“You know we often stay behind,” said Lavinia. “Or you did know until today.”
“There is safety in numbers,” said Egbert. “Do we need the protection of the herd?”
“Your place is with it. Do you see yourselves as people apart?”
“As apart from the children. That is how we are seen. It is what we are.”
“You need not magnify the gulf. You can prove the parable of the faggot, if you hold together. But you must not make my wife and me afraid of you. Not that she is afraid of much.”
“Describe her to us, Father,” said Lavinia.
“Oh, you will see her for yourselves. There is no need to hurry forward. She has not asked for a description of all of you.”
“It would have been rash,” said Hugo. “Perhaps something warned her.”
“What are we to call her, Father?”
“Oh, it will be for her to say. I don’t know how she will see you. It may depend on yourselves.”
“What would you like yourself, Ninian?” said his mother. “You must have thought of it.”
“If you will believe me, I had not. There will be time to consider it. She will have enough of names. I have not deluged her with them.”
“You were wise,” said Egbert. “She has not Miss Starkie’s experience.”
“She will feel her own,” said Ninian, “if she is to be subjected to this.”
“How old is she, my son?” said Selina. “It is odd that I have not asked.”
“None of you can be accused of that kind of oddness. She is my age or a little older.”
“So there will be no children. Well, you will feel there are enough.”
“Yes, there is a full quiver. We do not need to add to it. Our life will be with each other.”
“She might like a child of her own,” said Egbert.
“What do you know about her?” said Ninian.
“Nothing. And it seems we are not to know more.”
“You will know in time, as I have said. You hardly seemed so anxious for what was before you.”
“That does not mean we should have no idea what it is.”
“You will all be at your best with her?” said Ninian, in another tone. “I feel I keep having glimpses of another side.”
“Few people can give a shock, without meeting those,” said Selina.
“Well, I am not one of them. And there is a risk that it may be remembered.”
“Well, do not forget that other people have memories.”
“How did you meet her, Father?” said Lavinia. “We can hardly speak of her without asking questions. And there is no one else in your thoughts.”
“Not long ago. Not far from here. And quite by chance.”
“And you were meant for each other?” said Selina. “So it might have been arranged before. Your mother would have thought of it.”
“So it is chance that leads us to retrace our steps,” said Egbert. “We speak of it too lightly. Nothing seems to achieve so much.”
“You show me you have never taken the steps,” said Ninian. “You make me wish for someone who has done so. When you and your sister were with me, you did not think of me as having no one but you. You did your best; you could not have done better; I am grateful to you. How could you know that in such a case it is the elder who suffers, that whatever you gave to me, I gave more to you? I ask for no change in yourselves, only that you will be what you have been. It is the change in you that disturbs me.”
“There is other change, my son,” said Selina. “You cannot expect them not to see it.”
“Of course there is change. I feel it in myself. I am doing what I am, to make it. It is time it came. I shall no longer live as the father and guide of other people. I shall live as myself, with someone who can return what I give. You find the change unwelcome? It is not to me. Have you really thought it is? In other words what are you to me?”
“Your mother, my son. It is what I shall always be. And if your wife does this for you, I will be her mother too. And a wary, wise old mother, if that is best for you. It will be what is best for me.”
“Some things are best for us all,” said Ninian, going to the door. “There is no good in putting our faculties to a doubtful use. I think we all see it.”
“So Father has thrown away the past,” said Lavinia. “What will he get from the future? We never recover what we have lost. He will not and I shall not.”
“They say there is never loss without gain,” said Hugo. “I have wondered if it is true. Now I am to lose Ninian, I shall find out. And I think it is.”
CHAPTER III
“Well, here is my family,” said Ninian. “The family that will be yours. I will only present my mother. You will distinguish the rest by degrees. This is enough for the moment.”
“What are we to call her?” said Hengist, in a low tone.
“Stepmother,” said Leah, with her face grave.
“Oh, I hardly think that will do,” said Miss Starkie. “And she is not that as yet.”
“We shall have to be told something,” said Hengist. “Or we must just say her and she.”
“Well, I hope you will not do that. You have been taught better.”
“It need not be settled at the moment,” said Ninian. “It is hardly an urgent question.”
“I had not thought of it,” said his future wife. “And it does not matter.”
“We could say Mother if she would like it,” said Agnes, gently.
“Oh, she does not want to adopt the tribe,” said her father. “That is asking too much.”
“Agnes didn’t ask it,” said Hengist. “What she said was different.”
“Perhaps my Christian name would do. I can’t think of anything better.”
“It would be almost worse for children to say, than she and her,” said Leah.
“Well, I know what you mean,” said Miss Starkie. “And I can understand the feeling. But it is not for you to decide.”
“Luncheon is ready, ma’am,” said Ainger at the door.
“Why did he say it to Grandma and not to her?” said Hengist.
“Grandma is the mistress of the house,” said Ninian. “The change has not come yet. And say Mrs. Chilton for the time.”
“Mrs.?” said Leah, looking up. “Then has she a husband?”
“No, she is a widow. And you had better know she has no children. She may be congratulating herself on it.”
“Now you know everything,” said Miss Starkie. “So you need not ask anything more.”
“It is not wrong to ask questions,” said Leah.
“It can seem the most unsympathetic of failings,” said her father.
“Why doesn’t she sit at the end of the table, if she is going to be Father’s wife? Isn’t she equal to him?”
“She isn’t until she is married,” said Hengist. “Then she will be a little better, because she is a woman.”
“Now I don’t know what to say,” said Miss Starkie.
“Neither do they,” said the new-comer, half-smiling. “That is the trouble.”
“And one that must be surmounted, Mrs. Chilton.”
“So she has said it,” said Leah.
Teresa Chilton was an arresting-looking woman of hardly middle height, with a clear, pale skin, dark hair wound about a full-shaped head, features at once ill-drawn and delicate, and eyes of a brown that was almost gold. Her expression was aloof and absent, and she appeared to notice less than she did. Her voice was low and rapid, with little rise and fall.
“Is Lavinia like her mother?” she said to Ninian, as she looked round. “Several of them are so like you.”
“Yes, there is a great likeness, greater now she has grown up. Not that she has done so. She is two years younger than Egbert. She has done much for me, and I am grateful to her. But I am glad to lift the burden now. Agnes is the child we can’t account for.”