“We will defer people’s satisfaction as long as we can,” said Camilla. “I don’t want to add to the pleasures of your flock. I have given them too much flannel and soup for them to deserve any more at my hands. Oh, yes, you paid for it, but I shall be paying for this. So honours are easy. I think I get the more expensive share. So I am to walk for the last time with you as your life-companion. Do you remember the first time? I have entirely forgotten it. Ernest, don’t scowl at me like that; don’t dare to. I have told you my nerves won’t stand it. If we are to keep the peace until the truth is known, you must make my side of it possible. I can’t be confronted with self-pity and self-righteousness and self-everything else.”
“Good-bye, Mrs. Christy,” said Bellamy, as though saying a significant word.
“Oh, my dear boy! How things have turned out! What am I saying? What am I to say?”
“Poor Mother, she goes to my heart,” said Camilla. “A divorced daughter and a parlour full of sons-in-law! Poor Ernest, you go to my heart too.”
“I am at last thinking in that way of myself.”
“I am the last to dispute it,” said Camilla, edging herself away with her elbow. “You have a natural gift for it. It is time you recognised where your talents lie, as they are rather specialised. But I shall have you on my mind, moping in that dank rectory alone. I could welcome my successor with open arms. I could throw myself on her neck and give her wifely directions about your health.”
“You need not have me on your mind, Camilla. I can face having nothing. I am used to less.”
“I don’t know. There are not many things worse than nothing.”
“Yes, many worse,” said Bellamy.
“Oh, well, well, have it as you will. Many worse, then, many worse. We have had some desperate times together; we have had some shattering years. They have been the same to me as to you, though it has not struck you. How we have hated each other at times!”
“I think I have given you no reason to hate me, Camilla.”
“You think that, do you? Well, that is reason enough. Oh, but you can’t help it, my poor Ernest, mine no longer. Let us go our ways apart. We shall have to sort our worldly goods, and separate my own from those with which you me endowed, and endow me with no longer. ‘Give a thing and take a thing is a wicked man’s plaything.’ What are you doing to-morrow?”
“I have Mrs. Spong’s funeral in the early afternoon. Otherwise I am free.”
“Oh yes. Funeral, funeral! Well, we have come to the funeral of our hopes of each other. I am not coming to Mrs. Spong’s funeral; our own is enough. I have had my fill of funerals, and mothers’ meetings and parishioners’ teas. The funerals are the best; they do get rid of somebody. We emerge from them with one parishioner less. They are better than the weddings, which promise us a further supply. Funerals have never failed us. Your flock behave at last with a decent self-effacement. The drawback is that they give you the opportunity of doing the opposite. I couldn’t cloud my last days as your wife with the spectacle of you doing yourself justice at a funeral. It would destroy the sentimental attitude I am cultivating towards you. The funerals all stand out in my memory. They are like a string of pearls to me. I couldn’t add another to them, with Mr. Spong as chief mourner. It would be a large, dark pearl in the front of the only string of pearls you ever gave me, and the little more would be too much.”
Chapter VI
In Most Eyes Bellamy was justified in using his position at burials to do well by others and himself, and the combination was satisfying to Dominic Spong, as he stood, conspicuous and seemingly sunk in himself, at his wife’s grave. He was a ponderous man about forty-five, with a massive body and face and head, a steady, prominent gaze and a somehow reproachful expression. His aspect to-day was of emotion unashamed. When Bellamy concluded with a depth of feeling and command of it, he stood for a moment as if unable to tear himself from the spot, and left it with a bearing unaffected by human presence.
“Spong, you will pass an hour with old friends this afternoon?” said Godfrey, intercepting him without appearance of approach, in deference to the occasion. “You will not deny me?”
Dominic stood as if his friend’s proximity were gradually dawning on him.
“Sir Godfrey, I have no one but old friends to turn to from now onward. In your own kind words I will not deny you.”
Dominic always addressed his two chief clients as Sir Godfrey and Sir Percy, while answering himself to his simple surname. It was as though he acknowledged his position of one employed.
“Thank you, Spong, thank you. My wife will be grateful to you for understanding her.”
Dominic stood as if his balance were precarious, his hands, his handkerchief in one, just swaying, his eyes glimpsing the approach of Godfrey’s carriage without recognition.
“Now, Spong, you will not refuse us what we ask of you?” said Sir Percy, suddenly at hand. “We shall be hurt if we do not see you at dinner this evening.”
“Then, Sir Percy, you will see me at dinner. That is to say, if you have a welcome for a broken man?”
“Yes, yes, always a welcome for you,” said Sir Percy, shufflling rapidly away.
Agatha Calkin took the widower’s hand.
“I think you will grant us the privilege of a long friendship, and spend the evening with us, and share our simple evening meal? It will be very simple, if you will take us just as we are. We do not make differences for old friends.”
“Mrs. Calkin, if I saw my way to accepting your kindness, I should be grateful to you for not making differences. As things are with me, I will ask your permission to come in to you between the hours of six and seven. It will be all that I can manage, or you bear with.”
“Well, we must be content with what you feel you can give us. I know it needs resolution to come out at all. Believe me, we shall not think little of it.”
“Now, Spong, now,” said Godfrey, “the carriage is here. We shall get you home to us without your having even the effort of knowing it.”
Dominic turned with a look of appreciation of this understanding, and walked slowly to the carriage, while Agatha stood with an expression somehow taken aback by his having a prior engagement.
Harriet came into her hall to greet the guest.
“Mr. Spong, I hope that some day we shall be able to do something in return for this.”
“Lady Haslam,” said Dominic, who had a way of repeating the name of his companion as though in esteem or deference, “I cannot hope ever to see you in my present position. I will only thank you for proving indeed that you are not a fair weather friend.”
“Ah, Spong, I hope you will never be in any doubt on that score,” said his host.
“Sir Godfrey, I am not in doubt.”
Dominic as he spoke was rising slowly to his feet, his eyes on the daughter of the house, whose hand he took with a smile that buried all personal feelings in a chivalry that came as a matter of course.
“You are well, Miss Griselda?” he said, in a manner implying that in spite of himself his interest was only conscientious.
“Yes, thank you; are you?” said Griselda, with the uneasiness of the occasion.
“I thank you, I am well,” said Dominic, his stress on his thanks rather than his mere bodily health.
“I am dubious about this appearance of my three great sons,” said Harriet. “They make us an overwhelming family party. Will you find them trying for you, Mr. Spong?”
“No,” said Dominic, slowly shaking his head, and offering a hand and a smile to each young man in turn, as he remained in his chair. “No, it is not for me to find young people trying. The question is, Lady Haslam”—he turned with an air of sudden concern—“whether they will find my presence trying?”