Ivy Compton-Burnett - The Mighty and Their Fall

“We like to feel that about people. But I don’t know why. It is a thing that does us little good.”

“He is thinking of his own life. And that he has not had what he now thinks he should have had.”

“And does he think of no other life, when he is so given to thought?”

“He believes he has done his best. I think he feels it is a poor one. And he is right that it should have been better.”

“What is Teresa’s feeling for him? She does not show herself. There seems to be a calm surface over unspoken things. But whatever she is or feels, what has this house to give her? It is filled with another woman’s family. And her husband must always be their father. Even though she has had one life herself, I wonder she could face this one.”

“I wondered too,” said Ninian’s voice. “She is facing it for my sake. And finding so much could be done for me, I may have asked more of other people than it was in them to give. Do what you can; you cannot go beyond yourselves.”

“Neither can anyone,” said Egbert. “Even she will want her own return.”

“And she will have it,” said Ninian, with a flash of his eyes. “All will be done to make this house a home to her, and her own home. It is hers before it is yours or mine. I did not come to say that. It goes without saying. But it is better said.”

“What did you come to say, Father?” said Lavinia.

“That you and Egbert can go your way apart from us. You can make the change as great or little as you please. I shall depend on your thoughts for the children, as I always have. It is true that I forgot you were a child yourself, and that it was late to remember it. But neither can be helped now. And I doubt if either could have been helped.”

“Well, neither was helped, Father. And both have served your ends.”

“Lavinia, you have become a stranger to me.”

“I might say the same to you. I do say it. And, as you might put it, it is better said.”

“Well, no more will be said,” said Ninian, and left the room.

“Well, there are things that have to be,” said Egbert.

“And that is a pity. The worst seem to be included in them.”

“Are we spoiling Father’s happiness?”

“No, our happiness belongs to ourselves. Our own things are safe with us. That may be why it is little liked by other people.”

“Teresa hardly seems a happy person.”

“Perhaps it helped Father to fall in love with her. Though I see there might be other reasons.”

Ninian’s exit led to the entrance of Ainger, bearing something carefully in his hands, and followed by the boy in mechanical submission.

“The change will be great, miss,” he said, depositing what he held, and standing with considering eyes on it.

“It will to us. There will be less difference for you.”

“A new mistress in the house, miss! It hardly precludes difference,” said Ainger, taking something from his attendant’s hand without acknowledgement.

“Do the under servants feel the same as you do?” said Egbert.

“Well, the same is hardly the word between us, sir. As your term indicates.”

“What counts is the master’s happiness. To him and all of us.”

“Yes, sir, in a high sense,” said Ainger, as if this must put a limit to the feeling.

“Nothing betrayed, Cook,” he said in the hall, putting his arm about her less in romantic feeling than in the assumption of its unlikelihood. “Nothing given away. The truth might be too precious to part with.”

“It is the convention among them. They cannot be beneath themselves.”

“What is the use of mouths that are kept shut?”

“It is a point you are blind to. You might take a lesson.”

“It is little good to take lessons, when you don’t take anything else.”

“You should abandon that line. All things are not material. Higher ones are the same for all.”

“I doubt if everyone is so sure of it.”

“Your doubts do not bear on matters. It is certainties to which I allude.”

“Well, it is all at an end,” said Ninian, standing at the table with a letter in his hand. “Nothing remains of it. Nothing will come of it. The reason is that nothing was in it. It is as if it had not been. As the memory goes, everything will go with it. Nothing will be left. There has been nothing.”

He made as if to tear the letter, but checked himself, and stood, tossing it from hand to hand.

“Do you mean you are not going to be married?” said Egbert.

“You have followed me. Would you have meant anything else? Teresa means it, and we must mean it with her. Well, I never really thought it would come to pass.”

“Well, I did at first,” said Hugo. “And so did we all. So you were the wise one.”

“At first?” said Selina, looking at him.

“In the beginning,” said Hugo, turning from her to Ninian. “Are reasons given for the change?”

“My large family. My living past. I could not pretend it was dead. My giving only what was left. Her desire for a man who was untrammelled and had a lighter touch on life.”

“There almost sounds a message there,” said Selina.

“No, your ear is too sharp,” said Lavinia. “She said simply what she had to say.”

“Well, it made a break for me,” said Ninian. “And I admit I found it welcome. The time seemed to have come. But I can leave it behind. I have done so.”

“You have many to help you,” said Selina. “I wonder if she can say the same.”

“One piece of help I will ask. That one of you will tell the children. I don’t need to be present at the scene. I can imagine it.”

“I will tell them,” said his mother, deepening her tones. “And let no one forestall me. It is a thing to be done by one person, and one alone.”

“And that person you.”

“That person me, my boy.”

“You are silent, Lavinia,” said Ninian. “You don’t know what to say. And I hardly know myself, though it is for me to say it. If we go back to our old life — and that is what it must seem — I will not expect the same of you. I shall not be the same. I should hardly wish to be. But we should not have lost everything. Something of the past should remain.”

“I shall not be different, Father. Any difference will be in you. It is from you that the difference came. It may be out of our hands. It is true that we know more, and more of each other.”

“And you know no harm,” said Selina. “Few of us can stand a test. Both of you should have known it.”

“Well, I will go and write my manly answer to the letter,” said Ninian, in another tone, tossing the envelope into the fire as he passed. “I must get it done, and turn to the future. After all, the prospect is familiar.”

Selina waited for the door to close.

“So she wants more than she is worth! Then she may seek it somewhere else. There is no one here to give it.”

‘“Are we sure it is over?” said Lavinia.

“Father is sure. We can see it,” said Egbert. “You the most clearly, unless you are too closely involved.”

“And her words were plain,” said Hugo.

“You did not see them,” said Selina.

“No, but we can guess what they were.”

“We feel there is a blank,” said Egbert. “Can it come from the loss of Teresa?”

“No,” said his sister. “It comes from the loss she has caused. And it has come to stay.”

“Not in the form you think,” said her grandmother. “It will change and take another. Things alter as we live with them. Even this is already different.”

“Father will get older,” said Lavinia. “And this has been too real to him to come again. But I shall know it is in him to do the same thing in the same way. I go back to him because anything is better than nothing, because I cannot choose. I can’t explain my feeling. I see him differently now. It all seems out of my control.”