A Family and a Fortune (4 page)

‘No, I have not, Miss Gaveston. I have hardly had the opportunity.'

‘Grandpa and Aunt Matty and Miss Griffin,' said Aubrey.

‘How do you know, little boy? We had the news when you had gone.'

‘Jellamy told me when he was setting the luncheon.'

‘Father, do you like Aubrey to make a companion of Jellamy?'

‘Well, my dear, I think so; I do not think - I see no objection.'

‘Then there is none. Your word on such a matter is enough. I shall like to see poor Miss Griffin again. I wonder how she is getting on.'

‘Do I understand, Mr Gaveston, that it is Mrs Gaveston's family who is coming to the vicinity?' said Mr Penrose.

‘Yes, Mr Penrose,' said Justine, clearly. ‘My mother's father and sister, and the sister's companion, who has become a friend.'

‘My father is an old man now,' said Blanche.

‘Well, Mother dear, he can hardly be anything else, with you - well, I will leave you the option in the matter of your own age - with a granddaughter thirty. Mr Penrose hardly needed that information.'

‘And my sister is a little older than I am,' continued Blanche, not looking at her daughter, though with no thought of venting annoyance. ‘She is an invalid from an
accident, but very well in herself. I am so much looking forward to having her.'

‘Poor little Mother! It sounds as if you suffered from a lack of companionship. But we can't skip a generation and become your contemporaries.'

‘I do not want you to. I like to have my children at their stage and my sister at hers. I shall be a very rich woman.'

‘Well, you will, Mother dear. What a good thing you realize it! So many people do not until it is too late.'

‘Then they are not rich,' said Clement.

‘People seem very good at so many things,' said Dudley, ‘except for not being quite in time. It seems hard that that should count so much.'

‘Mother will be rich in Aunt Matty,' said Aubrey.

‘I shall,' said Blanche.

‘Really, you boys contribute very tame little speeches,' said Justine. ‘You are indifferent conversationalists.'

‘If you wish us to be anything else,' said Clement, ‘you must allow us some practice.'

‘Do you mean that I am always talking myself? What a very ungallant speech! I will put it to the vote. Father, do you think that I talk too much?'

‘No, my dear - well, it is natural for young people to talk.'

‘So you do. Well, I must sit down under it. But I know who will cure me; Aunt Matty. She is the person to prevent anyone from indulging in excess of talk. And I don't mean to say anything against her; I love her flow of words. But she does pour them out; there is no doubt of that.'

‘We all have our little idiosyncrasies,' said Blanche. ‘We should not be human without them.'

‘It is a pity we have to be human,' said Dudley. ‘Human failings, human vanity, human weakness! We don't hear the word applied to anything good. Even human nature seems a derogatory term. It is simply an excuse for everything.'

‘Human charity, human kindness,' said Justine. ‘I think that gives us to think, Uncle.'

‘There are great examples of human nobility and sacrifice,' said Blanche. ‘Mr Penrose must know many of them.'

‘People are always so pleased about people's sacrifice,' said Dudley; ‘I mean other people's. It is not very nice of them. I suppose it is only human.'

‘They are not. They can admire it without being pleased.'

‘So I am to write - you wish me to write to your father, my dear,' said Edgar, ‘and say that he is welcome as a tenant at a sacrifice to be determined?'

‘Yes, of course. But you need not mention the sacrifice. And I am sure we do not feel it to be that. Just say how much we want to have them.'

‘Father dear, I don't think we need bring out our little family problems before Mr Penrose,' said Justine. ‘They concern us but they do not - can hardly interest him.'

‘Oh, I don't think that mattered, dear,' said Blanche. ‘Mr Penrose will forgive us. He was kind enough to be interested.'

‘Yes, indeed, Mrs Gaveston. It is a most interesting piece of news,' said Mr Penrose, relinquishing a spoon he was examining, as if to liberate his attention, which had certainly been occupied. ‘I must remember to tell Mrs Penrose. She is always interested in any little piece of information about the family - in the neighbourhood. Not that this particular piece merits the term, little. From your point of view quite the contrary.'

‘We shall have to do up the lodge,' said Blanche to her husband. ‘It is fortunate that it is such a good size. Matty must have remembered it. The back room will make a library for my father, and Matty will have the front one as a drawing-room. And the third room on that floor can be her bedroom, to save her the stairs. I can quite see it in my mind's eye.'

‘Drawing-room and library are rather grandiloquent terms for those little rooms,' said Justine.

‘Well, call them anything you like, dear. Sitting-room and study. It makes no difference.'

‘No, it makes none, Mother, but that is what we will call them.'

‘We need not decide,' said Clement. ‘Aunt Matty will do that.'

‘Aunt Matty would never use exaggerated terms for anything to do with herself.'

‘There are other ways of exaggerating,' said Mark.

‘Mrs Gaveston,' said Mr Penrose, balancing the spoon on his finger, to show that his words were not very serious to him, ‘it may interest you to hear how Mrs Penrose and I arranged rooms on a somewhat similar scale, as I gather, as those you mention.'

‘Yes, we should like to hear indeed.'

‘Thank you very much, Mr Penrose,' said Justine warmly, sitting forward with her eyes on Mr Penrose's face.

‘We selected large patterns for the carpets, to give an impression of space, though it might hardly be thought that the choice would have that result. And we kept the walls plain with the same purpose.'

‘We can have the walls plain,' said Justine, ‘but we must use the carpets at our disposal, Mr Penrose. We are not as fortunate as you were.'

‘We shall not be able to write in time for them to hear by the first post,' said Blanche. ‘I hope it won't seem that we are in any doubt about it.'

‘About the sacrifice,' said Dudley. ‘I hope not. I said that people were pleased by other people's sacrifice. They would not like them to have any hesitation in making it.'

‘It would be an unwilling sacrifice,' said Aubrey.

‘Another point to be made,' continued Mr Penrose –

‘Yes, Mr Penrose, one moment,' said Justine, leaning to her father and laying a hand on his arm, while glancing back at the tutor. ‘It is very kind and we are so interested, but one moment. Would it not be better, Father, to send the letter into the town to catch the afternoon post? Things always get to Grandpa in the morning if we do that.'

‘It might be - it probably would be better, I will write directly after luncheon, or as soon as we have decided what to say. What is Mr Penrose telling us?'

‘It does not matter, Mr Gaveston. I was only mentioning that in the experience of Mrs Penrose and myself - it is of
no consequence,' said Mr Penrose, observing that Justine had turned to her mother, and resuming the spoon.

‘Indeed it is of consequence,' almost called Justine, leaning towards Blanche over Aubrey and giving another backward glance.

‘You have one of our seventeenth-century spoons?' said Edgar.

‘Yes, Mr Gaveston, I was wondering if it was one of them. I see it is not,' said Mr Penrose, laying down a spoon which his scrutiny had enabled him to assign to his own day. ‘You have some very beautiful ones, have you not?'

‘They are all put away, Mr Penrose,' called Justine, in a voice which seemed to encourage Mr Penrose with the admission of economy. ‘We are not allowed to use them any more. They only come out on special occasions.'

‘Do go and write the letter, Edgar,' said Blanche.

‘Poor Father, let him have his luncheon in peace.'

‘He has finished, dear. He is only playing with that fruit and wasting it.'

‘Waste not, want not, Father,' said Justine, in a warning tone which seemed to be directed to Mr Penrose's ears.

Edgar rose and left the room with his brother, and Justine's eyes followed them.

‘Are they not a perfect pair, Mr Penrose?'

‘Yes, indeed, Miss Gaveston. It appears to be a most conspicuous friendship.'

‘What are you doing?' said Blanche, suddenly, as she perceived her elder sons amusedly regarding the youngest, whose expression of set jauntiness told her that he was nearly in tears. ‘You are teasing him again! I will not have it. It is mean and unmanly to torment your little brother. I am thoroughly ashamed of you both. Justine, I wonder you allow it.'

‘I merely did not observe it, Mother. I was talking to you and Father. Now I certainly will not countenance it. Boys, I have a word to say.'

‘It is unworthy to torment someone who cannot retaliate,' said Blanche, giving her daughter the basis of her homily.

‘I have managed to get my own back,' said Aubrey, in an easy drawl, depriving her of it.

‘We were only wondering how to keep Aubrey out of Grandpa's sight and Aunt Matty's,' said Mark. ‘A shock is bad for old and invalid people.'

‘You are silly boys. Why do you not keep out of their sight yourselves?' said his mother.

‘That might be the best way to cover up the truth,' said Mark, looking at his brother as if weighing this idea. ‘It would avoid any normal comparison.'

‘Suppose either should come upon him unawares! They have not seen him since we could hope it was a passing phase.'

‘A phase of what?' said Blanche. ‘I do not know what you mean and neither do you.'

‘We thought a postscript might be added to the letter,' said Mark. ‘So that they might be a little prepared.'

‘Prepared for what?'

‘Just something such as: “If you see Aubrey, you will understand.”'

‘Understand what?' almost screamed his mother ‘You don't understand, yourselves, so naturally they would not.'

‘Mother, Mother dear,' said Justine, laughing gently, ‘you are pandering to them by falling into their hands like that. Take no notice of them and they will desist. They are only trying to attract attention to themselves.'

‘Well, that is natural at their stage,' said Aubrey.

‘We did take no notice and they had reduced poor Aubrey nearly to tears,' said Blanche, too lost in her partisanship of her son to observe its effect upon him.

‘They are naughty boys, or, what is worse, they are malicious young men, and I am very much annoyed with them. I did not mean that I was not.'

‘Then speak to them about it,' said Blanche, standing back and looking with expectance born of experience from her daughter to her sons.

‘Boys, boys,' said Justine gravely, ‘this will not do, you know. Take example from that.' She pointed to the garden,
where Edgar and Dudley were walking arm-in-arm. There is a spectacle of brotherhood. Look at it and take a lesson.'

‘So your father has not written the letter!' said Blanche.

‘If you will excuse us, Mrs Gaveston, Aubrey and I should be thinking of our walk,' said Mr Penrose, who had been uncertain whether the family had forgotten his presence.

‘Yes, of course, Mr Penrose, please do as you like,' said Blanche, who had forgotten it, and even now did not completely recall it. ‘If he does not write it soon, it will have no chance of the post.'

Aubrey went up to his brothers and linked their arms, and taking a step backwards with a jeering face, took his tutor's arm himself and walked from the room.

‘Dear, dear, what a little boy!' said Justine. ‘I think Mr Penrose carried that off very well.'

‘Edgar!' called Blanche from the window. ‘You are not writing that letter! And it has to go in an hour.'

‘We are deciding upon the terms - we are discussing the wording, my dear,' said her husband, pausing and maintaining the courtesy of his voice, though he had to open his mouth to raise it. ‘It needs to be expressed with a certain care.'

‘Indeed,' said Mark. ‘There is no need to employ any crudeness in telling Grandpa that we can't do him too much charity.'

‘Oh, that is all right then,' said Blanche, turning from the window. ‘There is no question of charity. That is not the way to speak of your grandfather. It is the coachman's day out. Who had better drive the trap into the town? I have seen Jellamy drive. Would your father mind his driving the mare? I wish you would some of you listen to me, and not leave me to settle everything by myself.'

‘Mother, come and have your rest,' said Justine, taking Blanche's arm. ‘I will take the trap myself. You need have no fear. I also have seen Jellamy drive, and if Father does not grudge him the particular indulgence, I do.'

Blanche walked compliantly out of the room, relaxing her face and her thoughts together, and her husband and his brother passed to the library.

‘I think that will express it,' said Dudley. ‘You are to drop a sum every year and not refer to it, and feel guilty that you take money from your wife's relations for giving them a bare roof.'

‘I think it should be good for Blanche to have them. I hope we may think it should. I fear there may be - I fear -'

‘I fear all sorts of things; I am sick with fear. But we must think what Blanche is facing. I always think that women's courage is hard on men. It seems absurd for men and women to share the same life. I simply don't know how we are to share Blanche's life in future.'

‘I am never sure how to address my father-in-law.'

‘When we speak to him, we say “sir”. I like saying “sir” to people. It makes me feel young and well-behaved, and I can't think of two better things, or more in tune with my personality. What a good thing that Blanche will not ask to see the letter! I have a great respect for her lack of curiosity. It is a thing I could never attain.'