Ivy Compton-Burnett - Two Worlds and Their Ways

“It is because there are no reasons, that I am ashamed.”

“What are your ideas for the future?” said Mr. Bigwell. “Inherit, I suppose?”

“If things can be kept together.”

Mr. Bigwell nodded once more.

“How did you gain universal understanding?” said Oliver.

“Well, I keep my eyes open, as I go through life. I may as well learn what I can, whether or no it is any good to me.”

“What are your ideas for your own future?”

“Stick to my work and get where I may. Nothing else for me. I suppose you expect me to be ashamed.”

“You must be. And all through no fault of your own. What are your ideas, Dalziel? This keeping nothing from each other is such a success.”

“I shall have enough to live on in the end. And I can’t help being glad of it. My own efforts would not take me far.”

“You need not pretend to be ashamed,” said Mr. Spode.

“Well, I am glad I have no reason to wish my parents dead,” said Mr. Bigwell.

“Everyone wants the reasons,” said Oliver. “Of course we need not be influenced by them.”

“My mother’s death will tear up the roots of my life,” said Mr. Spode.

“But it will give you other support for it,” said Oliver.

“There, that is what I meant,” said Mr. Bigwell. “Always that idea in your heads! I repeat that I am glad I have no reason to desire the death of those who gave me life.”

“Yes, yes, you do repeat it,” said Oliver, in a soothing manner.

“You do not really seem to like it much,” said Mr. Spode.

“I am glad I shall have enough to offer a woman one day,” said Mr. Dalziel.

“I would rather earn it,” said Mr. Bigwell. “But women — that takes us into another sphere.”

“Not those we can offer enough to,” said Oliver.

“Well, well,” said Mr. Bigwell, half-laughing, “a man’s life is his own.”

“Surely not here,” said Oliver. “I do not want to go back to my old sense of isolation.”

“Well, a man is a man,” said Mr. Bigwell.

“That is rather sweeping,” said Oliver. “I am not.”

“Neither am I,” said Mr. Spode. “And I should not think Cassidy is.”

“Of course not,” said Oliver, “when he keeps a boys’ school. And my meaning is simple, not sinister.”

“Well, Dalziel and I will keep our own counsel,” said Mr. Bigwell.

“I should be surprised if Bigwell were a man,” said Mr. Spode, in an absent tone.

“You can speak to me, and not of me, when I am here.”

“I found I could only speak of you.”

“So it is true,” said Oliver.

“What?” said Mr. Dalziel.

“The relation of masters in a school together.”

“I am not sure that I agree with Spode’s conception of himself,” said Mr. Bigwell.

“I like you to speak of me, and not to me. I follow my mother’s conception of me. I am an adult human being.”

“She is an unusual parent, if she conceives of you as that. My mother does not think of me as far on the road.”

“And she is right,” said Mr. Spode.

“Now what do you mean by that?”

“I mean what I say. That your mother is right.”

“Well, you would not have him say she is wrong, Big-well,” said Oliver. “A man does not speak against another man’s mother. If he does, I believe he is not a man, and we hardly want any more of that.”

“I know what he meant,” said Mr. Bigwell. “And it is true that I started behind the rest of you, and have to go further.”

“I really did not know,” said Oliver. “And he was talking about what your mother meant. Do you think that was it? What are you holding in your hand, Spode? Some precious thing?”

“It is a jewel,” said Mr. Spode, in a deep tone. “My mother wants me to sell it for her.”

“She wishes to part with it, does she?” said Mr. Bigwell, on a faintly corrective note.

“She wishes me to do it for her. It embarrasses her to part with things. She fancies that people look at her as if she were in debt.”

“Well, as long as she is not.”

“But she is. That is her reason for the step. I do not think people often have any other.”

“What is the good of a single earring?”

“It could be made into something else. Ever since I can remember, that has been the case. But it is the kind of thing that is never done.”

“True,” said Mr. Bigwell.

“Is it true?” said Oliver. “I should not have known that either. I believe I have seen an earring like it.”

“You cannot have,” said Mr. Spode. “It is unique.”

“Unless you have seen its fellow,” said Mr. Bigwell. “It must be somewhere. Well, good luck to the barter. Is that someone at the door?”

“Is this Miss James’s room?” said a boy’s voice.

“No, but come in,” said Mr. Spode. “We will try to take her place.”

Four boys obeyed the word and looked about them.

“Is Miss James here?” said the same voice, as an open-eyed boy, with a large, round face and head, detached himself from the group.

“What would you think?” said Mr. Bigwell. “If you cannot believe your ears, you must use your eyes.”

“She is not here. There are only men.”

“True,” said Mr. Spode; “and you have just been torn from your mother and sisters. But do not despise the rougher sex. It is your own.”

“Where is she?”

“You must call me ‘sir’. You must do as the Romans do.”

“‘Do you know where she is, sir’?” prompted Mr. Dalziel, in even tones.

The boy repeated the words with a glance of humour at his companions.

“You are laughing at us,” said Mr. Spode. “But I shall not tell you that you will soon laugh on the other side of your face, because I could not say a vulgar thing. And I daresay it is not true.”

“She is in her own room along the passage,” said Mr. Dalziel. “She will solve your problems.”

“You detect in us no feminine grace?” said Mr. Bigwell.

“Hasn’t he got it?” said the boy, indicating Mr. Dalziel.

There was some mirth.

“What is your name, my man?” said Mr. Bigwell, in a tone of giving the correct turn to the proceedings. “And how many summers have you seen?”

“Francis Bacon, sir. I am eleven.”

“Your namesake was the greatest, the wisest and the meanest of mankind,” said Mr. Spode. “Which of those do we expect you to be?”

“The first, sir. The first two.”

There was further mirth.

“The last, sir,” said Bacon, with less confidence.

“The next boy,” said Mr. Bigwell. “Your name, my son?”

“Sefton Shelley, sir.”

“Yes, he is my half-brother,” said Oliver. “My stepmother has sent me here to keep an eye on him.”

“You will not often see him.”

“Then I cannot do as she said.”

“Are you the boy I dropped in the passage?” said Mr. Spode, in faint surprise, as if he had hardly expected Sefton to emerge.

“Yes, sir. But I met the others.”

“That was a resourceful boy.”

“Next young man?” said Mr. Bigwell.

“Hubert Holland, sir. Nearly eleven.”

“Colin Sturgeon, sir. Ten and a half.”

“A tall, pale, aquiline boy, and a short, snub, rosy boy.” said Mr. Spode in a dreamy tone. “The old story that is always new.”

Bacon glanced at Holland and then at the men.

“You could describe us as well as we can describe you?” said Mr. Spode.

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, remember that a pleasant description is more difficult than an unpleasant one,” said Mr. Bigwell. “You want to do the difficult thing, don’t you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Why?” said Mr. Spode.

“Because fewer people could do it, sir.”

“May you never have a worse reason for doing things than that,” said Mr. Bigwell. “Now you may go to Miss James. And remember that she is always there, and we are always here.”