Elders and Betters (11 page)

“And have you remembered that you have missed grace?”

“Yes, but we didn't know what to do about it.”

“Well, say it to yourselves, my dears.”

Dora bent her head and murmured under her breath.

“O great god, Chung, remember, we beseech thee, that which we asked of thee. For Sung Li's sake, amen.”

Julius muttered the last words after her.

“Do you have your own grace?” said Reuben, in some curiosity.

“Do you, my dears?” said Jessica, who felt that discomfiture in this sphere was not in place.

“Sometimes we say what we like,” said Dora.

“Well, I think that is very nice,” said her mother.

“It does seem more friendly and informal,” said Thomas.

“Some progress ought to be made towards intimacy, as time goes by,” said Terence. “That sort of intercourse errs on the side of distance.”

There was a pause.

“Terence and I are in disgrace with Mother, my children,” said Thomas. “Do you understand why?”

“You talk about God as if you knew Him,” said Dora.

“It should be enough that He knows us,” said Jessica.

“He knows even the sparrows,” said Dora, with innocent voice and eyes.

“That used to seem to cheapen the regard,” said Bernard.

“He lets them fall to the ground,” said Julius, simply.

“Well everything has to die,” said Dora, “or the world would be too full.”

“It may be good for us to realise that it will happen to us in the end,” said Jessica.

“I expect I am the only person who does so,” said Sukey.
“I do not-feel that anyone else is with me. I find I cannot often feel that.”

“The hairs of our heads are numbered,” said Julius, with a touch of solemnity.

“Is it impressive or not, to be included in these wholesale dealings?” said Bernard.

“Impressive,” said Thomas. “As it was to find that we lived in the universe. It is awe-inspiring that there is nowhere to live but there.”

“I think we are some of us rather too old for this talk,” said Jessica.

“It is only grown-up people who can do it,” said Dora.

“Just grown-up perhaps,” said Esmond.

“I have been said to have an adolescent mind,” said Thomas, with a laugh.

“But it should not have been your nephew who said it,” said Bernard.

“But Father is pleased about it,” said Terence. “Just as young people are pleased to be thought mature. We all like to be what we are not; it shows the disappointment of life. I know I was wiser at fifteen than I am now; and it was not the wisdom of the child; I never had any of that.”

“I am sorry to hear of your deterioration, as you are to teach Reuben,” said Anna.

“I had forgotten that was before me.”

“It does not sound as if you were making much preparation.”

“Preparation?” said Terence, raising his eyes.

“I might learn with Miss Lacy,” said Reuben, in his louder tone. “A woman would have more tenderness for my infirmity.”

'“We won't talk of infirmity, Reuben. There is plenty of the opposite thing behind that head of yours,” said Terence, in a mock schoolmaster's manner.

“So the touch can be acquired in a moment,” said Anna.

“I have always thought the manner would be the easiest part of a profession,” said Terence. “I could
belong to any of them, if nothing else was needed. I expect that is how the manners became established. There had to be something that was within people's power.”

“Reuben is not the only one who will make progress,” said Thomas.

“They must both be kind to each other,” said his wife, as if the pair were on a level.

“I will make the humdrum task as easy for my cousin as I can,” said Reuben.

“It does not sound as if it matters which is the teacher and which the pupil,” said Sukey,

“Oh, don't put that into Reuben's head, Aunt Sukey,” said Anna. “He has learned very little of the ordinary things, and we don't want him more-unlike other boys than can't be helped.”

“So you find it an ingratiating character, the ordinary boy's,” said Reuben.

“What do you know about it?” said his sister.

“I have watched the development of Esmond, who is the essence of the typical young male.”

“I don't believe I have a single brother who is that.”

“You may be right,” said Benjamin, in an enigmatic tone.

“You are a fortunate sister,” said Thomas.

“Oh, I don't know. I should not have minded a nice, little, ordinary boy like Julius for a brother. It would make fewer problems.”

“What do you say to that, Dora?” said Thomas.

“I don't know what it is, not to be ordinary. Most people must be that, or it would be something else.”

“Well, a lot of people think they are not,” said Julius.

“I plead guilty to the feeling, myself,” said Sukey. “No, I do not feel that I am quite an ordinary person, or that I should have been, with another person's chance.”

“It is generally recognised, isn't it?” said Anna.

“That is a pleasant thing to hear, my dear. I like to feel I have made some little mark, before I go alone into the darkness.”

“Does Aunt Sukey always strike this note of drama?” said Bernard to Terence.

“It was natural to her, even when she was well.”

“Fancy maintaining it in sickness and in health!”

“That gives her a better use for it. I can also see the tendency in my mother.”

“I think my father is free from it,” said Bernard.

“I am not quite sure,” said Esmond. “His temper would prevent his showing it. He could not betray concern for the impression he made on other people.”

“Aunt Sukey's temper is not her best point,” said Terence. “I do not mind speaking evil of a sick woman. I told you I had not a masculine mind.”

Julius and Dora turned their eyes on Sukey and withdrew them. Her experience was too far removed, to have any bearing on their lives. They regretted it as they regretted that of the martyrs, but were hardly more nearly affected by it.

“I must take my family away,” said Anna. “Seven guests to luncheon is no light matter, when they are related. We don't want to leave you in a state of collapse.”

“I will not thank you for coming,” said Sukey, keeping her hand. “But it has done me good to see you. Yes, and I think I will say to be seen by you. Those who do not meet us every day, may take a truer view of us. And there may not be many more visits to pay to me, not so very many.”

“Must we take this despairing view of things?” said Anna, not meeting her eyes.

“The doctors tell me it is the right one. They do not keep it from me now. The weaker I grow, the more fit I am to bear it. I don't know that it makes anyone feel despair. I don't somehow think that it does.”

“I refuse to regard it as possible,” said Bernard.

“Yes, that is what people do; that is how they protect themselves. But there is no protection for me.”

“I know you felt it was a safeguard for her,” said
Terence to his cousin. “I used to think it, myself, and it is a great pity it is not.”

“It is not anyone's fault that Aunt Sukey is ill,” said Julius.

“Poor little things, it is not yours indeed,” said Sukey. “And your life will be the same, when mine is over. So there is nothing for you to be too sorry about.”

Dora sank into tears.

“The comforting speech failed of its effect,” said Tullia.

“My little niece does not like the thought of life without her aunt,” said Sukey, resting her eyes on Dora, so that she seemed not to see that the protest on Thomas's face had almost reached his lips.

“Can't people be cured?” said Julius.

“Not always, my boy,” said Benjamin.

“Then what is the use of doctors?”

“I have asked myself that so many times,” said Sukey. “And I am sure you have all asked it for me. There is only one answer. They are not much use to me. But now I must not see such sad little faces. I shall have to reproach myself, and that is not good for me; and other people may reproach me too, and that is not very good for them, as I am so much weaker than they are. So let me see the sunshine out again. That one old aunt has to die, does not matter so much, does it?”

“You seem to think it matters,” said Julius.

“Well, I am not just an old aunt to myself, you see.”

“You are supposed to have a good deal of time left, aren't you?” said Anna, in an uneasy manner.

“Well, we will make the most of it, however much it may be. I am glad to have time to get to know my niece. We have run it close, but I hope we are not too late. Though you must not expect too much of a woman sentenced to death. She cannot give a great deal.”

“She affords me the greatest interest,” said Bernard to his uncle. “I have never met such a case of concentrated experience. I can hardly believe I am in contact with it.”

“You would soon get to realise it, and then to forget it,” said Thomas. “We cannot spend out lives on the brink of a grave.”

“That is what Aunt Sukey has to do.”

“Yes, that is what she would say.”

“But isn't it true?” said Bernard.

“It is true, my son,” said Benjamin.

“She seems to take her part in everything else,” said Thomas. “We do not do much without her.”

“No one is improved by the knowledge that her time is running out,” said his nephew.

“It should improve other people,” said Thomas, with a sigh. “If it does not, it is difficult to manage.”

“I think you are a person improved by it,” said Terence to Bernard. “And it seemed to be improving your sister. And my mother is so much improved, that she no longer has her feet on the earth. But it has the other effect on my father and me, and I think it has on Aunt Sukey.”

“I should have thought the last was inevitable,” said Bernard.

“If you become any more improved, things will be impossible. And your sister has been wanting for some time to take you home. I hope the atmosphere is less exalted there. And I should think it is.”

“I should like to come and see you as often as I may,” said Anna to Sukey, with embarrassed suddenness.

“Then shall we have a time together in the mornings? Before your father comes to see me. But I must make one condition. If you are tired of it, you will tell me.”

“Oh, I shall not be tired of it.”

“Then we will begin to-morrow, and people will leave us to each other. And that will give them a rest from me, and be a kindness to them as well as to me. So you will be doing more good than you thought, and you meant to do good, I know.”

“I meant just to please myself.”

“Perhaps Anna's bluntness is the kind that disguises
feeling,” said Esmond to Terence. “How are we to tell it from the other kind?”

“We will not try to, but I hope it is the other kind.”

“It would be hard to have to be embarrassed by it in more than the usual way.”

“Well, we won't keep on promising to depart, and then not doing so,” said Anna, not looking again at her aunts. “I will marshal my party to the gate, and no one need come to open it for me, as there are three young men to officiate.”

Benjamin rose and gave his arm to Sukey, and led her from the room, as if to protect her from the leave-taking.

“I see how neglected Aunt Sukey has been,” said Terence. “It takes two families to look after her.”

“Well, it is never too late to mend,” said his sister.

“I should think it often is. It probably is this time. Yes, I feel we have let our opportunity pass.”

“Those children may be a help to us,” said Jessica to her husband. “You married into a difficult family, my dear.”

“You are people on too large a scale,” said Thomas, “and your problems seem to be on the same measure. And perhaps smaller people are better able for things. They bring less feeling and less resistance to them.”

“It sounds an inconvenient type,” said Claribel, approaching by herself, as her niece and nephews departed. “And I must plead guilty to belonging to it. It is hard to have a cousin of your own kind, instead of a friend who would bring more convenient and lighter qualities. But I cannot claim to be anything but the typical, strung-up woman of the family. Birds of a feather flock together, and that must be my excuse for bringing more nerves and capacity for various emotions to a place where they exist in plenty.”

“There can be no excuse,” said Terence, in a voice that could almost be heard.

“Well, Father and I will leave you to make the best of these qualities,” said Tullia, taking Thomas's arm. “It
seems a wise step, as I am afraid my portion of them is also on the lavish side.”

Jessica gave a look from Claribel to her daughter.

“Do you see a likeness?” said Claribel.

“Well, I did for a moment.”

“I am always flattered by showing any likeness to the younger generation. It shows that the years have not quite overlaid the thing one was meant to be. One likes to feel that there is a glimpse of it left.”

“I think it always gets clearer,” said Terence.

“Well, I hope that is meant in a complimentary sense.”

“It would hardly have been said, otherwise,” said Thomas, his tone conveying a faint warning to his son.

“We are all about the same height,” went on Claribel, “Jessica and Sukey and me. I know I ought to say ‘I,' but somehow my lips do not take to that little word; I am at one with Cleopatra there. I often discover in myself an affinity with the characters that we know as friends. I wonder if she was as high as we are. We shall make quite an imposing group, if we are seen about together.”

“We shall share our interest in the young lives about us,” said Jessica, stating another prospect for them.