Elders and Betters, page 5
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.”
Chapter III
“O GREAT AND good and powerful god, Chung,” said Theodora Calderon, on her knees before a rock in the garden, “protect us, we beseech thee, in the new life that is upon us. For strangers threaten our peace, and the hordes of the alien draw nigh. Keep us in thy sight, and save us from the dangers that beset our path. For Sung Li’s sake, amen.”
“For Sung Li’s sake, amen,” said her brother.
“Guard us from the boldness of their eyes and the lewdness of their tongues,” went on Theodora. “For their strength is great, and the barbarian heart is within them. Their eyes may be cold on the young, and harsh words may issue from their lips. Therefore have us in thy keeping. For Sung Li’s sake, amen.”
“Sung Li is a good name,” said Julius, as they rose from their knees. “Enough like Son and yet not too much like it. It would not do to have them the same.”
“Blasphemy is no help in establishing a deity,” said his sister, in a tone of supporting him. “And the power of Chung is real, though it is only used for those who believe in him. And he would always help people’s unbelief.”
“After the age of fourteen his influence fades,” said Julius, in a tone of suggestion.
“Then people have to turn to the accepted faith. Their time of choice is past. But the power of the young gods is real for those who are innocent. That would be the test.”
“But we are not innocent,” said Julius.
“Yes, I think we are. Children’s sins are light in the eyes of the gods.”
“We steal things that are not ours, Dora.”
“Yes, but not jewels or money or anything recognised as theft.”
“A sixpence would be thought to be money.”
“But it is not gold or notes or anything that counts to a god.”
But the steps of the pair faltered, and they turned with one accord back to the rock.
“O great and good and powerful god, Chung,” said Dora, as they fell on their knees, “forgive us any sins that go beyond the weakness of youth. Pardon any faults that are grievous in thy sight, for temptation lies in wait. For Sung Li’s sake, amen.”
“Temptation does beset us,” said Julius, gaining his feet.
“It is a pity that so much of the pleasure of life depends on sin,” said his sister. “We could not be expected to live quite without joy. No god of childhood would wish it.”
“O powerful god, Chung,” said Julius, in a rapid gabble, turning and inclining his knee, “be merciful to any weakness that approaches real transgression. For Sung Li’s sake, amen.”
Dora repeated the last words and made a perfunctory but sincere obeisance, and the pair walked away rather quickly, as if to guard against any impulse to return.
“I wonder what revealed to us that there was a god dwelling in that rock,” said Julius.
“Well, a god would have a temple somewhere. And there would be gods dwelling in the wild rocks and in the hidden places.”
“Yes, of course there would. I wonder if it was fitting to name our gods out of a book that we …”
“Purloined,” said Dora, going into laughter; and the pair rolled along in mirth.
“It was only part of a book,” she said; “and we did not take the real names, only made up some that were like them. And a name with a Chinese sound is more reverent than an English one.”
“We could not call a god John or Thomas,” said her brother, seeking further cause for mirth.
“Or Judas,” said Dora, supplying it.
Julius was a red-haired, round-faced boy of eleven, with large, honest, greenish eyes and ordinary features grouped into an appealing whole. Dora was as like him as was compatible with a greater share of looks, the opposite sex and a year less in age. They both looked sound in body and mind, but a little aloof and mature for their years, as if they steered their own way through a heedless world. A nurse was regarded as a needless expense in their rather haphazard and straitened home; and the housemaid looked after them, and a daily governess taught them, so that their spare time was uncontrolled. It was held that their amusement was their own affair, and confidence on the point was not misplaced, as their pastimes included not only pleasure, but religion, literature and crime. They wrote moral poems that deeply moved them, pilfered coins for the purchase of forbidden goods, and prayed in good faith to the accepted god and their own, perhaps with a feeling that a double share of absolution would not come amiss. As they staggered along in mirth, they forgot its cause, and maintained it from a sense that mirth was a congenial thing.
Their mother came out of some bushes and approached them. “What is the joke?” she said with a smile.
“We were having a comic dance round our Chinese temple,” said Dora, with an instinct to suppress the god.
“I saw you kneeling in front of that rock. That is the temple, is it?”
“Yes, we had to sacrifice to our priest,” said Dora, speaking as though the game were real to her.
“He takes his share of burnt offerings,” said Julius in the same tone.
“Does he live in the rock?” said Mrs. Calderon.
“Yes, it is his temple,” said Dora, with a faint note of impatience, as if at her mother’s inattention.
“And what do you sacrifice to him?”
“Flowers and grasses and acorns and things,” said Julius.
“I don’t see any of them there.”
“No, if we put them there, it would not seem that he had taken them.”
“Then how do you know what kind of things they are?”
“We have a store of them,” said Julius, “and take some out when there is time to clear them up.”
“And where is the store?” said his mother.
A communication passed between her children, best described by saying that it stopped short of a glance.
“In the cave of the secret offerings,” said Dora, with a touch of solemnity.
“We broach it at the appointed hour,” said Julius. “It is too near to lesson time to-day.”
“I should think it is,” said Mrs. Calderon, something troubled and searching leaving her face. “It is long past ten o’clock. I think you must have known. Now didn’t you really guess the time?”
Another interchange of thought occurred and decided the course.
“We … I didn’t until I heard the clock strike,” said Dora, in a suitably discomfited tone, raising her eyes to her mother’s.
“Well, but that was fifteen minutes ago,” said the latter, with the relieved reproof of one whose view of deceit made other sins virtues beside it. “You know you are wasting your time and keeping Miss Lacy waiting. Didn’t you know, Julius?”
“Yes,” said the latter, also raising his eyes. “After the clock had struck, I did.”
“And didn’t either of you say anything about it? Didn’t you, Dora?”
“No,” murmured Dora, dropping her eyes and stirring the gravel with her shoe. “I thought Julius mightn’t have heard.”
“And what about you, my boy? Did you think that Dora had not heard?”
“I didn’t know she had,” said Julius, in an abashed undertone.
“Oh, you guilty pair! I hope I shall not hear such a thing again. And now do you expect me to come and steer you through your interview with Miss Lacy?”
“Yes, please,” said Julius and Dora, putting each a hand into hers. “It would be better if you were there.”
“Now it must be the last time,” said Mrs. Calderon, walking between them to the house. “You make me feel that I am a party to disobedience.”
Jessica Calderon was a tall, spare woman of fifty-four; with dark, troubled eyes, thick, black hair so plainly bound that it escaped attention; a pale, even skin that was her only likeness to her brother, Benjamin Donne; and a fine, oval face whose signs of wear were so undisguised, that they became a personal characteristic. She gave the impression of being under some strain, and secretly preoccupied with it, so that those who were with her felt unsure of her full attention. She held the accepted faith and lived according to it, a trait that had possibly descended in another form to her children.
A small, grey-haired lady of sixty was seated in the hall, reading the paper. She glanced up as the group approached, but returned to the page. Her pupils were prepared for attention and reproof, but on relinquishing the paper she removed her glasses and polished them, and greeted them with a smile.
“I am afraid they are late, Miss Lacy,” said Jessica.
“I am not; I know they are,” said Miss Lacy, laughing and continuing to polish. “I am the better of it by a large part of The Times.”
“I have told them it must not happen again. I am sure you will not allow it.”
“I don’t know how I am to prevent it,” said Miss Lacy, in a low, sibilant, incisive voice, raising small, bright, blue eyes from a round, sallow, peculiar face. “I am not able to cast my spells upon them from afar. And I am afraid that afar was the word.”
“They are generally in the garden,” said Jessica.
“But I am not,” said Miss Lacy, so much on the instant that the feeling under her words was clear. “I come here to teach, not to find occupation in the garden.”
“If I put a bell here, will you ring it?” said Jessica, in a humbler manner.
“By all means, if it is where it will catch my eye. I will impersonate the muffin-man to the utmost of my power.”
“Now obey the bell at once, children,” said Jessica. “I am quite ashamed that Miss Lacy has waited for you.”
“I have not done so; I do not follow that practice; I do not recommend it. I am not sure that I do not regret my half-hours with The Times.”
“Does this happen often?” said Jessica.
“Often? Does it?” said Miss Lacy, wrinkling her brows in an effort to recall what did not make a deep impression. “No, I don’t think so; I must not do people an injustice. But I would not say that it strikes me as quite unfamiliar.”
Jessica turned to an elder daughter, who was with her brother in the hall.
“Might you not have fetched the children, Tullia, my dear?”
“I happen to be of Miss Lacy’s mind,” said the latter, in a slow, clear voice. “And when a young man is present, the errands are his affair.”
“What a cruel theory to hold about a class of unconscious creatures!” said the person named, remaining in his seat. “And Miss Lacy gave no sign that anything was amiss. She seemed to have come to read The Times, and to be attaining her end.”
Miss Lacy’s laughter was heard from the stairs, which she was mounting with her pupils.
“Is there any news in The Times?” said Tullia, as if giving no further thought to the matter.
“I did not like to take the paper from Miss Lacy. And I did not really want to. I cannot bear news. It is all about foreign countries that are separated by the sea, and that is so cheerless for a lover of an English fireside. And I am always afraid of meeting some sort of heroism; and that seems to consist of finding some dreadful situation and throwing oneself into it, or of finding oneself in it and wilfully remaining there. And then I imagine myself in it, behaving in just the same way, and my emotion is too much for me. And when I think of other people seeing me in it, the thought quite unfits me for real life. So I cannot hunt for two hardy children in the garden. I think I have made it clear.”
“And yet you are going to teach Reuben Donne.”
“I am trusting to his being a poor, lame boy. I hope he is not a great, hearty creature. If he is, I have been misled. I know he is thirteen, and that is a suffering age. And he won’t have the unconsciouus cruelty of real childhood. It is so shocking for cruelty to be unconscious. It makes it seem so deep and ingrained, as if it might lead to anything. And I believe it does. I once read a wicked book, called a school story.”
“What made you think of teaching him?” said Jessica. “I do not mean it is not a good idea.”
“I think it is a gross and humiliating one. All of you made me think of it, when you kept on saying that I had no regular work. I believe you said I was not earning a penny, though it sounds too crude to be believed. I do like the old-fashioned way of never mentioning money; it was much better not to know when there was not enough. And people really did not know, because they used suddenly to find themselves on the brink of ruin. There is a certain largeness about that. I believe that one of you referred to me as a strong young man, as if I were applying for a situation, and that is quite unjust.”
“Indeed it is,” said Tullia.
Terence Calderon was an odd-looking youth of twenty four, who on a second glance presented a normal appearance. He seemed to be elfish and wizened, but had clear features and a supple frame; seemed to be weakly and drooping, but was sound in wind and limb. It seemed that he could resemble nobody, but his bright grey eyes recalled his cousin, Bernard’s. In a word the quality of odd-ness did not lie in his physique. Since leaving Oxford he had lived at home, supposed to be considering professions, and doing so with insuperable distaste. There may have been something in him, that held him from sustaining effort, and the oddness was possibly seated here, though he would not himself have acknowledged that the word was in place. At Oxford he had been accepted as erratic, which goes to disprove the theory that such a place is a mirror of the world. He loved his mother better than anything on earth, except himself, and she did the same by him, without the reservation.
Tullia felt that she was second with both, and moved between them with a rather haughty aloofness, aware of being first in her father’s life, and openly shelving other claims. She bore a strong likeness to her mother, and would have borne more, if the latter had softened the marks of time. She had Jessica’s height and build and movement, similar but softer features, and the same suggestion of being apart from the ordinary world, which in her case was conscious and almost cultivated. Her eyes were larger and lighter and without the depth and strain. The mother and daughter seemed somehow to dim each other, and this had been suggested as their reason for being often apart; but Tullia did not harbour such ideas about herself, and Jessica could see the beauty of her child only with maternal pride. Terence gave the impression of being between the two in the weight of his personality. He admired them both, measured their difference, and dealt with them accordingly. Standing between the brother and sister, Jessica seemed to complete a family portrait, and to be the natural centre of it. As her eyes rested on Tullia, they lost their harassed look, and became clear and easy, as if meeting no problem here. She laid her hand with a smile on her shoulder.
“Are you looking forward to the family of cousins? Or are they to be faced as a duty?”
“It will depend on whether the hours will stretch, Mother.”
“You and I have the day from dawn to dark,” said Terence. “Not that that is any more than our due. Our lives are our own.”
“Father may spring a demand on me at any moment. I must turn a blind eye to general claims, especially if they are to be doubled.”
