A Family and a Fortune (8 page)

‘That is what we are, though your sister did not allow it.'

‘And Justine said that she was glad we were safe in it. We had no other refuge, had we?'

‘I cannot tell you of one. So we have our cause for thankfulness. But it is not for her to point it out. She seems to me to have greater cause.'

‘Mr Gaveston and Mr Dudley are not so much alike when you get to know them,' said Miss Griffin.

‘They are of the same type, but Mr Gaveston is the better example,' said Matty, who maintained the full formal distance between herself and her companion, in spite of her habit of frankness before her.

‘I like Mr Dudley's face better.'

‘Do you? It is not the better face. It has not the line or the symmetry. It is a thought out of drawing. But they are a fine pair of brothers.'

‘There is something in Mr Dudley's face that makes it quite different from Mr Gaveston's, I hardly know how to say what I mean.'

‘That might be said of any two people. They are not just alike, of course.'

‘Mr Dudley's face has a different kind of attraction.'

‘There is only one kind, of the one we were talking of,' said Matty in a tone which closed the subject.

‘Miss Griffin has found another,' said Oliver, ‘or has fancied it. But why talk of the fellows' looks? They are not women. And both of you are, so it is wise to leave the matter.'

‘Was Mr Dudley talking to you outside?' said Matty in a sudden, different tone to Miss Griffin.

‘No - yes - he just said a word, and then went out to look at the night, into the porch,' said Miss Griffin, who told a falsehood when she could see no other course.

Oliver had heard the voices in the hall, but he did not speak. He never crossed the barrier into the women's world. If he had done so, he would have had to protect Miss Griffin and anger his daughter; and he felt unequal to either of these things, which would have tried the strength of a younger man.

‘Did you notice the way they set off home?' said Matty, with a return of mirth. ‘I saw them from the window. My eyes are still alert for what they can see, though I am tied to my chair. Blanche leading the way, and Justine trying to keep up and to keep step, and failing in both in spite of her youth and her strength! And the two men walking behind, as tranquil as if they were unconscious of the feminine creatures in front! Blanche leading a group is one of my earliest memories. Her stiff, little legs marching on, how they come back to me! And they are so little different, the active, determined, little legs. How much of her height is in her body! Well, my legs are not so much to boast of now. I have not my old advantage. Dear, dear, it is a funny thing, a family. I can't help feeling glad sometimes that I have had no part in making one.'

‘Why try to help it? It is well to be glad of anything, and
you do not too often seem so. Though some people might not choose just that reason.'

‘Well, mine is not a lot which calls for much gladness. It needs some courage to find any cause for it.'

‘So courage is the word for your talk of your sister. We could find others.'

‘Blanche and I are the closest friends. I am going to rejoice in being the elder sister again. You and she are the only people who see me as I was, and not as I am, the poor, baffled, helpless creature who has to get her outlet somehow. Yes, I was bright and young once. Even Miss Griffin remembers part of that time.'

‘Yes, indeed I do; indeed you were,' said Miss Griffin.

‘Miss Griffin was even younger,' said Oliver, bringing a new idea to both his hearers as he rose to leave them.

‘Yes, I was a naughty, sprightly person,' continued Matty after a moment's pause, during which the idea left her. ‘Always looking for something on which to work my wits. Something or someone; I fear it did not matter as long as my penetration had its exercise. Well, we can't choose the pattern on which we are made. And perhaps I would not alter mine. Perhaps there is no need to meddle with it, eh, Miss Griffin?'

Miss Griffin was standing with her hand on her chair, thinking of the next step in her day. She gave a faint start as she realized her plight and saw the look on Matty's face. The next moment she heard her voice.

‘Don't go dragging away from the table like that. Either move about and get something done, or don't pretend to do anything. Just posing as being a weary drudge will not get us anywhere.'

‘Perhaps the things which have made me that, have got us somewhere,' said Miss Griffin, in an even, oddly hopeless tone, with little idea that the words on her lips marked a turning point in her life.

‘You need not answer like that. That is not going to begin, so you need not think it is. I do not expect to have my words taken up as if I were a woman on the common line. I am a very exceptional person and in a tragic position,
and you will have to grasp it, or you are no good to me. And going off in that way, pretending not to hear, taking advantage of my helplessness! That is a thing of such a dreadful meanness that no one would speak to you if he knew it; no one would go near you; you would be shunned and spat upon!'

Matty's voice rose to a scream, as her words did nothing and Miss Griffin passed out of hearing. She rocked herself to and fro and muttered to herself, with her hands clenched and her jaw thrust forward in a manner which would have made a piece of acting and really had something of this in it, as she did not lose sight of herself.

Miss Griffin went along the passage and paused at the end where the wall made a support, and looked to see that Matty had not followed.

‘It is all I have. Just this. I have nothing else. I have no home, no friends. I go on, year after year, never have any pleasure, never have any change. She feels nothing for me after I have been with her for thirty years. All the best years of my life. And it gets worse with every year. I thought this move might make a change, but it is going to be the same. And my life is going; I may never have anything else; and no one ought to have only that.' She shed some tears, scanty through fear and furtiveness, and lightening her face and throwing off a part of her burden, went into the kitchen to the maid, glad of this degree of human fellowship.

Matty, left to herself, relaxed her body and her mind and hoped that her father had not heard her voice, or rather recalled that he would behave as if he had not done so. When Oliver came from his study to bid her a good night, she rose to meet him, hiding what she could of her lameness, and led him to a chair, amending both his and her own conception of herself.

‘I come to take my leave of you, my dear, in case I do not see you again. My end may come at any time and why not tonight? The strength ebbs after dark and I have used too much of mine today. So good night and more, if that is to be.'

‘Come, Father, you are overtired and depressed by being
in this funny little place. Cosy we are to call it, and we will do our best. We have to try to do so many things and in time we shall succeed. We are not people who fail. We will not be.'

‘I am almost glad that your mother is not here tonight, Matty. This would not have been a home for her. It will do for you and me.'

‘I don't know why we should be so easily satisfied,' said Matty, unable to accept this view of herself in any mood. ‘But we shall have another outlook tomorrow and it will seem a different place, and we shall wish Mother back with us, as I have wished her many times today.' Her father must pay for using such words of his daughter. ‘But we can't do anything more tonight. We have striven to our limit and beyond. It is no wonder if we fail a little. I daresay we have all had our lapses from our level.'

Oliver, who was in no doubt of it, left her and mounted the stairs, bringing his feet together on each. In his room above the step became stronger, and Matty listened and put him from her mind. She understood her father. A good deal of him had come down to her.

Miss Griffin came in later with a tray, to find Matty in an attitude of drooping weariness, with a pallor which was real after her stress of feeling.

‘Will you have something hot to drink?' she said in a tone which seemed to beseech something besides what it said. ‘It will do you good before you go to bed.'

‘It will do us both good. It was a sensible thought. If you will bring up that little table and move that chair' - Matty indicated with vivacious hand this further effort for Miss Griffin - ‘we will have a cosy time together and feel that we are doing what we should, as cosy is what we are supposed to be.'

‘It really is rather cosy in here,' said Miss Griffin, looking round with a faint air of surprise.

‘Yes, it is foolish to fret for the might-have-beens. Or for the have-beens in this case.'

Miss Griffin did not fret for these.

‘Now do not shirk drinking your share,' said Matty,
replenishing the cups. ‘You need it as much as I do. Being up and doing is as tiring as sitting still, however much one may envy it. Mr Seaton has gone to bed. He was overtired and sorry for himself, but I did not take much notice. It was wiser not to sympathize.'

‘Oh, I expect he was very tired,' said Miss Griffin, sitting up as if to put her full energy into her compassion.

‘He begins to feel his age, but he is very well and strong. And we are all tired.'

‘Yes,' said Miss Griffin, speaking in a mechanical tone and suddenly enlivening it. ‘But it is a healthy tiredness.' She had been so often told of the beneficial effects of weariness on the human frame, that she felt she should know them.

‘It has gone a little beyond that today. But it is only once in a lifetime. We must not complain.'

Miss Griffin was not going to do this, but her nod had something besides agreement.

‘Come, come now, we must go to bed,' said Matty, keeping her eyes from the other as if in fear of what might meet them. ‘We shall be a couple of sleepy old maids in the morning, if we do not take care.'

Miss Griffin's eyes opened wide and held themselves on Matty's face.

‘We owe it to ourselves and to other people not to sink to that. We must not quite lose our self-respect. This is a matter in which considering ourselves is best for everyone. Has Emma gone to bed?'

‘Yes, hours ago,' said Miss Griffin, only realizing her implication when she had spoken.

Matty did not comment on it, possibly for the reason that Emma had only been half a day in her service and had not yet learned the benefits of exhaustion.

‘Well, then she can be up bright and early to wait upon us,' she said with an effort which did not say nothing for her will. ‘We will not be down until ten o'clock. We have had a nice little chat. Good night, and mind you sleep.'

Matty went to her room, feeling that she had made her companion ample amends, and the latter, waiting to turn
out the lamps, wondered that she did not feel the same, as she had felt it so many times. This was the reason for her not feeling it again.

‘I am ready for Aunt Matty', said Aubrey.

‘Are you, little boy? And very nice and trim you look. I wish I could feel the same. I am done with village dressmakers. I am not much of a woman for personal adornment, but there are stages beyond even me. I ought to think of my family; it was selfish and lazy of me. I certainly can't expect to rejoice their eyes.' Justine sighed over her conclusion.

‘Won't smoothing it make it better?'

‘No, it will not, impertinent child. It will leave it as it is.' Justine aimed a blow in her brother's direction without moving towards him.

‘Mark, are you ready for your aunt?' said Aubrey.

‘As far as the outward man can count. But her eyes may pierce the surface and pounce on what is beneath.'

‘Now I won't have Aunt Matty laughed at for her penetration,' said Justine. ‘It is a valuable quality and one which deserves to be reckoned with.'

‘And is more than any other.'

‘She has none,' said Clement. ‘She attributes motives to people, whether they are there or not. That gets us further from the truth than anything. Mother has really a sounder penetration.'

‘Dear little Mother,' said Justine, giving a pitying tenderness to the same quality in Blanche.

‘Clement, are you ready for your aunt?'

‘Nothing would prepare me for the manners, the morals, and the methods of such a woman. She is at once super- and sub-human. I always wonder if she is goddess or beast.'

‘Clement, Clement, that is neither gallant nor kind,' said Justine. ‘A man does not speak of a woman like that, you
know. And can't you brush the collar of your coat? Not that I have any right to speak.'

‘But I think both the boys look very nice, Justine,' said Aubrey.

‘How does Justine appear?' said Clement. ‘I will hear the accepted view before I express my own.'

‘Oh, you are right; it is hopeless. It deserves anything you like to say. You need not be afraid that I shall rise up in its defence like a mother with her young.'

‘You might help to smooth it, Clement,' said Aubrey. ‘It is all that can be done now.'

‘Why don't you change it?' said Mark. ‘What about that one you generally wear?'

‘No, I will stick to it now. I will remain in it and face the music. Mother is expecting to see me in something different, and I daresay she will like it. I won't take refuge in some old one which does not catch the eye. It will teach me a lesson that I deserve.'

‘It is not a matter of such mighty import,' said Clement.

‘Indeed it is! It should be a point of great interest to you all, how your only sister looks. I will not have it in any other way. I have no patience with that kind of high-and-mightiness. It is the last thing that exalts anyone.'

‘Clement, are you listening to Justine?' said Aubrey.

‘He does not know how true quality is shown,' said Mark. ‘That is a thing which cannot be taught.'