‘Well, life presents many problems, and death none. But it has not been your way to be overset by them.’
‘You do not know how I have met them.’
‘I know as much about you as you do yourself, my boy.’
‘It is as true of you as it can be of anyone. But we go by ourselves through life. If anyone has saved me from it, it is you.’
‘There will be other people in the next world, if your theories are true,’ said Flavia.
‘They will have cast off their mortal guise, and with them their mortal qualities.’
‘I should not relinquish my resolve to pursue the truth about this.’
‘I suppose you cannot imagine hopelessness?’
‘I think I can, though I have not experienced it. But have you done either, Cassius?’
‘So you know me no better than that, after nine years?’
‘After that time I know you as well as that.’
‘After fifty-two years I do the same,’ said Mr Clare.
‘We are unfamiliar with this new guise,’ said Flavia.
‘Perhaps the other was a guise,’ said Cassius. ‘Perhaps you are seeing my real self for the first time.’
‘No, no,’ said his father, ‘the other would have become real by now. And what reason had you to hide yourself? You saw none.’
‘Well, this is leading us nowhere.’
‘That is the fault we find with it,’ said Flavia. ‘But it will lead us somewhere in the end.’
‘I cannot help you any more.’
‘It may be true, my boy,’ said Mr Clare. ‘You are not able to bring yourself to it. And you would have a right to keep your own counsel, if your actions affected no one else.’
‘There is no mystery,’ said Cassius.
‘That is the word,’ said his father.
‘Well, have it as you will. There is some dark secret.’
‘Those words will do as well.’
‘The secret may not be so dark,’ said Flavia. ‘Things become so when kept in darkness.’
Cassius compared his watch with the clock on the chimney-piece and glanced at the door. Sounds were heard outside.
‘Did you arrange for the children to come?’ said his wife.
‘Yes,’ said Cassius, looking again at the watch, as if to check their exactitude.
‘So that your interview with us should not be too long?’
‘I knew how much I could stand,’ said Cassius, simply. ‘Well, so you have all come to see your father. You know he has been ill?’
‘No, Toby has,’ said the latter.
‘He was upset this morning,’ said Megan.
‘Poor little boy!’ said Toby, looking at his father.
‘Yes, poor little Toby! But Father has been worse than that.’
‘No, Father better now.’
‘Toby can run about,’ said Cassius, ‘and Father has to lie on the sofa.’
Toby laid his head down on this support, and watched his father out of the corner of his eye for a model of invalid deportment.
‘Quite well now,’ he said, looking up. ‘Father and Toby.’
‘No, Father will not be well yet.’
Toby resignedly replaced his head.
‘What is the name of your illness?’ said Henry to Cassius.
‘It is something you would not understand.’
‘But it must have a name. The doctor must have called it something.’
‘I think it would now be called general weakness and depression.’
‘But what was it at first?’
‘Why do you want to know? The name does not make much difference.’
‘I want to tell people about it, when they say it was not an illness.’
‘What do they say it was?’
‘That does not matter, if I can tell them the name. The weakness was just the ending of it.’
‘The after effects,’ said Megan.
‘Poor Father very sad,’ said Toby, without raising his head. ‘Very sad and want to die. But wake up again.’
‘Do people say that?’ said Cassius.
‘We heard them saying things,’ said Megan. ‘They didn’t mean us to hear. And we didn’t know they would say them.’
‘But you knew no better than to listen?’
‘We were not listening,’ said Henry. ‘Megan told you that we heard. But I daresay we might have listened. There isn’t anyone who wouldn’t have, when it was a thing like that.’
‘Why were you as sad as that?’ said Megan.
‘I can hardly tell you the reasons. I hope you will never be so sad.’
‘Everyone is sad sometimes,’ said Henry. ‘But they don’t do what you did. Will you be put in prison?’
‘No, of course I shall not.’
‘I thought that to kill yourself was against the law.’
‘There is no need to use such words. This was not much more than a mistake.’
‘Do you mean you did it by accident?’
‘Well, I hardly knew what I was doing.’
‘Then perhaps it would not count. Perhaps you were delirious. People didn’t know it was like that. They thought you meant to doit.’
‘If I had done a good action, no one would have heard of it,’ said Cassius, looking round.
‘They would certainly have had less opportunity,’ said Mr Clare. ‘It would have made less talk.’
‘Have you ever done one?’ said Henry. ‘You know I don’t mean you haven’t. I just wanted to know.’
‘I suppose so from time to time. Have you?’
‘Well, I don’t think so. I can’t think of one.’
‘Well, I declare, neither can I,’ said Cassius, half-laughing. ‘I declare that I can’t. But I suppose I can hardly have gone through life without doing something for somebody.’
‘People generally count supporting their children,’ said Megan.
‘Well, I do not. That does not put me apart from other men.’
‘And your good action must do that?’ said Mr Clare. ‘You would kill two birds with one stone.’
The elder boys had entered the room, and Fabian came up to his father.
‘We have been fortunate, Father,’ he said, holding out his hand. ‘I am so thankful, and so is everyone. We could not have spared you.’
Cassius took the hand and sent his eyes over his son’s face. Guy came and stood by his brother.
‘You said you had never done a good action,’ he said, in a hurried, even tone. ‘But you let Mother come and see us, and changed things for us all. And you let her go on coming. It does put you apart from other men.’
‘Did your mother tell you to say these things?’
‘She did not tell us what to say,’ said Fabian.
‘Then I congratulate you in my turn. You have done well. You may tell your mother that from me.’
There was a long silence.
‘You did not tell your son to make a speech?’ said Cassius to Flavia.
‘No, I leave him to depend on himself.’
‘What he said was certainly different.’
‘Which kind of approach do you prefer?’
‘You made a beautiful speech, my boy,’ said Cassius, suddenly to Guy. ‘You brought comfort to your father when he needed it. You have made him proud of you, and so has your brother. I am a happier man, and I had need of happiness.’
Toby ran up and stood ready to share in the compliments.
‘And Toby is a comfort to Father by being himself.’
‘And Henry and Megan,’ said Toby, with an embracing gesture. ‘And Bennet and Eliza and Mother.’
‘What would have happened to us, if you had died?’ said Henry. ‘This house would have belonged to Fabian; so we should still have had a home. But would other things have been different?’
‘And Ainger and William,’ added Toby.
‘Would you not have found that losing me made a difference?’ said Cassius, looking at his son. ‘Yes, but I knew about that.’
‘So that is how you talked, when you thought I might be going to die.’