Elders and Betters (4 page)

The latter greeted Benjamin with bare cordiality and ignored his deliberate survey of herself. He had put her to his purpose of duenna for his family, and she felt that she owed him nothing, and would not suffer at his hands. Her attitude and Reuben's were of the kind reputed to ensure respect, but failed to do so with Benjamin, who had little command of this feeling. He had not even much for himself, which tends to mean a meagre residue for other people.

“Well, we begin our new life,” he said, in the harsh, uneven tones that seemed to carry an undercurrent of emotion. “We shall feel that the house is our own, when we have planted memories in it.” His eyes rested on his sons, as if he awaited their fulfilment of this duty.

“We shall always remember Bernard's half-shy look of welcome,” said Reuben, pulling at Jenney's sleeve and raising his voice. “He may be ashamed of the feeling that brought him, but it makes us like him better.”

Esmond pushed through his family and stood in the middle of the room and looked up and down.

“Cannot your feelings find expression?” said Claribel.

“It seems that that is the case,” said Bernard.

“It is usual to reply to a question,” said Benjamin.

“A reply was not wanted,” said his second son.

“Well, that is true,” said Anna. “People who withhold their wisdom before the event, need not produce it afterwards.”

“It is a smaller house than the other,” said Reuben.

“There is plenty for the servants to do in it,” said Anna, “though it would not be wise to give them a hint of it.”

“They are the last people who should require it,” said Bernard.

“You seem to be agreed upon your course,” said Esmond.

“Bernard has been spoiling them, as usual,” said Anna. “It only makes them harder to manage.”

“Since when has he taken your place?” said Benjamin.

“He has not done so, Father, or he would know better.”

“They are both of them nicer than most of us,” said Bernard.

Reuben gave the laugh that he felt was appropriate, though Ethel and Cook had a larger measure of his affection than anyone but Bernard and Jenney.

“Now keep your tongues off them for the moment,” said Anna, in her rough manner. “Here is Ethel with the tea.”

“I had muffins for tea yesterday,” said Bernard.

“Oh, I forgot to have them toasted,” said Jenney, springing to her feet. “I can see about it in a minute.”

Ethel produced a covered dish, with a fleeting smile at Bernard.

“Oh, I am glad you remembered, Ethel,” said Jenney.

“It was Cook,” said Ethel, turning to the door to hide her smile of conscious pride.

“And what more suitable person?” said Anna, keeping her eyes on the door until it closed. “Is nothing further removed from Cook than her natural duties? Ethel should put the tray in front of me. Will she ever learn her business?”

“Oh, I know how you all like it,” said Jenney proceeding to pour out the tea.

“Experience does nothing for Anna in that matter,” said Esmond.

“I take the precaution of asking you,” said his sister.

“It is tiresome to explain the same things day after day.”

“That should hardly be too great a drain upon your energy.”

“It is upon my patience.”

“We may all come to the end of that quality,” said Benjamin.

“Well, it is nice to have one's little ways remembered,” said Claribel. “After all, they are the outcome of one's personality.”

“Pass the muffins to Reuben,” said Jenney, as if she were speaking to children who might keep them to themselves.

Her tone irritated Anna and Esmond, who made no movement; Bernard would not leave his easy chair; Claribel assumed that a woman did not wait upon a boy; Benjamin rose and handed the muffins to his son and then to Jenney.

“Considering the standard of your manners, Father, you might have passed them to Jenney first,” said Anna, who was more at ease with Benjamin than his other children, partly because she did not follow his mind or try to do so. This effort seemed to involve his sons in his own uneasiness.

“I did as she asked,” said Benjamin, returning to his seat.

“Jenney gets much more obedience than I ever get.”

“What claim have you to it?” said Esmond.

“I am supposed to be the mistress of the house.”

“That position involves certain functions.”

“Oh, does it?” said Anna. “Well, who arranged the house, and planned the move, and was here to receive the maids and assign the rooms, and do the hundred and one things that had to be done?”

“Jenney was that person,” said Esmond.

“No, she only worked under my direction. And Father and I chose the house by ourselves. Nobody else was with us.”

Esmond glanced round the room and subsided almost with a nod to himself, as if he could credit this statement.

“You may leave the house, if you have a better one,” said Benjamin.

“All in good time,” muttered Esmond.

“Then let your criticism wait for that.”

“I suppose we shall see the other household to-morrow,” said Claribel. “I wonder which of us is engaging their thoughts.”

“Oh, of course you will,” said Jenney, in an excited manner. “What a sudden plunge into a new life! I wonder how you will all manage in it.” She felt Benjamin's glance and hastened to retrieve any false step. “I expect you will all enjoy being together.”

“We must see that we do so,” said Benjamin. “Anything else would dispose of the good in our presence.”

“Aunt Sukey will impose her demands, if I make no mistake,” said Anna.

“I hope you make none,” said her father. “We have come here to fulfil them.”

“Very morbid,” murmured Bernard.

Benjamin had lately retired from a government office, which had required his daily presence, and had moved nearer to his sisters, who desired his support. His sons had adopted the same occupation, a fact which caused Esmond to suffer, and Benjamin to smile to himself, and sometimes to suffer also, as he recalled his sons' earlier hopes. Bernard worked with ambition and success, and Esmond in contempt for a task beneath him, and resentment that a conviction of ability did not command a price. The brothers lived together in rooms in London, always wishing that they were apart, but held from the change by Bernard's lack of initiative, and Esmond's leaning to the cheaper course. They took their holidays in brief and frequent spells, in order not to break their life at home. Esmond's dislike of this life was extreme, and his father's dislike of his part in it appeared to be on the same scale; but he did not dare to break away, and Benjamin contrived without word or look that he should not dare. It seemed that Benjamin must prefer his presence, and he had a feeling, both conventional and natural, for having his family about him.

“It may not be all giving on our side,” said Claribel.
“We shall impose our own wills without knowing it. No one with any force of character avoids that.”

“It would not do to go through life alone,” said Jenney, mentioning the disadvantage that struck her as the worst.

“I suppose we all do that,” said Reuben.

“Oh, in that sense,” said Esmond, irritably. “That does not need saying.”

“But I was proud to say it,” said his brother.

“You have a nice room on this floor, Reuben, underneath mine,” said Jenney.

A relief spread over Reuben's face.

“Come upstairs and see the house,” said Bernard, rising and offering his arm.

The brothers mounted the staircase, Bernard giving his support without seeming to know that he did so. Reuben no longer needed it, but would not repudiate his brother's thought, or the effort of rising from his chair, which he did not underestimate; and found that the longer he followed this line, the more bound he was to it. Jenney welcomed protection for him, feeling simply that he was a creature dependent on it; Benjamin saw the matter as it was; Anna saw its surface; and Esmond was not concerned with it.

“It is a good thing those two are such good friends,” said Anna. “It would make a problem, if Bernard were sensitive about Reuben, or anything like that.”

Jenney's face showed her view of this idea, and Benjamin's betrayed that his was the same. His reaction and Jenney's often resembled each other.

“I don't think we feel embarrassed by people belonging to ourselves,” said Claribel. “Our relations form the natural background for the creatures that we are.”

“Are you going to the other house to-morrow, Father?” said Anna, making no pretence of attending.

“To-night, my daughter. Your aunt will be expecting me. She must not do so in vain.”

Benjamin's voice accorded with his words. His feeling for his sisters was the strongest in his life, rooted in its
background and beginning. Their qualities appeared to him essential and natural; their troubles roused his pity, and helplessness in them found him a protector; their ease with him appealed to him more than any other experience. They did not know the man who was known to his children.

“There will be trouble and expense for us there,” said Anna.

“Why should there be expense?” said Benjamin. “Your aunts have their own incomes.”

“We can hardly breathe without paying for it,” said Esmond. “We cannot so much as eat and drink like the beasts of the field.”

“They have few other advantages,” said his father. “You need not desire a further affinity with them.”

Esmond appeared not to hear the words that he did not dare to answer. The expression that he believed indifferent, was one of aversion. Benjamin's eyes dilated as he looked at him, a change that did not improve them, as they were already prominent. He was exasperated by signs of dislike in his sons, and the feeling led him to give them further cause for it.

“It is a modest but pleasant house,” said Reuben's voice, “and a home is where a family is gathered together.”

“That is what makes family problems,” said Bernard.

“We have none of those,” said Benjamin, in a tone that defied contradiction.

“None,” muttered Esmond. “Problems imply a solution.”

“Jenney is proud of me for being able to talk like other people, though I cannot walk like them,” said Reuben, rightly interpreting the expression on Jenney's face.

“Your walking is very much improved,” said Anna. “There is not much amiss with it now.”

“People would hardly believe the pathetic little figure I used to be.”

Jenney's eyes rested on Reuben, as if this still appeared to her the natural view.

“If I had been like other boys, people might not have loved me so well.”

“They must have some ground for their regard,” said Esmond.

Benjamin looked at his youngest son without expression. He could hardly sneer at his infirmity, and was unversed in any other course. In his heart he thought less of Esmond for his dealings with him, and found that they fixed his position as the least dear of his children.

Ethel came into the room with her usual step, but with her eyes rather wide and fixed.

“Cook's smallest bag has not arrived, Miss Jennings.”

“Oh, what a nuisance!” said Jenney, looking about as if half-expecting to see the bag. “Where did she see it last?”

“She packed it with her own hands, Miss Jennings.”

“Who usually packs Cook's bags?” said Bernard.

Ethel gave him an enigmatic look, and did not say upon whom such a task of Cook's would normally devolve.

“Well, does it matter so much?” said Anna. “It will follow by itself.”

“Cook had it with her in the compartment, Miss Anna.”

“You mean it had no address? Why did you not bring it in the cab?”

Jenney's eyes went from Anna to Ethel, as if to measure their mutual effect.

“We only brought what was needed for the night, Miss Anna,” said Ethel, throwing some light on this.

“Did you leave the bag to speak for itself at the station?” said Esmond. “A label would have saved it the trouble.”

Ethel met his eyes in silence.

“You must know what you did with it,” said Anna.

“We thought it would come with the other luggage, Miss Anna.”

“It would have been wiser and kinder of it,” said Bernard.

Ethel tried not to smile and entirely succeeded.

“Someone must go to the station about it,” said Jenney.

“Who can do that?” said Anna. “We have no means of going.”

“I am the last person who can offer to walk,” said Reuben.

“You must manage for yourself, Ethel,” said Anna.

“I might be able to walk one way,” said Ethel, in a tone of offering a dubious, but perhaps not impossible solution.

“And would Cook walk the other?” said Bernard.

“Would the bag carry you back?” said Esmond, at the same moment.

Reuben burst into laughter, and Claribel leaned back and tapped the ground with her foot, wearied by the impersonal discussion.

“You may make yourself easy, my good girl,” said Benjamin, who took this line with young women of Ethel's class, and believed Ethel to be young because of her calling. “One of the tradesmen will be passing the station, and will bring it in his cart.”

“Cook cannot settle down, sir,” said Ethel, as if further words were unnecessary; and indeed any would have fallen flat after these.

“It does seem like a bag not to think of that,” said Bernard.

Ethel suddenly moved to the door, as if hearing something audible only to her own ears.

“Cook says that that bag was unpacked first of all,” she said, turning back and addressing Jenney in an empty tone.

“Do you mean that it has been here from the first?”

“Did it unpack itself and say nothing about it?” said Bernard.

“So Cook has been settled all the time,” said Anna.