“Sandwiches! There ought to be sandwiches. I believe ham’s the right thing.”
Henry gave Charles a reproachful look. He had followed every instruction to the best of his ability; to be asked for ham sandwiches just before the funeral was hard.
“Nothin’ wasn’t said to me about sandwiches.”
Charles recognised injured feelings.
“It was only a thought, forget it. Better let me decant the stuff. Two bottles will do as a start. Did all the relations turn up?”
“Lady Cole come, thinkin’ the corpse was ’ere. Mrs. Levin’ton is away, so Miss Clara said.”
“She been?”
“Not ’er, got plenty to do on ’er own. She telephones; very nice she was too, wanted to know ’ow I was placed, if I’d anywhere to go and that, and if there was anythin’ she could do to ’elp over the funeral. She did ask if there was to be ’ymns, proper set on ’ymns she is, but I told ’er I didn’t know, but that you would, sir.”
“That’s right. They’ve all been on to me. Mrs. Levington got back yesterday. I told Miss Clara that Mr. Hilton wanted a quiet funeral, and she said she quite understood. She sounds the best of the bunch.”
“You’ve said it, sir. She’s a real lady, Miss Clara is, you wouldn’t know she was one of the family, straight you wouldn’t.”
Charles looked at his watch.
“We needn’t go for five minutes. How about bracing ourselves with a glass of this before we start?”
Henry looked doubtfully at the port. To him it was a woman’s drink. He liked the look of Charles, he didn’t seem the nosy type.
“There’s a little whisky up there. I ’aven’t touched it, but no one doesn’t know about it but me; what the eye can’t see the ’eart can’t grieve after.”
Charles decanted the second bottle. He put the stopper in the decanter.
“Too true.” He waited until the whisky was poured out, then he raised his glass. “Here’s to the will reading. I hope the old boy gets a chance to look on, he’ll enjoy himself.”
Henry swallowed some of his whisky and felt slightly less depressed and therefore able to speak more easily.
“You seen the photo what was took?” Charles nodded. Henry lowered his voice. “There ’e’s sittin’ dolled up to the nines, lookin’ out so natural it seems as if ’e was back. It’s comic, but, d’you know, sir, I couldn’t seem to fancy seein’ it no more when ’e was gone, so I put it face down in a drawer. You see ’e needed such a lot of lookin’ after, ’e needed me like.”
Charles was used to cockneys; several had served under him in the commandos, through them he had learned to pick sorrow and tragedy out of totally inexpressive words. He understood that Henry was truly grieving for his old man, that his death was going to leave a gap in his life he would find hard to fill; probably he had needed the sort of attention a mother gives a child, and towards the end had been as dependent on Henry as a child on its mother. It was no wonder he felt cut up. He opened his cigarette case for offering a cigarette was an expression of sympathy Henry would recognise.
“Liked the old boy myself only time I saw him. Which reminds me, after you’ve given the relatives their port you are to stay in the drawing-room while I’m reading the will and you’re to drink a glass of port yourself.”
“Me, sir! They won’t like that, sir, especially Mr. George ’ilton won’t.”
“I couldn’t care less what any of them like.” Charles raised his glass towards Simon’s room. “His instructions; though, mind you, if you can get away with having a drop of this instead of port I shouldn’t think he’d mind.” He looked at his watch. “Drink up. We shan’t half get our ears pinned back if we’re late for the funeral.”
George, Alice, Maurice, and Sybil, with wife or husband, and Clara on her own, obeyed Simon’s summons to attend his funeral and will reading. Clara excepted, they were out of humour. George, Vera, the Coles, and the Levingtons considered it inconsiderate of their uncle to have died when he did. Plans had been upset once to attend that ghastly birthday luncheon, and little less than two weeks later they were upset again. Maurice was put out—and a put-out Maurice meant a put-out Doris—not by upset plans due to tactless timing of dying, but by upset feelings caused by the tactlessness of the one who had died in not making the right requests. When a family owned a parson it was customary to ask him to take part in services which concerned the family; it was, thinking charitably, thoughtless to put it mildly, not to have done so. It was especially hurtful when the only parson in the family was poor, and because he was poor apt to be slighted by brothers and sisters and brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law.
Before the funeral there had been partial solace for inconvenience caused by an early September funeral, in the knowledge of the letter each had received from Willis and Willis. A straightforward letter stating that it had been the special request of the late Simon Hilton that they should be present when the will was read. It was tiresome and very like old Uncle Simon to wish his will to be read; why could not the contents be passed on by his solicitors by letter in the ordinary way? Still, it was satisfactory to know that Uncle Simon had especially asked for their presence. It was only after the funeral when, walking towards motor cars, a little conversation of a quiet kind not being out of place, that the bad news filtered through the family that everybody had received the letter; it was far from unique, in fact it might be described as stock.
George did not mention the subject to Vera until they were in the privacy of their Austin car. Vera drove, so he was able to give his full attention to gloomy thoughts, which he passed on to Vera. He did not like the look of things at all. Everybody had received the same letter, even poor old Clara. Had Vera had a look at that young man who was representing Willis and Willis? He knew the type, come back from the war thinking he could teach his grandmother to suck eggs. Extraordinary that a firm of the class of Willis and Willis should send a young jackanapes like that to represent them. It looked to him as if the old man had left a stupid will, a bit all round perhaps, nonsense in these times, with the death duties as they were it meant there would be nothing for anybody. Vera, at this point, saw the Coles’ chauffeur-driven Bentley in her mirror. The road was crowded and she had to give her attention to driving, but she could not look at that rich glossiness behind her in silence. She said bitterly it would be a real miscarriage of justice if any of Uncle Simon’s money went to Alice, Frederick was rich as Croesus. George ought to have heard the way Alice, at the luncheon, had tried to draw Uncle Simon’s attention to Ann and Myrtle, as if Frederick wasn’t more than able to do anything for them that needed doing. It was to be hoped, if the money was split up, Uncle Simon had remembered how many descendants he had. It would be too unfair if he had overlooked the fact that Alice and Frederick had only three grandchildren while they, with far less money in the family, had five.
Alice, out of the corner of her eye, saw Frederick’s face and wilted. At some time he had got it into his head that she had told him she expected to come into Uncle Simon’s money, or at any rate the greater part of it. She was sure she had never made so definite a statement, and if she had it had been made in a moment of fright, and was meant to placate temporarily, not to be remembered and quoted. When she had received her letter from Willis and Willis, forwarded to the hotel in Torquay where they were finishing their holiday, she had shown it to Frederick with pride and thankfulness. Torquay was not suiting Frederick, and he blamed her for having chosen it; the letter, with the news it clearly hinted at, was just the tonic he needed. It had proved a tonic, Frederick’s mood had in a moment changed from morose to hearty. He had interviewed the hotel manager and browbeaten him into allowing him to cancel their rooms, which were booked for another two weeks, without payment, and uplifted by this feat, he had, on returning to the bedroom where Alice was stooping over a suitcase she was packing, pinched her behind, a sign of jollity and affection she had not been given for years. His mood of gaiety had continued until, the body
of Uncle Simon finally disposed of, he had spoken to Sybil as they walked to the cemetery gates. Alice had simultaneously spoken to Paul. Desperately she turned over words which might soften, but nothing came to her mind. It was Frederick who spoke the only words spoken on the drive to the will reading.
“If there’s been any monkey business I’ll have something to say. You told me it was as good as promised. Nobody is going to double-cross me, I know what’s right, and don’t make things worse by opening your big mouth.”
Maurice, Doris and Clara travelled to and from the funeral in a very old Rolls Royce belonging to the undertakers. Henry drove to the funeral with them, sitting in front beside the driver, on the return journey he was given a lift by Charles. Driving to the funeral Maurice’s eyes were shut and his lips moved. Clara, seeing this, had addressed herself to Doris: how lucky it was it was such a lovely day for dear old Uncle Simon’s funeral; shocked signals at Maurice from Doris silenced her. Clara would not, in the ordinary way, have stopped talking because her brother appeared to be praying, she was always praying herself and knew there was no need for people to keep quiet while you talked to God, but she was glad not to make conversation. It had worried her that there were to be no hymns during the funeral service. She had to accept that Simon had said he would like a simple service, and she felt that might be because no one had suggested hymns to him. There was something very comforting about the hymns they sang at the mission; there was nothing sad about the dear old man dying, he was eighty and his time had come, but she would have liked to hear at least one of the old favourites sung, it was like waving good-bye to a friend. To make up for what would not happen at the service Clara sang, in her head, hymns all the way to the cemetery. To concentrate she too closed her eyes, and though she did not know it, her lips also moved. This was observed by Doris; admittedly poor old Clara lived in a mission, but that was not an excuse for imitating Maurice; if you were in the presence of a parson, even if he were your brother, you should leave any praying that required doing to him; amateurs did not perform when professionals were present. They were nearing the cemetery when Clara, carried away by a hymn, sung out loud “When we see a precious blossom, That we tended with such care, Rudely taken from our bosom . . .”
The sound drew Maurice from wrestling in prayer. He had started the drive by praying for Uncle Simon, but soon he was stating his own case. “If only I had been asked to take the service. I don’t mind for myself, but . . .” He was not making himself clear, so was glad of an excuse to stop praying. He opened his eyes and gazed at Clara, while Doris, incensed that a mere sister had power to distract a parson from his orisons when so often a wife had not, said “Clara!” in an unmistakable tone, and backed up the tone by a nudge from her elbow. Clara laughed.
“Did I sing out loud? What a silly old thing I am! But, you know, it’s a lovely hymn. I wish we could have sung it at the funeral.”
The words Clara had sung, though new to him, were repeating in Maurice’s head. He cleared his throat.
“Many of the old hymns are beautiful, but I scarcely think that one applicable to Uncle Simon. Do you?”
Clara sang the lines again.
“Oh yes, Maurice. I do. After all, though he was old to us, I expect he’s a tender blossom to God.”
Maurice, first giving Clara a look sadly lacking in the Christian spirit, returned hurriedly to his prayers. Doris quivered visibly, hoping thereby to show Clara she had offended, for if things like that were to be said at all Maurice was the one to say them. Clara, quite unconscious she was responsible for an unchristian look or quiver, returned to her mental hymn-singing, and the rest of the journey passed in silence. Because of the silent outward journey there was no mention of the will reading, and it came as a complete shock to Maurice and Doris when, as they drove away from the cemetery after the funeral, Clara said:
“I suppose we must all hear Uncle Simon’s will read, as he specially asked us to, but I’ve such a lot to do at the mission . . .”
“Us!” exclaimed Doris.
Maurice could not believe he had heard aright. During the funeral he had come, he thought, to an agreement with God that he would not grumble any more about the apparent slight, for after all joy was coming in the morning, or rather after the funeral. The days of being the poorest member of the family were over. God was looking after his own, or rather Uncle Simon, prompted by God, had done so.
“Us? Why do you say ‘us,’ Clara?”
“It is us. We’ve all had the same letter, you know.”
Maurice tried not to let his face show his thoughts. Us. That meant everything was to be divided. A share of Uncle Simon’s money was, of course, better than nothing, but why divide it? It was obvious who needed it most. He closed his eyes, his face was full of suffering.
Paul knew just what Sybil’s family thought of him, and, knowing it, took pleasure in being present at family occasions. They bored him, but he was able afterwards to be immensely amusing about them to his friends, and it pleased him to feel how it aggravated Sybil’s relatives . . . with the exception of poor old Clara, who was never aggravated about anything . . . when he put in an appearance. He had attended the funeral with some expectation of entertainment. He knew Sybil believed that she was to hear that Simon’s money had been left to her, and through her to Claud. He had let her think this would happen. It was pleasing to picture her disappointment. He could not imagine why she had heard from Willis and Willis; some little memento perhaps. He had not missed the expression on Alice’s face when she heard that Sybil had received the same letter as she had, nor had he missed the expression on George’s face, nor the look Frederick had given Alice. The moment he and Sybil were in his car he began to laugh.
Henry found it hard to throw off the gloom that had fallen on him at the funeral. Charles sensed this and gave his attention by one dodge or another, to getting his Jaguar through the traffic ahead of any other vehicle. It was this feat of driving which caught Henry’s attention, and pulled his mind from Simon’s decaying remains.
“You don’t let nothin’ come it over you, do you, sir?”
Charles oozed the car round a delivery van to arrive at the head of the queue waiting for the lights to change.
“Too right I don’t, in this world it’s push or be pushed. Anyway, I’ve got to step on it if we’re to beat the family to it. You want to be there to open the door and pass that port.”
“I won’t be a jiffy. Just want time to put on me white coat. I got a new one what ’asn’t never been worn, reckoned the old gentleman would like me togged up.”
Charles shot forward as the lights changed.
“You bet he would.” He let his mind dwell on the will reading. It was a pity he did not look his part. He spoke this thought out loud. “A frock coat would have been the ticket.”
Henry was horrified.
“Oh no, sir! You mean what ’e wore in ’is photo. I never worn one of those; anyway, we ’aven’t one, the moths ’ad ours. That was ’ired that was.”
Charles grinned.
“Not you, me. I wish I’d hired something. An old-fashioned frock coat, and a heavy watch chain; you know I’ve an idea if I’d had a chance to speak to him about it Mr. Hilton would have liked a bit of dressing up.”
It was as if a voice spoke from a long way off. “Get out me striped trousers, me frock coat, and me grey waistcoat.”
“Shouldn’t wonder neither. Pity you only met at the end like, you and ’im would ’ave got on a treat of roses.”
They reached the house. Charles stopped the car and looked round.
“Beaten the lot to it. Good. You mark my words, Henry, if there’s such a thing as a ghost you’ll hear your old man splitting his shroud laughing in half an hour.”
Henry gave a quick glance towards Simon’s windows.
“Don’t say that, sir. You give me the creeps. As true as I’m standing ’ere I says to ’im after ’is party ’e ought to be ashamed of ’imself laughin’ at ’em
all about nothin’, and d’you know what ’e says, ‘’ow d’you know it was about nothin’? You wait and see, me boy.’”
Charles stood aside to let Henry unlock the door.
“How right he was. You wait and see.”
* * * * *
Charles looked round at the family, and cleared his throat in a manner he felt suitable to a will-reading with port.
“I Simon Augustus Hilton of the maisonette known as flat 17A, Gorpas Road, Kensington, S.W.7., in the County of London, Esquire, hereby revoke all former Wills and testamentary dispositions and declare this to be my last Will. I appoint my solicitor Charles Frobisher Thomas Willis of the firm of Willis and Willis of Longacre London, and my doctor William Edward Bing of Drayton Gardens London, to be the executors of this Will and I give to each of them who shall prove my Will the sum of fifty pounds.”
Charles paused and collected the eyes of the family. He hoped he was wearing a suitably grave expression, but feared he merely looked comic.
“Then comes the directions for the funeral, which have of course already been carried out.” He returned to the will. He lifted his voice slightly as he read out the words. “The following pecuniary and specific legacies.” He was rewarded by rapt attention from everybody except Clara, who chose that moment to let her prayer-book slide from her knees to the parquet floor.
Clara picked up the book and smiled apologetically at Charles.
“I’m so sorry, you see I was thinking of something else.”
Nobody answered, but family looks were exchanged. Who but poor Clara would think of other things when the solicitor was about to read out the legacies.
Charles did not want the prayer-book to drop again, so he got up and came to Clara.
“You don’t want to hold it, do you? Shall I put it on the table?”
Clara beamed at him.
“Please do. I was thinking about the last time we all met; it was in this room; I’m so glad Uncle Simon had his party, I mean that it was in time.”
Aunt Clara Page 8
