Ivy Compton-Burnett: Parents and Children

‘Do you never take a holiday?’ said Fulbert, his eyes seeming to be riveted to his sons.

‘Their grandfather likes them to work in the morning, when they are not at Cambridge,’ said his wife.

‘Graham, how do you fulfil that trust?’ said Daniel. ‘Think of that old man’s faith in you.’

‘I believe it has not struck me,’ said Fulbert, with a laugh. ‘I wonder what will be the end of all this poring over books.’

‘Some sort of self-support,’ said Daniel. ‘Or that is accepted.’

‘You can’t both be ushers in a school.’

‘It is good to know that,’ said Graham.

‘There are good posts in the scholastic world,’ said Eleanor.

‘Many more poor ones, my dear,’ said her husband.

‘I can imagine myself that accepted butt, a poor schoolmaster,’ said Graham.

“When land is gone and money spent,

Then learning is most excellent,”

said Fulbert, as if the quotation put the matter on its final basis.

‘I wish we could follow in your steps, Father,’ said Daniel.

‘In what way, my boy?’ said Fulbert, with his eyes alight.

‘You toil not, neither do you spin.’

‘Your father worked hard as a young man,’ said Eleanor.

‘I did the work I could get, my dear. That was not often the word.’

‘Success at the Bar is always some time in coming.’

‘And in your servant’s case it delayed too long.’

‘You lost your patience too soon.’

‘I kept it for a good many years, though patience is not my point,’ said Fulbert, speaking as though he would hardly feel more self-esteem, if it were.

‘It may have been the wisest thing to give up hope.’

‘It was the only thing. My income did not meet my expenses, and my family was increasing them.’

‘I do not mind a little pinching and scraping to keep out of debt.’

‘It did not secure the end. And it has little advantage in itself.’

‘Father,’ said a new voice at Fulbert’s elbow, where his daughter had been standing in silence for a time, ‘we should remember that Mother’s income went on our needs in those days. It is not fair to forget the source of so much of what we had.’

‘And who is going to do so?’ said Fulbert, turning with amused and tolerant eyes.

‘No one while I am here, Father. And it seemed to me that a reminder was needed.’

Fulbert jumped to his feet, took his daughter’s face in both his hands and implanted a kiss upon it, and then threw himself back in his chair as if he had disposed of the matter.

Lucia Sullivan was two years older than her brother Daniel. She was in appearance a cross between her parents, but was shorter and rounder in build, with more colour in her eyes and skin and a more lightly chiselled face. There was something solemn and almost wondering in her large, steady, hazel eyes, as if the world struck her as an arresting and impressive place. Her voice was full and deliberate; her lips moved more than other people’s; and her eyes seldom left the face of the person she addressed.

‘Father,’ she said, with these attributes in evidence, ‘Grandpa is by himself in the library. Grandma is doing the housekeeping. Ought he to be alone?’

‘He can join us at his pleasure.’

‘He never comes into this room, Father. He leaves it to you and Mother. He always waits to be asked.’

‘If I reward his delicacy by joining him, I do not see what I gain.’

‘I hardly agree with you there, Father. I can’t feel it would be the same thing, if he came in and out at will It is the intangibility of the distinction that gives it its point.’

‘Well, perhaps that is why it escapes me,’ said Fulbert, remaining in his chair, and then suddenly springing to his feet and running to the door.

Lucia looked after him and quietly turned to her mother.

‘Mother, I don’t think Father much liked my saying that about your money. But it did seem a fair point to make. I should not have been at ease with myself, if I had not said it.’

‘It was a case for Father’s being sacrificed,’ said Daniel.

‘No, boys,’ said Luce, turning calm, full eyes on her brothers. ‘Dealt with as a normal, intelligent being. It is how I should wish to be treated myself.’

‘I should like all allowance to be made for me,’ said Graham, with his eyes on the window.

‘It is a good thing the boy is not embarrassed by the necessity,’ said Daniel.

Luce threw a swift look at Graham and turned again to Eleanor.

‘Mother, there is another little doubt. Was it a welcome reminder about Grandpa? Or quite well received? But I do not feel it right for him to be too much alone.’

‘Your father agreed with you, my dear. He has gone to be with him.’

Eleanor spoke with natural simplicity. She had the power of esteeming people for their qualities, and as Lucia had honesty and kindliness, she valued her for these. Moreover her daughter had the gift of appreciation, and used it especially upon herself. Many people were put out of countenance by her dramatization of daily things, but Eleanor was affected in this way by few things that were innocent.

‘Luce, you might make an effort with Graham,’ said Daniel. ‘A sister’s influence may do much.’

‘Mother is here, Daniel,’ said Luce, with quiet emphasis.

Graham’s face did not change.

‘Will you be able to look at your grandfather and say you have done a morning’s work?’ said Eleanor to her sons, in an almost sardonic manner.

‘I acquired the accomplishment years ago,’ said Graham, absently.

‘Was there a hesitation in the lad, in spite of those hardened words?’ said Daniel. ‘Where there is any sign of feeling, there is hope.’

‘I shall not support you in what is not true,’ said Eleanor.

‘So our mother will fail us,’ said Graham, in the same absent tone.

‘Both of you away to your books,’ said Luce, making a driving movement. ‘I want to have a talk with Mother.’

Daniel led his brother from the room, while his sister looked on with gentle, dubious eyes.

‘Mother, do you think it is good for Graham to be teased and made a butt? Because I really do not feel it is.’

‘I don’t suppose it does him much harm. He could stop it if he liked. He gives no sign of minding.’

‘But, Mother, could he stop it? And don’t you think that things may hurt all the more, that they are allowed no outlet?’

‘I hardly think he seems to need any sympathy.’

‘Mother, do you think you are right?’ said Luce, sitting on the arm of Eleanor’s chair. ‘Don’t you think there are feelings that shrink and shiver away from the touch, just because they are so alive and deep?’

‘There may be, but those of boys would not often be among them.’

‘Mother, I believe a boy is a very sensitive thing. Almost more so in some ways than a girl.’

‘The sensitiveness of both is generally a form of self-consciousness. It does not relate to other people.’

‘But may not a thing that relates to oneself be very real and tormenting? The more so for that?’

‘No doubt, but that is not a reason for fostering it.’

‘Don’t you think that withholding sympathy may cause it to crystallize into something very hard and deep?’

‘They seem to prefer it to be withheld.’

Luce went into slow laughter, with her eyes on her mother in rueful appreciation.

‘Mother, you and I are very near to each other,’ she said in a moment. ‘I always feel it a tragic thing when a mother and daughter are separate. And yet I suppose it is common.’

‘I wonder if I shall get on as well with my other daughters.’

‘You know, I think you will, Mother,’ said Luce, swinging to and fro on her chair, with her eyes turned upwards. ‘I think there is nothing in you that would repel the young, or send them shuddering into themselves.’