A Family and a Fortune

by Ivy Compton-Burnett

  ‘What is Truth?’ said Aubrey. ‘Has Justine told us?’

  ‘Truth is whatever happens to be true under the circumstances,’ said his sister, doing so at the moment. ‘We ought not to mind a searchlight being turned on our inner selves, if we are honest about them.’

  ‘That is our reason,’ said Mark. ‘“Know thyself” is a most superfluous direction. We can’t avoid it.’

  ‘We can only hope that no one else knows,’ said Dudley.

  ‘Uncle, what nonsense!’ said Justine. ‘You are the most transparent and genuine person, the very last to say that.’

  ‘What do you all really mean?’ said Edgar, speaking rather hurriedly, as if to check any further personal description.

  ‘I think I only mean’, said his brother, ‘that human beings ought always to be judged very tenderly, and that no one will be as tender as themselves. “Remember what you owe to yourself” is another piece of superfluous advice.’

  ‘But better than most advice,’ said Aubrey, lowering his voice as he ended. ‘More tender.’

  ‘Now, little boy, hurry up with your breakfast,’ said Justine. ‘Mr Penrose will be here in a few minutes.’

  ‘To pursue his life work of improving Aubrey,’ said Clement.

  ‘Clement ought to have ended with a sigh,’ said Aubrey. ‘But I daresay the work has its own unexpected rewards.’

  ‘I forget what I learned at Eton,’ said his uncle.

  ‘Yes, so do I; yes, so to a great extent do I,’ said Edgar. ‘Yes, I believe I forgot the greater part of it.’

  ‘You can’t really have lost it, Father,’ said Justine. ‘An education in the greatest school in the world must have left its trace. It must have contributed to your forming.’

  ‘It does not seem to matter that I can’t go to school,’ said Aubrey. ‘It will be a shorter cut to the same end.’

  ‘Now, little boy, don’t take that obvious line. And remember that self-education is the greatest school of all.’

  ‘And education by Penrose? What is that?’

  ‘Say Mr Penrose. And get on with your breakfast,’

  ‘He has only had one piece of toast,’ said Blanche, in a tone which suggested that it would be one of despair if the situation were not familiar. ‘And he is a growing boy.’

  ‘I should not describe him in those terms,’ said Mark.

  ‘I should be at a loss to describe him,’ said Clement.

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ said their mother at once. ‘You are both of you just as difficult to describe.’

  ‘Some people defy description,’ said Aubrey. ‘Uncle and I are among them.’

  ‘There is something in it,’ said Justine, looking round.

  ‘Perhaps we should not – it may be as well not to discuss people who are present,’ said Edgar.

  ‘Right as usual, Father. I wish the boys would emulate you.’

  ‘Oh, I think they do, dear,’ said Blanche, in an automatic tone. ‘I see a great likeness in them both to their father. It gets more striking.’

  ‘And does no one think poor Uncle a worthy object of emulation? He is as experienced and polished a person as Father.’

  Edgar looked up at this swift disregard of accepted advice.

  ‘I am a changeling,’ said Dudley. ‘Aubrey and I are very hard to get hold of.’

  ‘And you can’t send a person you can’t put your finger on to school,’ said his nephew.

  ‘You can see that he does the next best thing,’ said Justine. ‘Off with you at once. There is Mr Penrose on the steps. Don’t keep the poor little man waiting.’

  ‘Justine refers to every other person as poor,’ said Clement.

  ‘Well, I am not quite without the bowels of human compassion. The ups and downs of the world do strike me, I confess.’

  ‘Chiefly the downs.’

  ‘Well, there are more of them.’

  ‘Poor little man,’ murmured Aubrey, leaving his seat. ‘Whose little man is he? I am Justine’s little boy.’

  ‘It seems - is it not rather soon after breakfast to work?’ said Edgar.

  ‘They go for a walk first, as you know, Father. It is good for Aubrey to have a little adult conversation apart from his family. I asked Mr Penrose to make the talk educational.

  ‘Did you, dear?’ said Blanche, contracting her eyes. ‘I think you should leave that kind of thing to Father or me.’

  ‘Indeed I should not, Mother. And not have it done at all? That would be a nice alternative. I should do all I can for you all, as it comes into my head, as I always have and always shall. Don’t try to prevent what is useful and right.’

  Blanche subsided under this reasonable direction.

  ‘Now off with you both! Off to your occupations,’ said Justine, waving her hand towards her brothers. ‘I hope you have some. I have, and they will not wait.’

  ‘I am glad I have none,’ said Dudley. ‘I could not bear to have regular employment.’

  ‘Do you know what I have discovered?’ said his niece. ‘I have discovered a likeness between our little boy and you, Uncle. A real, incontrovertible and bona fide likeness. It is no good for you all to open your eyes. I have made my discovery and will stick to it.’

  ‘I have always thought they were alike,’ said Blanche.

  ‘Oh, now, Mother, that is not at all on the line. You know it has only occurred to you at this moment.’

  ‘No, I am bound to say’, said Edgar, definite in the interests of justice, ‘that I have heard your mother point out a resemblance.’

  ‘Then dear little Mother, she has got in first, and I am the last person to grudge her the credit. So you see it, Mother? Because I am certain of it, certain. I should almost have thought that Uncle would see it himself.’

  ‘We can hardly expect him to call attention to it,’ said Clement.

  ‘I am aware of it,’ said Dudley, ‘and I invite the attention of you all.’

  ‘Then I am a laggard and see things last instead of first.

  ‘But I am none the less interested in them. My interest does not depend upon personal triumph. It is a much more genuine and independent thing.’

  ‘Mine is feebler, I admit,’ said Mark.

  ‘Now, Mother, you will have a rest this morning to make up for your poor night. And I will drive the house on its course. You can be quite at ease.’

  Justine put her hand against her mother’s cheek, and Blanche lifted her own hand and held it for a moment, smiling at her daughter.

  ‘What a dear, good girl she is!’ she said, as the latter left them. ‘What should we do without her?’

  ‘What we do now,’ said Clement.

  ‘Indeed we should not,’ said his mother, rounding on him at once. ‘We should find everything entirely different, as you know quite well.’

  ‘Indeed, indeed,’ said Edgar in a deliberate voice. ‘Indeed.’

  Edgar and Blanche had fallen in love thirty-one years before, in the year eighteen hundred and seventy, when Edgar was twenty-four and Blanche thirty; and now that the feeling was a memory, and a rare and even embarrassing one, Blanche regarded her husband with trust and pride, and Edgar his wife with compassionate affection. It meant little that neither was ever disloyal to the other, for neither was capable of disloyalty. They had come to be rather shy of each other and were little together by day or night. It was hard to imagine how their shyness had ever been enough in abeyance to allow of their courtship and marriage, and they found it especially the case. They could only remember, and this they did as seldom as they could. Blanche seemed to wander aloof through her life, finding enough to live for in the members of her family and in her sense of pride and possession in each, it was typical of her that she regarded Dudley as a brother, and had no jealousy of her husband’s relation with him.

  Edgar’s life was largely in his brother and the friendship which dated from their infancy. Mark helped his father in his halting and efficient management of the estate, and as the eldest son had been given no p
rofession. Clement had gained a fellowship at Cambridge with a view to being a scholar and a don. Each brother had a faint compassion and contempt for the other’s employment and prospect.

  ‘Mother dear,’ said Justine, returning to the room, ‘here is a letter which came for you last night and which you have not opened. There is a way to discharge your duties! I suggest that you remedy the omission.’

  Blanche held the letter at arm’s length to read the address, while she felt for her glasses.

  ‘It is from your grandfather,’ she said, adjusting the glasses and looking at her daughter over them. ‘It is from my father, Edgar. It is so seldom that he writes himself. Of course, he is getting an old man. He must soon begin to feel his age.’

  ‘Probably fairly soon, as he is eighty-seven,’ said Clement.

  ‘Too obvious once again, Clement,’ said Justine. ‘Open the letter, Mother. You should have read it last night.’

  Blanche proceeded to do so at the reminder, and Edgar gave a glance of disapproval at his son, which seemed to be late as the result of his weighing its justice.

  His wife’s voice came suddenly and with unusual expression.

  ‘Oh, he wants to know if the lodge is still to let. And if it is, he thinks of taking it! He would come with Matty to live here. Oh, it would be nice to have them. What a difference it would make! They want to know the lowest rent we can take, and we could not charge much to my family. I wish we could let them have it for nothing, but I suppose we must not afford that?’

  There was a pause.

  ‘We certainly should not do so,’ said Mark. ‘Things are paying badly as it is.’

  ‘It opens up quite a different life,’ said Justine.

  ‘Are we qualified for it?’ said her brother.

  ‘I don’t see why we should not ask a normal rent,’ said Clement. ‘They would not expect help from us in any other way, and they do not need it.’

  ‘They are not well off, dear,’ said Blanche, again looking over her glasses. ‘They have lost a good deal of their money and will have to take great care. And it would be such an advantage to have them. We must think of that.’

  ‘They think of it evidently, and intend to charge us for it. I wonder at what they value themselves.’

  ‘They ought to pay us for our presence too,’ said Mark. ‘I suppose it is worth an equal price.’

  ‘I believe I am more companionable than either of them,’ said Dudley.

  ‘Oh, we ought not to talk like that even in joke,’ said Blanche, taking the most hopeful view of the conversation. ‘We ought to think what we can do to help them. They have had to give up their home, and this seems such a good solution. With my father getting old and my sister so lame, they ought to be near their relations.’

  ‘Do you consider, Mother dear, how you and Aunt Matty are likely to conduct yourselves when you are within a stone’s throw?’ said Justine, with deliberate dryness. ‘On the occasions when you have stayed with each other, rumours have come from her house, which have been confirmed in ours. Do remember that discretion is the better part of many another quality.’

  ‘Whatever do you mean? We have our own ways with each other, of course, just as all of you have, and your uncle and your father; as brothers and sisters must. But it has been nothing more.’

  ‘Edgar and I have not any,’ said Dudley. ‘I don’t know how you can say so. I have a great dislike for ways; I think few things are worse. And I don’t think you and your sister ought to live near to each other, if you have them.’

  ‘What an absurd way to talk! Matty and I have never disagreed. There is no need for us to treat each other as if we were strangers.’

  ‘Now remember, Mother dear,’ said Justine, lifting a finger, ‘that there is need for just that. Treat each other as strangers and I will ask no more. I shall be utterly satisfied.’

  ‘What a way to talk!’ repeated Blanche, her tone showing her really rancourless nature. ‘Do let us stop talking like this and think of the pleasure they will be to us.’

  ‘If they bring any happiness to you, little Mother, we welcome them from our hearts. But we are afraid that it will not be without alloy.’

  ‘I think - I have been considering,’ said Edgar, ‘I think we might suggest the rent which we should ask from a stranger, and then see what their not being strangers must cost us,’ He gave his deliberate smile, which did not alter his face, while his brother’s, which followed it, seemed to irradiate light. ‘We must hope it will not be much, as we have not much to spare.’

  ‘I suppose the sums involved are small,’ said Justine.

  ‘We are running things close,’ said Mark. ‘And why should they put a price on themselves when other people do not?’

  ‘Oh, my old father and my invalid sister!’ said Blanche. ‘And the house has been empty for such a long time, and the rents in this county are so low.’

  ‘We shall take all that into account,’ said Edgar, in the tone he used to his wife, gentler and slower than to other people, as if he wished to make things clear and easy for her. ‘And it will tend to lower the rent.’

  ‘Then why not just ask them very little and think no more about it? I don’t know why we have this kind of talk. It will be so nice to have them, and now we have made it into a subject which will always bring argument and acrimoniousness. It is a great shame,’ Blanche shook her shoulders and looked down with tears in her eyes.

  ‘They want us to write at once, if Mother does not mind my looking at the letter,’ said Justine, assuming that this was the case. ‘Dear Grandpa! His writing begins to quaver. They have their plans to make.’

  ‘If his writing quavers, his rent must be low, of course,’ said Mark, ‘We are not brutes and oppressors.’

  Blanche looked up with a clearing face, as reason and feeling asserted themselves in her son.

  ‘Yes, yes, we must let them know,’ said Edgar. ‘And of course it will be an advantage to have them - any benefit which comes from them will be ours. We cannot dispute it.’

  ‘We do not want to,’ said his daughter, ‘or to dispute anything else. This foretaste of such things is enough. Let us make our little sacrifice, if it must be made. We ought not to jib at it so much.’

  ‘Let us leave this aspect of the matter and turn to the others,’ said Mark, keeping his face grave. ‘Do you suppose they really know about Aubrey?’

  ‘I don’t see how they can,’ said Clement. ‘He was too young the last time they were here for it to be recognized.’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ said Blanche, who fell into every trap. ‘They will be devoted to him, as people always are.’

  ‘Yes, Aubrey will be a great success, I will wager,’ said Justine. ‘We shall all of us pale beside him. You wait and see.’

  ‘I shall have the same sort of triumph,’ said Dudley. ‘They will begin by noticing my brother and find their attention gradually drawn to me.’

  ‘And then it will be all up with everyone else,’ said Justine, sighing. ‘Oh, dreadful Uncle, we all know how it can be.’

  ‘And then they will think - I will not say what. It will be for them to say it.’

  ‘Well, poor Uncle, you can’t always play second fiddle.’

  ‘Yes, I can,’ said Dudley, his eyes on Edgar. ‘It is a great art and I have mastered it.’

  Edgar rose as though hearing a signal and went to the door, resting his arm in his brother’s, and a minute later the pair appeared on the path outside the house.

  ‘Those two tall figures!’ said Justine. ‘It is a sight of which I can never tire. If I live to be a hundred I do not wish to see one more satisfying.’

  Blanche looked up and followed her daughter’s eyes in proper support of her.

  Mark took Clement’s arm and walked up and down before his sister.

  ‘No, away with you!’ she said with a gesture. ‘I don’t want an imitation; I don’t want anything spurious. I have the real thing before my eyes.’

  ‘I like to
see them walking together like that,’ said Blanche.

  ‘Well, I do not, Mother. It is a mockery of something better and I see nothing about it to like.’

  ‘I am sure they are very good friends. We need not call it a mockery. It illustrates a genuine feeling, even if the action itself was a joke.’

  ‘Genuine feeling, yes, Mother, but nothing like the feeling between Father and Uncle. We must face it. You have not produced that in your family. It has skipped that generation.’

  Blanche looked on in an impotent way, as her daughter left the room, but appreciation replaced any other feeling on her face. She had the unusual quality of loving all her children equally, or of believing that she did. If Mark and Aubrey held the chief place in her heart, the place was available for the others when they needed it, so that she was justified in feeling that she gave it to them all. Neither she nor Clement suspected that she cared for Clement the least, and if Dudley and Aubrey knew it, it was part of that knowledge in them which was their own. Edgar would not have been surprised to hear that her second son was her favourite.

  Jellamy came into the room as his mistress left it, and carried some silver to the sideboard.

  ‘So we are to have Mr Seaton and Miss Seaton at the lodge, sir?’

  ‘How did you know?’ said Mark. ‘We have only just heard.’

  ‘The same applies to me, sir,’ said Jellamy, speaking with truth, as he had heard at the same moment. ‘Miss Seaton will be a companion for the mistress, sir. The master and, Mr Dudley being so much together leaves the mistress rather by herself.’ Jellamy’s eyes protruded over a subject which was rife in the kitchen, and had never presented itself to Blanche.

  ‘She is never by herself,’ said Clement. ‘We all live in a chattering crowd, each of us waiting for a chance to be heard.’

  Luncheon found the family rather as Clement described it. Edgar sat at the head of the table, Blanche at the foot; Dudley and Justine sat on either side of the former, Mark and Clement of the latter; and Aubrey and his tutor faced each other in the middle of the board. Mr Penrose was treated with friendliness and supplied with the best of fare, and found the family luncheon the trial of his day. He sat in a conscious rigour, which he hardly helped by starting when he was addressed, and gazing at various objects in the room with deep concentration. He was a blue-eyed, bearded little man of forty-five, of the order known as self-made, who spoke of himself to his wife as at the top of the tree, and accepted her support when she added that he was in this position in the truest sense. He had a sharp nose, supporting misty spectacles, and neat clothes which had a good deal of black about them. He was pleasant and patient with Aubrey, and made as much progress with him as was possible in view of this circumstance, and had a great admiration for Edgar, whom he occasionally addressed. Edgar and Dudley treated him with ordinary simplicity and never referred to him in any other spirit. Justine spoke of him with compassion, Mark with humour, Blanche with respect for his learning. Clement did not speak of him, and Aubrey saw him with the adult dryness of boys towards their teachers.