‘I suppose you expect me to apologise?’
‘Have you nothing else to say, Ada? Can’t you see that Robert has been wonderfully clever?’
‘I don’t expect an apology from you, Ada—nor from you, Lillian. None of us has acted as we perhaps should. But remember this: I have placed myself in your hands by explaining my actions. I have jeopardised my professional reputation by acting in the way that I have. All I expect is an acknowledgment that I have served the Cordingley interests.’
‘And where do those interests sit, Robert? What I fail to understand is why we cannot mount a challenge immediately now that Aunt Margery has died.’
‘She’s dead but scarcely cold in her coffin. Let’s show some decorum. The funeral will take place next week and then the legal processes will rumble on. There is something to be said for taking our time. We do not want to do anything that may alarm the forces, if such there be, ranged against us. We want to have the time to conduct some thorough investigations and amass evidence to support our claim. Waterson and Duguid do not have a reputation for acting swiftly. Even after probate, we can pace our challenge to our advantage. Essentially, we need to stall any extravagant expenditure by the Trust. We need everything to be kept in tact, ready for us to appropriate it, one way or another, in the future.’
‘It all seems so dreadfully hard on you, Robert, my darling.’
‘I can manage everything provided I have your loyalty. You can express shock and surprise when the will is read out. You can even express the desire to challenge the will—I imagine Dolly and Vera would be suspicious if you didn’t—but you will not speculate further. Is that clear?’
‘I suppose, we shall have to follow your lead, Robert.’
Ada Perch left Lillian and Robert a short while later. There had been nothing further to say. Ada had accepted Robert’s assessment of their predicament. However, she wanted it understood that she still saw the whole business as an assault on the Cordingley family. She for one, would be to the fore when the time came to fight back.
Lillian did not like to look forward to that point for Ada unleashed would wreak devastation.
Talk
‘Good afternoon, Mrs. Furnival. As you can see, my sisters and I are just leaving and you’ll not find anyone else at home at Mount Benjamin, neither this afternoon nor for a very long time, I regret to say.’
‘My dear, Mrs. Perch. You seem quite distressed. Would you care to come back with me to my house? It is only a step. Whatever is the matter? Sometimes it is the silliest thing that can be the final straw. I know how desperately difficult the past few months have been for you all. Poor, dear Lady Margery. But, Mrs. Perch, I do not believe I’ve met your friends. Though Mrs. Kingsnorth I know. Good afternoon. I’m Clare Furnival. My husband, you know; Dr. Furnival attended Lady Margery.’
‘My sisters: Vera and Dolly. Mrs. Dainty and Mrs. Frobisher. They no longer live in Canterbury so have not been able to visit Mount Benjamin—the family estate—as often as Lillian and I.’
‘Of course. But please, at least walk a little way even if I cannot press you to a cup of tea.’
‘Splendid notion, Mrs. Furnival. I’m parched. There’s something about dust covers and drawn curtains and gloomy houses. Makes one thirsty. Never mind what Ada says. I’m the one with a motor. They all depend on me and I say, “tea!”’
‘I’m so pleased. Have you come far, Mrs. Frobisher?’
‘Drove up from Lewes. Nice run. Clear roads. Not that I give much quarter, I can tell you! But sometimes one can get stuck on a country road behind some bumpkin on a machine. Staying with Ada just for a night or two. Family pow-wow.’
‘Of course.’
‘I suppose everyone in the village is aware of the peculiar way in which Aunt Margery has disposed of the estate.’
‘Well, inevitably, rumours abound. The staff had to be told something, I suppose, and that something has been repeated. I did see Mrs. Childs, just in passing, the other day and she said that everything had been turned into a Trust but no decisions had been made as to what would happen to the Big House, to Mount Benjamin.’
‘It’s the market, you see, Mrs. Furnival. My husband was explaining to me. There’s no point in selling if there’s no one likely to buy. The country is still in the throes of economic hardship, as we know.’
‘So the house will remain shut up? I thought perhaps Mrs. Cordingley…’
‘Mrs. Cordingley apparently has absolutely no interest—’
‘Now, Vera. We agreed. There is to be no rancour.’
‘I am not rancourous but I do not see why we should suffer in silence.’
‘Oh, dear. I do hope there is not to be more suffering after all that Lady Margery went through.’
‘It’s not so much what she went through as what she’s putting us through.’
‘Oh, please!’
‘You can’t “Oh please” me, Lillian. Mrs. Furnival has as good as said it’s all around the village. Well, everyone needs to know the truth. And the truth of the matter is I never thought to see the day when I was trapesing around Mount Benjamin—the house where my mother grew up, full of all her things—going from room to room with that dreadful man in tow, lifting the dustsheets to see if there is “any minor item” which we might like as a keepsake. The humiliation of it! I still can’t for the life of me understand what possessed us, conniving with his despicable plan.’
‘You didn’t want them, did you? No. Ten matching wineglasses is an improvement on what I’ve got at the moment. If they’re going begging, snap ’em up. That’s my motto. No point in going all high and mighty. You should have taken what you could. What do you say, Mrs. Furnival?’
‘I couldn’t possibly comment … it sounds as though you’ve all had a very trying afternoon … but who was the awful little man?’
‘Solicitor. Name of Tallis. Nasty little moustache.’
‘My aunt has appointed a different firm of solicitors to manage this Trust you see, Mrs. Furnival. The family connection apparently counted for nothing.’
‘Though that’s no reflection on Robert. You need to make that clear, Ada.’
‘We’re not at all sure Aunt Margery was quite compos mentis at the end.’
‘No doubt about it. Barking. No other explanation.’
‘I’m afraid that your friend, Mrs. Jackman, has rather a lot to answer for.’
‘Indeed. Goodness me. I can’t think what…’
‘The boy. The Simmonds boy. All that business.’
‘But that was Mrs. Cordingley.’
‘It wasn’t so much the singing. One can’t really begrudge the boy that. It was what then happened. The notoriety. The papers. Mrs. Jackman was clearly behind all that.’
‘We think it may have upset Aunt Margery. I know that’s what Robert believes. You know how seriously she took her responsibility for the village.’
‘Why, yes. I suppose so.’
‘Humbug, Lillian, if you’ll excuse me saying so. Responsibility is one thing. Putting everything she’d got into a Trust for some pipsqueak, angling for a place in the church choir, is altogether different.’
‘You don’t mean to say…’
‘As you say, Mrs. Furnival, rumours spread. It is probably just as well that you know the truth. Aunt Margery has been very generous to this Simmonds boy. It has to be said: my sisters and I are struggling to take it all in.’
‘You see, Mrs. Furnival, it was such a sudden departure from the arrangements put in place by our late uncle.’
‘Mrs. Jackman’s stories of miracles—’
‘All that excessive spirituality—’
‘When one is a sick old woman, it’s the last thing one ought to be thinking about—’
‘We really do not believe, in all sincerity, that she understood what she was doing.’
‘So Bertie Simmonds’ going away to school, that’s all down to Lady Margery’s munificence.’
‘That’s one word for it!’
&
nbsp; ‘And is it true, that Mrs. Cordingley has charge of the boy? There’s been some speculation but no one has wanted to enquire. Mr. Simmonds and Miss Simmonds, as you will know, have had the most distressing time. The wife, who had been unwell for so many years, died. They are saying “accidentally” to spare the family, no doubt, but really one finds it hard to imagine how.’
‘Not murder!’
‘Goodness, no!’
‘This is Kent, Vera, not Brighton.’
‘But by her own hand—whilst of unsound mind, of course. That really does seem more likely.’
‘Poor woman. Disturbed, one can guess, by Mrs. Jackman’s lurid tales of her simple son’s antics.’
‘It is a tragedy. The more so as we, in the village, were all so glad for the child. Whatever it is … some “arrested development” my husband says. He’s sure there’s a psychological explanation. The Europeans, you know, understand such things much better than we do … but whatever the cause, we were all so pleased he was cured. Though now, with all these consequences, one really can’t be sure it wouldn’t have been better if he’d stayed quietly mute. Of course, now he’s been sent away, perhaps everything will settle down.’
‘It may. But let’s not forget how deep the roots of revolution lie. It’s not just these past ten years and the war years, it’s before that when so much, which had been established for so long, was under threat. I can remember my aunt’s deepening despair when she saw how carelessly her son regarded his inheritance and the responsibilities which fell to him. If you abdicate your duty, who knows what consequences will follow? Who insinuated himself into his mind? We can only guess but we can guess shrewdly now we see how things have come to pass.’
Chapter Five
Thursday, 1 May 1914
Delia, basking in the sun on the long bench outside the schoolhouse, opened her eyes when she heard the carrier’s approach. She snapped her book shut, defying anyone—including her mother—to assert that she had not been reading the while, and stepped out onto the dusty road. The horse snorted as he was reined in, paddling the earth with his great forehoof for all the world, Delia thought, as if he were a knight’s charger imagining a noble battle to be fought, rather than a provincial, plodding nag nearing the end of his working life.
The carrier tugged the peak of his cap as he called out to her.
‘Here’s your visitor, miss. It’s been a warm haul up from Cant’bury this afternoon.’
‘Good afternoon, Mr. Smales. Father says, can you drop these empty beer bottles off at The Red Lion, on your way?’
‘That I can. There’s no one like the schoolmaster for regular habits. I’ll be sworn he’s never drunk no more nor less than his half-crate each month in all the time I’ve been delivering.’
‘You’re quite right, Mr. Smales. It would take something perfectly cataclysmic to nudge Father from a routine, once established.… Hello, Anstace.’
‘“Cataclysmic”,’ mused Smales. ‘I dare say.’
He swung down the steps from the back of the cart and handed out his sole passenger. She was a young woman, not yet eighteen, neatly dressed in a white, cotton blouse, high-collared with a simple, pin brooch at the throat. Her hair was not piled in the highest fashion but braided and pinned at the back of her head, beneath a straw boater. The carrier’s gnarled hand enveloped hers, as he helped her manage the rickety, open steps; in her other hand was a Gladstone bag with a well-thumbed book, upside-down and open to keep the place, tucked between the handles.
‘Have you been reading Measure for Measure too?’ asked Delia.
‘Miss Pumphrey says we shall have an essay on Isabella to write next week.’
‘How desperate. Perhaps mother will be able to give us some ideas. Come and meet her.’
The knapped-flint schoolhouse, adjoining the school proper, was set back a little from the main road, enough to let some russet wallflowers grow untrampled along the verge.
‘Lovely,’ said Anstace as Delia led the way through the front door.
‘Here is Anstace,’ she cried, showing her into the little drawing room where her mother was sitting.
‘You have a most unusual name, my dear.’ Mrs. Simmonds held out her hand in greeting, the index and middle fingers were stained with ink in a way that the mistresses at the girls’ school would never have tolerated.
‘And a pretty one,’ said a young man, sprawled along the windowseat.
‘Ignore him. This oaf, Anstace, is my brother Hubert. He’s picked up some nasty, flirtatious habits from Cambridge.’
Anstace smiled. An easy lack of ceremony, familiarity even, was clearly the Simmonds’ mode. She was comfortable with that; it made a welcome change from her maiden aunts’ ordered living. Delia too seemed freer away from the discipline of school. Or perhaps teasing banter was what one naturally fell into when thrown into the company of an older brother.
‘Thank you for inviting me, Mrs. Simmonds. Good afternoon, Mr. Simmonds.’
‘Anstace has been swotting up Measure for Measure. All the way from Canterbury.’
‘Good for her,’ replied Hubert warmly. ‘You have more application than Delia in that case.’
‘Tosh!’
‘You’re not at the university currently then, Mr. Simmonds. Surely term has started.’
‘I’m just down for a day or two, actually…’
‘He’s always going up, down or sideways; it’s what one does, apparently,’ threw in Delia.
‘Nothing much of the studying kind happens in the first few days of May. It’s all rollicking, pagan fecundity.’
‘Hubert!’ His mother was only mildly reproving. ‘We can be spared vulgarity.’
The young man grinned.
‘Don’t worry, mother, fecundity’s not my thing.’ He paused then leapt to his feet. ‘Come for a walk. Come on, Delia, let’s show Miss Catchpool the village.’
‘We’ve barely stepped inside the door. She hasn’t even put her bag down.’
‘I’d love to go for a walk, Delia. I’m not a bit tired and it’s such a lovely afternoon. I’m perfectly game.’
‘Excellent!’
‘Tea at five sharp!’ Mrs. Simmonds called after them. ‘Your father will not want to wait.’
Hubert led them to Blean Woods.
‘For the bluebells. Everyone should make an annual pilgrimage to a bluebell wood and do homage to colour.’
As they chatted inconsequentially, he sauntered around them, loose-shouldered: hands in his pockets, one moment, arms waving expressively, the next. Anstace wanted him to keep still so she might get the measure of him. He had an athletic build but she could not decide if he had his sister’s good looks. His face appeared irregular and asymmetrical but it was probably because of the mobility of his features. Easy conversation, as they ambled down the lane, kept his facial muscles exercised. His strong eyebrows in particular, she noted, were never still and he had a ready, lopsided smile.
The lane turned a corner and the woods spread off to the left. It was just a step, pushing through some young nettles growing at the roadside, before they were under the trees. Instinctively, on entering the wood, they separated as one might when visiting a cathedral, the better to appreciate its magnificence in private. The whole space shimmered azure; under the dappled light, stretching out into the distance, the bluebells illuminated even the farthest reaches of the wood. The flowers grew in such number, everywhere swam in a softly fragrant blueness.
Hubert pushed into the wood. He stepped high over the flowers, taking care to crush as few as possible under his boots. He breathed in the perfume of the place. The scent of the wildflowers was as artless as the blackbird’s trilling, coming from the canopy overhead. It was enrapturing. Pausing under a shaft of sunlight, he shut his eyes, lifted his face and let the warmth conjure the vivid blue again for him. Familiarity with the woods did not lessen the intensity of the experience; it was quite the opposite. His sense of awe and privilege was magnified by a vigorous possessivene
ss. At this season in particular, when the croziers of blue covered the woodland-floor, he knew this patch of Kent was his. It held him.
Anstace stood still, on the edge of the trees’ shadow. She was content just to stand and stare into the colour. It was a moment to hold. She could feel the warmth of the sun on her back while the leaves’ susurration and the velvety purring of a wood-pigeon filled her ears. When Delia straightened from picking bluebells and turned back to see where her friend was, it seemed as if Anstace, haloed by the shafts of afternoon sunlight piercing the glade, had been lifted, hovering within the blue.
Anstace waved.
‘It’s heaven,’ she said.
‘It’s England,’ Hubert called from the shade, turning toward the girls.
They found the path, winding through the flowers and followed it through the wood before turning, along the network of lanes and cart tracks that crossed the hill, to return to the schoolhouse in time for tea. On Hubert at least, the bluebells had cast their spell and he seemed disinclined to talk. Anstace had a sense that Delia took her cue from her brother and she too was content to let silence loop between them, just letting the sounds of the evening accompany them. It gave her an opportunity to resume her comparison of brother and sister.
Then Hubert caught her eye while she was studying him and he threw her his brightest smile, widening his eyes under those dancing eyebrows. The incipient deference she had been feeling was banished. She guessed he knew his own charm and had practised such a smile as a deliberately radiant lure. She smiled lightly back at him, now perfectly composed, thinking herself quite equal to such fascination.
She decided, later that afternoon when she met the schoolmaster for the first time, that Hubert and Delia had inherited their strong good looks from their father. She had expected a slightly built man, physically fitted to sedentary work and study. However, Frederick Simmonds was tall and imposing. He had spent the day felling a diseased walnut tree and she discovered that, at odds with his profession, he counted any time not spent outside, engaged in some physical labour, as time wasted. There was a palpable restlessness about him which had been translated, in his son, into that intelligent animation of spirit she had observed. It intrigued her that such a man should not have turned his hand to farming but he clearly he saw the position of village schoolmaster (he had responsibility for the education of the older children while his wife taught the infants) as being as much about building character, resilience and capability as equipping his charges with copious learning. This could be done just as well through practical activity as from behind a desk, with dipping-pen in hand. The village children did a great deal of their learning outside.
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