“Thank you, Mr. Hume, but even did my sense of intrusion permit it, I should have to hasten to the corresponding meal in my own house.”
“He is estimating the degree of correspondence,” murmured Alice, as Mr. Pettigrew glanced about the board.
Miranda gave a little laugh.
“You have not met Miss Wolsey,” said Julius.
“No, I have not, Mr. Hume. But I assume her to be the lady, who I understood was to join your household. And I can assure her there is none more considerate to those who are professionally engaged in it.”
“My duties hardly deserve that name,” said Hester.
“Miss Wolsey,” said Rosebery in a low tone, “they deserve another indeed.”
“Let me persuade you to try our fruit,” said Julius. “We can buy much better, but we take a pride in our own.”
“Indeed, Mr. Hume, I see no difference between that on your table and on mine. And the pride of production is wanting in my case.”
“Will you take your wife these grapes?” said Miranda. “We should like her to have them.”
“It is most kind of you, Mrs. Hume, and I will act as bearer willingly. Such fruit is beyond our somewhat modest standard, and I am glad for her to have the benefit of it.”
“Bates will pack them for you, and they should be easy to carry.”
“I have not the least objection to the office. Such sensitiveness would rather deserve the name of self-consciousness. And I shall be supported by the thought of their reception.”
“One of the boys can go with you and take them,” said Julius.
“I will trouble no one, Mr. Hume. My point of view is as I have stated it, and my actions should not be inconsistent with it. And I trust that no one will leave the table to see me to the door. The maid who brings the parcel will incidentally do so, and it is a needless attention.”
“I am going to the village in the morning,” said Hester. “Can I leave the grapes on Mrs. Pettigrew?”
“No, indeed, Miss Wolsey, I would not encumber you further than your duty will have done. I would by no means add to your burdens to walk empty-handed myself. Indeed, were I to meet you, I should be happy to relieve you of some of them.”
“I would relieve her of all of them,” said Francis, as the door closed.
“And I would go with her to prevent her carrying them at all,” said Rosebery. “Indeed I suggest that I should do so.”
“I do not know what she will be carrying,” said Miranda, “unless it is her purse and her umbrella.”
“And convention allows me to carry those myself,” said Hester.
“How do you manage your house, Miss Wolsey? Are you and your friend domesticated?”
“We have someone to do the managing and cooking, and a housemaid who does the rest. We are not domesticated; we live simply to avoid being so.”
“Miss Wolsey, it must be a great wrench for you,” said Rosebery; “to leave the little home that is the harbourer of all your interests, for a house full of strange people, and things unfamiliar and possibly redundant to you. It must need great courage.”
“Things are not redundant because they are not essential,” said Miranda. “I daresay Miss Wolsey will enjoy them, though she is fortunate to be used to as much as she is.”
“Why?” said Julius. “It is surely a natural thing.”
“The majority of people have less.”
“And I belong to them now,” said Hester, “in the sense that I could not afford so much by myself.”
“Miss Wolsey, you face it in an ideal spirit,” said Rosebery.
“I ought to emulate her,” said Francis. “I go on shutting my eyes to my prospects.”
“And opening your mouth about them,” said his aunt.
“He will always have me behind him,” said Julius.
“Of course he will not,” said Miranda. “You are fifty odd years older than he is.”
“You know what I mean. I am responsible for his future.”
“Your money should go to your son. It will barely enable him to fill your place. His cousins will have it in due course.”
“Miss Wolsey, you will forgive this broaching of family questions in your presence,” said Rosebery. “We treat you as one of ourselves. Mother, I have no criticism to make of my father’s dispositions. My faith in him is absolute.”
“And mine in you in another way,” said Julius. “You will not grudge your cousins their portions. They will not compare to yours.”
“Miss Wolsey, does it strike you as a rare thing or there to be complete confidence between father and son? Between a mother and a son it is an accepted thing.”
“Yes, I think perhaps it does, though I had not thought about it.”
“You have not met many fathers and sons,” said Miranda.
“Perhaps not many fathers. I suppose all the men I have known, have been sons.”
“Miss Wolsey, that is so,” said Rosebery, laughing.
“But there have not been many,” said Miranda.
“Mother, you are getting tired. You will be ceasing to be yourself. And you were being so much so. I will take you to the drawing-room and remain with you.”
“And leave Miss Wolsey here, so that you and I can be alone, and she can be where she likes to be, and where she feels the others like to have her.”
“You are killing many birds with one stone indeed,” said Rosebery, as he followed.
“Are you proof against insult, Miss Wolsey?” said Francis. “Because, if not, this is no place for you.”
“Can you steel yourself to face it?” said Alice. “We ask nothing that we cannot do ourselves.”
“Yes, that kind of insult, the natural antagonism of a woman in old age to one in her prime,” said Hester, speaking easily and not looking at Julius. “I may come to it myself, though it is hard to think it. Ah, Tabbikin, it is no imagination this time. Here you are, all proud and confident in the flesh!”
She intercepted Tabbikin in a furtive approach to the hearth.
“Is there a good fire in here?” said Rosebery, at the door. “The one in the drawing-room has gone out. Miss Wolsey, my mother is coming. What about the cat?”
Hester relinquished it, and the children appeared to be pursuing it, and Julius to be furthering their effort.
“That cat!” said Miranda. “We shall have to get rid of it. Have you been petting it, Miss Wolsey?”
“It occurs to me, Mother,” said Rosebery, “that it detects the scent of Miss Wolsey’s cat in her dress.”
“Oh, that is not a dress she would wear at home,” said Miranda, glancing at it.
There was a pause.
“It is not,” said Hester, “or rather it was not. It has been handed down to save the expense of a new one.”
“So you dress in the evenings at home?”
“We put on something simple, and it sometimes gets replaced by something less simple but shabby.”
“That dress is not shabby,” said Miranda.
“No, the occasions for it have been few and far between. I wore it so seldom that I let it fill the breach.”
“Well, that is sensible enough. You would not have any other use for it.”
“Mother, you assume too much knowledge of Miss Wolsey’s affairs.”
“An ordinary knowledge of things comprises them.”
“I wonder if they are kind to him in the kitchen,” said Hester, as if to herself.
“Oh, those people always treat an animal as a human being,” said Miranda.
“Miss Wolsey, you do not misunderstand my mother?’
“He means the opposite,” murmured Alice.
“Oh, I plead guilty to being one of those people myself,” said Hester. “I would not be anything else.”
“Miss Wolsey, there was no implication intended.”
“Do not be foolish, my son,” said Miranda. “Do you wonder why we are such close friends, Miss Wolsey?”
“I see there must be things between you, that I do not understand.”