‘No, no, Aunt Matty,’ said Justine, shaking her head and using a tone which did not only address her aunt. ‘That is no good. Conscious acting will do nothing.’
Matty altered her position, and instantly resumed it, a flush spreading over her face. Justine held her eyes aside as if she would not watch her.
As Edgar’s sons entered, Maria rose and went to a bookcase and Justine took her seat.
‘What a long day this has seemed!’ said Mark, speaking to avoid silence.
‘Yes, I expect it has, dear,’ said his aunt with sympathy. ‘It has taken you from one chapter of your life into another. We cannot expect that to happen in a moment. It generally takes many days. This has been a long one to me too. I seem to have lived through so much in the hours I have sat alone. And it has not been all my own experience. I have gone with you through every step of your way.’
‘Yes, we have taken some steps,’ said Justine, ‘and in a sense it has been an enlarging experience. I don’t think Miss Sloane minds our talking about it. She knows what is in our minds, and that we must get it out before we leave it behind.’
‘And she knows she is fortunate that it can be left,’ said Matty.
‘It will fall behind of itself,’ said Maria. The first touch of authority!’ said Justine. ‘We bow to it.’
‘It was not meant to be that. I am here as the guest of you all.’
‘It was just a little foretaste of the future,’ said Matty. ‘And quite a pleasant foretaste, quite a pretty little touch of the sceptre. I think we must hurry things a little; I must be taking counsel with myself. We must not leave that capacity for power lying idle. Now this is the sight I like to see.’
Edgar and Dudley entered, at first sight identical figures in their evening clothes, and stood on the hearth with their apparent sameness resolving itself into their difference.
‘This is what I used to envy my sister in her daily life, the sight of those two moving about her home, as if they would move together through the crises of their lives. I used to feel it was her high water mark.’
‘And they have just gone through a crisis and gone through it together,’ murmured Justine. ‘Yes, I believe together. Miss Sloane, it must be trying for you to hear this family talk, with my mother always in the background as if she still existed, as of course she must and does exist in all our minds. But if it is not to your mind, put a stop to it. Exert your authority. We have seen that you can do so.’
‘I should not want to do so, if I had it. I know that I have not been here for the last thirty years. I shall begin my life with you when I begin it. That is to be the future. We all have our past.’
‘And we will share with you what we can of ours.’
‘I hope you will. I should like it.’
‘Is Justine glad that Father is going to marry Miss Sloane?’ said Aubrey to Mark.
‘She is glad for Father not to be alone. It is wise to make the best of it. We can do nothing for people who are dead.’
‘It is a good thing that Mother does not know, for all that,’ said Aubrey, with an odd appeal in his tone.
‘Yes, we are glad to be sure of it.’
Aubrey turned away with a lighter face.
‘Edgar,’ said Matty in a distinct tone, ‘I have been thinking that I must be making my plans. Come a little nearer; I cannot shout across that space; and I cannot get up and come to you, can I? The wedding will be my business, as Maria’s home is with me. And I think I can make the cottage serve our needs. You will like a simple wedding, with things as they are? And it cannot be for some months?’
‘I shall know about such things when I am told,’
‘I thought we ought to save you that, Aunt Matty,’ said Justine, sitting on her aunt’s chair and speaking into her ear. ‘It does not seem that it ought to devolve on Mother’s sister.’
‘Why, you are not sparing yourself, dear, and you are her daughter. And that is as close a tie, except that its roots are of later growth. I shall be doing what I have done before for your father. It is fortunate that I am so near. And I think we need not be troubled for your mother. If we feel like that, this should not be happening. And she will go forward with us in our hearts.’
‘No,’ said Edgar, suddenly. ‘She will not go forward. We shall and she will not.’
‘Her wishes and her influence will go on.’
‘They may, but she will not do so. She has had her share, what it has been.’
‘I can see her in all her children,’ said Maria. ‘I shall get to know her better as I get to know them.’
‘And yet Edgar can say that she does not go on.’
‘She does not, herself. It will make no difference to her.’
‘We cannot serve the past,’ said Mark, ‘only fancy that we do so.’
‘Only remember it,’ said Justine, looking before her.
Maria and Edgar exchanged a smile, telling each other that these days had to be lived. Matty saw it and was silent.
‘I shall be best man,’ said Dudley. ‘I think that people will look at me more than at Edgar. I shall be a man with a story, and he will be one who is marrying a second time, and the first is much the better thing.’
‘You need not worry about any of it,’ said Matty, with apparent reassurance. ‘People’s memories are short. They too will feel that they cannot help what is gone, and they will not waste their interest. You will soon be a man without a story again.’
‘Do you resent a tendency to look forward?’ said Clement.
‘No, dear, but it seems to me that people might look back sometimes. Not for the sake of what they can do for the past, of course; just for the sake of loyalty and constancy and other old-fashioned things. My life is as real to me in the past as it is in the present, my sister as much alive as she was in her youth. But all these things are a matter of the individual.’
‘Aunt Matty,’ said Justine, in a low tone, bringing her face near to her aunt’s, ‘this house is moving towards the future. It is perhaps not: a place for so much talk of the past.’
‘They are a matter of age, I think,’ said Mark. ‘The young are said to live in the future, the middle-aged in the present, and the old in the past. I think it may be roughly true.’
‘And I am so old, dear? Your old and lonely aunt? Well, I feel the second but hardly the first as yet. But I shall go downhill quickly now. You won’t have to give me so much in the present. I shall be more and more dependent upon the past, and that is dependent upon myself, as things are to be.’
‘People are known to be proud of odd things,’ said Dudley, ‘but I think that going downhill is the oddest of all.’
‘Yes, you forget about that, don’t you?’ said Matty, in a sympathetic tone. ‘About that and the past and everything. It is the easiest way.’
‘Miss Sloane, what has your life been up till now?’ said Justine, in a tone of resolutely changing the subject. ‘We may as well know that piece of the past. You know our corresponding part of it.’
‘The man whom I was going to marry died,’ said Maria, turning to her and speaking in her usual manner. ‘And I did live in the past. It may not have been the best thing, but it seemed to me the only one.’
‘Then long live the future!’ said Justine slipping off her aunt’s chair and raising her hand. ‘Long live the future and the present. Let the dead past bury its dead. Yes, I will say it and not flinch. It is better and braver in that way. Mother would feel it so. Aunt Matty, join with us in a toast to the future.’
‘Aunt Matty raises her hand with a brave, uncertain smile,’ said Aubrey, as he himself did this.