Ivy Compton-Burnett - A Family and a Fortune

‘Well, Uncle dear,’ said Justine, accepting the normal entrance of a member of the house.

‘Good morning, good morning,’ said another voice. ‘Good morning, Blanche; good morning Justine; good morning, my sons. Good morning.’

‘Good morning, Father dear,’ said Justine, leaning forward to adjust the cups for her mother.

The two brothers who entered were tall, lean men in the earlier fifties, the elder being the squire of the neighbourhood, or rather the descendant of men who had held this title together with a larger estate. He had thick, straight, speckled hair, speckled, hazel eyes, vaguely speckled clothes, a long solid nose and chin, a look of having more bone and less flesh than other men, a face and hands which would have been called bronzed, if there had been anything in the English climate of his home to have this effect on them, and a suggestion of utter honesty which he had transmitted to his daughter. The younger brother, Dudley, was of the same height and lighter build, and was said to be a caricature of the elder, and was so in the sense that his face was cast in a similar mould and had its own deviations from it. His nose was less straight; his eyes were not entirely on a line, and had a hint of his youngest nephew’s; and his skin was rather pale than bronzed, though the pair had lived in the same place, even in the same house, all their lives. It was a question in the neighbourhood which brother looked the more distinguished, and it was thought a subtle judgement to decide for Dudley. The truth was that Dudley looked the more distinguished when he was seen with his brother, and Edgar by himself, Dudley being dependent on Edgar’s setting of the type, and Edgar affording the less reward to a real comparison. The butler who followed them into the room, bearing a dish to replace the cold one, was a round-featured, high-coloured man about thirty, of the same height as his masters but in other respects very different.

‘Good morning, sir; good morning, sir,’ he said with a slight, separate bow to each.

‘Good morning,’ said Dudley.

‘Good morning, good morning,’ said Edgar, taking no longer over the words.

Blanche looked up in a daily disapproval of Jellamy’s initiative in speech, which had never been definite enough to be expressed.

‘It is a very unsettled day, sir.’

‘Yes, it appears to be,’ said Edgar; ‘yes, it is unsettled.’

‘The atmosphere is humid, sir.’

‘Yes, humid; yes, it seems to be damp.’

Edgar seldom made a definite statement. It was as if he feared to commit himself to something that was not the utter truth.

‘I love a conversation between Father and Jellamy,’ said Justine, in an undertone.

Blanche looked up with an expression which merely said that she did not share the feeling.

‘The plaster is peeling off the walls in the hall, sir.’

‘I will come some time and see. I will try to remember to come and look at it.’

‘I meant the servants’ hall, sir,’ said Jellamy, as if his master would hardly penetrate to this point.

‘That room you all use to sit in? The one that used to have a sink in it?’

‘The sink has been removed, sir. It is now put to the individual purpose.’

‘That will do, Jellamy, thank you,’ said Blanche, who disliked the presence of servants at meals. ‘If we want you again we will ring.’

‘It would be a good plan to remove all sinks and make all rooms into halls,’ said Dudley. ‘It would send up the standard of things.’

‘In this poor old world,’ said Aubrey.

‘How did you sleep, Father?’ said Justine.

‘Very well, my dear; I think I can say well. I slept for some hours. I hope you have a good account to give.’

‘Oh, don’t ask about the sleep of a healthy young woman, Father. Trust you to worry about the sleep of your only daughter!’ Edgar flinched in proportion to his doubt how far this confidence was justified, ‘It is your sleep that matters, and I am not half satisfied about it.’

‘The young need sleep, my dear.’

‘Oh, I am not as young as all that. A ripe thirty, and all my years lived to the full! I would not have missed out one of them. I don’t rank myself with the callow young any longer.’

‘Always Father’s little girl,’ murmured Aubrey.

‘What, my son?’ said Edgar.

‘I still rank myself with the young,’ said Aubrey, as if repeating what he had said. ‘I think I had better until I go to school. Anything else would make me look silly, and Clement would not like me to look that.’

‘Get on with your breakfast, little boy,’ said Justine. ‘Straight on and not another word until you have finished.’

‘I was making my little effort to keep the ball of conversation rolling. Every little counts.’

‘So it does, dear, and with all our hearts we acknowledge it.’

Blanche smiled from her eldest to her youngest child in appreciation of their feeling.

‘Aubrey meets with continual success,’ said Mark. ‘He is indeed a kind of success in himself.’

‘What kind?’ said Clement.

‘Too simple, Clement,’ said Justine, shaking her head. ‘How did you sleep, Uncle?’

‘Very well until I was awakened by the rain. Then I went to the window and stood looking out into the night. I see now that people really do that.’

‘They really shut out the air,’ said Clement.

‘Is Clement a soured young man?’ said Aubrey.

‘I had a very bad night,’ said Blanche, in a mild, conversational tone, without complaint that no enquiry had been made of her. ‘I have almost forgotten what it is to have a good one.’

‘Poor little Mother! But you sleep in the afternoon,’ said Justine.

‘I never do. I have my rest, of course; I could not get on without it. But I never sleep. I may close my eyes to ease them, but I am always awake.’

‘You were snoring yesterday, Mother,’ said Justine, with the insistence upon people’s sleeping and giving this sign which seems to be a human characteristic.

‘No, I was not,’ said Blanche, with the annoyance at the course, which is unfortunately another. ‘I never snore even at night, so I certainly do not when I am just resting in the day.’

‘Mother, I tiptoed in and you did not give a sign.’

‘If you made no sound, and I was resting my eyes, I may not have heard you, of course.’

‘Anyhow a few minutes in the day do not make up for a bad night,’ said Mark.

‘But I do not sleep in the day, even for a few minutes,’ said his mother in a shriller tone. ‘I don’t know what to say to make you all understand.’

‘I don’t know why people mind admitting to a few minutes’ sleep in the day,’ said Dudley, ‘when we all acknowledge hours at night and indeed require compassion if we do not have them.’

‘Who has acknowledged them?’ said Clement. ‘It will appear that as a family we do without sleep.’

‘But I do not mind admitting to them,’ said Blanche. ‘What I mean is that it is not the truth. There is no point in not speaking the truth even about a trivial matter.’

‘I do not describe insomnia in that way,’ said Mark.

‘Dear boy, you do understand,’ said Blanche, holding out her hand with an almost wild air. ‘You do prevent my feeling quite alone.’

‘Come, come, Mother, I was tactless, I admit,’ said Justine. ‘I know people hate confessing that they sleep in the day. I ought to have remembered it.’

‘Justine now shows tact,’ murmured Aubrey.

‘It is possible — it seems to be possible,’ said Edgar, ‘to be resting with closed eyes and give the impression of sleep.’

‘You forget the snoring, Father,’ said Justine, in a voice so low and light as to escape her mother’s ears.