Part 57 (2/2)

”No--no. They were kind--”

”The point is, Alex,” Barbara broke in, ”that you've only got the wretched fifty pounds a year. Of course, I'd be more than glad to let you have what would naturally have been yours--but how on earth I'm to manage it, I don't know. Cedric can tell you what a state poor Ralph left his affairs in--you'd never believe how little I have to live on.

Of course, the money from father was a G.o.dsend, I don't deny it. But if Cedric thinks it's justice to give it back to you--”

She looked terribly anxious, gazing at her brother.

”No, no, Barbara!” said Alex, horrified. ”I don't want the money. Of course, you must keep it--you and Pamela.”

”That's all very well, my dear Alex,” said Cedric sensibly, ”but how do you propose to live? You must look at it from a practical point of view.”

”Then you think--” broke from Barbara irrepressibly.

”No, my dear, I don't. One knows very well, as things are--as poor Ralph left things--it would be almost out of the question to expect--”

He looked helplessly at his wife.

”Of course, dear,” she said placidly. ”But there's Pamela's share.”

”Pamela will marry, of course. She's sure to marry, but until then--or at least until she comes of age--I don't think--as her guardian--”

Cedric broke off, looking much hara.s.sed.

”If Pam married a rich man--which she probably will,” said Violet, with a low laugh.

”We can't take distant possibilities into consideration,” Barbara interposed sharply. ”We're dealing with actual facts.”

Alex looked from one to the other with bewilderment. She hardly understood what they were all discussing. From the natural home of her childhood and girlhood, where she had lived as unthinking of ways and means as every other girl of her cla.s.s and generation, she had pa.s.sed into the convent world, where all was communal, and the rights of the individual a thing part shunned, part unknown. She could not, at first, grasp that Cedric and Barbara and Violet, perhaps Pam and Archie, too, were all wondering how she would be able to maintain herself on fifty pounds a year.

”Of course,” Barbara was saying, ”Alex could come to me for a bit--I'd love to have you, dear--but you saw for yourself what a tiny place mine is--and there's only Ada. I don't quite know what she'd say to having two people instead of one, I must say--”

”We want her, too,” Violet exclaimed caressingly. ”Let us have her for a little while, Barbara,--while you're preparing Ada's mind for the shock.” She broke into her low, gurgling laugh again.

Barbara looked infinitely relieved.

”What do you think, Alex? It isn't that I wouldn't love to have you--but there's no denying that ways and means _do_ count, and in a tiny household like mine, every item adds up.”

”Oh,” said Alex desperately, ”I know what you must feel--the difficulty of--of knowing what to do with me. It's always been like that, ever since I was a little girl. I've made a failure of everything. Don't you remember--Barbara, _you_ must--old Nurse saying, 'Alex will never stick to anything'? And I never have, I never shall. I can only make dreadful muddles and failures, and upset you all. If only one could wreck one's own life without interfering with other people's!”

There was a silence, which Alex, after her outburst, knew very well was not one of comprehension. Then Cedric said gently:

”You mustn't let yourself exaggerate, my dear. We're very glad to have you with us again, one only can't help wis.h.i.+ng it had been rather sooner. But there's no use in crying over spilt milk, and after all, as Violet says, there's no hurry about anything. Come to us and have a good long rest--you look as though you needed it--and get a little flesh on your bones again. We can settle all the rest afterwards.”

Alex saw Barbara looking at her with furtive eagerness. She turned to her, with the utter dependence on another's judgment that had become second nature to her.

”When shall I go?”

”My dear!” protested Barbara. ”Of course, the longer you can stay with me the better I shall be pleased. It's only that Ada--” She broke off at the sound of Violet's irrepressible laugh.

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