III
Just before Christmas time, my Grandmother fell ill. She had grown very old and frail in the last years. The war had worn her out.
I went to her at Campden Hill Square. It was like long ago, before I married Walter; I had not been to stay there, for more than a night, since then.
Grandmother said that she was glad to have me there.
‘It is like old times,’ she said.
They said she would not get better; they said that she was too old. She might last a few weeks, not more, the doctor said.
And so I stayed with her, and she talked a great deal to me, mostly about my father when he was a little boy, and all that had happened then, nearly sixty years before, and when she was first married, and about my grandfather, when he was young.
And I thought:
‘Time does not matter. There is no time for her.’
And I thought:
‘It will be like that for me too, before long.’
Two days before she died, I was sitting in her room, her sitting-room upstairs, where she always used to sit, and she was by the fire, in her own big armchair, for she would not stay in bed, and she began to talk of much more recent things, of the War, and of Hugo, and then of Walter and me.
‘Dear child,’ she said, ‘I am glad that you married him. . . . I have wondered, but I am glad. He will always be the same . . . you know the worst of him, and it is not a bad worst.’
I don’t know what I said. I was on the floor beside her, and she stroked my head as she talked.
‘You know,’ she said, ‘poor Hugo . . . that never would have done. I was very much afraid, at one time, that you would marry him. Poor, dear Hugo . . . he would not have been a good husband . . . it is better as it is. . . .’
And I felt that I could not bear it . . . I felt I must tell her everything, that it was all a mistake . . . that everything was wrong. . . . I looked into the fire, and the words rose up to my lips, and I nearly told her then, but I am glad that I did not.
I thought:
‘Why should I say it? She is so very old, she is going to die . . . she need never know at all. If souls should be immortal, she will know about it then . . . but I don’t believe they are. I think that she will end . . . I think Hugo has ended.’
And so I smiled at her.
And she said:
‘You are happy? I think that you are happy, my dear?’
And I said:
‘Yes, Grandmother, I am quite happy, now.’
She said:
‘There are ups and downs. . . . There are always ups and downs . . . one must take the bad with the good. It will all be better now that the War is over.’
And then she said:
‘Poor Delia! I am truly sorry for her. She idolized her Hugo . . . she never saw his faults . . . and now, I don’t believe that she cares much for Guy’s wife.’
I said:
‘She never says so. I am sure she tries to like her.’
Grandmother looked up sharply; she smiled, more as she used to smile:
She said:
‘I have seen her, you know. She would not be easy to like! But there it is, my dear, . . . you must take the bad with the good! . . . Guy is alive and married . . . that is much better than being dead.’
And then she talked again about my father when he was little.
And I thought:
‘How odd it is, that she did not care for Hugo.’
I thought:
‘You can never tell why people like each other.’
Two days later, she died. She was buried at Yearsly. The house in Campden Hill Square was sold, and some of her things were sold. I had not room for much. Cousin Delia had some, and she helped me with it all. And that was a chapter closed.
Cousin Delia did not die. She did not seem very different from what she had always been, and she often talked of Hugo as though he were still alive.