The Ugly Sister (27 page)

I
T WAS
time to go home. In the last month, as the days lightened, I had taken the ferry to the main quay and done some shopping. In the time since the Canon died I had had hardly any time to put aside for enjoying my new prosperity, and now Fetch and I walked the shopping streets of Zurich and pleasurably spent money, on clothes, on shoes, on hats, on watches, on fairly expensive trinkets of jewellery.

It was during this time that I tested out my new face in the more general public places, and only about once in ten times did I notice the shop assistants' eyes turning towards the disfigurement. People passed me by without apparently noticing anything. True each morning I took half an hour to make up my face, but the result was clearly satisfactory. At last I began to accept Fetch's reassurance almost, you might say, at face value.

It was a tedious journey home: long stretches of coach riding to Paris, where we spent a week and considerably more money, then another journey, much burdened with extra luggage, to the coast, a rough crossing to Dover, then suddenly we were in a land where everyone spoke English. A night in Dover, the coach up the Dover–London road; into the city and the traffic and the bustle and the smoke; a hotel on the river.

I had written my mother from Dover – there was talk of a penny post – and gave the letter a couple of days to reach her, then set off for Richmond. We arrived about eleven. It was a pretty house on the Green, bow-windowed and painted white; the front garden was riotous with roses.

I was shocked when I saw my mother; she walked with a stick and seemed to have shrunk in size. There is a time in some people's lives when age suddenly catches up with them and two years might be ten. By comparison Captain Frensham, for all his white hair, might have been her younger brother. Surprisingly, perhaps, it was not until I went down to supper that either of them remarked on any change they might see in me. (Perhaps not so surprising in that personal illness concentrates the mind on oneself, and my mother, who was too vain to wear spectacles, had become very short-sighted.)

‘So … Well, so Emma, what has someone been doing to your face?'

I offered a brief explanation, playing down the extent of the surgery, the length of the convalescence, and my fears that it had all been only half-successful. She did not speak for a few moments, and stared across the table at me.

Her husband said: ‘ But if you allowed a surgeon to do that, was it not very painful?'

‘Quite painful, yes.'

‘I saw men vastly disfigured after Trafalgar. I do not think anything was done for them –
could
be done for them. Do you feel better for the operation? I seem to remember the eye was drawn down.'

‘It is quite an improvement,' said my mother at last, but slowly. ‘Can you see better with the eye?'

‘Not better, but just as well.'

‘Is it not more bloodshot again?'

‘Yes, but it is improving.'

‘And they have done something to your scar. It has not gone.'

‘They did not promise it. I think it is better.'

‘Of course you are using a cosmetic. Is it cream of Talcum?'

‘Something like that. I bought it in Paris.'

‘Perhaps in the morning I could look at it more closely. It certainly gives you quite a different appearance.'

We went on with supper.

‘How much did Uncle Francis leave you?'

‘Oh, more than I expected.'

‘And now, I suppose you have spent it all.'

‘Not quite all.'

‘I'm glad. It is good to have a little nest egg.'

Conversation changed, and it was not until the little maid had cleared away the dessert that my mother returned to the subject.

‘I'm glad for you, Emma.'

‘What?'

‘Glad that your eye has been put right. After all, all the rest can be covered up. I notice your high collar. But this outcome will surely please you, does it not? I think you will be sure to gain in confidence now that there is not this obvious disfigurement. You might well marry.'

‘Hmm,' I said. ‘Yes, I suppose so.'

I
N THE
morning she came to my room, stick supporting her. ‘My rheumatism,' she said, ‘ was even worse in Cornwall. It is the damp, I expect. Shall you go back there?'

‘I think so.'

‘You would not prefer to make a complete new start in some new part of the country – say Bath – where nobody knows you or remembers you?'

‘I think I should be lost there. I have a few friends in Cornwall.'

‘Shall you go soon?'

‘In a few days. I am going to meet Samuel in London tomorrow.'

‘You have his address? Yes, well, he is now head of the family. I hope you won't say anything derogatory of Tamsin.'

‘Certainly not.'

‘Her situation is an anomalous one, occupying the main family house almost on her own, except for the servants and Celestine. Shall you try to get another position in Cornwall?'

‘Not yet. At the moment I have enough to live on.'

‘I'm glad to know it. What
was
the amount Uncle Francis left you?'

‘I can't exactly remember. There were a few cottages and outlying things which haven't yet been accounted for.'

‘It was so kind of him to leave you what he could. There wasn't anything, well,
between
you, was there? I know he was an old man, but—'

‘There was nothing between us in the sense you mean. There was a great affection. I still miss him.'

‘Strange he should have left
any
money. He was always complaining of his poverty. He saved and begrudged every penny. A miser. And yet in his own way a Christian.'

‘Very much a Christian,' I said warmly. ‘ I've never known a better.'

She screwed her eyes to look at me again in the morning light.

‘D'you know, it is quite difficult to appreciate the change in you. This – thing you have had done has certainly made you better-looking. But you were a soft gentle-looking girl before, in spite of your poor eye and the rest of it. Now … now you might be considered quite good-looking, but in a harder sort of way. I think it has hardened your face.'

S
AMUEL SAID
: ‘Someone has operated on your eye? It looks a deal better. Where was it done?'

‘In Germany. In Berlin.'

‘Oh. I do not suppose it was very pleasant for you, was it? But it certainly is different from what it used to be. Have you been to Cornwall?'

‘Not yet.'

‘Well, I'm glad you came to see me before you went.'

He was a bigger man than his father, inclined to stoutness though only thirty-five. In spite of having given up his naval career there was a look of the sailor about him. The almost inevitable roll in his walk, his bluffness and air of disciplined command of himself. His house was in Mount Street where he seemed to live alone, except for the servants. Whether he owned the elegant small house or merely rented it, I had no idea. It would be convenient for the Commons. Like all the senior Sprys he moved around a lot in the course of a year, and I was lucky to find him in London.

His greeting of me, however, had not been warm. Very different from Desmond, though perhaps even Desmond's welcome would not be as friendly as usual.

‘I take it you inherited some money from Uncle Francis,' he said. ‘You've been away from Cornwall – what is it? – more than a year. Do you intend to return to live there?'

‘Yes, I hope to very shortly.'

‘Well, I can tell you I am not at all satisfied by the way things are turning out at present.'

‘My mother is worried also.'

‘So she should be. She would be better in Cornwall to keep her other daughter's behaviour within bounds.'

‘My mother is partly crippled with rheumatism: a journey for her now is very difficult.'

‘Ah. I see.'

A brief pause. Then the sting worked.

‘You speak of my sister's behaviour, as if it were – specially ill. I know of course that she and Desmond have separated, but that is not an unknown occurrence, is it? My mother was hoping that in the course of a year or two they might come together again.'

‘Will you take some wine?'

‘Thank you, no.'

‘It's a very light Canary. I brought it back on my last voyage.'

I took a glass.

‘Your sister,' he said, ‘is making an exhibition of herself by consorting with that man Abraham Fox. Not only does she go about with him, he frequently visits Place and has been known to spend the night there. Indeed, according to my information he comes and goes at will. It is the scandal of the county.'

Did my throat still contract at the mention of his name? Do hate and jealousy and love spring from the same root? I sipped the wine but could scarcely taste it.

I had suspected something of the sort. At the back of my mind had stirred this old suspicion and this old fear. But blunt confirmation blew the qualifying doubts away. The scandal of the county. Exaggerated, but probably everyone in the districts around Truro and Falmouth knew of it. Truly a disgrace. I thought my mother knew and had withheld it from me.

Why was it so shocking? Uncle Davey had kept a mistress and bought a house for her. Eyebrows had been raised, no doubt, but little said. Of course that was years ago, and morals had changed lately. For me the shock – the confirmatory shock – was the identity of Tamsin's lover. Would I have felt the same were it someone else? I might even have tried to defend her.

‘When you go to Cornwall you will certainly call and see your sister. Perhaps you can bring her round to a greater sense of propriety.'

‘I'm the younger, Samuel, as you know. I have seldom if ever been able to direct my sister as to her way of thinking.'

‘Shall you stay in Blisland?'

‘With the Collinses for about a week, then I am going to call on the Austens, who have always been very kind.'

‘He's changed his name to Treffry, did you know? It was natural enough as his mother is a Treffry and he is doing so much for the town.'

‘It is Mrs Austen I shall chiefly see …'

He waited on my pause, brown eyes fixed penetratingly on me.

I said: ‘ I understand Betsy Slocombe has left Killiganoon. Is it now empty?'

‘Yes.'

‘I have wondered if it would be possible to rent it for a year or two?'

This was not what he had expected.

‘You do not wish to live with your sister?'

‘No.'

He poured himself another glass of what was in fact a very palatable Canary.

‘The financial relationship between me and my brother is already very complicated. He has run deep into debt because of his expenditure on the house and Tamsin's extravagances. He'll now be much relieved – financially – by the will of his mother. While at Place he paid a rental to the estate, and since he left, your sister has taken over the rental – much to my surprise, as I understood she had no money of her own. This rental, of course, was nominal, a family agreement below the market value. I don't know whether I can extend a similar concession to you if you were to live in Killiganoon – I gather you have some money still?'

‘Enough to pay the appropriate rental without any concessionary consideration.'

He smiled thinly. ‘You surprise me, Emma.'

I said: ‘I am surprised to be in this position.'

‘Would you intend to live in Killiganoon on your own?'

‘Miss Slocombe did.'

‘Perhaps …' An idea had come to him. ‘ Perhaps you could persuade your sister to vacate Place and live with you. The house is amply big enough.'

‘As I say, I couldn't answer for her. In fact, I should better prefer to be on my own.'

‘It would be an advantage to the family as a whole. Had you thought of that?'

‘In what way?' I was being deliberately obtuse.

Samuel got up. ‘I have written to her telling her that her unseemly conduct is bringing the house and the family into disrepute. She replied, rejecting my complaint and saying that Place is the home where Desmond installed her on their marriage and she sees no reason to leave it.'

‘You've written that, and she has replied in that way?'

‘Yes. I can of course have her evicted but that would cause a great uproar, and one has to remember that she is a Spry both before and after marriage.'

‘If you've asked her to leave and she has refused, how can you suppose she would listen to me?'

‘If you took Killiganoon you could then offer her a home.'

‘I'm very astonished and upset,' I said, ‘ that it has gone so far.'

‘We are all equally upset.'

‘Is that a condition that you make for allowing me to rent Killiganoon?'

‘I should be willing to let you have it at a lower rental if you did that.'

‘And what then would happen to Place?'

‘Possibly Desmond and Mary would return. I would like to keep it as a family home – which it has always been – and use it myself from time to time.'

‘And where does …' I half choked over the name ‘… does Abraham Fox come into all this?'

‘Not at all, I hope.'

‘What you want me to do is keep open house for him at Killiganoon the way you say my sister keeps Place for him at present.'

‘Certainly not. Certainly not.' He paced the quarter deck a couple of times. ‘Perhaps if your sister is persuaded to leave Place she will come to her senses. You are now, it seems, a young woman of substance. It would be your home. You could forbid him to set foot in it.'

‘I have no doubt,' I said gently, ‘ that Desmond tried. I could hardly have more influence over Tamsin than her own husband.'

He blinked. ‘I appreciate it would not be an easy solution for you. Presupposing that you did take Killiganoon, and that you persuaded Tamsin to join you, you would be in a position to forbid Fox to call. But, I agree, if he defied you, you have no ready sanction. You don't, I suppose – er – contemplate marriage yourself?'