Elders and Betters by Ivy Compton-Burnett Page B

them there, it would not seem that he had taken them.”
    â€œThen how do you know what kind of things they are?”
    â€œWe have a store of them,” said Julius, “and take some out when there is time to clear them up.”
    â€œAnd where is the store?” said his mother.
    A communication passed between her children, best described by saying that it stopped short of a glance.
    â€œIn the cave of the secret offerings,” said Dora, with a touch of solemnity.
    â€œWe broach it at the appointed hour,” said Julius. “It is too near to lesson time to-day.”
    â€œI should think it is,” said Mrs. Calderon, something troubled and searching leaving her face. “It is long past ten o’clock. I think you must have known. Now didn’t you really guess the time?”
    Another interchange of thought occurred and decided the course.
    â€œWe … I didn’t until I heard the clock strike,” said Dora, in a suitably discomfited tone, raising her eyes to her mother’s.
    â€œWell, but that was fifteen minutes ago,” said the latter, with the relieved reproof of one whose view of deceit made other sins virtues beside it. “You know you are wasting your time and keeping Miss Lacy waiting. Didn’t you know, Julius?”
    â€œYes,” said the latter, also raising his eyes. “After the clock had struck, I did.”
    â€œAnd didn’t either of you say anything about it? Didn’t you, Dora?”
    â€œNo,” murmured Dora, dropping her eyes and stirring the gravel with her shoe. “I thought Julius mightn’t have heard.”
    â€œAnd what about you, my boy? Did you think that Dora had not heard?”
    â€œI didn’t know she had,” said Julius, in an abashed undertone.
    â€œOh, you guilty pair! I hope I shall not hear such a thing again. And now do you expect me to come and steer you through your interview with Miss Lacy?”
    â€œYes, please,” said Julius and Dora, putting each a hand into hers. “It would be better if you were there.”
    â€œNow it must be the last time,” said Mrs. Calderon, walking between them to the house. “You make me feel that I am a party to disobedience.”
    Jessica Calderon was a tall, spare woman of fifty-four; with dark, troubled eyes, thick, black hair so plainly bound that it escaped attention; a pale, even skin that was her only likeness to her brother, Benjamin Donne; and a fine, oval face whose signs of wear were so undisguised, that they became a personal characteristic. She gave the impression of being under some strain, and secretly preoccupied with it, so that those who were with her felt unsure of her full attention. She held the accepted faith and lived according to it, a trait that had possibly descended in another form to her children.
    A small, grey-haired lady of sixty was seated in the hall, reading the paper. She glanced up as the group approached, but returned to the page. Her pupils were prepared for attention and reproof, but on relinquishing the paper she removed her glasses and polished them, and greeted them with a smile.
    â€œI am afraid they are late, Miss Lacy,” said Jessica.
    â€œI am not; I know they are,” said Miss Lacy, laughing and continuing to polish. “I am the better of it by a large part of
The Times.”
    â€œI have told them it must not happen again. I am sure you will not allow it.”
    â€œI don’t know how I am to prevent it,” said Miss Lacy, in a low, sibilant, incisive voice, raising small, bright, blueeyes from a round, sallow, peculiar face. “I am not able to cast my spells upon them from afar. And I am afraid that afar was the word.”
    â€œThey are generally in the garden,” said Jessica.
    â€œBut I am not,” said Miss Lacy, so much on the instant that the feeling under her words was clear. “I come here to teach, not to find occupation in the