Flint and Roses (3 page)

Uncle Joel, apparently disinclined for conversation, planted himself on the hearthrug dominating the fire, and, reaching for his cigar-case—although I did not think that even he would dare to smoke here, in my father's drawing-room—allowed his gaze to rest speculatively on my father's glass-fronted cabinets and his intricately inlaid, expertly polished tables, each one bearing the treasures of Sèvres and Meissen, Minton and Derby, that my father had cherished far more than his children.

I saw Aunt Hannah's husband look down uncomfortably at his feet, his sense of propriety telling him it was time to leave, his sense of reality reminding him he would need his wife's permission to do so. I saw my Uncle Joel's wife, kind Aunt Verity, smile with tolerant, tranquil understanding at her husband well aware, I thought, of his urge to light that forbidden cigar, and of the commercial instincts which were now leading him from force of habit to assess the value of my father's porcelain.

And for a while there was no sound but the busy crackling of the fire, the ticking of the ormolu and enamel clock standing, as it had always done, at the very centre of the mantelpiece, a black basalt urn perfectly placed at either side. But Aunt Hannah was not given to prolonged meditation, and, fixing my mother with an irritable eye, announced, ‘Well, then, Elinor—it's a bad business.'

‘Yes, dear. So it is.'

‘Indeed. And he'll be sadly missed, for heaven knows how we'll find another Member of Parliament to serve us so well. I suppose the by-election must be quite soon?'

‘Yes, dear. I suppose it must.'

‘And I wonder if you have given any thought to a suitable memorial?'

‘Oh—my word! Should I do that, do you think, Hannah?'

‘I think it will be expected of you, Elinor. A headstone will hardly suffice, you know, for so distinguished a man. No—no—something altogether out of the ordinary. And it strikes me that if the worthies of this town could be prevailed upon to subscribe towards the building of a concert hall, then there would be every reason in the world to name it after your husband. Now what do you think to that?'

‘That would be splendid, Hannah.'

‘Well, then—if you agree, of course—a committee could easily be formed for the purpose, and in view of Mr. Aycliffe's services to the community I can anticipate no difficulty. Really, it would be most appropriate.'

And as my mother continued to smile, a placid little woman who had no objection to monuments or concert halls or anything else so long as she was not required to stir from her own warm corner, my Uncle Joel, that most awe inspiring of gentlemen, grinned suddenly, as mischievously as a schoolboy, and said, ‘Aye—most appropriate. And if the firm of Morgan Aycliffe should undertake the construction work, then I'd think it more than appropriate. I'd think it shrewd.'

And with an air of enormous unconcern—master in his own home, master, now, it seemed, in ours—he selected a cigar, lit it and inhaled deeply, bringing home to me by that one simple, almost contemptuous gesture that my father, who had not permitted tobacco in his house, much less his drawing-room, was dead indeed.

‘Joel!' Aunt Hannah said, quite horrified. ‘Good heavens!—what are you thinking of? Not in
here.'

But, standing in the centre of the room, his bulk overshadowing the memory of the narrow, silent man whose ghost he had so easily laid to rest, he did no more than shrug his powerful, expensively covered shoulders.

‘If Elinor don't like it, I reckon she can tell me so.'

‘Elinor?' Aunt Hannah cried out, the hint of nervous tears in her voice causing me to wonder if she had indeed cared for my father as sincerely as she pretended. ‘Elinor has nothing to say to it. This is Morgan Aycliffe's house, as you very well know, and when did Elinor ever have any sense of what's right, or any sense at all? It's not decent, Joel—the poor man is scarcely in his grave. And it's the porcelain—you know the care he took of his porcelain and how he feared the tobacco would stain it.'

‘Ah yes,' my mother murmured, perfectly serene in the face of this tirade. ‘The porcelain—the famous, beautiful porcelain. There is a word to say, Joel, is there not, about the porcelain?'

And rousing herself suddenly she smiled at me, and at Prudence, and at Celia, and sent us off to bed.

We had rooms of our own now, below the nursery-floor, identical toilet tables swathed in white muslin, narrow, white-quilted beds, nothing to distinguish one from the other except that Prudence and Celia maintained their possessions in immaculate order while I alas, did not. And as Celia bade us a sedate good-night, hurrying off to dream, with total fifteen-year-old contentment, of the twenty thousand pounds which would secure her the wedding, the christening, the smart new villa of her heart's desire, I joined Prudence for a moment at her fireside, neither of us ready to be alone.

We had not loved our father. He had not required it, and it had occurred to neither of us to do so. Unlike Celia, who had felt secure beneath the wing of his authority, we had been oppressed by it yet now there could be no sense of relief, no real hope of broadening our narrow spirits, our restricted horizons.

Possibly—without my father to run to—our governess. Miss Mayfield, might prove a trifle less invincible. We might, with some contriving, be at last empowered to pay calls and receive them without her eagle-eyed supervision, to write letters without submitting them for her inspection, to hold conversations out of her hearing. We might, indeed be allowed to choose our own gowns—within reason—to make the momentous decision between lace or ribbons, a bonnet crowned with feathers or with a satin rose. And it was the measure of my father's defeat that only one of his three daughters could content herself with that. Celia would do well because she wanted only what it was right and proper for her to have. Prudence would find life hard, since she wanted to make up her own, female mind as to its direction. I had no idea what I wanted—except that I had not met it yet, except that it was not to be found in Blenheim Lane.

‘What of the porcelain then?' I enquired carefully. ‘Is it to go to our brother, do you imagine?' And having lived in fear of those frail treasures all my life—for if someone's skin had ever dislodged one of them it would certainly have been mine—I added. ‘Well, and I shouldn't mind.'

‘Nor I,' she answered, continuing to stare into the fire, her face, in its tight concentration, more like my father's than ever. ‘Indeed, it is only right that he should have something, especially when one considers that if he had not quarrelled with father he might have had it all. But he is a man. One supposes he is able to take care of himself. I should like to worry about him, but I have other things on my mind. I am far too busy wondering whether it will be a Hobhouse or a Rawnsley they will purchase for me with my twenty thousand.'

‘Perhaps mother will still give you a London season, as father planned.' But Prudence, her mouth hard and sarcastic, although she had not wanted to go to the London marriage-market in any case, shook her head. ‘Oh no. Mother will do exactly as she is told. You know how she is, with her “Yes, dear—no, dear” except that now she will be nodding and smiling to Uncle Joel instead of father. And although I am sure Uncle Joel means us no harm and would add to our money rather than cheat us of a single penny—and believe me, there are uncles who
would
cheat us—well, he won't take the trouble to send us to London. He knows he has to get us married, and he'll do it, but he won't be as careful as father. He'll accept anyone-who offers, so long as he's respectable—anyone Aunt Hannah draws to his attention—just to get the job done. And all mother will say is “Yes, dear. How very splendid”. What a poor, silly creature she is, Faith. Was she always like that, do you suppose, or was it father—twenty years of father—that turned her into a porcelain doll? I have a nightmare sometimes that I could be the same.'

I kissed her lightly, knowing she did not really like to be touched, knowing there was no lasting comfort I could give; and, crossing the landing to my own room—wondering about that porcelain doll, that dainty puppet who had waltzed so blissfully the night her puppet-master died—I became once more an unseen, unwilling witness.

Below me in the darkened hall Uncle Joel and his wife were taking their leave, and as Aunt Verity stooped to kiss my mother's cheek and then moved away my uncle paused a moment, cigar in hand, its unaccustomed male fragrance shocking and attracting me, so that I paused too, looked down, and then, afraid of discovery, was obliged to remain.

‘There's a lot of money, Elinor,' I heard him say. ‘Not bad, eh, for twenty years' work, however tedious. And you're still young enough, like I said you'd be. The world's wide and you can afford to enjoy it now if you'll bide your time. All I ask of you is to wear your widow's weeds like a good girl, as long as it's decent, before you start spreading your wings.'

And smiling up at him, neither docile not helpless, but radiating an enchanting, altogether wicked sparkle, she threw both arms around his neck, and standing on excited tiptoe hugged him tight.

‘Yes, Joel, a twelvemonth of black veils, isn't it, for a husband? Then lilac and grey for a year after that. I'll do it, don't fret yourself, for I've no objection to black. But it strikes me no one could really blame me if I went off to wear it in a sunnier climate. The northern winter, you know, and my tendency to take cold—in fact my doctor may positively insist upon it.'

‘Aye, I reckon he might.'

‘Italy, I thought, or southern France—for a while, Joel. I've earned myself that; surely? Hannah can see to the girls—and Verity—for the whole world knows me as a woman who couldn't be trusted to arrange a tea-party, much less a wedding.'

‘So they do. Just promise me you'll arrange no weddings of your own—in Italy and France.'

‘Oh Joel,' she said, hugging him again, her face, glimpsed behind his shoulder, vivid and alive. ‘I think you can be sure of that. No weddings for me, darling, not until I'm old at any rate. And I'm not old—oh, no—
that
I'm not.'

And standing in the doorway she waved her hand, a free-flowing, graceful movement of her whole body, stretching herself in the crisp, night air—without a shawl, without a chaperone—until his carriage was out of sight.

My mother took to her bed the very next day, suffering, they said at first, from the effects of fatigue and sorrow, which, combined with the biting January wind—the prospect of a raw February, a howling March to follow—could well settle on her lungs. And so it was left to Uncle Joel to inform us that my father had bequeathed his entire collection of porcelain to Prudence, thus causing much distress to Celia, who did not care about the porcelain, but, being the youngest, the smallest, the only one who had really believed in father's teachings, would clearly have loved to be singled out.

‘It's worth thousands,' Aunt Hannah declared accusingly, as if Prudence had been a scheming parlourmaid. Thousands and thousands—and to a girl not yet nineteen. Good heavens! I can hardly think it wise. Naturally there can be no question of removing any part of it, Prudence—in fact you would do well to think of yourself merely as a guardian until such time as you are married and your husband can take proper charge of it.

But an hour later, having thought the matter out, I noticed she was kinder to Prudence than usual, for this legacy would make her the most marriageable of us all, and we had no need to be reminded that Aunt Hannah's step-son, Jonas Agbrigg, was in need of a rich wife.

Nor was I surprised, some three weeks later, to find myself accompanying my mother to Leeds, the first stage of her journey to London and abroad in search of the softer climate she had convinced our family doctor she required, and then returning with Prudence to Aunt Hannah's house, where Celia—who also suffered from the cold—was waiting.

There had been some suggestion, hotly contested by Aunt Hannah, that Prudence should accompany my mother, a further suggestion that we should all three remain in our own home, under the combined supervision of our housekeeper, Mrs Naylor, and Miss Mayfield, our governess, whose duties, now that our education appeared to be over, were becoming vague. But although our house had been kept open and a somewhat tearful Miss Mayfield assured that there would always be a place for her therein. Aunt Hannah had insisted that, for a week or so at least, we were to be her guests. And as I sipped her weak tea and ate her scanty slices of bread and butter on that first afternoon, I felt it was by no means all she would insist upon.

My aunt's house at Lawcroft Fold was old and plain, a square, smoke-blackened box hugging the hillside above Lawcroft Mills, owned by her brother, managed by her husband; her windows, although she contrived to ignore it, offering a view of the factory buildings crouching in the valley, the high, iron-spiked factory wall, the huddle of workers'cottages around it; her morning rest disturbed by the hideous five o'clock screeching of the factory hooter, the clanging shut, a precise half-hour later, of the massive gates.

Yet the house itself was decently proportioned, a solid oak door at the centre, two high square rooms on either side, a sufficiency of bedrooms, the front parlour—for the benefit of Aunt Hannah's guests—offering a brave show of plum-coloured velvet upholstery, a busily patterned carpet that would not show the years, a jungle of bright green foliage in ornamental pots, a great deal of fancy needlework—embroidered firescreens, cushion covers, table-runners, tapestry pictures in heavy frames—done, with immense skill by Aunt Hannah herself to conceal the lack of the Meissen and Sèvres and the antique silver to be found in such abundance in Blenheim Lane.

But, in complete contrast, her back parlour was achingly clean, exceedingly bare, and for that interminable week or so I was obliged to spend my mornings in that cheerless apartment, assisting with the household's plain sewing, submitting myself to the tyranny of hem-stitch and blanket-stitch, the bewilderment of button-holes, at which I did not excel, and to spend my afternoons at the front of the house, my chair well away from the fire, listening, speaking when spoken to, as Aunt Hannah issued tea and instructions to the ladies she had involved in her works of charity—colleagues in their opinion, assistants in hers—and who, because of her desire to spare her own elderly carriage-horses, were obliged to come to her. And it was a constant proof of her natural authority that these ladies, the wives of owners not managers, although they disliked and resented her, and frequently threatened among themselves to rebel and ignore her, could be reduced after ten minutes of her company to obedience.