My Little Sister Part 25

"When people are old, yes! 'Comfort' then. But when they're young, what _does_ it matter?"

He leaned against the newel of the staircase and looked at me, quite surprised. "I thought you were more practical," he said.

"I _am_ practical. That's why I say comfort is wasted on the young. They don't even want it--unless they're rather horrid sort of young people."

"Thank you," he said, laughing, and I felt hot. I tried to explain. Such a lot of things were fun when you were young, especially when they were shared. I had noticed that. Things that made you cross, and made you ill when you were older---- Suddenly I stopped, saying in my heart: "Heavens! isn't this the kind of foolishness I was hoping to be saved from? Or is it worse?..." For Eric was smiling in such a disconcerting way.

I said primly that Miss Maggie did not need me to defend her, and that I must not keep him from his work.

That word was like the touch of a whip. In two seconds he was gone.

The next day, Monday, just the same. He ran in only for a moment to see my mother. He could not sit down; he could not do this, nor that. Work, work! It had seized him in a fresh grip.

I was thankful to the work for having carried him away that Monday afternoon, when Betty came back from seeing the Helmstones off. It was a Betty we had never seen before. I don't know what else Hermione had said to her, but Betty had been told that she, too, might have gone yachting.

It was like a stab to see my mother's face now, and to remember the confidence with which she had quoted the old story about Bettina's insisting on the promise that she should not be made to pay visits: "Not _never_?" "Not never!"

I had hated Lady Helmstone for saying that Bettina would, in her ladys.h.i.+p's opinion, be found to have outgrown her reluctance.

It was true.

Bettina wanted to go!

My mother, unwisely I felt, reminded Betty of the old pledge.

"I was a baby then. What did I know?"

And now there were tears in Bettina's eyes because she was _not_ going to leave her mother.

I don't like to think of those next days. They were all a strain and a tangle.

I cannot imagine what we should have done without Eric. For the way Bettina took her disappointment made my mother positively ill. Eric's prescription was hard to fill: "Peace of mind--absolute quiet and tranquillity."

"You are less alarmed," he said in that direct way of his, "than you were that first day you brought me here. But you have more reason."

I did not want Bettina fully to realise the cloud that was so surely gathering to burst--and yet I was angry at her failure to realise. So unreasonable, so unkind I found I could be! Oh, I lost patience more than once. But my mother, never.

"You will see all the beautiful places some day, my darling."

Bettina was sure she never should. This had been her one chance--who else was likely to take her?

"The fit and proper person. Your husband will take you, as your father took me."

That answer surprised us both.

I could not blame Bettina for feeling that it seemed to postpone the delights of travel overlong.

The strange new Bettina went about the house, settling to nothing, at once restive and idle. All on edge. The worst sign of all was that she neglected her music. My mother remonstrated.

"What's the use?"

"You will find your music a very important part of your equipment."

"Equipment!" said the new Bettina scornfully. "Equipment for what?"

"For taking your place in the world."

"The world!" Bettina exchanged looks with me. Yes, the world seemed far away. Inaccessible.

"If we never go anywhere--never see anyone, what is the use in being equipped?"

I think Bettina was sorry she said that. The effect of it was as though some rude hand had thrown down a screen. My mother looking up with hollow, startled eyes must have caught a glimpse of something that she dreaded.

"Don't put it off," she whispered. "Write to your Aunt Josephine to-night."

I composed my letter very carefully.

My sister and I had often wished, I wrote, that we had some acquaintance with our only relation. Especially as she and our father had been so much to each other. Our mother was in poor health. We lived very quietly. But we all hoped if ever Aunt Josephine came to this part of the world--a very pretty part--she would come to see us. I was nearly nineteen now, and I was hers "affectionately."

Feeling myself very diplomatic and "deep," I enclosed the last photograph Hermione had taken of Bettina. I wrote on it "Betty at sixteen--but it does not do her justice."

If anything could win her over, it would be that snapshot of Betty dancing on Duncombe lawn.

I posted the letter in an access of remorse and wretchedness--afraid I had left it too late. For my mother had said, "After all, instead of your leaving me, I shall have to leave you."

That same night Eric told me that he had sent to London for a heart-specialist. And the heart-specialist had answered he would be down on Thursday, which was the day after to-morrow. I saw in Eric's face that he was anxious at the delay. He admitted that he was "afraid" to wait. Yes, he would wire for another man.

Eric--"afraid"!

"You don't," I whispered, "you don't mean ... quite soon?"

He repeated that he was "afraid."

Then I felt I knew all that any specialist could tell me.

That was the day I came to know the steadying influence of a call to face great issues. They bring their own greatness with them. They wrap it round our littleness. Only afterwards, thinking how gentle and watchful Eric looked in telling me, I remembered that people were supposed to faint when they heard news like that. For myself I had never felt so clear-headed. Never felt the responsibility of life so great.

Never felt that for us to fail in bearing our share was so unthinkable.

If this Majesty of Death were soon to clothe my mother, her children must not hide and weep. They must help her, help each other to meet the Great King at the gate.

All the little troubles fell away. I was kind again to Betty.