Ivy Compton-Burnett: Parents and Children

‘The likeness to your grandfather would not strike people when no one looked for it,’ said Paul. ‘If the relationship had been known, there would have been no need to fancy it.’

‘The Marlowes are our uncle and aunts by half blood,’ said Luce, in her musing tone.

‘You had better forget it,’ said Paul. ‘If things are in our minds, they come to our lips.’

‘This thing does seem to,’ said Hope.

‘Now how are we to face Grandpa?’ said Luce.

‘Yes, that is how it will be,’ said Daniel, ‘when surely it should be the other way round.’

‘Poor Grandpa!’ said Luce.

‘I do admire you all,’ said Hope. ‘You have none of the severity of youth. I should hardly have expected Faith to be so tolerant; I might not even have approved of it. I think people must be better with each generation.’

‘I can hardly be accused of youth, Mother,’ said Faith.

‘And poor Grandma!’ said Luce, as if she could not in honesty give up this idea.

‘Yes, it is Sir Jesse’s career of deceit that is hard to forgive,’ said Faith. ‘That long course of deception of his wife. It goes against the grain.’

‘But you do forgive it, dear,’ said Hope.

‘He meant to die with that between them, Mother.’

‘It is there now,’ said Graham. ‘That is what he did not mean. He was just keeping his own counsel. He has never meant to die at all.’

‘He will never get over my being Ridley’s father,’ said Paul. ‘It may be a release for me in a way.’

‘And how about his own varied fatherhood?’ said Daniel.

‘I have already recovered from it. I am not the man he is.’

‘Yes, I do forgive it,’ said Faith, in a quick, low tone that rose as she continued. ‘Poor Eleanor Sullivan is in a sad position.’

‘It is greatly improved,’ said Daniel. ‘She prefers Father to Ridley.’

‘Well, in a position of peculiar difficulty.’

‘The worst is already past.’

‘It was a hard homecoming for your father.’

‘It was a sound instinct that led him to prepare us,’ said Luce, smiling.

‘He was fortunate, considering he failed to do so,’ said Graham. ‘He did not find his very name forgotten, or anything like that. And he seemed to be a little surprised.’

‘Why do we joke about it?’ said Luce.

‘I have not done so,’ said Faith, rising from her chair. ‘Now it is not a day for lingering.’

‘My heart fails before the prospect of our first family gathering,’ said Graham. ‘To think that Grandpa and Grandma and Mother must all be there!’

‘And this on the day when Father is restored to us!’ said Luce. ‘This is the thing I do not incline to forgive Grandpa.’

‘It must be difficult for you,’ said Faith, as if there were no question of the actual forgiveness.

‘It is fortunate that Father’s heart is stout enough for it all,’ said Daniel.

‘Father has come home!’ said Honor, bounding into the schoolroom. ‘He was ill and unconscious, but he was never dead. Mother can’t marry Mr Ridley, and things will be like they used to be.’

‘I am so thankful for you, dear,’ said Miss Pilbeam, stooping to kiss her. ‘I heard last night and I rejoiced from my heart.’

Honor drew back with a look of consternation, and Gavin who was behind her, came to a sudden pause.

‘We should have had a holiday, if Mother had thought of it,’ resumed Honor, in an almost more than ordinary tone. ‘But she said, as you would have the trouble of coming, we were to have lessons.’

‘I think you would please your father by doing your very best.’

‘I don’t think he minds,’ said Honor, turning round on one foot.

‘Don’t you wish your mother could come back?’ said Gavin, with a simple air of superiority.

‘I do indeed,’ said Miss Pilbeam.

‘I don’t suppose she ever can, because she died in the house, didn’t she?’

‘No, I know she cannot.’

‘But I daresay you don’t mind her being dead as much as you did at first,’ said Gavin, revealing his own experience of the effect of time.

‘I mind quite as much. But I have had to get used to it.’

‘I call that not minding so much,’ said Honor, still turning round.

‘You went on minding about your father.’

‘I minded less; I had to. Everyone does. And other people get tired of your minding. Even Mother did. But if he really died now, I should mind more.’

‘And you have not worn black since we knew you,’ said Gavin to Miss Pilbeam.

‘We do not stay in black for ever.’

‘We do for a year, unless there is something to prevent it,’ said Honor. ‘We went out because Mother was going to marry again. The children can’t look as if they still minded, when the mother has proved that she doesn’t.’

‘I don’t think you quite understand your mother. She had to make the best of her life as it was.’

‘If you really still minded, you wouldn’t think there was any best.’

‘You wouldn’t think your father minded, if he was going to marry someone else,’ said Gavin.

‘I hope I should try to understand it. Indeed I do try to,’ said Miss Pilbeam, in a lighter tone.

‘Is he going to marry someone else?’ said Honor.

‘Yes, he told me last night,’ said Miss Pilbeam, with an open, easy smile.

‘It is funny that your father decided to marry someone else on the day when our mother knew she couldn’t.’

Miss Pilbeam did not dwell upon the coincidence, though it was to be explained on the ground that her father had found the news an opening for himself.

‘Does it make you hate your father?’ said Gavin.

‘No, not at all. You did not hate your mother, did you?’

‘Well, she went down in my estimation,’ said Honor.

‘You would not have wished her to be lonely.’

‘I should have thought it couldn’t be helped.’

‘The new woman will be your stepmother,’ said Gavin, with a threat in his tone.

‘Yes, she will. But she is an old friend.’

‘Perhaps your father always wanted to marry her, even when your mother was alive,’ said Honor.

‘No, I am sure he did not.’

‘Do people generally marry someone else, when their own wife or husband is dead?’ said Gavin.

‘No, only sometimes. I think men do it oftener than women.’

‘Can they go on doing it as often as they like?’

‘Yes, if they continue to lose their partners,’ said Miss Pilbeam, with a touch of facetiousness.

Nevill came into the room in an absent manner, his eyes on a ball of string in his hands.

‘Why, what a muddled ball!’ said Miss Pilbeam.

‘It is in a tangle,’ said Nevill, with quiet resignation.

‘I will soon put it straight for you.’

‘Mullet said, do it himself,’ said Nevill, with a sudden burst of tears.

‘Oh, I think Mullet must have been busy.’

‘Mullet was busy,’ said Nevill, in a cheered, relieved tone. ‘Poor Mullet was very busy. She wouldn’t say it another time.’

‘Miss Pilbeam’s father is going to be married,’ said Honor.

‘Not to Mr Ridley,’ said Nevill, instantly.

‘Of course not. A man can’t marry another man.’

‘He can’t have Mr Ridley’s house.’

‘He doesn’t want it. He has a house of his own. I suppose he will still live there.

‘Yes, he will,’ said Nevill. ‘That is a nice house too.’

‘You don’t know anything about it.’

‘Miss Pilbeam likes it,’ said Nevill.

‘Do you like it?’ said Gavin, to Miss Pilbeam. ‘I don’t think it is at all nice.’

‘I have not thought how it appears to other people. It has always been my home.’