Ivy Compton-Burnett - Parents and Children

‘I realized you had, after you had passed. You did not come back and speak to me.’

‘You didn’t speak to us. And it would be for people back from the dead to speak first. They might not still understand.’

‘You were an observant boy to recognize Grandpa’s old coat.’

‘I didn’t know it was his. It was Grandma who knew. I thought it was yours.’

‘Father may get tired of this changelessness in his sons,’ said Daniel.

‘Poor Father is very tired,’ said Nevill, casting a look at Fulbert. ‘He won’t be able to come back another day.’

‘Grandma dear,’ said Luce, ‘Grandpa is crossing the hall. But I suppose he knows what he can bear.’

Sir Jesse entered and came up to his son, and taking both his hands, stood thus for some time, and then passed on to his chair and sank into it.

‘Now I can say my “Nunc dimittis”,’ he said to himself, or rather to the assembled company.

There was a pause.

‘What did Grandpa say?’ said Gavin.

‘They are Latin words,’ said Honor.

‘Grandpa can say them,’ said Nevill, with pride in his relative.

‘Would you like to be able to?’ said Luce.

‘Yes, but he will some day.’

‘Ask Father if he will teach you,’ said Luce, hoping to make a bond where one was needed.

‘No, Miss Pilbeam will teach him.’

‘Has Grandpa seen Father before?’ said Gavin.

‘Yes, but not for long,’ said Luce.

‘Grandpa is glad that Father has come back,’ said Nevill.

‘Grandma,’ said Luce, in a shaken tone, ‘it is on us, the desperate moment. Mother and Ridley are in the hall. What are we to do?’

‘We can do nothing,’ said Regan, seeming almost to repress a smile.

‘One of you go and prepare your mother,’ said Fulbert to his sons, in his old manner.

‘We should have thought of that, if we were not petrified,’ said Daniel.

‘I will go, Father,’ said Luce, and went swiftly from the room.

‘The occasion of Ridley’s discomfiture is spoiled by its tragedy,’ said Daniel.

‘It is hard on us,’ said Graham. ‘But nothing can spoil it for Grandma. And she has had few pleasures of late.’

‘Hope and Paul are there as well,’ said Regan, again with an unsteadiness about her lips.

‘Another circumstance of our life unchanged,’ said Fulbert.

‘It is a good thing that family is not any larger,’ said Isabel.

Regan laughed with noticeable heartiness, almost as though to cover some other cause for mirth.

‘Faith is not there,’ said Venice.

‘She will remedy the matter,’ said her sister.

‘Will Mother be able to marry Mr Ridley now?’ said James.

‘Of course not,’ said Isabel. ‘Father was glad to see no change in you, but he will alter his mind, if you don’t take care.’

Hope entered and began at once to talk, as if to give time to those who followed.

‘Fulbert, I wish I could say I knew this would happen. But I did not know. I am afraid you will see signs of it.’

‘I have found so few in my own home that I can hardly believe what is before my eyes.’

‘I suppose I meant in our home. There are not so few there.’

‘I know, I know,’ said Fulbert; ‘I am prepared.’

‘And Ridley is not. Well, it is right that you should have the advantage of him.’

‘I hope it is. For I have it.’

Hope sat down as if her limbs gave under her. Regan looked at her easily. The awaited group came into the room, Luce leading her mother. Eleanor walked forward with her usual step, and Ridley was drawn to his full height to face what was upon him.

‘Fulbert!’ he said, moving in front of the others. ‘My friend.’

Fulbert accepted his hand, but went towards his wife, and it was not until they had exchanged an embrace that he turned his eyes on his face.

‘My friend,’ repeated Ridley. ‘I trust that nothing will alter that for you. It will not for me.’

‘It need not,’ said Fulbert. ‘A dead man cannot expect to be treated as a live one.’

‘You left your affairs in my hands. If in the course of dealing with them, I was led further, you will understand.’

‘Who should, if not I? You wanted what I chose for myself. How can I say I am surprised?’

‘You might say other things. I am grateful for your forbearance.’

‘I have too much restored to me, to dwell on what I may have lost. And somehow I feel it is not much, and will soon be mine.’

Ridley took a step aside and stood with his eyes averted, while the husband and wife approached their children.

‘I find that I miss nothing,’ said Fulbert. ‘If life would have gone on after my death, that will happen to us all. And if it went on too soon and too far for my choice, I was not there to choose.’

Sir Jesse touched the ground with his stick, and Paul, who was standing absorbed in the scene, obeyed the summons. The resulting movement revealed Faith, standing just inside the room, with her hands held apart from her sides, and her eyes wide and unwinking, as though to avoid dwelling on the intimate scene.

‘I forgot Faith was with us,’ said Hope, ‘but it seems she did the same.’

‘Faith looks as if she were at church,’ said Venice, in a clearer voice that she intended.

‘I suppose we do all feel rather like that,’ said Faith, in a low, quick tone.

‘No doubt we ought to wish we were not here,’ said Hope.

‘I wish we were not,’ said Faith, with a further withdrawal towards the door.

‘I see why you stayed in the hall, dear. But why did you change your mind?’

‘It is not much good for one of us to adopt a measure when the others do not follow it.’

‘Where did Faith get the impression that her family follow her lead?’ said Daniel.

Ridley turned from his place, and with a step that suggested that eyes were on him, walked to the window and stood with his back to the room.

‘Ridley’s eyes are resting unseeingly on the familiar landscape,’ said Graham, his voice betraying that this was not the whole of his thought.

‘I am glad he has got out of his place in the middle of the floor,’ said Daniel. ‘It was hardly his best at the moment.’

‘You make me feel he is in the pillory, and that you would like to throw rotten eggs at him,’ said Hope.

‘How did people come by their supplies of eggs in that state?’ said Isabel. ‘Did they carry a stock of them, as if they were snuff or tobacco?’

‘Perhaps they were on sale near the pillory,’ said Daniel, ‘as buns and nuts are at the Zoo, so that people could be helped to their natural dealings with captive creatures.’

Faith looked at the laughing group with steady eyes.

‘Faith thinks we ought to be in low spirits,’ said Isabel. ‘I am sure I don’t know why.’

‘I know you are seriously thankful in your hearts,’ said Faith.

Regan watched her son’s reunion with his family, without jealousy, emotion or desire. She would have asked what she had.

Fulbert saw Ridley’s solitary figure and went towards him.

‘Well, Ridley, let us take our next steps over this strange gulf between us. I have much to thank you for, and I trust you do not resent my rising from the dead. I would have done it at a better moment, if I could. I did try to rise a day or two earlier, but fate was against me. And it is a good thing it was not a day or two later. I don’t understand how my letter miscarried. It was an unfortunate lapse, when they occur so seldom. I will have inquiries made. You had the two letters some months ago, and then no other?’

‘Fulbert,’ said Ridley, lifting his eyes, ‘I have had no letter from you or concerning you, save those two you name. I dealt with them as you directed. And so would I have dealt with this one, had it reached me.’