Benjamin gave the glance, saw that this was the case, and bestowed no further time on it.
“Isn’t it for you to say a word now?” said Terence.
His uncle gave a laugh, but did no more.
“Here are the children starting for their walk,” said Jessica. “Have they done well this morning, Miss Lacy, to make up for their bad beginning?”
“Well, I have not to make a complaint,” said Miss Lacy, pausing and resting her eyes on the group. “I should not like to find myself in that position.”
“Why are the sun and the moon in the sky at the same time, Mother?” said Dora, not feeling this negative treatment of the matter a safe one.
“I do not know how to put it to you, dear. Miss Lacy will explain.”
“No, I have done enough explaining for one morning,” said the latter, shaking her head.
“Are you going to find out the Latin names of the plants?” said Jessica to the children, who had once been doing this.
“No, we are going to enjoy our walk,” said Miss Lacy, going out into the porch and lifting her face to the sky; “and enjoy the sun, and if we like, the moon. I have left my Latin behind me in the schoolroom. And not much of it there. It won’t stretch out over the hedgerows.”
“Have you not read much Latin, Miss Lacy?” said Thomas, to maintain the talk.
“No, I am that recognised product of my generation, an old-fashioned governess.”
“Do new-fashioned ones know more?” said Dora.
“Yes, they are people of very advanced education. Of making many examinations there is no end, and much study is a weariness to the flesh.”
“Why are you a governess, if you don’t know much?” said Julius.
“Because there are little people who know much less,” said Jessica.
“I shall be grateful if this pair of mine ever know as much as Miss Lacy,” said Thomas. “Does she feel there is any hope?”
Miss Lacy rested her eyes in appraisement on her pupils, and appeared hardly to think it worth while to decide the point.
“You are a natural student, are you not?” said Thomas.
“I have some natural interests,” said Miss Lacy, simply; “and I have been able to gratify them.”
A faint smile went round the family. Miss Lacy’s satisfaction in having private means was seen as a ground for amusement, though it would have been odder if she had been without it.
“What are they?” said Dora.
“I will tell you when you are able to share them.”
“You really know a good deal, don’t you?” said Julius.
“Yes,” said Miss Lacy, in a simple, deliberate tone, keeping her eyes on the child, perhaps in compensation for her thoughts being on other people. “On my own rather narrow line, and in my own way, and according to the standard of human knowledge, I know a good deal.”
“I shall some day,” said Dora.
Miss Lacy again rested her eyes on her, as if in an uncertainty she would not trouble to resolve.
“I don’t know if you have met Miss Lacy, Benjamin,” said Jessica. “Miss Lacy, may I introduce my brother?”
“I remember Miss Lacy well,” said Benjamin. “She was good to my young ones in the old days. I should have known her anywhere.”
“I cannot quite say that of you,” said Miss Lacy, as she shook hands. “But I think I can claim to know you here. I will hazard the father of the young ones.”
Miss Lacy felt this was not an excessive pitch of recognition. She tended to veil her interest in people, lest it might imperil her equality with them, an attitude that came not from unsureness of herself, but from experience of them. That she esteemed her calling and pursued it of her own will, enhanced their opinion of her, but not of the calling; and she identified herself with the latter, and on the first score had never known uneasiness.
“You don’t think my young ones can ever equal you, Miss Lacy?” said Thomas, persisting in considering the progress of his children the link between their instructress and himself.
“We will wait until they desire to do so. At present they have no wish to emulate the old.”
“They are not as foolish as that,” said Jessica.
“They are as natural and ordinary as that,” said Miss Lacy. “Yes, I think we must say ordinary.”
“You cannot accuse my sisters of a likeness to me, Miss Lacy,” said Benjamin.
“No,” said Miss Lacy, turning her eyes readily from one to another. “Not that I was going to accuse them of anything.”
“I feel that I act as a foil to them.”
“Difference does not invite comparison,” said Miss Lacy lifting her hand to her hat, and resting her eyes easily on it, as it was blown away. “A different type starts again on its own ground. Difference may give any kind of advantage; I think it always gives its own.”
“Run after Miss Lacy’s hat, children,” said Jessica, as eyes turned to Miss Lacy, perhaps following her own inner eyes. “Don’t you see that she has lost it?”
“You see the likeness between my wife and her sister?” said Thomas.
“Now as to that, I feel like the negro who said of his twin friends, ‘Caesar and Pompey very much alike, specially Pompey.’ I think in this case I must say specially Sukey,” said Miss Lacy, taking the hat from Julius without a look or word, and adjusting it on her head with reasoned deliberation. “Now the moon will be risen in earnest, if we linger like this. Thank you, Julius, for restoring my headgear. Come along, Dora, and take my umbrella in your other hand. Thank you very much.”
“Why doesn’t Julius carry it?”
“Because he is rougher than you, and I have a regard unto it.”
Miss Lacy took a hand of each child and swung along in step, causing the hat, now that she could forget what was due to herself, to adhere to her head by means of a distortion of her brow. No one had felt that Julius was old for this treatment, or for an education confined to two hours a day; or no one but Julius himself, who did sometimes fear that the conditions might not prevail until his maturity. Dora was aware that the usual training was different; but assumed that their family was a rule to itself, or perhaps perceived that it was.
“I ought not to stand in the draught like this,” said Sukey.
“Then cease to do so,” said Thomas.
“I am not going to struggle to the door myself, as if I had no one to take any thought for me. I do not live on a desert island.”
“I wonder she does not come to that,” said Thomas aside to his daughter, as he went to the door.
Benjamin was before him, and his haste and concern brought a light to his sister’s eyes.
“I feel as if my other self had returned,” she said, putting out her hand. “I have been like half a person in these last years.”
“I should have thought our portion had been a whole one,” muttered Thomas.
“And now my nephew will take me to the fire,” said Sukey, giving Terence the smile that had won and won back so many hearts. “And I will hold my little court in the hall. I see quite a number of courtiers approaching, and I must work a little improvement before I make my impression. They need not find a slovenly aunt, because they must find a sick one.”
Sukey adjusted her hair and her dress before a glass. She did little to disturb either, and the enforced deliberation of her toilet led to a finish in it, that her sister’s did not emulate.
“Why should Aunt Sukey be the woman to make an improvement? Why should not Mother do it?” said Tullia to Thomas, making no mention of anyone further.
“Why not?” said Thomas, sighing. “Why not, Tulliola? How shall we answer that question?”
Chapter IV
SUKEY TOOK HER seat by the fire, but on second thoughts rose and stood with her arm on the chimney-piece, as if this showed her to advantage. Her niece and nephews came up the drive and entered the hall, that was used as a room by the family. Anna led the way with her quick, short steps, and with her eyes fixed on the remembered faces, as if to appraise any change in them. Jessica stood with a smile that welcomed and exalted the motherless.