Ivy Compton-Burnett: Elders and Betters

“It may not be all giving on our side,” said Claribel. “We shall impose our own wills without knowing it. No one with any force of character avoids that.”

“It would not do to go through life alone,” said Jenney, mentioning the disadvantage that struck her as the worst.

“I suppose we all do that,” said Reuben.

“Oh, in that sense,” said Esmond, irritably. “That does not need saying.”

“But I was proud to say it,” said his brother.

“You have a nice room on this floor, Reuben, underneath mine,” said Jenney.

A relief spread over Reuben’s face.

“Come upstairs and see the house,” said Bernard, rising and offering his arm.

The brothers mounted the staircase, Bernard giving his support without seeming to know that he did so. Reuben no longer needed it, but would not repudiate his brother’s thought, or the effort of rising from his chair, which he did not underestimate; and found that the longer he followed this line, the more bound he was to it. Jenney welcomed protection for him, feeling simply that he was a creature dependent on it; Benjamin saw the matter as it was; Anna saw its surface; and Esmond was not concerned with it.

“It is a good thing those two are such good friends,” said Anna. “It would make a problem, if Bernard were sensitive about Reuben, or anything like that.”

Jenney’s face showed her view of this idea, and Benjamin’s betrayed that his was the same. His reaction and Jenney’s often resembled each other.

“I don’t think we feel embarrassed by people belonging to ourselves,” said Claribel. “Our relations form the natural background for the creatures that we are.”

“Are you going to the other house to-morrow, Father?” said Anna, making no pretence of attending.

“To-night, my daughter. Your aunt will be expecting me. She must not do so in vain.”

Benjamin’s voice accorded with his words. His feeling for his sisters was the strongest in his life, rooted in its background and beginning. Their qualities appeared to him essential and natural; their troubles roused his pity, and helplessness in them found him a protector; their ease with him appealed to him more than any other experience. They did not know the man who was known to his children.

“There will be trouble and expense for us there,” said Anna.

“Why should there be expense?” said Benjamin. “Your aunts have their own incomes.”

“We can hardly breathe without paying for it,” said Esmond. “We cannot so much as eat and drink like the beasts of the field.”

“They have few other advantages,” said his father. “You need not desire a further affinity with them.”

Esmond appeared not to hear the words that he did not dare to answer. The expression that he believed indifferent, was one of aversion. Benjamin’s eyes dilated as he looked at him, a change that did not improve them, as they were already prominent. He was exasperated by signs of dislike in his sons, and the feeling led him to give them further cause for it.

“It is a modest but pleasant house,” said Reuben’s voice, “and a home is where a family is gathered together.”

“That is what makes family problems,” said Bernard.

“We have none of those,” said Benjamin, in a tone that defied contradiction.

“None,” muttered Esmond. “Problems imply a solution.”

“Jenney is proud of me for being able to talk like other people, though I cannot walk like them,” said Reuben, rightly interpreting the expression on Jenney’s face.

“Your walking is very much improved,” said Anna. “There is not much amiss with it now.”

“People would hardly believe the pathetic little figure I used to be.”

Jenney’s eyes rested on Reuben, as if this still appeared to her the natural view.

“If I had been like other boys, people might not have loved me so well.”

“They must have some ground for their regard,” said Esmond.

Benjamin looked at his youngest son without expression. He could hardly sneer at his infirmity, and was unversed in any other course. In his heart he thought less of Esmond for his dealings with him, and found that they fixed his position as the least dear of his children.

Ethel came into the room with her usual step, but with her eyes rather wide and fixed.

“Cook’s smallest bag has not arrived, Miss Jennings.”

“Oh, what a nuisance!” said Jenney, looking about as if half-expecting to see the bag. “Where did she see it last?”

“She packed it with her own hands, Miss Jennings.”

“Who usually packs Cook’s bags?” said Bernard.

Ethel gave him an enigmatic look, and did not say upon whom such a task of Cook’s would normally devolve.

“Well, does it matter so much?” said Anna. “It will follow by itself.”

“Cook had it with her in the compartment, Miss Anna.”

“You mean it had no address? Why did you not bring it in the cab?”

Jenney’s eyes went from Anna to Ethel, as if to measure their mutual effect.

“We only brought what was needed for the night, Miss Anna,” said Ethel, throwing some light on this.

“Did you leave the bag to speak for itself at the station?” said Esmond. “A label would have saved it the trouble.”

Ethel met his eyes in silence.

“You must know what you did with it,” said Anna.

“We thought it would come with the other luggage, Miss Anna.”

“It would have been wiser and kinder of it,” said Bernard.

Ethel tried not to smile and entirely succeeded.

“Someone must go to the station about it,” said Jenney.

“Who can do that?” said Anna. “We have no means of going.”

“I am the last person who can offer to walk,” said Reuben.

“You must manage for yourself, Ethel,” said Anna.

“I might be able to walk one way,” said Ethel, in a tone of offering a dubious, but perhaps not impossible solution.

“And would Cook walk the other?” said Bernard.

“Would the bag carry you back?” said Esmond, at the same moment.

Reuben burst into laughter, and Claribel leaned back and tapped the ground with her foot, wearied by the impersonal discussion.

“You may make yourself easy, my good girl,” said Benjamin, who took this line with young women of Ethel’s class, and believed Ethel to be young because of her calling. “One of the tradesmen will be passing the station, and will bring it in his cart.”

“Cook cannot settle down, sir,” said Ethel, as if further words were unnecessary; and indeed any would have fallen flat after these.

“It does seem like a bag not to think of that,” said Bernard.

Ethel suddenly moved to the door, as if hearing something audible only to her own ears.

“Cook says that that bag was unpacked first of all,” she said, turning back and addressing Jenney in an empty tone.

“Do you mean that it has been here from the first?”

“Did it unpack itself and say nothing about it?” said Bernard.

“So Cook has been settled all the time,” said Anna.

“She cannot be that in a moment, Miss Anna. And when Cook is exhausted, she hardly knows where she is.”

“Cook and the bag sound rather alike,” said Bernard. “They say that living together breeds resemblance.”

“It is Cook’s dove-coloured bag, sir, that is utilised for smaller articles,” said Ethel, with a note of reproach.

“And it behaved like a bag of any other kind. It can only be said that it did.”

“The trouble is over, isn’t it?” said Benjamin.

“It never existed,” said his daughter.

“If Cook does not know where she is, she may be thinking that she was left at the station too,” said Reuben, in an insistent manner.

“I wonder she was not,” said Anna; “the cab seems to have brought so little.”