by Joan Aiken
“Suppose she became ill, what then?”
More annoying still, there had been a strong and devoted friendship between Fanny and Ellen’s mother, despite the age disparity between the two women; while well enough to do so, Matilda Paget walked up into the wood to visit Fanny every couple of days; and after she took to her bed, Fanny rode down to see her with equal regularity, often employing some conveyance that insulted Luke’s sense of dignity: a farmer’s hay wain, a butcher’s trap, whatever happened to be going her way.
Now, studying Ellen, Fanny observed, “You have a remarkable look of your mother. Luke may find that troubling, I imagine?”
“Something is troubling him sadly, Aunt Fanny. He—he is very strange.”
“Unlike himself?”
“No—like himself.” Ellen found it hard to put her father’s state into words. “He is more—more careful with money, parsimonious, rigid, suspicious, puritanical, than ever—if I laugh with Vicky, he glares at me, if Gerard whistles a tune he earns such a scold—all this is hard to bear, and yet, often, he has such a careworn, distressed look that I cannot help feeling sorry for him. He is very selfish—he is continually making little plans for his own comfort, and if they are overthrown by mischance, he is utterly outraged and dismayed; he does not realize that I notice this. Poor man! He is dreadfully disagreeable, and yet, somehow, I feel for him. I do not think it is grief for Lady Adelaide that distresses him so; I cannot tell what it is.”
Fanny nodded her little brown wrinkled face as if none of this surprised her.
“He is beginning to guess what he has lost.”
“And what is that, Aunt Fanny?”
“That he won’t discover until he has found it! But now, child, what are your plans?”
Ellen hesitated to mention the somewhat ignoble mission that had been thrust upon her by her sisters. In Fanny’s company it seemed even more distasteful.
But Fanny said, “I imagine, if Mrs. Pike is making Vicky and Gerard miserable, that your first task must be to find somebody more suitable; or to take over the housekeeping yourself?”
“Yes,” Ellen said cautiously. “But Papa dislikes having me at home. And, it is true, Mrs. Pike seems to make him comfortable enough. He would have very strong objections to any change.”
“Mrs. Pike may give him the wrong kind of comfort,” said Fanny. “Perhaps a little discomfort would be better for him.”
“Tell that to Papa! I must acknowledge that it troubles me not to be earning my own living; I have become used to that.”
“Aha,” said Fanny. “In that respect—some people might not approve of my telling you this, but you are a sensible child and I do not believe it will lead you into folly; in two years’ time, my love, you will come into a very respectable competence, amounting, I understand, to about one thousand pounds a year; so if you can contrive to manage until then, you need feel no anxiety about the future.”
Ellen gaped at her great-aunt in a very unladylike manner.
“I shall? But how can this be? Aunt Fanny, are you certain?”
“Oh yes,” Fanny said comfortably. “I arranged it with your mother long ago. I once had a dear friend, cousin of my first husband and distant relative of yours, named Scylla Paget, who became Mrs. Cameron; she left me, when she died, a large sum, which I first proposed to give to your dear mother. But she asked me, instead, to tie it up in a trust for you. ‘Ellen will have little enough affection, I fear, when I am gone, until she grows up,’ Mattie said to me. ‘Let her at least be provided for on reaching her majority, so that she may follow her bent, if she has one.’ I fancy Mattie thought you might share her passion for music, but that, unfortunately, seems to have come out in Gerard.”
Ellen was absorbed in wonder at this new, astonishing vista that stretched ahead of her. To be able to choose her own path; why, she thought, now—like poor Louise—I could help Germaine—without being obliged to make a wealthy marriage; I can take time to discover if I myself have any gift for writing; this is freedom indeed!
Rapturously she hugged Aunt Fanny.
“I can hardly take it in! Dear, dearest Aunt Fanny, what amazing, what truly extraordinary news! I could share the money with Gerard—if there should come to be a breach between him and Papa—”
“Wait, now!” cautioned Fanny. “I would ask you, Ellen, not to be telling Gerard about this. Keep it to yourself. The boy has enough to unsettle him. And, if he can comply with Luke’s wishes and hopes, at least until he is through college, the discipline will do him no harm at all, and will make Luke happy. The poor man is so besotted over that boy! Gerard is all he has in the world.”
Ellen saw the force of this.
“So, for the moment, keep the news to yourself. Even your father does not know about it. But I hope the knowledge may serve to keep up your spirits in what sounds like a trying situation at home.”
“Indeed it will!” said Ellen.
And—she thought, walking homeward—the news that her own future was secure had somehow done more than anything yet to put her on her sisters’ side in the matter of Mrs. Pike. The fact that she was now comfortably provided for must make her more mindful of her obligation to see that they did not lose what they looked on as their right.
* * *
Several weeks later, the lawyer Mr. Wheelbird came to call on Ellen. When Sue announced him, Ellen was sitting making polite conversation with Mrs. Pike, while waiting for Vicky to finish a row of pothooks.
“Dear me!” said the housekeeper with her small, tight smile. “Our young lady from Paris is continually in demand. Poor folk all day long at the back door—and now a smart young attorney! Let us hope that some rich uncle has died and left you a handsome fortune!”
Her guess came so close to Aunt Fanny’s piece of news that Ellen cast her a startled glance. But the housekeeper’s expression remained blandly impenetrable. She rose, folding her embroidery into a napkin. “Pray do not think of receiving Mr. Wheelbird anywhere but here, Miss Paget! I have a thousand errands to perform, and will leave you undisturbed use of the parlor. I—alas—am not on holiday!”
And she trailed with dignity from the room.
Ellen hardly shared Mrs. Pike’s opinion of Mr. Wheelbird. She could not think him smart. Her first acquaintance with him had been long ago at a time when he, as a gawky young lawyer’s clerk, had shown a disposition to come dangling after the fifteen-year-old Ellen, and had been smartly sent about his business by Luke Paget. Now in his thirties—for he was some ten or twelve years older than Ellen—he had filled out a little, but was still the same bony, scrubby-looking individual, with a stiff brush of hair so liberally plastered with bear’s grease that it was almost impossible to guess the color; his large Adam’s apple sat uncomfortably on top of his high collar, as if trying to make do for the lack of chin, and his cod-like mouth had a tendency to hang open. He had grown a fashionable pair of whiskers since Ellen saw him last, but they seemed to bear no relation to the rest of his face. Above the ineffectual mouth, however, a pair of pale, shrewd eyes made careful, admiring inventory of Ellen’s appearance.
“How do you do, Mr. Wheelbird?” she greeted him civilly. “I am to congratulate you, I believe? You have passed your examinations, I understand, since I met you last, and are now a partner?”
“That is so, Miss Paget, that is so indeed.”
He accepted her words with calm gratification. “And may I likewise congratulate you, ma’am—upon the transformation from caterpillar to butterfly? You shed radiance upon the town of Petworth like a—like a meteor.”
Ellen thanked him gravely, without troubling to point out that few ladies enjoy being likened to caterpillars, and inquired the purpose of his visit. She had assumed it must have some connection with Aunt Fanny’s legacy, but, to her surprise, he said, “You may find the communication which I am to hand you, Miss Paget, is of a kind to agitate, dis
compose, and distress. I am aware that ladies have—ah—ladylike dispositions, and are easily overset by such a thing as—as a communication from the dead. I think you should be seated before I hand you this document.”
“From the dead, Mr. Wheelbird? What can you possibly mean?”
Her knees did begin to tremble, and she sat down by a round table covered in layers of plush and lace. Mr. Wheelbird solemnly presented her with a stiff legal envelope, upon which was written: “To be handed to Mfs Matilda Ellen Paget, if she should at Any time return for a Protracted Sojourn under her Father’s Roof at the Hermitage, after the date of her Achieving her Majority.”
“I believe, Miss Paget, that your twenty-first birthday fell in April of this year?”
“Why yes—that is so, Mr. Wheelbird.”
“I took a little time,” he said with a complacent smile, “to ascertain—to make certain that your stay in Petworth was more than a brief visit. Young ladies are volatile birds of passage, I know! But since your residence has now continued for some weeks—Allow me to open the communication for you, ma’am.”
“Thank you, I already have it open.”
Inside the large envelope was a smaller enclosure, which consisted of several pages folded together and sealed with wax. On the outermost sheet was written simply: “For Ellen.” The handwriting caused Ellen to gasp and turn white.
“From my mother!”
Mr. Wheelbird inclined his head. She broke the seal and, at the top of the first page, read: “My dearest Child…” There were several pages of handwriting.
Ellen looked up at the young lawyer, whose eager pale eyes were regarding her somewhat avidly.
“This is a private letter, it seems, Mr. Wheelbird. I am exceedingly obliged to you for bringing it to me and—and for keeping it safe all these years. I—I believe I need not trouble you to remain while I peruse it.”
He looked very disappointed. “You are quite certain that you feel strong enough for the ordeal, ma’am? Should I not ring for sal volatile? Are you sure you would not prefer that I remain—at a suitable distance—in case you should faint?”
“Quite certain, thank you.”
“Very well.” Somewhat crestfallen, somewhat offended, he retreated to the door, but turned to say, “If the communication should require any—any legal action taken, ma’am—or any kind of consultation—you know that you may depend on me to give you my very best assistance and advice.”
“Thank you, Mr. Wheelbird.” Her voice was absent, her head was bent over the paper. She hardly heard him close the door.
July 1852
My dearest Child:
You will be a woman grown when you receive this letter. What a strange notion! At the moment you are still my little Ellie, in gingham pinafore and blue stuff dress, freckles on your nose, a bandaged knee, and hair falling into your eyes. Soon you must go to school in Belgium, and then I shall never see you with my corporeal eyes again. (Though I love this house and garden so much, I cannot help believing that some part of me will remain here, at least for a time, and may keep watch over you when you come back.)
As I said to you once, you have always been my special child; your poor father grieved so terribly over the death of your twin brother that he had no love to spare for you—and therefore, by some lucky dispensation, I was given double!
I can feel my strength fading, and know that I have not many months to live. Perhaps not many weeks. For myself, I am not sorry to go, if I am called, because I have been so very happy in this life, I cannot help believing in the possibility of happiness everywhere.
But I cannot help being anxious for you, Ellie. Your father will take the greatest care of little Gerard, I know; poor man, he was so happy to have a son at last. Eugenia will soon be married to her Eustace, and Kitty will always be able to look out for herself.
But you, Ellie, were always a defenseless child; you never had the confidence of Kitty or Eugenia. I have—with dear Aunt Fanny’s help—made practical provision for you, about which you will soon learn. (I would leave this letter with Fanny too, but fear she might not survive to give it you, so I will entrust it to the lawyers.)
Ellie, if you return home on leaving school, I fear it will be very disagreeable for you at the Hermitage. Poor Papa will not be able to manage very well without me. [Humph, thought Ellen; he did his best to manage, at all events, by marrying Lady Adelaide.] I beg you, therefore, my dearest child, to look after him for me. This will be no easy task. I truly love Luke, but I am aware that most people find this surprising. He is not an easy man. And he has been so often disappointed. He was so promising when young! Many people—knowledgeable, important people—expected great things of him. Ellie, try to use your imagination (with which I know you to be well endowed; there, too, unlike Eugenia and Kitty). Try to imagine Papa’s state of mind. If you can do this—if you can learn to love him—if you can teach him to love you—this may be his salvation. I am asking a great deal of you, I know. How can I tell what plans, what connections, you may have formed by this time? But you have a large heart and I know that, for the sake of the strong feeling that you and I had for one another, you will be ready to put aside your own projects for a time, and enter into mine.
See what confidence I place in you, Ellie! While I write this, you are out, riding with Dr. Bendigo in his dogcart, growing brown and happy and strong. How I wish that you were here with me now, at this moment, to make me chamomile tea, and read aloud some of our favorite Cowper poems, and have one of our long conversations! Instead, I ask you to think of love as a torch, that must be passed on from hand to hand. Do not grasp it—give it away freely.
Good-bye, my treasure, my dearest child; a strange good-bye, this, for I shall see you again this evening. But some part of me, some part of you, is now locked away, a legacy for when you are older.
Your loving
Mother
P.S. It has just occurred to me—Papa may not, of course, be living when you receive this. In which case you are, of course, absolved from responsibility! But somehow, I think he will be. The Pagets are a tough race! In which case, give him my dear love.
By the time she had reached the conclusion of this letter Ellen was so bathed in tears that she could only lay her head down on the plush tablecloth and abandon herself to sorrow. Her aching, profound, continual sense of loss—for the life of Brussels, Paris, for Patrice Bosschère, for Menispe, Germaine, Raoul—all this had rendered her especially vulnerable to her mother’s words.
She felt almost awestricken at the appositeness of the letter’s arrival.
The door opened softly. Mrs. Pike! thought Ellen, aghast, but it was only Vicky, with her copybook of pothooks.
“Oh—poor Ellen—have you a bad pain?” The child came close and stared at Ellen, round-eyed; she had never seen a grown-up person give way to such woe. “Shall I ask Sue to make you some chamomile tea? She brings it to me, sometimes, secretly, after Mrs. Pike has given me a dreadful dose. It takes away the pain. Shall I?”
She stood regarding Ellen doubtfully, finger in mouth. But Ellen reached out an arm and pulled the child to her.
“Never mind the chamomile tea, thank you, dear.” Chamomile tea! she thought. “Just—just wait here a moment. Then we’ll go for a walk.” She laid her head against her small sister’s pinafored shoulder. It smelt of clean cotton and grass. Vicky stood quietly by her, solemn and solicitous. Ellen suddenly remembered little Menispe, after Benedict had been to tell her of Lady Adelaide’s death—there had been rain on the windowpane. The memory made her weep anew. But at last she drew a long, shaky sigh, wiped her eyes, and smiled at Vicky.
“There, I’ve finished. I expect my face is as red as a beetroot. I had better go and bathe my eyes before Mrs. Pike sees me.”
“Oh, she’s in the garden talking to Mr. Wheelbird,” Vicky reassured her.
“Then I’ll run up quickly.
Wait here—I won’t be a moment.” As she carefully put together the pages of her letter, Ellen’s eye fell on the open copybook Vicky had laid down. “Why, these are excellent, Vicky—the best you have done yet.”
* * *
At dinner later that day Mrs. Pike was heavily playful about visits from handsome young lawyers, until even Luke Paget came out of his gloomy abstraction long enough to inquire, “Lawyers? What is that you say, ma’am? Wheelbird has been to see Ellen? Why, pray? There is to be none of that old nonsense, I trust. What can he have had to say to Ellen that should not properly have been addressed to me?”
“It was nothing he came to say, Papa,” Ellen said, blushing and wishing Mrs. Pike at the bottom of the sea. “He had a letter to deliver to me.”
“A letter? From whom?”
Ruefully, Ellen reflected how free and private her life had been at the Hôtel Caudebec. She could receive letters or callers, go out, pay visits, and no one questioned her activities; while here, every moment of the day was subject to scrutiny.
She said slowly, “It was a letter from Mama. One that she had written me before she died.”
“From your mother?” Luke was so startled that he went perfectly white. “From M-Matilda?” After a moment he added slowly, “What can she have had to say to you? You must have been a mere child—twelve? thirteen?—when she wrote it.”
“Yes,” said Ellen. She wished this conversation need not have been held under the calmly observant eyes of Gerard and the frankly inquisitive stare of Mrs. Pike, but went on, “That is why Mama entrusted the letter to the lawyer’s office—so that I should be certain to receive it after I grew up.”
“I wonder that she did not leave the letter with me,” remarked Luke in a mortified tone.
“Oh, Papa! It was not—not that she did not trust you. But human life is so uncertain! Her own was fast drawing to a close. Whereas a lawyer’s office will always have somebody in it.”
“Well; well. And what did your mother have to say in the letter?”