At length Fetch said: ‘I wouldn’t trust ’im, miss, no further ’n I could spit!’
IV
WHEN WE reached Place a guest had called. He was an old man of about fifty, a clergyman and relative, Canon Francis de Vere Robartes, who had come over from Blisland at the foot of the Cornish moors, where he was the incumbent, to visit the two invalids. A great-greatgrandfather Spry, according to Desmond, who made a study of these things, had lived at Blisland and had been an attorney-at-law, practising in Bodmin and Plymouth. Canon Robartes was a distinguished cleric and had made a new translation of the Apocrypha. He was not well to do, but had good family connections, and he was disappointed to find only one invalid here and she an active convalescent, anxious only to talk about Clive and David, who had appeared to her in a dream last night.
So he had to make do with Mama and Desmond and Mary and me. Tamsin was out sailing. What she would have given to have been walking with me in St Mawes! (What he had said! – it was a vulgar ribald jest surely – he could not have been even a quarter serious? My flesh crept.)
Canon Robartes took tea but refused an invitation to sup. He would sleep at Tregothnan, he said, and go to see the Admiral in the morning. When he was leaving a name caught my ear as he talked to Desmond. The name of a man who came and mesmerized us six months ago.
Apparently there had been a meeting at Bodmin among the landed gentry last week about the prospect of building a railway between Bodmin and Wadebridge, and a Mr Brunel had spoken at it. The idea was that the railroad should be eight miles long, with a six-mile extension to Winford if the line were a success. It would be chiefly for the transportation of goods and ore, but passengers might be taken on later. The type of propulsion had yet to be decided. Most favoured a form of steam power, probably by means of an engine drawing wagons, as was usual following the success of the Stephensons; but Mr Brunel had proposed having stationary engines at intervals along the line and drawing the trucks by atmospheric suction. It had been a most interesting meeting, Uncle Francis, as he told us all to call him, said. He had only been invited to deputize for young Mr Agar-Robartes of Lanhydrock, his cousin, who was travelling in Europe. He himself, as everyone knew, had to depend on his stipend, and had no spare resources to invest in such hazardous schemes. Mr Brunel, he had to admit, was most impressive for one so young and already had a number of achievements to his credit.
The Canon raised his eyebrows and sighed. ‘So young, Desmond, so young. One trembles for a man’s judgment at such an age.’
‘Was Mr Brunel on his own, sir?’ I ventured.
‘No, my dear.’ Uncle Francis glanced at my disfigured eye and smiled forgivingly, as if someone ought to be forgiven for such a distortion. ‘ He had an assistant with him. Equally young, I may say, equally young. Long, was it? Or Lane? But it was Mr Brunel who spoke and who made the greatest impression. Do you understand the properties of steam, Desmond?’
‘I’m afraid not,’ said Desmond, and looked out of the window to see if Tamsin was returning.
‘Well well, I must leave you all. Pray present my loving respects to your mother. £25,000 is the capital needed.’
‘Needed?’
‘To build the railway. It is a very large sum, and of course as in all such ventures the estimate is bound to be exceeded when it is put into practice. There’s great interest. Great interest indeed. I wish I had money to invest. I believe I should indulge in a little flutter.’
Chapter Four
I
THE FOLLOWING spring Falmouth was greatly excited by the visit of the Queen of Portugal. She was only tiny – nine years old – and no doubt, Desmond said, a pawn in some political game. Portugal was in chaos, and England and France were involved – for once on the same side – trying to bring a measure of political peace to the warring factions. What purpose there was, if any, in Queen Maria’s visit to Britain’s westernmost port I was never able to find out. No one, in fact, ever did seem to know.
But she was already acquainted with Mrs Elizabeth Fox – widow of Robert Were Fox, one of the dignitaries of the town – and it was arranged that the Queen should visit her friend at her home in Arwenack Street, where a reception would be held.
The Queen arrived in a black and gold British frigate, accompanied by Lord Clinton, who was a Trefusis; they came ashore at Custom House Quay in a gilt barge rowed by twenty sailors, and were met by rippling rows of dainty white-clad girls, all of about the same age as the Queen, who strewed flowers in the pathway of the procession as it walked up the narrow street until it reached Bank House.
My mother had somehow contrived an invitation for herself and her two daughters and nephew Desmond to the reception, which was crowded.
By this time I was becoming slightly less self-conscious about my disfigurement. It was there for everyone to see, so what point was there in hiding it? (A few of the walls that I had built around myself were beginning to crumble.) All the same I would have shunned such a public occasion and made my usual excuse were it not for a confidence Sally Fetch had bestowed on me. Sally’s sister was a maid in the Robert Were Fox household and she had said that although the old man had disapproved of Abraham Fox as thoroughly as the rest of the family, his wife had always had a soft spot for the young man, and when she became a widow had tended to indulge him. Therefore I went, and was not surprised to see the elegant figure of Bram standing beside his aunt at the entrance.
It was a total and disagreeable surprise to my mother, who froze at the sight of him and, once they had bowed, took a firm if theatrical grasp of Tamsin’s arm and steered her away from him. She clearly felt that I was in no danger, so could fend for myself. So great was the crush that, except for a circle at the end of the room, with a slightly raised dais and a chair on which the little Queen was seated, it was not difficult to be lost to view.
The Queen was a pretty little thing, thin and dark-skinned but gracious. Already learning the deceitful arts of the court, no doubt. I wondered what her fate would be. (I had just been reading a book on Catherine de Medici, so my mind was full of intrigue.)
The reception lasted about an hour, and I had withdrawn into a slightly quieter corner of the room where I could be less expected to join in, when across the room I saw Bram talking to my mother. Yes, they were talking. I could not see Tamsin, so perhaps temporarily they had become separated. Bram was speaking to my mother with that half-cynical, half-admiring expression on his face that I already knew so well. The disillusioned charming smile that was never far away came and went like a fitful sun. She replied to him firmly but not with any special hostility. Being an actress, my mother had great control over her features and perhaps she had decided that a social gathering in royal presence was not the time to show her active dislike of someone.
Then she half smiled at something he said, and her eyes narrowed and glinted as if she were summing him up afresh. He laughed out loud at what she said, and even amid the hubbub of talk it came clearly to me. I knew there would never be anybody else for me. And what chance had I got?
Desmond squeezed between two people and came to me. ‘Emma? Can you come to Thomasine? She is not feeling well.’
I followed him, pushing our way among the dignitaries of the town, and found Tamsin sitting on an oak chair with two solicitous friends beside her.
‘It is nothing,’ Tamsin said sharply, pressing a handkerchief to her lips. ‘Nothing more than the heat and the crush. Forgive me, it is quite nothing. Where is Mama?’
‘Just over here,’ I said. ‘I will fetch her.’
II
ADMIRAL DAVEY Spry, Admiral of the Red, dropped in the following month to see his mad wife.
He had lost weight and his face was smaller, but as quick as ever to flush up at the least constraint. His men must find his humours as hard to predict as a wind in the Channel. But today he seemed good-tempered, and he was lucky to find Aunt Anna in one of her lucid moods. They talked together about old times and he was able to tell her that their
eldest daughter was pregnant again. This would be number three in three years, so she was clearly going to outdo her mother. Uncle Davey was able to remind his wife of a practical joke he had played on their first nursemaid. It was something to do with apron strings, but that was all I heard amid his shouts of laughter. Aunt Anna laughed too but her laughter had a hollow sound as if she were looking down a well.
No one knew it then, but it was the last time they were to meet. When Uncle Davey got up to leave he stooped to kiss his wife, who was still in bed, and I saw her put an elderly, white-nailed hand round his back as if to hold him longer. When he straightened up he picked at a tooth defensively and half scowled at her.
‘Be sure you’re up next time I come,’ he said. ‘This shilly-shallying in bed … it don’t do you any good at all.’
‘They’ll be home soon,’ said Aunt Anna, staring out of the window with absent blue eyes. ‘Clive and David. You told me their frigate would be home soon. Have you heard when?’
‘Not yet awhile,’ said Uncle Davey, playing the game we now all had to play. ‘Maybe at the end of the summer.’
‘You should write to the Admiralty. They have been away so long.’
‘Oh, I will, my dear. So I will.’
III
HE DIED on 27 November at eight o’clock in the evening, not at Place House but at Tregolls, where all his children had been summoned. Only three arrived in time, Samuel being at sea. Everyone was greatly upset.
The coffin was brought to Place on 3 December and was laid in the church beside the house until the fifth, when the funeral took place. The wide gravelled carriageway and the larger quadrangle before the house, for turning, were crowded with black carriages. Related as he was to a fair number of the gentry of Cornwall, Uncle Davey was also liked and respected by most people with whom he had had dealings. Naval officers from Plymouth came, his peaked admiral’s hat was placed on the coffin among the family flowers, and six naval lieutenants carried the bier. Davey’s brother was there – I had only seen him once, though he lived in Cornwall – the four children, including Anna Maria’s first two toddlers, Thomas Tristram and Edward Augustus. Two cousins I had never set eyes on. Three Carlyons from Tregrehan – including, of course, Major Edward, his son-in-law – the Earl and Countess of Falmouth, young Mr Agar-Robartes from Lanhydrock, his distant cousin Canon Robartes of Blisland – who took the service – two Foxes – though not Abraham – the Polwheles of Polwhele, Sir William and Lady Molesworth from Pencarrow, the St Aubyns from St Michael’s Mount, and the Stackhouses from Trehane. Miss Betsy Slocombe was noticeably absent.
Desmond, in spite of his youth and his preoccupation with birds, seemed to know the name of every one of the mourners, and whispered bits of information and gossip as he stood between Tamsin and me in the church. (For instance that Sir John St Aubyn had only recently married his mistress, by whom he had had ten children, who were already all grown up.) Most of his confidences were whispered to Tamsin, but I was able to pick them up, having the hearing, as my mother once kindly said, of a tame ferret.
Aunt Anna had made two escapes from the house in October, so she had had to be taken away again. They had not told her of her husband’s death, nor was she considered well enough to be brought back for the funeral.
When it was all over, when all had taken refreshment and gone except the immediate family, there was a gathering in the south drawing room. Samuel, who had managed to get home for the interment, was now, at twenty-eight, the head of the family. A heavily built young man with a mop of stiff bristly hair worn shorter than was fashionable. I was a little afraid of him: I knew the other three by now very well, but Samuel had been so much away that he was almost a stranger, and I knew he had fixed ideas and a strong will. I was anxious – and I knew my mother and Tamsin were – lest our position should be changed. Of course we were cousins and were accepted as such, but we had existed and lived here on the goodwill of Uncle Davey. How would his son feel about it all? Would Samuel have the heartlessness to turn us out? He owed us nothing.
He said: ‘Mr Lewis will be here in the morning to give details of my father’s will. I do not think there will be any exceptional surprises. What we should perhaps give our minds to over the next few days is the general planning of our futures.’ No one spoke. He went on:
‘For my own part I intend to resign from the Navy at some suitable early opportunity. I have never liked the life, and went on with it solely to please my father. Now that he has gone the reason for my continuing has gone.’
Mary said: ‘Shall you come and live here, Samuel?’
‘No. I shall make a home for myself in London and intend to go into politics.’
After a pause Desmond said: ‘ What is to become of our mother?’
‘If she recovers she can return here. But the doctors do not hold out a hope of permanent improvement. They say she may live a long time. Our father, as you know, was seventy-five. Mama is only sixty-four, and keeping her in a comfortable home will be a considerable extra drain on the family purse.’
‘I would wish to look after her,’ said Mary. ‘But she is very difficult.’
Anna Maria said: ‘When I saw her last it was a great distress to me. She was so restless, so argumentative, and so strong, physically strong. It took Mary and me and Mrs Whattle all our time to restrain her. She is better away unless there is a great improvement.’
‘If she does not come back,’ said Mary, fingering the lace at her throat, ‘I should prefer to live at Tregolls. It is so much more convenient.’
‘And you, Desmond?’ said Samuel.
‘Oh …’ Desmond shrugged his thin shoulders. ‘I am happy here. After all, this is the family house and I should like to spend something on repairs, which it badly needs. Also I know no place better for seabirds, which are my principal study … Yes, I am very happy here. That is so long as you do not want it for yourself …’
‘There should be room enough here for more than one brother,’ said Samuel. ‘Or more than one family.’ He looked at Claudine for the first time. ‘You have made your home here, Aunt – and my two cousins with you. Do you have plans to change, to return to London or Bath?’
My mother said: ‘As you know, Samuel, your father had entrusted me with much of the running of the house – that is since your mother became incapable of doing so. I shall be happy to continue in that way, at least temporarily. But you must tell me what you shall want to do. If you are not likely to use it as a permanent home … and if Desmond wishes to stay, I shall be glad to look after him … until, well …’
‘Until?’ Samuel said.
‘Until he marries,’ said my mother with a sidelong glance.
‘I do not think I shall ever marry,’ said Samuel. ‘There is so much to do in the world. Or not at least until I am forty, when perhaps there may be more time for trivialities … I’m sorry, Edward,’ he said to his brother-in-law. ‘This was not intended in any way as a personal reflection.’
Edward Carlyon half smiled as he fingered his short moustache, but his wife said warmly: ‘How fortunate that we do not all think the same! The Major, apart from me, has three fascinating trivialities to his name, called Thomas, Edward and George.’
‘Already.’ Desmond, smiling at his sister.
‘Yes, already!’
‘And with that I am more than content! I’ve no doubt, Samuel, when you have a family of your own, you will find just as much time to pursue your profession – and a greater ambition in doing so.’
Samuel grunted and looked across at Claudine.
‘If my mother does not come back, and Mary decides to live in Truro, you and your daughters will more or less have the run of the place.’
‘Apart from myself,’ said Desmond.
‘Of course, of course, of course … We shall all come here from time to time, meeting at Christmas or some other suitable vacation. But I think it would be only prudent to cut down the permanent staff by half. Extra servants can be engaged from ti
me to time. My mother’s comfort in the special home she is in must come first.’
‘Do we know what is going to happen to Miss Slocombe?’ Mary asked. It was the first time her name had been mentioned all day.
‘Perhaps Papa will have made some provision for her,’ said Anna Maria. ‘We shall know tomorrow.’
I wondered if he had made any ‘provision’ for my mother.
‘Slade ought to leave,’ said Anna Maria. ‘Perhaps Papa has left him a suitable pension too.’
My mother said: ‘Many of the servants have been here as long as I have. I hope we can consider them individually rather than making a blanket decision.’
‘Of course, of course, of course.’ It was one of Samuel’s pet phrases. ‘But I have noticed a deal of slackness since I came home. We must see to that.’
IV
THE SOLICITOR and his clerk arrived at eleven and read the will. I was not invited in, nor was my mother or sister. The rest of the family emerged at one, but it took time for the details to filter through to us.
Uncle Davey had left almost everything in trust to his wife, but power of attorney was granted to her children, and of them Samuel was to be the main legatee. On him would devolve the ownership of Place House and all land in or near the Roseland Peninsula, together with numerous investments. The house and property of Tregolls near Truro was left jointly to Desmond and Mary. To Anna Maria he had left his London house and property in Devon. The house of Killiganoon was to go to Desmond and Mary, but Miss Betsy Slocombe was to have free occupancy of it for five years and a life income of £250. Slade was left an annuity of £50, and several of the other servants received small gifts. My mother was left £100, and so was Thomasine, and so was I. I was thrilled for it was the very first money I had ever possessed of my own.
The Ugly Sister Page 5
