“Antony,” said Harriet, “does it strike you that my husband and children have less feeling for me than is given to most wives and mothers?”
“No, I should think more feeling; and you know I tell you the truth. But people don’t feel as much as you want them to. Even you yourself — and you are a woman of very deep feeling, Harriet — want to have things your own way. Look back at this talk, and see that is what you have wanted. Go home and understand that other people want it too. Matthew is your son in many things. When you feel you don’t understand him, examine into your own heart, and you will find the explanation there.”
Harriet overtook Gregory, walking up the drive towards the house, and getting out of the carriage at the door, waited for him to join her.
“Where have you been, my son?” she asked, in her old manner.
“To see my old ladies,” said Gregory, smiling at his mother.
“Gregory, my dear,” said Harriet, “will you do something for me?”
Godfrey, who was coming out into the porch, stopped short, and he and his son stood with their eyes on Harriet’s face.
“Gregory,” said Harriet, “I can only just say it,” and indeed she used a faltering tone. “I meant to come home and find you all without a fault, and I do find you so in yourselves, my dear. But I have to say this for your own sake, just this word. It would be wiser not to spend so much time with a woman so much older than yourself. A gulf of forty years cannot be bridged. I know how good to you Mrs. Calkin has been during my illness, and your mother is the first of those who are grateful to her. We will ask her here; you know we all respect and like her; and so you will often be with her. But give up this going to see her by yourself.”
“I couldn’t do such a startling and selfish thing. It is I who have to be grateful to her, not anyone else. It is evidently only I who am grateful, and that is natural. And you do not respect and like her, Mother. She gets nothing out of coming here. Of course I cannot stop going to visit her all at once.”
“Then do it gradually, darling. You are right that that would be better.”
“Yes, I think your mother is wise there, Gregory,” said Godfrey, speaking as if this one minor point in the family situation might be criticised. “I think perhaps that little matter could be adjusted. And in that case you will adjust it. We will leave it to your own good sense and judgment, my dear boy.”
Harriet went silently into the house, and Matthew, who had been strolling on the gravel in apparent calm, came up to his father.
“Well, so it has begun. I saw it beginning.”
“Matthew, I am at a loss to understand you,” said Godfrey, his voice seeming to be adapted for his wife’s hearing, though she was out of earshot. “If you mean that your mother is going to allow herself to fall back into the ways that were the result of nervous illness, I consider it pessimistic and unworthy. The little point about Gregory is one by itself, as you and he very well know.”
“You are not much at a loss,” said Matthew. “And you don’t know as much as I do about Mother to-day.”
“Matthew, we will not continue this conversation.”
“Mrs. Christy is coming to dinner,” said Matthew. “Camilla told her to come on after the working party. It is time she and Mother met on their new footing. You might break it to Mother, as you are so confident of her compliant spirit.”
“Indeed I will break it to her, tell her of it, if you wish. And indeed I am confident of her compliant spirit. That is the word that fits the case. She will be delighted, as you know, to dispense her hospitality to a friend. There is something in your attitude that perplexes me, Matthew.”
“You are fortunate,” said Matthew.
Harriet came into the drawing-room, kind and cheerful, noticed Griselda’s face, and at once came up to her.
“Why, be happy, my darling. You are not afraid of your mother, are you? If you only knew, there is no one you need be less afraid of. It is not there that your danger lies, my sweet.”
“Why, Harriet, whatever are you putting into the child’s head?” said Godfrey. “She is in no danger surely. Now there is Mrs. Christy, Camilla’s mother! What a good thing it is when people are on the time!”
“Dear Lady Haslam, now I shall be myself in my fullest sense. I have felt that a part of me has been wanting, and a part that is very essential. That dear boy, Matthew, arranged with my girl that I should consummate my relation with you. She says she is marrying to be your daughter-in-law, and I believe it has an element of truth. She and Matthew will make such an excellent pair, the one so much the complement of the other. It might truly be said that between them they make the perfect human type. And Matthew’s thoughtfulness for me makes me really inclined to say, ‘Winter is the mother-nurse of spring, lovely for her daughter’s sake.’”
“There is no need to say it, Mrs. Christy; it goes without saying,” said Godfrey.
“Now you are flattering me too, Sir Godfrey,” said Mrs. Christy, more suitably than appeared, as this was Godfrey’s intention. “I shall quite forget to visualise myself in the correct way.”
“Do, Mrs. Christy, do,” begged her host. “I ask you to do that while you are with us to-night. So you are inclined to be taken with our boy Matthew, are you?”
“Sir Godfrey, it is such a credit to him to work with such enthusiasm. Of all the things that are a confirmation of the dignity of effort, that stands out supreme. I say to Camilla, when she claims the whole of his attention, ‘Would you have a drone for a husband, a mere idle aristocrat and eldest son? I know you would not.’”
“Do you think Camilla will settle down to a quiet life with Matthew?” said Harriet. “He will be a poor man for many years, if he holds to the work he has chosen.”
“She asks nothing better than to spend her days with the man of her choice, and be his lieutenant in every enterprise. Matthew counteracts so much that she regrets in herself, her tendency to be a woman among men, if you know what I mean. Her very gifts have led her astray. So many of her failings might be a source of pride.”
“And will be to Matthew,” said Godfrey.
“They are already,” said Matthew.
“Well said, Matthew. Spoken like a man,” said his father.
“Will she find it unsettling to have Ernest and Antony living so near?” said Harriet, using a remorseless tone.
“When she is through with a man, she is through! I get into the way of using her phrases. Whatever comes my way, I find myself becoming the mistress of it. I should make a better use of my aptitude. My girl pours out all her mind to me. I know she has taken for granted a monopoly of masculine attention. But I can’t dispute that people have given her cause.”
“I agree with you, Mrs. Christy,” cried Godfrey. “Camilla is a girl whom any man would make a bee-line for at once. I can’t understand why only one of these boys has fallen for her. Why, I have felt her spell myself. My eye is with Matthew’s in the matter. I am not such a fogey that I am blind to a thing like that.”
“I hardly think you can be interesting Mrs. Christy,” said Harriet.
Godfrey gave a glance at his wife, put two fingers into his waistcoat pocket, and looked at the portraits on the walls.
“Has Camilla any convictions or interests that give her a definite hold on life?” said Harriet.
“I feel it was hard on the poor girl to be a clergyman’s wife. She is not like dear Griselda here, so eminently suited for it. And how well you put things, Lady Haslam! With such precision and ease and force. Camilla will rate the atmosphere of your family at its true worth, with its mental tone, its unforced interest in matters of the mind. She has the greatest respect for higher things. You must have noticed that.”