Ivy Compton-Burnett - A Family and a Fortune

‘I knew he had!’ said Blanche, with a triumph which did not strike anyone as disproportionate.

‘If we indicate Aubrey on the wall,’ said Clement, ‘have we not dealt sufficiently with him?’

‘Why do you talk about him like that? Why are you any better than he is?’

‘We must now hear some more positive praise of Clement,’ said Aubrey.

‘It need not amount to that,’ said his brother.

‘I don’t want to have him just like everyone else,’ said Blanche, causing Aubrey’s face to change at the inexplicable attitude. ‘I like a little individuality. It is a definite advantage.’

‘A good mother likes the ugly duckling best,’ said Justine, coming to her mother’s aid in her support of her son, and with apparent success, as the latter smiled to himself. ‘How do you really think he is getting along, Mr Penrose?’

‘Mr Penrose has given us one account of him,’ said Edgar. ‘I think we will not — perhaps we will not ask him for another.’

‘But I think we will, Father. The account was not very definite. Unless you really want to leave the subject, in which case your only daughter will not go against you. That would not be at all to your mind. Well, have you heard, Mr Penrose, that we are going to have a family of relations at the lodge?’

‘No, I have not, Miss Gaveston. I have hardly had the opportunity.’

‘Grandpa and Aunt Matty and Miss Griffin,’ said Aubrey.

‘How do you know, little boy? We had the news when you had gone.’

‘Jellamy told me when he was setting the luncheon.’

‘Father, do you like Aubrey to make a companion of Jellamy?’

‘Well, my dear, I think so; I do not think — I see no objection.’

‘Then there is none. Your word on such a matter is enough. I shall like to see poor Miss Griffin again. I wonder how she is getting on.’

‘Do I understand, Mr Gaveston, that it is Mrs Gaveston’s family who is coming to the vicinity?’ said Mr Penrose.

‘Yes, Mr Penrose,’ said Justine, clearly. ‘My mother’s father and sister, and the sister’s companion, who has become a friend.’

‘My father is an old man now,’ said Blanche.

‘Well, Mother dear, he can hardly be anything else, with you — well, I will leave you the option in the matter of your own age — with a granddaughter thirty. Mr Penrose hardly needed that information.’

‘And my sister is a little older than I am,’ continued Blanche, not looking at her daughter, though with no thought of venting annoyance. ‘She is an invalid from an accident, but very well in herself. I am so much looking forward to having her.’

‘Poor little Mother! It sounds as if you suffered from a lack of companionship. But we can’t skip a generation and become your contemporaries.’

‘I do not want you to. I like to have my children at their stage and my sister at hers. I shall be a very rich woman.’

‘Well, you will, Mother dear. What a good thing you realize it! So many people do not until it is too late.’

‘Then they are not rich,’ said Clement.

‘People seem very good at so many things,’ said Dudley, ‘except for not being quite in time. It seems hard that that should count so much.’

‘Mother will be rich in Aunt Matty,’ said Aubrey.

‘I shall,’ said Blanche.

‘Really, you boys contribute very tame little speeches,’ said Justine. ‘You are indifferent conversationalists.’

‘If you wish us to be anything else,’ said Clement, ‘you must allow us some practice.’

‘Do you mean that I am always talking myself? What a very ungallant speech! I will put it to the vote. Father, do you think that I talk too much?’

‘No, my dear — well, it is natural for young people to talk.’

‘So you do. Well, I must sit down under it. But I know who will cure me; Aunt Matty. She is the person to prevent anyone from indulging in excess of talk. And I don’t mean to say anything against her; I love her flow of words. But she does pour them out; there is no doubt of that.’

‘We all have our little idiosyncrasies,’ said Blanche. ‘We should not be human without them.’

‘It is a pity we have to be human,’ said Dudley. ‘Human failings, human vanity, human weakness! We don’t hear the word applied to anything good. Even human nature seems a derogatory term. It is simply an excuse for everything.’

‘Human charity, human kindness,’ said Justine. ‘I think that gives us to think, Uncle.’

‘There are great examples of human nobility and sacrifice,’ said Blanche. ‘Mr Penrose must know many of them.’

‘People are always so pleased about people’s sacrifice,’ said Dudley; ‘I mean other people’s. It is not very nice of them. I suppose it is only human.’

‘They are not. They can admire it without being pleased.’

‘So I am to write — you wish me to write to your father, my dear,’ said Edgar, ‘and say that he is welcome as a tenant at a sacrifice to be determined?’

‘Yes, of course. But you need not mention the sacrifice. And I am sure we do not feel it to be that. Just say how much we want to have them.’

‘Father dear, I don’t think we need bring out our little family problems before Mr Penrose,’ said Justine. ‘They concern us but they do not — can hardly interest him.’

‘Oh, I don’t think that mattered, dear,’ said Blanche. ‘Mr Penrose will forgive us. He was kind enough to be interested.’

‘Yes, indeed, Mrs Gaveston. It is a most interesting piece of news,’ said Mr Penrose, relinquishing a spoon he was examining, as if to liberate his attention, which had certainly been occupied. ‘I must remember to tell Mrs Penrose. She is always interested in any little piece of information about the family — in the neighbourhood. Not that this particular piece merits the term, little. From your point of view quite the contrary.’

‘We shall have to do up the lodge,’ said Blanche to her husband. ‘It is fortunate that it is such a good size. Matty must have remembered it. The back room will make a library for my father, and Matty will have the front one as a drawing-room. And the third room on that floor can be her bedroom, to save her the stairs. I can quite see it in my mind’s eye.’

‘Drawing-room and library are rather grandiloquent terms for those little rooms,’ said Justine.

‘Well, call them anything you like, dear. Sitting-room and study. It makes no difference.’

‘No, it makes none, Mother, but that is what we will call them.’

‘We need not decide,’ said Clement. ‘Aunt Matty will do that.’

‘Aunt Matty would never use exaggerated terms for anything to do with herself.’

‘There are other ways of exaggerating,’ said Mark.

‘Mrs Gaveston,’ said Mr Penrose, balancing the spoon on his finger, to show that his words were not very serious to him, ‘it may interest you to hear how Mrs Penrose and I arranged rooms on a somewhat similar scale, as I gather, as those you mention.’

‘Yes, we should like to hear indeed.’

‘Thank you very much, Mr Penrose,’ said Justine warmly, sitting forward with her eyes on Mr Penrose’s face.

‘We selected large patterns for the carpets, to give an impression of space, though it might hardly be thought that the choice would have that result. And we kept the walls plain with the same purpose.’

‘We can have the walls plain,’ said Justine, ‘but we must use the carpets at our disposal, Mr Penrose. We are not as fortunate as you were.’

‘We shall not be able to write in time for them to hear by the first post,’ said Blanche. ‘I hope it won’t seem that we are in any doubt about it.’

‘About the sacrifice,’ said Dudley. ‘I hope not. I said that people were pleased by other people’s sacrifice. They would not like them to have any hesitation in making it.’