Ivy Compton-Burnett - A God and His Gifts

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First published in 1963,
was the last of Ivy Compton-Burnett's novels to be published in her lifetime and is considered by many to be one of her best. Set in the claustrophobic world of Edwardian upper-class family life, it is the story of the self-willed and arrogant Hereward Egerton. In his marriage to Ada Merton he maintains a veneer of respectability but through his intimate relationships with his sister, Emmeline, and his son's future wife, Hetty, he steps beyond the bounds of conventional morality with both comic and tragic results…

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Hereward accepted what came, until a time when it was questioned. Some weeks later Salomon approached him, and spoke of the matter in a candid manner that suggested it was not a great one.

“Father, you will let me say a word? It is nothing of great significance. I am not suggesting that history is repeating itself. I know your feeling for Viola is fatherly and nothing more. It has been clear from the first. That is why you have not thought. But in a way you are trespassing again on a son’s preserves. I will ask you to leave my path clear. You are too impressive a figure to be in the way.”

“What do you mean? What is it you are saying? You don’t mean you are in love with Viola?”

“What else should I mean? I should be taken to mean it. I tried to make it plain.”

“You are not thinking of marrying her? No, you cannot be.”

“Why not? I am in a position to marry. You have said you wished I would, that it was time. What is there against it?”

“Oh, my poor boy!” said Hereward. “My poor boy!”

“Why, what is the trouble?”

“Now I am an unfortunate man,” said Hereward, throwing up his hands. “Here I do my best for my family, work for them, bear with them, make no effort for myself! And I become a threat and a danger and a despoiler of their lives! You tell me to get out of your path. There is a word for a father’s ears. What if I had not been in it? If I had left it clear, as you say? It is true that I have had my temptations, and that my life has kept them at hand. But what would have happened, if it had not been so? Where would you have been without me? Where would those who matter more than you, have been? Your mother and mine would have been thrust from their place. Would you have been able to help them? Or would you have turned to me? Answer me and answer me truly. What can I be but what I am? What could I have done but what I did?”

“Father, have done. Be plain. You have said nothing yet. I feel you can have nothing to say.”

“Salomon, I speak to you as to another man. You have reached your full manhood. You know that your mother’s sister left us in her youth. That a threat was seen in her remaining with me. My son, it was more than a threat. The consequence came. Neither she nor I betrayed it. We felt silence was best. She adopted the child and still said nothing. I provided for its needs, and still provide for them. I had my usual part. Viola does not know. It seemed better that she should not. But it was not better. Nothing has been. Everything has gone awry for me. I look for nothing else. But of course I was drawn to her. Of course I was in the path. Did I not see her in mine? You have my sympathy, Salomon. You deserve it indeed. But I ask for yours. And I ask something else. I can face no further exposure. I ask that there shall be none.”

There was a pause.

“Viola should know,” said Salomon, in an empty tone. “Anything else has danger. We see the danger that it holds. And she must see the difference in me. Her own feeling may not have gone far. She welcomed your presence in the path. Well, it is clear for you now.”

“Do not be bitter, my son. I have been as helpless as you have. And my way is not clear, if this is to be known. It is not the word.”

Salomon spoke in a more natural way.

“It should be known, Father. Viola has her claims. The knowledge may affect her future. She is my grandparents’ true grand-daughter.”

“My son, she is the child of your father and your mother’s sister. She is your half-sister and more. Things areas they are.”

“My mother must know. She will see the change in my feeling. And, Father, it has not changed. You say I deserve your sympathy. You are right that I do.”

“Then let it all be known,” said Hereward, throwing up his hands again. “Let them all start and stare and cast their stones. Let them do their part. It is what I am used to, what I have had. It is not what I have given, not what I will give. I will go on working and giving and suffering what I must. For I have suffered, Salomon. I am an unsatisfied man. I live with a want at my heart. You know now what that means.”

“I am learning it, Father. And I have no wish to be revenged. You have done me no conscious wrong. But these secrets should not be. They lie beneath our life to escape and shatter it. They must be revealed and ended.”

“Then end this one. Do as you will. Expose it in this house and the other. Let two families be shocked and saddened. It is your moment. They are all here. It is the usual treble gathering. Go and do your worst. Or your best, my boy. Go and do the only thing. We see it should be done.”

“Not before Viola, Father. She must hear when she is alone. I will do it when I can.”

“She is not with them,” said Hereward, looking aside. “She is in my room. I was going to her there. She was to wait for me.”

“Then I can go and do it now. It is the moment, as you say. You will break it to her yourself. In your room, where she is waiting for you. I said your path was clear.”

Salomon almost ran from the room, paused on the threshold of the other, and stood with his hand raised.

“Hear me, all of you. I have a word to say. That is, there is a word to be said. You have heard others. This may or may not be the last. It is Viola who is involved this time. She should not have come amongst us. Do you guess what it is? Can you think what it might be? If so, I need not use the words.”

“My son, what is it?” said Ada. “Surely there can be nothing more. Surely there has been enough.”

“I think I can guess,” said Alfred, coming forward. “This time I have felt I knew. At the early one I had no thought of it. Am I to say it, Ada? It is for you to judge.”

“Say it, Father. Say anything that is true. Nothing is too much for me now. Too many things have been too much. It is silence that I cannot bear. It has covered too much. Let it not cover any more. It is the thing I cannot face.”

“Then here is the truth. The last to come on us. This time I see it as the last. Viola is not the stranger we have thought. She is what she might naturally be. It is simply what might have been.”

“I see, Father. You need not say it. We all know what it is. She is the child of Hereward and Emmeline, of my husband and my sister. We will say no more.”

“My daughter, you have had much to face. But this is no new thing. Its place is in the past.”

“My poor son!” said Ada, turning to Salomon. “This is not in the past for you. It is your trouble more than mine. For me the truth has been there, in a way a part of my life.”

“Yes, it is so, Ada,” said Emmeline. “There is nothing new. It is all so long ago. It has come to mean nothing. I felt it was best to hide the truth. Best for you and me and the child. I was going away, and it was easy to hide it. I thought I should never come back. And then it all seemed to be over, to be sunk in the past. And so it is. It is as you said. I did not think of this. How could anyone have thought of it?”

“There was a risk,” said Alfred. “There is danger in hidden things. We see they have their life, that they do not die. There may be many of them. We do not know. We will not add to them. It is well that this has come to light. I have nothing to say of it. It is late to judge. It must join the knowledge behind our lives.”

“Ada, I can go, if you wish,” said Emmeline. “Tell me the truth. Do you want me to go or stay?”

“To stay. I need my sister. Nothing new has happened. No change has come. I simply have greater need. And Father wants his daughter — his grand-daughter — all that it is. I can accept it. If I had not learned to accept, I should be a person who could learn nothing.”

“What a family we are!” said Reuben to his brothers. “I don’t know whether to be proud or ashamed of belonging to it.”

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