The Mighty and Their Fall

by Ivy Compton-Burnett

  “She might not have liked his having Lavinia,” said Hengist.

  “Hengist and Leah, the reasons are not for you to seek.”

  “We can’t help our thoughts. And it seems it is because of us. She must have liked Father for himself.”

  “She!” just uttered Miss Starkie, not raising her eyes.

  “Children, do you understand plain words?”

  “Well, we know what they mean,” said Hengist. “But we don’t always understand. Is it a good thing that Father will always be a widower? It doesn’t sound as if it was.”

  Selina looked at Miss Starkie and heaved a sigh.

  “You must have understood that you were not to ask questions,” said the latter.

  “Or have they no understanding?” breathed the grandmother.

  “We shall have to know more,” said Leah. “Perhaps Father will tell us.”

  “Leah, you will not ask him. He is not to be harassed by your questions. You will be silent as the grave.”

  “We shall not ask him anything. I only said he might tell us.”

  “Leah, he will tell you nothing. The subject will not be broached.”

  “It sounds as if there was something wrong about it,” said Hengist.

  “What does broach mean?” said Leah.

  “Leah, it means what you are to know it means. That the silence will not be mooted, that there will be silence upon it.”

  “Why do you keep saying our names?” said Hengist. “We know whom you are speaking to.”

  “Is moot a real word?” said Leah.

  “Come, I think you understand your grandmother,” said Miss Starkie.

  “If they do not, Miss Starkie, will you force my meaning into their heads by any method known? Can I rely on its being battered into them?”

  “I think you may depend on me, Mrs. Middleton.”

  “And I will help, Grandma,” said Agnes. “They listen to what I say.”

  Selina went to the door, signed sternly to Hengist to open it, and passed from sight.

  “Well, I was not proud of you,” said Miss Starkie.

  “Were you proud of Grandma?” said Hengist. “We were better than she was. And we oughtn’t to be better than an old person.”

  “It is not for you to criticise your elders.”

  “We have to criticise Grandma,” said Leah. “You would yourself, if you were not in her power.”

  “My dealings are with your father. And it is her opinion of you that matters. I don’t know what she can have thought of you.”

  “Why don’t you know? It was not a secret. It was mooted.”

  “And if you are not careful, Leah, it will not be a secret from your father,” said Selina’s voice. “He will know the whole, and will never think the same of you.”

  “I don’t know what he thinks of me now,” said Leah to her brother. “So it wouldn’t make much difference.”

  Selina went down to her family, took a seat by the fire, and turned a benevolent eye on them.

  “Have you done me the service I asked of you?” said Ninian.

  “Yes, it is behind. It was a trivial scene. You need not give a thought to it.”

  “Nothing is trivial to me,” said Hugo. “Let us give it a little thought.”

  “I am willing to envisage it,” said Ninian. “Were the children surprised?”

  “I don’t know what they were. It does not mean or matter much!”

  “Was Miss Starkie surprised?” said Hugo.

  “I don’t know,” said Selina, sounding surprised herself by this line of interest. “It is not her concern. And we never know what children feel, or if they feel anything.”

  “I wonder your grandchildren like you as much as they do.”

  “I have felt the same wonder,” said Ninian.

  “They may know I am sound at heart,” said Selina with her lips grave.

  “But how can they know? There would have to be some signs.”

  “Well, we know what true instincts children and animals have. You must have heard about it. It is observant to couple them together.”

  “They have in the books,” said Ninian. “But have they outside them? I should hardly have thought anything about children was sound. They seem so aloof and egoistic.”

  “More than we can be?” said Egbert.

  “You mean you found me such things? You can feel I went through a crisis. And you can hope it did not go deep.”

  “I hope indeed it did not, Father,” said Egbert, gravely.

  “We should be thinking of you, Mother,” said Ninian. “We forget you have not our strength.”

  “Yes, the time has come to remember. And it will soon be over. You should not let it pass. I may be better than is thought.”

  “So may many of us,” said Hugo. “Some of us feel we are.”

  “Do we?” said Lavinia. “I should hardly have said so. We alone know our hidden selves.”

  “They may be good as well as bad.”

  “I did not mean the good ones. I don’t think they are hidden. People are said to be ashamed of their better qualities. But they seem to face the exposure. Or how do we know they are there? And that there is anything to be ashamed of?”

  “You talk as if you were fifty,” said Ninian, and broke off at the reminders in his words.

  “I can return to my real self, Father. I am glad not to have to act another. I think I may say so once.”

  “It is well that someone is glad of what has happened.”

  “That is not what Lavinia said, Father,” said Egbert.

  “Mother, you must be tired,” said Ninian. “I have never seen you so pale.”

  “I hurried up the staircase to the schoolroom. It is a thing I must not do again. I must forget them both. And one will be glad to be forgotten.”

  “You must forget the first. You must have the room off the hall. The other you will not forget.”

  “I am eighty-seven. I married late. I am an old mother for my sons. People say I do not look my age. That shows they realise the age I am. And if I did not look it, I should have a duller face than I have. I watch it in the glass as often as I did in my youth. Where there are fewer marks of time, time must have held less. And I am willing for it to hold more. I would rather be alive then dead. When I die, people will say it is the best thing for me. It is because they know it is the worst. They want to avoid the feeling of pity. As though they were the people most concerned!”

  “Well, it is very dreadful to feel pity,” said Hugo.

  “And I don’t believe in a future life, or want to. I should not like any form of it I know. I don’t want to be a spirit or to return to the earth as someone else. I could never like anyone else enough for that.”

  “And we are irritated by other people,” said Lavinia. “Suppose we were irritated by the people we were! As we never are, it seems to disprove the theory.”

  “I don’t know I shan’t hear your talk, when I am dead. An after life might also have that drawback. There is little good in being out of things and knowing it.”

  “You would be supposed to be in so many more,” said Ninian.

  “But only in a comfortless, disembodied way,” said Lavinia. “Think how we conceive of ghosts, when we accept them. I hardly like to think of it as applying to Grandma.”

  “I think chains and headlessness are incurred by those who fall short in life,” said Selina, not shrinking from this length herself. “Or were the victims of those who did.”

  “It is odd that believers visualise spirits in that way. When you think how they should imagine them.”

  “It shows it is impossible to believe,” said Egbert.

  “Or rare to have reason,” said Ninian.

  “You allow the children to believe, Grandma,” said Lavinia.

  “They need to accept an All-seeing Eye. Or rather we need them to. No ordinary eye could embrace their purposes. We may as well depute what we can.”

  “Even to an imaginary overseer,” said Nini
an. “And in fairness to Miss Starkie.”

  “Is not retribution too far away to count?” said Hugo.

  “No doubt,” said Selina. “But the idea of being watched is discouraging. I found it so.”

  “You are thinking of the two little ones,” said Ninian.

  “It may also be true of Agnes, but I think less.”

  “I should not have thought she would be your favourite. Though I have seen she is. The others are more your type.”

  “That may be the reason. I like ordinary children. And of course I can’t think I was that. And looking back, I don’t much like myself.”

  “People generally pity themselves, when they look back.”

  “And I daresay you are among them. But I don’t want to hear about it. It is too late to remedy the matter. And I am not as concerned for your early days as for my last ones. Childhood is not the only time that calls for pity.”

  “You are a heroic figure, Mother, and naturally proud of it.”

  “Things we are proud of are seldom an advantage to us,” said Lavinia. “Unless we ought not to be proud of them. And then they may be a great one.”

  “Agnes and Hengist and Leah!” said Selina, deepening her voice. “What are you doing in the hall? Is it your schoolroom?”

  “It is for the moment, Mrs. Middleton,” said Miss Starkie from the doorway. “I was calling their attention to the panelling. It is of an unusual design.”

  “Why do you not open the door and come in?” said Selina, her voice hardly veiling suggestion of social shortcoming.

  Miss Starkie remained where she was, and looked behind her, as though her concern was here.

  “Come in and speak to your grandmother,” she said, admitting a faint sigh into her tone.

  “Do you want us, Grandma?” said Agnes.

  “Should I call you, if I did not? I asked what you were doing in the hall.”

  “You know, now she has told you,” said Hengist.

  Miss Starkie smiled at Ninian, but at no one else.

  “Your patience should abash them, Miss Starkie. It would serve them right, if it failed.”

  “Ah, but how much would fail with it, Mr. Middleton! How much effort would be wasted! I shall win in the end. Never fear.”

  “I admit to some doubt,” said Hugo.

  “Ah, I do not, Mr. Hugo. Wild horses would not drag the admission from me.”

  “Wild horses never have much success,” said Lavinia. “Their history is a record of failure. And we do suggest a good deal for them.”

  CHAPTER V

  “Can you hear me, Mother?” said Ninian.

  “Yes, of course. I am not dead.”

  “We hope you are not going to die.”

  “That might go without saying.”

  “You know it does,” said Hugo.

  “It did not,” said Selina, wearily.

  “Do you want to say anything, Mother?”

  “No, I don’t want a deathbed scene. When it is acted, it means nothing. And why should I consider my last moments? The others have done more for me.”

  “And it is so terrible of them to be the last,” murmured Hugo.

  “All of them count to us,” said Ninian. “We need not tell you how much.”

  “We need not call up memories. I cannot carry them with me.”

  “You will leave them with us,” said Hugo.

  “Well, I have been as good to you as you have to me. And better to the son who has left me.”

  “We have nothing to regret,” said Ninian.

  “He will find enough when I cannot know about it. And it will do nothing for either of us.”

  “The word need not exist between you and me.”

  “If I die, you will find some reason for it. But it will pass.”

  “You don’t sound as if you are going to die,” said Hugo.

  “No,” said Selina, almost smiling. “And I can see the nurse agrees. She feels I am not fit for a higher life; and I would choose the lower one. And she thinks I should be afraid to die.”

  “And you are afraid of nothing,” said her son.

  “I don’t feel I am going to meet my Maker. And if I were, I should not fear him. He has not earned the feeling. I almost think he ought to fear me.”

  “I think he must,” murmured Hugo. “She seems so much her usual self.”

  “It may be coming back,” said Selina. “The doctor is not sure.”

  “He has not said anything to you?”

  “How can he, when there is nothing to say? And when he sees I know it.”

  “Would you like to see the children?” said Ninian. “I mean it might make a change for you.”

  “I know what you might have meant. You should take more care. I know all I want to about them. It might hardly be a suitable moment to know the whole.”

  “They need not know—we need not tell them you are ill.”

  “They would not mind. It could only mean I might die.”

  “You know how they would feel about that.”

  “I believe I do. And I can’t explain it,” said Selina, almost petulantly.

  “They feel your bark is worse than your bite.”

  “That is an empty saying. Only bark has a place in life. There is no opportunity to bite. I have wished there was.”

  “They know you would not have used it.”

  “I am going to sleep,” said Selina, and closed her eyes.

  “We have not been a success,” said Hugo. “Even you did not aim high.”

  “It would have been to court failure. I chose to avoid it.”

  “We have met it on a meaner scale. And she saw the meanness.”

  “Yes, I saw it,” said Selina, dreamily.

  As the pair went out of the room, they were noiselessly approached by Ainger.

  “How is the mistress today, sir?”

  “Very ill, as you know,” said Ninian. “Her heart is weak.”

  “I can’t help feeling she is more herself,” said Hugo.

  “Well, neither can I, sir. I have the intimation.”

  “I think you might have it, if you heard her talk.”

  “Yes, sir, that might support it,” said Ainger, who had found it did.

  “You will see the hall is kept quiet?” said Ninian.

  “Yes, sir. That accounts for my presence. Otherwise there are calls on my time.”

  “When the post comes, do not take any letters to the mistress. One of us will take them later.”

  “Yes, sir. Miss Lavinia sorts the second post. It can be left to her,” said Ainger, as the two men moved away.

  “Well, has anything transpired, Ainger?” said another voice.

  “Well, I have my impression, Cook. And Mr. Hugo shared it.”

  “And what did you share? Words are at your disposal.”

  “Well, I was on guard here to prevent disturbance. And I could not help hearing what passed.”

  “I believe you cannot help it, Ainger,” said Cook gravely. “And it is time you conquered yourself. You will be hearing something to cause discomfiture.”

  “For myself or somebody else?”

  “Well, who was in the uncertain place? And is it a case for insinuation?”

  “You are right, Cook. It is not the occasion. And I was not about to go further. But I chanced to hear the mistress, that is, to catch her words.”

  “I throw no doubt on it. I fear it is the truth. And they acted as a check on you?”

  “Well, perhaps that was hardly the case,” said Ainger, controlling a smile.

  “Well, explain yourself. There is no call to be oracular.”

  “To tell you the truth, Cook,” said Ainger, lowering his voice and leaning towards her, “if I were on the brink, as the mistress may be, I should not feel such words of a kind to pass my lips.”

  “Why, they were not of a dubious nature?”

  “Cook, if they were, should I pass them on? Should I betray a lady on the verge, and of an age and standing?”
/>   “I hope not, Ainger. I go no further. And what are you doing?”

  “Well, I have done it now,” said Ainger, changing his tone. “And it was not so much. Just her tendency, if you understand.”

  “I do, Ainger. And the Almighty might do so too, having fashioned her as she is.”

  “Well, in his place I should feel I might have done better. What is the good of being almighty?”

  “It is not a place you would be in. And you may continue in another vein.”

  “Well, there is more to come, if I am to tell the whole. But perhaps my lips should be sealed.”

  “If it may fester, Ainger, if it may act in that way, you should cast it off. There are things that are better shared.”

  “You said the Almighty would understand the mistress, as he had fashioned her. I wonder what he would say to his existence being questioned. Who would have fashioned her then?”

  “Surely it was not what passed?”

  “Cook, it was implied. The after life was doubted. And in a light spirit.”

  “Well, she goes to what is before her. We do not penetrate further. It might be too much.”

  “It might indeed in a sense.”

  “Ainger, we will say no more. It is not our part to frame thoughts.”

  “I don’t think the old lady will leave us myself. And we may feel it to be as well.”

  “Myself I say one thing. I have had kindness from the mistress. Those remain my words.”

  “You might say other things, if you heard what I do.”

  “Ainger, you lower yourself. Listening is your snare. You carry it beyond a point. And here are the postman and Miss Lavinia; they warn us that we are wasting time.”

  “One letter for the mistress, two for the master, one each for you and Mr. Egbert, miss,” said Ainger. “One for Cook, if I may take it. And none for your humble servant; I mean none for me, miss. Well, it saves the need of reply.”

  “Don’t you like writing letters?” said Lavinia.

  “Well, when I attain the mood, miss. Then the words out-distance my pen,” said Ainger, as he strode away.

  “Any letters for me?” said Egbert, entering the hall.

  “One each for you and me and Father,” said Lavinia, putting the last on the table. “Here are yours and mine. I will take Grandma’s to her room.”

  “Will she be able to read it?”