Ivy Compton-Burnett - A God and His Gifts

“I did not ever wish her different.”

“No, and you would not wish me so. We do not want change in the people we care for. It would mean they were not the same.”

“I daresay it would,” said Salomon.

“It might be the outcome,” said Merton.

“Now do not sneer at your mother. Any chance word can be taken up like that. It is too obvious a line to follow. Now who is this come to see us?”

Henry entered the room by himself, having been brought to the house by Nurse and left at the door. He kept looking back, as if at a loss without her, and paused to gaze at the newcomers.

“Now who are these dear people?” said Ada. “Can you guess?”

“Two,” said Henry, finding the number unusual.

“Yes, Aunt Emmeline and Cousin Viola. Are you not pleased to see them?”

“Very nice house,” said Henry, looking round.

“Nicer than ours?”

“Oh, yes it is.”

“It is smaller,” said Alfred.

“Yes, dear little house.”

“You know it is not small,” said Merton. “Did you walk to it or let Nurse carry you?”

“Yes, poor Nurse very tired. Henry read to her.”

“What do you read.”

“Little Bo-Peep,” said Henry, incidentally.

“You know it by heart,” said Merton. “You don’t read from a book.”

“Yes, have a book and read.”

“Well, read to us out of this one.”

Henry took the Bible and proceeded with his eyes on it.

“‘Little Bo-Peep

Has lost her sheep,

And doesn’t know where to find them.’”

“‘Leave them alone,

And they’ll come home,

Bringing their tails behind them,’”

said Merton, exposing the method.

“And does Nurse listen?” said Hereward, disregarding his second son.

“Yes. Not tired any more. Show her the picture.”

“And what else do you read?”

“‘Ride a cock horse

To Banbury Cross,’”

said Henry, looking down with the negligence of modesty.

“Would you really like to read?” said Merton.

“No, he is too young yet.”

“You know you can’t read, don’t you?”

“Oh, yes, he knows,” said Henry, with the air of a conspirator.

“We don’t want Maud to pretend to read. We will wait until she can.”

“Yes, pretend,” said Henry, as if accepting the word.

“She has forestalled us,” said Hetty. “She pretends already.”

“Oh, no, not pretend,” said Henry, in a tone of disapproval.

“He is getting rather spoilt, Father,” said Merton.

“No,” said Henry.

“Do you know what it means?”

“No,” said Henry, easily.

“I don’t think you are spoilt,” said Viola.

“No,” said Henry, smiling into her face.

“Have you a message for Maud?” said Merton. “You love her, don’t you?”

“No, her,” said Henry, indicating Viola.

“I have no little boy,” said Emmeline. “Only a girl.”

Henry looked round for the latter.

“Here she is,” said Emmeline, putting her hand on Viola’s shoulder.

“No,” said Henry. “Lady.”

“I think it is long enough, ma’am,” said Nurse at the door.

Henry turned and ran towards her, ignoring the farewells that followed him.

“You are honoured among women,” said Salomon to Viola. “And indeed among men. We all strive for Henry’s favour.”

“Were you glad when your father adopted him?”

“I was surprised. But I like a child in the house. My brothers are married and provided for.”

“You could marry yourself, if you wished.”

“I would only marry whom I wished. And another point of view is involved.”

“Is it strange to have a famous father?”

“I am used to it. It has become a part of our life.”

“You do not want to write yourself?”

“The question does not arise. I am not able to.”

“If you were, would you try to write like your father?”

“Would anyone try to do anything like anyone else? If I produced anything, it would be my own. But my father’s work looms large to us. We depend on it for much of what we have. We can only be grateful for it. And there are parts of it, that I can be proud that he has written.”

“Does he know how you feel about it?”

“He has two sets of readers, the large and the small. He knows I belong to the second, and is not concerned. He sees his work with his own eyes.”

“Both may be right in a way. The larger need not always be wrong.”

“It contains many honest people. I am not going to pity it, if it includes you.”

“What of your brother’s work? Has he also two sets of readers?”

“He writes for one. And it remains small. His work has not so far found a place. Of course my father’s always did. But it is easy to judge such things, and difficult to do them. I have no right to speak.”

“It is such a change for me to be with a family like this.”

“It is not to me. But something else is a change. Something I have imagined and given no name. I can hardly give it one now.”

“There may be things that have no names.”

“There are. They are outside the sphere of words. If you had lived in that sphere, as I have, you would know it. They have their life beyond them.”

“What an earnest pair!” said Hereward. “Am I allowed to join?”

“You hardly can,” said Viola. “The talk was about writers, and you would have to lead.”

“What has Salomon been saying of his father? I dare to guess I was an example.”

“That you have written things he is proud of.”

“Oh, so I have a loyal son. I was not sure of it.”

“How can he not have?” murmured Salomon for Viola’s ears, as he moved away. “Things being as they are. He being as he is. His writing giving us what it does. I am what I have to be. I do what I must.”

“So you are my adopted niece?” said Hereward. “We will forget the adoption and keep the rest. We will forget it all, and have something of our own. There is a word I have to say to you. I want to take the place of the father you have not had. You will let me try? My heart would be in it. And it could be between ourselves.”

“I wish you would try. I wish you were my father. I have thought and asked about you. But my mother could not tell me much.”

“And am I what you imagined?”

“I did not dare to go far, in case I imagined too much. But it might have been the whole. You are just what you ought to be.

“So I have been told. And I should be what people want. They want my books, and I put myself into them.”

“And you are yourself out of them. And it is said that writers seldom are.”

“Their energy is used. As mine would never be. I say it of myself, as it is true. It is a thing that puts me apart.”

“One of the things. It is what you are.”

“And what you should not be,” said Ada’s voice. “Come and join the rest of us, and put all ideas of being apart out of your heads. Apart! Why should you be? Why should any of us? I have never had such a thought in my life. The wish must be father to it. Come and join your — betters I almost said — but I will say your equals. That should be enough for you.”

“For me,” said Viola. “But what about my Uncle Hereward?”

“Enough for him too. In ordinary life he takes the usual part. His position with his readers is different.”

“It is,” said Hereward. “I will not deny it.”

“Then it can be with me,” said Viola. “I am one of them.”

“Well, so it can,” said Sir Michael. “And he deserves that it should be. He has a right to anything that comes to him.”

“Very little comes to us, that we have not a right to,” said Zillah. “We can accept it all freely.”