‘No, not exactly a relation,’ said Mrs Brandon in an abstracted way, ‘but there were very old family ties. What sort of age is he?’
‘Oh, quite young. Under thirty,’ said Mr Merton, who was still under forty. ‘Do you think Lydia will soon be ready, Mrs Brandon? We really ought to be getting back.’
‘But who gets the Abbey?’ said Mrs Grant.
The rest of the company, while thinking poorly of such open curiosity, were greatly relieved that anyone had little enough fine feeling to ask what by this time they were all burning to know. Burning is not perhaps quite the right word to express Mrs Brandon’s mild want of interest, or the fact that Francis and Mr Grant (as they found on comparing notes afterwards) both suddenly felt slightly sick; but it will serve.
‘Oh, the Abbey and most of the property go as was always arranged,’ said Mr Merton. ‘Miss Brandon hadn’t made a will since the year she inherited her father’s estate. She added one or two codicils, but nothing that affects the disposition of the bulk of her property. Hullo Lydia, are you mended now?’
‘I say, Mrs Brandon,’ said Lydia, knocking a record which was lying on the gramophone lid onto the floor, where it broke in half.
‘Do bear your body more seeming, Lydia,’ said Mr Merton, picking up the pieces. ‘I apologise for her, Mrs Brandon.’
‘Ass!’ said Lydia good-humouredly, giving her friend a violent hit which he appeared to expect and indeed enjoy. ‘I’m awfully sorry, Mrs Brandon. I say, Noel, what were you talking about codicils?’
‘Only Miss Brandon’s,’ said Mr Merton.
‘Oh, the one Mother and Father went to the funeral of,’ said Lydia. ‘Who is going to live in the Abbey?’
‘It was left in trust with most of the money to be a kind of home for old people, specially anyone connected with certain regiments. I think she had an uncle or a brother she was very fond of in the Army. But what is really interesting, Lydia, is that Miss Morris is to have ten thousand pounds.’
‘That’s fine!’ said Lydia. ‘And I gave her the coconut Tony got at the shy. I say, Mrs Brandon, your nurse is a tough guy. I’d like to see her and the Pettinger have a go at each other. I’d back your nurse any day.’
‘Miss Pettinger was headmistress of the Barchester High School where Lydia and Delia went,’ Mrs Brandon explained to Mrs Grant. ‘Well, goodbye, Mr Merton, and thank you so much for telling us about Miss Morris. I shan’t say anything till Monday, when your father’s letter comes. I can’t tell you how pleased we all are. Goodbye Lydia. Never mind about the record. We are always breaking them.’
‘Thanks awfully,’ said Lydia. ‘I do think your house is ripping.’
‘So do I,’ said Mr Merton. ‘Will you let me come and see it and you again while I’m down here?’
‘Yes, do,’ said Mrs Brandon, adding in a siren’s voice, ‘Ring me up and come over some day when I am alone.’
Mr Merton shook hands in a deliberately lingering way which made Francis nudge Mr Grant and say, ‘Mother at it again,’ at which Mr Grant was just going to scowl when he realised to his own great surprise that there was nothing to scowl about and smiled at Francis, thinking as he did so that though Mrs Brandon was still one of the nicest people in the world, one looked for something more than charm in a woman; intellect and appreciation of one’s work for instance.
‘Well,’ said Francis, when he returned from seeing the visitors off and had picked up the visiting cards that the whiff and wind of Lydia’s progress through the hall had scattered from a table onto the floor. ‘Well, there is an end of an old song; for auld sang I cannot nor will not say.’
‘I daresay the Abbey will make a very nice home for old people,’ said Mrs Brandon, picking up her embroidery, ‘that is if they don’t mind the damp. After all, Aunt Sissie lived to be very old herself.’
Mrs Grant, who had sat for some time with an expression of deep disapproval, got up and said she and Hilary must be going.
‘Do come again soon,’ said Mrs Brandon. ‘Perhaps you and Hilary would dine with us next week.’
‘I always believe in speaking the truth,’ said Mrs Grant.
‘Yes, truth is so important,’ said Mrs Brandon, anxious as usual to agree. ‘Would Wednesday suit you perhaps?’
‘I feel I owe it to Miss Morris to tell her that I suspected her of trying to get Miss Brandon’s property,’ said Mrs Grant earnestly.
‘Oh I say, Mother,’ said her son, surprised and horrified.
‘I don’t think it would really be a good plan,’ said Mrs Brandon. ‘Mr Merton says Aunt Sissie never altered her will since the one she made when her father died, so Miss Morris really has nothing to do with it at all, and after all ten thousand pounds is really nothing when you think how much money Aunt Sissie had.’
Even Francis had to admit that this was the most muddle-headed piece of special pleading that his dear mamma had ever achieved, but Mrs Grant appeared to find it satisfactory.
‘Yes, yes, I see what you mean,’ she said with an alarmingly earnest gaze. ‘You have intuition about these things.’
‘I don’t think so,’ said Mrs Brandon doubtfully, ‘but I do hope you are free on Wednesday.’
This repetition of the invitation seemed to Francis simply asking for trouble, especially when Mrs Grant, having freed her mind of Miss Morris, accepted it.
‘Wednesday then will be delightful,’ she said. ‘We must go now, Hilary. I will go back to the Vicarage with you. It is really a comfort that all this affair of the Abbey is settled. Finito.’
She raised her long amber necklace with one hand and let it fall heavily on her coral necklace, her silver chain, and her coloured wooden beads, with a gesture of final doom. She then left, carrying her son, annoyed and speechless, with her.
‘Well, darling, you said a mouthful asking that Original Gipsy Lee with all her clanking necklaces to dinner,’ said Francis. ‘I expect Hilary will cut his throat if she stays here much longer.’
‘Francis, you shouldn’t say things like that,’ said his mother. ‘Darling, you aren’t at all sorry, are you?’
‘About the Abbey? No, darling. Apart from the glamour of having the most revolting and inconvenient house in Barsetshire bar none, unless it’s Pomfret Towers, and the joy of having a large fortune most of which would go in death duties and legacies to other people, I am really honestly quite happy, I may say relieved. And I’m sure Hilary feels exactly the same. By the way who is that Captain Arbuthnot? You seem to know about him.’
Mrs Brandon paused for a moment before answering.
‘Aunt Sissie’s brother, Captain Brandon, had an entanglement with the wife of a Colonel Arbuthnot in India,’ she said. ‘He had to exchange his regiment because of it. Aunt Sissie was rather proud of the whole affair. She did say that I was a little like Mrs Arbuthnot,’ said Mrs Brandon, looking pleased.
‘Mamma, you shock me,’ said Francis.
In spite of her son’s attempts at dissuasion, Mrs Grant insisted on accompanying him to the Vicarage. He knew that his mother would disgrace him and wished that she would do so at the Cow and Sickle rather than in the presence of Mr Miller, who must be tired by the Fête and looking after Mrs Thatcher. The Vicar was in the garden and Mr Grant couldn’t possibly warn him of the fate that was descending on him, so he said rather sulkily to his tutor, ‘Here’s Mother, sir,’ and escaped into the house. Mrs Grant established herself on the seat by the heliotrope border, and telling Mr Miller that she had come to talk about her boy, proceeded to talk about herself. Mr Miller was very tired. All that week he had been working for the Fête, in addition to his ordinary duties. Since breakfast-time he had been on duty, arranging, planning, judging, composing quarrels, adjusting differences, a buffer for every contending force. Just as he had hoped for a few words with Miss Morris, who had helped so splendidly in the tea-tent, she had been taken away from him by Sir Edmund; but he quickly put that thought away, though he couldn’t help stopping to hope that Miss Morris would have everyt
hing good that life could give her. Then Jimmy Thatcher had been taken ill, and while he had done nothing, Sir Edmund and Miss Morris had taken the whole affair in hand with a competence which he hopelessly envied. He humbly thought of his own inefficiency. All he could do was to take charge of Mrs Thatcher. After finding Edna, the eldest Miss Thatcher, she who had had an illegitimate baby in ’36, and telling her to look after the other children, he had brought Mrs Thatcher to the Vicarage and let her cry and talk in the study. There was no one in the house and Cook and Hettie were lost among the side shows, so he had been inspired to tell Mrs Thatcher he felt like a cup of tea and introduce her to the kitchen. With loud but less despairing blubberings she had found the tea, milk and sugar, brought the kettle to the boil and produced for him the strongest, sweetest, nastiest cup of tea he had ever tasted. He had persuaded her to sit down with him at the kitchen table and share the odious drink, under whose influence she became as cheerful as circumstances permitted, giving him a graphic account of Thatcher’s bad leg. After this he suggested that she should have a rest in Cook’s armchair, found for her on the dresser what Cook called a nice book, being a twopenny work of fiction called Her Dreams Came True, and left her to her-self, promising to tell her as soon as there was any news of Jimmy. He knew he ought to go back to the Fête, but was so tired with the long day and his own anxieties, that he sat for a little in his garden, and so fell a prey to Mrs Grant.
While she talked he tried to listen, tried to focus his attention by looking at her beads and earrings, and then his mind wandered back to its preoccupation with Sir Edmund, till suddenly the name of Miss Morris brought his thoughts back with a jerk to what his guest was saying.
‘Excuse me, I didn’t quite catch what you said,’ he said to Mrs Grant. ‘Do you mean that Miss Morris has been left something by Miss Brandon?’
‘Not the Abbey, of course,’ said Mrs Grant. ‘That was always left to some charity, so I understood from Mr Merton, but she is to have ten thousand pounds. If you look on it as capital she will have an income for life if it is properly invested. Not much, but it makes a good background.’
Mr Miller said to himself that even at three per cent one would have thirty pounds a year on a thousand pounds, and three hundred pounds on ten thousand pounds. Then there would be income tax, he supposed, but even so it would make a single woman a good deal better off than he was. So he expressed to Mrs Grant his pleasure at this good news, saying he was sure no one deserved it more.
‘By the way,’ said Mrs Grant, with a belated attack of conscience, ‘Mrs Brandon doesn’t mean to tell Miss Morris, because she will hear about it in a lawyer’s letter on Monday, but I feel sure she wouldn’t mind my telling you. So don’t give me away.’
Mr Miller assured her that the confidence should be respected, and almost disliked her. So to make amends for this he asked her if she would stay and have a cold meal with him and her son.
‘No, thank you,’ said Mrs Grant. ‘I am going back to the Cow, where I have promised to teach Mrs Spindler to prepare macaroni in the native fashion, that is as far as is possible when the macaroni itself is bought, not made at home. I shan’t disturb Hilary, for I know how hard he has to work.’
In proof of this virtuous resolve she called up to her son’s window in what Mr Miller could only suppose to be an Italian way, till he put his face unsympathetically out and said goodbye.
When she had gone Mr Miller knew he ought to call his pupil, have the cold tongue and tomatoes, and go back to the Fête, but an overpowering fatigue of mind and body so assailed him that he remained in the garden and was still there when Sir Edmund’s car drove up. Mr Miller went to the gate, but Sir Edmund was alone.
‘Knew you’d want to know about the boy, Miller,’ said Sir Edmund through the car window, ‘so I came round this way after I’d dropped Miss Morris and Delia at Stories. It’s appendicitis all right. Clever woman, Miss Morris. They’re going to operate at once. I had a good talk with Miss Morris on the way back, and we understand each other pretty well. Head on her shoulders. Heart too. Not on her shoulders – you know what I mean. I promised Jimmy I’d tell his mother he is all right. Plucky little fellow. Well, I must get along to Grumper’s End.’
‘Mrs Thatcher is here,’ said Mr Miller. ‘She was so upset that I thought some tea would do her good.’
Sir Edmund stared at his Vicar with respect and admiration, but made no comment.
‘If you would ring me up as soon as there is news of Jimmy,’ said the Vicar, ‘I’ll keep her here, and Cook or Hettie can see her home.’
Sir Edmund nodded and drove off.
Mr Miller and Mr Grant then partook of supper, almost in silence. Mr Grant, bitten by Mrs Morland’s idea of a novel, was in a state of literary frenzy. Mr Miller was thinking of a happy future for an admirable, intelligent woman, an ideal companion, and at the same time telling himself that such thoughts were better left in an eternal shadow. At nine o’clock Cook and Hettie came back from the Fête and had the rest of the cold tongue and tomatoes with Mrs Thatcher. At nine-fifteen Sir Edmund rang up to say that Jimmy Thatcher had been operated on successfully and was doing well, a piece of news received by Mrs Thatcher with loud and thankful hysterics, by Cook and Hettie with pleasure mingled with a lasting regret that the operation had not delightfully proved fatal. At nine-thirty the Vicar sent Mrs Thatcher home in charge of his servants and by ten o’clock Cook and Hettie were back and had gone to bed, and Mr Grant had retired. Mr Miller sat in his study in the summer darkness, long after the noise and lights of the Fête were over, till he fell asleep with heavy fatigue of mind, and in the unfriendly grey heralding of dawn he woke unrefreshed and went to bed.
Dinner at Stories consisted chiefly of a long and happy monologue from Delia, who had not only enjoyed every moment of the drive and insisted on having Jimmy on her lap, but had had the exquisite pleasure of seeing two operation cases being wheeled back from the operating theatre, looking like corpses. Her mother and brother, conspirators, said little and Miss Morris was rather tired. After dinner Delia put on all her crooning records so that talk was unnecessary. Mrs Brandon sat with her embroidery, but her fingers were idle and she looked more often than usual at her graceful hands and Miss Brandon’s diamond ring. A gentle melancholy filled her as she thought of Aunt Sissie’s legacy to Captain Arbuthnot, probably if one went by dates and ages the grandson of the woman who had for a season enchanted Captain Brandon. As Francis had said, it was the end of an old song. Captain Brandon and his lovely ladies were long forgotten; only in Miss Brandon’s memory they had lived. Now she was dead and her memory too would soon be faint. Mrs Brandon suddenly realised how great a compliment Aunt Sissie had paid her when she put Captain Brandon’s gift on her finger. What she did not realise was that her indomitable, pagan old aunt had seen and respected in her, for all the silliness that she so trenchantly criticised, an integrity of spirit not so far from her own. The end of an old song.
When good nights had been said Mrs Brandon remembered something she had forgotten, a phenomenon which was frequent in her life. She went to Miss Morris’s room and tapped at the door. Miss Morris in her dressing-gown, her hair in two plaits, opened to her.
‘I’m so sorry,’ said Mrs Brandon, ‘I quite forgot to ask you about church tomorrow. Would you like to go to Little Misfit or Nutfield? I just wanted to know so that I could send word to Curwen.’
‘I’d like so much to come to church with you if I may,’ said Miss Morris.
13
Miss Morris’s Legacy
Sunday passed over quietly. Francis and Delia were spending the day with friends, Mrs Brandon and Miss Morris went to the eleven o’clock service, during which Mrs Brandon did some very useful thinking about clothes for Miss Morris’s possible spring wedding, Mr Miller tried hard to keep his mind on his work, and Miss Morris betrayed no thoughts of any kind. The Grants were also there, in the Vicarage pew, and when Mr Grant saw every eye in the church turned upon his mother and her jangl
ing accoutrements, he wished as usual that he were dead, for he was too good a son to wish that fate to his mother. The only thing that sustained him was the thought of the literary composition upon which he had already embarked. As soon as he and Mr Miller had finished their horrid cold supper he had made an excuse of some work to do, and shut himself up with Jehan le Capet. During the evening he mapped out a rough draft of the novel suggested by Mrs Morland and had written a chapter of very realistic description of Jehan le Capet’s first mistress, the wife of the proprietor of a rather low eating house in the Quartier Latin called Le Chat Savant. In his enthusiasm he had almost identified himself with his hero and had emerged at about two o’clock in the morning from his work, dazed, exhausted, and with very cold feet, as the poet had often emerged from the side door of the Chat Savant. There was however this difference, that the proprietor’s wife always sent her poet away with a little parcel of food in his pocket, whereas Mr Grant having finished on the previous night a tin of biscuits that he kept in his room, and being afraid to go downstairs in case Cook or Hettie should hear him, had to go hungry to bed.
The Brandons: A Virago Modern Classic (VMC) Page 30