by Paul Kelly
“You’re doing as I say dahling and I won’t hear another word... understand?”
Jeremy raised his eyebrows and looked at me in his ‘command’ voice... and I knew there was nothing I could do, but obey. He hailed a taxi and it sped up towards us within a few seconds.
“The Manse... Minerva Square... do you know it?” he asked the driver in a breathless voice and the cabby nodded as he opened the door of his cab, sliding his hand to a gear handle near the back of his driving seat and his meter pinged back to normal rate as we shot off.
“Jeremy, I don’t think it’s a good idea for me to see Aunt Martha at the moment... do you?”
“Why ever not,” he said, “You’ve only fallen down some stairs, haven’t you?”
He looked ahead as we sat together in the taxi, avoiding my face as he resolved very firmly on what he was going to do. I was very embarrassed. I did not want to talk about my injuries to anyone, least of all Aunt Martha. I could hear her saying already as I sat there in the car, waiting for the red light to go green, “I told you so”... and bloody Marigold repeating each word after her. “I told you so... I told you so … Pretty girl... Pretty girl.”
But this girl felt anything but pretty... Oh God, I felt awful... and anything BUT a pretty girl at that moment.
“Jeremy please....” I tried as a last resort to plead with Jeremy by pretending to cry, but he only turned to me and put his forefinger to his lips, before closing the glass partition, separating the driver’s cab.
“I understand Frannie... I really do... I understand everything, trust me....”
“But Jeremy....” I stammered as I tried to explain, but he just looked into my eyes.
“No buts, dahling... we’re going.”
I was surprised at the strength of determination my step-brother showed and more surprised that he would allow Sebastian to leave him, just to accompany me to Aunt Martha’s. He knew as well as I, what she was like.
“Will Sebastian be O.K?” I asked softly.
“Oh sure... he likes to be on his own sometimes.”
“How are things with you and he, Jeremy?”
He smiled and looked into my eyes again.
“Well... he doesn’t push me down the stairs, if that’s what you mean, dahling. We’re fine really. He’s as near to a love affair as I’ll ever find, I suppose.”
Jeremy stopped short for a moment before he turned to face me again.
“You know... you know I love him, don’t you Frannie,” he said, rather shyly and I touched my headscarf as I nodded. There was no need to say anything more on that subject.
“Thanks for your concern Jeremy, you’re so kind, but I dread to even think of facing Aunt Martha,” I concluded and at that moment, the taxi came to a halt.
“Here we are then... the dragon’s den,” said Jeremy, “but I don’t think you’ll find she’s spitting fire this afternoon. Never does on a Wednesday,” he laughed.
We went into the house; Jeremy using his own key to avoid meeting Monica, but the maid saw us just as we were about to go into the lounge. She stared at me as I passed her and I saw her gasp, but I squeezed her hand and blew her a kiss, whilst Jeremy took off his coat and she took mine, but I kept the headscarf on.
“Could we have tea for three Monica please,” Jeremy asked, “and will you please ask Miss Greenwood to join us?”
“I think Madame is lying down, Sir... she usually does at this time in the afternoon,” the maid replied, but Jeremy ignored her statement.
“Just call her Monica... that’s a good girl,” he patronized and tapped her bottom as she made her way upstairs. She giggled and moved quickly, giving me a look of surprise at the authority of her ‘Lord and Master.’
Jeremy removed my headscarf with gentle caring hands, even if I did protest. He did everything with gentle care... he was a very gentle and caring man.
“My God, he’s certainly made a good job of that, hasn’t he now?”
“Jeremy... it was... it was....”
He strode across to the window and flicked the Venetian blind with his forefinger and thumb as he pursed his lips.
“These things gather such dust, don’t they,” he remarked, studying the grey mark on his index finger. “The man is a bastard Frannie and I’m glad I’m not made that way... for all my ‘peculiarities’. I could never strike a woman... never... Why,... I apologise profusely when I trip over the cat, don’t I dahling? You know that.”
We laughed together and I gave him a big hug, wincing as I did, for my face ached ...and then Aunt Martha appeared at the lounge door. She tapped her way towards us with her silver-tipped stick and Marigold screamed somewhere nearby.
***
We both stopped laughing as she came near and my heart was gripped with a sudden violent fear, anticipating her worst rage... and thinking... hurry up then... badger me, beat me into the ground and say, ‘I told you so’ Scream at me and tell me you knew all along that this would happen. Do your worst and see if I care. Just let’s get it over with. ...I shuddered and turned to face her with my head held high. She would see the extent of my facial injuries, at least. I closed my eyes as she approached and I could imagine the narrow slant of her eyes, peering at me through her bifocals to observe and gloat over every detail. There was a silence... a prolonged, poignant silence as I waited for the pronouncement of her wrath and fury, but in the moment when I opened my eyes again and saw her face, I was dumfounded; simultaneously surprised and ashamed and I knew I was going to cry. My pride and my arrogance had left me and I stood there in shame before her.
Aunt Martha, contrary to all my predictions and expectations, held out her arms towards me and her thin frame shook as she beckoned me to come to her. We each took a step forward as I threw myself into her arms and cried as I had never cried for a long, long time.
“There... there now child. You’ll be alright now and you must stay here until you are feeling better,” she said and her voice was soft and understanding. My shame in judging her was so confusing that I could not look at her... instead, I cried into her thin, feeble shoulder and hid my face in the comfort of her understanding, as I clung to her closely. Closer than I ever conceived I ever would hold Aunt Martha, in my wildest dreams.
So this is what Jeremy meant when he said with such conviction, that everything would be alright and that I should trust him... that my return to the Manse was the best... the very best thing I could do.
“Leave the tray on the table Monica. I’ll pour and will you please remove Marigold to the conservatory. I think she needs some air and you Jeremy... make yourself useful and put my stick in the hall stand... somehow I don’t feel I need it.”
Monica curtsied and took the squawking creature in her cage from the lounge, but we could hear the parting song of the birdie as she left... Jeremy version...
“Pretty boy... pretty boy... up yours... up yours.”
“Take him OUT... “Aunt Martha demanded and again in a loud voice.
***
She led me to a chair near the French doors and touched my cheek with her fragile, shaking fingers.
“Montague has done this to you, hasn’t he?” she asked and then answered her own question. “I know he has... and you don’t deserve this my dear... nothing like this.”
All my pent up excuses of walking into a door or falling down the stairs left me as she spoke... and then she smiled at me.
Suddenly the lounge in the Manse had a different colour. I had never seen it so alive and illuminated before, in all the many times that I had visited there; warmth pervaded the atmosphere as I dried my tears.
“Jeremy did the right thing in bringing you here.” Aunt Martha turned to her nephew as he came back again into the lounge again and she drew back her shoulders. “I’m proud of you, my boy... proud of you... now let’s have
some tea. Shall I be mother?”
***
I spent six days at the Manse and knew that I would not be missed. Montague had gone on a business trip to Italy and I wasn’t expecting him back until the following Thursday. I felt very much better in the time I stayed with Aunt Martha and found her attitude to me had changed dramatically. It was almost unbelievable. She told me that she had been worried about my marriage to Monty from the start, for this very reason... and left me feeling guilty again as I thought she was jealous... not of me, nor of the marriage, but because she herself had never married.
“I’ve known Blythe-Summers for a very long time,” she said to me as we sat in the conservatory one morning, after breakfast. “I knew his parents well and I know the kind of life they had. I am sorry for you Francesca, but I can’t say that I’m surprised.” It was the first time Aunt Martha had ever used my Christian name and it sounded sweeter than I had ever heard it before. She became very intimate and trusting from that time on and I felt there was a lot she wanted to tell me... but in her own good time ...and I could wait until she was ready. “What do you propose to do in this situation, my dear?” she asked as she patted my hand gently and I tried to talk... to say anything, rather then cry again, but her kindness and concern made the tears flow and I couldn’t stop. I wished she hadn’t been so kind in that moment... Oh! How bloody perverse and contrary can one get … I asked myself and judged myself mercilessly. I told her I couldn’t decide at that precise time but I was grateful to her for allowing me to stay at the Manse until I could get myself sorted out.
“You are welcome to stay here for as long as you feel it is necessary, Francesca,” she said as she tapped her stick against her shoe and tried to get up from her chair with difficulty. I went towards her to help “Thank you my dear,” she said and her voice was tender … “It’s this arthritis you know... and now my hands are getting affected... look!”
I took her frail hand in mine. It was cold and I rubbed it as I studied the knotted red and purple veins that I saw there.
“Let me massage them for you. That often helps.”
She smiled sweetly.
“Oh, that is nice. It’s so good to feel the warmth of another hand in mine. I haven’t....” She stopped talking suddenly and her eyes took on a vacant stare.
“Are you alright, Aunt Martha…are you alright?”
She sighed deeply and smiled again.
“Oh yes, I’m as right as I’ll ever be, darling. I was just thinking of my own sweet little mother as you held my hands there. She used to do that for me whenever I would come in from the cold, particularly in the winter. I remember it so well.
“Come,” she would say, “Sit down beside me and I’ll get these little piggies warm again and she would breathe on them and rub them until I felt the heat restored. She was a wonderful lady; so simple and yet so very, very wonderful. I miss her terribly.”
I found myself becoming interested to know more about Aunt Martha’s mother and indeed, of her whole family, because apart from Emily and Jeremy and herself of course, I knew virtually nothing of the Greenwoods.
“She must have been very beautiful... your mother Aunt Martha... she was, wasn’t she?”
I made this remark because although I had never considered Martha Greenwood to be a very beautiful woman... never at any time... yet, she had very regular features and it wouldn’t have taken much in the way of cosmetics when she was a young woman, I considered, to make her appear something special. She closed her eyes when I asked my question and her answer surprised me.
“No...no, she wasn’t particularly beautiful, dear... more handsome, I would have said, but she had a certain charisma about her. A charm that shone from her, wherever she went.”
She turned and stared at me in a strange way for a few moments and then she took her hands from mine.
“Would you like to hear about her?” she asked and patted the chaiselongue for me to sit beside her and I could see by the eager, almost child-like enthusiasm in her eyes that she wanted me to listen as I moved nearer and took my place beside her.
“You don’t know much about the Family tree, do you, Francesca?”
“No, I’m afraid I don’t. Nobody ever thought to tell me before, but I am very interested.”
Aunt Martha squeezed my hand. “Go on with your massage then and I’ll tell you.”
***
“My mother was a wonderful lady, as I have said. Not particularly beautiful in the way we regard beauty these days, but it was she who held the family together with her strength of character and her undoubting and tenacious resolve to love my father, despite the many odds that she had to endure, to love him at all costs regardless. “She paused and looked down at my hand as I continued to massage hers. “Now he was a handsome man... and no doubt, but sadly....” Aunt Martha went on …”he was also a womaniser and a flagrant flirt with anything in petticoats, I’m ashamed to say. He broke my dear little mother’s heart, time after time with his romancing but she forgave him everything right up to the day he died.”
She took her hand from mine for a moment and pointed to the bureau,
“Would you be so kind as to fetch me that photograph album in the lower drawer there, Francesca,” she asked.
“Of course Aunt Martha... but... Aunt Martha?”
“Yes dear?”
“I would like it very much if you called me Frannie.”
“Do you like to be called by that name, my dear?” she asked with a tender smile on her face and I nodded.
“Very well. It shall be Frannie from now on... The album, Frannie... if you please.”
I took the book to her and she opened it with painful movements, manipulating it so that it was spread across my knees and I waited to turn the pages as she requested.
“This is... oh, these are all photographs of my aunts and uncles... no interest to us at the moment. Can you turn the pages dear and I’ll tell you when to stop … Ah!... that one... that one Frannie. That’s my dear brother Maurice. He was killed in the fourteen, eighteen war when he was just twenty-six, God bless him. Gassed I understand and with my other brother Aelred too. Both of them went together. Very sad it was. Aelred was only two years younger than Maurice. They served in the Hussars, - the Cavalry Regiment, you know. They both loved horses, even as little boys. I used to take them... “
She closed the album quickly, pressing her hand down on mine, then she took out her handkerchief.
“I’m an emotional old woman, Frannie. I’m sorry my dear... it’s just when I think of them... so young and dying out there somewhere in Flanders fields with no-one near to comfort them.” She dried her eyes and took a deep breath before she nodded for me to open the album again. “Life must go on... mustn’t it, Frannie dear.”
I wanted to throw my arms around her and hug her and assure her that I loved her and that I was sorry for all the misunderstanding of the past. I spotted the photographs of the brothers in their uniform of the Hussars; proud, young handsome officers, standing to attention by their horses. They could have been twins. They looked so alike in the eyes and in the mouth and I could see the resemblance to Aunt Martha.
“Were they married, Aunt Martha ? Were there any children?”
“No darling... Maurice was engaged, but Aelred never seemed to be interested in girls. He just lived for his horses,” she replied and as I studied the faces again... they seemed to smile at me.
“I know what you’re thinking, “ she went on,” How could I have a sister like Emily when I had two brothers who were old enough to have been her father... well, one of them anyway.”
Until that moment, I hadn’t thought about the difference in the ages, between Aunt Martha and her sister. It hadn’t occurred to me. Then she dropped the bombshell....
“You see dear... Emily was the illegitimate child of my father,
to one of his many mistresses. The rest, I suppose were too clever to get caught. They got their money for their services and their keep as far as I know, but they took the full responsibility to ensure that there were no children to the relationship... however, one of them was smarter than the rest. Her name was Page... Georgina Page. She wanted everything... my father, his money, his inheritance should he die before her... THE LOT … and so she turned to blackmail, threatening to tell my mother if he didn’t do as she wished.”
I gasped when Aunt Martha told me that. This was something that she, being the person she was, would have suffered greatly by something like that happening in her family and more so because of the effect it must have had on her mother, whom she so dearly loved.
“This Page woman did not want to marry my father, you know,” she went on, “She wanted to carry on her sweet way of living, in the lap of luxury and with no responsibilities, but she wanted security from him, as well... that is why she planned to have his child. There was a terrible uproar at the time and somehow my mother got to know what was happening. She nearly died from the shame and humiliation, since father was a rather famous surgeon in London at that time and it was rumoured that he had offered to abort the baby for Georgina... in private.”
I felt a strong emotional feeling of closeness to Aunt Martha as she was relating her story. It was as though I was part of that family and more than just because my had been so attracted to the ill-fated Emily. I wanted to do or say something to comfort her, but I could think of nothing adequate to express the feelings of my heart.
“Ah... my dear Frannie,” Aunt Martha began to ruminate again. “ Every cloud has a silver lining. It has indeed... for Madame Page died in labour and my mother, being the woman she was, adopted the little one as her own. This was the final act of shame and humiliation for my father and he vowed that he would never stray again. He didn’t either, but it was too late... my mother died five years later of cancer however, I understand they lived very happily together for those last few years. My father was fifty-four when Emily was born and I was twenty-two. Ironically, he died fourteen months after my dear mother... of a broken heart, because he could not live without her …
