“My mother looks very tired,” said Terence.
“You need not worry about that,” said Anna, in a light tone. “Anyone else would be in a state of collapse. Her condition is a definite tribute to her vital powers.”
“You look very flushed,” said Terence.
“Have you any more personal observations to make?” said his cousin, putting her hands to her face. “It was a scene that would mantle anyone’s cheek, or so it struck me in my inexperience. But I am warned against describing it here; it is to be reserved for my own fireside. You will not have the advantage of my account, but no doubt you incline to the other.”
“I think the decision to postpone it was a good one,” said Jessica.
“Let us change the subject by all means. But you cannot expect me to do it. My head is too full of what you put into it. I don’t feel that I shall ever get free. It will pursue and haunt me all my days.”
“Your aunt meant what she said, my daughter,” said Benjamin.
Anna gave a laugh.
“You make me wonder what you would say to my late experience, when you speak to me as if I were a child. And talk as if Aunt Jessica’s words must point the way to the light.”
Jessica sat down and drew the two children to her side. Their surprise made them unresponsive, and her face contracted in shock and fear. Anna kept her eyes from her, and joined in the talk.
“You have been troubled, my daughter,” said Benjamin, in a low tone.
“Well, I should be an odd person if I had not,” said Anna, at her ordinary pitch. “I think I stood up to it fairly well. I congratulate myself on a reserve of strength that I did not know I possessed. I was not equal to what confronted me, but no normal woman would have been. I almost returned to the beliefs of infancy, and credited the tales of Satanic power. So Aunt Jessica has been the means of restoring my childhood’s faith, a suitable office for her, and a suitable part of the faith, if truth were known.”
Jessica rose and led the children from the room.
“You have driven Aunt Jessica away,” said Esmond. “That is an odd thing to happen in her house.”
“Not compared to the other things that happen there. They set a standard that makes the house a harbour for anything. I should feel I was talking in a strange way enough, if I were doing it anywhere else.”
“What in the world has passed between you?”
“This house is not the place to reveal it. Aunt Jessica was firm there, though she did not scruple to stage the scene in its inner shrine. But she has the right to say, and so we will leave the matter.”
“That is a relief,” said Tullia. “I was beginning to fear all sorts of revelations. If you choose to have private and unbelievable scenes, you owe it to other people to keep them to yourselves.”
“I cannot take that view of Anna’s debt to us,” said Bernard.
“It takes two to make a scene,” said Terence.
“You are mistaken. It does not. It took one,” said Anna. “You are thinking of a quarrel. This was not that.”
“Aunt Jessica thought it would pollute the ears of her children,” said Esmond.
“And she is right,” said his sister. “It would.”
“I cannot think why you revealed that you had a dispute at all,” said Tullia.
“We should have given ourselves away,” said Anna, in a resigned tone, relaxing in her chair. “Our flustered condition would have betrayed us. It was better to get in first and intercept the flood of questions. And now the matter may rest.”
“That is not the word for its working in our minds,” said Bernard.
“Aunt Jessica did not look flustered,” said Esmond.
“She looked other things,” said Anna. “I don’t think that can have escaped you.”
“They say that anticipation is the best part of anything,” said Bernard. “I find I cannot agree.”
“It may well be that in this case,” said his sister, grimly.
“Why must you give the account?” said Tullia. “I hope I may be spared it.”
“I cannot think you are sincere,” said Bernard.
“I don’t know,” said Anna, in a tone of some sympathy, resting her eyes on Tullia. “I do not see why Aunt Jessica’s children should be troubled by the matter.”
“A conclusion that you come to rather late,” said Esmond.
“Now that we have heard so much, we will hear it from my mother’s own lips,” said Terence.
“Well, no doubt you will do that,” said Anna, in a mild tone.
“I suggest that you leave the matter, my daughter,” said Benjamin. “Indeed I direct you to do so.”
“I am more than willing, if I am allowed to, Father. I keep on being dragged back to it. I should be glad enough of release.”
“You may consider yourself free,” said Esmond.
“Then pray let us talk about the weather.”
“It is worthy of comment,” said Benjamin, looking at the window. “Indeed we are bound by it for the time.”
“Oh, don’t say that,” said his daughter, sitting up with an expression of consternation. “And Aunt Jessica may return at any moment. My escape was becoming the first object in my mind.”
“You can achieve it by walking through the rain,” said Esmond.
His sister seemed to give the matter her thought.
“That would attract too much notice. I think I must grin and bear the position. Aunt Jessica will be better able to pass me over, than if I made myself conspicuous by my absence.”
“You seem to have an instinct of protection towards my mother,” said Terence.
“I believe I did have it for a moment,” said Anna, with an air of being half-startled by herself. “It was an instinct or an impulse or something; there was nothing quixotic about it. I was taken by it unawares.”
“I will take you home, if you want to go.”
“Will you?” said Anna, starting to her feet. “Then let us set off before either of your parents appears. You set an example to my unchivalrous brothers.”
“Why is your departure less conspicuous for involving that of Terence?” said Esmond.
“The absence of two makes a smaller party. That of one could yawn as an abyss,” said his sister, edging through the door, as if it were a case for furtiveness.
“Did my mother seem very unlike herself?” said Terence, as they went into the rain.
“Yes and no,” said Anna, almost pausing for consideration, in the face of the weather. “Not so unlike herself, as I know her. Very unlike, as you do, I should say.”
“Why should there be that difference? You have hardly seen her alone.”
“That was true until to-day. It is not true now. I saw her alone with a vengeance, and I somehow got the impression that she was acting according to herself.”
“You cannot mean that you know her better than I do.”
“No, I don’t suppose I mean that,” said Anna, in a manner of uncertainty. “But I rather think I do, odd thing though it seems to say.”
“You must have had a strange discourse,” said Terence.
“I am not going to give you a summary of it,” said Anna, hastening along with a spring in her step, that came from a sense of his proximity.
“Do you mind if she repeats it?”
“Of course not. Why should I?” said Anna, turning to look at him in some surprise.
“Then I am free to ask her any question?”
“I suppose so. What have I to do with it? I would hardly recommend your probing into the matter, but it is not my affair.”
“Do I run the risk of any startling revelation?”
“No, I don’t think so,” said Anna, slowly; “I can only suppose not.”
“Do you mean that my mother might not give me a true account?”
“Well, I would not in her place,” said Anna, “Not using the words, ‘in her place,’ in a full sense.”