1
RICHARD BENSON came home towards the end of August after a visit to
friends in Ireland. To Elizabeth's disappointment, Joan showed no
pleasure at his return. However, it appeared that Richard had not
forgotten her, for Mrs. Benson wrote insisting that she and Elizabeth
should come to luncheon, as he had been asking after them.
They went to Conway House on the appointed day. Joan was acquiescent,
she never offered much opposition to anything at this time unless it
were interference with her self-imposed and ridiculous cramming. After
all it was a pleasant luncheon, and Elizabeth, at all events, enjoyed
it.
Joan thought: "I'm glad she looks happy and pleased, but I wish they'd
asked Mother; I wonder why they didn't ask Mother?" Her mother's absence
weighed upon her. Not that Mrs. Ogden had withheld a ready consent, she
was glad that her girls had such nice neighbours, but Joan knew
instinctively that she had felt hurt; she was beginning to know so much
about her mother by instinct. She divined her every mood; it seemed to
her to be like looking through a window-pane to look at Mrs. Ogden, and
the view you saw beyond was usually deeply depressing. Mrs. Ogden had
smiled when she kissed her good-bye, but the smile had been a little
rueful, a little tremulous; it had seemed to say: "I know I'm not as
young as I used to be, I expect they find me dull." Joan wondered if
they did find her dull, and her heart ached.
She was thinking of her now as she tried to eat. Richard, more freckled
and blunt-faced than ever, talked and joked in a kind of desperation; it
seemed to him that something must be seriously wrong with Joan. Mrs.
Benson's keen eyes watched the girl attentively, and what she saw
mystified her. She took Elizabeth into the drawing-room after lunch,
having first ordered Richard and Joan into the garden. When she and
Elizabeth were alone together she began at once.
"What on earth's the matter with Joan, Elizabeth?"
"I don't know--why? Do you think she looks ill?"
"Don't you?"
"Yes."
"I was quite shocked to-day. I always feel interested in that child, and
I should be dreadfully anxious if she belonged to me."
"Well, she's at a difficult age, you know."
"Oh, my dear, it's more than that; have you been letting her work too
hard?"
"Oh!" said Elizabeth violently, "I'm sick to death of being asked that;
of course she works too hard, but it isn't that, it's----"
"Yes?" queried Mrs. Benson.
"It's--oh! I don't know, Mrs. Benson, I can't put it into words, but
it's an awful responsibility, somehow; I can't tell you how it worries
me." Her voice shook.
Mrs. Benson patted her hand reassuringly. "Whatever it is, it's got on
your nerves too, Elizabeth."
Elizabeth looked at her a little startled. Yes, it had got on her
nerves, it was horribly on her nerves and had been for weeks. She longed
to talk frankly and explain to this kind, commonplace woman the
complicated situation as she saw it, to ask her advice. She began:
"Joan's got something on her mind----" Then stopped.
"But of course she has," said Mrs. Benson.
"And she's growing--mentally, I mean. Oh, and physically too----"
"They all do that, Elizabeth."
"Yes, but--I don't understand it; at least, yes, I do understand it,
only I can't see my way."
"Your way?"
"Yes, my way with Joan."
"Can't you try to rouse her? She seems to me to be getting very morbid."
"No, she's not--at least not in the way you mean. Don't think I'm mad,
but Joan gives me such a queer feeling. I feel as though she'd been
fighting, fighting, fighting to get out, to be herself, and that now
she's not fighting any more, she's too tired."
"But, my dear child, what is it all about?"
"I think I know, in fact I'm sure I do, and yet I can't help her. I want
her to go away from here some day, I want her to have a life of her own.
Can't you see how it is? She's so much her mother's favourite--they
adore each other."
Mrs. Benson did not speak for a little while, then she said: "I don't
know Mrs. Ogden very well, but I think she might be a very selfish
mother; but then, poor soul, she hasn't had much of a life, has she?"
Then Elizabeth let herself go, she heard her voice growing louder, but
could not control it.
"I don't care, she has no right to make it up to herself with Joan.
Joan's young and clever, and sensitive and dreadfully worth while.
Surely she has a right to something in life beyond Seabourne and Mrs.
Ogden? Joan has a right to love whom she likes, and to go where she
likes and to work and be independent and happy, and if she can't be
happy then she has a right to make her own unhappiness; it's a thousand
times better to be unhappy in your own way than to be happy in someone
else's. Joan wants something and I don't know what it is, but if it's
Mrs. Ogden then it ought not to be, that's all. The child's eating her
heart out and it's wrong, wrong, wrong! She dare not be herself because
it might not be the self that Mrs. Ogden needs. She wants to go to
Cambridge, but will she ever go? Why she's even afraid to be fond of me
because Mrs. Ogden is jealous of me." She paused, breathless.
Mrs. Benson looked grave. "My dear," she said very quietly, "I
sympathize, and I think I understand; but be careful."
Elizabeth thought: "No, you don't understand; you're a kind, good woman,
but you don't understand in the least."
Aloud she said: "I'm afraid I seem violent, but I'm personally
interested in Joan's possibilities, she's very clever and lovable."
Mrs. Benson assented. "Why not encourage her to come here more often,"
she suggested. "She and Violet are about the same age, and Violet's
nearly always here in the holidays. Richard and Joan seemed to get on
very well last year. Oh, talking of Richard; you know, I suppose, that
he insists upon being a doctor?"
Elizabeth laughed. "Well, as long as he's a good doctor I suppose he
won't kill anyone!" They both smiled now as they thought of Richard.
"His father's furious," Mrs. Benson told her, "but it's no good being
furious with Richard; you might as well get angry with an oak tree and
slap it."
"Does he work well?"
"Oh, I believe so; you wouldn't think it to look at him, would you? but
I hear that he's rather clever. Anyhow, he's a perfect darling, and what
_does_ it matter whether he's a doctor or a cabinet minister, so long as
he's respectable!"
"Will he specialize eventually, do you think?"
"He wants to, if he can get his father to back him."
"Oh, but he will do that, of course. Does Richard say what he wants to
specialize in?"
Mrs. Benson smiled again. "He does," she remarked with mock grimness.
"He says he means to specialize in medical psychology--nerves, I believe
is what it boils down to. _Can_ you see Richard as a nerve specialist,
Elizabeth?"
"Well, if having no nerves oneself goes to the making of a good nerve
doctor, I should think he would succeed."
"He tells me he's certain to succeed, my dear; he takes it as a matter
of course. If you could see the books he leaves about the house! Do you
know, Elizabeth, I'm almost afraid for my Richard sometimes; it would be
so awfully hard for him if he failed to make good, he's so sure of
himself, you know. And it's not conceit; I don't know what it is--it's
a kind of matter-of-fact self-confidence--it's almost impressive!"
2
Richard and Joan were walking up and down the path by the tennis lawn;
they looked very young and lanky and pathetic, the one in his eagerness,
the other in her resignation. Joan, as she listened to the enthusiastic
sentences, wondered how anyone could care so much about anything.
He was saying: "It's ripping the feeling it gives you to know that you
can do a thing, and to feel that you're going to do it well."
"But how can you be certain that you will do it well?" Joan inquired.
"I don't know, but one is certain--at least, I am."
"Will you live in Seabourne when you've taken your degree?"
"Good Lord, no, of course not! No one who wants to get on could do
anything in a place like this!"
"It's not such a bad place," she protested. She felt an urgent need to
uphold Seabourne just then.
"It's not a bad place for old people and mental deficients; no, I
suppose it's not."
"But your mother isn't old and she isn't mentally deficient."
"Of course not; but she doesn't stick here. She goes up to London for
months on end sometimes; besides, she's different!"
"I don't see how she's different. How is she different from my mother,
for instance? And my mother never gets away from Seabourne."
It was on the tip of his tongue to say: "Oh! but she is different!" but
he checked himself and said: "Well, perhaps some people can stick here
and remain human; only I know I couldn't, that's all."
She longed to ask him about Cambridge, but she felt shy; his
self-confidence was so overpowering, though she liked him in spite of
it. It struck her that he had grown more self-confident since last
Christmas; she remembered that then he had been dreadfully afraid of
being "bottled "; now he didn't seem afraid of anything, of Seabourne
least of all. She wondered what he would say if she told him her own
trouble; it was difficult to imagine what effect her confidences would
have on him; he would probably think them ridiculous and dismiss them
with an abrupt comment.
"I suppose," she said drearily, "some people have to stick to
Seabourne."
"There's no '_have to_,'" he replied.
"Oh, yes, there is; that's where you don't know. Look at Elizabeth!"
"Elizabeth doesn't have to stay here; she's lazy, that's all that's the
matter with her."
Joan flared at once: "If you think Elizabeth's lazy you can't know much
about her; she's staying on here because of her brother. He's delicate,
and he can't live alone, and he needs her; I think she's splendid!"
"Rot! He isn't a baby to need dry nursing. If Elizabeth had the will I
expect she'd find the way. If Elizabeth stops here it's because she's
taken root, it's because she likes it; I'm disappointed in Elizabeth!"
"She _hates_ it!" said Joan with conviction.
He turned and stared at her. "Then why in heaven's name----" he began.
"Because everyone doesn't think only of themselves!" She was angry now;
she had not been angry for so long that she quite enjoyed the
excitement. "Because Elizabeth thinks of other people and wants to be
decent to them, and doesn't talk and think only of her own career and of
the things that she wants to do. She sacrifices herself, that's why she
stays here, and if you can't understand that it's because you're not
able to understand the kind of people that really count!"
They stopped and faced each other in the path; her eyes glowered, but
his were twinkling though his mouth was grave. "If you're talking at me,
Joan," he said solemnly, "then you may spare your breath, because you
see I know I'm right; I know that even if Elizabeth is splendid and
self-sacrificing and all the rest of it, she's dead wrong to waste it on
that little dried up brother of hers. She ought to get out and do
something for the world at large, or if she can't rise to that then she
ought to do something for herself. _I_ think it's a sin to let yourself
get drained dry by anyone, I don't care who it is; that wasn't the sort
of thing God gave us our brains for; it wasn't why He made us
individuals."
Joan interrupted him: "But Elizabeth isn't drained dry; she's the
cleverest woman I know."
"Yes, now, perhaps."
"She always will be," said Joan coldly.
He felt that he had gone too far; he didn't want to quarrel with her.
"I'm sorry," he said humbly. "It's my fault, I suppose. I mean I daresay
I'm selfish and self-opinionated, and perhaps I'm not such great shakes,
after all. Anyhow, you know I'm awfully fond of Elizabeth."
Joan was pacified. "One does get fond of her," she told him. "She's so
calm and neat and masterful, so certain of herself and yet so awfully
kind."
He changed the subject. "I'm swatting at Cambridge," he announced.
"Are you?"
He heard the interest in her voice and wondered why his casual remark
had aroused it.
"Yes; when I've taken my science degree I shall go up to London for
hospital work--and then "--he gave a sigh of contentment--"I shall get
my Medical--and then Germany. You ought to go to Cambridge, Joan."
"Is it expensive? Does it cost much?" she asked him.
"Well, that depends. Why, are you really going?"