A Family and a Fortune (19 page)

‘You did not tell them all at once?'

‘No, I waited to get confirmation. It was not needed, but I felt that I wanted to have it.'

Sarah bowed her head in full understanding.

‘And my father and sister came in to learn all about it,' said Blanche, ‘and have just gone. I found the news such a tonic yesterday. I thought I was too tired to sleep, and I had the best night I have had for months.'

‘That is right, both of you. Tell Mrs Middleton succinctly all she wants to know,' said Justine.

‘We are indeed glad to know that,' said Thomas, putting a sincere note into his tone.

‘How had they heard?' said Sarah, her eyes just crossing Justine's face. ‘They came quite early, didn't they?'

‘They came soon after breakfast,' said Justine with indulgent fluency. ‘They had heard from one of the tradesmen, who had heard from Jellamy. We had discussed it at breakfast in the latter's hearing.' She gave a little laugh.

‘And already it seems quite familiar knowledge. How did you hear?'

‘My dear, it is all about everywhere,' said Sarah, now able to follow a lead into the drawing room. And what a sum! ‘A quarter of a million!'

‘A twentieth of a million,' said Dudley. ‘No more to do with a million than with any other amount. I do not know why people mention a million. Everything is a fraction of one.'

‘And this is really a twentieth?' said Sarah, pausing with a world of knowledge in her tone. ‘Well, I don't know whether to congratulate you or the rest of them. I expect they have already made their wishes known.'

Her voice asked for further enlightenment, and Mark sat down by her side and gave her as much as he chose.

‘A little house in Cambridge for Clement,' she said, as she rose at the moment of her satisfaction. ‘And this house to be put in order for your father. Ah, that will be a joy to you all. This beautiful inheritance! And Aubrey to have what he needs as time goes on. And your dear sister to be helped in her useful work. Well, I will leave you to rejoice with each other. It is pretty to see you doing it together.

‘Let us send you in the carriage,' said Blanche, who had resumed her work.

‘No, we will walk and perhaps drop in on your sister. My husband will like a chat with your father. The men like to talk together.'

‘The women may not object to it on this occasion,' said Thomas, with a smile. ‘I may say how very pleased I am.'

‘Now do you feel fully primed, Mrs Middleton, with all that you want to discuss?' said Justine, as she went to the door with the guests.

‘Yes, dear, I know it all, I think,' said Sarah, resting her eyes once more on Justine's face. ‘I don't like things to pass me by, without my hearing about them. We are meant to be interested in what the Almighty ordains.'

‘Mrs Middleton gives as much attention to the Almighty's doings as He is supposed to give to hers,' said Mark.

‘I am glad the Almighty has given half a million to Uncle,' said Aubrey.

‘Half a million!' said Dudley. ‘Now I am really upset.'

‘What did you think of Mrs Middleton's account of her curiosity, Justine?' said Clement.

‘Poor Mrs Middleton! We can't call it anything else.'

‘She can and did,' said Mark.

Sarah went on to the lodge, desiring to know the Seatons' share in the fortune and hoping that it was enough and not too much. The matter was not mentioned and her compunction at overhearing the letter vanished. She saw that she could not have managed without doing so.

‘Uncle is walking with Miss Sloane on the terrace,' said Aubrey to his sister.

‘Well, that is a normal thing to do, little boy. I notice that Uncle is often with Miss Sloane of late. It may be that it gives Aunt Matty a chance to talk to Father.'

‘He has been helping her up the steps. She goes up them by herself when she is alone.'

‘Well, when you are older you will learn that men often do things for women which they can do for themselves. Uncle is a finished and gallant person, and there has been a late development in him along that line. He seems to be more aware of himself since he had this money. I hope it does not mean that we took him too much for granted in the old days. But the dear old days! I can't help regretting them in a way, the days when he gave us more of himself, somehow, though he had less of other things to give. I could find it in me to wish them back. I don't take as much pleasure in my new scope as I did in the old Uncle Dudley, who seems to have taken some course away from us of late. Well, I have taken what I can get, and I am content and grateful. And I hardly know how to put what I mean into words.'

Blanche looked up at her daughter as if struck by something in her speech, and rose and went to the window with her work dropping from her hand.

‘Mother, what is it? Come back to the fire. Your cough will get worse.'

Blanche began automatically to cough, holding her hand to her chest and looking at her daughter over it.

‘It is true,' she said. ‘They are walking arm-in-arm. It is true.'

‘What is true? What do you mean?' said Justine, coming to her side. ‘What is it? What are we to think?'

‘We are spying upon them,' said Aubrey, his tone seeming too light for the others' mood.

‘Yes, we are,' said his sister, drawing back. ‘No, we are not. I see how it is. Uncle is choosing this method of making known to us the truth. We are to see it and grasp it. Well, we do. We will let it stand revealed. So that is what it has meant, this strange insight I have had into something that was upon us, something new. Well, we accept it in its bearing upon Uncle and ourselves.'

‘Dear Dudley!' said Blanche, picking up her work.

‘Dear Uncle indeed, Mother! And the more he does and has for himself, the dearer. And now go back to the fire. You have grown quite pale. It cannot but be a shock. Aubrey will stay and take care of you, and I will go and do as Uncle wishes and carry the news. For we must take it that that is what his unspoken message meant.'

‘We must beware how we walk arm-in-arm,' said Aubrey.

Blanche extended a hand to her son with a smile which was absent, amused, and admonitory, and remained silent until her other sons entered, preceded by their sister.

‘Standing at the landing window with their eyes glued to the scene! Standing as if rooted to the spot! Uncle chose his method well. It has gone straight home.'

‘My Justine's voice is her own again,' said Blanche, looking at her sons as if in question of their feeling.

‘Well, Mother, I am not going to be knocked down by this. It is a thing to stand up straight under, indeed. I
found the boys in a condition of daze. I was obliged to be a little bracing, though I admit that it affected me in that way at first. This is a change for Uncle, not for ourselves. It is his life that is taking a new turn, though ours will take its subordinate turn, of course, and we must remember to see it as subordinate. But dear Uncle! That he should have come to this at his age! It takes away my breath and makes my heart ache at the same time.'

‘Are we sure of it?' said Mark.

‘Let us build no further without a foundation,' said his brother.

‘Look,' said Justine, leading the way to the window. ‘Look. Oh, look indeed! Here is something else before our eyes. What led me to the window at this moment? It is inspiring, uplifting. I wish we had seen it from the first. We should not have taken our eyes away.'

Edgar was standing on the path, his hands on the shoulders of Maria and his brother, his eyes looking into their faces, his smile seeming to reflect theirs.

‘Is it not a speaking scene? Dear Father! Giving up his place in his brother's life with generosity and courage. We see the simplicity and completeness of the sacrifice, the full and utter renunciation. It seems that we ought not to look, that the scene should be sacred from human eyes.'

‘So Justine stands on tiptoe for a last glimpse,' said Aubrey, blinking.

‘Yes, let us move away,' said his sister, putting his words to her own purpose. ‘Let us turn our eyes on something fitter for our sight,' She accordingly turned hers on her mother, and saw that Blanche was weeping easily and weakly, as if she had no power to stem her tears.

‘Why, little Mother, it is not like you to be borne away like this. Where is that stoic strain which has put you at our head, and kept you there in spite of all indication to the contrary? Where should it be now but at Father's service? Where is your place but at his side? Come, let me lead you to the post that will be yours.'

Blanche went on weeping almost contentedly, rather as if her resistance had been withdrawn than as if she had any
cause for tears. Aubrey looked on with an uneasy expression and Clement kept his eyes aside.

‘I am quite with Mother,' said Mark. It is all I can do not to follow her example.'

‘Has the carriage been sent for Aunt Matty?' said Aubrey.

‘Ought it to be?' said Blanche, sitting up and using an easier tone than seemed credible. ‘We must ask Miss Sloane to stay to luncheon, and I suppose your aunt must come too. It is she who first brought her to the house. We little knew what would come of it. But not Miss Griffin, Justine dear. We had better be just a family gathering. That is what we shall be, of course, now that Miss Sloane is to be one of us.'

‘We will have it as you say, little Mother. I will send the message. And I commend your taste. It is well to be simply as we are. And in these days there is no risk of the promiscuousness and scantiness which did at intervals mark our board.' Justine broke off as she recalled that her uncle's open hand might be withdrawn.

‘Are we to take it as certain that Miss Sloane and Uncle are engaged?' said Mark. ‘The evidence is powerful, but is it conclusive?'

‘Conclusive,' said Justine, with a hint of a sigh. ‘Would a woman of Miss Sloane's age and type be seen on the arm of a man to whom she stood in any other relation? Uncle is not her father or her brother, you know.'

‘Unfortunately not,' said Clement. ‘That should be a certain preventive.'

‘Come, Clement, it is in Uncle's life that we shall be living in these next days. He has had enough of living in ours.'

‘It is odd that we are surprised by it,' said Mark.

‘I suppose we are,' said Justine, with another sigh. ‘But we have had an example of how to meet it. Father has given it to us. Don't remind me of that scene, or I shall be overset like Mother.'

‘You were unwise to call it up, but I admit the proof.'

‘Wait one minute,' said Justine, going to the door. ‘I will
be back with confirmation or the opposite. I shall not keep you long.'

‘I must go and make myself fit to be seen,' said Blanche in her ordinary tone. ‘I have been behaving quite unlike myself. I suppose it was thinking of your uncle, and his having lived so much for all of us, and now at last being about to live for himself.'

‘It is enough to overcome anyone,' said Clement, when his mother had gone. ‘It puts the matter in a nutshell.'

‘You mean that Uncle may want his own money?' said Mark.

‘It seems that he must. Nearly all the balance after the allowances are paid has gone on the house. It seemed to need all but rebuilding. Houses were not meant to last so long. Can things be broken off at this stage?'

‘They can at the end of it. I suppose they will have to be. Uncle had very little money of his own. There is so little in the family apart from the place. He was a poor man until he had this money. And he can only use the income; the capital is tied up until his death. And he will want to give his wife the things that go with his means. And she will expect to have them, and why should she not?'

‘Because it prevents Uncle from giving them to us,' said Aubrey.

‘We do not grudge Uncle what is his own,'

‘We only grudge Miss Sloane what has been ours,'

‘How about your extra pocket money?' said Clement.

‘I grudge it to her. And I thought she liked Father better than Uncle. She always looks at him more.'

‘I did not think about which she liked better,' said Mark. ‘I thought of her as Aunt Matty's friend.'

‘Perhaps she did not find Aunt Matty enough for her.' said Aubrey. ‘I can almost understand it. Well, we shall have her for an aunt and she will be obliged to kiss Clement.'

‘Well, I bring confirmation,' said Justine, entering the room in a slightly sobered manner. ‘Full and free support of what we had gathered for ourselves from the full and
frank signs of it. It was not grudged or withheld for a moment. I was met by a simple and open admission such as I respected.'

‘And did they respect your asking for it?' said Clement.

‘I think they did. They saw it as natural and necessary. We could not accept what we could not put upon a definite basis. They could not and did not look for that.'

‘So you did not have much of a scene?'

‘No - well, it was entirely to my taste. It was brief and to the point. There was a natural simplicity and depth about it. I felt that I was confronted by deep experience, by the future in the making. I stood silent before it.'

‘That was well.'

‘Are we all ready for Aunt Matty?' said Aubrey.

‘Yes, we are not making any change,' said Justine. ‘That would imply some thought of ourselves. We are meeting today in simple feeling for Uncle.'

‘Just wearing our hearts on our sleeves.'

‘Now, little boy, why are you not at your books?'

‘Penrose is not well. He sent a message. And directly his back was turned I betrayed his trust.'

‘Well, well, it is not an ordinary day. And I suppose that is the carriage. Are we never to have an experience again without Aunt Matty? Now what a mean and illogical speech! When we may owe to her Uncle's happiness! I will be the first down to welcome her as an atonement.'