‘I know, I know,’ said Fulbert; ‘I am prepared.’
‘And Ridley is not. Well, it is right that you should have the advantage of him.’
‘I hope it is. For I have it.’
Hope sat down as if her limbs gave under her. Regan looked at her easily. The awaited group came into the room, Luce leading her mother. Eleanor walked forward with her usual step, and Ridley was drawn to his full height to face what was upon him.
‘Fulbert!’ he said, moving in front of the others. ‘My friend.’
Fulbert accepted his hand, but went towards his wife, and it was not until they had exchanged an embrace that he turned his eyes on his face.
‘My friend,’ repeated Ridley. ‘I trust that nothing will alter that for you. It will not for me.’
‘It need not,’ said Fulbert. ‘A dead man cannot expect to be treated as a live one.’
‘You left your affairs in my hands. If in the course of dealing with them, I was led further, you will understand.’
‘Who should, if not I? You wanted what I chose for myself. How can I say I am surprised?’
‘You might say other things. I am grateful for your forbearance.’
‘I have too much restored to me, to dwell on what I may have lost. And somehow I feel it is not much, and will soon be mine.’
Ridley took a step aside and stood with his eyes averted, while the husband and wife approached their children.
‘I find that I miss nothing,’ said Fulbert. ‘If life would have gone on after my death, that will happen to us all. And if it went on too soon and too far for my choice, I was not there to choose.’
Sir Jesse touched the ground with his stick, and Paul, who was standing absorbed in the scene, obeyed the summons. The resulting movement revealed Faith, standing just inside the room, with her hands held apart from her sides, and her eyes wide and unwinking, as though to avoid dwelling on the intimate scene.
‘I forgot Faith was with us,’ said Hope, ‘but it seems she did the same.’
‘Faith looks as if she were at church,’ said Venice, in a clearer voice that she intended.
‘I suppose we do all feel rather like that,’ said Faith, in a low, quick tone.
‘No doubt we ought to wish we were not here,’ said Hope.
‘I wish we were not,’ said Faith, with a further withdrawal towards the door.
‘I see why you stayed in the hall, dear. But why did you change your mind?’
‘It is not much good for one of us to adopt a measure when the others do not follow it.’
‘Where did Faith get the impression that her family follow her lead?’ said Daniel.
Ridley turned from his place, and with a step that suggested that eyes were on him, walked to the window and stood with his back to the room.
‘Ridley’s eyes are resting unseeingly on the familiar landscape,’ said Graham, his voice betraying that this was not the whole of his thought.
‘I am glad he has got out of his place in the middle of the floor,’ said Daniel. ‘It was hardly his best at the moment.’
‘You make me feel he is in the pillory, and that you would like to throw rotten eggs at him,’ said Hope.
‘How did people come by their supplies of eggs in that state?’ said Isabel. ‘Did they carry a stock of them, as if they were snuff or tobacco?’
‘Perhaps they were on sale near the pillory,’ said Daniel, ‘as buns and nuts are at the Zoo, so that people could be helped to their natural dealings with captive creatures.’
Faith looked at the laughing group with steady eyes.
‘Faith thinks we ought to be in low spirits,’ said Isabel. ‘I am sure I don’t know why.’
‘I know you are seriously thankful in your hearts,’ said Faith.
Regan watched her son’s reunion with his family, without jealousy, emotion or desire. She would have asked what she had.
Fulbert saw Ridley’s solitary figure and went towards him.
‘Well, Ridley, let us take our next steps over this strange gulf between us. I have much to thank you for, and I trust you do not resent my rising from the dead. I would have done it at a better moment, if I could. I did try to rise a day or two earlier, but fate was against me. And it is a good thing it was not a day or two later. I don’t understand how my letter miscarried. It was an unfortunate lapse, when they occur so seldom. I will have inquiries made. You had the two letters some months ago, and then no other?’
‘Fulbert,’ said Ridley, lifting his eyes, ‘I have had no letter from you or concerning you, save those two you name. I dealt with them as you directed. And so would I have dealt with this one, had it reached me.’
‘I wished to spare my family a shock. And I wrote instead of cabling, to save them the weeks of waiting. I may have been right or wrong, but I have reached my home, and I cannot regret the manner of my coming.’
‘Fulbert,’ said Ridley, looking round with an emotional expression, ‘I could not wish you more than this.’
‘You are wise not to tell me your real feelings. And I will never ask you for them.’
‘You spoke of the gulf between us,’ said Ridley, in a painful manner. ‘If you will come to meet me over it, I will do my part. More I cannot do.’
‘Do let us gloss over this moment,’ said Graham, as if he could not suppress the words. ‘It will become too much.’
‘Father and Ridley might have had their encounter without arranging themselves as the cynosure of every eye,’ said Daniel.
‘Well, nothing need be explained to us later,’ said Isabel. ‘And I trust nothing will be.’
‘Well, you have been present at a scene that would be unique in anyone’s life,’ said Fulbert, looking round on his children. ‘You will live to be glad you have witnessed it. You will carry the memory to your graves. And you will be the wiser. Nothing could have thrown more light on human nature.’
‘I call that almost a personal remark,’ said Hope.
Graham looked again at Ridley, whose eyes were on the ground.
Honor came up to Gavin.
‘Shall we say our “Nunc dimittis”?’ she said, with a gleam in her eyes.
Gavin met the look in silence.
‘I mean, shall we find a chance of going upstairs?’
‘Don’t you want to stay with Father?’
‘I don’t mind, as long as he is here. I want to enjoy my ordinary life, feeling he has come back.’
Gavin gave the matter some thought.
‘We should only be sent for,’ he said.
‘Now let me do something more for you all, than work on your feelings,’ said Fulbert, who had been unfastening a package. ‘I have not come home for that. Let me show you these photographs of the places I saw, and should have seen, if I had been a sound man instead of a sick one. Now put yourselves so that you can see.’
He settled himself in an armchair. Luce leaned over the back. Isabel and Venice sat on the arms, and Honor on her father’s knee. Daniel and Graham stood at the sides, and James and Gavin knelt on the floor in front. Nevill took his stand at a distance, with his eyes on the photographs. Ridley slowly advanced and stood within sight of them, as if he would take a natural part. Eleanor kept her gaze on the group of her husband and children. Regan and Sir Jesse watched it with scarcely a movement of their eyes. Faith stood as if nothing mattered, as long as she did not occupy any space round Fulbert.
‘Here is the house where I lived,’ said Fulbert. ‘There is the window of the room where I lay. For months I saw nothing except through that square of glass.’
Nevill approached and placed his finger on the point.
‘It is where Father was,’ he said.
‘The glass is not square,’ said Gavin.
‘It is oblong,’ said Honor.
‘Father painted the picture,’ said Nevill.
‘It is a photograph,’ said James.
‘It is a picture of a house,’ said Nevill, who knew only photographs of people.