THESE MEMBERS OF the household arrived on the next afternoon, bringing the luggage that was nothing to them, by means of several cabs. But they appeared less concerned with it, than those who had left it behind.
“Well, my daughter,” said Mr. Donne, embracing Anna in a conventional but ironic manner, and introducing these qualities into his speech; “so we are united once again. A family roof will continue to hold us together.”
“As the necessary amount of thought and effort has come first,” said Anna, with blunt readiness.
Bernard strolled into the hall and confronted rather than met his father.
“Well, Bernard,” said the latter, in the same tone.
“Well, Father,” said Bernard, as though he found the filial term unsuitable but hard to avoid.
Benjamin Donne was a short, thickly-built man of sixty, with black hair that was not so much varied as confused by streaks of white; round, hazel eyes like his daughter’s, but of a darker shade, and set in a network of wrinkles from which hers might always be free; a nose that overshadowed and almost distorted his face; sudden, uncontrolled movements, and an expression rendered enigmatic both by nature and himself. He bent over Anna with his hand on her shoulder, and listened to Jenney with the interest accorded to a guest, the ironic atmosphere pervading all that he did. He was a man at war with himself, and tended to find himself in this relation to other people. His friends took different views of him, some seeing him as harsh and forbidding, and others as a man of natural, if suppressed affections, and both being right. He had been a widower for twelve years, and had not thought of marrying again, having found the conflicting elements of married life too much. He had greatly desired children, but was sufficiently provided with these.
His two younger sons, who had travelled with him, edged past him and disappeared into the house. Esmond, the elder, was four years younger than Anna, and taller and darker than she, with fairly good features, a developed head, unsettled, grey eyes, a drooping carriage, an irritable and often irritated manner, and a certain uncouthness in person and dress, that in her appeared in manner and speech. He gave a limp hand to the women of his family, less by way of greeting than of indicating that he did not intend an embrace, and turned his eyes on the house with an interest limited to its concern for himself.
Reuben, the youngest by a number of years, evinced the ungainly quality in his physique. He was a boy of thirteen, with coltish, uncontrolled movements, a lively, nervous face, defensive, dark eyes that were sadder than his feelings warranted, and a definite lameness resulting from an early accident. He had a straight but unobservant gaze and a confident, carrying voice, and thought less of his handicap than of what other people thought of it.
Jenney’s eyes showed that he was her chief concern; Anna gave him a rough caress; and Ethel took his bag before doing anything else. Neither his father nor his brother had thought of helping him, or rather the latter had not thought of it, and the former had been in the grip of his usual inner conflict. It was his habit to address his young son with ironic courtesy as an equal, but he failed to embarrass him by doing so, as Reuben saw him as an insoluble enigma, and simply withheld his thoughts.
The family had a faintly Jewish look, and biblical names had a way of recurring amongst them, but they neither claimed nor admitted any strain of Jewish blood. The truth was that there had been none in the last generations, and that they had no earlier record of their history.
They went into the drawing-room and faced each other with a sense of actually doing this. Their reunion in new surroundings showed them each other afresh. Anna was concious of her choice of the house, and wore an absent, indifferent air and hummed faintly to herself, while Claribel had almost the manner of a hostess.
The latter greeted Benjamin with bare cordiality and ignored his deliberate survey of herself. He had put her to his purpose of duenna for his family, and she felt that she owed him nothing, and would not suffer at his hands. Her attitude and Reuben’s were of the kind reputed to ensure respect, but failed to do so with Benjamin, who had little command of this feeling. He had not even much for himself, which tends to mean a meagre residue for other people.
“Well, we begin our new life,” he said, in the harsh, uneven tones that seemed to carry an undercurrent of emotion. “We shall feel that the house is our own, when we have planted memories in it.” His eyes rested on his sons, as if he awaited their fulfilment of this duty.
“We shall always remember Bernard’s half-shy look of welcome,” said Reuben, pulling at Jenney’s sleeve and raising his voice. “He may be ashamed of the feeling that brought him, but it makes us like him better.”
Esmond pushed through his family and stood in the middle of the room and looked up and down.
“Cannot your feelings find expression?” said Claribel.
“It seems that that is the case,” said Bernard.
“It is usual to reply to a question,” said Benjamin.
“A reply was not wanted,” said his second son.
“Well, that is true,” said Anna. “People who withhold their wisdom before the event, need not produce it afterwards.”
“It is a smaller house than the other,” said Reuben.
“There is plenty for the servants to do in it,” said Anna, “though it would not be wise to give them a hint of it.”
“They are the last people who should require it,” said Bernard.
“You seem to be agreed upon your course,” said Esmond.
“Bernard has been spoiling them, as usual,” said Anna. “It only makes them harder to manage.”
“Since when has he taken your place?” said Benjamin.
“He has not done so, Father, or he would know better.”
“They are both of them nicer than most of us,” said Bernard.
Reuben gave the laugh that he felt was appropriate, though Ethel and Cook had a larger measure of his affection than anyone but Bernard and Jenney.
“Now keep your tongues off them for the moment,” said Anna, in her rough manner. “Here is Ethel with the tea.”
“I had muffins for tea yesterday,” said Bernard.
“Oh, I forgot to have them toasted,” said Jenney, springing to her feet. “I can see about it in a minute.”
Ethel produced a covered dish, with a fleeting smile at Bernard.
“Oh, I am glad you remembered, Ethel,” said Jenney.
“It was Cook,” said Ethel, turning to the door to hide her smile of conscious pride.
“And what more suitable person?” said Anna, keeping her eyes on the door until it closed. “Is nothing further removed from Cook than her natural duties? Ethel should put the tray in front of me. Will she ever learn her business?”
“Oh, I know how you all like it,” said Jenney proceeding to pour out the tea.
“Experience does nothing for Anna in that matter,” said Esmond.
“I take the precaution of asking you,” said his sister.
“It is tiresome to explain the same things day after day.”
“That should hardly be too great a drain upon your energy.”
“It is upon my patience.”
“We may all come to the end of that quality,” said Benjamin.
“Well, it is nice to have one’s little ways remembered,” said Claribel. “After all, they are the outcome of one’s personality.”
“Pass the muffins to Reuben,” said Jenney, as if she were speaking to children who might keep them to themselves.
Her tone irritated Anna and Esmond, who made no movement; Bernard would not leave his easy chair; Claribel assumed that a woman did not wait upon a boy; Benjamin rose and handed the muffins to his son and then to Jenney.
“Considering the standard of your manners, Father, you might have passed them to Jenney first,” said Anna, who was more at ease with Benjamin than his other children, partly because she did not follow his mind or try to do so. This effort seemed to involve his sons in his own uneasiness.
“I did as she asked,” said Benjamin, returning to his seat.
“Jenney gets much more obedience than I ever get.”
“What claim have you to it?” said Esmond.
“I am supposed to be the mistress of the house.”
“That position involves certain functions.”
“Oh, does it?” said Anna. “Well, who arranged the house, and planned the move, and was here to receive the maids and assign the rooms, and do the hundred and one things that had to be done?”
“Jenney was that person,” said Esmond.
“No, she only worked under my direction. And Father and I chose the house by ourselves. Nobody else was with us.”
Esmond glanced round the room and subsided almost with a nod to himself, as if he could credit this statement.
“You may leave the house, if you have a better one,” said Benjamin.
“All in good time,” muttered Esmond.
“Then let your criticism wait for that.”
“I suppose we shall see the other household to-morrow,” said Claribel. “I wonder which of us is engaging their thoughts.”
“Oh, of course you will,” said Jenney, in an excited manner. “What a sudden plunge into a new life! I wonder how you will all manage in it.” She felt Benjamin’s glance and hastened to retrieve any false step. “I expect you will all enjoy being together.”
“We must see that we do so,” said Benjamin. “Anything else would dispose of the good in our presence.”
“Aunt Sukey will impose her demands, if I make no mistake,” said Anna.
“I hope you make none,” said her father. “We have come here to fulfil them.”
“Very morbid,” murmured Bernard.
Benjamin had lately retired from a government office, which had required his daily presence, and had moved nearer to his sisters, who desired his support. His sons had adopted the same occupation, a fact which caused Esmond to suffer, and Benjamin to smile to himself, and sometimes to suffer also, as he recalled his sons’ earlier hopes. Bernard worked with ambition and success, and Esmond in contempt for a task beneath him, and resentment that a conviction of ability did not command a price. The brothers lived together in rooms in London, always wishing that they were apart, but held from the change by Bernard’s lack of initiative, and Esmond’s leaning to the cheaper course. They took their holidays in brief and frequent spells, in order not to break their life at home. Esmond’s dislike of this life was extreme, and his father’s dislike of his part in it appeared to be on the same scale; but he did not dare to break away, and Benjamin contrived without word or look that he should not dare. It seemed that Benjamin must prefer his presence, and he had a feeling, both conventional and natural, for having his family about him.
“It may not be all giving on our side,” said Claribel. “We shall impose our own wills without knowing it. No one with any force of character avoids that.”
“It would not do to go through life alone,” said Jenney, mentioning the disadvantage that struck her as the worst.
“I suppose we all do that,” said Reuben.
“Oh, in that sense,” said Esmond, irritably. “That does not need saying.”
“But I was proud to say it,” said his brother.
“You have a nice room on this floor, Reuben, underneath mine,” said Jenney.
A relief spread over Reuben’s face.
“Come upstairs and see the house,” said Bernard, rising and offering his arm.
The brothers mounted the staircase, Bernard giving his support without seeming to know that he did so. Reuben no longer needed it, but would not repudiate his brother’s thought, or the effort of rising from his chair, which he did not underestimate; and found that the longer he followed this line, the more bound he was to it. Jenney welcomed protection for him, feeling simply that he was a creature dependent on it; Benjamin saw the matter as it was; Anna saw its surface; and Esmond was not concerned with it.
“It is a good thing those two are such good friends,” said Anna. “It would make a problem, if Bernard were sensitive about Reuben, or anything like that.”
Jenney’s face showed her view of this idea, and Benjamin’s betrayed that his was the same. His reaction and Jenney’s often resembled each other.
“I don’t think we feel embarrassed by people belonging to ourselves,” said Claribel. “Our relations form the natural background for the creatures that we are.”
“Are you going to the other house to-morrow, Father?” said Anna, making no pretence of attending.
“To-night, my daughter. Your aunt will be expecting me. She must not do so in vain.”
Benjamin’s voice accorded with his words. His feeling for his sisters was the strongest in his life, rooted in its background and beginning. Their qualities appeared to him essential and natural; their troubles roused his pity, and helplessness in them found him a protector; their ease with him appealed to him more than any other experience. They did not know the man who was known to his children.
“There will be trouble and expense for us there,” said Anna.
“Why should there be expense?” said Benjamin. “Your aunts have their own incomes.”
“We can hardly breathe without paying for it,” said Esmond. “We cannot so much as eat and drink like the beasts of the field.”
“They have few other advantages,” said his father. “You need not desire a further affinity with them.”
Esmond appeared not to hear the words that he did not dare to answer. The expression that he believed indifferent, was one of aversion. Benjamin’s eyes dilated as he looked at him, a change that did not improve them, as they were already prominent. He was exasperated by signs of dislike in his sons, and the feeling led him to give them further cause for it.
“It is a modest but pleasant house,” said Reuben’s voice, “and a home is where a family is gathered together.”
“That is what makes family problems,” said Bernard.
“We have none of those,” said Benjamin, in a tone that defied contradiction.
“None,” muttered Esmond. “Problems imply a solution.”
“Jenney is proud of me for being able to talk like other people, though I cannot walk like them,” said Reuben, rightly interpreting the expression on Jenney’s face.
“Your walking is very much improved,” said Anna. “There is not much amiss with it now.”
“People would hardly believe the pathetic little figure I used to be.”
Jenney’s eyes rested on Reuben, as if this still appeared to her the natural view.
“If I had been like other boys, people might not have loved me so well.”
“They must have some ground for their regard,” said Esmond.
Benjamin looked at his youngest son without expression. He could hardly sneer at his infirmity, and was unversed in any other course. In his heart he thought less of Esmond for his dealings with him, and found that they fixed his position as the least dear of his children.
Ethel came into the room with her usual step, but with her eyes rather wide and fixed.
“Cook’s smallest bag has not arrived, Miss Jennings.”
“Oh, what a nuisance!” said Jenney, looking about as if half-expecting to see the bag. “Where did she see it last?”
“She packed it with her own hands, Miss Jennings.”
“Who usually packs Cook’s bags?” said Bernard.
Ethel gave him an enigmatic look, and did not say upon whom such a task of Cook’s would normally devolve.
“Well, does it matter so much?” said Anna. “It will follow by itself.”
“Cook had it with her in the compartment, Miss Anna.”
“You mean it had no address? Why did you not bring it in the cab?”
Jenney’s eyes went from Anna to Ethel, as if to measure their mutual effect.
“We only brought what was needed for the night, Miss Anna,” said Ethel, throwing some light on this.
“Did you leave the bag to speak for itself at the station?” said Esmond. “A label would have saved it the trouble.”
Ethel met his eyes in silence.
“You must know what you did with it,” said Anna.
“We thought it would come with the other luggage, Miss Anna.”
“It would have been wiser and kinder of it,” said Bernard.
Ethel tried not to smile and entirely succeeded.
“Someone must go to the station about it,” said Jenney.
“Who can do that?” said Anna. “We have no means of going.”
“I am the last person who can offer to walk,” said Reuben.
“You must manage for yourself, Ethel,” said Anna.
“I might be able to walk one way,” said Ethel, in a tone of offering a dubious, but perhaps not impossible solution.
“And would Cook walk the other?” said Bernard.
“Would the bag carry you back?” said Esmond, at the same moment.
Reuben burst into laughter, and Claribel leaned back and tapped the ground with her foot, wearied by the impersonal discussion.
“You may make yourself easy, my good girl,” said Benjamin, who took this line with young women of Ethel’s class, and believed Ethel to be young because of her calling. “One of the tradesmen will be passing the station, and will bring it in his cart.”
“Cook cannot settle down, sir,” said Ethel, as if further words were unnecessary; and indeed any would have fallen flat after these.
“It does seem like a bag not to think of that,” said Bernard.
Ethel suddenly moved to the door, as if hearing something audible only to her own ears.
“Cook says that that bag was unpacked first of all,” she said, turning back and addressing Jenney in an empty tone.
“Do you mean that it has been here from the first?”
“Did it unpack itself and say nothing about it?” said Bernard.
“So Cook has been settled all the time,” said Anna.
“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.
“Such family devotion as yours is very unusual, Father.”
“The relation of brother and sister goes back to the first days. It has its roots in the beginning. There may be stronger feeling, but never the same understanding. It is not your time to know it.”
“Is Aunt Jessica just the same?”
“She forgets herself until life itself seems to forget her. But I saw how her family depend on her, and her sister the most of all. And that fulfils her own need.”
“It seems a pretty good demand on someone who is not too sound. Isn’t she supposed to be a thought weak in the nerves?”
“Your cousin, Terence, has offered to teach you for the time, Reuben,” said Benjamin, seeming not to hear his daughter. “And I have accepted his offer.”
“Well, that would be a solution,” said Anna. “There is no school near. And a tutor is never too easy to arrange in a small household.”
“What does Reuben say to that?” said Esmond.
“Of course I thought my education was finished,” said his brother.
“Is Terence to do it out of kindness, Father?” said Anna. “Or are you to make it worth his while?”
“The latter, but it will save me some expense.”
“I daresay the lad will do his best,” said Reuben. “And no doubt he will treat my handicap with delicacy.”
“That is more than can be said of boys at school,” said his sister. “But Terence has troubles in his own family. He ought not to make so much of it.”
“So there will be subjects for us both to avoid.”
“I daresay you could both make blunders, if you tried, but there will be no need to do so.”
“I think you will not regret giving my suggestion a trial,” said Benjamin to Reuben, in his tone of ironic equality. “Terence seems an intelligent young man.”
“Reuben will soon find out if he is not,” said Anna.
“It is his verdict on Reuben that will be the point,” said Bernard.
“When do we pay our respects to the other family, Father?” said Anna.
“I am the bearer of a message asking you all to come tomorrow.”
“In a body?” said Esmond, turning his eyes to his sister.
“Your aunt did not separate you in her invitation,” said Benjamin.
“At what hour do we storm the premises?” said Bernard, also looking at Anna.
“What time, Father?” said the latter.
“At about an hour before luncheon.”
“Happily a time of day when human resistance is still high,” said Bernard.
“I admit that I do not look forward to the meeting,” said Anna. “They all have a way of making me feel on a lower level than themselves.”
“I never put that interpretation on people’s ways,” said Claribel. “Perhaps I feel that, if there is any looking down to be done, I am the person to do it.”
“My sister, Jessica, has never looked down on anyone. She is above it,” said Benjamin, implying another standing for those who took this line.
“I know she is a lofty-minded person,” said his cousin. “I always used to feel of the world, worldly, beside her. But we were good friends, and I hope shall be so again. A woman with a family needs a friend, who has escaped her own drudgery in life.”
“She will look with a certain tenderness on me,” said Reuben. “She knows that I cannot remember my mother.”
“As that is the case, you feel no disadvantage,” said Esmond.
“She will feel that is my tragedy, that I do not know what I have missed.”
Esmond was silent over the opposite misfortune.
“Sons lose the most when the mother dies,” said Anna. “I may not be as unhappy as might be thought. There is a certain gain to the daughter in being the mistress of the house. What did Mother die of, Father?”
“Have you never asked that before?” said Esmond.
“I may have, but I forget. I was away at school when it happened; and when I came home, it was all wrapped in silence and mystery, and I did not like to ask. Eighteen is a sensitive age.”
“Which cannot be said of all ages,” muttered her brother.
“There may be evidence that it can’t both in you and me. But that is how I felt at the time. I suppose a boy is thicker-skinned.”
“I came home when I knew she was ill.”
“Then of course you knew it all. I did not return until the end of the term, when I arrived to receive the keys of the house at the age of eighteen.”
“Better than giving them up for ever at the age of forty-five,” said Esmond, still in a mutter.
“You had Jenney and Claribel to help you,” said Bernard to his sister.
“Yes, I remember Claribel’s arriving to play duenna. But I have the impression that I steered my own course, and more of less that of us all.”
“I was content to observe from a distance,” said her cousin. “I saw no reason to interfere without need. That is not my personal inclination. I am afraid I am not one of the Marthas of the world, popular character though it is. We poor Marys get much less esteem.”
“Well, what did Mother die of?” said Anna, in her blunt manner. “Does anyone know? Do you know, Father?”
“I could hardly fail to. And you shall know also at some fitting time, if it is still your wish.”
Esmond gave his father a glance of sympathy, a rare if not a unique occurrence.
“Oh, don’t make me feel as if I were some unfeeling monster, Father. What is there unnatural or unfit in wanting to hear about your own mother’s last illness? It was your business to see that I knew. If anyone had asked me about it, we should have looked a strange family. Why can’t I be told in a normal way, instead of being made the victim of other people’s self-complacence? And of course I don’t want any embarrassing appointments for the future. I can tell you have been with Aunt Jessica. That is just her touch.”
“It was a chill that went to the lungs,” said Benjamin, and said no more.
“Well, what could be more ordinary than that?” said his daughter, rising and hastening to the door on some other concern. “I was almost wondering if it were something equivocal. Such mystery-mongering does no good. It gives any kind of impression. There is no loyalty or sensitiveness about it.”
There followed a long pause.
“So that is the method of dealing with Father,” said Esmond under his breath.
“It is a pity we are above it,” said Bernard.
“I do not agree with you,” said his brother.
“No, I think I am glad to belong to the highly-organised part of the world,” said Claribel, bending towards them, “inconvenient though it may be for me and other people.”