It was New Year’s Eve.
An enormous Christmas tree stood in the hall, its topmost branches level with the banister rail, and opposite me was one of the bright painted birds with feathery tails clipped to its boughs. Dozens of brilliant baubles hung on the tree, and fairy lights, but I liked the birds best; there were three of them, one blue, one red and one green. The red one was on a low branch and I had been allowed to put it there when Mother, helped by Fitch, who stood on a ladder, was dressing the tree.
Fitch was the butler. He was bald, and very thin, with creases all over his face, and he was good at card tricks. If he wasn’t too busy, he would entertain me with them when I visited him in his pantry. Sometimes I helped him clean the silver, and he said if I kept on with it I’d get a butler’s thumb, which would be a great help with the spoons. His own right thumb was smooth and flat, much broader than the one on his left hand.
Fitch had been at the Manor forever, even when Mother was young, for this had been her home until she and Father married. They met when he was on leave from the Indian Army, and they returned there together after the wedding. I was born in India, and I had a good life there with a kind Ayah and other children to play with, but the climate didn’t suit Mother, who often felt faint and ill. When I was seven my grandfather, who owned the Manor, died of pneumonia, and Mother and I came home to be with my grandmother for a time, but we never went back because my grandmother, pining, soon died, too, and after that Father sent in his papers and left the Army.
It seemed rather strange. Was it copies of The Times he had sent to Colonel Swethington, or a series of notebooks or letters? I hadn’t understood what papers they were, but it meant we could all be together and I wouldn’t be sent home alone to boarding-school, like the other children older than me.
At my post on the landing, I sighed with happiness. On Christmas morning, a gleaming new bicycle was waiting for me at the foot of the tree. I had ridden it round and round on the frozen lawn, and I’d soon learn to balance without hands and do tricks, like Peter, the garden boy, whom I’d seen riding along with his hands in his pockets, swaying from side to side and whistling. His mother had been my mother’s nanny and they lived in a cottage in the village.
Now the Manor belonged to Mother and Father, and we should live there always, and though I was sad about my grandparents, after all, they were old.
Mother was looking beautiful tonight in a shimmering dress of gold, which matched her hair. For a year she’d worn black or grey, in mourning, but now that was over. In India, she had always been pale and tired; here, she was different, and though she was still sometimes unwell, she wasn’t so thin and her cheeks were often quite pink. I watched as she led the way in to dinner, crossing the hall on the arm of a tall man with white hair whose name I didn’t know. How wonderful they all looked, the men in dinner jackets with gleaming white shirts and the women in long dresses of every hue.
One woman wore black. That was Mrs Fox, from Summer Cottage. We had known her in India, where her husband, Captain Fox, had been killed during some riots, or so I was told. I wasn’t sure what had happened, exactly, but as a result, Maxwell Fox was an orphan.
Tom Swethington said he couldn’t be an orphan as his mother was still alive; you were only an orphan if both your parents died; but whether he was right or not, it was sad. Max had stayed with us for a time while his father, who did not die at once, was in hospital. I heard one of the servants telling Ayah that the Captain’s horse had fallen, throwing Captain Fox to the ground, and he had been trampled on. This didn’t sound quite the glorious death in battle that Max had seemed to believe was his father’s fate, and Tom Swethington muttered that there was some talk of the girth having broken, causing the saddle to swing, but I didn’t really understand what that meant.
Tom said that we mustn’t talk about it to Max. He believed his father had died a hero’s death, and that was how it should be.
‘He’ll probably get a medal,’ said Tom, confident of his own father’s ability to arrange such rewards.
Mrs Fox and Max remained in India for some months after we left, and then they returned to stay with relations in Kent while looking for somewhere permanent. Three weeks before Christmas they had come to Summer Cottage, when its lease was up.
‘It’s cheap and convenient, and it will be a kindness to tell her about it,’ Father had said one day at breakfast, and Mother had agreed.
‘It will be nice for the boys,’ she said.
I wasn’t so pleased. I didn’t like Max, though I knew I must be sorry for him and allow him to play with my toys. He was a year older than me, tall and thin, with straight dark hair like his mother’s, and he would bend my arm behind my back to make me do as he wished, if I didn’t agree at once. He’d do Chinese burns, too, twisting his hands round my wrist till it hurt and I yelled, and then he’d call me a cry-baby.
I hadn’t seen much of him since they arrived, to my relief, as he had been sent to boarding-school, but he’d come with his mother that morning when she called to ask if she could help prepare for the party. She’d brought an apron in a holdall and offered to arrange flowers, but Mother had done them the day before, so Mrs Fox didn’t stay long and I didn’t have to let Maxwell try my bike.
I didn’t go to school. I had lessons at the vicarage from Mr Hastings, the vicar, and his daughter Jane, who looked after him. His wife was dead. This worried me a little; neither she nor Captain Fox had reached three score years and ten, which was man’s allotted span, I knew.
When the dining-room door closed behind the last guest, Daisy, the housemaid who looked after me when Mother was busy – thank goodness it had been decided that I was too old to have Ayah replaced by a nanny or governess – came bustling along to put me to bed. I had seen Father take in Lady White, and Mrs Fox had entered the dining-room on the arm of the curate from Little Marpleton, a pale young man, a bachelor. She, too, was pale, in her long black velvet dress with sleeves to her wrist and a single-strand pearl necklace.
I had been asleep for some time when the music woke me. It was faint, a reedy sound, not the same as when Mother played the piano. Sometimes we sang rousing ditties like Clementine, and sentimental ballads, and in the weeks before Christmas it had been carols, even Father joining in with his deep voice for Good King Wenceslas while Mother and I were the page.
Gradually, the music grew louder, the strain taken up by some harsher instrument than the first. I lay for a while and listened, until a jiggy little tune made my feet twitch and want to dance. Who was playing?
I got out of bed, found dressing-gown and slippers, put them on and slipped out on to the landing again. As I did so, Trotter opened the drawing-room door to let Fitch go in with a tray of drinks and the music swelled up more strongly. Trotter went off through the green baize door that led to the kitchen regions, and I ran down the stairs and crouched behind the big Christmas tree in a position that would let me peep round the branches and look through the door when Fitch emerged, as he must in time. If he saw me, he wouldn’t be cross, though he might send me back to bed. He wouldn’t tell Father; I could trust Fitch.
It was a little while before the door opened and I caught a glimpse of some men in fancy dress, with coloured frock coats and knee breeches, like George III in my history books. They sat before music stands, and the gleam of brass caught my eye. I knew it came from a French horn; I’d heard the military band often enough to recognise some instruments.
I must have dozed off, tucked there behind the tree, waking at intervals when the drawing-room door opened to let someone in or out, usually a man on his way to the cloakroom. I saw Dr Pitt, and the curate, and I saw Mrs Fox come out and go into the study.
I drowsed and woke, drowsed and woke. Then I saw the ghost. A figure in a green frock coat, ruffles at throat and wrists, and wearing pale breeches and black shoes, came down the stairs and disappeared into the study. That frightened me, and as soon as the door had closed I hurried upstairs and jumped back in
to bed, only then realising that it must have been one of the musicians. After that night, I never saw my mother again.
The day after the party, Daisy’s face was all blotched, as if she’d been crying, but she told me it was only a cold. She set me to tidy my toys in the morning, and in the afternoon she took me for a walk in the village. We went to the smithy, where Bob Pearce was shoeing a carthorse, and I was allowed to pump the bellows to fan the coals as the huge shoes were heated and shaped. There was a strong smell as the hot iron was placed on the horse’s hooves and hammered into place. Surely it must hurt the horse, having nails driven into its feet like that? The smith assured me that the hoof felt no more than a human fingernail, and I was mollified.
Mr Giles, the farmer, asked Daisy and me back to tea at the farm, and let me ride on the back of the big gentle animal. Clip, clop, went the new shoes on the big hooves with the long feathers of silky hair hanging over them. I clutched a hank of the horse’s mane to keep my balance.
‘I’m surprised you haven’t got a pony to ride, young fellow,’ said Mr Giles.
I’d ridden in India, and Father had talked about getting me a pony soon, but I wasn’t keen.
‘A bike’s more in my line, Mr Giles,’ I replied.
We stabled the horse, shutting him into a stall with a bale of sweet-smelling hay hooked in the corner, and Mr Giles left Daisy and me to find our own way into the house while he went to help his son, Fred, with the milking. I could hear the spurt of the milk hitting the pail as we passed the long shed, and a cow uttered a low, soft moo. Daisy said she wouldn’t mind working on a farm, among beasts.
Soon we were in the warm kitchen and Mrs Giles was giving me home-made scones with butter and strawberry jam, and milk fresh from the cow, still warm.
‘Poor lamb, what a start to the New Year,’ she said, and then, ‘When’s the . . ?’ but Daisy cut in before she could finish, and I wondered what had happened to the lamb to render it pitiful. I’d seen no lambs on the farm.
It was dark when we reached home, and I wanted to know where Mother was, but when I asked Daisy, she didn’t answer. There was no sign of Father. I had my bath, then milk and biscuits and a game of Racing Demon with Daisy. I was tired after so much fresh air, and fell asleep as soon as I was tucked into bed.
Next morning Father was at breakfast, but he showed no interest when I told him about my visit to the forge. He ate quickly, glancing at The Times as he drank his coffee, and he left the table before I had finished. Mother would be having her breakfast in bed, as she often did. I decided to go and see her.
She and Father had separate bedrooms. She sometimes spent a day in bed, but she was never too ill to welcome a visit, and we would play Battleships, or Hangman, or she would read to me, so I set off confidently and tapped on her door. When there was no answer, I opened it and went in. The room was very tidy, the bed made, and all her things were gone: there were no brushes, pots, or books to be seen, not even the photograph of me with Ayah which she kept on her dressing-table. Everything had vanished, and so had she.
Father found me standing there, bewildered.
‘What are you doing here, Dick?’ he demanded, and I said I was looking for Mother.
‘She’s gone away,’ he told me. ‘And she won’t be coming back. You’d better forget her as soon as you can. I don’t want to hear you mention her ever again. Out, now,’ and he chivvied me from the room, locking the door after me.
I cried, of course, running along the passage to my own room and flinging myself on the bed in misery, but soon Daisy came and cuddled me against her soft apron, crying too.
‘But where is she?’ I wailed. ‘And why didn’t she say goodbye?’
‘She couldn’t,’ said Daisy. ‘Of course you’re sad, Master Dick. So am I – so’s Cook, and Fitch and Trotter and John – we all are – but the master has said no one’s to talk about it, and that’s that. You’ll get over it in time, my lovey, and you’re to go off to school, so that’ll be exciting, won’t it? You’re going to Pitcairn House with young Maxwell Fox, and there’s all your clothes and things to get.’
I’d expected to go to school next year, when I’d be nine, but not as soon as this, and at first I didn’t like the idea much, but without Mother things weren’t the same. Father was out a lot – something to do with business, he said – and I had no one to play with, though Daisy spent a lot of time with me and there was still my bike to enjoy. We went to the farm again, and Mr Giles gave me a calf to look after and said that it could be mine. Before term began, the flooded water meadows froze and I slid on the ice, a novelty after India.
Then came a trip to London with Father to buy my uniform.
We went to Harrods, where we met Mrs Fox and Maxwell in the boys’ outfitting department. It seemed he needed things too, and we bought shirts, shorts, socks and football boots. I quite enjoyed the day, especially the large lunch we had at the Hyde Park Hotel, where I drank ginger beer and Maxwell had cider. Father and Mrs Fox shared a bottle of champagne and were in a very cheerful mood, which I thought strange after Mother had only just gone away, but it was true that for a while I had forgotten about her, bearing out Daisy’s prophecy. I felt bad about it, and cried in bed later.
Mrs Fox and Maxwell had travelled up by train, but we all came home in the Invicta, and when Father jumped out of the car to open the door for her I heard him say, ‘The time will soon pass, Lois. June, I think.’
What could he mean? What would happen in June?
When it arrived, I understood, for in June Father and Mrs Fox were married, and she and Maxwell came to live at the Manor, which seemed to belong entirely to Father, now that Mother had gone.
Things changed again. During the summer holidays Father and Mrs Fox, as I still thought of her though I had been told to call her Aunt Lois, went touring in Europe, and Maxwell stayed with his grandparents in Cornwall. I remained at the Manor, for I had neither grandparents nor uncles and aunts, but there were plenty of people to look after me. I spent a lot of time at the farm, where my calf was growing, and I began riding Mr Giles’s old cob, a quiet creature. She was too big for me, but I grew bold and imagined myself to be a cowboy taming a bronco. I went to the forge, too, and Bob Pearce helped me make a trivet for Mrs Giles to rest her kettle on.
Maxwell came back after a month, and he wanted to come to the farm. He rode the cob, galloping her about the fields, whipping her with a stick cut from the hedge until Mr Giles told him he would not be allowed to ride again.
‘Let your mother pay for you to have lessons at the stables,’ he said. ‘She can afford it now,’ and he stormed off while Maxwell shouted after him that he was not be spoken to in that tone.
Daisy became silent and grim, and the atmosphere in the house altered as Maxwell demanded special dishes from Cook, and complained, unjustly, that John had not cleaned his shoes properly. I remonstrated with Maxwell, but timidly, because at school he was a hero, admired because he was good at games and cared nothing for discipline, daring other boys to carry out deeds requiring courage. I noticed that he never did them himself. He called me a little squit, and his friends commiserated with him for having such a poor object as myself as his stepbrother, while my own contemporaries envied what they saw as my good fortune.
Father and Mrs Fox—Aunt Lois—returned, and she slept in what had been my mother’s room. While I was away at school it had been repapered and painted, equipped with new curtains and different furniture, but to me it was still Mother’s room, and Father was in there, too. His own room was now called the dressing-room.
Then Daisy said she was leaving; she wouldn’t be there when I came home for the Christmas holidays.
I clung to her, sobbing that I’d never see her again and she laughed and hugged me, telling me not to be a silly boy, that she was only marrying Bob Pearce, the smith, and would be in the village where I could come and see her as much as I liked. ‘I shan’t be dead, like your poor mother,’ she said.
‘Dead? Is
she dead?’ I stared at Daisy.
‘Why, didn’t you know?’ Daisy exclaimed. ‘Didn’t anyone ever tell you?’ she cried, then reminded herself, aloud, that Father had forbidden everyone to discuss what had happened, thinking least said, soonest mended. ‘But I thought he’d told you something,’ she said, and she took me to the churchyard, where beside my grandparents’ grave was another, with a simple headstone bearing my mother’s name and the dates of her birth and death.
‘We’ll pick her some flowers,’ said Daisy. ‘You’ll feel better then,’ and she explained that the old illness my mother had suffered from so badly in India had returned, to prove fatal, the night of the New Year’s Eve party. The funeral had been on the day we spent at the farm, when Mr Giles gave me the calf.
In the years that followed I often went to the churchyard with roses or sweet peas, or sometimes just flowers from the hedgerows, primroses, or poppies, and wild scabious, and Daisy was right: to do so made me feel better. Even now, more than fifty years later, I can still recall the sweet smell of newly-mown grass and the scent of the flowers I had brought.
Today, I took daffodils and iris, bought on my way from the airport, and after my visit to the grave I called to see Daisy, who is still alive. Indeed, it is because of her that I have returned after all this time.
I did well at school, and was separated from Maxwell when we left Pitcairn House, for he went to Harrow while I was sent to a lesser establishment. After my war service, as there was nothing to keep me in England I emigrated to Australia, where I did well from sheep and bought into mines. Now I am a rich man. My father died in 1972, leaving the Manor and everything else to his widow, and some time after that Maxwell joined her there, with his painter friend, Trevor. Trevor, eventually, had died, but the other two were still living in what had originally been my mother’s house. Lois must be nearly ninety by now.
Pieces of Justice Page 20