“Do you know, I think that makes it all the sadder?” said Agatha. “To look back on the time when they did without her, that was to culminate in their coming together, and to feel that this time the self-sought separation must have no end! To my mind that gives a peculiarly tragic flavour.”
“It must to everyone,” said Polly.
“I wonder if they feel very much about her taking her life herself,” said Geraldine, beginning in a carrying voice and dropping it at the last words. “Of course it was brought in as insanity, but that in itself is not a thing people welcome in the family.”
“What I should be concerned about, is how poor Lady Haslam felt before she worked herself up to do it,” said Agatha, with a touch of open grimness. “That is what would be on my mind, if I were anyone near to her.”
“What seems to me is, that we ought to be so careful lest we do poor Lady Haslam an injustice,” said Mrs. Christy, looking flushed and disturbed. “I am not biased by any personal feeling, even though I felt myself almost of her family circle. I feel simply that it is such a tragic thing that that large spirit was under a cloud, and had to grope about for its own release. To me everything else is swallowed up in the dignity of its suffering.”
“Mrs. Christy,” said Dominic in a downright tone, “you could not more fitly express what is in all our hearts.”
“Well, I think any aptness may be an echo from Lady Haslam herself,” said Mrs. Christy, her tone steadying. “There was about her such a peculiar literary felicity. So often there fell from her the happy phrase, the sudden flash of cultured memory, that I think something may remain behind and colour any thoughts and words that relate to her. I really feel that may be the case.”
“That is a feeling, Mrs. Christy, that has anyhow essential force.”
“I thought I saw such sorrow in the eyes of her children,” said Agatha, with full and womanly concession, “especially I think in those of Matthew, the eldest son. I can imagine the indissoluble thing between him and his mother. I often think the eldest son takes the place of the only son, the special place. Of course for the younger ones it is possible to do more in the way of compensation. It was rather wistfulness and bewilderment and a longing to lean on an older spirit, that I saw in those young faces.”
Dominic’s attitude could only yield before this light thrown upon hidden truth.
“Gregory is the one who was most dependent on his mother,” said Polly.
“Most dependent. Yes,” said Agatha, with impartial and interested weighing of the phrase. “That is a very good expression. Dependent on her, for advice, for understanding, for guidance through some of the intricate mazes of youth.” She smiled at Polly to give her her part in these words. “But not so much involved in the something that can only be given by a mother to a son, that is given perhaps in full measure to the eldest or only son. Now I should never try to take a mother’s place to either of those.”
“Let us go on to the Haslams’, and see if Mater is there,” said Polly to her sister.
“It is a good thing she is not here,” said Mellicent.
“Is it?” said Polly, as if she had thought the opposite.
“Will you say to Gregory for me, that I hope he will come to tea this afternoon?” said Agatha, stepping towards them. “I think it will hardly be a breach of convention for him to come to me.”
“We will give the message most certainly,” said Mellicent.
“Then I think we can count upon him,” said Agatha, returning to the group with an unconscious air of purpose.
“Do people always stand about and argue after funerals?” asked Polly, proceeding on her sister’s arm.
“Probably some people,” said Mellicent.
“Oh, yes, I see,” said Polly. “Mater will be with the Haslams, won’t she?”
Rachel had sat with Griselda during the service, and came to the door to meet the men on their return.
“Godfrey, you carry yourself very becomingly as the foremost person in people’s thoughts. I hope Percy watched you and took a lesson, as he will so soon have to do the same. His practice can’t do everything for him. I have been reading in the papers all about Harriet, and I think the accounts are satisfactory and do her justice. Several of them commented on her skill and forethought. She really chose a simple method, but that makes it all the nicer of the papers. You all look very well in funeral clothes, quite your best. I am glad the Press people were there to photograph you, and that Percy did not have to be included.”
“Shall I be in the photograph?” said Polly from the doorway.
“I hope not, my child,” said her stepmother.
“I hadn’t any real black of my own,” Polly exclaimed.
“My dear, to think it belongs to someone!”
“So you were with us, little Polly?” said Godfrey.
“Yes. I hadn’t ever been to a funeral,” said Polly with an open and startled gaze.
“And do you feel inclined to make a habit of it?” said Gregory.
“No. I think they ought to have different kinds of funerals for different people.”
“So they ought,” said Gregory, approaching her. “You must see about it, Polly.”
“Mrs. Calkin wants you to go to tea this afternoon,” said Polly, bound in duty to deliver this startling statement.
“And will you come with me, Polly, or shall I have to go by myself?”
“I think she wanted you by yourself.”
“You must go with quiet self-restraint,” said Rachel. “You must forget my example of behaving as if my own feelings were important, so uncivilised and like the people in the Bible. Sackcloth and ashes are too ill-behaved. I will begin showing self-restraint at once. Gregory may give Geraldine my love.”
“You don’t really like any of them, do you?” said Gregory.
“Well, it is foolish to dislike Agatha for having been married, and Geraldine for not having been, especially when you resent being despised for both yourself. That is what they are disliked for. I don’t dislike them for those reasons at all.”
“I am afraid of the old one,” said Polly.
Gregory turned on her interested eyes.
“My darling, that doesn’t sound enough like the Bible, and really it is too like it,” said Rachel. “I always say you are just like my own child. But you are far too young to go to a funeral. You have missed something in the spirit.”
Chapter XXIII
Agatha Did Not follow her custom of coming to the door to welcome Gregory, but waited at her fireside while he approached.
“This is not the first time I have received you in this trouble. I know you understand that I will do anything that is in me to make it easier for you. Happily you are young enough for compensation.”
“I wish I could get at Mother’s feelings,” said Gregory, taking his place at her feet, and speaking as if he knew he might open his mind. “She tried to tell me the first time, and I suppose this was something like it, but she herself didn’t seem at all the same. I feel that if I could realise how she felt, I should be more at rest.”
“Isn’t that a little too like your mother?” said Agatha, stroking his hair.
“That is the first thing we shall aim at now,” said Gregory.
“In some things, yes, indeed,” said Agatha, “but there are others in which she would be the last person to wish you to follow her.”
“The one thing at the end she didn’t recommend the first time, but she seems to have thought better even of that. She was quite herself the last day and night, really more natural than when she first came home.” A shadow of condemnation crossed Agatha’s face. “On the whole she believed she had no child on her own plane. She must have known she had not.”
“Don’t you think,” said Agatha softly, “that you are at a time when we are apt to take pronounced, even exaggerated views of what we have lost? I can remember doing it myself, in those of my sorrows that could bear the light thrown upon them.”