Elders and Betters (9 page)

“Well, what a dwarf I feel beside you all!” said Anna. “I ought to be related to you, Uncle Thomas, instead of to all these thoroughbreds. We shall keep each other in countenance; that is one thing.”

“None of you is changed except this little one,” said Jessica. “And I think the difference is that he is not so little. Your leg is stronger, my boy. I see that it is.”

“He is taller than I am,” said Anna. “It was a humiliating moment when I found myself overtopped for the third time.”

“Such moments must come to the only sister in a family.”

“Oh, I am much shorter for a woman than the elder boys are for men,” said Anna, who could seldom let a statement pass. “And Reuben seems to be following in their wake.”

“My daughter and I balance each other,” said Benjamin,
who was watching his family with emotions that almost escaped him.

“Well, what do you think of all of us?” said Sukey, from her place. “We have passed our verdict on you, and have now to succeed you in the dock.”

“Oh, I see little signs of time scattered about,” said Anna, casting her eyes from face to face. “That is the only thing, I think.”

“I suppose Aunt Sukey cannot have improved,” said Bernard. “The advance must be in me.”

“She has always been the show piece, hasn't she?” said his sister.

“I must remember that handsome is as handsome does,” said Sukey, with a smile.

“And Tullia has made an advance,” said Anna, in a casual manner. “She was in a distinctly more coltish stage, if I remember.”

“It is natural for the years to pass,” said her cousin.

“Can it be?” said Terence. “It seems so wasteful and wicked, when we only have a certain number of them.”

“Nature is known to be red in tooth and claw,” said Anna. “She snatches things from us all the time. I have found it even at my age.”

“I never think of it,” said Tullia. “I suppose I am too forgiving.”

“I forgive Nature nothing,” said Terence. “Least of all our death at last from natural causes.”

“You are too young to realise it,” said Anna to Tullia. “There must be seven years between us.”

“I am twenty-two,” said her cousin.

“Oh, eight then,” said Anna.

“I feel I shall gain with the years,” said Bernard, “but I think that is generally other people's gain.”

“I feel I have the gift of perennial youth,” said Terence.

“I think Anna has it,” said Sukey. “I never saw anyone look so young for her age.”

“Oh, I am often accused of that,” said her niece. “I
sometimes suspect a suggestion of crudeness and un-development.”

“There is none from me,” said Sukey, smiling. “I should hardly have so much opinion of the effects of time. An invalid of fifty-three has no great welcome for them.”

“We people with less to lose have an advantage there,” said Anna. “I often feel that I shall be quite a passable person in middle age. It must be hard to feel your superiority slipping away all the time. Not that anyone in our generation will reach your level. It is a case of elders and betters indeed.”

“It serves people right for feeling superior,” said Jessica.

“Oh, they can't help their personal endowments,” said her niece.

“It is a good thing we are not responsible for them,” said Sukey, changing her tone as she spoke. “It is strange for me to feel that all that I am, may come to an end on any day. I wonder if all of you know it. Had you heard of it, Anna, my dear?”

“I believe we did hear that something had gone wrong with your heart,” muttered Anna, not meeting her eyes. “Father did say something about it.”

“Was it not a little more than that?” said Sukey, bending forward.

“Yes, of course it was. It was put in the natural way,” said Bernard. “But Anna is quite right not to face it. It is too much for us to believe.”

“So I face it alone,” said Sukey, as if she were speaking to herself. “I cannot put it from me. I go on with my life, not knowing on what day or at what hour my change will come.”

“I don't suppose we can any of us be sure of that,” said Anna.

“We simply feel it will not come,” said Terence.

“I am glad you can do that,” said Sukey, in a tone in which irony and honesty seemed to contend.

“All this nobility and tragedy is rather much for us,” muttered Anna. “We were hardly prepared for it.”

“Come and sit by me, my little nephew,” said Sukey, seeing Reuben's eyes fixed on her face. “You and I know what it is to halt through life behind other people, and it is so good that for you those days are past.”

Reuben took the place, and his aunt put her arm about him.

“Quite a touching scene,” said Anna. “We shall all wish we were disabled in some way.”

“My sister's disability is real enough,” said Esmond to Terence. “She deserves some compensation.”

“I daresay it is,” said Anna, overhearing. “I am downright and outspoken and anything you please, but they may not be such desperate disadvantages compared with other people's. You and I are not a suave and finished pair, and there is an end of it.”

“I trust it is not the beginning,” said Bernard.

Jessica smiled on her brother's motherless flock, in a simpler kindness than that she felt for her own. It was free from the strain and anxiety of her nearest feeling.

Benjamin rose and walked, as if by chance, by Esmond, and spoke in the husky mutter that had become an omen.

“Perhaps you will try to improve the impression you have made. It is not an advantage to us to be related to a savage.”

“I know it is not,” said his son, and said no more.

Sukey looked up in surprise at a manifestation new to her, and Benjamin glanced from her to his son with a mingled discomfiture and pride, that could have appeared on no other face.

“Here are Claribel and Jenney coming to swell our ranks,” said Anna. “I thought they were full enough for a beginning. And it seems rather the moment for a diversion.”

“Well, have the young people made their impression?” said Claribel, advancing with her deliberate stride. “I felt we should not be present at the more intimate reunion.
But perhaps we may now contribute what we have to give. What an elaborate conversation piece! I feel I shall be quite lost in the midst of it.” She proceeded to this point of the group.

“Well, you see that the years have gone by,” said Thomas.

“It sounds as if Uncle Thomas had been rather struck by the signs of it,” said Anna.

“I never think as much of the years as other people,” said Claribel. “I seem to be one by myself there. They seem to leave me essentially the same, and so I see other people with the same eyes, and there does not seem to me all that difference. I don't know what havoc you think has been worked in me. Mercifully I am unconscious of it.”

“I am sure you may be,” said Sukey. “I am the person for whom that is impossible.”

“I don't think you have much to complain of,” said Claribel, looking into her face. “No more than you ever had, as far as I can see. But that is my characteristic reaction.”

“Not on that score perhaps. People seem to be agreed there,” said Sukey, choosing to add the general one. “And the real thing is beyond complaint. And so I will not complain.”

“And we will not think what we feel cannot be true,” said Claribel.

“While there is life there is hope,” said Anna.

Sukey turned a smile on her niece, that was almost one of pity.

“What do you think of the march of years, Miss Jennings?” said Thomas.

“Jenney hesitates to say how poorly she thinks of it,” said Bernard.

“Well, it would be strange if there were no changes,” said Jenney.

“Why are we so cast down by them?” said Thomas.

“Because they show that we are further on in our progress
to the grave,” said Terence. “It would be odd to be uplifted. But I feel it is all rather ennobling.”

“So that is the effect we have on you,” said Claribel. “What must you be thinking of us?”

“My son might truthfully say he was thinking of himself,” said Thomas.

“You have had a hard time, Anna, my dear,” said Jessica. “I have moved a family from house to house, and I know it is not a small thing.”

“It was finding the house that was the business, Aunt Jessica. I thought I should never achieve it, but I kept my shoulder to the wheel and brought it off. And Jenney approves of my decision, and that is what matters.”

“I also have conceded my approval,” said Claribel.

“And I see that the best has been made of our choice,” said Benjamin. “And I congratulate and thank my daughter.”

“Well, better late than never, Father,” the daughter replied.

“You must have a grateful family,” said Sukey to her niece.

“Oh, the young males wait for things to be done, and then criticise. I pay no heed to them.”

“I always thought that class of person was hardly dealt with,” said Terence. “I did not know they deserved it.”

“Esmond was the worst,” said Bernard. “I should not have said a word, if it had not been for his example. I am the weaker one, and he led me wrong.”

“I like the house,” said Reuben, looking round. “I never care what other people think, if a thing appeals to me.”

“It had been empty for years,” said Esmond. “And would be so now, if we were not in it. You should have seen the size of the notice of the sale. The owner could hardly convince himself that he had sold it, and doubted his power to convince anyone else.”

“They have no idea how far money goes on that sort of thing,” said Anna, looking at her aunts.

“I suffered similar things when I took this house,” said Thomas. “Only my Tullia supported me.”

“We know better now,” said his wife.

“But Tullia did so then, and it shall be said of her,” said Thomas, putting his arms round his daughter and his niece. “We three know what it is to be first burdened and then buffeted.”

“We are a bad match on either side of you,” said Anna. “You and I would make a better pair.”

“Tullia was too young to understand. She just took your part,” said Jessica. “I had to say what seemed to me to be the truth.”

“She supported her father; that is what I remember,” said Thomas.

“It is the sort of thing that is remembered,” said his wife.

“I came out badly,” said Terence. “I thought of what people would think. I did not know that we ought to despise their opinions. After all, they are our fellow-creatures.”

“What kind of surroundings did you expect?” said Claribel, looking round. “Most of us have to be content with an inferior setting to this. We are much more dependent upon ourselves.”

“I am really happy and contented anywhere,” said Bernard. “It sounds as if I did not think much was due to me. And I do not know why so very much is.”

“I always said a young man was a pathetic creature,” said Terence.

“He arrived without notice, and went down to the kitchen and had tea with the servants,” said Anna.

“And which enjoyed it the more?” said Thomas.

“We enjoyed it together,” said his nephew. “We have a great deal in common. And there are more things in a kitchen than anywhere else.”

“The pair have settled down, I am thankful to say,” said Anna, just throwing up her voice and her brows.

“You have a lucky hand with maids, have you?” said
Sukey, feeling that her niece might show a rough kindliness. “It is a thing that means more than it sounds.”

“Oh, well,” said Anna, lifting her shoulders, “I am often at a loss how to bridge the gulf between us. We have so little idea of the state of things on the other side. I can't just step across it, as Bernard can.”

“I have never seen it,” said her brother.

“Would they not talk to you, if you helped them?” said Jessica to her niece.

“I daresay they would. They do show the disposition sometimes, but I am inclined to check it. It is no good to get on to their ground. We are not at home on it, and there it is.”

“We can learn to be,” said Jessica.

“Well, if you think the lesson worth learning. I hardly think it is, myself. I don't see where it leads.”

“To a better understanding of other people,” said Jessica.

“And of their whims and their fancies and their superstitions. They have already discovered that the stairs are steep, and that the house is haunted. So much has emerged without encouragement. I tremble to think what the output would be, if it was invited.”

“Are the stairs a superstition?” said Tullia.

“Yes, they are,” said Anna, with some sharpness. “They are no more steep than these.”

“Oh, well, yes, they are,” said Jenney, as if she could not but bear witness to the truth. “It was natural to notice them at first. They are trying to get used to them.”

“I must make the guilty confession that my feelings are with Anna in these matters,” said Claribel.

“Anna does not have much to do with the servants,” said Esmond. “They are Jenney's province.”

“Oh, I have my part to play, if only you knew,” said his sister. “I don't take Bernard's line and make friends of them. I prefer my friends in my own sphere.”

“A friend in any sphere is a valuable thing,” said Jessica.

“Oh, well, Aunt Jessica, when I meet you walking arm-in-arm with the housemaid, I will believe you.”

There was a pause.

“A friend in one's own is better,” said Sukey. “I agree with Anna there. It is not so natural to be with people from another plane.”

“Thank you, Aunt Sukey. You are honest, if nothing else—if no one else is. And you and I are at one. I should have thought that we all should be, but it appears that no one else holds the established and old-fashioned ideas.”