Ivy Compton-Burnett - The Mighty and Their Fall

“You knew I had nothing over. Anything I had, you would have taken. You have given the proof.”

“You all want it all,” said Selina. “And Ninian has the most. He has had the chance, and that is what it is. No one gives until he must. We find that is true when we make a will. I have tried to do it wisely. And I think I have been wise. But you all want everything, and no one can have it or give it. I will go now.”

She rose from her chair, and as Ninian went to help her, looked up into his face.

“I wish it was yours, my son. It would be better so. But if it is not, you will give it to them. They will have what is theirs.”

“Yes, yes, I will,” said Ninian, stooping over her. “It is mine, but I will not remember. I will say no more, and that means that it is given. And that it is taken. That is the certain thing. And I should not have used it for myself. It is other people who give. And it is my daughter who takes. I am content, if others are.”

“I am content,” said Hugo to Lavinia. “But I did not know I should be so ashamed of it. Can it be true that self-denial is its own reward? Even when it is forced on us.”

Selina went to the door, and her son followed with his eyes on her, as if oblivious of anything else. Miss Starkie manœuvred her charges in front of them, and urged them to the stairs.

“Why is there a hurry?” said Hengist, on an upper floor.

“You might not have known what to say to your grandmother. She is overtired.”

“She didn’t seem to like you, did she?” said Leah.

“She is not herself today,” said Miss Starkie, in explanation of this.

“She seemed to be herself,” said Hengist.

“No one who cared for her could think so.”

“Do you care for her yourself?” said Leah.

“I appreciate what she is. Of course she is not my grandmother.”

“No. She couldn’t be as old as that.”

“Well, it would be possible,” said Miss Starkie, seeing no reason to disregard the truth.

“Would it?” said Hengist. “You haven’t even any parents.”

“Well, they did not live to be old.”

“Did your being a governess break their hearts?”

“And bring their grey hairs with sorrow to the grave?” said Leah. “That would have been a pity, if they weren’t even grey.”

“What kind of a person is Grandma?” said Hengist. “Very good or very bad?”

“She is good, of course. No one can be perfect,” said Miss Starkie, forced to a reservation in Selina’s case.

“Why isn’t she perfect? Because she does not like you?”

“We are good friends when she is herself.”

“Can people be good friends, when one is despised and rejected of the other?”

“You don’t attend to what I say,” said Miss Starkie, with justification.

“I have always been Grandma’s favourite,” said Agnes.

“When people are that, they sometimes deserve to be,” said Miss Starkie, tired of too little effort in this direction.

“Leah and I would not stoop to fawn on people.”

“Some people’s level does not admit of much stooping.”

“She means our level is low,” said Leah.

“Well, so is everyone’s. Only some people have more power. People are really all the same.”

“Indeed they are not,” said Miss Starkie. “There can be a great difference.”

“Well, Grandma said they were,” said Leah. “She kept on saying it.”

“I should not remember what she said today,” said Miss Starkie, in favour of a general forgetfulness.

“Do you mean what she said about you?” said Hengist.

“No. What did she say? I hardly recall it. I meant what she said about you, if I am to speak the truth.”

“We might not recall that.”

“No. It is best to put it all out of your minds,” said Miss Starkie, on a sympathetic note.

“If Grandma dies, wouldn’t you have to remember her last words to you?” said Leah.

“I am afraid I already forget them. And we hope they are not her last.”

“Does she really hope it?” said Leah.

“It is a strange feeling,” said Ninian. “To be no longer a son. It is the deepest of all changes. It has torn up my roots, thrown me solitary into the future. It will be hard to feel anchored again.”

“I should be proud if it did so much to me,” said Hugo. “The part it has done shows me what the whole must be.”

“Proud? I am lonely, bereft, uncertain. In a measure it must be so with you all.”

“There is a cause for pride, Father,” said Lavinia. “To be such things beyond a measure.”

“Ah, you would once have been with me. At a time not so far away. Now I must see you move to a distance. Well, in a sense I shall go with you.”

“Why do you keep saying how proud you are, Father?” said Egbert. “We can all see it.”

“To me it is no occasion for jest. It is the first when the voice will not sound, that I have always heard. And the first of many. That is the heavy part.”

“We all miss Grandma, and shall always miss her. It hardly needs to be said.”

“Then it has had good measure,” said Hugo. “And from you both.”

“Hardly the same,” said Ninian. “Words are not so powerless. Other words arise from other feeling. They come from within. My future is a sea of change. My mother gone from me, my daughter going, my brother that to me no longer.”

“All our lives are changing,” said Teresa. “Even Leah can hardly say there will be no difference.”

“You and Ninian will have each other,” said Hugo. “That foolish thing that is said, when that is all people have. As if they did not know it! It is the whole trouble.”

“It is not only trouble,” said Ninian, smiling at Teresa. “Or it is trouble shared and therefore less.”

“Did Grandma leave a will?” said Egbert. “I suppose there is no doubt of it.”

“No doubt at all,” said Ninian, sounding surprised and looking at his son. “She left nothing undone that needed doing.”

“Do you know the terms, Father? No doubt you helped her to make it.”

“No doubt again. She would not have been without my help. I was never without hers.”

“I daresay she knew her own mind.”

“There is again no doubt,” said Ninian, smiling. “But I have not thought of the will since it was made. She and I were of the same mind. That is what I remember.”

“Well, it disposes of everything else,” said Hugo. “It must be a calming memory.”

“I have other memories,” said Ninian.

“Do you feel she had a happy life?” said Teresa.

“A full one. And that must mean some losses. She met them with her own courage.”

“I am glad I am a coward,” said Hugo. “Courage is another strain added to the rest. It does nothing for anyone.”

“Hers did much for me,” said Ninian. “I am the better for it. I found it uplifting.”

“Can everything be Grandma’s fault?” murmured Egbert.

“Pride should go before a fall,” said Hugo. “But it does not seem to.”

“Yes, I am the better,” said Ninian, looking at him. “And it should also be true of you. You know her mind, and will follow it. You could have no truer aim.”

“You don’t mean I should give up my marriage? So that she will not have died in vain?”

“What else should I mean? I have not changed. And you know she had not.”

“We have not either. So a religion would have had its use. We could have said that she now understood.”

“You know she understood this. And you know you yourself understand it. What does my honest daughter feel?”

“Not that we should follow a wish, now she is dead, that we did not follow in her life. What would it do for her?”