Elders and Betters (5 page)

“She cannot be that in a moment, Miss Anna. And when Cook is exhausted, she hardly knows where she is.”

“Cook and the bag sound rather alike,” said Bernard. “They say that living together breeds resemblance.”

“It is Cook's dove-coloured bag, sir, that is utilised for smaller articles,” said Ethel, with a note of reproach.

“And it behaved like a bag of any other kind. It can only be said that it did.”

“The trouble is over, isn't it?” said Benjamin.

“It never existed,” said his daughter.

“If Cook does not know where she is, she may be thinking that she was left at the station too,” said Reuben, in an insistent manner.

“I wonder she was not,” said Anna; “the cab seems to have brought so little.”

“It was our own cab, Miss Anna,” said Ethel.

“Well, we have come to the end,” said Benjamin.

“Thank you, sir,” said Ethel, in an impersonal tone, and left the room.

“We had better send a message to Cook, that both she and the bag are in the house,” said Bernard. “It may be a relief to her mind. Or perhaps Ethel will think to tell her.”

“Why is it all so funny?” said Anna.

Claribel shook her head and lifted her eyebrows in hopeless fellow-feeling.

“Did Ethel mean that they paid for the cab themselves?” said Reuben.

“Well, it was an unnecessary expense,” said his sister, “as they brought nothing in it.”

“They brought themselves,” said Bernard, “even if it was a happy accident. And that was our responsibility.”

“And now it is that to keep them here,” said Jenney, with some dryness. “I had better give them the money.”

“It will come out of the housekeeping,” said Anna. “I should have been consulted.”

“If you had thought to meet them at the station, you would have been,” said Esmond.

“They could not walk three miles after their journey,” said Jenney.

“Why not?” said Anna. “They had not been using their
legs. I should have thought an hour in the air would do them good.”

“Did you adopt that restorative when you arrived?” said Esmond.

Claribel heaved a faint sigh at the persistence of the subject.

“I cannot think why you don't see the difference,” said Anna. “We are not all alike.”

“Ethel made an offer of walking one way,” said Bernard. “And a vain sacrifice is known to be the most tragic.”

“Oh, Ethel is too hefty to have any chance of appearing anything else.”

“Cook appears to be more fortunate,” said Esmond.

Ethel entered the room with the letters.

“How much was your cab?” said Anna.

Ethel looked at her for a moment.

“Four shillings, Miss Anna, the cab itself.”

“How do you mean? The cab itself?”

“There was the shilling we gave to the man, Miss Anna.”

“There was no need for that. Four shillings was an ample charge.”

“It is the accepted thing, Miss Anna. We should only have incurred a glance.”

“Well, I am afraid I cannot help that. If you make people presents, it is your own affair. I will give you the four shillings.”

“Cook and I would prefer to pay it out of our own pocket Miss Anna.”

“What an odd preference! I should not feel it.”

Ethel met this statement with silence, which is known sometimes to suggest a further attitude.

“Why do you want to pay it yourselves?”

“It is better to do everything or nothing, Miss Anna. And it is a trifling sum.”

“Oh, well, if those are your notions! We cannot do more than have what we would choose.”

Ethel left the room, and Anna looked at her family.

“Well, that is a little piece of luck.”

“You will have to give them the money,” said Esmond.

“Oh, Ethel would be offended to death, if I brought up the subject again.”

“Jenney can give it to them,” said Reuben. “I expect they would really like to have it.”

“Well, it must not come from the mistress of the house. And I think it would be better to leave the matter. It would be wiser, wouldn't it, Father?”

Anna was the only one of Benjamin's children who ever addressed him of her own will, and the only one unable to feel that he valued the habit. Benjamin was a natural victim of the ironies of fate.

“I think as Ethel has made her decision, we need not question it,” he said, something in his face and voice showing him and his daughter as father and child.

“If we did not accept things at this stage, there would never be and end to them,” said Anna.

“And we still hope that will not be the case with this one,” said Esmond.

“I see why they left their luggage,” said Bernard. “The cab was their own, and they would put it to what use they chose.”

“I don't for a minute think they meant it to be theirs,” said Anna.

“Is it all coming up again?” said Claribel. “I would so much rather talk about something more interesting than cabs and bags.”

“That was not their reason,” said Jenney. “They were bewildered by everything, and they had no room for it all.”

“We had to take an extra cab because of it,” said Esmond; “so the question of cabs seems really to be cancelled out.”

“I will tell them that at some time,” said Anna.

“There is no need,” said Benjamin, almost with a smile.

“I should rather enjoy it, Father. Ethel's consistent smugness becomes too much.”

“So it is fair that she should have a dose of yours,” said Esmond.

“Well, why not have things fair? I see no objection to it. We cannot be always treating them with such magnanimity. It only results in a tiresome degree of self-satisfaction.”

“We are most of us fairly content with ourselves,” said Reuben.

“I don't know that I am,” said his sister, with a sudden touch of rueful honesty. “Doubts rise up sometimes. Dear, dear, what clever talk it all is!”

“It sounds so,” said Jenney, on a puzzled note. “And yet it is all about nothing, isn't it?”

“Show us how to talk about something, Miss Jennings,” said Benjamin.

“Jenney must have enough practice with those two servants,” said Anna. “I have no taste for their personal gossip myself.”

“I have a passion for it,” said Bernard. “And I have an admiration for people who engage in it. It shows a creative mind.”

“They make most of it up, if that is what you mean,” said his sister.

“I share the gossip, when you are all out, and I have my tea with them,” said Reuben.

“Is that your idea or theirs?” said his sister.

“Mine. My mind is also creative. It produced the idea,” said Reuben, in an almost shouting tone.

“I suspect that they like to save the trouble of bringing up your tray.”

“They have the woman's tenderness for what is weak, especially when it is masculine.”

“What a way to talk!” said Jenney.

“Well, one cannot be always turning one's eyes from the truth.”

“You might do so sometimes,” said Esmond, “even when it is truth as exemplified in yourself.”

“Are we to go in a body to visit our relations?” said Anna.

“I will go by myself this evening,” said Benjamin, taking the question to himself. “And the rest of you should go to-morrow.”

“I hope they will disguise any shrinking they have from what is abnormal,” said Reuben.

“Your concern with yourself approaches that,” said Esmond, “and they may not have any liking for it.”

“Would you have chosen to be quite like other people?” said Anna to Reuben, in an innocently rallying tone.

“Anything to attract attention!” said the latter.

“Well, I will pay my visit,” said Benjamin. “It will not be a long one the first time.”

“I always feel rather uncomfortable with that family,” said Anna, when her father had gone. “But don't tell Father that I said so.”

“We will try to break our habit of running to him with everything,” said Bernard.

Reuben burst into laughter.

“That sort of thing is not hidden,” said Esmond.

“You make me feel that I have awkward manners,” said his sister.

“Being ill at ease is known to have that result,” said Esmond, leaning back in personal freedom from the handicap.

“I never think of people's opinions, when I am with them,” said Claribel. “Perhaps I feel it is their part to be thinking of mine.”

“I did not mean that I only felt discomfort for myself,” said Anna.

“Anything else would hardly improve your address,” said Esmond.

“Well, let us stop talking about our manners. We shall only become acrimonious.”

“I must point out that I have not mentioned mine.”

“No, not in words,” said his sister.

“Anna was dealing with drawbacks in manners,” said Bernard. “You did not feel called upon to make a personal contribution.”

“Which has the more peculiar face, Cook or Ethel?” said Reuben.

“Oh, which has?” said Jenney, in interest so great that it almost became excitement.

“Is it important to decide?” said Claribel, keeping her features towards the fire, and holding a letter to protect them from the heat, and perhaps from any other assault.

“Esmond has the classic features of our family,” said Anna, in a tone that made little of the circumstance.

“Esmond is blushing!” said Reuben, capering from foot to foot.

“A thing you will not do for a similar reason,” said Esmond, idly reaching for a book.

Ethel brought in the evening paper, and Reuben caught Bernard's eye and went into mirth.

“He is excited by the move,” said Ethel to Jenney, with a kindness that did her credit, considering the effect of the change on herself.

“I wish it would work like that on me,” said Anna. “A move to a new home thrusts me down into the depths.”

Ethel gave a faint sigh, as if others might have to contend with such a barrier to spirits.

“Cook says she feels that houses have natures like ourselves,” she said.

“I hope she finds this one congenial,” said Bernard.

“Well, sir, Cook is sensitive to atmosphere.”

“So it is antipathetic to her?”

“Well, sir, she does feel it a trifle eerie.”

“Do you mean haunted?” said Reuben.

“Well, Master Reuben, we don't know its history,” said Ethel, prepared to accept any foundation for Cook's feeling.

“Come, there couldn't be a brighter house,” said Jenney.

“There are always the nights, Miss Jennings.”

“Those might be brighter of course,” said Esmond.

“The moonlight only adds to it,” said Ethel.

“Adds to what?” said Anna.

“To what is not of this world, Miss Anna. Cook heard a shriek last night.”

“An owl,” said Reuben.

“A hunted rabbit,” said Esmond.

“Oh, me with a nightmare!” said Jenney, as if it occurred to her by some chance to mention this.

“Cook with a nightmare, I should think,” said Anna.

“Cook does not sleep until the small hours, Miss Anna,” said Ethel, in definite reproach.

“Then why does she go to bed so early?”

“It rests her limbs, Miss Anna.”

“But does the opposite for some other parts of her,” said Bernard.

“Cook is inured to it, sir.”

“Well, the shriek is explained,” said Anna.

“It was on the stroke of midnight,” said Ethel, as though Jenney's dream could hardly have been timed to this, going to the door before any explanation could be given.

“Dear, dear, what a night!” said Claribel. “Cook lying awake and Jenney suffering from nightmare! I feel a most insensitive creature, in that I enjoyed normal repose. Perhaps I had already brought my room under my own spells.”

“I did not sleep very well,” said Anna.

“I trust these effects are not going to be permanent,” said Esmond. “The family life would suffer.”

“It already has its problems,” said his sister.

“What are they, Anna?” said Reuben, pushing up to her.

“Father is the first, I am afraid. He misses his work, and he is too much alone. I have not contrived to be the classic companion-daughter.”

“And I am the second,” said Reuben. “How I am to be
fitted to take my place in the world. Our relations will make it worse by showing they are thinking about it.”

“They may spare a thought to other subjects,” said Esmond.

“But I shall not be able to believe that,” said Reuben, quickly. “So it will not improve matters for me.”

“But it will for them,” said Esmond, making a sudden movement with his foot, that resulted in a blow for his brother.

“That is not a suitable thing to do, Esmond,” said Anna. “You can hardly need to be told that.”

“Then why act on the opposite assumption?”

“This moment will always return to Esmond with a pang of shame,” said Reuben. “He has hurt himself more than me.”

“Was it your weak leg, Reuben?” said Jenney, in a tone low enough to escape Esmond's ears, or to seem to be designed to do so.

“No, even in his temper Esmond guarded against that.”

Benjamin returned to the room, glanced at his seat which Bernard had taken, and remained standing until his son relinquished it.

“How are the aunts, Father?” said Anna.

“Well, I find them further on in their lives.”

“Do you find Aunt Sukey worse? You were afraid you would.”

“Her trouble progresses, and there seems no chance of cure. It is hard for her to live without hope.”

“And she has not found life easy at the best of times.”

“I hardly think she has. Her sister has been her help. But she had a welcome for her brother,” said Benjamin, whose tone in speaking of his sisters seemed to come from another man.