‘Are you ready for Grandpa, Aunt Matty?’
‘Yes, dear, I have been ready since we talked about it, since you said that things would be the better for our going. But I don’t think my nephews were quite so inclined for me to leave them.’
‘Shall I fetch him for you?’
‘Yes, dear,’ said Matty, in a tone of full encouragement. ‘But I see that Aubrey is going for you. He is better and brighter in the last half-hour.’
‘Mrs Middleton, I feel that we are dismissing you,’ said Justine. ‘And it has been so kind of you to come.’
‘We have had our glimpse of you, dear,’ said Sarah, in an unconsciously satisfied tone, having had a full sight of the situation.
Thomas departed with a bare handshake, as though he would impose the least demand. He uttered no word as a word would have required an ear.
‘Well, it becomes easier for me to leave you all,’ said Oliver. ‘I have those who belong to me on both sides. It gets to make less difference to me on which side I am.’
His grandsons looked at him with incredulous eyes, startled by the faith of a man who was in other respects a normal being. They had no grasp of the mental background of Oliver’s youth.
‘I suppose Grandpa is saved,’ murmured Aubrey.
‘People always are,’ said Clement. ‘That is the plan. It is specified that sins may be of any dye and make no difference’.
‘There are arrangements for those who are not,’ said Mark, ‘permanent ones. They seem indeed to err on the side of permanency.’
‘I suppose Aunt Matty is saved,’ said Aubrey. ‘Sins being as scarlet —’
‘Boys dear,’ said Justine, ‘isn’t this rather cheap jesting upon subjects which are serious to many people? Do you know, at this moment I could find it in me to envy Grandpa his faith?’
‘I see that he has the best of it,’ said Mark.
‘We should like to have some comfort,’ said Aubrey, his grin extending into the grimace of weeping, as he found himself speaking the truth.
Justine stroked his hair and continued to do so while she addressed her aunt.
‘Aunt Matty, as you are taking Miss Griffin and you also have Grandpa, will you leave us Miss Sloane? I feel we need someone to break down the barriers of family grief. And I begin to find it much, this being the only woman in the family.’
‘Yes, dear, take anything from me; take anything that is mine,’ said Matty, proceeding on her way. ‘I am willing to be generous.’
Justine ran after her and flung her arms round her neck. ‘Dear Aunt Matty, you are generous indeed. And we do value the gift.’
Her aunt walked on, perhaps not wishing to go further in this line.
Justine sighed as she looked after her.
‘I believe I have put something definitely between Aunt Matty and me. That is what I have done in the first days without Mother. Well, we can’t expect to do so well without her.’
‘Is Miss Sloane remaining with us in simple obedience?’ said Mark.
‘I should like to stay with you all.’
‘I will give her to you for a time,’ said Dudley. ‘I must learn to talk like a husband.’
‘And Aunt Matty has given her,’ said Aubrey.
‘Father, she is yours, if you will have it so,’ said Justine. ‘No one counts with us as you do.’
‘Justine has also given Miss Sloane,’ said Aubrey.
‘Then I will talk to your father,’ said Maria. ‘And you can have your uncle.’
Justine waited for the door to close.
‘Uncle, I don’t think it is too soon to broach a subject which Mother would wish to be dealt with. This does not seem the wrong day to carry out what may have been her last wish. You know what I would say?’
‘Can’t you try to say it? Because I cannot. And if your mother would have wished it, you must.’
‘It goes without saying,’ said Justine, with a casual gesture. ‘It is yours, that which you gave us in your generosity when it was yours to give. Now it belongs to another, and we are glad that there is the nearer claim. The lack of it was the shadow over your good fortune. Mother felt it for you and just had time to know that it was lifted. You must have known her feelings.’
‘What about your old men and women in the village?’
‘I shall give them what I gave them before, the work of my heart and head. They like it better, or rather I like it as well for them, as it does not touch their independence. Do not fear, Uncle. There is no sacrifice in rendering to you the things that are yours.’
‘It seems that there must be sacrifice in rendering things. What does Mark feel about the house?’
‘Am I so much worse than Justine?’
‘I should think you must be rather worse. Anyone would be. And it is on the weaker person that the greater sacrifice falls.’
‘Sacrifice? Faugh!’ said Justine. ‘What Father can bear, Mark can, and with as good a grace, I hope, as someone who is less affected and matters less.’
‘I did not know all that about Mark. And I am still ill at ease. To give a thing and take a thing is so bad that I cannot do it. It must be done for me. And I am glad that a beginning is made.’
‘We can go on,’ said Clement, quickly. ‘Everything is in your hands. Have you anything to tell us of your future home?’
‘Do you remember’, said Justine, ‘how I almost foresaw the need of some readjustment like this, and made a stipulation to meet it? Everything was to be as it had been. That is how it is.’
‘Mark has not told me that he will like to see the house decay. I wish he would.’
‘I can tell you how glad I am to have parts of it saved, and the parts in most danger, and how glad to feel that you will have a home of your own.’
‘Here is a little man who is as ready as anyone to make what you will call his sacrifice,’ said Justine. ‘He is too shy to say so, but he feels it none the less.’
‘I am ready indeed,’ said Aubrey at once, showing his sister’s rightness and her error.
‘And it is not really a sacrifice,’ said Dudley. ‘He will tell me that it is not.’
‘There is no need to do that, Uncle.’
‘Haven’t you enjoyed the money I gave you? It is dreadful to want you to enjoy it and then to give it back. But am I the only person in the world who really likes money?’
‘We have savoured it to the full,’ said Justine, ‘but not as much as we shall savour the sense that you are using it for yourself.’
‘I do not like the sound of that. I want to eat my cake and have it. I had better let Aubrey keep his pocket money. Then I shall feel that I am letting my brother’s family have all I can. That is all I can let them have. Five shillings a week.’
‘Well, the little boy will appreciate it, Uncle. And he will feel that he has shown himself willing to fall into line.’
‘Aubrey will eat his cake and have it,’ said Clement.
‘So he will,’ said Dudley. ‘And I shall keep my cake and give away the smallest morsel of it. I think that is what people do with cakes. I shall have to be like people; I cannot avoid it.’
‘You cannot,’ said Justine. ‘You are caught in the meshes of your own life. It has come at last, though it has been so long delayed.’
‘You don’t think I am old, do you?’
‘No, not at all. You are in time to give your full prime to her who has won it. Accepted it, you would like me to say. And I think it may be the truer word.’
‘And some people always have a touch of youth about them.’
‘Yes, and you are indeed one of them.’
‘Thank you, I think that is all. And yet I feel there is something else. Oh, Clement has not told me that he is pleased to give up his allowance.’
‘It goes without saying, Uncle.’
‘I see it will have to. And I am taking everything and giving nothing. That is terribly like people. I have so often heard it said of them.’