‘Out of the mouth of babes, ma’am!’ said Ainger.
‘I think it makes you exaggerate things,’ said Henry. ‘The good part of him and the bad part of yourself.’
‘Again there is truth in it, ma’am.’
‘We wish we had been different,’ said Fabian. ‘But if the person came back, we should be the same.’
Ainger smiled at his mistress in lieu of words.
‘And the person would be the same too,’ said Henry.
‘Poor boy!’ said Mr Clare, to himself.
‘Was Father really a boy to Grandpa?’ said Henry.
‘We are always children to our parents,’ said Flavia.
‘He was a child to me,’ said Mr Clare. ‘He saw me as he always had. For me it is a man’s and a woman’s grief.’
‘Would Father have minded losing you as much as you mind losing him?’ said Henry.
‘No, it would have been in the order of things. But I am wrong. He would have minded as much.’
‘That is the line of my own thought, sir,’ said Ainger.
‘I think the children should come upstairs now,’ said Bennet.
Toby turned and ran towards the door.
‘Good-bye, Ainger; good-bye, Father,’ he said, waving his hand.
‘Father is not there any more,’ said Bennet.
‘Not there any more. So Toby say good-bye.’
They all went together to the nursery, the elder boys yielding to the instinct to relapse into childhood. They found Miss Ridley awaiting them, and accepted her presence as her tribute to the occasion.
‘Well, shall I read to you all?’ she said, in a tone of subdued cheerfulness.
‘I would rather talk,’ said Fabian.
‘What is there to talk about?’ said Henry. ‘There is the one thing, and we have talked about that.’
‘Can Father see us now?’ said Megan.
‘Yes, all the time,’ said Bennet.
‘Can he hear us?’ said Henry. ‘And see into our hearts?’
‘It is better to do what he would wish,’ said Miss Ridley, ‘and to leave that kind of question.’
‘Why do we talk as if he was so much better than he was? Was he such a very good man?’
‘I think perhaps he was in his heart,’ said Guy.
‘You may be quite right, Guy,’ said Miss Ridley. ‘That is what I think.’
‘Goodness in the heart isn’t much use to people,’ said Henry. ‘It would be better almost anywhere else.’
There was some amusement that was immediately checked.
‘Is it wrong to laugh today?’ said Henry, on a ruthless note.
‘It is not very suitable,’ said Miss Ridley. ‘And we do not feel inclined to do so.’
‘Are we supposed never to be happy again?’
‘No, of course you are not,’ said Bennet. ‘Father would want you to be happy.’
‘He didn’t seem to want it. Sometimes he threw a gloom over us. Oughtn’t we to speak the truth about someone who is dead?’
‘We should speak the whole truth,’ said Fabian. ‘Not only the worse part of it.’
‘We are supposed to speak only good,’ said Guy.
‘Then there would be some people we could not speak about at all.’
‘If I could choose one thing,’ said Megan, in a tone that showed she had not heard, ‘it would be to have Father alive again.’
‘I am sure it would,’ said Bennet.
‘Why are you sure?’ said Henry. ‘He didn’t make much difference to her. Sometimes he made her cry.’
‘But only because he felt in that mood,’ said Megan. ‘Not because in his heart he wanted to.’
‘We had a father like that,’ said Henry, ‘and now we haven’t one at all. Oh, dear, oh, dear!’
‘Now I thought we had come to the end of that,’ said Eliza.
‘Some things can’t come to an end. Things happen that make them begin again.’
‘I think it is natural to say it today,’ said Bennet, accepting any sign of conventional feeling.
‘How nicely Toby is playing by himself!’ said Eliza, who had not lost hold of life in its ordinary aspects;
‘Shall we see Mater again before we go to bed?’ said Henry. ‘There doesn’t seem any reason.’
‘She will come up to say good night to you,’ said Miss Ridley.
‘She doesn’t always.’
‘I am sure she will tonight.’
‘Tell her Toby play by himself,’ said Toby, pulling at Eliza’s sleeve.
As Flavia crossed the hall on her way to the staircase, a figure moved from behind it.
‘I heard an hour ago. I have a word to say. I have come at once to say it. You must foresee it. You shall not have it before you. I came into your life and broke it. I can only withdraw. Cassius gave me what he could. I took all he had. I was too sunk in myself to know it. I am guilty in all eyes. I am guilty indeed in yours. I am most guilty in my own. I felt it when Cassius was ill the first time. Now I feel it enough to say it. I am leaving the place. I will not stay to harass you. I will not add to the remorse that is yours and mine. It will be mine to the end. But that is no help to you. I can help you by leaving you. I will give you that help.’
‘How about the boys?’ said Flavia, as though this were all that need be said, and protest or question were out of place.
‘I have no right to answer that question. I have forfeited the right. I took everything for myself. I will take what I am given.’
‘If you leave the place, they must choose between you and me. They must either go with you or make this house their home. There can be no middle course. It is for them to decide.’
‘I see that it is. I do not deserve that it should be. I do not deserve their free judgement and choice. I should have had a right to ask it, if I had asked no more. I will not think what I asked and took.’
‘I am going to them now. I will find out what they choose; this life or another, your home or mine. It is better for me to ask them. I am still the familiar figure and shall meet the natural response.’
‘I will not stand between you. I will not even stand aside. I will wait or return, as you bid me.’
‘You may wait,’ said Flavia, in an empty tone. ‘It is what I should do in your place.’
She went upstairs, a listless figure, while Catherine stood, vital and tense, below. The force that emanated from her seemed to be held in bonds to herself.
Flavia approached the children as though she hardly saw them, as though held by her thought. Bennet stood with grave eyes, stricken by the thought of further strain on them. Miss Ridley put a chair for Flavia in tribute to her bereavement. The latter sat down and beckoned to the elder boys.
‘My sons, I have to ask you one thing, and to ask you to tell me the truth. It is a turning-point in your lives. Your mother is leaving the place; I mean your own mother. Do you choose to go with her or to stay here with me? Take your time and think only of the truth.’
‘Stay here with you,’ said Guy at once, ‘where we have always been.’
‘Take your time, Fabian, and keep your mind on the truth. You are not responsible for it.’
‘It is a hard question,’ said her stepson, after a pause that told of obedience rather than need. ‘We must be drawn in two ways. You have been the mother of our childhood, and that seems to be the greatest thing. But our childhood will pass. And only a real mother can be a mother to men. The time will get nearer and nearer. We must think of the whole of our lives.’
‘You choose to go with your own mother?’
‘Yes, I choose that.’
Guy spoke through tears and threw his arms round his stepmother.
‘I don’t want to leave you. I don’t want to go away from you. I don’t want anyone as much as I want you. I shall never be glad I have left you. Not even when I have a real mother, not even when I am a man. But I must go with Fabian. To live without him would be the same as being dead.’