Ten Degrees Backward

by Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler

But my stiffness was wasted on the desert air. "Oh, I'm sure Miss Kingsnorth is awfully kind," said Frank airily, "and so is old Blathwayte, if you come to that. But they aren't a bit Fay's sort. Just as really they aren't your sort, if they weren't your sister and your rector. Of course one would like one's sister, whatever she was; I should be fond of Fay, even if she was like Miss Kingsnorth; but she wouldn't be my sort, do you see? In the same way Fay and I would have been fond of Father whatever he'd have been like, just because he was our father. But he happened to be our sort as well, so we simply adored him."

This slightly took my breath away. I had not yet been broken in to the custom of the rising generation of discussing their elders as freely as they discuss their contemporaries. The ancient tradition of ordering myself lowly and reverently before my betters still tainted my blood, and I had not outworn the Victorian creed that one's elders are of necessity one's betters.

"It would never have occurred to me to consider whether my parents were my sort or not," I said.

"It would to me—the very first thing. You see, some families are all the same sort, like a set of tea-things, while others are just a scratch team. We were all the same sort—Father and Fay and me. But you and Miss Kingsnorth are not the same pattern, nor the same make, nor even the same material. You are pure scratch."

I smiled. Though I was devoted to Annabel, I did not exactly yearn to be considered like her. "Then do you honour me by considering me your sort as well as your sister's?"

"It's the same thing: Fay's sort is always my sort. We're as much alike inside as we are out, and we always feel the same about things and people. It's most awfully lucky for us," continued the boy, slipping his arm into mine in a delightfully confidential fashion as we strolled up and down the lawn, "that you happen to be our sort, as it would have been rather rough luck on Fay and me to have nobody better to talk to than old Blathwayte. But now that you are so decent we shall manage quite well."

Had I possessed any aptitude for the word in season, I should have here endeavoured to rub in some salutary suggestions as to poor Arthur's kindness in throwing open his celibate rectory to two homeless orphans; but the improvement of other people has never been one of my foibles. "It will make it much jollier for me, too, to have you and your sister to talk to," was all I said.

"I liked that idea of yours about the pilgrims most awfully," continued Frank, with the glorious patronage of youth; "it is so jolly to think of their being on an adventure as well as the Roman legions."

"And starting in a much more adventurous spirit, because a so much more imaginative one. For my part I don't believe the tramping soldiers saw much further than their own Roman noses, while the pilgrims beheld visions of the earthly Jerusalem as they made the Holy Sign upon the holy stone from Palestine, and visions of the heavenly Jerusalem as they approached the towers of Canterbury."

"And what makes it so much more interesting to us, when you come to think of it, is that the Roman adventure came to an end ages and ages ago," added Frank; "while the pilgrims' adventure is still going on, and we're sort of part of it—at least we can be if we like."