‘It is extraordinary how people put things to themselves. I daresay my nephews will take back their money with a sense of doing something to improve my position. And Miss Seaton probably thinks that you lead the same life as she does. And my brother may say to himself that he is saving me from a loveless marriage, when everyone knows that it is wise to found a marriage on other feelings. And Miss Sloane must have those for me now, when everyone makes such a point of it. And I will tell you something that I have told to no one else. I think it is ordinary of her to prefer my brother to me. It already makes me like her less. Our marriage might not have been loveless, but I think our new relation may be. It seems so obvious to choose the eligible brother.’
‘Is he more eligible? A widower with a family? Everyone would not say so.’
‘Perhaps he is not. Perhaps she really does prefer him to me. Then that makes me like her less still. I am glad if she is making a bad match. I wonder if people will recognize it. People have such average minds. It is something that I can speak of her in this detached way. I wish she knew that I could. Do you like her?’
‘I did very much, until — ’
‘Until you heard that she had rejected me. So she has lost some of your affection and mine in the last hours. There is no gain without loss. And I shall make the loss as great as I can. That sounds unworthy, but it is natural. We really only want one word for natural and unworthy.’
‘There is Miss Seaton!’ said Miss Griffin.
Matty came towards them with her slow step, her deep eyes fixed on their faces. Dudley caught a footfall on the stairs and looked up to address her father.
‘We have been waiting for you to come down, sir. Miss Griffin said it would be soon. Are you going to join us tonight and be a witness of my courage?’
‘Your virtues are your own, my boy, and will be no good to me. So I do not look for a chance to enter my daughter’s house, and see her husband cheating himself that he can forget two-thirds of his days. Perhaps you will remain a moment and let me hear a human voice. And then you can take my poor Matty to do what she must in the home that was her sister’s.’
‘Isn’t it nice that we are all in trouble together?’
‘It is better than being in it alone. It is the truth that we find it so. We will remember it of each other.’
‘We are sure to do that,’ said Dudley. ‘I shall not deny myself anything at such a time.’
Miss Griffin and Matty had gone to the latter’s room in silence. During Matty’s toilet they hardly spoke, Miss Griffin fearing to be called to account and Matty uncertain whether to probe the truth. Matty maintained an utter coldness, and feeling for the first time an answering coldness in Miss Griffin, resented it as only someone could who had wreaked her moods through her life. She left her attendant without a word, appearing unconscious of her presence. As she reached the hall and heard her step moving lightly above, she paused and raised her voice.
‘Miss Griffin, will you bring my shawl from the bed. You did not give it to me. I am waiting for it.’
Miss Griffin appeared at once on the landing. ‘ What did you say, Miss Seaton?’
‘My shawl from the bed! It was under your eyes. You can run down with it in a minute.’
Dudley took less than this to run up for it, and more to receive it from Miss Griffin, and Matty turned and walked to the carriage in silence.
‘Oh, my shawl; thank you,’ she said, taking it as if she hardly saw it.
Dudley took his seat beside her, indifferent to her mood, and she felt a familiar impulse.
‘Well, how are things to be tonight? Is it to be an evening of rejoicing or of tactful ignoring of the truth? In a word, are we to consider Edgar’s point of view or yours?’
Dudley read her mind and felt too spent to deal with it.
‘Well, are we not to have an answer to an innocent question?’
‘It was a guilty question and you will have no answer.’
‘Well, we will try to do better. Let us take some neutral ground. Justine remains safe and solid. How does she feel about yielding up her place? Dear, dear, these are days of relinquishment for so many of us.’
‘Justine thinks very little about herself.’
‘Then I know whom she is like,’ said Matty, laying her hand on Dudley’s.
Dudley withdrew his hand, got out of the carriage and assisted Matty to do the same, and, leaving Jellamy to hold the door, went upstairs to his room. Matty passed into the drawing room, unsure of her own feelings.
Maria was sitting alone by the fire. The others had gone to dress, and it was not worth while for her to go home to do the same. And it seemed to her that any such effort for herself would be out of place.
‘Well, Matty, you see the guilty woman.’
‘I see a poor, tired woman, who could not help her feelings any more than anyone else. I began by liking Edgar the better of the brothers, and Blanche liked him better too; so if you do the same, both she and I ought to understand.
And I feel she does understand, somehow and somewhere, my dear, generous Blanche.’
Maria looked up at Matty, sensing something of her mood.
‘I am not troubled by its being a second marriage. That has its own different chance. Nor about having made a mistake and mended it. But I wonder how things will go, with me at the head, and Edgar’s children living under a different hand. It does not seem enough to resolve to do my best.’
Matty regarded her friend in silence. So she did not disguise her own conception of the change. Her simplicity came to her aid. She saw and accepted her place.
‘Perhaps Justine will take most of it off you. She may remain in effect the head of the house. And things will not go far awry while she is there.’
Maria met the open move with an open smile. She knew Matty better since she had lived in her house.
‘She will not do that. Her father would not wish it, and she is the last person to feel against him. And I must set her free to enjoy her youth.’
‘My poor sister! How ready people are to enjoy things without her! But you will not have much freedom for yourself.’
‘I shall give up my freedom. I have had enough and I have made no use of it.’
‘It is dead, dear, the old memory?’ said Matty, leaning forward and using a very gentle tone.
‘It is not dead. But the cause of it is. I ought to have realized that before.’
‘You know it at the right moment. Dear, dear, what a choice you had! Your understanding of yourself came in the nick of time.’
‘That can no longer be said. We must forget that I had a choice, as both of them will forget it.’
‘Stay there, stay there,’ said Justine, entering and motioning to Maria to keep her seat. ‘That is the chair which will be yours. Remain in it and get used to your place. Father will sit opposite, as he always has. There has to be the change and we will take it at a stride. It is best for everyone.’
‘Yes, you do welcome it, dear,’ said Matty. ‘Now, Aunt Matty!’ said Justine, sinking into a chair and letting her hands fall at her sides. ‘Now what, dear?’
‘Already!’ said Justine, raising the hands and dropping them.
‘Already what? Already I face the change in the house? But that is what you said yourself. You called out your recommendation from the door.’
There was silence.
‘Well, it is the replacement of one dear one by another,’ said Matty.
There was silence.
‘It is good that they are both so very dear.’
There was still silence. Maria lifted a fan to her face, screening it from the fire and from her friend. A current seemed to pass between her and Justine, and in almost unconscious conspiracy they held to their silence. Matty looked at the fire, adjusted her shawl with a stiff, weak movement, saw that it stirred a memory in her niece, and repeated it and sat in a stooping posture, which she believed to be her sister’s in her last hours downstairs.