‘May it,’ said Clement. ‘It has served so far for several seconds.’
‘Come,’ said his sister, beckoning again. ‘Is it unfolding itself before our eyes?’
Dudley had left his place in the middle and taken Maria’s other arm, leaving the one he relinquished, for his brother.’
‘There may be the lifting and laying of our fear, the final token of the future.’
‘You build rather much on it,’ said Mark.
‘I feel it is symbolic, emblematic, whatever you call it. I cannot feel that the future will be left to itself, with Uncle’s eyes upon it, with Uncle’s hand to steer its way. And by the future I mean Father’s future, of course.’
‘No one else has one,’ said Clement. ‘But it is natural that Father should not escape Uncle’s thoughts at this time. He has just lost his wife, and his brother is leaving him after fifty years. It is not an average situation.’
‘Well, I feel that we have had a sign. But you are determined to be contrary until your own little share in the change becomes familiar.’
‘Why is it little? Because yours is? There is no other reason.’
‘Look at that and keep it in your heart,’ said Justine, pulling the curtain further. ‘Of what do you consider that a sign? What kind of an omen?’
Dudley had gone, and Edgar and Maria were walking together.
‘Is not Uncle sharing everything even as Father has shared it?’
‘Uncle has his own ways of sharing. He may withdraw it at his pleasure.’
‘Even their married lives are at the disposal of each other. It is a sobering and cheering thing.’
‘Boys,’ said Aubrey, blinking and pointing to the window, ‘what of the lesson of another pair of brothers?’
‘And they are walking in step,’ pursued Justine, bending over the sill, ‘Uncle’s brother and future wife. Is not that prophetic? I choose to see it so.’
Clement came to her side and stood looking down with her.
‘May you be able to abide by your choice.’
‘Away now,’ said Justine, resuming her ordinary voice. ‘Away to your daily employment. We must not go on dreamily, self-indulgently, deaf to the normal demands of life. Father has set us the example. He is up and about and turning his eyes on the future. At who knows what cost to himself? We must not be behind him, who has so much more to face. He hears the call of life and obeys it.’
Edgar looked up as if feeling eyes upon him.
‘They are watching us, those four who are my charge and whom I know so little. My brother has taken too much of my life, and you will not find that hard to understand. I must use the time I shall have to myself, to get to know my children. It may be too late to do anything except for myself.’
Maria did not realize the unusual freedom of his words.
‘You may find that you know them better than you think. It may be difficult to live with people and not know them, anyhow young people. I think we seem to know them when anything brings them out. Have you often been surprised by these?’
‘I think perhaps I have not. I think they are themselves under any test. And if I have not served them much, I have made little demand. I have not much debt to pay. It might speak better for me if I had. I have not set myself apart from the normal relations of life, and I should have done better in them.’
‘Justine will solve many problems for you and will make none.’
‘Perhaps that in itself may be a problem.’
‘You do not often find people good all through as she is.’
‘You like my Justine?’ said Edgar, with what he felt should be his feeling.
‘I like good people,’ said Maria, with the simplicity which in her had its own quality, something which might have been humour if she could have been suspected of it. ‘I never think people realize how well they compare with the others.’
‘You have thought about people?’
‘I have been a great deal alone and perhaps thought more than I knew. I should have learned more by meeting them.’
‘You must help me, if Dudley will let you. And I see that he will.’
‘I will if I can. I have been afraid of coming between you.’
‘You can hold us together from there. Dudley has put you between us. I do not know what I should do if he had not.
It helps me to face the future, to face my double loss. I feel there is something — someone in the place.’
Justine turned from the window as her uncle entered..
‘Uncle!’ she said, extending her hand towards the scene below.
‘Perfect. To think that I am the possessor of all that!’
‘It is all yours. Your full meed was delayed to come at last. When I look at those two tall figures, walking in step as if they would walk so all their lives, I see you between them, still walking somehow self-effacingly, there to do your part by both. I take it as an augury.’
‘Perhaps I am marrying for the sake of others. I could not think of myself at such a time. If I could, I might feel that I was doing so, or other people might. I don’t suppose we ever feel that we are thinking of ourselves.’
‘Do you think we do not know you, Uncle?’
‘I have been afraid you were getting to know me.’
‘Go your way, Uncle. Set your heart at rest. Forget yourself and go forward. If there is any little thing on which you do not like to turn your eyes, turn them from it and pass on. Take your life in your own hands. It is yours.’
‘You are certainly getting to know me.’
‘I declare this is the first time that I have felt cheerful since Mother left us. But the sight of Father with you and Maria — yes, I will say the name — has helped me to it. I feel I can emulate you and go forward.’
‘I can’t be so very bad, if you are going to be the same.’
Justine walked out of the room as if carrying out her words, and passed her brothers on the landing.
‘Yes, it is a fascinating spectacle. I don’t blame you for standing with your eyes riveted to it. But do not let it be a snare to lure you from righteousness. Life will be rushing by and leaving us in a backwater. Father has embarked upon the stream. We must not be behind him.’
‘Is that what has happened to Father?’ said Clement to his brother. ‘Or has the stream sucked him in unawares? It has taken him already some distance. I wonder if he knows.’
‘Knows what?’
‘Is it like Father to wander about alone with a strange woman?’
‘It is like very few of us, but that is not what he is doing.’
There was a pause.
‘When is Uncle going to be married?
‘I don’t know. I suppose not too soon after Mother’s death.’
Clement remained at the window after his brother had left him. He was to stand there several times in the next two months. At the end of them he came to the room where his sister was alone.
‘Are not Father and Uncle going away in a few days?’
‘Yes. Uncle has to see his godfather’s lawyer, who manages his money. It may be about settlements or something. I have not asked. It is between him and Miss Sloane.
‘Then they are going near Grandpa’s old home. It was when he and Father were visiting the godfather that Father and Mother met.’
‘Yes, so it was. Yes, they must be going there. It will do Father good to get away alone with Uncle.’
‘But surely this will not be the suitable change for him. Are we simply passing over Mother’s death and expecting him to do the same?’
‘Oh, I had not thought. Of course he must not go there. I had forgotten the place. I will speak to Uncle. Poor Father, no wonder he was not very eager over the plan.’
‘Grandpa and Aunt Matty are more and more anxious to sell their house and the furniture they left in it,’ said Clement, strolling to the window and twisting the blind cord round in his hand, while his eyes went down to what was beneath. The agent who is supposed to be doing it seems to need some pressure and supervision. Could not Uncle try to put it through and come home a little later? It would put an end to Aunt Matty’s talk.’