Ivy Compton-Burnett - Dolores

The eldest son of the parsonage — Dolores’ companion in the life that was woven only in name with the others of the same scene — was a lesser cause of discord. Mrs Hutton was one of the women, to whom masculine failings have a strong excuse in being masculine; and as far as his relations with his father went, there was little to awaken jealousy in a breast where it was the most overbearing of inmates. Mr Hutton was not in the least disposed to an over-genial view of a lusty young piece of male flesh under his roof, growing into added lustiness in dependence on his daily efforts. He was rather addicted to comment on the necessity of putting youthful opportunities to the utmost profit, as young men were not to be supported by their fathers all their lives. The son was a self-absorbed, silent lad, old for his seventeen years; with an easily kindled zeal for the excellent; and a fainter something of Dolores’ instinct of fellowship with thinking things, which had led him to fix his ambitions on teaching. He had a straitened lot. His days were spent at a school in a neighbouring town, and his evenings in pacing the lanes with a book. He regarded his father and stepmother with one of those minglings of feeling which grow from family communion — alternating between affection and resentful dislike. He took scanty notice of the little half-brother and sisters, and reserved what his nature held for Dolores, under whose eye he was approaching an upright and reason-governed manhood.

A favourable time for a glimpse of the brother and sister is a midsummer evening of the year, whose autumn saw things as they are shown with the Hutton family. It was the day of Dolores’ final coming from school; and the trap which formed the provision of its kind at the parsonage had been driven to meet her by her brother; the father’s tutored domestic instinct precluding any form of personal eagerness on his daughter’s return to his roof. She was to pass the summer at the parsonage, and enter in the autumn a college for women. She seconded her stepmother’s view that her future support should not be expected of her father, and was to be fitted for the teaching to which she looked forward with her brother. We may watch her, as she walks up the country road — a tall, rather gaunt-looking woman — for the nameless suggestions of girlhood had lingered but a little while with Dolores, — angular and large of limb; with a plainness of dress that almost spoke of heedlessness, and a carriage not without dignity in its easy energy of motion. Her face is turned to her brother’s, lit up with humour and life; a face with a healthful sallowness of skin, exaggerated aquiline features, and grey eyes innocent of beauty of lash or colour, looking under nervous eyebrows, and a forehead already showing its furrows. She was fresh from the modern public school, where as student and student — teacher she had grown from the early maturity of the girl of thirteen to tolerant womanhood. It had been a helpful sphere for her early needs — rich in fellowship, in nurture for the charity which mellowed her nature’s primary sternness. It was not without cost that she put away what it gave, as childish things, and crossed its bound with her face held to the future.

With her face held thus, she greeted her brother with the humorous affection of their long comradeship; uttered no word of the day as lived by herself; and lent her ear to his tale of the home routine; showing his father’s and stepmother’s lots as they were to themselves, and summoning an eagerness for his boyish hopes which should prove that there was one who cared for them greatly. For Dolores in her dealings with others suppressed any pain that was her own; and had only cheer for the creatures she saw as having no need of further saddening. Her brother found that she filled the wants of his life; and in giving his troubles of the present and hopes for the future to her keeping, hardly knew that her present and future were things of which he heard little; or that her life held its own crushed sorrows, and duties that were hard and binding.

“I told father I had made up my mind to teach,” he said, as they paused in the hedge-bound road for the trap to pass; “but he does not try to understand the meaning the decision has for me. He remarked that he supposed it was a passable choice, as I had no desire for the Church, and no aptitude for law or medicine. It seems the thing to talk about teaching as a work for feeble youths, who have no chance of another livelihood.”

“Yes, I believe it does,” said Dolores, with a sound of laughter in her full-toned, rather impressive voice; “and I daresay, as many do it, father has put it fitly — the best thing for people with no aptitude for the Church or law or medicine. But you choose it as it is in itself.”

“It is a comfort to hear a sane remark,” said Bertram. “The talk that goes on at home, Dolores! It is invariably bounded by the doings and misdoings of the parish, or of Uncle James — misdoings in the latter case. And the mater is for ever put out about some little trifling thing that cannot possibly matter. We never have a day of peace.”

“Her married life has hardly been all she expected, I am afraid,” said Dolores. “She is fretted by little things, that cannot be avoided any more than they can seem to be worth worrying about. How are the children, Bertram?”

“Oh — well, I suppose,” said Bertram. “Evelyn is fretful as usual; and Sophy waits on her as usual; and we have begun to call the baby Cleveland. The mater says it is time he was called by his name. I believe it is a source of satisfaction to her that it is he and not I who is named after father.

“Poor baby Cleveland!” said Dolores. “I am sure we need not grudge him his name, especially as it was given him after you had had the chance of it. Look, Bertram, here is the very person for us embryo teachers to meet. We cannot fail to be wiser five minutes hence.”

“And wiser still ten minutes hence,” muttered Bertram, as the gate of the cornfield clicked; and Dr Cassell — greyer, stouter, and ruddier, but otherwise unaltered for the further years of dispensing medical, scriptural, and general matter — stepped into the highroad.

“How do you do, Miss Dolores? So your last session at school has come to an end. I must congratulate you upon your latest success.”

“Dolores, I had forgotten your scholarship,” said Bertram.

“Ah, we don’t keep pleasant things in our minds so long as unpleasant,” said Dr Cassell. “And this is a very pleasant thing, I hear, Miss Dolores. Your college course — or the larger part of it — provided for! You are to be congratulated.”

“She is indeed,” said Bertram. “The scholarship carries a lot besides its money value. We are all very proud of her.”

“It is nothing to be proud of, unless hard work is a cause for pride,” said Dolores. “It is simply the necessary means to a necessary end.”

“It may be as well not to feel proud of it as a success,” said Dr Cassell, making a gesture with his hand. “There is never likely — as far as I have had opportunities of judging; and I think my opportunities have been as extensive as those of most — to be too much humility in the world. But satisfaction in the gaining of knowledge is a different feeling.” The doctor came to a pause; and Dolores and Bertram allowed their eyes to meet as they followed his example. “A young man once observed to a great preacher, that God had no need of human knowledge. ‘Sir,’ was the reply, ‘He has still less need of human ignorance.’” The doctor walked on, seeing the vanity of attempting to enhance the given effect; but after a few steps paused again.

“You are richer — in the possession of brains and knowledge — than in the possession of anything else — with the exception of the true religion — on earth. A certain great musician — I think it was Beethoven — had a — somewhat worldly — brother; who one day sent him a card inscribed with the words, ‘Johann von Beethoven’—I am sure now that the musician was Beethoven—‘landowner.’ In reply, the great man sent his own card, bearing as a retort the inscription, ‘Ludwig von Beethoven, brain owner.’ Dr Cassell laughed, but made no movement forward, and after a minute resumed. “Talking of musicians,” he said, “that is a strange story of how Mozart spent his last days in composing the Requiem he believed to be his own. You both know it, I suppose?”