‘I should not like Aubrey to die,’ said Dudley. ‘I only nearly died, and it would give him the immediate advantage.’
‘You must come to your room, Uncle,’ said Mark. ‘It was my duty to see you there.’
‘I am not going there,’ said Dudley on the landing. ‘I am going downstairs again. I have lost my desire for rest. I can’t be shut away from family life; it offers too much. To think that I have lived it for so long without even suspecting its nature! I have been quite satisfied by it too; I have had no yearning after anything further. Matty is going and the gossip can have its way. It will be a beautiful family talk, mean and worried and full of sorrow and spite and excitement. I cannot be asked to miss it in my weak state. I should only fret.’
‘You won’t find it too much?’
‘I feel it will be exactly what I need somehow.’
Matty waved her hand to Dudley and continued her way through the hall, as if taking no advantage of his return.
‘Now I feel really at ease for the first time,’ he said as he entered the drawing room. ‘I do not mind having fled from my home in a jealous rage, now that Clement is a miser. It was a great help when Matty turned her old friend out into the snow, but not quite enough. Now I am really not any worse than other people. Not any more ridiculous; I don’t mind if I am worse.’
‘You know you are better,’ said Justine, ‘and so do we. Now, little boy, sit down and keep quiet. You will be all right in an hour.’
‘You need not change the subject. I really am at ease. I don’t need Aubrey to take the thoughts off me. I don’t even like him to.’
‘Clement believed that I had attained his size before I had,’ said Aubrey, assuming that thoughts were as his uncle did not prefer them.
‘Well, are we to talk about it or are we not?’ said Justine.
‘Of course we are,’ said Dudley. ‘You know I have already mentioned it. I hope you do not think that it would have been fairer to Clement if I had not. If you do, I shall never forgive myself, or you either. But of course you would forgive me anything today; and what is the good of that, if there is nothing to forgive?’
‘It is fairer to Clement to talk of it openly, reasonably, and without exaggeration,’
‘Justine speaks with decision,’ said Aubrey.
‘It may be better still just to forget it,’ said Maria. ‘We came upon it by accident and against his will. And it may not mean so much. We all do some odd things in private.’
‘Do we?’ said Dudley. ‘I had no idea of it. I never do any. As soon as I did an odd thing, I did it in public. I am so glad that life was not taken from me before I even guessed what it was.’
‘How much money was there in gold?’ said Aubrey.
‘Now, little boy, that is not at all the point.’
‘If Clement is to have a house, it will take all he has,’ said Edgar.
‘A less simple speech than it sounds,’ said Justine. ‘There is the solution, swift, simple and complete.’
‘Perhaps he will starve behind his doors,’ said Aubrey, ‘and put his gold into piles at night.’
‘Someone deserved to have his head broken,’ said Edgar.
‘He may suffer from reaction and be driven into extravagance,’ said Dudley. ‘We shall all mind that much more. It must be difficult for young people to strike the mean.’
‘The golden mean,’ murmured Aubrey. ‘Clement may like to strike that.’
‘He will have a good many expenses,’ said Mark. ‘A housekeeper and other things.’
‘We already detect signs of extravagance,’ said Dudley.
His nephew strolled into the room.
‘Well, am I to flatter myself that I am your subject? I am glad that you can take me in a light spirit. I was fearing that you could not.’
‘We were wondering if you could afford to run a house,’ said Maria.
Clement stopped and looked into her eyes.
‘Well, I shall have to be careful. But I think I can manage with the sum I have saved. I am keeping part of it in money for the first expenses. They are always the trouble.’
‘Do you think of having the house at once?’ said his father.
‘Well, very soon now. I shall be going to Cambridge to see about it. I have enough put by for the initial outlay.’
Clement went to the window and stood looking out, and then pushed it open and disappeared.
‘Is it wise for a young man to spend all he has?’ said Mark. ‘Let us now transfer our anxiety.’
‘So it is over,’ said Dudley. ‘Clement is a victim of the rashness of youth. I hope he will not waste his allowance.’
‘And all our thought and talk about it are over too,’ said Justine, rising. ‘We are not saying another word. Come, Aubrey; come, Mark. Come, Maria, if I may say it; we are really following your lead. We know you want us to leave Father and Uncle alone.’
Edgar looked at the door as it closed, and spoke at once.
‘The boy has hardly had a father.’
‘No, you have failed in one of the deepest relations of life. And you are faced by one of the results. Because there is more in this than we admit. I am not going to get so little out of it. I am sure people got more out of my running away from home.’
‘I hope he will go along now. This may be the result of too little to spare all his life. Your help may be a godsend in more than one sense.’
‘It seems to have been the cause of the trouble. You can’t be a miser with no money.’
‘You can be with very little, when it is scarce.’
‘I rather liked Clement to be a miser; I felt flattered by it. It was taking what I gave him, so seriously.’
‘We may be making too much of the matter.’
‘Maria will not let us make enough. I will not give up the real, sinister fact. Why should I not cling to the truth?’
‘Maria will be a help to us with all of them.’
‘To us! You knew the word that would go straight to my heart. But you ought to be a success as a brother, when as a father you are such a failure. What can you expect but that the tender shoots should warp and grow astray? They had no hand to prune or guide them. I don’t believe you even realized that Clement was a shoot. And he was so tender that he warped almost at once. I think you are very fortunate that he was the only one.’
‘How much has happened in the last fourteen months!’
‘Yes. Matty came to live here. I inherited a fortune. I was engaged to Maria. Blanche fell ill and died. You became engaged in my place. You and Maria were married. Matty’s father died. Matty drove her old friend out into the snow. I ran away from my home. I am not quite sure of the order of the last three, but they were all on the same night, and it was really hard on Matty that it happened to be snowing. On a mild night she would not have been blamed half so much. I rescued Miss Griffin and took her into my charge. It was hard on us that it happened to be snowing too. I decided to provide for her for her life. It seemed the only thing in view of the climate. At any time it might snow. I was sick almost to death, and was given back to you all. In more than one sense; I must not forget that. Oh and Clement was gradually becoming a miser all the time. You would have thought he had enough to distract him.’
There was a pause.
‘Dudley, I can ask you a question, as I know the answer. Maria does not mean to you what she did?’
‘No, not even as much as you would like her to. I cannot see her with your eyes. I have returned to the stage of seeing her with my own. I nearly said that to me she would always be second to Blanche, but it would be no good to echo your own mind. And of course to both of us she is only just second to her. But I think that you married her too soon after Blanche died, and that you may never live it down. You can see that I am speaking the truth, that I feel it to be my duty. I know that Blanche had a good husband, but it would never be anyone’s duty to say that.’