Elders and Betters (8 page)

“I did not mean that I could not steer my own course. I only meant that it was marked and silently condemned.”

“Well, repay silence with silence,” said Thomas. “It is a thing that seldom merits anything else. And I hope great things of the coming reunion. The brother and sisters are so bound up in each other, that even their children seem apart. They should have been able to reproduce like some lower forms of life, by means of pieces broken off themselves.”

“I am glad I am not made only of Donne material. The best of two people is better than the whole of one, and there is always a chance of it.”

“The chance worked out well for me, my Tullia, and in
a life that would have gone ill without it. I am not saying that I would go back and turn its course, but a life sentence is a solemn thing. I talked of the lower forms of life, but I was thinking of the higher. Some of us develop too far, and do not find a place. They turn to others of their kind or back on themselves.”

“We are all subject to the failings of over-civilisation,” said Tullia, willing to share in these. “Unless the two children are an exception.”

“Bless them both,” said Thomas, in an emotional tone; “They should not suffer from themselves. A little from others they are already suffering. That is why I let them go their own way. It is not that I feel that children should be left alone, as much as I feel that these should. Supervision would mean too much watching, too much searching, too much love. So far no problems arise.”

“And the poor parent is so used to problems, that he can hardly manage without them,” said Tullia, with the readiness to leave the depths, that her mother found unsatisfying, and her father a rest and charm. “We must find some for him, and I don't suppose we shall have far to seek. Indeed some seem to be approaching at the moment.”

These were doing so in the person of Susan Donne, who was coming from the house with the aid of a stick and the arm of her brother. She was taller and fairer and more statuesque than her sister, and the enforced caution of her movements rendered her easy to observe at a glance. She was the youngest and the comeliest and the most regarded of the Donnes, and her tendency to autocracy and self-esteem had been fostered and responded to the treatment. An affection of the heart that defied cure, increased and excused these qualities, and the life of her sister's house was not easier for her presence. She saw her material help as more important than it was, felt it justified more than it did, and felt that her personal tragedy justified anything. So it came about that she walked alone in the valley of the
shadow, as she often described herself as doing, though without knowing that she spoke the truth. This force and feebleness in her personality laid their spell on other people and threw her up on her own plane, and they lifted their eyes to a creature immune and apart. But through it all there ran the current of her human kindness, a force that needed no stimulus and asked no gratitude. Sukey, who placed herself so high, placed nobody low, while her sister, claiming a low place, could see that others held a lower. And some who gave affection and esteem to Jessica, gave Sukey their love.

Tullia spoke in a conscious tone produced by her uncle's presence.

“Well, Aunt Sukey, so you allow Uncle Benjamin out of your personal control.”

“He made his own choice of companion,” said Sukey, in a musical, suffering voice with its own ring in it.

“So we meet again after many days,” said Benjamin, embracing his niece. “I might have found them longer, if I had known what was in store. We need not always regret the hand of time.”

“I am glad I am not too much of a shock to you,'' said Tullia.

Sukey smiled on them both in sympathy, caring too much for beauty in a woman, to have any other feeling for it.

“How do you think your sister is looking?” said Thomas to Benjamin.

“Sukey is always my Sukey, and to me herself and the same.”

“This is the sight that moves me,” said Thomas, as Jessica and Terence approached, and he disengaged his wife from her son and placed her by her sister. “What a thing to meet in one's daily life! I can only feel myself a blot on the picture.”

“I will stand in front of you and hide you from view,” said his daughter, doing as she said, and adding to the group a third tall figure and lightly poised head. “I cannot help it, if you obtrude on either side.”

“Come and stand by me and see what I see,” said Thomas.

“Yes,” said Tullia, moving closer to him, as if to suggest another comparison, and allowing her eyes to grow large in admiration. “I wonder which should have the palm. I suppose it is Aunt Sukey.”

“That has always been recognised,” said Jessica.

“I ought to be grateful, oughtn't I?” said Sukey. “And I should be thinking of some pretty things to say of other people, and I am sure I know a great many.”

“All this about such a small matter as looks!” said Jessica.

“Is it so small, Mother?” said Tullia. “People have to look at us. I don't see why they should be put to continual pain.”

“It is best to assume that they are looking at something else,” said Jessica, who felt there was a snare in any kind of vanity. “And we might be looking at them.”

“Of course we might, and often are. That is how we know they are doing the same to us.”

“Is my nephew not going to say a word?” said Benjamin.

“I did not like to say that my appearance is better on a second glance,” said Terence.

Benjamin gave the glance, saw that this was the case, and bestowed no further time on it.

“Isn't it for you to say a word now?” said Terence.

His uncle gave a laugh, but did no more.

“Here are the children starting for their walk,” said Jessica. “Have they done well this morning, Miss Lacy, to make up for their bad beginning?”

“Well, I have not to make a complaint,” said Miss Lacy, pausing and resting her eyes on the group. “I should not like to find myself in that position.”

“Why are the sun and the moon in the sky at the same time, Mother?” said Dora, not feeling this negative treatment of the matter a safe one.

“I do not know how to put it to you, dear. Miss Lacy will explain.”

“No, I have done enough explaining for one morning,” said the latter, shaking her head.

“Are you going to find out the Latin names of the plants?” said Jessica to the children, who had once been doing this.

“No, we are going to enjoy our walk,” said Miss Lacy, going out into the porch and lifting her face to the sky; “and enjoy the sun, and if we like, the moon. I have left my Latin behind me in the schoolroom. And not much of it there. It won't stretch out over the hedgerows.”

“Have you not read much Latin, Miss Lacy?” said Thomas, to maintain the talk.

“No, I am that recognised product of my generation, an old-fashioned governess.”

“Do new-fashioned ones know more?” said Dora.

“Yes, they are people of very advanced education. Of making many examinations there is no end, and much study is a weariness to the flesh.”

“Why are you a governess, if you don't know much?” said Julius.

“Because there are little people who know much less,” said Jessica.

“I shall be grateful if this pair of mine ever know as much as Miss Lacy,” said Thomas. “Does she feel there is any hope?”

Miss Lacy rested her eyes in appraisement on her pupils, and appeared hardly to think it worth while to decide the point.

“You are a natural student, are you not?” said Thomas.

“I have some natural interests,” said Miss Lacy, simply; “and I have been able to gratify them.”

A faint smile went round the family. Miss Lacy's satisfaction in having private means was seen as a ground for amusement, though it would have been odder if she had been without it.

“What are they?” said Dora.

“I will tell you when you are able to share them.”

“You really know a good deal, don't you?” said Julius.

“Yes,” said Miss Lacy, in a simple, deliberate tone, keeping her eyes on the child, perhaps in compensation for her thoughts being on other people. “On my own rather narrow line, and in my own way, and according to the standard of human knowledge, I know a good deal.”

“I shall some day,” said Dora.

Miss Lacy again rested her eyes on her, as if in an uncertainty she would not trouble to resolve.

“I don't know if you have met Miss Lacy, Benjamin,” said Jessica. “Miss Lacy, may I introduce my brother?”

“I remember Miss Lacy well,” said Benjamin. “She was good to my young ones in the old days. I should have known her anywhere.”

“I cannot quite say that of you,” said Miss Lacy, as she shook hands. “But I think I can claim to know you here. I will hazard the father of the young ones.”

Miss Lacy felt this was not an excessive pitch of recognition. She tended to veil her interest in people, lest it might imperil her equality with them, an attitude that came not from unsureness of herself, but from experience of them. That she esteemed her calling and pursued it of her own will, enhanced their opinion of her, but not of the calling; and she identified herself with the latter, and on the first score had never known uneasiness.

“You don't think my young ones can ever equal you, Miss Lacy?” said Thomas, persisting in considering the progress of his children the link between their instructress and himself.

“We will wait until they desire to do so. At present they have no wish to emulate the old.”

“They are not as foolish as that,” said Jessica.

“They are as natural and ordinary as that,” said Miss Lacy. “Yes, I think we must say ordinary.”

“You cannot accuse my sisters of a likeness to me, Miss Lacy,” said Benjamin.

“No,” said Miss Lacy, turning her eyes readily from one to another. “Not that I was going to accuse them of anything.”

“I feel that I act as a foil to them.”

“Difference does not invite comparison,” said Miss Lacy lifting her hand to her hat, and resting her eyes easily on it, as it was blown away. “A different type starts again on its own ground. Difference may give any kind of advantage; I think it always gives its own.”

“Run after Miss Lacy's hat, children,” said Jessica, as eyes turned to Miss Lacy, perhaps following her own inner eyes. “Don't you see that she has lost it?”

“You see the likeness between my wife and her sister?” said Thomas.

“Now as to that, I feel like the negro who said of his twin friends, ‘Caesar and Pompey very much alike, specially Pompey.' I think in this case I must say specially Sukey,” said Miss Lacy, taking the hat from Julius without a look or word, and adjusting it on her head with reasoned deliberation. “Now the moon will be risen in earnest, if we linger like this. Thank you, Julius, for restoring my headgear. Come along, Dora, and take my umbrella in your other hand. Thank you very much.”

“Why doesn't Julius carry it?”

“Because he is rougher than you, and I have a regard unto it.”

Miss Lacy took a hand of each child and swung along in step, causing the hat, now that she could forget what was due to herself, to adhere to her head by means of a distortion of her brow. No one had felt that Julius was old for this treatment, or for an education confined to two hours a day; or no one but Julius himself, who did sometimes fear that the conditions might not prevail until his maturity. Dora was aware that the usual training was different; but
assumed that their family was a rule to itself, or perhaps perceived that it was.

“I ought not to stand in the draught like this,” said Sukey.

“Then cease to do so,” said Thomas.

“I am not going to struggle to the door myself, as if I had no one to take any thought for me. I do not live on a desert island.”

“I wonder she does not come to that,” said Thomas aside to his daughter, as he went to the door.

Benjamin was before him, and his haste and concern brought a light to his sister's eyes.

“I feel as if my other self had returned,” she said, putting out her hand. “I have been like half a person in these last years.”

“I should have thought our portion had been a whole one,” muttered Thomas.

“And now my nephew will take me to the fire,” said Sukey, giving Terence the smile that had won and won back so many hearts. “And I will hold my little court in the hall. I see quite a number of courtiers approaching, and I must work a little improvement before I make my impression. They need not find a slovenly aunt, because they must find a sick one.”

Sukey adjusted her hair and her dress before a glass. She did little to disturb either, and the enforced deliberation of her toilet led to a finish in it, that her sister's did not emulate.

“Why should Aunt Sukey be the woman to make an improvement? Why should not Mother do it?” said Tullia to Thomas, making no mention of anyone further.

“Why not?” said Thomas, sighing. “Why not, Tulliola? How shall we answer that question?”

SUKEY TOOK HER seat by the fire, but on second thoughts rose and stood with her arm on the chimney-piece, as if this showed her to advantage. Her niece and nephews came up the drive and entered the hall, that was used as a room by the family. Anna led the way with her quick, short steps, and with her eyes fixed on the remembered faces, as if to appraise any change in them. Jessica stood with a smile that welcomed and exalted the motherless.

“I must be forgiven for ushering in such a horde of brothers,” said her niece. “There did not seem to be any way of making their number less.”

“It is a good thing our numbers are not reversed,” said Esmond to Bernard, keeping his eyes from his relatives as completely as he assumed theirs were on him. “There might be no hope of forgiveness.”