‘In your case,’ said Lester, gravely. ‘I could not be a schoolmaster because of my voice and manner. The boys would be amused by me.’
‘And we are grateful,’ said Priscilla. ‘I never know why people say they ought to be. Of course they ought.’
‘It is hard to be beholden to him,’ said Lester.
‘We have been glad of the chance,’ said Priscilla. ‘And it is one that people always take.’
‘We had no alternative,’ said her brother.
‘None but perishing of want,’ said Susan. ‘Three orphans from South America, the children of Sir Jesse’s friends, but having no other claim. That is what we were.’
‘And see what we are now,’ said Lester, with a crow of laughter. ‘Still orphans, but having established a claim.’
Priscilla, Lester and Susan Marlowe were aged thirty-five, thirty-four and thirty-two. They had pale, oblong faces, tall angular frames, round, grey, short-sighted eyes, peering through cheap, round glasses, and seeming to peer considerably beyond, heavy, shelving brows, from which curly, colourless hair receded, and in Lester’s case had disappeared, and features so little conforming to rule, that they differed equally from other people’s and each other’s. Priscilla’s voice was slow and apparently serious, Lester’s shrill and uneven, and Susan’s rapid and deep.
Sir Jesse gave them a cottage on the place, the services of an old couple whom he wished to support, and did so in this way, and an allowance to eke out what they earned. He never asked them to his house, seldom visited them and passed them abroad with acknowledgement but without a word; a course which people attributed to embarrassment at his generosity, though the feeling arises more easily from the consciousness of other qualities. They were used to his ways, hardly knew his wife, unaware that her hostile indifference embraced others besides themselves, had an almost surreptitious acquaintance with Daniel and Graham; and lived in their interests and anxieties and each other, with as much satisfaction as most people and more enjoyment.
‘I have a month at home,’ said Susan, looking round the low, cramped room with an expression that hardly suggested its character. ‘How did we get all that wood for the fire?’
‘We collect it in the park,’ said her sister. ‘We go after dusk, so that we shall not be seen. We are not ashamed of our poverty, but we know Sir Jesse is; and it might look as if we were short of fuel.’
‘It would look so,’ said Lester. ‘And we do not want to suggest that he might provide it, when he does so much for us.’
‘It is a good method of making him do so,’ said Susan. ‘Do you suppose he knows you get it?’
‘He must know that the coal he sends is not enough,’ said Priscilla. ‘And I expect he would know if we were cold. He seems to know everything about us.’
‘He must know that we have thin walls and no damp course,’ said Lester, in a serious voice. ‘He may think we don’t feel the cold.’
‘What could you do with the cold but feel it?’ said Susan. ‘How else would you know there was such a thing?’
‘People seem to think other people don’t feel cold or grief or anything,’ said Priscilla. ‘I don’t think they mind their feeling the heat. It seems a more comfortable thing, and it does not require any fuel.’
‘Why are we having so much to eat?’ said Susan.
‘I am afraid not because it is your first day at home,’ said her sister. ‘Mrs Morris has to nurse her husband, and cannot cook tonight.’
‘It is only old age,’ said Lester, with simple reassurance. ‘Nothing infectious.’
‘Well, not immediately,’ said Priscilla.
Lester gave a laugh.
‘I am thankful to be at home,’ said Susan. ‘We can never be at ease except with each other. No one would understand our life, who had not lived it. A past without parents or a background is as rare as being brought up in an orphanage.’
‘Is that rare?’ said Priscilla. ‘The papers always say how many thousands of inmates are admitted every year. It shows how few people behave as well as Sir Jesse.’
‘That is why we have to contribute to such institutions,’ said Lester.
‘Do you?’ said Priscilla, astonished. ‘How you prevent the left hand from knowing what the right hand doeth!’
‘Not I myself,’ said Lester, opening his eyes. ‘I never spend money without saying so.’
‘We are the last people to support orphanages,’ said Susan. ‘They are fortunate in not having had to support us.’
‘I suppose Sir Jesse has been father and mother to us,’ said Lester, as if the thought amused him; ‘though no one would think it, who saw him pass us without a word.’
‘Family life seldom gets to that,’ said Priscilla, ‘or not with both the father and the mother.’
‘We have never lisped our prayers at our mother’s knee,’ said Susan. ‘What can be expected of us?’
‘Hard work and reasonable success,’ said Lester, in an almost wondering tone.
‘Criminals are always told to look back on the time when they did that,’ said Priscilla. ‘It does not seem to be an auspicious beginning.’
‘Our parents were friends of Sir Jesse’s,’ said Lester. ‘And they lived in South America. I do not want to know more about them.’
‘It seems to stamp them,’ said Priscilla. ‘I should not dare to ask. If it were anything that could be borne, Sir Jesse would have told us. And he would not mind our bearing a certain amount.’
‘He seems to avoid contact with their children,’ said Susan. ‘We should never forgive ourselves, if we exerted any untoward influence on him. I wonder he allows us to mix with each other.’
Lester raised his eyes at this train of thought.
‘It is the cheapest way of disposing of us,’ he said. ‘He gives us a house and a little money, and we provide the rest.’
‘You would not think we had such large appetites, to look at us,’ said Susan.
‘I should have thought we were rather hungry-looking,’ said Priscilla. ‘As though we hardly knew where our next meal was coming from. And we do know. From Sir Jesse and our own hard earnings.’
‘Well, Mrs Morris,’ said Lester, ‘I hope Morris is better.’
The housekeeper closed her eyes and kept them closed, while she placed the teapot with her usual precision.
‘He must have a very good appetite.’
‘What makes you say that, sir?’ said Mrs Morris, performing an action that seemed unnatural to her, and looking at the speaker.
‘You cook so much for him, that you have no time for us.’
‘I hope to give you your usual dinner, sir.’
‘If we have this tea and our usual dinner, Morris must be very bad.’
‘He could not eat what I cooked, sir,’ said Mrs Morris, arranging the table for those who could.
‘Would he like anything special?’ said Priscilla.
‘He is not used to having what he fancies, miss.’
‘There he is, going down the path,’ said Susan.
‘He can get about, miss.’
‘He is going to the inn.’
Mrs Morris just cast a glance after her husband, as if his errand meant too little to warrant attention.
‘Not used to having what he fancies!’ said Susan, as the door closed. ‘He gets more and more used to it.’
‘Well, it means we can do the same,’ said her sister.
‘I am glad Morris has his own life,’ said Lester, gravely.
‘Lester talks quite like a man to Mrs Morris,’ said Priscilla.
‘Mr and Mrs Cranmer,’ said Mrs Morris.
‘Well, my dears,’ said Hope. ‘Are you expecting friends to tea, or is this your ordinary standard?’ Her tone had a slight difference from the one she used to the Sullivans.
‘It is Susan’s first day at home,’ said Paul, whose tone was always the same.