Elders and Betters (13 page)

Jessica knelt by her sister's chair, and they clasped each other. Thomas looked on with a frown and a restless foot, and Tullia held her head so high that she looked over them. Anna opened the door and came to a standstill.

“They told me to come straight upstairs,” she said.

“And the advice strikes you as rash,” said Thomas.

“Well, I don't want to rush in where an angel would fear to tread.”

“I want you,” said Sukey, holding out her hand. “I don't think I realised how great my need would be, of someone not wearied of the sight and sound of me. You may not have come at a happy moment, but you have come at the right one.”

“You might all be about to be dead and buried,” said Anna, advancing into the room.

“Well, even I am not quite that at the moment. So we will forget the likelihood of my being so soon, and have a happy time together, as if I were an ordinary, tough, old aunt.”

“I am glad you are not that,” said Anna.

“So there is someone besides my sister, who sees some good in my being what I am; someone who does not think that health and strength to be self-sufficient are quite everything. I know they are a great deal. Who should know it better?”

“Oh, there is plenty of health and strength about,” said her niece.

“And yet there is not a little bit over for me, not one little share out of all there is. Well, I must not complain. It is time I learned that.”

“I should soon let people hear about it, if I were in your place.”

“Yes one does begin in that way. It seems at first that eyes and thoughts would turn to the person whose yoke is heavy. It is rather a hard lesson, to learn that they turn away. There is so much health about, as you say, that there hardly seems to be room for anything else. Sometimes I could almost wish there were a little less, or a little less of the things that go with it. But I should be glad that my dear ones have it, when I would give so much for it myself.”

“I should think it might be the most trying thing in the world, to see it all about you.”

“I must not agree to that, but I may be grateful for the understanding that lies behind it. For I am tempted to get tired of living apart, to want to go back to the life I shared with other people. You see my time for leaving it has come so soon. But I have to try to wean myself from it; and you may be able to help me; for as I grow weaker, the effort does not get less.”

“I will do anything I can,” said Anna.

“We have received our dismissal,” said Thomas to his wife, “and the aid will be better administered without us. Not that our presence seems to be felt as a check.”

“Anna is a change,” said Jessica, as they gained the passage. “I forget how much one is needed. I ought to be on the watch. But an attempt to be different might only defeat itself.”

“Sukey would be poorly off, if you had any success in such an effort.”

“I am so little for her to depend upon. I have come to live for myself. I should not have married, if my being personally satisfied was to seem enough.”

“You are not always so conscious of your own good fortune,” said Tullia.

“No, I am ill to please even in my sunny place. So what of my sister, living always in the shadow?”

“Well, Anna will give an hour to her, and Benjamin another,” said Thomas. “And Tullia will come with her father. She has done her part.”

Jessica looked after her husband and daughter, and her pride in Tullia, her jealousy of Thomas's joy in her, her sorrow for the sin in her feeling, followed each other over her face. The cloud in his eyes lifted as he turned to his daughter. Her easy experience and blindness to her mother's soothed him and set things in a clearer light. Her love for him met his need the better, that it was not a weightier thing. Thomas had had his fill of strength and depth of feeling.

Anna came out of her aunt's room, distraught and flushed, as if she had been engaged on something foreign to herself. She caught sight of her father, and paused and drew a deep breath, before she met him.

“Well, Father, I have done my best with this odd new task. And now I leave you to continue it. I think I have scored a mild success. Anyhow I have not been blamed or dismissed, and my good offices are welcome to-morrow. The question is whether I can keep it up. But be that as it may, I can't think that the methods employed with Aunt Sukey in this house are the right or fair ones.”

“Ours must be different, and that will be something,” said Benjamin. “It cannot be laid to one sister's account, that she is not a change for the other. The more she does for her, the less that can be.”

“New brooms sweep clean, of course. But old ones may
be better cast aside, and I maintain that it is the case with these. Meanwhile, let us sweep clean while we can.”

Anna left the house, not seeking a word with anyone. She had come for a purpose, fulfilled it, and did not linger. Thomas and his daughter emerged as they heard the gate, and Terence followed their example.

“I cannot bear opening that gate for people,” he said. “I hate to hear their perfunctory thanks. Chivalry to women does not come to me naturally. I do not think anything did. I have a sort of innocent selfishness; at least I hope it is regarded as innocent; of course I know its real nature myself.”

“Anna will not feel the omission,” said Tullia. “Manners are scarce in her family. It did not take long to see it.”

“Uncle Benjamin has his own greatness of behaviour. I would emulate it, if I did not suspect that it had its root in unselfishness. If the root were in anything else, I would really try.”

“Most things that are good, or called good, are founded on that,” said Thomas.

“And those things are very good indeed, too good to be possible. It comes of a foundation that must break down. Most people have tried to build on it. And they remember it, and respect themselves, and are exacting with other people; and I think they are justified. A person who can really be called an unselfish person, has no place in life.”

“Some people have a certain conception of themselves, and need to live up to it,” said Tullia. “They get their own reward.”

“But not a reward that could satisfy anyone. We are talking about Mother, and do not dare to say so.”

“When do we think or talk about anything else? It shows what a power her kind of goodness or aspiration is. It does not matter what we call it.”

“It is the difference between being dutiful and brutal,” said Terence, looking at his sister. “Now I know what it is to feel an unwilling admiration.”

“I may as well go the whole length for once. Things are better, brought into the light of day.”

“Would you sap the very foundations of civilisation?”

“I would, in so far as they are harmful to myself and other people.”

“I know it is dreadful when things are harmful to oneself,” said Terence.

“It is the watching and following Mother's feelings that makes the strain. We are never allowed to forget them, or to stop feeling guilty over them. Oh, for easy, ordinary people, who are fair to themselves, and so to others!”

Thomas had heard his children in silence.

“Ought you not to be teaching Reuben, my boy?”

“I am teaching him, Father.”

“And how are you contriving that?”

“By my own odd methods, that will have a better result than ordinary ones. Or that is the kind of thing that would happen.”

“He is doing something for you, I suppose?”

“He is learning to use his brain for himself, which is the end of all education.”

“But is it the beginning?”

“The same thing is always both. The beginning and the end, we say. I never quite understand it.”

“I suppose you will go and point out his mistakes?”

“I shall let him see them for himself.”

“But if he could do that, he would hardly make them.”

“You must know that we learn by our mistakes, Father.”

“Has he any need of you?”

“Great need, the poor, untaught lad.”

“What does he think of your methods?”

“He does not think; that is not a thing he would do. He is gaining self-respect from them. And he will gain independence; and that is what I want, or I should have to spend my time with him.”

“What is his feeling for you?”

“A boyish veneration that will soon approach worship. I shall not feel so free when it reaches that. I shall find it has acquired its own value.”

“What would Anna say to your methods?”

“She would think that Uncle Benjamin ought not to pay me.”

“And do you think he ought?” said Thomas.

“Well, my service is of a kind that cannot be paid for in money. And that means it is paid for in that way, but not very well.”

“Does your uncle want that kind of service?”

“Yes, or he would have to pay better.”

“He has a larger income than we have,” said Tullia. “And yet they are to spend their lives in that awkward house.”

“Cheap things are well enough, when they are a choice,” said Thomas.

“Is Miss Lacy paid?” said Dora, at their elbow.

“The labourer is worthy of his hire,” said Thomas. “And everyone who works is paid. And it is fortunate for me, and so for you, that that is the case.”

“Miss Lacy doesn't need any more money,” said Julius. “She inherited enough from her father. I mean she doesn't want a little money, like she earns here. A lot, that would let her have a stable and horses, would be different.”

“She ought to have that for teaching you,” said Thomas.

“She says she liked teaching Terence the best of us,” said Dora, in an unprejudiced tone.

“Where is she now?” said Tullia.

“She is bringing her niece to luncheon, the one who is to be a friend for you and Terence.”

“What is she like?” said the latter.

“Oh, grown-up,” said Julius, as if this disposed of the matter.

“She calls Miss Lacy, ‘Aunt Emma,' ” said Dora, with a laugh. “I think we might call her that too.”

“On what ground?” said Thomas.

“Well, if it is a wrong thing to do, the niece ought not to do it.”

“She does it because Miss Lacy is her aunt,” said Tullia. “She in not yours.”

“Heaven forbid!” said Dora, swinging her foot.

“I suppose heaven does forbid it,” said Thomas, “but I do not know the reason. I am sure it would be pleasant to have Miss Lacy for an aunt.”

Dora and Julius broke into mirth, and continued it with their eyes on their father, hopeful of further license. They put no check on their behaviour in his presence, as they did in their mother's.

Miss Lacy approached with her niece at her side, and an air of being conscious of her presence to the natural extent and not beyond. The latter was a girl of twenty, of medium height and build, with a pale, smooth skin, light brown eyes, glossy dark hair, a small, shut mouth, and hands and feet remarkable for smallness rather than proportion. She walked in a drooping manner, with an air of finding whatever was taking place, too much for her; or perhaps of feeling that it would be too much, if she knew what it was. She shook hands in silence and without sign of interest, though her eyes took stock of her hosts from under their lids.

“Only one family to-day,” said her aunt, “and I think I am a little glad of it. Now we can do justice to it and to ourselves.”

A faintly sighing movement from her companion suggested agreement.

“The other is to join us,” said Tullia. “We will not keep you with us on false pretences.”

Jessica came into the hall to receive the guests.

“It will be simple enough when it is familiar,” she said. “A choice is as good in people as in things. I do not feel it a recommendation to have only ourselves to offer.”

“Well, let me introduce Miss Florence Lacy,” said Miss Lacy, in a mock-ceremonious tone, “to Mrs. Calderon,
Miss Calderon and Miss Theodora Calderon; and present to her Mr. Terence and Master Julius Calderon.”

A faint smile curved the lips of the new-comer, though it seemed that it was not provoked by her aunt's words.

“My little niece, Mr. Calderon,” said Miss Lacy, in an easy tone, guiding the girl towards Thomas.

“We are glad to see you, my dear, and you will take the words to mean what they say. My young people have an especial welcome for someone who is not their kith and kin.”

“You will not evince the family failings,” said Tullia, “though I think that is putting the same thing in another form.”

“I thought Florence was a place,” said Julius.

“So it is,” said the owner of the name, with a resigned lift of her brows, using her rapid, rather blurred tones for the first time.

“It comes of having a travelled father,” said Miss Lacy. “His sins are visited upon the child.”

“Yes, they are,” said her niece.

“It is a pleasant name,” said Tullia. “Why are you not grateful for it?”

“It is a pleasant word,” said Terence, “and it was a happy idea to use it for a name.”

“Is that saying something different?” said Miss Lacy.

Florence swept her eyes over Terence's face, and in a moment let them fall, but a moment was some time for her glance to be arrested.

“Could you be called Paris or London?” said Dora.

“Oh, yes, I expect so,” said Florence, with a sigh.

“All things are possible to him that believeth,” said Miss Lacy.

“What do you think of our names?” said Tullia. “It is another case of the sins of the father.”

Florence contracted her brows as if in sympathy with them.

“What would you all like to be called?” said Jessica.

“Any ordinary names,” said Tullia, “that left our personalities free to go their natural way.”

“You might be called York or Constantinople,” said Julius.