Ivy Compton-Burnett - The Mighty and Their Fall

“Yes, of course I was,” said his father, in a bantering tone. “She tried to like another middle-aged man better than me. I am glad she did not succeed. And now she is glad too.”

“I wonder if she really is,” said Agnes. “People sometimes have to pretend to be.”

“What do you know about it? Well, I am surprised. I thought you would be glad to keep your sister.”

“We oughtn’t to be glad, unless she is,” said Leah. “I mean in her heart.”

“Do you not hear what I say?” said her father.

“It might not be true,” said Hengist. “You have to put her in a proper light.”

“My words are always true,” said Ninian, going to the door. “And I hope yours are, or will be when you are older.”

“Now I was not proud of you,” said Miss Starkie.

“You always say that,” said Leah.

“Well, you should give me reason for pride.”

“Did you ever hope Uncle Hugo would marry you?” said Hengist, without regard to the advice. “You are about the right age.”

“Well, I am some years younger. No, of course I did not hope it.”

“Did you feel he was too far above you?”

“In what way?” said Miss Starkie.

“In the ordinary ways. He would not have been a governess, if he had been a woman.”

“It might not have been so unlikely, if he had had the education.”

“Perhaps he did aspire to her hand,” said Leah.

“What is the jest?” said Hugo, opening the door.

“A jest indeed, Mr. Hugo. Almost too simple to be called one. Something it would be foolish to repeat.”

“That you should marry her , as you are not to marry Lavinia,” said Hengist.

“ She would not accept me. I am not cultured enough.”

“That is what she said,” said Leah.

“Indeed it is not, Mr. Hugo. It did not come in like that. It is a most misleading thing to say. They were talking nonsense, and I fell in with it to save trouble.”

“That is what I am doing.”

“You are the right age for her,” said Hengist.

“No, I am too old.”

“She said that too,” said Leah.

Miss Starkie raised her eyes and shoulders and did no more.

“Then of course you are too old for Lavinia,” said Hengist.

“Yes, it is agreed that I am.”

“We do not talk about age,” said Miss Starkie. “I shall have to forbid you to speak.”

“She hasn’t as much power as that,” said Hengist.

“You know her power is absolute,” said Hugo.

“Then she could have married you, if she liked. It shows she didn’t want to.”

“Do you feel you have had an escape?” said Leah.

“I must congratulate you, Mr. Hugo,” said Miss Starkie, with the suitable expression.

“Does she feel there are veiled insults in our words?” said Leah.

“Nothing you say is veiled,” said Miss Starkie. “It is all very open and obvious.”

“There is an insult that is not veiled,” said Hugo.

“Ought she to insult us?” said Hengist.

“I am always one by myself, Uncle,” said Agnes. “I shall be lonely without Grandma.”

“Yes. So will many of us.”

“She won’t be,” said Hengist, indicating Miss Starkie. “She used to be disparaging about her.”

“Now how is anyone to understand you?” said Miss Starkie, naturally above other people in this line.

“Grandma said things she wasn’t meant to hear, when she could hear them,” said Leah, in explanation to Hugo. “She always said she was not herself, when she said them.”

“Now if your uncle knows what you mean, I do not. And I had many talks with your grandmother when she was herself.”

“When did you have them?” said Hengist.

“Not when you were there,” said Miss Starkie, with a truth that might have been given a wider sphere.

“I like to remember what Grandma said about me,” said Agnes.

“Yes, Agnes. It is a memory to carry with you.”

“Do you carry your memory?” said Hengist.

“Yes, that of a personality it could be a privilege to meet.”

“But wasn’t one to her,” said Leah. “I don’t suppose she would have them.”

“What privileges have you?” said Hugo.

“We haven’t any. We are not ashamed of it. It is not our fault.”

“You may not know what privileges are,” said Miss Starkie. “Everyone does not recognise them.”

“Father has the most,” said Hengist. “Too many for one person.”

“He has proportionate responsibilities.”

“They can be privileges,” said Agnes.

“He has Lavinia again now,” said Leah.

“Yes, I had to let him have her,” said Hugo. “It is to him that she belongs.”

“You exercised a privilege, Mr. Hugo,” said Miss Starkie.

Hugo left them and went downstairs, and on the way met Ninian. The latter had entered the library unheard, and silently withdrawn. His wife and son and daughter were talking by the fire, and Hugo’s chair awaited him.

“The family expects you, Hugo. You were right to feel you belonged to it. I am going upstairs for a while. I will come down when the tea goes in.”

At this hour Ainger bore the tray across the hall, accompanied or rather attended by James, and with the accustomed figure in the background.

“So nothing is to happen. Cook. It seems a house where nothing can.”

“If that is your choice of expression.”

“Well, how would you put it?”

“A Hand has intervened. And a state of things is restored.”

“James!” said Ainger, indicating something on the floor.

“Yes, sir,” said James, as he sprang to retrieve it.

“An improvement, Cook,” said Ainger, turning his thumb towards his assistant.

“A thing that might take place in more than one of us.”

“Is there room for it in you?”

“It is not my habit to refer to myself,” said Cook, who had not broken it.

“Well, there is only dullness in front of us.”

“That may be in ourselves, Ainger. And what is your right to variety? How do you regard yourself?”

“As someone whose claims are passed over.”

“It might be inferred that they are absent in your case.”

“I am not dull,” said James, standing upright with a satisfied expression.

“It is a wise word, James, and may lead to bettering yourself.”

“Till I am like Mr. Ainger,” said James, in deep agreement.

“He is born to be a slave,” said Ainger, who perhaps hardly opposed the tendency.

“To render service,” said Cook, glancing at James.

“I was not born to it,” said the latter, in honest admission. “But I am one who learns.”

“No more trouble with the name, Cook. That is in the past.”

“ James is a usual name for a house servant,” said the new owner of it with fluency. “And it saves inconvenience.”

“Saves whom?” said Ainger. “Those who have the least?”

“They should not have any,” said James, in a grave tone.

“So one of them thinks he is having it now,” said Ainger, glancing up the stairs.

“My bell, sir,” said James, leaping towards them.

“Why can’t they keep together and save people’s legs?” said Ainger, caressing one of his own.

“We need not enquire into reasons. They are entitled to them.”

“The master will have tea in his room,” said James, returning equipped with a tray.

“Then you can toil up with it,” said Ainger, as he supplied what was needed.

James held the tray before him, and mounted the stairs with a swift, light tread.

“The new generation cometh,” said Ainger, “and might as well be the old.”

“Well, all things need not pass away.”

“Some of them should. Some people are put too high. They fail in their own sphere. The master and Miss Lavinia; the old master and Mr. Hugo; and the old mistress in a way. Ah, I have heard, and said to myself: ‘How are the mighty fallen!’”