Ivy Compton-Burnett: Parents and Children

‘I Suppose my thoughts are nothing to be proud of,’ said Eleanor Sullivan.

‘Then they are different from the rest of you, I am sure, dear.’

‘I always mean what I say, Fulbert.’

Mr Sullivan did not make the protest of himself.

‘If you reveal the thoughts, I will give them my attention,’ he said, leaning back and folding his arms with this purpose.

‘It is the old grievance of spending my best years in your parents’ home.’

‘It would be worse not to spend them in a home of any kind.’

‘You must turn everything into a joke, of course.’

‘I should be hard put to it to manage it with that. You would have a right to your long face.’

‘We should do better in a cottage of our own, than as guests in this great house.’

‘No chance of it with nine children. The cottage would not contain them. And I am not a guest: I am a son of the house.’

Fulbert uttered the words with an expression of his own, as if the position were a rather surprising one. He had a tendency to unction in speaking of himself, and the death of an elder brother had given him a place to which he had not been born.

‘And what am I?’ said Eleanor.

‘The son’s wife and the mother of his children,’ said her husband, completing his picture.

‘That is what I am. And it is not so very little. But if you are to go abroad, I shall have to be a good deal more.’

‘That will be enough. The family can get along on it.’

‘Is it necessary that you should go?’

‘The old man insists upon it.’

‘Is that the same thing?’

‘Under this roof, my dear, as you give signs of knowing.’

‘Your father believes in his divine right.’

‘Well, there is a certain reason in it. His position will pass to others in their turn.’

‘I don’t see how it can go beyond you. The money will come to an end. This place is not part of the essential order of things. And though it is your old home, it is not mine.’

‘Where your treasure is, there must your heart be also,’ said Fulbert, in his deliberate, strident tones.

‘That is true. No woman is more fundamentally satisfied.’

‘Well, the deepest experience is known to be hidden, my dear.’

‘I may be a murmuring woman. But I shall not feel the house is my home while your parents are alive. And that is not a generous thought.’

‘It has no claim to be,’ said Fulbert, throwing up his voice.

‘I must try to conquer myself,’ said his wife, with the sigh natural to this purpose.

‘As you only have your own power to do it with, it sounds as if it would be an equal struggle.’

‘Heaven helps those who help themselves.’

‘It sounds grudging of Heaven to stipulate for its work to be done for it.’

It would have been clear to an observer at this point that Eleanor held the accepted religious beliefs, and that her husband held none.

‘I wish you would not take that tone, Fulbert. It shows me how poor my example is.’

‘Well, you have not been recommending it, my dear.’

‘I know you do not like me to talk of my religion.’

‘People are not at their best, doing that, and it is wise to accept that as the truth.’

‘I suppose actions speak louder than words.’

‘I find no fault with silence.’

Eleanor followed the hint and changed her tone.

‘This is an odd little room to give us for ourselves.’

‘Not according to your preference for a cottage.’

‘If we live in this house, we may as well have the benefit of it.’

‘The dozen rooms allotted to us upstairs constitute our advantage,’ said Fulbert, spacing his words as if they had a certain merit.

‘I still think we might be happier, living on our own small income.’

‘A family as large as ours is nothing under such conditions.’

‘After all, our children are your parents’ grandchildren.’

‘That is their claim upon them, which is fortunately recognized.’

‘You think you have a clever tongue, Fulbert.’

‘You have hinted at advantages of your own, my dear.’

‘I do not dispute it. I only meant you were conscious of it.’

‘I have yet to meet the man unaware of his endowments. I have met many a one sensible of some that are not his.’

‘And to which class do you belong?’

Fulbert rested his eyes in quizzical acceptance on his wife. His reasons for not mentioning women in connexion with endowments was not that he thought they would not have them, but that he saw little connexion between such things and their lives. He had a full respect for the woman’s sphere, but was glad it was not his own. It seemed to him that his peculiar attributes would have little exercise in it.

‘I must not make claims if I do not live up to them,’ said Eleanor.

‘Not if you want them recognized.’

‘I wish there were a little more sympathy and warmth about you, Fulbert.’

‘I wish you had a husband after your own heart, my dear.’

Fulbert Sullivan was a spare, muscular man of fifty, with a sort of springy quality going through his frame, which gave him a suggestion of controlling superfluous force. As he was a man of considerable vigour and no less leisure, this may have been the case. The suggestion of pent-up energy appeared in his narrow, near-set eyes, in his long, unmodelled lips, and even in his solid brow and nose and chin. His strong, metallic voice had a sudden rise and fall, and his manner might have been self-conscious, if its deliberate confidence had been less real. There was a suggestion about him of being prepared to be criticized at sight, and of meeting the attitude with unprejudiced and rallying igoodwill. His wife was a tall, angular woman of forty-eight, with large, pale grey eyes, a narrow, shapely head, a serious, honest, somewhat equine face, and a nervous, uneasy, controlled expression. Her long, gentle hands and long, easy stride and deep, unaffected voice seemed less essential to her, than such attributes to other people. To those who knew her, all her physical qualities seemed to be accidental. To a stranger she gave the impression of being indefinite in colour, but very definite in everything else.

‘Mother,’ said a voice at the door, ‘can you bear with Graham for a moment? I am allowing him a break from work and there is no service that I require of him.’

A youth led another into the room, deposited him in a chair and remained with his hands on his collar. Eleanor surveyed the pair as if the situation were familiar, and Fulbert watched with lively vigilance.

The occupant of the seat leaned back with an almost obliging air. He was a tall, bony youth of twenty-one, with head and hands and feet too heavy for his yielding frame, prominent, pale, absent eyes, and features that were between the fine and the ungainly. He had a deep, jerky voice and a laugh that was without mirth, as was perhaps natural, as he was continually called upon to exercise it at his own expense. His brother, who was older by a year, resembled Eleanor except for his weight and breadth, and for a widening and shortening of the face, which resulted in a look of greater power. He had a ready smile and an air of having the wisdom to find content in his lot. Eleanor surveyed her sons with affection, sympathy and interest, but with singularly little pride.

‘What ought you both to be doing? Are you not wasting your time?’

‘It is one of his worse days, Mother,’ said the elder son. ‘But a mother’s words may succeed when all else fails. And I can only say that it has failed.’

Graham turned his eyes to Eleanor in automatic response.