Ivy Compton-Burnett - A Heritage and its History

“You know that reason has played no part. Would it have happened, if it had?”

“Shall you leave Uncle to find out for himself?”

“You know what I shall do. I shall have to tell him, as I have told you. I cannot leave it to her. I could not have her forced to that. And how will he find out? He will not notice or think of it. He is what he is.”

“But that may not be what you think. You may not have to tell him. He may speak himself.”

Walter knew better than Simon. It was soon after this that Sir Edwin came to his wife, and spoke with his eyes held from her face.

“I suppose it is Simon?” he said.

Rhoda looked up at him with locked hands.

“No, not Simon. Not by himself. Both of us, neither of us. I do not know what to say. It was fate, impulse, force. What can I say or hope?”

“You have said nothing, except that it is Simon.”

“Yes, in the sense you mean.”

“We are thinking of no other sense.”

“I must ask, Edwin. To think that I must! What is to be done?”

“I can give no answer. If you can tell me anything, I will hear.”

“What do you think of us? What can it be?”

“What you know it is. I need not use words that are not mine.”

“What is to happen in the end?”

“We do not know what the end will be.”

“The other word, Edwin! The word that must be said! What of the child?”

“I shall be the legal father. Nothing else would serve you or me. I must accept the place.”

“Are we to tell the truth?”

“To no one. We are both the worse, if it is told. I have no doubt that Walter knows.”

“Is Julia to believe the child is yours?”

“She is to accept it as such. We can say no more.”

“I must say it once. I know you do not want to hear. How you are yourself!”

“Silence is best also for me.”

“Your feeling for me? It must be changed.”

“Yes, and my conception of you. I will not say to you what you would not believe.”

“It alters my conception of myself.”

“It reveals to you what it should be, if you have not known.”

“That is a hard word, Edwin.”

“What words would you expect from me?”

“What will you say to Simon?”

“Nothing. I will await what he says to me.”

Sir Edwin waited without word or sign. And at last the tension and passing time drove Simon to speak. He rose from his desk at a pause in his work, and faced his uncle.

“Uncle, what am I to say to you?”

Sir Edwin met his eyes at once.

“I will hear what it is.”

“I hardly know what words to use.”

“You would not ask me to help you.”

“Can you not take pity on me?”

“Simon, you are yourself a man.”

“I can only say that youth and instinct did their work.”

“Our instincts are subject to us. That is saying nothing.”

“There is nothing I can say,” muttered Simon, and said no more.

After this the uncle and nephew went their accustomed way, with Sir Edwin behaving as usual, and Simon doing the same under the general eye. Some weeks later Julia spoke at the table.

“We may see the truth, Edwin, and congratulate you on it? It has been like you not to speak of it. But the time is past.”

“Well, you have broken the silence.”

“We can think how pleased Hamish would have been.”

“Would he have? It would have severed my life from his.”

“Surely nothing could have done that.”

“It is said that such things do.”

“I wish you were more uplifted about it. I may say it of you both.”

“Many people might be more so. Perhaps it was hardly thus, that we saw our lives.”

“Rhoda, you will come to be glad. I speak to you as a mother. Even now you would not have it otherwise.”

“I have hardly thought. It is new to me. I have not had your life, your knowledge. I shall learn from you.”

“Have not my nephews their word?” said Sir Edwin, conveying to these that they should do their part.

“It is an event to silence us,” said Walter. “No word of ours would count.”

Sir Edwin gave him a glance and said no more.

Julia waited until she was alone with her sons.

“Must we suppose that the child is unwanted, that they are so unnatural about it?”

“I think we must suppose it,” said Walter.

“What do you think, Simon?”

“That is the impression they give.”

“They will adapt themselves. It is the thing that happens. We need have no doubt.”

Julia spoke more truth than she knew. Sir Edwin and Rhoda accepted their future, forced to it by the ignorance of others. Rhoda and Simon hardly met or spoke, knowing their relation must fade into a memory. Simon turned to Fanny and his brother for companionship.

At the natural time, with no delay or trouble, a boy was born. And a few days later Sir Edwin spoke to his nephew.

“You have to face the future, Simon. It is in your mind. It is what you have said to yourself. You are no longer to come after me. It is a change for you at your age. It could never be an easy one. There is no help for it. And you can ask no help.”

Simon looked at his uncle with startled eyes.

“But — but the boy is mine, Uncle. You and I know it, though others do not. We can only abide by our knowledge.”

“What you and I know is forgotten. The real truth is not the truth to us. We abide by the accepted word.”

“But I cannot come after my own son. It is against nature and reason.”

“You come after mine.”

“But the place is not entailed, Uncle. You can bequeath it as you will. You would not make such a change. It would not be natural or fit. You will provide for the boy in another way, on another scale. Or I will provide for him. It is the only thing.”

“It is a thing that could not be. Think what you say. Think of him as he is thought of. Think of his place. He is to be always with me. All that I have is his. It is natural, inevitable, rooted in the past. Do you mean you have not thought of it?”

“I did not imagine your seeing him as your son. Your dealing with me as a culprit hardly supports it.”

“How else should I deal with you? But we have to veil the truth. I will accept no reproach from you. That is on the other side. I am not an agent in the matter. I need hardly be brought into it. No one need give a thought to me. No one has done so.”

“You must have your own feeling towards the change.”

“Your son would have come after you. Now he takes your place. It is only a foreshortening of the future, a cutting out of your life.”

“But my life is before me. What is it to be?”

“You expect me to give my mind to it? What is your reason? What should be mine?”

“Uncle, it was the instinct of a moment. I was not master of myself. I meant to do harm to no one. You must understand.”

“I do not. I have been my own master.”

“Your temptations have been different. Such as they were, you have yielded to them. You have lived aloof and for yourself. You failed in courage under grief. Your marriage is part of the failure. You have met tolerance from me. And you should remember that I have served you.”

“In serving your future. I do not forget. You have been open about it.”

“I must ask you again, Uncle. What is my life to be? I shall have to live it.”

“Have you thought what is to be mine? Yours is not a thing by itself. I have also to live, though you have hardly accepted it.”

Simon stood in silence, seeming not to know he did so. Then he spoke with a difference.

“It must be as it must, Uncle. I wonder with you that I have not seen it. I was too sunk in my own life to reason. I can only confess it and put my mistake behind.”