Sisters

by Ada Cambridge

Yet how the world of imagination dominates the world of fact! How much fairer the unseen than the seen! How much more precious the good we have not than the good we have! In his private desk in his private study, Guthrie kept—just as old Mr Pennycuick had kept his valentine—a faded, spotted, ochre-tinted photograph of poor little Lily in the saucer bonnet with lace "brides" to it that she was married in; and when Wellwood was humming with shooting parties and the like, and its lady doing the honours of the house with all the forethought and devotion that she could bring to the task, the stout squire would be sitting in his sanctum under lock and key, gazing at that sweet girl-face which had the luck to be dead and gone. Lily in the retrospect was the faultless woman—the ideal wife and love's young dream in one. "I have had my day," was the thought of his heart, as he looked across the gulf of strenuous, chequered, disappointing years to that idyll of the far past which her pictured form brought back to him. "Whatever is lacking now, I HAVE known the fullness of love and bliss—that there is such a thing as a perfect union between man and woman, rare as it may be." It will be remembered that he was married to her, actually, for a period not exceeding five weeks in all.

And Deborah Pennycuick, who would have made such a magnificent lady of Wellwood—who was, in fact, asked to take the post before it was offered to the cousin—she came to spend Christmas under his roof while still a spinster, on the tacit understanding that neither was a subject for "nonsense" any more. Deb and Mrs Carey were close friends. Deb was the godmother of the heir. The homelikeness of Wellwood was intensified by her intercourse, while there, with English Redford and the descendants of that brother with whom old Mr Pennycuick had been unable to hit it off—humdrum persons, whose attraction for her lay in their name and blood, and the fact that they could show her the arms and portraits of her ancestors and the wainscotted room in which her father was born. It was to Wellwood that she went to be married. From the old home of the Careys she was driven to the old church of the Pennycuicks, full of mouldering monuments to a nearly vanished race; it was buried in its rural solitude, far from railways and gossip-mongers and newspaper reporters, and the wedding was as quiet as quiet could be. Guthrie was acting brother, and gave her away. He never, of course, disclosed the secret that was his and Francie's, honest brother as he longed to be; but perhaps, even had she known it, and her own austere chastity notwithstanding, she might have been broad-minded enough to judge him kindlier than is the wont of the sex which does not know all, and have still held him worthy to be to her the friend he was. As she knew him, she loved him sister-like, and turned to him naturally when she needed a brother's services. And so it was to him that she wrote first, at the end of the short wedding-day journey—just to tell him that she and her bridegroom had arrived safely, and that Claud was standing the fatigue much better than they could have hoped.

She did not write to Frances until she had her husband on the high seas. She did not write at all to Mary or Rose, not wishing them to know of her marriage until she could personally 'break it' to them. It was not difficult to ensure this, since for many a year they had all been so separated by their respective circumstances that they were no longer sisters in the old Redford sense. The business of each was her own, and not supposed to interest the rest. Only such domestic events as were of serious moment were formally reported amongst them, and were never deemed serious enough to use the cable for.

The pair came home very quietly. Sydney was the port of arrival, and here Deb divined on the part of her husband a desire to be left in peace—to recruit after laborious travelling in the care of his devoted and accomplished man—while she went forward to "get the fuss over". Those sisters were the shadows upon his now sunny path, although he did not say so; he wanted to get to Redford without having to kiss them and talk to their offensive men-folk on the way. So Deb proposed to do what she felt he wished, and paid no heed to the dutiful objections which he could not make to sound genuine in her ears. She telegraphed instructions to Bob Goldsworthy to engage rooms for her and to meet her, signing the message "Aunt Deborah"—her only herald.

Bob was duly at Spencer Street—elegant in curled moustaches and a frock-coat—become a swell young barrister since she had seen him last. He was sure of the impression he would create upon his discriminating aunt, and had no notion that her first flashing glance at him was accompanied by a flashing thought of how her adopted son would too surely be ranked by her more discriminating husband with the "bounders" of his implacable disdain. On the platform—while explaining that he knew it was not the proper thing to do in a public place—he embraced the majestic figure in the splendid sable cloak. Deb said, "Bother the proper thing!" and kissed him readily—charily, however, because conscious of teeth that were not Pennycuick teeth, and perversely objecting to the faultless costume. But, looking at the frock-coat, she perceived mourning-band upon the sleeve. Another encircled his glittering tall hat.

"Not—oh, Bob!—not your mother?" she gasped.

He shook his head, and asked a question about her luggage.

"Aunt Rose—your uncle—?"

"Oh, Aunt Deb—don't! She is my aunt, I know, but he—" Bob spread deprecating hands. "They are both well, I believe. I think I heard that the fiftieth baby arrived last week. Is that your maid in the brown—"

"Oh, but, Bob—tell me—they haven't lost any of those nice children, I do trust!"