Ivy Compton-Burnett - The Present and the Past

‘You would miss me, if I were dead.’

‘It is you who will miss me. And I do not look to be flattered by it.’

‘I should miss you indeed, my dear old father. I could not face life without you. I can imagine taking ten of these, to go with you wherever it is. And I cannot think it is nowhere. There would be no hope in anything, and we cannot live without hope.’

‘That may be our reason for contriving it.’

‘I wonder what Flavia would think, if I put an end to myself.’

‘No, it is not your solution. You want your reward, and you would not have it.’

‘There is not much to bind me to life,’

‘But no more to tempt you to lose it.’

‘It would be a good lesson for people, to have to do without me.’

‘If you have their improvement enough at heart to die for it.’

‘It would be a kind of revenge on them.’

‘Well, perhaps you might die for that, if you could see it.’

‘Why should I want that so much more?’

‘Well, revenge is sweet, but it is not so true of people’s improvement.’

‘I should like to see those two women’s faces, if I were found cold and stiff in my bed.’

‘So it is as sweet as that. But you must give up hope. There is no way of arranging to see them.’

‘You must have death the end of everything. I believe we shall pass to a fuller life.’

‘And with your own kind of fullness.’

‘Well, I suppose we shall have passed beyond all personal feeling.’

‘It would be no good to take revenge, if you would not want it any more.’

‘You do not understand me. I was only using my imagination.’

‘Well, let it do the whole thing for you, my boy.’

Cassius heard sounds outside the door and went to open it. Flavia and Catherine were crossing the hall, with the five children about them. Cassius stood and surveyed them.

‘Well, are you all coming to say a word to your father?’

There was no reply.

‘Or is no one coming?’ said Cassius, in another tone.

Toby took a few running steps towards him and retreated. Guy looked from his stepmother to his mother and did no more. The other children gave no sign.

‘I suppose they can recognize me when they see me. Anyone would think I was a stranger.’

‘No,’ said Flavia gently, ‘I think no one would think that.’

‘So I am a monster, am I?’

‘You need not be that, to be difficult to approach.’

‘Now what a way to talk to me, a father such as I am! Have my children ever had a harsh word from me? If they have had a bitter one, whose fault has it been? Have they ever heard me raise my voice, seen me raise my hand? What would they say to an ordinary father, if I am seen like this?’

‘Ordinary things are sometimes best in their place.’

‘No, they are not. That is a speech without a meaning. You have thought of it at this moment as something clever to say. Ordinary things are not as good as things above the ordinary.’

‘I said the best in their place.’

‘Things that are best in themselves, are best in any place,’ said Cassius on a triumphant note. ‘Quality must hold its own.’

‘Yes, you do well, my boy,’ said Mr Clare, as he went to the stairs.

‘Poor Father!’ said Toby suddenly.

‘Yes, poor Father!’ said Cassius. ‘Toby’s poor old father! But Toby loves him, doesn’t he?’

‘No. Oh, yes, poor Father!’

‘And Father loves his Toby.’

‘Yes, dear little boy.’

‘And dear Father.’

‘No, dear Toby.’

‘Will you two elder boys come for a walk with me?’

‘Yes,’ said Guy, approaching him.

‘We were going for a walk with Mother,’ said Fabian.

‘Well, which do you want to do?’

‘Well, we had arranged to go with Mother.’

‘Did you know that, Guy?’ said Cassius.

‘No. Yes. Yes, I did.’

‘You are as bad as Toby.’

‘Or as good,’ said Flavia. ‘They both tried to give you what you wanted.’

‘Oh, I don’t want scraps of attention thrown to me, as if I were a beggar in their path. What a way to regard their father! I am content to go my own way, communing with myself. It may be the best companionship.’

‘It is the only kind we can have,’ said Henry.

‘Oh, you have found that, have you? You are in the same plight as I am. Alone amongst many, as is said.’

‘Yes, that is what it seems to be, though I didn’t know people said it. Megan and I have found that our minds are different.’

‘How would you like to be really alone as I am?’

‘You and Grandpa are together.’

‘Yes, that is what has to be said of me, a man with wives and children — a man with a wife and family.’

‘Isn’t it a good thing for you to be with him?’

‘Yes, indeed it is, my dear old father! It is the thing that binds me to life.’

‘I suppose he must die before long.’

‘Don’t speak of it,’ said Cassius, putting his hand to his face, as though to ward off a danger, and sending his eyes to his wife behind it. ‘I could only wish to follow him.’

‘Ah, Miss Bennet, we see you,’ said Halliday. ‘Open the door and come in to us. You must hear it all before you are at peace. Come in; we understand it.’

Bennet seemed to wander to the table and stood absently fingering it.

‘So nothing really happened,’ she said, the words seeming to fall of themselves from her lips.

Ainger, who was string with his chin on his hand, lifted his eyes.

‘Nothing is not the word I should use,’ he said, and let them fall.

‘Neither should I,’ said Halliday. ‘We need a different one. It is a slur on the house, the master stooping to this.’

‘That may not be the way to see it,’ said Kate. ‘It might argue a want in us.’

‘And no reason but discontent with a life that is better than ours.’

‘We have not the insight into things.’

‘I blame myself,’ said Ainger, seeming to stifle a sigh.

‘Well, no one else blames you,’ said Halliday. ‘What was it to do with you?’

Ainger lifted his eyes and rested them on Halliday’s face.

‘My poor master!’ he said, and said no more.

‘And “poor man”, it seems.’

‘Yes,’ said Ainger, quietly. ‘There is no sting like self-reproach.’

‘And what do you reproach yourself for?’

‘Events cast shadows before. I ought to have foretold it.’

‘Foretold the actual thing?’ said Bennet.

‘Perceived the signs. They ought to have put me on my guard. It was in my power to disperse them, as I had done before. But I went on my own way, blind to his need. I have to say it of myself.’

‘You could not watch him as if he were a child,’ said Kate.

‘It is what I have always done,’ said Ainger, almost giving a smile.

‘Well, it was time you stopped,’ said Halliday.

‘And it seems that he thought so,’ said Mrs Frost.

Does the master hold it against you?’ said Kate.

‘It is a question, Kate. I have asked it of myself. I seem to catch a look in his eye, that speaks to me and says I should have saved him from himself.’

‘He cuts a sorry figure,’ said Halliday.

‘And he was prepared to leave his father desolate,’ said Kate, as if continuing the thought.

‘Now that is what strikes one,’ said Ainger. ‘That is the dark point. The hearts of the two gentlemen are knit to each other. I should not have expected the pitilessness. Things were indeed too much.’

‘It seems there was intervention,’ said Kate.

‘It seems so, Kate. That he was frustrated by a higher hand. By his own he would have left us. It chanced that he resisted the fatal amount. The doctor would have been too late.’