Parents and Children (16 page)

‘You put rather a strain on our patience, Mrs Cranmer,' said Ridley, as they left the house.

‘But not too much for it, dear. You mean that too.'

‘You can talk with more sense, Ridley,' said Paul.

‘I do see what Ridley means, Father,' said Faith, in a tone so quiet as to be almost an undertone. ‘I cannot say I do not.'

‘Then we won't expect it, dear,' said Hope. ‘I wonder if I shall be the means of binding you and Ridley together.'

‘Do you ever show your true self, Mrs Cranmer?' said Ridley, who was proceeding in a state of exaltation produced by the trust reposed in him.

‘I hope not often. I do my best to conceal it.'

‘Our true selves should not be anything to be ashamed of,' said Faith.

‘I don't think it would be nice not to be ashamed of them,' said Hope. ‘I am ashamed and terrified of mine, and even more of other people's.'

‘Other people's are the thing,' said Paul.

‘There are people in whom I would place an absolute trust,' said Faith.

‘We won't ask you to mention them, for fear they are not us,' said Hope.

‘I think one of them is Mrs Sullivan.'

‘Oh, so they are not us,' said Paul.

‘I confess that the inner truth of people tends to elude me,' said Ridley. ‘Penetration may not be one of my qualities.'

‘Well, that was not mentioned,' said Hope. ‘But I daresay it does not matter. You are able to think the best of everyone; and as people live up to our conception of them, that would improve them.'

‘Here we are at home,' said Faith, in a bright tone, as if welcoming an end to a conversation she regretted. ‘It is nearly time for tea.'

‘I am glad to hear it,' said Paul. ‘A woman's life is giving me a woman's ways.'

‘That may not be the explanation, Father. I also feel ready for it,' said Ridley.

‘And your life is a man's, a hero's really,' said Hope.

‘That is perhaps an exaggeration, Mrs Cranmer.'

‘Talking to the old man is a tax,' said Paul. ‘He is like a volcano that is quiet at the top.'

‘Then he is like a real one,' said Hope, ‘and that must be alarming. I sympathize with him, if he has to pretend to be better than he is. I know what a strain it can be.'

‘Did you adopt the course today?' said Paul, laughing.

‘No, I was dreadful, wasn't I? Absolutely myself. To think that Fulbert will have to remember me like that!'

‘It is better to be oneself, whatever impression one gives,' said Faith.

‘But we are told to conquer ourselves,' said Hope.

‘The process was perhaps incomplete, Mrs Cranmer,' said Ridley.

‘Well, we are not to mind about success. It is only the effort that counts.'

‘To disguise one's real nature seems such a second-rate instinct,' said Faith.

‘I suppose all instincts are,' said Hope. ‘That is why they have to be overlaid by reason. I know I am inconsistent, but it upsets me to visit the Sullivans. It is because their house is so much better than mine.'

‘The Sullivans have a place, Mother. This is just a comfortable home.'

‘I know you do not mean to be unkind, dear.'

‘I do not indeed; I was only speaking the truth.'

‘There isn't much difference. Brutal frankness is an accepted term.'

‘I think this is a very restful room.'

‘Yes, you know just what I mean.'

‘We should not be any happier in a better one.'

‘Well, it would not be true happiness. But I like the other kind. And having a dozen children would be the first kind, wouldn't it?'

‘You know Mrs Sullivan has nine children, Mother.'

‘Yes, but easy exaggeration glosses it over, and makes it seem more trivial and vague. I could not bring myself to say nine; I am such a coward.'

‘Have you not found two stepchildren enough?' said Ridley.

‘Oh, of course, dear. You have given me the duties and responsibilities of motherhood. I ought not to want any more.'

‘We know it has not been the same, Mother,' said Faith, in a quiet tone.

‘Oh, well, dear, I am not one of those women who have never heard themselves called Mother.'

‘I wonder how much feeling those youngsters have for their parents,' said Paul.

‘Paul, that is kind. I do feel that perhaps I am making a fuss about nothing. Faith and Ridley think I am. Now I have had some comfort, I will show my better qualities for the rest of the day. I will be one of those rare people who keep them for their families. I am glad I have not expended them on anyone else.'

‘Are you jealous of the whole brood?' said Paul.

‘I am jealous of Nevill,' said Faith, lightly.

‘The one who choked?' said Hope.

‘You know that was Nevill, Mother.'

‘There is my worse nature again. It really seems the only one I have.'

‘I should like him to stay always as he is now.'

‘Why, he would be bound to choke sooner or later, if it went on.'

‘Venice will grow up a handsome girl,' said Ridley.

‘The one who prevented the choking? But wouldn't she have to remain in the same stage too? Because it couldn't be allowed to happen. Eleanor saw it herself.'

‘There are seven more,' said Paul.

‘Are there?' said Hope. ‘There it is again.'

‘I should like to see more of the girls,' said Faith.

‘Surely a wish you can gratify,' said Paul. ‘That is the best thing to do with wishes.'

‘I think I like girls better than boys.'

‘Then you need only be jealous of four,' said Hope. ‘But of course you are too young for such feelings. People would be jealous of you. Where is Ridley going?'

‘To London,' said her stepson, slightly drawing himself up.

‘Of course, you are indispensable there. And here too, as we know. You are not without honour anywhere.'

Faith glanced at her parents, and as they made no movement towards the hall, accompanied her brother herself.

‘Do you like Faith the better of your children?' said Hope, to her husband.

‘Oh, well, yes, a father takes to his daughter.'

‘I like her better too. And you would expect me to be a woman who never preferred her own sex.'

‘I should have said you generally did so.'

‘Most people do. It is a thing that has not been noticed. People know too much about their sex, to think it possible to prefer it, when really they find it familiar and congenial.'

‘Faith seemed to feel that she preferred it,' said Paul.

‘Yes, but Faith knows nothing about it. And I could pay her no greater compliment. Self-knowledge speaks ill for people; it shows they are what they are, almost on purpose. And I am not speaking against her the moment her back is turned. I am not at all what I am supposed to be.'

‘That would perhaps be the safest moment to choose,' said Faith, returning and speaking with a smile. ‘But it is better to be open and aboveboard with everybody.'

‘But we could not speak evil to their faces,' said Hope.

‘Well, it is not a thing we are obliged to do, Mother.'

‘I like my friends best when they are doing it. It makes them so zestful and observant. Original too, almost creative. You see I am speaking good behind their backs. And you don't seem to like it much, but I suppose no one likes to hear other people always praised.'

‘I think that would be very pleasant,' said Faith.

‘Well, let us all praise Ridley.'

‘He has met a great mark of confidence today.'

‘That is not praise. You must say you think he deserved it.'

‘I think that trust often makes people worthy of it.'

‘Faith, I like to hear people speak evil. You know I have admitted it. But you must remember that Ridley is your brother.'

‘Sir Jesse says we must continue to practise economy,' said Priscilla Marlowe, lifting her eyes without warning from her book. ‘He says it need not interfere with our comfort. I could see he knew it prevented it.'

‘People used to talk about elegant economy,' said her sister, also looking up from a book. ‘I suppose they meant unobtrusive expenditure.'

‘Sir Jesse says our interests lie in things of the mind,' said Priscilla, in an absent tone that suggested that this was the case. ‘And they do cost less than other things.'

‘I wonder why he chose such interests for us,' said the third member of the group, relinquishing the same occupation as his sisters.

‘Because it would be an economy,' said Priscilla; ‘perhaps an elegant one in this case.'

‘I hope he is not thinking of reducing our allowance,' said her brother, in a shrill, anxious voice. ‘Because we have cut things to their finest point.'

‘It was in his mind, but it did not come out. He would have found it too embarrassing. We hardly know what we owe to his dislike of discomfiture. I wonder why I have to see him alone. I suppose so that he may have only one third of the discomfiture that is rightly his. I ought to be sacrificed as the eldest sister, but it seems that I have three times as much as is mine.'

‘It is awkward that I am assumed to earn so much more than I do,' said Lester. ‘My last book brought in sixty pounds, and it took two years. And I am ashamed to confess how poorly my work is paid. It would make him think it was poor work and despised. And so he believes I spend money on myself, a thing I should never do.'

‘It would be a selfish course,' said Priscilla. ‘But Susan earns a good deal at her school, and he does not separate our incomes. He assumes that you earn the most, as the man.'

‘I do not mind being helped by my sister. I must grant her the superior place, when it is justly hers. But I wonder why Sir Jesse despises me for earning so little, when he believes it is really so much.'

‘He is used to thinking in large sums,' said Susan.

‘He breaks the habit when he comes here,' said her sister. ‘Perhaps that is why he never seems at ease. He does think in very small ones then.'

‘We ought to be grateful to him for saving us from penury,' said Susan. ‘And giving us an education that makes us self-supporting.'

‘In your case,' said Lester, gravely. ‘I could not be a schoolmaster because of my voice and manner. The boys would be amused by me.'

‘And we are grateful,' said Priscilla. ‘I never know why people say they ought to be. Of course they ought.'

‘It is hard to be beholden to him,' said Lester.

‘We have been glad of the chance,' said Priscilla. ‘And it is one that people always take.'

‘We had no alternative,' said her brother.

‘None but perishing of want,' said Susan. ‘Three orphans from South America, the children of Sir Jesse's friends, but having no other claim. That is what we were.'

‘And see what we are now,' said Lester, with a crow of laughter. ‘Still orphans, but having established a claim.'

Priscilla, Lester and Susan Marlowe were aged thirty-five, thirty-four and thirty-two. They had pale, oblong faces, tall angular frames, round, grey, short-sighted eyes, peering through cheap, round glasses, and seeming to peer considerably beyond, heavy, shelving brows, from which curly, colourless hair receded, and in Lester's case had disappeared, and features so little conforming to rule, that they differed equally from other people's and each other's. Priscilla's voice was slow and apparently serious, Lester's shrill and uneven, and Susan's rapid and deep.

Sir Jesse gave them a cottage on the place, the services of an old couple whom he wished to support, and did so in this way, and an allowance to eke out what they earned. He never asked them to his house, seldom visited them and passed them abroad with acknowledgement but without a word; a course which people attributed to embarrassment at his generosity, though the feeling arises more easily from the consciousness of other qualities. They were used to his ways, hardly knew his wife, unaware that her hostile indifference embraced others besides themselves, had an almost surreptitious acquaintance with Daniel and Graham; and lived in their interests and anxieties and each other, with as much satisfaction as most people and more enjoyment.

‘I have a month at home,' said Susan, looking round the low, cramped room with an expression that hardly suggested its character. ‘How did we get all that wood for the fire?'

‘We collect it in the park,' said her sister. ‘We go after dusk, so that we shall not be seen. We are not ashamed of our poverty, but we know Sir Jesse is; and it might look as if we were short of fuel.'

‘It would look so,' said Lester. ‘And we do not want to suggest that he might provide it, when he does so much for us.'

‘It is a good method of making him do so,' said Susan. ‘Do you suppose he knows you get it?'

‘He must know that the coal he sends is not enough,' said Priscilla. ‘And I expect he would know if we were cold. He seems to know everything about us.'

‘He must know that we have thin walls and no damp course,'
said Lester, in a serious voice. ‘He may think we don't feel the cold.'

‘What could you do with the cold but feel it?' said Susan. ‘How else would you know there was such a thing?'

‘People seem to think other people don't feel cold or grief or anything,' said Priscilla. ‘I don't think they mind their feeling the heat. It seems a more comfortable thing, and it does not require any fuel.'

‘Why are we having so much to eat?' said Susan.

‘I am afraid not because it is your first day at home,' said her sister. ‘Mrs Morris has to nurse her husband, and cannot cook tonight.'

‘It is only old age,' said Lester, with simple reassurance. ‘Nothing infectious.'

‘Well, not immediately,' said Priscilla.

Lester gave a laugh.