Ivy Compton-Burnett - The Present and the Past

‘Well, you have been told now,’ said Henry.

‘I am glad you have found your tongue,’ said his father, as if he had carried his point.

‘Toby knows what is possible,’ said Guy. ‘That is why his stories might be true. He has got to know much more in the last months.’

‘My observant son!’ said Flavia.

‘That is true of all children,’ said Cassius.

‘I meant more than that,’ said Guy. ‘He keeps seeming to be a different person.’

‘You might emulate him,’ said his father.

‘Guy is too old to change like that,’ said Fabian.

‘He is perhaps too old not to have changed.’

‘There is no rule in these things,’ said Flavia. ‘They will all come into their own.’

‘I think the elder ones are the higher type,’ said Cassius. in an even tone. ‘Especially if Guy’s backwardness is a passing phase.’

‘Well, their mother is a gifted woman. I have heard many people say so. It is natural that her children should take after her.’

‘Has she more gifts than you have?’ said Henry.

‘Yes, I think she probably has.’

‘Do children inherit only from mothers?’

‘No, from both their parents.’

‘Then Father might have some gifts for us to inherit.’

‘He hardly seems to think you have inherited any.’

‘Sometimes stocks do not mix,’ said Cassius, putting his hand to his boot and giving it a pull. ‘A union may not result in the best in either.’

‘It seems a pity,’ said Megan, ‘that when two women agreed to marry Father, he did not like being married to either of them.’

‘He liked being married to both of them at first,’ said Flavia, leaning towards her and including all the children with her eyes. ‘He had real happiness with each. And he and I are often happy together now. But time must bring changes. It cannot be helped or explained.’

‘It could be explained, I expect,’ said her daughter, ‘if people liked to do it. I daresay most things could be. But I see they would not like to.’

‘How would you manage it?’ said Cassius.

‘I did not mean I was different from other people.’

‘What is the good of anything, if nothing lasts?’ said Henry.

‘One thing lasts,’ said Flavia, bending forward. ‘A mother’s love for her children.’

‘And they haven’t their mother,’ said Henry, looking at his brothers. ‘And she hasn’t them, even though her love lasts. Oh, dear, oh, dear!’

‘They share your mother with you.’

‘The boy must see what is before him,’ said Cassius.

‘Everyone has to do that,’ said his son.

‘Oh, dear, oh, dear!’ said Cassius.

‘Yes, that is what it is, though people don’t understand it.’

‘Mater’s little boy,’ said Toby, running across the room.

‘Yes, that is what you are,’ said Flavia.

Toby rested his eyes on Henry, and his mother misinterpreted him.

‘Yes, Mater’s two little boys.’

‘No,’ said Toby, with a wail.

‘No, it is only Toby.’

‘Not Megan,’ said Toby, waited for assurance and returned to his play.

‘Is no one troubled by standing?’ said Mr Clare.

‘We never have chairs,’ said Henry.

‘Surely that does not matter for half an hour,’ said his father.

‘I did not say it did.’

‘Did you not imply it? Using that self-pitying tone!’

‘We only have one voice to use for everything.’

‘Yours is certainly used only for one thing. It is useful for that.’

‘Well, yours is only used for one thing too.’

‘And what is that?’

‘You would not like it, if I told you, and I expect you know.’

‘Is Miss Ridley waiting for you all?’ said Flavia.

‘I don’t know,’ said Megan. ‘Yes, I suppose she is.’

‘She reads a book,’ said Guy. ‘I expect we shall have to go for a walk.’

‘What an obligation!’ said Cassius. ‘It is almost as bad as being without a chair. Surely Fabian does not walk with women and children?’

‘We go with Bennet or Eliza,’ said Megan. ‘Only he and Guy go with Miss Ridley.’

‘An odd sight it must be.’

‘We are not self-conscious,’ said Fabian.

‘Do you mean that I am?’ said his father.

‘I did not mean anything, but it sounds as if you must be.’

‘Do you all like Miss Ridley?’ said Mr Clare.

‘I don’t mind her, Grandpa,’ said Megan.

‘And the boy, Henry?’

‘I don’t mind her either.’

‘Toby not mind her,’ said Toby, running forward.

‘I wonder if she minds any of you,’ said Flavia, smiling.

‘She minds Guy the least,’ said Henry.

‘I think that is a common view of Guy. But I am sure she is kind to you all.’

‘Bennet is kind,’ said Toby.

Eliza entered to fetch her charges, and Toby departed on her arm without a backward glance, nursing his possession. In the schoolroom Miss Ridley, clothed to go out, was reading on an upright chair. She rose, put the marker in her book and carried it with her.

‘Now where shall we go for our walk? Whose turn is it to choose?’

‘Let us go to the hayfield, where we can sit down,’ said Guy.

Miss Ridley set off in this direction, looking at the scene about her and drawing her pupils’ attention to anything of interest by the way. Her life was divided between her conscience and her inclination; it was her concern to strike the mean between them, and her merit that she did so.

‘Now get some exercise,’ she said, as she took her own seat on some hay.

The boys moved out of her sight and sank down on the ground.

‘Walking doesn’t seem to have any meaning,’ said Guy.

‘It ought to come under the head of hard labour,’ said his brother. ‘As it does in prisons, where the treadmill is a form of it. I wish Henry had not so much sympathy with us. We know we are in a pathetic position.’

‘Are we?’ said Guy, with some interest.

‘You are not, because you do not realize you are.’

‘I know we are not with our own mother.’

‘I don’t think you do. It is Henry who knows. I wish he could forget.’

‘Boys,’ called Miss Ridley, her voice revealing that she did not raise her eyes from her book, ‘you are not idling, are you?’

Her pupils were silent, as though out of earshot, and resumed in a lower tone.

‘Our characters are getting worse,’ said Guy. ‘I think it is because it does not matter to anyone.’

‘I should not have expected you to see that.’

‘I see things more often than I used to. That is what Father does not know.’

‘You are altering as quickly as Toby,’ said Fabian, turning on his elbow to look at his brother.

‘Has Father ever been fond of anyone?’

‘Of both his wives, if the present one is to be believed.’

‘She is always to be believed,’ said Guy.

‘That is true. So he was fond of both, but failed to maintain the feeling.’

‘Did our mother go away from him, or he from her?’

‘They arranged a divorce. I heard Bennet telling Miss Ridley. She stayed away for years, and now she has come back. Her home was always here, with her brother and sister. It is less than a mile away, and we have not seen her for nine years. It was supposed to be best. I wonder what the worst would have been.’

‘What should we call her, if we saw her?’

‘We called her “Mother”. I can just remember. That is why we called this mother “Mater”. And then the younger ones called her the same, so that there should be no difference.’

‘What is the colour of our mother’s hair?’

‘It used to be dark, but perhaps it is grey by now. I thought she was tall, but I believe she is not. I wish we could leave this house that has never been a home to us.’