That They Might Lovely Be

by David Matthews

  When she had been told the news of Bertie’s singing, Muriel Simmonds had at first locked herself in an impregnable fastness of silence. She would speak to no one. But within twenty-four hours her behaviour had shifted in a way that worried Delia deeply. Instead of sitting in an almost trancelike state, her mother had taken to prowling about her room, and on several occasions when Delia had gone into her room, she had swung around with naked fury. Unusually, she seemed on the point of speaking or hurling some invective. It was this which disturbed Delia.

  It had been years since Bertie had been the target of her mother’s vituperation. Who knew how he would react, now he was sloughing off the silence they had come to rely upon, if she levelled her animosity at him again? And then Dr. Furnival had taken to visiting each day. He came, ostensibly, to check on Delia’s burns but she knew it was also to parade an assumed insouciance to prevent her feeling at all triumphant in having slapped him. He covered his visits by making a point of looking in on her mother. What if she should speak to him? What if, spurred on by some misplaced vengeance, she decided to talk to the doctor? Fortunately, Dr. Furnival had responded positively to Delia’s suggestion that her mother might benefit from some light sedation to calm her, but Delia could not expect this treatment to be continued indefinitely. If Bertie did indeed start talking, if the past began to speak, what perspective would her mother adopt? Everything could be revealed.

  ‘Such a lot of rain,’ chirped Mrs. Simmonds.

  Delia felt a rush of relief. The sedation or merely the passage of time (for it had been nearly a week) seemed to have blunted her mother’s quivering sensibilities. The likelihood of her talking to some purpose had drained away, leaving the familiar, shallow babbling that routinely followed the periods of despondency.

  ‘Such a lot of rain.’

  ‘Come and sit down, mother,’ she said. ‘Let me brush your hair before the light fades and we have to turn on the lamps.’

  She unpinned her mother’s plait, coiled at the nape of her neck. It had been Muriel Simmonds’ boast as a girl that she could sit on her hair and indeed she could still do so. But the plait was thin and grey now, a limp thing without the spring to it that Delia could remember as a child. She separated the three strands of hair and shook them loose, with her fingers spread wide beneath. And then she brushed her mother’s hair with long, deep, even strokes, leaving it spread out across her shoulders as one might prepare a medieval queen for her coronation.

  Friday, 25 April 1930

  The well in the yard was really nothing more than a deep cistern into which the rainwater from the roofs drained. Gladys used this water for washing and household purposes, it being so much softer than the hard tap water, pumped up from Boughton-under-Blean.

  It was Gladys who discovered Muriel Simmonds’ body first thing the following morning when she went to fill the kitchen water carrier from the pump. The lid to the well had been displaced and she just glanced down to see how the recent rains had raised the water level.

  She saw the soles of Mrs. Simmonds’ feet and her legs resting against the sides of the well. Her skirts floated on the water, filling the circle of the well, above the rest of her body. There had been rain enough for a woman bent on her own destruction, prepared to dive into the well in the knowledge that if she did not break her neck on impact, the walls of the well were too constricting to allow for much movement and drowning, upside-down at the bottom of the well, would be inevitable. A foot of water would probably have been enough.

  Two tramps had been sitting on the gate across the road from the schoolhouse, waiting for the rise of smoke from the chimneys to tell them someone was up who might fill their cans with hot water or brew a pot of tea. They had come straight over when they heard Gladys screaming and were already engaged in trying to get a rope around the dead woman’s ankles when Mr. Simmonds and Delia stumbled from the house. The men struggled to raise the woman with decency. They had to haul her from the well by her ankles with her stockings and underwear exposed as her sodden skirts fell back around her inverted body. The men fumbled to pull her clothes together but Delia could see they shrank from touching her. Her father stood back, ashen-faced, while Gladys sat on the hard ground moaning.

  It was an ugly business. For a moment Delia seethed with fury: that her mother could have inflicted this obscenity upon them, on top of everything else. But then she saw her mother’s ghastly face, so terribly dead, and the long snake of hair dragging over the edge of the well.

  Delia started to weep. Turning away, she saw Bertie, his forehead pressed against an upstairs window, staring down on them. She buried her face in her hands.

  Talk

  ‘Thank you, Mrs. Childs. My sister and I shall wait here, in the drawing room, for the rest of the family. Please show them in when they arrive. I shall ring if I need anything else but ask Dr. Furnival to stop by before he leaves. We shall want to know how he finds Lady Margery.’

  ‘Of course, Mrs. Perch. It’s a lovely morning but the sun doesn’t get round to this side of the house until the afternoon so if you feel chilly I can make up the fire for you. We’ve had the chimneys swept for the summer but I’m sure her ladyship won’t begrudge a fire in the circumstances. So if that will be all…’

  ‘Mrs. Childs seems to forget that Aunt Margery is hardly in a position to give instructions about anything, let alone fires in April. She’d do well to remember who’ll be giving her her orders in due course.’

  ‘You don’t know that, Ada. And you shouldn’t talk so. You heard what Dr. Furnival said. He said that he’d already seen a marked improvement in Aunt Margery since Monday.’

  ‘That’s as may be. I would not be at all surprised if this restless crossness did not bring on another seizure.’

  ‘She was always crotchety. I think bad temper means she’s on the mend.’

  ‘It’s some comfort that Mrs. Childs was sure it was “Kingsnorth” she was saying when she came around. When Dolly and Vera arrive, Lillian, we shall work out a rota so that one of us is always at her bedside. That will be best. I shall then have no compunction in telling Anstace that her services are not required.’

  ‘That might be Dolly and Vera now. I think I heard the bell … Oh!’

  ‘Good morning. Mrs. Perch—and Mrs. Kingsnorth, isn’t it? Mrs. Childs was good enough to show us through. I do hope this is not inconvenient. You know Mrs. Jackman?’

  ‘We are expecting our other sisters at any time but do sit down, if only for a little while.’

  ‘We shall, of course, leave forthwith if you’d rather. We do not want to intrude but did so want to enquire after dear Lady Margery. We thought Mrs. Cordingley would be here.’

  ‘I am afraid Mrs. Cordingley is out.’

  ‘She decided to go for a walk whilst Dr. Furnival and Nurse Hillier are with my aunt.’

  ‘She said she wondered whether the bluebells were showing in Blean Wood.’

  ‘Bluebells in April? When it has been so cold?’

  ‘Exactly, Mrs. Furnival. Most odd.’

  ‘I’m sure, Ada, she merely wanted some fresh air. She has been sitting with our aunt through much of the night, taking turns with Nurse.’

  ‘Not that there was any real need. Lady Margery seems to be rallying.’

  ‘She certainly seemed well enough to want to shoo us away! Didn’t she, Ada? Her speech is still very slurred but there seemed no mistaking her meaning!’

  ‘Well, if Lady Margery has taken a turn for the better, that is excellent news. Is it not, Hetty?’

  ‘Yes. Yes.’

  ‘And if she is now able to take in what you say, please do pass on our best wishes for a most speedy and complete recovery from me … but most especially from Mrs. Jackman.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘I was here, you see, on Sunday with my husband. He is the Rector, you know. Lady Margery seemed quite agitated and I have been so worried. Edward and I really can’t believe there was anything we could have done but then one never knows.’


  ‘You must not upset yourself again, Hetty. It was all quite, quite sudden. I do hope that Mrs. Cordingley is not reproaching herself unduly.’

  ‘What on earth do you mean, Mrs. Furnival? Why should she?’

  ‘Hetty and I only thought, didn’t we, Hetty, that the explosion of talk and unbridled speculation over Mrs. Cordingley’s behaviour on Holy Saturday…’

  ‘Oh dear, such a disturbing incident both for me and poor Edward…’

  ‘Quite so, my dear.’

  ‘An incident? What sort of incident?’

  ‘Everyone in the village knows that Lady Margery has always been so very careful to ensure that the family name is always held in the highest regard. To have it the subject of sensation … but perhaps you have not heard the story about the schoolmaster’s little boy?’

  ‘We heard some tittle-tattle from Mrs. Childs. Didn’t we, Ada? That a boy from the village, dumb from birth, had miraculously burst into song.’

  ‘I was there and heard him with my own ears.’

  ‘But what has that to do with Mrs. Cordingley?’

  ‘Why it was she who encouraged him. She had been coaxing him all along for months, it now seems, to talk and sing without so much as a word or by-your-leave from the boy’s parents. It all seems so very irregular.’

  ‘So there has been no miracle, then.’

  ‘My dear Mrs. Kingsnorth, I don’t expect the Rector would countenance it, would he Mrs. Jackman?’

  ‘I really must not comment further.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘But please explain, Mrs. Furnival, why this should cause Lady Margery any disquiet.’

  ‘I do not think it should but Mrs. Cordingley may well be questioning her actions. Dr. Furnival is very concerned that the child is not harmed. He was saying to me only yesterday that there has been such a deal of work in recent years on the subconscious mind, such advances in our understanding of the delicate mental processes, those twists and turns of which the brain is capable. Any amateurish interference (I’m afraid that’s how he sees Mrs. Cordingley’s misguided attempts to help the boy) can only do more harm than good.’

  ‘But it is still true that a dumb boy did actually start to sing?’

  ‘There is no need to be so literal, Lillian.’

  ‘Dr. Furnival has not had the chance to examine the boy. We must not forget that there could well be a simple medical explanation. My husband said that we should remember that the only evidence we have that the boy was dumb is that he never spoke. You know, Mr. Simmonds (the schoolmaster) has always refused to allow any medical man near the boy.’

  ‘And the mother, I understand, is very unbalanced.’

  ‘Oh extremely so, poor woman. But you must understand, Mrs. Perch, that she has not always been so. Her illness seemed to coincide with the birth of this young boy, Bertie. There was talk at the time, I do remember.’

  ‘Do go on.’

  ‘You see, Mrs. Simmonds was so old the birth of her baby was positively Biblical. He wasn’t born here either, which was unusual. And then there was the fact that Miss Simmonds had been away with her mother, for such a long time before the baby was produced. It was most unusual. There were rumours, it has to be said. However, when it became clear that Mrs. Simmonds’ health was quite broken and that the child was—as we all supposed—a simpleton, everyone took the sad story as it was given out. His birth was just one of those natural accidents which don’t occur in the best families.’

  ‘What I have known for many a year, is that the Simmonds family is incapable of conducting itself with due regard to the proper forms. The eldest boy was sent up to Cambridge, as if any good could have come from giving him such an inflated sense of his importance. Lillian and I were exposed to his effrontery one Whitsun, at the Tenants’ Ball. They shot him at the end of the war, I believe. But then there was talk that Geoffrey was entangled with the sister. I never heard the half of it but no doubt it contributed to his moral collapse.’

  ‘The father’s put a lot of fancy notions into the heads of the village children, so I have heard, far above their station. Not content with splashing around in the lake here in the grounds during the summer months, he has now, I understand, had a swimming pool dug behind the schoolyard so he can teach them how to swim, boys and girls and no distinction. This is the heart of Kent. Why does anyone need to be able to swim unless they’re bent on subversion?’

  ‘Or submersion.’

  ‘No, Hetty. You have not been following.’

  ‘Here is Mrs. Childs. Is Dr. Furnival leaving?’

  ‘Oh, madam, and Mrs. Furnival, Mrs. Jackman. I thought you all ought to know. We’ve just had terrible news. It’s Mrs. Simmonds. She’s gone and drowned herself in the school well. The doctor has this minute rushed off. He hopes you’ll understand but Nurse Hillier can speak to you when you are ready.’

  ‘How appalling!’

  ‘Extraordinary!’

  Chapter Four

  Sunday, 11 May 1930

  The envelope was addressed in a polished, copperplate hand which Delia did not recognize but that was not surprising. In the weeks following the article in The Gazette, she and her father had been subjected to a steady stream of letters from complete strangers who had sniffed out something that merited their interference. There had even been an offer from a medium in Canterbury to train Bertie in his ‘undoubted gifts’, as if his voice were not his own at all. The inquest into her mother’s death, with its verdict ‘whilst of unsound mind’, had inevitably fanned interest from the wider public and the morbidly curious. Their letters were confused with the messages of condolence, some sincere, some conventional others more sanctimonious; any sympathy was tempered by the opprobrium of suicide.

  Delia slit the envelope; she had scanned the letter in seconds.

  Dear Miss Simmonds,

  I have been very ill and find myself unable to write legibly. I am therefore dictating this letter to my housekeeper, Mrs. Childs.

  Please call at five o’clock, tomorrow afternoon when I should be glad to speak to you in confidence. Bring the boy with you.

  I was shocked to hear that your mother had felt it necessary to take her own life.

  Yours sincerely,

  Margery Cordingley

  She re-creased the letter repeatedly along the fold before returning it to the envelope, trying to identify the tone, pondering the sender’s motivation. Delia was disturbed by the letter’s last sentence. It was the word ‘necessary’ that niggled, as if something could have been done which might have made her mother’s action ‘unnecessary’. Delia resented the speculation that led to such innuendo. It was clear that Lady Margery had recovered sufficiently to pursue an active interest in Bertie. All of this had started with Anstace, damn her! At the same time, Delia wondered whether she would not do better laughing at Lady Margery’s nosiness. It was so feudal in its presumption as to be ridiculous.

  Delia knew she had not been wholly unprepared for this development. Her father had only alluded in the vaguest terms to the Rector’s visit on Easter Day. He had told Delia that there may well be matters arising, originating with Lady Margery, to which she would have to respond. How she chose to do so was her own concern. His part, he wanted her to be very clear, had been played out. The boy’s fate would run its course just as Hubert’s had; he would do nothing to influence the status quo. Delia had hoped that the old woman’s stroke, following so quickly on the heels of the warning from her father, would have effectively blocked any intrusion from that quarter. Clearly, she had hoped in vain.

  Delia knew she would have to make the visit. If Lady Margery were on the mend, her authority and influence could not be underestimated. Her interference would certainly not be checked by antagonism. However, taking Bertie with her, Delia considered, could present additional challenges.

  She had found Bertie practically uncontrollable since her mother’s death. The boy was in a state of nascent rebellion. She no long felt she could rein him in a
nd hold him long enough to break him. The saddle of conformity would have to be strapped to his back; somehow, she had to force him to suffer the bit and obey it. Some fear of accountability, never recognised when she assumed he would never speak, now prevented her from remonstrating with him physically. Bertie sensed the shift. Her father, who had never shied away from caning his pupils, had never delivered corporal punishment to Bertie. It was as if the familiarity which physical chastisement demanded was a form of intimacy that Simmonds would not contemplate. Anstace, of course, had triggered it, but Bertie now was increasingly aware of the aura that surrounded him and prepared to exploit it. He was beginning to see himself as inviolable and that was manifest as willfulness.

  If Bertie accompanied her to the Big House, he could be a liability. On the other hand, he might flatly refuse to go with her and that would leave her at the mercy of Lady Margery’s annoyance. Her father had refused to involve himself in any way.

  ‘It’s your affair, Delia. I told you. But I wouldn’t worry. I imagine Bertie will be intrigued by the invitation. What village boy wouldn’t be? You might find it diverting,’ he added, ‘Lady Margery is ga-ga and Bertie is a simpleton. Let them have tea together. I, however, do not want to know anything about it.’

  ‘I wish I knew what she wanted.’

  ‘The more important question is what you want.’

  ‘And what is it you want, Father?’

  ‘Nothing. I want absolutely nothing.’

  She felt he walked away from her with an edge of defiance.

  In spite of this adamant disinterest, Delia speculated, Father must be hoping that a great deal will actually emerge from my interview with Lady Margery. His ‘nothing’ would definitely take shape—if that were not a complete contradiction—if Lady Margery somehow effected Bertie’s removal from our lives. I cannot tell with any certainty what she intends but I do understand that the role I play will be crucial. The real issue, the significant question is: do I have the courage? Do I have the strength of purpose to do or say whatever is necessary to have Lady Margery take Bertie from us?