The Ugly Sister

by Winston Graham

  When we first came to Place I do not think my mother was invited, or even allowed, to take any part in the management of the property. Slade was in charge and Aunt Anna was around most of the time. Now, with Slade often mildly drunk and Aunt Anna searching for her lost sons, my mother gradually took over the reins. Uncle Davey’s aversion for her had quite vanished, and on his monthly visits he would go over the accounts with his sister-in-law and arrange for money to be put in her name for the payment of the servants and the maintenance of the property.

  It was when I was about twelve that Aunt Anna twice escaped onto the front lawns in her nightshift, and was only just caught as she was about to plunge into the estuary. The Admiral was summoned from Plymouth, there was a council of war, and a week later Aunt Anna disappeared in a black cab driven by two roan horses. She was going to a home where irrational behaviour was suitably catered for.

  I cried, for I had grown fond of the eccentric old lady; she had never shown me anything but kindness, and Fetch said we would never see her again. Everyone in the house was surprised – except perhaps Uncle Davey – when a month later the same black cab drawn by the same two horses appeared in the June evening sunshine and Aunt Anna stepped out, sniffing and smiling and ready to play whist again. She had been put in her place, reality had been firmly distinguished in her mind from fantasy, and for the moment the firm, indeed rough, treatment had done its work. Parish rolled and grovelled and salivated in ecstasy.

  IV

  I REMEMBER very well the day I saw Abraham Fox. It was another June. I had been fifteen in the December.

  I wish I could honestly say that I appreciated my luck in having been allowed to grow up in such a beautiful part of the world. Alas, fifteen is not an age when one counts one’s blessings, handicaps notwithstanding. I see it in my mind’s eye now: but that is looking back.

  The tide was full in, a westerly breeze strongly blowing. Small clouds, like puffs of white vapour, drifted before the sun. The river was mottled with white froth where the wind could get at it. From all over the great amphitheatre of Carrick Roads gentle fields, sectionally green and green-grey and green-brown and dotted with darker trees, ran down to the dancing water. Ships’ sails, white and multicoloured, moved against the theatrical backdrop of Falmouth town’s grey climbing streets and crowded jetties. Nearer by and sheltered from the breeze St Mawes warmed itself in the intermittent sun.

  It was mid-afternoon, and I was on the lawn pretending to admire the shrubbery but really looking for a ball I had lost the day before, when a small boat with a single sail and a single occupant luffed its way gently towards the quay, the sail rattled down and a man looped a rope over a bollard and jumped ashore.

  I had never, I thought, seen anyone so beautiful. Later I was to realize he was not beautiful at all but had the sort of brilliant masculine looks that outdo the Shelleys of this world. Although I didn’t then know his name, he at once reminded me of a fox. People have written of foxy good looks, but that was not it at all. It was his expression: deep-set glinting dark eyes, immensely alert, predatory, laughter always in them, but laughter with a purpose, expressing not humour but appreciation of life and of his own sense of vigorous intention.

  ‘Day to you, lady,’ he said. ‘ Permit me to come ashore?’

  He had already done this, and it was not likely I should object. Anyway his brilliant white smile in a dark face froze my tongue. Dark, he was very dark; could have been a Latin yet clearly was not. Probably deeply Cornish. Wore his hair longish, inclined to fall over his forehead and to be impatiently brushed back. White frilled shirt open at neck, tight drill trousers, sandals over bare feet. He was looking at me.

  ‘Wind’s freshening from nor-west. I’ll have to take care I’m not embayed.’ He looked around. ‘Agreeable house. Are you a Spry?’

  I couldn’t answer.

  He said: ‘You Miss Tamsin’s sister?’

  I couldn’t answer.

  He laughed. ‘My name’s Abraham Fox. Bram is what people call me. Bram for short. What’s your name?’

  There was no one else in sight. Not even a servant.

  ‘Are you Miss Tamsin’s sister?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Guessed as much. She told me she had one.’

  (What else had she said?)

  ‘Didn’t she say your name was Eunice?’

  ‘Emma—’

  ‘Ah, yes. Well, Emma, I’ll not eat you. Nice as you are to look at. It is such a gallant day I thought I’d call. Know you if Miss Tamsin is in?’

  ‘I’m …’ I said. ‘I’m not sure.’ Suddenly I saw a friendly familiar figure in the distance. ‘Fetch will know. Fetch!’

  I stared across at two barges dredging for sand in St Mawes harbour. In fact I knew where everyone was. Uncle Davey was in Plymouth. Aunt Anna was in bed. My mother was learning a new part. Thomasine was stitching a dress. Mary was with Aunt Anna, Desmond was riding with his tutor. (I should have been reading French.)

  Sally came up, and I asked her to acquaint my mother and sister that they had a visitor.

  As she walked away, he said: ‘Fetch … Do you have another maid called Carry?’

  His laughter was so infectious that I almost joined in. But his laughter went on too long.

  ‘People make fun of my name too,’ he said. ‘Did you ever play “Is Mr Fox at home?”’

  ‘No.’

  ‘One day I’ll show you, Miss Emmie. A pretty little game. “Where a Fox preaches, take care of the geese.” However, I’m sure you’re no goose, Emmie.’

  ‘Emma!’

  ‘Ask pardon. I’m sure my foolish jokes annoy you. Can see it by the rise and fall of your blouse. How long have you lived here?’

  ‘All my life.’

  ‘That’s not so very long, is it. Seventeen years?’

  ‘A little less.’ I knew he was trying to flatter me.

  ‘Indeed. Your other sister has recently married?’

  ‘My cousin.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘You must mean my cousin Anna Maria.’

  ‘Ah. Well yes. I expect I do. She has married well, hasn’t she? A Carlyon of Tregrehan.’

  ‘He has married well too!’

  ‘No doubt, no doubt.’ He considered me. ‘The Admiral is well found. He seems to have houses everywhere … Ah, here comes Fetch and Carry. She looks not neither to the right nor to the left but proceeds apace towards us.’

  Sally Fetch came up. ‘Beg pardon, sur, but Miss Spry is from home. Mistress regrets that you will not be able to see her today.’

  ‘Mistress being?’

  ‘Please?’

  ‘That is my mother,’ I said.

  ‘Ah … Mistress Spry is at home. Fetch.’

  ‘Sur?’

  ‘Pray go in again and ask if Mr Fox may have the honour and pleasure of calling on Mistress Claudine Spry.’

  V

  ‘HOW DARE you not tell me he had called!’ Tamsin hissed at me.

  Tamsin was such a charming mild-mannered girl until something crossed her.

  ‘Mama said you were out. I thought you might have gone out.’

  ‘I was in my room! As you must have known! All the time I was in my room stitching my ball gown!’

  ‘But I don’t think Mama wished you to see him.’

  ‘Of course she did not! Else she would have received him herself. That was outrageous, to refuse him admittance!’

  ‘I do not know what the etiquette is when someone arrives by sea. I suppose one cannot apply the normal rules.’

  ‘And how dare you,’ she said, beside herself with anger and frustration, ‘how dare you go out and sail with him!’

  ‘He asked me! We just went out as far as Anthony’s Head.’

  ‘I should think Mama was furious with you!’

  ‘She said some unkind things.’

  ‘I expect it has all gone to your head,’ Tamsin said. ‘I expect he was trying to revenge himself on the family. Which side of your face did you
turn to him?’

  It had been an exciting sail. By now, of course, I could handle a boat as well as most but I was surprised and nervously startled when he said to me, ‘ Care to take the tiller?’

  ‘Oh but …’

  ‘No but …’

  As we changed places perilously in the rocking cutter he grasped my arm above the elbow and laughed, black hair blowing across his face.

  ‘See how speedy you can drive us on the rocks.’

  I was not dressed for boating, and my striped skirt and yellow blouse billowed as much as the canvas as I shortened sail, came briefly up into the wind and then heeled over, making again for the mouth of the creek.

  ‘Heigh-ho,’ he shouted. ‘Could tell you was a seaman’s daughter.’

  ‘I’m not!’

  ‘Then what are you?’ When I didn’t reply: ‘Every Spry is a bit of a sea-dog, ain’t he? Admirals, captains, commodores. Maybe there’s a cabinboy among ’em, but if so he’s the skeleton in the scuppers. Come a point south, would you, my dear, I see breakers ahead.’

  So the sea danced and we dipped and eddied with it, the sun lifted its veil and beat hot upon us; the green headland with its black feet lurched past and in a few moments we were back in the calmer waters of the creek.

  ‘Is it true that your mother is an actress?’

  He asked more about my family and gradually my tongue freed itself. Even so, as the sun waxed and waned between the clouds, I was both hotter and colder than the day because of the friendly, hungry way he looked at me.

  ‘To tell the truth, Miss Emma, I’ve met Thomasine twice and we rather experienced a taking for each other. Nothing serious, mind, but I’d like to see her again. Am I to assume from the rebuff I received today that she is bespoke?’

  ‘Bespoke? Not if by bespoke you mean affianced.’

  ‘That I do mean. So …’ He watched me quizzically as, unhelped by him, I lowered the sail. ‘In what way am I to be considered ineligible – at least as a friend?’

  ‘That I cannot tell you.’

  ‘Is Tamsin to be an actress? Does your mother want you both to follow her on the stage?’

  ‘I don’t know … Well, I could not. Not unless it was to join a circus.’

  He threw a rope to loop over one of the bollards and drew the cutter into the side of the quay. He jumped ashore and offered me a hand – which I forbore to take.

  ‘Must go before the tide turns,’ he said. ‘This cutter comes from Feock, and I am not sure if the owner knows I’ve borrowed it.’

  ‘D’you mean – you just took it?’

  He laughed at my expression. ‘Take – borrow – it is not stealing.’ His eyes narrowed in the sun, gleaming. ‘Fearsome is as fearsome does, eh? You think I might want to borrow you or your sister? Not a disagreeable thought. But it would be for more than one tide. Tell me …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Was it an accident?’

  I glared daggers at him. ‘ Of a sort. On the part of the midwife.’

  ‘Has a doctor seen it?’

  ‘Many.’ Which wasn’t true.

  ‘Should think something could be done. Surgeons are clever johnnies with their scissors these days.’

  ‘Thank you. Good day, Mr Fox, and thank you for the sail.’

  ‘Would you,’ he said, ‘ as a token of your deep gratitude, give a message from me to your sister Tamsin?’

  ‘I think my mother would object.’

  ‘Tell Tamsin … Tell her next Thursday at three in front of the new Market House.’

  I did not speak.

  ‘Emmie,’ he said, touching my hand.

  ‘Don’t call me that!’

  ‘Emma, then. Nice Emma? Kind Emma? Pretty Emma?’

  ‘You know those are outrageous lies!’

  He said obscurely: ‘ Many a dangerous temptation comes to us in gay fine colours that are but skin deep.’

  He left then with a wicked grin. I watched him sail across the estuary. He turned once to wave, but I did not wave back.

  VI

  THE FOLLOWING day Uncle Davey arrived, bringing with him Anna Maria, who had last year been married in great style and this year had a baby son, born in London. With her came her husband, Major Edward Carlyon, a whiskery, medium-sized young man who liked to wear his regimentals even when off duty. At supper Aunt Anna was in bed, but the other adults, four of them, were spaced down the long dining table. Tamsin and Mary and Desmond and I ate separately.

  I have described the main house with its long dark passage running along behind the big reception rooms, so that servants could enter each room by a side door leading from this passage and not disturb the gentry in the other rooms. Sometimes the servants’ doors were left slightly ajar, and when proceeding along this passage it was possible to overhear conversations that were not meant for one’s ears. I have to confess I had done this once or twice in the past, and tonight, after a sparse supper, I stepped out and along this passage to the servants’ door of the dining room, and as expected the last maid had not caught the latch.

  Supper was almost over there too, and I had just missed bumping into Slade on his way to the kitchen.

  Conversation about Aunt Anna. The Admiral indignantly brushed aside a suggestion from Edward Carlyon that there might be similarities between his wife’s condition and that of the late George the Third.

  The new baby had been left in care of a nurse at Tregrehan, but Anna Maria, fondly exchanging glances with her husband, was already fuller in the face, generally fuller of body than the slip of a girl whose first heliograph stood framed on a sideboard. My mother on the contrary had lost weight, and one of the rare signs of middle age was a sort of freckling under the eyes, and a hint of gauntness about her shoulders. But she was still a very handsome woman.

  I turned away for a moment, thinking I heard a footstep in the passage, and by the time I was reassured the conversation had turned to a subject more pertinent to me. I heard the name Abraham Fox.

  ‘Who?’ asked Uncle Davey rather irritably, for he was slightly deaf. ‘ Eh? Eh? Oh, him. I do not think I should touch him with a bargepole.’

  ‘It is not I who is thinking of touching him,’ my mother said tartly. ‘Or he me, I assure you. But he was at the Polwheles’ last Monday and he was making the greatest fuss of Thomasine. And his name counts for something.’

  ‘Aye, name is fair enough – if you wish to be linked with God-fearing Quakers. But I do not think he is of that family. Comes he not from St Austell? What’s his father’s name? Eh? Paul? Robert? You should know, Edward, he’s in your parish.’

  ‘Yes,’ said the Major. ‘I’ve met him. Can’t say that I know the man. All I can say is I’d be astonished if you found anything God-fearing about Bram Fox. Nor quaking, so far as I know. Father’s in china clay, but no position. I’m told Bram is the only son among a quiver of girls, but came in for money from an uncle. Spent it fast cutting a dash in the county. Suspect the Foxes of Falmouth look on him as a black sheep and want no truck with him.’

  ‘He called here yesterday,’ my mother said.

  ‘Did he, now! And did you receive him?’

  ‘I did not.’

  ‘Good. What was his excuse for calling?’

  ‘We had met at the Polwheles’, as I have said. If his reputation is so dubious I am surprised they entertained him.’

  Anna Maria smiled. ‘Oh, he is popular, I believe. Fine company. It isn’t always worthy men who create most laughter at a party. But girls can usually discriminate.’

  My mother finished her tea and took a last sip of wine. She said to Anna Maria: ‘ I have had an offer from Mr Keating. It is quite a time since he wrote. He is offering me a short tour of Bath and Bristol and Cheltenham. Mainly classical roles. It is a good offer from him, and if I refuse it I suspect it will be the last.’

  Mother had been home since Christmas.

  ‘Then I think you should take it.’

  ‘Caring for the house with your mother in bed so
much – and so eccentric – is difficult. I would like to accept but I also have my anxieties about Thomasine. She is now, as you observe, very beautiful and much sought after … But in spite of her many qualities she can be obstinate, and like many an impressionable girl before her she is susceptible to young men with good manners and good looks. Of course I talk to her at length on the wisdom, indeed the necessity, of making a suitable attachment, but I should not sleep easy of nights if I were away and she were at home and unguarded.’

  ‘Oh, come,’ said the Admiral, ‘it is hardly as bad as that, surely, eh? We now have Mrs Avery to keep an eye on things. With Desmond shortly going abroad and Mary grown up, she has little to do, eh? And Tamsin has a sister … I know Emma is young but she has a strong will. There will be many people to look after your Tamsin.’

  ‘Mrs Avery would not have the character,’ said my mother. ‘Nor would my daughter accept her authority. As for Emma …’ She snorted. ‘She could be given no authority over an elder sister. Besides, how could she be expected to be a judge of a man when she would be subjected to the same impulses and influences as all young women of her age?’

  Presently Anna Maria said: ‘ Unhappily I cannot see a likelihood of marriage for Emma. Few young men would not be put off.’

  ‘Her only prospect would be if she were an heiress, and since she is not …’

  There was the clink of a decanter. The Admiral said: ‘If it is Bram Fox you are principally apprehensive of, I think you should not be too uneasy of him.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because Tamsin has no money, has she? Eh? Eh?’

  ‘You know she has not.’

  ‘Well, where marriage is concerned, I suspect that Bram will be looking for money as well as for a pretty face.’

  ‘I don’t think it is simply an unsuitable husband you have to fear in the case of Bram Fox,’ said Carlyon with a laugh. He stroked his moustache. ‘However, no doubt the Admiral can take precautions that will keep him away.’

  Something pushed past my legs.