Settling the Account (29 page)

‘I see,’ was all Susannah said, her lips
compressed into a thin line when she had spoken. Amy could see that
it was only her determination not to lose her dignity in front of
the lawyer that kept her silent.

‘As to yourself, Mrs Leith,’ Mr Jamieson
went on, ‘Jack has made provision for you to have an annuity of
twenty pounds a year for the rest of your life. Or until such time
as you might marry again,’ he added, his bland expression giving
away nothing of what his opinion might be on the likelihood of that
event. ‘And, as their guardian, you’ll receive the interest on your
sons’ bequests until they come of age.’ Susannah acknowledged this
with no more than a nod, her expression turned inwards as if she
were doing calculations in her head.

‘Mrs Stewart.’ Amy gave a small start at
being addressed, having been no more than an observer till now. Mr
Jamieson gave her a smile of genuine warmth. ‘I’ve left you till
last, though your father talked about you first of all. You realise
there isn’t a great deal he could do for you?’

‘Oh, I didn’t expect anything,’ Amy said. ‘I
mean, I’m settled and everything, and I knew the farm was for the
boys.’

‘Nevertheless, your father had no intention
of leaving you out. He spoke at some length about wanting you to
have something to call your own. It’s not a large amount, but
you’re to have an annuity as well. Ten pounds a year.’

‘What?’ Amy stared at the lawyer in
astonishment, till she realised that her mouth had dropped open.
She composed herself as well as she could before speaking again.
‘But… but I didn’t expect… I didn’t think…’

Mr Jamieson smiled. ‘You’ll have some time
to get used to the notion. Your annuity will be paid into the bank
four times a year, so you’ll have to see Mr Callaghan about getting
an account there in your own name. I’ll go along with you for that,
if you like. Your father was most particular that it was to be your
own money, to do with just as you wish. He wanted me to tell you
that.’

‘Thank you,’ Amy said faintly, unable to
find words to say more.

Mr Jamieson left soon afterwards, and while
Susannah was showing the lawyer out the front door Harry took the
opportunity to slip out the other way.

‘That’s right, leave me to put up with
Madam,’ John grumbled half-heartedly.

‘I’ll end up doing something I shouldn’t if
I hang around here,’ Harry said darkly. He gave Amy a hurried
embrace and left just as Susannah could be heard closing the front
door.

When Susannah came back into the parlour,
instead of taking her chair again she stood by the fireplace and
cast a cold stare around the room. Her gaze took in each of them,
but when she finally spoke she was looking at the far wall rather
than at any of her companions.

‘I never thought he’d leave his own sons out
of his will. Oh, I’m not surprised he’s left me almost nothing, but
his own sons!’

‘He hasn’t left them out,’ John said. ‘He’s
left them what he thought was fair.’

‘Fair! Why is it fair for my sons to be
given a few pounds while
you
,’ her glare was clearly meant
to take in John and the absent Harry, ‘get the whole farm? That’s
why he did it, of course—because they’re
my
sons. I never
knew he hated me so much.’ Amy could not decide just how sincere
that catch in Susannah’s voice was.

John gave a barely audible groan. ‘Two
hundred and fifty pounds each, Susannah. You might think that’s not
much, but I can tell you it’s going to mean a hell of a mortgage on
this place. Not that we grudge it,’ he added hastily, casting a
look at Thomas and George. ‘They’re Pa’s sons, same as we are. It’s
only fair that the farm pays for them to get a start in life.’

‘A start!’ Susannah stalked back and forth
in front of the fireplace, clasping and unclasping her hands. ‘He
should have thought about
that
years ago, while they were
still young enough to benefit from a proper education. It’s rather
late now to be talking about a
start
in life, without the
money to do it properly.’

‘Well, you’ll have to make the best of it,’
John said, his patience clearly wearing thin. ‘Pa told Harry and me
what he’d decided, and he said it was the best he could manage. He
worried himself sick over it, I don’t mind telling you, and he
didn’t need extra worry. He’s had enough to trouble him.’

Susannah drew herself up to her full,
impressive height. ‘Do you
dare
reproach me?’

‘What if I do?’ John asked, the challenge
clear in his voice, quietly though he spoke.

Susannah stared back at him for a long
moment, sizing up her opponent. But Susannah was no fool, and John
was not his father. She knew she had no claim on him, nor any
weapon to use against him now that he had assumed the role of head
of the house. She turned away, taking refuge in self-pity.

‘A woman alone in the world has no friends,
I should have realised that,’ she said, her voice trembling
slightly. ‘I shall simply have to carry the burden of bringing up
my fatherless boys on my own, since the rest of you care nothing
for them.’ A dramatic wave of her arm indicated her sons, who were
squirming with embarrassment on their stools. ‘As, it seems, their
father cared nothing.’

John did not bother answering, but Thomas
did. He stood up and walked a few hesitant steps towards his
mother. ‘Don’t talk about Pa like he was awful,’ he said. ‘Pa
didn’t mean it like that, I know he didn’t. Honestly, Ma, he didn’t
mean to—’

Susannah rounded on him, eyes blazing as she
found a safe victim. ‘Don’t
call
me that,’ she hissed. ‘You
call me Mother, or keep silent. I won’t have it, do you hear me?
Talking like a rough, common farm boy!’ She spat the words as if
they were the deadliest of insults.

Thomas stared at her, clenching and
unclenching his fists, and for a moment Amy thought he was going to
cry. But the twisting of his face was from a rare anger, fanned by
Susannah’s abuse.

‘That’s what I am, isn’t it?’ he shot back
at her, his voice tight with emotion. ‘I’m a farm boy. That’s all
I’ve ever wanted to be—a farmer, just like my pa was. What’s so
bloody wrong with that?’ He gave a yell as Susannah’s hand lashed
across his cheek, the slap so savage that within seconds the
outline of each finger had made a crimson streak.

Amy was shaken out of the daze the news of
her unexpected legacy had thrown her into. She rose from her seat
to put a arm around Thomas. The boy turned to one side rather than
look at his mother, who seemed poised to fling more bitter
invective at him. John forestalled her next outburst by speaking
first.

‘Susannah!’ he said sharply. ‘Have some
respect for the dead, for God’s sake! Pa’s barely cold in his grave
and you’re brawling in his parlour.’

‘It was his fault,’ Susannah said
petulantly. ‘I won’t tolerate language like that from my own
child.’

‘You shouldn’t have goaded him into it,’
said John. ‘You can’t expect us to put up with you bad-mouthing Pa
like that.’

His eyes locked with Susannah’s, and it was
Susannah who dropped her gaze first.

‘You won’t have to suffer me for much
longer,’ she said, facing the empty fireplace as she spoke. ‘I
shall be moving out of this house as soon as possible.’

Amy watched the signs of politeness fighting
a brief, and losing, battle with honesty on John’s face. ‘I think
that’s for the best,’ he said after a few moments. ‘I think that’s
what Pa intended.’

‘No doubt,’ Susannah said. ‘It may take me a
few weeks to find something suitable, I hope you won’t find my
presence in your house too burdensome for that long?’

‘Take as long as you like, Susannah,’ John
said, his teeth only slightly gritted. ‘You’re welcome to stay as
long as you need to.’

‘I suppose I should thank you for that. I
shall take advice on finding a house as soon as I can.’

‘Will you go back to your people in
Auckland?’ John asked, expressing a polite interest that Amy knew
he did not feel.

‘No,’ Susannah answered quickly, startling
Amy with her vehemence. ‘I’ve no reason to go there. Anyway,’ she
added, ‘I could hardly attempt to live decently on twenty pounds a
year in Auckland. The rents are much lower in Ruatane. I shan’t
need a great deal of room just for the three of us, two bedrooms
would be sufficient.’

Amy saw Thomas’s face set in determined
lines, as if he were schooling himself to an unpleasant task, but
George erupted to his feet, knocking over his stool in his
rush.

‘I’m not going!’ He turned to his older
brother for support. ‘John, we don’t have to go with her, do
we?’

John raised his eyes to the ceiling for a
moment. ‘Give me strength,’ he muttered. ‘Yes, you do,’ he told
George. ‘If that’s what your ma wants, you’ve got to do it. You
heard what the lawyer said—she’s your guardian now. That means you
have to do what she says.’

He turned to Susannah. ‘If you did want the
young fellows to stay here, that’d be fine with me and Harry. I
mean, this is the only home they’ve ever known—it’s only natural
they want to stay.’

‘No,’ Susannah said. ‘Even you will allow
that it’s my right to decide where my sons should live.’

John sighed. ‘Yes, it is.’

‘I
think it’s only natural that they
should want to be with their mother,’ Susannah said, echoing John’s
phrase. ‘They’ll be coming with me, and that’s an end to the
matter.’

‘But I don’t
want
to,’ George
protested. ‘I want to stay here—you do too, don’t you, Tom?’

‘No doubt,’ Susannah said. She regarded each
of her sons in turn. This time Amy was sure that the hurt in
Susannah’s expression was genuine, though her voice was quite
steady. ‘I was foolish enough to expect better of my own
children.’

Amy was dabbing at the bleeding cut a
roughness on one of Susannah’s fingernails had made on Thomas’s
cheek. He waited until she had lowered her hand from his face
before speaking. ‘I…’ Thomas began hesitantly. He turned to face
his mother and spoke more firmly. ‘I want to go with you,
Ma–Mother.’

‘You don’t!’ George said. ‘I bet Pa never
wanted us to go away with her. He probably meant Mother to go off
and leave us here—yes, that must have been it. He left that money
for Ma so she could live somewhere else. He can’t have meant for us
to go too, though, ’cause he knew John and Harry couldn’t run the
farm without us.’

‘He did, George,’ Thomas said. ‘I know he
meant us to go with her. He told me he did.’

‘When?’ George asked.

‘It was…’ Thomas frowned, struggling to
recall the memory in detail. ‘It was last year, I think, when Pa
started getting real slow about walking and things. It was just him
and me one day, I think we were going round the calves. He said a
bit about how he had to leave the farm to John and Harry, but he’d
sort it all out properly for me and you.’

‘He seems to have discussed the matter with
everyone in this house except his own wife,’ Susannah remarked, but
got no response.

‘He never said it to me,’ George protested.
‘Why’d he only tell you, Tom?’

‘Because he thought you might make a fuss
about it. Like you are now,’ Thomas added; George pulled a face at
him. ‘I didn’t want him to talk about dying and all that.’ His
voice cracked, and he regained his self-control with a visible
effort. ‘So I sort of kept trying to talk about something else, but
he made sure he told me that stuff anyway. And then he said…’ He
turned and looked at Susannah with a steady gaze. ‘He said he
wanted me to look after you. So I’m going to.’

She looked back at him in some surprise. ‘I
suppose you think I should be grateful.’ Thomas shrugged and walked
away to lean on the mantelpiece, turning his back on them all.

Susannah swept towards the door, the stiff,
black crepe of her dress making a rustling sound as she moved. ‘I’m
going to lie down for a while, to try and recover my nerves,’ she
announced as she left the room. ‘It has been a very trying
afternoon.’

‘There’s no arguing with
that
,’ John
agreed quietly. ‘She made damned sure it was… hey, how about you
fellows get out of those fancy clothes of yours and see about
getting the cows in?’ he told Thomas and George. ‘We’ve all done a
bit much sitting around today. Tom,’ he added, catching hold of his
young brother’s arm before the boy had taken more than two steps.
‘You did the right thing, boy,’ he said, patting Thomas’s arm, and
sounding so like their father that a lump came to Amy’s throat.

The boys left the parlour at a half-run
after farewelling Amy, readily taking the opportunity to get out of
the house. ‘I’m a fine one to talk about people bad-mouthing,’ John
said when he and Amy were alone in the parlour. ‘I know I shouldn’t
go crook about her in front of them, but she makes it pretty hard
not to sometimes.’

‘John,’ Amy said, ‘this money Pa said I’m to
have—is it all right? I mean, I don’t want you and Harry giving me
money you can’t afford, and going short yourselves. You said you’d
have to get a mortgage to pay for Tom and George’s money.’

‘It’s only ten pounds a year, Amy,’ John
told her with a fond smile. ‘The farm’s not doing as bad as that!
No, we can manage that no trouble at all. Why shouldn’t you get a
share, anyway? He was your father as much as ours. I wish it could
be a bit more, that’s all.

‘Harry’ll moan a bit about Madam’s money,’
he went on. ‘Still, it’s all talk—he knows as well as I do that Pa
had to provide for her. Anyway,’ he added in a low voice, ‘I’d
gladly spend twice that much to get her out of the house.’

‘It’ll be peaceful, won’t it?’ Amy said. ‘I
hope Tom and George’ll be all right, though.’

‘Yes, I feel a bit of an ogre saying they’ve
got to go with her. You know, Pa thought about making me their
guardian instead of her. He nearly did it, too—that’s what the
lawyer was sort of hinting about. But then he said how Tom and
George are all Susannah’s got, and it wouldn’t be right to take
them off her.’