The Wilding (26 page)

‘Ousby?’

‘Yes, Ousby. But it’s of a later date.’

‘My husband never mentioned any will.’

‘It was found among Master Ousby’s paper,’ Father said, giving the truth but not the whole truth. ‘Master Blackett here has checked the will and spoken with the witness. Everything appears to be correct.’

What self-mastery my aunt could exert, when she chose to. She sat upright, folding her hands on the edge of the table, and waited.

Blackett now brought out the paper from his satchel. ‘This, Madam, is a copy of the original, which I believe to be the only legitimate will of the late Mr Dymond. As you will see, there are significant alterations to the bequests.’

My aunt pushed the candles towards him. ‘Read.’

The lawyer inclined his head and in a soft, deadly voice, like poisoned honey, began to read Robin’s will, explaining each foreign term as he came to it just as he had done with us. Sometimes she anticipated him with a brusque ‘Yes, yes, go on,’ but mostly she was silent. She was not, however, at peace: the rise and fall of her bosom were visible even in candlelight. I would have laid any money that her skin, seen by day, would have shown pink.

‘You have a life interest …’ Blackett began to explain the provision made for her. She closed her eyes – so that we could not read them, I am sure – and listened without the slightest flicker of her features. Her body she also held rigid and motionless, always excepting the throbbing within her stays.
That
, she could not master.

‘… and after your death to Joan and Tamar Seaton,’ Blackett finished.

The room grew so quiet that I could hear the wax being sucked up the wick of the candle nearest me. Still my aunt did not open her eyes. Father, Blackett and I glanced at one another.

‘You have a life interest,’ Blackett said a little more loudly. ‘Do you understand what that means?’

My aunt swallowed and opened her eyes. Despite the darkness her pupils showed as pinpricks. ‘And if I wish to sell the property?’

My father said, astonished, ‘You don’t, do you?’

‘What if I remarry?’ She leapt up, smacking her hand on the table. ‘Your will’s a forgery. Robin would never have tied me like this, never!’

‘I assure you –’ Father began.

‘Those women had it made by one of their acquaintance! Some hedge-lawyer!’ She stopped, her eyes moving from Blackett to Father and from Father to me, and I saw ugly thoughts take shape in her mind.

‘Your surprise is natural,’ said Blackett, whose calm manner betokened many years’ experience. ‘However, Master Ousby’s widow attests that the will was stored –’

‘You’re all in it together! Your creature, here,’ my aunt spluttered, ‘he drew it up.’

The lawyer’s smile had the faintest tinge of . ‘I repeat, all is correct and duly witnessed. The clerk who witnessed it remembers Mr Dymond.’

‘Does he, indeed. How much did you pay him?’

‘Pray, Harriet, be reasonable!’ my father exclaimed. ‘What have you lost? You’ve everything you need for as long as you live –’

‘Aye. As long as.’ She resumed her rapid walk. ‘And how long’ll that be, eh, with those creatures waiting on my death?’

‘I believe she served here and did you no harm,’ Blackett pointed out.

‘She soon finished off Robin, though!’ my aunt spat, striding back and forth with her fists clenched in her skirts. ‘Yet you dare pretend this house belongs to a pack of beggars –’

‘They’re not beggars, not these days,’ said Father.

‘Thanks to you. What are they giving you in return, a share in an inheritance? Robin would
never
have put me in such a position. If he were here, to see this … !’ My aunt’s voice had tears in it now; her eyes glittered and her bosom heaved so violently that I wondered she could breathe. She turned towards the door, screaming, ‘Geoffrey! Geoffrey!’

He came in at a run, then slowed to see us sitting harmless at the table while my aunt rampaged about the room.

‘Fetch Dr Green!’ she flung at him, stamping her foot. ‘And tell Rose to come here. Now, now!’

Barnes disappeared.

‘Are you saying Tamar Seaton did some injury to your husband?’ asked Blackett.

She glared at him and did not answer.

‘Calm yourself, Harriet,’ Father urged. ‘There’s nothing to be done.’

‘Hold your tongue – you and your bastard!’ She turned and resumed her pacing, her arms wrapped round her now as if to keep off rain.

‘You mean my adopted son,’ Father said sharply. My aunt looked loathing at both of us and opened her mouth to make some retort. What it was to be I will never know, since at this moment Rose entered and performed a quivering curtsey.

‘Mistress?’

‘Come and stand by me,’ her mistress ordered. ‘Now, listen, Rose! Remember what I say. These people say all my property is forfeit.’

‘Do we have to leave here?’ Rose exclaimed, forgetting her place.

‘When I die, fool! This house goes to Joan Seaton.’ Rose looked helplessly from my aunt to us. ‘And then Jonathan there marries her daughter and the vermin eat their way through my estate.’

My father said, ‘You know full well they won’t marry.’

‘Oh, they might; they’ll keep mum –’

‘
Harriet!
’

‘– but they needn’t think I will. We’ll put a stop to you, Mathew – a stop – !’

‘Madam, this is madness,’ Blackett said, voicing my own thoughts, for she seemed to have taken leave of her senses. ‘Pray consider: supposing we had forged this will, why would we give away the property to Joan Seaton, when we could’ve made it over directly to Master Jonathan?’

She hesitated, but then said, ‘Perhaps you’re subtler than that. If you ask
me
, my life’s not worth a candle. Stay, Rose. Don’t go away.’

It was as Master Blackett said: fear and hatred had clouded my aunt’s reason. To comfort Rose, who had begun to weep, Father said, ‘Don’t be afraid, Rose, we make no threats. All the threats have come from your mistress. Stay by all means, and welcome.’ He waited while Rose struggled to suppress her sobs. When she was quieter, he went on. ‘We have found Mr Dymond’s last will and testament – later than the one you know of. It gives Mrs Dymond only a life interest in the property. Nothing alters, for you,’ he patiently repeated to Aunt Harriet. ‘You continue here, just as you would have done.’

Aunt Harriet snorted with rage.

‘Father,’ I whispered. ‘Perhaps she
was
going to sell.’

He shook his head.

‘This is all because of you,’ my aunt said, coming closer. ‘You disgusting little spy, you worm! Coming here to help with the cider!’ She was panting. ‘What
you
wanted was to see the house, see what was coming to you –’

She rushed at me. I half rose to defend myself but her hands were in my hair, twisting, before I could get out of the chair, and her body, tall and heavy, pinned me down. I struggled to move my legs, swaddled as they were in the folds of her skirts. I heard Father cry, ‘Harriet! Govern yourself!’ as he tried to drag her off. She kicked at him and the chair fell sideways with both of us on it. I fell underneath, and took the impact all down my left arm and my chest; I lay stunned, my head pressed against the table leg. My aunt’s features, horribly distorted, loomed over me and I thought she was going to scratch at my eyes.

‘Let go, you mad bitch!’ I shouted.

She gave a fearful cry and screwed up her mouth, then dropped motionless onto the floor by my side, her hands still knuckling my scalp and her eyes staring into mine.

‘What in God’s name – !’ exclaimed Blackett in horror.

‘She’s in a fit,’ my father said, bending down and shining a candle in my aunt’s face so that a streak of saliva glistened drag her or chin. ‘Quick, Rose, unlace her.’

Rose hurried forward and knelt down beside him, her hands trembling as she endeavoured to loosen Aunt Harriet’s bodice. My aunt gave a stifled groan like one who has been crushed and then – nothing. I disentangled her now limp fingers from my hair and got up from the floor as best I could, dazed from the fall and unable to make sense of what was happening before my eyes. My aunt’s face was an unsightly purplish red. A pale tress, bloody at the roots, fell from my head onto her sleeve.

Having unlaced the bodice, Rose laid her ear just beneath my aunt’s left breast and listened. I could hear all the breathing in the room: my own, ragged, loud and unreal; Father’s, steady and purposeful; Blackett’s, expelled in what sounded like prayer; and the sobbing exhalations of Rose. Only my aunt was silent.

‘Is she gone?’ Blackett whispered. Rose clapped her hands to her own mouth in disbelief, and then – curiously, abruptly – my aunt made a snoring sound, after which we observed her bosom rising and falling in the usual way. Four people sighed as one. It was at this moment that Dr Green entered the room.

*

I hate to think how the affair might have gone for us, had Rose not been present and witnessed these things for herself. As it was, Dr Green entered at a run, as if to catch us in the act of pillaging the dead. When he saw my aunt, he dropped to his knees, bent towards her, and seemed as if he would raise her; then he glanced fearfully at us, as if he thought we might seize our chance and attack him while he was off guard.

‘Pray let me help you,’ Father said, understanding. He crouched to put himself at a disadvantage and also gestured to Blackett and me. The two of us moved away to the far end of the room, while Dr Green and Father lifted Aunt Harriet, not without difficulty, and laid her lengthwise upon the table.

Blackett and I then approached again and stood with the others in a silence broken only by the quickened breathing of Father and Dr Green. My aunt’s face, draining of its high colour, was almost pale again. She might have been asleep but for the persistent grimace that tightened her lips. Father smoothed them with his hand, an action that reminded me, and perhaps others, of the forcible closure of a corpse’s eyes. Though well meant, it was not the most politic of gestures.

‘A doctor. A doctor.’ The parson seized hold of Rose, who had commenced whimpering, and propelled her bodily across to the door. ‘Send your man to Hibbertson! Bid him drop anything he has on hand, I’ll make it worth his while. But hurry!’ He shut the door after her as if to speed her on her way.

‘Should we take her upstairs – put her to bed?’ Father asked. It was a delicate question: we men could hardly undress her, and she might not wish Rose near her either. Somebody must fetch Hannah Reele. I went upstairs to find her but my aunt’s chamber, with its little alcove where Hannah slept to keep her company, was empty, and though I called along all the corridors I failed to flush Hannah out. Possibly she was gone into the village. I returned to my aunt’s room and fetched a quilt.

Coming back, I found my father and Blackett with their chairs pulled back from able, as if to emphasise that they would not meddle with anything belonging to the sick woman. On Dr Green, however, she worked like fire on a cold day. He could not get near enough; he kept rubbing her hands and her face. I laid the quilt over her, and Dr Green elbowed me aside so that he could arrange it snugly round her body. His own complexion was a dull greenish-white, like a fish’s belly, so that he looked near fainting.

I said, ‘She has cordial and cups in the sideboard,’ and made to fetch some, but Blackett rose and laid a hand on my shoulder, saying quietly, ‘If anyone is to administer medicines, Jon, it must be Dr Green. And since a sick lady is delicate, and can take only what’s wholesome, I shall be the first to drink.’

I said, ‘My aunt wouldn’t keep bad cordial.’ But Dr Green understood the lawyer better than I did, and having fetched the cordial he first presented a cupful to Master Blackett, who downed it in one go. Only after this did Dr Green pour a measure between my aunt’s lips.

‘She swallows, at any rate,’ he said, taking the chair that had been hers and settling himself where he could dab her lips with his handkerchief. ‘Now, how did this come about?’

Father said gently, ‘We brought unwelcome news and Harriet flew into a rage. I begged her to govern herself but it only made her more passionate.’

The parson gazed at the now colourless face before him. ‘She is known to me as a most decorous lady.’

‘I’m sure,’ Father said. ‘But home and abroad are different things.’

‘What can you mean?’ The man frowned. ‘Her household was well ordered and godly, like everything about her.’

‘Well ordered, certainly,’ my father agreed. ‘My meaning was that family quarrels provoke more anger than any other kind. A pastor of your experience will have found this out.’

Dr Green’s face showed that he had. Father went on, ‘Our news concerns Mr Robin Dymond’s will – a most painful subject with Harriet. You remarked her features before I smoothed them?’

‘What else would you expect after an apoplexy?’ the parson retorted. By now he was losing his greenish tinge, but he was still almost as pale as Aunt Harriet herself. I suggested that we should all benefit from a dose of cordial, and went to the sideboard to fetch more cups.

Dr Green reproved me – ‘You make free with another’s goods’ – but I was not inclined to obey him: I gave my father a cupful, and even offered one to Dr Green himself, but he only shook his head and every so often let out a tiny dry sob like a hiccup. I wondered what he made of us, tearless and relentless as we were. Seeing my aunt still and waxen on the table, how should he imagine her spitting and screaming at me, trying to pull the hair from my head? I put my hand up to my temple, which was stinging, and found a raw bloody place where she had torn the skin away.

Dr Green, who had been watching me, turned towards Father. ‘You spe of her late husband’s will.’

‘My brother had made certain changes, but said nothing of them to Harriet – to Mrs Dymond,’ Father explained. ‘We came to explain the arrangements.’

‘You’re saying he left less to her … more to you?’

‘No,’ Father firmly corrected him. ‘Not more to me.’

‘You don’t wish to discuss it,’ the man said, as if he had expected nothing else.

Here Blackett coughed. ‘Perhaps, if I may … ?’