‘But you have known her for such a little while.’
‘Very little while,’ said Toby with appreciation.
‘Upon my word, Catherine, you have chosen the better part. The less you do, the more you get, it seems to me.’
‘It does not seem so to me, who have been able to do so little.’
‘Megan didn’t say she didn’t love you,’ said Henry to his father. ‘It was you who said it. There is no need to make things different.’
‘I think we know how they are,’ said Cassius, putting his arm lightly about his son, as if he had learned better than to go further. ‘But thank you, my boy. Father knows what you mean.’
‘Shall we go to the drawing-room?’ said Flavia, rising from the table. ‘The children do not come with us, but the boys may like to today.’
‘Well, how do you feel, boys?’ said Cassius, with a faint sigh in his tone.
‘I should like to come,’ said Fabian.
‘And that means that Guy would too. I know you, speak with one voice, or that he speaks with yours.’
‘I will go now,’ said Catherine, standing straight and still. ‘It is enough for one day. I find it is enough. I go with a mind at peace. I go in gratitude. I shall be grateful for anything more that I am given.’
She kissed her sons and went to the door, followed by Cassius. Flavia held out her hand to Guy, and he came and put his into it. Fabian came and stood in front of them.
‘I am not ungrateful, Mater. You may think I am. I shall never be,’ he said, speaking in short, quick sentences like his mother. ‘I have wanted this thing in my life. The thing the younger children had. I am glad to have it. But I know what you have given me. And I know you sometimes found it hard. I wanted the person who found it natural. But you will come third in my life. You will come after my mother and Guy. It is not much return for what you have done. But I shall not come so high in yours.’
Flavia put her arm about him, and Cassius returned to the room, having been succeeded by Ainger in the hall. His eyes dilated coldly on what met them.
‘Now, boys, you may run away,’ he said, his voice not disguising that he had had his fill of emotion. ‘You have stood up to the occasion. You have borne yourselves well and made your father proud of you. And now you may be your natural selves again. It is what he wishes for you.’
The boys withdrew and Cassius threw himself into a chair.
‘Well, I declare I feel that virtue has gone out of me. It was an exacting occasion, but I think I rose to it. I think I steered everyone through. Arid that was my part. What would both of you say?’
‘It is difficult to talk about some of it,’ said Flavia.
‘Yes, Fabian behaved like a man. I declare I was proud of him, and I should think Catherine was too. And I hope you were, Flavia. He did you credit, my dear. No mother could have done better for him. His own mother must have felt it. And I think she did, and meant to show it. I know her in those ways, and she gives people their due. Well, so you think it passed off well?’
‘In the sense that we did our best in it. We could not do more, and so I suppose it could not have been better. Fabian has thought about things more than we knew. I ought to have realized it.’
‘No, you ought not. You ought not to have done any more than you have. You have done everything, my dear. You have done too much. And you will not get much return for it, as far as I can see. It is a good thing you have children of your own. If you had not, you would be in a sorry place enough. But as it is, you will get your reward in your own way.’
‘I would choose the ordinary way. Just as the boys, would have chosen the ordinary things.’
‘Guy would have chosen what he has had. He has made that clear, and it is fair to him to accept it. And Catherine accepted it openly; I thought she came out well there, Flavia. It was never her way to fail under a test.’
‘She behaved like an honest woman. We have always known she was that.’
‘She was; God knows she was,’ said Cassius, in another tone. ‘I have reason to remember her honesty. I remember the level we lived on. There was no getting away with little, everyday pretensions with her. One was always stripped of everything but the stark, staring truth. And there is an inner core in everyone that hardly bears that.’
‘It is true that cores are naturally hidden.’
‘I am glad you agree with me. I am glad you are honest enough.’
‘It seems that honesty is a common quality,’ said Mr Clare.
‘Honesty of a kind,’ said his son, grimly; ‘honesty directed towards other people. It is not often that we turn it upon ourselves.’
‘I should have thought that Catherine was more likely to do so than most of us,’ said Flavia.
‘Well, perhaps she is. But she wants everyone to be subject to the same scrutiny. And people have a right to a choice in the matter, as in any other. Well, well, I suppose we are all acting. Not that I think I act overmuch. I think I am a natural sort of man. I don’t often turn my eyes on myself.’
‘Mrs Clare!’ said Ainger, throwing open the door.
Catherine came forward, stood still and began to speak.
‘I have returned. It is against my will. I could not do anything else. I have lost control of myself. I have been given much. I have come to ask for more. To ask to see my sons daily, hourly, when I wish, when they wish. I have come to ask for everything.’
‘Ah, you know the quarter to go to for that sort of thing, Catherine,’ said Cassius, as Catherine turned to his wife. ‘It has not taken you long to find that out.’
There was a pause, and then Flavia spoke in a new tone, that still seemed to belong to herself.
‘I cannot give you everything. You must know that no one should ask that. It leaves the other side with nothing, and that cannot be accepted. The boys must see this house as their home; they must see me as its head. Anyone who comes to it, comes as my guest.’
‘I will come as your guest,’ said Catherine.
‘You would come as your children’s mother.’
‘What else am I to them?’
‘Many things. Among them a stranger.’
‘And what are you to them?’
‘Many things. Among them a mother.’
‘You could remain a mother to them.’
‘You know I could not, and that you would not remain a stranger.’
‘You did not desire me to remain so.’
‘I did and do desire it, to the point where you have given your word.’
‘I am breaking it. I do not deny it. I have not strength to keep it.’
‘You cannot take that cover. You had strength to give it. You must have counted the cost.’
‘Come, come, let the matter settle itself,’ said Cassius, flushing and coming forward as if to separate two combatants. Leave it to the future.’
‘I will not,’ said his wife. ‘It would mean that I had no future. My home is to be my own, and the children mine. Other people’s word may not count, but mine stands as what it is. The boys may see their mother, know her, feel her influence. That is much to ask of me. I was told it would never be asked. Words, as I say, have no meaning. So I must protect myself. The more I give, the more must be given. Things must stop somewhere. I must cease from giving.’
‘Few people can stand power,’ said Catherine.
‘What of yourself when you had it?’
‘I had none. I sought your mercy.’
‘What is that but using power? There is no strength like piti-fulness. And I have no more mercy. I have given what was in me.’
‘I do not think you know yourself.’
‘You mean you thought you knew me, and find your mistake. You did not judge me truly. I do not ask nothing for myself. You who ask everything, should understand that.’
‘I ask it again,’ said Catherine.
‘And again I refuse it. I give you no hope.’