Isabel mounted a flight of stairs and raised her voice in a message to Hatton.
‘From the way Isabel moves, you would think your father had a month to be here,’ said Eleanor.
‘He has almost,’ said Isabel, in a low voice to Venice, as she returned. ‘Thirty minutes, and we have had one!’
‘Shall I go and fetch Luce and Daniel and Graham?’ said James, hovering near his mother.
‘Yes, tell them all to come. I cannot understand this lackadaisical attitude. You might not have a father. I simply do not feel I can explain it.’
Eleanor was released from this effort by the appearance of her sons and daughter from their study, with Luce holding her father’s arm, and her brothers wearing the look of the final advice and farewell. Sir Jesse and Regan came from the library, the former resolute and almost urbane, the latter ravaged and fierce. Hatton appeared on the landing with the children, put Nevill’s hand into Honor’s, and withdrew round the balusters to await events.
‘So we are here to get all we can out of it,’ said Regan. ‘It shows it is not too much for us; that is one thing.’
‘It ensures that it shall be,’ said Graham.
‘Trouble shared is trouble halved,’ said Fulbert, in a cheerful tone. ‘It will be disappearing amongst a dozen, and I shall leave dry eyes behind.’
‘Grandma, Luce, Daniel, Grandpa,’ said Nevill, seeming to follow out his father’s thought. ‘Venice, Father, Graham, Isabel. And he is here too, and Hatton. And Mother and James.’
‘Father is the important person today,’ said Eleanor.
‘We are all Father’s,’ said her son, supporting her view.
‘And he is obliged to leave us.’
‘No,’ said Nevill, in a light tone. ‘Father is not going away any more.’
‘He has heard too much of it,’ said Fulbert.
‘We have all done that,’ said Regan, rapidly blinking her eyes.
Luce put a chair for her grandmother and stood stroking her shoulders, and Nevill ran to another chair and climbed on to it, and keeping his eyes on Regan, pulled out his handkerchief and retained it in his hand.
‘Why are you in out-of-door things, Luce?’ said Eleanor, surprised by any sign of personal pursuits.
‘Because I am going to the station, Mother.’
‘As well as the boys?’
‘Yes.’
‘Will there be room in the carriage?’
‘Yes.’
‘Won’t it upset you?’
‘Yes,’ said Luce, smiling, ‘but that need not be taken into account.’
‘But won’t that be depressing for your father at the last?’
‘No, Mother, he will not be conscious of it.’
‘But is there any point in your going?’
‘Yes,’ said Luce, now with a note of patience. ‘Father will have a woman to see him off, as well as young men.’
‘I should find it too much.’
‘I am in my way a strong woman, Mother.’
‘And I am a weak one, I suppose.’
‘It is the first time I have heard a woman make that claim, without any sign of satisfaction,’ said Graham, who had been watching his mother.
‘I have no fault to find with the strength or the weakness,’ said Fulbert. ‘They are both after my heart.’
Luce moved her hands more rapidly on Regan’s shoulders, as if to stave off any impending emotion.
‘I hope the occasion may prove a turning point in Graham’s life,’ said Daniel.
Venice laughed, and Eleanor glanced at her in mute question of such a sound.
‘Mother,’ said Luce, in a low tone, ‘let Father leave us in a happy atmosphere.’
‘It can hardly be that, my dear, when he is going for six months.’
‘Not after he has gone. But while he is here, let us stand up to the test.’
‘Isabel looks as if she were at a funeral,’ said Eleanor, as if this were going beyond the suitable point.
‘She may be right,’ said Regan.
‘I don’t want her father to remember her like that.’
‘Why is it assumed that people forget all moments but the last?’ said Daniel.
Isabel broke into tears; Fulbert put his arm about her; she could not control her weeping, and it became almost loud. Hatton came round the staircase and stood with her eyes upon her, as if debating her course.
‘Isabel dear, if you cannot control yourself, Hatton must take you upstairs, as if you were one of the little ones,’ said Eleanor, speaking as though her daughter were nearer to this stage than she was.
‘She will come and sit by Grandma,’ said Regan, using the same manner, but also the gift for doing so.
Isabel sat on the floor at Regan’s feet; the latter began to stroke her hair, and Luce noted the action and glided away, seeing her own ministrations rendered unnecessary by this transference of thought to another.
‘What are you doing, Gavin?’ said Eleanor.
‘Drawing,’ said her son, continuing the occupation.
‘Isn’t that rather a strange way of spending your last half-hour with Father?’
‘No.’
‘What makes you do it just now?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Let me see what you are drawing.’
‘No,’ said Gavin, pocketing the paper.
‘That is not nice behaviour. But I expect you are upset by Father’s leaving us.’
‘No, I am not.’
‘He will draw,’ said Nevill, throwing himself off his chair and running to his brother.
Gavin turned aside.
‘Let him do it, Gavin,’ said Eleanor.
Gavin pursued his way.
‘Let him have a piece of paper.’
‘I only have the one piece.’
Nevill stood with his feet apart and his arms at his sides, on the point of surrendering himself to a lament of frustration.
‘Will my good, useful girl get him a pencil and paper?’ said Eleanor.
Venice recognized herself in the description, and was in time to prevent Hatton, who had partly descended the stairs, from coming further. Nevill put the paper on a chair, and stood, pushing the pencil rather violently about it, as if he were unfitted by emotional stress for normal application.
‘What is the mystery about Gavin’s drawing, Honor?’ said Eleanor.
‘There isn’t one, Mother.’
‘What is he drawing?’
‘A portrait of Father.’
‘Oh, that is what it is; that is very nice,’ said Eleanor, as though finding herself wrong in some surmise to which this adjective could not be applied. ‘That was the right thing to think of, wasn’t it?’
‘I didn’t think of it. It was Honor,’ said Gavin.
‘Poor little girl, she wanted a portrait to keep,’ said Eleanor, making a statement that was natural to the circumstances, but caused her daughter to fall into such violent weeping, that the services of Hatton were called upon and she was led from sight.
‘Here is a dear, bright face for Father to remember!’ said Eleanor, taking Venice’s cheek in her hand.
Venice stared before her and struck her side, and Eleanor turned to her sons, baffled by her daughter’s various responses to the occasion.
‘Have you asked your father if you can do anything for him, as the eldest son?’ she said to Daniel, with her vague note of reproof.
‘Yes, I have, and been answered.’
‘And you, Graham?’
‘Yes, with the same result.’
‘I am sure I can depend on my two tall sons.’
‘A conviction that seems to be born of the moment,’ said Daniel.
‘Mother, you haven’t much hope of your children, have you?’ said Luce.
‘I am so used to training and guiding them, that I forget the time has come for results.’
‘The results do not remind you, Mother?’
‘I wish they could sometimes be allowed to appear.’