‘You will give what help you can?’ said Edgar.
‘No, I shall not, Father. I know it sounds perverse, but a house cannot do with more than one head. Nothing can serve two masters. I go free without a qualm.’
‘I only serve one master,’ said Aubrey. ‘Penrose.’
‘Do you feel you would like a change?’ said Maria.
‘No, no, don’t pander to him, Maria; he will only take advantage. I mean, of course, that that is what I have found. You will form your own conclusions.’
‘Perhaps I shall find that I have learnt more from Penrose than many another lad at a great public school.’
‘I don’t know what ground you have for the view,’ said Mark.
‘It was just one of my little speeches. What would the house be without them?’
‘It would be better with Uncle and no one to copy him,’ said Clement.
‘Now, Clement, come, there is a real likeness,’ said Justine.
‘Clement is jealous of my genuine touch of Uncle.’
‘Does Dudley see the likeness?’ said Matty, with a faint note of sighing patience with the well worn topic.
‘I should think it is the last thing anyone would see, a likeness to himself,’ said her niece.
‘Should you, dear? The opposite of what I say. We are not all like your uncle.’
‘I make no pretence of lightness and charm. I am a blunt and downright person. People have to take me as I am.’
‘Yes, we do, dear,’ said Matty, seeming to use the note of patience in two senses.
‘Clement thinks that I try to cultivate them,’ said Aubrey, ‘and it makes him jealous.’
‘You may be wise to save us from taking you as we take Justine,’ said Clement.
Aubrey gave a swift glance round the table, and sat with an almost startled face.
‘Maria, what do you think of our family?’ said Justine. ‘It is full experience for you on your first night.’
‘It is better not to have it delayed. And I must think of myself as one of you.’
‘This is the very worst. I can tell you that.’
‘I have often been prouder of my sister’s children,’ said Matty.
Edgar and Dudley turned towards her.
‘I believe the two brothers are so absorbed in being together that no one else exists for them.’
There was a pause and Matty was driven further.
‘Well, it is a strange chapter that I have lived since I have been here. A strange, swift chapter. Or a succession of strange, swift chapters. If I had known what was to be, might I have been able to face it? And if not, how would it all be with us? How we can think of the might-have-beens!’
‘There are no such things,’ said Edgar.
‘We cannot foretell the future,’ said Mark. ‘It might make us mould our actions differently.’
‘And then how would it all be with us?’ repeated Matty, in a light, running tone. ‘Maria not here; Justine not deposed; nothing between your father and uncle; everything so that my sister could come back at any time and find her home as she left it.’
‘Is it so useful to have things ready for her return?’
‘It is hardly a dependable contingency,’ said Clement.
‘No, no,’ said Justine, with a movement of distaste, ‘I am not going to join.’
‘So my little flight of imagination has fallen flat.’
‘What fate did it deserve?’ said Edgar, in a tone which fell with its intended weight.
‘Did you expect it to carry us with it?’ said Mark.
Matty shrank into herself, drawing her shawl about her and looking at her niece almost with appeal. The latter shook her head.
‘No, no, Aunt Matty, you asked for it. I am not going to interfere.’
‘What do you say to the reception of a few innocent words, Dudley?’
‘I have never heard baser ones.’
Matty looked at Maria, and meeting no response, drew the shawl together again and bent forward with a shiver.
‘Have you a chill, Matty?’ said Dudley.
‘I felt a chill then. There seemed to be one in the air. I am not sure whether it was physical or mental. The one may lead to the other. I think that perhaps chills do encircle you and me in these days.’
‘That is not true of Uncle,’ said Justine. ‘He is safely ensconced in the warmth of the feeling about him.’
‘And I am not? I am a lonely old woman living in the past? I was coming to feel I was that. Perhaps I ought not to have come today, sunk as I was in the sadness of this return.’ Matty ended on a hardly audible note.
‘It was certainly not wise to come with no other feeling about it,’ said Mark.
‘No, it was not, because that was how I felt. So perhaps it is not wise to stay. I will make haste to go, and lift the damper of my presence. I feel that I have been a blight, that your first evening would have been better without me. I meant to come and join you in looking forward, and I have stood by myself and looked back. I am glad it has been by myself, that I have not drawn any of you with me.’ Matty kept her eyes on Mark’s, to protect herself from other eyes. ‘But I have been wrong in not hiding my heart. My father sets me an example in avoiding the effort destined to fail. I thought I could follow your uncle. I meant to take a leaf out of his book. But I can’t quite do it today. Today I must go away by myself and be alone with my memories. And I shall not find it being alone. And that is a long speech to end up with, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, it is rather long.’
‘Very well, then, go if you must,’ said Justine. ‘What does my hostess say?’
‘Oh, of course, I should not have spoken for her,’ said Justine, with a little laugh.
‘Justine has said the only thing that can be said. But the carriage cannot be here at once.’
‘Well, I will go and sit in the hall. Then I shall have left the feast. There will no longer be the death’s head at it. I shall be easier when I am not that. That is the last thing I like to be, a cloud over happy people. We must not underrate happiness because it is not for ourselves. It ought to make us see how good it is, and it does show it indeed.’
‘Who is going to see Aunt Matty out?’ murmured Aubrey.
‘Perhaps Dudley will,’ said Matty, smiling at the latter. ‘Then he and I can sit for a minute, and perhaps give each other a little strength for the different effort asked of us.’
Dudley seemed not to hear and Maria signed to her husband.
‘Aunt Matty would have been burned as a witch at one time,’ said Clement.
‘Does Clement’s voice betray a yearning for the good old days?’ said Aubrey.
‘Witches seem always to have been innocent people,’ said Mark.
‘That will do. Let us leave Aunt Matty alone,’ said Justine. ‘She may merit no more, but so much is her due.’
‘What does Maria say?’ said Dudley, in an ordinary tone.
‘We are all moving forward. And if Matty does not come with us, she will be left behind.’
‘She may pull herself up and follow,’ said Justine.
‘She will probably lead,’ said Clement.
‘She will not do that,’ said his father, returning to the room.
‘Has Aunt Matty gone already, Father?’ said Justine.
‘No. She asked me to leave her, and I did as she asked.’
After dinner it was the brothers’ custom to go to the library. Blanche had had her own way of leaving the room, pausing and talking and retracing her steps, and any custom of waiting for her had died away. Dudley put his arm through Edgar’s, as he had done through his life. Edgar threw it off with a movement the more significant that it was hardly conscious, and waited for his wife, giving a smile to his brother. Dudley stood still, felt his niece’s hand on his arm, shook it off as Edgar had done his own, and followed the pair to the library. He sat down between them, crossing his knees to show a natural feeling. Edgar looked at him uncertainly. He had meant to be alone with his wife and had assumed that his brother understood him. This withdrawal of Dudley’s support troubled him and shook his balance. Something was coming from his brother to himself that he did not know.