Ivy Compton-Burnett: Elders and Betters

“Three households,” said Esmond’s voice, “and one of them not related.”

“Yes, you are in a proud position. You have not had to fall back upon a cousin. But Miss Lacy had a sort of connection with the house. It comes to much the same thing.”

“No, I do not agree there,” said Miss Lacy, shaking her head. “I admit Esmond’s distinction.”

“So this household will consist solely of Thomas and the two children,” said Claribel.

“Yes, that will be my family,” said Thomas, “and I hope I shall be able to do well by it. The motherless children must not also be without a father. I hope there would have been no danger of it.”

There was no danger now.

Thomas rose and beckoned to the children, as they ran past the window, and going into the hall, waited for their approach.

“My little ones!” he said, sitting down and drawing them to his sides, in the assumption that his rush of feeling had its counterpart in them. “My little son and daughter! We shall be so much to each other, we three. We have no one else.”

The children were silent over this assurance of affection and the ground for it.

“Haven’t you got Florence?” said Dora, drawing herself away to look into his face.

“I have given Florence to Esmond,” said Thomas, with no thought that he was not speaking the truth. “She is young, and he is young, and they will be better for each other.”

There was a pause.

“There is even more difference between you and us,” said Julius.

“I am your father, my little son.”

“Does having no one else make people fonder of those who are left?” said Dora.

“Well, it concentrates their feeling on them,” said Thomas. “It means there is no one to share it.”

“But it isn’t like the real feeling of choosing someone?”

“There are deeper things than choice, my little girl,” said Thomas, forgetting that he had not given his preference to these.

“I don’t think Dora and I have ever had much besides ourselves,” said Julius. “Not as our chief thing.”

“You shall have it now,” said Thomas, his tone solemn under the stress of giving what was now at his disposal. “My poor little boy and girl, I shall have to be father and mother to you. I see that is to be my part.”

“You didn’t really want it, did you?” said Dora, with a certain sympathy in her tone.

“If he is a father, it will be enough,” said Terence to Bernard at the fireside. “Do people think that no one can be a loss, as long as they are alive? Why does he not say that he will be brother and sister to them?”

“You must look on me as your elder brother,” continued Thomas.

“Oh, he is saying it,” said Terence.

“He can be a cousin to them too,” said Bernard. “I am going to be sunk in my own life.”

“You must look upon me as father and mother, brother and sister and friend,” said Thomas, feeling a warmth of giving proportionate to what he offered. “We will remember Mother together. We will go hand-in-hand along the paths of life.”

“Of course, we are really used to going alone,” said Julius.

“You will soon forget those days,” said Thomas, feeling it would be well simply to obliterate what was to be regretted.

“We are not young enough for that,” said his son.

“If you had married Florence, would you have forgotten the days with Mother?” said Dora, in some trouble over the workings of the human mind.

“I suppose you would have had to forget them, before you did it,” said Julius.

“Mother would have understood,” said Thomas, with the common assumption that understanding in the dead would involve sympathy and approval. “But that is over and can be forgotten.”

“I don’t think people forget so many things,” said Julius. “I don’t see how they can.”

“It was a mistake, and mistakes have no meaning,” said his father. “That is all we need say about it.”

“The less said about it, the better,” said Dora.

Thomas looked at her and put back her hair from her face.

“We must bring your childhood back, my little one.”

“She has never lost her childhood,” said Julius. “She couldn’t if she wanted to. People can’t do these things.”

“And it wouldn’t be such a very good thing to bring back, if I had lost it,” said Dora.

“The outward signs of it are good to other people,” said Thomas. “We must remember that. But I am sure the real thing is underneath.”

“Yes, people do like it,” said Julius. “I daresay it makes things easier for them.”

“I must put some joy and sunshine into these early days,’ said Thomas, still seeking to amend the conditions that now had his attention. “You must have some such things to remember.”

“We have chiefly had experience of the seamy side of life, haven’t we?” said Dora.

“Well, you have had the one great sorrow,” said Thomas, seeming to prefer this account of things. “I could not save you that. But we will face it together, and it will draw us closer. It will bind you to your father.”

“But it isn’t a good thing it has happened, is it?” said Julius.

“And freedom to walk alone is one of the best things in life,” said Dora.

Thomas again pushed back her hair, as if her felt that it threw some cloud over her mind.

“Suppose we stop quoting other people, and say the things that come into our own little head.”

“Quoting is saying things from books in the same words,” said Julius. “She wasn’t doing that.”

“I mean that my little girl’s own little thoughts are what I like to hear. I have plenty of those from books and other people.”

There was a silence, while Julius and Dora exchanged a glance, and with it a resolution to submit to fate.

“I suppose that losing the same person, and having to live without her, does make people feel like each other,” said Dora, leaning against her father. “It would, if you think. Because they would so often have the same thoughts.”

Thomas stroked her hair with a surer touch, conveying his appreciation of these natural and childlike words.

“They would, my little one. They do indeed. You and Julius and I will find it so. You shall indeed find it.”

“And I suppose they would get to feel more and more the same?” said Dora, with wider eyes.

“You shall find that too,” said her father.

“And I don’t suppose that even a lot of time going by would make any difference?” said Julius.

“No, my little son, it shall not make any. I give you my word. I can take that weight off your minds,” said Thomas, in gladness that his children should have been burdened in this way.

“So everything is planned, and we can settle down in peace and safety,” said Dora in a comfortable tone, establishing herself between her father’s knees.

“Quaint, little maiden!” said Thomas, now able to stroke her hair in simple tenderness.

“And the future has no danger for us?” said Julius, with a faint question in his tone, as if requiring one more reassurance before following his sister’s example.

“None, my little son. You may put away all fear. You are safe while you have your father,” said Thomas, looking as if he wished he had a larger supply of knees.

“And you won’t — nothing will happen to you?” said Dora, in a sudden, apprehensive manner.

“No, my little one. Humanly speaking, I shall be with you through your helpless days,” said Thomas, rising as some instinct told him that this was the point to end the scene. “You may cast off fear and care. Run out into the air in the careless freedom that is the due of your age.”

Julius and Dora obeyed him, giving some little jumps to indicate this state, and rewarded by feeling their father’s smile upon them. As they moved out of sight of the house, Julius slackened his pace.