‘What is your real word to us?’ said Regan, suddenly to Eleanor.
Luce came forward and took her mother’s hand.
‘That I have felt myself unfit to be alone with my burden. I have never had faith in myself as a mother. My children will not suffer from not having me in their home. I wish in a way that they would. And I shall be at their service. I see no good in postponing a change that is resolved upon, and I am not troubled about making it so soon. I am marrying in distrust of myself, in despair at my loneliness, and in gratitude for a feeling that met my need. I was not in a position to reject it.’
‘We wish you all that is good, my dear,’ said Sir Jesse. ‘You are doing your best for yourself and for others, and many people stop at the first.’
‘And so may we say that the meeting is adjourned?’ said Ridley, with a smile and a hand on Eleanor’s shoulder. ‘Or rather dissolved, as the business is concluded.’
Regan gave Eleanor a look of such helpless consternation at her acceptance of this caress for another’s, that Sir Jesse took a step between them.
‘You have other things to say to other people. You have done what you must by us.’
‘It will be the same thing,’ said Eleanor, ‘but it will have to be said.’
‘No, Mother dear,’ said Luce, ‘why will it? We know what there is to know. We do not need it repeated. We can bear to see you recede a little from us, if it is to result in your going forward yourself.’
‘You have always made things easy for me, my dear.’
‘And in this case you do so for me,’ said Ridley.
‘I don’t think they are finding it very difficult themselves,’ said Eleanor, looking at her children.
‘It is not for you to see our problems, Mother,’ said Daniel. ‘They would not be any help to you.’
‘No, do not ask for them, my dear,’ said Sir Jesse.
‘I should almost like to feel they were greater,’ said Eleanor. ‘Daniel, have you a word of your own to say to your mother?’
‘I welcome anything that is for your happiness. And the feeling is not only mine.’
‘So do I indeed,’ said Graham, his eyes passing over Ridley.
‘You are kind and just to me, my children.’
‘He does too; he is too,’ said Nevill, coming up to his mother.
‘I did not notice you were all here,’ said Eleanor, looking round the hall.
‘It is a wet day, Mother,’ said Luce, ‘and you sent word that lessons were to be suspended.’
‘Mother passed over six of her nine children,’ said Venice.
‘You are always in my mind, my child,’ said Eleanor. ‘I did not know you had come to the hall. Perhaps that is typical of my dealings with you.’
‘We are in a way grateful to Ridley,’ said Graham.
‘Graham,’ said Ridley, impulsively, ‘I see that as an unspeakably generous thing to say. I hope I shall never forget it.’
‘What has my Isabel to say to me?’ said Eleanor.
‘Simply what the others have said. We have not had time to prepare our speeches. You are spared an awkward opening to your new life.’
‘The awkwardness would not have been chiefly Mother’s,’ said Venice.
Ridley looked at Eleanor in amusement, and with an air of being about to share the charge of the sprightly young of her family.
‘Well, James, what have you to say to your mother?’ said Eleanor.
James looked up from his book with a start.
‘Have you not been listening, my boy?’
‘No,’ said James, rather faintly. ‘Not to grown-up people’s conversation.’
‘That is a good rule on the whole, but you could have made an exception today. We have let you stay away from school to hear what we have to tell you.’
‘If our family life were more eventful, James would face his future without education,’ said Daniel.
‘I think the strain on him would be as great,’ said Graham. ‘He, if anyone, must understand that life is one long training.’
‘So you do not know what we have been saying, my little son. Well, something is going to happen that will make me happier. Can you guess what it is?’
‘Father is not dead!’ said James, jumping to his feet and standing ready to spring with joy.
‘No, that is not it. You know that is not possible. But someone is going to take his place, is going to take care of me for him. Can you guess who it is?’
‘It is not Mr Ridley?’ said Tames, in a tone of getting through a step on the way to the real conclusion.
‘Yes, it is he; it is Mr Ridley,’ said Eleanor, looking past her son.
‘He has been taking care of you for some time, hasn’t he?’
‘Well, now we are going to live together, so that he can do it better. You will be glad to feel I am not alone any more.’
‘Is he going to live here?’
‘Not in this house. He and I will have a house of our own quite near.’
‘Where shall we live?’ said Venice.
‘Here, as you always have, with Grandpa and Grandma. And I shall come and visit you every day. You will see me as often as you do now.’
‘But you won’t be here in the evenings,’ said James.
‘I shall often be late enough to say good night. You need not be afraid you will lose your mother.’
‘Will it always go on like that?’
‘For as long as we need look forward.’
‘Shall we come to your house too?’ said Venice.
‘Of course you will, my dear. As often as you like.’
‘Then we shall really be the same as we are now.’
‘Yes, except that you will be happier, because you won’t feel that I am alone, while you are enjoying your work and your pleasures together.’
The children were silent, as these points were revealed in their life.
‘And I hope I shall be a not unwelcome figure in the background,’ said Ridley.
‘Yes. No,’ said James, with a caper. ‘No.’
‘What do you mean, dear?’ said Eleanor.
‘Not in the background,’ said James, in a hardly audible voice.
‘Of course not. That was a nice thing to say. And true and sensible too. And now my girls will come and kiss their mother, and show her they feel the same in their hearts, though they may be too shy to say so.’
‘Perhaps I may myself make a similar claim,’ said Ridley. ‘I think I see signs of the acceptance of me in my new character.’
Isabel and Venice received his embrace, Venice glancing aside as his eyes dwelt on herself. James hovered in a half-expectation of a similar salute, and was rewarded by a pat on the shoulder.
‘What are you thinking of, Isabel?’ said Eleanor, catching an expression on her daughter’s face, which she wished explained, or rather contradicted, before she left her.
‘Nothing,’ said Ridley, smiling as he quoted the coming reply.
‘Isabel has got beyond that stage. Answer me, Isabel dear.’
‘You should not want to know the things in people’s minds. If you were meant to hear them, they would be said.’
‘Do you often think of such things as are not said?’ said Eleanor.
‘Not in your sense. Though if I did, it might not be unnatural in a child of yours.’
Eleanor looked into Isabel’s face, and walked towards her youngest children. Ridley followed, as if he had not observed the encounter. Mullet had brought the luncheon and was dispensing it. Hatton was aware of the scene in progress, and had directed that the children should remain downstairs.
‘Is the whole of our family life to be enacted in the hall?’ said Daniel. ‘We only want the beds, to make things complete.’
James carried his book to his stair, and settled himself upon it. He had an air of entering upon a life in which this sort of thing would be easier. Isabel went to a window and stood, throwing the blind cord over her finger, taking no notice when the tassel struck the pane. James raised his eyes and rested them on her, and withdrew them in aloofness from what he saw, rather than misapprehension of it. Graham also observed her, and did not free himself so soon. Nevill, seated on Mullet’s lap, surveyed his mother over the rim of a glass.