‘It is because he has never told us,’ said Susan.
‘It seems a pity that one should preclude the other,’ said Priscilla. ‘One does not see what can be done. He hardly spoke of the photograph when he left it.’
‘Perhaps he was thinking of what it could tell us, if it could speak,’ said Susan.
‘He was quite sure it could not do that. And I should hardly dare to listen. And I don’t suppose it would.’
‘We ought to imagine things about ourselves.’
‘If they were true, Sir Jesse would not have had to bring us up,’ said Lester.
‘He never seems proud of what he has done,’ said Priscilla. ‘He almost draws a veil over it.’
‘Over us, I think it is,’ said Susan. ‘He does not require us to go to church, because he would have to recognize us.’
‘It would be a great waste of our Sunday,’ said Lester, in a startled tone.
‘I wonder if we are as odd as we think we are,’ said Susan.
‘We can only hope so,’ said her sister, ‘and continue to do our best.’
‘There is Daniel’s voice,’ said Susan. ‘And I expect Graham is with him.’
‘That would not mean a voice,’ said Lester, in a tone of stating a fact.
‘You do not mind my bringing Graham,’ said Daniel. ‘I find it best to keep him under my eye.’
Graham took a seat.
‘Has your father gone yet?’ said Susan.
‘No, or I should be at home, taking his place,’ said Daniel.
‘I wish I had just enough money to live on,’ said Graham, looking round the room.
‘Why do people wish that?’ said Priscilla. ‘Why not wish to have enough and to spare?’
‘They mean they do not ask much,’ said Graham. ‘But of course they are asking everything.’
‘A thing is more desirable when it is unattainable,’ said Daniel.
‘And how reasonable that is,’ said Priscilla, ‘when nothing comes up to expectation!’
‘This would,’ said Graham, ‘to anyone brought up as an obligation.’
‘We have been brought up like that too,’ said Susan, ‘but it has sat on us more lightly.’
‘Sir Jesse seems to have formed the habit,’ said Priscilla. ‘And it is a very useful one.’
‘I wish you could sometimes come to the house,’ said Graham.
‘Sir Jesse is ashamed of us,’ said Susan. ‘We never quite know why.’
‘We will not pretend to see any reason,’ said Priscilla.
‘I wonder if we shall ever know,’ said Lester.
‘Grandma is the person to ask you,’ said Daniel, ‘and she never welcomes outsiders.’
‘Then how do your friends get to the house?’ said Susan.
‘They do not,’ said Graham. ‘We have no friends.’
‘The iron has entered into the boy’s soul,’ said Daniel.
‘Graham and Lester both have a squeak in their voices,’ said Susan.
‘Lester must unconsciously try to catch a note from a different and more spacious world,’ said her sister.
‘I have very simple tastes,’ said Graham.
‘You have had little chance of acquiring others,’ said Daniel.
‘That is said to give people expensive ones,’ said Priscilla.
‘Has it in your case?’ said Graham.
‘No, but we are unusual. It is no good to say we are not.’
‘Is that why Hope is uneasy about knowing us?’ said Lester.
‘It is only because we are not known,’ said Priscilla. ‘It is nothing personal.’
‘There is something second-rate going through Hope,’ said Susan. ‘She thinks she makes it better by joking about it.’
‘And so she does,’ said her sister. ‘She makes it very good indeed. You don’t mean you do not like it?’
‘I wish the next six months were over,’ said Graham.
‘I do not,’ said Lester. ‘It would mean that all three of us had six months less to live.’
‘It would mean it for us too,’ said Daniel, ‘and for everyone.’
‘I suppose it would,’ said Lester, after a moment’s thought.
‘Oh, let me introduce Mother,’ said Priscilla, taking up the photograph. ‘My long struggle to take her place is over. She is here to fill it herself. I almost feel jealous of her, but I suppose that is usual with eldest daughters. Sir Jesse came this afternoon and filled the blank in our lives.’
‘Grandpa did not say he was coming,’ said Graham.
‘Is it the first time you have not had his confidence?’ said Daniel.
‘I am so grateful to Mother for my existence,’ said Priscilla. ‘I believe that is very unusual, but I enjoy existence very much. I do agree that life is sweet.’
‘You are more like your mother than you are like each other,’ said Graham.
‘She must be in all of us,’ said Lester.
‘So she has really been here all the time,’ said Priscilla. ‘That makes me feel rather foolish.’
‘Who will miss your father the most?’ said Susan.
‘Grandma,’ said Graham, ‘and then I suppose Mother, and then one or two of the girls. But no one will like the house without him. He seems to lift some blight that hangs over us.’
‘I hardly know him,’ said Lester.
‘You must feel you are beginning to do so,’ said Priscilla. ‘And you must find it a privilege?’
‘We shall have to settle down,’ said Daniel. ‘We can’t remain in a state of tension for six months.’
‘It does sound dreadful,’ said Priscilla, looking at Graham’s face. ‘To settle down for six months, when youth is such a sad time. Not that I did not find it very pleasant. I always wonder why people cling to it, when they find it so uncongenial. I get to like it more and more. You see I still think I have it.’
‘I could like it,’ said Graham, again looking round the room.
‘Books and a fire,’ said Priscilla. ‘You can have nothing more. I am not one of those people who belittle the things they have. I daresay you think I do the opposite.’
‘People pity us,’ said Lester to Graham, in a tone of information.
‘Because we have the bare necessities of life,’ said Priscilla. ‘And that is foolish, when necessities are so important. They would hardly pity us any more for not having them.’
‘They pity you and not me,’ said Graham, in an incredulous tone.
‘Well, you live in Sir Jesse’s house, and we live here,’ said Susan.
‘I have a seat at the table and a room on an upper floor.’
‘And what do you do at the table, Graham?’ said Daniel.
‘You cannot have pity as well,’ said Priscilla. ‘And it would not be much good to you.’
‘We know about it, though we do not mind it,’ said Lester.
‘You know nothing of self-pity,’ said Graham. ‘And that is the only sort that counts.’
Chapter 6
‘Does no one want to say good-bye to Father?’ said Eleanor, in a high, incredulous voice from the hall, with her face held towards the upper landings. ‘Do you not want to see the last of him? Or have you all forgotten he is going?’
‘Our minds may be so weary of the image that they have yielded it up,’ said Isabel, as her feet kept pace with her sister’s on the stairs.
‘Are you just going on with your life in your ordinary way?’ said Eleanor, in the same tone and with her brows raised. ‘Is this day just the same as any other to you?’
‘It is an odd person who can suggest that,’ said her daughter. ‘We thought you might want to say good-bye to Father by yourself, that that was perhaps why he came to see us last night.’
‘Oh, that is what it was. But I do not want to keep him to myself at this last stage. He will want to remember us all together,’ said Eleanor, with her querulous honesty. ‘I am not the only person he has in his life. Run up and see that everyone is here. He will be going in half-an-hour.’