“I only meant there would be a limit to the change.”
“None to the changes. The house will be hers, and I shall be here to help her in it. I shall be a mere member of the household, after being its mistress for so long. But I have had no claim to the place.”
“You have earned it by filling it for all these years. There is such a thing as the right of tenure.”
“We see that there is not.”
“It cannot be true,” said Walter. “Now I know what it is to feel I am living in a dream. And I hardly want to wake. I feel a sort of excitement.”
“It is the shock,” said his mother. “The feeling will not last.”
“We might have foreseen it,” said Simon. “He has been going so often to the Grahams. And they have not come here. We might have deduced something from it. We were not to see them together. Of course I know it is wisdom after the event.”
“But when it is so much wisdom,” said Walter, “it cannot matter when it comes.”
“We must not have a sense of grievance,” said Julia. “What we have had was not ours by right. Your uncle might have married in his youth.”
“Then my father would not have lived in his house,” said Simon. “We should have had a home of our own. We see now that we have never had one. And my father might have worked for himself instead of merging his life in his brother’s. We cannot ignore the history of two lives.”
“I shall have no right to exist,” said Walter. “What a good thing I have learned to be a burden!”
“What will Fanny do in that house by herself?” said Simon. “I suppose the best she can, as we shall in this one, not by ourselves.”
“What do you say to it all, Deakin?” said Walter.
“It is hardly my place to comment, sir.”
“I suppose you think the more?”
“That is said, sir, but I see no reason. Sometimes people who say less, think less also.”
“But that is not true of you,” said Julia.
“I must try to make it so, ma’am. Mr. Hamish’s place is filled,” said Deakin, turning to the door.
“Now I see no reason for keeping back the tears,” said Walter. “Cry, Mater; it will do you good.”
“I suppose it is to be a formal marriage,” said Simon. “My uncle implied there would be no issue. And there are to be two rooms. I think we can be sure of our ground there.”
“We cannot be sure of anything,” said his mother. “An hour ago we should have been sure of different things.”
“When my uncle dies, it will be Rhoda who meets the change. She has her place only for his life. The house will be mine, and you its mistress until I marry. Then you will share it with my family and me. We shall be more dependent on your income, with the demand for Rhoda’s widowhood.”
“Simon can only conceive of Rhoda as a widow,” said Walter. “She is not to begin as one.”
“Well, where I am, my sons will be,” said Julia. “I must be grateful for that.”
“I do not envy Rhoda her homecoming,” said Simon. “And her meeting with us after these secret dealings.”
“She will have support,” said his mother. “And it is not all she will have.”
“I should have thought she would give up more. Her own life and her home and her sister. Though of course they will be waiting for her, when she returns.”
“At your uncle’s death,” said Julia. “Is it never to be out of your thought? It is their life together that concerns them, not hers or ours when it is past.”
“She has an income of her own. I don’t know how she will use it. She may help Fanny with her house. We cannot say how things will be.”
“They are not your concern, and must not appear to be.”
“We shall live our days over a morass of apprehension and suspense. I wonder how we shall manage in them.”
“We shall only have to live them,” said his mother.
“I wonder that Fanny has not come to see us and discuss it.”
“Surely you do not. It would not be permitted. And we see the reasons.”
“My uncle has gone too far in subordinating everything to himself. I shall think so to the end.”
“He has had the opportunity,” said Walter. “I expect people always use it. Think how you are looking forward to using yours.”
“When I am dead,” said Sir Edwin, as he returned. “And in the meantime I am to live. He is not in a satisfying place.”
“I shall be, Uncle, if I may continue to be of use to you.”
“You can, as you know. There will be further need for your help.”
“I will do my best, Uncle.”
“Has a great change come over Simon?” murmured Walter.
“Do you want any packing done for you, Edwin?” said Julia.
“Thank you. Deakin has done what I needed.”
“So Deakin has been in your confidence?” said Simon.
“Simon’s true nature is not dead,” said his brother.
“He has known I am going away,” said Sir Edwin.
“But not with whom you were going?” said Simon.
“I have not told him more than I said.”
“And he has not told us anything. That shows he has known the whole.”
“There is nothing so strange about a marriage. It is an ordinary thing.”
“That is hardly true of this one. But you have every right to enter into it, as you do not need to be told.”
“It is true that the words are wasted. And there are others I need not have heard. When I return, I will hear no more of them. That means you will say no more.”
“What will Fanny do in that house by herself?” said Simon, not looking at his uncle.
“What other people do in similar case. And she will have a foothold in her sister’s home.”
“I can’t help the whole thing’s being strange to me, Uncle.”
“Then you will be the person apart, as she will not.”
“We have not congratulated you, Edwin,” said Julia. “We were taken by surprise. You know we do so from our hearts.”
“Thank you. You have always served me. I owe much to you.”
“Your life with my father for twenty-seven years,” said Simon. “You will never feel that anyone fills that place.”
“My wife is to do something different, fill a place of her own.”
“No doubt you needed someone in your life, who belonged wholly to you. You had always had it.”
“You are right as far as you go. It is further than you have gone.”
“I hope I have not failed in sympathy, Uncle?”
“It has not been in my mind to ask it. Or in yours to give it.”
“I begin to have a feeling of guilt.”
“It is not your fault that I have not done so. But I have seen no reason.”
“I have not meant to put my life before yours.”
“Our own lives are first to us. You see that mine is to me. And you should understand it. It is something we learn from ourselves.”
“Simon, you will weary your uncle,” said Julia.
“I am tired, it is true. I will go and rest. I am travelling tomorrow.”
“Deakin,” said Simon, “you did not tell us that Sir Edwin was going to be married. You kept the knowledge to yourself.”
“I had none at first, sir, except by inference. And Sir Edwin was the one to impart it.”
“I expect you dreaded the moment for us.”
“Well, for the mistress, sir,” said Deakin, lowering his voice and glancing at Julia. “It is not to be a slight change.”
“I must not be called the mistress much longer,” said Julia.
“No, ma’am, I have seen the matter in its bearings.”
“And this is the worst to you?” said Walter.
“I could not apply the term to another, sir.”
“You will have to, Deakin,” said Julia. “It will be better for us all.”