Parents and Children

by Ivy Compton-Burnett

‘I have found so few in my own home that I can hardly believe what is before my eyes.’

  ‘I suppose I meant in our home. There are not so few there.’

  ‘I know, I know,’ said Fulbert; ‘I am prepared.’

  ‘And Ridley is not. Well, it is right that you should have the advantage of him.’

  ‘I hope it is. For I have it.’

  Hope sat down as if her limbs gave under her. Regan looked at her easily. The awaited group came into the room, Luce leading her mother. Eleanor walked forward with her usual step, and Ridley was drawn to his full height to face what was upon him.

  ‘Fulbert!’ he said, moving in front of the others. ‘My friend.’

  Fulbert accepted his hand, but went towards his wife, and it was not until they had exchanged an embrace that he turned his eyes on his face.

  ‘My friend,’ repeated Ridley. ‘I trust that nothing will alter that for you. It will not for me.’

  ‘It need not,’ said Fulbert. ‘A dead man cannot expect to be treated as a live one.’

  ‘You left your affairs in my hands. If in the course of dealing with them, I was led further, you will understand.’

  ‘Who should, if not I? You wanted what I chose for myself. How can I say I am surprised?’

  ‘You might say other things. I am grateful for your forbearance.’

  ‘I have too much restored to me, to dwell on what I may have lost. And somehow I feel it is not much, and will soon be mine.’

  Ridley took a step aside and stood with his eyes averted, while the husband and wife approached their children.

  ‘I find that I miss nothing,’ said Fulbert. ‘If life would have gone on after my death, that will happen to us all. And if it went on too soon and too far for my choice, I was not there to choose.’

  Sir Jesse touched the ground with his stick, and Paul, who was standing absorbed in the scene, obeyed the summons. The resulting movement revealed Faith, standing just inside the room, with her hands held apart from her sides, and her eyes wide and unwinking, as though to avoid dwelling on the intimate scene.

  ‘I forgot Faith was with us,’ said Hope, ‘but it seems she did the same.’

  ‘Faith looks as if she were at church,’ said Venice, in a clearer voice that she intended.

  ‘I suppose we do all feel rather like that,’ said Faith, in a low, quick tone.

  ‘No doubt we ought to wish we were not here,’ said Hope.

  ‘I wish we were not,’ said Faith, with a further withdrawal towards the door.

  ‘I see why you stayed in the hall, dear. But why did you change your mind?’

  ‘It is not much good for one of us to adopt a measure when the others do not follow it.’

  ‘Where did Faith get the impression that her family follow her lead?’ said Daniel.

  Ridley turned from his place, and with a step that suggested that eyes were on him, walked to the window and stood with his back to the room.

  ‘Ridley’s eyes are resting unseeingly on the familiar landscape,’ said Graham, his voice betraying that this was not the whole of his thought.

  ‘I am glad he has got out of his place in the middle of the floor,’ said Daniel. ‘It was hardly his best at the moment.’

  ‘You make me feel he is in the pillory, and that you would like to throw rotten eggs at him,’ said Hope.

  ‘How did people come by their supplies of eggs in that state?’ said Isabel. ‘Did they carry a stock of them, as if they were snuff or tobacco?’

  ‘Perhaps they were on sale near the pillory,’ said Daniel, ‘as buns and nuts are at the Zoo, so that people could be helped to their natural dealings with captive creatures.’

  Faith looked at the laughing group with steady eyes.

  ‘Faith thinks we ought to be in low spirits,’ said Isabel. ‘I am sure I don’t know why.’

  ‘I know you are seriously thankful in your hearts,’ said Faith.

  Regan watched her son’s reunion with his family, without jealousy, emotion or desire. She would have asked what she had.

  Fulbert saw Ridley’s solitary figure and went towards him.

  ‘Well, Ridley, let us take our next steps over this strange gulf between us. I have much to thank you for, and I trust you do not resent my rising from the dead. I would have done it at a better moment, if I could. I did try to rise a day or two earlier, but fate was against me. And it is a good thing it was not a day or two later. I don’t understand how my letter miscarried. It was an unfortunate lapse, when they occur so seldom. I will have inquiries made. You had the two letters some months ago, and then no other?’

  ‘Fulbert,’ said Ridley, lifting his eyes, ‘I have had no letter from you or concerning you, save those two you name. I dealt with them as you directed. And so would I have dealt with this one, had it reached me.’

  ‘I wished to spare my family a shock. And I wrote instead of cabling, to save them the weeks of waiting. I may have been right or wrong, but I have reached my home, and I cannot regret the manner of my coming.’

  ‘Fulbert,’ said Ridley, looking round with an emotional expression, ‘I could not wish you more than this.’

  ‘You are wise not to tell me your real feelings. And I will never ask you for them.’

  ‘You spoke of the gulf between us,’ said Ridley, in a painful manner. ‘If you will come to meet me over it, I will do my part. More I cannot do.’

  ‘Do let us gloss over this moment,’ said Graham, as if he could not suppress the words. ‘It will become too much.’

  ‘Father and Ridley might have had their encounter without arranging themselves as the cynosure of every eye,’ said Daniel.

  ‘Well, nothing need be explained to us later,’ said Isabel. ‘And I trust nothing will be.’

  ‘Well, you have been present at a scene that would be unique in anyone’s life,’ said Fulbert, looking round on his children. ‘You will live to be glad you have witnessed it. You will carry the memory to your graves. And you will be the wiser. Nothing could have thrown more light on human nature.’

  ‘I call that almost a personal remark,’ said Hope.

  Graham looked again at Ridley, whose eyes were on the ground.

  Honor came up to Gavin.

  ‘Shall we say our “Nunc dimittis”?’ she said, with a gleam in her eyes.

  Gavin met the look in silence.

  ‘I mean, shall we find a chance of going upstairs?’

  ‘Don’t you want to stay with Father?’

  ‘I don’t mind, as long as he is here. I want to enjoy my ordinary life, feeling he has come back.’

  Gavin gave the matter some thought.

  ‘We should only be sent for,’ he said.

  ‘Now let me do something more for you all, than work on your feelings,’ said Fulbert, who had been unfastening a package. ‘I have not come home for that. Let me show you these photographs of the places I saw, and should have seen, if I had been a sound man instead of a sick one. Now put yourselves so that you can see.’

  He settled himself in an armchair. Luce leaned over the back. Isabel and Venice sat on the arms, and Honor on her father’s knee. Daniel and Graham stood at the sides, and James and Gavin knelt on the floor in front. Nevill took his stand at a distance, with his eyes on the photographs. Ridley slowly advanced and stood within sight of them, as if he would take a natural part. Eleanor kept her gaze on the group of her husband and children. Regan and Sir Jesse watched it with scarcely a movement of their eyes. Faith stood as if nothing mattered, as long as she did not occupy any space round Fulbert.

  ‘Here is the house where I lived,’ said Fulbert. ‘There is the window of the room where I lay. For months I saw nothing except through that square of glass.’

  Nevill approached and placed his finger on the point.

  ‘It is where Father was,’ he said.

  ‘The glass is not square,’ said Gavin.

  ‘It is oblong,’ said Honor.

  ‘Father painted the picture,’ said Nevill.r />
  ‘It is a photograph,’ said James.

  ‘It is a picture of a house,’ said Nevill, who knew only photographs of people.

  ‘Couldn’t you even speak?’ said Honor to her father.

  ‘Not so that people knew what I meant.’

  ‘Then they couldn’t do what you wanted?’

  ‘That was the worst, my little woman. You would have found it out, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘He would too,’ said Nevill.

  ‘She couldn’t have, if she didn’t know what you said,’ said Gavin.

  ‘Ah, the eyes of love can divine a good deal,’ said Fulbert.

  ‘Then didn’t the people who were with you – didn’t they like you very much?’ said James, in a high, hardly articulate tone.

  ‘Not as much as my own girls,’ said Fulbert, putting Isabel’s arm about his neck, and a moment later doing the same with Venice’s.

  ‘Not as much as him either,’ said Nevill.

  ‘The voyage must have done a good deal for you, Father,’ said Luce. ‘You are thinner and a little older, but you are yourself.’

  ‘If I were not, you would not see me. I would not have offered you a ghost or a scarecrow for a father.’

  ‘If Honor couldn’t see you until you were well, she couldn’t have done what you wanted,’ said Gavin.

  Fulbert lifted Honor’s hand to his cheek.

  ‘I wish Father would arrange some caresses for himself from me,’ said Graham. ‘He lets me seem so coldhearted.’

  ‘My Isabel can’t look at her father enough,’ said Fulbert.

  ‘He looks at Father too,’ said Nevill. ‘He likes to look at him.’

  ‘Now you may have these photographs for yourselves,’ said Fulbert. ‘Would you like to divide them or share them?’

  ‘Share them,’ said James, at once.

  ‘That is always a good way.’

  ‘I should like that one with you in it, Father,’ said Isabel.

  Fulbert withdrew it and put it into her hand.

  ‘Mother gave me a photograph of you on the day you went away,’ said Venice.

  ‘Well, here is another on the day I come back.’

  ‘You gave me one of yourself on that day,’ said Honor, bringing about a similar result.

  James’s eyes rested on the photographs in some doubt of the fate of his suggestion.

  ‘He would like a little picture,’ said Nevill.

  ‘Come and sit on my knee like Honor, and I will show them to you,’ said Fulbert.

  Nevill moved forward and started back, gazed at his father, and after a moment ran to Ridley and climbed on his knee, as though he were the person interchangeable with Fulbert.

  ‘Now I must see what I can find in my pockets,’ said Ridley, holding to his line of playing a normal part. ‘Here is a purse and a notebook and a cigar case, and a gold pencil case with lead in it.’

  Nevill looked from the objects to Ridley’s face.

  ‘It is better than a picture, isn’t it?’

  ‘Is the pencil real gold?’ said Gavin. ‘Did somebody give it to you?’

  ‘Yes, it was a present,’ said Ridley, not mentioning that the giver was Eleanor. ‘You can make it longer if you pull it.’

  ‘It moves,’ said Nevill, in a slightly uneasy tone, putting his hand towards it and drawing it away.

  ‘Pull it and see how long it is,’ said Ridley.

  ‘He will pull it,’ said Nevill, looking round before gingerly doing so, and breaking into nervous laughter as it yielded to his touch.

  ‘There is a loose leaf in the notebook,’ said Gavin. ‘I can read grown-up writing now; I can read it as well as Honor; I even like reading it. What is the matter? I can’t hurt a piece of paper. It doesn’t belong to the book.’

  Ridley had started and grasped at the paper, but as Gavin moved away, he changed his manner and smilingly held out his hand.

  ‘I must ask for my property,’ he said.

  ‘Gavin, give it back at once,’ said Luce. We never read papers belonging to other people.’

  ‘It is only a list like Mother takes into the town. It isn’t even a long one.’

  ‘It is a memorandum,’ said Honor.

  ‘And as such, it fills a place in my life,’ said Ridley, still with hand extended.

  ‘I shan’t make any mistakes,’ said Gavin. ‘It is sometimes two or three words and sometimes more. What is the matter? You hurt me with your great hand.’

  ‘The moment has come for me to claim what is my own,’ said Ridley, in a tone that addressed the company.

  There was a stir and murmur of protest, and eyes were turned to the man and the child.

  ‘“Arrange licence. Take house. Train and hotel”,’ read Gavin. ‘It is quite easy. There are only a few more lines. Each one is called an item. The word is printed on the page. I shan’t keep it a minute. Let me just read to the end.’ He eluded Ridley’s grasp and slipped into a space where he could not follow. ‘“Fulbert at Crown Inn from tenth to fifteenth. Keep paper as letter destroyed. Write from abroad, as if it were delayed and forwarded. Read and send lease.” Leave me alone. What harm can I do to a loose page?’

  Ridley was leaning over the desk, his hand clutching the air above the paper. There was a silence that became a hush and then a stir. Fulbert rose and came towards Ridley and stood waiting for him to turn. Eleanor approached the group, and finding herself between the two men, moved nearer to her husband. Regan rustled forward, simply and fiercely accusing. Sir Jesse stood with his eyes shooting from under his brows, but so far reserving his word. Luce stood with a simply startled face. Faith watched from her place, her gaze fastened on her brother. Hope and Paul remained in their seats, now and then meeting each other’s eyes. Daniel came and stood by his parents, Graham and Isabel looked at Ridley, as if they could not hold themselves from following his experience. The children watched in different stages of comprehension, Gavin awaiting the reproach that was his due.

  ‘What is it?’ he whispered to Honor.

  ‘Nothing to do with you. It is not you who have done anything.’

  ‘Gavin didn’t mean to do it,’ said Nevill to his mother, feeling this to be an unlikely view.

  ‘So, Ridley,’ said Fulbert, speaking with his head lifted, and his eyes almost covered by their lids, ‘I have had this kind of friend.’

  Ridley appeared to be preoccupied by the notebook and some loosened pages.

  ‘I didn’t tear the book,’ said Gavin.

  ‘If you will pardon me, you did,’ said Ridley, smiling at him in an absent manner.

  ‘Be quiet, and you will be forgotten,’ said Honor, to her brother.

  ‘So my letter arrived to time,’ said Fulbert, not changing his attitude.

  Ridley kept his eyes on the book, carefully replacing the leaves.

  ‘The notebook is useful,’ said Regan. ‘And not for the first time. What would have happened when my son came home? His wife would have been his own.’

  ‘In name,’ said Ridley, in a gentle tone, his fingers still employed, and his eyes on them. ‘But we should have remained together. Your son would have had ground for any step he chose. Eleanor would have been happier in her own home with me. This house is no home to her. Why should I not think of her and myself?’ He seemed to keep his voice to its even note by an effort, as if he would not work himself up for his hearers. ‘Why should I only think of a man, whose sole thought of me was to put me to his service? Why should I serve him? Why did he think that I should? Why is he so much better than I?’

  Sir Jesse thrust himself between Ridley and Regan, his hands falling at his sides, as if his emotions took all his powers.

  ‘You may cease to talk to my wife. Why should she hear and answer you? You may be silent in my house. And as you are the son of my friend, you may leave it at your own will. I will not speak to you of my son; I could not do so.’

  Ridley turned as if to do Sir Jesse’s bidding, but as he passed him, paused and opened the noteb
ook and drew something else from the back. He held it under Sir Jesse’s eyes, and then moved on and held it under Regan’s.

  ‘You are right that the book is useful. It proves to be so once again. It has served several of my purposes.’

  Sir Jesse was not in time to find his glasses. Regan had hers in her hand and looked at the photograph. She looked also at Ridley’s hand, saw that its grasp was firm, threw one glance at her husband and returned to the hearth.

  Ridley moved on and held the photograph under the eyes of Fulbert, his wife and his three eldest children. Hope left her place and came and looked at it; Paul followed her example; Isabel summoned her courage and did the same. Sir Jesse, who by now had guessed its character, came up and confirmed his suspicion and moved away. Regan kept her eyes down and wore an inscrutable expression. Faith glanced at her parents and turned aside, as if she would not yield to curiosity.

  The photograph was of a man and a woman, sitting in a loverlike attitude, with their arms entwined: Sir Jesse and the mother of the Marlowes.

  Ridley’s voice was heard again.

  ‘You see I am not the only man who can go astray. I found that photograph amongst some business papers. It was taken years ago in South America, and it tells us what happened there. I took it with the intention of destroying it, but you set me another example. I will show that I am not the only person with the temptations of a man, and not the only one who can yield to them.’

  ‘Why did you not fulfil your intention?’ said Regan from the hearth.

  Luce beckoned to Isabel and Venice and James, and led them to the door, bending to say a word to Regan.

  ‘Grandma, some of us are too young to understand. And some of us are of an age when we must understand. These three are in between.’

  Regan nodded and smiled, her face almost placid.

  The three children left the room, Isabel at once startled and satisfied, James too puzzled even to be curious, Venice baffled and tormented, but encouraged by the promise in her sister’s eyes.

  ‘If you judge me, so do I judge you,’ said Ridley to Sir Jesse. ‘And I say you are worse than I.’

  He turned and went with bent head to the door, and seemed to thrust his way through it, as though it offered some tangible resistance. As he moved his hands the photograph fell; he groped for it, and Gavin, still angry and watchful, darted on it and surrendered it to Fulbert. Faith watched her brother go, and then moved slowly and as if hardly of her own will to Daniel and Graham, and revealed the subject of her words by a sudden glance at Sir Jesse. Fulbert returned to his children and the photographs scattered on the floor.