“You are finding it so? You need not be alarmed. They are no worse than they seem.”
“I am not alarmed,” said Teresa, as if she might be other things.
“Would you like to have some children?” said Leah, looking at her. “I mean some of your own?”
“She could hardly want any more of mine,” said Ninian.
“We can’t help being here,” said Hengist.
“Now who suggested that you could speak?” said Miss Starkie. “You should think before you speak.”
“I don’t feel I am here,” said Hugo. “And I hope nobody knows I am.”
“I should not be,” said Egbert, “if it were not for Lavinia. I get my reality from her, and always shall.”
“There, Lavinia!” said Miss Starkie. “There is a foundation for your future.”
“And what is that?” said Ninian.
“Her brother’s dependence on her, Mr. Middleton. It is a rare and real thing,” said Miss Starkie, looking aside as she relinquished restraint.
“They must release each other in time for their lives to grow.”
“Releasing is a very wicked thing,” murmured Egbert.
“What did you say?” said Ninian.
“I said it to Lavinia, Father.”
“Now will you say it to me?”
“I said that releasing was — might be a wicked thing.”
“Oh!” said Ninian, in light dismissal of this. “The same old puzzle for you! That I do not belong to anyone, body and soul.”
“Does he not?” said Lavinia to her brother.
Ninian looked sharply at her, but checked his words.
“How much will you belong to me?” said Teresa. “With all this force drawing you away.”
“As much as it is right to belong to anyone. As much as I shall ask you to belong to me. But as much as that for our lives.”
“There is the difference,” said Lavinia. “It cannot come to an end. No, I shall not repeat it, Father. We must be allowed to speak to each other. We have not been struck dumb.”
“I think people should talk to me,” said Hugo. “It is their duty to include me in the occasion. Suppose I felt I was an alien after all!”
“I will talk to you,” said Teresa. “And ask you about this family, and all that is hidden in it. I feel I have never met one before.”
“You have not met this one. A family is itself. And of course things are hidden in it. They could hardly be exposed. You will be wise not to know about them. Think of Miss Starkie, spending her life trying to keep them hidden.”
“I should not aim at her level. But I need some help on my own.”
“No, you would try to use it. You must live your life with Ninian, and forget everything besides. It is the best chance for you and him.”
“But not a very good one. He will not forget everything but me. There will be too many reminders. I should like to have a life that was what it seemed. But I see no hope of it.”
“It is a pity you did not know Ninian’s family, as you came to know him.”
“Yes. He simply said he was a widower with a mother and five children.”
“Simply!” said Hugo. “And you thought you could have a life that was what it seemed! Not that what it seems is not enough. Cannot you be content with it?”
“Content to live on the surface, with all this simmering underneath?”
“Why not be thankful that that is where it is?”
“I should think your life is very much what it seems.”
“I am afraid it is. I am so ashamed that I show it. I should not dare to share it with anyone, in case she assumed that things were hidden in it, and asked me what they were.”
“It would be good to hear there was none.”
“But a shared life might bring them. And I should not know how to deal with them. I have only looked on.”
“What are you doing now?” said Ninian. “Do you feel it is your duty to converse with the guest, in accordance with some social code? It is not a formal occasion.”
“We are talking deeply. And deep things never come to an end. And almost everything seems to be deep.”
“You must not tire Teresa. She is not used to a large family.”
“That is what I felt. I thought I should be a rest for her.”
“It hardly sounds as if you were.”
“He gave me calming advice,” said Teresa. “I am to live on the surface and forget what is beneath. Your past with your wife and daughter would be thrust down and forgotten.”
“My daughter! Is that never to be laid to rest? Things could not have gone on much longer. Her life must develop apart from mine.”
“She may feel it is happening in the opposite way.”
“So it is. But it will happen with her in the end. It is her time to be free. It is strange that people do not see it. And it is stranger that you should belong to them. It is something I did not look for.”
“It is for yourself that you are making the change, my son,” said Selina, in a low tone. “If it were not, you would not be wise to make it. As it is, you are.”
“How few people would realise that!” said Hugo. “It is pleasant to hear it stated.”
“Then in what way am I a culprit? That is how you all see me.”
“In your way of doing it, Father,” said Egbert, also speaking low. “You could have chosen a better one.”
“Then I should not have done it,” said Ninian, drily. “I see I took the only one.”
“I wish I was not the cause of all this,” said Teresa.
“It had to come,” said Ninian. “We see it was the time. I will not have it come again.”
“You can feel you are a martyr, Mrs. Chilton,” said Hugo. “So you should be experiencing ecstasy.”
“A martyr also has honour. I have neither the one thing nor the other. But I almost feel it is what I am. And it seems that the same might be said of someone else.”
“Then do not say it,” said Ninian. “That is a reason why you should not. Do you think it is the way to serve her? You are surely too wise.”
“It may serve her in the end.”
“Why do you say so?”
“It was what came into my mind. Well, she has her brother. Perhaps the others need more pity.”
“No, they give it,” said Hugo. “And it does no harm, when it has enough contempt in it. And their pity has.”
“Oh, I have not a brood of little martyrs,” said Ninian to Teresa. “I don’t know why you think so.”
“It might be a definition of a young family. Childhood can be a troubled time.”
“The fashion has changed. It used to be the happiest of our lives. Perhaps the truth lies in between.”
“It may lie anywhere. And where it is, it often stays.”
“Does wisdom lie here?” said Selina, smiling at Ninian. “The problems of your household may be safe in these hands.”
“They will not be in them. They are nothing to do with her. She is to be my wife, not the mother of children who are not hers, and the rectifier of mistakes she has not made. That would be a wrong demand. And it seems I have done enough wrong. It is each other we want, not what we can claim from each other. That must be clear.”
“Well, it is, my son,” said Selina.
“Do all men have two wives?” said Leah’s voice. “I mean before they die.”
“No, of course not,” said Miss Starkie. “But when they lose the first wife, they sometimes have a second.”
“But they would always like the first one best?”
“No, it would depend on many things.”
“The first would be the real choice,” said Hengist.
“I would never be a second,” said Leah. “I wonder she agreed to it.”
“I wonder she did,” said Ninian. “I am grateful to her. And so should you be, if you think of my happiness.”
“We haven’t ever thought of it,” said Hengist. “We didn’t know you weren’t happy. And we didn’t know she was coming.”