Free The Present and the Past by Ivy Compton-Burnett Page A

together?’
    â€˜No; but we shall have until we are seventy. And there is no difference.’
    â€˜Can you bear not to have the real thing?’
    â€˜No,’ said his sister.
    â€˜Then when you are older, will you begin to have beliefs?’
    â€˜No, I shall realize the hopelessness of things. I shall meet it face to face.’
    â€˜And will you be proud of doing that?’
    â€˜Well, think how few people can do it. And I must have some compensation; it will not be much.’
    â€˜I shall not be able to face it. I shall begin to say we cannot be quite sure.’
    â€˜And I shall like to hear you say it. Even a spurious comfort is better than nothing.’
    â€˜Is it unusual to dread the return of someone to whom we owe so much?’
    â€˜We do dread people to whom we owe things. The debt ought to be paid, and anyone dreads that. But our debt to Catherine is of the sort we cannot repay.’
    â€˜That is the most difficult kind,’ said Elton.
    â€˜That is the conventional view. And convention is usually so sound that it is right to be a slave to it. But it is not in this case.’
    â€˜Then we should look forward to her coming.’
    â€˜I am getting quite excited,’ said his sister.
    â€˜Not as excited as I am. I must rise and pace the room.’
    â€˜And I will keep my seat by an effort.’
    Ursula Scrope had a tall, thin figure, narrow, dark, spectacled eyes, features of regular type, but displaying sundry turns and twists, long, useless-looking hands, and limbs so loosely hung that they seemed to be insecurely joined to her body. Her brother was two years younger and of similar type, with a rounder, fuller face, rounder, lighter eyes, and the peculiarities of feature modified. It was clear that their relation went deep and would last for their lives.
    â€˜Ought we to count the minutes to the arrival?’ he said. ‘I believe we should have had a calendar and crossed out the days.’
    â€˜How does one get a calendar?’
    â€˜I think they are sent at Christmas, though I don’t know why. I suppose Catherine will know.’
    â€˜So she will. How restful it will be! We shall cease to think for ourselves. We ought never to have done so. What was the good of a second mother?’
    â€˜We shall relapse into childhood,’ said Elton. ‘No one everreally comes out of it. That is why life is such a strain. We have to pretend.’
    â€˜And why people’s stories of their childhood are always their best. They don’t really know about anything else. To write about it, they would have to be original. And they cannot be that.’
    â€˜Will Catherine be proud of us?’
    â€˜No. Why should she be?’
    â€˜Ursula, don’t you see any reasons?’
    â€˜Yes, but she will not see them. Her children will take all her pride.’
    â€˜And yet you are excited by her coming?’
    â€˜Well, it will take away that strange nostalgia for something that has no name.’
    â€˜Will it? I thought I had just to carry it with me.’
    â€˜The arrival!’ said Ursula, looking out of the window. ‘What a good thing the luggage takes the whole of the trap! It is dreadful to meet people at the station. They see you as you really are. It is a thing that does not happen anywhere else.’
    â€˜I thought it happened chiefly in our own homes.’
    â€˜People learn to ignore things there. And at a station they simply confront them.’
    â€˜Well, my brother and sister!’ said a quick, deep voice, as a small, dark woman came rapidly into the room, talking in short, quick sentences. ‘My desertion of you is over. Have you minded it as much as I have? If so, you are as glad as I am. But the culprit is the one who suffers. It is one of the fair things in life. And I shall alter it all for you. I shall tell you its meaning. And you will see it as I do.’
    â€˜I always fail at moments of