“Will Miss Wolsey stay here, when Miss Greatheart is Uncle’s wife?”
“No, of course she will not,” said Hester. “There will be no need. Miss Greatheart will manage things for you. She will be your own relation. She will be a sort of stepmother. You can think of her as that.”
“They need not begin to-day,” said Julius.
“Why, I think it is a good day for the beginning. They will have to realise the demands on them. And they can also realise their own claims. I used the word, ‘stepmother’, without thinking. It seemed to come to my lips of itself. It was a true word spoken almost in jest.”
“You are not speaking in jest.”
“Well, there is the meaning underneath it. As I say, the word has essential truth.”
“What does she mean?” said Emma.
“Oh, what you know I mean. There are no secrets between you and Julius now. You know his life and what the children are to him. You have heard from his lips what I heard from them on the day when his wife died. I hope you will not take it as hard as she did, that anyhow it will not cause your death. But of course your bond with the family is a light and late one.”
“It was a shock to her,” said Julius, in a quiet tone. “But her heart would not have held out long. Emma does not know what the children are to me, but I have looked to telling her. It is true that I shall hide nothing.”
“And, after all, she is only your third romance. It is not many for a man of your age. Though I rather resent your being her first one. It is a feeling for equality between you, that has no reason in it. Of course men and women are different.”
“There is more difference within the sexes than between them. And perhaps men and women are different there.”
“They are not,” said Hester. “Look at the difference between you and your son. I have got into the way of calling him that. Miss Burke must forgive me, when she knows the truth.”
“She is to know it now,” said Rosebery. “Miss Burke, my mother had a story in her life, though it did not transpire until its end. My real father was not known to me, but he took thought for my welfare. We shall depend on what he left for us. And you know I have not lacked a father. And this is the time to say that you are my first romance.”
“Is it the time to say it?” said Hester, idly. “I should hardly have thought it was, with me standing at her side. Not that I wish to lay claim to my priority.”
“Then why do you do so?” said Julius. “It would have been easy to be silent.”
“Perhaps it would not,” said Miss Burke. “And she has said nothing new. She did not keep silent at the time.”
“How little we know people, until we do know them!”
“I am not so sure,” said Emma. “I believe we always know them. We talk of unsuspected depths, but I doubt if there are such things.”
“There seem to be none left here.”
“None at all,” said Hester. “They are all completely open to me. And I believe it is true that they always have been.”
“We can only try to feel that our own are an exception,” said Emma.
“That seems an odd basis for married life.”
“It may help the element of mystery,” said Julius.
“You are experienced in providing that.”
“Uncle,” said Francis, “did you mean that you were our father?”
“I did not mean you to know it, but it is true. I also have a story in my past. It was a thing quite apart from my marriage. You yourself are old enough to understand, and you will explain it to the others.”
“I have always known,” said Alice. “I mean I have known in a way. I saw there was some reason for your liking us. I guessed it was something like this, when I found out there were such things. I am glad we are your children.”
“I am glad indeed,” said Francis. “It is a great fulfilment. I had hoped we were.”
“You will explain it to Adrian. You will put it to him as I should wish. And you will know no more until you are older; you will not seek to know. I shall remain your uncle, and you will be to me what you have been. And in our hearts we know what that is, and are glad that we know.”
“What a perfect speech!” said Hester. “It is worthy of paper and print. You are indeed versed in such things. But poor children, what a burden on their youth! I wish it could have been spared them.”
“Did you choose the way to ensure it?”
“I had no choice. I took the only way there was.”
“Are we to tell Pettigrew?” said Adrian. “I mean about the marriages?”
“Yes, by all means,” said Julius. “There is no secret there.”
“We somehow feel that there is,” said Hester, “or that there ought to be.”
“It is because of Aunt Miranda,” said Adrian. “It seems that she ought not to know.”
“You must try to forget her,” said Hester, gently. “That is what other people are doing.”
“I don’t think she is a person anyone could forget.”
“Neither do I,” said Emma. “I am proud that she came to my house.”
“Yes, indeed,” said Hester. “The woman who had been married for forty odd years to the man to whom you will be married for his last ones! It is a cause for pride.”
“Miss Wolsey,” said Rosebery gravely, “it is possible to conceive of pride’s going before a fall.”
Hester did not look at him.
“I think you will have a good stepmother,” she said to the children. “I can leave you with an easy mind.”
“What are you going to do?” said Adrian.
“I am going to be free, free,” said Hester, clasping her hands. “A winged woman, a citizen of the world, a wanderer in far and foreign places. The thing I have longed to be.”
“Will you be able to afford it?”
“No,” said Hester, letting her hands fall. “It was a bright, momentary vision. You might have left it with me a little longer. But I have my plans. And the first one is to leave you. You will be safe with your stepmother.”
“They will call her ‘Aunt Emma’,” said Julius.
“But I cannot call her that.”
“You can when you speak of her to them.”
“Well, I shall not be doing that much longer.”
Everyone became silent.
“I think it is time for us to go,” said Miss Burke.
“It must be,” said Emma. “It has been time for everything else.”
“Well, perhaps that is a good thing,” said Hester. “It is an awkward, unbecoming occasion, better over. Everything will soon be familiar and ordinary; and the little, humdrum problems will bring relief.”
“I hope something will bring it. I was wondering if there was such a thing. We must go home, dear, and prepare ourselves for our future. It is a new demand on us, as this morning we had none.”
“And nice and restful it must have been,” said Hester. “The present is always the better thing. Give my love to Plautus. Tell him it is for ever his.”
“Was the love for Plautus a disguise?” said Miss Burke, as she and Emma left the house.
“I hope so. In that case it can be one again. It began to seem that nothing could ever be.”
“Now the children should leave us,” said Hester, when the guests had gone. “They should clearly be alone. They have things to discuss, or rather to be silent about; and that must be done in solitude.”
“Miss Wolsey,” said Rosebery, when she had been obeyed, “my father is living his last years, and I will not have his happiness spoiled and besmirched, as it has been to-day. I may feel that you understand me?”
“No real happiness ever suffers in that way,” said Hester, gravely. “That is a sign that it is not real. Your words should give you to think. There is no reason to be so careful of any real thing.”