Quite gradually, and unnoticed by them both he regained consciousness. His eyes fluttered, staring first up at the ceiling, and then, gaining a degree of focus, at the figure of his wife, silhouetted in graceful green against the darker curtain. He licked his lips and spoke.
‘Whore,’ he said quite distinctly and with some feeling. And then again: ‘Whore.’ After which he died.
Chapter Six
I
Mr Pope’s funeral took place at midnight on the 14th August. He had decreed the time in his Will, made soon after he returned to England, on learning of the vast expense to which many widows were driven when their rich husbands died and it was expected that half the county should be invited to the exequies. A careful man in all things, he was careful not to embarrass his widow by leaving her a choice. Not, of course, that he had supposed he or she would be in such a situation for a very long time to come. People seldom do suppose such dire things, especially perhaps those of middle age returning to England to retire in comfort with daughters still to marry off and pretty young second wives to hold to their bosoms. Whether or not he had changed his opinion in the last few months one could not tell, at least he had not changed his Will.
Whether indeed those strange last words to come from his lips referred to anyone or anything in particular it was also difficult to tell. Dwight discreetly ignored them; he also ignored the hot flush on Selina’s face at the time. Eminently correct and in his most detached medical manner, Dwight did all that was required of him – including mixing a soothing draught for Selina, and for both the girls to see them through the night when they returned. Only when he was leaving and once again was being escorted to the front door by Katie Carter, did he ask a question of an unusually silent and tearful parlourmaid who seemed reluctant to let him go.
‘Your master is dead, Katie. Nothing more could have been done to save him by you or by anyone else . . . You did say, didn’t you, that you found Mr Pope outside his bedroom door?’
‘No, sur. Oh, no sur. Twas outside of the bedroom door next but one to ’is own. The blue bedroom they d’call it. There he was when I run up, lying flat on ’is face and Mrs kneeling beside of him.’
‘Ah, yes, I see. Well, thank you, Katie.’
She hung at the front door, eyes aslant at another servant who was going past. ‘Twasn’t my fault, sur. Y’know, sur. Twasn’t my fault at all!’
‘Fault? How could it be, Katie?’
‘Seeing what I seen, Dr Enys. I mean to say, was it now?’
‘Of course not,’ Dwight said soothingly. But it was simply not in human nature, however constrained by medical etiquette, for him not to go on: ‘I’m a little unsure as to what you mean by this, Katie.’
‘Oh, sur—’ she began, and then Music Thomas came forward with his horse and the chance of further confidences was past.
II
On the morning after Mr Pope’s death Music, who had lingered by the still room door where he really had no business, in the hope of seeing Katie again, was rewarded by her sudden appearance in search of a jar of preserves. She still looked distressed by the night’s events and was too impatient to speak to him; though she was aware that the sudden emergency of Mr Pope’s heart stroke had temporarily brought them to a more confidential association than they had ever had before.
None of the Thomas brothers was married. John, by far the eldest, had a woman friend called ‘Winky’ Mitchell who had a nervous twitch to one of her eyes, and a deaf husband who never rose from his bed; John Thomas visited her every night he was home from the sea. Art, only a year older than Music, was often linked with his younger brother by name – Art and Music seemed to go together – but he was much different in appearance and temperament; indeed he was capable of calculations quite outside his brother’s comprehension and was at present courting Edie Permewan, a widow old enough to be his mother, in the hope of coming in for the tanner’s business left to her by her husband.
Music, generally speaking, worked to short-term ends: he did not go much further at the moment than the hope that Katie should smile at him – or hold him in sufficient esteem to consider him worth speaking to.
‘Reckon twill be different wi’out the Master,’ he said for the third time, hoping that water would wear away stone.
It did. ‘You’ve no manner of business in ’ere, Music Thomas,’ said Katie severely, ‘and if the Master were ’live ye’d not come lousterin’ in like this!’
‘I aren’t lousterin’,’ said Music. ‘Twas just I was round in ’ere, see, and . . .’ He paused, not able to confess the unconfessable by blurting out that his only real purpose was to see her. ‘What you said to me last night . . .’
Katie found the jar she was seeking. She wiped it round with her sleeve to take the dust off the top, and almost dropped it.
She glared at him. ‘There see what you near made me do! Go on now – off with ee.’
He stepped aside to let her out of the room and glimpsed Ethel, the head parlourmaid, at the end of the passage.
Disapproval shining in every pore Ethel said: ‘Katie, you’re wanted in the music room. Mistress wants you. What be you doin’ ’ere, Thomas? Tis no place for you to be, mourning house or no.’
They hurried off in opposite directions. Katie thought: from Music to music room; what can she want? not to talk about last night, I ’ope, for I couldn’t bear it. My dear life, I reely couldn’t! What will she say?
The small room that had once been Sir John’s study had been turned into a music room for the two girls, but neither was present, only Mrs Pope.
Black suited her. It was only a makeshift attire but the simple frock with the black hair veil was more becoming than the widow’s weeds now in process of being made. Even the severity of the hair style did not detract from her good looks. Only the expression of her face did that. Katie supposed it was grief; at least she hoped it was grief.
They had not seen each other since the night before. Katie had busied herself downstairs as much as possible out of sight.
It was an odd subject for the first day of bereavement, but Mrs Pope opened the conversation by saying that Miss Maud’s pianoforte was not being kept clean. The keys were sticking and were turning yellow. Naturally, she said, there would be no playing of the instrument while mourning was being observed; but it was essential that the keys should be cleaned weekly with milk and not neglected by careless, heedless and untidy servants. Miss Maud had complained about it only yesterday.
It was the beginning of a series of stern complaints about the quality of work in the house. Katie said, yes ’m, and no mum, and well, mum, I ’ave tried but they do say as . . . and then kept her head down hoping that in time the bombardment would expend itself. She had always admired her mistress and envied her her feminine allure – the graceful chatelaine with the keys at her waist, keeping a gentle eye on the good order of the house – and what did it matter etc. etc. . . . Harshness had been left to Mr Pope; it was his prerogative; Katie sincerely hoped Mrs Pope was not going to adopt this role as her own with Mr Pope hardly yet cold upstairs. It sometimes happened.
Perhaps with Mrs Pope it was just the shock, the grief. She’d get over it, be her own easy self again. Or perhaps it wasn’t grief. Perhaps it was anger over last night. Katie could see that she was the object of her mistress’s annoyance. Perhaps it was better this way, just to be scolded, if only it could be left at that.
Presently Mrs Pope did stop. She looked at the harp and sat on a low stool and let her fingers tremble on the strings, but so lightly that no one outside the room could have heard.
‘Kate,’ she said, ‘you were first on the scene last night when Mr Pope had his heart attack, were you not?’
Oh, Holy Moses, here it came! ‘Yes ’m.’
‘I was grateful for your help. My dear husband was struck so suddenly that I almost fainted at the sight of him lying there so still on the floor.’
‘Yes ’m. Twas some awful shock, you.’
�
��It may be,’ said Mrs Pope, looking feline, ‘that in the confusion of that time you imagine you saw things which did not in fact exist.’
Katie stared and sniffed, resisting a desire to wipe her nose with the back of her hand. ‘I don’t rightly know, mum. I don’t know nothin’ ’bout that.’
Selina Pope gravely acknowledged this confession of confusion with a slow nod. ‘Exactly. At times like that one often fancies one sees things . . .’
Katie said: ‘Well, mum, all I d’know I seen was—’
‘Enough,’ Mrs Pope said. ‘Whatever you think you saw is quite beside the point. As I have told you, in moments of shock and stress one fancies one sees all sorts of imaginary things which just do not exist in the world of reality at all.’
‘Do you, mum? I dunno, mum. Tedn for the likes of me—’
‘What I am concerned to know is whether you have passed on these fancies of yours to anyone else.’
Katie stared. ‘Please?’
Mrs Pope repeated her question.
Katie tried to push some loose strands of hair under her cap. ‘Fancies? Fancies, mum? Oh, no, mum. I ’aven’t mentioned no fancies.’ She tried again.
‘Leave your cap alone.’
‘Yes ’m. Last night, just as he were leaving Dr Enys were saying—’
‘What? What about Dr Enys?’
‘About it being an ’eart attack and ’e couldn’t think why Mr Pope ’d been mazing ’bout the landing like that.’
‘And what did you say?’
‘Didn’t say nothing; mum. Tweren’t for me to say nothing, was it.’
Mrs Pope allowed her fingers to produce the faintest ripple of sound. She knew these Cornish girls, who would lie themselves out of anything. But Kate was a simple girl – not simple in the sense of being half witted, but credulous, uneducated, gullible. She seemed to have hardly any friends. A little dissimulation, a little feminine subtlety would have helped her a lot. It seemed improbable that she was employing any subterfuge now.
‘Kate, do you remember breaking that Japanese teapot last year?’
‘Oh, yes ’m. Don’t I just!’
‘Mr Pope was very angry, very distressed at the loss. And do you remember those two gold-rimmed Staffordshire plates you broke in January?’
Kate hung her head. ‘Yes ’m.’
‘When that happened Mr Pope was for discharging you: he felt all our fine china was in danger.’
‘You stopped it all out of my wages, ’m. Twill take till November to pay ’n off, you.’
‘That may be. But I assume you would wish to stay on as parlourmaid.’
‘Oh, yes ’m! Don’t rightly know what I could do, where I should go, if you sent me away!’
‘Well . . . now that I am a widow I may well be reducing the number of servants I employ. It is early days yet, but one will soon have to begin to think of these things. I may have no alternative but to live in a more restricted style.’
Mrs Pope stopped and allowed that much to sink in. This was a horribly embarrassing interview, but so far she felt it had gone well.
‘Whatever happened upstairs last night,’ she said, resolving to be a little more frank, ‘whatever happened, or whatever you may think happened, was witnessed and imagined only by you. No one else, Kate. No one else at all. Do you understand?’
‘Oh, yes ’m!’
‘Naturally, I wish anything that happened between my husband and me to be kept private. I do not wish the old women of the village to be rabid with ill-informed gossip. So if such gossip should begin, who would be responsible?’
‘Please?’ Katie frowned at this difficult problem of ethics and logic.
‘Who would be responsible?’ Selina said, losing patience. ‘Why you, of course! Who else? Only you.’
‘But, mum, I never uttered a word! Tedn me! I d’say nothing! Twas some other gullymouth as ’as been geeking around, I tell ee. Why, ’ow could it be me—’
‘I didn’t say it was you! I didn’t say anyone had so far been guilty of spreading tales! What I am trying to tell you is that if any such tales did spread they could only come from you because only you know.’ Mrs Pope hastily corrected herself. ‘Because only you can wrongly interpret what happened last night. No one else can, for no one else was there. Don’t you see that? So if lying rumours and tittle-tattle get around I shall know such lying rumours come from you, shall I not?’
Katie’s eyes had filled with tears. ‘I ’aven’t said nothin’, mum. I swear to God I ’aven’t said nothin’ to a living soul. I don’t disknowledge I were there, but I never spoke to a living soul bout ’n.’
‘Nor will speak?’
‘Please?’
‘So you promise you will not speak?’
‘Oh, yes. Tedn nothing to do wi’ me. Tedn nothing ’tall!’ (My dear life, she thought, I must tell Music Thomas t’keep ’is big trap shut!)
Mrs Pope got up from the harp, came slowly over to her parlourmaid. ‘There, there, dry your tears . . . I only wished to make it all very plain to you. I want you to stay on here as parlourmaid. Although you are sometimes clumsy and careless I believe you have the makings of a good servant, and I wish to retain you. But you do understand, don’t you, Kate, that it will depend on whether disagreeable rumours spread about the village.’
‘Oh, yes ’m.’ Katie blinked. And then, to get it quite clear in her own mind, she said: ‘You mean – you mean I mustn’t ever speak about Mr . . . about the young man who was upstairs wi’ you last night?’
III
Half an hour later Music Thomas was grooming Amboy, who was restless and temperamental for lack of exercise – practically nobody but Music could get near him – when Katie Carter appeared in the stables. Music nearly dropped his brush.
‘Katie,’ he said, ‘well now!’ and grinned feebly.
‘Music,’ she said. ‘I want a word with ee.’
This was so much more than she had ever wanted before that he was lost in wonder. He just stared at her admiringly.
Presently, while Katie was trying to decide how to start, it dawned upon her at last that this was a look of admiration, of physical admiration, he was giving her. It had never occurred to her before. True, he had made several approaches of a raw kind. True, after the debacle of the Truro races, he had come to her home – apparently to say he was sorry – but she had not taken this in the least seriously. After abusing him – with good reason – at the races, she had laughed at his later attempts to make up. Music, everyone knew, was not the type to be interested in girls. Indeed he was probably not the type to be interested in anything of that sort. He was a fool. A good-natured, amiable, ambling fool, to whom women meant nothing and could mean nothing – because he was a nothing himself. She didn’t dislike him. He was well-meaning, willing, friendly: there was nothing to dislike about him. But . . . It did occur to her now that if somehow, somewhere in his make-up there was a gleam of normality, and that that gleam was temporarily focused upon her, it might be put to good account.
‘I suppose you d’know,’ she said, ‘how bad you been doing your duties in the stables these last few months, like, eh?’
‘What?’ He stared at her, still amiably, but surprised at the turn of events.
Katie’s eyes roamed around. ‘Yes. Look at these ’ere stables. They’m clobbed wi’ dirt and dust. See that wall. See that brush. And even the ’orses. Neglecting the ’orses too. Never brushing of ’em down proper. Amboy, Halter, Kingfisher, Gauntlet . . . them others; can’t recall their names. Mistress was saying ’ow bad you saw to ’em. Master was displeased too afore he died.’
‘Oh? Eh? I dunno what you d’mean! Me? I d’work ’ard all the time I’m ’ere. Katie, I—’
‘What?’
‘Katie, I . . .’ He swallowed. ‘It pleasures me a deal to see ee and take this talk. Reelly—’
‘Tis for a purpose, boy. You mind last night?’
‘Last night? Don’t I just. Why—’
‘You mind me calli
ng for you, saying quick, quick, do ee go fetch Dr Enys just so fast as ever you can ride, for the Master’s strick down! You mind that?’
A half smile crossed Music’s face but was quickly gone because of the look on Katie’s. ‘Ais, you. I never seen ee in such a fetching. My dear life, I says, Katie’s in a fetching. An’ then you says—’
‘Music,’ Katie said. ‘Last night was last night, see? and mebbe in the excitement ye thought, ye imagined what didn’t exist, see?’
Music stared at her with his mouth open. ‘Nay—’
‘Like supposin’ I said things I didn’t say. Whatever you thought you ’eard me say, well, twasn’t so, see? Twas the shock and the stress, and all that. Imagery things that didn’t exist in the world of reality.’ Katie paused for breath. She thought she was doing rather well so far. ‘Fancies, see,’ she said. ‘Twas all fancies.’
Silence fell. Amboy shuffled back against his stall, rubbing his rump against the wooden side.
A slow smile of admiration spread across Music’s face. ‘My dear-r,’ he said; ‘don’t ee go on!’
‘Ere, are ee listening to what I say?’
‘Ais. Tis some proper. I’d dearly like to hark to ee all day.’
‘But understand, do ee? If we speaks o’ what I seen it could cause a rabid of ill-informed gossip, see. ’Mong the old women of the village.’
‘What’s that? Ill-in-what?’
Katie thrust her face forward at him. ‘I tell ee this, Music Thomas, if – if lying rumours and tittle-tattle d’get about, twill be you and me as’ll suffer! Do you want to be turned out from your job?’
She was trying to make as ugly a face as possible, but he saw only beauty. However, the thought of being turned away from here, of not getting his mid-day meal, and especially of not being able to see her, sobered him down.
‘What’s to do, Katie? Tell me what’s to do.’
‘That’s what I just been doing!’ she exclaimed in vexation. ‘Don’t ee ever breathe a word ’bout what I told you last night. Understand that, do ee? Got that in yer wooden noddle?’
The Loving Cup Page 7