“We are going to have the whole made up,” said Gregory. “We shall not rebate a jot of it.”
“My darlings!” said Harriet, turning her eyes to her eldest son.
“Congratulations on being back, Mother,” said Matthew. “It is a tremendous thing.”
“Tremendous! Yes, that is the word tremendous,” said Godfrey, his eyes resting for a moment on Matthew. “Tremendous. Matthew has it there.”
“And I am to have another son and daughter to welcome me. I have come back richer by two more children. Father has given me the news, and he has asked them in a message from me to be with us to-night. That is to be my first pleasure. My darlings, I have come back to love and care for them. The truest welcome for those who love you, is your mother’s.”
“Camilla says she can’t bear to think you have had no chance to disapprove of our engagement,” said Matthew, making an effort just within his power.
“Ah, she is doing Matthew good, Harriet. You will see that she is,” cried Godfrey, turning a glow of appreciation on his son.
“I trust they will do us credit to-night,” said Griselda, who was holding her hands clenched. “If they fall short on one evening, what of the future?”
“The future is yours and theirs, my sweet one,” said her mother. “I will go now and rest and change my things. What a pleasure, with my girl to help me! I must take pains to be at my best to-night. People who have had to wait for a mother-in-law must not be put off with anything, and neither must people who have had to wait for a mother. I must remember it, and go on remembering it. How I will!”
“Well, what do you think of it, Matthew?” said his father. “What do you say to the way things are turning out for us? She is a great, noble woman, your mother, a strong, fine creature with a great heart, when she is herself. That has been our little trouble, that she has not always been herself. That was why we found a sort of misgiving creeping over us. It was a fear lest she might not come back in her true colours. But she has come back in them, ready to give us of her best. A thorough breakdown has done her good; a suspension of energy was what she needed, what her system craved, my poor wife, your poor mother! I am ashamed of my petty, self-regarding qualms. I blush for my fears and finickings about what was in store for my precious self. As if it mattered, as long as she came back safe and sound! As if it was worth a brass farthing!”
“It was nothing to worry about, if your theories are true,” said Matthew.
“Matthew, you do not take up a position of doubt! I can hardly believe it. It seems to me too far beneath you. Well, Griselda, you have come from your mother? You have had the post we should all have liked to fill. And you have filled it worthily, I make no doubt. Mother has found you a comfort. Ah, that is a thought we would share.”
“She is going to rest and arrange her room. Catherine is with her. She seems wonderfully well. I have never seen her in such spirits.”
“Ah, my poor child, you have never known your mother. But, please God, you will know her now. Our previous knowledge and love of her will be as nothing. I declare it will be something to see her greeting Ernest and Camilla. That has become a thing to look forward to.”
“Dear Lady Haslam, it has been such a blight on my happiness, that you were not here to cloud it,” cried Camilla, at the moment for Godfrey’s anticipations to be realised. “I know so well that it ought to be clouded. Even a fresh piece of goods would not be worthy of Matthew — I know ‘piece of goods’ is how you think of me — and I am so shop-soiled. Mother was in such a fright at sending me here to-night, an article in its third season! She can feel for you in your bargain. She knows what it is.”
“Well, I am soon to know it, and I hope I can help to make this season the last one. My dear, I have only one feeling for the woman who loves my son.”
“There, you see, Camilla. You see how it is,” said Godfrey. “Matthew’s mother has simply the feeling for you that she has for all her children. She and I hold out our arms to you as a daughter, standing side by side, as we have not had the chance to stand these many months past.
“You look adorable, doing it. Matthew and I are the feeblest imitation of you.”
“Well, you are not the only pair of lovers in the room.”
“They are useful for showing you up,” said Griselda. “I shall soon be seen in that office myself.”
“Yes, we shall have another couple with us in a moment,” said Godfrey, “another pair to show us up. I declare I almost feel that is what they do. Buttermere, you know that Mr. Bellamy is dining?”
“Everything is as usual, Sir Godfrey, except for the return of her ladyship.”
“Ernest often comes in to dinner, does he?” said Harriet.
“Yes, yes, as often as Griselda wants him. Often is the word,” said Godfrey. “I tell you we have been glad of a little outside society sometimes, Harriet. We didn’t want to be left alone with our thoughts. That wouldn’t always have done for us.”
“My poor ones!” said Harriet.
Bellamy came in with his smile grave.
“I shall hold my head very high, Lady Haslam. I have had the most coveted thing in the neighbourhood, a glimpse of you. You will always be more valuable for your time away from us. It is hardly as it ought to be, as you did less than nothing for us by having it. I could not forgive it, if you were not going to give me Griselda in compensation.”
“Yes, I am going to give her to you. I have come home to a larger family. And as my family is all the world to me, I cannot have too much of it.”
“Won’t you let me have just a little point in myself? I am sure Griselda thinks I have.”
“Ah, you can’t fish for compliments to-night from Griselda’s mother,” said Godfrey. “She is my province. We haven’t any attention over for you.”
“I find it hard to do my duty to Matthew, with the spectacle of his parents before me,” said Camilla.
“Ah, we none of us have thoughts for anyone but you, Harriet,” said Godfrey. “You see, Camilla is one of us there. Jermyn, I have not heard many words from you about your mother’s return.”
“That is not only brutal but unjust,” said Jermyn. “You talk as if the others were engaged in continual oratory. And you promised us that silence should be the approved vehicle of our feelings.”
“Harriet, you would have wept to see your children when I told them of your recovery. They stood as if petrified, their feelings passing their capacity and leaving them turned to stone. I had to hold myself. I could have fallen on their necks weeping.”
“It was not a case of like parents, like children,” said Griselda.
“And now you find fault with silence,” said Gregory.
“Godfrey dear, it is almost too much for me,” said Harriet, touching his arm.
“My darling, I am an idiot, I am without judgment. We will talk about our children’s other side, the ambitions and successes you have come home to share with them.”
“Indeed, you will not,” said Jermyn. “Having borne one reference to myself, I will suffer no more. And our baser side would be even harder on Mother than the other.”
“What is the good of referring to the better one, if you are going at once to counterbalance it?” said Matthew.
“Ah, my dear children, it was not that you had no words to speak. It was that your hearts were too full for words.”
“Well, now, leave it at that, and don’t contradict it again,” said Griselda.
“How soon can I have my first little private talk with you, Mother?” said Gregory.
“When would you like it, my darling?”
“To-morrow after breakfast in the garden,” said Gregory.
“You shall have it, my boy. We none of us grudge it to you,” said his father. “We don’t forget the old days, when you so often took that on yourself. Ah, you have established your right to it, Gregory.”