The Last and the First

by Ivy Compton-Burnett

  “Well, perhaps I do. It can be put in that way.”

  “Time, interest, effort,” said Miss Murdoch, looking before her. “They are in our gift. And our hope and thought, our sufferance, if need be. She must gain something I think. Do you not think with me?”

  “Well, I hope she must. If so we should see it before long. This is my son, Amy’s uncle. You know she has no parents.”

  “Do I know? Should I have known? Well, it must sometimes be. We take what comes of it. Something must come. We accept it when it is there.”

  “What would you say it is in Amy’s case? It seems that I should know.”

  “Does it? Or would you look aside? Let others deal with the innocent need, the lack of the natural basis, the want in a young life. It may give its strength. It has been known to give it. I have seen something of difference, a vein of independent thought. Have you seen it?”

  “I can’t imagine it in Amy’s case,” said Jocasta, as if this would prevent it, as it was probable that it would. “She and her brother and sister are the children of the son I lost. I am a widow with a life behind me. I give them what I can.”

  “What you have left. What you have to give. You give it and can give no more.” Miss Murdoch lifted a hand and moved with a muted step towards sounds that heralded the concert. “And it does what it can. It is theirs as it was yours. It is given.”

  “I fear to take a place from someone with a claim to it,” said Hamilton, looking round. “An unbidden guest should remain within his rights.”

  “They are glad for the seats to be filled. Why should they want them empty?” said Jocasta, taking the one that suited her, and motioning him to her side. “The state of things is clear.”

  “Then I may feel I am accommodating as well as accommodated,” said her son, in an audible tone, looking about him.

  “Yes,” said Miss Murdoch, with an open smile. “It is clear, and we do not try to disguise it. We let the truth appear. We let it justify itself. We are not afraid of truth.”

  Jocasta glanced about her, as if she did not underestimate this courage, and settled down to show the deportment expected. Her son found the quality of the concert as Amy had foretold, and failed to respect its claims.

  “Miss Murdoch’s talk might be designed to obscure her meaning rather than convey it.”

  “It might be and is. But leave it for the moment. She notices more than appears.”

  “Is that Miss Heriot at the side? The tall, dark, upright woman standing by herself? It seems it must be.”

  “I think it is. But that is enough. The interval will come.”

  It came, and Jocasta rose and moved to Hermia, with no thought of disguising the purpose of her presence.

  “I think you are Miss Murdoch’s partner? I am glad to meet you. I hope you can give me a moment?”

  “As many moments as you please. They are all my own. Too many to have any meaning. A partner is what I am supposed to be. I hardly know what I am. Miss Murdoch is not afraid of the truth. I will not be either.”

  “It is not as you thought it would be? Perhaps you put your hopes too high. It took strong reasons on both sides to lead to a scheme like this.”

  “There was the need of the school for material help. And my father met it. But the reason for me was my own. I was to put the whole thing on another basis, to save its future. I could do it. I see how it could be done. But my help is not wanted or welcome. I am to make no change. And there can’t be progress without it.”

  “It must come to all things in the end. Amy told us you were trying to make it.”

  “Amy? Your daughter, your grand-daughter? Ought I to know her? Which form is she in?”

  “I am not sure,” said Jocasta, finding she shared the vagueness concerning Amy that seemed to mark those in charge of her. “The school has a good past. Is there any hope for the future?”

  “It depends on the present. And how much hope lies there? Things can’t go on as they are. They don’t remain at a standstill. Did you notice the standard of the concert? Or pay no attention to it? I hope you closed your ears.”

  “I will admit I was alive to it,” said Hamilton, with a smile. “Ungracious though the admission may sound in someone made welcome to it. I am deriving pleasure from it on other grounds.”

  “I am deriving it on only one ground. That my family is not here. It was a struggle to achieve my escape. You would hardly know how great. And a good deal was done for me against the family will. Failure asks more of me than I thought to face.”

  “And of your honesty and your courage. But I feel neither will fail. We know that both have been tried.”

  Miss Murdoch approached with hand upraised, indicating return to their seats.

  “The high water mark of a concert may be the interval,” murmured Hamilton, as they took them. “If it encroached on the time, the gain outweighed the loss.”

  After the concert tea was handed by the girls to the guests, who were uncertain whether it was a grave or a festive occasion, and were not helped to a decision. Amy chose an unobtrusive part as members of both her worlds were present, and although possessed of two personalities, she had the use of none. Hamilton provided his mother with a seat, and moved about among the guests.

  “Who is the man who is with you, Amy?” said a girl.

  “Oh, he is some sort of relation who lives with us,” said Amy, not prepared to go nearer to the truth.

  “Why does he live with you?”

  “To get rich more quickly,” said Amy, in a confidential manner, dropping her voice. “It saves the expense of a home. Or I believe that is what it is.”

  “What kind of work does he do?”

  “None. He has never done any.”

  “We heard you call him ‘Uncle’.”

  “Oh, well, we do. He is so much older than we are.”

  “And he called your grandmother ‘Mamma’.”

  “Oh, he does sometimes. He often does odd things.”

  “I wonder what the reason is.”

  “Oh, I suppose it satisfies some kind of want in him,” said Amy, lifting her shoulders.

  “Perhaps he is illegitimate?”

  “No, of course he is not.”

  “But how can you tell? You would not be told about it.”

  “Oh, I have heard what he is, but I forget,” said Amy, feeling she had better not have done so, and foreseeing problems in the future. “There is no mystery about him, and I daresay he might be worse. I will go and get them some more tea.”

  “Do you want us to come and help you?”

  “No, my grandmother would like me to do it myself,” said Amy, fearing filial behaviour in Hamilton, and knowing she must always fear it.

  “Here is an arresting sight,” he said to his mother, “and I should hazard not a common one. The two headmistresses standing together in conference.”

  “This is my little grand-daughter,” said Jocasta, ushering Amy forward, with a feeling that an introduction might be effected, as one seemed to be needed. “I daresay you will find you really know her.”

  “No, I shall not. I find I do not,” said Miss Murdoch, smiling at Amy. “Knowledge comes with—what shall I say?—with knowledge. When she reaches my form it will come to us, the knowledge of each other. Meanwhile I will not pretend to it. It is not our custom to pretend.”

  Jocasta did not disagree.

  “I know her by sight. I see her when I go through the classes,” said Hermia, also smiling at Amy. “I can go so far without pretence.”

  “And she has seen you,” said Hamilton. “And given us an impression of you as far as her powers permit.”

  “Ah, the powers will grow,” said Miss Murdoch. “They will grow as she does, with her, in her, within her range. We are not afraid there will not be growth. It does not fail us.”

  “It would not do so often. And it does its work without help,” said Jocasta, keeping all expression out of her tone.

  “Ah, I have said the simple thing
. But we do not reject the simple. It is where the truth may lie, and we do not reject the truth.”

  “At the risk of being simple myself,” said Hamilton, as if this was a graver hazard, “I will voice a passing thought. What a pleasure to see the young in holiday garb and mood!”

  “Ah, fine feathers do their work. And why should they not? It is what they have to do. The reality is underneath. We get to know the reality.”

  “And it is a chance to show the feathers,” said Jocasta. “Amy was quite moved by seeing her dress brought out. She had thought and felt about it. And she does not usually care about her clothes.”

  Amy looked aside as if she did not hear, and almost succeeded in not allowing herself to do so.

  “Ah, but we should care about everything. It all has its interest, and should all be given it. Indifference is not one of the good things. It must not go through her life.”

  Amy did not reflect that it need only go through her grandmother’s, as the end of the latter receded with every thought of it.

  “But the interest will come with time and growth, and the power of choice. This is the stage for simple needs and the simple means to meet them.”

  “Yes, Amy’s needs are of the simplest,” said Jocasta, meaning to utter an ordinary word, and actually uttering an innocent one. “She has never had any money of her own. She would not understand what to do with it. She hardly knows there is such a thing.”

  Amy looked down and rubbed one foot against the other, using the appearance of a minor discomfort to cover a greater one.

  “You might bring your friends to talk to me, Amy. It seems I ought to know them. I never understand why I don’t,” said Jocasta, unable to feel the matter had been explained to her.

  “Oh, they are busy to-day, Grannie. They all have relations here.”

  “Well, so have you. And they are not tied to them any more than you are.”

  “Well, some of them seem to be,” said Amy, with a shrug and a sigh.

  “I might seek an introduction myself in my avuncular character,” said Hamilton, unaware that it was his no longer.

  “Grannie, Miss Murdoch and Miss Heriot are moving away. Do you want to say any more to them?”

  “You must be glad of each other’s support,” said Jocasta, turning to the partners. “There is a great deal to discuss and decide at a time of change like this.”

  “What was it that someone said?” said Miss Murdoch. “Someone who had a right to say it. ‘There is something a wise man knows. Change is never for the better.’”

  “A wiser man would know more,” said Hermia. “What of the reforms of the past? We can’t say they were anything but what they were. Conscious change is seldom for the worse. There would be no reason for making it. Its object is the bettering of things.”

  “Ah, what is better? There is the rub, the question that is not answered, the uncertain thing. Is it what seems good to ourselves, perhaps does good? That is what it is?”

  “It may be at times. We must judge as we can. It is anyhow better than what seems harmful to ourselves and perhaps does harm.”

  “I say nothing myself,” said Hamilton. “I should not dare to enter the lists with two such able contestants. I will leave my mother in the field.”

  “Change has to come,” said Jocasta. “Though I may be too old to judge of it. This may be the place for it. It is for youth and a school is for the young. Perhaps it should not look too like itself. It may be better disguised.”

  “It is better still in the open,” said Hermia. “If a thing is good it should stand the light. It should seek it and appear as itself, as what it is.”

  “As you do,” said Hamilton, in a low tone. “You appear as yourself, as what you are. An exile from your own world and an alien in this. You have the strength to stand alone. It could not be said of many.”

  “It can scarcely be said of me. It needs more strength than I know. I am more alone than I thought to be. I tried and failed to live with nothing, and it is again before me. I hardly dare to look forward.”

  “A house divided against itself,” said Hamilton, still speaking to her. “It cannot stand.”

  “It is true. The slow death will go on. I am losing hope.”

  “I do not lose it for you. You are young, or young to me. There will be another future.”

  “There are not so many. For me there was the one. I strove for it and gained it, and it is gone.”

  Hermia moved away, unwilling to go further with Hamilton, and the voices round them went on.

  “Does your grandmother spoil you, Amy? People are supposed to spoil their grand-children.”

  “Oh, I daresay she does in a sense,” said Amy, in a light tone.

  “In what way does she spoil you?”

  “Oh, everyone does that in a different way,” said Amy, aware that Jocasta’s method must appear as her own.

  “You didn’t have a dress for the school play. And it meant you couldn’t take part in it.”

  “Oh, yes, there was a touch of spoiling there. That was an escape indeed.”

  “And you didn’t subscribe very much to Miss Murdoch’s Christmas present.”

  “Oh, I don’t suppose Grannie wants to spoil Miss Murdoch,” said Amy, with a little laugh. “I think she rather despises her for keeping a school.”

  “Wouldn’t you really rather be more like everyone else?”

  “Oh, there are plenty of people to be that. There is no harm in a few exceptions.”

  “I am glad I am not an exception,” said a reflective child, judging the role to be beyond her.

  “Why do you not come to see Amy sometimes?” said Jocasta to the girls. “I should like to see her friends about the house. She must not let shyness prevent her asking you. You could sit in the garden and have tea in the schoolroom afterwards. There can be nothing against it.”

  Amy summoned a smile to her lips at the mention of this prospect, and stood with it hovering over them.

  “If I am apprised of the date of the visit I will endeavour to be present,” said Hamilton, “and to efface the indefinite impression I have perforce produced to-day.”

  The girls responded to his smile, and startled his niece who was not prepared for a normal acceptance of him.

  “We should like to come and see you, Amy,” said one. “It would be a change.”

  “Would it? I don’t know what it would be,” said Amy, in an absent tone. “It sounds as if it would be nothing. I shouldn’t have anything to do with it. It would be done for me.”

  “You don’t seem to do much for yourself. Do you choose your own clothes?”

  “Oh, I don’t care about clothes. I never think about them. I wonder people ever do. I hardly know what they are.”

  The girls held their eyes from the examples before them in case they might hardly suggest this unawareness.

  “Your grandmother’s clothes are good. She must know what they are.”

  “Oh, no doubt she does. For Grannie nothing but the best.”

  “Does she think much more of herself than of anyone else?”

  “Oh, well, everyone does.”

  “I don’t think parents always do.”

  “This is a grand-parent,” said Amy, her tone still light, but holding a note of weariness.

  “The man whom you call Uncle is your real uncle, isn’t he?” said an older girl, using a mild tone to ease the admission. “He is really your grandmother’s son?”

  “Yes, of course he is. What else would he be? He is her ordinary legitimate son. I said he was not because I was ashamed of him. As I am really ashamed of everything.”

  Amy had reached the end of her capacity for suffering and was impervious to further cause for it. The girls accepted the feeling of shame as a natural part of life, but glimpsed unusual grounds for it and carried things no further.

  “You look tired, Amy,” said Jocasta, as they reached home. “It is standing about with nothing in your hands or your head. You get no good out of v
acancy.”

  “No, perhaps not, Grannie,” said Amy, accepting the account of her afternoon without surprise.

  “How will you feel if the school is given up and you have to go to another?”

  “I am not sure, Grannie,” said Amy, seeing no prospect of real change unless all schools met this fate.

  “Miss Heriot stands by herself,” said Hamilton. “And not only in a literal sense. She is indeed an unusual figure.”

  “Oh, she is not a tragic one,” said Jocasta. “She has a home and a family. And would do better to return to them.”

  “They may be where the trouble lies, Mamma. In a sense they could be the seat of it.”

  “We will not waste our thought on her. She will not waste hers on us. Nothing is being done for Amy there. And if one of the women has not made an end of the school the two of them will. We will not talk about it. We will not talk about anything. I am worn out and fit for nothing. I must ask for silence.”

  She leant back and closed her eyes; Hamilton tiptoed from the room; and Osbert began to murmur under his breath.

  “She can’t have quite what she asks. We must hear what Amy has to tell.”

  “It is nothing,” said Amy, in the same manner. “Or nothing you would understand.”

  “Was it everything?” said Erica, in a tone that denoted understanding.

  “Yes it was,” said Amy, in one that accepted it. “I mean it was what Grannie said.”

  “Could you voice it?” said Osbert. “Even that would be better shared.”

  “She said I was moved by the sight of this dress. And that I never had any money.”

  “I hope that was all. It seems to comprise everything.”

  “No, it was not. She has asked the girls to tea.”

  “Here?” said Erica, on a higher note.

  “Here,” said Osbert. “It is the unlikely that happens.”

  “There is nowhere else,” said Amy. “It doesn’t seem so very unlikely. And the likely really happens oftener.”

  “It is true. There is no escape. It comes under either head.”

  “There is something else,” said Amy, with a faint smile. “Uncle Hamilton said he would be here. He talked to the girls himself. But he matters less than Grannie.”