Elders and Betters (37 page)

“No, Tullia would not,” said Miss Lacy. “And Florence will like better to be here without Tullia. And Tullia and Florence will be the best of friends.”

“Won't anyone be here but Florence and Father?” said Dora, in a rather forlorn tone.

“I shall come very often to see you,” said Tullia. “We shall be living very near. And Bernard will be your brother, like Terence.”

“Do brothers always live in a different house?”

“We are neither of us held to be human,” said Thomas, smiling at Florence.

“No, as regards the children I do not think you are human,” said Miss Lacy, in her sibilant tone. “They do not seem to feel it, and it is probable that they know.”

“What a mix-up of family relationships!” said Anna. “Can't anyone cast his net further afield?”

“Anna does not seem surprised by the news,” said Miss Lacy. “Did she have an inkling of what was coming? I think that must be such a satisfying position to hold.”

“I saw the direction Bernard was taking, some time ago.”

“And are you not going to give me your congratulations?” said her brother.

“I don't remember that you overwhelmed me with them, or with what corresponds to them in the case of a woman.”

“I give you my blessing, my son,” said Benjamin. “I
ask nothing better than to have my sister's daughter for my own.”

“I wonder which daughter will be the favourite,” said Claribel.

“Oh, thirty years give one a start,” said Anna. “We can hardly talk as if they could be swept aside. I might as well suggest that I could supersede Tullia in Uncle Thomas's affections.”

“That is quite true,” said Benjamin.

“I wonder if I should have been different, if I had had another father,” said Terence. “Of course, now I am to have one.”

“I think we are overdoing this intermarrying,” said Anna, as if a serious protest might have its effect. “I know I set the example, but I did not mean to start a fashion. We shall be simmering in a family cauldron indeed.”

“Are you really going to support a wife?” said Terence to Bernard. “And in the manner to which she is accustomed? It is impressive to meet a normal man, and see what is expected of him.”

“I am going to give Uncle Thomas an account of my position. It is just what might be thought. I am proud of being so like other men.”

“It is cowardly of you to insult me.”

“Why are so many things cowardly?” said Bernard. “Why is it cowardly to hit a person when he is down, or to strike a woman? Unkind and violent and quite inexcusable, but why cowardly? And why are bullies always cowards?”

“They cannot be,” said Terence. “Bullying is very brave. That is why they bully people weaker than themselves. They know how brave it is.”

“Which will have the odder husband, Tullia or I?” said Anna.

“You will,” said Bernard. “I just escape the term.” “Yes,” said Miss Lacy, looking from one to the other. “Yes, I think we may say so.”

“I really do not understand the ordinary man,” said Terence. “I once heard a friend say that he was glad he had had a hard bringing up, or he might not have been the worker he was. What astonishing things to be glad about! And he was quite ordinary.”

“Then perhaps I am not,” said Bernard. “I think I should be ashamed to have suffered early hardship. I never know why such a point is made of it in writing people's lives. I would rather be able to respect them.”

“Your training was not particularly luxurious,” said Anna. “And we are most of us ordinary to other people. I expect I am still the blundering innocent that I always was.”

“Now why should innocent people be said to blunder?” said Miss Lacy. “Especially as criminals are the people noted for it.”

“We are very unfair to criminals,” said Terence. “They only make one blunder out of so many. They ought nearly always to have the credit of the crime. What right have we to be so exacting, when we are only criminals at heart?”

“What kind of things do we hide within us?” said Anna, in an idle tone.

“Bad things, but not those that the world calls wrong.”

“Hasty judgements, self-satisfaction,” said Miss Lacy. “Too little understanding.”

“Those are not bad,” said Terence. “They are the stuff of life itself. Which no doubt means that they are very bad indeed.”

“You are being clever,” said Anna.

“But I am not trying to be. You found that I was.”

“Why should we not try to be clever?” said Miss Lacy. “It seems to be a natural ambition for ourselves, and to take account of other people.”

“It savours of self-consciousness,” said Anna. “And that might lead into dangerous ways.”

“Oh, must we be quite so honest with ourselves, my dear?”

“We do not know how to avoid it,” said Terence. “That
is why there is horror in every heart, and a resolve never to be honest with anyone else.”

“I suppose I am too honest,” said Anna. “I ought to edit myself more.”

“I expect you mean that you ought to edit yourself differently,” said Terence. “You would think that we could choose our wrong impression, but I beleve that a certain false exterior goes with every type. If we could learn how they correspond, nothing would be hidden from us.”

“And if we all belonged to a type, “said Anna, with cursory interest. “But we have bits of so many different people in us.”

“That piece of learning might be a dangerous thing,” said Miss Lacy. “Not that I would always say it of a little learning.”

“Think of being with people and knowing their hearts,” said Terence. “When they show that they know more of ours than we thought, what discomfort it gives us! And how much it ought to give us!”

“Oh, we are not such sinks of iniquity,” said Anna. “We are most of us well-intentioned, every-day sort of creatures. Miss Lacy is looking as if she found us an oddly-matched pair.”

“You do not strike me as matched at all,” said Miss Lacy, laughing. “But you may be a satisfactory pair.”

“I hope we shall attain a decent average,” said Anna. “There is something in the attraction of opposites.”

“We all have a shocking deal in common,” said Terence.

“Why shocking?” said Anna.

“Well, the part of us that we have in common, would shock anyone.”

“You sound as if you would make resolutions on New Year's Day,” said Bernard.

“I did, and I am not ashamed of it. I think it was the only occasion in the year when I was not ashamed. And it was on New Year's Eve.”

“Does that make such a difference?” said Anna.

“Well, New Year's Day was the day when I carried them out.”

“Don't you make them any longer?” said Bernard.

“No. I have ceased to think as a child. It was too much of a strain upon me.”

“I never support this tragic view of childhood,” said Anna. “It is the reaction from the theory that it is the happiest time of life.”

“It is a great excuse for people, that they thought that,” said Terence.

“Would you like to be grown-up, Dora?” said Bernard.

“Yes, I should.”

“Would you, Julius?”

“Yes.”

“Why would you like it?”

“It is better,” said Julius.

“We should do what we wanted to,” said Dora.

“We should not work without earning money,” said Julius. “Lessons only cost money, and don't produce anything.”

Miss Lacy went into mirth.

“We should do things for other people,” said Dora. “I should give money to beggars, and I should give them enough. People give them too little to be any good.”

“They have to give them little enough, to do themselves no harm,” said Terence.

“You should never give away what you would not like to have yourself,” said Dora.

“Where would you get the money?” said Thomas.

“Julius would earn it. He is going to earn a great deal.”

“But the money would be his.”

“He would always give me half,” said Dora, in a slightly shocked tone.

“Wouldn't you like to earn, yourself?” said Terence. “I have no doubt that you would. Everything combines to make my position look worse.”

“Well, woman don't earn enough to be much use, unless they are scholars or authors or some real thing; and not many can be those.”

“There is something in that,” said Miss Lacy, looking round.

“Can we go into the garden?” said Julius.

“How about it, Tullia, my dear?” said Miss Lacy.

“Will people have to ask Florence things, when she is married to Father?” said Dora.

“It will do, if you ask Miss Lacy or me,” said her sister. “Yes, you may run out now.”

Julius and Dora walked to the rock in silence, as if weighed down by the burden to be cast off.

“O great and good and powerful god, Chung, we beseech thee to come to our aid at this crisis in our lives. For our mother's place is filled, and the hand of the step-mother will be over us. Let it not be a harsh sway, O god, and do not turn away our father's heart from us. And if he has erred in thus taking his thoughts from his lawful wife, pardon him, O god, and do not visit thy wrath upon him; for he is but a weak and sinful man, and lacks the wisdom that is in the heart of childhood. And grant that our new path in life may be a smooth one, for we are young and weak and have few to protect us. Our brother and sister go into the homes of the stranger, and our governess, thy handmaid, does not see us with a mother's eyes. But put kindness for us into her heart, and grant that our father may look in gentleness upon us. For though he may be sinful in thy sight, there is no one who can take a parent's place. For Sung Li's sake, amen.”

Dora hurried the last words and got to her feet, looking at her brother as a sound struck her ear.

“It is Father and Tullia,” said Julius. “Be quiet and let them pass without seeing us. They will not look through the bushes.”

Thomas and his daughter went by without doing this, but the younger pair did not emulate them.

“You would hardly think they would behave in just the same way, now that Father is going to marry Florence, “said Dora.

“Father's ways are inscrutable,” said Julius. “They are not worthy of our thought.”

“TULLIA, MY BEING engaged to Florence is not a trouble to you?”

“Well, it was not exactly arranged for my benefit, was it?”

“I did not see that it would alter your life.”

“It does not say much for your vision. You were the only person who was blind to it. And I am not very used to pitying eyes.”

“No one could have turned them on you, who knew my heart.”

“Your heart is a matter for yourself, Father. No one else would claim to have any insight into it.”

Tullia's terseness came in contrast to her usual deliberate speech.

“You had not been long in your mother's place.”

“I have never seen myself as in it. The place was hers, not mine. And no one is accusing you of delay in filling it. But I have been for some time in my own.”

“Tullia, since you were twelve years old, you have been the first person in my life. Your mother never grudged you the place.”

“Well, I cannot emulate her. I do not understand this easy adjustment of places.”

“Yours must always be the same.”

“What does Florence say to that?”

“She knows that she takes the empty place, not the full one.”

“She assumes that she takes the only one. She would not have accepted any other.”

“She will understand,” said Thomas.

“No doubt she will in time, but will that make it any better?”

“If it is a question of you or anyone else, it must always be you.”

“You have room for more than one person in your heart,” said Tullia, in a mocking tone.

“Only for one first person.”

“Did you make your offer to Florence on those terms?”

“I offered her the place of my wife, not the first place in my heart. She knew I had not that to give.”

“How could she know? I am not sure that you knew, yourself, and I hardly think Mother did. You have analysed this heart of yours in the last few minutes.”

“I had not put things into words to myself. Events crowded thick and fast, and I was lifted off my feet. It gave me a shock to think that you were leaving my home.”

“But none to think it was to be a different home to me,” said Tullia, with the first break in her voice.

“I did not know that it was. I did not, my dear. And it need not have been. If you decide to remain in it, it shall not be.”

“Someone was more definite about his feelings than you were. I am committed to leaving it.”

“Tullia, would you be marrying, if this had not happened?”

“I daresay not so soon, but it would have been hard to avoid it.”

“Of course I have never expected or wanted you not to marry.”

“You have rather an odd way of showing it.”

“And I could accept your cousin as a husband for you.”

“Well, anything else would lead to trouble now.”

“You did not consult me, Tullia.”

“I do not remember that you paid me that compliment either.”

“Tullia, I am your natural protector. You can hardly say the same to me.”

“I am sure I wish someone could. You were sorely in need of one.”

“Tulliola, may I feel that you will never change to me? May I take that feeling with me into the downhill path that lies ahead?”

Florence, crossing the hall with the group from the dining-room, looked about for Thomas and his daughter, who had left the table by themselves. She caught sight of them, standing just within the hall, protected by the shadow of the door, locked in each other's arms. She paused and rested her eyes on them, and then went on with the others. When they came into the drawing-room, she took no notice, but presently moved towards Thomas and paused, as if by chance, before him.