Ivy Compton-Burnett - Men and Wives

“Yes, I have noticed it,” said Harriet.

“Harriet, my dear, Camilla is one of us,” said Godfrey, taking his fingers from his pocket and glancing at a coin between them, as if he had wished to confirm something concerning it. “We take her as she is, as we take each other. Mrs. Christy is not demanding from us an account of Matthew’s opinions. And I’ll warrant the young scamp has few enough at the moment. I know the sort of thing that ferments in his brain. It is not hidden from his father. Ah, I am not such a stranger to these scientific fellows as some of them might think. I didn’t have time while you were away to get much further with him. That is, I thought it best to let those things lie fallow. But there isn’t a pin to choose between Matthew and Camilla in the matter of opinions.”

“I believe that is so,” said Harriet.

“My dear girl, the true opinions are the most important things in life. If things are not right at rock bottom, we cannot build on the top. But making people feel that too much of a good thing is a bad thing defeats your purpose. I know how it has been with myself. I mean, we all bear and forbear with each other.”

“You do your part, my dear,” said his wife, and turned to give a direction to Buttermere.

“Mother, you are looking very tired this evening,” said Gregory.

“Harriet, you are!” cried Godfrey. “You are looking as you used to look. We can’t have any of that again. Now what is it that has taken it out of you?”

“Nothing, Godfrey; I did not sleep last night.”

“You did not sleep?” said her husband. “Well, that is upon us already! Go to bed, and take one of those sleeping tablets the doctor gave you. We will nip this in the bud; we won’t give it another chance to rise up and threaten us. Go this moment. Mrs. Christy will understand. Don’t wait even to say good-night. But good-night, my own girl. I won’t come in to see you, for fear I break your sleeping mood. You will tell me in the morning that you have had a good night.”

“Matthew, will you come with me for a moment?” said Harriet, moving slowly to the door. “I want to say a word to you.”

“Go. Go at once,” said Godfrey, with a veiled but peremptory look at his son. “Go up and soothe your mother by whatever method is in your power. Nothing else would be behaving like a man. There is a great responsibility on you. Go and do what you can.”

Matthew followed his mother upstairs and was drawn by her into her room.

“Matthew,” she said, standing with her hand on his shoulder and her eyes looking up into his face, “I want you to do something for me; not a great thing, dear; I would not ask that. I don’t ask you to give up your work, or to give up your marriage; I know you cannot give up. I don’t mean that any of us can; I am not saying anything to hurt. I only mean that I would not ask much of you. I just want you to put off your marriage for a few months, for your mother’s sake, that she may have a little space of light before the clouds gather. I don’t mean that my illness is coming again; I don’t think it will come yet. And if it were, I would not use that to persuade you. I would not do what is not fair, while I am myself. I think you know I would not then. But I ask you simply, and as myself, to do this thing for me. I feel I can ask you, because I have seen your eyes on me to-night, and I have said to myself: ‘My son does not love me, not my eldest son. And it is my fault, because mothers can easily be loved by their sons. So I can ask this from him, because I cannot lose his love, or lessen it. I have not put it in him.’ And so I ask it of you, my dear.”

“Mother, what a way to talk!” said Matthew. “Indeed your illness is not coming again. You could not be more at the height of your powers. Your speech was worth taking down. You may use it again. It was only I who heard it. My eyes show all this to you, when all my eyes are for Camilla at the moment, and if anyone knows that, it is you! I might tell you what your eyes show to me, and you would not have an answer. Now take one of your sleeping tablets; I think I should take two; I have put them out on this table. And the marriage shall not happen until you sanction it. Camilla can get what she wants from this family, from you. She will have you as a friend before me as a husband. I daresay that will be the end.”

Harriet stood with her eyes searching her son’s.

He kissed her and left her, and turned from the door and gave her the smile that should safeguard for both of them this memory.

Godfrey Came Out of his wife’s room with a rapid, agitated step, and his tones sounded through the house, hushed and urgent. Voices answered him and footsteps followed, and the house in a moment quivered with suspense and foreboding.

The young people, waiting for prayers in the dining-room, looked at each other. Even Matthew, who was reading in an easy chair, raised his eyes.

“Whatever is it?” said Jermyn.

“Father is coming into the hall,” said Gregory.

Griselda opened the door and intercepted her father.

“There, there, my dear child,” he said in a hasty, colourless tone, without coming to a pause. “Go back to the dining-room and keep your brothers there. Shut the door and stay in there together. Do that for your father.”

“Whatever does it mean?” said Jermyn.

“Perhaps one of the servants is ill,” said Matthew, turning a page.

“It is something more than that,” said Gregory. “Is it Mother?”

“She is always better when she sleeps late,” said Matthew.

“Hark!” said Griselda. “Father is sending a message.”

Jermyn went to the door and opened it, in a single, silent movement.

“Ask him to come actually this instant! Say that I fear the very worst. I hardly know what words I speak. Tell him that I shall be deeply grateful.” Their father’s voice had a tone they had never heard.

“It is Mother!” said Gregory, and ran into the hall.

“Gregory, my boy, go back at once,” said Godfrey, coming forward with his hand upraised and a tone of command and warning. “Gregory, I adjure you to return to the dining-room. Griselda, get him to obey me. Your father asks it of you, Gregory. I forbid you to go a step farther.”

Gregory was hastening up the stairs, with Jermyn and Griselda following. Matthew came slowly after them, his book in his hand, and paused to speak to his father.

“It is nothing to do with Mother, is it?”

“It is your mother, my boy,” said Godfrey with a groan in his voice, standing with his limbs trembling.

Matthew went on, and Godfrey remained by himself, sunk too far in his own feelings for further effort.

A boy’s cry came from the landing above, and the father clenched his hands.

“Mother is dead! She is lying in her bed, dead! Mother is dead, Griselda, Father!”

Godfrey stood still and slowly lifted his head.

Jermyn’s voice joined his brother’s, and there was a sound of Griselda weeping. Godfrey turned and walked up the stairs, in lifeless instinct to do what was before him.

He stood with his children at his wife’s side, while Gregory and Griselda wept, and Jermyn and Matthew kept their eyes on the bed, where Harriet lay as if in sleep.

“My dear children, it is on us now. It has come this time. We are alone now. This time we are really alone.”

“How did it happen!” said Jermyn. “Was she ill in her sleep?”

“She must have been,” said Matthew. “It seems that it must have been her heart. But I didn’t know there was anything wrong with it.”

“It would have been an easy death, wouldn’t it?” said Gregory.

“Yes, quite unconscious,” said Matthew.