Parents and Children

by Ivy Compton-Burnett

‘Why don’t they all do the same?’ said Hope. ‘Because it would be easier?’

  ‘They would not like it. The same things are not suited to them.’

  ‘Do you understand them like that? And I thought that parents always misunderstood their children.’

  ‘The very strength and possessiveness of a parent’s feelings may prevent easy understanding,’ said Luce.

  ‘Is that what I said?’ said Hope. ‘I am glad. It sounded like something not so nice.’

  ‘Is James at home today?’ said Eleanor, looking at her son.

  ‘Do a parent’s feelings render a child actually invisible?’ said Graham.

  ‘But is he at home? You know what I mean. Is he not well?’

  ‘It seems that children understand their parents,’ said Paul, laughing.

  ‘Sons understand their mothers, we know,’ said Hope. ‘But is it a thing we talk about?’

  ‘There is a holiday at the school,’ said Isabel, while Faith gave a glance at her stepmother.

  ‘Oh, that is what it is,’ said Eleanor, as if this were a more venial circumstance than indisposition. ‘But the holidays seem to come rather often. It is early in the term.’

  ‘It is the schoolmaster’s wife’s birthday,’ said James.

  ‘Is it?’ said Paul. ‘Or is it out of the Bible or the grammar?’

  ‘Either is very suitable for a school,’ said his wife.

  Faith gave another glance at her.

  ‘Would the master give a holiday for his own birthday?’ said Daniel.

  ‘He never does,’ said James.

  ‘It seems a reversal of the usual theories with regard to ladies’ birthdays,’ said Ridley.

  ‘It is nice of him to choose his wife’s,’ said Hope. ‘It makes him seem so glad that she was born.’

  ‘I don’t know why the rest of us should rejoice,’ said Regan.

  ‘It is James who is doing so, and he knows her,’ said Hope. ‘One sees what the master means, and I think it is very nice.’

  ‘I never see her,’ said James.

  ‘Well, that does make him seem rather absorbed in his own point of view. But it is pleasant to keep birthdays, Lady Sullivan, and he will give James a holiday on yours, if you wish.’

  ‘James takes a holiday on mine anyhow,’ said Regan, smiling.

  ‘Well, that is the birthday to be kept,’ said Sir Jesse. ‘That, if no other.’

  His wife looked deeply moved.

  ‘I think you are even better than the schoolmaster, Sir Jesse,’ said Hope.

  ‘Now, Isabel and Venice, let us hear your voices,’ said Eleanor.

  For a moment no sound at all was heard.

  ‘Do you have a holiday on Miss Mitford’s birthday?’ said Paul.

  ‘We don’t even know when it is,’ said Venice.

  ‘An unjust distinction between educationists,’ said Daniel.

  ‘We should not despise people who are employed in the house,’ said Hope.

  ‘Miss Mitford is a very well-read woman,’ said Faith.

  ‘Yes, that is not at all like despising her, dear.’

  ‘Books seem to come for her by every post,’ said Regan.

  ‘I think that is rather like it,’ said Paul.

  ‘Miss Mitford has been with us for seventeen years,’ said Luce.

  ‘I hope it is not a tragedy in a phrase,’ said Graham, his tone not betraying that he really hoped it.

  ‘She would be well-read by now,’ said Isabel. ‘The books do come twice a week.’

  ‘Grandma was not exaggerating as much as I thought,’ said Daniel.

  ‘Ninety-six times a year, if we do not count her holidays,’ said Isabel.

  ‘I do not wonder you wanted them to talk, Eleanor,’ said Hope. ‘It would have been a great pity to miss it.’

  ‘Now we know the length of Miss Mitford’s holidays,’ said Daniel.

  ‘I do not,’ said Paul, while Fulbert rapidly and openly calculated on his fingers.

  ‘Four weeks,’ said Faith, in a slightly breathless tone, outstripping him by a tense and covert effort.

  ‘You see I did have her educated,’ said Hope.

  ‘Now I think Miss Mitford will be expecting you,’ said Eleanor to the children.

  ‘Let them stay for a while,’ said Fulbert. ‘I will have them while I can.’

  ‘Yes, I am to lose my son, Cranmer,’ said Sir Jesse, who was inclined to refer any subject to himself, and to address his words to men. ‘I ought to say I may never see him again. But somehow I feel I should not mean it.’

  ‘People would think you did,’ said Regan.

  ‘I should not,’ said Hope; ‘I am sure he is immortal.’

  ‘I am seventy-nine,’ said Sir Jesse.

  ‘There, I said you were.’

  Regan laughed.

  ‘But I must not depend on my father,’ said Fulbert. ‘And I should make my plans to meet the event of anything’s happening to me. The one thing’s happening, of course I mean. I only have the normal chance.’

  ‘I daresay there are plenty of risks out there,’ said Regan.

  ‘Someone must break it to my mother and my wife,’ went on Fulbert, with the faint unction that marked his utterance of anything that bore on himself. ‘Someone must share the guardianship of my infant children. My sons are young, and younger to my wife than they are. I am dependent on someone outside. Paul, will you face the risk of another man’s burdens?’

  ‘I am no good at other people’s affairs. I don’t take as much trouble with them as I do with my own. I don’t even take enough trouble with those.’

  ‘Then, Ridley, I must turn to you,’ said Fulbert, doing as he said. ‘We have never been close, or even perhaps congenial friends; but I depend on your character; you have our affairs in your hands; you would work well with my wife. Will you undertake the trust?’

  Ridley rose to his feet.

  ‘I will undertake it, Fulbert. And from the bottom of my heart will I regard it as a trust.’

  ‘It is not as if it would ever happen,’ said Regan.

  ‘Lady Sullivan,’ said Ridley, turning quickly to her, ‘do you think we should be calmly discussing it, if we thought it would?’

  ‘I don’t know what else you could do.’

  Ridley looked round, allowed his face to relax into a smile and resumed his seat.

  ‘Well, there is an end of that,’ said Fulbert. ‘I can return to my own character. There is something unnatural in making plans for one’s own end.’

  ‘It is too necessary for us to like it,’ said Regan.

  ‘It is very brave,’ said Graham. ‘But people think so, and that is something.’

  ‘I think we ought to go, Mother,’ said Faith.

  ‘You mean we are constraining their last hours?’

  ‘I have not seen any sign of constraint.’

  ‘We are happy to be helped over them,’ said Sir Jesse. ‘It is hard to talk to my son, with this in front. And most of what I have to say can wait for his return. He must have heard it many times.’

  ‘He will not be in the same position, Sir Jesse,’ said Ridley, speaking with easy confidence in the future. ‘He will have much to relate, that is entirely unfamiliar.’

  ‘We know he will come back, if he is alive,’ said Regan. ‘It will be a good thing when he is gone now.’

  ‘What are you children doing, listening to grown-up talk?’ said Eleanor.

  ‘You have stated our occupation,’ said Isabel. ‘And it is hard to see our alternative.’

  ‘You can all run away to the schoolroom.’

  ‘You do mix the sexes,’ said Hope. ‘I was wondering if I had been wrong in keeping Ridley and Faith together.’

  ‘Brothers and sisters are separated soon enough.’

  ‘Ridley and Faith were not. We only found it out when they were.’

  ‘Ridley was always a very masculine type,’ said Faith. ‘And he was some years older than I was, and I think more developed for his age.�
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  ‘You must remember you are speaking of your brother, dear,’ said Hope.

  ‘I said nothing against him, Mother.’

  ‘You were damning him with faint praise; I think with almost no praise at all. I believe you were just damning him.’

  ‘I am not always thinking of praising people or not praising them.’

  ‘It would be nice to think of the first, dear.’

  ‘You don’t often do it yourself, Mother.’

  ‘Well, I so seldom see any cause for praise. And when I do, I am so often upset about it. So it is not very easy for me.’

  ‘I shall be quite an important person for the next months,’ said Fulbert. ‘I daresay you all think it will be a change.’

  ‘It had not crossed my mind, Father,’ said Luce, with a smile.

  ‘Other things will be that, my boy,’ said Sir Jesse. ‘My advice is to make the most of them.’

  ‘Away, away, you children,’ said Luce, gently clapping her hands.

  ‘Yes, Miss Mitford will be expecting them,’ said Eleanor.

  ‘Miss Mitford’s heart must grow sick with hope deferred,’ said Graham.

  ‘You have taken a weight off my mind, Ridley,’ said Fulbert.

  ‘There is happily no need to regard it as transferred to mine.’

  ‘I wish I could sometimes meet a mark of confidence,’ said Hope.

  ‘Different people are suited to different things,’ said Faith.

  ‘I don’t think that is a better way of putting it, dear, or anyhow not nicer. I ought to go away like Fulbert, and let absence make the heart grow fond.’

  ‘Such a step would be fraught with danger for many of us,’ said Ridley, shaking his head.

  ‘I don’t mean I should dare to go.’

  ‘Ridley does not mean in Mr Sullivan’s case,’ said Faith. ‘He was thinking of ordinary people like ourselves.’

  ‘Being coupled with you, dear, makes up for everything,’ said Hope.

  ‘I think the gap must tend to get a little narrower,’ said Fulbert, in an unflinching tone.

  ‘It is a good thing if it does,’ said Regan; ‘I am sure I hope it will.’

  ‘What should we talk about, if it disappeared?’ said Graham.

  ‘Do you think you will miss your father less, as time goes on, Graham?’ said Eleanor.

  ‘I hope my elders are right. I want to be saved all I can.’

  ‘Do you, Daniel?’

  ‘I will take Grandma’s word for it.’

  Eleanor looked round in an instinct to pass on to James, but realized that he was gone.

  ‘You ought to bear your own testimony, my dear,’ said Fulbert, ‘if you require it of other people.’

  ‘I think you ought, Mother,’ said Luce.

  ‘I shall miss your father more with every day.’

  ‘I am sure that is the truth, Mother. And very few people could say it unflinchingly like that.’

  ‘I am glad Grandma set the fashion, and not Mother,’ said Graham.

  ‘This is excellent for the gap,’ said Daniel. ‘Father may have been getting anxious about it.’

  ‘How wonderful heroism is!’ said Hope.

  ‘I think we ought to leave them, Mother,’ said Faith.

  ‘To wallow in our family miseries,’ said Regan, in a tone of contempt for the prospect.

  ‘I have never seen the courage of despair before,’ said Hope.

  ‘I can quite understand it,’ said Faith. It does not show any lack of feeling.’

  ‘We shall be outstaying our welcome,’ said Paul.

  ‘And doing other things to it,’ said his wife. ‘Good-bye, Fulbert; we shall meet you again before you go, and again when you come back; it will be nothing but meeting. I am hiding everything under a cheerful exterior, as that seems to be the kind that is always used.’

  ‘You put rather a strain on our patience, Mrs Cranmer,’ said Ridley, as they left the house.

  ‘But not too much for it, dear. You mean that too.’

  ‘You can talk with more sense, Ridley,’ said Paul.

  ‘I do see what Ridley means, Father,’ said Faith, in a tone so quiet as to be almost an undertone. ‘I cannot say I do not.’

  ‘Then we won’t expect it, dear,’ said Hope. ‘I wonder if I shall be the means of binding you and Ridley together.’

  ‘Do you ever show your true self, Mrs Cranmer?’ said Ridley, who was proceeding in a state of exaltation produced by the trust reposed in him.

  ‘I hope not often. I do my best to conceal it.’

  ‘Our true selves should not be anything to be ashamed of,’ said Faith.

  ‘I don’t think it would be nice not to be ashamed of them,’ said Hope. ‘I am ashamed and terrified of mine, and even more of other people’s.’

  ‘Other people’s are the thing,’ said Paul.

  ‘There are people in whom I would place an absolute trust,’ said Faith.

  ‘We won’t ask you to mention them, for fear they are not us,’ said Hope.

  ‘I think one of them is Mrs Sullivan.’

  ‘Oh, so they are not us,’ said Paul.

  ‘I confess that the inner truth of people tends to elude me,’ said Ridley. ‘Penetration may not be one of my qualities.’

  ‘Well, that was not mentioned,’ said Hope. ‘But I daresay it does not matter. You are able to think the best of everyone; and as people live up to our conception of them, that would improve them.’

  ‘Here we are at home,’ said Faith, in a bright tone, as if welcoming an end to a conversation she regretted. ‘It is nearly time for tea.’

  ‘I am glad to hear it,’ said Paul. ‘A woman’s life is giving me a woman’s ways.’

  ‘That may not be the explanation, Father. I also feel ready for it,’ said Ridley.

  ‘And your life is a man’s, a hero’s really,’ said Hope.

  ‘That is perhaps an exaggeration, Mrs Cranmer.’

  ‘Talking to the old man is a tax,’ said Paul. ‘He is like a volcano that is quiet at the top.’

  ‘Then he is like a real one,’ said Hope, ‘and that must be alarming. I sympathize with him, if he has to pretend to be better than he is. I know what a strain it can be.’

  ‘Did you adopt the course today?’ said Paul, laughing.

  ‘No, I was dreadful, wasn’t I? Absolutely myself. To think that Fulbert will have to remember me like that!’

  ‘It is better to be oneself, whatever impression one gives,’ said Faith.

  ‘But we are told to conquer ourselves,’ said Hope.

  ‘The process was perhaps incomplete, Mrs Cranmer,’ said Ridley.

  ‘Well, we are not to mind about success. It is only the effort that counts.’

  ‘To disguise one’s real nature seems such a second-rate instinct,’ said Faith.

  ‘I suppose all instincts are,’ said Hope. ‘That is why they have to be overlaid by reason. I know I am inconsistent, but it upsets me to visit the Sullivans. It is because their house is so much better than mine.’

  ‘The Sullivans have a place, Mother. This is just a comfortable home.’

  ‘I know you do not mean to be unkind, dear.’

  ‘I do not indeed; I was only speaking the truth.’

  ‘There isn’t much difference. Brutal frankness is an accepted term.’

  ‘I think this is a very restful room.’

  ‘Yes, you know just what I mean.’

  ‘We should not be any happier in a better one.’

  ‘Well, it would not be true happiness. But I like the other kind. And having a dozen children would be the first kind, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘You know Mrs Sullivan has nine children, Mother.’

  ‘Yes, but easy exaggeration glosses it over, and makes it seem more trivial and vague. I could not bring myself to say nine; I am such a coward.’

  ‘Have you not found two stepchildren enough?’ said Ridley.

  ‘Oh, of course, dear. You have given me the duties and responsibil
ities of motherhood. I ought not to want any more.’

  ‘We know it has not been the same, Mother,’ said Faith, in a quiet tone.

  ‘Oh, well, dear, I am not one of those women who have never heard themselves called Mother.’

  ‘I wonder how much feeling those youngsters have for their parents,’ said Paul.

  ‘Paul, that is kind. I do feel that perhaps I am making a fuss about nothing. Faith and Ridley think I am. Now I have had some comfort, I will show my better qualities for the rest of the day. I will be one of those rare people who keep them for their families. I am glad I have not expended them on anyone else.’

  ‘Are you jealous of the whole brood?’ said Paul.

  ‘I am jealous of Nevill,’ said Faith, lightly.

  ‘The one who choked?’ said Hope.

  ‘You know that was Nevill, Mother.’

  ‘There is my worse nature again. It really seems the only one I have.’

  ‘I should like him to stay always as he is now.’

  ‘Why, he would be bound to choke sooner or later, if it went on.’

  ‘Venice will grow up a handsome girl,’ said Ridley.

  ‘The one who prevented the choking? But wouldn’t she have to remain in the same stage too? Because it couldn’t be allowed to happen. Eleanor saw it herself.’

  ‘There are seven more,’ said Paul.

  ‘Are there?’ said Hope. ‘There it is again.’

  ‘I should like to see more of the girls,’ said Faith.

  ‘Surely a wish you can gratify,’ said Paul. ‘That is the best thing to do with wishes.’

  ‘I think I like girls better than boys.’

  ‘Then you need only be jealous of four,’ said Hope. ‘But of course you are too young for such feelings. People would be jealous of you. Where is Ridley going?’

  ‘To London,’ said her stepson, slightly drawing himself up.

  ‘Of course, you are indispensable there. And here too, as we know. You are not without honour anywhere.’

  Faith glanced at her parents, and as they made no movement towards the hall, accompanied her brother herself.

  ‘Do you like Faith the better of your children?’ said Hope, to her husband.

  ‘Oh, well, yes, a father takes to his daughter.’

  ‘I like her better too. And you would expect me to be a woman who never preferred her own sex.’

  ‘I should have said you generally did so.’

  ‘Most people do. It is a thing that has not been noticed. People know too much about their sex, to think it possible to prefer it, when really they find it familiar and congenial.’