‘Indeed no, very regrettable.’ Mr Rufforth waited for Dusty to sit down, then did likewise. ‘And the weather isn’t too conducive to enjoyment, is it?’
‘Oh, we’ve managed to get about,’ said Dickie, trying to decode the waves that were coming from his mother. The look in her eyes did not require interpretation: she was scared stiff. He decided it was better to keep his words to a minimum so as not to drop any bricks.
Rufforth was trying to make out the strange accent. ‘Were you bom in America, Mr Feeney?’
‘No, me an’ the wife emigrated some years ago,’ explained Dickie. When Rufforth asked in what part of America he lived, he answered, ‘New York.’ Rufforth smiled and said he imagined that it was very different from the Old York. Dickie said that it was indeed, and was temporarily rescued from further grilling as Vinnie entered with the tea.
Rufforth felt that there was something amiss here, but attributed it to the recent bereavement. After taking a sip of tea he continued the polite chat. ‘And will you be spending all your holiday in York?’
‘No, we’ve just been at Leeds staying with my … with relatives.’ Dickie supped deeply, scalding his throat.
‘That would be your son, Mrs Feeney,’ guessed Rufforth.
Thomasin froze and stared at him.
‘The relatives at Leeds.’ He took her expression to mean confusion. ‘Your son resides at Leeds, doesn’t he?’ They had often enjoyed discussions about their respective families.
‘Oh, I’m sorry! Yes, yes my son is this Mr Feeney’s cousin, of course.’ How long can I keep this up, thought Thomasin. Erin, I wish you’d stop looking at me as if I’m round the bend. ‘I’m glad to see this snow’s not hanging around.’ With the change of subject she glanced out of the window.
Rufforth heartily agreed. ‘It’s taken me much longer to get round my customers – which is why I’ll have to rush my tea, I’m afraid, and be on my way.’ He took a few quick gulps, left the cup still half-full and rose. ‘I’ll ensure the policy is attended to promptly and I’ll call on you again as soon as it is: providing I’m still attached to this district. Goodbye, Mrs Feeney. Again, I’m most sorry about your loss. Mrs Teale, Mr and Mrs Feeney, good day to you all.’
As soon as the door closed, all wheeled on Thomasin, demanding to know what was going on.
‘Shush!’ She held up her hand and listened for the sound of the front door, while everyone else waited impatiently.
In the hall, Rufforth snatched his hat from the stand and put it on as he made for the outer door. Vinnie was coming down the staircase and he smiled up at her. Unfortunately, his raised vision missed Dickie’s carelessly-placed valise. He tripped over it and had to grab at a table to steady himself.
Vinnie rushed to support him, though it was an unnecessary gesture. ‘I’m sorry about that, Mr Rufforth, have you hurt yourself?’ When told that the man was perfectly all right, she grasped the valise and shoved it into a more sensible position. ‘It’s that there Mr Richard’s!’ She hooked an exasperated thumb at the door of the drawing room. ‘I don’t know! He expects everybody to run about after him. I’ll be glad when he’s gone back to America. Are you comin’ down for a natter?’ Usually, the agent would sit in the kitchen for half an hour and chat to Mrs Howgego.
Vinnie wanted to show off her new status, hold court like Mrs H. had done.
Rufforth massaged his ankle. ‘No, I’ll have to fly, Vinnie, else I’ll end up being late for my tea. Anyway, I expect you’ll have your hands full with Cook passing over and Mrs Feeney’s nephew and his wife here to stay. Have they got any family with them?’
‘Neph … ?’ She frowned, then looked amused. ‘Oh, you mean Mr Richard! No, there’s just the two of ’em, thank God. Anyway,’ she took the opportunity to preen, ‘it’s not too bad ’cause I’ve hired a girl to help me. From tomorrow you won’t see much of me upstairs, only to discuss the menus with the mistress.’
‘Oh, Cook is it,’ said Rufforth in grand manner and elbowed her. ‘I’ll have to pay you a visit and sample your dishes, see if you’re as good as Mrs H.’
‘I’ll have you know I knock spots off her.’
He laughed and said his wife would knock spots off him if he stayed here flirting with Vinnie and, repositioning his hat, he left.
Thomasin heard the door go and chanced a peep into the hall. Vinnie turned and smiled courteously. ‘Did Rufforth have anything to say, Vinnie?’
The young woman cocked her head. ‘Nothing important, ma’am, just passing the time o’ day.’
‘He seemed to be talking a long time,’ replied Thomasin dubiously.
‘Ah well, he tripped over Mr Richard’s case,’ Vinnie informed her.
Her mistress sighed. ‘You didn’t mention anything about Mr Richard, did you?’
‘Like what, ma’am?’ Vinnie had become uneasy.
‘Like him being my son?’
Vinnie thought carefully about this. ‘No, ma’am… I don’t think so. In fact, Mr Rufforth, he seemed to think Mr Richard was your nephew.’
‘He is,’ said Thomasin firmly and to Vinnie’s further astonishment drew her in front of an audience – who appeared to be as confounded as she was, judging by their faces. ‘I’m going to ask you to do something for me, Vinnie … I’m afraid it involves lying.’ Erin demanded to know what was going on but Thomasin silenced her. ‘Your turn in a minute, Erin. Vinnie, from now on if any visitor comes to the house – I don’t mean family like Mr Sonny, but people like Mr Rufforth – you are not to tell them that Mr Richard is my son. He is my nephew. Got that?’
After an unsure pause, Vinnie said with a frown, ‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘Thank you,’ said Thomasin. ‘Now, I don’t expect you to lie without giving you good reason …’ She drew a deep breath. ‘I know it happened before your time, but you’ll probably have heard the story of how we thought Mr Richard died in the fire that destroyed our house in Monkgate.’ Gossip was always rife among servants. ‘Well, at that time, I laid claim to an insurance policy.’ She glanced at her children who were now beginning to understand. ‘I was given quite a large amount of money. If the insurance people were to discover that my son is really alive … I’m in very serious trouble.’
‘Oh, I see! Oh, well you can count on me to keep quiet, ma’am,’ vouched the cook.
Thomasin was considering asking Vinnie whether she valued her job, but decided that that would be cheap and distrustful; Vinnie had always been a loyal servant. ‘Thank you, Vinnie. That’s all, then – and send John up, he’ll have to be told as well.’
Erin waited until the cook raced off before spinning on her brother. ‘Not content with killing my father ye want to put my mother in prison!’
‘Erin!’ cried her mother. ‘Nobody killed your father.’
‘Yes they did! Him!’ Erin whisked her finger in the air as if conducting an overture. ‘He ruined your lives and he killed Dad with the worry.’
‘Your father was an old man,’ said Thomasin wearily. ‘Eighty is a damned good innings. If anything ruined him it was Rosie’s death.’
Erin would not be deterred. ‘No! It started well before that, Mam. You know full well that after the fire things started to get bad between you, both of ye blaming yourselves for the way ye’d brought him up – and all the time he’s sitting pretty in America, telling himself how clever he is. Well!’ she yelled into Dickie’s face. ‘Aren’t ye going to say anything? Give us one of your famous excuses?’
Dickie took the abuse in silence. His wife had moved to the window where she stood looking out, her face as bleak as the view.
Erin noticed her. ‘An’ don’t think you can turn your back on all this! You’re as much to blame. Couldn’t you have had the decency to stop him from coming here? Couldn’t you?’
Dusty made no retaliation, just kept looking out of the window. Erin was about to go and snatch her arm, but Dickie snatched hers instead. ‘It’s nothing to do with Dusty! You leave her alone.’
‘I will not leave her alone! The pair of ye’ve got my mother into this an’ I want to know what ye’re going to do about it – in fact I know what you’re going to do – you’re getting on the next boat home!’
‘No!’ said Thomasin hastily. ‘Erin, calm down. I wish I’d never said anything now. We’re all making too much of this.’ She put her palms together as if praying. ‘I hardly think Mr Rufforth’s going to remember something that happened twenty-six years ago. Think of all the claims he’ll have had to deal with every week, hundreds and hundreds of people’s policies, endowments … no, I’m just being daft.’
‘Then why did ye nearly have a seizure a moment ago?’ demanded Erin. ‘I don’t think ye’re being daft, I think ye’re being rightly cautious.’ She thought hard for a while. ‘Couldn’t ye just be honest and offer to pay the money back? Say ye genuinely believed Dickie was dead?’
Thomasin considered this. ‘I could do … but then what reason am I going to give for lying and saying he was my nephew?’
Dickie, sensing more personal danger, persuaded his mother not to change her story now and she sided with his argument that it would make things worse, telling Erin, ‘Besides, I’ve just remembered about the will Dickie made.’ The will that had brought her son’s trickery to light… Some twelve years ago, when Sonny had finally been forced to tell Rosanna and Nick that they were not his natural issue, they were in fact his brother’s children, they had told him something about that day of the fire which had planted the idea in his brain that Dickie might not have died, after all. This had precipitated a visit to his brother’s solicitor where he asked to see Dickie’s will. He had read it several times with increasing despair, until the discrepancy had leapt out at him. Dickie had made a mistake with his address: he had said, To my dearly loved brother I leave my house on The Mount … totally forgetting that according to the date on the will, 20 September 1874, he should not yet have ownership of that property! After learning that Dusty had emigrated to America around the same period it hadn’t taken much guesswork to trace the pair. Fearing that the shock would kill his ageing parents, Sonny had kept the secret until last year when he had received Dickie’s letter out of the blue saying he was on his way home.
Thomasin looked at her elder son. ‘That’s always been a puzzle. I’d like to ask you why you wrote that will when it could have incriminated you. We’d’ve got your money anyway … My, Dickie, I never thought to see you blush!’ Her son looked most uncomfortable. ‘Never mind, your face just told me the answer: you didn’t want your parsimonious old mother to get her hands on your cash.’ The distribution of the Feeney wealth had always been a contentious issue. Dick had been very bitter about his allowance as a young man.
‘It wasn’t so much that, Mam …’ He played with the fringing on an antimacassar. ‘I felt rotten about how I’d treated our Sonny. I wanted him to have the lion’s share, that’s all.’
‘And you knew he wouldn’t get it if you didn’t make a will.’ Thomasin wasn’t angry.
Erin was. ‘Why in heaven didn’t you think when ye wrote the date on it? Why did ye have to put September? Ye could have just dated it a few weeks before the fire.’
‘Oh, that’d look good, wouldn’t it? I make a will then pouff! – two weeks later I snuff it. That wouldn’t’ve looked suspicious, I suppose?’
‘You haven’t the intelligence ye were bom with!’ accused Erin. ‘Wait till I tell Sonny, he’ll flatten ye.’
‘Behave!’ cried Thomasin. ‘You’re not to worry anyone else about this, and I’m sick of hearing ifs and buts. Just because we know Dickie’s not dead doesn’t mean that Mr Rufforth knows. Why should he? I introduced him as my nephew, didn’t I? If he continues to think that then all’s well.’
Erin glared menacingly at her brother. ‘And let’s hope for your sake that he does, because if you bring this family’s name into disrepute just one more time …’ She didn’t finish. There was no point in saying she’d kill him when there was little likelihood of her being able to carry out the threat. But that didn’t remove the urge. She spotted something which her mother had overlooked – a photograph of Dickie as a young man, donated from Erin’s own album when her mother’s had been destroyed by fire. ‘And we’d best shift this for the next time Rufforth calls, don’t ye think?’ Grabbing the silver-framed photograph, she shoved it in a drawer, and wished that she could dispose of her brother so effectively.
* * *
Rufforth didn’t know why the episode should keep pestering him, yet it did – all evening. He sat indulging in his pipe, listening to his wife fingering the piano while his children played cards on the rug. It was Vinnie’s face which was most prominent in his mind. Not simply because it was a very attractive face, but for its expression; she had been confused when he had mentioned Mrs Feeney’s nephew. So had the nephew, come to that. Rufforth tried to imagine what the reason could be and pondered over the American Mr Feeney, or Mr Richard as Vinnie had called him. He remembered then that he still had Patrick’s death certificate in his coat pocket, and went to put it in his case ready to take to the office tomorrow. He stared at it, wearing an ironic smile. What a strange coincidence that the very first time he had called at the Feeney residence as a young agent twenty … what? twenty-six years ago, it had been to handle their claim on the life policy for their son, and here he was winding up his dealings with them by paying out on the old gentleman. Wasn’t life funny?
He had been the one to deal with the fire insurance, too, for their house at Monkgate. He remembered it so well because it had been his first big claim. He had been ambitious in those days, but his hopes of promotion had taken a very long time to achieve. It wasn’t anything to do with his efficiency; he just seemed to be one of those people who spend their lives being overlooked. Well, that had changed now; he was on his way and, who knew, this promotion could lead to much bigger things. What a sad parting with this old customer, though.
He tucked the certificate into his case and went back to his chair and his pipe.
But uncannily, the Feeneys remained in his mind. When the children had gone to bed, he discussed the morbid coincidence with his wife. ‘I can remember accepting their claim for that fire as if it were yesterday. Dreadful it was for a callow chap, as I was then. I didn’t know what to say to them about their son.’ He tried to think of the boy’s name, but couldn’t remember. His wife saw his eyes suddenly narrow, and asked what was wrong. He emerged from his brown study. ‘Oh … nothing really. I just keep getting the feeling …’ His face twisted in concentration. ‘Well, I’ve been in this job a long time and I’ve grown used to people evading me, sending their children to the door to say Father’s not in, when all the time he’s hiding behind the kitchen door ’cause he’s spent the insurance money on booze. Not that I’m accusing Mrs Feeney of that o’ course.’ He laughed, then returned to his thoughtful pose, scratching his brow with his pipe-stem. ‘But I swear there was something worrying her.’
‘D’you mean she’s trying to get some money she’s not entitled to?’ asked his wife, Judy.
‘Ooh no.’ He looked shocked at the suggestion. ‘Mr Feeney’s death is genuine enough, poor old chap. No … everything was fine until that nephew of hers came in. Tut! It’ll keep me awake all night. Come here and sit on me knee an’ take me mind off it.’ He opened his arms and grunted contentedly as she snuggled against him.
He was right about it keeping him awake. It niggled him for a good hour after he’d fallen into bed, his tossing and turning letting the cold air into bed to keep his wife awake too. ‘I’m sorry, Jude.’ He reached out to pat her thigh. ‘I just know there’s something …’
With a heavy sigh she sat up, pushed and thumped at her pillow, then snuggled down again under the warm covers.
‘You say it’s something to do with this American nephew? What’s his name?’
‘The maid called him Mr Richard, so it must be Richard Feeney.’ His half-open eyes turned to look at her. ‘I don’t know why
I’ve got it into my head, I never gave it a thought at the time … I just have this feeling that Mrs Feeney had to think twice before she introduced him as her nephew. I get the idea that she was going to say, “This is my son.”’ His wife said he had lost her, and he explained, ‘I’ve known her for over twenty-five years and talked a lot about families. She only ever had the two sons: one I’ve seen several times called John; the other one died in that fire … or was meant to.’
She tumbled at last. Her mouth fell open. ‘But what evidence have you?’
‘None whatsoever.’ He drummed his fingers at the horsehair mattress. ‘Only they were lying about something, I’m damned sure.’
‘Can you remember what the dead son was called?’
‘No, but I dare say I’d be able to find the claim if I dug far enough back.’ Excitement was beginning to churn; what a propitious beginning to his new office! He cuddled up to his wife, feeling elated. His career had been painfully slow in taking off, but if he could help bring this scandalous fraud to court, his position with the company might go much, much higher.
9
The family waited. Maybe I’ll die before they have a chance to clap me in gaol, thought Thomasin, plagued by the fact that two people close to her had died and there had yet to be a third. So firmly had she convinced herself that this was to be her, that the tears she shed on reading of Queen Victoria’s death on the twenty-second of January were more for herself than for the monarch.
‘What a relief!’ She dabbed behind her spectacles and looked again at the newspaper. ‘Eh, I shouldn’t say that really, poor old lass. I’m just that glad it wasn’t me.’
But was she? Apart from the agony of her rheumatism, her loss had really begun to bite; she was very depressed and often short-tempered with her family. It might be better for everyone if she was dead … the thought was just so frightening.
Still in mourning dress for her husband, she was suitably attired for the demise of the Victorian Era, but the crow-like garb made her more melancholic than ever. Even worse was seeing every other member of the public dressed in black too. Yet it was different for them; underneath the mournful faces lurked a hint of gaiety. For Thomasin there was a sense of glories past, of fear for the future. The Queen’s death seemed to set the seal on the permissive way of life that had grown out of recent years. Everyone around her was young, it made her feel weary just to watch them. It was her grand-daughter Elizabeth’s coming-of-age tomorrow; she would have to shake herself out of the doldrums by then – but how?
Dickie (Feeney Family Sagas Book 4) Page 18