The Mighty and Their Fall

by Ivy Compton-Burnett

  “You have the power to say it, Father. I was without it.”

  “We will share it now,” said Ninian, putting his hand on her shoulder.

  “Did this have to happen, to bring Father and Lavinia together?” murmured Egbert.

  “You need not comment on what is beyond you,” said Ninian.

  Egbert paused before he answered.

  “Is it not soon to take this line with us, Father? We may fall back into our old ways, and shall probably do so. But is it the moment?”

  Ninian turned aside and seemed to be hiding a smile, as though seeing his son as a child.

  “So you are having a further jest,” said Hugo.

  “Sometimes one is presented to us,” said Ninian, with his lips still unsteady. “But do not provide me with any more. And be sure that is how you see them.”

  “There is something we can hardly see in that way,” said Egbert.

  “Yes, yes?” said Ninian, in a perfunctory tone, nodding towards him as if to pacify him. “Well, there is to be silence on these matters to the end. That is agreed upon as best for us. We have all shown our weaker side.”

  “Well, let it be silence,” said Ransom. “Except between those of us here. That is a thing that could not be.”

  “Should we speak of it to anyone else? To my mother or the children or Miss Starkie? What would you think?”

  “That we should speak of it to all of them without the agreement. And with it to most of them in the end.”

  “Oh, we are not such unscrupulous people,” said Ninian, and came to a pause.

  “Yes, would it need such unusual unscrupulousness?”

  “Shall you speak of it to Teresa, Father?” said Egbert. “It is a thing we should know.”

  “Surely you do know. I shall not, and neither will anyone who has any goodwill towards her.”

  “Goodwill can take many forms,” said Ransom.

  “Well, well, then, gossip if you must. I can keep silence.”

  “We do not suggest that you will bring up the matter.”

  “Is Lavina coming home with me?” said Ninian, with a retaliatory note.

  “No, this is her home until I die. Then she will do what pleases her.”

  “She has no young companions here.”

  “Why do you say it? Egbert is here each day. At home she has no other.”

  “I hardly think this atmosphere is a good one for her.”

  “What of the one she was in, when I first saw her? You talked of long results and altered lives. In a similar place yourself you have asked for silence.”

  “I may know more than I did. I realise I do know more. I must have the chance to show it. Lavinia will come home with me.”

  “I am staying here, Father. I also have learned more.”

  “So you want the inheritance,” said Ninian, gently, looking into her face. “You feel you must earn it?”

  “She has done so,” said Ransom. “We have seen that it is hers.”

  “And Father?” said Ninian, even more gently. “Who is that to you now?”

  “Perhaps not anyone. I cannot alter the name. My uncle is something different, something I needed and was without. Something I will hold to while I can.”

  “Well, may it be long before you lose it. From my heart I wish it. What hope could go deeper in me? So it is goodbye, my daughter. You are still that to me. Your future calls for your thought. Rely on my help, if you need it.”

  “I don’t know why Father should be actually exalted,” said Egbert. “Even granting that he cannot be judged.”

  “He knows that he is not exalted,” said Lavinia. “That is what he is dealing with. And with his normal success. If he could fail, he would have done so. To think what our memories will be! And how we shall wish they could fade!”

  “I believe I am arranging them for future use,” said Hugo.

  “You will be talking of it, if you don’t take care. Father was right to be afraid of it.”

  “Well, it does seem that he might suffer some sort of qualm. What would have happened to anyone else in such a place?”

  “You can think you would have stood the trial,” said Ransom.

  “Well, I have pictured myself quietly turning away.”

  “That is the instinct to dramatise ourselves, that is in all of us.”

  “Is it? Do you all think of yourselves as coming out well under a trial? I do think it is conceited of you.”

  “Do you feel you are different from us?”

  “Well, yes, when I come out so well.”

  “In that case he would be different,” said Lavinia.

  “Here is Father coming back!” said Egbert. “This is a trial.”

  “Well, it is not as late as I thought,” said Ninian. “So there is a word I should say. The subject of wills is never mentioned by people in our sphere of life. No word is said of them until they are revealed. It is a principle that should be observed.”

  “Like other principles to do with them,” said Ransom.

  Ninian seemed not to hear.

  “And we had better go home together, and not as if we were not on good terms. There is little point in posturing. The wrong I did—and I now see it as a wrong—was done for you all. It does not render me an outcast.”

  “And if you appear as one, our mother will question you,” said Ransom.

  “Any more than my daughter was rendered one,” continued Ninian, without looking at him. “I remain her father. You remain my son and my brothers.”

  “I feel I have stood a trial,” murmured Hugo. “I don’t know how.”

  The three men left the house, and Ransom turned to his niece.

  “I have my own word to say. Remember it, when I am dead. What I leave you will be yours in your own hands. In anyone else’s it will be his and used as his own. Do not be wise too late.”

  CHAPTER X

  “So it is over,” said Ninian. “The too brief, but we may feel brave life. We do not know its efforts and trials. My brother did not exhibit himself. We owe him our future, the firmness of our roots in the soil. We take it as a gift from him. In a sense he will not die.”

  “In a poor sense,” said Teresa, “as he will not be alive.”

  “In the sense he chose. He will share our life, as we live it. What he leaves us remains his own. We shall see it as his.”

  “We see it as Lavinia’s. As she sees it, and he saw it.”

  “Yes, she represents him. We feel it is her place. I take what he gives me, at her hands. He chose her as the intermediary, to add something to the gift. She has the generous part.”

  “She would have, if it was what you suggest. She will have the one her uncle gave her.”

  “I take it from both him and her. I see it as a twofold charge. I shall answer to them both.”

  “And to all of us, Father, if you mean what you say,” said Egbert. “But she will have what is hers.”

  “The power to pass my brother’s gift from his hand to mine. It is a cause for pride, a thing to carry with her, an addition to her life.”

  “And light enough to carry. She would hardly feel the weight.”

  “I shall not carry it,” said Lavinia, in a light tone, not looking at her father. “It is not what Uncle Ransom wished. He did not mean what Father says.”

  “We know what he meant,” said Ninian. “What did he say when he returned to us? What were his first words?”

  “Is it second thoughts that are recommended?” said Hugo.

  “I am thinking of his last ones, Father. He left all he had to me. You said it was your wish, and held to it when he questioned it. Did your words mean nothing?”

  “My brother understood me. We understood each other.”

  “What did you understand?” said Egbert. “He could have left the money to you.”

  “The money?” said Ninian, in a dreamy tone. “Yes, that was the form it took. I was to take his gift in the form he chose, in the way he chose. And I do so willingly.”

&
nbsp; “There is no reason to be unwilling, if your words are true.”

  Ninian gave a faint smile, and stood as if aloof, with his hand on his chin.

  “The money is mine, Father,” said Lavinia. “I am not afraid of the word. None of us is afraid of what it means. I shall do as my uncle said.”

  “Has my daughter changed?” said Ninian.

  “She has learned that she is not only your daughter. Perhaps it is a change.”

  “It is still my marriage?” said Ninian, stooping to look into her face.

  “That is in the past. This is the future. And it was never your marriage. It was the difference in yourself. You ask me if I have changed. There was no need to ask it of you. Uncle Ransom said we had something of each other.”

  “Uncle Ransom said? So that is his place now. So inheritance can do as much as this.”

  “We do see its forces working,” murmured his son.

  “To what did the desire for it lead you, Father? I am forced to remind you of it.”

  “Forced?” said Ninian, gently. “Nothing would force me to recall any similar thing in your life. We have nothing of each other there.”

  “Well, we will leave the matter. There is nothing more to be said.”

  “The one thing. The word of the future. It is true that it hardly needs saying. That we will work together for the common good, using what is ours to further it. If it is transferred to my name, it will ease your burden. We must not forget your youth. It should be a happy partnership.”

  “I should once have thought so. But the change has come. And there may be other changes. I may not always be with you. Our lives may go apart.”

  “If you marry, a portion will be assigned to you. You should be distinguished from the others. Your uncle would wish it, and we should follow his wish.”

  “We know his last decision. That I should have the whole. And I have a legal right to it.”

  “Legal? I was thinking of the moral one,” said Ninian, so incidentally as hardly to utter the words.

  “I am going to marry, Father. The money may not be too much. I have no knowledge of such things. I am marrying a poor man.”

  “She is,” said Hugo, moving forward. “And a man who is nothing else, except old and over-familiar. I hope it is true that frankness is disarming.”

  There was a pause before Ninian spoke.

  “You do not mean you want to marry my daughter?”

  “What did you think I meant?”

  “I could not believe my ears. I do not now.”

  “We have found it hard to believe ours. But ears seldom really deceive.”

  “Lavinia, you have been carried away. The sense of having money has upset you. You did not think of the effect on other people. This is not the way to use it. I beg you to think again.”

  “I have thought, Father. This is what we both have wished. And now we can have it.”

  “If Hugo—if your uncle was worthy of the name of a man, you could have had it before.”

  “Well, of course I am not that, Ninian.”

  “It is an unthinkable thing. It is unnatural and unfit. There can only be one opinion.”

  “I never like things that are described as natural. And we should not be the slaves of opinion.”

  “We can be the slaves of things that I will not state.”

  “I am sure you are wise, Ninian. Then I will not either.”

  “What is your feeling for Lavinia herself, apart from them.”

  “You must know there are things that are never put into words.”

  “As you have said, there is nothing in your favour. Your best years are behind. You are old compared with her. You might be her father.”

  “No, Ninian, I could not take your place.”

  “And you are almost a relation. She sees you as an uncle.”

  “No, not now, Father,” said Lavinia. “I have not since I was a child.”

  “And how long is that? And how long has this been threatening? Since the promise of your uncle’s money?”

  “Long before with me,” said Hugo. “As soon as it could be with her. And now it can be realised.”

  “You would not work for your wife, like other men?”

  “Ninian, I am what I am. That is what you have against me. If I were not, you would have nothing. And if I were as other men, Lavinia might not have accepted me.”

  “You talk as if recognising your failings altered them.”

  “Well, you might feel you had never liked me so well.”

  “So it is not a serious thing. I thought you could not mean it.”

  “It is serious, Father,” said Lavinia. “You should not find it so strange. When you resolved to marry yourself, you meant it.”

  “Marriage means a loss,” said Teresa. “In this case it is a double one. Are we to make it greater than it is?”

  “It will be nice to be missed,” said Hugo. “Though it seems it ought not to be. And I never know how people know about it.”

  “Will you live far away?” said Egbert.

  “Near enough to be in touch with you. Lavinia made it a condition. I am in her power, as I have really always been.”

  “We can see the change,” said Ninian. “Lavinia, think while there is time. You are in early youth. You have met few men. You must wait for the chances of your life. And your uncle should know it.”

  “Well, I did know I was not a chance,” said Hugo.

  “You have taken one. It seems it must be recognised. How great do you mean it to be? How much of Ransom’s legacy do you see as yours?”

  “None of it. It is Lavinia’s.”

  “So the whole. But how does she see it? It was destined for the place, to ensure its future. She can only feel a part of it is hers.”

  “I see it all as mine, Father. My uncle would have wished me to have it. He felt you should abide by your words. When people do something for themselves, they do say someone else would have wished it. But it may be the truth.”

  “Truth does not need a veil,” said Ninian, gravely. “So we do not see it here.”

  “It has needed one in your case and mine. We found it, when it did not have it.”

  “What does Egbert feel?” said Ninian. “He will come after me here. It will be a poor inheritance, when they all take their share. My brother meant it to be otherwise.”

  “Not at the end, Father. He left all he had to Lavinia. He was in no doubt.”

  “Was he not? He would have kept a will in my favour, if I could have fulfilled a certain condition. I could not, as matters were. But it showed his mind.”

  “I remember, Father,” said Lavinia.

  “So we should not take this will as essentially his true one,” said Ninian, continuing at once. “It is a chance that it stood as it did.”

  “The matter is settled,” said Egbert. “Lavinia takes what is hers. We should all do the same. We must not betray disappointment. We should not feel it.”

  “That is said,” said Ninian, gently. “But why should we not betray it? We betray our other feelings. Of course I am disappointed. I might be a lesser man, if I were not. I hoped to improve my forefathers’ land, to benefit my family, to safeguard your future. They are a man’s natural wishes. I am not ashamed of them.”

  “Well, I am of mine,” said Hugo. “I want to live on inherited means and consider only one person besides myself. I knew I was a lesser man. But perhaps I hardly knew how much.”

  “Come in, Miss Starkie,” said Ninian, raising his voice. “Come in and bring your flock. We have an engaged couple to present to you. It is a thing you did not expect.”

  “I did not, Mr. Middleton. What is on foot? Are they acting a play? Where are the two protagonists?”

  “It may turn out in that way. It is serious at the moment. Let the leading characters come forward and speak for themselves.”

  “Why, Lavinia, what a solemn face! You don’t look much of a bride. I know people weep at weddings. But it is usually the bride’s mothe
r, I am told.”

  “Lavinia’s mother would weep at this one,” said Ninian.

  “Why, what is it? It is not a serious thing? Is there a real bridegroom? Not Lavinia’s uncle? No, it cannot be.”

  “Hugo is not my uncle,” said Lavinia. “He is not Grandma’s son. He and I are not related.”

  “I know you are not. But it is almost the same. It does not make much difference.”

  “Well, I would hardly say that,” said Ninian, smiling. “But in a sense it is true. They are too much uncle and niece to be a success as anything else.”

  “Do you give your consent, Mr. Middleton? I can hardly think it.”

  “I have not been asked for it. And I realise you have not. They may have been afraid of our answer.”

  “They may well have been of mine. I could not pretend to approve. And Lavinia is too young to take such a step. I cannot but feel you should oppose it.”

  “You can hardly suppose I have not done so. But I am powerless.”

  “In a legal sense. But not in any other.”

  “In every sense. I admit I hardly knew it.”

  There was a silence, broken by Leah.

  “Is he marrying her because she is rich now? He didn’t want to before.”

  “He must answer you himself,” said her father.

  “I have always wanted to,” said Hugo. “But I was too poor to think of it.”

  “That has a better sound,” said Ninian. “But is there any real difference?”

  “Yes, there is a real one. But not the one you mean.”

  “Was it hard to be silent, Uncle?” said Agnes, taking a step forward, with brighter eyes.

  “Well, it was at times.”

  “So there has been a romance, and we did not know.”

  “If there had been, you would have known,” said Ninian.

  “Hardly at her age,” said Miss Starkie. “That is no proof of anything. We may wish it was.”

  “But none of us at any age knew. Did you know, Egbert?”

  “I feel now that I did in a way, Father.”

  “Oh, we all feel it now. That is saying nothing.”

  “Lavinia, think of the future,” said Miss Starkie. “You might be left a widow when you were still young.”

  “I should otherwise always be single. I would not marry any other man.”