Ivy Compton-Burnett - A Heritage and its History

“You know it cannot be, sir. Your own life must have taught you. As a man yourself, you understand. And as Naomi’s father, you cannot be surprised.”

“It is not a thing to be thought of. The tie of blood puts it out of court. I regret that you have been thrown together. But the relationship made it inevitable. And you would naturally have taken it as precluding anything further. I deeply deplore such marriages. I could never give my sanction.”

“Mother, what do you feel?” said Hamish.

“What your cousin does. My son, I have to say it. If only I could think with both of you! How I wish it!”

“What do you feel, Aunt Fanny?”

“What my husband does. I see it would be unwise. But my feeling is hardly so strong.”

“What is yours, Aunt Julia?”

“Those words will do for me. I have no better ones.”

“Father, what do you feel?” said Hamish, with hope in his tone.

“I must agree with Naomi’s father. He feels what I should feel in his place. I feel it in my own. Like your mother I have to say it.”

“What do Naomi’s brothers think?”

“If I am to lose my sister,” said Graham, “I would rather lose her to someone near and known to me. I do not understand the risk. I did not know it was so great.”

“I will copy my grandmother, and say I have no better words,” said Ralph.

“What does my Naomi feel?” said Fanny.

“What Hamish does. I hardly need to say it.”

“Ah, no, my dear,” said Simon. “You will listen to your father. You are the nearest to him of his children. You will spare him this anxiety and grief.”

“No one has asked me what I feel,” said Walter. “So I am not as sorry as I might be, to say I support my brother.”

“Ah, Walter, how often you have done so!” said Simon.

“You surprise me, Cousin Walter,” said Hamish. “And so does my father. I should have thought you would think for yourselves. I did not know that everyone’s words would do for everyone else.”

“They may be the only possible ones,” said Simon.

“You realise that mine were different?” said Graham.

“And I said they could be mine,” said Ralph. “I have a subtle courage.”

“Well, I suppose we may have some luncheon,” said Simon.

“Ought we to eat?” said Ralph. “Until this matter is behind?”

“Our guests should do so,” said Simon, striding to the door. “And the matter is as you put it.”

“How are we to sit?” said Hamish.

“As you always do,” said Simon. “Yes, you may sit by Naomi. You have been brought up as brother and sister, and can feel it is what you are. I have never prevented your friendship.”

“I wonder he has not,” said Graham to Ralph, “as he feels what he does.”

“And I wonder at my father,” said Hamish. “People’s actions as well as their words seem the same for them all.”

“Is there so much against the marriage of cousins?” said Ralph. “The Greeks allowed children of the same father to marry.”

“We are not the Greeks,” said Simon, flushing. “And we might be no better, if we were. In that way we should not be.”

“No one can prove he is what he is supposed to be. Every kind of marriage must take place.”

“Few of us need any proof, as you know quite well.”

“So we have reached a deadlock,” said Ralph.

“For the moment,” said Hamish. “But time will pass, and other things with it. People will accept what has to be. We shall not waver or change.”

“Time will work in you as well as in them,” said Simon. “You are right to let it have its way. We find it takes it.”

“We do. And we are ready to trust it. It is the same as trusting each other.”

“You feel that at the moment,” said Sir Edwin. “You would be ashamed not to feel it. But nature has its way as well as time. We can leave them to work together.”

“You seem to think they can only work in one direction, Father.”

“They tend to the one. Things grow and fade; they are born and die. Everything goes the same way.”

“Shall we remember that there are other subjects?” said Simon.

“We hardly can,” said Graham. “There is only this, while it is with us.”

“Perhaps we are doing them no kindness. Our touch on it can hardly be welcome. And I am not talking of mine more than of yours.”

“I think you might be, sir. And so will they.”

“Surely other views can be taken,” said Ralph. “The matter does not go without saying like this.”

“It has not done so,” said Simon. “But perhaps it may go without any more saying.”

“Go in what way?” said Hamish.

“We must leave the matter,” said Sir Edwin. “For us it has come to an end.”

“Mother, would you not like to have Naomi for a daughter?”

“My Naomi! How I should like it! But I have known her as my sister’s. I have liked that too much to end it. Do not take it from me.”

“What is there behind it all? There seems to be a sort of conspiracy. Did you foresee the question, and agree on a common line?”

“We did not,” said Simon. “It was not a thing to be foreseen.”

“There is something I do not understand.”

“Ah, how seldom we do that!” said Rhoda. “We cannot lighten the dark. It is too hard a thing.”

“We must talk to our parents by themselves,” said Naomi. “We cannot do much in a general discussion.”

“Ah, do not, my dear,” said Simon. “Do something for your father. Leave the matter where it is. It is the first thing he has asked of you. You trust each other, and you trust time. Follow your own belief.”

“In itself it would be a good thing, sir,” said Ralph. “It would keep Naomi with us. And you would see your descendants where you once hoped to see them.”

“Do you think I had not thought of it? And that it would count to me, compared with my conscience? Do you think I am a father or not?”

“I have not always seen signs of it.”

“It seems you do not now. Perhaps you do not recognise them. They may not be on the surface.”

“No, it is true that they may not.”

“You appear to think you are the subject of discussion.”

“I am about to be,” said Graham. “My future is secure. I have been offered a post at Oxford. A college is better than the alternative, though I should think they have something in common. All institutions have the same soul.”

“I am glad indeed,” said Simon. “I hope Ralph will do as well.”

“They came up and outshone me,” said Hamish. “My place was clear. It was a good thing I had not to earn my bread, as I was the least able to.”

“It is one I should find little fault with,” said Ralph.

“I found a good deal. But I find it no longer. I can offer a home to Naomi, without asking her to wait for it. She will bear with my being a subordinate inmate of it.”

“You must remember it yourself,” said Sir Edwin, speaking with an effort. “I dislike to remind you of it, but you are offering a home that is not yours. While it is mine, you will not do so. You have heard what we have said.”

“Father, I can hardly believe my ears, or accept the words as yours. They seem so unnatural in you. I wonder if I hear them.”

“I am glad you find them strange on my lips. That is all I can say.”

“You might as well say you will disinherit me, if I live the life that is my own.”

“I thought perhaps I should say it. I could not utter the words.”

“Perhaps we could wait for a while,” said Julia, “and see if they continue in this mind. And in that case regard the objections as outweighed by their feeling.”

“That is what I was going to say,” said Fanny.

“I am glad you did not say it,” said Simon. “You are my wife, and have heard what I said. Surely that is enough.”