‘Does she talk so much about it? She must talk to you and not to me. It suggests that I am in disgrace. I daresay Uncle could do it. It is a good idea. We will ask him.’
‘And I believe that Miss Sloane wants something done in her old home.’
‘Well, he will certainly be glad to do that. She can ask him herself; I will remind her. And I will also remind Aunt Matty. It will make a good approach and help to bridge the rift. What a thoughtful boy you grow!’
Clement still twisted the cord.
‘You seem tied to the window in every sense. What is there to be seen from it? If we light upon any uplifting scenes, we are only concerned with them as onlookers. For us there remains the common task.’
Chapter 7
‘I am just the person who should not be going away,’ said Dudley.
‘Courage, Uncle,’ said his niece. ‘Absence makes the heart grow fond. And we will all keep an eye on her for you.’
‘Do you want to give me any instructions as the person in charge?’ said Matty.
‘I have not had my own yet. I am waiting to be told to take care of myself and to come back as soon as I can. I must take the will for the deed, though that always seems to be giving people too much credit.’
‘Come away from the hall,’ said Justine. ‘Leave the engaged pair to enact their little scene in privacy and peace. They do not want eyes upon them at every moment. Someone give an arm to Aunt Matty.’
‘I think I may stay here, dear. I am not so able-bodied as to keep running away on any pretext. And I am to take Maria home as soon as your uncle has gone.’
‘I think it would be better to forget your office for once. Too duenna-like a course is less kind than it sounds.’
‘It did not sound kind, dear. And the words are not in place. There is nothing duenna-like about me. I have no practice in such things. I have been a person rather to need them from other people.’
‘Yes, I daresay, Aunt Matty. I did not mean the word to be a barbed one. Well, come along, Father. Leave Aunt Matty to carry out her duty in her own way. It would not be my way, but I must not impose my will on hers.’
‘You can only do your best,’ said Mark. ‘And that you have done.’
‘Come, let the engaged couple have anyhow only one pair of eyes upon them.’
‘They are still accustomed to being apart,’ said Edgar, as he moved from his place. ‘Their life together is not to begin yet.’
‘No, but common sense will hardly play much part in their feelings at this time. Whatever they feel, logic will not have much to do with it.’
‘If they don’t want people’s eyes they may not want their tongues.’
‘Father, protect me against this unchivalrous brother.’
Edgar edged by his daughter and walked down the hall. She misinterpreted his abruptness and followed and put her hand through his arm. He shook it off and went on, giving one backward glance.
‘Father’s look at Uncle goes to my heart,’ she said, as she joined her brothers.
Clement looked at her and did not speak. He also had followed his father’s eyes.
‘Some things are too sacred for our sight,’ said Aubrey. ‘They can only bear Aunt Matty’s.’
‘Yes, that is the inconsistence I can’t quite get over,’ said Justine. ‘It does not seem fair, but we are not allowed to prevent it.’
‘They have all their lives to be alone with each other,’ said Mark.
‘Oh, why can’t people see that the whole of their lives has no bearing on this moment?’ said his sister, beating her hands against her sides. ‘All those moments added together will not make this one. It is one of the high water marks of life, the first parting after an acknowledged engagement. Why must we be so uncromprehending about it all?’
‘We need not grasp more than is there,’ said Edgar, who had returned and now spoke with a smile.
‘I told him that we were all boys together,’ said Aubrey, with tears and mirth. ‘That is what he did not like. He tries to think he is a man.’
‘Is anyone hurt?’ asked Edgar at the door.
‘No, Father, only someone’s feelings. And they are already soothed,’ said Justine, encircling Aubrey’s head in a manner which for once he welcomed, as it hid his face. ‘So we need not worry you with it.’
Edgar looked at his eldest and youngest children, as they went together from the room.
‘There is a good deal on your sister. I hope you will be a help to her. I will ask you both to do your best. A house like this goes ill without an older woman. It will run for a time of itself as it has been set on its lines. But if any part goes off, the whole must follow. We must support that one of us who may be destined to strive and fail.’
‘I hope that Uncle will live near to us,’ said Mark.
‘I hope so; I think he will do his best. But a separate household will not keep this one to its course. I trust the lines may run together; I trust they may.’
Edgar left the house and walked on the path where he was used to walking with his brother. He held his head upright and his hands behind his back, as if seeking a position to replace the old one. His face was still and set, as though he would not yield to any feelings that would cause a change. He looked at his watch, surprised by its slowness, and at once replaced it and walked on.
Justine, watching from a window, left her place and hastened to her room. Coming downstairs in outdoor clothes, she passed her brothers with a sign.
‘Do not ask me where I am going. Do not see me. Do not remember I have gone. Go on with what you are doing and leave me to do the same.’
‘Where is she going?’ said Mark. ‘What is the mystery?’
‘I suppose to see Aunt Matty. She may be about to make some scene. It is a good thing to be out of it.’
‘Is Aunt Matty very lonely without Mother?’ ‘She must miss the concern which it had taken sixty years to work up. I should think it could not have been done in less, it is no good for anyone else to begin it.’
‘It is a pity that Grandpa is too old for a companion to Father.’
‘You are less sure of yourself in that character?’
‘That aspect of me does not seem to strike him,’ said Mark, with his easy acceptance of the truth. ‘And I hesitate to bring it to his notice.’
‘We shall be a wretched household if Uncle — when Uncle goes. And I shall be obliged to spend more time in it.’
‘You take your usual simple attitude.’
‘What would happen to me if I did not?’
‘You might devote yourself to doing a mother’s part by Aubrey.’
‘You might have more success in that part yourself than as a wife for Father.’
‘Successful!’ called Justine’s voice, as her rapid feet bore her through the hall. ‘Successful and you need not ask in what way. That is in my own heart and I do not need to reveal it. I am content with my own sense of satisfaction.’
Clement paced up and down, silent and as if preoccupied. When Maria came up the drive he glanced through the window, and continued pacing as if unaware of what he had seen.
Three weeks later Aubrey came to the others.
‘I saw Father and Miss Sloane saying good-bye.’
‘Did you?’ said his sister. ‘Well, that was not much of an event. They must meet and part every day.’
‘Do people — do men kiss the women their brothers are going to marry?’
‘Oh, that is what you saw? So that is what it has come to. Well, I am glad it has. They can carry that off, being the people they are. I don’t know whether it is conventional between brothers and sisters-in-law, but that does not matter with these two. No doubt they felt that. They must know themselves as they are.’