Elders and Betters (30 page)

“Reuben has chosen his method of proving his feeling,” said Esmond.

“The boy is right to stay away,” said Benjamin. “But I must go to my sister's house. And my daughter and my eldest son will bear me company.”

He left the room with these members of his family, and Claribel strolled out after them with an expression of troubled aloofness.

Reuben leaned back in his chair.

“Aunt Jessica's being dead won't make so very much difference to us, will it, Jenney?” he said in an almost appealing tone, ignoring Esmond, to whom he had no regard.

“Well, of course you will miss her.”

“Well, when I was at home, I never saw her. And when I was at her house, I usually saw only Terence. So my life will be very much the same.”

“Well, I daresay you will get used to it.”

“It is really best not to think about it. Because it can't do any good. And there is no point in doing harm to yourself, when it doesn't do any good to anyone else.”

“You will always like to think of your aunts. They would not wish you to forget them.”

“I don't think we ever really forget people. I don't see how we could. So I think that is all right.”

BENJAMIN AND HIS elder children went to the Calderons' house, Anna walking behind the men, instead of following her custom of leading the way. Thomas came into the hall, as if he were expecting them.

“I am having as much help as my friends can give me, and you have come to add to it.”

“We have come also to seek it,” said Benjamin. “It is a dark hour in both our homes.”

“It is that one room that stands out as the scene of dark things,” said Anna, speaking in embarrassed haste. “I think I should close it, Uncle Thomas. There is no point in leading people's thoughts to dubious scenes.”

“I was going to use it myself. My wife had gone there to prepare it for me.”

“Well, as the breadwinner, I should avoid it,” said his niece.

“I shall indeed have to fulfil that character now,” said Thomas, turning his eyes to Benjamin. “With no wife to manage for me, and fewer sources of supply, I shall find my work enough. And I am in no great heart for it.”

“Jessica's money is yours, of course?” said Benjamin. “I mean, it does not go to the children?”

“Don't say there is another will, that does not give satisfaction,” said Anna, under her breath.

“No, this one should be as we expect,” said Thomas.

“I think I had better keep my tongue still,” muttered his niece.

“No further light has come on what happened?” said Benjamin.

“None could come,” said Thomas. “Full light came at once.”

“So Jessica could not face life without Sukey.”

“She never more than just faced it,” said Thomas in a steady tone. “And the extra demand was too much.”

“Don't say that Aunt Sukey's will put any weight on the wrong side,” murmured Anna.

“It gave her an insight into the mind of her sister, that troubled her,” said Thomas.

“But she did not accept the will.”

“She believed her sister meant to destroy it. But the fact of her making it was enough.”

“Nothing alters the years of care that she gave her.”

“No, but there was the question of her sister's view of them.”

“I suppose I ought to feel that I should have given up the money.”

“We all keep what is ours,” said Thomas, with a note of weariness. “The question of what we should do, does not arise.”

“Aunt Jessica thought it did.”

“It would have in her case. She was not as other people are.”

“I suppose you think I can't hold a candle to her?”

“No one comes up to her in goodness, to my mind,” said Thomas, with a note of surprise.

“I am sure I quite agree,” said Anna, rapidly. “I am only led to this survey of myself, by the common view of my part in the tragedy.”

“It is not the last straw that breaks the camel's back,” said Thomas. “It is all the others.”

“It can hardly matter which straw one is,” said Bernard.

Anna gave a laugh, and Thomas threw a glance at her.

“Oh, I had better go to the younger members of the family. I am not giving satisfaction here.”

“No one is more upset than she is,” said Benjamin, looking after his daughter. “I admit she has not the usual ways of showing it. But she would give up the money, to bring her aunt back.”

“I should expect it, if it would do that,” said Thomas. “But I cannot suggest that it would, though I should choose to have a claim on it. My being alone does not lighten my ordinary burdens.”

Anna went into the library, where Terence was by himself.

“So you are all alone,” she said.

“I am more solitary than I have ever been.”

“You still have an appreciable family.”

“It is the worst kind of loneliness to be alone among many.”

“Well, a straw cannot make much difference, one way or the other,” said Anna, sitting down.

“What did you say?” said Terence.

“I am held to be the last straw that broke your mother's back.”

Terence broke into laughter.

“Father is in a cruel mood. He has said a dreadful thing to me. He is taking advantage of this moment when we have to forgive him everything.”

“Oh, I forgive him,” said Anna, in a tone of nonchalant sincerity.

“I do not. I find I cannot.”

“What has he said to you?”

“That I must earn my living.”

“Is that so very bad?”

“It is most ungenerous, when he has the power to do it, and I have not. He does not seem to wish to share everything with his son. He even said that he did not want to support my wife and family, which is more and more ungenerous. Fancy not wanting to support a helpless woman and children!”

“Well, what we give you for teaching Reuben won't go as far as that. But cannot you really do something more for yourself?”

“A breadwinner is born, not made. My mother quite understood it.”

“Then that is what she meant by what she said to me,” said Anna, as if to herself.

“What did she say?”

“Oh, nothing; just a word about wanting to feel that your future was safe, or something. I don't remember the exact words.”

“If she had had her sister's noney as well as her own, she might have done something for me as the elder son. She was secretly inclined to favour me; it was a thing I respected so much in her. Surreptitious favouritism is so considerate to everyone; she would have scorned to be open about it. And now you have that money, and Father has hers, and you both say that I ought to earn some. I wonder your lips can frame the words.”

“No, she did not take that view,” said Anna, again as if to herself.

“What did she say about me?”

“Only something that made me feel that I should never get away from that will. It does not matter what it was.”

“She did not ask you to give me any money?”

“No, no, not give it to you.”

“Well, what was it that she said?”

“Nothing that I could put into words; something that makes me smile when I think of it,” said Anna, suiting her action to her words. “And as it is not a occasion for smiling, I will put it out of my mind.”

“But put it into mine first,” said Terence.

“It was only a sort of instinctive suggestion. It would be meaningless, if it were permissible to say such a thing of Aunt Jessica,” said Anna, her face relaxing again, as if she could not help it. “I will not repeat it; there would be nothing gained.”

“You should not keep my mother's last words from me.

“It is true that they concerned you,” said his cousin.

“I am glad that I was the last person in her thoughts. That is a thing for me to remember.”

“Yes, remember that,” said Anna, as if welcoming this end of the matter.

“Did she ask you to adopt me?”

Anna glanced at him for a moment.

“You are pretty warm,” she said, the words seeming to come in spite of herself.

“In what way were you to do it?”

“Oh, in the way that a woman can adopt a man,” said Anna, in a light, incidental tone.

“I am touched that my mother was matchmaking for me in her last hours.”

“Yes, it is touching, isn't it?” said Anna, in a serious manner. “I think we can hardly estimate what it meant at such a time.”

“You gave the impression that she had not been kind to you. But it was surely kind to want you for a daughter-in-law?”

“Oh, I don't think that I was in her thoughts. I was just the instrument to save you from poverty, or whatever she feared for you.”

“It is my father's duty to care for me. But he is like an animal, and takes no thought for me, now I am mature.”

“Well, no one but me heard your mother. These things arise from having people about, who are not held to count. No doubt she felt it and took advantage of it. But I find myself speculating how those who incurred her other words would take them; Florence and your father and all of them.”

“Why, what did she say about Florence? I do not mind her words about Father. He deserves them.”

“Oh, just the obvious things about her not being suitable for you, for material and other reasons.”

“That was not the tone of my mother's speech,” said Terence.

“Oh, no, no, it is mine,” said Anna. “I am not quoting your mother. I should not dream of it. And I seldom make an attempt to give people's tone. It results in a much more
erroneous impression, than just giving a natural account.”

“I thought she and Florence had a liking for each other.”

“They could hardly help it, could they, as everyone had one for them both? You should have seen Esmond's gaze on Florence the other day. My heart quite misgave me for my brother. I don't know what his luck may be.”

“Are you attached to Florence yourself?”

“Well, yes, I suppose so. She is a pretty thing to follow with one's eyes. I don't know that I have got much further. And I have seen no sign that she wishes me to make any advance.”

“Are you very fond of anyone?”

“Oh, well, yes, of two or three people, the inevitable two or three of a person who does not disperse her affections. I am not one for scattering mine; perhaps I have not enough to spare. My father, Aunt Sukey, Bernard, Reuben. In a secondary way, Jenney. Those are the objects of my attachment, or its victims.”

“You are more my mother's niece than you know,” said Terence.

“Yes, I know what you mean,” said Anna, meeting his eyes for a moment. “I often felt a current of fellow-feeling running between us. I felt it even at that last meeting, when it was the last thing to be thought. That is how my accounts of it came to seem discrepant. I was the victim of a sort of dual feeling. I did not know how to cope with the channel of sympathy, that would flow out of me towards her, when my reason told me that I ought to be angry and insulted. And indeed I was both.”

“It is a pity that you did not know each other better.”

“Well, I never expect much precipitance in people's approach to me. There is not much about my outer self to help them forward.”

“Aunt Sukey seems to have managed better,” said Terence.

“There are always some of us who pierce the shells of certain others. I suppose it was an instance of that. I am
fortunate that it was so, and do not feel entitled to expect another case of it.”

“It is unfortuante that my mother's nerves were worked off on you.”

“Oh, I understand it more and more. I may have been dense about it at the time. But she missed the essence of me, and that never helps a person to grasp the inner truth of another. And I may not be alive to the complexities of the subtle type, being built on plain and obvious lines myself.”

“You certainly do not seem to have done each other justice.”

“And that was harder on her than on me,” said Anna, at once. “Because I am used to being missed, and taken for a rougher, cruder creature than I am. And she was more fortunate in her outer aspect and suggestions.”

There was a pause.

“I suppose we should go to the others,” said Terence. “I must not forget you are a guest.”

“I suppose I may be a cousin,” said Anna, following him with the hurrying step, that took her so little faster than other people's. “I have done nothing to forfeit that bond, as far as I can see. But you are more versed in the etiquette of a house of mourning than I am.”

“You have not seen Tullia, have you?”

“I caught a glimpse of her, and was just vouchsafed a glance.”

“I expect she was not thinking of what she was doing.”

“I am sure she was not,” said Anna, cordially. “How should she be at this time? And why should I expect to arrest her attention at any time?”

“You did not come in here to find her?”

“No, I thought the children were here. I fancied I heard their voices. They must have come from somewhere else.”

“I don't think they are heard at all at this juncture,” said Terence.

They went to the drawing-room to find their fathers talking by the fire, and the children sitting silent. Tullia was standing upright and aloof, as a person called to a different and tragic place, and Bernard was standing near, with a suggestion of attendance.

“Well, we are quite a party,” said Anna.

“That is hardly the accepted aspect of the gathering,” said Esmond.

“Now why call attention to someone's little false step?” said Anna, in a rather low but exasperated tone. “You should try to gloss it over, instead of making it as conspicuous as possible. The most elementary social sense should show you that. What do you gain by making someone else feel uncomfortable?”

“Esmond can hardly reply that he gains a mean, personal gratification,” said Bernard.