Ivy Compton-Burnett - The Present and the Past

‘I am sure it would,’ said Bennet.

‘Why are you sure?’ said Henry. ‘He didn’t make much difference to her. Sometimes he made her cry.’

‘But only because he felt in that mood,’ said Megan. ‘Not because in his heart he wanted to.’

‘We had a father like that,’ said Henry, ‘and now we haven’t one at all. Oh, dear, oh, dear!’

‘Now I thought we had come to the end of that,’ said Eliza.

‘Some things can’t come to an end. Things happen that make them begin again.’

‘I think it is natural to say it today,’ said Bennet, accepting any sign of conventional feeling.

‘How nicely Toby is playing by himself!’ said Eliza, who had not lost hold of life in its ordinary aspects;

‘Shall we see Mater again before we go to bed?’ said Henry. ‘There doesn’t seem any reason.’

‘She will come up to say good night to you,’ said Miss Ridley.

‘She doesn’t always.’

‘I am sure she will tonight.’

‘Tell her Toby play by himself,’ said Toby, pulling at Eliza’s sleeve.

As Flavia crossed the hall on her way to the staircase, a figure moved from behind it.

‘I heard an hour ago. I have a word to say. I have come at once to say it. You must foresee it. You shall not have it before you. I came into your life and broke it. I can only withdraw. Cassius gave me what he could. I took all he had. I was too sunk in myself to know it. I am guilty in all eyes. I am guilty indeed in yours. I am most guilty in my own. I felt it when Cassius was ill the first time. Now I feel it enough to say it. I am leaving the place. I will not stay to harass you. I will not add to the remorse that is yours and mine. It will be mine to the end. But that is no help to you. I can help you by leaving you. I will give you that help.’

‘How about the boys?’ said Flavia, as though this were all that need be said, and protest or question were out of place.

‘I have no right to answer that question. I have forfeited the right. I took everything for myself. I will take what I am given.’

‘If you leave the place, they must choose between you and me. They must either go with you or make this house their home. There can be no middle course. It is for them to decide.’

‘I see that it is. I do not deserve that it should be. I do not deserve their free judgement and choice. I should have had a right to ask it, if I had asked no more. I will not think what I asked and took.’

‘I am going to them now. I will find out what they choose; this life or another, your home or mine. It is better for me to ask them. I am still the familiar figure and shall meet the natural response.’

‘I will not stand between you. I will not even stand aside. I will wait or return, as you bid me.’

‘You may wait,’ said Flavia, in an empty tone. ‘It is what I should do in your place.’

She went upstairs, a listless figure, while Catherine stood, vital and tense, below. The force that emanated from her seemed to be held in bonds to herself.

Flavia approached the children as though she hardly saw them, as though held by her thought. Bennet stood with grave eyes, stricken by the thought of further strain on them. Miss Ridley put a chair for Flavia in tribute to her bereavement. The latter sat down and beckoned to the elder boys.

‘My sons, I have to ask you one thing, and to ask you to tell me the truth. It is a turning-point in your lives. Your mother is leaving the place; I mean your own mother. Do you choose to go with her or to stay here with me? Take your time and think only of the truth.’

‘Stay here with you,’ said Guy at once, ‘where we have always been.’

‘Take your time, Fabian, and keep your mind on the truth. You are not responsible for it.’

‘It is a hard question,’ said her stepson, after a pause that told of obedience rather than need. ‘We must be drawn in two ways. You have been the mother of our childhood, and that seems to be the greatest thing. But our childhood will pass. And only a real mother can be a mother to men. The time will get nearer and nearer. We must think of the whole of our lives.’

‘You choose to go with your own mother?’

‘Yes, I choose that.’

Guy spoke through tears and threw his arms round his stepmother.

‘I don’t want to leave you. I don’t want to go away from you. I don’t want anyone as much as I want you. I shall never be glad I have left you. Not even when I have a real mother, not even when I am a man. But I must go with Fabian. To live without him would be the same as being dead.’

Flavia answered in an even tone, almost as though she were quoting the words.

‘You are right to make the honest choice. And it may be the wise one. We shall always have our feeling for each other. It will always remain between us. I shall be the mother of your childhood, as you will be the sons of my youth. If there is nothing else, it is enough.’

Guy’s voice came in a shaken whisper, audible only to Flavia and himself.

‘But I shall be a boy for a long time. And a mother does not matter so much to men.’

‘Are Fabian and Guy going to leave us?’ said Megan, whose eyes had been fixed on the scene. ‘To leave us as well as Father?’

‘My poor little girl, it is a time of change indeed.’

‘Aren’t they ever coming back?’ said Henry. ‘There is not much meaning in a family, if it breaks apart.’

‘Not to live with us. They will come to see us, of course.’

‘And each time they come they will be different,’ said Megan. ‘And each time we shall be different too. And at last we shall be too different to know each other.’

In the pause that followed, Bennet’s was the silence that spoke.

Flavia returned to Catherine and found her quiet and still, as though she had no right to impatience. She lifted her eyes at once, keeping them under her command.

‘They choose to go with you,’ said Flavia. ‘Or rather Fabian chooses it, and Guy will go with his brother.’

‘He chooses you as his mother?’

‘Yes, he chooses me as that.’

‘I am glad he does. I do not take everything. I leave as much as I take. I am glad it is yours. I am glad he gives it to you. You and I are equal to each other.’

‘I hope he will not suffer,’ said Flavia, as if her thought broke out. He is so young. What if things go hard with him?’

‘I will talk to him of you. He shall talk of you to me. I will see you through his eyes. I will always do so. He shall come to you without me between you. I will see I am never that. And with Fabian it shall be the same. I know by what a feeble thread I hold him.’

‘He feels he will need his own mother when he is a man. He is old enough to see the future.’

‘Do you not see it too?’ said Catherine, in her quick, low tones. ‘Do you not see the further time? When you will have your children by themselves, without those of another woman? As it is natural for you to have them. As it is natural for you to be seen with them. Is there not, will there not be, a recompense there?’

Flavia looked into her face, and there seemed to be a third presence in the hall, the difference between them.

‘Where is Catherine?’ said Elton to his sister. ‘Has she gone to sympathize with Flavia?’

‘No, she feels she has no right to do so. I think she has gone to take leave of her.’

‘Has anything happened to their friendship?’

‘I believe it has come to an end with Cassius. It seems to have somehow depended on him.’

‘Then will she always be at home with us?’

‘You can think for yourself. Don’t you see her eyes rest on us in compunction and pity?’

‘Ursula, do you realize what your words imply?’