Men and Wives by Ivy Compton-Burnett Page B

Christy,” said Bellamy, as though saying a significant word.
    â€œOh, my dear boy! How things have turned out! What am I saying? What am I to say?”
    â€œPoor Mother, she goes to my heart,” said Camilla. “A divorced daughter and a parlour full of sons-in-law! Poor Ernest, you go to my heart too.”
    â€œI am at last thinking in that way of myself.”
    â€œI am the last to dispute it,” said Camilla, edging herself away with her elbow. “You have a natural gift for it. It is time you recognised where your talents lie, as they are rather specialised. But I shall have you on my mind, moping in that dank rectory alone. I could welcome my successor with open arms. I could throw myself on her neck and give her wifely directions about your health.”
    â€œYou need not have me on your mind, Camilla. I can face having nothing. I am used to less.”
    â€œI don’t know. There are not many things worse than nothing.”
    â€œYes, many worse,” said Bellamy.
    â€œOh, well, well, have it as you will. Many worse, then, many worse. We have had some desperate times together; we have had some shattering years. They have been the same to me as to you, though it has not struck you. How we have hated each other at times!”
    â€œI think I have given you no reason to hate me, Camilla.”
    â€œYou think that, do you? Well, that is reason enough. Oh, but you can’t help it, my poor Ernest, mine nolonger. Let us go our ways apart. We shall have to sort our worldly goods, and separate my own from those with which you me endowed, and endow me with no longer. ‘Give a thing and take a thing is a wicked man’s plaything.’ What are you doing to-morrow?”
    â€œI have Mrs. Spong’s funeral in the early afternoon. Otherwise I am free.”
    â€œOh yes. Funeral, funeral! Well, we have come to the funeral of our hopes of each other. I am not coming to Mrs. Spong’s funeral; our own is enough. I have had my fill of funerals, and mothers’ meetings and parishioners’ teas. The funerals are the best; they do get rid of somebody. We emerge from them with one parishioner less. They are better than the weddings, which promise us a further supply. Funerals have never failed us. Your flock behave at last with a decent self-effacement. The drawback is that they give you the opportunity of doing the opposite. I couldn’t cloud my last days as your wife with the spectacle of you doing yourself justice at a funeral. It would destroy the sentimental attitude I am cultivating towards you. The funerals all stand out in my memory. They are like a string of pearls to me. I couldn’t add another to them, with Mr. Spong as chief mourner. It would be a large, dark pearl in the front of the only string of pearls you ever gave me, and the little more would be too much.”

Chapter VI
    In Most Eyes Bellamy was justified in using his position at burials to do well by others and himself, and the combination was satisfying to Dominic Spong, as he stood, conspicuous and seemingly sunk in himself, at his wife’s grave. He was a ponderous man about forty-five, with a massive body and face and head, a steady, prominent gaze and a somehow reproachful expression. His aspect to-day was of emotion unashamed. When Bellamy concluded with a depth of feeling and command of it, he stood for a moment as if unable to tear himself from the spot, and left it with a bearing unaffected by human presence.
    â€œSpong, you will pass an hour with old friends this afternoon?” said Godfrey, intercepting him without appearance of approach, in deference to the occasion. “You will not deny me?”
    Dominic stood as if his friend’s proximity were gradually dawning on him.
    â€œSir Godfrey, I have no one but old friends to turn to from now onward. In your own kind words I will not deny you.”
    Dominic always addressed his two chief clients as Sir Godfrey and Sir