Ivy Compton-Burnett: Parents and Children

‘Then it is a case of telepathy,’ said Luce, looking round. ‘I have noticed that Grandpa is sensitive in such ways. His response is almost consistent.’

‘Well, how are all of you?’ said Sir Jesse, surveying the women as if they belonged to a different sphere, as he felt they did.

‘We are well and happy, Grandpa,’ said Luce, in a personally satisfied tone.

Regan’s face showed her support for this view, and Eleanor’s face told nothing.

‘How has this young woman been behaving?’ said Sir Jesse, displacing his wife’s cap and causing her to simulate a pleased amusement.

‘She has been behaving well, Grandpa,’ said Luce, turning up her eyes to Regan’s face.

‘And this younger woman?’ said Sir Jesse, indicating Eleanor, but disturbing nothing about her.

‘She has been behaving well too, Grandpa,’ said Luce, in a demure tone.

‘And this youngest woman of all?’

‘Well too, Grandpa,’ said Luce, hardly uttering the words.

‘Three good women,’ began Sir Jesse to the tune of a song, but broke off as his grandsons entered, and spoke with a change of tone. ‘Well, I suppose it is time to eat, as you appear amongst us. What meal do we expect?’

‘Luncheon, Grandpa,’ said Luce, in the same tone.

‘It is a pity we cannot break Graham of this way of eating,’ said Daniel. ‘It is such a primitive habit.’

‘Do not talk nonsense,’ said Eleanor, in a low tone.

Sir Jesse Sullivan was a large, strong man of seventy-nine, whose movements were surprisingly supple for his build and age, perhaps the result of his frequent mild exercise, and perhaps the cause of it. His small, dark, deep-set eyes looked out under a jutting, almost jagged brow, and his blunt, bony features seemed to mould themselves to his mood in a manner inconsistent with themselves. This element of inconsistence seemed to go through him. His solid, old hands had a simple flexibility, and his hard, husky voice had vibrations that suggested another being. His eyes were familiar and fond on his wife, less familiar and faintly admiring on Eleanor, comradely and somehow unrelenting on his son, indulgent on Luce, and sharp and piercing on his grandsons, who as males dependent on their education, and dependent on him for its cost, struck him as suitably occupied only at their books. The expense of the training that produced schoolmasters and curates and such dependent men, was so startling to Sir Jesse, who had himself had little education and no thought that he required more, that he put it from his sight; and it seemed inconsiderate and almost insubordinate in his grandsons to act as a reminder.

‘Is Father ready for luncheon, Grandpa?’ said Luce.

‘He is, my dear,’ said Fulbert, running into the room, ‘and he hopes it bears the same relation to him.’

‘It will be ready at the right time, Father,’ said Luce, folding her arms round her knees in preparation for waiting.

‘I suppose Graham must come to meals,’ said Daniel. ‘There ought to be some other way of managing about him.’

‘We must eat to live,’ said Fulbert.

‘But is that necessary for Graham, Father?’

Luce gave a quick look at her second brother.

‘The gong gets a little later every day,’ said Fulbert consulting his watch.

‘It is the someone behind the gong, Father,’ said Luce, and in a tone so light and even that it might have escaped notice. ‘And then the someone behind that.’

‘You would think it would help the household to have things on time.’

‘Such a household would be above help,’ said Daniel.

‘It is a tribute to Grandma’s management that you can talk like that, Father,’ said Luce.

‘Well, I may be allowed to pay her the compliment.’

Regan looked touched beyond the demand of the occasion.

‘The gong must soon sound with so much behind it,’ said Graham, in his toneless voice.

‘It will sound when luncheon is ready,’ said Eleanor.

‘It will be our last luncheon without the babies at the end,’ said Luce. ‘Their holiday ends today. I cannot get used to being without them.’

‘Luce has not forgotten her brothers and sister in three weeks,’ said Daniel. ‘It must be the depth of her nature.’

‘You did not remember them enough to speak of them,’ said Sir Jesse.

As the gong sounded through the house, Fulbert walked swiftly to the door and held it open for the women, sending his eyes to different objects in the room, as if he felt no inclination to hurry this part of the proceedings. He rather enjoyed any duty that had a touch of the formal or official. At the table he did the carving, a duty deputed by his father, and performed it with attention, swiftness and skill, supplying his own plate at the end with equal but not extra care. Daniel and Graham were talking under their breath, and their mother threw them a glance.

‘You need not concern yourself with them,’ said Sir Jesse. ‘They are about to address themselves to their business.’

‘Isn’t it a repellent trait in my brother?’ said Daniel.

‘So is Grandpa,’ murmured Graham. ‘He and I are of the same old stock.’

‘Any word you have to say of me, you can say to my face,’ said Sir Jesse.

Graham was about to reply, but his mother’s eyes prevented him. He was dependent on Sir Jesse for most of what he had, and this was not a forfeiture it was wise to incur. Daniel took his grandfather in an easier spirit and reckoned with him in so far as he served his purposes. Sir Jesse thought him better behaved, a not uncommon result of this attitude of youth.

‘Well, my boy, we must break our news,’ said Sir Jesse to his son.

‘Of the prospect that takes me from the bosom of my family,’ said Fulbert, looking with mingled apprehension and resolution at the faces round him.

‘Mother, Grandpa,’ said Luce, turning steady eyes upon them, ‘we should be glad to have this thing cleared up, whatever it is. We have been living for days under the sword of Damocles, and it will be a relief to have it fall. What is this threat of losing Father for some reason unexplained? We should be grateful for the truth, and we feel we have a right to it.’

‘Your father has to go to South America to look into the estate,’ said Eleanor. ‘Your grandfather had the final letters today.’

‘Thank you, Mother. That is at once a shock and a satisfaction. We had no idea what the dark hints might portend, and imagination was outstripping the truth. Now we may hope that the exile will not be long.’

‘A matter of six months,’ said Fulbert, with courage and ease.

‘Thank you, Father. That would have been a blow not so many days ago. As it is, we chiefly experience relief.’

‘You could have asked before,’ said Eleanor.

‘No, Mother, we could not,’ said Luce, meeting her eyes. ‘There was that about you, that precluded approach of the subject.’

‘What led our elders to conceal the simple matter?’ said Daniel, in a low tone.

‘The instinct to keep all things from the young,’ said Graham. ‘Even a temporary concealment was better than nothing.’

‘Six months is a moderate sentence,’ said Daniel. ‘We can hardly expect Graham to show a new son to Father on his return.’

Graham glanced at Regan in imagination of her feeling.

‘I shall not live six months many more times,’ she said.

‘Yes, you will, Grandma,’ said Luce, in an even tone. ‘Probably a good many more.’

‘What about me in exile?’ said Fulbert.

‘Poor Father! You did not expect to have to ask that question.’

‘I would go myself if I were younger by a few years,’ said Sir Jesse, with an undernote of inflexibility that revealed his true relation with his son. ‘And it is not only for that reason that I wish I were.’