“We can’t expect you to remember Reuben and Esmond,” said Anna.
“How do you do, Reuben and Esmond?” said Miss Lacy, shaking hands in order of age, but using the names in Anna’s order, as if she had no aid from her memory. “What very handsome names! I feel as if a book had come true.”
“You knew that Reuben was the youngest,” said Dora. “Because you said you were glad his leg was better.”
“Am I not doing myself justice?” said Miss Lacy, with some amusement. “And I thought I was making a creditable effort. It was certainly a sincere one. How do you do, Esmond and Reuben? Bernard, Anna, Esmond and Reuben. Or does Anna come first?”
“No, Bernard is the eldest,” said Anna. “But people often assume that I am the first, as I take the lead in things. The sister has to do that.”
“I should not have assumed it,” said Miss Lacy, turning her eyes from face to face. “I should have said that you were the second. But I am inclined to sympathise with people; I was getting unsure of myself. Bernard, Anna, Esmond and Reuben.”
“Oh, Bernard and Anna are ordinary names enough. And the others are not as out-of-the-way as all that.”
“Anna is a good name, my dear,” said Miss Lacy, in a kindly, if absent tone, as she turned to Jessica. “I suppose they do not remember their mother?”
“Good gracious, yes,” Anna interposed. “I was eighteen when she died, old enough to be summoned home to steer the family course.”
“Poor child!” said Miss Lacy, passing her eyes over Reuben, as if to judge of the result of this guidance, and then dropping her voice to its sibilant note. “Poor children!”
“We have always had Miss Jennings with us,” said Bernard.
“Oh, Miss Jennings! I want to see Miss Jennings,” said Miss Lacy, her tone somehow implying that she made nothing of any distance between them. “I was great friends with Miss Jennings. And I want to ask her advice on a matter of my own, on a charge that is coming to me.”
“Are you expecting some fresh responsibility?” said Thomas.
“Yes, an orphan niece is to make her home with me,” said Miss Lacy, in the even tone of one who had found varied experience a part of life. “The daughter of my younger brother, a girl of twenty. Poor child, I hope I shall be able to make my house a home to her. And I am sure Miss Jennings is the person to advise me. How not to ask too much of her; how to ask enough, for that is important too; how to ask enough of myself, without asking too much. Well, it will all have to be decided, or rather it will all decide itself, and we shall be helpless about it.”
“Will she like to live just with a much older person?” said Dora.
“That is one of my problems, Dora,” said Miss Lacy, in a grave tone. “And you remind me that she may be expecting the older person’s welcome. There is no need for me to fail there.”
Miss Lacy turned and went with mild haste down the drive, to be overtaken by Bernard and escorted to the gate.
“Miss Lacy has gone to the gate by herself for eighteen years,” said Terence, looking after them.
“Then she should be better versed in the problems of the latch than Bernard seems to be,” said Benjamin.
“Why do all gates have different fastenings?” said Anna. “A standard one might bring a fortune to somebody.”
“I suppose each one was to have been that one,” said Thomas.
“And I wonder it was not. Latches are so very clever,” said Terence.
“Why does not Miss Lacy help the clumsy boy?” said Benjamin, in open nervous distress. “God knows how long he will be.”
“He may know,” said Thomas, “but as we cannot, we will not concern ourselves with the matter.”
The children broke into the laughter caused by such jests in a household where they were forbidden, and Jessica lost no time in turning the subject.
“Now is everyone clean and tidy for luncheon? The bell will ring at any moment.”
“May we just run to our Chinese temple and back?” said Julius.
“Yes, if you do only that.”
The children ran out of the house.
“O great and good and powerful god, Chung,” prayed Dora, “forgive us, we beseech thee, the lie that has passed our lips. For we have uttered to thy handmaid, our governess, the thing that is false, yea and even to our mother. And this we did to gain respite from our daily task. And most humbly we implore thee not to visit our sin upon us. For Sung Li’s sake, amen.”
“We couldn’t have enjoyed our luncheon with that burden on us,” said Julius. “And as the relations are staying, it will be a good one. And Mother does not suspect.”
“I should think it is especially wicked to take advantage of her being absent-minded, when it is a sort of illness,” said Dora.
The pair met each other’s eyes and in a moment were back at the rock.
“O great god, Chung, pardon any wickedness we showed in putting our mother’s weakness to our wrongful purposes. For Sung Li’s sake, amen.”
They walked away, talking of other things, and came straight to the table.
“It is nice to arrive just as we are being helped ourselves,” said Julius.
“Oh, is that why you came in late?” said Jessica.
“No, we didn’t think of it,” said Dora, in the honest tone that served an honest statement as well as another.
“And have you remembered that you have missed grace?”
“Yes, but we didn’t know what to do about it.”
“Well, say it to yourselves, my dears.”
Dora bent her head and murmured under her breath.
“O great god, Chung, remember, we beseech thee, that which we asked of thee. For Sung Li’s sake, amen.”
Julius muttered the last words after her.
“Do you have your own grace?” said Reuben, in some curiosity.
“Do you, my dears?” said Jessica, who felt that discomfiture in this sphere was not in place.
“Sometimes we say what we like,” said Dora.
“Well, I think that is very nice,” said her mother.
“It does seem more friendly and informal,” said Thomas.
“Some progress ought to be made towards intimacy, as time goes by,” said Terence. “That sort of intercourse errs on the side of distance.”
There was a pause.
“Terence and I are in disgrace with Mother, my children,” said Thomas. “Do you understand why?”
“You talk about God as if you knew Him,” said Dora.
“It should be enough that He knows us,” said Jessica.
“He knows even the sparrows,” said Dora, with innocent voice and eyes.
“That used to seem to cheapen the regard,” said Bernard.
“He lets them fall to the ground,” said Julius, simply.
“Well everything has to die,” said Dora, “or the world would be too full.”
“It may be good for us to realise that it will happen to us in the end,” said Jessica.
“I expect I am the only person who does so,” said Sukey. “I do not-feel that anyone else is with me. I find I cannot often feel that.”
“The hairs of our heads are numbered,” said Julius, with a touch of solemnity.
“Is it impressive or not, to be included in these wholesale dealings?” said Bernard.
“Impressive,” said Thomas. “As it was to find that we lived in the universe. It is awe-inspiring that there is nowhere to live but there.”
“I think we are some of us rather too old for this talk,” said Jessica.
“It is only grown-up people who can do it,” said Dora.
“Just grown-up perhaps,” said Esmond.
“I have been said to have an adolescent mind,” said Thomas, with a laugh.
“But it should not have been your nephew who said it,” said Bernard.
“But Father is pleased about it,” said Terence. “Just as young people are pleased to be thought mature. We all like to be what we are not; it shows the disappointment of life. I know I was wiser at fifteen than I am now; and it was not the wisdom of the child; I never had any of that.”