A Night in Cold Harbour

by Margaret Kennedy

  How long she lay there she knew not. The darkness thinned. Her window was glimmering in the light of dawn. She heard a bird singing, and thought: I’m dying. Somebody should be with me.

  She needed nobody. But in a well-ordered household no one is left to die alone. She had done her best, and she had failed. The neighbours would be shocked. Her father, who took the Sacrament to the humblest of his flock, would reproach himself. For his sake she must not die until the morning. She must continue to see the light until they came.

  She fixed her eyes on the window. The light grew stronger. Again she heard the sleepy chirping of awakened birds.

  The pale square flickered, faded, and was gone for ever.

  PART IV

  THE BEREAVED

  1

  ‘I HEARD THE bell toll when I was dressing,’ sobbed Amabel. ‘I wondered who … but I never dreamt …’ A ‘We must go at once,’ said Mrs. Brandon. ‘There might be something we could … that poor old man! And Venetia! Our …’

  She tried to say our dear Venetia, but could not. She added doubtfully:

  ‘So young … unused to nursing. She’ll feel it dreadfully.’

  ‘But fancy thinking it a cold,’ cried Amabel, ‘when it was inflammation of the lungs!’

  ‘Ought we not to send for Romilly?’ suggested Ellen.

  ‘At Cheltenham?’ Her mother looked startled. ‘Why yes … now that we are to be connected … and he will want to be with Venetia … to comfort her….’

  There was a short silence. They were all crying but their tears were checked by the effort to imagine so unlikely a scene. Venetia demanding comfort? Romilly supplying it? Impossible!

  ‘The people in the village will miss …’ mused Mrs. Brandon. ‘She was so good to them. But we shall all miss her.’

  Shall we? wondered Ellen miserably, wishing very much that they should. But she could only think of a great ugly bonnet bobbing along the street, and recall the qualm of boredom with which one stopped to chat with Jenny Newbolt. She had been a good woman — a very, very good woman. There was no doubt about that. Ought not goodness to be missed?

  ‘If they never knew how ill she was,’ exclaimed Amabel, ‘I daresay she never got the Sacrament! How shocking!’

  ‘She stayed for it last time,’ said Ellen.

  She had stayed herself, kneeling alone, because in five years there are sixty months, and she must kneel alone sixty times, and now there would be only fifty-nine before he and she might kneel together again. What a sad letter she must now write! ‘You will be very sorry to hear … you will remember how kind and obliging she was at our little ball … we are all miserable,’ But I am feeling so much which I can never tell him because I have not the words. I’m miserable because we shall forget her so soon. Life is sad … sad … because it is so much sadder than we are.

  The three ladies drove down to the Parsonage, where they found everything in confusion. The cook, who received them, said that his Reverence had gone to the stables, summoned by an urgent message from Tibbie. Miss Venetia was locked in her bedchamber and would answer nobody.

  ‘I don’t know where to turn, madam. I don’t indeed. There’s Kitty in strong hysterics! It’s very hard, madam, that all the blame should be put on the poor girl. She’s not very bright, but she did all she could for poor Miss Jenny, and she’s young. She’s not accustomed to sick bodies. She never thought but it was just a cold. And now Miss Venetia has turned her off!’

  ‘Have you sent for …’

  ‘Oh yes, madam. Word has been sent to all the young gentlemen. Poor Mr. Charles! He’ll hardly have got home, before he gets the express.’

  ‘How … how does Dr. Newbolt take it?’

  ‘Dazed, madam. Han’t spoken a word since Kitty come screaming downstairs this morning, like a mad thing, to say she found Miss Jenny … Oh dear, oh dear! … all alone, madam! All alone!’

  ‘He’ll feel it shockingly.’

  ‘To be sure. We all shall. Miss Jenny was …’

  The woman paused, and then said, as everybody was saying, that Jenny had been so very good.

  ‘I shall go upstairs to Venetia,’ announced Amabel. ‘Perhaps she would answer me.’

  She ran upstairs. Ellen surmised that Venetia was merely an excuse. ‘Have you seen the corpse?’ was a question always asked by Amabel on these occasions.

  Seized with a sudden nausea Ellen ran out of the house and across the garden into the churchyard. On the far side of the laurel hedge, lying on the grass beside a flat slab tomb, she saw a boy.

  That boy! she thought, stiffening. She had heard, of course, that he now worked at the Parsonage. Amabel had made a great pother about it and had written the news to Charlotte and Sophy. They had snubbed her for her pains, pointing out that, since there was no atom of truth in that vulgar scandal, the fact that the child now cleaned Dr. Newbolt’s boots need excite no comment. But it had excited a good deal, all the same, although nobody ventured to mention it to Mrs. Brandon.

  She was about to turn back when he raised his head and gave her a look so full of misery that she felt it like a blow over the heart. With a stifled cry she sat down on the grass beside him and whispered:

  ‘Oh, you poor child! No wonder you should grieve. She was very kind to you.’

  He nodded and presently gasped out:

  ‘I wan’t kind to her. I never minded her as I should.’

  ‘We all feel so. When some person dies whom we’ve loved. I felt so when my father died.’

  ‘I loved her. I did. But I never took her part when folks laughed at her. But I loved Miss Jenny.’

  ‘We all loved her.’

  ‘Nay. Nobody loved her. They let her die. There an’t nothing good left in the world, now she’s gone.’

  ‘Dr. Newbolt … you must do all that you can for him. He will miss her so much. In that way you can still do something for her.’

  ‘I would. I’d tend him. But I’ll not be let stay here now. Miss Venetia will see to that.’

  This seemed very probable. Ellen wondered if she could not herself do something for Jenny by helping the child. She then remembered that a good many people believed him to be her nephew. It was an awkward business. But then a brilliant idea occurred to her.

  ‘Should you not like to go to sea? To join His Majesty’s Navy?’

  Dickie’s opinion of His Majesty’s Navy, expressed with some force, annoyed her so much that she grew less sorry for him.

  He was not a respectful child, she thought, as she went back to the Parsonage garden. No decent village child would use such language. But then, she remembered, he was not exactly a decent village child. Moreover, he might believe her to be his aunt. He ought to be sent away. Before Rom gets to hear about him, she thought. Rom is so unaccountable. One never knows what he might do.

  Amabel knocked at Venetia’s door and begged for admittance. When no answer was returned she went down the passage to another door. For a few seconds she listened. There was no sound within. The village women must have finished their grim task. She opened the door and peeped into the darkened room.

  It was there, straight and narrow on the bed, rigid as the frills of the cap standing up round the long chalky face. She stared at it avidly. Then, remembering decorum, she knelt down and repeated the Lord’s Prayer.

  This duty performed she rose, looking about the room, remembering former occasions when she had been there. There was a visit long ago, when, as a very little girl, playing with Venetia in the garden, she had fallen down and cut her knee. Jenny had brought her up here, bathed and dressed the cut, and consoled her by showing her a secret drawer in a little desk by the window. There had been nothing in it. Jenny, when Amabel had wonderingly asked why not, had laughed and said that perhaps, some day, she might find a treasure worthy of it.

  She had seemed like quite another person then, thought Amabel in surprise. Twelve years ago. She must have changed after Mrs. Newbolt died. That tall laughing girl was as unlike the woman they now m
ourned as the woman was unlike the thing lying on the bed.

  Crossing to the window, Amabel pressed the spring which Jenny had showed her so long ago. The little drawer sprang up. It was so thin that it could hardly have held more than the letter which now fell out of it.

  So she did find something to put in it after all! But what could it be? A love-letter? Jenny Newbolt!

  Pulling the curtain aside, Amabel peered at the direction. The letter was sealed and addressed to Romilly Brandon Esq.

  Romilly! Why should Jenny write to Romilly? Why was the letter never sent? Ought he not now to have it? He never would, if she put it back into the drawer. Nobody else knew its secret. Would he get it if she now put it on the dressing table?

  Footsteps were coming along the passage. She pushed the drawer back and slipped the letter into her pocket. When a servant came in with a jug full of white roses, Amabel was once more kneeling at the foot of the bed.

  2

  THE HOUSE HAD become very dangerous. It was full of secrets, memories, and truths hitherto lying in ambush which might now pounce on a man and endorse what Tibbie had said. Tibbie was a drunken, doting old creature; no attention need be paid to her. But it might be better not to return to the house, because upstairs … upstairs …

  Dr. Newbolt set off on a ramble across the fields. He must protect himself. He must return to the thoughts of yesterday which had been, still were, immensely important. Only yesterday he had made his great discovery, and it was imperative that he should communicate it at once to the Archbishop of Canterbury. Humanity must be informed of the identity … the rider of the Black Horse in the Apocalypse … for weeks he had known himself to be upon the brink of a momentous revelation, and yesterday the crucial words had leapt out at him. ‘A pair of balances in his hand’ ‘A measure of wheat for a penny, three measures of barley for a penny, and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine.’

  This, your Grace, is Economy, followed by Death … (Death! Death! Death! Gone! Never … never …) … Death on a pale horse, and Hell following after. It is therefore impossible to maintain that Economy does not concern the Church. Sent as a plague to mankind, doubtless … the sudden appearance of this Phantom of which we never heard in former years … the insensibility to human suffering which it has bred … reason, compassion, Christian principles, all challenged … an universal blindness … (Blindness! Blindness!) … my task will never be accomplished if I allow my mind to be disturbed…. (There’s none so blind as those who won’t see. Her heart was broke before your very eyes) … what comes next? The injustice…. (No need to seek injustice at Cranton’s. There’s been enough of it under your own roof. No man has ever set more store by justice than I, Tibbie. I have always …)… We are told, your Grace, that these inflictions are to fall upon the fourth part of the earth. Undoubtedly the Continent of Europe. Buonaparte rides a white horse, so we are told. It has long been allowed that the red horse brings war and slaughter. After these two … Economy with his scales, sparing neither woman nor child … (Weep for any child you would, save your own. Jenny! Jenny! My child … dead … gone … gone … All for that greedy young one, and she who gave you her life to be left to charity at the last… these people are very ignorant. ’Tis the custom … an unmarried daughter … one does not make the same provision …) Are not these, gentlemen, the counsels of the devil? Economy bids us exclude thousands of helpless creatures from all claim to mercy … (I can give her nothing now. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Had she lived … part should have been hers … I had not considered …) In my first letter I shall not mention the White Horse of the Corsican. No, no! That shall be revealed later. But not too late. (Too late. Too late. Too late. Too …) That’s a very terrible thing. Eccles must be told of this discovery. He pays too little attention to Economy. This scheme of his for teaching the poor things to read, what should that do for them? At least, he says, they may feel that they have a friend. Ay, there’s something in that. I believe she would have been all for it. She taught that boy to read. And we must be doing something, must we not? Shall we lie supine beneath the heels of this black horse? No, no! Holy Scripture never bids us do that. Eccles would do more if he had the means. Her portion … I believe that my mind might be clearer, I might address His Grace more forcibly, if some part of what should, injustice, have been hers … I’ll write to Eccles … her portion … if I devote her portion … Venetia will never be in want. She marries a rich man. In justice, perhaps, the whole should have been Jenny’s….

  So soon as he had made up his mind to write to Eccles he felt able to go back to the house. At some point on his long ramble he must have come to the conclusion that he had, indeed, been unjust. He could not have said exactly when he had admitted the fact. He had left Tibbie denying it. He came home accepting it. And, in that case, he must make what reparation he could before venturing to condemn the injustice of others. He would offer Jenny’s portion … the provision which he should have made for her, to Eccles for the maintenance of a Ragged School.

  He had meant to write at once, but he came home so much exhausted that immediate effort was impossible. He sat down and fell asleep. The day was over when he woke. It was twilight. He had not been given his dinner. Jenny should have … Jenny!

  The jar of remembrance made him dizzy. He crept to the door calling feebly for Venetia, who came, carrying a candle.

  ‘I’ve had no dinner,’ he complained.

  ‘We’ve been keeping it for you, Papa. We thought it better not to wake you.’

  ‘Very well. Very well. I’ll have it now. I must write a letter. I’m writing to Eccles. I am going to give him Jenny’s portion, the money I should have left for Jenny. For those schools of his. I think she would have wished it.’

  ‘She would certainly have wished it,’ agreed Venetia. ‘Will you come to the dining parlour, Papa, or shall something be brought to you on a tray?’

  He asked for a tray and went back to the composition of his letter. In time, he thought, he would be able to take comfort in Venetia, but not until he felt easy in his mind in the matter of justice to Jenny, such justice as it might now be in his power to observe.

  They were taking a long time over his tray. He waited for forty minutes before ringing his bell. The servant who answered it denied all knowledge of the order. Nor would Venetia, when summoned, allow that he had asked for one. He had been asleep whenever she looked in. He must have dreamt that he woke up and talked to her and asked for a tray.

  3

  THE EXPRESS, BRINGING the news of Jenny’s death, reached Charles barely an hour after he had got home. He set off again for Stretton Courtenay immediately, and his wife would have gone with him if one of the children had not been suffering from earache. He was sorry to leave her behind; he felt that she would have been a support in any further transactions with Venetia.

  At Severnton he waited at the Three Crowns, until the London coach came in, in case either of his brothers should be travelling on it, and in need of a lift to Stretton. Neither Stephen nor Harry would be likely to travel post.

  They both turned up and Stephen annoyed Charles by exclaiming at once:

  ‘Ah! It did occur to you to wait for us!’

  Harry made a face at Charles behind Stephen’s back, and then pulled his mouth down, remembering their errand.

  The three brothers drove on together. For a mile or so they agreed that it was a sad business, that they had never been so shocked in their lives, that poor Jenny had been the best of sisters, and that they trusted there had been no neglect. But they brightened a little when Charles told them of his recent visit and of Venetia’s engagement. Stephen even broke into a chuckle, cut it short, and said in some confusion that his wife had foretold as much.

  ‘As soon as we heard Brandon had come home: Depend upon it, says Henrietta, that puss will marry him and be richer than any of us.’

  ‘That’s very likely, in any case,’ said Charles. ‘My father told me something, just befor
e I set out for home the other day, which startled me considerably. If my carriage hadn’t been waiting … but I had to go. He said that he means to give her twenty thousand pounds.’

  The other two exclaimed and Harry said:

  ‘That must be pretty near all he’s got.’

  ‘I fancy so.’

  ‘Upon my word! That’s going too far,’ cried Stephen. ‘We always knew she’d get more than her share. But that she should get all…!’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Charles. ‘The money was most of it our mother’s. It was left to him absolutely, but I’m sure she would never … It should have been tied up in some way for the benefit of all her children.’

  ‘Has he made a will?’ asked Harry.

  ‘I don’t think so. I gather he means to give her the money on her wedding day.’

  ‘And when is that to be?’

  ‘Nothing is settled yet about that, so far as I know.’

  ‘Still, there’s not much time,’ pondered Harry, ‘if anything is to be done.’

  ‘It cannot be very soon, now,’ said Stephen, with some satisfaction. ‘Not when we are all in deep mourning.’

  ‘Whenever it is, that’s what he means to do,’ said Charles. ‘You can remonstrate with him if you like. Personally I never found any argument answered with my father.’

  They all began to look more gloomy than ever.

  ‘D’you think he might be a little …’ Harry tapped his forehead. ‘I’ve heard rumours. Han’t he been writing some very odd letters to the newspapers? I never saw one, but a fellow in our chambers …’