We That Are Left (19 page)

Jessica had vowed then that she would never allow her mother to make her come out. In those days, though, it had been different. It had never occurred to her that her mother would listen to her, that there might be a time when Eleanor did not want to be in London. The promise of parties and theatres and glamorous dresses had been as much a part of her childhood as Ellinghurst. It had been easy to despise it all then, when there was no avoiding it.

At the same time she thought of the girls she had been at school with and the girls at the parties in Hampshire and she knew she could not bear it, if the Season turned out to be exactly the same.

On the last Saturday in February Princess Patricia of Connaught, a first cousin of the King, married Commander the Hon. Alexander Ramsay in Westminster Abbey and the Yorkshire Melvilles returned to stay at Ellinghurst. Cousin Lettice could talk of nothing but the wedding. She told Phyllis and Jessica that the Princess had decided on her marriage to relinquish her royal titles.

‘No one asked her to,' she said. ‘She had to ask the King's permission especially, but she insisted. She would not outrank her husband. Isn't that lovely? She could have had any royal prince in the world but she followed her heart and chose a commoner. Of course, he absolutely worships her.'

‘What is it about you girls?' Cousin Evelyn said, pressing his wife's hand to his lips. ‘So silly about weddings.'

This time Cousin Lettice brought the whole brood. The three elder boys ran in circles through the house and across the garden, chasing one another with sticks, while the baby gaped like a landed fish in its perambulator. Cousin Lettice said that boys were like ponies; they needed to be exercised or they grew skittish and prone to bite. She did not mind about mud or torn buttons or dirty hands that marked her skirts. When the boys made wigs of pondweed she only laughed and said she liked their hair better when it was blond.

Phyllis was reading a book about Egyptian hieroglyphics. She explained to the boys that, because hieroglyph meant god's words in Egyptian, the ancient Greeks had believed the system to be allegorical, even magical, the key to secret, mystical knowledge.

‘Look how complicated it is,' Lettice said. ‘You must be awfully clever.'

‘Is there a picture for every word in the world?' Lettice's oldest boy asked Phyllis, peering at the page.

‘Not quite, though there are nearly five thousand. What they mean depends on context, do you know what that means? On their place in the sentence. It might be figurative or phonetic or symbolic or all three, all at the same time.'

The boy looked blank. Phyllis smiled at him. ‘See this eye? Depending on the sentence it might be the word for eye or something done by an eye, like seeing or understanding. Or it could stand for the sound the word makes when you say it out loud: I as in you and I. And sounds can be used on their own or as part of a longer word like, let's see. Like I-ced buns. I don't suppose anyone wants an I-ced bun, do they?'

The boys shouted for joy and bounded out of the morning room towards the kitchen, Phyllis in their wake. It was easy for Phyllis to manage without love, Jessica thought. She fell in love with things: Greek myths or the French Revolution or hieroglyphs or John Donne. She always had. When they were younger Phyllis had pinned a line from a poem on her bedroom wall, something about treading softly because you tread on my dreams, and Jessica had laughed because the only dreams Phyllis had were of lessons and books and people who were imaginary or centuries dead and what possible harm could things like that come to, even if you trod on them quite hard?

Lettice smiled, listening to the whooping, the clatter of boots across the Great Hall. The baize door banged. Then, frowning sympathetically, she put her hand on Jessica's.

‘How is your mother?' she asked. ‘Evie told me a little of her troubles.'

Jessica shrugged. ‘She's all right.'

‘I wondered, has she found someone else? Another sensitive? It must be hard for her, cut off so cruelly from Theo like that.'

‘You can't be cut off from something you were never in touch with in the first place. The woman was a fraud.'

‘Evie said. Poor Eleanor, it must have been ghastly. That's why I wondered, not that I would ever wish to interfere, but I wondered perhaps if she might like an introduction to Sir Oliver? You remember, the scientist I told you about, my mother's cousin. He only works with mediums who are prepared to be put through his tests, you see, so they're all absolutely above board. Then again, his sittings are almost always in London so perhaps that would not be convenient.'

Jessica put down her cup of tea. ‘Eleanor would have to go to London?'

‘I'm afraid so. One of his ladies is in Hampstead, or is it Hampton? Is there even a difference? I'm afraid I'm quite hopeless when it comes to London. All I know is that Sir
Oliver comes down from Birmingham quite regularly to sit with two sensitives, both of whom have been scientifically proven to be genuine. But perhaps London would be too much for your mother?'

Jessica looked at Cousin Lettice, her eyes gleaming. ‘Oh, no. Not at all. London would be absolutely perfect.'

Later, as Phyllis led the boys in a game of Sardines, Jessica walked across the lawn towards the woods. It was cold and she put her hands in her pockets to warm them. Above her the leafless branches of the trees drew black patterns on the darkening sky. The door to the tower stood open. She peered in. When she was little it had been the job of one of the undergardeners to clean the Tiled Room but there were not enough under-gardeners for that kind of work, not any more. The tiles were grimy, furred with sagging spiders' webs, the floor thick with dead leaves. The varnish on the wooden benches was starting to peel. She held a piece of it up to her eye, looking through the tiny yellow lens. Scotch-tinted spectacles, she thought, and dropped it. When she scuffed the leaves with the toes of her shoes they rustled like old ladies' skirts.

She had forgotten how many steps there were. She was out of breath when she reached the top. She leaned on the sill of one of the empty window arches, looking out. It was a long way down. In the trees below the rooks were stirring, the harsh cries cutting the air. This had been Theo's den, the place he took boys to do whatever it was boys did when they were out of sight of grown-ups. Everyone else was strictly prohibited. Jessica could still remember the thrill she had felt when, one dark evening, bored and restless, Theo had whispered to her that he was going to the tower and that she could come if she liked, if she promised not to be a nuisance.

‘Not Phyllis,' he had said. ‘She'll only spoil it.' She had nearly burst with pride and triumph. The woods had been very dark, the staircase too, the concrete walls ducking and shivering in the tiny light of Theo's matches. When they
reached the top Theo had let off the firecrackers that he had in his pockets and, though he aimed them at her feet, she had not screamed, not once, but laughed and almost meant it because she knew he was only teasing. Then he had lit toffee papers and dropped them out of the window and she had watched entranced as the scraps of flame floated down like butterflies and were swallowed by the night.

That night at dinner Cousin Evelyn expressed his surprise that Grandfather's Tower was still standing.

‘Structurally it's perfectly sound,' Father said.

‘I see,' Cousin Evelyn said, laughing. ‘So it's only conceptually that it's on shaky ground. Oh, come on, Aubrey, old chap. The thing's a monstrosity.'

When Father glared at him Cousin Evelyn only laughed more. He said that Aubrey knew as well as anyone that Yorkshiremen could not help speaking their minds, it was the way they were made. There was no point in beating round the bush. The truth might be painful but at least it was clean; it was untruths that festered. Which was why, he said, he wanted to lay some plain facts on the table. He was not normally a man for mixing business with pleasure but this was a family matter. He wanted no whispering behind people's backs.

He had done all the calculations. At current rates the value of the Ellinghurst estate put likely death duties at close to thirty per cent. As and when the estate passed on, there was no liquid capital available to meet that obligation. Even the sale of the London house, which would raise a fair sum, would provide only temporary relief. The mortgage burden on the estate was crippling, a legacy of poor investments and heavy borrowing by Sir Crawford and the ruinous agricultural depression that had followed. Land might be sold to raise the necessary funds but it would require the divesting of most of the estate. What land remained would almost certainly be insufficient to support the house, particularly one as expensive to run as Ellinghurst, and that was before one attempted to
fix the roof and do all the repairs that had been ignored during the War and were now urgently in need of attention.

Alternatively, the house could be sold and the land retained intact. There were other smaller properties on the estate that might serve as well and be a great deal more practicable, and there were investors prepared to pay reasonable sums for properties that might accommodate a school or some other type of residential institution that required only limited grounds. It might even sell as a hotel. There was a market for castles, it seemed, even the Victorian imitations. Or the estate might be sold in its entirety. There were good reasons to argue against continuing as a landowner in an uncertain future when, if he liquidated his holdings, a man might clear a sizeable capital sum that could secure not only his future but those of his children.

‘Your children,' Sir Aubrey said. His face was white.

‘Or yours. If you chose to sell now the girls could net a sizeable capital sum. Land prices are stronger than they've been for years. Indeed, now might be exactly the right time.'

‘And the baronetcy? You'd “liquidate” that too, I suppose, if you could.'

‘Aubrey, this is difficult, I know.'

‘Difficult? It's intolerable.'

‘None of this has to happen in your lifetime, not if you don't wish it. But I wanted you to understand the situation. I wanted to be clear.'

‘You've been very clear.'

‘Then I—'

‘You've been very clear indeed. You intend to destroy the Melville family.'

‘The estate is not the family, Aubrey.'

‘How can you say that? There have been Melvilles at Ellinghurst for three hundred years!'

‘Then we've had a good run.'

Sir Aubrey stared at Evelyn, his mouth working. Then, standing up, he threw his napkin onto his plate and stalked
out of the room. Jessica and Phyllis exchanged a look. It was Phyllis who went after him. Cousin Lettice looked at her lap.

‘I'm sorry to spring this on you, Eleanor, my dear,' Evelyn said. ‘But the facts must be faced.'

‘Must they?'

‘I'm afraid they must.'

‘This is our home,' Eleanor said. ‘My son's home.'

‘With the greatest respect, Eleanor, Theo would have faced exactly the same problems we do. The world has changed. We must change with it.'

‘And so my son's home, his memorial, becomes—what?—a madhouse? A school for delinquents? My son died, Evelyn, while you were busy feathering your nest and fondling your fat little wife, but what does that concern you? You're going to be rich! It was a wretched squalid War but someone has to win. That's the way things are. The world has changed and we must change with it. Pile it high and sell it cheap. Why not? My boy is dead. There's nothing he can do to stop you.'

‘Eleanor,' Lettice pleaded.

‘Why should I care?' Eleanor declared. ‘I've always loathed this house. It was Theo who loved it, Theo whose spirit fills every room.'

‘But spirits are free, aren't they?' Lettice said. ‘Your son is with you always, Eleanor, wherever you are.' She looked helplessly at Cousin Evelyn.

‘You could always ask him,' Jessica said. ‘If he minded, I mean.'

‘Jessica, dear, I'm not sure . . .'

Jessica ignored Lettice. ‘Don't you see?' she said to Eleanor. ‘If you could only talk to him the way you used to, perhaps the house wouldn't matter so much. To either of you. Whatever happened, you'd still be together.'

Eleanor stared at her daughter. Then, one hand pressed against her mouth, she stumbled from the room.

Sylvia Carey's funeral took place on a bitter Friday afternoon at the Church of the Holy Trinity on the north side of Clapham Common. Oscar's mother had never been a church-goer but she had liked this one for the grace of its architecture and the picturesqueness of its setting, and because it had been the church of William Wilberforce and the Clapham Sect, who had done so much for the abolition of slavery. It was one of her favourite stories: how Wilberforce, presenting his Abolitionist Bill for the first time in Parliament, had insisted on laying out for the House the full horrors of slavery. He spoke for three hours. When he was finished, he said, ‘Having heard all this you may choose to look the other way but you can never again say that you did not know.'

They had walked here often on Sundays, bringing scraps of bread to feed the ducks, then circling the pond towards the stand of copper beeches behind the church. Sometimes, hopeful of more crumbs, the mallards had followed them, the gleam-green drakes in their smart white collars jostling their plump brown wives. It made Oscar and his mother laugh to turn suddenly and see them stop, their heads carefully averted, as though they were playing Grandmother's Footsteps.

A week before he was due to be demobbed, Oscar had received a letter from Mrs Doyle. His mother had been moved
to the Hostel of God, a hospice run by the Sisters of Margaret that overlooked Clapham Common. Oscar knew then that she was dying. At Christmas, when Dr Seeley had first proposed the hospice, his mother had turned him down flat. She had no intention of dying, she protested, and anyway she would rather be dead than hidden away in a convent as if cancer was something to be ashamed of. Dr Seeley had given way, startled by the vehemence of her refusal. Oscar went again to his Commanding Officer and asked if he might be released early. This time permission was not granted. It was seven days before he could return to London.