The Ugly Sister (24 page)

‘Don't have him back.'

‘What?'

‘Don't have him back. I want to go quietly. If you are here, that is all that is necessary—'

‘Can I get you something to drink?'

‘Thank you, no. The Sacrament has moistened my dry lips. Walter Ralegh, you know, the night before he was executed, called it his Bottle of Salvation.'

‘You have no such sentence,' I said, trying to keep back the tears. ‘Tell me what you'll have for breakfast.'

“ ‘You must sit down,” says Love, “ and taste my meat.” So I did sit and eat.'

‘Did you write that?'

‘No … Let me see, I think it was Herbert … I should like to meet him.'

‘Is he alive?'

‘Centuries gone. You must read him.'

‘Tell me where to find him in your library.'

His attention had strayed.

‘I feel much worse, Emma, and much better. More reconciled. God is in my head and in my understanding. That strange fear that I have had all my life … In spite of it I think Christ will receive me.'

‘Could you ever doubt it?'

‘Dear Emma, I can doubt anything. Will you – light another candle.'

I got up from the bed and did so. Then I returned to the cane-bottomed chair and took his hand again.

‘That's better,' he said, as the light grew.

‘Should I not call Mr Hext? He has been your friend much longer than I.'

‘I have the fancy not. I have the fancy that I will be more at ease without a member of my cloth being present. With you I am not on show. It does not matter what I say in front of you. I have no secrets from you. Now, let me doze a little while.'

I stayed with him while he slept for perhaps ten minutes. I wondered how long the tall thin clergyman downstairs would take over his supper.

Then the Canon woke with a start. ‘ It is growing dark again. But I do not think another candle will help. Hold my hand more tightly. Just pull a little. That's the way. Christ receive me. Christ receive my soul. Christ into Thy hands I commend my spirit.'

He looked at me, his sight now failing.

‘Emma,' he said quite slowly. ‘ For breakfast I would like a chicken sandwich.'

Then he lay gently back on the pillows, sighed, and was gone.

I
T WAS
a big funeral, for he was widely known and respected in the county. The big splendid church was full, and people who could not get in stood in the churchyard bareheaded in the rain. I had come to be quite well known myself and was widely thought to be the Canon's niece, so I received much more attention than had I been just the housekeeper. Desmond Spry came, representing the family, but not Thomasine, who it seemed had just had a miscarriage. He looked grey-faced. Was it his child Tamsin had lost?

Unexpectedly Charles Lane turned up. There was little chance of private conversation with him but, although many of the railway venturers had come, his presence specially comforted me. I knew from the way he looked at me that he had taken the trouble of the long journey just as much to see me as to pay tribute to the dead man.

Caroline Collins pressed me to go and stay with them until the funeral was over but I felt that if I left the house the staff would instantly leave also. I had to give them the backbone to sleep in a house with a dead man upstairs.

I was surprised at my own emotions. Can a girl in her early twenties be in love with a corpulent clergyman well on in his sixties? It wasn't the love I had experienced before, but if it certainly was not carnal love it was something much deeper than affection. Possibly I was responding to his appreciation of me. I had never before been in touch with anyone who was so
interested
in me, who sought my opinions, often trying to correct them but so
appreciative
of me as a person. No one, no one, no one, had ever been like that to me before. I wept for the loss of that attention, that kindly smile, that childish meanness, that fine Christian brain, that interest in locomotives, that relish of food. And that fear …

Had he now found his fear to be groundless, or was his personality locked up and buried, tasteless, sightless, mindless in a box for ever?

After the funeral but before the thirty-odd special friends had gathered in the rectory for light refreshments I suffered a severe shock. I saw a man detach himself from a group and climb into a pony trap. He did not look round, but flipped the reins and drove away. It was Bram Fox.

I
WROTE
to Thomasine.

Dear Tamsin, I was very sad to hear from Desmond that you had lost a baby. This must have been very distressful for you; I send you my love and sympathy. Desmond says it was four months. I do not know about these things, but was the baby stirring then? That must be awful – if you feel it has been
alive
within you, more or less as a separate individual. I grieve for you.

Now that the Canon is dead I am not at all sure what my position is going to be here. The churchwardens and the clerical establishment from Bodmin and Exeter have been around. No new rector has yet been appointed, but the Reverend Mr Hext, who was one of Uncle Francis's oldest friends, has suggested that I might like to stay on here as housekeeper for the new incumbent. First of all, if the new man is married – as seems likely – they will not probably want to afford a housekeeper, even one so poorly paid as I have been. Second, I do not want, if I can help it, to become such a housekeeper, with none of the small –
very
small – privileges that attached to my working for a kinsman.

So the chances of my staying on here are somewhat remote. I have at present all of £36 in the wide world! – the remnant of the £100 Uncle Davey left me. It has been quite impossible to save on what the Canon paid me – indeed from time to time I have had to subsidize from my own legacy the housekeeping he gave me.

I do not think I shall want for work, but should like to take a few breaths before I plunge into something new.

I could ask our mother if she were able to have me for a month or two while I take stock. But with her frequent absences in Scotland she has become increasingly remote. Apart from which, if it were at all possible, I should like to remain in Cornwall.

I wonder if there is some corner of my old home at Place which could be made accessible to me for, say, at the outside, a couple of months, to give me time to look around? I should be so grateful. And if there is any stringency I would be happy to pay something towards my own food.

I only exchanged a few words with Desmond when he was here, but he did say that if I needed a home either temporary or permanent he would be happy to help. It was extremely generous of him to say this, but
you
are my sister and it is
your
invitation, or at least acceptance, I must receive first, before I make any plans.

Tamsin, I know we were not on the best of terms when we met at Tregrehan last year, but it need not follow that we should continue so. In conversation I should be only too willing to avoid any contentious subject, and, if need be, I could take my turn at looking after Aunt Anna or be of any other help I can. I could well take charge of Celestine from time to time if you so wished.

Naturally I would not expect this to be a permanent arrangement. All I want is time to recoup – I
greatly
miss Uncle Francis – and a little while, with a secure base, so to speak, from which to look around.

Love,

Emma

She must have replied instantly for her return letter came within five days.

My dear Emma, Thank you for your letter – the miscarriage has taken something more than a dead child out of me. I feel desolate and distinctly unwell. I am sorry I could not come to the funeral, but Desmond has told me all about it.

I do not expect Aunt Anna to last very much longer, she is so frail and will not eat – but to everyone's surprise this very week she has quite recovered her senses! We do not of course know how long it will last – but she knew who Uncle Francis was and was sorry to hear of his death and she was delighted when Celestine toddled into her room. She even asked after some of her old whist friends! We carefully have not mentioned Uncle Davey, as we do not wish to upset her.

Emma, we cannot have you here – you really
should
apply for the post of housekeeper to the new incumbent. You told me you had become well known in the district, and you have made your home there. You have your own friends, you say, and Mother told me you had been out singing at charity concerts – I have never been to Blisland, but it is obviously a different life, a different world – and it has become
your
world.

Not since childhood have we ever been really
firm
friends, and now that I am Desmond's wife – and virtually mistress of Place – I do not conceive we should ever make fair weather of it.

If you are in need I can send you £10, but that is as much as I can manage. Desmond has run deep into debt repairing the church and caring for his mother.

There is one other reason why it will not do, Emma – though I hesitate to mention it. I have heard the servants gossiping when I was not meant to – and there is a feeling that your disfigurement brings ill-luck. It is
so silly
that grown people should believe such things, but you cannot knock their heads together. Even Mrs Tizard – she is in charge of Aunt Anna – even Mrs Tizard was of the opinion that your visit to Aunt Anna last year upset her and caused her distress. She would not take kindly to your return, and with Aunt Anna at present so finely balanced it is a risk Desmond and I feel we cannot take.

Love,

Tamsin
P. S. If you cannot find it in yourself to stay on in Blisland, it
is Mother's duty to receive you.

E
VERYTHING IN
the house would have to go. It would have been foolish to have supposed that the new rector, when he came, would not bring most of his own furniture.

Yet I lacked advice and hesitated, and waited. Mr Hext said he was assured there was no hurry. For a time we could exist in limbo and, since the staff was all here, I could continue to run the house, feed them (after a fashion) and victual the locum clergyman who took prayers on a Sunday.

Eventually Mr Preston Wallis came from Bodmin. He was not merely the Canon's solicitor but also legal clerk to the Bodmin–Wadebridge Railway. I knew Mr Wallis quite well. He was a small middle-aged man with a deeply lined face and a busy manner, as if time were pressing him to make haste.

‘Must apologize, Miss Spry: after your father's – beg pardon, uncle's – funeral I was taken with a tertian ague – it is much about in Bodmin this autumn – and have been confined to my bed for more than a week. I could have sent my clerk, but it seemed necessary I should see you myself. So here I am. Better late than never, eh? I wanted to see you and to discuss your future.'

We were in the big drawing room, where the great pieces of furniture looked as if never really settled here, their purpose all along being to be taken to the saleroom. I wondered if I could keep the spinet? Mr Wallis had a large briefcase which he now put on a table with a lot of clicking of latches, and from this he took a sheaf of paper.

‘Not sure, Miss Spry, how far your uncle took you into his confidence. But—'

‘I was not really his niece, Mr Wallis. It was a distant cousinship.'

‘I see. I see. Well, the Canon thought very highly of his distant cousin, as you may know. But what I do not know if you know is that the Canon has made you his sole legatee.'

Outside the big sash windows I could see Mr Wallis's pony and trap. I saw the pony beginning to eat some of my montbretia.

‘I knew
nothing
of this!' I said. ‘ What does it mean that he's left me – left me his money?'

‘Just that. Just that. If—'

‘But when? Did he make a new will? I know nothing of it at all!'

‘He came into my office just before he was taken ill. I believe you were on holiday at St Mawes. He said he would like to have this settled before you returned.'

‘Oh,' I said. ‘Does he have no – no closer relatives?'

‘A cousin in Australia, I believe. But he was in no doubt as to his wish to make you his sole legatee.'

I was a little short of air. ‘But his previous will. Did he not leave it to charities?'

‘Very little. But I must point out at once, Miss Spry, that the Canon really had very little to leave. What capital he had was invested in schemes like the Bodmin–Wadebridge Railway, the Treffry Viaduct, the Barnstaple to Exeter tramway, and most lately a Bath– Bristol scheme which has not yet got off the ground. All of these, including the Bodmin–Wadebridge Railway, are incurring losses rather than profits. In our local line we have been beset by problems such as no doubt occur in all new mechanical ventures. As your uncle will have told you, the wheels of the engines have been constantly leaving the rails, which has led to repeated breakdowns, and often the trucks have had to be brought home by cattle. Then there was the snow of February and the drought of July, when the engines had to be stopped after twice setting fire to the woods—'

‘I know,' I said absently. ‘I know. You will remember we had two meetings in this house. And Mr Lane has written to me as well.'

‘I was saying this, Miss Spry, only lest you thought of his capital as a readily realizable asset. I think at the moment you would find it quite difficult to find anyone to take these varyingly speculative investments off your hands.' The little man glanced out of the window. ‘I fear my pony has broken free of his rein. I hope he is not damaging your garden.'

‘Let him be,' I said. ‘Then …'

‘Of course there are a few small investments outside these ventures. Some £300 in Consols. A cottage that he owned in Devonshire which is rented at £20 a year. A deposit in Martyn's Bank in Plymouth of about £100, a quarter share in a tannery business in Exeter which brings in a few guineas a year. A few other minor things which can no doubt be gathered up. But nothing, nothing at all
large
. Then there are of course his personal belongings in this house, his books, the furniture, the horse and trap. Some of these you might wish to sell, others to keep. Obviously you can make these choices when you come to leave the rectory. I am here – shall always be on hand in Bodmin, to advise.'