Ivy Compton-Burnett - A Family and a Fortune

‘But no more public ones, I hope,’ muttered Mark.

Maria rose from the table, and Justine, as if perceiving her purpose, instantly did the same. Matty followed them slowly, using her lameness as a pretext for lingering in Edgar’s presence. She came to the drawing room fire in a preoccupied manner, as if the cares of her own life had returned.

‘Well, you are well in advance of me. I came in a poor third.’

‘We know you like to follow at your own pace,’ said Justine.

‘I do not know that I like it, dear. My pace is a thing which I have not been able to help for many years.’

‘Well, we know you prefer people not to wait for you. Though Father and the boys have waited. I suppose they saw that as unavoidable.’

‘Yes, I expect they did, dear. I don’t think we can alter that custom.’

‘No, naturally we cannot and we have not done so. But poor Aunt Matty, of course you are not yourself.’

‘No, dear, of course I am not,’ said Matty, with full corroboration. ‘And it has been silly of me to be surprised at seeing all of you so much yourselves. This morning is so different from other mornings to me, that it has been strange to find it so much the same to other people. You have not had days of this kind yet. Or you have put them behind you. Sorrow is not for the young, and so you have set it out of sight. And you have filled your empty place so wisely and well, that I am happy and easy in having helped you to do it. Any little shock and doubt and misgiving has melted away. But my father’s place will be always empty for me, and so I must remain a little out of sympathy — no, I will not say that — a little aloof from the happiness about me. But I am glad to see it all the same. I must not expect to find people of my own kind everywhere. They may not be so common.’

‘I should think they are not,’ said Clement.

‘You mean you hope not, naughty boy?’ said Matty, shaking her finger at him in acceptance of his point of view.

‘You do not want to think they are.’

‘I only found myself noticing that they were not.’

‘We might — perhaps we might see ourselves in other people more than we do,’ said Edgar.

‘We all have our depths and corners,’ said Justine.

‘And we all think that no one else has them,’ said Mark.

‘Dear, dear, what a band of philosophers!’ said Matty. ‘I did not know I had quite this kind of audience.’

‘Do you see yourself in us more than you thought?’ said Clement.

‘No, dear, but I see a good many of you at once. I did not know you were quite such a number on a line. I had thought of you all as more separate somehow.’

‘And now you only see yourself in that way?’

‘Well, dear, we agreed that I was a little apart.’

‘I don’t think we did,’ said Mark. ‘You implied it, but I don’t remember that you had so much support.’

‘I am going to end the talk,’ said Maria, rising. ‘Your aunt is more tired than she knows and must go and rest. And when I come down your father and I will go to the library, and you can have a time without us.’

‘How tactless we have been!’ said Justine. ‘We might have thought that they would like an hour by themselves. But what were we to do while Aunt Matty was here?’

‘What we did,’ said Mark. ‘No one could have thought that the scene was to our taste.’

‘I do admire Maria when she gives a little spurt of authority.’

‘She did not like to think of Miss Griffin wandering by herself in the snow,’ said Aubrey, bringing this picture into the light to free his own mind.

‘Little tender-heart!’ said Justine, simply evincing comprehension.

‘Without a coat or hat, and I suppose without gloves or tippet or shawl,’ said her brother, completing the picture with ruthlessness rather than with any other quality.

‘It is odd that we feel so little about Grandpa’s death.’

‘Aunt Matty’s life puts it into the shade,’ said Mark.

‘Well, he was old and tired and past his interests, and we really knew him very little. It would be idle to pretend to any real grief. It is only Aunt Matty who can feel it.’

‘And it does not seem to drown her other feelings.’ ‘Perhaps that is how sorrow sometimes improves people,’ said Aubrey.

‘No, no, little boy. No touch of Uncle at this moment. It is too much.’

‘We might all be better if our feelings were destroyed,’ continued Aubrey, showing that his sister had administered no check.

‘Poor Aunt Matty! One can feel so sorry for her when she is not here.’

‘You do betray other feelings when she is,’ said Mark.

‘I suppose I do. We might have remembered her trouble. Even Father and Maria seemed to forget it.’

‘Well, so did she herself.’

‘She will be very much alone in future. I don’t see how we are to prevent it.’

‘Will grief be her only companion?’ said Aubrey.

‘Well, she has driven away her official one,’ said Mark.

‘She will be confined to rage and bitterness and malice,’ said Clement.

‘So she will be alone amongst many,’ said Aubrey.

‘No, no, I don’t think malice,’ said Justine. ‘I don’t think it has ever been that. I wonder what Miss Griffin and Uncle are doing. But their being together disposes of any real problem. I think Uncle may safely be left to arrange the future for them both.’

‘Uncle has been left to do too much for people’s futures,’ said Mark. ‘And not so safely. We can only imagine what happened last night.’

‘You are fortunate,’ said Clement. ‘I cannot.’

‘Or unfortunate,’ said Aubrey, who could.

‘I have been keeping my thoughts away from it,’ said Justine.

‘They have had enough to occupy them,’ said Mark. ‘But they will return. Grandpa’s death, Miss Griffin’s flight, even Aunt Matty’s visit will all be as nothing. We may as well imagine the scene.’

‘No, my mind baulks at it.’

‘Mine does worse. It constructs it.’

‘Maria was there,’ said Aubrey.

‘Yes, poor Maria!’ said Justine. ‘What a home-coming! It never rains but it pours.’

‘I think it nearly always rains. We only notice it when it pours.’

‘Yes, it is Uncle. Clear, natural and incontrovertible,’ said Justine, with a sigh, as if this fact altered no other. ‘Well, you may be clever boys, but you have a depressed sister today.’

‘How would it all have been if Maria had kept to Uncle?’ said Aubrey.

‘That is not Uncle,’ said Clement.

‘Little boy, what a way of putting it!’

‘Miss Griffin would still have run away; Grandpa would still have died; Aunt Matty would still have paid her visits,’ said Mark. ‘Only it might have been Father instead of Uncle who met Miss Griffin. And that might not have worked so well. He would have been more awkward in offering her his coat. So perhaps it is all for the best. That is always said when things are particularly bad, so there could hardly be a better occasion for saying it.’

‘Look,’ said Justine, going to the door and holding it ajar. ‘Look at those two figures passing through the hall, as two others used to pass. What an arresting and almost solemn sight! Do we let our hearts rejoice or be wrung by it?’

‘We will take the first course if we have the choice.’

‘Which is better, the sight of two beautiful men or of a beautiful man and a beautiful woman? I do not know; I will not try to say.’

‘I am letting my heart be wrung,’ said Aubrey, grinning and speaking the truth.

‘Will they ever be three again? Ought we to wish it? Or ought we just to hesitate to rush in where angels fear to tread?’

‘We might be imagining them four,’ said Aubrey, in a light tone.