The Present and the Past

by Ivy Compton-Burnett

  ‘Why should I talk like a child, when my life prevents me from being one?’

  ‘Would having a real mother make us more childish?’ said Guy.

  ‘That would hardly be desirable in your case,’ said Miss Ridley. ‘You are inclined to be behind your age. And you could not have a stepmother who was more like a real mother.’

  ‘And we could not have one who was like one,’ said Fabian.

  ‘You know that every effort is made for you.’

  ‘Of course we know. Everyone is at pains to tell us. And we can see it being made, as they can.’

  ‘Suppose it was not made? That Would be the thing to mind.’

  ‘But perhaps not to mind so much.’

  ‘Oh, dear, oh, dear!’ said Henry.

  ‘Whatever is it?’ said Miss Ridley.

  ‘They haven’t anything,’ said Henry, indicating his brothers. ‘Not even as much as we have.’

  ‘Now really, you are ungrateful children. You have a beautiful home and every care and kindness. It would do you good to have to face some real trouble.’

  ‘You know it would do us harm,’ said Henry.

  ‘I cannot think what has come over you.’

  ‘Then you cannot think at all,’ said Fabian. ‘But I daresay that is the case. A good many people can’t.’

  Guy and Megan laughed.

  ‘And you are one of the fortunate ones who can?’ said Miss Ridley, using a dry tone.

  ‘I am one of the unfortunate ones who do. That is how I should put it.’

  ‘It is perhaps rather a bold claim.’

  ‘It is not a claim. It is merely a statement of fact.’

  ‘If you know things, of course you think about them,’ said Megan. ‘Or you wouldn’t really know them.’

  ‘You should not say these things before the little ones,’ said Miss Ridley to Fabian. ‘Especially if you are a person who thinks. Or do you not think about them?’

  ‘Why should I? They have enough people to do it.’

  ‘Henry, do get up from that log,’ said Bennet, giving matters a lighter tone. ‘What an uncomfortable seat!’

  ‘Not enough to make you forget anything,’ said Henry, as if it had failed in its purpose.

  ‘Have we had to bear more than other children?’ said Guy. ‘I mean Fabian and me.’

  ‘Now what have you had to bear?’ said Miss Ridley. ‘Try to tell me one thing.’

  ‘He doesn’t mean hunger and cold like children in books,’ said Henry. ‘But they are not the only things.’

  ‘Why are Sunday books sadder than others?’ said Megan. ‘It seems to be making it the worst day on purpose. And it is supposed to be the best.’

  ‘Now do you not find it so?’ said Miss Ridley.

  ‘Only because it is a holiday. Any other day would be better.’

  ‘It need not be worse than other days,’ said Fabian. ‘The reasons are man-made. Our religion is a gloomy one. There are other and happier creeds.’

  ‘Oh, hush, you know there is the one true one,’ said Bennet, in an automatic manner, not moving her eyes.

  ‘It is a pity it is so sad,’ said Guy. ‘It has to mean that life is sad, when religion goes through life.’

  ‘Now surely you can think of something pleasant,’ said Miss Ridley.

  ‘You admit that religion is not that,’ said Fabian.

  ‘Now I knew you would take me up on that, Fabian. I knew it the moment the words were out of my mouth. Of course it has its solemn side. Its very depth and meaning involve that. We should not wish it otherwise.’

  ‘Well, people do like gloom. It prevents other people from being happy.’

  ‘But surely they do not wish that.’

  ‘They seem to go through life wishing it. They think happiness is wrong.’

  ‘Or they think it is too pleasant,’ said Megan, ‘and so don’t want other people to have it.’

  ‘My dear child, what reason can you have for saying such a thing?’

  ‘That I am not one of those who have eyes and see not, ears and hear not, and seeing do not perceive,’ said Megan, twisting round on one leg.

  ‘I am afraid you are conceited children.’

  ‘Everyone is conceited. It is only that some people pretend not to be. People can’t always despise themselves, and there might not be any reason.’

  ‘I daresay they could generally find one,’ said Fabian.

  ‘If they want to prevent people’s happiness, they certainly could,’ said Miss Ridley.

  ‘Miss Ridley is conceited,’ said Henry, in an expressionless tone.

  ‘What am I conceited about, Henry?’

  ‘About your brain and your learning.’

  ‘I wonder if I am,’ said Miss Ridley, consenting to turn attention to herself. ‘I hardly think so, Henry. About my brain I certainly am not. It is of the strong and useful kind, but no more. In learning I have gone further than I expected.’

  Miss Ridley had obtained a degree, a step whose mystic significance for a woman was accepted at that date even by those who had taken it. It rendered her equal to the instruction of male youth, and accounted for her presence in the family.

  Eliza came towards them, calling out to Bennet tidings that were worth announcing from afar.

  ‘He was asleep in a minute. He was fractious because he was tired.’

  ‘Dear little boy!’ said Miss Ridley.

  ‘Is there anything endearing in being asleep?’ said Fabian. ‘Not that it is not better than screaming on the ground.’

  ‘People are always glad when babies go to sleep,’ said Henry. ‘They can stop thinking about them. They take too much thought.’

  ‘You don’t deserve to have a baby brother,’ said Miss Ridley.

  ‘Well, we did not want one.’

  ‘I remember how excited you were when he came.’

  ‘But not when he stayed,’ said Megan, smiling. ‘Not when he had always to be there.’

  ‘I was never excited at all,’ said Henry. ‘I knew he would have to stay. I knew it wouldn’t be Megan and me any longer.’

  ‘I am afraid that is a selfish point of view.’

  ‘All points of view are selfish,’ said Megan. ‘They are the way people look at things themselves. So they must be.’

  ‘Both knees are grazed,’ said Eliza to Bennet, as though this might have been expected.

  ‘Oh, dear, oh, dear!’ said Henry.

  ‘Come, that is not so bad,’ said Miss Ridley. ‘Children must sometimes fall, and he was very brave.’

  ‘Was he?’ said Fabian. ‘How would cowardice be shown?’

  ‘I wasn’t thinking of him,’ said Henry. ‘There are other things that matter. And Megan and I don’t always think about him. I had a thought of my own.’

  ‘You ought to get out of the habit of saying, “Oh, dear, oh, dear!”’

  ‘It isn’t a habit. I don’t say it if there isn’t a reason. Reasons can’t be a habit. They are there.’

  ‘You are proud of saying it,’ said Guy, ‘because great minds tend to melancholy. I know the book that says it.’

  ‘I don’t read the book; I don’t often read,’ said Henry.

  ‘Now there is another change we might see,’ said Miss Ridley.

  ‘There are real changes that ought to be made, and never will be,’ said Henry, checking his natural exclamation.

  ‘Now there is the first effort made. I congratulate you, Henry.’

  ‘I wasn’t making an effort.’

  ‘I think you were. You see I think better of you than you think of yourself.’

  ‘People are always ashamed of trying to be better,’ said Megan.

  ‘I should be sorry to think so,’ said Miss Ridley. ‘Would you be ashamed of it?’

  ‘I shall never know, because I shall never try.’

  ‘I think that shows you would be,’ said Guy.

  ‘Now Henry may say, “Oh, dear, oh, dear!” ‘said Miss Ridley. ‘I see there is reason.’

&n
bsp; ‘People are ashamed of thinking they are not good enough as they are,’ said Fabian.

  ‘And yet they would not admit to a high opinion of themselves,’ said another voice. ‘I suppose they could not, as it would be so very high.’

  ‘Good morning, Mrs Clare,’ said Miss Ridley. ‘Say good morning to your mother, children.’

  The children smiled without speaking, according to a law which they never broke, and of which their mother was not aware.

  ‘Why do you play just here, the one unpleasant place? Did not one out of half a dozen of you think of that?’

  ‘Everyone thought of it,’ said Megan, ‘but Toby wanted to watch the hens.’

  ‘Did he leave directions that you were all to abide by his choice?’

  Megan laughed, and her mother kissed her and turned to the boys.

  ‘How are all my sons this morning? No one in trouble, I hope?’ she said, her eyes going to Henry and Guy, who were disposed to this state.

  ‘Some minds tend to it,’ said Henry, raising his eyes to her face.

  ‘Guy is pale this morning, Miss Ridley. He does not seem as strong as the others.’

  ‘He is not, Mrs Clare. Indeed he is one by himself in many ways.’

  ‘And Fabian’s clothes look different. The brothers should be alike.’

  ‘He is reaching the stage of choice. And likeness to younger brothers is not always part of it.’

  ‘Well, if he knows his own mind, he has a right to follow it.’

  ‘You are an indulgent mother, Mrs Clare.’

  ‘I never see why children should not please themselves, as long as they do nothing wrong.’

  ‘Would it be wrong not to learn anything?’ said Henry.

  ‘It would be wrong of me to let you be unprepared for life.’

  ‘Toby is unprepared, and people seem to like him.’

  ‘Dear little boy! I should hope he is at three years old.’

  ‘I ought not to be so very prepared at eight.’

  ‘Well, I do not suppose you are, my little son.’

  ‘I am more prepared than you know. I am ready for things to happen. Is Megan more prepared than I am?’

  ‘I should not wonder. Little girls sometimes are.’

  ‘They are all of the independent type,’ said Miss Ridley. ‘Guy is again the exception.’

  ‘Fabian and Megan remind me of each other. They are a true brother and sister.’

  ‘They are really only half one,’ said Henry.

  ‘You surely do not feel that?’

  ‘No, I just know it,’ said Henry, as he followed the others.

  Flavia Clare looked after the group of children. She was a tall, thin woman of forty, with a wide, full head, a firm, curved mouth, honest hazel eyes that seemed to know their own honesty, and hair and clothes as unadorned and unadorning as custom permitted. An air about her of being a personality suggested that she was aware of this, and was careful to give it no thought.

  ‘It is hard to be impartial to them all, Miss Ridley. I wonder how far I succeed.’

  ‘I should say to an unusual degree, Mrs Clare. I always feel inclined to congratulate you.’

  ‘And I gave you the opportunity. What do you think, Miss Bennet? I am giving it to you as well.’

  ‘Yes. Oh yes,’ said Bennet, recalling her eyes and her thoughts. ‘People say they might all be your own children.’

  ‘And you would not say it? I have tried to make them so.’

  ‘You could not do any more,’ said Bennet, in a tone of honest sympathy.

  ‘And there is so much more to be done. I did not know how much it would be, how easy it would be to fail. But I suppose some failure must be accounted human success. We must be content with our human place.’

  A bell rang in the house, and Miss Ridley turned and went towards it with a running gait, that seemed to incommode her without adding to her speed. Bennet followed without sign of haste, and they reached the house together. The children went severally to the nursery and the schoolroom, in accordance with the convention that allotted the most stairs to the shortest legs, or to those that had to be spared them.

  Bennet sat at the head of her table, with Henry and Megan at the sides. Eliza’s place was at the bottom, with Toby’s high chair at her hand, so that she could divide her attention between her own meals and his. As she carried him from his bed to the chair, he exhibited signs of revulsion and turned his face over her shoulder.

  ‘Oh, your own nice chair!’

  ‘No,’ said Toby.

  ‘We don’t want anyone else to sit in it.’

  Toby cast eyes of suspicion on Henry and Megan, and Eliza took advantage of the moment to insert him into the chair. He bowed to fate to the extent of merely uttering fretting sounds.

  ‘Now look at the nice dinner,’ said Eliza.

  Toby gave it a glance of careless appraisement and settled to a game with his bib and mug, that involved a crooning song. When a spoon approached his lips he shut them tight.

  ‘Now what about feeding yourself?’ said Eliza, in a zestful manner.

  Toby took the spoon, misled by the tone, but was repelled by the routine and cast the spoon on the ground. Eliza took another without a change of expression and proceeded to feed him, and he presently leaned over the chair.

  ‘Poor spoon!’ he said.

  ‘Yes, poor spoon! You have thrown it on the floor. It is all by itself down there.’

  ‘Oh, yes. All by itself. Toby not throw it. Eliza did.’

  ‘No, no, you know quite well you threw it yourself. Now eat your dinner or you won’t be a good boy,’ said Eliza, accepting Toby’s moral range.

  A look of consternation came into the latter’s eyes, and he ate industriously.

  ‘Very good boy,’ he said, appealing to Bennet.

  ‘Yes, if you eat your dinner.’

  Toby returned to his plate, but misliking the scraps left upon it, took it in both hands and threw it after the spoon. It broke and he fell into mirth.

  ‘Dear, dear, what a naughty thing to do!’ said Eliza.

  Toby was lost in his emotion.

  Henry and Megan picked up the pieces and broke them, to divert him further. The method succeeded too well, and he showed signs of hysteria and exhaustion.

  ‘No, no, go back to your seats,’ said Bennet. ‘He will be upset.’

  Henry threw down the last fragment, and Toby’s mirth brought a look of perplexity to his own face as to its pleasurable nature.

  ‘Now look at the plate all in pieces,’ said Eliza. ‘It was unkind of Toby.’

  ‘It likes it,’ said the latter after a moment’s inspection. ‘Only one plate. Now three, five, sixteen.’

  ‘No, it does not like it. How would Toby like to be broken?’

  ‘Toby little boy.’

  ‘Will he eat that pudding?’ said Bennet. ‘It will be safer not to try.’

  ‘After all that,’ said Eliza.

  Toby looked up in a frowning manner, and after a minute of watching the pudding disappear, made signs of peremptory demand. He was given a portion and ate it without help, scraping his plate and setting down his spoon with precision. Then he gave a reminiscent giggle.

  ‘Another plate.’

  ‘You have one in front of you,’ said Henry.

  ‘Oh, no,’ said Toby.

  ‘You are a good boy not to throw it,’ said Eliza.

  ‘Not throw it. Oh, no. Poor plate.’

  ‘You are too big to be so naughty,’ said Bennet to Henry. ‘Toby sets you an example.’

  ‘You always tell us to amuse him,’ said Megan, ‘and nothing has ever amused him so much.’

  ‘Amuse him,’ said Toby. ‘Toby laugh, didn’t he?’

  ‘Why did he think it was so funny?’ said Megan.

  Toby looked up as if interested in the response.

  ‘He has a sense of humour like a savage,’ said Henry.

  ‘No,’ said his brother.

  ‘Savages laugh when the
others’ heads are blown off, even when their own are just going to be. Their minds are like Toby’s.’

  ‘Or like yours, when you told him about the plate,’ said Eliza, with simply disparaging intent.

  ‘Henry,’ said Toby, in agreement with this criticism. ‘Dear Toby!’

  ‘Now, you must be ready to go downstairs,’ said Bennet, rising and laying hands on Megan.

  ‘Can’t we send down word that I am not very well?’

  Bennet continued her ministrations without reply.

  ‘Dear Toby!’ said the latter, leaning towards Bennet in insistence on this point of view.

  ‘Yes, yes, dear Toby!’

  Toby relapsed into his own pursuits, and wrapping his bib round his mug, rocked it to and fro.

  ‘The mug would break, if you threw it down,’ said Henry. Toby raised a warning finger and hushed the mug in his arms.

  Chapter 2

  ‘Another meal!’ said Cassius Clare, coming to the luncheon table. ‘The same faces, the same voices, the same things said. I daresay the same food.’

  ‘You should provide another voice and face,’ said his father. ‘You set the example of always bringing your own.’

  ‘I wonder if we could dispense with meals,’ said Cassius, using a sincere tone.

  ‘And what is your conclusion?’

  ‘We might perhaps dispense with luncheon. The children have it upstairs, and older people do not need so much to eat.’

  ‘Any arrangement you wish could be made in your case.’

  ‘Perhaps you are too old to go so long without food.’

  ‘I could have a tray in my room. That would be in accordance with my age.’

  ‘And then there would only be your own face,’ said Flavia, ‘and I suppose no voice.’

  ‘And Flavia might say she wanted something to eat in the middle of the day,’ said Cassius.

  ‘It is true that I might,’ said his wife.

  ‘So it only leaves me to dispense with the meal. And that would not make much difference.’

  ‘It would to yourself,’ said old Mr Clare. ‘Have you thought of the difference it would make?’

  ‘It may not be worth while to make the change for one person.’

  ‘It is for you to decide,’ said Flavia. ‘It involves no one else.’

  ‘So you have upset your scheme, my boy,’ said Mr Clare. Cassius began to carve the meat, breathing rather deeply.