Ivy Compton-Burnett - A God and His Gifts

“On the contrary, Sir Hereward. There are duties in every sphere.”

“My eldest son represents me. He is my deputy.”

“Yes, Sir Hereward. It can only be the word.”

“We need the money that I earn.”

Galleon paused and then just inclined his head.

“You think that is not a subject for words?”

“It is not always seen as one, Sir Hereward.”

“You feel the fact is a thing to be ashamed of?”

“It is a chance circumstance, Sir Hereward.”

“We could hardly have kept things up, if I had done nothing.”

“These places have their life, Sir Hereward. It involves the power of holding to it.”

“They can lose their life. In a measure they depend on money!”

“You are not of a stock that looks to it, Sir Hereward. There are other standards.”

“But everything has to be paid for.”

“It is true that the world is run on that basis, Sir Hereward.”

“And does our corner not belong to it?”

“It is perhaps apart in more than one sense, Sir Hereward.”

“You feel that I fail it in some way?”

“Well, perhaps that you withdraw from it, Sir Hereward.”

“Won’t you get tired of using my name?”

“No, Sir Hereward. The question would not arise.”

“I shall get rather tired of hearing it.”

“It will cease to strike your ear, Sir Hereward. Good-morning, my lady.”

Joanna entered the room by herself, a reminder of how seldom she had done so. She was dressed as usual, but her look was unfamiliar. Her son went to meet her and take her to a seat.

“Mamma, this is brave and wise. The first steps have to be taken. It is like you to know it.”

“It would be like most of us. How can we help knowing?”

“At the moment you wish you had no more to take.”

“No, I wish both your father and I had more.”

“I know what it is to you to be here without him.”

“Well, it is the alternative to being nowhere.”

“You are feeling he is the more fortunate?”

“No, I suppose I am. But it is not the word.”

“We all have to die in our time. There is no escape.”

“When we have had to be alive. And when the two things are so different. We ought not to have to do both.”

“It is true, my lady, if I may interpose,” said Galleon. “The one does not help with the other. It seems to render it unnatural.”

“And in spite of that it leads to it. The position is unreasonable.”

Ada came into the room, and at once turned her eyes on her mother-in-law.

“Mamma, it is what I expected. I meet what I knew I should. May I do as well, when my times comes.”

“Perhaps you may escape it,” said Hereward. “A man may outlive his wife. It is a thing that happens.”

“Not as often as the other thing. It is the woman who is left. Women marry younger, and on the whole have longer lives. It is no advantage to them.”

“I think it is,” said Joanna. “And I am one of them.”

“In a sense you hardly are. You are so much one by yourself. And your courage does not deceive us. We know what is in your mind. That you have come to the end. But you are too brave to allow yourself to betray it.”

“People are always brave in trouble. How can they be anything else? It is brave of them to suffer it.”

“Dear Mamma! You are feeling there is nothing left for you.”

“I do feel there is only a little left.”

“You will live in the past. That will always be your own.”

“I have lived in it. But then it was the present. And that was much better.”

“There is the future,” said Ada, raising her hands, “the great, unforeseeable future. With its hopes and fears, its demands and its duties. You are to have a share of it.”

“It does not sound so very good. But I daresay it would not. This was once the future.”

“Well, we are now in the present,” said Hereward.

“And we all have our duty to that. I must go and attend to mine.”

“No, you must not, Hereward,” said Ada. “You must remain with your mother. No duty is as pressing as that to-day. An exception can sometimes be made. And Galleon is here with the breakfast. Are we to live on air?”

“You may have feared it, my lady. I have had to assert myself. Trouble is taken to mean that life has not to go on.”

“Well, it ought to mean it,” said Joanna. “It should be allowed to prevent it.”

“Oh, that is what I am called now!” said Ada, as if taken aback. “I am not sure that I like it. No, I find I do not. It is someone else’s appellation, not mine. I had forgotten, and I shall continue to forget.”

“Other people will remember, my lady. The change cannot be denied.”

“But then there will be two of us. How is that to be arranged? If the title is mine, and I suppose it is, what of the accepted bearer of it?”

“Joanna, Lady Egerton, my lady,” said Galleon, evenly.

“I am too old to have a Christian name,” said Joanna.

“Then you shall not have one,” said Ada. “You shall be what you have always been. And I know the thought in your mind. The name was for Papa’s lips and for his alone. And so it shall be to the end. It does not matter what I am. I will be anything that comes about. I have no claim, or anyhow I make none.”

“There is no choice, my lady. And the name is not used in speech.”

“Oh, how we are all under orders! We in the land of the free! Well, we must submit, I suppose. If the change must come, it must.”

“We have made enough of it,” said Hereward. “It is no such great one.”

“It is a mark of the change in our lives. And that is a great one. It will be a shock to Merton. I have sent the message.”

“He and his wife are in the hall,” said Hereward, who now spoke of Hetty in this way.

“Ah, he would come to his mother. My son, I had to send a sad word. Yes, go first to your grandmother. She is the claimant to-day. All our thought centres round her. We take a secondary place.”

“Now this is a relief!” said Merton. “I looked to be without grandparents. Things are only half as bad as I expected. I did not know that could happen. I feel it is too much.”

“And so it is. She comes out high. You must see that her grandsons are worthy of her. — Father, I knew you would be here. Aunt Penelope, I looked for this. It is what we can do for each other. To be ourselves as far as we can.”

“I suppose I am being myself,” said Reuben. “But I half-felt we ought to be different.”

“So did I,” said Salomon. “I felt my ordinary self was not enough.”

“Hereward may not quite come up to himself,” went on Ada. “You may find him a thought aloof and silent. I think we must look for it to-day. His mind is on the past.”

“Mine is being held to the present,” said Merton.

“Well, I will take my cue,” said Hereward. “My wife will fulfil a double part.”

“Well, it is what my hand findeth to do. So I do it with my might. These are difficult moments at the best. And a general silence would not serve. I don’t know why we feel a sort of uneasiness and guilt, when we have lost someone near to us. But so it is. There is no eluding it.”

“I know why,” said Salomon. “We are uneasy at the proof that we can die, and guilty because we have not died, when someone else has. It seems ungenerous of us.”

“Well, we must just get through the time as best we can.”

“And that is as we see,” said Merton.

“And it might be worse,” said Salomon. “If it were left to us, it would be. What are we doing?”

“Nothing. And it is not worse.”

“I think it is,” said Reuben. “I am feeling ashamed of it.”

“Father, step into the breach,” said Ada. “Someone must second my efforts. My powers are giving out. They are not unlimited.”