“Oh, Raaf, I didn’t mean that. Reginald has—his own ways. Don’t you know, we never ask what he means, mother and I. He always means just what’s the right thing, don’t you know. It is a very nice time to—to take a giro; look how the sky’s beginning to break there out of the clouds. I always like an evening walk; so did mother when she was strong enough. And then Reginald has such a feeling for art. He always says the village is so pretty with the lights in the windows, and the sweep of the fresh air on the common—and—and all that.”
“Just so, Lucy,” said Ralph.
She gave him a little anxious look, but she could not see the expression of his face in the darkness, any more than he could see what a wistful and wondering look was in her eyes. Bertram, looking on, formed his own conclusions, which were as little right as a stranger’s conclusions upon a drama of family life suddenly brought before his eyes generally are. He thought that this correct and immaculate Mr. Wradisley had tastes known to his family, or at least to the ladies of his family, which were not so spotless as he appeared to be; or that there was something going on at this particular moment which contradicted the law of propriety and good order which was his nature. Was it a village amour? Was it some secret hanging over the house? There was a little agitation, he thought, in Lucy, and surprise in the brother, who was a stranger to all the ways of his own family, and evidently had a half-hostile feeling toward his elder. But the conversation became more easy as they went along, emerging from under the shadow of the trees and crossing the openings of the park. The great house came in sight as they went on, a solid mass amid all its surrounding of shrubbery and flower gardens, with the distance stretching clear on one side, and lights in many windows. It looked a centre of life and substantial, steadfast security, as if it might last out all the changes of fortune, and could never be affected by those vicissitudes which pull down one and set up another. Bertram could fancy that it had stood like a rock while many tempests swept the country. The individual might come and go, but this habitation was that of the race. And it was absurd to think that the little surprise of meeting its master on his way into the village late on an October evening, could have anything to do with the happiness of the family or its security. Bertram said to himself that his nerves were a little shaken to-night, he could not tell how. It was perhaps because of something visionary in this way of walking about an unknown place in the dark, and hearing of so many people like shadows moving in a world undiscovered. The old doctor, for example, whose image was so clear before his companion, that he could almost think he saw him, so clear that even to himself, a stranger, that old man had almost appeared; but more than anything else because of the child who, caught in her most sportive mood, had suddenly grown quiet in his arms, and given him that look, with eyes unknown, which he too could have sworn he knew. There were strange things in his own life that gave him cause to think. Was it not this that made him conscious of mystery and some disturbing influence in the family which he did not know, but which had received him as if he had been an absent brother too?
To see Mrs. Wradisley was, however, to send any thought of mystery or family trouble out of any one’s mind. The lamps were lit in the drawing-room when they all went in, a little dazzled by the illumination, from the soft dark of the night. She was sitting where they had left her, in the warmth of the home atmosphere, so softly lighted, so quietly bright. Her white knitting lay on her knee. She had the evening paper in her hand, which had just come in; for it was one of the advantages of Wradisbury that, though so completely in the country, they were near enough to town to have an evening post. Mrs. Wradisley liked her evening paper. It was, it is true, not a late edition, perhaps in point of fact not much later than the Times of the morning—but she preferred it. It was her little private pleasure in the evening, when Lucy was perhaps out, or occupied with her friends, and Mr. Wradisley in his library. She nodded at them over her paper, with a smile, as they came in.
“I hope it is a fine night, and that you have had a pleasant walk, Mr. Bertram,” she said.
“And is she coming, Lucy?”
“I could not get her to promise, mother,” Lucy said.
“Oh, well, we must not press her. If she were not a little willful perhaps we should not like her so much,” said Mrs. Wradisley, returning to her journal. And how warm it was! but not too warm. How light it was! but not too bright.
“Come and sit here, Raaf. I like to see you and make sure that you are there; but you need not talk to me unless you wish to,” the mother said. She was not exacting. There was nothing wrong in the house, no anxiety nor alarm; nothing but family tranquility and peace.