“We did have to. I heard it being talked about. My father and mother were not very pleased about it.”
“I should think not,” said Gwendolen. “Mine would not have been pleased at all. I should have been made to feel quite guilty.”
“Did you not have to feel guilty, Clemence?” said Esther.
“It was nothing to do with me. School customs are not my fault.”
“Why did you not come back for the one term?” said Verity.
“Oh, I don’t know. It was not even suggested.”
“So your parents wasted a term’s fees to indulge their inclinations,” said Gwendolen, while three pairs of eyes passed over Clemence’s clothes. “I wish mine had as much to spare, and would spend it so easily.”
“People spend on such different things,” said Esther.
“Which life do you really prefer, Clemence?” said Verity.
“It is a good thing that Maud cannot hear, so that we can show our true natures,” said Gwendolen. “She would be so ashamed of us, and so would Miss Chancellor. I should be ashamed of myself, if I were capable of such a feeling.”
“Really, Gwendolen, I think you do yourself an injustice,” said Verity, in idle imitation of Miss Chancellor.
“I have seen no sign in you of such insensitiveness,” said Esther, in the same manner.
“Well, which life do you prefer, Clemence?” said Verity.
“Oh, home on the whole, I suppose. But there were things I liked about school; the changes in teaching and the different people as companions. Home life does incline to be rather the same.”
“You have no affection for us, as we have for you,” said Gwendolen. “I shall give way when we get home, because we never won your heart.”
“You continually promise us a sight of you in tears, Gwendolen, and the promise is never realised,” said Clemence, taking up the mimicry. “Not that we wish it to be.”
“Yes, imitation of everyone is the thing at school now,” said Verity. “You left just in time to escape it.”
“I shall hate home life when I have nothing else,” said Esther.
“Esther, are you thinking what you are saying?” said Verity, changing her voice the next moment to her own. “How old is your brother, Clemence?”
“He is eleven, three years younger than I am.”
“And will his friends be — are his friends of his own age?”
“I suppose so. About that age. I had not thought about it,” said Clemence, her face changing as she thought about it now. There was a pause.
“Why did you ask us all on the same day?” said Esther.
“Oh, I do not know. It was planned in that way. I did not have much to do with it. It was thought we might like to see our friends, and then it was just arranged. Perhaps we said we should like to. I don’t remember.”
“I wish my chance words were attended to like that,” said Esther. “You must have to be careful what you say.”
“But I could not suggest that the age of Sefton’s friends should be altered,” said Clemence, in a rising tone. “It would have been no good to drop a hint like that.”
“I don’t mind what age they are,” said Esther. “What difference does it make to us?”
“None, unless you talk to them. And that you need not do. Indeed, I don’t suppose you will have the chance. They will keep together.”
“They will awaken my maternal instincts,” said Gwendolen.
“We can let them do that,” said Verity. “And that will solve any problems.”
“I did not know it presented any problems, just to have some boys about,” said Clemence. “I am too used to Sefton to worry about his age. I don’t suppose he troubles about mine. We have all been that age ourselves.”
“Clemence is more of a child since she settled down at home,” said Verity, resting her eyes on her hostess. “She is more as she was when she first came to school.”
“Well, I daresay that is natural,” said Clemence. “We are all children up to a point in our own homes. I expect it is the same with all of you. And we shall have plenty of time to be grown-up.”
“If I were not a child with my parents, they would be more unloving towards me,” said Gwendolen.
“I don’t know that my family is so fond of my winning infancy,” said Verity, lifting her shoulders. “They don’t mind my being myself. If we outnumber the boys, our maternal impulses may overwhelm them. Perhaps we had better suppress them.”
The girls appeared to have no difficulty in doing this when Sefton entered with his friends. They regarded the latter without expression, and gave no sign of distinguishing one from another. Maria saw the position and did not introduce them. Maud moved away from Sir Roderick, as if she had taken enough of his attention, and he gave the boys the welcome he would have given to any guests; and having seen Miss James attracted by some hidden force to Miss Tuke and Miss Petticott, sat down among them and talked with serious interest, asking for accounts of their school life and giving recollections of his own. He obtained light on Sefton without betraying his purpose or without knowing that he did so; and if Bacon gave him what help he could, was no less the gainer, that he was unaware of it. Any jests he made were well received, partly because the boys were amused by them, and partly because they involved no rallying of themselves. When luncheon was announced, he guided them to places that kept them together, and put Sefton at the head of the board, on the ground that he was the host.
“Then Clemence is the hostess and should sit at the other end,” said Maria, rising and preparing to undo the arrangements, without thought of an alternative scheme.
“No, no, my pretty, she is well enough. Leave her among her friends.”
The girls exchanged glances at this description of Maria, and then looked again at the latter, as though to reconsider their impression.
“You should not call me that before strangers, Roderick. They cannot fit the words to a weatherbeaten woman like me.”
“I call you what you are to me, my dear.”
The luncheon was based on youthful ideas of luxury. Sir Roderick saw that the boys could eat without any sense of eyes upon them; Miss Petticott that the girls did much the same; Maria saw to nothing with an unconscious inattentiveness that did its part. Oliver entered the room as everything was under way.
“I could not resist being late, Maria. I wanted to enter at a moment when every eye would be upon me.”
“You should not be so conscious of yourself.”
“I did not think I was. I wanted other people to be conscious of me. I thought that was being conscious of them.”
The girls looked at Oliver and then at Clemence.
“It is my grown-up brother. He will behave in his own way.”
“How are you, Aunt Lesbia?” said Oliver, going to greet his aunt.
Lesbia raised her face for his salute, keeping her eyes from the girls, whose expression perhaps did not invite scrutiny.
“How do you do, Miss James?” said Oliver, moving round the table. “I hope you find you cannot fill my place.”
“That is just how I should put it, Mr. Shelley. The place is formally filled, but it seems to lack the one thing needful.”
“How does your brother know Miss James, Clemence?” said Verity. “I thought she was the matron at your younger brother’s school.”
“So she is. He taught music there last term by way of an experiment. He soon gave it up, of course.”
“Was it a sort of joke?” said Gwendolen.
“Yes, and the humour of it soon palled.”
“My sister is betraying my confidence,” said Oliver, playing into Clemence’s hands. “Have you given up your music, Holland?”
“No, sir. I learn with the new master.”
“Then he does what I could not do.”