A Family and a Fortune (37 page)

Clement went to the window and stood looking out, and then pushed it open and disappeared.

‘Is it wise for a young man to spend all he has?' said Mark. ‘Let us now transfer our anxiety.'

‘So it is over,' said Dudley. ‘Clement is a victim of the rashness of youth. I hope he will not waste his allowance.'

‘And all our thought and talk about it are over too,' said Justine, rising. ‘We are not saying another word. Come, Aubrey; come, Mark. Come, Maria, if I may say it; we are really following your lead. We know you want us to leave Father and Uncle alone.'

Edgar looked at the door as it closed, and spoke at once.

‘The boy has hardly had a father.'

‘No, you have failed in one of the deepest relations of life. And you are faced by one of the results. Because there is more in this than we admit. I am not going to get so little out of it. I am sure people got more out of my running away from home.'

‘I hope he will go along now. This may be the result of too little to spare all his life. Your help may be a godsend in more than one sense.'

‘It seems to have been the cause of the trouble. You can't be a miser with no money.'

‘You can be with very little, when it is scarce.'

‘I rather liked Clement to be a miser; I felt flattered by it. It was taking what I gave him, so seriously.'

‘We may be making too much of the matter.'

‘Maria will not let us make enough. I will not give up the real, sinister fact. Why should I not cling to the truth?'

‘Maria will be a help to us with all of them.'

‘To us! You knew the word that would go straight to my heart. But you ought to be a success as a brother, when as a father you are such a failure. What can you expect but that the tender shoots should warp and grow astray? They had no hand to prune or guide them. I don't believe you even realized that Clement was a shoot. And he was so tender that he warped almost at once. I think you are very fortunate that he was the only one.'

‘How much has happened in the last fourteen months!'

‘Yes. Matty came to live here. I inherited a fortune. I was engaged to Maria. Blanche fell ill and died. You became engaged in my place. You and Maria were married. Matty's father died. Matty drove her old friend out into the snow. I ran away from my home. I am not quite sure of the order of the last three, but they were all on the same night, and it was really hard on Matty that it happened to be snowing. On a mild night she would not have been blamed half so much. I rescued Miss Griffin and took her into my charge. It was hard on us that it happened to be snowing too. I decided to provide for her for her life. It seemed the only thing in view of the climate. At any time it might snow. I was sick almost to death, and was given back to you all. In more than one sense; I must not forget that. Oh and Clement was gradually becoming a miser all the time. You would have thought he had enough to distract him.'

There was a pause.

‘Dudley, I can ask you a question, as I know the answer. Maria does not mean to you what she did?'

‘No, not even as much as you would like her to. I cannot see her with your eyes. I have returned to the stage of seeing her with my own. I nearly said that to me she would always be second to Blanche, but it would be no good to echo your own mind. And of course to both of us she is only just second to her. But I think that you married her too soon after Blanche died, and that you may never live it down. You can see that I am speaking the truth, that I feel it to be my duty. I know that Blanche had a good husband, but it would never be anyone's duty to say that.'

‘I was carried away. I had not been much with women. And I think that emotion of one kind - I think it may predispose the mind to others.'

‘Why do some people say that we are not alike? We seem to be almost the same. But grief for a wife is a better emotion than excitement over money. Your second feelings had a nobler foundation and deserved success. But no wonder there are no secrets between us. I only have one secret left. But it shows me what it was for Clement, when his only secret was exposed.'

‘Are you going to tell me?'

‘Yes, I am, because it is proof that I have lost my feeling for Maria. I have already proposed to someone else.'

‘What?' said Edgar, the fear in his tone bringing final content to his brother. ‘You have not had time. You were ill a few days after you left this house,'

‘Well, I proposed to her a few minutes after. You see that I lost my feeling for Maria very soon. And she refused me. Women do not seem to want me as the companion of their lives.'

‘Miss Griffin?' said Edgar, with incredulity and perception.

‘How affection sharpens your wits! But you should have said: “I want you, Dudley.”'

‘I think -1 see that the sun is coming out.'

‘So we can go out and walk as we have all our lives. The only difference will be that I must lean on your arm. I
have had to say it for you. Saying it in your way does not count. I said it in anyone's way. I am the better of the two.'

‘I think you might for twenty minutes, for a quarter of an hour.'

The pair went out and walked on the path outside the house, and Justine, catching the sight from a window, rose with a cry and ran to fetch her brothers.

This electronic edition published in July 2011 by Bloomsbury Reader

Bloomsbury Reader is a division of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 50 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3DP

Copyright © Ivy Compton-Burnett

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ISBN: 9781448204182
eISBN: 9781448203598

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