“She killed herself, didn’t she?” said Reuben. “Isn’t that supposed to be a wicked thing to do?”
“For some people. There are different cases.”
“You can be punished for it by the law. I know you can, because Terence told me. Of course he didn’t know that his mother was going to do it.”
“Hush. You cannot punish someone who is dead.”
“It was a case of attempted suicide. That is a crime.”
“It went further than that,” said Esmond. “It is an instance of success in the enterprise.”
Reuben went into discordant mirth.
“You have been talking to the servants,” said Anna.
“Of course he has. What else was he to do?” said Bernard.
“Does Father mind very much?” said Reuben, glancing at Benjamin and hardly lowering his voice.
“Very much. You know that he must,” said Jenney.
“You mind, yourself, don’t you?” said Anna. “You were very fond of Aunt Jessica.”
Reuben held himself in a position for further jumping, a sign of indifference that was needed, as his eyes had filled. Benjamin took no notice of him, understanding the manifestation, but knowing it arose from feeling nothing to his own, and rather repelled than otherwise by the twofold difference.
“Will any of us have to go to the house?” said Anna. “I shall not be the first to volunteer.”
“Perhaps that would hardly be expected,” said Esmond.
“Oh, one never knows,” said Anna.
“I shall be going almost at once,” said Benjamin. “My place is with my sister’s family. And some of you should come with me.”
“Well, I will face the music,” said his daughter. “I shall not be seeing Aunt Jessica, and can never be called upon to do that again. And I suppose nothing has come between me and the rest.”
“Aunt Jessica can’t be buried in consecrated ground,” said Reuben, in a clear tone.
“Hush. Of course she can,” said Jenney.
“But suicides can’t.”
“Hush. Don’t use such a word. This was a sort of accident. It happened because she was not well.”
“There will be a verdict of unsound mind,” said Benjamin.
“And I believe a true one,” said Anna, “seldom though I daresay that is the case.”
“Then it sweeps away any reason for resentment.”
“Indeed it does, Father. There I quite agree. I begin to understand that feeling of protection I had towards her.”
“Poor Tullia!” said Bernard.
“Why, I think she will stand up to it better than most people,” said his sister. “I should rather say, ‘Poor Terence.’ ”
“Doesn’t Tullia mind things so very much?” said Reuben.
“Well, not as much as some of us perhaps. Or it always seems to me that she does not.”
“Perhaps she would say the same of you,” said Bernard.
“Oh, I daresay she would. People have often said it of me,” said Anna, with a resigned sigh. “Not that it seems to me that I am the right target for that particular shaft. But I don’t look for much from that family, or from the women of it.”
“Why didn’t Aunt Sukey live with us?” said Reuben.
“Well, I was too young for the charge, when the arrangement was made.”
“I daresay she would not have left you the money, if she had lived in our house. I expect people get tired of the people they live with.”
“There is something in that,” said Anna, in a sincere tone. “It is quite possible that she would not.”
“So the people who take care of other people, have all the trouble, and don’t have so much money.”
“They had the advantage of having Aunt Sukey for all those years. I wish we had seen more of her.”
“Even though you might not have had the money?”
“We never think about wills, while people are alive,” said Jenney.
“Aunt Jessica must have thought about Aunt Sukey’s. Or she wouldn’t have minded when she found that it left things to Anna.”
“Well, we know she did think about it,” said Anna; “I am afraid too much. But that is a point where we need not copy her. So we will leave it now.”
“You can’t help knowing that an invalid might die. And that means there will have to be a will. So you have to think about it.”
“We have thought enough about this one,” said Benjamin.
“Have you thought how you will miss Aunt Jessica?” said Anna to Reuben, in a tone of some reproach. “You know how you missed Aunt Sukey; and although this cannot be the same, it will make a great difference.”
“I think I am more sorry that we have lost Aunt Jessica.”
“I am sure you are sad about them both. It does seem a change in our life after a few short months. What an end to Father’s plan of giving his time to his sisters!”
“I suppose we shouldn’t have come here, if we had known they were going to die?”
“We should have done so all the more,” said Benjamin.
“And yet Father’s being here did not make Aunt Jessica not do what she did,” said Reuben, casting his eyes about, as if undecided about their direction.
“Perhaps nothing would have done that, except not losing her sister,” said Jenney. “You must not tell Julius and Dora how it happened. They are to think their mother died in the same way as their aunt. Mind you remember, Reuben.”
“I don’t expect they will talk about her. They have not said anything about Aunt Sukey since she died. Some people don’t talk about people who are dead, and I don’t think it is only children.”
“I could not follow that line,” said Anna. “I could never sweep someone I had cared for, off my lips and out of my mind like that.”
“It is your own idea that the one thing follows from the other,” said Esmond.
“It may be, but I hold to it none the less. I never think it is a sign of deep feeling to be able always to suppress it. A stronger thing would get out of hand sometimes.”
“Do people go to the funeral of a second aunt, when they have been to the first?” said Reuben.
“There is no need for you to go to this one,” said Jenney.
“Well, I know what a funeral is like now,” said Reuben, looking back at the heel of his boot.
“Reuben is open about the motives that govern his attendance,” said Esmond.
Benjamin looked at his youngest son, and knew that this was not the case.
“Why is it a sign of respect to display oneself at a person’s obsequies?” said Anna.
“That need not take you to them,” said Esmond. “Your feeling stops short of that.”
“It both stops short and goes beyond,” said his sister.
“Have you done your lessons, Reuben?” said Jenney.
“No; I am not going to Terence to-morrow. I shall not see him until after the funeral.”
“Has he sent a message?” said Anna.
“No, but you don’t go to people when they have lost somebody, anyhow when it is a mother.”
“Reuben has chosen his method of proving his feeling,” said Esmond.
“The boy is right to stay away,” said Benjamin. “But I must go to my sister’s house. And my daughter and my eldest son will bear me company.”
He left the room with these members of his family, and Claribel strolled out after them with an expression of troubled aloofness.
Reuben leaned back in his chair.
“Aunt Jessica’s being dead won’t make so very much difference to us, will it, Jenney?” he said in an almost appealing tone, ignoring Esmond, to whom he had no regard.
“Well, of course you will miss her.”
“Well, when I was at home, I never saw her. And when I was at her house, I usually saw only Terence. So my life will be very much the same.”
“Well, I daresay you will get used to it.”
“It is really best not to think about it. Because it can’t do any good. And there is no point in doing harm to yourself, when it doesn’t do any good to anyone else.”