“So you do not find our ways very different from yours, Miss Wolsey?”
“No, they are essentially the same. It is our cats who would find the difference.”
“I am glad you can keep up your home by yourself,” said Miranda to Emma. “Both for your sake and Miss Wolsey’s.”
“It would have been the last straw, Miss Wolsey,” said Rosebery, “to feel you were unsettling your friend.”
“I keep it up so that she may return to it at any moment,” said Emma.
“Miss Greatheart, it teaches us how to honour her resolution and independence.”
“How did you spend your time when you were here, Miss Wolsey?” said Miranda.
“I suppose I wasted a good deal. I spent it in reading and gardening and being a companion to Emma and Plautus.”
“Well, there is no great demand on you now.”
“Mother, that might be taken as an ungrateful speech. Tangible services may not be the most valuable.”
“It does not do to underrate them,” said Miranda, looking with approval at Miss Burke’s activities.
“There are supposed to be some leisured people,” said Emma. “And if no one wasted time, there would not be any.”
“I feel that shaft goes home,” said Rosebery. “I, the only male present, must take my stand among them.”
“You are indispensable,” said Miranda.
“And so was Miss Wolsey, Mother.”
“This is excellently made. I congratulate you, Miss Burke. I regard cooking on this level as an accomplishment.”
“There is an especial something about these essentially feminine acquirements,” said Rosebery. “I think we hardly estimate the associations they have for us.”
“You have never wanted to cultivate this one, Mrs. Hume?” said Miss Burke.
“If it had served any purpose for me or anyone else, I would have done so.”
“Well, anyone would do it, who had to. But then it is a duty, not an accomplishment.”
“Miss Burke, in your case it is a signal example of both,” said Rosebery, in a less full tone than he used to the others.
“You have never thought of adopting a niece or nephew, Miss Greatheart?” said Miranda, looking from the room to the garden.
“No, and for the most ordinary reasons. I don’t want my life disturbed, and I like to spend what I have, on myself.”
“Well, the choice is yours,” said Miranda, not without a note of respect for the exercise of it.
“If one wanted a child, it would be better to marry and have one in the ordinary course,” said Hester.
“It might be better,” said Miranda. “But we have to do things as we can.”
“Mother, that is surely a needless implication.”
“What was it?” said Hester, easily. “That we may not have the chance to marry? Or may not take it? Or may recoil from the sacrifices involved?”
“People do not make the last two implications,” said Miranda.
“Well, who would want to make them?” said Emma.
“What man or what woman?” agreed Hester, smiling.
“Miss Wolsey, surely no man would avoid them,” said Rosebery, earnestly. “If he thinks any woman takes any chance of marrying, he is a coxcomb indeed.”
“Well, coxcombry is not a very serious failing.”
“A very ridiculous one,” said Rosebery, with a look of distaste.
“A man does more for a woman in marriage than a woman for a man,” said Miranda.
“Mother, is that your view? Many people would take the opposite one. Would you say that my father had done more for you, than you for him?”
“Yes, I think I should. Though our case is not a usual one. I am twelve years older than he is.”
“What difference does that make?”
“Well, chances get fewer with time.”
“You do not mean to imply that you had not other chances?”
“No one means to imply that. But it is no good to pursue a matter where we have no proof.”
“Mother, would you confess it, if it had been so?” said Rosebery, with a roguish glance.
“I don’t know if I should. If I did, I should be unique,” said Miranda, not disclaiming this possibility.
“People would hardly have it to confess,” said Hester, “if you mean no chances at all.”
“More often than would be admitted,” said Miranda.
“Now I am not so sure. I have been surprised by the life-stories that have been unfolded to me.”
“You might have been less so by the actual lives.”
“We may often be surprised by what is unfolded,” said Rosebery, going into mirth.
“Now I do not know,” said Hester. “I may be a person who invites outpourings, but I find I cannot discredit everything I am told. The very improbability sometimes speaks for its truth.”
“You are an ideal confidante,” said Miranda. “To most of us probability would speak louder.”
“Mother, cold reason can play too large a part in things.”
“It does not often do so.”
“Plautus is restless,” said Hester. “My return has excited him.”
Miranda cast a glance at Plautus’s recumbent form.
“Oh, you don’t know cats, Mrs. Hume. You have no idea how he rests, when his mind is at peace.”
Miranda did not claim to have any.
“You have a very pleasant maid,” she said, passing to a subject which she did know. “She must be a great help to Miss Burke.”
“Yes, that is her work in life,” said Emma. “People are fortunate to have one. I wonder if she knows.”
“We never realise our privileges until it is too late,” said Miss Burke.
“What do you mean, dear? How you frightened me for the moment!”
“Were you imagining yourself without her?” said Hester.
“I almost dared to fear that she was imagining it. And a coward soul is mine.”
“That strikes an echo somewhere,” said Rosebery. “I do not remember who had the coward soul.”
“You should remember who did not have it,” said Miss Burke.
There was a pause.
“Miss Greatheart, the miss of your friend must be great,” said Rosebery, as though seeking a reason for Miss Burke’s position.
“I can feel I have a place in two homes,” said Hester. “That cannot be said of many of us.”
“Of a good many who earn our living,” said Miss Burke.
“But, Miss Burke,” said Rosebery, recovering himself and lowering his voice, “I know it is not the case with you. May I trust that this house may prove a home to you?”
“I am settled and contented here.”
“Which is a braver speech than many would realise.”
“I am glad to see you so happy and valued,” said Miranda to Miss Burke. “I wondered about you, after you had gone. This place makes the demands on you, that you can fulfil.”
“I suppose I shall spend my life in fulfilling them.”
“In a way that is true of all of us.”
“In what way? Some people spend their lives in making them.”
“You think I am among those?”
“Well, you must know you are. You are fortunate to be so.”
“You do not know the problems of my life.”
“No, in a life that appears not to have them, they must be hidden.”
Miranda looked at Miss Burke, as if she might have served her purpose better than she thought, and sent her eyes from her to Hester.
Plautus hastened to the door, evinced spectacular impatience, and after a variously assisted and impeded exit, vanished.
“Oh, what is he doing?” said Emma. “Leave the door open and listen. If Mrs. Hume does not feel the draught.”
“But I am afraid she does,” said Hester, partly closing it.
“What a companion you are! Considering your employer before your cat! To think I should see such a change!”
Plautus returned with an uneasy aspect, went to the fire and remained on his feet, with his head thrust forward.