Ivy Compton-Burnett - A Heritage and its History

“It is Hamish who has deprived him of his heritage. He is always more at home in the other house. He still feels he is in exile. When he is there, we can see the difference it has made to him.”

They were to see something of this today. When they returned from their tutor, Hamish was again at the gate.

“I am to ask you all in to luncheon, to celebrate my father’s birthday. Our elders are in the house. He is happy in the thought of having you, and my mother is almost happier. You give us something we are without.”

“My Fanny, my sister!” said Rhoda. “My little sister and her large family! How they are welcome! Ah, how dear they are! Our empty table will be full. Some of them have had their places there. They are to feel at home.”

“Yes, my mother had your place for many years,” said Simon. “Even after it was yours.”

“She taught me to fill it. How I watched her there! It was a lesson I do not forget.”

“I always think of my father in this house.”

“As is natural,” said Sir Edwin. “He was here until you were a man.”

“Ah, the other Hamish!” said Rhoda. “How he is with us! How he is in our lives! How he will live to the end of them! My Hamish knows there is an example for him in our hearts.”

“Your Hamish is more like Simon,” said Julia. “They always remind me of each other. Especially when they are tired or ill. Not that they are often either.”

“Hamish does seem rather sick at heart,” said Graham to his sister. “And for that matter so does Father.”

“What did you say?” said Simon.

“Oh, nothing, sir. It was nothing that mattered.”

“I throw no doubt on it. But you will not mutter at this table. What was your reason for doing so?”

“I thought perhaps my voice should not be heard.”

“Then let it not be. You know the way to avoid it.”

“I wish no guest to be silent at my table,” said Sir Edwin. “I am grateful to those who celebrate my living another year beyond my span. It is kind to appear to be glad of it.”

“And how easy that is!” said his wife. “How good a thing it is to us! In itself how good a thing!”

“So what did you say, Graham?” said Sir Edwin.

“It is not worth repeating, Uncle.”

“We will still ask to hear it.”

“I said that Hamish and my father both seemed rather sick at heart.”

“They seem to you so? But I wonder you voiced the thought.”

“As my father said, I hardly did so. I have been forced to it. I feel some wonder on my side.”

“Pray let someone else utter his thoughts,” said Simon. “We have heard Graham’s.”

“Perhaps I am a little sick at heart,” said Hamish to Naomi. “More than you are, though you may feel you have more reason. Something is wanting in my life, that is not in yours.”

“Do you feel the verdict is true of you, Simon?” said Julia.

“Well, I am often a tired and harassed man.”

“Tired you can hardly be,” said Sir Edwin. “Your work for me does not warrant it.”

“I have other demands on me, Uncle. Some of them are here.”

“I refuse to be a demand,” said Julia.

“So do I,” said Fanny, “though it may be what I am.

“I wonder if I can refuse,” said Naomi.

“You can all three do so,” said Simon. “A woman has her own rights and makes her own return.”

“And neither can be said of us,” said Ralph to Graham. “And neither is said.”

“Who put you two together?” said his father.

“Aunt Rhoda, I suppose, sir. We were in her hands.”

“I will ask her to let you change places with Hamish.”

“May I keep my place by Naomi, Cousin Simon?” said the latter. “It is a promise I have made to myself.”

“It is Ralph and Graham whom I want to separate. But they can remain where they are, on condition of silence.”

“I think they do not merit that,” said Julia. “I see no reason.”

“They can take it as the outcome of my being sick at heart. That is what I am to them.”

“Is Cousin Simon often like this?” said Hamish to Naomi.

“He is always strange, when he is in this house. Either silent or as you see him. He seems to feel he has lost his rights, and to forget they are no longer his. Losing them seems to have torn away a part of him. He is not what he was meant to be.”

“I have a strange father in another way. He hardly seems to see me as what I am. His feeling for his brother is the real one in his life. There again a part of him has been torn away. I used to hope I might grow into his heart, as something young and his own. But it was an empty hope. The thing was not to be.”

“He has been good to you?” said Naomi.

“Too good. Too considerate and kind for a father to a son. I would have chosen a more natural relation. Yes, I would have chosen yours. But I must take what falls to me.”

“What are you discussing so earnestly?” said Julia.

“Fathers and their sons,” said Hamish.

“I am glad I am only an uncle,” said Walter. “I should not dare to be more.”

“The position of a father involves many things,” said Simon.

“That of the children also. They confront someone in power.”

“It is the young who have that,” said Julia.

“So people say,” said Graham. “I have no idea on what ground.”

“Neither have I,” said his father. “Power is for those who have earned it.”

“The young have the rights in the future,” said Julia.

“But they live in the present,” said her grandson. “And they have few there. And the future is not represented as affording many. Indeed only the one.”

“I hope our great-uncle is having a happy birthday,” said Naomi. “We are here to ensure it, and I suppose this is our best.”

“He is the better for having you here,” said Hamish. “He seems to miss you, though you have never lived in his house. You are his brother’s descendants. He does not see me as apart from you. I am one amongst you, no more to him than you are. I hope I am as much.”

“Edwin, you are such a handsome man,” said Julia. “Each time I see you, your looks have gained. I wish my Hamish could meet you as you are now. He would have even more to see than he once saw.”

“I wish he could. I wish we could meet each other.”

“I think Naomi is like her great-uncle,” said Simon.

“In a way she is. But his looks are so much his own. I cannot think of anyone equal to him.”

“Do you think about your looks, Father?” said Hamish.

“No, I take them for granted. They are of a high order, and remain so. But I would rather say it of other things; of brain or personality or character.”

“Ah, how we say it for you!” murmured Ralph, in mimicry of his aunt. “And how we all mean it! Ah, how we do!”

“What did you say, Ralph?” said Simon.

There was a pause.

“Is this a silence that speaks?” said Graham.

“If only it was!” said Naomi. “Or if only something would do so!”

“What did you say, Ralph?” repeated Simon.

“What I might have said, what I am glad has been said,” said Rhoda, in easy, fluent tones. “Why should I find fault with it?”

“You know the reasons,” said Simon. “It is kind not to give them. The boy is dependent on the kindness, and I am so for him.”

“You are my guests, and have a right to it.”

“We are what you say, and should not presume on it.”

“I don’t think your young people lack brains, Simon,” said Sir Edwin, continuing from his words, as if he had not heard the last ones.

“Well, I hope they have the character to use them.”

“In order to avoid the accepted alternative,” said Graham.