“I am afraid to now,” said Walter. “I do not dare to face the sight. Are they walking close together?”
“Side by side, as your uncle is used to walking,” said his mother.
“There is a strangeness about everything. It is untrue in a deep sense.”
“Rhoda is sincere,” said Simon. “And she is wise not to undertake the house. It will be easier for her to withdraw, when the time comes.”
“Simon, you are beyond all hope,” said Julia. “And I agree that the scene was strange. There was something unreal in the surprise of it. I suppose I am right in taking her at her word?”
“There is nothing to question about her. She is doing her best for my uncle and all of us. She can hardly do more.”
“But is it what is good for herself? It will leave her at a loose end. She will have time on her hands. Your uncle has not much to spare.”
“She has her own resources. She has had to make them. The truth is that we are fortunate. Things might have been so different. With anyone else they would have been.”
“Do not like her too well,” said Walter. “She belongs to Uncle, not to you.”
“Oh, their relation is not romantic. I know what it is. Indeed she herself has told us. She admires and pities my uncle. How could anyone not do so? It is worth her while to succour him, and have him in his last years. Many women might have felt it. But she was the woman he knew.”
“And what does he feel?” said Julia. “You have so much wisdom, that you must share it.”
“He was lonely and aloof from us. He wanted someone for himself. She was a substitute for my father, the likely person, the one at hand. We have few people in our life.”
“Why did he not turn to me,” said Walter, “and ask me to be a son to him?”
“Why you and not me?” said Simon.
“Well, Simon, what are your filial qualities?”
“I am more in the position of a son, as I am to succeed him.”
“And you think that feeling fits you for the place?”
“Now, Simon,” said Julia, “I forbid you to refer again to your uncle’s death, to anything before or after it, to the death itself. And I expect to be obeyed.”
“I am to forget the future and live in the present? Well, perhaps it offers more than it did.”
“Rhoda is meeting the crisis as well as she can. It is pleasant not to have to criticise her.”
“So that is what you had in your mind,” said Simon.
“I was looking forward to it,” said Walter. “There is a general sense of blank.”
“There is in a sense,” said his brother. “There is no feeling of anything to come. And something must be coming. We are to have a different life, and can only await it.”
“It will go on, as lives do,” said Julia. “Mine will be the one apart. I shall grow into an old woman, while you move into your prime. And I shall do it without my husband.”
“You exaggerate the tragedy of widowhood,” said Simon. “It is a common enough thing.”
“Yes, my dear, and so is all sickness and suffering. The commonness of a thing leaves it as it is.”
“It must alter the attitude towards it. We cannot respond too much. We should be worn out.”
“Your mother’s life should count to you, I suppose. You can respond to that.”
“Mater, your widowhood is not a new thing. Why should it take on this sudden growth?”
“It is a thing that is fresh with every day, my boy.”
“Well, so is the daylight and the dark.”
“Yes, and widowhood belongs to the last. And this marriage may take your uncle’s friendship from me. For all this resolve to alter nothing, it may do that.”
“They are coming to the house,” said Walter. “Still walking side by side. And his hand might have been resting on my head. It is astonishing that he never thought of it.”
“Never thought of what?” said Sir Edwin.
There was silence, and Simon gave a laugh.
“It cannot be repeated? Let it rest, if it does not bear it.”
“Uncle, my mother is here. Should I utter a word that was not fit for her ears?”
“It was unfit for mine? Or rather, it was not meant for them.”
“Why should it have been, Edwin?” said Julia. “You were not in the room. It was a piece of boyishness.”
“You grant us perennial youth, Mater,” said Simon. “We are always children to our mothers.”
“It is good to be with a family,” said Rhoda. “To hear men talk as women never do, and women as men never do. It is a good thing.”
“Is there so much difference?” said Julia.
“The difference there has to be, that we want there to be, that there is.”
“And what is that?” said Simon.
“You do not need me to say. You are of those who know.”
“Are we all among them?” said Walter.
“There is so much wisdom here. In the words, in the minds of those about me. I have come to its home.”
“How will you spend your spare time here?” said Simon.
“Simon, there is one of your odd questions,” said Julia. “How does any of us do so? It needs no answer.”
“It shall have one,” said Rhoda. “I shall be with you, listen to you, learn from you. And when Edwin comes, I shall be with you and him. How shall I spend my time? I shall not have enough.”
“I will release him as often as I can,” said Simon.
“It is I who will order things,” said his uncle. “It is still my place.”
“There is not enough work for both of us all the time.”
“Then it is for you to be set free.”
“That is the wrong way round, Uncle.”
“It seems to me the right one. It is only my own opinion.”
“Your sister will be with us soon, Rhoda,” said Julia. “We knew you would wish it; we wished it ourselves; and she was able to come.”
“Then I wish for nothing; I ask for nothing; I am grateful for each thing.”
“If she will come in and out as one of us,” said Sir Edwin, “she will serve us all.”
“People with nothing to wish for are said to be dissatisfied. I am not of them.”
“We shall be equal men and women at the table,” said Simon. “It will be a change for my mother. She has been a woman by herself.”
“Ah, change has come to you. It has come to me. We welcome or suffer it. It still comes.”
“It would hardly do not to have it. Do you think it is a good thing, Uncle?”
“It is not in itself to me. I am an old man. I welcome what is of help.”
“Here is Fanny already coming to us,” said Julia.
“My little one, my sister. We are closer for being apart. We have more to give to each other; we have more to share. You have not been alone. You have been with me, carried in my heart.”
“I would rather be with you in this room,” said Fanny. “I like a more usual resting-place.”
“I hope that means you will often be here,” said Sir Edwin.
“Your voice is tired, Uncle,” said Simon.
“Ah, it is. It must be,” said Rhoda. “We have made our journey to you. We have had our welcome, had our hour. He has lived it for himself and me. Yes, he is tired.”
“It is true,” said Sir Edwin. “And I carry a double weight of years.”
“I think you have borne up surprisingly, Uncle,” said Simon.
“It continues to surprise you? And the feeling has yet to grow. It must become more with time.”
“It was an innocent speech, Uncle.”
“Yes, it was without art.”
“You cannot expect me to forget the gulf between us.”
“I should not remember it so much without reminder.”
“You spoke of it yourself.”
“Yes, I should have known there was no need.”
“Ah, the weight of years!” said Rhoda. “The weight of understanding, of knowledge! The one does not come without the other. It is all or nothing.”