Ivy Compton-Burnett - The Mighty and Their Fall

“It will not only be you,” said Ninian. “Ransom is not different, and does not claim to be.”

“Why can he be proud of his failings? Most of us have to disguise them. That may be his reason for pride. He dares to be himself.”

“It might need courage. But he is what he has always been. He says it himself, and we need not doubt him. My mother is to wait in suspense until he comes. His mother too, and a woman of her age! And her age is a thing he does not forget or expect her to.”

“I don’t want him to be different,” said Selina. “I want him as he was, as I have thought of him. Why should you all be the same? You are yourselves and must be what you are.”

“If we were the same as Ransom, you would have had no sons. We accept the exaltation of the wanderer. He was lost and is found. And we are glad he is to give you what he has left, and has something left to give. But those who have not forsaken you have given more.”

“My sons, you are ever with me. All that I have is yours. But Ransom has never been dead to me. His life has gone on with mine. I don’t look for the young man who left me. I look for a man in middle age, as he looks for an old woman. But I can’t have him die before me. When I die, I must leave him to his life. He will get strength from his mother. I can’t have him back to lose him. Do you think he means what he says?”

“He would hardly say it otherwise. It would be too heartless a thing. But we will hope he is mistaken. We must wait to judge. Waiting is what he has arranged for us.”

“Ah, you have never cared for him. You have never seen him as a brother. But to me you are both my sons.”

“He has been the first to you. And he will be so again, when he is with you. He will be a change for you. You are not wearied of him and his ways. But what if it was so with all of us? What if we had all left you?”

“What reason is there to imagine it? Your lives and needs were different. You have been held by your inheritance. Hugo has been glad of a home. He has not earned as Ransom has. I wonder how Ransom has done it. Well, we are soon to know.”

“I doubt it. I noticed it was not revealed. I daresay it will never be.”

“Well, earning is always fair. We pay for what we need. The difference is simply that people need different things. If anyone has not earned, it is because he has given nothing. You yourself look after the land and earn in your own way.”

“We should not always fancy a reference to ourselves,” said Hugo. “But suppose there is one?”

“What of the two elder children?” said Selina, as the voices of these were heard. “What have you given and earned there? — Come in, both of you. There is a great word to be said. Your Uncle Ransom has returned. He may be here at any time. Come in, Teresa, and wait for him with us. This is a moment for us all. My Ransom, my especial son, the one who has my name! We will welcome him together. It is not a thing for me alone. I shall know him when I see him. We shall know each other. He will not be different to me. I shall not to him.”

Selina’s voice broke and she groped for her handkerchief, unable to put her hand on it. Lavinia took one from the pocket of her coat, bringing something with it, that fell to the ground. She moved quickly to retrieve it, but her father forestalled her, and was handing it to her when it caught his glance. He stood with his eyes on it, looked at his daughter and back at it, and at length spoke.

“What is this, Lavinia?”

“That? Oh, I don’t know. What is it?”

“It is an envelope addressed to me by Teresa. The postmark has the date of the letter that was found in your grandmother’s desk. How do you explain it?”

“Has it? What of it? I must have picked it up in her room. It was accounted for, wasn’t it?”

Ninian drew from the envelope a small paper-knife belonging to Lavinia, and looked her in the eyes.

“Tell me about it, my daughter.”

“What is there to tell? I must have seen the envelope, and put it in my pocket without thinking. And I suppose the knife was there. I often carry it about with me. Why should I have thought of it? If there was anything wrong about it, I should have destroyed the envelope. It means nothing.”

“It means what it does. I wish you had destroyed it. Or perhaps I should not wish it. It is right that the truth should emerge. Tell me the whole.”

“You tell it to me. You know more of it than I do. The matter means nothing to me. It is to you; it seems to mean something. Do you know about it?”

“Lavinia, this is no good. The truth is thrust on us. We are helpless before it. Tell it to us yourself.”

“You have told it, my son,” said Selina. “We do not need it again.”

“He is implying something,” said Lavinia, turning between them as if bewildered. “I can only guess what it is. The letter was in your desk, Grandma. And the envelope must have fallen on the floor. And I suppose I picked it up. It is what anyone would do. Such things do not leave a memory.”

“Why did you put the letter in the desk, my child? I have never quite understood. Why did you not destroy it?”

“Do we destroy other people’s letters? I thought they were sacrosanct. If I came on this one, and put it in the desk for you to read, it was a natural thing to do. And an easy thing to forget. I should not have known what was in it. We do not read people’s letters either.”

“The paper-knife tells its tale,” said Ninian. “There is no need to make another.”

“You thought I was going to die?” said Selina, her eyes still on her grand-daughter.

“We were all afraid of it, Grandma. But that does not bear on the matter.”

“Then the letter would have been found after my death, and the guilt assigned to me? And to my conscious self that time.”

“I don’t know anything about the letter. Except that Father read it to us.”

“A service you did not need,” said Ninian. “Have you known all the time, Mother?”

“I could not know. I have thought it. I knew it was not any self of mine. And who could it have been? Who had an end to serve? Who — it is best to say it at once — sorted the letters when they came? Who was distraught and not in command of herself?”

“Then you were shielding Lavinia?”

“Well, I had no proof. And an unconscious self is a useful shield. There is no question of blame.”

“What have you to say, my daughter?”

“Nothing,” said Lavinia, in a sudden, hard tone, as if casting off a guise. “I thought it a service to you to hide the letter, a service to us all. Yes, and the greatest to myself. It would have saved us from wrong and wretchedness, as I saw the matter then.”

“Why did you not destroy it, as your grandmother said?”

“It might have transpired that Teresa had sent it,” said Lavinia, in an almost exasperated tone, as if this should be clear.

“But should we have suspected you? You of all people? You know we should not.”

“There would have been discussion and question. And the letters went through my hands, as Grandma has also said.”

“You thought we should find the letter in the end?”

“You would have gone through Grandma’s papers,” said Lavinia, with an open sigh.

“That is most of it,” said Selina. “And the rest I know. It was too much to destroy the letter. The wrong of it would have been too great. Poor child!”

“We must try to see her in that way,” said Ninian. “It is not as she has seen herself.”

“And not as you have seen her,” said Teresa. “That must be said. It may be at the root of everything.”

“The guilt is not mine. I had my own right to happiness. If I was making too large a part of hers, it was time I ceased. It was time indeed. Perhaps it was too late. Perhaps I am partly to blame. It would help me to feel I was.”