Ivy Compton-Burnett - A God and His Gifts

“It is natural that the words should be in our mouths. The thought must be in our minds.”

“Well, well, it is in yours, I know. It may be too seldom in mine. But it does not lessen my pride in my son. Why, I read things about him that quite take me aback. And I say to myself: ‘I am the father of this man. I gave him life. Whatever he has done, I have done myself in a way.’ It is a serious thought. I am sobered by it.”

“You knew not what you did,” said his daughter.

“Well, no, it is true in a sense. And yet it is not, you know. Why, sometimes I understand him as well as anyone. Parts of his books have brought tears to my eyes. And I have not been ashamed of it. And I have laughed too. Why, I have thrown back my head and laughed until tears came of another kind, and I was quite glad no one was there to witness it. I have been lost to anything outside myself. I don’t deny it.”

“That was when anyone might have witnessed it.”

“Oh, well, was it? So the funny parts are the best. Well, I should hardly have thought it. They seem more on anyone’s level. And yet I am not sure, you know. I sometimes see light on things in a way. I might make more of myself, if I tried.”

“People would not like you to try,” said Joanna. “They think we make enough of ourselves. And they would see you trying and despise you.”

“Well, I should not care if they did. I don’t always think as much of them as they believe. Why, when Hereward and Zillah talk, I often glimpse their hidden meanings, though I don’t try to get the credit. It is as I have said. Indolence is my trouble. I might have been a different man without it.”

“We should all be different without our distinguishing qualities,” said Zillah. “Not that our meanings are probably so deeply hidden.”

“Well, not from your father. There are games that two can play at. It does not do to forget it.”

“They are a good son and daughter,” said Joanna. “We would not have them changed. Ought not one of us to say it?”

“Joanna, if I saw a hint of change in either of them, I should be distressed. It would be a grief to me. I would not alter one jot or one tittle of their qualities. I am not equal to them. I look up to them. My heart swells at the thought of them. They are superior to their father. If ever a man was thankful for his wife and children, I am that man. Well, Galleon, do you not feel I do well to be thankful?”

“No one could take exception to the feeling, Sir Michael.”

“I daresay you could see some cause for discontent.”

“No real one, Sir Michael. There are perhaps circumstances that might be found unexpected.”

“My son’s doing work that you find so? You feel we should be mildly ashamed of it?”

“I should not use that word, Sir Michael. I see no disgrace in honest work. I need only adduce my own case. But in some we may look for a difference.”

“And you don’t see it in this one? Well, I am a proud father, whether you believe it or not.”

“There seems no room for doubt of it, Sir Michael.”

“But you would not be proud in my place?”

“It is the place that might prevent it, Sir Michael.”

“Galleon, my son is a household word.”

“I have gathered that that is the position, Sir Michael.”

“And you hardly like to refer to it?”

“I do not often find it necessary, Sir Michael.”

“You would not betray us, unless you were obliged to?”

“I respect any private circumstance in the family, Sir Michael.”

“This has surely become public.”

“It could hardly fail to in the end, Sir Michael.”

“So it would be no good to deny it.”

“It is hardly a case for actual suppression, Sir Michael,” said Galleon, as he moved away.

“Ah, Joanna, ‘a prophet is not without honour’. We can see that Hereward has too little in his home. I caught a glimpse of myself in Galleon. And I felt ashamed and resolved to do better.”

“He sees the disgrace in honest work, though he had to deny it. And how did the saying arise, if no one saw it? And how can it be seen, if it is not there? I wonder if I could see it, if I dared.”

“Well, I cannot and will not see it. If I were not proud and grateful, I should be less than a man. And I wish I did some honest work myself. I have come to wish it. I should be glad to be of help to someone. I envy Galleon, and he can hear me say it. Do you hear me, Galleon? I envy you for doing useful work in the world.”

“Work can only be done in the world, Sir Michael. There is no other locality for it. And you would envy a good many people, the larger number. Myself among them, as you say.”

“I see you don’t believe me.”

“I know you believe yourself at the moment, Sir Michael.”

“Do you ever envy anyone?”

“Envy is one of the seven deadly sins, Sir Michael,” said Galleon with a smile. “I hope I should not yield to it.”

“Do you like to be envied yourself?”

“I might like a position that involved it, Sir Michael. It has not fallen to me. I have remained below it.”

“I have always felt that people below me must envy me,” said Joanna, in an undertone. “Of course I know they are not below. I wonder who ever thought they were. Again I think someone must have.”

“Do you take any interest in our actual life?” said Zillah, as though her own interest in the other matters had failed.

“Oh, in Hereward’s marriage?” said her father. “The hint of it has come before and meant nothing. And now there is no word of the woman. He can’t be married without a wife, any more than the rest of us.”

“That is true. It is why it will make a difference.”

“Ah, it would to you, my poor girl. Your father knows it would. You would be the first to suffer.”

“Or the last,” said Joanna. “Or the one not to suffer at all. Hereward will marry without a wife as far as anyone can.”

“Well, I hope he will marry in one way or another. It would be a step forward for him and all of us. I should welcome his wife as a daughter. I should rejoice in his fulfilment. I have not got so little out of marriage myself, that I should regret it for my son. And it would be good to have descendants, Joanna, to have our own kind of immortality. I know you think we have no other. I leave the question myself as something beyond me.”

“I should be glad to have the descendants. I don’t mind about the immortality. It is not of a kind that matters.”

“Well, well, the generations pass. We have to play our part. What do you feel about these questions, Galleon? Do you ever wish you were a married man?”

“Well, I see there is something to be said for it, Sir Michael. Perhaps more on the other side.”

“You would not like to have descendants?”

“I hardly know what they would do for me, Sir Michael. And I should have to do much for them. More than my resources warranted.”

“Why, they would grow up and work for you, Galleon.”

“They would grow up at my expense and work for themselves, Sir Michael. There would be no alternative. And so it would go on.”

“To think that we are all descendants!” said Joanna. “I am sure I am above the average. I have never worked for myself. It does sound egotistic.”

“Well, I have worked for myself and others in managing things,” said Sir Michael. “I think it is a just claim.”

“Yes, Sir Michael. Though most work is for others,” said Galleon, leaving the matter there.

“I think all claims are just,” said Joanna. “That is why they are made. I have never met an unjust claim. I suppose it is because there are not any.”

“Now would aunt Penelope approve of this idleness, Emmeline?”