Ivy Compton-Burnett - Elders and Betters

As dusk began to fall, Miss Lacy directed her steps towards the house, and Dora glanced about and drew nearer to her.

“Well, this is not the best time of day for anyone to have to be floating about in the air outside a house,” she said in a jaunty manner.

“No one does have to,” said Miss Lacy. “People go into their houses, and spirits have their own safe home.”

“Do they really have it?” said Dora, pressing up to her, and using a tone she could not check. “Don’t they really have to be about without friends or ease or comfort?”

“No, of course they do not. Things would not be like that. We have our homes, and there would not be less refuge for those who have passed beyond.”

“No, there wouldn’t,” said Dora, relaxing her limbs, but walking as if her strength were gone.

“Suppose none of it is true,” said Julius. “There are people who think that we don’t live after we are dead.”

“Well, that would not matter,” said Miss Lacy. “I told you to think of yourself before you were born. That is how it would be, if that is the case.”

“Then it is certain that they don’t have any suffering or misery?” said Dora.

“Absolutely certain. There can be no doubt.”

Julius and Dora sprang up the steps of the house, without giving a word or look to Miss Lacy, who had given them this release of spirit, and who was left to depend on Reuben for the civility due to a guest. Reuben had hardly been addressed by his cousins, but had acquiesced in having no claim on them at such a time.

Thomas came into the hall as they bounded through it.

“Don’t you know better than to let a lady who has been giving you her time, go to the gate by herself without any thanks for her kindness? You have been taught as much as that. What is the explanation of such manners?”

The children could hardly give him the true one, of embarrassment over the betrayal of their hearts, especially as their spirits had evidently struck him as out of season. They stood silent and ill at ease, Julius looking also a little angry.

“In future remember what your mother has taught you,” said Thomas. “It grieves me to think of poor Miss Lacy, left to go off alone in the dark, when we owe so much to her.”

The children felt some surprise at this estimate of their debt. It was their first experience of the exaggerated gratitude that arises in bereavement. Dora looked back and saw the small, bent figure, pushing its way unsupported through the wind and dusk. Her heart was rent, and she was about to run back through the open door, but Thomas shut it with an emphasis that revealed the passing of his thought to another neglected duty.

“You would think he might keep the house quiet at such a time,” said Julius. “Who should set such an example, but the master of it?”

The schoolroom was firelit and inviting, and Terence was seated at the table in response to a message from Miss Lacy. The contrast between its comfort and the outer bleakness held Dora petrified.

“What a peaked and staring face!” said Terence. “Was it very chilly in the garden?”

“It is cold and dark and windy now. Miss Lacy can hardly get along by herself,” said Dora, with a hope that succour might be forthcoming.

“It is too late to go after her. She must be almost at home. And no one lives in more comfort,” said Terence, with some perception of his sister’s mind. “She has larger fires and better things to eat then anyone. No wonder she enjoys a battle with the wind. That always means a life of ease.”

“I hope Father is not going to play the pedagogue every time we see him,” said Julius. “That is no tribute to anyone’s memory, though he may think it is.”

“He would hardly be in form at the moment,” said Terence.

This allusion to the circumstances struck Dora as so boldly humorous, that she fell almost into hysterics.

“Take care. Shrieks of mirth are not the sounds expected at this juncture,” said Terence, forgetting how easily they occurred at such a point.

His sister’s sense of the ludicrous received a further spur.

“I hope we shall be able to maintain the required deportment,” said Terence. “I cannot say that I detect any signs of promise.”

Dora shook in silent helplessness.

“What is so funny?” said Julius.

His sister experienced the sharp irritation of a check at such a moment.

“You would not see it. Terence was only talking to me.”

“That is a lie!” said Julius.

“He knows you don’t understand so much of what he says.”

Julius, confronted not only by a lie, but by the form of it known as the blackest, turned and deliberately struck his sister. She rose and fell upon him, and they gave themselves to combat. It raged for some minutes, illustrating the failings of human nature, as Julius proved that chivalry is not innate in man, and Dora resorted to instinctive feminine methods with tooth and nail. Terence watched with indolent interest, at one time dropping his eyes to his book, and at another stretching out a hand to check excessive violence or his brother’s misuse of superior strength. As the contest died down, a system of mere retaliation ensued, and the give-and-take of blows became almost mechanical. Then the combatants fell apart and Julius spoke. “Where is the book?” he said.

Dora fetched a notebook and accepted a pencil from his hand, and added an entry to a page, of which the items had been crossed out, as they were dealt with.

“Yielding to evil passions,” she wrote, and added after a glance at her brother, “and at a time of bereavement.”

Julius nodded and framed some words with his lips, and Dora wrote again.

“Neglect of Miss Lacy after kindness. Wrong attitude to father’s just reproof.”

After completing the last entry she restored the pencil to her brother, and returned with him to the tea-table.

“Your ribbon is on the floor, and there is some torn out hair on your dress,” he said, in a tone that might have mentioned that his sister’s shoe was loose.

Dora remedied these conditions, Julius giving her rather anxious aid, and not desisting until his hands had rectified the damage they had wrought. She dropped the hair on the fire from between her finger and thumb.

“Say an incantation over the witches’ cauldron,” she said.

“We ought to have the finger of a dead child, not the hair of a live one,” said Julius, watching the consumption of the part of his sister that was available.

“I am glad your violence did not lead as far as that,” said Terence.

The children broke into laughter and settled down at the table. They had hardly done so when Thomas and Tullia appeared.

“What was all the noise?” said Thomas.

“What it sounded to be,” said his elder son.

“We did not know you were here,” said Tullia. “We thought the children were alone, and were flying at each other’s throats.”

“You were right in the second particular,” said Terence. “Why did you not come up at once? They might have attained their object. At one stage it did not seem impossible.”

A fainter sound of laughter came from the children.

Thomas walked to the fire, sat down rather heavily in an armchair, and beckoned them to his side.

“Mother has left us, but we do not want her influence to leave us too. What would she think of a brother and sister’s fighting on this day of all days?”

The children could hardly explain, perhaps hardly understood, that the converse of the impression received by their father was true.

“It wouldn’t be this kind of day, if she was here,” said Julius.

“What did she say to you, when this sort of thing happened?”

“I don’t think she minded as much as you do.”