A Place to Call Home

by Evie Grace

  ‘It is closed for now.’

  ‘Then it will reopen immediately after the funeral. Agnes must continue with her teaching as soon as possible.’

  ‘I’m not sure she’ll want to – she has no enthusiasm for anything.’

  ‘Perhaps she will start to feel better after today,’ Aunt Marjorie said, but Rose didn’t share her optimism. ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t be here sooner. When I asked my employers for unpaid leave, they refused my request.’

  ‘How unfair,’ Rose said, knowing how close her aunt had been to her father. It was surprising too because she’d always thought of her as being an independent woman who was free to do as she pleased. It seemed that she experienced little or no benefit from spinsterhood.

  ‘I can understand it. I’m in charge of their children, and when I’m not there, they’re obliged to enlist one of the maids to look after them, or God forbid, pay attention to them themselves. You may frown, Rose, but there are many parents in this world who have little desire for their children’s company. It pains me deeply, but’ – Aunt Marjorie forced a small smile – ‘it means there is always work for nannies and governesses.’

  Soon, more people began to call at the house. Mrs Dunn and Jane took their wet coats and placed a runner in the hallway so that visitors didn’t feel they had to remove their footwear. Jane handed out wine, and funeral biscuits with elaborate wrappers from the local bakery, printed with florid poetry, urging people to be wise when ghastly Death had cut down a husband, and to use their hours wisely before the final end. Rose had ordered them according to Ma’s wishes, and against her own instincts.

  Ma’s friend, Evie, arrived with her husband, and the Miskins. The men from the tannery turned up – Rose hardly recognised them in their dark suits. She joined her mother in the parlour where she was sitting at the head of the coffin. Minnie was there too, dressed in white.

  ‘I’m here, Ma,’ she said, reaching across to squeeze her hand.

  ‘Thank you, Rose,’ she murmured. ‘I wasn’t expecting so many people.’

  ‘Pa was well-liked,’ Rose said, biting back a sob. The grief came in waves. Sometimes she could hold it back, other times she couldn’t, but today, she managed to suppress any outward manifestation. She wouldn’t break down in front of everyone.

  She sat quietly, waiting and listening to the chatter going on around her.

  ‘Have you seen the hearse?’ she heard Aunt Temperance saying to Aunt Marjorie as the two aunts, dressed in black, took their seats on the opposite side of the coffin. ‘How much is all this going to cost?’

  ‘I’m sure Agnes has spent within her means and according to the depth of affection that she feels for her husband. Perhaps we should do the same, donate towards a marble plaque for the church in recognition of his acts of bravery and charity. Oliver was a remarkable and rather wonderful man. You and Mr Kingsley would contribute?’ Aunt Marjorie added.

  ‘If Oliver is to be honoured in that way, it should be bestowed by the dignitaries of the city who can well afford it, not his family.’ Aunt Temperance pursed her mouth as if she had tasted a sour plum.

  ‘Will there be food afterwards?’ Mr Kingsley asked, having made his way to his wife’s side.

  ‘There is wine, tea and biscuits,’ Aunt Marjorie replied.

  ‘I thought we would have been burying him with ham,’ Mr Kingsley said.

  ‘There is an inn not far from the cemetery.’ Aunt Marjorie fiddled with the hem of her glove. ‘Refreshment may be taken there, I believe.’

  ‘At one’s own expense, I assume,’ Temperance said. ‘The money being wasted on carriages should have been spent on food for people wishing to pay their respects. What was she thinking of?’

  ‘Nothing but her grief, I believe. Now hush,’ Aunt Marjorie warned. ‘All animosities should be forgotten at such a time.’

  Donald brought more guests to the parlour until there was no room for any more.

  ‘Reverend Holdsworth has arrived,’ someone called, but Rose couldn’t make her way through the crush to greet him, nor could she hear the words that he spoke over Pa’s coffin. It didn’t matter, she thought, when there was nothing that could bring him back.

  At the end of the service, the mourners began to disperse. Arthur, Donald and the other bearers carried the coffin, decorated with a cross of white flowers on the top. Ma clung to Aunt Marjorie while Minnie clung to Rose as they watched Pa’s mortal remains being taken away in a hearse pulled by two fine black horses through the driving rain to the cemetery.

  ‘I should have gone with him to see him put in the ground,’ Ma said suddenly.

  ‘No, Agnes. It is unnecessary for ladies to be seen at the graveside,’ Aunt Marjorie said in a soothing tone. ‘You have said your farewells. It’s time to look to the future.’

  Was it too soon? Rose wondered. Ma hadn’t had much time to get used to her new situation, but perhaps her aunt was worried about the depth of her despair.

  ‘You have made arrangements for the reading of Oliver’s will?’

  ‘Arthur has organised it with Mr Bray, the solicitor,’ Ma said.

  ‘It’s the day after tomorrow,’ Rose contributed in case her mother had forgotten.

  ‘Good. I thought it would be in hand – my cousin wasn’t the kind of man to leave anything to chance. I’d like to know that all the loose ends have been tied up before I return to Ramsgate. Arthur will set the new date for his wedding soon, and on Monday you can reopen the school.’

  ‘I’m not ready for that,’ Ma said quickly. ‘I can’t face going back to the classroom yet.’

  ‘You will feel better when you get back to your daily routine. Life will start to feel normal again. I’m not saying it will be the same as before. It will just be a new kind of normal.’

  ‘If my Oliver hadn’t been snatched away, I wouldn’t have had to go through this,’ Ma exclaimed. ‘What did he do? What have we done to deserve it? It is as if we are being punished for finding happiness together.’ She started tugging at strands of her hair, twisting them and pulling them out.

  ‘Agnes, don’t do that,’ Aunt Marjorie said, taking hold of her hand as Rose imagined she had done when Ma was a child. ‘You will end up as bald as a coot.’

  ‘Oh, how could he have done this to me?’

  He had no choice in the matter, Rose wanted to say. He hadn’t succumbed out of malice.

  ‘I wish I had gone instead,’ Ma said, breaking down again. ‘I don’t know how I will be able to live without him. He was my rock, my refuge, the love of my life … I have nothing left to live for.’

  ‘Oh, don’t be silly, child,’ Aunt Marjorie said. ‘You have your children. Oliver loved all four of them.’

  ‘I loved him more,’ she sobbed, the expression of her preference making Rose feel deeply hurt. It was a cruel thing to say even if it was natural for Ma to put thoughts of her beloved husband first at such a time. ‘They are a constant painful reminder of his existence.’

  ‘That may be so at the moment, but one day they will be a source of consolation.’

  ‘I will never feel any different,’ Ma insisted.

  Aunt Marjorie couldn’t console her. Like Queen Victoria who had mourned Prince Albert for nearly fifteen years, Rose feared that her mother would grieve for ever.

  Chapter Six

  The Last Will and Testament

  ‘This occasion is not suitable for the children,’ Aunt Marjorie said when they were finishing breakfast in the dining room. ‘Surely, Agnes, you aren’t going to have the twins accompany you for the reading of their father’s will? They can stay at Willow Place with Jane and Mrs Dunn.’

  Rose frowned. Mrs Dunn had expressed a wish that she should go to hear her employer’s will being read, but it seemed that she was to be disappointed. Rose picked at her ham and eggs. She wasn’t hungry. Only Arthur and Donald had eaten everything on their plates. She glanced towards Minnie who was staring into space as she sipped at her tea.

  ‘Rose and Arthur wi
ll come with us,’ Aunt Marjorie said when Ma didn’t respond. ‘Rose, you will be a comfort to your mother.’

  Rose reached out and touched Ma’s hand. Ma turned and shook her head.

  ‘I’m sorry. I can find no comfort in anything at all.’

  ‘It will come,’ Aunt Marjorie said. ‘Have patience.’

  The four of them set out, arriving at eleven at the solicitor’s office, Bray and Co., where a clerk showed them into a room with an ornate plaster ceiling and gas-lit sconces.

  Inhaling the scent of vanilla, old books and tobacco, Rose settled Ma on a chair at the front of three rows of seats and sat down, she and Arthur flanking their mother, while Aunt Marjorie took her place beside Rose.

  Rose caught sight of her reflection in the glass-fronted bookshelves filled with leather-and-gilt-bound legal tomes. She looked weary, she thought. They all did, but today, she was confident that once the will had been read and the last of the formalities gone through, they would be able to start to move on and deal with their sorrow.

  ‘They are expecting quite a crowd,’ Arthur whispered in her ear while more people, friends, relations and acquaintances filed in behind them. Aunt Temperance and Mr Kingsley sat beside Aunt Marjorie, and the row behind them began to fill up until there were no more places and latecomers were forced to stand.

  ‘I don’t know half of these people,’ Rose said quietly.

  ‘They are like vultures,’ Aunt Marjorie commented.

  ‘Are you speaking of the solicitors or these new friends of our dear father?’ Arthur said.

  ‘New? Oh, I see what you mean,’ Rose said.

  ‘It boggles the mind that so many strangers have come to see the show,’ Aunt Marjorie said, at which Ma uttered a sob of distress.

  ‘Please, Ma,’ Rose said softly, a little embarrassed at her show of sorrow in public. ‘Don’t be upset. Everyone is watching us.’

  Ma turned to her, red-eyed. ‘Am I not allowed to be upset? It is all very well not showing your feelings, but in this case, an exception has to be made. I cannot hold in my tears. Oh, my darling …’

  ‘I don’t know why we had to come, Ma,’ Rose said, suppressing the despair that was beginning to well up from inside her again. It was upsetting for all of them, and the reading of Pa’s will was merely a formality. Her aunt had said so. Ma would receive a jointure and Arthur as the eldest son would inherit the business, and with Oliver’s sense of fairness, there would be provision for Rose and the twins. The only real question was whether he had settled the business equally on her two brothers, or made some other arrangement.

  ‘Hush, this must be Mr Bray,’ Aunt Marjorie said as a young man in a suit with an oversized wing collar on his shirt entered the room with a file of papers. ‘Oh no, it is another of his minions,’ she went on as he placed the file on the walnut desk, slid out the captain’s chair on its brass castors, flicked off some dust from the seat with a flourish of a handkerchief, and walked off again.

  People shifted in their seats as a second man, a gentleman bearing the veneer of wealth in the form of a fine suit and a signet ring, walked in. He took his seat at the desk and removed a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles from the drawer. He placed them on his nose and looked over the top of them at his audience. He cleared his throat with great pomp and ceremony, at which the crowd fell silent.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he began. ‘I regret that we are here together in such sad circumstances. There is not much to say – the gentleman in question kept his bequests brief and to the point.’

  There was a general sigh of disappointment as he went on, ‘This is the last Will and Testament of Oliver Samuel Cheevers of Willow Place, Canterbury in the County of Kent. I hereby revoke my previous wills and codicils, declaring this to be my last will and testament. I give the estate of Willow Place and the business of Cheevers Tannery, lock, stock, and barrel to …’ he paused ‘… my loving wife to pass thence to our adopted and natural children.’

  Rose sat back in her chair as Mr Bray turned his gaze towards Ma who was frowning.

  ‘However, having made some enquiries to confirm the situation of the recipient of this inheritance, I am required to name the next eligible beneficiary in line as Mrs Temperance Kingsley.’

  ‘How can that be?’ Aunt Marjorie exclaimed as a gasp of shock ripped through the crowd. ‘Mrs Cheevers – his wife – is right here. This man is talking through his hat.’

  Mr Bray shook his head gravely as all kinds of thoughts tumbled through Rose’s mind. What did he mean? Was Pa’s sister to inherit everything that rightly belonged to them? There had to be some kind of mistake.

  ‘Mr Cheevers died a bachelor. I have to confess that it was unexpected – it was well known and understood that he was a married gentleman, but I had one of my clerks make some enquiries, and there is no record of a marriage having taken place.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’ Rose looked past Ma at her brother, reading his expression of confusion. What had Pa been thinking of? Ma uttered a cry and tipped forward, clutching her chest.

  ‘We need the smelling salts for your mother. She has fainted.’ Marjorie took a silver vinaigrette from her bag and handed it across to Rose, who removed the sponge soaked in hartshorn and ammonia from inside it.

  Ma pushed herself up to a sitting position.

  ‘It is going to take more than a breath of hartshorn to restore me to health,’ she panted. ‘Oh, Oliver, my love, how could you do this to me? To our family? Our children?’

  ‘Mr Bray, there has to be another will, one dated more recently than this one. Please ask one of your clerks to check your files,’ Aunt Marjorie said.

  ‘I can assure you that this is his very last will and testament. He didn’t make another.’

  ‘Is it possible he went to another solicitor? How about placing an advertisement in the papers?’ Arthur said, standing up.

  ‘Then we will have all kinds of ragtag and bobtail telling us they have his will. No, that will not do. I repeat – this is the final expression of Mr Cheevers’ wishes. This is his mark – look at the signature.’ He ordered a clerk to fetch a magnifying glass so people could check it for themselves, while they sat Ma back in her seat. ‘Let us ask the lady herself.’

  ‘I’m sorry, she cannot speak. Please open the window. She needs some air,’ Rose said urgently. They all did. She felt quite faint herself.

  Mr Bray called his clerk back inside and asked him to usher the crowd out of the office, but they lingered outside, their voices carrying through the open door.

  ‘Well, I never. Well, I never did,’ Rose heard them say. ‘Who’d ’ave thought it?’

  ‘I always suspected they weren’t wed. I never heard the vicar read the banns for ’em, and you know me, I’m a God-fearin’ woman who hasn’t missed a Sunday since my last littl’un was born many years ago.’

  ‘Could they have got hitched elsewhere?’ said another.

  ‘No, they were married over a broomstick,’ came a man’s voice.

  ‘Maybe they got wed at the cathedral? I always thought it odd that they were regulars at St Mildred’s.’

  ‘They live in the parish – why should they go anywhere else?’

  ‘’Is sister is a cathedral-goer.’

  ‘Only because she doesn’t like to associate with the hoi polloi. She isn’t like one of us, and now she’ll be even more stuck up. Did you see her? I don’t think anything could have wiped the smile off her face.’

  The voices drifted away, and Rose took the opportunity to look at her Aunt Temperance who was still sitting in her seat, fanning herself. Mr Kingsley was on his feet and waiting for his wife at the door.

  ‘I hope you will see fit to do the right thing by your brother’s family,’ Aunt Marjorie said, addressing her. ‘It was an oversight. The inheritance is rightfully theirs.’

  Aunt Temperance stared at her. ‘Who do you think you are to question my dearly departed brother’s wishes? It is apparent that he and Agnes were not married, eve
n though they put on a pretence that they were. I don’t recall a wedding, do you, Marjorie? We would have been the first to have been invited. Well, you would anyway, seeing how they favour you.’

  ‘It’s perfectly plain to me and everyone else that this outcome is not what he intended. Please consider your position. Do you want to be responsible for Oliver’s family being put out on the street?’

  Rose winced at Aunt Marjorie’s blunt words. Surely it wouldn’t come to that?

  ‘I will speak with Mr Kingsley,’ Aunt Temperance said. ‘He will advise on the best way forward.’

  ‘That does little to reassure me, but if that’s the best you can come up with for now … Come on, Rose and Arthur. Help your dear mother home,’ Aunt Marjorie said.

  They half carried, half dragged Ma home along the dirty streets to the sanctuary of Willow Place where she came round for long enough to take a few sips of chicken soup.

  ‘Do you remember what happened at the solicitor’s?’ Rose asked her as she tucked her up in bed.

  ‘I don’t think so, not exactly.’ Ma frowned.

  ‘Mr Bray was concerned that he couldn’t find the evidence that you and Pa were married,’ she began tentatively, not wanting to upset her mother further, but wanting more than anything to solve the mystery of her parents’ marital status and secure the inheritance for the family. Ma didn’t appear to be listening. She seemed confused and her speech was slurred.

  ‘Oh, Rose, I am so very tired. My arms and legs are like lead weights.’

  Rose patted her hand. ‘You’ve been through a lot – you need to rest. We’ll talk about it later.’

  ‘You are a good girl.’ Ma sank back against her pillows and closed her eyes.

  Rose and Aunt Marjorie took it in turns to sit with her until late in the evening. Rose had a strange sense of life being suspended in a moment of time: Ma sleeping; Arthur walking out with Tabby; Donald and Minnie creeping around the house in silence, only half-informed of what had passed at the solicitor’s office that morning; and Aunt Marjorie writing a plan of how to proceed, her brow etched with lines of worry.