Page:The Climber (Benson).djvu/115

Rh struggled seaward, for the wind was northerly; a little way off, inside the bathing-tent, Elizabeth was busy with head-rests.

"That's Lucia all over," said Cathie suddenly. "She can't enjoy herself till she has remembered other people. Did I tell you about the tennis, Maud?"

"I don't think so."

"Well, she and I used to play lawn-tennis. I thought it would amuse her. You've never seen me play lawn-tennis. I throw the ball up and can't hit it, you know, heaps of times. So Lucia and I played. Then the other day I saw her playing at some garden-party. It was quite different: people hit the ball: it went backwards and forwards. She must have thought me mad. But she appeared to enjoy it, just because of that—because she thought I was liking it. She never let me see what a bore it must have been."

"Dear Aunt Cathie!" said Maud. "But it was just as nice of you to do it. It bored you just as much, you know."

"Didn't bore me at all; I loved it," said Aunt Cathie, "for I thought Lucia was enjoying it. Only now I know she can't have been."

Aunt Cathie took off her spectacles and wiped them. "There's a poem somewhere," she said, "about somebody being a sunbeam. I've often looked for it in six volumes of selections which I've got at home, but I can't find it. Lucia's that; she does it as easily as a sunbeam, too; she just shines. I wish I could put my hand on it. Longfellow, perhaps, or Mrs. Hemans. She—she confides in me, too," went on Aunt Cathie a little tremulously. "She tells me if she is in a hole; and once, Maud—once I managed to help her out of one. I did enjoy it. You see, when you get old like me and Elizabeth"—she glanced nervously round—"though, of course, I'm much older than Elizabeth, you seem to lose something. You are there, just the same, but people think it's only an old woman who is there. And so very naturally they don't take much notice. It's that that Lucia does: she takes notice of us—oh, it's more than that—she loves me, I think; she makes a girl of me. I—I can't tell you what that is to old people. We talk French, we sketch, though Lucia doesn't think much of the touches; we have little conspiracies. And now, dear, you've come, too. You let me talk to you like this, and make me able to talk."

Aunt Cathie blew her nose very violently.