Ivy Compton-Burnett - A Family and a Fortune

‘We can’t run in and out, as if we were of the same family? We felt we were that when we came. That indeed is why we are here. You can do so in this little house. You will remember and tell the children?’

‘I hope she will not retain any of this talk,’ said Oliver, looking at his elder daughter, nevertheless, with his own admiration. ‘I will ask her to forget it. Well, Miss Griffin, have you done enough of putting away what we have, in a space that cannot hold it?’

‘We shall have to get rid of some furniture, dear,’ said Matty to her sister, with a vague note of reproach.

‘My dear, you have not brought all the furniture of that big house?’

‘No, no, we remembered the size of this one, and only brought the things we knew and loved. I daresay you would not remember some of them. But we did not realize that it was quite such a cot. I expect our thoughts of it were tinged with memories of you and your large one, as that is how we have seen the life here. Never mind, we shall call it our cottage home, and be quite happy in it.’

‘Then pray begin to be so,’ said Oliver. ‘Happiness is too good a thing to put off. And I am not at the age for doing that with anything.’

‘How do you do, Miss Griffin?’ said Blanche, shaking hands with her sister’s attendant and companion. ‘I hope you are not too tired with all your efforts?’

‘How do you do, Mrs Gaveston? No, I am not so very tired,’ said Miss Griffin, a short, thin woman of fifty, with a long, sallow face, large, hazel eyes, features which might have been anyone’s except for their lines of sufferance and kindness, hands which were more developed than her body, and a look of being very tired indeed. ‘It is very good of you to come to welcome us.’

‘Mrs Gaveston came in to see her father and sister, of course,’ said Matty, in a tone which said so much more than her words, that it brought a silence.

‘Yes, indeed, dear,’ said her sister. ‘And when you want me to go and leave you to your dinner, you must tell me.’

‘The dinner is not — the dinner will not be ready yet,’ said Miss Griffin, in a stumbling tone, glancing at Matty and away. ‘The maid does not know where anything is yet. She is quite new.’

‘Of course she is, as we did not bring her with us,’ said Matty, with her little laugh. ‘Couldn’t you show her where the things are, as you have just unpacked them?’

‘She put everything together — I put it all together — we have not sorted them yet. She is just finding what she can.’

‘I should have put all the things in their places as I took them out. I should not have thought of any other way.’

‘We couldn’t do that. The men were waiting to take the cases. We had to put them all down anywhere.’

‘I should have known where anywhere was. I often wish I were able-bodied, for everyone’s sake.’

‘We wish you were, child, but for your own,’ said Oliver.

‘I think Miss Griffin has managed wonders from the look of the house,’ said Blanche.

‘We have all done that today,’ said her sister. ‘I almost think I have managed the most, in keeping still through all the stir and turmoil. I hope we shall never have such a day again. I can’t help hoping it.’

‘I know I shall not,’ said her father.

‘I remember so well the day when you came to us, Miss Griffin,’ said Blanche. ‘It was thirty-one years ago, a few days before my wedding. And you were so kind in helping me to pack and put the last touches to my clothes. I wish I was taking you with me.’

‘I remember thinking that you were using my companion as your own,’ said Matty, smiling from one to the other.

Miss Griffin turned her face aside, finding it unsteadied by ordinary kindness.

‘Sit down, Miss Griffin, and rest until dinner,’ said Matty. ‘There is no need to stand more than you must, though I often wish I could do a little of it. That may make me think other people more fortunate than they are.’

Miss Griffin sat down in the sudden, limp way of someone who would soon have had to do so.

‘There is Edgar,’ said Blanche. ‘He will come in and say a word, and then we will leave you all to rest.’

‘Why, Edgar, this is nice,’ said Matty, rising from her seat as she had not done for her sister, and showing that she stood tall and straight, in spite of disabled lower limbs. ‘I did not think you would forget us on our first night. We had not forgotten you. No, you have been in our minds and on our lips. Now what do you say to our settling at your very gates?’

‘That it is — that I hope it is the best place for you to be,’ said Edgar, putting out all his effort and accordingly unable to say more.

‘And your brother! I am never quite sure what to call him,’ said Matty, putting round her head to look at Dudley. ‘Come in and let us hear your voice. We have been cheered by it so many times.’

‘I am glad you have. I have always meant you to be. I am in my element in a chat. My strong point is those little things which are more important than big ones, because they make up life. It seems that big ones do not do that, and I daresay it is fortunate.’

‘Yes, it is indeed. We have been involved in the latter today, and we see that we could not manage too many. Now it is so good to hear you talk again. We see we have not given up our home for nothing.’

‘Indeed you have not. You have left it to make a new one with all of us,’ said Blanche, relieved by the turn of the talk and not disturbed that she had been unable to produce it.

‘Such a lot of happiness, such a lot of affection and kindness,’ said Matty, in a tone charged with sweetness and excitement. ‘It is so good to know that we are welcome.’

‘It is indeed,’ said Oliver; ‘for a moment since I should have thought that we could not be.’

‘How are you, sir?’ said Edgar and Dudley, speaking at one moment, but obliged to shake hands in turn.

‘I am well, I thank you, and I hope that both of you are better by thirty-odd years, as you should be.’

Oliver put a chair for his son-in-law and settled down to talk. He gave his feeling to his daughters but he liked to talk with men.

‘How are you, Miss Griffin?’ said Dudley, turning from the pair. ‘I hope you are not hiding feelings of your own on the occasion.’

‘No, I am not; it all makes a change,’ said Miss Griffin, admitting more feeling than she knew into the last word. ‘And we did not want that large house for so few people. It is better to be in a little one, where there is less work and more comfort. And I don’t mind the small rooms. I rather like to be snug and compact.’

‘Now I would not claim that that is just my taste. I confess to a certain disposition towards the opposite,’ said Matty, in a clear tone. ‘It is not of my own will that I have changed my scale of life. I admit that I felt more at home with the other. It is all a matter of what fits our different personalities, I suppose.’

‘I hope I do not make cosy corners wherever I go,’ said Dudley. ‘I don’t want too many merely lovable qualities. They are better for other people than for oneself.’

‘Well, there will always be such a corner for you here. I shall be grateful if you will help me to make one, as it is rather outside my experience and scope. But once made, it will be always hospitable and always ready. If we can’t have one thing we will have another, or anyhow I will. I am not a person to give up because I can’t have just what I should choose, just what fits me, shall we say?’

‘I don’t know why we should say it, child,’ said Oliver. ‘And anyhow you should not.’

‘I wish my parents were not dead,’ said Dudley. ‘I should like to be called “child” by someone. It would prove that there were people about who were a generation older than me, and it will soon want proof.’