‘I don’t think you have,’ said Gavin. ‘You don’t have even as much as they have. And perhaps that is why they don’t write to you.’
‘It may be; there are more unlikely things. I often think of those people who used to cross our threshold and accept our hospitality. How many friends have I from my old life? None. But I would not thank them to darken my horizon. They were fair weather friends.’
‘How do you pronounce horizon?’ said Gavin, Mullet having put the emphasis on the first syllable.
‘Horizon,’ said Honor, in a mechanical tone, placing it on the second.
‘Well, there are different pronunciations in different circles. And my education was broken off too soon for me to have the usual foundation. And my father never did believe in much learning for girls. It was one of those old-fashioned ideas he had inherited from his ancestors. I was never to do anything, and what was the good of so much training? And there it was.’
‘But you might have been a governess instead of a nurse,’ said Gavin.
‘It would have been all the same to him,’ said Mullet. ‘A dependent position is a dependent position. That is what it would have been.’
‘I think your father was a rather foolish man.’
‘He had his vein of foolishness, according to modern ideas. But I could not help loving him for it,’ said Mullet, bearing out the theory that people love their creations. ‘And, after all, I owed him my being.’
Honor got off her chair and came up to Gavin with a faint smile.
‘Perhaps it is the other way round,’ she said, as if feeling that the day broke some bond upon her tongue.
Gavin seemed puzzled, and at that moment Hatton returned to the room and at once looked at Honor’s face.
‘Well, now,’ she said in a cheerful tone, while her eyes met Mullet’s, ‘it is time for you to have your dinner. I expect Mr Ridley is staying, and you will see him when you go downstairs.’
‘We have seen him,’ said Gavin.
‘I don’t want to go down,’ said Honor.
‘It will make a change for you,’ said Mullet.
‘It won’t,’ said Gavin. ‘We go down every day. It will be the same as usual.’
Honor raised her eyes to his face, dumbfounded by a knowledge that went no further.
‘Well, you will soon come up again,’ said Hatton. ‘Now Gavin will have some meat, won’t he?’
‘Yes.’
‘That is my sensible boy.’
‘He will eat it all up,’ said Nevill, in a vigorous tone.
‘So I have two sensible boys.’
‘But he will eat the most.’
‘I shall see which of you does that. Now Honor will come and have her dinner on my knee.’
Honor went at once to Hatton.
‘Sit on Hatton’s knee,’ said Nevill.
‘No, Honor is my baby today.’
‘No, he is.’
‘You are my baby boy, and Honor is my baby girl.’
‘He is a girlie,’ said Nevill, holding his knife and fork idle.
‘Poor Gavin can’t be anything,’ said Mullet.
‘Not anything,’ said Nevill, sadly surveying his brother.
‘Honor is going to sleep,’ said Gavin, in a rough tone.
‘She is tired out,’ said Hatton.
‘He is tired,’ said Nevill, laying his head on the table.
‘I am not,’ said Gavin, loudly.
‘You are a brave boy,’ said Mullet.
‘He is brave,’ said Nevill, leaning towards Hatton, ‘a brave soldier boy.’
Honor sank into weeping, cried to the end of her tears, and stood pale and barely conscious while she was made ready to go downstairs. Hatton took them to the door and stood outside, with her ears alert. Mullet remained with her, as if any demand might arise.
‘Miss Luce will be a second mother to the children,’ she said.
‘They will be the better for another,’ said Hatton.
‘Don’t you think the mistress does her part by them?’
‘She does all she can, but children hardly want what she gives them. In a way they need very little. They want at once more and less.’
‘Master Nevill will hardly remember his father.’
‘He has not been able to do much for them lately,’ said Hatton, with a sigh. ‘And he can do nothing more.’
The children entered the room and stood aloof and silent. Nevill looked about for some employment. Honor was exhausted and Gavin in a state of inner tumult. Eleanor was talking to Ridley, and Regan was lost in herself. Honor sent her eyes round the faces at the table, and went and stood by Isabel. Fulbert’s absence of the last months saved his family an empty place. Sir Jesse made a movement from habit towards the things on the table.
‘Can they eat them today?’ he said, in a voice that simply implied that the day was different.
Gavin came up to the table.
‘Yes,’ he said.
Sir Jesse pushed a dish towards him and seemed to forget his presence, and Nevill came to his brother’s side. Eleanor turned her eyes on them.
‘You are having dessert, are you?’ she said, in a tone that added nothing to her words.
‘Yes,’ said Gavin.
‘Yes,’ said Nevill, standing with his eyes and his hands at the edge of the table.
‘Would you like some, Honor?’
‘No, thank you.’
‘Have it, if you like, dear.’
Honor did not reply.
‘James, did you try to take care of Honor?’
James looked at his mother, with a wave of recollection sweeping over him.
‘Did you do what you could for her, my boy?’
James met his mother’s eyes, and moisture came into his own.
‘She — I don’t think — she didn’t seem to want me.’
‘Never mind, dear,’ said Eleanor, kindly. ‘She could not help it. I am sure you did your best.’
James looked at Honor, saw that she had hardly heard, and realized that even a fatherless boy might continue to have escapes.
‘Gavin, tell Hatton when you go upstairs that Honor is to lie down,’ said Eleanor.
Gavin made no sign.
‘Do you hear me, my boy?’
‘Honor can tell her herself.’
‘But I asked you to.’
‘He will tell her,’ said Nevill, to his mother.
‘Gavin, do you want to be less useful than Nevill?’
‘It is not useful when she can do it herself. And lying down doesn’t make any difference. You always think it does.’
‘Not to Father’s having left us. But it will make Honor’s headache better.’