The Ugly Sister (14 page)

Yet the distance between the two houses was not more than thirty-five miles. That day in early November when I went, we took the coach from Falmouth to Bodmin and then a gig over the muddy lane for the last few miles. I had asked that I might take Parish with me, but Desmond said he wanted him to stay at Place just in case his mother improved in health and was able to return. So after I parted from my mother I was quite alone.

There were three servants and I had to learn new names: Clarice, Florrie and Tom. It soon became clear that I had been engaged to take over the house. The cook had suddenly died, and Uncle Francis's housekeeper had left for a better post in Devon. So the Canon had been left without his two main servants. It looked as if he was now calculating that one strong, willing, educated girl could be expected to replace the two. He explained all this to me on the first evening. Clarice had helped with the cooking, Florrie had helped with the housework, Tom had helped in the garden. But they all needed a guiding hand, a strong animating force behind them. Because of the rising cost of living and some misfortunes in his small investments it was necessary to exercise the utmost stringency in all matters.

It seemed to me that a high degree of stringency had been exercised for some time. Outside, the stucco had fallen off the front porch in big patches, and paint was peeling or absent from most of the window frames. The pebble drive was overgrown with grass, and weeds flourished in the garden. Inside, carpets were threadbare, and wallpapers hung loose to a degree far worse than anything to be seen at Place. Upstairs there were no mats on the landings, and the floorboards creaked so that no silent movement could be taken. The paintings, mostly of ancestors of Canon Robartes, were mildewed and faded. Heavy furniture stood about in the living rooms as if not sure of a permanency; the Canon's study was swamped with books, all so far as I could see religious, not only filling the shelves but planted in haphazard pyramids about the floor. A huge desk was scattered with his writings – some, it seemed, the drafts for sermons, some articles by him printed in religious journals; but some were household accounts, from which it appeared Uncle Francis kept an unremitting eye on what he and others spent, down to the last penny.

The kitchen quarters were down three steps and were flagged with great grey Delabole slates which sweated in the wet weather. In spite of the fire the kitchens were damper than the house itself, and every cooking utensil looked as if it had survived from the last century. Heavy saucepans, clome pitchers, wooden baskets, huge iron trivets, and the well was in an outhouse leading to the stables.

November is not the best month to arrive at a new house to occupy a new position. Lamps and candles – only tallow allowed – were not to be lit before full dark had fallen, and then grudgingly, so that it was almost impossible to read, and shadows lurked in every room and passage. In the daytime the candles, one for each of the staff, stood in a rigid row on the hall table, and remark was made if one of the candles came to be burned down more quickly than the others. The house was draughty, leaning, it seemed, into the heavy winds. One wall of my bedroom had a huge patch of damp on it, and the sash window let in both the wind and the rain. Blankets were not lacking but the bed always seemed cold, and when the winds turned north after Christmas, bringing hail and snow flurries, I was usually wakened by the chill of dawn.

My uncle, as he still called himself, though he was far removed from this relationship, was a tall plump man. His hair was thin and grey and curling; his eyes large and a clear blue, his lips thick, his manner gentle. He had never married, was intensely religious, cared for music, even secular music, and in spite of his deep clericalism was interested in things like railway development, bridge construction, the building of steamships. As he had said on his visit to us, were his means more substantial, he would have invested in some of the ongoing projects of Mr Brunel. But even without money, as a senior canon of the church, his influence over his more conservative colleagues was important. I learned that Mr Brunel had been to see him again last year, and Mr Brunel, I imagined, did not waste his time on social visits.

Of course there were still the two ways open to me to react to banishment and disgrace. (In spite of the busy days there were the long cold nights.) To give way to shame and remorse and end my life in some convenient bog, of which I soon gathered there were plenty in the vicinity; or vent a sense of anger, of betrayal, of utter self-contempt, upon the household that I had been invited to run. This is what I did.

After supper at the end of the second day, the Canon had said: ‘My dear, I have invited you to look after me and this household in a spirit of Christian reconciliation. Your mother tells me you have been wilful and wayward, but gives the highest references as to your true capabilities. Well, I have no quarrel with any wayward escapades that you gave way to before you came here. Wilfulness and a certain wildness are not unknown among the young – particularly, I have observed, among the more talented young. Well … this is an opportunity to express those talents. You are still so very young – too young, many would say, to take over the responsibilities of caring for this rectory. I am frequently absent, often in a physical sense, and not uncommonly in a spiritual sense, and as you will observe, much has been neglected. I do not think Freda, my late housekeeper, was very efficient: that is, in the way in which she supervised the conduct of the house. But she was my companion in many things, and for that I was appreciative and chose to overlook a slackness in the upkeep. This also applied to the cook, and to the servants who have remained with me. From you I do not expect miracles but your youth and – I trust – your enthusiasm will stand you in good stead in this highly responsible task I am setting you. Your mother said you had great potential, but that your religious instruction had been neglected. I hope both these conditions will be influenced by your new environment.'

‘Thank you, Uncle,' I said. ‘I have never managed a household before and will have to rely on you for a few weeks for some guidance as to what I may and may not do.'

‘Look upon it as a sacred task,' he said.

I
NEVER
looked upon it as a sacred task. I went to church twice in the middle of each week, and three times on Sundays when everyone went together. Sometimes that winter he had me into his study for religious instruction, but often he would divert from a study of Joseph of Arimathea to the price of coal or the need to economize on candles. Then, with a little encouragement from me he would come to talk about the revolution in transport and the difficulties that the railroad builders were encountering in laying a track from Exeter to Barnstaple. Or he would go on about the relative merits of the narrow and the broad gauge track.

My relations with the three servants who were under my direction were soon strained. They had been used to a quiet life; I changed that. Wood floors had to be scrubbed, the slate ones washed with damp mops on long handles, curtains came down and were washed and ironed. Even in the howling gales of February sheets and blankets flapped crazily on makeshift lines; all the silver had to be polished, the crockery, of which some was cracked and a good lot missing from breakages, was assembled and properly shelved and the better put away. Fleas were almost got rid of.

The Canon allowed himself two bottles of claret a week, and I soon came to notice that he greatly enjoyed the food that came to his table. So far as he was concerned I had a completely free hand: the staff could walk out if they wanted to, he told me; there were plenty waiting to take their places. I did not cook very well to begin, but he was tactful in his complaints and suggestions, and even discussed the cooking of the food with me. I interviewed individually the tradesmen who attended on the house and persuaded them that we wanted better produce at the same or cheaper rates. I became known, apparently, as ‘wall-eye' – which was unfair because I could see perfectly well with both eyes.

The one thing I could not do was prevail upon the Canon to sanction any extra expenditure, however slight and however sorely needed. He gave me the same tiny allowance he had given Freda, but not a penny more. When the expenditure of money was raised his face would undergo a significant change. His bright eyes would mist over like a pane of glass that had been breathed on; then he would look away, his full lips would tighten and he would refer to his wretched stipend and the depressed state of his trivial investments. In the end, the only way I found of spending a little extra on the house or garden was by making small economies that he did not notice and that I did not tell him about. Surprisingly it was possible. Freda had not been as careful with the housekeeping as he supposed.

In March the weather began to clear, primroses yellow-tufted the garden, and there were crocuses and snowdrops around the clumps of damp pampas grass. Looking over the dishevelled quarter acre I saw that there were a surprising number of shrubs and plants, as if at one time the place had been cared for.

In April the Canon said: ‘You must join the choir, Emma. I think you have a voice.'

‘I'm not sure that I should be welcomed. I am an outsider – almost a foreigner.'

‘That doesn't matter. They will take my direction. Let us try a few notes on this spinet.' He sat down and lifted the lid.

It was a dusty old instrument and sounded tinny, but I sang a few notes.

‘Oh,' he said. ‘You should have told me! I will inform them next choir practice. Your mother should have told me!'

So I joined the choir, and after a few weeks began quite to look forward to it. They were farmers and farmers' daughters, a generally mixed dozen, but apart from one girl who had to give way to me they took my arrival moderately well. The girl spread the rumour that I should not be allowed in church because I had the Evil Eye.

In May the Canon was taken ill with bronchitis. He was in bed some days and I got used to the fusty sandalwood smell of his bedroom. I longed to change the smell to that of furniture cream and floor polish, but he would not allow the new broom to sweep in here.

However, I cooked all his meals and took them up and sat with him while he coughed and wheezed. Although the cough was very loose he never brought anything up, which was a relief to me as I cannot stand the sight of phlegm.

I read to him sometimes from a book called
Imitation of Christ
, and so far as I understood it it was full of beautiful thoughts. Perhaps at another time it would have brought me spiritual enlightenment, but my soul was much too dark.

Then, when he was feeling better and able to get downstairs for a few hours a day, he asked me to sing to him. I did this helping myself with a few tentative chords on the old spinet. At first it began with hymns, but after a while I found he was not averse to a little light secular stuff, and he seemed vastly entertained when I sang him the theatrical ditties that I had learned from my mother.

For more than a month now I had been attacking the garden – Tom put in twice the work if there was someone with him – and all sorts of pretty things were emerging. It was surprising to find more spring flowers here than in the gentler airs of Place. I did not think the Sprys were specially interested in formal gardens; the walled kitchen and fruit garden, living as they did so far from fresh supplies, was their preoccupation. Here, in a more confined space and in apparently more adverse conditions, all sorts of plants and flowers poked up their heads as the air grew warmer. Daffodils grew wild under a pink horse chestnut. Fuschias overspilled from the hedges and grew tall and lanky among the Bourbon roses. Lily of the valley came and went, with primulas and tobacco plants and Solomon's seal.

In the summer I had a letter from my mother telling me that Thomasine was with child. She was expected to be brought to bed in October. Anna Maria had had her fourth, another boy. Following Thomas Tristram Spry, Edward Augustus and George Gwavas, the new baby was named only Richard. Apparently he was a sickly child, unlike the first three. Aunt Anna was reported a little better but was still not well enough to come home. Desmond was spending more money on the church – too much money in the writer's opinion – and was thinking of having the spire rebuilt. Thomasine and he were very happy together. She, Claudine, was staying with them for a few weeks between engagements in London. Her latest appearances at Drury Lane had been the greatest success and she had been invited to return. The coolness between Place House and Tregrehan persisted, but she hoped that in another year the young mothers would find an interest in common and the breach would be healed.

Some gossip of Falmouth and Truro followed, and that ended the letter. She was ‘your loving Mother'.

No mention of Bram Fox.

I had had two previous letters from my mother – stiff little formal notes, and had replied to them with stiff little formal notes. This was the first proper letter, with at least a trace of affection in it. When she left I had lost touch with Sally Fetch; I had soon regretted this, not only because I was so fond of her but because, if she had been able to get work with the Fox family, she would probably have some information about Bram. I was fairly sure that Fetch could read and write, and, in spite of my bitter resentment, I wanted to know.

Sometimes in the dark of the night I wondered still if I had partly misjudged him. Even though he could never marry me, perhaps his imprisonment for debt had prevented him from coming to see me, to explain – to confess his weakness and say he was sorry for the way everything had happened. Would I then have forgiven him? Could I still forgive him?

Only in the darkest, coldest part of the night.

When I could find the time I took long walks. Like most Cornish villages, even on the moors, Blisland and its neighbourhood had little valleys with softer climates in which, sheltered from the harsh winds, all kinds of lush vegetation flourished. And also small animals and birds. I thought how Desmond would have liked to see them. In the trickle of a stream a kingfisher would be flaunting its colour, so much brighter than the periwinkle growing under a cluster of nearby alders. Or under a warm stone I would disturb an adder coiled like a spring in a sandy hollow. Small mice flourished and wrens and linnets and a host of insects. In the district too were old mining excavations, mostly derelict, but one or two were still worked for tin or clay or mica or quartz.