Elders and Betters (24 page)

Ethel walked smoothly into the room and replaced the teapot by a full one. Jessica gave her a smile; Terence moved something out of her way; Anna behaved as if she did not see her; and Jenney followed her out of the room as though to give some direction, but really seizing the pretext to leave the family alone.

Ethel carried her tray to the kitchen, as if Jenney's company had escaped her notice, and spoke as she set it on the table.

“It is strange that people should keep what is grudged to them.”

“So she held to it,” said Cook.

“Instead of standing apart, with her head above it,” said Ethel.

“There would be no good in wills, if people did not carry them out,” said Jenney.

“Well, little good comes of them,” said Ethel.

Jenney could not feel that this was so in Anna's case.

“But people must say what is to become of their money, when they die. Or how would people know what to do with it?”

“There ought to be cases where compulsion is brought to bear. That poor Mrs. Calderon! And always with a word for everyone.”

“And that sweet smile,” said Cook.

“You would think that quiet dignity was sometimes the only course,” said Ethel. “And would make people think more of you. And respect is everything.”

“Many people respect money,” said Jenney.

“Well money is power,” said Ethel, sighing.

“But only on a scale,” said Cook. “Petty sums can't sway destinies.”

“You can do a certain amount on what Miss Anna has inherited,” said Jenney.

“But if you forfeit what is more valuable, you are the poorer,” said Ethel.

But Jenney could not see the word as applicable.

“They are taking their leave,” said Ethel, throwing up her eyes to the ceiling. “I suppose Miss Anna does not want them shown out, as she is there herself.”

“It seems needless,” said Cook, “where there are only two.”

“And now this talk of three,” said Ethel. “Well, it has happened before.”

“And will happen again,” said Cook. “Words mean nothing on the lips of some. But if a third should come, she would find it her own affair.”

“I would not guarantee her not feeling out of it,” said Ethel. “Nor guarantee anything in the face of change.”

“I must go upstairs,” said Jenney. “They may want me, now that the guests have gone.”

“I would not leave Miss Jennings to the mercy of Miss Anna,” said Ethel, as the door closed. “Not made overbearing by this uplift. It will put her on a level with the master. And that will not conduce to her improvement.”

“Well, after all, she is his flesh and blood,” said Cook.

When Jenney reached the drawing-room, the family had returned.

“Well, Jenney, we got through the ordeal without yielding an inch,” said Bernard; “that is to say, without yielding Anna's income.”

“You did, didn't you?” said Jenney, in incredulous appreciation. “I kept wondering if you would have to give in. It was not made easy for you. And yet one is sorry in a way for your aunt.”

“We have to rejoice in Anna's good fortune as it were behind the scenes,” said Claribel.

“Oh, I don't expect unmixed feelings of pleasure on my behalf,” said Anna. “I have realised that that is too much to ask. Not that I am not grateful for everyone's support. I half thought you were going to throw me to the wolves.
How they howled round us, waiting for what we should throw them!”

“The simile hardly suggests Aunt Jessica,” said Esmond.

“I found her the most formidable. Her weapons were the deadliest; sweetness, righteousness and so forth; it was all I could do to withstand them. But I knew we should regret it, if I didn't, and so I held to my guns. After all, you don't give up an inheritance for being asked. They thought they had only to speak, to get it. You would think they would have more knowledge of life.”

“Well, they have it now,” said Esmond.

“I am grieved that my sister and I are at a difference,” said Benjamin, who indeed had trouble in his face. “I see how it comes, and that it must remain. But I cannot give advice that would be given by no other father. And we cannot know that your aunt did not wish the will to stand. Why should she have made it? The obvious question is the just one.”

“And somehow we feel she did wish it,” said Claribel, glancing at Anna and clasping her hands in fellow-feeling.

“The Calderons were in effect promised the money, and saw it as theirs,” said Esmond.

“I don't think Aunt Sukey felt she had promised it,” said Anna, quietly.

“You might have said that you would share the money with them,” said Reuben.

“Oh, you have been present at an eye-opening scene,” said his sister, turning towards him. “I did not realise that you were here. You have enlarged your knowledge of life.”

“That would not have done,” said Benjamin. “They have a right to all the money or to none. That would be their view.”

“I have a feeling that Uncle Thomas would have taken half,” said Bernard.

“I daresay he would have taken half or a quarter or a tenth,” said Anna. “But it would have been unworthy of Aunt Jessica. It could not have been suggested.”

“I should have thought that dividing the money, when there was a question of its ownership, was a good solution, said Esmond.

“Oh, anything would do for you, that took some of the money from me,” said his sister. “Your words mean nothing.”

“And perhaps yours mean one thing.”

“Aunt Jessica's trouble is Aunt Sukey's frame of mind,” said Bernard. “Her life must take on the colour of a course of criticism, thanklessness and almost deception.”

“Then she ought to know her better,” said Anna, with a touch of heat. “Aunt Sukey was the most open person, and always dealt above-board with everyone. She made no secret of thinking that they failed in sympathy. It was her open feeling about it, that caused that last trouble. And I suspect it had occurred many times. They could have put things right, if they had tried. They had fair warning.”

“It is a good thing that you were wiser,” said Esmond.

“These things are unconscious, of course. But they may count the more for that. And to Aunt Sukey's mind it seems they did.”

“It is a solemn thing to have performed services that were valued at that figure,” said Bernard.

“And I was prepared to continue them, and that was the point, I suppose. No doubt Aunt Sukey knew that I was. One can trust people to know that.”

“It is a good thing when trust is not misplaced,” said Claribel, in a mischievous aside to Esmond.

“Ought we to try to be kind to people, so that they may leave us their money?” said Reuben. “Is it a thing we always ought to think about?”

“Now it is time you were bundled out of the room,” said Anna, turning on him as if to perform this office, but desisting” and allowing him to remain. “You will get a nice view of things, from listening to talk you half understand. Who would be the person responsible for you?”

“Do you still feel that you would rather have had some personal memento of Aunt Sukey?” said Esmond.

“Oh, what is the good of thinking about what has not come my way? I have not received one, and there is an end of it. Would you have me deal with it, as our relatives dealt with their baffled desires? When you have not been given a thing, you stop thinking about it. You almost get a sense of shame that it ever came into your head. And there is the touch of ill-nature creeping in again! I am getting tired of it.”

“What difference will the money make to us?” said Reuben.

“Well, we shall be able to do some things that have not hitherto been possible,” said Anna. “And any sort of education for you, or opportunity for the others, may be considered. That is about what it will be. And we shall be able to run the house with ease and hospitality. That will be about the length of the rope, I should think.”

“You are wise, my daughter,” said Benjamin. “Any change in the scale of life would take your money, and leave you as you were before. You are right to get your advantage out of it. And it will be free to be diverted to your own purposes, in the event of a change in your own life.”

“You make the future sound an uncertain quantity. I was thinking that things would go on for ever, only easier and smoother for ourselves and other people.”

“Changes must come,” said Benjamin. “Death is not the only one.”

“It is the one we have had,” said Anna. “Mother's death and Aunt Sukey's seem to be the events of my life. I never thought that any money would come my way.”

“To make a third event,” said Esmond.

“Oh, yes, yes, indeed. I make no secret of feeling it. But I have not had time to savour it yet. As I say, the very idea was strange.”

“Perhaps that is why Aunt Sukey left the money to you,” said Reuben. “She might not have liked people to think
about it. It would have seemed like wanting her to die.”

“There may be something in that,” said Anna. “Indeed I don't suppose there is quite nothing. Out of the mouth of babes!”

“Will you be able to go to Uncle Thomas's house, as you did before? Or won't he want to see you?”

“I suppose I shall; I had not thought about it. He won't like to show any feeling. If he does, I must just stay away; it won't break my heart. There is no one there whom I especially want to see, now that Aunt Sukey is gone.”

“You must get to know your Aunt Jessica,” said Benjamin. “That would be a great thing in your life.”

“I don't somehow think there is anything much to come to me there, Father. I don't disupte that she may have a great deal to give to many people; perhaps to most; but not to me.”

“It is a mistake to be too sure of it.”

“It is a pity to have to be.”

“Well Terence go on teaching me?” said Reuben.

“Yes, if he will,” said Anna. “We can't make a better arrangement. And there is no need to spend money for the sake of spending.”

“Well, all the trouble is over,” said Jenney. “It wasn't pleasant for you, was it? People ought to be allowed to enjoy what comes to them. It spoils it, when there is all this question about it. No one could make a will, that would please everybody.”

“I don't suppose anyone is ever gratified but the legatee and family,” said Claribel.

“And in this case even that did not come quite true,” said Anna, sighing. “Everyone seemed to be trying to get in some little poisoned shaft. I was quite tired of being the target for them. And my opinion of my family and friends did not go up, and that is not a heartening thing. But it is all wearing off now, the main shock and the minor shocks and everything, if minor is the right word for things in that sphere. I think that Father and Bernard came through the
ordeal; and I began to see that someone else's inheriting money constitutes an ordeal indeed. I had not realised it before; I don't think I should have found it so, myself.” She ended on a quiet note.

“Doesn't Jenney come through it?” said Reuben.

“Oh, Jenney goes without saying,” said Anna, bringing a look of reward to Jenney's face.

“You must remember that it makes other people poorer by comparison,” said Bernard, “when they have done nothing to deserve it. And it makes them imagine how things would have been, if the money had been theirs. And then the legatee never seems any richer than before, and that makes them feel that they are poor indeed.”

“Oh, those are the reasons,” said Anna. “Not very real ones, are they?”

“Aunt Jessica had a better one,” said Esmond. “She believed that Aunt Sukey wished her to have the money.”

“Are we to start it all again?” said his sister. “Well it should present no difficulty. I know it all by heart.”

“I think the ground has been covered,” said Benjamin.

“Would Esmond rather that Aunt Jessica had the money, than Anna?” said Reuben.

“He would rather that anyone else had it,” said Benjamin, in a tone whose expression was undefined.

“Anna rendered Aunt Sukey real service,” said Bernard, quickly; “and it is good when virtue does not have to be its own reward. It is too like having no reward at all.”

“You are really quite a tolerable brother,” said Anna.

“I am trying to be different. And I have a sincere respect for you for being so well-off.”

“Money is power,” said Reuben.

“I cannot bear it then,” said Bernard. “But Anna's money is in the stage when it means comfort and ease and kindness, just the one in which I should choose it.”

“Well, I will try to make it mean those things,” said his sister, keeping her eyes from his face.

“WELL, I APPROACH my relatives' house in some trepidation,” said Anna, as she hastened in this direction. “It is an odd experience to be received as a guest, by a family you are held to have robbed. I hope it will overcome that of facing the house without Aunt Sukey. There is no more potent force than embarrassment pure and simple. I am not proud of being subdued by it, but it may have its use on this occasion. And it is no good to have a higher standard for yourself than you can manage.”

“I believe you maintain a generally higher one than you used,” said Esmond.

“Well, that is better than letting oneself go headlong downhill. And people tend to go one way or another.”

“The feeling of having riches disposes us to be worthy of them,” said Bernard. “It is the instinct to do something in return, so as to check any tendency of fate to redress the balance.”

“I am glad to be told so much about myself.”

“The instinct to be worthy of good may be a sound one,” said Benjamin. “We should contribute as well as take.”

“Yes it is as well to play fair,” said his daughter. “But I hardly think that is the light in which I am about to be seen.”