother.’
‘Justine!’ said Blanche, and threw up her arms. ‘Why should we want her different?’
‘I am here, dear,’ said Edgar, bending over her, and saw that his wife was not there.
For another minute they were as silent as she.
Then Miss Griffin spoke.
‘I got to love her so much. She was so good. She never made a murmur and it must be dreadful not to be able to breathe. We could hardly wish her to linger like that.’
The speech, with its difference of thought, of word, of class, seemed to shock them back into life. Edgar turned from the bed, as if forcing himself to return to the daily world. Clement moved towards the door. Dudley turned to speak to the doctor. Mark tried to lead his sister away. Aubrey met them in the passage and stood with the expression of a man before he broke into a child’s tears. Maria went down to tell Matty the truth. The day which had been at an end was ending again. Another end had come.
‘We must go down and say good night to Aunt Matty,’ said Justine, as if feeling that normal speech and action were best. ‘And then Miss Griffin must go to bed. Uncle, you have Father in your charge. Dr Marlowe will understand us. We cannot say much tonight.’
Matty was sitting in her chair, waiting for them to come. She held out her arms to them, one by one, going through an observance which she had had in her mind, and which seemed to suggest that she offered herself in their mother’s place.
‘My poor children, your mother’s sister is with you. That is the light in my darkness, that I am here to watch over you. It must have been put into my thoughts to come to your gates, that you might not be alone when your sorrow came.’
They stood about her, heedless of what she said, and her voice went on on the same note, with another note underneath.
‘There is one little comfort I can give you, one poor, sad, little comfort. You have not suffered quite the worst. You have not sat still and felt that you could not go to her side. You were able to obey your hearts.’
They did not answer, and as Matty’s face fell from its purpose a look of realization came. Her world would be different without her sister; her place in it would be different. She rose to go and found that she must wait while Dudley and Maria took their leave.
‘Come, dear, I must get home to my father. I have more to go through tonight. And if I do not face it now, my strength may fail. I feel I have not too much.’ She broke off as she remembered that Blanche would not hear and suffer from her words. They would fall on other ears and she must have a care how they fell.
‘Well, I must leave you to take care of yourselves, of yourselves and Miss Griffin and each other. I must believe that you will do it. And I will go home and take some thought for myself, as there is no one else to do that.’
‘There is not, Aunt Matty,’ said Justine, in a clear, slow, almost ruthless voice. ‘We cannot tell you that there is. We have all lost her who watched over us. We are all desolate. We cannot tell you that that place will be filled.’
Chapter 6
‘Well, my son,’ said Oliver, as he entered Edgar’s house on the day after his daughter’s funeral. ‘I hope I may always call you that. It is what she has left to me. It is the wrong thing that she is taken and I am left. No one feels it more than I do.’
Edgar was silent before the difference made by death. His father-in-law had never used the words before.
‘No, Grandpa, you must not feel that,’ said Justine, walking with her arms about him. We do not take one person in terms of another. She never did and we do not.’
‘It is kind of you, my dear, but I cumber the ground in her house.’