Ivy Compton-Burnett: Elders and Betters

“There is a room behind the dining-room, that I had chosen for him. It is underneath yours.”

“Oh, then I can hear him at any minute of the day or night!” said Jenney, in a tone of hailing good news.

“Shall we push on and see the rooms designed for ourselves?” said Claribel, who was obviously in suspense.

“I will take you round and show you how I have allotted them,” said Anna, in a manner of introducing the final decision. “And we will not waste time on empty questions and comments. The furniture should arrive at any moment.”

“Oh, I hope it will come!” said Jenney.

Anna, without allusion to the immediate breach of her condition, walked forward in single purpose. Jenney followed in compliant silence, and Claribel with an air of submitting in patience to an interlude.

“The drawing-room and dining-room are what we should expect,” said Anna, throwing open the doors. “The kitchens are below them. The staircase leads to those above.”

“A natural use for a staircase,” murmured Claribel to Jenney, as she set foot upon it. “I am glad we are to be allowed to put it to its purpose.”

“This is the third bedroom,” said Anna, casting a half-indulgent look at her cousin, and making no reference to her assignment of the first and second to her father and herself. “I have seen worse rooms.”

“Oh, I think I can make this room my own,” said Claribel, advancing and looking round with all her interest. “The little balcony makes a distinguishing feature. I don’t think I saw one outside the other rooms.” She spoke with a hint of anxiety, and bent towards Anna in humorous admission. “Now that I have seen my own room, I will take an interest in other people’s.”

“No, they haven’t a balcony,” said Anna, answering her real meaning. “They are much what they would be in this kind of house.”

“I think I am satisfied with them for you,” said Claribel, turning after a moment of inspection with a touch of relief. “They are light and pleasant, and not so much better than mine, that they put me out of conceit with it. And my little balcony gives me great satisfaction. One can make so much of an individual touch, or I always feel that I can. My flowers will be quite different from those in the garden. I can’t help feeling that degree of self-confidence.”

“The two little rooms are very nice,” said Jenney, referring to her own and Anna’s youngest brother’s. “Reuben cannot feel alone, with me just above him.”

“And you will never have a moment’s peace by day or night,” said Claribel.

“Well, it is bad for him, when his leg aches, and he is alone in the dark,” said Jenney, in a tone that lingered on the scene.

“His leg has not ached for years,” said Anna.

Jenney was silent, having yet to disengage her mind from this point of the past.

“And now for our inspection of the upper floor and the boys’ quarters,” said Claribel. “And then a return to our own rooms to concentrate our attention upon them. That amount of egotism is permissible in us.”

Jenney smiled at her in kindness, accustomed to showing sympathy with everyone in the house, and too engrossed in human affairs to find it difficult.

“Bernard’s room, Esmond’s room, spare room, Father’s study,” said Anna, walking about the landing and throwing open doors.

“What about the servants’ room?” said Jenney, clasping her hands and then unclasping them, as if fearing disapproval of the action.

“Up there,” said Anna, with a gesture towards another staircase. “We need not trail up and inspect it.”

“Anyhow we will not,” said Claribel.

“I think I will just run up,” said Jenney, seeming to be poised between one world and another, and then making a dash towards the second. “Then I can tell them about it.”

“I should have thought they could judge of it for themselves,” said Anna to Claribel, meeting a smile of fellow-feeling that arose from personal content.

“It is quite a good room,” said Jenney, returning and remaining with her eyes on the staircase, as if she must reserve a degree of comment. “And there are two good lumber rooms as well. It is all very nice.”

“Well, I am glad you approve of it,” said Anna. “It took some seeking and finding.”

“It is a beautiful home,” said Jenney, overcoming her disinclination to enthusiastic phrase. “We ought to be very happy in it. It was clever of you to find it. Of course this last staircase is rather steep.”

“Done to economise space,” said Anna, throwing it a glance.

“The servants will be here this afternoon,” said Jenney, as though the disadvantage might perhaps be remedied before this stage.

“Well, no doubt they will have to arrive like the rest of us.”

“I daresay the resemblance will end there,” said Claribel.

“They will expect their room to be ready,” said Jenney, in a voice that seemed to have no inflections.

“It will be ready as soon as they make it so,” said Anna. “And I shall expect them to do the same with ours.”

“I hope they will settle down in the house.”

“If they don’t, we must find others who will.”

“These have got used to our ways,” said Jenney.

“We have none that is different from other people’s, except that you and Father don’t expect enough from them.”

Jenney’s mind had not been on the demands of herself and Mr. Donne, as her eyes, resting on the two other claimants of attention, betrayed.

“Spoiling people does not make them happier,” said Anna, voicing a theory that Jenney always thought a strange one.

“It only exalts them in their own estimation,” said Claribel, as if this were indeed a thing not to be done.

“Here are the van and the men!” said Anna. “For a wonder up to time.”

“Oh, we are fortunate!” breathed Jenney. “If they had been late, the house would not have been comfortable before to-night.”

“Well, there are only three women to be afflicted,” said Claribel. “And we do not take such things as hardly as men.”

Jenney did not say that she was thinking of a larger number of women.

“It would have been odd if they had dared to be late, after what I said,” said Anna, in a grim tone, going out to meet the men.

Jenney looked as if her own methods might not have succeeded here, but followed with an air of deprecating any others.

“Those large things straight into the dining-room,” said Anna, with a wave of her hand.

“Wouldn’t they like something to drink first?” whispered Jenney.

“Work first, drink afterwards,” said Anna, in an audible undertone.

“I hope that my private and personal things have sustained no harm,” said Claribel, looking round with a smile for her self-regard. “Our own possessions acquire such an appeal. We feel that they are owed tender treatment.”

“I hope the men feel the same,” said Anna, hurrying to and from with a preoccupied face. “Everything belongs to somebody.”

“But these things belong to me ,” said Claribel, throwing back her head.

Later in the day two figures came up the drive, the taller stooping over the shorter in a manner of sympathetic protection. Jenney ran out to meet them in an eagerness that she checked on her way, as if there were some rashness in betraying it.

“So you are here; I knew you would be,” she said, as though some doubt might have, been felt on the matter. “You are just in time for tea. Your room is ready. We remembered that you liked one large one better than two small.”

“Cook cannot sleep alone,” said the taller woman, in a flat, deep voice. “She is of too nervous a type.”

“You will like this room,” said Jenney, in almost excited assurance. “It is very large and bright. That is the window up there.”