‘As you continue to do,’ said his father.
‘Well, I wonder how the situation will develop. I can’t help wondering how it will grow and spread, and make a difference in all our lives.’
‘To a certain extent,’ said his wife. ‘Probably to a great and growing extent. It is too soon to say.’
‘Yes, that is what I thought. You see how we really take the same view. We do that more often than you realize. Well, I am glad the occasion is upon us. The longer it is postponed, the oftener I shall live it in my mind. Catherine coming into this room! Well, I have seen that often enough. And I was glad enough not to see it any more at one time. I can tell you that I was.’
‘It is not our moment. It is hers and her sons’. I wish we could keep apart from it. As you know, I would have arranged to do so.’
‘Well, you came round to my view in the end. As I say, you often do. And we could not keep aloof beyond a point. We shall have to countenance the new condition of things. Well, I shan’t be able to help picturing the scene. You see, to me it is not the same as it is to you. To me it is the last of many.’
‘And to us all the first of many more,’ said Mr Clare.
Chapter 7
‘Is it permitted to be glad to see you again, ma’am?’
‘It is kind of you, Ainger. You are very little changed.’
‘It can seem as if an intervening chapter had not been written, ma’am.’
‘It may for the moment,’ said Catherine.
‘As you say, it is erroneous, ma’am.’
Ainger led the way to the drawing-room with a silent tread, and withdrew without making an announcement. It did not occur to him to treat the occasion as a normal one.
‘Well, Catherine, so here we all are before you,’ said Cassius, coming forward. ‘You can form your own judgement of everything. It is all open to your eyes. There has been no preparation for your coming. There is nothing to hide.’
His words died away as he ended. It seemed they would have been better not said. The scene did not need his direction; it would take its own course.
Catherine advanced with her quick, short steps, greeted her hosts without glancing at her sons, and turned and embraced them, with her eyes going openly over their faces. When she gave them her second glance, she was careful to give an equal moment to each. She sat down with their hands in hers, but released them as though fearing to be burdensome. Mr Clare and Flavia kept their eyes from the scene. Cassius stood with his on the ground, but now and then raised them and surveyed it. Not a word was said; it seemed that no one could speak. A chance movement made a sound and brought relief.
Ainger announced luncheon in a low tone that suggested it was an unsuitable necessity of the occasion. The move to the dining-room seemed at once a liberation and an exposure. Cassius gave some directions in his usual tones, and Guy looked up as if startled by them. Catherine sat between her sons, and remained calm and aloof, as if she were already satisfied. When they were questioned about their meal, she hardly looked at them, leaving the matter to their stepmother.
‘Well, this is the first time the boys have joined us at luncheon,’ said Cassius.
‘It is time they did so,’ said his father. ‘It ought to have entered our minds.’
‘What does their own mother think?’ said Cassius, in a tone of taking a step that would have to be taken.
‘I have not the experience that would enable me to judge,’ said Catherine.
‘Flavia is a sound arbiter of such things.’
Catherine’s silence somehow gave full consent.
‘Now do you find them much altered after all these years?’
‘As much as I thought to find them. I should have recognized Fabian. Guy was only two when I left.’
‘Well, they have not wanted a mother,’ said Cassius, more loudly. ‘Have you ever wanted a mother, boys? Can you honestly say you have felt any lack in your lives?’
‘We have always wanted one in a way,’ said Fabian, rising in his turn to an effort that was before him. ‘We always knew we hadn’t one. Mater always let us know. But she has been the same to all of us.’
‘She has indeed. That is a thing that does not need saying, and that you are right to say.’
‘I used to wonder, when I first knew about things, if she would get tired of it. But she never did.’
‘Now there is a tribute, Flavia. What woman could ask more than that?’
Flavia heard her husband with her eyes down.
‘But that kind of stepmother makes you wonder about a real mother,’ said Fabian.
Catherine also looked down and silence followed.
‘Well, Catherine, how about your brother and sister?’ said Cassius. ‘Do you find much change in them?’
‘No, very little. They are nine years older and nothing more.’
‘Yes, that is what I thought. Nine years older and nothing more,’ said Cassius, somehow giving the words another meaning.
A faint sound of amusement came from Fabian, and Catherine smiled at him and looked away.
‘I declare he is like you, Catherine,’ said Cassius. ‘I caught it at that moment when you both smiled. There was a definite flash of resemblance.’
‘You used to say we were alike. I could even see it myself. And I think I see it now.’
‘And Guy? Do you see any likeness in him?’
‘No. Neither to you nor to me.’
Flavia looked up at the coupling of the words.
‘I suppose some ancestor accounts for him,’ said Cassius. ‘There is a portrait in the hall that is like both him and Tobias, our youngest boy.’
‘I see likenesses in all of them to their parents and each other,’ said Flavia.
‘Yes, my wife is a great person for giving equal attention to all. What is done for one, is done for the rest. You can be sure of that.’
‘I am sure of it,’ said Catherine.
‘Now what about the question of Fabian’s going to school? We feel he is getting too old for this life at home. So he is only to have another year of it.’
‘I did not know there had been any question.’
‘It does not sound as if there had,’ said Flavia.
‘A year is a long time,’ said Guy.
Catherine looked up, arrested by something in the tone.
‘Could they not go together?’
‘I fear they could not,’ said Flavia. “There are two years between them.’
‘Would not anything be better than a parting?’
‘Nothing would be worse than a breach of convention,’ said Cassius. ‘You don’t know a boy’s world.’
‘No, I do not,’ said Catherine.
Guy looked from his mother to his stepmother, and in a moment looked again.
‘Well, Guy, are you weighing the difference between them?’ said Cassius, in a tone that somehow addressed the company. ‘You are a fortunate boy to have two mothers. So far from having less than other boys, you have twice as much.’
A faint laugh from Catherine seemed to carry a load of memories.
‘Well, that was the line of the boy’s thought. And I declare he sets us an example. He is behaving in a natural manner, and I don’t blame him. We cannot go on in this stilted fashion, behaving as if we had something to be ashamed of. It gives a false impression of our family life, and of the atmosphere in which the boys have been brought up. Now, Fabian, can you honestly say that this is our usual situation?’
‘No, but the thing that is happening is not usual.’
‘And you think it justifies the change?’
‘Well, I think it makes it natural.’
‘And what do you think, Guy?’