Ivy Compton-Burnett: Parents and Children

‘This youthful sensitiveness seems a problem,’ said Eleanor, rising. ‘I cannot say how far I am equipped to cope with it.’

‘I think you are qualified, Mother,’ said Luce, looking dreamily after her. ‘I should think there is that in you, that will carry you through.’

‘Your grandmother has gone into the drawing-room,’ said Eleanor, leaving the subject. ‘Perhaps we had better follow her.’

‘Do you know, Mother, you have quicker ears than I have?’ said Luce, remaining where she was. ‘I had not heard Grandma. As far as I am concerned, she might still be at her duties.’

‘She never takes more than an hour.’

‘I had not noticed that either, Mother,’ said Luce, slipping off the chair. ‘I had no idea of the time she needed. You are a sharper person than I am, more alert to our little, everyday attributes. And yet I do not think I am indifferent to people, or blunt to their demands.’

‘Your grandmother would not say so.’

‘I think she depends on me, Mother,’ said Luce, taking Eleanor’s arm. ‘And as long as she does, I hold myself at her service. It makes me dependent on her in a way. Well, Grandma dear, so you have finished your duties for the day.’

Lady Sullivan appeared unconcerned by this limit placed to her usefulness. She was sitting in the chair on the hearth, where she sat throughout the year, as though her comfort depended alternately on a full grate and an empty one. She was a portly, almost cumbrous woman of seventy-six, with a broad, exposed brow, features resembling her son’s under their covering of flesh, pale, protruding eyes that recalled her second grandson’s, large, heavy, sensitive hands, and an expression that varied from fond benevolence to a sort of fierce emotion. Her name of Regan had been chosen by her father, a man of country tastes, and, as it must appear, of no others, who had learned from an article on Shakespeare that his women were people of significance, and decided that his daughter should bear the name of one of them, in accordance with his hopes. When Regan came to a knowledge of her namesake, she observed that the name must have been in use before Shakespeare chose it, or it would not have been a name; and did not reveal the truth to her father, who was not in danger of discovering it. When people said that the name suited her, she accepted the compliment from those who intended one, and smiled on the others, or smiled to herself with regard to them in a manner that preserved them from further risk. So the name brought her no ill result, and a good one at the time of Sir Jesse Sullivan’s approach, when the name in itself and the manner of her support of it determined his desired advance. Regan was a woman who only loved her family. She loved her husband deeply, her children fiercely, her grandchildren fondly, and loved no one else, resenting other people’s lack of the qualities and endearing failings of these. And it meant that she had loved thirteen people, which may be above the average number.

She looked at Eleanor with a guarded, neutral expression. She could not see her with affection, as they were not bound by blood; and the motives of her son’s choice of her were as obscure to her as such motives to other mothers; but she respected her for her hold on him, and was grateful to her for her children. And she had a strong appreciation of her living beneath her roof. If Eleanor saw it as a hard choice, her husband’s mother saw it as an heroic one, and bowed to her as able for things above herself. The two women lived in a formal accord, which had never come to dependence; and while each saw the other as a fellow and an equal, neither would have grieved at the other’s death.

Luce sat down on the floor and laid her head on her grandmother’s lap. Regan put a hand on her head. Eleanor took her usual seat and her skilled needlework. She was a woman who did not make or mend for her family. Her daughter broke the silence by throwing her arms across Regan’s knees and giving a sigh.

‘Grandma,’ she said, putting back her head to regard the latter’s knitting, ‘your needles flying in and out remind me of the things that work in and out of our lives. Each stitch a little happening, a little step forward or back. I daresay there are as many backward steps as forward. But that is not like your knitting, is it?’

She continued to survey the needles with a steadiness that was natural, in view of what she derived from them; and Regan smiled and continued to knit, as if she did not take so much account of the employment.

‘We have not much chance of going back,’ said Eleanor.

‘Not in your sense, Mother,’ said Luce, not moving her eyes. ‘But there is a certain progression in our lives, which we do not always maintain. It so often comes to a swinging to and fro.’

‘You mean in ourselves, don’t you?’

‘Yes, Mother, I do mean that,’ said Luce, looking at her mother as if struck by the acuteness of her thought.

‘My days for progress are past,’ said Regan.

‘I wonder why people say that in such a contented tone,’ said Eleanor.

‘They may as well put a good face on it.’

‘No, Grandma, I do not think it is that,’ said Luce, tilting back her head to look into Regan’s face. ‘I think it is just that many things still stretch in front of them, though some may be behind. I think we all go on advancing in ways of our own, until some sort of climax comes, that we all look towards as a goal.’ She said the last words lightly, as if not quite sure if she had made or avoided a reference to her grandmother’s death, and settled herself in a better position on the floor to indicate that her thoughts were on trivial, material things.

Regan kept her eyes on her needles, which she seldom did if her thoughts were on them. She was thinking for a moment of her own end. It engaged her mind no oftener as it drew nearer, and it did this so lightly at the moment that it failed to keep its hold.

‘Where is Grandpa, dear?’ she said to Luce, in a tone that offered the tenderness due to a child, and the respect due to a woman.

‘I don’t know, Grandma; I hope he is not by himself.’

‘Your father is with him,’ said Eleanor. ‘You reminded him to go to him.’

‘So I did, Mother,’ said Luce, putting frank eyes on her mother’s face.

‘Fulbert will find it a change to have regular work, if it has to come,’ said Regan, with the thrust in her tone that seemed to be an outlet for emotion.

‘And it seems that it must,’ said Eleanor.

Luce glanced from one face to another, as if she would not seek information where it was not given.

‘I think Father sometimes does more for Grandpa than appears at a glance, Mother. His desk is often littered with accounts.’

Eleanor did not dispute this.

‘It all appears at a glance perhaps,’ said Regan, with a smile of pure indulgence.

‘Grandma, you are not at heart a critical parent. Your children must always have found you a refuge from the censorious world.’

Regan’s face worked at mention of her children, two of whom were dead.

‘You would not say the same of your mother,’ said Eleanor.

‘No, Mother, no,’ said Luce in a deliberate tone, lifting her eyes in sincere thought. ‘But we can say other things.’

A sound of singing came from the hall, and the performer entered and proceeded to the hearth, where he ended his song with his eyes on his hearers and an expression of absent goodwill. Regan looked at him with automatic fondness; Luce gave him a smile; and Eleanor did not move her eyes.

‘Grandpa,’ said Luce, moving hers so much that they almost rolled, ‘did you feel the impulse to come to us about three minutes ago?’

‘Just about, just about, my dear,’ said Sir Jesse, adapting his measure to the words.