Ivy Compton-Burnett - A Heritage and its History

“I wish Shakespeare was here,” said Walter, to break the tension. “I mean, I wish I was he. If I was, I could make so much of the scene. It is sad that it has to be wasted.”

“Can you bring it to an end?” said Simon. “He would have done so. And it is not the easiest part.”

“I am jealous of you, Simon. I did not know you were so like him.”

“I will do it,” said Sir Edwin. “It is time for us to leave you. My method is not Shakespeare’s, but it will serve. And his is not always so different. We will not offer our thanks; that can hardly be; but we have some cause to be grateful.”

Hamish looked after his parents, and did not follow them. Sir Edwin glanced at him and said nothing, and he turned to Simon.

“Cousin Simon — as you will be to me — I have a last word to say. I cannot dispute my father’s decision. He is too old to contend with, to turn from his mind. But after his death I will make the change. I will transfer everything to you, and keep only a competence. You are the next in the line, where I have no place. I was born before your marriage. The empty legal right I do not count. And I do not want the position or the duty it carries. You know why I was glad to have it. I have not that reason now. Graham will be your heir, as he should be. And other things will be as they should have been. That is all I have to say.”

“Have a care,” said Simon. “Take thought for your words. That is how you feel now. It is natural that your mind should be disturbed. But the hour will pass, and the mood with it. You will want what is yours, as all men want it. You will have your use for it, as all men have. You are not as unusual as you think; none of us is. Forget what you have said, as I will forget it. Remember the claims that lie ahead. Go on your journey. Return to your father for his last days. That is the duty to your hand. And leave the future, as we all leave it.”

“Cousin Simon, are you yourself so unusual? Cannot your mood pass, as you say mine can?”

“Be careful, lest it do so. I might remember your words. You might come to wish them unsaid.”

“They came from my heart. You may look to the time you will not accept. I shall unsay nothing.”

“You will unsay what you will. I will wait for you to do so. I will welcome you with the retraction on your lips. It is what I look for, hope for, believe will be. I only ask you to remember it.”

Hamish turned to Naomi.

“It is over for us, Naomi. There is nothing left. We may not even ask to be alone. What we have is not of any help, and can never be. It is the thing that takes away our life. But there will always be our feeling under those that may be shown. When we are young and old, it will be in us, always there. We must try to feel it is not nothing, and ask no more.”

“A thing is not nothing, when it is all there is. It is like those that help prisoners to keep their reason. We shall feel what people do not know, what those who do know will forget. We shall have something of what we were to have, the shadow of it, kept underneath. And we shall always have it.”

Hamish turned and left the room. Simon a moment later did the same, signing to his wife to follow. And Walter and his niece and nephews were alone.

“So you wish you were Shakespeare, Uncle,” said Graham at once. “We must all wish we were something else. We are no longer what we were. We see Father cast from his height, and resent his overthrow as much as his occupation of it. Our life has no meaning, in so far as he dominated it. And as that was fully, we look back on nothing.”

“What a mountain of consequence to follow from what was not much more!” said Ralph. “And the disproportion does no good.”

“Naomi is above us all,” said Graham, saying what had to be said. “She knows the depths, and that sets people high. We look up from our lower place.”

“We do. We shall always know how low it is. She has taught us what Father has not.”

“Father had to show great courage,” said Graham. “It was terrible to see him showing it. We had only seen him making a demand on it before. I minded it much more, than if I had never cringed before him.”

“I minded it less,” said Ralph.

“I minded the waste of my years of silence,” said Walter. “I had kept the secret, and felt how safe it was with me. And it had been in danger. I was no real protector of it.”

“Imagine the moment when the truth was broken to Uncle Edwin!” said Ralph. “If you dare to think of it.”

“We hardly seemed to know of one. The child was accepted as his. He himself accepted it. Nothing was said at the time. I do not know what passed between him and your father.”

“It is a sinister sign,” said Naomi, speaking for the first time. “That even you do not know.”

“I am not ashamed of it. Human lips could not frame the words. And clearly your father’s could not.”

“Will Hamish really give up the place to Father?” said Ralph. “What a waste of our clouded youth!”

“It may not be in your case,” said Naomi. “Graham is the eldest son. You may continue on the old line.”

“We have never asked you to explain your feeling for Father, Uncle.”

“No, you have not. And I do not feel you should have.”

“How did you feel, when you heard what was to happen, that there was to be a child? It is a time I cannot imagine.”

“I am not going to help you. You see, I do not have to imagine it.”

“You dare not recall it,” said Graham. “And there is no need. It is graven on your heart.”

“So Hamish is our half-brother,” said Ralph. “We have been absorbed in his being Naomi’s. He did not say what he felt about gaining two brothers.”

“Did you expect him to say that after all some good had come out of it?” said Naomi.

“I wonder what he feels about his mother’s part in the matter.”

“It is a thing I dared not say,” said Graham.

“I have not dared to think of it,” said Walter. “And I will not now.”

“I find I must,” said Ralph. “My thoughts return to it. It is the strangest point in the story.”

“I cannot think how you can deal in such thoughts and words,” said Naomi.

“There is a vein of something in him, that is not in us,” said Graham.

“I am only more open,” said his brother.

“A dubious quality,” said Naomi. “When people are being that, it is best to lower your opinion of them at once. Before they have time to lower it of other people or of you. And to do it enough to be indifferent to what they say.”

“To continue to be so,” said Ralph, “I should like to hear what is passing between our parents.”

“You have lowered our opinion of you,” said Graham.

“I wonder how our great-uncle feels about it all. About having no son, when he has been seen as having one. And about the disclosure concerning his wife.”

“What everyone would feel,” said Graham. “Simple and deep unease. It is Father who has the extreme part. He has always been seen as a law to himself. Well, we must accept that it is what he was.”

“What does Hamish feel about being Father’s son? A thing I thought no one could suffer but ourselves.”

“As you are versed in the matter,” said Naomi, “you do not need instruction on it.”

“I have been one all my life. But what is it to become one suddenly? Well, he has escaped twenty-four years of it.”

“He has escaped being Uncle Edwin’s son as well. He has missed it all.”

“It seems that our life must be different, now that we know the truth. And now that Father may soon inherit everything.”

“Your life will be the same,” said Simon’s voice. “Yes, I heard what you said. It was my duty to do so. You will not build on what may not happen, on what I hope will never be. We do not accept a word uttered in an hour of shock. It is with me as if I had not heard. It must be so with you.”