Parents and Children

by Ivy Compton-Burnett

  ‘There is a good deal that needs discussion,’ said Eleanor.

  ‘It has had it,’ said Sir Jesse. ‘Let us start where you left off. That is what we shall have to do.’

  ‘We thought of several plans and discarded them.’

  ‘Is there one you have not discarded?’

  ‘The one that seems to us best,’ said Eleanor, with an open, cold simplicity, ‘is that Ridley and I should have a house in the village, and leave the children with you, on the understanding that I have daily access to them. We could not afford what you do for them, and it is best for boys to be guided by a man bound to them by blood. I would make the contribution to their expenses that I have always made. This seems best for the interests of us all.’

  Regan drew a hard breath and sank into tears.

  ‘Sir Jesse,’ said Ridley, keeping his eyes averted from her, ‘I should like to say how earnestly I will do my part under the new order; with what sincerity I will further the welfare of those to whom I stand in a semi-fatherly relation. If honest effort is of any avail—’ He stopped as he saw Regan’s face.

  ‘Such a thing is never useless,’ said Sir Jesse.

  ‘I wonder what they will all have to say,’ said Regan.

  ‘We are all here, Grandma,’ said Luce, in a low, clear tone.

  ‘Our elders must soon have become conscious of the nine pairs of eyes,’ said Daniel.

  ‘They would have had that feeling that someone was looking at them,’ said his brother.

  ‘Lady Sullivan,’ said Ridley, ‘I do not desire to hear what that may be. I doubt if it will be for my ears.’

  ‘What is your real word to us?’ said Regan, suddenly to Eleanor.

  Luce came forward and took her mother’s hand.

  ‘That I have felt myself unfit to be alone with my burden. I have never had faith in myself as a mother. My children will not suffer from not having me in their home. I wish in a way that they would. And I shall be at their service. I see no good in postponing a change that is resolved upon, and I am not troubled about making it so soon. I am marrying in distrust of myself, in despair at my loneliness, and in gratitude for a feeling that met my need. I was not in a position to reject it.’

  ‘We wish you all that is good, my dear,’ said Sir Jesse. ‘You are doing your best for yourself and for others, and many people stop at the first.’

  ‘And so may we say that the meeting is adjourned?’ said Ridley, with a smile and a hand on Eleanor’s shoulder. ‘Or rather dissolved, as the business is concluded.’

  Regan gave Eleanor a look of such helpless consternation at her acceptance of this caress for another’s, that Sir Jesse took a step between them.

  ‘You have other things to say to other people. You have done what you must by us.’

  ‘It will be the same thing,’ said Eleanor, ‘but it will have to be said.’

  ‘No, Mother dear,’ said Luce, ‘why will it? We know what there is to know. We do not need it repeated. We can bear to see you recede a little from us, if it is to result in your going forward yourself.’

  ‘You have always made things easy for me, my dear.’

  ‘And in this case you do so for me,’ said Ridley.

  ‘I don’t think they are finding it very difficult themselves,’ said Eleanor, looking at her children.

  ‘It is not for you to see our problems, Mother,’ said Daniel. ‘They would not be any help to you.’

  ‘No, do not ask for them, my dear,’ said Sir Jesse.

  ‘I should almost like to feel they were greater,’ said Eleanor. ‘Daniel, have you a word of your own to say to your mother?’

  ‘I welcome anything that is for your happiness. And the feeling is not only mine.’

  ‘So do I indeed,’ said Graham, his eyes passing over Ridley.

  ‘You are kind and just to me, my children.’

  ‘He does too; he is too,’ said Nevill, coming up to his mother.

  ‘I did not notice you were all here,’ said Eleanor, looking round the hall.

  ‘It is a wet day, Mother,’ said Luce, ‘and you sent word that lessons were to be suspended.’

  ‘Mother passed over six of her nine children,’ said Venice.

  ‘You are always in my mind, my child,’ said Eleanor. ‘I did not know you had come to the hall. Perhaps that is typical of my dealings with you.’

  ‘We are in a way grateful to Ridley,’ said Graham.

  ‘Graham,’ said Ridley, impulsively, ‘I see that as an unspeakably generous thing to say. I hope I shall never forget it.’

  ‘What has my Isabel to say to me?’ said Eleanor.

  ‘Simply what the others have said. We have not had time to prepare our speeches. You are spared an awkward opening to your new life.’

  ‘The awkwardness would not have been chiefly Mother’s,’ said Venice.

  Ridley looked at Eleanor in amusement, and with an air of being about to share the charge of the sprightly young of her family.

  ‘Well, James, what have you to say to your mother?’ said Eleanor.

  James looked up from his book with a start.

  ‘Have you not been listening, my boy?’

  ‘No,’ said James, rather faintly. ‘Not to grown-up people’s conversation.’

  ‘That is a good rule on the whole, but you could have made an exception today. We have let you stay away from school to hear what we have to tell you.’

  ‘If our family life were more eventful, James would face his future without education,’ said Daniel.

  ‘I think the strain on him would be as great,’ said Graham. ‘He, if anyone, must understand that life is one long training.’

  ‘So you do not know what we have been saying, my little son. Well, something is going to happen that will make me happier. Can you guess what it is?’

  ‘Father is not dead!’ said James, jumping to his feet and standing ready to spring with joy.

  ‘No, that is not it. You know that is not possible. But someone is going to take his place, is going to take care of me for him. Can you guess who it is ?’

  ‘It is not Mr Ridley?’ said Tames, in a tone of getting through a step on the way to the real conclusion.

  ‘Yes, it is he; it is Mr Ridley,’ said Eleanor, looking past her son.

  ‘He has been taking care of you for some time, hasn’t he?’

  ‘Well, now we are going to live together, so that he can do it better. You will be glad to feel I am not alone any more.’

  ‘Is he going to live here?’

  ‘Not in this house. He and I will have a house of our own quite near.’

  ‘Where shall we live?’ said Venice.

  ‘Here, as you always have, with Grandpa and Grandma. And I shall come and visit you every day. You will see me as often as you do now.’

  ‘But you won’t be here in the evenings,’ said James.

  ‘I shall often be late enough to say good night. You need not be afraid you will lose your mother.’

  ‘Will it always go on like that?’

  ‘For as long as we need look forward.’

  ‘Shall we come to your house too?’ said Venice.

  ‘Of course you will, my dear. As often as you like.’

  ‘Then we shall really be the same as we are now.’

  ‘Yes, except that you will be happier, because you won’t feel that I am alone, while you are enjoying your work and your pleasures together.’

  The children were silent, as these points were revealed in their life.

  ‘And I hope I shall be a not unwelcome figure in the background,’ said Ridley.

  ‘Yes. No,’ said James, with a caper. ‘No.’

  ‘What do you mean, dear?’ said Eleanor.

  ‘Not in the background,’ said James, in a hardly audible voice.

  ‘Of course not. That was a nice thing to say. And true and sensible too. And now my girls will come and kiss their mother, and show her they feel the same in their hearts, though they may be too shy to say
so.’

  ‘Perhaps I may myself make a similar claim,’ said Ridley. ‘I think I see signs of the acceptance of me in my new character.’

  Isabel and Venice received his embrace, Venice glancing aside as his eyes dwelt on herself. James hovered in a half-expectation of a similar salute, and was rewarded by a pat on the shoulder.

  ‘What are you thinking of, Isabel?’ said Eleanor, catching an expression on her daughter’s face, which she wished explained, or rather contradicted, before she left her.

  ‘Nothing,’ said Ridley, smiling as he quoted the coming reply.

  ‘Isabel has got beyond that stage. Answer me, Isabel dear.’

  ‘You should not want to know the things in people’s minds. If you were meant to hear them, they would be said.’

  ‘Do you often think of such things as are not said?’ said Eleanor.

  ‘Not in your sense. Though if I did, it might not be unnatural in a child of yours.’

  Eleanor looked into Isabel’s face, and walked towards her youngest children. Ridley followed, as if he had not observed the encounter. Mullet had brought the luncheon and was dispensing it. Hatton was aware of the scene in progress, and had directed that the children should remain downstairs.

  ‘Is the whole of our family life to be enacted in the hall?’ said Daniel. ‘We only want the beds, to make things complete.’

  James carried his book to his stair, and settled himself upon it. He had an air of entering upon a life in which this sort of thing would be easier. Isabel went to a window and stood, throwing the blind cord over her finger, taking no notice when the tassel struck the pane. James raised his eyes and rested them on her, and withdrew them in aloofness from what he saw, rather than misapprehension of it. Graham also observed her, and did not free himself so soon. Nevill, seated on Mullet’s lap, surveyed his mother over the rim of a glass.

  ‘Is it a nice luncheon?’ she said.

  ‘It is the same as usual,’ said Gavin.

  ‘Well, that is nice, isn’t it?’

  ‘He likes it,’ said Nevill.

  ‘Well, what do you think we have come to tell you?’

  ‘Don’t let Honor guess,’ said Gavin, rubbing his feet quickly together.

  ‘I have some news for you about myself. You don’t often hear me talk about myself, do you?’

  ‘You have done it since Father died,’ said Gavin.

  ‘Well, I have had myself in my mind. There has been no one else to think much about me. Have you ever thought about my being alone?’

  ‘You are not,’ said Honor. ‘Not any more than we are. We have other people and not Father, and so have you.’

  ‘Well, now I am going to have someone who will think of me as Father did, and will not feel I must only have the same as other people. Can you guess who it is?’

  ‘It is Mr Ridley,’ said Honor, at once. ‘But you have him now.’

  ‘Well, I am going to have him in a different way. We are going to belong to each other.’

  ‘Are you going to marry him?’

  ‘Yes, I am, my little girl.’

  ‘It is not allowed by the law,’ said Gavin.

  ‘I think, young man, that I may be the judge of that,’ said Ridley. ‘The law happens to be my profession.’

  ‘But you can’t be Mother’s real husband.’

  ‘That is what I am going to be.’

  ‘But a woman can’t have more than one husband in a civilized land. It is only in savage countries that they do that. And then it is usually more than one wife.’

  ‘In some countries polyandry is practised,’ said Honor, in an easy tone.

  ‘And you feel we are starting the custom in this country?’ said Ridley, smiling.

  ‘Say to Mother that you hope she will be very happy,’ whispered Mullet.

  ‘Why will you be happier, married to Mr Ridley, than just always being with him?’ said Honor.

  ‘An observant pair of eyes, Nurse,’ said Ridley.

  ‘We don’t call her Nurse,’ said Gavin.

  ‘He calls her Mullet,’ said Nevill. ‘And sometimes he says, dear Mullet.’

  ‘Here is a successful household character,’ said Ridley, indicating Mullet to Eleanor.

  ‘You shouldn’t say things about her when she can hear,’ said Gavin.

  ‘I think I have upset him,’ said Eleanor. ‘I shall not leave you, my little son. I shall be coming to the house every day.’

  ‘Won’t you be in the house?’ said Honor.

  ‘No, I shall be in another house quite near.’

  ‘With him?’ said Gavin, with a gesture towards Ridley.

  ‘Yes, he will be my husband then.’

  ‘Is it because of the law?’

  ‘What do you mean, my boy?’

  ‘Is it because of the law, that he can’t live here like Father?’

  ‘The law has nothing to do with it. It seemed a good plan for us to have a home of our own.’

  ‘I expect it is because of Grandma,’ said Honor.

  ‘What do you mean, dear child?’

  ‘Grandma wouldn’t have anyone here instead of Father.’

  ‘The charm of childhood!’ said Ridley to Eleanor, with a smile.

  ‘You don’t think that anyone is ever instead of anyone else, do you?’ said Eleanor to Honor.

  Honor raised her eyes and kept them on her mother’s.

  ‘I think that so it must seem to her in a way,’ said Ridley, gently.

  ‘He will have him instead of Father,’ said Nevill, nodding his head towards Ridley.

  ‘My poor little man, I fear you will have no choice,’ said Ridley bending over him. ‘No other father will have a place in your memory.’

  ‘Honor won’t cry any more, now you are instead of Father, Honor doesn’t like Father to go away.’

  ‘Does she cry?’ said Eleanor, to Mullet.

  ‘Sometimes when she is in bed, ma’am.’

  ‘I should have been told.’

  Mullet did not say that Honor had repudiated the idea with violence.

  ‘Honor doesn’t like people to talk about it,’ said Gavin.

  ‘I don’t mind,’ said his sister.

  ‘Well, how are you enjoying your holiday?’ said Eleanor, as if it might be realized that there was another side to life. ‘I thought that, as I was happy, I should like you to be so too; so I said you were to have no lessons.’

  ‘Lessons,’ said Nevill, in a tone of glad anticipation, getting off Mullet’s knee.

  ‘No, Miss Pilbeam is not coming today,’ said Mullet.

  ‘She is.’

  ‘No, today is a holiday.’

  ‘This attitude does Miss Pilbeam credit,’ said Ridley.

  ‘He says all he can in favour of people,’ said Gavin, to Honor.

  ‘Not coming today,’ said Nevill, in a doleful tone that cheered as he ended. ‘But come again tomorrow.’

  ‘He gets on very well,’ said Eleanor.

  ‘B, a, t, bat; c, a, t, cat; h, a, t, hat,’ said Nevill, in support of this.

  ‘He is forward for a boy. It is hard to judge of a young boy’s promise,’ said Eleanor, thinking of James and Gavin and postponing the difficulty.

  ‘And yet I expect the boys rejoice in their sex,’ said Ridley.

  ‘What do they do?’ said Gavin.

  ‘They are glad they will grow up into men,’ said his mother. ‘Would you like to be a woman?’

  ‘I would as soon be one.’

  ‘I would rather be a man,’ said Honor.

  ‘He will be a lady,’ said Nevill.

  ‘You all seem to want what you cannot have,’ said Eleanor. ‘The children belong more to the mother, you know. Men don’t have so large a share in them.’

  ‘Father did,’ said Honor.

  ‘Well, but think for a moment. You were very sad when Father died, but you would have been even more sad if I had died.’

  There was a pause.

  ‘She couldn’t have been more sad,’ said Gav
in.

  ‘I shouldn’t have minded so much about anyone grown-up,’ said Honor, causing Gavin to turn aside with a flush creeping over his face.

  ‘No doubt we are leading them out of their depth,’ said Ridley.

  ‘We are understanding everything,’ said Honor.

  ‘Not the things that lie underneath,’ said Eleanor, in a musing tone, unconscious that she was taking her daughter on equal terms.

  ‘Are there things like that, when people marry another man?’

  ‘Now you are out of your depth indeed.’

  ‘You only pretend that I am.’

  ‘Of course one’s children think one belongs entirely to them,’ said Eleanor.

  ‘You haven’t ever done that,’ said Gavin. ‘Not like Hatton and people who really do. But you are supposed to belong to Father.’

  ‘You know your father is dead, don’t you, my child?’ said Eleanor, in gentle bewilderment.

  ‘You know I do. You couldn’t be marrying someone else if he wasn’t.’

  ‘Well, well, we will begin to look forward. It is natural for you to be disturbed at first. But you are not going to lose me. You will hardly know I am not in the house.’

  ‘Will you be there at dessert?’ said Gavin.

  ‘Not always, but I shall when Grandma asks me.’

  ‘Will she have to ask you?’

  ‘No, but I think she will like to sometimes.’

  Nevill looked up with an arrested expression.

  ‘Mother won’t be there. Only Grandma and Luce,’ he said, mentioning the other two who exercised supervision.

  ‘Yes, as a rule, but you will come and have tea with me in my house.’

  ‘Honor and Gavin will too,’ said Nevill, in a tone that assured general goodwill.

  ‘Will he be there?’ said Gavin, glancing at Ridley.

  ‘Yes, of course. It will be his house as well as mine. We shall share it.’

  ‘They will share it,’ said Nevill, in a tone that approved this course.

  ‘Will you have any more children?’ said Gavin.

  ‘No, I don’t think so,’ said Eleanor.

  ‘Why don’t you?’

  ‘Well, people don’t generally have more than nine.’

  ‘Queen Anne had eighteen.’

  ‘Yes, but I am not a queen.’

  ‘Do queens have more than other people?’

  ‘It seems sometimes as if they do,’ said Eleanor, smiling.