Ivy Compton-Burnett - A Heritage and its History

“Oh, a good deal more is required of her than that. You would not like to be one?”

“Yes, I think I should. I should feel less guilt. And people say I should make a good-looking woman. Simon would make such an awkward one.”

“My wife would have liked Walter to be a girl,” said Hamish. “And I should have welcomed a daughter.”

“No wonder I am guilty. That throws its own light.”

“I should have liked a sister as well as a brother,” said Simon.

“Simon, I hoped I was enough for you. The light grows fierce.”

“I think you would make a good man, Rhoda,” said Simon.

“I often have to be one. And I seem to manage fairly well.”

“Simon, have you any reason to use Miss Graham’s Christian name?” said Hamish.

“I have assumed I have tacit permission.”

“Most things should be tacit,” said Walter. “I often wish everything was.”

“Ah, Walter’s Oxford history makes a sad tale,” said Hamish.

“Father, pray let it be tacit.”

“You may depend too much upon that refuge.”

“But let me do so enough.”

“Come, I have said nothing yet.”

“You said it in a word,” said Simon.

“Well, if I went further, I might say too much.”

“I don’t think the term, tacit, seems much good,” said Walter.

“You always seem so happy about things,” said Fanny to Simon.

“It is useless to be crushed by them. It can do nothing. There is so much in front of us; my father’s death, my mother’s widowhood, my uncle’s bereavement, my own dull and subservient life. There is no point in dwelling on it all, as if it were not enough.”

“Your father is being brave. I daresay you wish he would be less so.”

“I suppose he is; yes, of course he is. But I think cowardice is best,” said Simon, laughing. “When my time comes, I shall be a coward. It will be better for me and everyone.”

“I should be a coward anyhow. So much of one, that I doubt the usefulness.”

“My father does what he owes to himself. I believe a lot of virtue comes from that. His conception of himself is too high.”

“Living up to it must be a strain. I should not think it is good for him.”

“I am sure it is not. It is helping to shorten his life,” said Simon, with his open acceptance of truth. “He should spare himself.”

“My sister’s conception of herself is also high. All her conceptions are. She would never see that cowardice was best.”

“Perhaps our conception of ourselves is not as low as it might be,” said Simon, laughing.

“What is not so?” said Hamish.

“Some people’s conception of themselves, Father.”

“I wonder how many of us would really say what that was,” said Sir Edwin.

“I do not wonder,” said Simon. “None of us.”

“Oh, that is surely too sweeping,” said Rhoda. “It might not be such an alarming thing.”

“It would be,” said Fanny. “We mean an honest conception, not a constructed one.”

“Do we?” said Walter. “I was just constructing mine.”

“I was checking my instinct to do so,” said Hamish.

“His must be settled,” said Simon to Fanny. “He has no time to modify it. And he would think it beneath him.”

“And it is different for people without beliefs. We do not have to be fit to die.”

“He has to be fit to be lamented and remembered. I sound callous, but that would be his thought. But his conception of himself is as honest as it can be. We can none of us look into the depths.”

“Or what would be the good of having always kept our eyes from them?”

“It might be a wholesome experience,” said Rhoda.

“Wholesome! What a strange word!” said her sister.

“You are giving a wrong impression of yourself. Or I trust you are.”

“Well, I hope I seem to be.”

“Do you believe in immortality, Rhoda?” said Simon.

“I can answer that in one word. Yes.”

“I can do the same,” said Fanny. “No.”

“It should not be in us to feel we are born to die,” said Rhoda. “We should be above such a feeling. Ah, it would be a poor conception, a poor thing.”

“I agree that it is poor,” said Simon.

“Should we like to live for ever?” said Hamish.

“Yes, if we did so,” said his brother. “Our being would be adapted to it.”

“It does seem that it might be done,” said Walter.

“I seem to be obstinate,” said Rhoda, “and that is said to be weakness. But I am not so sure.”

“Neither am I,” said Sir Edwin, smiling. “We may say it is weakness, when we find it too strong for us. Conviction is a powerful thing.”

“We shall be thought argumentative sisters. That is, if people think of us.”

“Oh, I hope they do that,” said Fanny. “Why should we be ignored?”

Simon turned to her again.

“Do you like your life here with your sister?”

“Well, it is the life I lead. And I suppose we all like living.”

“It does not afford you much scope.”

“It affords me none. But what should I do, if I had it? The lack may be a protection.”

“We cannot know what you could do, if you had the chance.”

“Well, suppose we did know! It may be better not to find out.”

“I should like to know it both about you and myself.”

“Know what?” said Hamish.

“What we have in us, Father.”

“Surely that emerges day by day.”

“If it has a chance to do so.”

“Oh, you do not wear fetters, my boy.”

“I was wondering if both Fanny and I wore them in a way.”

“We have no wings,” said Hamish. “It is no good to feel we should spread them so far, if we had.”

“I think it does us a little good,” said Simon, laughing.

“We see where you get your poetic gift, Walter,” said Rhoda.

“I hope he will make more use of it than I have,” said Hamish.

“Father, surely your life has been a poem,” said his son.

“I think we must be going. Your mother will be wondering about me.”

“She said she would leave you in our hands,” said Simon.

“I shall be in them in another sense, if we wait longer. And we have had what should be enough.”

“As we have,” said Rhoda. “We should ask no more. Indeed we do not ask it. We hope to come ourselves to you, when we may.”

“It must be soon,” said Simon, as he took his leave. “Or the visit will be too late, or of another kind.”

“There is a pair of steadfast friendships,” said Rhoda, looking after them. “How one hopes nothing will break them!”

“Something is to break one of them. There is no hope.”

“I do not count death. That can break nothing. It may forge it stronger.”

“It breaks everything. And broken things are not of use. They both know it.”

“I am not sure about Sir Edwin. He seemed to be looking beyond the coming loss.”

“Well, the time of suspense goes on, and his thoughts must go on with it, and go beyond. It was nothing more.”

“Well, I will not read in too much. He was opening his mind to a friend. I was grateful for his seeing me as that.”

“It is a thing he does seldom. I daresay to no one else. You were singled out.”

There was a pause.

“Oh, what a dull, old-maidish life we must lead, to make so much of so little!” said Rhoda, lifting her hands. “Fanny, if you wanted to marry, you would not find me in the way? Thoughts of me I mean. Of course, I should not be, myself.”

“We should both think of ourselves in such a case.”

“And there would be someone besides ourselves.”

“It seems to take two to do most things. To argue and to quarrel and to marry. Man is said to be a social creature. But it does not all seem so very social.”