Ivy Compton-Burnett: A Family and a Fortune

‘We can hardly expect him to call attention to it,’ said Clement.

‘I am aware of it,’ said Dudley, ‘and I invite the attention of you all.’

‘Then I am a laggard and see things last instead of first.

‘But I am none the less interested in them. My interest does not depend upon personal triumph. It is a much more genuine and independent thing.’

‘Mine is feebler, I admit,’ said Mark.

‘Now, Mother, you will have a rest this morning to make up for your poor night. And I will drive the house on its course. You can be quite at ease.’

Justine put her hand against her mother’s cheek, and Blanche lifted her own hand and held it for a moment, smiling at her daughter.

‘What a dear, good girl she is!’ she said, as the latter left them. ‘What should we do without her?’

‘What we do now,’ said Clement.

‘Indeed we should not,’ said his mother, rounding on him at once. ‘We should find everything entirely different, as you know quite well.’

‘Indeed, indeed,’ said Edgar in a deliberate voice. ‘Indeed.’

Edgar and Blanche had fallen in love thirty-one years before, in the year eighteen hundred and seventy, when Edgar was twenty-four and Blanche thirty; and now that the feeling was a memory, and a rare and even embarrassing one, Blanche regarded her husband with trust and pride, and Edgar his wife with compassionate affection. It meant little that neither was ever disloyal to the other, for neither was capable of disloyalty. They had come to be rather shy of each other and were little together by day or night. It was hard to imagine how their shyness had ever been enough in abeyance to allow of their courtship and marriage, and they found it especially the case. They could only remember, and this they did as seldom as they could. Blanche seemed to wander aloof through her life, finding enough to live for in the members of her family and in her sense of pride and possession in each, it was typical of her that she regarded Dudley as a brother, and had no jealousy of her husband’s relation with him.

Edgar’s life was largely in his brother and the friendship which dated from their infancy. Mark helped his father in his halting and efficient management of the estate, and as the eldest son had been given no profession. Clement had gained a fellowship at Cambridge with a view to being a scholar and a don. Each brother had a faint compassion and contempt for the other’s employment and prospect.

‘Mother dear,’ said Justine, returning to the room, ‘here is a letter which came for you last night and which you have not opened. There is a way to discharge your duties! I suggest that you remedy the omission.’

Blanche held the letter at arm’s length to read the address, while she felt for her glasses.

‘It is from your grandfather,’ she said, adjusting the glasses and looking at her daughter over them. ‘It is from my father, Edgar. It is so seldom that he writes himself. Of course, he is getting an old man. He must soon begin to feel his age.’

‘Probably fairly soon, as he is eighty-seven,’ said Clement.

‘Too obvious once again, Clement,’ said Justine. ‘Open the letter, Mother. You should have read it last night.’

Blanche proceeded to do so at the reminder, and Edgar gave a glance of disapproval at his son, which seemed to be late as the result of his weighing its justice.

His wife’s voice came suddenly and with unusual expression.

‘Oh, he wants to know if the lodge is still to let. And if it is, he thinks of taking it! He would come with Matty to live here. Oh, it would be nice to have them. What a difference it would make! They want to know the lowest rent we can take, and we could not charge much to my family. I wish we could let them have it for nothing, but I suppose we must not afford that?’

There was a pause.

‘We certainly should not do so,’ said Mark. ‘Things are paying badly as it is.’

‘It opens up quite a different life,’ said Justine.

‘Are we qualified for it?’ said her brother.

‘I don’t see why we should not ask a normal rent,’ said Clement. ‘They would not expect help from us in any other way, and they do not need it.’

‘They are not well off, dear,’ said Blanche, again looking over her glasses. ‘They have lost a good deal of their money and will have to take great care. And it would be such an advantage to have them. We must think of that.’

‘They think of it evidently, and intend to charge us for it. I wonder at what they value themselves.’

‘They ought to pay us for our presence too,’ said Mark. ‘I suppose it is worth an equal price.’

‘I believe I am more companionable than either of them,’ said Dudley.

‘Oh, we ought not to talk like that even in joke,’ said Blanche, taking the most hopeful view of the conversation. ‘We ought to think what we can do to help them. They have had to give up their home, and this seems such a good solution. With my father getting old and my sister so lame, they ought to be near their relations.’

‘Do you consider, Mother dear, how you and Aunt Matty are likely to conduct yourselves when you are within a stone’s throw?’ said Justine, with deliberate dryness. ‘On the occasions when you have stayed with each other, rumours have come from her house, which have been confirmed in ours. Do remember that discretion is the better part of many another quality.’

‘Whatever do you mean? We have our own ways with each other, of course, just as all of you have, and your uncle and your father; as brothers and sisters must. But it has been nothing more.’

‘Edgar and I have not any,’ said Dudley. ‘I don’t know how you can say so. I have a great dislike for ways; I think few things are worse. And I don’t think you and your sister ought to live near to each other, if you have them.’

‘What an absurd way to talk! Matty and I have never disagreed. There is no need for us to treat each other as if we were strangers.’

‘Now remember, Mother dear,’ said Justine, lifting a finger, ‘that there is need for just that. Treat each other as strangers and I will ask no more. I shall be utterly satisfied.’

‘What a way to talk!’ repeated Blanche, her tone showing her really rancourless nature. ‘Do let us stop talking like this and think of the pleasure they will be to us.’

‘If they bring any happiness to you, little Mother, we welcome them from our hearts. But we are afraid that it will not be without alloy.’

‘I think — I have been considering,’ said Edgar, ‘I think we might suggest the rent which we should ask from a stranger, and then see what their not being strangers must cost us,’ He gave his deliberate smile, which did not alter his face, while his brother’s, which followed it, seemed to irradiate light. ‘We must hope it will not be much, as we have not much to spare.’

‘I suppose the sums involved are small,’ said Justine.

‘We are running things close,’ said Mark. ‘And why should they put a price on themselves when other people do not?’

‘Oh, my old father and my invalid sister!’ said Blanche. ‘And the house has been empty for such a long time, and the rents in this county are so low.’

‘We shall take all that into account,’ said Edgar, in the tone he used to his wife, gentler and slower than to other people, as if he wished to make things clear and easy for her. ‘And it will tend to lower the rent.’

‘Then why not just ask them very little and think no more about it? I don’t know why we have this kind of talk. It will be so nice to have them, and now we have made it into a subject which will always bring argument and acrimoniousness. It is a great shame,’ Blanche shook her shoulders and looked down with tears in her eyes.