The Last and the First

by Ivy Compton-Burnett

  “Father will miss Hermia,” said Madeline, somehow suggesting Eliza’s possible doubt of it.

  “And will not be allowed to show it,” said her sister. “And will be well advised not to.”

  “We shall all be more exposed,” said Angus. “I can no longer rejoice as a young man in my youth.”

  “Suppose I had rejoiced in mine,” said Hermia. “What a difference there would be! I might want to cling to it.”

  “I never think about my youth or my age,” said Madeline. “I feel such things are out of our hands.”

  “Your impression is a right one,” said Roberta. “But that is what is wrong with them. We can do nothing.”

  “Mater and I should never meet again,” said Hermia. “I wish our family ran on normal lines.”

  “You have much to face,” said Angus. “But so has she. A daughter leaving the family home to seek employment! It is not a thing she would be proud of.”

  “There is no cause for pride. It has never been a home to me.”

  “Then what has it been?” said her father at the door. “How have you used it?”

  “As a place where she is cooked for and cared for and provided with anything she pleases,” said Eliza. “What would that be but a home? The school will do it for her in return for what she does herself, the last thing that has happened here. And the effort will be real if the scheme is not to founder and fail. And it must not fail, Hermia. The money can ill be spared. And things will not be what you are used to. The change will be great.”

  “She is prepared for it,” said Sir Robert. “She is willing for effort, and it is true that none has been asked of her here. When she returns she will be welcomed as a daughter, if not the first and foremost one; that place she is passing on. But I think with her eyes open. She knows her mind.”

  “The work I am to do will not be for myself,” said Hermia. “There need be no fear that I shall lead a self indulgent life.”

  “I do not fear it,” said Eliza. “My fear takes another line. Will it be self-indulgent enough? Will the difference be too much? You will have to adapt yourself to other people, the thing you have never done. The parents of the pupils will have a right to criticise. You will be in a sense employed. From what I have seen you will not suffer it gladly.”

  “I shall not suffer it at all. I shall take a high hand. It makes people think more of you.”

  “You have a good deal to learn,” said Sir Robert, smiling. “It may do you no harm to learn it. Though you might have gone through your life without doing so. You are taking the hard way. You don’t seem well suited to the easy one. It needs its own qualities.”

  “I am glad to hear that,” said Angus. “As I am so very well suited to it.”

  “There is enough for you to do,” said his father. “And it will be more with time.”

  “That is what I am afraid of. It may.”

  “My Angus!” said Eliza. “The demands on him will grow, and he will grow with them. And he will always be his mother’s son.”

  “But can I take a place in the world by being that? There would have to be a good many.”

  “You should follow my example,” said Hermia, “and go out into the world.”

  “It must be at less expense,” said Eliza. “And is it an example that leads to a place in the world? It seems to be a costly way of dispensing with one. Have you any idea what your duties are to be? What a change it will be for you! Do you know how a school is run?”

  “Well, my thoughts have been on it of late. And I see what mistakes are being made, and how they could be rectified.”

  “Ah, that is how we all begin,” said her father. “We see what is wrong on the surface and forget all that lies underneath, indeed may be unconscious of it. Well, the first steps have to be taken. The others may follow.”

  “I feel I have ability that has not been used. I have seen the working of this house, and know how I should manage it if it were mine.”

  “Well, we are glad it is not yours. We are grateful for the way it is managed. And so should you be, as it has been done partly for you.”

  “You would have done better in my place?” said Eliza. “I might say the same to you. I can state an honest opinion. You make no secret of yours.”

  “My powers have had to lie fallow. I have given no impression of myself.”

  “The first may be true,” said Sir Robert. “And the second part of the truth. But powers that have not been used have not been tried.”

  “And not only powers are in question,” said Eliza. “There are other things to be taken into account. Powers are not the whole of anyone. They may be a small part. And we all give an impression of ourselves, whether we think it or not.”

  “And our powers are needed in our daily life,” said Madeline. “There is really a constant use for them.”

  “Have you found it so with Hermia’s?” said Eliza.

  “It is fair to say that I have, Mater. I have gained a support from them, and shall miss it when she goes. But they may not have been put to their full use.”

  “Surely that was full enough,” said Angus.

  “It would have served,” said his father.

  “It had to, Father,” said Hermia. “It will now be fuller and more definite. I have to justify your faith in me.”

  “His faith in you?” said Eliza, just drawing in her brows. “I thought he seemed to have misgivings.”

  “I had them and still have them,” said Sir Robert. “As I have said, unused powers are not proved. She is showing courage.”

  “A quality she has had no reason to show so far. It has indeed not been proved.”

  “I don’t know,” said Sir Robert, with a smile. “Perhaps it has been to-day.”

  “Oh, I am not an autocrat. There was nothing to be afraid of.”

  “What did you say, Mater?” said Angus. “You should think before you speak.”

  “You all call me Mater now,” said Eliza with a frown. “The name was chosen for Hermia and Madeline, because they remembered their own mother. There is no point in it for anyone else.”

  “But it is better not to have two names,” said Madeline. “And Mater has the maternal implication, and yet seems to avoid the deeper one. No doubt that was how Father thought of it.”

  “It may have been,” said Sir Robert. “Anyhow it is established by usage.”

  “Well, Mater or not, I am no tyrant,” said Eliza. “People are not afraid of me. Sometimes, I think, toolittle.”

  “That is not likely,” said Hermia. “Fear goes a long way. I may or may not have courage, but I have not been quite free from it. I have been afraid of provoking your outbreaks. Perhaps more than of the outbreaks themselves. You may have made me afraid of myself.”

  “Mater will soon be afraid of Hermia,” murmured Roberta.

  “The outbreaks, as you call them, have their reason,” said Eliza. “Things that are wrong must be rectified.”

  “Whatever I call them, they add to the wrong.”

  “I did not know you were so much on the side of righteousness! I have not recognised the signs of it.”

  “Most of us are on its side in a way.”

  “Do you mean that I am not?”

  “I daresay you believe you are. That is also true of most of us.”

  “You take this occasion to say things you would not say on any other,” said Madeline. “You have caused it yourself. You should take no advantage of it.”

  “They were innocent things to say. I might always have said them.”

  “They were the most guilty things,” murmured Angus to Roberta. “And if she might have said them, we know she would have.”

  “We are all afraid of Mater. Have we to be afraid of Hermia too? It is a pity they are not afraid of each other. I can’t think why they are not.”

  “How soon is Hermia going?” said Madeline. “There will have to be adjustments in the house. I suppose she will take her books with her?”

  “Yes, I shall,�
� said her sister. “They are all that I need to take.”

  “They are all she has a right to take,” said Eliza, with a faint smile. “Roberta is to have her room. I have always imagined her in it. And if I had been like other women, she would always have had it. There need be no discussion or question. The matter is settled.”

  “Would not Madeline like to have the room?” said Hermia.

  “You heard what I said. The room is to be Roberta’s. She will have some advantage at last. I will hear nothing against it.”

  “There is nothing against it, Mater,” said Madeline, gently. “I am quite content with my room. It has somehow become a part of me. That is a thing a room can do. I will help her to move into the other.”

  “You have the stronger claim,” said Angus.

  “No one has any claim,” said Eliza. “The room is mine, like everything else in the house. And I am giving it to Roberta. When Hermia comes home she can have one of the spare rooms. She can move into the smaller one tomorrow. That is her place in the house now. It is the one she has chosen herself. She wishes to be a guest and she can be one.”

  “My place is to know me no more,” said Hermia. “And the small spare room does not know me either. So I shall be a stranger here. And there need be no talk of the past, as that would mean I was something else. I leave the house, the past forgetting, by the past forgot.”

  “Come, what shallow, showy talk!” said Sir Robert. “You sound as if you were not human, and as if no one else was human either. We don’t forget thirty-four years. You know you have not forgotten them.”

  “Not the first ten of them, Father. They are often in my mind. They are what I take with me.”

  “The first ten years of life are largely forgotten by everyone,” said Eliza.

  “Not by me. The change that came then cut them off and defined the memory.”

  “Such a memory is chiefly made up of what is heard later.”

  “Not in my case. It could not be. I have heard nothing of those years since they ended. They have hardly been mentioned.”

  “You can’t really believe that.”

  “I know it. No one could know it better. Who should know as well as I?”

  “The two who were thinking of them, and think of them still. And will always think of them,” said Madeline.

  “I know what your father is thinking. His mind is an open book to me. And you said yourself that those years were never mentioned. If he was thinking of them, they would have been.”

  “They would not, as you know. You know they could not be. You know they can’t be now. The silence deepens the thought.”

  “I am giving up,” said Eliza. “It is all too much. First, I have to be a step-mother, and put other children before my own. And then I am a tyrant, because I order the house for the good of us all. And now I can be dealt with as if years of thought and care had not been lived. I have indeed struck a rough road. Well, it is mine, and I must follow it.”

  “Oh, come, you are overwrought,” said Sir Robert. “Of course you must follow it. Hermia is not to set a fashion. We could not get along it without you. All roads have their stony places. We don’t look for life to be smooth.”

  “Why not?” said Roberta. “We are told that it is sweet. It is not fair that it should be so different.”

  “That means life as opposed to death,” said Madeline.

  “Well, anything might be sweet as opposed to that,” said Angus.

  “No, I don’t agree. I can think of many things that would not. Death is anyhow natural and innocent.”

  “And that is not much to be. The most congenial things may be neither.”

  “And seldom both,” said Hermia. “I hardly think ever.”

  “When will you be going to the school?” said Madeline, as if willing to change the talk. “It is best to know in good time.”

  “As soon as I can. I should be there before the term. There will be things to learn before I can take my part in it.”

  “There will be one thing,” said Eliza. “How to consider a number of people besides yourself. It would be less of a change for me.”

  “Suppose you succeed in persuading me to stay! How will you feel then?”

  “It is your life we are talking of, not mine.”

  “We are talking of them both. They have been involved with each other. And it is better that they should not be. That is surely clear.”

  “You are not being driven from your home. I will neither admit it nor have it said. And people are so prone to say that kind of thing.”

  “Well, they would find it congenial. It is a normal human tendency. And I don’t care what they say.”

  “When I have said I do care, that is not the right feeling. Well, may your indifference serve you in your new world. May you maintain it in the face of its trials. You have not shown it in much lesser ones here.”

  “She may find it a help,” said Sir Robert. “She must know how to use it, and how not to misuse it. She must do both.”

  “I have always done both, Father.”

  “You are wrong. You have only done one,” said Eliza. “You are only doing one now.”

  “Well, it is settled,” said Sir Robert. “We will leave the subject.”

  “We will not,” said Angus. “We will continue it and return to it, and prove our appreciation of it. Subjects are rare things.”

  “That may be as well,” said Roberta. “We could become exhausted before they were themselves. It is a thing a subject never seems to be.”

  “Well, Hermia is to leave us,” said Sir Robert. “But she is not going far. She will come home, and we may go to her. I don’t know the customs of a school.”

  “They will not want us there,” said Eliza. “We should serve no purpose for them. That is how they would see it. Hermia will come and go here as she wishes. That need not be said.”

  “I am glad to feel it,” said Hermia. “It will give me a background and a better place. I am not blind to it.”

  “If you are not I wonder you want the change.”

  “Well, she does want it,” said Sir Robert. “She must remember it will not always be a change. Nothing can be blamed for that, though many things are.”

  Eliza turned to the door, as though choosing to leave the matter, and signed to her husband to come with her. The elder daughters followed, and her own two children were alone.

  “What do you think of the family scenes, Roberta? Do you feel degraded by them?”

  “No, I feel I am above them. Degradation would become a normal state.”

  “If only Mater could accept her life! She is really her own worst enemy. And I thought that was just a saying.”

  “It is. Like everyone else she is her own best friend. But that is not to say there might not be a better.”

  “Does Father understand the inner truth of things?”

  “No, she is too wise, and so is he.”

  “Would you like to make your escape?”

  “What would be gained? It would be freedom and nothing else. Hermia’s escape is accepted and given support. And Madeline is proud of not wishing to make an escape. And I see it is a cause for pride. I could not emulate either.”

  “What do you feel about Hermia’s desertion?”

  “I am very much affected by it. I see that you are too. And we shall not have our mother’s sympathy.”

  “Father will not have it either. I wonder how much he wants it. Does he often return to the past?”

  “It seems to me that he must. If I had a past I would return to it.”

  “We should be founding one for ourselves. Here is Mater to give her help. How she will improve and embitter it!”

  “So you are still here,” said Eliza. “What are you discussing with such gravity?”

  “What you know we are,” said Angus. “What you know we must be. What you would not believe we were not.”

  “Well, what do you think of Hermia’s scheme?”

  “What you do, and what F
ather does, and what she does herself. We think it all. We are full of thought.”

  “What do you really think? That tells me nothing.”

  “Oh, I thought it told you everything.”

  “Do you feel that her going is my fault? I know it will be said to be.”

  “It is the fault of us all. We have failed to attach her to us. The surprising thing must be said.”

  “It is all that will be said, I see. Well, I suppose it is true. But we are all involved. It is not only I who have failed. What are we to say to people about it all?”

  “Nothing,” said Roberta. “Silence can say more than words. It will say that we are greatly upset and embarrassed by it. And that is much more than words. We know they would not say it.”

  “Suppose they did!” said Angus. “But we will not suppose it.”

  “We will not. Imagining something is said to lead to acting on it. Here are Hermia and Madeline and someone with them. It is Mrs. Duff with some matter of daily life.”

  “We are sorry to disturb you, Mater,” said Madeline, accepting the check imposed by their presence. “There is something that needs your attention.”

  “A good many things do that. I suppose I must hear of this one.”

  “Yes, a moment, if you please, my lady,” said another voice, as there appeared a middle-aged woman in undisguisedly working garb, with an inharmonious face and a responsible aspect. “If there was not a word to be said I would not say it.”

  “Why, what is it, Mrs. Duff?” said Eliza, her manner smoother to her housekeeper than it often was to her family. “I hope there is nothing wrong.”

  “If I have said it once, my lady, I have said it again. ‘Something will occur,’ I have said. Those have been my words.”

  “But what has occurred?” said Eliza.

  “I am not one to stand by as if nothing was of any account. Self may be in our minds, but need not be uppermost.”

  “Well, what is in your mind now as well as self?” said Angus. “It is to your credit that there is room for it.”

  “The back staircase, sir, the broken step. It has cried out for repair. ‘We have only to wait,’ I said. ‘Something must ensue.’ And it proved an apt comment.”

  “You did not wait in vain,” said Roberta. “Something has ensued. I hope not a great thing. I suppose there is a human victim.”