China Court

by Rumer Godden

Then Mr Prendergast cleared his throat.

  ‘Having made suitable provision for my daughters at the time of the sale of Canverisk China Clay Co. and my son Eustace John having predeceased me I GIVE DEVISE AND BEQUEATH my freehold property known as “China Court” together with all messuages, tenements, hereditaments, and appurtenances thereto belonging (except Penbarrow Farm) but including all the contents and effects thereunto belonging and, subject to the payment of my debts funeral and testamentary expenses, all securities investments stocks and shares belonging to me at the time of my death, to my granddaughter Stacia Deborah Quin absolutely.’

  There was a moment of stunned silence before the voices broke out.

  ‘To Tracy?’

  ‘Tracy?’

  ‘The whole estate!’

  ‘Everything!’

  The room had seemed to lift and sway away from Tracy; now the voices beat around her head as she pressed herself down on her chair, trying to hold on to something real. It can’t be true, it can’t, thought Tracy, dizzily.

  ‘The whole estate!’

  ‘Not the whole estate.’ It was Walter’s voice and Tracy could tell at once that her Uncle Walter was angry. ‘Not the whole.’ Tracy rather welcomed that anger. It made it begin to be true, she thought, though still dizzily.

  ‘Penbarrow is excepted,’ said Walter. ‘Let us hear what your mother’ – and he said the words as if he wished they could have reached Mrs Quin and hurt her – ‘let us hear what your mother has chosen to do with Penbarrow. Please go on, Mr Prendergast.’

  “‘And I GIVE DEVISE AND BEQUEATH,’” read Mr Prendergast, his voice unshaken, “‘my freehold farm known as Penbarrow together with all messuages, tenements and appurtenances, contents and effects thereunto belonging more particularly delineated and described in the County Map No. 156 to The Honourable Peter Alex—’”

  ‘I knew it!’ cried Bella.

  ‘Scallywag!’

  ‘It’s a scandal!’

  “‘Peter Alexander Hugh Barry St Omer,”’ said Mr Prendergast, raising his voice, “‘at present tenant thereof, together with all the contents thereof including any live and dead farming stock in which I have any share.’”

  ‘So she did pay for those cows!’

  ‘She was helping.’

  ‘I always said he had bewitched her.’

  ‘He got round her—’

  ‘Please! Ladies!’ called Mr Prendergast. ‘Please. I must continue,’ but Walter had risen to his feet.

  ‘We shall contest,’ said Walter.

  ‘On what grounds, Colonel?’ asked Mr Prendergast.

  ‘What grounds? Undue influence, of course,’ said Walter, glaring at Peter.

  Peter looked levelly at Walter and did not speak, but Tracy could see the pulse below the red hair visibly beating and the hand on his knee was held so tightly that the knuckles were white.

  ‘I think you would find it difficult to prove,’ said Mr Prendergast quietly. ‘I am satisfied that Mr St Omer had not the slightest inkling or expectation of any sort of a bequest, which can be borne out by Miss Morgan and others who knew both him and Mrs Quin.’

  ‘He hadn’t the slightest idea,’ said Cecily. ‘Nobody had.’

  ‘Not you?’ asked Bella disbelievingly.

  ‘Mrs Quin wasn’t one for talking, Bella, and I’m not one for asking,’ said Cecily.

  ‘She was subject to likes and dislikes,’ said Walter.

  ‘We all are,’ said Mr Prendergast.

  ‘Hers were extraordinarily violent ones,’ said Walter. ‘I think we could reasonably contest that she was not of sound mind.’

  ‘She anticipated you would say that, Colonel Scrymgeour, and took the precaution of asking Dr Taft, who had been her doctor for very many years, to be one of the witnesses and certify she was sane.’

  ‘And did he?’

  ‘He wrote, “Very much in her right mind,’” said Mr Pendergast dryly. ‘No, I do not think there are grounds for contestation, but perhaps you had better let me finish reading.’

  ‘Is there any more?’ asked Bella dramatically.

  ‘Yes,’ said Mr Prendergast. ‘For these bequests there is a condition …’

  ‘A condition?’ Their faces altered at once, from anger – to a gleam of hope, thought Tracy. Then did they dislike her so much? And Peter – Mr St Omer? thought Tracy. The room still seemed to shimmer and sway in front of her, but now she could see Cecily’s eyes, beaming at her, with a pleased excited look lighting up her whole face; she could feel August’s head pressed beside her, she had not known it but she was kneading his curls with her fingers, and she was very conscious of Peter sitting beside her. Peter was stiff and white but, in Tracy, it felt as if a bell had begun to swing, a bell of joy, such joy as she had never felt before.

  ‘There is a condition,’ said Bella. ‘Mother wasn’t quite mad,’ and, ‘Any condition, any,’ swung the bell inside Tracy.

  ‘I must tell you,’ said Mr Prendergast, ‘as I warned Mrs Quin I should have to tell you – as a lawyer I would not insert this condition in the Will proper, because the proviso is bad in law.’ A tinge of humour had come into his voice as he remembered telling Mrs Quin this.

  ‘Bad law or good law, I want it in,’ says Mrs Quin.

  ‘It is contrary to public policy,’ Mr Prendergast explains.

  ‘This isn’t public, it’s private,’ says Mrs Quin. ‘Put it in.’

  ‘At last I persuaded her,’ said Mr Prendergast now, ‘to let me state this proviso in the form of a letter, but I must say frankly that you, Mr St Omer, and you, Miss Tracy, would, in my view, be able in law to take these gifts free from this condition.’

  ‘I would rather take mine as Mrs Quin wished,’ said Peter, through set lips, ‘or not at all.’

  ‘And I,’ said Tracy.

  ‘You had better hear the condition first,’ said Bella.

  ‘Then if you will allow me,’ and Mr Prendergast read out: “‘To my solicitor and all who should have, or think they should have’” – he could not forgo a glance at Bella and Walter – “‘an interest in the disposal of my property: I especially desire that this letter should be read to all parties who may be concerned, immediately after the reading of my last Will and Testament. The bequests of the freehold property of China Court with all its messuages, tenements …’” carefully Mr Prendergast went through them again – “‘to Stacia Deborah Quin, and of my freehold farm known as Penbarrow with all …’” and the list was read – “‘to the Honourable Peter Alexander Hugh Barry St Omer, are on condition that the said Stacia Quin and Peter St Omer shall meet as soon as conveniently can be arranged after my death, and shall marry each other within six months of such meeting—’”

  ‘Marry!’ Neither Peter nor Tracy knew from which one of them the word escaped, but it sounded like a gasp.

  “‘Marry, and further, that they shall make China Court their home. I have imposed this condition because it is my belief that it will make for the happiness and mutual satisfaction of them both, and because it is my earnest wish.” This letter,’ said Prendergast, looking up into their shocked faces, ‘is signed by Mrs Quin and witnessed by the same parties who witnessed the will itself.’

  If Mr Prendergast had exploded a bomb in the drawing room, Tracy could hardly have been more surprised. The bell stopped instantly, and a strange cold tingling ran over her. Don’t let me blush, prayed Tracy silently. Once more the room seemed to sway and Peter beside her, though she tried not to look at him, seemed to come alarmingly close, then to swing far away. I am blushing, thought Tracy agonized, and pressed herself down even more tightly in her chair, keeping her eyes fixed on the carpet while she waited for the storm of protest to break around their ears.

  It did not come; instead, ‘Poor old lady!’ said Tom at last.

  ‘Yes, poor dear Mother. What would she have thought of next?’

  ‘It was pathetic the way she loved this house.’

  ‘Fantastic.’

  ‘S
he must have been more senile than we thought.’

  ‘Poor Mother.’

  ‘Poor old lady!’

  Tracy lifted her eyes. Amusement, pity, tolerance were on all their faces, and Walter had sat down.

  “‘As I do not want,’” Mr Prendergast went on reading, “‘to risk the house being shut up and empty, pending their decision, and also feel it unfair to keep the family in a state of suspense – and because I believe in such matters swift decisions are best – the said Peter St Omer and Stacia Quin must make up their minds and decide within a week of their meeting.” She then adds that if you decide not to fulfil the condition,’ said Mr Prendergast to Tracy and Peter, ‘then the whole estate is to be sold, and of the proceeds four hundred pounds go to Mr St Omer, and the residue is to be divided: one half to you, Miss Tracy, and of the other half, a quarter to each of your aunts.’

  ‘Then except that most of us are poorer we are as we were before,’ said Bella briskly.

  ‘Why are we?’

  Tracy hardly knew she had spoken, but even while she felt the dreaded blush coming up her neck to her face, the bell of joy began to swing again, and steadily, as if it were not at all upset. ‘Wh-why are we?’ asked Tracy.

  ‘Don’t be silly, Tracy,’ but Tracy made herself be calm.

  ‘Why silly?’

  ‘Naturally, my dear child, you can’t accept.’

  ‘I m-might.’ It sounded bold as Tracy said it, but her stammer betrayed her and her heart had begun to beat so painfully that she almost choked; her cheeks were burning while her hands and knees felt damply cold. ‘I might accept.’

  Now she had let loose a real clamour. ‘Tracy, don’t be absurd.’

  ‘One doesn’t marry like that.’

  ‘This is the twentieth century.’

  ‘An old lady’s whim.’

  ‘A whim! It’s quite evident that Mother was out of her mind.’

  ‘It’s like a fairy tale,’ said the third Grace.

  ‘A fairy tale! Sheer novelette!’

  ‘And about as probable.’

  ‘You will have the money, Tracy.’

  ‘Most of the money.’

  ‘But I don’t want the money,’ said Tracy.

  The amusement and tolerance left their faces. ‘Tracy, you are not serious?’ cried Bella, and, ‘You couldn’t possibly consider …’ said a Grace.

  ‘W-why n-not?’ stammered Tracy. ‘Gran was the dearest wisest—’ She could not go on. Though she had begun loudly, her voice tailed away, she was beginning to feel as if she were being driven back to the wall, and then there was a wall behind her. Peter had laid his arm on the back of her chair, not touching her, but near enough for her to feel it there, ‘And as you heard,’ said Peter, ‘it was Mrs Quin’s earnest wish.’

  ‘Then she was quite mad.’

  ‘She was not. She was wise and sane.’ Peter’s voice was trembling too, but not because he’s afraid, thought Tracy, because he’s thinking of Gran. ‘We may not be able to accept,’ said Peter, ‘but we shall certainly consider—’

  ‘You will naturally. You want Penbarrow.’

  ‘I want Penbarrow but I have to consider the price.’

  ‘Well really!’ said a Grace and Walter’s face seemed to swell with indignation but Peter went straight on. ‘Tracy – may I say Tracy? – Tracy, I’m sure, wants the house and it would be fitting for her to have it—’

  ‘Fitting!’ said Walter.

  ‘Yes, fitting.’ There was an edge in Peter’s voice. He would fight for me, thought Tracy with a thrill of pride. ‘Tracy loves it, as none of you do,’ said Peter, ‘and she’s a Quin, but she has to think of the price too. Neither of us would like to take anything except as Mrs Quin wished and the price is higher for Tracy than for me, I know that very well.’ For a moment he looked down at Tracy, and, ‘I’m not pretty,’ said Peter and he gave her the smile she had seen in that first moment yesterday, so warm and approving that her heart seemed to quiet. ‘I think, if you don’t mind,’ he said standing up and facing them all again, ‘we should like to go away separately and be by ourselves to think it over. Shouldn’t we, Tracy?’

  She nodded and he drew her to her feet.

  ‘Very sensible,’ said Mr Prendergast and he stood up too and, opening his wallet, gave Tracy a card. ‘Here are my home and office telephone numbers. I can be with you in an hour if you want me.’

  ‘But Walter, she mustn’t. She mustn’t be alone with Peter,’ cried Bella. ‘Think how he got round Mother.’

  ‘I didn’t get round Mrs Quin,’ said Peter. ‘She got round me, thank God.’

  ‘Tracy, don’t be silly.’

  ‘He’s a professional charmer.’

  ‘Tracy dear, listen to me—’

  ‘Walter, stop her.’

  ‘Tracy, how old are you?’ asked Peter.

  ‘Almost twenty-two.’ Tracy did not know how she found the courage to step forward and stand with what seemed like calm and dignity, thought Cecily, in front of them all. ‘I am t-twenty-one, even though I don’t s-seem like it,’ said Tracy. ‘That’s of age and P-Peter is right. I should like to be by myself for a while. I have to think.’

  ‘You had better think,’ said Walter. ‘I’m your uncle, Tracy, and I have something to say. This is all very dazzling for you, but I think you need some advice.’

  ‘I’m not sure I’m open to advice, Uncle Walter.’

  ‘That is simply being obstinate.’

  ‘It’s only by being obstinate that anything is got, or done.’ Tracy might have said that but she refrained. ‘Very well, go on,’ she said to Walter.

  Walter stood up – to pronounce, thought Tracy, as Mrs Quin so often thinks. ‘Peter speaks as if you could keep the house,’ said Walter, ‘but you couldn’t, Tracy. As Aunt Bella told you, I know its affairs. You would be getting a white elephant, my dear. It’s in a bad state of repair. The roof is leaking and there’s dry rot. Everything is old-fashioned and neglected. There’s no electric light except that obsolete old engine, the plumbing needs redoing, the garden is overgrown. It takes a great deal of upkeep and where is the money for that? Your grandmother was at her wits’ end, I don’t mind telling you that.’

  ‘Gran was old and frail,’ said Tracy with a catch in her voice. ‘We are young.’

  ‘True, but very inexperienced. Peter hasn’t made Penbarrow pay.’

  ‘It will pay next year,’ said Peter.

  ‘Next year is always an excuse for this.’

  ‘That isn’t fair,’ said Peter. ‘I had to pull it round and without capital.’

  ‘There’s no capital now,’ said Walter. ‘Don’t make a mistake about that. There will be death duties to swallow up any securities Mrs Quin had left. As you heard, even she anticipated that,’ and he boomed on. ‘I had fortunately persuaded Mrs Quin to call in Alabaster, Truscott and Grice, to make a valuation and see what we could sell. It was fortunate because it helps us to assess now where we all are. A few things are quite valuable, but it’s obvious that nothing short of a complete sale would help, and you can’t have that, my dear; to fulfil the conditions of that ridiculous will, you have to live in the house. No, Tracy, it needs too much spent on it to be of any use.’

  It was quiet in the drawing room when Walter stopped. Peter did not speak, nor anyone else. Mr Prendergast, who had sat down again, scratched with his pen as he drew circles on an envelope. Cecily fanned herself with her handkerchief and her stays creaked. Outside in the garden, a guinea fowl screamed. Tracy looked around the green lily-smelling room; at the familiar chairs and tables: at the pictures, the ‘Boy with the Hoop,’ the ‘Girl with the Muff,’ the sashed children in the Winterhalter; the china cabinets, the ivory and jade, the chimney shelf where her shepherd and shepherdess should stand – and mine, insisted Tracy, mine. She lifted her head to face Uncle Walter, but her bell had stopped swinging; it hung lifelessly inside her.

  ‘Not a possible proposition, I’m afraid,’ said Walter. ‘A dear house, but it
has had its day.’

  The bell seemed to give a vibration and deep in Tracy stirred a memory, something that her grandmother had told her long ago; a memory dredged up, thought Tracy, from deep down, away back in her mind to save her: a story about Uncle Walter, Walter and Bella. ‘It has had its day,’ said Walter and sighed and, ‘Uncle Walter,’ said Tracy, ‘I think you should remember the apricot tree.’

  Vespers

  Jam sol recédit igneus …

  THE SETTING SUN NOW TURNS OUR GAZE TO THEE.

  HYMN FOR VESPERS OF SATURDAY FROM MRS QUIN’S Day Hours

  The Flight into Egypt The Virgin is seated on an ass and holds the Child to her bosom. He is asleep. Joseph walks behind supporting his steps with a long staff. Bleak, rocky landscape. In the distance a lion searching for prey and two robbers beating their victim with cudgels.

  Full border of conventional flowers, fruit, and ivy leaves painted in colours and heightened with gold. Figure of a cat playing with a mouse (satire on the robbers and their victim).

  MINIATURE FACING THE OPENING OF VESPERS IN THE HORAE BEATAE VIRGINIS MARIAE, FROM THE HOURS OF ROBERT BONNEFOY

  It was the next afternoon and the hands of the grandfather clock in the hall were slowly moving toward teatime ‘of this interminable day,’ groaned Bella. ‘Here we are,’ she said, angrily pacing the drawing room, ‘all of us, hanging about waiting for a chit of a girl.’

  ‘We may have to wait a week,’ the second Grace reminded her gloomily. ‘We have only had twenty-four hours.’

  They had gathered because the news had spread that, an hour ago, a boy had brought a letter for Tracy from Peter. ‘A letter and a bunch of clover,’ the youngest Grace had reported, since when speculation had filled the house.

  ‘I didn’t think Mother would have done this to us,’ said the eldest Grace.

  ‘If you ask me, she delighted in being contrary,’ said the second.

  ‘I think Tracy will see reason,’ said Walter. ‘I have talked to her.’

  ‘As a matter of fact, so have I,’ said Harry.

  ‘It’s a pity you did that, Harry,’ said Walter put out. ‘Too many cooks, you know.’

  ‘Well, I had a word with her myself,’ said Tom.