The Brandons: A Virago Modern Classic (VMC)

by Angela Thirkell

  Mrs Brandon and her daughter were alone at lunch. Delia suggested in an off-hand way that it might be a tactful thing to go over and inquire about Aunt Sissie, secretly hoping to see if not a corpse at least a death agony, but receiving no encouragement she dropped the subject, and she and her mother discussed the Fête, for which it was Mrs Brandon’s custom to provide a stall with homemade cakes and jam and such garden produce as Turpin saw fit to release.

  Meanwhile, through the agency of every tradesman who came to the kitchen door, through Turpin and the garden boy when they went home to dinner, through Nurse having to run down on her bike to match up some more pink sewing silk, through the Vicar’s Hettie who had no business to be in Mrs Brandon’s kitchen at all, the delightful tidings were spread far and wide. Dr Ford on his way to Southbridge passed Sir Edmund, who was having words with a foreman about the repairs to a cottage, and stopped for a moment to tell him the old lady was sinking, and it was only by the special mercy of Providence that he missed meeting Lady Norton in the chemist’s at Southbridge by five minutes.

  Owing to a report of midges in the garden Mrs Brandon decided to have tea in the drawing-room. She had hardly begun when Rose brought Mr Miller in, with the air of a junior priest leading the first sacrifice to the altar.

  ‘I cannot tell you,’ said Mr Miller, holding her hand a little longer than was strictly necessary, ‘how grieved I am by this news.’

  ‘What news?’ asked Mrs Brandon, who had really forgotten about her aunt since lunch-time.

  ‘I am not misinformed, I hope,’ said Mr Miller anxiously, and feeling even as he spoke that the phrase might have been more happily turned. ‘Hilary told me at lunch that your aunt had been taken seriously ill.’

  Such is the power of suggestion that Mrs Brandon at once languished, thus causing Mr Miller severely to blame himself for gross want of consideration.

  ‘Poor Aunt Sissie,’ she sighed. ‘Tell me, Mr Miller, do you think six of Cook’s pound cakes and about six dozen of her cream puffs would do for the cake stall? I shall get the rest of the things from Barchester.’

  ‘You always send exactly what is right,’ said Mr Miller, admiring the courage that could deal with daily life while an aunt lay dangerously ill. ‘Do you think I could be of the slightest use to Miss Brandon? I would not, of course, for the world interfere, but if I could be of any comfort I would willingly go over.’

  ‘How nice of you,’ said Mrs Brandon, ‘but I really don’t think you could do much. Miss Morris is there, and Dr Ford has sent a very good nurse, and he is looking in himself this evening.’

  ‘I was speaking less as a friend than as a priest,’ said Mr Miller, and then wondered if he had been harsh.

  ‘Oh, I see what you mean,’ said Mrs Brandon. ‘That is very nice of you, but I’m afraid Aunt Sissie has a kind of feeling about clergymen. She has quarrelled with every rector and with the Bishop and even with the Dean who is so kind. But you will see us all at Church on Sunday as usual,’ she added, by way of appeasing Mr Miller.

  Mr Miller gave it up and ate chocolate cake.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said when he had finished, ‘if it would interest you at all to hear a little more of my Donne. The typescript has gone to the publishers, but I have a carbon copy which is quite legible in parts. We all have our pet economies and I fear that one of mine is carbon paper, which I use far too long.’

  ‘Mine is tissue paper,’ said Mrs Brandon, her face and voice assuming an animation hitherto lacking. ‘I keep every scrap that comes in parcels, but even so I can hardly keep pace with Rose. She uses such a lot when she packs for me. But I have freed myself from the tyranny of string.’

  ‘The tyranny of string?’ the Vicar repeated.

  ‘You know,’ said Mrs Brandon earnestly, ‘how one keeps all the bits of string off parcels and puts it away in little circles that are always coming undone?’

  The Vicar said indeed, indeed he did.

  ‘Well, when I get a parcel now, I simply cut the string and throw the bits into the waste-paper basket,’ said Mrs Brandon proudly.

  ‘And what do you do for string then?’ asked Mr Miller.

  ‘I buy it,’ said Mrs Brandon, with a slight air of bravado. ‘You just cut off what you want, and it lasts for quite a long time.’

  Mr Miller, much impressed, said he must try that, and was just going to re-introduce the subject of Donne when Delia came in with Mr Grant.

  ‘Oh, Mother,’ said she, ‘oh hullo, Mr Miller, I met Hilary in the drive, so I brought him up to tea. Chocolate cake!’

  ‘You said I might come this afternoon,’ said Mr Grant, noticing with pleasure that his hostess seemed to have recovered from the shock of Dr Ford’s news. But at the same moment she remembered it and assumed a stricken air that wrung Mr Grant’s withers.

  ‘I say, Mother,’ said Delia, who was cutting chocolate cake in a most unfair way, giving herself far more icing than her rightful share, ‘Hilary read aloud some of his book to me this morning. It’s ripping. I loved that poem, Hilary, about

  ‘Proie sanglante d’une fière et mâle rage,

  Dieu châtré des chrétiens, je crache à ton visage.’

  This couplet, delivered in excellent French with a fine melodramatic rendering, was hardly what one would in one’s calmer moments choose to recite to one’s Vicar, but Delia was assailed by no such scruples. Mr Miller was wondering whether he ought to make a protest, or pretend, thus sacrificing his reputation as a scholar, that he hadn’t understood, when Delia, pleased with her own voice, continued,

  ‘When I was young and did that thing of Villon’s about the Neiges d’Antan I always thought châtré meant punished. I suppose I was mixing it up with châtié, and no one ever told me. What a lot of words there are in French.’

  This last remark gave the opportunity to her paralysed audience, all of whom remembered having made the same mistake and no one ever telling them, to change the subject. Hilary hastily said that Italian had an enormous number of words, and Mr Miller extolled the vocabulary of the ancient Romans.

  ‘I think German is the worst,’ said Mrs Brandon, ‘not that I know any Latin. It is really nothing but words. If you try to read a German book you spend all your time looking up words, and there doesn’t seem to be any special reason for them to mean anything and the minute you have looked them up you forget what they mean. And they all begin with a prefix or a suffix.’

  ‘I hope the news of Aunt Sissie isn’t any worse,’ said Mr Grant.

  Mrs Brandon, who was leaning back in her chair after the arduous duty of pouring out tea, suddenly sat up.

  ‘If anything happened,’ she said, impressively, ‘I believe I haven’t got a single thin black frock.’

  ‘Oh, Mother,’ said Delia. ‘There’s that one with the pleated skirt.’

  ‘Delia, darling, it is a rag. One couldn’t wear that frock even in church. You know what I mean, don’t you, Mr Miller? And you haven’t anything at all, Delia, except that coat and skirt. I must have a talk to Nurse. Oh dear!’

  Both gentlemen felt a surge of resentment against Miss Brandon who by her illness was causing anxiety to so exquisite a creature. Conversation rippled spasmodically over hidden depths. What every person in the room wanted to discuss was whether Miss Brandon was going to die this time and what the contents of her will would be, but everyone felt that at such a time it would not be quite nice. Even Mrs Brandon felt a slight constraint and asked Mr Miller if he wouldn’t read aloud to them. This chance was not to be neglected and drawing his typescript from his pocket, Mr Miller cleared his throat.

  ‘Will you go on from where we left off?’ asked Mrs Brandon.

  Mr Miller, who had altered one or two commas since the last reading and wanted to hear how they sounded, said it would perhaps be more interesting for Delia and Hilary if he went back to the beginning. This would have been all very well with the original typescript, but as the first few pages of the carbon copy happened to be particularly blurred, he
made but little headway. He apologised for his halting delivery by explaining that he had used the same sheet of carbon which had already served for typing out notices of the Fête and by plunging back into his text just managed to stop Mrs Brandon telling everyone what she did with tissue paper and string.

  For at least three minutes the Vicar read happily if haltingly on. Mrs Brandon with a rapt expression let free her inhibitions and thought of how Nurse could alter that pleated black frock. Mr Grant, observing her expression, felt like a clod, while Delia thought how much nicer Hilary’s book was than Mr Miller’s.

  Francis, back from his office, came into the drawing-room unobserved and had a good look at this domestic scene, his mother reclining with the air of languor that always gently amused him in a woman who had no nerves to speak of and an excellent constitution, the rest of the party draped admiringly round her. It surprised him a little to see his cynical sister among the worshippers, but he could not know that she was thinking of Hilary Grant. His mother was the first to see him and welcome him with delight, not only because she was glad to see him, but as a good pretext for interrupting anything that was going on and doing a little fussing.

  ‘Francis, darling,’ she said. ‘You will excuse us for a moment, won’t you, Mr Miller? I’ll just order some fresh tea for Francis and then you will go on reading to us. Just ring, Francis.’

  As soon as Rose had brought the tea, Mr Miller said to Francis how sorry he was about the news.

  ‘What news?’ asked Francis. ‘Is the Bishop coming?’

  Nothing could be worse than that, said Mr Miller emphatically, and why Barchester always had a Low Church, he would not say Evangelical bishop, and always had since the days of Bishop Proudie, it was not for him to inquire. No: he referred to the news about Miss Brandon.

  ‘She isn’t dead, is she?’ said Francis.

  ‘Francis, you shouldn’t say things like that,’ said his mother, ‘especially when Mr Miller is here. Dr Ford came to see me this morning and said she is much worse and he has sent a nurse to the Abbey and will ring us up again tonight, so Mr Miller was very kindly reading aloud. Poor Aunt Sissie.’

  ‘Well, that is very sad, but hardly surprising after yesterday,’ said Francis. ‘And so right of you, dear Mamma, to lie there doing a sort of couvade, and looking so nice.’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ said Mrs Brandon, who knew perfectly well but was not going to admit it, and was pleased at being told she looked nice.

  ‘It is a sort of thing the savages do,’ said Delia, who liked to air her knowledge. ‘If one of them has a baby the husband makes an awful fuss and pretends it’s him.’

  This lucid explanation of Mrs Brandon’s languishing and very becoming airs was too much for Francis and Mr Grant, who burst into ribald laughter. Mr Miller looked at them over his eye-glasses in a quelling manner, but said nothing. Mrs Brandon, suddenly seeing the joke against herself, began to laugh too, and Delia was pleased by the success of her remark.

  ‘Poor Aunt Sissie,’ said Francis. ‘Well, if there’s a funeral I’ll have to get my hair cut. I ought to have had it done today. Give me another bit of cake, Delia.’

  Again the conversation ran lightly over secret depths. Francis, for all his careless ways and speech, could not bring himself to discuss openly what must be in everyone’s mind, and Mr Miller began to rustle his typescript ominously, so that everyone was glad when Sir Edmund walked in.

  ‘Well, Lavinia, anything wrong?’ he said. ‘Afternoon, Miller. Grass is getting very long outside the north aisle. Pity we can’t turn a few sheep in. Afternoon, young people.’

  ‘Not really wrong,’ said Mrs Brandon, ‘but Dr Ford brought me some rather upsetting news this morning.’

  ‘I met Ford down at the new cottages this morning. A nice mess they are making of them too,’ said Sir Edmund. ‘Not even a damp-course. I told the foreman I’d see the local health authorities and he wasn’t to lay a brick till he’d heard from them. I’ll get Pomfret’s agent onto it, young Wicklow. He has a head on his shoulders. They aren’t on Pomfret’s land, but some of his people live there and he won’t stand it. Thanks,’ he said to Rose who had brought him a brandy and soda. ‘Well, Lavinia, I’m sorry about Amelia Brandon, but that’s no reason for you to behave like an invalid.’

  ‘I really don’t see what else I can do,’ said Mrs Brandon. ‘She doesn’t want to see me and she has Miss Morris and a nurse and all the servants.’

  ‘Well, well, I daresay you’re right,’ said Sir Edmund. ‘Question is: if Amelia Brandon dies, who does the property go to?’

  A kind of silent sigh of relief rose from every breast. No one liked to make a suggestion, but there was a general feeling that Sir Edmund would do it for them.

  ‘Must be practical, you know,’ said Sir Edmund. ‘Well, this is how we stand. Amelia Brandon must have made a will, but no one knows what’s in it.’

  There was a murmur of assent.

  ‘Well, I look at it this way,’ said Sir Edmund, assuming the voice he used on the bench, ‘she must have left it to someone. She wouldn’t split it up. I remember her telling me that her father had made the place and she meant to pass it on as he had left it. Now we get down to facts. Francis!’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Francis.

  ‘The way I look at it is this. Either your Aunt Amelia – stupid name, Sissie, never liked it – leaves you the property, or she doesn’t. If she does, I’m always ready to give you a hand. If she doesn’t, she doesn’t.’

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ said Francis.

  ‘As for Grant,’ said Sir Edmund, staring at Mr Grant, ‘as I see it the facts are like this. If Amelia Brandon has left the place to him, there it is. If she hasn’t, well there we are. Your mother wouldn’t want to live there, would she?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Mr Grant. ‘I hadn’t thought about it. She mostly lives in Italy.’

  ‘Good!’ said Sir Edmund. ‘Well, then, that’s that. Of course if she leaves it to someone else, that old uncle of Cedric Brandon’s – you’d never have heard of him, he lives at Putney – or the cousin that lives in New Zealand, then of course that alters the state of affairs. That’s all, I think.’

  ‘Sir Edmund,’ said Delia, ‘if Aunt Sissie – well, you know what I mean – if she does, what do you suppose will happen to Miss Morris?’

  As it happened, no one in the room had thought of Miss Brandon’s companion. Mr Miller felt sorry for companions in general and suddenly felt very sorry for Miss Morris in particular.

  ‘Happen, eh?’ said Sir Edmund. ‘I suppose she’ll find another job. Plenty of old ladies about.’

  ‘Yes, but Sir Edmund,’ said Delia, ‘I mean now, at once, if Aunt Sissie is really as ill as Dr Ford says. I mean it must be pretty ghastly for her to be in that awful Abbey alone.’

  Mr Miller made a violent effort.

  ‘Delia is undoubtedly right,’ he said. ‘Miss Morris should not be left at the Abbey unless she wishes. It might perhaps be possible to find her lodgings in the village for the present. I know they have a furnished bedroom and sitting-room at the shop. If there were any difficulty of any kind,’ he added diffidently, ‘and a small contribution would help —’