Free The Mighty and Their Fall by Ivy Compton-Burnett

“I have never seen you so pale.”
    â€œI hurried up the staircase to the schoolroom. It is a thing I must not do again. I must forget them both. And one will be glad to be forgotten.”
    â€œYou must forget the first. You must have the room off the hall. The other you will not forget.”
    â€œI am eighty-seven. I married late. I am an old mother for my sons. People say I do not look my age. That shows they realise the age I am. And if I did not look it, I should have a duller face than I have. I watch it in the glass as often as I did in my youth. Where there are fewer marks of time, time must have held less. And I am willing for it to hold more. I would rather be alive then dead. When I die, people will say it is the best thing for me. It is because they know it is the worst. They want to avoid the feeling of pity. As though they were the people most concerned!”
    â€œWell, it is very dreadful to feel pity,” said Hugo.
    â€œAnd I don’t believe in a future life, or want to. I should not like any form of it I know. I don’t want to be a spirit or to return to the earth as someone else. I could never like anyone else enough for that.”
    â€œAnd we are irritated by other people,” said Lavinia. “Suppose we were irritated by the people we were! As we never are, it seems to disprove the theory.”
    â€œI don’t know I shan’t hear your talk, when I am dead. An after life might also have that drawback. There is little good in being out of things and knowing it.”
    â€œYou would be supposed to be in so many more,” said Ninian.
    â€œBut only in a comfortless, disembodied way,” said Lavinia. “Think how we conceive of ghosts, when we accept them. I hardly like to think of it as applying to Grandma.”
    â€œI think chains and headlessness are incurred by those who fall short in life,” said Selina, not shrinking from thislength herself. “Or were the victims of those who did.”
    â€œIt is odd that believers visualise spirits in that way. When you think how they should imagine them.”
    â€œIt shows it is impossible to believe,” said Egbert.
    â€œOr rare to have reason,” said Ninian.
    â€œYou allow the children to believe, Grandma,” said Lavinia.
    â€œThey need to accept an All-seeing Eye. Or rather we need them to. No ordinary eye could embrace their purposes. We may as well depute what we can.”
    â€œEven to an imaginary overseer,” said Ninian. “And in fairness to Miss Starkie.”
    â€œIs not retribution too far away to count?” said Hugo.
    â€œNo doubt,” said Selina. “But the idea of being watched is discouraging. I found it so.”
    â€œYou are thinking of the two little ones,” said Ninian.
    â€œIt may also be true of Agnes, but I think less.”
    â€œI should not have thought she would be your favourite. Though I have seen she is. The others are more your type.”
    â€œThat may be the reason. I like ordinary children. And of course I can’t think I was that. And looking back, I don’t much like myself.”
    â€œPeople generally pity themselves, when they look back.”
    â€œAnd I daresay you are among them. But I don’t want to hear about it. It is too late to remedy the matter. And I am not as concerned for your early days as for my last ones. Childhood is not the only time that calls for pity.”
    â€œYou are a heroic figure, Mother, and naturally proud of it.”
    â€œThings we are proud of are seldom an advantage to us,” said Lavinia. “Unless we ought not to be proud of them. And then they may be a great one.”
    â€œAgnes and Hengist and Leah!” said Selina, deepening her voice. “What are you doing in the hall? Is it your schoolroom?”
    â€œIt is for the moment, Mrs. Middleton,” said MissStarkie from the doorway. “I was calling their attention to the panelling. It is