The Mighty and Their Fall

by Ivy Compton-Burnett

  “Well, it may be the last. And then what a home it will be! Grandma gone, Father gone in spirit, no change in anything else! We shall spend our lives waiting for a difference that does not come.”

  Lavinia went in to Selina’s room, and as she came out met Ninian.

  “There is a letter for you in the hall, Father. I have put one by Grandma’s bed. She seemed to see and hear me. I wonder how often she will do either again.”

  “I can’t help feeling she is better. She seemed so like herself.”

  “She will be that as long as she breathes. It is not in her to be different.”

  “When we are near our end, there must seem to be less in us. It is not so with her. It may mean she has not reached it.”

  “If only it could mean it, Father!”

  Ninian put his hand on her shoulder, and they went together to the library. Her face was resolute and somehow uplifted, and his quiet and without hope. When they sat down, he put his arm about her in his old way, and she leant against him in hers. Egbert and Hugo looked at them, and at each other; and the old life seemed to return as a shadow of itself.

  It was not many days before Selina was amongst them, weak and on a sofa, but alert to all that passed.

  “How angry I feel,” said Egbert, “that we have suffered needless anxiety! And what a foolish word it is! As if anxiety did any good!”

  “It has done some in this case,” said Selina. “It has enhanced my value.”

  “It has made us realise it, Mother,” said Ninian.

  “I will make the most of it. I am in no hurry for the usual round. And there is no need for what I do. I will just see my letters and answer those that want it.”

  “There were not very many,” said Lavinia. “It is too soon for you to trouble. None of them would be urgent. There is none for you today, Uncle Hugo.”

  “How kind to make it sound an exception! I am sorry not to have one today.”

  “You had several a week or two ago,” said Egbert.

  “Whom were they from?” said Selina.

  “Oh, no one who mattered,” said Hugo.

  “Don’t baffle me, my boy. Why should I suffer curiosity? You have letters so seldom.”

  “Why should I suffer mortification? How do you know I have not a clandestine correspondence?”

  “Perhaps it is what you were having,” said Lavinia, smiling.

  “Were the letters from Teresa?” said Ninian.

  “Yes. It was almost as Lavinia says. It was a covert interchange, and brought matters to a close. I betrayed what I was, in time. And she saw what I was not. And all was as if it had not been.”

  “So it was as I knew,” said Selina. “Well, I always know.”

  “So a chapter is ended,” said Lavinia.

  “This was hardly a page,” said Hugo.

  “Unlike my part of it,” said Ninian. “I will not deny the truth.”

  “It was all the same one, Father. It is closed now.”

  “I wonder what she saw in you, Hugo,” said Selina. “I suppose mothers always wonder that.”

  “I thought they saw what no one else could see.”

  “You showed the best of yourself. And she took you at your valuation. That is what people do.”

  “Only because we hope so. They really take us at theirs. And that is what she came to do. Mine was a little different.”

  “It is a common position,” said Egbert. “We do tend to feel we might be taken at a higher one. Think how Miss Starkie must feel it.”

  “I daresay she does. Indeed I have seen signs of it,” said Selina, as if this was not in Miss Starkie’s favour.

  “She has no reason to hide them,” said Ninian.

  “She only does her duty. She is in as good a place as she deserves.”

  “As good as has come her way. She deserves a kingdom.”

  “And she has one, Mr. Middleton,” said Miss Starkie’s voice. “Her own little kingdom of youth and hope, the kingdom of her choice. And she would not change it. Her own view of it is enough for her.”

  “That is a happy thing for us. Can we help you in it?”

  “I came for some reassurance for the children about their grandmother,” said Miss Starkie, her tone light on the last word, as though not bestowing on it any deep feeling. “Agnes has been in great—has been quite anxious about her.”

  “And no one else anything at all,” said Selina. “If I had died, Leah would have said it made no difference. And Hengist would not have disputed it.”

  “Oh, I think Leah uses those words in a sense of her own.”

  “I don’t doubt she does. With the simplest meaning.”

  “She is limited to her range. She does not yet deal in the wider issues. Oh, there is a great deal of good hidden in Leah.”

  “I don’t see how we are to know about it.”

  “It will emerge in time. We need have no fear. I have none. Deep things grow slowly.”

  “I don’t know why they should. Or how we know they are deep.”

  “Oh, I believe you have a soft spot in your heart for Leah, Mrs. Middleton,” said Miss Starkie, using her own powers of divination.

  “It is to my credit, if I have. There is nothing to help me. Unless your faith is infectious.”

  “Ah, I believe it is. I believe it is gaining a hold. I see the signs.”

  “Well, tell the children their grandmother is almost herself,” said Ninian. “And thank you for coming to see.”

  “I rejoice—shall be glad to be the bearer of such tidings. And, if I may, I will say she is quite herself. I see every sign of it. Thank you, Egbert.”

  Miss Starkie smiled and passed through the door, and Selina rose.

  “She reminds us that things must go on. It is a quality in her calling. I will go and deal with my letters. I have not looked at them.”

  “No, don’t go yourself, Grandma,” said Lavinia, getting up. “I will fetch them, and you can sort them here. There are only a few.”

  “I will go,” said Egbert. “The lid of that desk is stiff. I remember how to deal with it.”

  “No, I will go,” said his sister, moving past him and checking herself. “It must be opened in a certain way. In one place the wood is broken.”

  “Let Egbert go,” said Ninian. “You don’t need to do everything, Lavinia.”

  His daughter sat down and opened a book, and her brother returned with the letters and gave them to his grandmother.

  “Not so many,” she said. “I was not ill long. Some from people who do not matter. They are the ones who write. I suppose we mean less to the others. No need to answer them yet. It keeps the ball rolling. A letter without an envelope, that must have got in by mistake. Dated ten days ago, when I was at my worst. It is for you, Ninian, and from Teresa! Now how is that explained?”

  “You must have opened it when you were ill, and hardly knew what you were doing. You thought it would trouble me, and put it out of sight. Your mind was out of control. That is what it must have been.”

  “Or anyhow might have been,” said Lavinia.

  “But was not. My mind was my own, when I used it. I should have thought you would remember. I did not open letters or put them anywhere. I should not have done either.”

  “Of course you would not, Grandma; or not consciously,” said Lavinia.

  “The letter would have been addressed to Father,” said Egbert. “And would normally have been put in the hall.”

  “Unless it was enclosed in a letter to Grandma,” said Lavinia.

  “That is an idea,” said her father. “That may be what it was. Teresa did not want a letter in her writing to be about. And there were reasons against it.”

  “But where is the letter to me? And where are the envelopes?” said Selina. “I have none of them. And I opened nothing.”

  “You may have forgotten,” said her son. “It is best not to think about it.”

  He sent his eyes down to the letter, as if he could not keep them from it.
r />   “What does it say, Father?” said Lavinia, in a tentative tone.

  Ninian did not answer, and in a moment spoke almost to himself.

  “So her word came and miscarried. It might not have come to light. How we are in the hands of chance!”

  “In the hands of something else,” said Selina. “Chance is not equal to so much. I hold to what I have said. I was conscious or not all the time. There was no middle state.”

  “That is the one that is not recognised by the person who is in it.”

  “It is recognised by other people, indeed imagined by them. But it can serve its purpose. Let it all be as you say. We will leave it there.”

  “Does the letter matter, Father?” said Lavinia, just uttering the words.

  “It tells me something I was meant to know. Its coming to me late may matter. But I can hope not.”

  “What does it say, my son?” said Selina.

  “I was waiting for that. Do you expect me to read it aloud?”

  “Not if it is only for yourself. You can give it to me later.”

  “I will keep it in my own hands,” said Ninian.

  “Does it say anything we are to know?” said Hugo.

  “Well, it throws its light. On you and herself. It may be I, who lose the chance to appear as I am.”

  “Let us hear it, if you can, Father,” said Lavinia. “It is the simplest way.”

  Her father glanced at her and opened the letter.

  “‘Dear Ninian,

  I have a word to say to you, more honest than most women would say. I have now little feeling for my own life. The one I thought I had, has gone, as such feelings have gone before. So I have little to give, and little zest for giving it. But I will give it to you, if it is better than nothing for you. If it is not, do not answer this letter, and in a week I will put you and yours in a memory to be uncovered only by myself. Yours with regret and remembrance,

  Teresa Chilton.’”

  “Well, that is her offer,” said Selina. “So you may have what is left.”

  “It has its own quality,” said Lavinia. “She has little to give, and so offers little. She does not evade the truth.”

  “She offers all she has,” said Ninian. “I offered no more.”

  “It seems a shadow of a letter, Father. It somehow has no substance.”

  “It means what it does, as you have said.”

  “Yes, we must give her her due. She is ending things as well as she can. Perhaps she could not do less. But she could not do more either.”

  “I still do not want anyone’s opinion of her.”

  “It is only mine, Father; not the same to you as any other,” said Lavinia, putting her hand on his. “And we share it, as we share everything.”

  Ninian covered the hand with his own, but answered without looking at her.

  “We will share what we can. Some things are only for ourselves.”

  “I wish everything was,” said Hugo at once. “It is the first feeling I remembered. I was glad to grow up and no longer be reproached for it.”

  “I feel the same,” said Egbert. “I love things to be all mine.”

  “I am the opposite,” said his sister. “Nothing means anything without the further meaning.”

  “What kind of things are you talking of?” said Selina.

  “Of everything,” said Lavinia, lifting her hands. “Of feelings, thoughts, hopes, mistakes, troubles and joys, everything.”

  “I did not know we were talking of so much,” said Ninian.

  “Teresa writes like a man,” said Egbert, looking at the letter.

  “I have noticed that,” said Selina. “I have thought her a little like a man in herself.”

  “I should have said she was the pure feminine,” said Lavinia. “Herself and all to do with her. I don’t remember her writing. I don’t mean anything against her.”

  “Why should you?” said Ninian. “What are you but feminine yourself?”

  “Oh, not purely, Father. Either in myself or as I have been influenced. It is quite a different thing.”

  “Well, something is different.”

  “We think of a masculine woman as tall and strong,” said Egbert. “Teresa is neither.”

  “I did not mean masculine in that sense,” said Selina.

  “You don’t know what you mean, Grandma,” said Lavinia, smiling.

  “I know what she meant,” said Ninian. “I have thought it myself.”

  “Perhaps that is why Uncle Hugo could not meet her—her hopes, her instincts—we need not know what they were. There was not the attraction of opposites.”

  “In your view there would have been.”

  “If she had succeeded—met what she wished, we would have welcomed her in the new character.”

  “That was hardly the issue of the matter for them.”

  “I wonder why we talk so much about her.”

  “It was natural, after the letter came to light.”

  “Well it alters nothing, as you would not have answered it. You could only have been silent, as she seemed to know.”

  “One difference is that I did not have the choice.”

  “Cannot we leave the matter?” said Hugo. “You must know how embarrassed I am by it.”

  “We are held by the human story,” said Egbert. “It is really better than a book.”

  “It has not been a deep one,” said Lavinia. “And it is ended now.”

  “Your opinion does not alter it, and neither does mine,” said Ninian. “But they are not the same.”

  “Marry her, if you want to, my son,” said Selina. “It is what she would choose.”

  “I do want to,” said Ninian, with a cry in his voice. “I want her presence, her companionship, the stake in the future. I will have it, if I can.”

  There was a short silence.

  “Then answer the letter, Father,” said Lavinia, in an urgent tone. “You may be in time. Do not let any passing uncertainty blight the hopes of your life. I will come and help you to put the answer into words.”

  “No, I will do it myself,” said Ninian, going to the door. “But thank you, my dear. I hoped you would not fail me. I am glad you have not.”

  “So the letter does its work!” said Egbert. “Suppose it had not been found!”

  “It is as well that it has,” said Lavinia. “We must say it now. It was written to be read, and it has met its fate. As Father’s stepping-stone to happiness it must be accepted. More, it must be welcomed! It is the only thing.”

  “So the change is to come,” said Selina. “I have only to be a witness of it. It is not the first time for me.”

  “What shall I do?” said Hugo. “Stay in the house, or go?”

  “Stay with me, my boy. I may need you. I must partly lose one son.”

  “I was thinking of Teresa.”

  “You need not be troubled there. A woman so placed would not turn to the man again.”

  “‘Hell holds no fury’—” said Lavinia.

  “There is nothing of that kind. We have heard the truth. And it is better that the change should come. It ends the threat of it. We shall soon accustom ourselves. And the habit may be as hard to break as any other.”

  “How much wisdom you have, Grandma! I hope we can depend on it.”

  “I have had time to gain it, and give it trial. You can have it too, if you accept it. There are things that do the work of time.”

  Selina held out her hand, and her grand-daughter moved towards it, drew up short and ran out of the room.

  “Poor child!” said Selina. “And poor old woman!”

  “Poor man!” said Hugo, indicating himself.

  “Poor youth!” said Egbert.

  “Poor Ninian!” said Selina. “That is where the doubt lies. For the rest of us there is none. Go to your sister, my boy. You can be of help, and should be happy to know it.”

  Egbert went up to Lavinia’s room and found her sitting by the window.

  “It is cold in here,”
he said. “The sun has gone.”

  “Gone for ever,” she said, with a smile to make light of her words. “It will not come out again.”

  “Whoever put that letter in the desk, did sorry work. What was the point of opening it, if it was to be put where it would be found?”’

  “I suppose it would have been wrong to destroy it.”

  “It was wrong to open it. When that was done, the thing might have been carried to its end.”

  “He felt it was the lesser guilt to stop half-way. He we say. We seem to think it was a man. And it seems a man’s idea.”

  “What man can it have been? Hardly Ainger; the thought is beyond him; and he was too little involved. And Uncle would have gone the whole way.”

  “We can think of motives for Uncle, I suppose.”

  “Or of motives for me. Or even more for you. But let us pursue the truth. The letter was to be found, and found too late. The full result with half the guilt. That might be a line of thought.”

  “Perhaps it was a case of curiosity. That might lead to hiding the letter. And it gives us a wider range. It was a trivial gain for the risk involved. But wrong-doers may not reason. They would hardly be a high type.”

  “We are all wrong-doers,” said Egbert. “We cannot argue from that. Did he think that Grandma would die, and that the guilt would be ascribed to her?”

  “After her death? When she could not deny it? What a pleasing thought!”

  “Too base for Uncle Hugo. We must turn elsewhere.”

  “We should stop this pursuit of everyone. We shall find ourselves hounding each other.”

  “I will tell you my final suspicion. As with Father, it rests on Grandma. The letter came into her hands by mistake, and she read it and hid it in the desk. She would have recognised the writing. You remember she spoke of it. Father thought she did it when she was not herself. Or perhaps he hoped so. I incline to think she was herself all the while. And the time came when she could ease her conscience.”

  “Guilty people have such tender ones. Well, in either case she is the person to choose. We will leave it there. And we will not trouble her about it. She is in no fit state. And it was rather heroic of her.”

  “Why could not Teresa manage better? It is her uncertainties that have brought us to the pass. I wonder if Uncle tried to save us, and is guilty after all.”