Father said at last: “Hope, what this young man has said of you is true?” and Hope, blushing and paling by turns like an autumn sunset seen through wind-shaken leaves, nodded and said, “Yes. Father.”
He raised his head then and looked at Ger, who had not moved but to breathe and follow our father with his eyes. “Gervain, I do not know if I do the right thing in my reply, for it is a heavy task you ask the burden of, for all your pretty words. But indeed I and my daughters are in sore need of help.” He looked round at us. “And we will, I think, be most grateful to accept what you offer.”
Gervain bowed his head. “Thank you, Mr. Huston. I will, if I may, call on you sometime tomorrow, that we may discuss arrangements.”
“Anytime that is convenient for you,” said Father, and with a touch of grim humour, added, “You may be sure of finding me here.”
I don’t know what we would have done without Gervain. Since we had fi rst known that the worst had happened, our lives had seemed to come to a halt; We could see no farther than each bleak day’s dawning, and the thought of the auction and the end of the life we had known seemed the end of life itself.
We drifted through the hours like abandoned ships on a sea without horizon. Gervain’s plans, which, after a long afternoon’s conversation with our father, he was careful to explain to all of us, gave us something to think about. He was patient with everything but gloomy forebodings; encouraged questions, told us stories about the hilly, forested land we were going to that he loved so well; and, by his quiet enthusiasm, struck answering sparks of interest in our tired hearts. We had known that we would leave the city and travel, probably far away and out of reach of old friends and associations. Now we knew that we were bound for a little four-room house in a town called Blue Hill, with the deep hills on one side and forests at front and back, and that our journey there was likely to take between six weeks and two months. We even began to take some interest in the practical aspects of the trip as Gervain described horses and wagons and roads.
It was easiest for Hope and me. I was the youngest, I was in Love with no one except perhaps Euripides, and while I grieved deeply for my father and for Grace, there was little in the city or our life there that I loved for itself—although rather more that I took for granted, like my own maid and all the books that I wanted. I was frightened of the unknown that we faced, and of our ignorance; but I had never been afraid of hard work, I had no beauty to lose, nor would there be any wrench at parting from high society, I didn’t relish the thought of sleeping in an attic and washing my own clothes, but then it didn’t fill me with horror either, and I was still young enough to see it in the light of an adventure.
Hope had told me weeks before that Gervain’s original plans had included a maid to do the heavy work, and four rooms would have been sufficient if not ample for the two of them (our house in town had eighteen rooms, including a ballroom two stories tall, plus kitchens and servants’ quarters). These latter days she was subdued, but there was an air of suppressed excitement about her. Once started on a task that could be finished in one effort, she would accomplish it efficiently enough; but she was absentminded about messages, or about remembering to return to a task only partially completed. She confessed to me one night that she felt guilty for feeling so happy: It was very selfish of her to be glad that she was going with Gervain, yet would not be moving away from her family.
“Don’t be silly,” I said. “Seeing your happiness is what’s holding the other two together.” Nearl y every night, after Grace and Father had gone to bed, Hope and I met, usually in my bedroom, to discuss how “the other two” were doing, and whether there was anything further that might be done for them.
And for Hope to ease the tension of being quiet during the day for her father’s and elder sister’s sakes by babbling at length to me about how wonderful Gervain was. “Besides,” I added after a moment, “washing your own floors will be enough and plenty of reality for you.”
“Don’t forget the tarry aprons you prophesied before,” Hope said, smiling.
No one mentioned goblins or dragons or magicians.
2
The day of the auction came all too soon. The three of us spent it locked up in I Grace’s sitting room, which had been re-| served from the sale proceedings for the use of the family, shivering in each other’s arms, and listening to the strange voices and strange footsteps walking in our rooms. Gervain was in charge; Father had been bundled off to spend the day going over records at the shipyard; it was Ger who had the lists of items to be sold and saved, and it was he who answered questions.
At the end of the day, Ger knocked on our door and said gently, “It’s all over; come out now, and have some tea.” Much of the furniture was left, for we had been left the house and “fittings” for the two more weeks Ger had estimated it would take us to be packed up finally and gone. But many of the small pieces—Father’s Chinese bowl, the smaller Oriental rugs, vases, little tables, the paintings off the walls—were gone, and the house looked forlorn. The three of us wandered from room to room clinging to each other’s hands, and silently counting the missing articles in the last sad rays of the setting sun.
The house smelled of tobacco smoke and strange perfumes.
Ger, after leaving us half an hour alone, swept us up from the drawing room where we had collapsed at last—it had suffered the fewest depredations of any of the rooms—and said, “Come downstairs, see what your friends have left you,” and refusing to say more, ushered us down to the kitchen. Father met us on the front stair, gazing at a dark rectangular spot in the wallpaper, and was brought along. Downstairs, on tables and chairs and in the pantry were laid haphazard any number of things, much of it food: smoked hams and bacon and venison, sealed jars of vegetables and preserves, and a few precious ones of apples and peaches and apricots. There were bolts of cloth, gingham and chintz, muslin, linen, and fine -woven wool; there were leathers, soft and supple and carefully stretched; and there were three heavy fur capes.
There was also a canary in a cage, who tried a trill on us when we peered in at him.
“You should not have let them do this,” said Father.
“Indeed, I did not know,” Ger said, “and I am glad I did not, for I am not sure I would have tried to stop anyone. But I only discovered it myself a few minutes ago.”