Parents and Children

by Ivy Compton-Burnett

  ‘I could not make a second book, could I?’

  Honor broke into laughter.

  ‘You will soon cease to expect duplicates in this house,’ she said.

  Miss Pilbeam looked at her in silence.

  ‘Then we can answer out of the book,’ pursued Gavin.

  ‘We will see what your mother says.’

  ‘We do sums now,’ said Honor, recognizing the end of the matter.

  ‘Give me the arithmetic book.’

  Gavin handed it with a look at his sister, and a snake wriggled out over Miss Pilbeam’s hands.

  ‘What a babyish toy to play with!’ she exclaimed, as she realized its nature, and her pupils’ faces showed the fulfilment of their hopes.

  ‘It is Nevill’s,’ said Gavin, in explanation. ‘I just put it inside the book. I thought that, as your father was a surgeon of animals, you might like it.’

  Miss Pilbeam laughed before she knew, and general mirth ensued.

  ‘It is a realistic object,’ said Honor.

  ‘Yes, it is very simple,’ said Miss Pilbeam. ‘Now take down this sum.’

  ‘We always have our sums put down for us.’

  ‘And I don’t do the same as Honor,’ said Gavin. ‘She has harder ones. Farther on in the book.’

  ‘Well, show me the ones you do have.’

  Honor did so, and Miss Pilbeam dictated the examples, and worked Honor’s herself, to be ready with her aid. Honor soon gave the correct answer.

  ‘Let me see your book.’

  Honor tossed it forward.

  ‘Yes, that is good. You have been very quick. How about you, Gavin?’

  ‘I only do one sum. Honor does three.’

  ‘And there are only eleven months between you. You must catch up, Gavin. Do you ever help him, Honor?’

  ‘No, I don’t teach people,’ said Honor, implying a difference between her experience and Miss Pilbeam’s.

  ‘She is a year older than me,’ said Gavin. ‘Her birthday is on the second of July, and mine is on the last day in June. It is a year all but two days.’

  ‘I think you must be better at mathematics than you seem,’ said Miss Pilbeam, smiling.

  ‘We are the same age for two days,’ said Honor, hardly doing herself the same justice. ‘This sum is wrong, but I see where. I always find my own mistakes.’

  ‘You are good at arithmetic,’ said Miss Pilbeam.

  ‘Better than you are, isn’t she?’ said Gavin.

  ‘I think she is for her age.’

  ‘She is apart from that. You have not done the first sum yet.’

  ‘I have not been trying. I saw she did not need my help.’

  ‘You seemed to be trying.’

  ‘Appearances are deceitful,’ said Miss Pilbeam, with a pleasant note that was only fair on appearances, as she had this point in common with them. ‘I shall expect Honor to get on very fast. I can always prepare the lesson, if necessary.’

  ‘You will have to do that at home, and your father will know that you can’t do Honor’s sums.’

  ‘Well, that will not matter,’ said Miss Pilbeam, laughing amusedly. ‘I think this is your luncheon.’

  ‘It is your luncheon too.’

  ‘Yes, I think we are to have it together.’

  ‘Does she have to pay for it?’ said Gavin, aside to his sister.

  ‘Master Gavin, that is very rude,’ said Mullet. ‘Miss Honor must be quite ashamed.’

  ‘I am not,’ said Honor.

  ‘Can I get you anything else, miss?’

  ‘She would not dare to say “Yes”,’ said Gavin.

  ‘Now I shall tell Hatton,’ said Mullet.

  ‘I can talk to Honor, if I like.’

  ‘Hatton would wish to know.’

  ‘Then she will be pleased about it.’

  ‘I think he is not himself,’ said Miss Pilbeam. ‘He may be shy. Perhaps we might pass it over this time.’

  ‘Now isn’t that kind of Miss Pilbeam?’

  ‘She is trying to curry favour.’

  ‘You can leave him to me, Mullet. We will see what your mother says presently, Gavin.’

  Mullet took her tray, and Gavin swung on his chair to show his indifference, a state which certainly could not be deduced from his expression.

  ‘Mother does not like to be worried about little things.’ said Honor.

  ‘Rudeness is not a little thing.’

  ‘Pretence rudeness is,’ said Gavin.

  ‘Why do you pretend anything so babyish and silly?’

  ‘Honor and I always pretend.’

  ‘Well, if you pretend rudeness again, I shall ask your mother what to do about it.’

  Gavin ceased to swing, the purpose of the process being over.

  ‘She can’t stand on her own legs,’ murmured Honor.

  Miss Pilbeam fixed her eyes on Honor’s face, kept them there for some moments, and withdrew them with an air of ruminative purpose.

  ‘We have Latin now,’ said Honor, in a pleasant tone. ‘We are doing a book called Caesar. We have only read one page.’

  ‘Well, in that case we will not go on with it today. I will take the book home and read it to myself, so that I can tell you the story. That will make it easier.’

  ‘Graham has a translation of it,’ said Gavin. ‘But Miss Mitford reads Latin books without.’

  ‘Oh, we won’t talk about translations,’ said Miss Pilbeam, justified in her protest, as she was going to make no mention of one she had seen at home.

  ‘Why can’t we just read the translation?’ said Honor. ‘We should know what was in the book.’

  ‘Because that is not the way to learn Latin,’ said Miss Pilbeam, who meant to use it only as a way of managing without having done so. ‘We will do some Latin grammar this morning.’

  ‘We don’t much like doing that.’

  ‘But think how useful it will be in reading the books,’ said Miss Pilbeam, with earnestness and faith.

  ‘Latin is a dead language,’ said Gavin.

  ‘Yes, it is not actually spoken now,’ said Miss Pilbeam, confirming and amplifying his knowledge. ‘But it is nice to be able to read it. It is the key to so much.’

  ‘The key?’

  ‘Yes, it opens the gates of knowledge,’ said Miss Pilbeam, laying her hands on the table and looking into Gavin’s face.

  ‘Miss Pilbeam is speaking metaphorically,’ said Honor.

  ‘Yes, I was; I am glad you understood.’

  ‘I didn’t,’ said Gavin.

  ‘We must make allowances for those twelve months,’ said Miss Pilbeam, smiling. ‘Here is your little brother.’

  Nevill left Hatton in the doorway, ran twice round Miss Pilbeam, paused at her knee and raised his eyes to her face.

  ‘He is the youngest, miss. These are his first lessons.’

  ‘Hatton teach him,’ said Nevill, on a sudden note of apprehension.

  ‘No, Miss Pilbeam can teach better than I can.’

  ‘Not as well as Hatton,’ said Nevill, his tone changing to one of resignation and goodwill; ‘but very nice.’

  ‘I will leave him, miss. If he is not good, send one of the others to fetch me.’

  ‘We can ring for Mullet,’ said Honor.

  ‘No, Mullet has other things to do.’

  ‘We might refuse to go,’ said Gavin.

  Hatton left the room in a smooth manner, suggestive merely of concern that Nevill should not notice her going.

  Miss Pilbeam bent towards the latter.

  ‘Can you say A, b, c?’

  ‘A, b, c,’ said Nevill, looking up.

  ‘He doesn’t know anything,’ said Honor.

  ‘He does,’ said Nevill, not taking his eyes from Miss Pilbeam’s face.

  ‘Well, I will teach you four letters, and show you how to make them,’ said Miss Pilbeam, lifting him to her knee.

  ‘A chair like Gavin.’

  ‘No, a chair would not be high enough.’

  ‘Shall he pain
t?’ said Nevill, who sat on Mullet’s knee for this purpose.

  ‘Well, you may colour the letters.’

  ‘A paint box,’ said Nevill, to Honor.

  ‘No, I can’t go and get one. Here are some crayons.’

  ‘That is better,’ said Miss Pilbeam. ‘There will be no mess. And you can make the letters coloured from the first.’

  ‘He will make them all coloured,’ said Nevill, looking round.

  ‘Let me hold your hand and make an a.’

  ‘A red a,’ said Nevill, putting his eyes, his mind and a good deal of his strength on the crayon.

  ‘A red a, a blue b, and a green c,’ said Miss Pilbeam, guiding his hand.

  ‘A is red, b is blue, and c is green,’ said Nevill, in a tone of grasp and progress.

  ‘It does not matter which colour each letter is.’

  ‘It does,’ said Nevill, suspecting an intention to smooth his path.

  ‘You can make each letter in any colour. You can have a green a, and a red b, and a blue c’

  ‘But always coloured,’ said Nevill.

  ‘No. Letters can be black.’

  ‘No, not black.’

  ‘Yes, that is what they generally are.’

  ‘Black,’ said Nevill, looking for a crayon of this kind.

  ‘You will never teach him anything,’ said Gavin.

  ‘It would have been better not to have colours,’ said Honor.

  ‘I shall teach him easily. He is very quick. You try to get on with your declensions,’ said Miss Pilbeam, implying that her confidence did not extend indefinitely.

  ‘Quick,’ said Nevill, pushing his crayon rapidly about.

  ‘No, that is not the way. You must make the letters as I showed you. Now we will make d.’

  ‘D is – pink,’ said Nevill, after a moment’s thought.

  ‘Yes, d can be pink.’

  ‘A is red, b is blue, c is green, and d is pink,’ said Nevill, in a tone of concluding the subject, preparing to get down from Miss Pilbeam’s knee.

  ‘No, I want you to make them all again.’

  ‘He will make them all again,’ said Nevill.

  The lesson proceeded until Eleanor entered with some friends. She was accustomed to conduct her guests round the departments of her house, as she felt that in these lay the significance and the credit of her life. Nevill left Miss Pilbeam’s knee and ran to meet her.

  ‘A, b, c, d,’ he said, looking up towards her, as if he were not quite sure of the position of her face.

  ‘That is a clever boy. I am very pleased. So he has made a beginning, Miss Pilbeam.’

  ‘A, b, c, d,’ said Nevill, in a sharper tone, indicating the superfluity of the question.

  ‘You know it all, don’t you?’

  ‘He knows it all,’ said her son, with a faint sigh.

  ‘There are a lot more letters,’ said Miss Pilbeam, addressing her words to Nevill, and her tone to everybody else.

  ‘There are four,’ said her pupil.

  ‘No, there are a great many. You have learnt the four first ones.’

  Nevill looked up with comprehension dawning in his eyes.

  ‘What are you doing?’ said Eleanor, to the other two.

  ‘Latin declensions,’ said Honor, not taking her eyes from her book.

  ‘Aren’t they almost too wonderful?’ said a woman guest. ‘I thought it was only backward children who ever fulfilled any promise. But these have fulfilled the promise already, so it is all right. I always find it a test to be with a woman with nine children. I find I am inclined to feel that she has more than I have. Of course one ought not to feel it, but I almost think she might agree. It somehow seems nice of Miss Mitford to have that small one on her knee, so unembittered.’

  ‘This is Miss Pilbeam,’ said Eleanor.

  ‘Of course, I felt I knew her face. I knew it was a different face from Miss Mitford’s. It is much younger, isn’t it? And Miss Mitford’s face is quite young enough.’

  ‘I think we sometimes pass in the village,’ said Miss Pilbeam.

  ‘Yes, that would be it,’ said Mrs Cranmer, shaking hands. ‘When we learn faces, it is in the village. There don’t seem to be so many outside. You knew my face was not Miss Mitford’s. Of course all our thoughts might be hers. And I hope they are. Miss Mitford would have such deep thoughts.’

  Hope Cranmer was a small, vital-looking woman of sixty, with strong, grey, springy hair, a straight, handsome nose, clear, brown eyes, an openly curious and critical expression, and a voice so strong and sudden and deep that it took people by surprise. Her stepdaughter stood behind her, a tall, slightly awkward woman of thirty-six, with pale, hazel eyes, a long, stiff nose and chin, an oddly youthful expression, and an obstinate, innocent, complacent mouth, which did not open as much as other people’s, when in use. The husband and father was a short, solid man of sixty-eight, with a heavy, hooked nose, bright, dark eyes with a look of benevolence and scepticism, and an air of humorous content with part of life, and gentle regret for the rest of it.

  ‘Paul is always with me now,’ said Hope. ‘He has saved some money and inherited some more, and he is going to devote himself to leisure, because he likes it so much. He has even given up the work he loved, because of it. And he has not aged or soured or gone to pieces or anything.’

  ‘I think he deserves a rest now, Mother,’ said Faith.

  ‘But then he would be one of the people who are lost without their work. Or who would those people be?’

  ‘I enjoy leisure the more for not deserving it too well,’ said Paul. ‘People who have hardly earned it, are past its use.’

  ‘And I can’t help thinking we ascribe too much to leisure,’ said his wife, ‘that even if people do spend their lives in useful effort, they may age a little sometimes. It seems hard, when they have done all they can to prevent it. Up with the lark, a hard day’s work, and going to bed healthily tired; what more can people do?’

  ‘We confess to a suspicion of your good faith, Mrs Cranmer,’ said her stepson, who completed the family.

  ‘We should follow the golden mean,’ said Faith.

  ‘I dislike the mean,’ said Paul, ‘and anything else that prevents our going the full length with things.’

  ‘You will follow that principle in your pursuit of leisure, Father,’ said Ridley.

  Ridley Cranmer was a tall, large, almost commanding-looking man of forty-three, with a broad, full face and head, large, expressionless eyes, whose colour could not be determined, and cannot be recorded, a rather full and fleshy, but not ill-modelled nose and chin, and a suave, appreciative, and where possible chivalrous manner. He was a lawyer in London, as his father had been before him, and spent his spare time at home; where the spectacle of Paul’s freedom chafed him with its reminder that his inheritance might have been increased, an attitude which his father found unfilial, which he did not mind, and unreasonable, which he did.

  Ridley and Faith were on terms of inevitable intimacy. Ridley understood his sister, and neither liked nor disliked the character he accepted; and Faith, who was used to vague conceptions, had a feeling that it was as well not to understand her brother. Hope said it was absurd that she and her stepdaughter should be called Hope and Faith, and that she admired Paul for not betraying embarrassment, and sympathized with Ridley when he did. Ridley treated his stepmother with formally affectionate concern, and Faith tried to be a daughter to her; and these efforts increased her tendency to admit acid undertones into her apparently inconsequent and genial speech.

  Faith’s name had been chosen by her own mother, in spite of, or perhaps because of, her father’s lack of the attribute. It was said to suit her, and she had been heard quietly to observe that she hoped it did. Paul viewed his daughter’s religion with a smooth consideration, and Hope with an indifference changed to impatience by Faith’s conscientious concern for herself. Whether or not Ridley had a religion was not known, as he evinced one or not according to his company, a course which he pursue
d with many things.

  ‘Fancy having to sit on someone’s knee to learn!’ said Hope.

  ‘You mean, Mrs Cranmer, fancy learning when you have to sit on someone’s knee!’ said Ridley.

  ‘I am sure the lessons are very interesting,’ said Faith.

  ‘They are bad things for the young,’ said Paul. ‘We don’t choose the right time for them.’

  ‘They will come to appreciate them later, Father.’

  ‘You both seem to think the same,’ said Hope. ‘And that happens so seldom that I am sure you must be right. But we are supposed to see them appreciating them now.’

  ‘You must be very gratified, Mrs Sullivan,’ said Ridley, in an almost emotional tone.

  ‘Haven’t we any more rooms to see?’ said Hope. ‘I look forward to going from floor to floor, and seeing people younger and younger on each. Isn’t there anyone smaller than that little one? I am sure there used to be. I do hope this house is not going to be that depressing thing, a home without a baby.’

  ‘The person smaller than Nevill was probably Nevill himself,’ said Ridley.

  ‘Yes, he is the last,’ said Eleanor. ‘This is the first day he has had lessons.’

  Ridley shook his head with no change in his eyes, and his sister gave him a glance with one in hers.

  ‘Do you remember me, Honor?’ she said.

  ‘Yes, you are Miss Cranmer.’

  ‘Yes, my name is Faith Cranmer.’

  ‘Isn’t she Miss?’ said Gavin to his sister, with a gesture towards Faith.

  ‘Yes, that is what you would call me,’ said the latter.

  ’She is only Miss, isn’t she?’ said Gavin to Honor, in a more insistent tone.

  Faith gave a smile to Eleanor, with reference to this childish view.

  ‘No one thinks it better to be Mrs, dear,’ said Hope.

  ‘I think I do,’ said Honor.

  ‘Why do you think so?’ said Eleanor, with a smile.

  ‘Well, it is better to have a house and a husband and children, than not to have anything.’

  The laughter that greeted the answer mystified Honor.

  ‘Why isn’t it better?’ she said.

  ‘It is in some senses, of course,’ said Faith.

  ‘I think it is difficult for Honor,’ said Hope. ‘I am almost finding it so myself.’

  ‘Do you think you are an advantage?’ said Eleanor, to the child.