A Family and a Fortune

by Ivy Compton-Burnett

  ‘Oh, people are not often as ill as I was.’

  ‘How does it feel to be so ill that you might die?’ said Aubrey, with a desire to know.

  ‘I can hardly say. Perhaps I was ready. I really don’t understand about people who are not. When you are delirious and do not recognize people, it is hard to see how you can feel remorse for a lifetime and prepare yourself for eternity. I cannot help thinking that even people who die, are not as ill as I was. I think they are sometimes surprisingly well, even perhaps at their best.’

  ‘It is the few lucid moments at the last,’ said Justine.

  ‘Well, I did not have those, of course. It is odd to think that we are all to have them. It does make me respect everyone. But long conversations and meetings after years of estrangement must be so difficult when you cannot recognize people. And it hardly seems worth while for a few moments, even though they are lucid. And I see that they must be. When people’s lives are hanging by a thread, it seems enough to break the thread. And I think it must do so sometimes, if people die when they are equal to so much, more perhaps than they have ever been before.’

  Justine looked at Dudley uncertainly, and Matty with a smile.

  ‘Have you been reading the books in the farmhouse, Uncle?’ said Mark.

  ‘Yes, I read them while I was getting well. And if I had known I was to be so ill, I would have read them at first.’

  ‘I love to hear him talk like his old self,’ said Matty, glancing at her niece.

  ‘Don’t you notice that a new note has crept in? Perhaps it marks me as a person who has looked at death. I think that Justine has noticed it.’

  ‘Yes, I have, Uncle,’ said his niece quietly. ‘It is the weakness of convalescence.’

  ‘Convalescence seems to be a little like the lucid moments at the last. I may not have got quite far enough away from them.’

  ‘You will soon forget it.’

  ‘I shall not. You will. I see you are doing so.’

  ‘I know what you mean,’ said Matty, keeping her eyes on Dudley’s face. ‘I too sometimes feel rather apart, as I live in my memories and find that other people have lost them. But I would not have them oppressed by what I can carry alone.’

  ‘I would; I had no idea that I should have to do that. I thought that people would always be as they were at my sickbed. They were so nice then; I thought a great change had come over them, and it had. They must have been expecting the lucid moments and getting themselves up to their level. And now they have returned to their old selves, as you were saying of me. But they have really done it.’

  ‘Are you joking, Uncle, or not?’ said Justine.

  ‘I am joking, but with something else underneath, something which may return to you later. If it does, remember that it is only convalescence. And now I will go and have another rest. Being here with you has not lulled me to sleep.’

  ‘Mark had better go up with you,’ said Maria. ‘You are not quite steady on your feet.’

  Dudley crossed the room, touching something as he passed and letting Mark take his arm at the door. His brother rose the next moment, adjusted something on the chimney-piece, went to the door and swung it in his hand and followed.

  ‘Father cannot keep away from Uncle and I cannot either,’ said Justine. ‘I am going to follow at a respectful distance, more to feast my eyes on him than to be of any use. I am not going to grasp at the privilege of waiting on him. I bow to Father’s claim.’

  ‘I will bring up the rear,’ said Aubrey, ‘and feast my eyes on Justine.’

  ‘And Maria and Aunt Matty can have the hour together for which I suspect Aunt Matty has been pining.’

  ‘I shall enjoy it, dear, but so I hope will Maria. It is a thing which depends on us both.’

  ‘Yes, have it your own way. Enjoy it together. Forget us; agree that we are in the crude and callow stage; anything; I am quite beyond caring. Oh, I am so happy that I could clap my hands; I could leap into the air.’ Justine proved her powers. ‘I am in such a mood that it would be idle to attempt to contain myself.’

  Aubrey gave a grin towards his stepmother, and opening the door for his sister, followed her with his head erect.

  ‘Quite a finished little man,’ said Matty. ‘You should not have much trouble with him. In what order do they come in your affections? They are already there, I can see.’

  ‘I hardly know the order. There will be one, of course. I think perhaps Mark comes first; then Justine; then Aubrey and then Clement. I hardly feel that I know Clement yet.’

  ‘I think I would put them in the same order,’ said Matty, who had lost her tenseness. ‘Except that perhaps I would put Mark after Justine. Yes, I think that my niece comes first, even though we try to quarrel with each other. We never succeed and that says a great deal.’

  ‘Why do you make the effort? It seems to be a rather constant one.’

  ‘Ah, you are catching the note of my nephews! You are to be a true Gaveston after all. You are not going to be left behind.’ Matty broke off as a noise came from the stairs.

  Dudley had mounted the first flight, and coming to the second, had shaken off his nephew’s hand and gone on alone. His limbs gave under him and he fell forward. Edgar sprang after him; Justine gave a cry; Mark turned back and raised his voice; Aubrey ran up the last stairs; Clement broke from his room and hurried to the scene. Dudley was helped to his nephew’s bed, hardly the worse. Edgar stood by him, looking as if his defence had broken before this last onset. Clement made a movement to cover something on his desk, stumbled and made a clutch at the desk, and sent a mass of gold coins in a stream to the floor.

  Justine started and glanced at them; Aubrey paused for a longer moment and stared at his brother; Mark left the bed as he saw that no harm was done, and stood looking from the floor to the desk. Clement touched the coins with his foot, kicked a cloth towards them, and thrust his hands into his pockets.

  ‘How nice you all looked!’ said Dudley, who had seen what they all saw. ‘Just as you did when I was ill.’

  ‘And we felt like it for a minute,’ said Justine, turning from her uncle as she spoke.

  Edgar sat down and looked at his son, as if he ought to have some feeling over for him.

  ‘Father looks paler than Uncle,’ said Mark.

  ‘But anyone can see that I am the one who has been ill,’ said Dudley.

  Maria appeared at the door with Jellamy behind, and Clement had the eyes of the household turned on the secret corner of his life.

  ‘Is Dudley hurt?’ said Maria. ‘Was it Dudley who fell?’

  ‘Yes, it was me. It was a silly thing to do. You will get quite tired of all my disturbances and think less of them. It never does to wear out people’s feelings.’

  ‘Is that money, Clement?’ said Justine.

  ‘If it is not, I will leave you to guess what it is.’

  ‘Have you been saving?’

  ‘I have been putting by something to spend on my house. You know that I am going to have one, and that I do not spend what I have.’

  ‘Why do you keep it in that form?’

  ‘It is like that at the moment. Or some of it is. I have to have some in hand for various things. And I don’t care about having interest up to the last moment.’

  ‘Clement is a miser,’ said Aubrey, who accepted this account and did not know how the words struck other ears.

  ‘Well, are you going to leave me?’ said his brother, who was strolling up and down, enabled by the smallness of the space to turn round often and hide his face.

  ‘Or are you going to settle in my room? Perhaps you forget that it is mine.’

  ‘You can allow Uncle time to recover,’ said Mark.

  ‘He does not need to do so, as you know,’

  ‘And the rest of us to get our breath,’

  ‘I admit that I took that away from you,’ said Clement, with a laugh.

  ‘Clement, that is no good,’ said Justine. ‘It is not a pretty thing that we have seen, and yo
u will not make it better by showing us anything else that is ugly.’

  ‘I have no wish to show you anything. I don’t know why you think so. It is your own idea to pry about in my room. I don’t know what you keep in yours,’ Clement turned to Aubrey, who was touching things on the table. ‘Stop fingering what is not your own and get out of the room. Or I will throw you out.’

  ‘Don’t do that,’ said Dudley. ‘If anyone else has a fall, I shall not be the centre of all eyes. And if you won’t share things with Aubrey, why should I?’

  ‘Is anyone of any use to Uncle? And ought not Maria to be in the drawing-room, giving tea to Aunt Matty?’

  ‘The king is in his counting house, counting out his money;

  The queen is in the parlour, eating bread and honey.’

  quoted Aubrey in the door.

  Clement took one step to the door and kicked it to its latch, indifferent to what he kicked with it. It opened smoothly in a moment.

  ‘Miss Seaton wished to be told if any harm was done, ma’am,’ said Jellamy.

  ‘None is done in here,’ said Mark. ‘I don’t know about outside.’

  ‘Master Aubrey has knocked his head, sir,’

  ‘Oh, I had better go,’ said Justine.

  ‘We will come with you,’ said Maria. ‘Clement did not ask us in here.’

  Edgar followed his wife, and Dudley got off the bed and strolled to the desk.

  ‘I am glad that you value your money, Clement. I like you to take care of what I gave you. And it shows how well you behaved when I asked for it back. I can’t think of that moment without a sense of discomfort. We all have a little of the feeling at times. To know all is to forgive all, but we can’t let people know all, of course. Does it give you a sense of satisfaction to have money in that; form?’

  ‘I don’t know. Some of it happened to be like that.’

  ‘I wish you would tell me. Because, if it does, I will have some of mine in it.’

  ‘I suppose some people sent it in that form, and I put it all together. It will not remain so for long.’

  ‘Of course I am not asking for your confidence.’

  ‘I hope you have not killed Aubrey, Clement,’ said Mark.

  ‘Justine would have come back and said so if I had. She would think it worthy of mention.’

  ‘I should not like Aubrey to die,’ said Dudley. ‘I only nearly died, and it would give him the immediate advantage.’

  ‘You must come to your room, Uncle,’ said Mark. ‘It was my duty to see you there.’

  ‘I am not going there,’ said Dudley on the landing. ‘I am going downstairs again. I have lost my desire for rest. I can’t be shut away from family life; it offers too much. To think that I have lived it for so long without even suspecting its nature! I have been quite satisfied by it too; I have had no yearning after anything further. Matty is going and the gossip can have its way. It will be a beautiful family talk, mean and worried and full of sorrow and spite and excitement. I cannot be asked to miss it in my weak state. I should only fret.’

  ‘You won’t find it too much?’

  ‘I feel it will be exactly what I need somehow.’

  Matty waved her hand to Dudley and continued her way through the hall, as if taking no advantage of his return.

  ‘Now I feel really at ease for the first time,’ he said as he entered the drawing room. ‘I do not mind having fled from my home in a jealous rage, now that Clement is a miser. It was a great help when Matty turned her old friend out into the snow, but not quite enough. Now I am really not any worse than other people. Not any more ridiculous; I don’t mind if I am worse.’

  ‘You know you are better,’ said Justine, ‘and so do we. Now, little boy, sit down and keep quiet. You will be all right in an hour.’

  ‘You need not change the subject. I really am at ease. I don’t need Aubrey to take the thoughts off me. I don’t even like him to.’

  ‘Clement believed that I had attained his size before I had,’ said Aubrey, assuming that thoughts were as his uncle did not prefer them.

  ‘Well, are we to talk about it or are we not?’ said Justine.

  ‘Of course we are,’ said Dudley. ‘You know I have already mentioned it. I hope you do not think that it would have been fairer to Clement if I had not. If you do, I shall never forgive myself, or you either. But of course you would forgive me anything today; and what is the good of that, if there is nothing to forgive?’

  ‘It is fairer to Clement to talk of it openly, reasonably, and without exaggeration,’

  ‘Justine speaks with decision,’ said Aubrey.

  ‘It may be better still just to forget it,’ said Maria. ‘We came upon it by accident and against his will. And it may not mean so much. We all do some odd things in private.’

  ‘Do we?’ said Dudley. ‘I had no idea of it. I never do any. As soon as I did an odd thing, I did it in public. I am so glad that life was not taken from me before I even guessed what it was.’

  ‘How much money was there in gold?’ said Aubrey.

  ‘Now, little boy, that is not at all the point.’

  ‘If Clement is to have a house, it will take all he has,’ said Edgar.

  ‘A less simple speech than it sounds,’ said Justine. ‘There is the solution, swift, simple and complete.’

  ‘Perhaps he will starve behind his doors,’ said Aubrey, ‘and put his gold into piles at night.’

  ‘Someone deserved to have his head broken,’ said Edgar.

  ‘He may suffer from reaction and be driven into extravagance,’ said Dudley. ‘We shall all mind that much more. It must be difficult for young people to strike the mean.’

  ‘The golden mean,’ murmured Aubrey. ‘Clement may like to strike that.’

  ‘He will have a good many expenses,’ said Mark. ‘A housekeeper and other things.’

  ‘We already detect signs of extravagance,’ said Dudley.

  His nephew strolled into the room.

  ‘Well, am I to flatter myself that I am your subject? I am glad that you can take me in a light spirit. I was fearing that you could not.’

  ‘We were wondering if you could afford to run a house,’ said Maria.

  Clement stopped and looked into her eyes.

  ‘Well, I shall have to be careful. But I think I can manage with the sum I have saved. I am keeping part of it in money for the first expenses. They are always the trouble.’

  ‘Do you think of having the house at once?’ said his father.

  ‘Well, very soon now. I shall be going to Cambridge to see about it. I have enough put by for the initial outlay.’

  Clement went to the window and stood looking out, and then pushed it open and disappeared.

  ‘Is it wise for a young man to spend all he has?’ said Mark. ‘Let us now transfer our anxiety.’

  ‘So it is over,’ said Dudley. ‘Clement is a victim of the rashness of youth. I hope he will not waste his allowance.’

  ‘And all our thought and talk about it are over too,’ said Justine, rising. ‘We are not saying another word. Come, Aubrey; come, Mark. Come, Maria, if I may say it; we are really following your lead. We know you want us to leave Father and Uncle alone.’

  Edgar looked at the door as it closed, and spoke at once.

  ‘The boy has hardly had a father.’

  ‘No, you have failed in one of the deepest relations of life. And you are faced by one of the results. Because there is more in this than we admit. I am not going to get so little out of it. I am sure people got more out of my running away from home.’

  ‘I hope he will go along now. This may be the result of too little to spare all his life. Your help may be a godsend in more than one sense.’

  ‘It seems to have been the cause of the trouble. You can’t be a miser with no money.’

  ‘You can be with very little, when it is scarce.’

  ‘I rather liked Clement to be a miser; I felt flattered by it. It was taking what I gave him, so seriously.’
/>   ‘We may be making too much of the matter.’

  ‘Maria will not let us make enough. I will not give up the real, sinister fact. Why should I not cling to the truth?’

  ‘Maria will be a help to us with all of them.’

  ‘To us! You knew the word that would go straight to my heart. But you ought to be a success as a brother, when as a father you are such a failure. What can you expect but that the tender shoots should warp and grow astray? They had no hand to prune or guide them. I don’t believe you even realized that Clement was a shoot. And he was so tender that he warped almost at once. I think you are very fortunate that he was the only one.’

  ‘How much has happened in the last fourteen months!’

  ‘Yes. Matty came to live here. I inherited a fortune. I was engaged to Maria. Blanche fell ill and died. You became engaged in my place. You and Maria were married. Matty’s father died. Matty drove her old friend out into the snow. I ran away from my home. I am not quite sure of the order of the last three, but they were all on the same night, and it was really hard on Matty that it happened to be snowing. On a mild night she would not have been blamed half so much. I rescued Miss Griffin and took her into my charge. It was hard on us that it happened to be snowing too. I decided to provide for her for her life. It seemed the only thing in view of the climate. At any time it might snow. I was sick almost to death, and was given back to you all. In more than one sense; I must not forget that. Oh and Clement was gradually becoming a miser all the time. You would have thought he had enough to distract him.’

  There was a pause.

  ‘Dudley, I can ask you a question, as I know the answer. Maria does not mean to you what she did?’

  ‘No, not even as much as you would like her to. I cannot see her with your eyes. I have returned to the stage of seeing her with my own. I nearly said that to me she would always be second to Blanche, but it would be no good to echo your own mind. And of course to both of us she is only just second to her. But I think that you married her too soon after Blanche died, and that you may never live it down. You can see that I am speaking the truth, that I feel it to be my duty. I know that Blanche had a good husband, but it would never be anyone’s duty to say that.’