The Mighty and Their Fall

by Ivy Compton-Burnett

  “And I have not,” said Ninian, smiling. “It is not I, who thought of it today. When I put it out for the lawyer, I caught sight of the message at the end. It is not embodied in the will. You are not my friend, my boy.”

  “Tell me the message,” said Hugo. “Of course that is all I should think of.”

  “It is short and simple. It stresses the meaning of the legacy. She felt it lessened the advantage of your marriage, and she trusted it would prevent it.”

  “She did not make it a condition?”

  “No, the message has no legal force. It comes simply from her to you. She felt it was enough.”

  “She could have made it a condition, if she had meant it to be one,” said Lavinia.

  “No, my dear, she was above it,” said Ninian, at once. “It would have been to fail you and your uncle and herself. He has her word of trust. He needs nothing more.”

  “But she knew I was unworthy of trust,” said Hugo. “So the word means nothing.”

  “It means what it says. What else could it mean? Why should she have written it in her last weakness?”

  “She did not tell you about it?”

  “No, her strength was gone. She used the last of it for you.”

  “I wish she had had just a little less. She did always have a great deal.”

  “We must forget the message,” said Lavinia. “There is no middle course.”

  “Forget it?” said her father. “Her last words, her last wish? They mean no more than that to you? Did you act a part with her?”

  “No, and I will not now. We cannot fulfil the wish. So it is best not to think of it.”

  “Best?” said Ninian, keeping his brows raised.

  “Yes, for us. For her we cannot do anything.”

  “Well, you will do nothing. You still act a part.”

  “I may as well show my full self,” said Hugo. “It will cause no surprise. Did you see the amount of the legacy?”

  “I did not see the will. I already knew the amount. I had my mother’s confidence.”

  “Ninian, would you force me to go further?”

  “You would hardly wish to today. It is no occasion for facts and figures.”

  “It is only the one little figure. Of course it is not a large one. And it is in your mind. I shall be no worse than you are.”

  “It was not, until you recalled it. What was in my mind was her thought and hope for you. For today is not that enough?”

  “It is too much. All I want is the one little thing that you would not count. And I will not count it either. I must know it, to dismiss it from my mind.”

  “The legacy is in safe investments, and can be estimated,” said Ninian, in a full, cold tone, naming the sum. “It renders you independent of me and my home and my daughter. You see its significance.”

  “I do. I can marry Lavinia without any feeling of guilt.”

  “Without any?” said Ninian.

  “Without that of supposedly sordid motives. I shall be able to do my part.”

  “You can forget my mother’s message to you?”

  “Yes, if you never remind me of it. Let it be a pact between us.”

  “It might be the more remembered.”

  “Well, that would not matter so much.”

  “I could not have believed the occasion would be taken in this spirit,” said Ninian, as if to himself.

  “Neither could I. Things are never as bad as we expect. This one is not.”

  “You mean the legacy means more to you, than the woman who was your virtual mother?”

  “The legacy is all I can have. And all I can have of her, And it binds me closer to her. You can see it does.”

  “But you would let it ensure the thing she meant it to prevent?”

  “It must be one of life’s inconsistencies. Or perhaps it was one of hers. She would have been above mere consistency. I remember that she was.”

  “Hugo, would it not be better to appear to be serious today?”

  “I am really serious. I don’t dare to seem to be. I am so afraid of you.”

  “I would rather have a plain word than all this evasive irony, if that is what it is.”

  “I hope it is that. I meant it to be. A plain word is a dreadful thing.”

  “You will take the legacy, and do what it in effect forbids?”

  “I said it was dreadful,” said Hugo.

  “Then there is no more to be said.”

  “That is a relief, Ninian.”

  “Your mother must have known it might work out like this, Ninian,” said Teresa.

  “She added the message to ensure that it did not.”

  “Hugo was to have the money in any case,” said Egbert.

  “Money! She felt there were other things. It made her think too well of other people.”

  “She did not do that,” said Teresa with a smile.

  “In this case we must feel she did.”

  “So there was someone who thought better of me than I deserved,” said Hugo. “It is a thing I did not expect to say.”

  “It is not the one I would choose at this moment,” said Ninian.

  “Well, that is fortunate, as you could not say it. She thought the same of you as you deserved.”

  “My dear mother! There was nothing false between us. As there now is between you and her.”

  “And between you and me, Ninian. And if you are not careful, there will cease to be.”

  Ninian turned to his daughter and spoke as if in sudden recollection.

  “I have been wondering whether to put a memorial tablet to your grandmother in the church. Do you feel she would wish it?”

  “She did not think of it. I hardly see what it would do for her.”

  “It would not do anything for you? You do not feel her life should be commemorated? You would not have felt it?”

  “We should put up so many memorials, if we considered our personal feelings. People are usually commemorated for some public service.”

  “And the years of personal service do not count?”

  “Only to us. It was to us that it was given.”

  “It is we who should place the memorial.”

  “Well, so it is, Father. And it could do no harm.”

  “That is hardly a ground for the time and trouble and cost.”

  “Well, that is what I thought.”

  “Would you always have thought it? Would you always have been dry and logical and without larger impulse? Is it the new interest in legacies and kindred things? Has there come to be nothing else?”

  “Those are in our minds at the moment. You are glad of your own share.”

  “Not for my own sake. But let her be glad of them for hers, if they are her concern now,” said Ninian, as he turned away. “Let her leave the deeper things. Perhaps they have been too deep. We may not have known her.”

  “She can hear no more,” said Teresa. “No one else would have heard so much. It does harm and will leave a memory.”

  “If you are equal to it, Egbert,” said Ninian, turning to his son, “we might go and review the new position. I would not suggest it today, but this talk has taken our minds from their natural course, and made it hardly fitting to return to it.”

  “We have had enough of it all,” said his wife. “We will go out of doors and forget it. Your feelings need a rest, and not only yours.”

  Ninian laid his hand on Egbert’s shoulder, paused for the women to precede him, glanced at his daughter as she waited for Hugo, and went from the house.

  “Lavinia, what can be done? Shall we always be in his power? Will he always have it all?”

  “Yes, always most of it. We could never cast him off.”

  “I will say the truth. I think I could. He does all he can to help us. We will live at a distance from him.”

  “No, I must be near him. I can’t help my feeling. I have tried to lose it and I have lost a part. But something remains and holds me to him. To give it up would tear up the roots of my life.”<
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  “I have never believed in God. I believe in him now. We have known he is a father. And I see that he is yours. There are the anger, jealousy, vaingloriousness, vengefulness, love, compassion, infinite power. The matter is in no doubt.”

  “If simplicity is our object, here is our scene,” said Ninian in a cold tone, as they approached the garden assigned to the children. “Let us see what is taking place.”

  Leah was holding a tombstone in position, while Hengist piled up some earth to keep it secure. Agnes lay on the grass at hand, writing with a preoccupied expression.

  “What are you doing?” said Ninian. “Where did you get the stone?”

  “From the back of the churchyard,” said his son. “We are putting up a monument to Grandma. It is quite proper, as the tombstone is a real one. The words are worn away, and Agnes is writing some more.”

  “It will be a sacred spot. People have more honour when they are dead,” said Leah, who perhaps gave her own support to the theory.

  “It will be sacred to me,” said Ninian, turning to retrace his steps to the house.—“Now how our minds work on similar lines, when they are bound by affection and sympathy! The idea of my mother’s passing without visible remembrance was unnatural to them, as it was to me. They are at a stage when the first true instincts have not been blunted.”

  “And are you still at the stage?” said Hugo.

  “Yes, as regards my mother. I hope I shall always be. I wonder you do not feel more of a son to her.”

  “I do feel one. She has given me reason.”

  “I was not thinking of the legacy.”

  “Neither was Hugo,” said Lavinia.

  “Well I was. I do like to dwell on it. It improves me so much. Something of bitterness seems to melt away.”

  “It is a strange thing,” said Ninian, almost with a smile. “But we do not accept change. It sometimes goes too deep. I almost found myself saying I must go to my mother.”

  “Suppose you had quite said it?” said Hugo. “What should we have done?”

  “You do not know?” said Ninian. “Lavinia would once have known.”

  “It is true that I do not know now, Father.”

  “I know,” said Teresa. “We should have waited for you to realise your mistake. And that would have been in a moment.”

  “I could never have done any more,” said Lavinia.

  “I should have been at a loss,” said Hugo. “But I don’t see how anyone could have known.”

  “It would have been clear to me,” said Ninian.

  “You are trying to be subtle. And I almost think you are succeeding.”

  “You do not emulate me? You are open and simple in your outlook on your life.”

  “Not more than the rest of us,” said Lavinia.

  “Come, you have not found that,” said Ninian. “Have you forgotten your grandmother?”

  “No, I remember her, and everything about her. It is you who are beginning to forget.”

  “Why do you want to be estranged from me, my child? In order to marry against my will without compunction?”

  “We shall both do that,” said Hugo. “And quite without it. And you are taking your own way to the estrangement.”

  “And a sure one,” said Teresa.

  “There is no way,” said Ninian.

  “I hardly think there is,” said Lavinia, almost wearily. “If there was, it would have been found by now.”

  “Would you like to see my mother’s will, Hugo?” said Ninian. “And her message to you at the end?”

  “No, I should find it too much. Such things go very deep with me.”

  “Would anyone of whom that was true, say it?”

  “I thought you did not know, Ninian. You did not mean to make a heartless suggestion.”

  “I think I should show you the message. She meant you to see it.”

  “But must not time elapse, before I face the familiar hand?”

  “So you really find it a subject for jest?”

  “It is my way of steeling myself against it. In these matters we are always misunderstood.”

  Ninian left them and returned with the will, laid it on the library table and stood aside. For a time no one moved or spoke. Then Hugo went up and looked at it.

  “Well?” said Ninian, after a pause.

  “Well, it is just as you said it was.”

  “You see it with your own eyes now?”

  “I had seen it through yours. You had the power to bring it before me.”

  “You can see my mother forcing herself to form the words.”

  “Oh, no, I cannot. It would be too much.”

  “The writing wrung my heart,” said Ninian.

  “Why did you ask me to see it? So that my heart would be wrung?”

  “I hoped it would be touched enough for the words to be their work.”

  “Why only touched, when yours was wrung?”

  “My words were the right ones,” said Ninian, and left the room.

  He came on the children returning from the garden.

  “Well, is the memorial complete?”

  “We couldn’t make it stand,” said Hengist. “And Agnes made the epitaph just from herself and not from all of us.”

  “Is there any need to have one?”

  “Yes, or it would be a memorial to someone else.”

  “Who had no name,” said Leah, “and only lived nineteen years.”

  “That disposes of the matter. Is not Miss Starkie with you today?”

  “No, it is her free afternoon. Grandma used to wonder why she wanted one.”

  “To have a respite from the three of you. I do not share the wonder.”

  “I daresay her life does need courage,” said Agnes, lifting her brows.

  “Well, run upstairs and behave as if she was with you.”

  “Nurse will be there,” said Leah. “We can’t be left alone. It has been proved.”

  “You turn your eyes on yourselves. I hope you are pleased with what you see.”

  The children laughed and ran to the stairs, Agnes chancing to drop a piece of paper as she went. Ninian picked it up.

  ‘In memory of Selina, beloved and loving grandmother of Agnes Middleton, who died on the——’

  His daughter paused and turned, and he let the paper fall and re-entered the library.

  “Should not Hugo and Lavinia sometimes be left to themselves?” he said in a cold tone. “If their relation is accepted, it should be observed. Are you not too often with them?”

  His wife and son rose and followed him, and the two were alone.

  “So we shall never be forgiven,” said Lavinia. “It will work itself into our lives.”

  “Further into his. He is planning it himself. He will lose the most.”

  “I believe he is trying to serve me. He is honest in part of what he says.”

  “What right has he to judge? Has he used you so well? You have not thought so. And I have always been with you. Always, as you remember.”

  “At the time of the letter do you mean?”

  “Well, at all times.”

  “I think you loved the sinner and hated the sin.”

  “I could hate nothing of yours. In any place of yours I see myself. But we who have had nothing, want the most. We know what it is to be without. And it has all to be put into so short a time. You may be right in what you say. Your father sees a part of the truth.”

  CHAPTER XIII

  “Egbert, I shall never say it,” said Hugo. “You would not believe me, if I did. It may be no good to try.”

  “If you mean me to believe it, you can do your best.”

  “Tell me the most unlikely thing you can think of.”

  “That Father will make over everything to me. That you will marry Miss Starkie. That he will countenance your marrying Lavinia. That you will give up the idea.”

  “Say no more, Egbert.”

  “What do you mean? What is it?”

  “What you have said. You see
I could not say it.”

  “You are not going to marry Lavinia! Has she changed her mind?”

  “Well, she does not know about it. People do not know their own minds. You will bring her to the knowledge.”

  “You have changed yours? What are you trying to say?”

  “I have tried in vain. The words will not pass my lips. I can’t forget that you will hear them.”

  “Say what you have to. I am waiting to hear.”

  “Egbert, a note of reproach is creeping into my tone. Is it like you to make things harder for me? And you did not wish me to be nearer to you. I could not feel I had a true welcome.”

  “That may be so. But it is another matter. Tell the simple truth.”

  “Well, I cannot bear to be a son to your father. Or bear Lavinia to be a daughter to him. It would keep me in his power. And I have the chance to escape. Your grandmother was a great woman. I should like to be Dickens, so that I could be unrestrained about her.”

  “What would he say about Lavinia?”

  “That she had come to know her own heart, and feel her father came first to her.”

  “Have you no deeper reason?”

  “Yes, but it is difficult to make it sound deep. I want to feel my independence and indulge my selfish, bachelor tastes. I don’t think it does sound so. You would never believe how deep it is. Perhaps you have not sounded my depths.”

  “Have you spoken to Lavinia?”

  “No, of course I have not. It would be behaving like a man. She will speak to me through you.”

  “You will speak for yourself. It is time you did behave like one.”

  “Egbert, it is a thing I have never done. And no one could do it without practice. You are experienced in what you have to do. You know you have done it many times. You did not want me as a brother.”

  “I find I want you less in your present character.”

  “Well, you will be rid of me. You will speak to your sister about being wise while there is time. What has been done can be done again.”

  “She would not listen to me. The result is always the same.”

  “Egbert, have you been disloyal to me? I think you owe me some amends.”

  “You owe this to yourself.”

  “Why do we owe such things to ourselves? Restitution and confession and others of the kind? They are what we owe to other people. I owe myself some ease and freedom before it is too late. You must see it is late enough. No doubt you despise me for it.”