A Family and a Fortune (27 page)

‘That is another kind thing to say. But is pity really better than forgetfulness? Then I have still to suffer the worst indeed.'

‘Justine wants to know if you will join us at dinner, Aunt Matty,' said Mark. ‘We can send the carriage when you like.'

‘Mark thinks I am talking too much about myself. Forgetfulness is already coming, and I see how bad it is. And coming so soon too! It is the only thing that could do that.'

‘What time, Aunt Matty? Justine was firm on the point. She wants an exact answer.'

‘Dear Justine! A time is always exact, I should have thought. Well, a quarter to seven, if that is not too early, if she can do with me so soon. She is still the regent in the house.'

‘I suppose Mark wanted to save me from myself. He is afraid that I may run on and not dare to stop, for fear of the silence that may follow. He has noticed that is my tendency. So will someone speak at once?'

‘Well, perhaps half past six,' said Matty, with immediate
and smiling response. ‘Half past six and brave, bright faces. We have all made up our minds. So good-bye for the moment and good luck to our resolve. And tell Justine exactly half past six.'

‘You go on and take the message,' said Dudley to his nephews. ‘And I will have a word with Miss Griffin. I find her regard for me very congenial. This trouble has come from someone's being without it.'

Miss Griffin was lingering in the hall with almost open purpose.

‘Well, you and I have more than ever in common, Miss Griffin. People think too little of both of us. I have been rated below my brother, and I am wondering if it will add to me to accept the view. Everyone feels that that ought to be done for me just now, and keeps trying to do it. And we ought to do what we can for ourselves.'

‘We don't all think you are below him.'

‘Most people do, and I expect I shall accept the judgement of the many, though it is known to be a silly thing to do. I am glad you are not so foolish.'

‘I am not indeed; I mean, I don't accept it.'

‘Of course I may be inferior to him. It is true that when I inherited money, I thought it put me on a pedestal. And when I gave it away, I thought it was wonderful. To give away money that cost me nothing to gain. But between ourselves I am still inclined to think it was. And I am not sure that he would have done it.'

‘Anyhow it was unusual.'

‘So now I am going to give it back, because if you can part with money, you can do something that very few people can do.'

‘I suppose people could do it if they liked,' said Miss Griffin, in sincere thought.

‘No, they could not. They are the slaves of money, not its masters.'

‘It seems funny, doesn't it?'

‘I used not to understand it. But when I had money myself, I understood. I had to act quickly in case I became a slave. I nearly became one.'

‘But you did not quite.'

‘No, but soon afterwards I did. I fee! I must speak so that you can only just hear. I asked for the money back again.'

Miss Griffin smiled as if at a child.

‘Did you not know that?'

‘No.'

‘Isn't it extraordinary that such news does not spread? I should like so much to hear that about anyone. I did not know that people were so unimportant. And they are not: everyone is important.'

‘Of course everyone is.'

‘Do you feel that you are?'

‘Everyone ought to be.'

‘I am afraid I am thought important because of what I can do. And it may be the same with you.' ‘I cannot do much for anyone.' ‘I thought you did everything for Miss Seaton.' Miss Griffin looked aside.

‘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.

‘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.'