‘We see where Susan gets her practical side,’ said Priscilla. ‘From Mother. This is the first homecoming when she has been here to welcome her.’
‘So Sir Jesse did not bring a photograph of your father,’ said Paul.
‘I am rather glad,’ said Priscilla. ‘These family reunions are rather a strain.’
‘We must have the photograph framed,’ said Susan.
‘Don’t go yet, Paul,’ said Priscilla. ‘Sit down here by Mother.’
‘I feel ashamed that the meeting has been witnessed by our idly curious eyes,’ said Hope.
‘I think you ought to share Mother with us, Lester,’ said Priscilla. ‘Mothers are not quite indifferent to their daughters. Perhaps Mother would not change me for all the sons in the world.’
‘How much does a frame cost?’ said her brother.
‘There is Mother coming out.’
‘It depends on the quality,’ said Susan.
‘In both of you,’ said Priscilla. ‘But ought the first economy we make after we have known Mother, to be on her? Though of course mothers do not like their children to spend their money on them.’
‘I will subscribe to the frame,’ said Lester, who could not always take this course with the family expenses.
‘There are Ridley and Faith,’ said Susan. ‘How did they know you were here?’
‘Just what Mother would have said!’ said Priscilla.
‘Something must have told them,’ said Hope. ‘It was not me.’
‘We guessed you would be here,’ said Faith, as she entered with her brother. ‘We thought we might as well walk home together.’
‘Need you have walked home at all, dear?’ said Hope.
There was a pause.
‘We have had tea,’ said Faith, as if they would not impose this demand on the house.
‘I hope we are not intruding,’ said Ridley, with a smile for his suggestion.
‘I hope not, dear,’ said Hope.
‘Have you been turning out old albums?’ said Faith, looking at the table. ‘I think the old-fashioned photographs are often so interesting.’
‘They certainly throw a vivid light on the past,’ said Ridley.
‘Who is the lady?’ said Faith, with the sprightliness that does not suggest high or serious anticipations.
‘It is our mother,’ said Lester, handing her the photograph. ‘Sir Jesse brought it today. We had not seen it before.’
‘Oh, I did not know,’ said Faith, taking a step backwards with her eyes on his face.
‘I think that was natural,’ said Paul.
‘It shows that one should be careful what one says,’ said Faith, lightly. ‘But I did not say anything derogatory, did I? And I had not looked at the photograph.’
‘Your opinion would not have been of value,’ said Paul.
‘It must be quite a significant occasion,’ said Ridley. ‘I can picture the flights of imagination that the sight must produce.’
‘It seems to render them for the first time unnecessary,’ said Priscilla.
‘Do you see any likeness in her to any of you?’ said Faith. ‘Or in any of you to her, I should say?’
‘I think Lester is a little like her,’ said Susan.
‘They say that sons take after their mothers,’ said Faith.
‘We shall be four instead of three in future,’ said Priscilla, putting the photograph on the chimney-piece.
‘There is a photograph at home that I shall destroy,’ said Hope. ‘I want Faith to be sincere when she says I am the only mother she has known.’
‘I have always been so,’ said Faith. ‘It is not my habit to say things I do not mean.’
‘Then I hope we have never been five.’
‘I think that photographs are chiefly useful for recalling people to those who knew them,’ said Faith.
‘Then they are not of great use,’ said Paul.
‘They are better than nothing for those who did not,’ said Lester.
‘As you say, Lester, nothing is not much to depend upon,’ said Ridley, in a tone of sympathy.
‘Has Sir Jesse a photograph of your father?’ said Faith.
‘Not to our knowledge,’ said Susan.
‘Have you not asked him?’ said Faith, with a smile for this indifference.
‘We don’t often ask him questions.’
‘I don’t think he would mind one on that subject.’
‘It might not be the exception,’ said Paul.
Faith gave her father a glance, as if perplexed by his attitude.
‘Would it help you if I were to ask him?’ she said to the Mario wes. ‘I could just put a casual question, and pass on to something else, and give you the result later. I think I am at the house rather oftener than you are.’
‘We are never there,’ said Lester.
‘I expect that is just a custom that has grown up.’
‘It is, dear, no doubt,’ said Hope.
‘You don’t want to go,’ said Paul, his bright eyes scanning the Mario wes’ faces.
‘We don’t wear their kind of clothes,’ said Susan. ‘And we should feel we were dependants.’
‘Then wouldn’t the clothes be all right?’ said Hope.
‘I think that dress is very becoming to Susan,’ said Faith.
‘She has to have things for outsiders,’ said Lester.
‘People look themselves in whatever they wear,’ said Faith.
‘It is a good thing they don’t know that,’ said Hope. ‘And I am not going to believe it.’
‘We should have to look like other people,’ said Priscilla, ‘and that costs money.’
‘I think you would find it a little change to go now and then,’ said Faith.
‘Daniel and Graham come here sometimes,’ said Susan.
‘Do they? I did not know that.’
‘I wonder how it escaped your notice, dear,’ said Hope.
‘I expect Mrs Sullivan is glad for them to have the break, Mother.’
‘It is their own feeling that brings them,’ said Paul.
‘Yes, they come to see us,’ said Priscilla. ‘It is one of those cases of people’s finding their happiness in humbler surroundings.’
‘I don’t suppose they even notice the surroundings,’ said Faith, showing that she was more observant herself.
‘We owe too much to Sir Jesse for our intercourse with him to be natural,’ said Lester.
‘That does not argue any lack of generosity on either side,’ said Faith.
‘It does not on Sir Jesse’s,’ said Priscilla.
‘I know that the little discomforts of any unusual position are often very hard to get over,’ said Faith.
‘They must be,’ said Hope, ‘because any embarrassment is bad enough.’
‘We have got away from the subject of your father’s photograph,’ said Faith.
‘And now you have led us back to it, dear,’ said Hope.
‘Very few people never have their photographs taken, Mother.’
‘We have never done so,’ said Priscilla. ‘Perhaps it runs in the family.’
‘Your mother’s was taken,’ said Faith.
‘Well, people do sometimes take after one side.’
‘Do people have their own photographs taken?’ said Paul. ‘Other people want a record of them.’
‘And then they have to be told to look pleasant,’ said Hope. ‘If anyone wanted one of me, I could not subdue my elation.’
‘I am touched by people’s wanting a record of Mother,’ said Priscilla. ‘It says so much for them and for her.’
‘I do not believe I have ever been immortalized in that way,’ said Ridley.
‘But think of the other ways, dear,’ said Hope. ‘I have not been taken since I was married. Your father was in the mood for wanting a record of me then. People do want them of people when they are about to spend their lives with them, though it is difficult to see what use they will be.’
‘Sir Jesse will miss his son very much,’ said Faith. ‘It will make a third empty place in the house.’
‘Are there any others?’ said Hope. ‘I know there are a great many full ones.’