Ivy Compton-Burnett - Men and Wives

“Sir Godfrey,” said Dominic, “I honour them. I honour the young men for the sacrifice that seems to me a tribute to their essential manliness, though many people might take the opposite view; and I am sure Miss Griselda is not behind them in the feminine sphere, which involves no less than their more conspicuous masculine one. Sir Godfrey, I honour your sons and your daughter.”

“Well, what do you say to that, Rachel?” said Godfrey, with his lips unsteady.

“I say everything,” said Rachel. “And I will take them all into the drawing-room with me. They can have nothing against the feminine sphere after what Mr. Spong has said about it.”

“One moment, Sir Godfrey!” said Dominic, raising his hand, in appeal to his host rather than to the woman guest. “Is Jermyn to be exempt from the privilege of concession to his mother’s wishes? I should esteem it as great a one to him as to his brothers.”

“Oh, I daresay Jermyn will be following on; I can almost get it from the look in his eye,” said the father, not at a loss. “I can vouch for it that Jermyn will not be far behind.”

“I will not refuse the credit,” said Jermyn. “I may do more spadework and less of my own vanities.”

“And I will not refuse my whole-hearted approbation, Sir Godfrey,” said Dominic, “and congratulation. Congratulation is the meed that I offer.”

“Don’t stand waiting for more flattery,” said Rachel. “Come into the other room and shut both doors. Your father may not pull himself up in a moment. You have been through a great deal to-day, my dears. Things have been going from bad to worse. I have not taken a mother’s place, and thrown myself between you and evil.”

“Mr. Spong won’t stay the night, will he?” said Griselda.

“No, my child. I am the housekeeper, and I cannot manage it.”

“It is a mercy you are with us,” said Gregory.

“It is indeed. But ought you to express appreciation of old ladies, Gregory?”

“It is incredibly catholic of Father not to mind him,” said Matthew.

“Well, he does praise all of you as much as he is told,” said Rachel. “I was much less of a success at that. It is grudging and wasteful not to be able to praise people to their faces. Praising them behind their backs is pointless, keeping it all from them. I wish I were more like Mr. Spong.”

“May I be permitted, Lady Hardisty, to turn the tables, and express myself desirous of bearing a greater resemblance to you?” said Dominic, coming in unexpectedly with Godfrey.

“That goes without saying for all of us,” said Godfrey.

“Sir Godfrey, compliments do not come my way so often, that I can afford to ignore one that is forthcoming. And those we do not in theory have the advantage of, are the sweeter.”

“Why have you come in at once like this?” said Matthew to his father.

“Oh, well, I found it too much, sitting in there with all there is weighing on me. You didn’t any of you stay in there, did you? I couldn’t stand it for a second, and there is the truth.”

“Sir Godfrey, I think the moment has come for me to withdraw from your hospitality,” said Dominic, as though suddenly finding he had failed in some function he had believed fulfilled. “It remains for me to thank you for your welcome, and betake myself to my own lonely fireside, there in your manner to brood on what I have lost. My comfort must be that for you the loss is transient.”

“Oh, thank you very much, Spong. And all my sympathy goes with you,” said Godfrey, extending a hand, and dragging himself up after it a moment later. “Matthew will see you out. Matthew, you would like to see Mr. Spong to the carriage. We will have the carriage out for him. I declare I am at the end of my tether, and not a fit companion for a living soul.”

“You really are not, Godfrey,” said Rachel. “You are behaving more unworthily of Harriet than any of us.”

“Oh, well, so I am. So I may be. My mind is too full of her for me to behave worthily of her. People can just reconcile themselves to it.”

“Yes, so they can,” said Rachel. “They soon break the habit of speaking of a friend as an excellent host.”

“Why, has anyone ever said that of me?” said Godfrey, sitting up but relapsing. “Well, I am sure I don’t care whether they have or not.”

“Your mind is not quite full of Mother,” said Gregory. “Self has crept in.”

“Oh, well, has it?” said Godfrey. “Well, I should be a peculiar person if I hadn’t some thought of myself in these days. Well, we will have poor old Spong to dinner again some time, and I will try to be more myself with him.”

“’Poor old Spong’?” said Jermyn. “He is younger than you are, isn’t he?”

“I don’t know, I am sure,” said his father. “I don’t know anything about him.”

“He looks it,” said Rachel.

“Does he!” said Godfrey, sitting up again, and this time retaining his position. “Does Spong look younger than I do? Do I look older than Spong? Well, you know, I shouldn’t have thought so. Well, I can’t expect this state of things not to have its effect on me. I am not superhuman, if I have looked young for my age. You will soon have a pitiful old man for a father. You seem to think you have already. Well, I will go and get a night’s rest, or I shall be a wreck by the morning. If I am, you won’t hesitate to tell me. Ah, you will all be ready to pop it out. Rachel, I apologise for stiflying yawns in your face.”

“That is an optimistic view of what you are doing,” said Griselda.

“My dear little girl, you are brighter!” said Godfrey on his way to the door. “Having Rachel is doing you a world of good.”

“I wonder why Father and Mother married,” said Gregory.

“We can’t explain these things,” said Rachel. “I say that to myself when I look at my predecessor’s portrait. Well, I do not; I see the whole explanation there. When are you going to take the photograph of your mother into the town to be enlarged?”

“I had thought of to-morrow,” said Gregory. “Of taking it myself and giving it afterwards to Father. A surprise.”

“It is a good idea to give it to Father. It will be a surprise,” said Matthew. “We had better follow his example and go to rest. The day will start with the little service, and the strain falls least heavily on him.”

Godfrey was the first to be in his place for this ceremony, and sat with his Bible open before him, parting his lips once or twice while the seats were taken. This was the only indication he gave of unusual force of conception, and he came to the table in a cold and absent manner.

“It was a subtle recognition of my filling Harriet’s place to make no mention of me,” said Rachel. “But was it wise not to ask for any guidance for the household? Won’t they need it especially, with Harriet away?”

“I spoke simply the words that came from my heart.”

“And no words for the household came into them?” said Rachel.

“Buttermere is listening,” said Jermyn, as the door gently closed.

“Godfrey, you mustn’t be so happy-go-lucky. You must think of Buttermere. And I have done the unmentionable thing. Well, one point about that is, that no one can speak about it.”

“Oh, a little accident, Rachel. Buttermere will understand it.”

“Buttermere is impossible. Looking and listening, of course, but understanding! And he will know now that we don’t have anyone waiting in the room at home. He will guess that we are poor. And I have tried to cultivate that kind of shabbiness that may go with anything. It is only Percy to whom it comes naturally. And now Buttermere knows what it goes with.”

“Ah, Rachel, I don’t know how we should be feeling this morning by ourselves. We quail before the moment of your leaving us. Quail before it. That is the word, ‘quail’.”