Ivy Compton-Burnett: Elders and Betters

“Your father should not monopolise your interest,” said Bernard. “You should recognise the claims of other people.”

“Oh, all of them seem to be tumbling helter-skelter along the road of the life-force. It seems odd to make an open parade of it. You would think it would be a matter for the individual soul. Or the individual something; I don’t know that the soul has much to do with it. It all seems rather unreticent and primitive somehow. I suppose I am over-civilised or something.”

“I am sure I am,” said Bernard. “It is a thing we have in common.”

“It is not an advantage. You spend your life on a quest for people with whom communication is possible. Sometimes Father and I feel that we can only talk to each other.”

“I am sure this is communication.”

‘I suppose you think I ought to want Anna to marry my brother, though there can be no companionship between them. Of course Anna is your sister, but you know what I mean the better for that.”

“This is real communication. I will not say a word to check it.”

“I have never done much for Terence, or even thought a great deal about him,” said Tullia. “And yet I feel that he ought to find me enough.”

“So he ought,” said Bernard, “but I am glad he does not. Between him and your father there would be no access to you.”

“I daresay that would be to Father’s mind. I believe he regrets the days of the veiled woman.”

“I do not,” said Bernard, looking into her face.

“It seems fairer to allow a straight inspection. Oh, why has marrying and giving in marriage something so crude about it?”

“It only has for outsiders,” said Terence, overhearing. “The people involved feel at their best. They always have someone taking an optimistic view of them.”

“That explains their complacence, and I suppose excuses it,” said Tullia.

“The complacence may always be there, and the circumstances discover it,” said Bernard. “It certainly goes rather far. They even talk about their own unworthiness, as if there were no chance of people’s having observed it.”

“I have not done so,” said Terence. “I have made the best of myself, as is sensible, and I should think usual.”

“I have just done nothing,” said Anna. “I have shown my ordinary self, and faced people’s efforts to show us in a sorry light.”

“Have they done that?” said Terence. “There is no end to their secondrateness. What kind of thing have they said?”

“That I am too old and you are too poor, and the rest of it.”

“Well, so are they; everyone always is. Not that I should have said a word about it, if they had not. I am glad that I pass over people’s weaker side. If I did not, I should get tired out.”

Tullia gave her brother a sudden glance, as if something were explained for her.

“And that would not suit you,” said Thomas.

“There is a touch of meanness even in the best of us,” said Terence, resting his eyes on his father. “And how could I put it more nicely than that?”

“You know how I wish for your happiness, my son. I cannot give your mother back to you.”

“I can forgive that,” said Terence. “I think there is every excuse for it.”

“If you knew how glad I am, that you are to remain near at hand!”

“It is a good thing you have told me. It might have been one of those things that you always wished you had said.”

“You need not talk as if you were about to sink into the grave,” said Anna.

“Well, you never know what may happen to me.”

“You might say that of everyone.”

“That seems so odd,” said Terence. “I always think there may come a time when I am no longer amongst you. But other people will surely be here, or who will feel the miss?”

“Do other people strike you as being immortal?”

“Yes, they do seem so equal to things. I don’t see how they could ever be glad to rest. So where would be the reason for them to die? And I notice that they think they never will. I seem to be the only person who faces death.”

“Well, that is supposed to take all terror away from it,” said Anna.

“It is an odd supposition. You would think it would be the way to see it most fully, and I have found that it is. But people must feel that there is some way of disposing of it. They could not be brave enough to feel it is there. I know how brave you have to be. And to think that with all the strain upon me, a harsh word has scarcely passed my lips. Think of what you will say when I am gone.”

“What is that?” said Anna.

“Follow in his steps,” said Terence.

“It will be hard not to do that, as they move towards the grave,” said Benjamin.

“We all have to rise to these demands,” said Esmond.

“Well, I do not think anything could hurt you,” said Terence.

“I feel that I suffer from them in some special way of my own,” said Claribel, making a gesture. “One cannot help a guilty feeling that no one breathes quite the same air as oneself.”

“I wish you would not echo my thoughts,” said Terence.

“Well, what is the good of being cousins, if we may not be just a little alike?”

“Would anything produce a feeling of guilt in you?” said Thomas, to his son.

“So many things do,” said Terence. “Not doing any work. Not having an income. Being too young for Anna, being too old to have done nothing, being the right age to take up something. Being reconciled to being supported by my wife; and there I am worse than is thought, because I am glad about it. Being the man I am, really hardly being a man. If I had not this feeling of superiority, I do not know what I should do. And I have a right to it, because I could never think so many unkind things about anyone. I feel that to know all is to forgive all, and other people seem to forgive nothing. And no one can say they don’t know all. I have never thought of any way of keeping it from them.”

Thomas turned to Anna.

“My dear, I wish my wife were here to give you her welcome. I feel that I am a poor substitute for her.”

“Did you have parents, Miss Jennings?” said Terence.

“Yes,” said Jenney, looking surprised.

“I am sorry I am such a poor substitute for them.”

“People will accuse you of harping on one string,” said Anna.

“I daresay they will,” said Terence. “It would be like them. I think I can see accusation in my father’s eye. I have learned to recognise it.”

“Don’t be too hard on parents. You may find yourself in their place.”

“I could not think more of parents than I do. No one has given more honour to his father and his mother. My days will be very long. It is a pity that I have this habit of facing death, when in my case it is hardly necessary.”

“In other words you do not face it,” said Claribel, who had maintained an air of taking her part in the talk.

“Father and I have done pretty well together,” said Anna. “Perhaps the better, that he has had no other woman to depend on. I daresay our relation is the ordinary thing, that my affairs tend to be, but it may wear the better for that. I can leave him without feeling that he will eat out his heart. We can meet at reasonable intervals and be satisfied.”

“It does not sound as if your days will be as long as mine,” said Terence.

“But what a good description of an ideal state of affairs!” said Tullia. “I can do nothing but envy it.”

“It sounds as if it all might prevent your marrying,” said Anna, in the serious manner of one who had light upon this subject. “Not that Uncle Thomas would assert his claims in such a case. But you may be doing each other less than justice, in trying to do too much.”

Tullia laughed, as if more at Anna’s effort at expression than at what she said.