‘And are you sorry to come away from it?’
‘No, not very. It makes a change. We shall see different people. And it will be nice for Miss Seaton to have her sister and her family. It was the wisest plan.’
‘The best plan, not the wisest. It was very unwise. But a great many of the best things are that.’
Miss Griffin looked at him with a hint of a smile.
‘You agree with me, do you not?’
Miss Griffin checked her smile and looked aside.
‘You and I must be very much alike. We both live in other people’s houses; we are both very kind; and I am very good at playing second fiddle, and I believe you are too.’
‘Oh, I never mind doing that,’ said Miss Griffin in a full tone.
‘I have minded in my weaker moments, but I have conquered my worse self. You have no worse self, have you?’
‘No,’ said Miss Griffin, speaking the truth before she thought. ‘Well, I don’t know. Perhaps everyone has.’
‘You have to think of other people’s. So I see that you have not. And as I have suppressed mine, it is another point we have in common.’
Miss Griffin stood with a cheered expression.
‘Has Miss Seaton a better self?’ said Dudley.
Miss Griffin gave him a half smile which turned to a look of reproach.
‘Yes, of course she has. Everyone has.’
‘So it was her worse self we saw this evening?’
‘I did not mean that she had a worse self. You know I did not. She was very tired. It must be so dreadful not to be able to get about.’ Miss Griffin’s voice died away on a note of pure pity.
‘Well good night, Miss Griffin; we shall often meet.’
‘Good night, Mr Dudley,’ said Miss Griffin, turning towards the kitchen with a lighter step.
Dudley returned to the parlour to find the family dispersing. Matty was on her feet, talking with the lively affection which followed her difficult moods, and which she believed to efface their memory.
‘Good-bye, dearest; good-bye, my Justine; you will often come in to see the cross old aunt who loves you. Good-bye, Dudley; where have you been wandering? It was clever to find enough space to lose yourself. Good-bye, Edgar; my father has so enjoyed his masculine talk. It is a thing that does him so much good.’
‘And how have you enjoyed your feminine one?’ said Oliver, who had caught snatches of this dialogue. ‘Upon my word, I daresay a good deal. You look the better for it.’
‘Good-bye, Aunt Matty dear,’ said Justine. ‘I have seemed a brute, but I have meant it for your good, and you are large enough to take it as it was meant.’
‘Good-bye,’ said Edgar at once. ‘We shall often meet; I hope we shall meet very often.’
‘Well, of course, people are only human,’ said Dudley to his brother, as they walked to the house behind the women. ‘But it really does not seem much for them to be.’
‘Yes, we must do what we can in our new life,’ said Edgar, as if in reply. ‘I think we may call it that. It may be a better life for Blanche. I think — I trust it may.’
‘Is her present life so bad?’
‘She may be lonely without knowing it. I fear it may have been the case. I feel — I fear I have little to be proud of in my family life.’
‘It is I who have the cause for pride. It is wonderful, the way in which I have put myself aside and kept your affection and won your wife’s. But I think the things we suffer without knowing are the best, as we are born to suffer. It is not as if Blanche had suspected her loneliness. And she can’t be with her sister and be unconscious of it.’
‘Neither can any of us,’ said Edgar, with the short, broken laugh which was chiefly heard by his brother. ‘I could see — I saw that she realized it today.’
‘I saw that Justine did too. The sight became too much for me and I had to escape.’
‘What were you doing all that time?’
‘Why do people say that they do not like having to account for their every action? I do like it. I like telling everything about myself and feeling that people take an interest. I was saying a kind word to Miss Griffin. They say that a kind word may work wonders; and I saw that something had to work wonders for her; and so I said the word and it did.’
‘Poor Miss Griffin! I mean that we cannot judge of other people’s lives.’
‘Of course we can. We all have lives and know about them. No one will have it said that he has no knowledge of life; and it could not be true.’
‘She has been with Matty and her father for a long time. I am not sure how long.’
‘I am. She told me. But there are things which cannot pass my lips.’
‘It must be over thirty years.’
‘You are a tougher creature than I am. I wonder if people know that you are.’
‘It is difficult to form a picture of all those years.’
‘Edgar, you do sometimes say the most dreadful things. You should remember my shrinking nature. I shall have to see a great deal of Miss Griffin. Will seeing her take away that picture before my eyes?’
‘Come along, you two,’ called Justine, turning with beckoning hand. ‘If you wait every minute to argue, we shall never get up the drive. Mother does not like to keep stopping.’
That was true of Blanche, and therefore she had not stopped, but was proceeding towards the house, with her short, unequal steps carrying her rapidly over the ground.
When she came to the porch she paused, as if waiting there affected her differently.
‘There is that little brick house beyond the trees,’ said Justine, turning to look back as they all met.
‘Your eyes do not deceive you,’ said her father, with a smile.
‘Now don’t try to snub me, Father; that is not like your dealings. There it is, and it is good to think of Grandpa and Aunt Matty snugly sheltered in it. I shall call up the picture tonight when I am in bed.’
‘At night,’ murmured Dudley, ‘and in bed! In those hours when things rise up before us out of their true proportion!’
‘What are you murmuring about to yourself, Uncle?’
‘About the picture which you will call up in the night.’
‘You like to share it with me? It is a pretty picture, isn’t it? Dear Grandpa, with his white hair and fine old face; and Aunt Matty, handsome in the firelight, vivacious and fluent, and no more querulous than one can forgive in her helpless state; and dear, patient Miss Griffin, thinking of everyone but herself. It is a satisfying sight.’
‘Perhaps it is healthier to bring it out into the light.’
‘You were the one who did not forgive your aunt,’ said Edgar, smiling again at his daughter.
‘Now, Father, don’t think that your naughty little thrusts are atoned for by your especial smile for me, dear to me though it is.’ Edgar’s expression wavered as he heard it defined. ‘Aunt Matty and I are the firmest friends and very good for one another. We never mind looking at ourselves through each other’s eyes and getting useful light on our personalities. I do not believe in putting disabled people on one side and denying them their share in healthy human life. It seems to me a wrong thing to do, and in the end bad for everyone. So I sound my bracing note and snap my fingers at the consequences.’ Justine illustrated what she said.
The scene in the lodge was as she saw it, except that Matty’s querulousness was missing. The latter was sitting at dinner, talking with a great liveliness, as if her audience were larger than it was, almost as if in practice for greater occasions. She often threw herself into the entertainment of her father and her companion, with or without thought of imaginary listeners.
‘And then those funny, little, country shoes! Dear Blanche, still full of her quaint, little, old touches! I had to laugh to myself when I saw her come tripping and stumbling in, such a dear, familiar figure!’
‘No one would have known you had,’ said Oliver. ‘It might have been better to give some sign. It seemed the last thing to expect of you.’