Ivy Compton-Burnett - Men and Wives

“Ah, knocked utterly on the ground,” said Godfrey in a deep tone. “Laid out so completely that she has to go to her room. We none of us feel a jot or a tittle compared with her. Well, in a sense a mother gives everything to her only girl.”

“I will come to hear how she is to-morrow. And to-day I will thank you for letting me say my word, and cease to be. Matthew, you are the person I envy at the moment. You can do something. I wish I had a man’s work in life.”

“Ah, if anyone has that, it is that boy, Rector,” said Godfrey with half-guilty confidence. “If I could tell you what he is setting before himself, your tears would mingle with mine.”

“Then don’t do it, for Bellamy’s sake,” muttered Matthew.

“Yes, and for your own sake, my boy,” said Godfrey with tender extenuation. “You need not be uneasy. Your father will not betray you. You don’t want an audience about just this, and just now. It is no wonder and an honour to you. I won’t give your little secret away. It is too big to my mind for that. I will only say that I envy you. I wish there was some sacrifice I could make for your mother, that I could give up my aims and my hopes for her sake.”

“Sir Percy and Lady Hardisty!” said Buttermere, in happy ignorance of the service he rendered, flinging open the door as though, if things were to be in this way, so they should be.

“Percy and Rachel? Must you be going, Rector? Now how has it got about to Percy and Rachel? It seems a thing has only to happen, to be at the four corners of the world. Good news does not fly so fast. If that has never been said, it ought to have been. It ought to be a saying. If I have made a saying, I have made one.” Godfrey put his hand on Bellamy’s arm in amends for his complication of thought at parting. “Here are Percy and Rachel falling on us out of space! And call her Lady Hardisty, Gregory, if you please, and if you don’t please, because I won’t have anything else. I have been through too much to be put about by trifles. How are you, Rachel? How are you, Hardisty? This is good and kind.”

“Haslam, my dear old friend!” said Sir Percy. “I had to see for myself how all of you were. You will understand me?”

“He really had to, Godfrey,” said Rachel, “and you are not even trying to understand.”

“Well, you can see for yourself, Hardisty. We are together, trying to support each other. It is no more than that.”

“Of course not. That is doing justice to Harriet,” said Rachel.

“My little Griselda?” said Sir Percy.

“I can hear her coming downstairs,” said Rachel. “We are the only intruders she can face. Did the rest of you bear with Mr. Bellamy? She is the only one who has given us a true welcome. I will repay her by keeping the house for a few days. You can’t learn to be father and mother in a moment, Godfrey. I must take Harriet’s place.”

“Rachel, that is a heartening word. That gives me courage. I was at my wits’ end what to do for my poor children.”

“I hoped you would make too much of it. People are known to exaggerate kindness in trouble, just when it seems they would think it only natural. It makes kindness such true economy that we have to take advantage of our friends’ misfortunes. I have heard that at other times it is taken as a matter of course, but I hardly believe that can really happen. Percy, it is not you who is to take Harriet’s place, and there must be someone to go on bringing up Polly. Mellicent has not recovered from being brought up herself. Just tell them how you respect them for having a real experience, and say good-bye.”

“Ah, yes, a real experience; I cannot judge what it must be,” said Sir Percy, withdrawing without imposing the effort of farewells.

“Be just to your early life, my dear,” said his wife. “And this is a chance for you to go home and live in it again. You cannot call for me until after the working party.”

“What working party?” said Godfrey.

“The working party that Harriet and Gregory give, to make brightness for Geraldine Dabis and to clothe the poor. Gregory calls people by their Christian names, and Harriet cuts out. I don’t wonder it is Harriet who has had the breakdown. I cannot cut out. I don’t mean I consider personal risks with Harriet ill, but I am very little fitted for real life. Geraldine would be so jealous if she knew. In other things I will take Harriet’s place; there is nothing else real. Percy, if you go this moment, you won’t coincide with Dominic Spong. I discern him with the long sight of old age. It is a great disadvantage to be old. How officious of him to come to condole! Doing a thing gives you so much understanding of it. We won’t say good-bye, my dear; it would look like thinking of ourselves.”

“Say, rather, au revoir Lady Hardisty,” said Dominic, appearing in Sir Percy’s stead, and pausing by Rachel, with his eyes averted in delicacy from the family. “Meeting you here lifts a great load off my mind. Sir Godfrey, at the risk of appearing obtrusive, I am inflicting my presence, feeling that if in anyone’s heart a corresponding chord is touched, it is in mine.”

“You are good, Spong, you are good. We should be badly off if it were not for the thought of our friends.”

“Without being presumptuous enough to take my stand in that capacity by the side of Lady Hardisty, I yet feel that a sympathetic word is due from one man to another at such a time. I do not forget, Sir Godfrey, your kindness to me, and not only yours, when my own hour came.”

“Yes, yes, Spong, thank you, thank you. And I will depend on you to serve us further and share our family dinner to-night. You will not deny us, as Hardisty has done. Perhaps we could expect no more of him, after what he has left with us.” Dominic turned a smile of full corroboration to Rachel. “But we will trust you to do better by us in yourself.”

“Sir Godfrey, it is true that I can do nothing in these days except through that often unsatisfactory medium. But I fear I should be but a poor substitute for Sir Percy Hardisty.”

“We are not talking about substitutes. We are asking, for yourself,” said Godfrey.

“No, Sir Godfrey,” said Dominic, shaking his head, as if he had shown too little reluctance for the hospitality. “I could not dream of intruding upon you on a night when you all must feel that only one presence could complete your family circle. I should be the last to consider myself the one equal to filling that place.”

“That place is filled. I am here instead of Lady Haslam,” said Rachel. “But won’t you stay as a friend? I ask you as her deputy.”

“Since you put it in that way, Lady Hardisty, I cannot do otherwise than acquiesce.”

“Capital,” said Godfrey.

“A great kindness on your part, and a privilege on mine, Sir Godfrey,” said Dominic, substituting his own choice of fitting words.

“Well, we must get ready for dinner,” said Rachel.

Dominic stepped towards her.

“Lady Hardisty, I have not the means of ‘getting ready’, as I came unexpectant of, and accordingly unprepared for the invitation; but if I may have the opportunity of what is termed a wash and brush-up, I shall feel myself less unfitted for your presence.”

“Matthew will take care of you. I am doing what his mother would wish, and not allowing his father to be used as a host to-night.”

“I am more than reconciled to being handed over to the kindly offices of Matthew, our future host in this house, or I should rather say our present deputy host; for although I am a family lawyer, and as such concerned with future generations, I am not one to anticipate the cry: ‘The King is dead. Long live the King.’”

“Why did you have Spong to dinner, and not Sir Percy?” Jermyn asked Rachel on the stairs.