“Well, gapy-face,” said Mrs. Ponsonby.
A girl of eleven responded to this morning greeting.
“I wasn’t yawning, Grandma.”
“Do not lie to me, child; do not lie; do not begin the day by lying,” said Sabine Ponsonby, entering her dining-room and glancing rapidly round it. “And it would be better to shut your mouth and open your eyes. You will have us confusing one part of your face with the other.”
The confusion would have been easy in Muriel’s case, as her features were undefined, and seemed to occupy indeterminate portions of her face, and her tiny, blue, twinkling eyes tended to disappear in attacks of mirth. Sabine used to say that she wondered what she found to laugh at; and others could not enlighten her, as they were more struck than she by the absence of causes for spirits in her grandchild’s life.
Sabine was a tall, lean, upright woman, with small, tired, acute eyes in a small, tired, acute face, and rather flat and formless features shaded by a fringe of dyed, dark hair, which had once taken from her years and now protected this period. Nothing about her, save perhaps the smallness of her steps, suggested her eighty four years, but her face told their tale, and her pale grey eyes were the eyes of a woman of a hundred.
As she went to the bookcase, she gave a tap on the window, without pausing or turning her head. The response seemed as automatic as the signal. The French window opened and four young people entered, and stood about the room as if ill at ease under her eyes.
“Good morning, Grandma,” said a youth of eighteen. “I am glad you are equal to taking prayers this morning. I do feel that Victor needs that start to his day.”
“Fetch me my glasses and my footstool, Chilton,” said Sabine, without moving a muscle of her face. “You know I prefer them to be put ready.”
“Victor!” said the first boy, signing to his brother.
Chilton Ponsonby was as much like Sabine as a boy of eighteen could be like a woman of eighty, more indeed than could have been imagined without the proof. His brother, a bare year younger, bore no likeness to her, but had a share of normal good looks, which seemed to affect his demeanour. The two sisters were twenty four and twenty five, and both of the grandmother’s type, the elder’s face being darker and more defined, and the younger’s fairer and purer in line. All the elder three had Sabine’s small, pale, grey eyes, but Victor’s were large and brown, and Muriel’s, when they came into view, minute and the colour of the sky. The spaces in age were caused by the deaths of infant children, and Muriel had reversed the family rule and survived at her mother’s expense.
Sabine never spoke against her daughter-in-law, though she was incapable of seeing her the fitting mate for her son, and had no scruple in speaking evil of the dead or evil of a mother to her children, indeed seldom spoke anything but evil of any human being. To marry a husband, live with him in intimacy and isolation, bear him children for survival or burial, and die in the effort to continue in this course, appeared to her an honourable history, dignified in life and death. So, prevented from speaking against her, she never spoke of her, and had established the rule.
“You ought to begin to read prayers, Chilton,” she said, in a vaguely wounding and threatening tone which revealed the general view of this office. “You are the man of the family when your father is away.”
“But you are the woman, Grandma, and that is what counts. Victor, you may settle down and attend. Then I hope you will feel right all day.”
Muriel burst into laughter; Sabine did not admit a flicker to her face; the line of women servants entered, short for the size of the house. Sabine read a portion of the Scriptures in a colourless, recitative tone, as though she gave no particular support to the ceremony. She came to a pause for her audience to kneel, and led them in prayer, remaining in her seat. The Almighty would allow for her rheumatism, as his conception of her had in some way required its infliction, and would hardly be struck by any unsuitability in her abasing herself less than her household. She saw the matter as he would see it, as she assumed that she saw most matters. Her feeling for him was of such a nature that she only needed to have been born fifty years later than her date of eighteen hundred and ten, to fail to recognise him at all. When she ended and the servants were leaving the room, she addressed her eldest granddaughter.
“Did you take that medicine I measured out for you, Clare?”
“No, I did not, Grandma. It does not serve the purpose of medicine: it makes me ill.”
“When I give a direction, I wish it to be followed,” said Sabine, bringing her hand down on the table. “Why else should I give it? What could be my reason? I do not care to have a member of my house with a dull complexion and a dull manner and a dull face. I do not desire it, for her sake or other people’s.”
“Those are natural leanings, but the remedy aggravates the condition, and has even caused it. If I had not swallowed some yesterday, I might not present the appearance you describe.”
“I do not know what your father will think of you.”
“You should know,” said Clare, leaning back and letting her eyelids droop over her eyes. “You have outlined the impression I produce.”
“Do not be self-conscious and conceited, girl,” said Sabine with a scolding hiss in her voice, thrusting her head forward in a manner which harmonised with it. “It will not do; it will have to alter; I make no bones about telling you.”
“That is the case; I do not dispute it. But, though self-conscious you may have made me, conceited is not so likely.”
“What about my appearance, Grandma?” said Chilton. “How does my complexion strike you? What of my appeal to Father? I have noticed it is less than it might be. Have you a remedy?”
“You look as well as you need to look. A boy’s appearance is no matter.”
“But how about my expression? People can be made by their expression. ‘Plain but a sweet expression,’ they say. Is that how you would sum me up? ‘His expression made people forget his features.’ That might be a speech of yours.”
“‘Manners makyth man,’” said Sabine. “I hope you will remember it, Chilton, when you meet your father. I have been meaning to say a word to you. You are altogether too free and easy with him. You are an untrained boy, and he is a distinguished man. The difference cannot be simply passed over.”
“We are untrained certainly: that has been attended to,” said Victor in an undertone half meant to be heard. “No one is to be blamed if the difference between Father and us is not as great as it can be.”
“Grandma has done what she could, and no one can do more,” said Frances, the second girl, known as France. “It can only be said, even of her, that she has done her best.”
“Does that refer to your having had a tutor, instead of being sent to a public school?” said Sabine to her grandson.
“We shall have to refer to it soon, and to hear it referred to. It must be reckoned with before long.”
“It need not be reckoned with at all, except in so far as you have had a better education. And you need not be idle because your tutor had to go suddenly. You must be on the lines for Oxford by now, and able to work by yourselves.”
“And the departure was not so sudden,” said Clare in her dry tones. “The final and intolerable insult had many forerunners. We were prepared.”
Sabine gave a spontaneous and almost pleasant laugh.
“Foolish young man! He repents of his folly by now. He was not important in the house, so why should he be treated as if he were? I hope he has had a lesson.”
“He meant to teach you one,” said France. “He was, as you say, a foolish young man.”
“Lessons are not for me,” said Sabine with simple emphasis, as she came to the table. “What should I do with them? I have long ago learnt all I needed. France, why are you and Victor giggling? Of course Muriel follows your example.”
“Would you wish Victor to leave the table, Grandma?” said Chilton. “If so, I will just say the word to him.”
“He will behave better under my eye.”
“Victor, be a true victor, over yourself,” said his brother.
“Chilton, what is your age?”
“Eighteen and two months, Grandma. There are sixty four years between us. It makes us such good companions.”
“Then must you carve a cold pheasant as if you were ten years less? Do you suppose no one wants any breast but yourself?”
“I hope no one does. Victor knows he has no claim to any.”
“Did it not occur to you to offer it first to your sisters?”
“I believe you see what occurred to me. There was not much of it.”
“And so you took it for yourself?”
“So I did. You tell me I must earn my bread, and that made me think of having some pheasant with it.”
“Did you suppose the others were tired of pheasants?”
“I supposed they were tired of these. In fact, I knew they were.”
“You may think you are funny, Chilton. I can assure you no one agrees with you.”
“Muriel does. I hear the sound of her young laughter.”
“She has the tricks of her age. Giggling happens to be one of them. It is a nervous habit which we must hope she will leave behind.”
“It is hard to see how we can leave behind nervous habits,” said Clare. “Probably most of our habits are of that nature.”
“You are feeling in a sour mood this morning, my dear?” said Sabine, looking into her face.
“You know all to be known on that subject, Grandma.”
“Do not take that tone with me, girl,” said Sabine with her scolding hiss.
“Good morning, Mrs. Ponsonby,” said a voice at the door.
“Good morning,” said Sabine, after a moment’s pause, her voice responding and doing no more.
“And good morning, everyone else.”
“Good morning, Miss Bunyan,” said Muriel with her eyes down.
“I feel a guilty person this morning.”
Sabine looked in silence at Muriel’s governess, a short, square woman of thirty eight, with bright hazel eyes, bright pink cheeks, roughly hewn features and an expression consciously straightforward, as though she knew herself to be trustworthy and considered it an asset.
“I feel I do not deserve any breakfast to-day.”
“There should be no more difficulty in coming down for prayers, than for the meal to follow them,” said Sabine, with a piercing quality of tone which accorded with her meaning.
“Well, I would not quite say that, Mrs. Ponsonby, on these sharp mornings,” said Miss Bunyan, calling up a picture which would have been better vague in Sabine’s mind.
“Will you have some bacon?” said the latter, as if the suggestion must naturally be an afterthought.
“Yes, please, Mrs. Ponsonby,” said Miss Bunyan, looking straight in front of her, as if the last object of her attention was her plate.
Muriel and Victor exchanged a glance, as Miss Bunyan’s appetite was a matter for jest between them, which did not fail them on this occasion, though it had had no chance to be exhibited.
Sabine rather carefully put on a plate a portion which was liberal but not unreasonably so, and handed it to Miss Bunyan. It had not occurred to her that a governess should be treated except as a governess, an attitude more significant than it might sound. Feminine endurance is said to be higher than masculine, and no other explanation can be offered of Miss Bunyan’s not having followed the tutor.
“Thank you, Mrs. Ponsonby,” said Miss Bunyan, looking fully at Sabine, as she received the plate.
The family waited while Miss Bunyan ate, having less to look at than was natural in the circumstances, as she made hardly perceptible movements of her mouth, as though seeing mastication one of those things which are inevitable but better passed over.
“It is really more wholesome to be up and about for a while, before settling to a good breakfast,” said Sabine, speaking as the situation suggested.
The movements of Miss Bunyan’s jaws became less, so that the continued disappearance of her food was a ground for Muriel’s mirth, as its normal disappearance was generally enough to cause it.
“What are you laughing at, Muriel?” enquired Sabine, with a rashness which was more apparent than real.
“Yes, pray let us share the joke, Muriel,” said Miss Bunyan, with less than her natural sincerity.
Muriel sat with eyes cast down and a congested face.
“Why were you so late, Miss Bunyan?” said Sabine, as though a question might be protected by its simplicity.
“I really do not know, Mrs. Ponsonby. I was very tired this morning. I awoke at the sound of the bell, but dropped off again unawares. We are not always our own masters—mistresses in these matters.”
“It is better to get up when the bell rings. That is the object of the bell. Someone has to be up to ring it.”
“Yes, Mrs. Ponsonby, I must take a lesson. I broke that good rule and my unwisdom found me out. I generally do make the effort at the warning, but to-day I was at the end of my tether for some reason. I do not know what I have been doing to exhaust me so much.”
“I do not know either. Exhaust you so much! I cannot throw any light upon it.”
“Well, every day a little bit of one’s energy is drained away,” said Miss Bunyan, her manner bright for her words, as if it would compensate for them.
“Not more than should be made up by a good night’s rest, a particularly good one in this case,” said Sabine, speaking with truth, as she caused her household to retire at ten, this being the hour she chose for herself.
“Yes, Mrs. Ponsonby, but I had some letters to write. I did not go to bed when we went to our rooms; I sat up for quite a while. The clock had struck twelve before I closed my eyes.” Muriel laughed at this term for repose, and Sabine passed over the lapse as if almost seeing it reasonable. “I had fallen into sad arrears, and I have been in disgrace with my friends. However, I can hold my head up now.”
As Miss Bunyan made this movement, it struck her that she did not do so in her professional character.
“There is so little time for writing letters in the day, that I wait until I am in my room and master—mistress of an hour.”
“Master or mistress of ten and a half hours,” said Sabine. “And you have the time between tea and dinner to yourself. We should work and play in the day and sleep at night. Then we do justice to ourselves and those we are responsible for.”
“I am always fresh for my work, Mrs. Ponsonby, if that is what you mean.”
“Yes, that is what I mean,” said Sabine evenly. “How can you be that, when you continue your private occupations until midnight, and then are too heavy with sleep to rise for breakfast?”
“I am not even a very good sleeper, Mrs. Ponsonby,” said Miss Bunyan, looking at Sabine with dilating eyes, and then thinking better of her impulse and returning to her point. “I am quite rested this morning. And I think a good catching-up is better than a series of driblets, which drain one’s freshness and get one nowhere. I was really in bed before midnight, and I take care of myself at such times. I keep a tin of biscuits in my room.” She hurried on, sensing something in the silence. “I do not believe in treating night as day in one way and not in another. That is an inconsistence one may pay for.”
“I do not believe in treating night as day at all. And your plan of eating at odd times is not wholesome for properly fed people.”
Muriel’s gravity broke down over the subject of the nourishment of her governess, whose life she did not make an easy one.
“I do not call it eating between meals to eat when you are sitting up,” said Miss Bunyan with another note in her tone. “That constitutes a little meal by itself. We are asleep when we go for many hours without food.”
“I do not need to reduce such things to a system. I find the established system enough for me.”
“Well, an educationist has to be a systematic person, Mrs. Ponsonby. So I do reduce them to a system, and keep a little store by me in case of emergencies. I have had some wakeful nights lately, and I find that sleep is induced more readily by a mouthful—”
“Have we all finished?” said Sabine, rising while Miss Bunyan spoke. “I think we have sat about long enough, and if sleep is induced by mouthfuls, we shall all be snoring in our chairs if we go on like this. And Muriel must get her run before her lessons.” She turned to her grandchild and spoke with her scolding hiss. “This will not do, Muriel; I will not tolerate it. If you do not improve, I must ask your father to find you a home elsewhere. My behaviour need not affect yours. We could not be further removed than we are.” She moved to the bell, confident that her grandchild would view with consternation a life passed under different conditions. “Now let us all go about our occupations.”
“I think I will have some marmalade, Mrs. Ponsonby,” said Miss Bunyan, in a rather high monotone. “I came down later than the rest.”
“Yes, I know you did; I thought we had waited for you; we seemed to be waiting. When Gertrude comes, she can leave your place and clear round it. Gertrude, you may leave Miss Bunyan’s place. Clare, you may help Gertrude.”
“She has managed without my help every morning for seven years.”
“Feeling them but a day for the love she bare us,” said Victor.
“I don’t like to see you mooning about from morning till night. It is not good for your nerves or your temper, or for the nerves and tempers of those who have to be with you. You are a thundercloud over the house.”
“Moving cups and saucers will hardly solve the problems of my life.”
“Take care, Grandma,” said Victor. “Thunderclouds burst, and you mentioned that this one was over the house.”
“I shall not take care in my own house,” said Sabine, who seemed to feel a complacence in demanding indefinite licence for herself in this sphere. “I have no use for thunderclouds, and they will not burst under my roof. I should not tolerate it.”
“It seems extraordinary that we have lived so long in Grandma’s house,” said Clare. “I can hardly believe it.”
Miss Bunyan looked up with a little laugh that made light of the matter.
“Yes, you are all only fit to be laughed at,” said Sabine. “Miss Bunyan is right.”
“Is there anything I can do for you before lessons, Mrs. Ponsonby?” said Miss Bunyan, rising with a briskness born of this approval and rolling her napkin.
“No, I like you to have this hour to yourself, so as to be ready for your work. Teaching demands the whole of a person’s energy. You do not generally do things for me at this time: I do not know why to-day is an exception. And I do not know what you mean by saying you have no time for your letters, and so have to get up and camp out in the middle of the night. I do not understand it.”
“Miss Bunyan does not either,” said Clare.
“What are you doing to-day, boys?” said Sabine.
“I think I should devote myself to Victor, Grandma. I have somehow felt less hopeless about him lately, and my reward is the sweeter for being hardly earned.”
“What are you doing, Clare?” said Sabine in her even manner. “I suppose nothing?”
“Why ask a question when you know the answer? As you say, nothing.”
“Clare and I can be together,” said Chilton; “and I have a feeling that our combined influence may do something for our brother.”
“What are you doing, France?”
“I want to finish some writing, Grandma.”
“To finish it! That is good news, if the writing has made you so dull and absent-minded lately. You have hardly opened your mouth this morning, except to eat. But we will say no more about it, if it is coming to an end.”
“Then you will have two of us in my situation,” said Clare. “Perhaps you congratulate yourself too soon.”
“You are sure I cannot help you at all, Mrs. Ponsonby?”
“Miss Bunyan, I told you I wished you to have this hour to yourself. Do not oblige me to repeat myself. I am tired this morning and I cannot stand it.”
“I should be glad to be of any use, Mrs. Ponsonby.”
Sabine put her hand to her head and hurried from the room, and so out of earshot of Miss Bunyan.
She left behind her a silence, which Miss Bunyan eventually broke in a bright tone.
“Well, now there is only my place left. I will clear it and save Gertrude the trouble. I am used to clearing tables. One of the results of our family misfortunes—reverses, I believe, is the word—is that I am more fitted to be left on a desert island than most people.” She gathered up cutlery and china, and with this furniture of a desert island in her hands, found herself face to face with Sabine.
“Grandma seems to alight like a bird,” said Victor. “Poor Miss Bunyan, caught red-handed!”
Sabine advanced without a glance aside.
“What is all this rubbish in your room, France?”
“Well, it may or may not be rubbish, Grandma. I still hope it is not. It is the book I have written, and want to show to Father.”
“Well, finish writing it down here. Why must you creep away to do it?”
“I don’t know why people creep away when they begin to write. I daresay they have every cause to be ashamed, but I am not sure that is their reason. I did not want Chilton to see it until it was done.”
“You could have told him not to look at it.”
“Grandma, you have always thought better of me than I deserved,” said her grandson.
“Why does it matter its being seen?”
“It does not matter now. I should like as many people as possible to see it, not stopping short of the general public. Would you like to read it, Grandma?”
“You shall read it to me some time,” said Sabine with indulgence. “I can see you are excited at the moment. It should be an advantage to you to have your father a writer.”
“There are different results from talent running in a family,” said Chilton.
“Talent! Oh, we don’t know about that. Hard and constant work is the thing, as her father will tell her.”
“Your instructions are inconsistent,” said Clare.
“I make no claim to consistence.”
“In your own house,” said Victor.
“Victor, remember you are speaking to Grandma,” said Chilton.
“Just fancy, two authors in the house! I feel quite proud of belonging to it,” said Miss Bunyan.
“Miss Bunyan, have I to put it into words, that I prefer to be left alone with my grandchildren sometimes? We must be allowed a little family life. No one can belong to another person’s house to that extent.”
“Oh, I am sorry, Mrs. Ponsonby. I did not know—I had no idea,” said Miss Bunyan, hurrying to the door with a flushing face and somehow an inability to refer in words to the distastefulness of her presence.
“Grandma, you are ruder than is human,” said Victor. “I almost admire it.”
“I do not,” said Clare.
“If you arrange for a woman to be in your house, having need of her in it, she must be there,” said France.
“I have no need of her; I have need of her services. She ought to know the difference. If she does not, she had better learn. You need not try to teach your grandmother anything.” Sabine became emphatic over her imperviousness to improvement. “It will be of no avail.”
“Utterly fruitless,” said Clare. “But if I were Miss Bunyan, I would leave you with your grandchildren for good.”
“No, you would not. That is how young people talk. You would be thankful for a good home, as she is. People do not want to find themselves without food to eat, Miss Bunyan least of all.”
Muriel laughed at the picture called up.
“It is not much of a home, where you are not allowed about,” said Chilton.
“There is always so much talk about what Miss Bunyan eats,” said France, “and I never saw anyone eat so unobtrusively. She would be better off without food than most of us, as she has her own private stores.”
“And she has meals at home,” said Chilton, “because she told us she cleared them. I like very much to hear about Miss Bunyan’s private life. I wonder why she writes all those letters. If she paid a yearly visit to each of her friends, she would not need to be here.”
“Oh, that talk about friends!” said Sabine. “She does need to be here. Very few letters come for her, and those only from her family. Now I have something to say to you all, and I desire your attention. I will not have you answer me and hold your views against mine, as you have been doing of late. I am your grandmother and a woman who knows the world, and you are inexperienced boys and girls; and that gulf”—She brought her hand down on the table—“cannot be bridged. If you do not know when to be silent, I must see that you learn.”
“It sounds as if you have blamed Miss Bunyan unjustly,” said France. “Family intercourse does not seem to have been hampered by her presence, or not enough for you to notice it.”
“It does not matter how it sounds. You have got into a habit of disrespect, and I do not care how soon you get out of it. Boys, would you like to go out with Muriel, as you are free from work?”
“Point out to us the connection, Grandma,” said Victor.
“As you will, as you will; I will not force your little sister on you. Clare, you can go out with her.”
“Would you force her upon me, Grandma? It is not worth while. She has gone into the garden, and her lessons begin at ten.”
“Then go into the garden with her. I have made it clear that I do not desire her to be alone. I do not know what you think is your place in the house, or why you think I want you in it.”
“We are clear that you do not want us in it. I claim no place.”
“You are all silly children,” said Sabine, taking up her glasses and the paper. “Girls, go into the garden to Muriel. You seem to be unable to hear me.”
“We cannot make that claim,” said Clare, strolling through the window. “Muriel, Grandma feels you will be the better for our presence. In what way may we serve you?”
“Why did Grandma come down in such a bad temper?” said Muriel. “And Miss Bunyan made it worse, didn’t she?”
Muriel’s life with older people had led her to couch her remarks in the form of a question, as if she desired mature confirmation.
“You must not burst into laughter over Miss Bunyan’s every mouthful. Naturally we all eat.”
“Not as much as Miss Bunyan, do we?” said Muriel, with unusual gravity.
“She will be leaving, if you do not take care, and Grandma will not acquit you of guilt because she has been your accessory. Why should Miss Bunyan’s every meal be made a burden?”
“Meals would never be a burden to Miss Bunyan,” said Muriel, with a confidence which justified a statement.
“I suppose she looks down on us all, and so puts up with us. I tremble to think what would be my opinion of this family in her place.”
This idea was strange to the pupil, who had assumed, perhaps perceived, that her instructress looked up to the employing house.
“Her meals are certainly difficult to-day,” said France. “She is not to come to dinner because Father and Aunt Hetta are coming home. I don’t know who is to tell her.”
“I could tell her, couldn’t I?” said Muriel with a lift of her voice.
“You will not dream of it,” said Clare. “It is Grandma’s business, though that will not be much better. Your chief interest appears to be Miss Bunyan’s inconvenience, and I admit that no one has provided you with any other.”
Sabine smiled to herself at the sisters’ laughter, congratulating herself on the manner of home she gave them, and read The Times until interrupted by Miss Bunyan.
“I really must make it clear, Mrs. Ponsonby, that I require Muriel to come to me punctually at ten. We have only just time to get through our mapped out work, with the interruption for milk at eleven”—The speaker’s attitude was clear towards this break—“and real luncheon’s being at a quarter past one. It is so unsatisfactory to me not to see her do herself justice, and not to do justice to myself. There are certain things upon which I am justified in insisting.”
Sabine drew down her glasses with an easiness born of the retaliatory note in Miss Bunyan’s tone, and leaned towards the window.
“Muriel! Come in at once to your lessons! Miss Bunyan is waiting for you. Do not keep her another moment. Girls, you should have sent her in at ten. You know that is her time.”
“It is eight minutes past,” said Miss Bunyan in an aggrieved manner.
“You might have come for her at ten,” said Sabine, “or, better still, a few minutes before.”
“No, Mrs. Ponsonby, I do not really come and call my pupil to her work. I am at the table, waiting for her, prepared for her course, looking forward to seeing her acquit herself well; and I require her to be as punctual as I am, and as interested. I am disappointed that she was not waiting this morning, considering how enthusiastic we were yesterday, and how reluctant to close our books at the bell.”
“You can miss your break for milk to-day, if you like. You will hardly need it, with breakfast dragging on so late. That is what put the girls out in the time.”
“Now, that is very nice,” said Miss Bunyan, putting her hands together. “We shall be able to go straight on and get our comprehensive views, without any pulling up. That is quite a pleasant little piece of news.”
“Your mid-morning luncheon need not disturb you as much as all that,” said Sabine, with the piercing note. “Its object is not to distract you from your work, but to keep you up to it. I hope it does not fail of its purpose? You say yourself you cannot go for long without food.”
Miss Bunyan glanced at the window to see who was within hearing.
“And so it does keep us up to it. I am not suggesting any independence of the good things of life, the necessary things shall we call them in this case? I give them their own fair place, as is right and meet.”
“We can say good things, I think, without worrying about the term. We can claim that such things are good in this house. I am not quite sure they are necessary, in the middle of the morning.”
“Now I have caught you!” exclaimed Miss Bunyan, turning and laying hold of her pupil’s shoulder. “And you will not escape me again, so do not think it.”
She conducted Muriel from the room with a martial step, and Sabine smoothly returned to her paper.
“Grandma, you seem fated to talk to Miss Bunyan about her food,” said Clare from the window.
“Governesses are always concerned about what they eat,” said Sabine, giving the paper a shake to straighten it. “They find themselves where the food is better than in their homes, and they have no other interest in their lives.”
“I shall begin to cry in a moment,” said Victor. “To think that Muriel darkens a human creature’s only joy!”
“Teaching is the highest of all callings. I am always teaching people myself,” said Sabine with her natural sequence of thought. “There are grades in all callings, of course.”
“We are alive to the grades,” said Clare.
“You boys might go for a walk with France,” said Sabine. “You are getting to be nice companions.”
“She is busy,” said Chilton. “She wants to write this morning.”
“That does not matter in your holidays. She has her life to write in. You talk as if she were your father.” Sabine rose and rapped at the window and spoke without raising her voice. “France, come and go for a ramble with the boys. They are waiting for you, and cannot wait any longer.”
“But for you, they would have gone on waiting, Grandma.”
“Why do you rap and call, Grandma, when you want anyone?” said Clare. “Why don’t you send a message? We are all with you, and if you are alone you can ring.”
“I have other things to do than ring, and the servants have other things to do than answer. I can’t keep a large family in idleness, if we want waiting on, as well as several meals a day cooked and served and cleared and washed up for us. That in itself is a day’s work.”
“It is odd how we always get round to meals.”
“It is not at all odd. Meals must always be a great part of life, the first object of a woman’s thought, of servants’ work, of a man’s income. You may some day have a chance to learn it.”
“The promise of the future,” said Clare.
“Excelsior!” said Chilton, raising his arms.
“I have borne enough,” said Sabine, going to the door. “I will bear no more. It is time your father took a hand with you. You are too much for me at my age. I don’t wish to see you again before luncheon. You will turn up then, I don’t doubt.”
“Meals are certainly the first object of a woman’s thought,” said Clare.
“Why is it odd to turn up for them? Most people are fed,” said France. “What good would there be in them, if we did not? I believe Miss Bunyan has a good deal to eat at home, as well as some over to bring away. She has the habit of it, though I would not say so to Muriel.”
“Are you going to give Father your book to read?” said Clare.
“I can hardly ask his advice, if I withhold it. He won’t expect me to be sensitive about it. Writers don’t judge other people by themselves.”
“I daresay not their daughters,” said Victor. “It would not be natural.”
“Make him see that the matter is important to you, France,” said Clare, “and so should be important to him.”
“Things cannot always follow like that,” said Victor.
“It is important in itself,” said Chilton. “Clare has not read the book. It is better in its way than anything of Father’s.”
“You can’t have Father’s books in your mind to that extent,” said his brother. “Indeed, I know you have not.”
“I know just how far he can go.”
“You are too young to get right inside a mature brain.”
“But, Victor, you seem to think you are inside mine.”
“If Grandma knew, France thinks so much more is due to her than meals.”
“People are so sensitive about their relations’ productions,” said France. “I shall find myself Father’s relation for the first time.”
“You may find yourself so in another sense,” said Clare. “He gives full attention to any family matter. In his way he is the head of his family, and likes to be.”
“He could not hold his public without his popular touch,” said Victor. “And we should be badly off, if he did not hold it. Why do we take this attitude, when we do not expect him to take it to France?”
“I wish the trouble were not just what it is,” said France. “It would be nothing, if the work which holds his public, were just not the best. But it is not his best. He would have written better, if he had written for fewer and earned less. And it is for us that he earns; he does not spend on himself. It is all subtle and sad, and he is very pathetic.”
“My good girl, so are you,” said Victor.
“He is not pathetic,” said Chilton. “He is an over praised, over sensitive, over successful man. We may suggest his pathos, so that France may be prepared for it. He has no real pathos. He has always had more of everything than he deserved, more praise, more money, more affection, more of everything. To have so much more than you have deserved, is not to be so unfortunate.”
“It will not happen to any of us,” said France. “So we will keep our pity for our own pathos. We may need our own tears.”
“We shed them,” said Clare.
“How does Father see himself? Is his life a success to him or a conscious sacrifice?”
“Don’t be absurd, France,” said Victor. “What will your life be, if you meet his success? Not a sacrifice. Use the term where it is fit.”
“He wins so much affection,” said Chilton. “That is what puzzles me about him. He clearly has Victor’s, and Victor has very little affection to give.”
“And, as we see, has none over,” said France.
“And he has yours, France, and will continue to have it. Though he slay you, yet will you trust in him.”
“That seems to me a very odd sentiment. I require a service from him.”
“Frances does see him rather as the Almighty,” said Clare.
“The Almighty never had a daughter,” said her sister. “He did not risk feminine insight. I see Father as a toiling, companionable man, oppressed by Grandma.”
“We all share that bond.”
“We have each other, Clare. And when people have each other, it seems to be recognised that other things do not matter. I suppose even each other’s troubles. Indeed it seems to be those that do not matter.”
“It is so odd to me that France and Father are congenial,” said Chilton. “I expect he thinks he is single for his daughters’ sake; I daresay he was at first. I can hardly credit his being congenial to a wife and a sister and three daughters: I find him so uncongenial. And I believe Grandma would, if she did not see him as her son.”
“I hope I shall live to be old,” said France, “and take advantage of it. My grandchildren shall have a governess. Shall we be in time for luncheon, or a little late? Which will cause us less humiliation?”
“Well, so you turn up like bad pennies,” said Sabine at the table. “Now what was there in what I said, to send you all into laughter? You do not seem properly balanced. Miss Bunyan, what did you see amusing in my speech?”
“I do not know, Mrs. Ponsonby. The laughter was so infectious that I found myself joining in it unawares.”
“We do not want to laugh at nothing, any more than we want to talk about nothing, or to sit down at the table with nothing to eat. That last does not happen to us, does it?”
“Or to many other people,” said Clare.
“No, fortunately none of us has had that experience,” said Miss Bunyan.
“What kind of a morning’s work have you had, Miss Bunyan?” said Sabine, leaving the subject at this spirit of dealing with it.
“Not at all good, Mrs. Ponsonby, I am afraid. I have to admit it to a question put straight like that. We did not begin to concentrate until the last hour, and then we had to break our only good spell.”
“Dear me, that is not at all good hearing. I was anxious to report good progress to Muriel’s father. Between us all we must manage that the good spells come a little oftener. I do not know what we are to do about it.”
“I do not know either. We cannot undo the past,” said Miss Bunyan, who would have undone it, if she had foreseen this attitude. “We cannot go back and live it again, as I was explaining to Muriel. She and I have been quite at a difference this morning.”
“It takes two to make a difference,” said Sabine, in a tone so even that the meaning seemed incidental. “Would you like to have another hour’s work between four and five?”
“Oh, now that will be very nice, Muriel,” said Miss Bunyan, turning her eyes to her pupil. “Now here is a chance to pick up and retrace our steps, and almost go back and live the past again after all. I may be able to eat my words, and very glad I shall be to do so.” Muriel gave a tremor of laughter at the choice of metaphor. “We may redeem our day yet.”
“Well, if all is going to be well by ending well, we need not say any more about it. Will you have some more lamb, Miss Bunyan?”
“Thank you, Mrs. Ponsonby, I will have a little,” said Miss Bunyan, clearly not constrained to refuse by any feeling of discomfiture. “I think an unsatisfactory morning’s work takes it out of one more than a good one.”
“Yes, it must be like working in a mine, without striking a vein of coal,” said Sabine in her occasional genial manner. “We must hope that history will not repeat itself on this occasion.”
“I don’t think it will, eh, Muriel?” said Miss Bunyan, almost winking at her pupil, as she accepted her plate. “I hardly think history made enough of a first impression this morning, for any repetition to be possible.”
“Well, we must see what an hour will do towards remedying all the omission. I fear it is but a short time for what it has to do.”
“Oh, an hour is an hour, Mrs. Ponsonby, and an extra hour is an extra hour and has all the possibility of an extra. An extra hour, an extra holiday, an extra treat, an extra opportunity”—Miss Bunyan modified the tendency of her ideas—“how different they are from ordinary hours and treats and opportunities! And this hour is an hour and a treat and an opportunity all in one. It is only of the nature of the holiday that it will not partake. And it will not partake of that indeed, I can assure my victim and my pupil.”
“It is almost time that Muriel had that hour as an ordinary thing,” said Sabine, giving her own account of it.
“Well, that would give me more scope, Mrs. Ponsonby.”
“Muriel will be the only one of us with a normal start in life,” said Victor.
“Father hardly had one,” said France. “He began to write when he was almost a boy. Grandma would have had to give up the house, if he had not begun to earn.”
“That is quite true, France,” said Sabine, with a half-amused smile. “It is right you should know, as it gives you the measure of your father. But there is no need to emphasise that side of things; it is a form of conceit and defeats its own object. Our rents went down and your father’s income was a help, but he has never carried the full burden of his family. Your grandfather left me the place to manage for us all, and your aunt’s being single has helped me to keep things the same. It may not always be so, and you may feel the difference. But as things are, it is silly to harp on that note. You are more without knowledge of the world than you should be at your age.”
“Father does not make any secret of his history.”
“It adds to him, but it does not add to you. You have no history. You have been lapped in luxury from your birth. To talk as you were doing is an affectation, and might be construed as a bid for admiration.”
“I have seen it that in Father’s case,” said Chilton. “And it serves its purpose. Admiration follows it.”
“It will not follow it in your sister’s.”
“I think you are so right, Mrs. Ponsonby,” said Miss Bunyan rapidly. “We have found it in my own father’s case. It is parallel with what you describe. He had every advantage until his father died, and then it came to his taking up a most unsuitable profession, though he has done his best in it for all our sakes. And sight is always lost of his being what he is—lost in some cases to be fairer—and stand is taken upon his occupation, as if that bore upon his essential position or the personal touch—”
“Yes, that is how it would be,” said Sabine. “But this case is different. My son has no unsuitable profession, though it was rather a departure in the family; and stand may be taken upon it, if it is desired. So the cases are not parallel. Now Muriel must get out for her walk, if she is to be at her books by four.”
“And she is certainly to be that,” said Miss Bunyan, rising from the table. “So come, Muriel. We shall get as far as the woods if we are quick.”
“Don’t hurry, and try to keep in the shade,” said Sabine. “It is wiser not to walk fast in the sun after a solid meal.”
Miss Bunyan slackened her pace and then quickened it, adapting her energy to what had preceded it. Sabine went upon an errand of her own, not looking at her grandchildren. Chilton perceived her bonnet and cloak lying ready for the garden. He put them on, pulled some horsehair from the couch and pushed it into the bonnet for a fringe, and walked up and down with a gait calculated to recall his grandmother’s.
“Clare, your face has a muddy tinge. France, are you making a bid for admiration? Muriel, I do not like this report, but we will not talk about it after such a meal.”
Muriel broke into laughter; her sisters joined; Miss Bunyan returned and stood silent, prevented from joining by the last words; Sabine followed and, going to her grandson, stood simply with extended hands.
Chilton divested himself with awkwardness, dropping his eyes as he came to his fringe; Miss Bunyan maintained her gravity and beckoned to her pupil; Sabine went out with a slightly hurt expression, turning to cast a word behind.
“If you have nothing better to do than spoil the furniture, you may come and help me water my plants. You might have noticed I was going to do them alone.”
“Surely you were not?” said Clare. “It would have been the first time within my memory. And the sun is on the flowers.”
“The sun is not on them any more because I ask you to help. You could have stopped me, if you thought I should do any harm. The sun will not hurt these large plants, if we keep the water to the roots. Chilton, take the heavy can and follow me. France may bring the smaller one.”
“Victor, Grandma does not ask your help,” said Chilton. “Have you asked yourself the reason?”
“Clearly nothing would have stopped her,” murmured France.
“We ought to have another hose,” said Clare.
“No, we ought not, with four able-bodied young people in my little personal garden. Hoses have to be bought and paid for. You seem to think things are to be had for the asking.”
“If I thought that, I should have profited ill by my training.”
“You would have been very ill trained.”
“You are watering your skirt as much as the flowers, Grandma,” said France. “But the sun on a wet skirt is better than on wet plants.”
“And Grandma’s garden skirt seems ready for a little water,” said Victor.
“A drop,” said Sabine, glancing down at her dress. “You have silly manners, both you girls. I must have a word with your father.”
“It may be well to direct his attention to us,” said Clare.
“I cannot bear it,” said Sabine, suddenly, putting her hand to her head. “I cannot, the sun and the argument and everything. It is too much. I must go and lie down, to be able to face the evening. You can go on without me: I daresay you will be without me altogether before long.”
She went into the house, an upright, swift old figure, and her grandchildren continued their employment, as if at home in the position.
Sabine went up to the schoolroom, her air becoming one of mild purpose. She rang for some tea, observing to the maid who brought it that the room was in the shade. Then she rummaged gently on Miss Bunyan’s desk, restoring each object to its exact place. When she came on a fresh, unposted letter, she put it with a smooth, automatic movement on the hot water jug, and when the glue melted, opened and read it without any touch of instinctive furtiveness.
“My dear Father,
“I am indulging in an orgy of letter writing in my own room at night, and am greatly sustained by Mother’s biscuits. I have less time as I become more valued, and I do not quarrel with the cause. My pupil is attached, and her grandmother, though an eccentric old lady, whom we all combine to serve, gives me her complete trust, though I say it as shouldn’t. The grown up sisters and half grown up brothers are very kind, and I am made quite one of themselves. Indeed I shall soon be addressing Mrs. Ponsonby as ‘Grandma,’ if I do not take care. Not that she would mind, as I am already ‘my dear.’ Her son, my pupil’s father, is returning to-night, John Ponsonby, the novelist. Mrs. Ponsonby seems to think that as members of intellectual professions we should be thrown together. I will leave this letter open in case of more to say to-morrow. At the moment my pillow invites.
“Your affectionate daughter, “Dorothea.”
Sabine read the letter with experienced calm, finding no reason to move a feature of her face, and restored it to the desk with a sense of having had no need to open it. She met the governess in her ordinary manner, as she had found no occasion to change it.
Miss Bunyan and her pupil came to the table, looking self-conscious and expectant of question. They usually had tea in the schoolroom alone, but to-day there was domestic pressure, and the schoolroom and family meals were combined. Muriel yawned as she took her seat, her day having been more arduous than usual. The governess witnessed the action and involuntarily copied it.
“Well, gapy-face!” said Sabine, turning her eyes to her grandchild just in time.
“I wasn’t yawning, Grandma.”
“Do not lie to me, child; do not lie.”
Miss Bunyan again and waveringly put her hand to her mouth.
“It is amazing how infectious yawning is,” she said, her manner less amazed than uneasy.
“We should be prepared for that, when it is a known thing,” said Sabine, raising her own hand, continuing the movement to her hair, and touching it before she brought the hand down again. “Well, how did the hour’s work go along?”
“Very well indeed, Mrs. Ponsonby. I feel we have quite redeemed our day. I shall go to bed with a much lighter heart, than if we had not had our chance to recover.”
“Well, I hope you will really go to bed, and not sit up writing letters, especially as bed seems to be the goal of everything.”
“Yes, indeed I shall, Mrs. Ponsonby. I am very tired to-night and shall be glad to get my head on the pillow,” said Miss Bunyan, possibly dazed by weariness.
“I wonder what has tired you so much,” said Sabine, while Muriel giggled at the realistic phrase.
“Well, there was an unsatisfactory morning’s work to begin with, a much more tiring thing than the other kind, and then a long walk, and then our energetic hour to retrieve. It all mounts up, you know.”
“It sounds an ordinary day’s occupation. I am inclined to think it was writing letters late at night.”
“Well, well, then I must not write letters late at night, Mrs. Ponsonby,” said Miss Bunyan, with a change of manner.
“I am glad we have come to one mind about it. Now will you have another baked egg? You must need one after your walk, if it has taken it out of you, though they do say that the fresh air is very feeding.”
“No, Mrs. Ponsonby, I could not, thank you. One is quite enough, after a good luncheon and with dinner to follow.” Miss Bunyan made no mention of the item of the air, though Muriel’s look at Victor included it with the others. “One is enough indeed.”
“I think it would be,” said Sabine, continuing to insert the spoon. “Indeed I do not think we should need one, with dinner to follow. I am not taking one, you see. But we are having a family gathering to-night, to welcome my son and daughter; so you must eat a good enough meal to carry you on till bedtime. You will not sleep, if you are hungry, and I don’t suppose your stock of biscuits is proof against too frequent inroads.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Ponsonby, then I will have another,” said Miss Bunyan, with pleasant ease and a slow flush which contradicted it. “I am quite glad of the opportunity as they are so good. And I shall have a chance to go over Muriel’s books, and decide what work will best follow on. This is to be a catching-up day in every respect. And I am quite glad of it. It takes away that feeling of being a little out of breath that one has sometimes.”
“I should not work to-night. You must need an evening to yourself sometimes, especially if you find yourself out of breath. I believe I am the youngest person in the house at my age. What are you laughing at, Muriel? If there is a joke, let us share it.”
“Yes, Mrs. Ponsonby, let us. Be kind to us, Muriel, and don’t leave us out.”
Muriel was kinder in merely gazing at the wall.
“I know your father’s name so well, Muriel,” resumed Miss Bunyan, in a tone of general conversation. “John Ponsonby is quite a household word with us.”
“It does not suggest her father to Muriel,” said Sabine. “It is naturally not a household word here.”
“As a family we have unsuccessful names,” said Clare. “I think Victor comes off the worst.”
“I think Victor is a charming name,” said Miss Bunyan, “and it means just what it says, which is nice and straightforward.”
“What is your name, Miss Bunyan?” said Victor, who was aware of it.
“Dorothea.”
“And what does it mean?”
There was a pause.
“Come, come, where is your Greek?” said Miss Bunyan.
“Well, what does it mean?” said Sabine.
“The gift of God,” said Miss Bunyan in a light, easy tone, which was lost in her pupil’s laughter.
“Do not be foolish, child,” said Sabine, laughing gently herself. “We are all regarded as gifts when we come. I daresay even you were.”
Miss Bunyan looked in front of her.
“Miss Bunyan might have liked some notice, Grandma, that she would have an evening of her own,” said Clare.
“Oh, you need not bother about her not coming to dinner,” said Sabine, with a final and reckless sloughing of convention. “There is no need for it to be smoothed away and glossed over, as if there were something wrong in our having some family life.”
“I hope there is not anything wrong in it,” said France, “for it is a temptation we often yield to. Indeed I think it is getting the better of us.”
“It is pleasanter for Miss Bunyan and all of us, for us not to be always tied up together.”
“It makes it more interesting to meet again,” said Miss Bunyan.
“That is so,” said Sabine. “Do not begin to giggle, Muriel. It may not be interesting to meet a silly little girl, but that does not apply to anyone else, so be quiet.”
Sabine, having thus suggested the probable reason of her granddaughter’s mirth, was silent, and Miss Bunyan looked about with a bright expression.
“There is not much hope that we may strike Miss Bunyan afresh to-morrow,” said Clare. “For Father our companionship may have the charm of novelty.”
“Why do you suppose a gifted man like your father should so often wish for your company?”
“I do not suppose it: I was observing it was not the case. Even as I am, I have not avoided remarking that parents and children are in many cases thrown together.”
“We will continue this meal in silence,” said Sabine, putting her hand to her head.
“A good idea, Mrs. Ponsonby. It is sometimes quite a rest— Oh, I beg your pardon,” said Miss Bunyan. “Have you a headache?”
“We will continue this meal in silence,” faintly repeated Sabine.
They continued it in silence, and at its end, or what she saw as such, Sabine rose and left the room, turning at the door.
“You can pour out the tea, Clare, if anyone can drink any more.”
“I can drink some more and eat some more, can’t I?” said Muriel.
“You are growing,” said Miss Bunyan, indulgent in this sphere, and also, it might have been felt, magnanimous.
“No, you cannot, Muriel,” said Sabine, looking back. “Drink what you like, but remember you are to come to dinner, and only need a light meal now. I do not want your father to think you have no appetite; it would be such an unnecessary mistake. Miss Bunyan is the one who has to make a meal. You can look after her.”
“I have to compress two meals into one,” said Miss Bunyan, lightly. “It sounds quite a feat of skill.”
Muriel laughed at the probable suitability of the phrase.
“I shall have to make myself eat more than I want.”
Further laughter commented on the effort’s likely result.
“We must not get into the way of feeling self-conscious over having reasonable appetites,” said Miss Bunyan, in an educational tone. “That is a piece of foolishness which we have grown out of, which only exists in the lower classes now. I hope you are listening, Muriel. I should not like to have to tell you before your grandmother.”
Muriel giggled at the truth of these words.
“I should hate Miss Bunyan to have to tell me anything before Grandma,” said Chilton.
“Muriel seems unsteady to-day. If I did not know her, I should say she was hysterical,” said Miss Bunyan, who was certainly alive to genuine amusement in her pupil.
“She is at the tiresome age,” said Clare.
“Yes, we must put it down to that.”
“Muriel and Victor must go through these stages,” said Chilton with a sigh.
“She is at the age when it is usual for a child to need training,” said Sabine, returning to the room with a vase of flowers, an almost recognised pretext for her appearance at any moment, versed in the conversation. “If she were perfect, there would be no need of it, or of anyone to carry it out. But I do wish, Miss Bunyan, that you could cure her of this trick of giggling at everything, at nothing. It is a silly habit.”
“I wish I could, Mrs. Ponsonby,” said Miss Bunyan sincerely, “but it was a fixed habit when I came.” She spoke these words with a flush. “But I will do my best.”
“Of course, I do not mind her laughing when there is anything to laugh at.”
“Of course not,” said Miss Bunyan.
Muriel strove anew with her mirth.
“What is the joke now, child?” said Sabine. “Your father will anyhow find you in good spirits.”
“Nothing, Grandma.”
“Well, there you are, you see,” said Miss Bunyan.