Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead

by Barbara Comyns

“I don’t care what he is. Neither do I want to see him. Go away, young man. I want to talk to my son!”

  Philip had come in contact with the old lady several times during Dennis’s illness; so he was not disconcerted. He exchanged an amused glance with Ebin and hurried towards the garden in the hope of finding Emma.

  “Now Ebin, I want to talk to you. Come in to the morning-room!”

  “As a matter of fact, Mother, I want to talk to you,” he said as he opened the door for her to enter the bright red room with the sun streaming through the closed windows.

  “It’s like a furnace in here, Mother.”

  “Perhaps that is just as well as it appears that when I die I’m going to Hell. Yes, Ebin, Ives has been in this morning and informed me that he is becoming a Catholic and is already having something called instruction from Father Kendall over at Shalford. He also informs me that he is going to die in a State of Grace and he doesn’t care to think of the state I shall die in. It seems I shall be lucky to get to Purgatory—but most likely shall lie quite forgotten in Hell. But that is not all. He wants to take two afternoons off every week for this instruction! As if anyone could instruct an old fool of his age!”

  “Mother, I want to tell you something—” Ebin interrupted.

  “I don’t want to hear it,” the old lady answered as she tried to leave the room, knowing that something unpleasant was coming.

  Ebin stood by the door and shouted, “I want to tell you, Mother, that I am returning to my old paper and have already signed a contract to do so. I shall be leaving tomorrow or the next day at the latest, and shall take Hattie with me!”

  “Oh, the ingratitude!” she screamed. Then her face started to twitch, and she whispered. “Now you have a little money you want to leave me, after I’ve sheltered you and your children all these years. Well, go if you will—but you can’t take Hattie.”

  “Oh God, how I hate all the unpleasantness!” Ebin thought as he hung on to the doorhandle with both hands.

  “Hattie must come with me. She needs a school and friends of her own age now Dennis has gone. You must see this is no life for her.”

  “How can you say that? It’s a wonderful life for a girl to live in this beautiful house and large garden. And think of the money I shall leave her!” Then pleadingly, “Ebin, I’ll get her a governess if you leave her with me—and a pony. She’d love a pony; and although I don’t care for dogs, she could have a dog as well.”

  “It’s very kind of you Mother, to think of all these things; but Hattie is leaving with me, and that’s definite. I’m sorry, but there it is!”

  He opened the door with a sudden twist of his hands and was gone, leaving his mother amazed and alone facing the brown door. Her jaw trembled. “They defy me now in my own house. How has it happened that they can defy me like this?” she muttered as she left the room. In the dining-room she sipped a glass of port; but it gave her no comfort.

  Philip and Emma were on the river path with their arms entwined when Ebin found and disturbed them.

  “Hallo, hallo,” he said with rather an awful, forced heartiness. “Well, I’ve told the old lady I’m going and taking Hattie too, and it really passed off better than I expected. You know, I quite thought she’d go off her rocker or something, like her Aunty Kate, who suddenly went crackers in Rochester Cathedral of all places! It created a scandal at the time, and she had to be shut up for quite a while.”

  “Father, you are not going to leave me alone with Grandmother, are you?” Emma said reproachfully.

  “Well, I thought it wouldn’t be such a shock for her if you stayed on a bit. Anyway you are going to visit Philip’s mother, aren’t you? So you had better wait here until the invitation comes. And then there will be your clothes to get ready.”

  Philip interrupted rather impatiently: “There will be no need for Emma to worry about clothes. My mother will see to all that. She will enjoy it, and there will be the trousseau to see to as well. That will keep you busy, Emma.”

  The idea of a trousseau had never entered Emma’s head, and she was delighted with the prospect. Also there was to be a ring—“an emerald, I think, to go with your hair.” She was in a dream of happiness and hardly listened to her lover and father arguing about when she was to leave Willoweed House. Philip was determined that she should leave with her father and sister, and eventually it was agreed that it should be so. They would all three be at Brown’s Hotel on the following Friday—in three days’ time. And Philip went away content.

  He had already written to his mother about Emma; but he had not yet told her about his engagement or that Emma was to be her guest for some months. He knew his mother would welcome the girl to the small South Kensington house where she lived alone except for her maid. She was a warm hearted, rolypoly of a woman intensely interested in people and (superficially) in art and literature. She would be enchanted with the idea of educating Emma and watching her surprised reactions to the most ordinary occurrences and pleasures. It would be like entertaining someone from another planet. He rather worried how she would take the surprise of the dark-skinned Hattie; but he still had three days to prepare her, and he thought perhaps a long talk about Gauguin would be quite a good idea.

  - CHAPTER XIX -

  EACH DAY had been more stormy than the last. Grandmother Willoweed had raved and moaned and even torn her hair, although she was already rather short of it. Each day had been black with despair, and no one had dared tell her of Emma’s engagement. Ebin’s one terror was that his mother would collapse with a heart attack or sudden stroke, and that at the last minute they would not be able to leave; but so far, although she frequently vowed she was dying and kept pressing her hand to her heart and saying, “Feel my heart,” her health seemed to be bearing up fairly well.

  Emma had secretly prepared Hattie’s and her own meager clothes, and now they were packed in two black arc-shaped trunks. As Ives and Constance had tried to smuggle them down the back stairs, their mistress’s sinister old figure had appeared on the landing and she had attacked the trunks with a great black umbrella. Ives and his niece had dropped them and run to the safety of the kitchen; but one of the trunks had over-balanced and crashed down the stairs, and would have crushed them if it hadn’t become entangled in the banisters. And there it stayed right across the back stairs all day and far into the night until vibrating snores issued from under Grandmother Willoweed’s door and her son knew it was safe to saw the banisters and release the imprisoned trunk.

  On Thursday—the last day—she refused to get up, and lay in bed all morning saying she was dying. No one took any notice; so she decided to get up, muttering to herself while she dressed: “This cruelty and ingratitude is unbearable.” As she was adjusting her truss she saw Ebin pass beneath her window and hurled it at him. Her aim was good, and Ebin suddenly found he was wearing a sordid crown, which he flung off in disgust. And so it went on all day. Plates were thrown across the luncheon table and a tortoise through a window. Lawyer Williams was sent for because she wanted to change her will; but as soon as he arrived he was dismissed because she felt too unwell to be bothered with him. She poured out her wrongs to Constance in the kitchen, and when the woman tried to sympathise with her she was told she was an “insolent simpleton.” Constance turned round on her and said, “Be quiet, you silly old woman! If you are not careful you will be sent to the mad-house. I’m surprised they haven’t sent you already!”

  Grandmother Willoweed tottered from the kitchen to the musty drawing-room, where she sat weeping and chattering to herself. Through the French window she saw Emma and Hattie run across the lawn towards the shimmering river. Young and apparently happy, they passed under the ivy arch and disappeared down the steps.

  They went for a last row on the river. It had been their main source of pleasure for so many years, and every bend and backwater held some memory for them.

  “There’s the old willow tree that was struck by lightning!” Hattie exclaimed. “Do you remember we though
t it would die, all split and charred as it was; but now it’s covered in green leaves and quite healthy.”

  They came to a shady bay where everything looked very green.

  “This is the place where we used to find so many freshwater mussels, and I always thought they were oysters,” said Emma.

  “Aren’t they oysters?” said Hattie in surprise. “I’ve eaten them sometimes all raw. Emma, we will miss the river.”

  “I know. Although there is a river in London, it won’t be the same; but we will become civilised, and that’s something.”

  “Civilised! Aren’t we civilised, now?”

  “Oh, no,” said Emma in a shocked voice, “we don’t know how to behave and are dreadfully ignorant. Why, we haven’t seen a mountain or a play, and we know nothing about art or clothes, and we can’t even ride a bicycle, although I don’t expect we will need that—the bicycle-riding—in London.”

  “But are there mountains there?”

  “No, we won’t see any in London.”

  “Well, I don’t think we will get very civilised after all. Everything you mention doesn’t seem to be there.”

  “Oh, don’t be silly! There are lots of other things to see in London. The zoo for instance, and big hotels where everyone eats in evening dress. Philip’s mother is going to educate me and show me how to dress. I expect it will be rather hard at first; but I shall be glad to learn.”

  Hattie suddenly started to cry, “I shall miss the river, Emma, and Dennis will be so lonely when we have gone. Who will look after his grave?”

  Emma comforted her sister and told her she had arranged with Old Ives to look after the grave. “And he is to plant flowers all over it and make it quite beautiful.”

  “I’d love him to have one of those lovely round glass things with white flowers inside,” Hattie said wistfully.

  “Oh, no,” said Emma in her new adult manner. “I believe they are considered dreadfully common, and they are never seen on good graves.”

  While the girls were on the river, Doctor Hatt had come to say goodbye to his old friend and discuss Emma’s engagement, which had his entire approval. They sat talking in Ebin’s battered old room, which already had an air of doom about it.

  “Well, I suppose this is the last time we will sit together in this funny old room,” Ebin said as he rose from his chair and the broken springs zoomed on the floor. Doctor Hatt slowly got to his feet and tapped his pipe in the empty fire-place. He then said the words Ebin had been dreading.

  “By the way, I’d better see your mother before I go. How is she taking all this?”

  Ebin rocked backwards and forwards and said in a hearty voice: “Oh, mother’s alright, a bit cut up you know, but really she has taken it much better than I expected. There is no need to see her; it might unsettle her and all that sort of thing.”

  “I think I’d better just have a glance at the old lady. Are you leaving her all alone except for Ives’s niece?”

  “Yes, but they get on like a house on fire. Its extraordinary, but they do. And of course we will often be coming home. She is quite happy about the whole thing really —well not exactly happy but pleased … quite pleased.” (“God forgive me,” he thought, “but I can’t stay here any longer. If I don’t make a stand now I’ll never be free.”)

  The doctor looked at him for a moment and then left the room, saying, “All the same, I’d like to see her; but don’t bother to come down. I’ll let myself out. Goodbye and the very best of luck.”

  Francis Hatt knocked at Grandmother Willoweed’s bedroom door; but there was no reply. So he tried the morning-room; but she wasn’t there either. Before looking in the garden he went to the seldom-used drawing-room; but there was again no reply to his knock. A snuffling noise caught his attention, and he slowly opened the door; and the first thing he saw was Grandmother Willoweed with her great bulk arranged on a tiny upright chair. There she sat in the middle of the room, crying and snuffling and rubbing her face with her fists. When he spoke to her, she seemed not to notice him; so he came quite close and put his hand on her shoulder, which was trembling. The dazed look left her face, and she recognised the doctor and said in a shaking voice, “It’s kind of you to come. Do you know they are all leaving me like rats leaving a sinking ship; but I’m not sinking, only dying—so they could have waited.”

  Her face became loose and dazed again and she muttered, “My three freak moles have got the moth, although they are in a glass case, and the baker’s wife squashed my little cat; there is so little consideration these days.” Then she was silent except for the crying and shaking.

  Constance was summoned and ordered to put her mistress to bed. It took the doctor and the maid a considerable time to get her upstairs, and then she strongly objected to Constance parting her from her complicated underclothes. At last she was in bed with a hot water bottle, and the shivering and crying had eased a little, and Doctor Hatt felt it was safe to leave her.

  He returned to Ebin’s room, and Ebin’s heart sank as he heard his footsteps coming nearer and nearer and up his attic stairs.

  The door burst open and a furious Doctor Hatt appeared.

  “So your old mother’s delighted to be left alone and gets on with Constance like a house on fire! Well, all I can say is, if you leave her in the state she is in, it will be murder, sheer murder.”

  “Oh,” said Ebin weakly, “isn’t she very well then?”

  “No, she isn’t, and you know it perfectly well. It’s quite out of the question for you to leave tomorrow unless you want to kill the poor old thing. Surely you can stay a few days and make better arrangements for her. Isn’t there any cousin or relative who can be engaged as companion?”

  “No,” said Ebin dejectedly. “She quarreled with them years ago.”

  “I know,” the doctor suddenly brightened, “you could take her with you. She could keep house and all that sort of thing; and you would be out most of the day, so she wouldn’t be too much trouble.”

  “My mother come to London with me!” Ebin looked horrified. “I’m only going to London to get away from her. You know she has made my life hell for years, and I don’t want to take that hell with me. You know what it’s been like for me here; so for God’s sake don’t try to stop me escaping.” There was a note of hysteria in his voice, and the doctor said soothingly, “Alright, alright, don’t worry. Perhaps we will think of some solution in the morning.”

  Then he left, and Ebin, with his hopes of freedom almost shattered, stared out of the window at the dusk.

  - CHAPTER XX -

  THE PROBLEM of how to dispose of Grandmother Willoweed was solved that night, and five days later it was finally solved when she was buried in the churchyard by the river. Her son respected her wishes, and her body was conveyed to the churchyard by boat. The boat was again all draped in black cloth, and the fine oak coffin was groaning under the weight of many magnificent wreaths; but above them all was Ives’s wreath of grey-green holly, hogswart and thistles. At the last moment he had felt the dandelions looked cheap; so they had been replaced by yellow helenium.

  Hattie and Emma stood on the landing-stage and watched the funeral boat slowly pass round the island in the misty September sun. The church bell was tolling a lament, and men upon the bridge took off their hats in reverence as the boat drew near.

  “Poor Grandmother,” said Hattie, “I hope she is comfortable in that beautiful box. It doesn’t seem large enough to me. Do you think they have folded her up, Emma?”

  When the burial was over, the people came to the house for refreshment, and there was much black upon the tenant farmers and their wives. They wanted to stay for the reading of the will so that they would know to whom they belonged; but Lawyer Williams turned them away and told them they would be notified in due course. As he read the complicated will, his bleating laugh was heard above the words he read: but in spite of this it became clear to his hearers that Grandmother Willoweed had left a very large fortune, the interest of which her
two granddaughters and son were to enjoy until Emma had a son, and that son became of age, when he would inherit everything with the exception of three thousand pounds. Old Ives was left two hundred pounds, which he immediately decided to give to the Catholic Church, “because it can’t do me much good on this earth, but it might make all the difference in the next world when the Almighty God hears how generous I’ve been.”

  The guests left, and Ebin was alone with the two girls, and they walked up and down one of the lawns talking together. The evening sun fell in slanting rays on their black clothes, and in the flower-beds great curly-headed dahlias blazed away.

  “Do you know, I really think I should stay on here to manage things,” Ebin said, eyeing Emma rather nervously. She looked at her father in amazement.

  “But I thought it was all arranged that you were going to London and you’d signed that contract?”

  “Well, I think I could get out of that, you know; and I must put my daughter’s welfare before my own inclinations. You would like me to keep an eye on the property, wouldn’t you, Emma?”

  “Lawyer Williams and the executors will do that, won’t they, father?”

  “Of course, Lawyer Williams will do all he can—after all he’s been well paid for it—but it’s rather hard on the executors; they are supposed to do it as a labour of love, and I’d like to help them as much as possible.”

  “If you are not going to London, need I go Father? I’d much rather be here. I don’t care as much about being civilized as Emma does. Anyway she’s going to be married, and it’s years before anyone will want to marry me.”

  “But Hattie—your school!” Emma said in a shocked voice.

  “London isn’t the only place with schools. There is a high school only about five miles away. They come and bathe in the river sometimes and all scream behind bushes while they dress. I could go there and scream behind bushes, too.”

  “Emma, I’ve suddenly realised that Hattie’s and my income combined will be a very handsome one. We could run a car and there would be no problem about getting her to school—and she could have a pony. I remember poor Mother saying she would like Hattie to have a pony. Oh yes, there was a dog as well. Hattie, you must have a dog. Do you know I think we could be very happy here. It’s a pity you are getting married, Emma, or you could have stayed as well!”