“Too base for Uncle Hugo. We must turn elsewhere.”
“We should stop this pursuit of everyone. We shall find ourselves hounding each other.”
“I will tell you my final suspicion. As with Father, it rests on Grandma. The letter came into her hands by mistake, and she read it and hid it in the desk. She would have recognised the writing. You remember she spoke of it. Father thought she did it when she was not herself. Or perhaps he hoped so. I incline to think she was herself all the while. And the time came when she could ease her conscience.”
“Guilty people have such tender ones. Well, in either case she is the person to choose. We will leave it there. And we will not trouble her about it. She is in no fit state. And it was rather heroic of her.”
“Why could not Teresa manage better? It is her uncertainties that have brought us to the pass. I wonder if Uncle tried to save us, and is guilty after all.”
“We must not go on. It will end nowhere. And the other idea is more plausible.”
“Do you hope that Father will be in time with his answer?”
“What can I do, as things are? If he hopes it, so must I. And he has been living apart from us. We can let ourselves see it now. A new life may be no worse than an imitation of the old one.”
“We can’t know what it will be. There are worse things than a copy.”
“There are honester things. Unless the copy is a faithful one.”
There was a knock at the door, and Hugo entered with an openly shamefaced air.
“I am in great discomfiture. I know the guilt is mine.”
“Yours?” said Egbert. “And we were suspecting Grandma! Why did your heart fail you?”
“We don’t blame Grandma,” said Lavinia. “She will not hear a word from us. You need not fear.”
“Oh! Of course I should like to be shielding a woman and admiring myself. But I did not mean the letter. I meant I ought to have responded to Teresa. Thinking of myself has never done so much harm. It generally does so much less than I expect.”
“Did she propose to you?” said Lavinia.
“No, she only thought I should propose to her. I think it is a thing she is used to. And then she began to be afraid of it. I will not misrepresent her. So you were ready to see me as the culprit of the letter. And I do see that perhaps I ought to have been.”
“It had to be someone,” said Egbert. “That was the truth before us. We could not shut our eyes to it, and we faced it with courage. And with many of our other human qualities. We told you where our choice fell. On a person you must not judge.”
“No, a man speaks no evil of his mother. And it must have gone against the grain. She has hidden nothing in her life. Not even her thought.”
“Well, not that,” said Lavinia, smiling. “And not her action to the end. Not long enough for it to do its work. Though she may have thought she had. Well, whatever happens, you will stay with us?”
“Yes, what is the reason for my going? The matter is nothing to Teresa, of course. And I can’t afford to be anywhere else. And I persuade myself that my place is at your side.”
“I shall welcome your presence in many situations.”
“There should not be such things. They ought to be forbidden.”
“I shall not try to make them. You need not fear.”
“I did fear a little. I do judge people by myself. And they are often very like me.”
“Lavinia is like none of us,” said Egbert. “She is on her own plane.”
“Well, Father is too much to me, for me to spoil his happiness.”
“You have no ignoble instincts,” said Hugo. “So you don’t have to give your life to suppressing them. It can be a great burden. Perhaps it is why I have done nothing else.”
“I have too many. But to yield would mean more loss than gain.”
“Even if you gained your father?”
“I should have lost myself,” said Lavinia.
“I have never thought about losing myself. I will think now. I do feel I am worth keeping.”
“We should all feel it. It is what makes us ourselves. And the new life has to come. It is some time since it actually came.”
“You are the person who ought to have hidden the letter.”
“So I am,” said Lavinia, laughing. “I can’t help feeling for the person who did it. I have never felt so lenient towards what we must call a base action.”
“Must we, if it was done by your grandmother?”
“If we call it anything. But we need not talk of it, and will not. It must be forgotten.”
“It was a great change to come at her age,” said Egbert. “If she could not face it, we should hardly blame her. Again at her age.”
“I suppose we must blame her, if she knew what she was doing,” said Lavinia, gravely. “But we will feel she did not.”
“What interest there is in the future!” said Hugo. “It takes so little to enthral me.”
“A certain amount, if this is an example,” said Egbert.
“And why is it called short? Even a day has no end. Think of the one we are living.”
“Oh, let us forget it, and everything about it,” said Lavinia. “And never remember it again. It has been a disordered day.”
CHAPTER VI
“Is she really married to Father this time?” said Leah.
“Now what am I to say?” said Miss Starkie. “Yes, of course she is.”
“So she said she,” said Hengist.
“So she will always be here now,” said Agnes.
“Well, I really don’t know what word you are to use,” said Miss Starkie.
“What is the good of words that mustn’t be used?” said Hengist. “She isn’t different from any other.”
“It seems it must be,” said Miss Starkie. “I don’t know what we should have done without it.”
“You are not often on our side,” said Leah.
“I am always on it. You must be told what you need to know.”
“You don’t know this yourself.”
“I don’t pretend to,” said Miss Starkie. “Now be ready to welcome your father and — Mrs. Middleton, when they come.”
“Mrs. Middleton is Grandma,” said Leah.
“Your stepmother. She takes your father’s name now.”
“Why doesn’t he take hers?”
“It is not the custom. The man is the head of the family.”
“He isn’t really,” said Hengist. “I suppose, if she liked, we should all be called Chilton.”
“She is Mrs. Middleton,” said Miss Starkie, and said no more.
“I think she is really best,” said Leah.
“Well, you prove your opinion. Now be ready to greet — the travellers when they come. Seem to be glad to see them. Now here is the moment.”
“Well, we are with you again,” said Ninian. “Ready to resume our place and our powers. I hope you are resolved to support us.”
“It isn’t resuming for her,” said Hengist. “He talks in the plural like a royal person.”
“Well, he has the power,” said Leah.
“I am not going to say anything,” said Miss Starkie.
“Are you what is called at the end of your tether?”
“Yes, I am.”
“So you did say something.”
Miss Starkie did not add to it, and Ninian continued.
“Our three generations are complete. I am no longer a solitary figure. The gap in our ranks is filled.”
“They are not complete,” said Leah. “Grandma hasn’t a husband. And she and Father aren’t a real husband and wife.”
“Don’t be foolish; of course they are,” said Miss Starkie.
“What did she say?” said Teresa, smiling at Leah.
“Nothing worth repeating, Mrs. Middleton. There is much to be said for the old ideas about children. I am often tempted to act on them.”