We'll meet again

He ordered that Matilda's body should be brought to Tregarland's and buried at West Poldown in the family vault. She would have been pleased by that-acknowledged in death as she had not been in life. He insisted on going to the funeral, although he was hardly in a fit state to do so and the doctor had advised against it. I was deeply aware of his melancholy as he stood among the mourners.

Since then he had not left his bed for several days and Gordon called the doctor, for he was sure that the old man was more ill than he would admit.

The doctor came and said Mr. Tregarland was tired. He should not have attended the funeral and stood in the cold wind.

One afternoon, Jane, one of the maids, came to me with a message from Mr. Tregarland. He would like to see me.

When I went to his room, he was lying propped up on his pillows; he looked small and very frail, but I caught the old look of mischief in his eyes.

"Ah," he said, "the good Violetta-the sensible one. I noticed that from the start. It is kind of you to come to see me.”

"But of course I came.”

He nodded. "Things have been happening here, haven't they? Odd, isn't it, how we go on for years in the same old rut and then suddenly everything erupts into drama. Well, that's happening all over the world now, and events in Tregarland's are mild enough when compared with most of today's tragedies. 'Every prospect pleases, and only man is vile." Not true. There is much good in man. Don't you agree, wise Violetta?”

"I don't know why you call me wise. I am as foolish as most people, I suppose.”

"Not you. That is why I want to talk to you before I shuffle off this mortal coil singing 'Nunc Dimittis." How I indulge in quotations this morning! That's a sign of something. When one looks back and considers one's past, one remembers those lines which suddenly assume a significance. Is that so, do you think?”

"I imagine it could be so.”

"When a man is drowning, they say his past life flashes before his eyes. Well, so it is with a man who has come to his end in any other way. There is the past mocking him, saying: 'You should have done this." But mostly: 'You should not have done that." Ah, there's the rub. I'm back again, Violetta. The time has come for repentance. I look back on my life and I say, 'What good have you done, James Tregarland?" A little, perhaps, but the balance weighs more heavily on the other side. And now I am a sick man preparing for the last journey. I am bowed down by my sins and the havoc I have created... mostly for others. Not a pleasant conclusion, Violetta.”

"I don't suppose you have been much worse than most people," I said.

He looked solemn for a moment.

"'The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars but in ourselves that we are underlings." That man Shakespeare had a tab to stick on everything, didn't he? This is a sort of confessional.”

"To be made to me?”

"Why not? You are the most suitable person in this house. You will be here after I am gone. You know a little about me. I have noticed you observing me in the past. You know my wickedness, how, when I was infirm, my life changed so that I was confined to this place for my last years. I liked to watch others-particularly Matilda. She was a source of interest to me because I was never sure how she would act.

You see, she was brought up in a puritanical home, but there was nothing puritanical about Matilda underneath that veneer. Her parents had fitted her into a mold. She was bound to break out sooner or later. When we met there was a spark which ignited the future.”

"She willingly did what she did, I suppose.”

"It was not as simple in that age. Matilda had been brought up in fear of offending against the laws of the Church, which meant the laws laid down by Pare and Mare Lewyth. When she was about to produce an illegitimate child, they turned their daughter out. Imagine that! I set her up in a place and when my wife died I brought her here as housekeeper. That's an old story which you have heard already. There was Dermot and there was Gordon; how much more fitted Gordon was to be the heir of Tregarland's. I watched her. I teased her. I might make her son my heir... and I might not. It was like that all the way through. My poor Matty, she was in despair and she set about making possible what she believed would never be if she did nothing about it.”

"Why did you not tell her your intentions right away?”

"I wanted to watch what she would do. To have told her would have spoiled the fun.”

"The fun of tormenting her?”

"You could say that-and yet I was fond of her. And now that I have come to the end, like many before me I wish I had acted differently.

The awful thing is that if I had, Matty would have ended differently.

I wanted to see what she would do. And I did. I drove her mad and made a murderess of her. Do you think I am responsible for what she did?”

"You have been wrong. You have been heartless, but I am sure you never thought for one moment that there would be murder.”