Elders and Betters (12 page)

“And I keep an interest in myself too, and in my own generation. I do not limit my thoughts to the young. I think that experience and knowledge of life often add to people, and bring out what they are. I find myself a more interesting study than when I was a girl. What I see then, is a lighter creature, with less to give. And I find the principle borne out in the young things about me. They have not reached the stage of depths and complexities, and the other things that enhance our value to my mind.”

“You must find Miss Jennings a great support,” said Jessica.

“Yes, she prevents me from being a creature quite apart. I do not feel that I am the only person with memories of the past, and scepticism of the future. I do not live entirely in an atmosphere of hope, that I fear is too ill-founded. But
she does not ask as much for herself as I do; she is content with less. I fear I am a grasping person beside her, a person of deeper needs and more demands. I must deal on a larger scale with life. Well, I will take my unsatisfactory self away, and give you a further dose of it later. I will follow my youthful and unsophisticated flock.”

The people thus described were walking in a group towards their home.

“Well, we have had the initiation into our new life,” said Anna. “It strikes me that there will be a degree of responsibility involved in it.”

“People in Aunt Sukey's situation ought not to be at large,” said Esmond. “They can do other people nothing but harm.”

“They may limit their concern to themselves in the time they have left,” said Bernard.

“Bernard has gone overboard about Aunt Sukey,” said Anna. “She will be competing with Cook and Ethel for his esteem.”

“I thought I saw signs of your yielding to her spell, yourself,” said her brother.

“Yes, I have fallen a victim,” said Anna, pursuing her way into the house, “and have let myself in for the consequences. It is not in my line to listen to people's last words and that sort of thing, but I shall have to get up to the level.”

“Well, how have you managed with it all?” said Jenney, who had come home early by herself.

“I think we got through with credit,” said Anna at once. “Anyhow three of us are to go there every day, Reuben to learn from Terence, and Father and I to attend upon Aunt Sukey, at our different times and in our different ways.”

“You are to do that, are you? So you got on well with her. And I hear she is not the easiest person. She is supposed to make trouble.”

“She hardly needs to do that, as far as she is concerned, herself,” said Bernard.

“No, poor thing, I can see she is very ill. It must be dreadful to live with all those well people, feeling you are in that state yourself.”

“You have expressed her exact view,” said Esmond.

“Well, anyone would feel the same.”

“The words, ‘poor thing,' hardly give her,” said Bernard.

“Bernard has lost his heart,” said Anna. “He had eyes and ears for no one else. And I am somewhat in the same case. She does exert her own spell.”

Benjamin's voice came from behind.

“This is a good word to me, my daughter. I hoped you had enough of me in you, to see my sister as I see her, and it seems it is the case. This may be a growing time for all of us.”

“Why do people think it is such a good thing for people to take after them, even when they have no particular self-esteem?” murmured Bernard. “I don't think Father has any great opinion of himself.”

“But doubtless a better one than he has of his family,” said Esmond. “Indeed he implies it.”

“We shall have to go forward a bit, if we are to accompany Aunt Sukey to the brink of the grave,” said Anna. “We were not expecting any such thrust onwards. But the hopeful point is that with her it is easier than you would think. She seems to carry one with her.”

“It seems unfair to take advantage of that, and then to turn back ourselves,” said Bernard.

“So much so, my son, that you will understand, if that feeling is at times too much for her,” said Benjamin.

“I hardly knew I was Father's son before,” murmured Bernard. “I only just knew that Anna was his daughter, though that is not his fault.”

“That is what my sisters do for people,” said Benjamin, as if he were speaking to himself. “They shed their own light.”

“I hardly know what to make of this new chapter of our
family life,” muttered Esmond. “I cannot claim to feel at home in it.”

“Now what do we all say to Tullia?” said Anna. “I say that the elders put her into the shade, in spite of her youth. I never saw such a case of advantage in older faces.”

“It seems rather shallow of her to be settled in this life, when Aunt Sukey is so precariously balanced in it,” said Bernard.

“You might say that of us all,” said Esmond.

“I do say it,” said his brother.

“Aunt Sukey seems so much of this world, in her own way,” said Anna, “and yet she has to leave it. And Aunt Jessica is so apart from it, and yet has to stay and struggle on. It seems a pity that they cannot change places, though I cannot imagine their doing so. But don't let it all depress you, Father. We shall do no better in this new life for carrying long faces. There is Reuben at the gate, with those two children. I suppose they have escorted him home. Well, he is not so much older than they are. If he becomes a thought more childish, it won't be a bad thing.”

Reuben came into the room, rather conscious over his companions.

“Well, I have not uttered a word that could pollute those tender minds.”

“We do not need the assurance,” said Esmond. “We do you that justice.”

“Oh, but I like to think there is danger.”

“Do they love their mother?” said Bernard.

“Yes, I think they do,” said Reuben, raising his eyes.

“And their father?”

“Yes, they love him.”

“And Aunt Sukey?”

“Well, they don't want her to die, or anything like that.”

“And Terence and Tullia?” said Bernard.

“They seem to like Terence. They did not talk about Tullia.”

“What a lot of Ts!” said Anna.

“Do they live in a world of their own?” said Bernard.

“They do in a way,” said Reuben, looking surprised by this knowledge.

“I never did,” said Bernard. “I lived in this world, as I do now. It is the only one I like. Do not try to enter their world, Reuben. You would never get inside.”

“I don't think they want me to,” said his brother.

“And it would take you out of your own world,” said Anna, “and you have enough to do there.”

“I hardly think he has one,” said Bernard, looking at his brother. “Any more than I had, or not much more.”

“I ought to be a boy who lives in the world of books and dreams,” said Reuben.

“Oh, a little physical disability does not make all that difference,” said Anna. “Not in a bad sense or a good. I hope those children don't make things difficult for you.”

“No, they have shown the instinctive delicacy of childhood.”

“And I suppose you have done the same,” said Bernard. “You have not called attention to their peculiarities.”

“They have not any,” said Reuben.

“You are mistaken,” said Esmond. “Dora is subject to facial contortions, and Julius to bodily ones of a more violent character.”

“Oh, the little nervous habits of childhood!” said Anna. “I remember you in that stage.”

“I can say the same to you, but that does not alter my opinion that it is a regrettable one. Indeed it supports it.”

“The process of getting used to the world seems to be too much for us,” said Bernard.

“So it is hard on people like Aunt Sukey, who have to leave it too soon,” said Anna. “They seem to serve their apprenticeship without the reward.”

“I fear they do so,” said Benjamin.

“Well, it is nobody's fault, after all, Father.”

“I feel it is mine, when I am with her,” said Bernard.
“It seems that some of my strength ought to be taken from me and given to her.”

“It would improve you both,” said Esmond, resting his eyes on his brother's bulky frame.

“Oh, Bernard has not so much strength to spare,” said Anna. “Father and Reuben are really the strongest of us. And thin, wiry people like Claribel and Miss Lacy are the toughest of all. Oh, Miss Lacy wants to have a talk with you, Jenney.”

“Does she? Miss Lacy?” said Jenney, in a tone of mild excitement. “To think of her still being there, and still teaching those children! Well how things do go on!”

“No more for her than for any of us,” said Anna. “Though I suppose we have now achieved a break in our lives.”

“Julius and Dora seem rather to like Miss Lacy,” said Reuben. “They do what she says, almost as if she were Aunt Jessica.”

“It seems the fashion to treat her with respect,” said Anna, as if the case admitted of other dealings. “She wants Jenney's advice about a niece who has come to live with her, and puts her in rather a quandary. Jenney is supposed to be wise about young people and their problems.”

Jenney just cast a glance on the members of this class, as if there could be no further light for her.

Claribel came idly and absently into the room.

“I am sorry to be such a laggard, but I was detained by my contemporaries, as you were released by yours.”

“It sounds as if you were more of a success than we were,” said Bernard.

“Well, it was pleasant to meet a demand for someone of my age and sex. It is not such a frequent occurrence. And to-day that was what was wanted. Your Aunt Jessica asked that and nothing else, and all I had to do was to surrender myself to her need.”

“It is odd how that family seems to have a use for this one,” said Anna.

“WHAT IS IT, Sukey?” said Thomas, breaking into Sukey's room.

“What is it, Aunt Sukey?” said Tullia, a pace behind.

“What is it, my dear?” said Jessica, on a sharper note.

Sukey lay back in her chair and seemed to try to give a smile to her sister.

“I think it has passed,” she said, putting her hand to her heart. “There is nothing to trouble you. I have had the fright by myself, and got through it in the same way.”

“But what was it?” said Jessica.

“My bell was not answered when I rang. I needed something and could get no answer. And it came over me that I might die here alone, and no one know. And the thought seemed to go through me, and I could not go on without the sight of a human face, the sound of a human voice. So I rang in such a way that someone had to come. If you were frightened, you were not as much frightened as I was.”

“We shall be less frightened next time,” muttered Thomas. “It will be a case of the boy and the wolf, if she does not take care.”

“I am not able to take care,” said Sukey, with a faint smile; “I am not equal to that. And I think you forget that my ears are still sharp, though my strength is ebbing. And if you fear what you say, you will be on your guard against it.”

“Did you have a heart attack, or just feel that you wanted someone?” said Tullia.

“Just feel it! Just!” said Sukey.

“We must arrange that you are never alone,” said Thomas.

“No, I do not want that; I could not even bear it. And I need not make that demand on the house. Things cannot be done in that simple, sweeping way. A little thought and kindness is what I want. If I could feel that I could summon help, I would be content with my solitude.”

“We must find out why the bell was not answered,” said Jessica. “You sent your own maid out, but the others are within hearing.”

“Enquiry might be too late one day,” said Sukey.

“The servants thought you rang for your broth, and were bringing it,” said Tullia. “I can hear it coming.”

“It might not have been an occasion for broth. There must be other needs in the last days of a human life.”

“But it was, I suppose,” said Thomas. “And it was likely that it should be, as it was the hour. Anyhow here it is, and the situation is met.”

“It is not even grasped, I think,” said Sukey.

“The bell must be answered, of course,” said Jessica. “We must be able to depend on that. Perhaps Tullia could listen for it in the mornings.”

“My life hardly allows of my spending hours of each day in a single spot,” said Tullia, in a distinct, deliberate tone. “For my time, as you know, involves Father's.”

“Did you hear the bell to-day?” said her mother.

“I heard it, and thought it was for the broth, and assumed that the servants were bringing it, and seem to have been right.”

Sukey put the tray aside, as if she were past such a need.

“Your attack of nerves should have come at some other moment,” said Thomas, in a lighter tone.

“I cannot time them, can I? I would time even the hour of my death for you, if I could. But the suspense and uncertainty are given me to bear, and I must be helped to sustain them. I am doing my very best. I hope you believe me. But different needs may arise, must arise, the doctors tell me. Their words do not make an impression, except on me, but I can hardly forget them.”

“Working yourself into a state over nothing can only do you harm,” said Tullia.

“It is nothing to be left alone to die,” said Sukey, turning a sad smile on Tullia's parents, as if the words would be lost upon her youth. “I see it is to those who are not threatened by it. I should not have thought it would be quite that. I should have thought that some memory of it would follow you through your happy and useful hours. But I must be glad it is not so.”

“Sukey, you are doing harm to yourself and to my wife,” exclaimed Thomas.

Sukey put out her hand to her sister.

“So there is someone who suffers a little for me, who is not quite reconciled to the thought of my prime and my powers being wasted. A little suffering is inseparable from it, Thomas; we have to pay the price of love. But it shall be as light as I can make it.”