Читать книгу Shaken by the Wind - Ray Strachey - Страница 7

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“When is Lottie coming home?”

It was Anna who asked, rocking her chair sociably to and fro in her sister’s bedroom, where a great dressmaking turmoil was in progress.

“We miss Lottie more than ever when we are dressmaking, don’t we?” Sarah answered, smiling. “She writes she’ll be back the first of next month. Not that way, Miss Parker, it all humps up at the side if it’s pinned like that! Do be still, Bessie; Miss Parker can’t get it straight if you wriggle so.”

Anna watched the contest between her sister, the little girl and the dressmaker with a high degree of detachment.

“You are the worst person in the world to have to do with clothes, sister,” she observed after a time. “I doubt if you know the front of a gown from the back.”

Sarah laughed good-humouredly. “I don’t set out to be much of a hand at it,” she confessed. “But I can see whether a thing hangs straight or not. Now look, Miss Parker, here, under the arm——”

The door burst open, and two more little girls ran in, their faces aglow with the jokes they had been enjoying and the game they had only just left.

“Oh, Aunt Anna! Aunt Anna!” they cried, and hurled themselves into her lap.

“Quietly, children, quietly,” said their mother, her own face taking on a reflection of their glowing looks of delight, while Bessie wriggled more than ever, and even the drab-coloured dressmaker felt a breath of refreshment.

Sally and Martha began talking both together, explaining something which none but themselves could possibly understand, and their laughter fluttered and eddied round them, and turned all the tedious business of clothes-making into irrelevance.

“Come now, children, you really must attend——” their mother began, but her voice was unconvincing, and Bessie wriggled right away from Miss Parker, and began dancing up and down in front of the rocking-chair on which Anna and the other children were balanced, her shrill little voice joining in the hubbub.

It was some time before either Sarah or Anna brought their own minds to the effort needed to stop the enchanting nonsense and to turn back to the business of the spring frocks. But as soon as the grown-ups seriously meant order to be re-established it came about. The children were as good as possible, and of the pandemonium, only the irrepressible little giggles they contrived to exchange with each other remained. The frocks were tried on, the necessary instructions given, and Miss Parker took herself off with her mouth full of pins and her arms full of cloth; the three little girls dashed off, too, their eager voices and jumping footsteps dying away down the staircase. Sarah went over and sat down by her sister’s side, and they fell to talking about the outward details of their lives in that disjointed way only possible between intimates.

“Do you think Edmund is attached to Lottie?” Anna asked suddenly, in the midst of talk of other matters. It was a question she had long been wanting to ask.

Yes, Sarah said, she did think so. It was very suitable and nice, and pleased Thomas exceedingly. Lottie was a dear child; they had missed her terribly during the six months she had been in Massachusetts, and it would be lovely to have her back. The little girls were looking forward to the first of the month, and, of course, Edmund was counting the days.

Sarah’s genuine eyes smiled as she spoke, and for the thousandth time Anna admired her sister’s equanimity, even as she turned the talk again to other things. She knew that she would not have treated the girl as Sarah did had she been in her place.

Lottie was a distant cousin of Thomas Sonning’s. He had appeared with her one day, three years before, and told his wife that he had adopted her, and ever since then she had been part of the household. It had been one of his movements of generosity, one of those sudden impulses which gave him the pleasing reputation of being a very warm-hearted man; but it had led Anna to describe him as the most inconsiderate creature on earth. She had, indeed, been thoroughly indignant over the business, and had gone about among their friends pitying her sister for having a new full-fledged daughter thrust in, without her consent, upon a household already sufficiently complicated. Sarah herself, however, had silenced all such talk by taking the girl entirely as a matter of course. The strength of Anna’s case went out of it, when Sarah seemed glad of the burden and found it only a comfort. But Anna, for all her astonished admiration for her sister’s good sense, thought none the better of Thomas. He was a selfish, intolerable man, she said, whose wife was far too good for him.

As for Lottie herself, none of these things were apparent to her. All she realized was that from the sordid and narrow poverty of her motherless home she had been swept away into a land of plenty and good humour, where everyone was loving and kind. She attached herself in an absolutely natural way to the whole household, and stepped very quickly into her place in the family life.

She was as pretty as a picture, with the blue eyes and yellow hair of a story book, and Thomas took much pleasure in teasing her, just because of the lovely way she blushed. The two of them at once got on to terms of jocular banter, and Thomas as it were smiled all over when she ventured on one of her mildly impertinent sallies. Her presence at the family meal was an unexpected relief to Sarah, who in the long years she had lived with Thomas had grown a little too well accustomed to his conversation, and she often found herself sincerely amused at the duels which went on between the two.

Keeping Thomas in a good temper was not Lottie’s only use, however. She was one of those people who love small children, and her devotion to the three little girls was soon complete. Hour after hour she would play with them, allowing herself to be victimized and tormented until even their mother would intervene to rescue her; she was indeed a thoroughly pleasant inmate.

With Edmund also Lottie was a success. He was a year older than she was, being sixteen when she came. At first he was very shy, but by degrees as he found her useful, this wore off. She mended his various contrivances, kept track of his books, and took a deep interest in all his doings, and before long he found himself slipping into real companionship. On her side a similar process went on. From shyness, through usefulness, to confidence, and always with a high sense of the privilege it was to be admitted to share any of the interests of this marvellous big boy cousin whom everyone so greatly admired.

With Sarah alone of all the family Lottie was not quite at ease. She admired her greatly, but in spite of all Sarah’s real affection, the girl could not but be conscious of faint traces of fear and fright in her presence. There was something so unutterably grown up, to her eyes, about the mother of the family, something so imperturbably placid and serene; and Lottie, who in her secret motherless heart longed more for confidential relations with Sarah than with any of the others, was disappointed and troubled by what she thought her own failure. She tried very hard; she did all she could think of to be useful to the household, and she was, in fact, missed as much by Sarah as by anyone else when she went away on that six months’ visit to her own brothers and sisters. But for all that she and Sarah were not, and were never likely to be, really intimate. And the hopeless part of it was that Sarah did not seem to notice or to care.

As time went on the inevitable happened, and Edmund and Lottie drifted into love. This, Anna had thought, would be the testing of Sarah’s genuine feeling, for she saw the passionate love for her eldest son which Sarah tried so hard to regulate and keep within bounds. If Sarah were only pretending about Lottie, as Anna suspected, it would come out now; but on the contrary, nothing happened. Sarah was delighted, and Anna was forced to acknowledge that she had been wrong in her estimate of her sister’s feelings.

“If it were any other woman on earth, James,” she said to her husband; “if it were anyone but Sarah, I’d say she was pleased because she will keep Edmund herself. If he settles down with that child he will never be swept away from his mother by any grand passion. Anyone can see that. But Sarah’s far too simple and unselfish for any feeling of that kind.”

James loved discussing things with his wife. “It may be influencing her without her knowing it,” he said. “Your sister is not so simple a character as you think, Anna. She isn’t stupid, you know.”

Anna laughed. “Lottie is,” she said uncharitably.

“No, no, Anna; you are unjust to the girl. She does not take hold of things by the practical end, and doesn’t like to use her mind; but she’s not really stupid, and she’s a sweet child.”

“She’s always very ready to be pleased,” Anna admitted, “and I daresay it’s a good arrangement for them all. But if Edmund were my son I’d want something a little more exciting for him.”

“If Edmund were your son, Anna,” her husband said, taking one of her hands in his, “he would want something more exciting for himself.” He smiled at her, and she did her best to smile back; their childlessness was very sore to them both.

Sarah, however, had no thoughts to spare for such criticisms. If Edmund married Lottie, as in course of time he would, his mother knew that his affections would be safe and secure, and a touch of playful lightness would be added to the seriousness of her precious boy. To her unworldliness the girl’s penniless state was no drawback. All was going well.

Between Lottie and Edmund, however, nothing had been said. The matchmaking was all on the part of their elders. They were content to let things drift. Neither of them was unaware of the state of their hearts, and Edmund had spoken of the matter to his mother. But they were so young, so much together, there was no need to change things yet. Life, for those two, was pleasant, and friendship and love shaded off into each other without any line of demarcation.

The six months’ separation had not been a worldly-wise plan of Edmund’s parents; it had just arisen naturally from the circumstances of Lottie’s own nearer relations. It had had the effect of making Edmund think a great deal about her, however, and by the end of the time he knew exactly what he wanted. He was prepared to make her an offer of marriage immediately on her return, and had already secured his father’s formal consent. It was understood that it was to be a long engagement; he was to go through college, and enter the business before there was any talk of marriage; but it would be comfortable to have it all definite and clear.

When Lottie actually returned, however, and when he saw her slip back into her familiar place, an unexpected hesitation came over Edmund. Without reason or cause he began to think that she could not possibly love him, and in a state of painful humility he decided to wait still longer before he spoke. The new experiences she had been going through, the new people she must have been seeing, had surely, he thought, driven her away from him. He must set to work to win her afresh if he could.

All this was entirely without foundation, but Edmund was in no state to see clearly. His short and sheltered life had brought him nothing but admiration and praise so far, and it was but natural that an excess of humility should come upon him. It made his mother smile tenderly to watch the new diffidence of her tall son.

Lottie was, of course, at once introduced to the family next door and equally naturally she was taken into immediate favour. The Thrush sisters were charmed with her pretty face and pleasing manners, and constantly invited her to see them; and so, it was only a short time before she was at home in their house. This state of things was followed by a most surprising development, namely, the adoption of Lottie as the first disciple. The Master entered, so Silence told Sarah, into immediate religious sympathy with the girl, and from that conjunction much might be expected. The Lord had marked her out for fuller teaching, and she would be the first to whom the whole of the new Truths would be revealed.

When this announcement was made Thomas was greatly pleased. He had long been urging the need for more numerous and more fully instructed disciples. He could not altogether relish what was not widely shared, and he regarded this as a beginning of expansion. He spoke of it at the table in a triumphant tone, and did not notice that Sarah and Lottie were not as well pleased as himself.

As for Lottie, she was frightened. She did not feel equal to so high a mission, and had a private shrinking from Rufus for which she could not account. She wished this alarming thing had befallen Edmund, or someone better able to cope with it than herself.

Sarah, for her part, felt the same. Fond as she really was of Lottie, she could not think the child fit for the task, and she was conscious of a distinct and most unpleasant impulse to be aggrieved. She knew very well that there was more earnestness both in Edmund and in herself, and that as a disciple Lottie would be only too facile and impressionable. It seemed as if it were a waste to lay the Lord’s secret before so simple a heart, when those others, burning so steadily with longing for the glad tidings, were passed by. And yet, of course, it was just this simplicity which caused Lottie to be chosen. Lottie was like a little child, and of such was the Kingdom of Heaven. By a deliberate mental effort Sarah drove the jealousy out of her mind, and replaced it by a humility which was none the less genuine for being a second thought. And once this was done, she watched the progress of affairs most eagerly, trying hard to gather up any scraps from the table of revelation, and doing all she could to make things easy for the girl.

And thus it was that Lottie fell into the habit of spending every evening with the saintly household next door.