‘Well, we must be still and go on a little longer.’
‘Why, so we must, and for how much longer we cannot say. But it will not help us for you to cry about it. And what is your reason? You have a home and a bed and a woman to wait on you, haven’t you?’
‘Yes, I have, and I am going to feel it. I have more than many people. But it did seem to me for a moment that people who have more still — and we must say much more — might spare a thought for us in our first isolation. It was just for the moment.’
‘Then it doesn’t seem to you so any longer.’
‘No, it must not,’ said Matty, again concealing her handkerchief. ‘There shall be nothing in our minds but bright and thankful thoughts.’
‘Well, that will make a difference. And here is someone in the hall. So if you want to hide your handkerchief, find a place that serves your purpose. It is well that you are what you say in time.’
‘Well, Matty dear, well, Father dear!’ said Blanche’s voice, the unconscious order of the names telling its tale. ‘Well, here is a red-letter day for us all!’
‘Red-letter day, when we have left our home and all we have, behind!’ said Matty in a rapid aside to her father, pressing her handkerchief to her face in another spirit.
Blanche entered with outstretched arms and stumbled slightly over nothing apparent, as she hurried forward.
‘Well, how do you like coming here amongst us? We like to have you so much. How are you both after your journey? I could not wait another minute to come and see.’
Blanche gave her father and sister a long embrace, stooping to the latter, at she remained in her seat, and then stood back to receive her response.
‘Well, how do you feel about coming to share our life?’ she said, as something more was needed to produce it.
‘We shall be happy in it, dear. We shall,’ promised Matty, rapidly using her handkerchief and hiding it. ‘We see that now. We did not feel quite amongst you until this moment. But we do now indeed.’ She took her sister’s hand and lifted it to her face, as Blanche often did her daughter’s.
‘Sit down, my dear, sit down,’ said Oliver. ‘You give us a welcome and we do the same for you. I think there is a chair; I think there is room for three.’
‘Of course there is. It is a very nice little room,’ said Blanche, sitting down and looking round. ‘How do you like the little paper? Don’t you think it is just the thing? It is the one the boys have in their study.’
‘Yes, dear, is it? Yes, it would be nice for that,’ said Matty, following her sister’s eyes. ‘Just the thing, as you say. For this room in my house, and for a little, odd room in yours. It is the suitable choice.’
‘Don’t you like it in this room, dear?’ said Blanche, evidently accustomed to answering her sister’s meaning rather than her words.
‘Yes, yes, I do. It is best to realize that we are in a little room, and not in a big one any longer. Best to leap the gulf and have a paper like the one in the boys’ study.’ Matty began to laugh but checked herself at once. Tar better not to try to make it like the room at home, as we might have done by ourselves. We might have tried and failed, and it is so much wiser not to do that. Yes, it was best for people to deal with it who saw it from outside and not from within. And it was so good of you do it for us, and it is kindly and wisely done.’
‘I thought you would like it so much; I did not know that you would want it like the drawing-room at home. That was so much larger that I thought it would be better to start afresh.’
‘So it was, dear; that is what I said.’
‘No, you said other things, child,’ said Oliver.
‘That is what we are doing, starting afresh, and finding rather a task at the moment,’ said Matty, not looking at her father. ‘But we shall manage it. It is only hard at first, and we can’t help it that you find us in the first stage.’ She touched her eyes and this time retained the handkerchief.
‘Keep it, my dear,’ said Oliver, offering her another. ‘It is more convenient to you at hand.’
Matty held up the handkerchief to her sister with a smile for its size, and went on as if she had not paused.
‘We shall make a success of it, as you have done with the room.’
‘The room serves its purpose, my dear,’ said Oliver to Blanche. ‘The paper covers the walls and the plaster would not look as well without it, and what more should be done? You have managed well for us, and so we should tell you, and I do so for us both.’
‘Yes, if we have seemed ungrateful, we are not,’ said Matty, not explaining the impression. ‘We both thank you from our hearts. So Edgar did not come with you to see us?’
‘He came with me to the door and left me. He thought we should like our first meeting by ourselves.’
‘He is always so thoughtful, and we have liked it indeed. And we shall like one with him as well the next time he is at our door. We have come to a place where we hope there will be so many meetings.’
‘Blanche is enough for us,’ said Oliver. ‘We do not want her man. Why not say that you want the whole family? You almost did say it.’
‘Well, I did have a thought that they might all come running down to greet the old aunt on her first night. I had almost imagined myself the centre of a family circle.’
‘You imagined yourself the centre! So that is what is wrong. No wonder you wanted a room like the one at home. I don’t know where you would have put them.’
‘They could have got in quite well,’ said Blanche. No doubt they will often do so. But tonight we thought you would want to be spared.’ She paused and seemed to yield to another impulse. ‘I am glad that you are so little depressed by the good-bye to the old home. We thought you might be rather upset by it.’ Her way of speaking with a sting seemed an echo of her sister’s in a lighter medium.
‘We are too affected by that to show it on the surface,’ said Matty. ‘That is not where the feeling would appear. Is that where you would look for it?’
‘Then what can we see there?’ said Oliver. ‘Your sister can find something, and does so. If that isn’t where it ought to be, put it in its place.’
‘Edgar is coming to fetch me in an hour,’ said Blanche, resuming her normal manner. ‘You will see him then, and he will see you. He is looking forward to it.’
‘You are only staying an hour, dear? I thought that you might have dinner with us, or we with you, on our first night.’
‘Why pack so much into it?’ said Oliver. ‘There are other nights and others after those. And your sister is right that we are not fit for it. You were certainly not, when you were crying into a rag. And why did you order dinner here, if you wanted to eat it somewhere else?’
‘We had to have it somewhere, Father, and we did not hear.’
‘Oh, we thought you would be tired,’ said Blanche. ‘And there are so many of us. It would not be restful for you. And we are not prepared for you tonight. We shall be so delighted to see you when it is arranged, and we hope that will be very often.’
‘I did not make anything of extra guests, when I ran a large house,’ said Matty, with a simple wonder which was not entirely assumed, as her housekeeping had played its part in her father’s debts.
‘And that may be partly why you are now running a small one,’ said the latter, with a guess rather than a glimpse at the truth.
‘We are hoping to see you constantly,’ said Blanche. ‘We can’t quite manage our home so that people can come without notice, but we hope to plan so many things and to carry them out.’
‘We can’t run in and out, as if we were of the same family? We felt we were that when we came. That indeed is why we are here. You can do so in this little house. You will remember and tell the children?’