Read Online A God and His Gifts by Ivy Compton-Burnett - Free Book Online Page B

Emmeline now?”
    â€œI keep the memory. I cared both for her and your mother. I cared for them both for each other’s sake and their own. We fell in with your mother’s wish and parted. She married later. That is the whole.”
    â€œMy wish!” said Ada. “No, it is not quite the whole. Both my father and Aunt Penelope advised the parting. But my sister! How I wish it had been different! I hope and feel so does she. But nothing can be undone.”
    â€œIt seems that this might be ended,” said Salomon. “Do you need to remember the past?”
    â€œNow that is enough,” said Sir Michael. “Your parents have told you all they can. You should know better than to ask more.”
    â€œWell, we will be content. It is a relief to know. I have wondered and feared to ask.”
    â€œSo have I,” said Merton. “It has been on the tip of my tongue.”
    â€œThat does keep people silent,” said Joanna. “It hardly seems that it would.”
    â€œWell, the truth has escaped, Grandma. I admire Mother’s simple courage. It is a thing I am without.”
    â€œAnd you admire yourself for being without it,” said Ada. “It may not be a high quality. But it is not such a common one.”
    â€œI think it is,” said Reuben. “I am always meeting it.”
    â€œI have to show it now,” said Hereward. “I am reluctant to cloud our reunion. That is how it seems to me when I leave a book. But there is a word that must be said. Your reports are here and cannot be quite passed over.”
    â€œWell, now they have not been,” said Reuben. “We have met the courage.”
    â€œYours was no worse than mediocre.”
    â€œThat is right for me, as I am to educate others. If it was better, I should not educate them. And if it was worse, I could not.”
    â€œThere is never any fault to be found with yours, Salomon.”
    â€œNone by you, Father. I am steady and of sound intelligence. But they are things that Merton would be ashamed to be.”
    â€œHe has his own cause to be ashamed. His is hardly a report at all. It seems there was little to make one. He is said to assume he is a man before his time. He may not have to educate others. But he can hardly do without education himself.”
    â€œSo you think I could be improved, Father?”
    â€œIt appears to be what is thought.”
    â€œNot by prolonging boyhood. Education so-called does only what it can.”
    â€œAnd does idleness so-called do so much?” said Sir Michael. “And does ingratitude so-called do any more? Things have to be known by their names. Why should your father immure himself and moil, for you to be a man before your time? ‘So-called’ is the right word there. Why, I am ashamed of being your grandparent.”
    â€œI am not,” said Joanna. “I don’t see how I can help it.”
    â€œWell, I have done what I can,” said her husband, leaning back. “No one can do any more.”
    â€œThat is good to hear,” said Merton. “I was fearing you might go to almost any length.”
    â€œAny length! Well, I went a certain way. I felt it was my part. It is my duty to second your father. I see it as the least I can do. The brunt of things falls on him. I take any chance to support him.”
    â€œWell, I give you one by speaking the truth. I am not afraid of it. I can’t be a slave to what is called my work. I know where my real talent lies, and what I owe to it.”
    â€œWhat is called your work! Is everything to be socalled? What do you do with your so-called leisure, may I ask? Perhaps it is the word there.”
    â€œIt is. I give it to the writing that is to be my life, and to last it. And not more for my own sake than for other people’s.”
    â€œOh, well, for other people’s. Well, if that is what it is. Well, it is a thing I am used to. I am no stranger to it. This working