Ivy Compton-Burnett - The Present and the Past

‘Anyhow he wasn’t bad enough to go anywhere else.’

‘Hush, hush,’ said Bennet. ‘He loved you very much, and that is all you need to know.’

‘I suppose there are different kinds of love. Some of them almost seem like something else.’

‘We can only love according to ourselves,’ said Fabian, speaking for the first time. ‘We cannot alter our natures.’

‘We still have Bennet,’ said Megan, in a voice that just disclaimed despair.

‘She might die at any time,’ said Henry. ‘She is nearly as old as Father.’

‘No, I shall not die. You need not think about that.’

‘This makes you think about things. Grandpa would have been a better person to die.’

‘It is the truth, my boy,’ said Mr Clare.

‘Do you wish you had died instead of Father?’

‘It would have been my choice, if I had had one.’

Megan ceased to struggle with her tears, and Guy moved towards her and they wept together.

‘Toby not cry,’ said the latter. ‘Very brave boy.’

‘A child, ma’am!’ said Ainger. ‘He thinks as a child and understands as a child. It is not his time to put away childish things.’

‘I feel I have hardly done so until today,’ said Flavia.

‘I have something of the same feeling, ma’am.’

‘Did Father know he made so much difference?’ said Henry. ‘If he had known, he might have tried to make more.’

‘It is we who know it, sir,’ said Ainger.

‘Is it possible that he knows?’ said Guy.

‘I should say it is probable, sir, if not a certainty.’

‘Shall we still have to come down after luncheon?’ said Henry to his mother.

‘Yes, things will be just as Father had them. We shall make no difference.’

‘That is done for us, ma’am,’ said Ainger.

‘We shan’t be poorer, shall we? Like some people when the father is dead? Father didn’t earn any money.’

‘He was not called upon to do so, sir,’ said Ainger.

‘Do you mind his being dead?’

‘As much as I could mind anything, sir.’

‘But he was not your relation.’

‘He was always a friend to me, sir.’

‘We are glad that Ainger feels with us,’ said Flavia.

‘Neither of you seems very different,’ said Henry.

‘Still waters run deep, sir,’ said Ainger. ‘Not that I make claims or aspire to comparisons.’

‘Do people feel more, the less they show it?’ said Megan.

‘We have to suppress ourselves, miss. It is the braver course.’

‘Bravery seems to be more for other people than for yourself,’ said Henry.

‘That is what constitutes it, sir.’

‘Did Father wish we had loved him more than we did?’ said Guy.

‘He knew he was not easy to understand,’ said Flavia. ‘He would hardly have expected children to understand him.’

‘He seemed to expect it,’ said Henry. ‘And I think we did understand him, or anyhow Megan did. That may make it better for her now. Shall we have the same life upstairs?’

‘Yes, that will not be different. But you will not feel it is the same.’

‘Why shan’t we, if it is?’

‘Ah, sir, time will show you,’ said Ainger. ‘You need not go to meet it.’

‘I suppose you are a widow,’ said Henry to his mother. ‘Is Fabian’s mother a widow too, or can there only be one?’

‘There can only be one,’ said Megan. ‘There could only be one wife.’

‘What is Grandpa?’ said Henry.

‘There is no word for it, my boy,’ said Mr Clare.

‘What am I, sir?’ said Ainger.

‘There is no word for it either.’

‘Would Father be surprised by people’s minding his dying so much?’

‘I think he might be,’ said Megan. ‘I think people liked him better than he knew.’

‘Ah, miss, we find that, when a call comes,’ said Ainger.

‘I wish he had known how much I liked him,’ said Megan.

‘I don’t think I wish it,’ said Henry. ‘I am not sure how much I did. Sometimes I liked him better than at other times. And he seemed the same with me.’

‘When I am older, I shan’t have a father,’ said Megan. ‘And when I am a woman, I shan’t have one. And some people have one always.’

‘A sad case, ma’am. But this is even sadder,’ said Ainger, as Toby went past. ‘He will not remember the master.’

‘I almost wish I didn’t remember him,’ said Henry. ‘Then I could think things were better than they were. Perhaps I shall forget.’

‘I think he loved us more than he seemed to,’ said Guy. ‘It seems that a person’s dying makes you know more about him.’

‘Out of the mouth of babes, ma’am!’ said Ainger.

‘I think it makes you exaggerate things,’ said Henry. ‘The good part of him and the bad part of yourself.’

‘Again there is truth in it, ma’am.’

‘We wish we had been different,’ said Fabian. ‘But if the person came back, we should be the same.’

Ainger smiled at his mistress in lieu of words.

‘And the person would be the same too,’ said Henry.

‘Poor boy!’ said Mr Clare, to himself.

‘Was Father really a boy to Grandpa?’ said Henry.

‘We are always children to our parents,’ said Flavia.

‘He was a child to me,’ said Mr Clare. ‘He saw me as he always had. For me it is a man’s and a woman’s grief.’

‘Would Father have minded losing you as much as you mind losing him?’ said Henry.

‘No, it would have been in the order of things. But I am wrong. He would have minded as much.’

‘That is the line of my own thought, sir,’ said Ainger.

‘I think the children should come upstairs now,’ said Bennet.

Toby turned and ran towards the door.

‘Good-bye, Ainger; good-bye, Father,’ he said, waving his hand.

‘Father is not there any more,’ said Bennet.

‘Not there any more. So Toby say good-bye.’

They all went together to the nursery, the elder boys yielding to the instinct to relapse into childhood. They found Miss Ridley awaiting them, and accepted her presence as her tribute to the occasion.

‘Well, shall I read to you all?’ she said, in a tone of subdued cheerfulness.

‘I would rather talk,’ said Fabian.

‘What is there to talk about?’ said Henry. ‘There is the one thing, and we have talked about that.’

‘Can Father see us now?’ said Megan.

‘Yes, all the time,’ said Bennet.

‘Can he hear us?’ said Henry. ‘And see into our hearts?’

‘It is better to do what he would wish,’ said Miss Ridley, ‘and to leave that kind of question.’

‘Why do we talk as if he was so much better than he was? Was he such a very good man?’

‘I think perhaps he was in his heart,’ said Guy.

‘You may be quite right, Guy,’ said Miss Ridley. ‘That is what I think.’

‘Goodness in the heart isn’t much use to people,’ said Henry. ‘It would be better almost anywhere else.’

There was some amusement that was immediately checked.

‘Is it wrong to laugh today?’ said Henry, on a ruthless note.

‘It is not very suitable,’ said Miss Ridley. ‘And we do not feel inclined to do so.’

‘Are we supposed never to be happy again?’

‘No, of course you are not,’ said Bennet. ‘Father would want you to be happy.’

‘He didn’t seem to want it. Sometimes he threw a gloom over us. Oughtn’t we to speak the truth about someone who is dead?’

‘We should speak the whole truth,’ said Fabian. ‘Not only the worse part of it.’

‘We are supposed to speak only good,’ said Guy.

‘Then there would be some people we could not speak about at all.’

‘If I could choose one thing,’ said Megan, in a tone that showed she had not heard, ‘it would be to have Father alive again.’