Ivy Compton-Burnett - The Present and the Past

‘You haven’t found out you like him as he is, until he has his mother, and it doesn’t matter,’ said Henry.

‘Why, the better things are, the worse you make them. There is no sense in such forcing of things. Your words mean nothing. Well, well, my little son, come to your father. If you must bear the troubles of the world, you want his help, and you shall have it. You have chosen a hard course. I wish you had not, for your own sake.’

Toby ran up and waited to be included in the attentions.

‘Ah, you are a happy little soul. I cannot imagine two children more different. I declare it is odd to be the father of you both.’

‘How do you do?’ said Toby, offering his hand. ‘Quite well; so glad; very much.’

‘He watches us,’ said Mr Clare. ‘We should be on our guard. He will be bringing up what is forgotten.’

‘And he doesn’t always understand,’ said Megan. ‘So he often makes things seem different.’

‘I hope he will not prove the most difficult customer of all,’ said Cassius.

‘Very good boy,’ said Toby.

‘Is it true that the child is the father of the man?’ said Guy.

‘You must ask Mother that, or Mater,’ said his father. ‘It does not matter which. You are a happy boy to have the choice.’

Catherine and Flavia met each other’s eyes, ready to speak but waiting for each other. Flavia seemed the more resolutely silent.

‘I think there is something in us, that remains in us and grows with us,’ said Catherine to her son. ‘That is what the words mean.’

‘So Mother knows,’ said Cassius. ‘There are two people who will always know, Mother and Mater.’

‘Mother,’ said Fabian, flushing as he spoke, ‘will you always come here to us, or shall we sometimes come to you?’

‘Well done, my boy!’ said Cassius. ‘You have taken the plunge. You have crossed the Rubicon. It will never be so hard again. It is a great thing to be able to surmount the obstacles in life. It will be easier for you in the end. Now, Guy, see if you can follow your brother’s example.’

Guy looked up as if in question.

‘Say something to Mother and use that name. Then the step will be behind. And you will not be haunted by a sense of something to come, something that would get more difficult with every day.’

‘I can’t think of anything to say.’

‘Oh, come, you cannot expect me to believe that.’

‘I believe it,’ said Megan, ‘because it is the truth.’

‘Oh, dear, oh, dear!’ said Henry, looking from Guy to his father. ‘Trouble is made on purpose.’

‘You should prove your position, Cassius,’ said Flavia. ‘Say something yourself.’

There was a pause.

‘Well, I declare I can’t think of anything. I declare that I can’t. I should not have believed that words could dry up like that.’

‘You will now have a wider range of belief.’

‘Now you are an ill-natured little woman. Trying to make an exhibition of your husband. What I said to the boy was said in all innocence. There was no spite in it.’

‘Ask Mother if she has ever had the experience,’ said Flavia to Guy. ‘Say “Mother, do you find it difficult to think of something to say on the spur of the moment?” ‘

Guy repeated the words in a quoting tone, and Catherine answered at once.

‘Yes, I think it is a common thing.’

‘Well, it seems you are indebted to me for the thing to say, after all,’ said Cassius, in his grim manner. ‘It was I who put it into your heads. You did not think of anything yourselves. A common thing! It seems to be.’

‘Did you ever love Fabian’s mother best in the world?’ said Henry.

‘Whom does Toby love best in the world?’ said Cassius, keeping his eyes from one son and lifting the other. ‘Tell Father who it is.’

‘Mother,’ said Toby, in a reverent tone.

‘Do you not mean Mater?’

‘Oh, no.’

‘Why do you love her so much, the lady the boys call Mother?’

‘Toby calls her Mother too. Fabian and Guy and Toby. Poor Mother only come today.’

‘You really love Mater and Father the best.’

‘Oh, no, here today and yesterday.’

‘You little good-for-nothing! So new brooms sweep as clean as that.’

Toby looked at him without comprehension.

‘Do you love Mother better than Bennet?’

‘Love Mother and Bennet.’

‘And no one else?’

‘No,’ said Toby.

‘The age of innocence!’ said Cassius, as he released his son. ‘It ought to be called something else.’

‘Innocence seems to mean a good many things,’ said Megan.

‘Well, you are all too much for me. So this is what it is to have a family. Whom do you and Henry love best in the world?’

Henry and Megan looked at each other and looked away.

‘Come, answer a simple question.’

‘They have answered it,’ said Flavia, ‘and it was more than it deserved. That kind of question need not be answered.’

‘Why, I meant it in all innocence. What have I done now? Upon my word, I am an ill-used man. I wonder if anyone has any love for me. I shouldn’t be surprised if no one has, after all I have done for everyone.’

‘What have you done?’ said Henry. ‘I don’t mean you haven’t done anything. I just mean I didn’t know.’

‘Well, what a question! I shall not answer it. It is the kind of question that need not be answered.’

‘I think it is,’ said Flavia.

‘It was meant in all innocence,’ said Megan.

‘Oh, was it?’ said Cassius. ‘And is that meant in innocence too? I will not ask you if you love your father. I have had my answer.’

‘You know that is not true,’ said Henry. ‘Megan was making a joke.’

‘Oh? A joke is supposed to amuse us, isn’t it?’

‘I think it did amuse people.’

‘Well Toby,’ said Cassius, as if he did not hear, ‘you will say something kind to Father.’

Toby submitted to be lifted and waited to earn his release.

‘Do you think about Father at all?’

‘Oh, yes,’ said Toby, beginning to descend, as if his duty was done.

‘How much do you think about him?’

‘Very little bit,’ said Toby, with affection for the diminutive.

‘And whom do you think about a great deal?’

‘Bennet. No, Mother.’

‘But you have known her for such a little while.’

‘Very little while,’ said Toby with appreciation.

‘Upon my word, Catherine, you have chosen the better part. The less you do, the more you get, it seems to me.’

‘It does not seem so to me, who have been able to do so little.’

‘Megan didn’t say she didn’t love you,’ said Henry to his father. ‘It was you who said it. There is no need to make things different.’

‘I think we know how they are,’ said Cassius, putting his arm lightly about his son, as if he had learned better than to go further. ‘But thank you, my boy. Father knows what you mean.’

‘Shall we go to the drawing-room?’ said Flavia, rising from the table. ‘The children do not come with us, but the boys may like to today.’

‘Well, how do you feel, boys?’ said Cassius, with a faint sigh in his tone.

‘I should like to come,’ said Fabian.

‘And that means that Guy would too. I know you, speak with one voice, or that he speaks with yours.’

‘I will go now,’ said Catherine, standing straight and still. ‘It is enough for one day. I find it is enough. I go with a mind at peace. I go in gratitude. I shall be grateful for anything more that I am given.’

She kissed her sons and went to the door, followed by Cassius. Flavia held out her hand to Guy, and he came and put his into it. Fabian came and stood in front of them.

‘I am not ungrateful, Mater. You may think I am. I shall never be,’ he said, speaking in short, quick sentences like his mother. ‘I have wanted this thing in my life. The thing the younger children had. I am glad to have it. But I know what you have given me. And I know you sometimes found it hard. I wanted the person who found it natural. But you will come third in my life. You will come after my mother and Guy. It is not much return for what you have done. But I shall not come so high in yours.’