Ivy Compton-Burnett - A Heritage and its History

“It is a pity you have not my charm, Simon,” said Walter Challoner.

“Well, we hardly want a double share in a family.”

“I am glad you are all without it. It is untrue that we cannot have too much of a good thing. I could not bear to be one amongst many. It would not suit the something there is about me.”

“I don’t see anything to mind in it.”

“But is there anything about you, Simon?”

“It would not help me, if there was. One amongst many is what I am. The number of us is my trouble. My uncle has his dealings with my father, and my father passes them on to me. I have no personal scope. My youth is escaping without giving me anything it owes me. I see it shortening before my eyes. And Uncle must leave everything to Father, before I even become the heir. It throws my life into an indefinite future. I never put it into words, but I carry a burden about with me.”

“It is praiseworthy not to put it into words. I wonder how it would be, if you did.”

“Words do not hasten things,” said Simon.

“No, or yours would have done so. Can it be that you have death in your heart? What a different thing from charm! To think of the gulf between us! I wonder if there is any outward sign of it.”

The brothers did present a difference, as they stood in the family dining-room. Walter was short and pale and spare, with long, narrow features and alert, light eyes, and sudden, uneven movements that seemed to be a part of him. Simon, three years older, and now a man of twenty-five, was tall and large and heavily made, with a florid, regular face, lively, brown eyes, and the precise and easy movements that tend to go with weight. Something in the firm profile and supple hands of both suggested the tie of blood.

“Well, charm should be on the surface,” said Simon. “It has no hidden use.”

“It does what it can, one poor little portion amongst all that is without it. Strive on, Walter Challoner, and the charm you see in secret, you can reward openly.”

“There is none in being blasphemous,” said Simon, looking at the breakfast table.

“Simon, surely you are a modern man.”

“And none in ignoring conventions. And real charm should be unconscious.”

“No good quality is that. Good qualities involve effort. Without it they would not exist. Think of charity and tolerance. Even with it they exist uncertainly. But charm is perhaps more of the nature of a gift. It makes me humble as well as proud.”

“I can only be the first. I have no chance of being what I might. I serve the place through other men, and feel my own powers wasted.”

“It is pleasant to be conscious of powers. I admit I find it so. And they ought to have their outlet. But your heart is unduly set on the place. It seems to be the meaning of your life.”

“I do not deny it or wish to. I love it as I could never love anything else. Even you are second to it. Wife and child could never be more to me. I shall need them, in order to hand it on to my descendants. That will be their first meaning. And my hands are tied. I can order and alter nothing. You are in a better position, pretending to be a poet.”

“Simon, pray do not talk to me like a member of my family. And just as you were being so different! I seldom speak of my ambitions or their fate. There is a good deal of quiet courage in my life. Turn your eyes on it, and let it lead you onward.”

“That is the last thing I can hope for. I am held back in everything. Look at this room and its dinginess! It gets darker with every day. It is that creeper smothering the house. And I can do nothing. When the place is mine, I shall have it cut away.”

“I did not mean you to be led as far onward as that. Uncle Edwin and Father would both have to die.”

“Well, people must die in the end.”

“Of course they must not. People are immortal. You must have noticed it. Indeed you betray that you have.”

“I wish I could think I was. My time will be too short to serve any purpose. And there are things I want to do so much.”

“Your voice broke with pardonable emotion. I had not met that before. So it is true that books are based on life. But you plan to do things when two people are dead. That proves you are immortal. It is they who are not.”

“It is what they seem to be. And older people would naturally die first.”

“Well, Nature is cruel. We are told about it. They ought to have the first claims. They are led to expect them.”

“Who is cruel?” said another voice, as an elderly man entered the room. “Good-morning to you both.”

“Good-morning, Uncle,” said the two young men together.

“Nature is cruel,” said Walter. “She lets older people die before young, when they have a better right to live, as they have that to everything.”

“And have formed the habit of living,” said Simon, easily.

“Yes,” said Sir Edwin, glancing at him. “But people may not die in order of age.”

“What did I tell you?” murmured Walter. “You see he is immortal. Or anyhow he sees it.”

“What made you think about death? It is a thought for my age rather than yours.”

“The creeper on the house,” said Simon. “It has had its time.”

“So have many of us. But I hope it is not dying? I planted it myself fifty years ago. And I feel that gives it a claim on life. I cannot give a reason.”

“I cannot either,” said Simon, laughing.

“I can,” murmured Walter. “It helps him to feel there is no such thing as death. If it dies, he will see there is. — No, it is not dying, Uncle. But Simon wishes it was. He says it darkens the house.”

“It may do so. I daresay I do the same. It is a thing that comes with age. But it will be left as it is, as I shall be. We will be allowed to grow old together.”

“What do you mean, Uncle? You know you are our sunshine.”

Sir Edwin laughed, but looked at his elder nephew.

“He was saying he would have it cut down, when the place was his? No, I was not listening at the door. He need not admit it.”

“Uncle, are you trying to introduce an element of discomfort?”

“That tends to come, when death is mentioned, and someone over sixty is in the room.”

“Sixty!” murmured Walter. “When he is sixty-nine! He does mean to be immortal.”

“Good-morning to you all,” said another voice. “Here is someone else over sixty. It is a common thing. What is the talk about it?”

“Not as common as being in the twenties,” said Sir Edwin, “nor held to be.”

“But quite ordinary,” said Walter. “That is what I really think. It is the secret of my appeal.”

“If it is a secret, why not keep it?” said Simon.

“It seems to need explanation. Charm is so elusive.”

“Well, we have had our help,” said his uncle.

The elder pair of brothers made as great a contrast as the younger, and seemed to combine their attributes with their own. Sir Edwin had Simon’s height and Walter’s spareness and pallor, a fuller brow than either, and deep, grey eyes, with a piercing quality they seemed to try to veil. His brother was as short as his second son, and as dark as the first, with firm, sunken features and sunken, sombre eyes, and a suggestion about him of a failing hold on life. All four had the straightness of bone and suppleness of hand that went to the family type.

“Your young men talk of demolishing the creeper on the house, Hamish,” said Sir Edwin. “It is encroaching, as old things do. They must accept our sympathy with it.”

“I remember your planting it. We have gone through the years together. And changed with them, as we must. And it has no designs on our lives.”