Ivy Compton-Burnett - Men and Wives

“Yes, yes, let us get to it, Spong,” said Godfrey, pulling up a chair for himself, and seeming to summon another by a glance, which Dominic supplemented. “Let us get it over. We have to set our minds in order, so that we can turn them to the next Chapter. For we shall have to act our part in it. We must not stay with our feet rooted in the past.”

“No, well, Sir Godfrey,” said Dominic, laying out some papers one by one, with his eyes upon them, “what I have to say concerns amongst others one point which, with your permission, we will turn to first, a slight one as regards comprehension and probably discussion. I have to state what it is likely you already know, what I make no doubt you already know, and disclose as a matter of formality.” Dominic seemed to find each syllable useful in postponing the nominal utterance. “You are doubtless aware that your wife left you in control of the larger part of the income deriving from her estate, on the condition that, and for as long as, you remain her widower. Failing this, the money reverts, in proportions which she has laid down, to her children.” Dominic, having accomplished the form, remained with his eyes on the table.

“What?” said Godfrey. “What are you saying? I had no idea of it at all, not an inkling! There must be some mistake. The income falls to me only if I remain a widower? If I marry, I am to have none of it at all? I could not keep up the place. I could not live here without my wife’s fortune. We apportioned it out together for the different purposes. She took as much interest in the estate as I did myself, more interest. So this was why you slipped out of reading the will on the day of the funeral! You could not expose me in this position. And I hadn’t a suspicion of it, and haven’t given a thought to the will since. I happen to be a trustful person where those near me are concerned. What a condition! I should not have believed it. I don’t give it credit for a moment.”

“That is the stipulation,” said Dominic, with the faintest possible tremor of his face.

“Well, let me see,” said Godfrey, holding out his hand.

Dominic yielded a copy of the will.

“Oh, ah, well,” said Godfrey, turning it over, not invited by the opening legal phrase. “Yes, well, I will take your word for it, Spong. It must be as you say. But it appears to me an unbelievable thing.”

“You will understand, Sir Godfrey, that Lady Haslam did not solicit my advice, that I was merely the recipient of her instructions. I had no thought but that you and she were of one mind regarding this as other matters.”

“Oh, well, yes, no doubt,” said Godfrey. “There it is then. I shall have to make up my mind to it. I am tied up. There is an end of the good things of life for me; they are out of my reach. Unless I give up the good things I have. That is a fair way of putting it, I grant. Well, I suppose my wife thought it would be my pleasure to live in the past. I believe many people find it so, you among them, Spong. But everyone is not the same.”

“No, that cannot be,” said Dominic, a flush suddenly suffusing his face. “But for that very reason, Sir Godfrey, it was incumbent upon me not to leave you in ignorance of your position, an ignorance which I admit had been suggested to me as not impossible.”

“Yes, well, I must pick myself up,” said Godfrey. “I have a good deal of a life before me. I must not let myself sink to the level of bitterness. I must hold myself above that, above rancour against a poor, dead woman who was after all my wife, with whom I spent many happy years. I must learn not to ask much for myself, not to set my own claims high. After all, my life is in the past. She was life for me. It was the reaction from all my troubles that made me set it in the future. My wife knew me, Spong. She knew my temper, that does rebound. That poor, weak, suffering woman, who had hardly strength to continue her own life, who had not strength to continue it, had thought to give to the man who should have cared for her to keep him anchored where his heart was. Anyone might have had me, Spong; I might have been the prey of any woman. My very reaction would have flung me wide of any mark. I am grateful to my wife for divining my true heart. Hand-in-hand she and I made that will, as if we had made it together. And I daresay we did make it together; I daresay we spoke of it. You know I was never one for remembering much about these things. She was always there to take them off me. And she cares for me still. She leaves me what was hers, for my pleasure as long as I live, my dear, generous wife, provided that I remain faithful to her memory, so that we can go on our way essentially one. It is my young people who are having their romance, my Griselda and Gregory. In thinking of them, and identifying myself with them, I let my thoughts run on in the same groove. It was as if I imagined them deprived of their income, if they should marry, poor young things! I was quite put about by setting myself in their place. Well, Spong, I have to say to you that I thank you for your help, and for any help you gave to my wife in this matter and any other. Unless it was I myself in this one; I can’t call it to mind. Well, we have the work to do, that she has left, in bequeathing to me her worldly all. I must recall what she said to me, just as I recalled what we did together, either in letter or spirit, just now. We shall have to get to it before long.”

“That will devolve upon us in the near future. I had thought, Sir Godfrey, I own I had gathered from your initial manner of expressing yourself, that you were surprised, perhaps even taken aback, by the conditions of the will. I am relieved to hear from you that that is not the case.”

“Oh, no; yes. That is as I have told you, Spong.”

“Yes, yes,” said Dominic. “Yes indeed, Sir Godfrey. And now we can proceed to a general discussion, if you are so minded, or we can postpone grappling with general problems to a future occasion. I am leaving home for a short time upon matters connected with my own life, that I need not bring to your attention.” Dominic put his finger-tips together and looked at them, but Godfrey did not ask to have the matters so brought. “But on my return I shall be prepared to give my mind with you to what demands it.”

“Yes, yes, Spong, that will be best. To tell you the truth, I am so wrapped up in my two young ones’ fortunes, and my poor Matthew’s troubles, and my personal bereavement, that I am hardly up to business at the moment. I might go off again at a tangent, and talk as if I were another man, and put you in doubt what to make of me. I still feel very uncertain and rooted up. Ah, it leaves one in a sort of fever. We will let it stand over for the present. And thank you, Spong, thank you. You will have some tea?”

The volume of Godfrey’s thanks seemed vaguely to cover something beyond what was ostensible.

“No, I thank you, I will not, Sir Godfrey,” said Dominic, with satisfaction in the positive refusal. “I have another appointment to keep. In fact, a friend is waiting for me at your gates; and I am proposing to hurry to her, as the sex indicated by my pronoun commands my haste.”

Godfrey shook hands and turned and strode to the drawing-room, which was peopled as usual by his family and friends.

“Well, well, that is over. I have had to see Spong, and square myself for the future. It is of no good to shirk, but I shall miss Harriet. I needn’t say that, but I shall miss her in all these dealings with Spong. I can’t bring myself to face Spong in her spirit; I can’t manage him as she did. There is something about Spong.” Godfrey gave a fillip with his fingers. “I can’t say what it is; it is something I can’t put a name to, that I haven’t any fancy for. It is no matter, as he didn’t show it to Harriet. Harriet was not a person who invited that kind of thing. I don’t expect him to look on me in the same light; I don’t do it myself. Well, Harriet has had her own way; she has, my girl! She made her will as it took her fancy, and I am glad she did. I am to have everything for my life, apart from the legacies to the sons and daughter; and then it is to go to the children, hers and mine. And I am to remain her widower; I am to do that. If I marry again, I lose every fraction of a farthing of what was hers!” He brought one hand down on the other, as if in satisfaction at the thoroughness of the condition. “Those are the terms. She would have her husband. And I am glad she would. I am exalted, I am flattered by it. It makes no difference to me. I don’t want to marry again. I wouldn’t insult her memory by speaking of it, if she had not put in the clause herself. But, would you believe it, Spong looked at me quite dubious out of the corner of his eye. I declare I could have let out at him, sitting there with his head on one side. Harriet had the touch with him. He tried to twist something I said — about Griselda and Gregory I believe it was, or said with them in mind — into an expression of resentment against my wife! I had a word to say to him then. I suppose he has never met couples with an understanding between them. I understand what was in my girl’s mind, as well as if she had explained it to me. I daresay she did put it to me, only I have no memory for such things. That may be why I jumped at comprehension, that I was clear about it underneath. On the surface of course I had thought of the two of us going down into old age together. Not that I am getting near to that; I could wish I were, with Harriet gone from me. Well, Gregory, I hope you will have as much in your married life as I had in mine. That is your father’s wish for you.”