Elders and Betters (23 page)

“Well, I daresay other people are saying it about me. Indeed I know they are. And you were the first. So all is fair between us all.”

“I think it is a tribute to us,” said Tullia, in her deliberate way, “that Aunt Sukey used our house as her home, and imposed her will upon us, without thinking it necessary to leave us a reward. That would take the meaning out of it, and make it all into a sort of exchange and barter. I am glad we are spared that.”

“I suppose you mean that the ban has fallen on me,” said Anna. “Well, that is as it may be. Aunt Sukey had to have her way.”

“How much that says for her!” said Bernard.

“So do we all,” said Terence. “That is why we are in a baffled state. We are not getting it.”

“Oh, Father and Aunt Jessica and I are fairly content,” said Anna. “Content with the minor circumstances, I mean, apart from the main thing. And if Tullia means what she says, she also is satisfied. And I don't see why she
shouldn't mean it. I generally mean what I say myself, simple, unsophisticated habit though it may sound. And Aunt Sukey may have felt as Tullia says. I never saw any sign in her, that she felt she ought to pay in any form for what she had in your house. She never gave the least hint of it, not the slightest.” Anna looked round in general assurance. “She felt she was entitled to everything by right of herself and of the advantage she was to you. I am sure you may feel certain that that was her feeling.”

“In a word, disinterested affection has to be disinterested,” said Thomas.

“Well, why shouldn't it be what it pretends to be? Or what it is, if you like?”

“I would rather reward it than the other kind.”

“In other words, it did not exist,” said his niece. “Oh, I may have been the new broom, but to my mind a little clean sweeping was not out of place.”

“Yes, there were some cobwebs,” said Jessica. “They tend to come with time; I daresay they would have done that anywhere.”

“Must we go on?” said Tullia. “What do we think is gained by it?”

“I am afraid nothing,” said Terence. “We hoped that Aunt Sukey's fortune would be gained.”

Anna laughed in spontaneous amusement, her eyes on her cousin's face.

“It was not a question of gain, but of assignment of dues,” said Thomas.

“It bore a certain resemblance to gain, on both sides I must say,” said Anna. “I don't think I am going to take the line that we are trying to be generous to each other. We are claiming what seems to us to be ours, a just and reasonable thing, but nothing more. And I have had enough of derogatory and belittling hints. If you cannot get on with people, who keep what they legally inherit, you will be able to get on with very few. Father put it to you in some way of his own.”

“This is hardly an ordinary case,” said Jessica.

“Now, honestly, Aunt Jessica, have you ever given up anything that was left to you in a will? I suppose you inherited your share of your parents' money; indeed I know you did, because Father did the same. And did it occur to you to make it over to anyone else? Or if it did, did you do it? I amit that it occurred to me; I believe I even spoke of it; but these impulses pass away; it is no good to blink at the truth. They did in my case, as I suppose they did in yours. And we are left with a feeling that, if we do not consider our dues, no one else will do it for us. The more we listen to other people, the more we see our dependence on ourselves. When you think you are entitled to money, that is left to someone else, you must see it is natural to think so, when it is left to you. I do think that my position is better than yours.”

Tullia gave a sigh and threw up her brows in silent despair.

“In a sense I have no position,” said Jessica, quietly. “But my own money was left to me on natural grounds. It was not a case of an accident or a sick impulse.”

“And how do we know that this was? How can we know anything? I begin to think that anything to do with money, be it wills or anything else, is so considered and dwelt upon and turned this way and that in people's thoughts, that no word like rashness or impulse is ever in place. It may be accepted as the definite outcome of the person's mind. I have come to that conclusion.”

“What do you think about it, Claribel?” said Thomas.

“Oh, I feel I am simply removed from it, just floating about above it in some sphere of my own, too ethereally constructed to be welcome or useful to anyone involved. It is just left out of me, the quality that deals with the assignment of human goods. I am above it, below it, whatever it is.”

“What would have happened, if the quality had been left out of Aunt Jessica and Anna?” said Esmond.

“What has happened now?” said Tullia. “Aunt Sukey decided the matter. But it is a pity it was not left out. We should have escaped this scene.”

“Well, there is no help for us,” said Thomas.

“No, there is not, Uncle Thomas,” said Anna, turning to face him. “And there would be none for me, if things were reversed, and the money left to you instead of to me. And I should not expect there to be; that seems to be the difference between us. Otherwise, there is not a pin to choose between your construction and mine. Even Aunt Jessica seems to be on the line with us. I want nothing that does not come to me fair and square; but if it does so come—” Anna snapped her fingers and turned to the table, on which Ethel had placed a tray. “Now come and slake your thirst and forget the bone of contention. I don't want to have Tullia fainting away before my eyes.”

“We ought to have known better than to embark on such an altercation,” said Esmond.

“Perhaps we have learned better,” said Thomas.

“Altercation, was it?” said Anna, with her eyes on the tray. “I should have thought it was a pretty reasoned discussion. Nothing runs quite on the smooth, when people are looking at things from different angles.” Her tone was preoccupied and she seemed to be taking some care in dispensing the tea. “I don't suppose we any of us harbour any personal feelings on the matter.”

“I am clear that the money should be my wife's,” said Thomas.

“And is that harbouring them or not?” said Terence.

“Oh, are we starting again?” said Tullia in an incredulous tone.

“No, we have finished,” said her father. “Yes, I will have some sugar, Anna, my dear.”

“I was wondering how long I should have to stand and face you all as a sort of prisoner in the dock,” said Anna, carrying round the cups with care not to spill them. “I couldn't help imagining what Aunt Sukey would think of
the scene. I don't suppose she meant to expose me to it. I wonder if I shall ever cure myself of filling cups too full. It comes of an instinct of hospitality, and then I don't check myself in time. No, sit down, you young men; this seems to me a woman's business. I may be clumsy for my sex, but I daresay I am less so than you are. I quite began to know how a criminal must feel. Not that I had an uneasy conscience, but being arraigned by your relations in a body produces a feeling of having somehow caused the situation.”

“We are answerable to nothing but our consciences,” said Jessica.

“I quite agree with you, Aunt Jessica,” said Anna, standing with her hands at her sides and her eyes on her aunt. “But other people did not seem to be of that mind. They appeared to think I was answerable to each and all of them. And I thought that you rather gave them the lead. And there did not seem to be so much conscience involved in any of it. You were all occupied with other things.”

“I feel I am a wiser person for the last hour,” said Bernard. “I think I have gone forward.”

“I am sure I have,” said his sister. “I thought people's wills and testaments were accepted as part of the natural order of things. I did not know that we pulled them out, and tore them in shreds, and scrambled for the pieces.”

“That is a most unfair description,” said Terence. “My family has behaved with kindness and decorum.”

“I was not given much chance to do the same. Perhaps that is what is rankling. I daresay it is.”

“I believe you are a person who says disarming things,” said Terence.

“Am I?” said Anna, in a tone at once casual and conscious.

“Not that you do not say many of the opposite kind. Some of your speeches would arm me to the teeth, if I were as other men.”

“And are you not as they are?”

“Of course I am not. You must have seen it.”

“Yes, well, I suppose I have that amount of observation.”

“Well, is the main part of the matter over?” said Benjamin.

“Poor innocent that I was, I thought Aunt Sukey's death was that,” said Anna. “Now I realise what is, I doubt if we shall ever be able to say so. It will crop up at intervals to the end of time.”

“Well, throw it off for the moment, my daughter, and think of your guests.”

“Thank you, Father. I take that as a sort of permission. It is an odd situation to be sitting in the stocks and dispensing hospitality at the same time.”

“You talk as if we had never had people to the house before,” said Esmond.

“Well, I think we generally find ourselves in a body at the other board. But I hope there will be more of an interchange in future.”

“Why should it be different?” said her brother.

“Oh, shall I ever say a thing that will satisfy my kindred? I shall be afraid to open my mouth. I suppose Aunt Sukey could not often be left could she? And I suppose she had to have a little change and social intercourse like anyone else. Or has it escaped your memory, that such a person existed?”

“We may not be able to keep such an open house in future,” said Jessica, in her quiet tones. “We shall be glad of the change and pleasure of this one. And, as Anna says, there will be less to keep us at home.”

“Thank you, Aunt Jessica. I keep having to be extricated from some awkward predicament. I am sure I am very grateful. And I hope indeed that we shall often see you all here, so that what you lose on the swings, you will gain on the roundabouts. I mean, it seemed right that we should go to you, when we were fledglings under your wing. But now we are on our feet, we must make our
return. And as for going to your house, I do not feel that I could ever enter its doors without a shiver.”

“I hope that will not always be your feeling.”

“I feel as if it would. And as for entering the room where I always saw Aunt Sukey, and saw her for the last time, well, it would be beyond me. I am sorry, but so it is; we can't alter ourselves. I am quite glad that Uncle Thomas is going to establish himself in it, so that no one will be supposed to open its doors. I shall not have to seem to make a parade of my feelings, which would be the account given of the matter. And it is no wonder that people are annoyed, when they see it like that.”

“We have not seemed either kind or sympathetic today,” said Jessica. “But when you look back, you will see that we have done our best with a difficulty quite unforeseen. And as regards the trouble that we share, we shall find that we share it.”

“Oh, I find no fault with the way you have behaved,” said Anna, turning away her head. “I don't see why you should have been any different. Indeed I think you elders set us an example of manners and restraint and everything. But, as you say, things were sprung upon us; we did not see eye to eye, and there it was. Any amount of preparation would hardly have altered it. The difference would have been there. We could not expect to shine.”

“I think my mother feels that she has done so,” said Terence. “And I am inclined to agree with her.”

“We have not been so fortunate in our representative,” said Bernard. “But she had a task beyond her.”

“It would have been too much for anyone,” said Terence. “Wanting to keep something for yourself puts you at such a disadvantage; people disapprove of it so deeply. But it is worse when the effort is not crowned with success. I was once or twice very much ashamed of Father.”

“I daresay we should all keep the money in my sister's place.”

“I have no doubt that we should,” said Terence. “My
mother is the only one who would not. And she would suffer more from the doubt of her right to it, than from the wrench of parting with it. Her pang would be less.”

“My own pang is great,” said Bernard.

“It must be. Mine would overpower me, if Tullia had inherited so much.”

“Well, Anna will not dissipate the money; that is one thing.”

“Or does that make it worse?” said Terence. “If it were squandered, there would be an end of it. And now it may increase and aggravate the position. Suppose she put it out at usury?”

“She has not enough knowledge for that.”

“But your father may advise her. He has been very successful in such things. And I feel she would take advice. Can it be that father and daughter both like money? She will use it to the greatest advantage. There is no comfort at all.”

“Well, I don't feel that she has had very much in her life.”

“Well, perhaps there is a little comfort.”

“Tullia does not mind her having the money,” said Bernard.

“Tullia has no grasp of such things. Father is the one who minds. And I cannot bear the spectacle of a strong man's suffering.”

“You seem to be having some good jokes there, you two,” said Anna.

“Cannot we have some fresh tea?” said Esmond.

“Ethel ought to bring it,” said his sister. “If we ring, she will think she must always be reminded.”

“Why cannot we have trained servants?”

“I daresay we can now. That is to say, it is time they were reaching that stage, after all my endeavours. And they are trained enough for our purposes. We could have a third, if it were not for the problem of two being company and three none.”

“Anna shows some skill in glossing over her allusions to her wealth,” said Terence. “But it would save trouble not to bring up the matter.”