“Hardly greater than for me,” remarked Helen Bradford, stiffly. “I relieved her at every turn. I think I did my full duty to mother. Besides, mother never gave trouble; she was almost painfully anxious to avoid doing so.”
“I am sure of it,” I hastened to say; “but I suspect that Margaret has not the strength of Mrs. Longbow. You are more like your mother in many respects.” I was not quite sure whether Helen would take this as a compliment, whether she might not detect a flavor of irony in the speech; but I was relieved when it brought to her lips an amiable smile.
“That is very good of you,” she said. “Margaret—poor dear!—has always been perfectly well, but she has never had much vitality. That is very important for us who are busy with so many kinds of work. Charles doesn’t get tired in the same way, but he gets worried and anxious. Mother never did. Margaret and Charles are more like my father. You never knew him, I think?”
All through her speech Helen Bradford had been pluming herself much as I have seen fat geese do. The comparison is inelegant, but it conveys the impression she gave me. At the end she sighed.
“No,” I answered, “he died before I knew Charlie.”
“I remember him vividly,” said Helen, “though I was a mere girl when he died, and I have often heard mother say that he fretted himself to death over non-essentials, quite selfishly. I am, I hope and believe, whatever my faults may be, not like that.”
I could truthfully say that she was not, and I added some commonplace about Margaret’s restoration.
“I shall have to look after her,” she went on. “Charles can’t be depended on to do so. It is a great pity she has never married. A great deal will come on me, now that mother is gone. For instance, there is her biography. I must arrange for it without too much delay. I am aware that people will be waiting for it eagerly.”
“We can hardly hope to have the complete record of so active a life immediately,” I said, thinking to be polite.
“Perhaps not,” she answered, “but my husband says that the success of a biography depends very largely on when it is issued. It mustn’t be too long delayed. You may not know that mother kept a copious journal all through the years, from her earliest girlhood. With the letters she saved, it will be of the greatest service to her biographer, I feel sure.”