A Family and a Fortune (10 page)

‘Does Jellamy manage by himself in this room now?' said Matty to her sister. ‘It seems rather much for one person.'

‘Yes, he has to, dear. It makes us slower, of course, but it cannot be helped. We have to be very economical.'

Matty glanced about the room with a faintly derisive smile.

‘No, indeed, Aunt Matty,' said Justine, answering the look, ‘you are quite wrong. Mother is speaking the simple truth. Strict economy is necessary. There is no pose about it.'

Matty lifted her brows in light enquiry.

‘Now, Aunt Matty, you made the comment in all good faith, as clearly as you could have made it in words, intending it to be so taken. And that being the case, it must be so answered. And my answer is that economy is essential, and that Jellamy works single-handed for that reason.'

‘Is it, dear? Such a lot of answer for such a little question.'

‘It was not the question. It was the comment upon the reply.'

‘No one is to make a comment but you, dear?'

‘Justine does make them,' murmured Aubrey.

‘Now, little boy, how much did you follow of it?'

‘Upon my word, I do not follow any of it,' said Oliver.

Sarah leaned back almost in exhaustion, having followed it all. Her husband had kept his eyes down in order not to do so.

‘Well, we mustn't get too subtle,' said Justine. ‘They say that that is a woman's fault, so I must beware.'

Aubrey gave a crow of laughter, checked it, and suffered a choke which exceeded the bounds of convention.

‘Aubrey darling!' said Blanche, as if to a little child.

‘Now, little boy, now, little boy,' said Aubrey, looking at his sister with inflamed cheeks and starting eyes.

‘Now, little boy, indeed,' she said in a grave tone. ‘Poor child!' said Sarah.

‘What shall I do when there is no one to call me little boy?' said Aubrey, looking round to meet the general eye, but discovering that it was not on him, and returning to his dinner.

‘Aubrey has a look of Father, Blanche,' said Matty.

‘I believe you are right, Aunt Matty,' said Justine, with more than the usual expression. ‘I often see different likenesses going across his face. It has a more elusive quality than any of our faces.'

‘I mean something quite definite, dear. It was unmistakable for the moment.'

‘Yes, for the moment. But the moment after there is nothing there. It is a face which one has to watch for its fleeting moods and expressions. Would not you say so, Father?'

Edgar raised his eyes.

‘Father has to watch,' said Aubrey, awaiting the proceeding with a grin.

‘What a gallant smile!' said Clement, unaware that this was the truth.

‘There, Uncle's smile!' said Justine.

The quality of the grin changed.

‘And now Grandpa's! Don't you see it, Aunt Matty?'

‘I spoke of it, dear. Yes.'

‘And don't you, Father? You have to look for a moment.'

Edgar again fixed his eyes on his son.

‘There, it has gone! The moment has passed. I knew it would.'

Aubrey had not shared the knowledge, the moment having seemed to him interminable.

‘Father need not watch any longer,' he said, and would have grinned, if he had dared to grin.

‘The process does not seem to be attended by adequate reward,' said Mark.

Clement raised his eyes and drew a breath and dropped his eyes again.

‘Clement need not watch any longer either,' said Aubrey.

‘Now, little boy, you pass out of the common eye.'

Oliver turned his eyes on his grandson.

‘The lad is getting older,' he said.

‘Now that is indubitably true, Grandpa,' said Justine. ‘It might be said of all of us. And it is true of him in another sense; he has developed a lot lately. But do take your eyes off him and let him forget himself. This is all so bad for him.'

‘He could not help it, dear,' said Blanche, expressing the thought of her son.

‘Now are our little affairs of any interest to you?' said Matty, who had been waiting to interpose and at once arrested Sarah's eyes. ‘If they are, we have our own little piece of news. We are to have a guest, who is to spend quite a while with us. I am looking forward to it, as I have a good deal of time to myself in my new life. There are many people whom I miss from the old one, though I have others to do their part indeed. And this is one of the first, and one whose place it would be difficult to fill.'

‘We have found a corner for her,' said Oliver, ‘though you might not think it.'

‘She will have the spare room, of course, Father,' said Blanche. ‘It is quite a good little room.'

‘Yes, Mother, of course it is,' said Justine, in a low, suddenly exasperated tone. ‘But it is to be like that. The house is to be a hut and the room a corner, and there is an end of it. Let us leave it as they prefer it. People can't do more than have what they would choose.'

Matty looked at the two heads inclined to each other, but did not strain her ears to catch the words. Sarah did so and controlled a smile as she caught them.

‘Well, are you going to let me share this advantage with you?' went on Matty. ‘It is to be a great pleasure in my life, and I hope it will count in yours. There is no great change of companionship round about.'

‘Well, no, I suppose there is not,' said Justine. ‘We are in the country after all.'

‘So I am not a host in myself,' said Dudley.

‘It is known to be better for the country to be like itself,' said Sarah, who found this to be the case, as it was the reason of her acquaintanceship with the Gavestons.

Thomas looked up with a faintly troubled face.

‘This is a very charming person, who has been a great deal with me,' continued Matty, as if these interpositions did not signify. ‘Her parents have lately died and left her at a loose end; and if I can help her to gather up the threads of her life, I feel it is for me to do it. It may be a thing I am equal to, in spite of my - what shall I call them? -disadvantages.'

‘I always tell you that your disadvantages do not count, Aunt Matty,' said Justine.

‘I feel that they do, dear. They must to me, you see. But I try not to let them affect other people, and I am glad of any assurance that they do not.'

‘Do you mean Maria Sloane?' said Blanche. ‘I remember her when we had just grown up and she was a child. She grew up very pretty, and we saw her sometimes when we stayed with you and Father.'

‘She grew up very pretty; she has remained very pretty; and she will always be pretty to me, though she is so to everyone as yet, and I think will be so until she is something more.'

‘It is odd to see Aunt Matty giving her wholehearted admiration to anyone,' said Justine to Mark. ‘It shows that we have not a complete picture of her.'

‘It also suggests that she has one of us.'

‘It is pleasant to see it in a way.'

‘We may feel it to be salutary.'

‘She has only seen one or two of my many sides,' said Dudley.

‘Miss Sloane has not married, has she?' said Blanche.

‘No, she is still my lovely Maria Sloane. I don't think I could think of her as anything else. A rose by any other name would smell as sweet, but it seems that marriage might be a sort of desecration of Maria, a sort of plucking of the rose.' Matty ended on an easy note and did not look into anyone's face.

Sarah regarded her with several expressions, and Blanche with an easy and almost acquiescent one.

‘Mrs Middleton has been plucked,' murmured Aubrey. ‘Mr Middleton has plucked her.'

Thomas gave a kindly smile which seemed to try to reach the point of amusement.

‘Is she well provided for, Aunt Matty?' said Justine in a clear tone.

Sarah nodded towards Justine at the pertinence of the question.

‘I think so, dear; I have not heard anything else. Money seems somehow not to touch her. She seems to live apart from it like a flower, having all she needs and wanting nothing more.'

‘Flowers are plucked,' said Aubrey.

‘They look better when they are not, dear.'

‘Money must touch her if she has all she needs,' said Clement. ‘There must be continual contact.'

‘Well, I suppose she has some, dear, but I think it is not much, and that she does not want any more. When you see her you will know what I mean.'

‘We have all met people of that kind, and very charming they are,' said Justine.

‘No, not anyone quite like this. I shall be able to show you something outside your experience.'

‘Come, Aunt Matty, think of Uncle Dudley.'

‘I could not say it of myself,' said her uncle.

‘Yes, I see that you follow me, dear. But there is no one else who is quite as my Maria. Still you will meet her soon, and I shall be glad to do for you something you have not had done. I take a great deal from you, and I must not only take.'

‘Is she so different from other people?' said Blanche, with simple question. ‘I do not remember her very well, but I don't quite know what you mean.'

‘No, dear? Well, we shall see, when you meet, if you do know. We can't all recognize everything.'

‘Would it be better if Mother and Aunt Matty did not address each other in terms of affection?' said Mark. ‘Is it
supposed to excuse everything else? It seems that something is.'

‘Well, perhaps in a way it does,' said Justine, with a sigh. ‘Affection should be able to stand a little buffeting, or there would be nothing in it.'

‘There might be more if it did not occasion such a thing,' said Clement.

‘Oh, come, Clement, people can't pick their way with their intimates as if they were strangers.'

‘It is only with the latter that they attempt it.'

‘Father and Uncle behave like friends,' said Aubrey, ‘Mother and Aunt Matty like sisters, Clement and I like brothers. I am not sure how Mark and Clement behave, I think like strangers.'

‘No, I can't quite subscribe to it,' said Justine. ‘It is putting too much stress on little, chance, wordy encounters. Our mild disagreement now does not alter our feeling for each other.'

‘It may rather indicate it,' said Clement.

‘We should find the differences interesting and stimulating.'

‘They often seem to be stimulating,' said Mark. ‘But I doubt if people take much interest in them. They always seem to want to exterminate them.'

‘I suppose I spend my life on the surface,' said Dudley. ‘But it does seem to avoid a good deal.'

‘Now that is not true, Uncle,' said Justine. ‘You and Father get away together and give each other of the best and deepest in you. Well we know it and so do you. Oh, we know what goes on when you are shut in the library together. So don't make any mistake about it, because we do not.'

Edgar's eyes rested on his daughter as if uncertain of their own expression.

‘Do you live on the surface, Aunt Matty?' said Aubrey.

‘No, dear. I? No, I am a person who lives rather in the deeps, I am afraid. Though I don't know why I should say “afraid”, except that the deeps are rather formidable places sometimes. But I have a surface self to show to my niece
and nephews, so that I need not take them down too far with me. I have a deal to tell them of the time when I was as young as they, and things were different and yet the same, in that strange way things have. Yes, there are stories waiting for you of Aunt Matty in her heyday, when the world was young, or seemed to keep itself young for her, as things did somehow adapt themselves to her in those days. Now there is quite a lot for Aunt Matty to talk about herself. But you asked her, didn't you?' Matty looked about in a bright, conscious way and tapped her knee.

‘It was a lot, child, as you say,' said Oliver.

‘Aubrey knew not what he did,' said Clement.

‘He knew what he meant to do,' said Mark. ‘Happily Aunt Matty did not.'

‘We both used to be such rebels, your aunt and I,' said Blanche, looking round on her children. ‘We didn't find the world large enough or the time long enough for all our pranks and experiments, I must tell you all about it some time. Hearing about it brings it all back to me.'

‘Being together makes Mother and Aunt Matty more alike,' said Mark.

‘Suppose Mother should become a second Aunt Matty!' said Aubrey.

‘Or Aunt Matty become a second little Mother,' said Justine. ‘Let us look on the bright side - on that side of things. Grandpa, what did you think of the two of them in those days?'

‘I, my dear? Well, they were young then, as you are now. There was nothing to think of it and I thought nothing.'

‘We were such a complement to each other,' continued Blanche. ‘People used to say that what the one did not think of, the other did, and
vice versa.
I remember what Miss Griffin thought of us when she came. She said she had never met such a pair.'

‘Miss Griffin!' said Justine. ‘I meant to ask her to come in tonight and forgot. Never mind, the matter can be mended. I will send a message.'

‘Is it worth while, dear? It is getting late and she will not
be ready. There is not much left for her to come for. We will ask her to dinner one night and give her proper notice.'

‘We will do that indeed, Mother, but there is still the evening. And she is just sitting at home alone, isn't she, Aunt Matty?'

‘Why, yes, dear, she is,' said Matty with a laugh. ‘When two out of three people are out, there must be one left. But I think she enjoys an evening to herself.'

‘I see it myself as a change for the better,' said Oliver.

‘Now I rather doubt that,' said Justine, ‘It is so easy, when people are unselfish and adaptable, to assume that they are enjoying things which really offer very little. Now what is there, after all, in sitting alone in that little room?'