“This above all—“said Julia. “And we know what follows.”
“Is Father true to himself in this house or the other?” said Graham. “If in this one, it follows that in the other he was false to every man. Though perhaps less to the women.”
“I find I almost like the falseness better,” said Ralph. “So it is true that we can like people for their weaker side.”
“You hardly seemed to,” said Naomi. “And when we do that, it is generally their only side. This case is by itself.”
“Well, I must be one of those people who love the old days. And I did not suspect it.”
“You must remember that my youth in this house is the old time to me,” said Simon.
“And to your mother, my son,” said Julia. “You left your real self behind in it. I waited for it to return, for your children to see it, and could not have waited much longer. But when we found it here, waiting for us, I was not surprised. Your mother had understood.”
“And not my wife?” said Simon.
“Well, you had to suffer the lot that carried your livelihood,” said Fanny. “I could not see you as the martyr it seems you were. If that was failing as a wife, I failed. And if your attitude was failing as a husband, you failed also. Yes, what is it, Deakin?”
“A telegram, ma’am. It has come this moment. The boy is waiting.”
Simon tore open the envelope and read the words.
“‘Hamish ill with heart trouble. Very little hope. Marcia Challoner.’ ”
There was the silence, the grasp of the truth, the effort to rise to suspense. Julia was the first to speak.
“His mother is with him.”
“And his wife,” said Naomi.
“It is all he can have,” said Simon, thinking, as he spoke, that his father was not, and seeing that others thought it.
“Ought we to go to them?” said Fanny. “Would they wish it?”
“We cannot know,” said Graham. “And you might be too late. Other word will follow.”
“I shall go,” said Simon, moving to the door. “Whether I am in time or not, I can be of help. I will send the message.”
Before it was time for him to leave, the second telegram came.
‘Hamish died easily. No child coming. Marcia Challoner.’
“I must go to my sister,” said Fanny. “I will go with Simon.”
“Yes, go, my dear,” said Julia. “I will do what I can here.”
There was another silence.
“So Hamish has left us,” said Naomi. “Well, he had chosen to leave us. But this is not what he chose.”
“How Marcia is what she is!” said Simon, almost to himself. “To tell the whole, so as to leave no doubt or question.”
“And how Father is the same!” muttered Ralph. “Even at this moment I must say it.”
“Why must you?” said Walter. “No one else has had to.”
“The short, strange life!” said Fanny. “How much difference it brought, and how little it seems to leave! And how much will be left!”
“So the place and the title are united again,” said Graham. “And does either seem to matter?”
“Neither does,” said his father. “We are involved in things that do.”
The talk went on, lifeless, unrelated to the depths, until Simon and Fanny left them. There was a feeling that anything more must wait until they had gone, that it might delay their going. Julia watched them go, and then turned to her grandchildren.
“I have lost a grandson. I must say it once. I would not, while your mother was with us. I would not say it to you, if there was anyone else to hear. I know you have not lost a brother. But let me say once that I have thought of Hamish as what he is — what he was to me, and wished he could know I thought it. I wish I had told him. To live is nothing but wishing. It is always too late.”
“I don’t see how you could tell him,” said Graham. “It was what was not to be told. But for that reason he may have known.”
“So he is dead,” said Julia. “The boy who made so much trouble, brought so much change, whose nature had to be forgotten. It is over, what should not have been, what will never be as if it had not been. It is in the past.”
The words were true, and the past fell into its place. Things moved in the accustomed way and became a part of it. Simon returned for Hamish’s burial in the family vault, and with his sons followed him to it. Fanny came home later, leaving Hamish’s mother with his wife. The day came when the family gathered at the table, feeling they had reached a settled stage in their lives.
“So there can be no more change,” said Julia, “until one of us follows Hamish. I shall be the first.”
“It is a high destiny, Mater,” said Walter. “But do you sound as if your heart was in it?”
“I have dear ones here and dear ones there. This has added another to them. And there the truth will have its place. Nothing will have to be hidden.”
“Nothing should need to be,” said Graham. “Or the sphere you mean would hardly exist.”
“These are not matters for jest,” said Simon. “They are real to some of us. That should be enough. And perhaps it is hardly a time for jest at all.”
“Any time is good for that,” said Fanny. “A jest need be no more than it is.”
“Well, let it be the time. But let some subjects be forbidden.”
“So Marcia and Aunt Rhoda are to live together, like the pair in the Bible,” said Ralph.
“Yes,” said his father, without looking at him. “I have heard from Marcia. They are soon to return home. They will not remain in the other place without Hamish. And your aunt must be near your mother. They are thinking of the house by the river, where the roads meet. Our other house is too large for them.”
“Marcia is a Ruth indeed,” said Fanny. “Where Rhoda dwelleth she will dwell. Her people will be her people, and I daresay her God would be her God, if she felt there could be one.”
“Fanny, that is hardly talk for you,” said Simon. “And you will be glad to have your sister, and help her as you can. You know you felt her going.”
“She will have my help, if she needs it. She has always done so. This other dependence is a new one.”
“Such things are not a matter of time. Friendships are made in a moment; marriages are made. A feeling that will last a lifetime, may spring into being. We all know cases of it.”
“I do not. Tell me of one.”
“There is my feeling for you,” said Simon, smiling. “We were old friends when we married; but there was a time when there was a movement of one to the other. There must have been.”
“Well, then we can say there was.”
“There will be things to arrange, sir,” said Graham. “Death duties will have to be met. And there will be another widow.”
“Hamish made everything over to me but a small competence. The duty that Marcia will pay, will not be large. That on Hamish’s inheritance from his father has been decided. We are not the better for it, but with care we shall recover.”
“It is time that I died and made a widow less,” said Julia.
“And that many of us did, if the object is to save our expenses,” said Walter. “Mine are too small for it to be worth while. It will never be my time.”
“Either as a man or a poet,” said Ralph. “You should be doubly immortal.”
“Shall we ever learn that people’s life ambitions are not humorous to them?” said Naomi.
“They ought to be,” said Walter. “We are forbidden to take ourselves seriously.”
“But who else would do so?” said Graham. “And what would happen, if no one did?”
“Nothing does happen,” said Walter.
The door opened and Claud and Emma entered, bearing a garland between them.
“It is to celebrate things being usual again,” said Claud, putting it over his mother’s chair. “But we made it like a wreath, because of Hamish. And we like this house, now we are used to it. Of course it was a change for us to go up in the world.”