Elders and Betters (34 page)

“Father can hardly be described in the terms you use,” said Esmond.

“Well, men never grow up,” said Anna. “I am glad that Terence was in a sense born old.”

“I suppose he shares your taste for maturity?”

“Yes, I think he does. He says he never felt a boy, even when he was one.”

“What is he now?” said Claribel, opening her eyes.

“A boy to you, of course,” said Anna, in full cordiality.

A faint sound of laughter came from Benjamin.

“Will he go on teaching me?” said Reuben.

“I should think he will,” said Anna, “if we can find a house in the neighbourhood. He will be glad to turn a penny of his own.”

“But he will have all your money to live on.”

“That will be little enough for a separate household.”

“What of your schemes for benefiting your family?” said Esmond.

“They must fade away,” said Anna with rueful frankness.

“My plans for being the godmother-sister were shortlived. I make no claim to put them before my own life. They came up against it and went by the board. That is the truth.”

“I do hope you will find a house quite near,” said Jenney.

“Terence would like to keep in touch with his family. And I have similar leanings with regard to mine,” said Anna, turning her eyes to her brothers with rough affection. “We have no idea of starting life in the classic self-centredness of the newly wed.”

“Starting a new life,” said Esmond.

“Well, it seems to me that my life has hardly begun until now. I daresay people do have that feeling, when their affairs take this particular turn. No disrespect meant to the old tasks and the familiar round, but one must feel that one's life emerges from twilight into daylight sometimes.”

“I wish I could know that the new life will be as safe as the old one,” said Benjamin.

“I don't think it will be fraught with any particular danger, Father. I don't somehow see Terence letting it take that line for me. As for his lack of worldly goods, you will find that he regrets it as much as you do. About a thousand times more would be a truer estimate, I expect.”

“He has arranged to suffer from it as little as possible,” said Esmond.

“Well, I do not want him to suffer,” said Anna, allowing a note of feeling to escape into her tone. “And I am not a person used to so much affluence, after all.”

“There is Terence coming up the drive,” said Reuben. “And Uncle Thomas and Tullia are with him.”

“Oh, I do think he might have come alone, and done his first duty towards me in the accepted way,” said Anna, with
open ruefulness. “I call it a most unromantic way of presenting himself in his new character. No one is at his best with his relations, and I think it applies to him more than to most people. No one knows him, who has only seen him with his family.”

“How did you manage to see him without them?” said Esmond.

“Terence contrived it. It was not left to me.”

“And does the same rule apply to you?”

“Well, yes, I expect it does, in the measure that it must to everyone. There is something in us all, that does not come out in family life, or is suppressed by it, or rejected by it, or something. But I daresay it keeps the better and fresher for its own purposes.”

“We deplore our relationship to you,” said Claribel, “and regret that we can do nothing about it.”

“Oh, I don't suppose my own best qualities have exactly blossomed and flourished in their native soil.”

“You may exaggerate the place of mating in the scheme of things,” said Esmond.

“Well, it is natural to do that at this juncture. And after all, a good deal does depend on it. The course of life would soon be held up without it.”

“Of course one owes one's existence to a mating,” said Claribel, as if struck by this for the first time. “And one sees it as such a primitive and common thing. We are very ungrateful to it.”

“Things are none the less deep for being primitive,” said Anna.

The Calderons were shown into the room by Ethel, whose manner accepted Terence as a member of the family. She had known of Anna's hopes before Anna herself, and known of their fulfilment but little later.

“Well, this is storming the citadel with a strong force,” said Anna to Terence, in the conscious tone of private intimacy. “I rather expected you to appear alone.”

“I did not dare to do that. I brought everyone I had
left to bring. I hope Uncle Benjamin will not take advantage of my being motherless. A father is not his son's natural protector.”

“Have you come to see me?” said Benjamin.

“Well, a man does come to see his future father-in-law at these times, or is it an honourable man? He has to tell him what he can do for his daughter.”

“And what can you do for mine?”

“I can go at her side on the pilgrimage to the grave.”

“And you are satisfied with that?”

“Well, it is a great deal. It almost sounds as if we could face death together. And I suppose I have your consent to the marriage, as you talk like such a near relation.”

“I meant to speak merely as an uncle. Do you intend to live on my daughter's income?”

“I did not mean to call you Father,” said Terence, “but if you go on like this, I shall have to. Anything else would be absurd.”

“Can you not contribute your own expenses?”

“Thank you for saying the words for me. They are not easy to say.”

“Do you feel that you are giving enough?”

“Well, I am givingmyself. So that is hardly for me to say.”

“My daughter is also doing that. I was talking of material things.”

“We ought not to dwell on those too much, Uncle.”

“Do you feel that you can live under these conditions, and keep your self-respect?”

“I am sure I can. I could not ever lose it. I should not have thought anyone could. I never know what people mean when they talk about people's doing so. I think they must mean that they have lost
their
respect.”

“Well, could you live without the respect of your fellows?”

“Yes, I am sure I could. I don't think people's respect is as nice as they think. And they so often have to do without mine.”

“Terence, I hope my daughter will be safe with you. You do not feel that you are making a provision for yourself?”

“I think it is you who feel that. I feel that Anna is a person from whom I can take anything. I seem to be a person of nicer feeling than you are.”

“Perhaps I am one of the people who do without your respect,” said Benjamin, allowing himself to smile. “Are there many of them?”

“Yes, a great many; I do think so little of people.”

“And what do they think of you?”

“Better than I deserve, Uncle Benjamin.”

“And you cannot return the compliment?”

“No, they deserve too much. They are so industrious and persevering and easily satisfied. And those are qualities that I cannot help despising.”

“What do they think of your lack of them?”

“Did they say that I lacked them? Then I despise them also for carping criticism and speaking against people behind their backs. I thought they would know that I breathed a rarer air than they did.”

“But you did not feel grateful to them?”

“It is foolish to talk about feeling gratitude to such people.”

“I don't want to interrupt the catechism, Father,” said Anna, “but have you not got off the point?”

“I have said all the same things,” said Thomas.

“It is true,” said Terence, looking round and nodding. “And they are only brothers by marriage.”

“What do you think of the adjustment of relationships?” said Bernard to Tullia.

“Well, I don't know why they require so much attention. They seemed to be enough in themselves. I should not have thought of tampering with them, though people do say that Father and I might be husband and wife.”

“But the marriage of cousins is lawful,” said Reuben. “A man can't put away his wife, because she is his cousin.”

“No, the marriage is for better, for worse, like any other,” said his sister.

“And yet it seems to be so different,” said Tullia.

“Yes, I feel we are being cheated,” said Claribel. “A marriage in both our families, and no fresh member for either!”

“When did you have the news broken to you, Tullia?” said Anna.

“Well, I suppose Terence must have said things about it. But I don't think I took it in until to-day. Not to be clear about it anyhow.”

“No one knew about it until to-day.”

“Oh, well, then I did not fall short in any way.”

“It is good of you to yield him up without a protest.”

“You are not going to leave the place, are you?” said Tullia, with a note of surprise.

“No, but Terence will be in a home of his own.”

“Well, so shall I. Father's house must be that for me indeed. So I have no reason to find fault with him.”

“And it will not put land and water between you,” said Benjamin.

“No, but it must put other things,” said Anna.

“What things?” said Tullia, in light wonder.

“Oh, all the intangible things that rise up between a married man and his superseded relations,” said Anna, in a tone of being driven further than she had meant to go.

“Well, it would be sad to belong to those,” said Tullia, with a little laugh.

“If it is a laughing matter, it is all right.”

“Well, you make it seem one,” said Tullia, laughing again.

“We shall have to set about looking for a house,” said Anna, putting the final seal upon the coming change.

“Well, what is there wrong in that? You talk as if all your intentions were in some way unjustifiable. And they sound innocent enough.”

“I am glad there is to be none of the disapproval, that I somehow feared was in store.”

“But I have been thinking, Terence,” said Tullia, in a tone of turning to the serious aspect of the matter, “that I really must leave you to manage your house-hunting for yourself. I have not time to put my heart into it, and it is useless to do it in any other spirit. Father must have the lion's share of me just now. Of course, if I can be of any help at the final stage, it is another thing.”

“We don't want any help,” said Anna, with a look of surprise. “Choosing a home is a personal thing, and I am not quite without experience. I chose this house, and it has done for us very well. I have no qualms' about leaving my men behind in it.”

“I wish I could say that sort of thing. But I can hardly leave my father for an hour, and must just submit to fate. Terence must understand or not, according as it is in him. But he has always been a good and comprehending person.”

Anna looked at her cousin with a grim half-smile.

“I don't know why I should be talked to, as if I were not capable of taking my own place. I can get some kind of a home for Terence. You need not be afraid.”

“That is rather what I meant, Anna,” said Tullia, with open gravity. “A house has to have a soul that suits its owner, and if it isn't easy for you to judge of it, I am at your service. That is all I meant.”

“I believe you meant a good deal more, but we will leave it like that at the moment. I am to seek your advice, if I am perplexed about the soul of our house. But it is not likely that I shall troubje you. I don't much care for ready-made souls, and Terence and I will soon put our own life into it.”

Tullia glanced about the room, as if it threw some light for her on Anna's words, and turned to talk to her father in a manner that implied that little was of moment to them outside themselves.

Thomas put his arm about her, and drew Anna to his other side.

“So I am to have two daughters instead of one, and at a time in my life when I am doubly grateful for what comes to me.”

“Are we supposed to comport ourselves as if people were seeing us for the first time?” said Tullia, putting her face on a line with her cousin's.

“I wish we were doing that,” said Terence to Bernard. “We should get such a bad impression of them. And I only like people for their faults. That is why women are superior to men, that they are so full of petty failings. And I don't think it is always fair to call them petty. It really places them above the beasts.”

“Oh, I can do my duty as a foil in a moment,” said Anna, throwing herself into place by Tullia.

“We ought to be alike, now that we are to be so much related,” said the latter. “Are you my cousin or my sister-in-law?”

“The first at the moment. Presently I shall be both.”

“No, it is too difficult,” said Tullia, shaking her head.

“Concentrate on the second relationship. The greater supersedes the less.”

“No, no, I don't want to get as far as concentration. That is quite an uphill path.”

“Well, leave it to the future. That takes care of itself.”

“No, I will have you for a cousin, as I always have,” said Tullia, with an air of emerging from a dilemma. “I shall just refuse to admit any change.”

“How I do admire them!” said Terence.

“Show the whole of yourself, Tulliola,” said Thomas.

“Poor dear, was he jealous then?” said Tullia, putting her hand on his shoulder. “Was I thinking of cousins and sisters and not of him? But it really was a good deal to grasp, and my mind hadn't room for any more.”

“I can see a look of Tullia in Anna, though you would
not expect it,” said Terence. “It is not enough to be called a likeness.”

“I have seen two people more unlike,” said Bernard.

“I have not,” said Esmond.

“No, I don't think I discern this new-found resemblance,” said Claribel.

“Your brothers are behaving with exemplary self-suppression,” said Tullia to Anna. “If Terence had been required to make this sacrifice, there would have been—well, lamentation and great weeping.”