‘My dear, little, comforting boy!’
‘A picture of Mother; Father come back soon; all gone away, but come back tomorrow,’ said Nevill, rapidly enumerating grounds of consolation.
‘Luce and Daniel and Graham will come back in a few minutes,’ said Gavin.
‘Come back in a few minutes,’ said Nevill, passing on this information to his mother before he left her.
‘Honor, hadn’t you and Gavin better have some game?’ said Eleanor, looking at the silent children.
‘He will be a horse,’ suggested Nevill.
‘Would you like to get that photograph from Father’s room?’ said Eleanor, seeing the need of another solution.
Honor and Gavin sprang towards the stairs, and Nevill gave them a glance and continued his exercise.
James made a movement of sudden recollection and ran up after them, producing in his mother the impression that he had some object in view, and no curiosity concerning it, which were results that he had intended.
Nevill suddenly realized that he was alone with his mother in the hall.
‘Go with Hatton,’ he said, in a tone of giving the situation one chance before he despaired of it.
‘I will take you to her,’ said Eleanor, offering her hand.
Nevill accepted it and mounted the stairs with an air of concentrating all his being on one object. When they reached the nursery, he looked up at his mother.
‘Father come back tomorrow, come back soon,’ he said, and ran through the door.
Eleanor satisfied herself that Isabel was asleep, and paid a visit to Venice and Miss Mitford as she passed the schoolroom.
‘Are you standing about doing nothing, dear? Is she, Miss Mitford?’
‘Yes.’
‘Is that the way to keep up her spirits?’
‘I do not think she is in spirits.’
‘Cannot she find some occupation?’
‘Girls of her age have no pursuits.’
‘Could she not make something to do?’
‘That is beneath human dignity.’
‘Is it so dignified just to stand about?’
‘It is more so. And she is accustoming herself to the change in the house. Surely that is quite reasonable.’
‘I think we shall have to let time do that for us.’
‘Well, that is what she is doing. Half-an-hour cannot do much.’
‘Is James anywhere about?’
‘He is with the children in the nursery. He had a holiday because his father was going.’
‘He will no doubt have one when he comes back. I don’t know how he makes any progress. I don’t suppose he does make much. Are the girls resting too today? Isabel is asleep.’
‘I hope that is resting,’ said Miss Mitford, ‘I hope it is not one of those heavy, unrefreshing sleeps.’
‘Can Isabel and I have a photograph of Father, like Honor and Gavin?’ said Venice, in a sudden tone.
‘Yes, of course you can, dear child. I will put one out for you. There is sure to be a frame that will fit it.’
‘Is there?’ said Miss Mitford, seeing this question in Venice’s eyes. ‘I should think that is unusual.’
‘I don’t know of one, certainly. But we shall find one.’
‘I should not know where to look for such a thing.’
Eleanor’s face revealed that this was the case with herself.
‘I have a pair of frames that I do not want,’ said Miss Mitford.
‘Whom have you had in them?’ said Venice.
‘My father and mother. But I am inclined to take them out, because they stir the chords of memory.’
‘Venice dear, do not ask questions,’ said Eleanor. ‘Just say you will like to have the frames, if Miss Mitford has no use for them. And then you may come and get the photograph.’
‘Whom will you put in the second frame?’ said Miss Mitford. ‘I could give you a photograph of myself, to balance your father’s.’
Venice hesitated with a half-smile, and Miss Mitford suddenly gave a whole one.
‘Come with me and I will give you one of my own photographs,’ said Eleanor. ‘Then you can have your parents on either side of your fireplace. It is kind of you to amuse them, Miss Mitford. She is quite cheered up.’
Isabel awoke to find her sister disposing the photographs on the mantelpiece.
‘What are those?’ she said, and heard the account. ‘I would as soon have had Mitta as Mother,’ she said.
‘We could not put her to correspond with Father,’ said Venice, not criticizing the view on any other ground.
‘I think I shall say I am too tired to come down to dessert.’
‘Can you be as tired as that, after your rest? Mother saw you were asleep.’
‘I can after these last days.’
‘Well, if you want to explain that!’ said Venice, causing her sister to rise from her bed.
‘Now remember,’ said the latter, as they left the schoolroom later, ‘I am quite myself and not at all depressed, and I wanted to come downstairs. I was only tired and upset by Father’s going.’
‘And what if I am asked what you ate at dinner?’
‘Oh, just tell a fib,’ said Isabel, as if her previous injunctions had not involved this step.
‘Well, my weary girl,’ said Eleanor, ‘are you quite yourself again?’
‘Yes, thank you, Mother.’
‘Did she have a good luncheon, Venice?’
‘Yes.’
‘And James? How is he? Doesn’t he think he might go to school this afternoon, and do some hours of work? It would be a little thing he could do for Father.’
‘When we have a holiday, we are supposed to have one,’ said James in a faint voice.
‘Do you mean you would find it embarrassing to go back?’
‘No,’ said James, who would have found it even more so to admit this.
‘What does he mean, Isabel?’
‘Well, he is not expected, and they are supposed to keep to what they say.’
‘Mother, I think Father has unwittingly put enough on the children today,’ said Luce, with an unconscious glance at Sir Jesse.
‘The boy is right that he should do one thing or the other,’ said the latter, with a suggestion of seeking to counteract his outbreak. ‘If he has begun the day in one way, let him finish it.’
‘Then he must have a walk and a rest,’ said Eleanor, who seemed to consider widely varying courses adapted to her son. ‘He is not having a holiday in the ordinary sense.’
‘James would not dispute it,’ said Graham.
‘I don’t think he ever has one,’ said Isabel. ‘Does he know what an ordinary holiday means? To him a holiday must be a sort of tribute paid to other people’s experience.’
James gave his sister a look of seeing someone familiar passing out of his sight.
‘Wouldn’t any of you like to hear about your father’s last moments?’ said Eleanor.
Her chance use of words with another association caused some mirth.
‘What an odd thing to laugh at, if you really took the words as you pretend!’
‘It is their bearing that interpretation that constitutes the joke,’ said Daniel.
‘Joke!’ said his mother, drawing her brows together.
‘We had an ordinary little talk,’ said Luce, in a tone unaffected by what had passed. ‘We found ourselves discussing the best time for leaving England. The last moments’ — her voice shook on the words — ‘tend to lack vitality and interest.’
‘Why did you insist on being present at them?’ said Eleanor.
‘To prevent them from being worse for Father than they had to be, Mother.’
‘Sit on Grandma’s knee,’ said Nevill.
Regan lifted him and he settled himself against her in dependence on the effort to support his weight, and closed and opened his eyes.
‘He has missed his sleep,’ said Venice. ‘It was because of saying good-bye to Father.’
‘Sleep, school, everything missed,’ said Eleanor, with a sigh.