The Graftons: A Novel

by Archibald Marshall

Her cup of happiness was full when they reached home and his pleasure showered itself over her husband as well as herself. His greeting of Maurice was of the warmest, and without an atom of constraint. She knew that he had had a struggle with himself to accept him for her sake, and what valiant effort he had made to conceal it. But she felt now at last that the need of effort on his part no longer existed. Maurice was a son to him, at least as much as Dick was. In fact he showed more affection towards him than he habitually showed towards Dick, putting his hand on his shoulder as they stood together for a minute before the fire in the parlour, and chaffing him and Caroline together as two children absurdly but thrillingly placed in a position of responsibility.

When he had been conducted to his room, where Jarvis had made all ready for him to dress for dinner, and Caroline had changed the position of some things on his dressing-table, and Maurice had poked the fire, before withdrawing, they smiled happily at one another. "It's jolly to have him here," said Maurice. "And he is so pleased to see you again."

"You too, darling," said Caroline. "He's awfully sweet to both of us."

"I'm pleased enough to see him," said Maurice. "There's nobody in the world I'd rather have here. He's awfully pleased about Beatrix too."

Grafton had told Caroline on their way home that Beatrix was expecting a child, and a letter from her to Caroline had come by the evening post. They talked about it at intervals during the evening. Caroline laughed at the idea of his becoming a grandfather, but in her slightly altered attitude towards him the relationship seemed more fitting to him than it would have done before. There was no doubt about his pleasure in it.

Ella's name was mentioned, quite naturally by him. "She's been a great consolation to me while you've been away," he said. "Sometimes I haven't missed you in the least, darling. She has been quite like one of the family."

Would he have said this if he had been thinking of giving her the chief place in the family? Maurice thought not, when he and Caroline talked it all over at the end of the evening. His own fears, he told her, were at an end. Her father had allowed Ella to console him for the loss of his daughters, because she had been more like them than anybody else. But it was them he really wanted. Now Caroline had come home that was plain enough to be seen.

Caroline was inclined to think as he did. Her father's high spirits and his obvious pleasure in having her back had made everything just perfect, and the way that he had taken Maurice into it all gave her the idea that he was happier in her new happiness than if he had kept her to himself. Such an attitude relieved her of the uneasy balancing of the claims of husband and father. If his fatherhood could take them both in and sun itself in their happiness, so that the thought of them would always be present with him, there would be much to balance the loss of her companionship to him. He might indeed have almost as much of it as before, since she would always be at Abington when he was there; and to enjoy it with that of Maurice added, so that what had knitted the two of them together would now knit the three, would be a gain all round. It would even heighten her appreciation of her own married happiness, for it would bring Maurice nearer to her in the one big thing in her life that would otherwise tend, however slightly and on the surface, to divide their aims.

She was very happy when she fell asleep, and thought of her dear father lying under her roof, still as near to her as he had ever been. But when she awoke in the night, after realising with some pleasurable emotion that he was there, and not going to sleep again immediately, the doubts began to creep in.