Elders and Betters (32 page)

Miss Lacy went with a quiet step from the room.

“Now what can I do for all of you?” she said, as she caught up Reuben. “Now don't tell me there is nothing. I am a person who has her purposes.”

“Where are the others?” said Reuben.

“I should guess they have gone to their temple,” said Miss Lacy, turning her steps in this direction. “If they have not, some part of the garden will discover them.”

Reuben hesitated to approach the rock, feeling that the help of religion would naturally be sought under the circumstances.

Julius and Dora were already soliciting it.

“O great and good and powerful god, Chung, grant that our life may not remain clouded, as it is at this present. And grant that someone may guide us in the manner of our mother, so that we may not wander without direction in the maze of life. For although we would have freedom, if it be thy will, yet would we be worthy of being our mother's children. And if there is danger of our inheriting the weaknesses of our mother and our aunt, thy late handmaids, guard us from them, O god, and grant that we may live to a ripe old age. For it would not be worth while to suffer the trials of childhood, if they were not to lead to fullness of days. And we pray thee to comfort our father and our brother and sister; and if they are in less need of comfort
than beseems them, pardon them, O god, and lead them to know the elevation of true grief.”

Dora's voice trembled for the first time, and her brother took his hands from his face and gave her a look of approval.

“And grant that our father may not form the habit of talking of our mother, and thus cast a cloud upon us; but rather may lock up all such things in his heart, and commune solely with himself upon them, so that his heart may know its own bitterness. Nevertheless not as we will, but as thou wilt. For Si Lung's sake, amen.”

“We are more likely to have our prayers granted, for not insisting upon it,” said Julius.

“And weaknesses is a good word for the causes of Aunt Sukey's dying and Mother's. It takes in everything, and does not call attention to things we should not know. It would not do to obtrude our knowledge, as if we were proud of it.”

“It is really better if Mother did not die of natural causes,” said Julius, “because those are the ones you can inherit.”

“It is strange how, as we get older, our requests take on a touch of maturity,” said Dora, investing her tone with the same touch.

“It is passing strange,” said Julius. “Verily we are having a unique childhood.”

“Do you suppose that two sisters have ever died in one house in such a short time before?”

“I expect there have been cases of it, but it would be rare.”

“Except in the time of the Plague,” said Dora. “Then bodies were carried out to carts, and men called out, ‘Bring out your dead.' ”

“There are Miss Lacy and Reuben,” said her brother. “It is a good thing they did not come on us at the rock. It is an escape indeed.”

“They would have been particularly bad petitions to be overheard,” said Dora, on a reminiscent note.

“We should never have lived them down,” said Julius, implying no modification of his own feelings towards them.

“Well, we join forces,” said Miss Lacy. “I have never heard that two is company and four is none.”

“Did Father tell you to come to us?” said Dora.

“He would not tell her to,” said Julius, in a whisper.

“He was glad for me to come, my dear,” said Miss Lacy, simply; “and that was to me the equivalent of a command.”

“Have we to go for a walk?” said Julius.

“No condition of any kind has been imposed upon us.”

“We could not be seen outside the gates to-day,” said Dora.

“I don't think there is any ban on it,” said Miss Lacy, “but I daresay you prefer the garden.”

“We were talking about the Plague,” said Julius; “and about the dead bodies being carried out to carts.”

“Well, you might have found a more cheerful subject.”

“Things are not cheerful now,” said Dora,

“Do all dead people become bodies?” said Julius, dragging his foot and looking back at it.

“We need not trouble about what we become after we are dead,” said Miss Lacy. “Think of yourself before you were born. That is the way to think about people we have lost.”

“Apart from their spirits,” said Dora.

“And nothing would have less to do with what is dead, than those,” said Miss Lacy, not committing herself to any definite belief.

Julius began to advance by a series of leaps, and Miss Lacy did not reprove him for conduct unsuited to the occasion, as she knew it had arisen from it.

“Can we stay in the garden as long as we like?” said Dora.

“I should think until you are tired of it. No doubt you will get to the stage of wanting an armchair and a fire.”

“We don't have those in the drawing-room; the grownup people take them.”

“Well, I should think you may return to your own quarters.”

“There is nobody there,” said Julius, in a voice that was oddly desolate, considering that they always had the schoolroom to themselves.

“I will ask Terence to come and sit with you,” said Miss Lacy.

Her pupils quickened their steps, and their voices were freer and more fluent.

“Once Terence poured out the tea, when he was reading,” said Dora, “and he poured and poured until the whole table was flooded.”

“And did not either of you notice?”

“We saw and didn't say anything, and hoped he would pour the whole pot away, and he nearly did,”

“And what drew his attention to it in the end?”

“The tea began to drip over the table on to his knees,” said Dora, bending forward in the emotion caused by this climax.

“I call it a most discreditable story.”

Dora and Julius broke into laughter and proceeded with an airy gait.

As dusk began to fall, Miss Lacy directed her steps towards the house, and Dora glanced about and drew nearer to her.

“Well, this is not the best time of day for anyone to have to be floating about in the air outside a house,” she said in a jaunty manner.

“No one does have to,” said Miss Lacy. “People go into their houses, and spirits have their own safe home.”

“Do they really have it?” said Dora, pressing up to her, and using a tone she could not check. “Don't they really have to be about without friends or ease or comfort?”

“No, of course they do not. Things would not be like that. We have our homes, and there would not be less refuge for those who have passed beyond.”

“No, there wouldn't,” said Dora, relaxing her limbs, but walking as if her strength were gone.

“Suppose none of it is true,” said Julius. “There are people who think that we don't live after we are dead.”

“Well, that would not matter,” said Miss Lacy. “I told you to think of yourself before you were born. That is how it would be, if that is the case.”

“Then it is certain that they don't have any suffering or misery?” said Dora.

“Absolutely certain. There can be no doubt.”

Julius and Dora sprang up the steps of the house, without giving a word or look to Miss Lacy, who had given them this release of spirit, and who was left to depend on Reuben for the civility due to a guest. Reuben had hardly been addressed by his cousins, but had acquiesced in having no claim on them at such a time.

Thomas came into the hall as they bounded through it.

“Don't you know better than to let a lady who has been giving you her time, go to the gate by herself without any thanks for her kindness? You have been taught as much as that. What is the explanation of such manners?”

The children could hardly give him the true one, of embarrassment over the betrayal of their hearts, especially as their spirits had evidently struck him as out of season. They stood silent and ill at ease, Julius looking also a little angry.

“In future remember what your mother has taught you,” said Thomas. “It grieves me to think of poor Miss Lacy, left to go off alone in the dark, when we owe so much to her.”

The children felt some surprise at this estimate of their debt. It was their first experience of the exaggerated gratitude that arises in bereavement. Dora looked back and saw the small, bent figure, pushing its way unsupported through the wind and dusk. Her heart was rent, and she was about to run back through the open door, but Thomas
shut it with an emphasis that revealed the passing of his thought to another neglected duty.

“You would think he might keep the house quiet at such a time,” said Julius. “Who should set such an example, but the master of it?”

The schoolroom was firelit and inviting, and Terence was seated at the table in response to a message from Miss Lacy. The contrast between its comfort and the outer bleakness held Dora petrified.

“What a peaked and staring face!” said Terence. “Was it very chilly in the garden?”

“It is cold and dark and windy now. Miss Lacy can hardly get along by herself,” said Dora, with a hope that succour might be forthcoming.

“It is too late to go after her. She must be almost at home. And no one lives in more comfort,” said Terence, with some perception of his sister's mind. “She has larger fires and better things to eat then anyone. No wonder she enjoys a battle with the wind. That always means a life of ease.”

“I hope Father is not going to play the pedagogue every time we see him,” said Julius. “That is no tribute to anyone's memory, though he may think it is.”

“He would hardly be in form at the moment,” said Terence.

This allusion to the circumstances struck Dora as so boldly humorous, that she fell almost into hysterics.

“Take care. Shrieks of mirth are not the sounds expected at this juncture,” said Terence, forgetting how easily they occurred at such a point.

His sister's sense of the ludicrous received a further spur.

“I hope we shall be able to maintain the required deportment,” said Terence. “I cannot say that I detect any signs of promise.”

Dora shook in silent helplessness.

“What is so funny?” said Julius.

His sister experienced the sharp irritation of a check at such a moment.

“You would not see it. Terence was only talking to me.”

“That is a lie!” said Julius.

“He knows you don't understand so much of what he says.”

Julius, confronted not only by a lie, but by the form of it known as the blackest, turned and deliberately struck his sister. She rose and fell upon him, and they gave themselves to combat. It raged for some minutes, illustrating the failings of human nature, as Julius proved that chivalry is not innate in man, and Dora resorted to instinctive feminine methods with tooth and nail. Terence watched with indolent interest, at one time dropping his eyes to his book, and at another stretching out a hand to check excessive violence or his brother's misuse of superior strength. As the contest died down, a system of mere retaliation ensued, and the give-and-take of blows became almost mechanical. Then the combatants fell apart and Julius spoke. “Where is the book?” he said.

Dora fetched a notebook and accepted a pencil from his hand, and added an entry to a page, of which the items had been crossed out, as they were dealt with.

“Yielding to evil passions,” she wrote, and added after a glance at her brother, “and at a time of bereavement.”

Julius nodded and framed some words with his lips, and Dora wrote again.

“Neglect of Miss Lacy after kindness. Wrong attitude to father's just reproof.”

After completing the last entry she restored the pencil to her brother, and returned with him to the tea-table.

“Your ribbon is on the floor, and there is some torn out hair on your dress,” he said, in a tone that might have mentioned that his sister's shoe was loose.

Dora remedied these conditions, Julius giving her rather anxious aid, and not desisting until his hands had rectified the damage they had wrought. She dropped the hair on the fire from between her finger and thumb.

“Say an incantation over the witches' cauldron,” she said.

“We ought to have the finger of a dead child, not the hair of a live one,” said Julius, watching the consumption of the part of his sister that was available.

“I am glad your violence did not lead as far as that,” said Terence.

The children broke into laughter and settled down at the table. They had hardly done so when Thomas and Tullia appeared.

“What was all the noise?” said Thomas.

“What it sounded to be,” said his elder son.

“We did not know you were here,” said Tullia. “We thought the children were alone, and were flying at each other's throats.”

“You were right in the second particular,” said Terence. “Why did you not come up at once? They might have attained their object. At one stage it did not seem impossible.”

A fainter sound of laughter came from the children.

Thomas walked to the fire, sat down rather heavily in an armchair, and beckoned them to his side.

“Mother has left us, but we do not want her influence to leave us too. What would she think of a brother and sister's fighting on this day of all days?”

The children could hardly explain, perhaps hardly understood, that the converse of the impression received by their father was true.

“It wouldn't be this kind of day, if she was here,” said Julius.

“What did she say to you, when this sort of thing happened?”

“I don't think she minded as much as you do.”

“She did mind, of course,” said Dora, “but she thought that being fond of each other in our hearts was the chief thing.”

“But why not have better ways of showing it?”

“Our other ways are quite good,” said Julius,

“But isn't it more of a pity, when people who are great friends try to hurt each other?”