Ivy Compton-Burnett - A Heritage and its History

Marcia was again silent.

“Are you talking about me?” said Simon, coming up to them. “I keep feeling your eyes upon me.”

“Yes,” said Marcia, as Walter moved away. “I was picturing you in this house as its head, and the transmitter of it to your line. You are better fitted for it than Hamish, readier to serve it selflessly, with your eyes on the future you will not see. You would give it yourself, as you would give it to nothing else. Hamish could give himself to many things. He gave himself to Naomi; he has given himself to me. You have yourself to give. Hamish’s promise to you came first. There was no truth in the second. He gave it under pressure at a deathbed. He was helpless and cannot be blamed. But neither can he be held to it. One promise must be broken. Which should it be?”

“The promise to me means nothing. I did not accept it.”

“Let us forget the promises. Neither means much, as there are more than one. Let us see my idea in itself.”

“Is it right or wrong?” said Simon. “It is not right because it serves us, or even serves others.”

“Let it be neither,” said Marcia. “We will not say it is right. But its serving us and others does not make it wrong. And many would be served.”

“My family?” said Simon. “That need not count. I would anyhow do better there.”

“Then you and I and Hamish. Who is better for the other decision?”

“No one,” said Simon, after a pause.

“Then what is there to balance our gain?”

“Nothing.”

“Then consider if you are feeling it wrong, because it serves yourself. That is a common snare. And it is putting ourselves too high.”

There was a pause.

“You have not said anything to Hamish?”

“Not yet; there is no need; a word will be enough. He will live with me anywhere, and his mother will live with us. Neither has a heart in the place. Have you your heart in it?”

There was a long silence.

“You said I should serve it selflessly,” said Simon, “with my eyes on the future that I should not see. That is how I will serve it. And you are right that there is nothing else, to which I have given myself. I might in another state of things, with times and ages different, have given myself to someone. That is a thought that may return.”

“There is one that will be with me. That my children will be your grandchildren. It will sometimes be with you. When other people forget it, we shall not.”

“Look at Father and Marcia standing together,” said Graham to his sister. “They seem an essential man and woman, like some pair in history or art. They ought to be sculptured or painted and handed down to posterity.”

Marcia and Simon were joined by Hamish, and the three stood in talk. Then Rhoda and Fanny were summoned, and a few words sent the history of the house into another channel. Later the sisters moved to each other.

“So you are to live in the house, and I am to leave it,” said Rhoda “Which of us is fortunate?”

“Neither of us,” said Fanny, as if the words escaped her. “We have known the place and served it. We have seen it regarded as something it could not be. As a force in the background, with human lives helpless in the fore. And that is not what it is. It may be so in some minds; in Simon’s, perhaps in Graham’s; not in yours or mine. We have not had good fortune.”

“You must be glad that Simon’s life is to be fulfilled, before it is too late.”

“It is too late. For his family, if not for him. It might not be, if he had borne things better, cared more for his son; I feel it, though Hamish is not mine; had not wreaked on helpless creatures in his power the frustration he had brought on himself. That cannot be altered or forgotten. It is too late.”

“How will Walter see the change?”

“As the restoration of Simon to his place. That is what it means to him. And the credit is due to Simon.”

“You have been happy with Simon, Fanny?”

“Yes, he has been a good husband, a fair partner in life. He likes and is kind to women. You know how he felt to you. He has never failed in affection for me. And you saw him with Marcia; for a moment, but it was enough. He is on one side of him a gentle, normal man. And I have never been tempted to say he is an ordinary one.”

“I saw him with Marcia. That is, I saw them together. They are not to be so; we are to live elsewhere; I see it will be best. As you say, a moment was enough.”

“I like your son’s wife, Rhoda. You will like her too.”

“I shall come to love her. I see she will love me. But Hamish is young, and she had the other thing before her eyes. She will have it in her thought. She has seen Simon at his best, and his best is what you say. You will have more of it now. You will find him different.”

“Yes, and so we can be. But we shall see him being so, and shall be the same. It is we who will cast the cloud. But he will not suffer from it; he will not see it; his own prospect will be clear. You think I am talking bitterly. I am speaking the truth. The truth can sometimes be bitter.”

Simon went up to Hamish and spoke without looking at him.

“We shall always feel it, Hamish. In keeping one promise you break the other. It is a thing we take with us.”

“I could not keep both, sir. And I could not help the second. And my life has changed, and everything has changed with it. I lived with my eyes on the past, and did not see it. Now I must think of the future, and watch it coming. I found someone to help me, when my mother and I needed help. I shall not mind living on my wife’s means, as she wished me to give up my own. You have yielded to me, seeing it was best. I am grateful to you in a way you cannot be to me. If we are grateful in any way to each other, it is a good thing to feel, as our roads part. And the roads will cross at times. — It is time for you to go? It will not be you, who leave the house, when we meet here again. Good night and thank you, Cousin Simon.”

“I will say now what I must not say then,” said Simon. “Good night and thank you, my son.”

“Well, how do you like the new home?” said Simon, entering the nursery.

“It is your old home, isn’t it?” said Claud. “You always say it is.”

“Well, it is new to you.”

“It is not new,” said Emma, looking round. “It couldn’t be that to anyone.”

“You know it is a very old house, that has been in our family for centuries.”

“Does that mean hundreds of years?” said Claud. “But hundreds are not thousands.”

“It doesn’t go back to the Druids,” said Emma.

“Well, would it be better, if it did?”

“It would be older. And so people would think it was.”

“But you like everything to be new?” said Simon.

“Well, new things cost more money,” said Claud. “And people would not pay it without a cause.”

“It is all a question of money in the end,” said Emma, lifting her shoulders.

“Well, what do you think of your new — your nursery?” said Simon.

“It is large and rather dark,” said Claud.

“You like it to be large surely?”

“In a way. But it is quite a walk between the cupboard and the fire.”

“And space beyond a point only means work,” said Emma.

“Come, do not quote other people. I asked you how you liked the room.”

“You asked what we thought of it,” said Claud. “You must not mind, if we tell you. And I said it was rather dark. It is not so very.”

“The corners are dark,” said Emma. “There might be — you might think there were things in them, if you didn’t know.”

“She means in the evening, before we have the light,” said Claud. “And of course there isn’t anything. You can see it the next day.”