Ivy Compton-Burnett - The Present and the Past

‘Neither have 1,’ said Mrs Frost.

‘Well, it happens to me sometimes,’ said Ainger, watching the smoke rise from his.

‘I wonder the master likes to ring for you,’ said Madge.

‘I don’t know that he does. I sometimes catch a hint that it goes a little against the grain. He is in the grip of circumstances.’

‘He has a peremptory hand on the bell,’ said Kate. ‘Not that it is an indication.’

‘It is generally the mistress who rings. And with regard to her I have no claim.’

‘I have a respect for the mistress.’

‘And she would expect it¿ Kate, and is entitled. But my bond is with the master. And it would not be with both. There are reasons.’

‘And they not on good terms?’ said Madge.

‘It is complex, Madge; a term I have used before.’

‘Will someone fetch me some apples from the storehouse?’ said Mrs Frost.

Ainger gave a nod to Simon, and he rose and left the room. In the hall he encountered the sons of the house on their way to the garden.

‘Well, Simon,’ said Fabian.

‘Good afternoon, sir,’ said Simon.

‘Can you have a game with us?’ said Guy.

‘I have left school, sir,’ said Simon, with a note of surprise.

‘Very nice boy,’ said Toby, whose hand was held by Fabian.

‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’ said Henry.

‘Very nice buttons,’ added Toby.

‘A butler, sir,’ said Simon.

‘Would you rather be a butler, than a king?’ said Henry, struck by something in the tone.

‘Well, perhaps not, sir,’ said Simon, brought to face with another kind of advancement.

As the talk went on, Toby disengaged his hand and wandered about the hall. He saw a vase on the table and sent his eyes from it to his brothers. Then he werit behind the table and threw it on the ground, and as it broke, gave himself to guarded mirth, hampered by further glances. Then he rejoined the group and placed his hand in Fabian’s.

Bennet came singing down the stairs.

‘Why, look at that vase! Has any one of you touched it?’

‘We did not know it was there,’ said Fabian.

Toby kept his eyes on Simon.

‘Oh, dear, oh, dear!’ said Henry, looking after the latter. ‘I don’t want to be a servant. And if I did, I could be one and be happy.’

‘Fabian hold Toby’s hand too tight,’ said Toby, frowning and pulling it away.

‘It kept you out of mischief,’ said his brother.

‘Very good boy,’ said Toby.

‘Ursula, our hour has come,’ said Elton Scrope. ‘I mean, of course, that the hour has come. The occasion is upon us.’

‘And we do not deserve an occasion. No one deserves anything so good or so bad. We all deserve so little.’

‘A sister is returning to us, who was said to be our second mother, and who must have been that, as what is said is always true; a sister who wrote weekly letters and watched over us from afar.’

‘And now will watch over us in our own home. No, we do not deserve it.’

‘We have had such a dear, little, narrow life. Will Catherine broaden and enrich it? I could not bear a wealth of experience. It will be enough to live with someone who has had it.’

‘She will be too occupied with adding to it to want to share it,’ said Ursula.

‘So we do want the occasion. My heart told me we did. We are jealous of her other life. It is a natural, ordinary emotion, but I do think we can claim it.’

‘What is the good of a second mother, if she becomes the first mother of other people? No one likes the second place. No place at all is different. We will not say if we should like that.’

‘Will you give up the housekeeping?’

‘Yes. I resent being supplanted, but I am glad to give it up. I don’t mind the trivial task, but I dislike being known to do it. I am sensitive to opinion.’

‘Most people are that.’

‘I don’t think they can be, when I am.’

‘Don’t you take any interest in household things? I take so much.’

‘I want to have a soul above them, and to be thought to have one.’

‘I have a soul just on their level. Do you think we have souls?’

‘No,’ said Ursula.

‘Do you mind that?’

‘Not yet; I am only thirty-two; but when I am older I shall mind it; when extinction is imminent. Now it is too far away.’

‘We may die at any moment.’

‘Not you and I. It is other people who may die young.’

‘Why should we be exceptions?’

‘I don’t know. I wonder what the reasons are?’

‘You don’t think you and I will have an eternity together?’

‘No; but we shall have until we are seventy. And there is no difference.’

‘Can you bear not to have the real thing?’

‘No,’ said his sister.

‘Then when you are older, will you begin to have beliefs?’

‘No, I shall realize the hopelessness of things. I shall meet it face to face.’

‘And will you be proud of doing that?’

‘Well, think how few people can do it. And I must have some compensation; it will not be much.’

‘I shall not be able to face it. I shall begin to say we cannot be quite sure.’

‘And I shall like to hear you say it. Even a spurious comfort is better than nothing.’

‘Is it unusual to dread the return of someone to whom we owe so much?’

‘We do dread people to whom we owe things. The debt ought to be paid, and anyone dreads that. But our debt to Catherine is of the sort we cannot repay.’

‘That is the most difficult kind,’ said Elton.

‘That is the conventional view. And convention is usually so sound that it is right to be a slave to it. But it is not in this case.’

‘Then we should look forward to her coming.’

‘I am getting quite excited,’ said his sister.

‘Not as excited as I am. I must rise and pace the room.’

‘And I will keep my seat by an effort.’

Ursula Scrope had a tall, thin figure, narrow, dark, spectacled eyes, features of regular type, but displaying sundry turns and twists, long, useless-looking hands, and limbs so loosely hung that they seemed to be insecurely joined to her body. Her brother was two years younger and of similar type, with a rounder, fuller face, rounder, lighter eyes, and the peculiarities of feature modified. It was clear that their relation went deep and would last for their lives.

‘Ought we to count the minutes to the arrival?’ he said. ‘I believe we should have had a calendar and crossed out the days.’

‘How does one get a calendar?’

‘I think they are sent at Christmas, though I don’t know why. I suppose Catherine will know.’

‘So she will. How restful it will be! We shall cease to think for ourselves. We ought never to have done so. What was the good of a second mother?’

‘We shall relapse into childhood,’ said Elton. ‘No one ever really comes out of it. That is why life is such a strain. We have to pretend.’

‘And why people’s stories of their childhood are always their best. They don’t really know about anything else. To write about it, they would have to be original. And they cannot be that.’

‘Will Catherine be proud of us?’

‘No. Why should she be?’

‘Ursula, don’t you see any reasons?’

‘Yes, but she will not see them. Her children will take all her pride.’

‘And yet you are excited by her coming?’

‘Well, it will take away that strange nostalgia for something that has no name.’

‘Will it? I thought I had just to carry it with me.’

‘The arrival!’ said Ursula, looking out of the window. ‘What a good thing the luggage takes the whole of the trap! It is dreadful to meet people at the station. They see you as you really are. It is a thing that does not happen anywhere else.’