“I’m terribly sorry you went through this ordeal, Mrs Sprogett. It was very wrong of Mr Harris.”
“He took advantage of me, he misjudged me because I am poor and the ring is so lovely.” Elizabeth gave a pathetic sniff and her eyes filled with tears. Her defences were very very low, her self-esteem almost nil. “Things haven’t been easy, Mr Temple. My husband has not had work since the war. He gets a very small pension and we are hard pressed for money. We are about to be evicted from our house and have nowhere to go. I ...” Elizabeth looked at the kind expression on the face of the solicitor and her defences suddenly crumbled. She burst into tears and, rushing over to him, leaned her head on his chest, clinging to him.
To his credit Mr Temple rallied to the occasion. He put his arm round her waist, led her back to her chair, and sat next to her trying to comfort her.
“Mrs Sprogett, Mrs Sprogett. There is no need for tears. My dear lady I am so sorry to hear of your predicament.”
He stopped, knowing it was useless to go on while she was in such a state. He proffered her a clean white handkerchief and looked on sympathetically while she wiped her eyes, gave her nose a good blow and then sat very still, the handkerchief clutched in her hand.
“I’m ever so sorry,” she said at last. “I don’t know what’s happening to me, really I don’t.” She sniffed again and struggled to brush her straggly hair out of her eyes. “I’ve had ever such a hard time. My husband is no good at all, good for nothing.
We have no money, little food and nowhere to go, three small children who get on my nerves. To tell you the truth I was thinking of running away; selling the ring, taking the money and running.”
“There now.” She looked up at him, eyes wet, nose shining, mouth turned down. He thought that, even in this state, she was a very attractive, even noble woman, and his heart went out to her. He was a bachelor who lived with his parents and it occurred to him that he was very fortunate. Compared to the plight of this poor woman very fortunate indeed.
“Have you no one you can turn to, Mrs Sprogett? No family? I can’t imagine a woman as young and as attractive as you without friends.”
“Yes, I have a mother and father, a sister and brother. Or at least, they’re not my real parents. They adopted me after my mother died giving birth to me. She was the sister off my adoptive mother, Beth; but I always think of them as my real family, never having known another.”
“You knew nothing of your real mother’s family?” Mr Temple put his head on one side as he continued to look at her. Elizabeth shook her head.
“They came from the north of England, the Lake District. They were very poor. I don’t think my mother was married but my adoptive mother never talks about it. She was brought south by the Woodville family. The wealthy Mrs Heering, Sir Guy Woodville’s sister, was my mother’s employee and friend for many years.” She raised her head, her chin trembling. “I am proud Mr Temple. It may seem a weakness, but I don’t like to beg, to admit defeat ...”
“My dear woman,” Mr Temple resisted an impulse to put his arm around her again, “I assure you there would be no shame, none at all, in going to your family for help. By all means sell the ring – and I will make certain you get a fair price if it is what you wish – but I am not sure that even that would be enough to keep you in comfortable circumstances for very long. Now, why don’t you do the sensible thing?
Go and see your mother? Does she know about the bequest, incidentally?”
“Oh, she knows.”
“And did she say anything?”
“No, not at the time. Just that I was lucky.”
“And she didn’t say, or know, why Sir Guy had left you this bequest?”
“No. She was very thoughtful though.”
“Did he leave her anything?”
“No.”
“Well if I were you I’d go and see your mother and seek a solution to this mystery.”
“But why should I?” She looked at him curiously.
Mr Temple shook his head as if pondering something. “Well, that there is a mystery there seems certain to me. By further enquiry you may find out something to your advantage, Mrs Sprogett. Something of which you were unaware. Perhaps someone has been hiding something. That’s what it looks like to me. Maybe some help is at hand. I do urge you to consult your parents. That’s all that I can say.” He looked at her and gently pressed her hand. “But do please regard me as your very good friend, ready with help, whenever you need it. Now may I escort you home, Mrs Sprogett?”
Elizabeth thrust the box containing the ring towards him. “Keep it,” she said. “Look after it for me. I don’t want my husband to find out about this. He’ll force me to sell it and spend the money on him and the kids. It’s my little nest egg. I want it for myself. Do you understand?”
“I understand.” Mr Temple took the box and smiled down at her. “I will keep it very safe and when you want it I’ll deliver it to you, and not a word shall be said about it until then.”
Eliza sat on the bench in the garden at Riversmead looking at the photographs Dora had taken in the Lake District. Next to her was Beth, and both women had tears in their eyes, handkerchiefs clasped tightly in their hands.
“I can’t get over the way it looks just the same!” Eliza exclaimed. “It was exactly like that forty years ago. Even the snow.”
“Yes’m,” Beth snivelled into her hanky. Of the two she had cried the longest, perhaps because she had gained most from the move south. It had changed her life. “It’s like time stopped still.”
Eliza put an arm round Beth. Forty years before Beth had been a servant girl at Farmer Frith’s farm, an orphan whom he treated as badly as he treated everyone else. When Eliza and Ryder left to go home Beth had begged to be taken too; but then they were not able to. When Ryder later returned for Eliza’s horse he took Beth with him too and there began a new life for her as a friend and servant, first of Ryder and Eliza and then of their son Laurence and his wife Sarah Jane. After Laurence’s death it was Beth and her husband Ted who became the mainstay of the bereaved family, and they all loved them as though they were part of the family which, by this time, they were.
Sarah Jane was a robust Dorset woman, a farmer’s daughter, but she had been terribly affected by the death of her husband and the circumstances surrounding it: his bankruptcy, the threatened seizure of the house by the bank which precipitated his suicide.
However, she put her woes behind her and continued to bring up her three children in an exemplary manner: Abel, now seventeen, Martha fifteen and Felicity, twelve. All went to local schools and were a credit to their mother who had sacrificed much of her own personal happiness for them. She had rejected the advances of a prosperous farmer who wished to marry her because the children did not like him.
Eliza had bought Riversmead from the trustees in bankruptcy of Laurence’s estate, and had settled a small sum of money on her daughter-in-law which enabled her to take care of the house and the children without having to work.
Sarah Jane stayed tactfully out of the way while Eliza and Beth examined the photos and shed tears over them, recalling the hardships of long ago.
Now, thinking that they had had enough time for a good chat and a good weep, she came over to them, a tea tray in her hands, which she put down on the table to exclamations of pleasure and surprise.
“And I have another surprise for you,” she said looking towards the house. “We have a visitor.”
“Elizabeth!” Eliza gasped rising to her feet as Elizabeth emerged from the house and stood looking at the pair on the lawn. “Why, Elizabeth!” Eliza kissed her on the cheek and then gazed at her with concern. “You don’t look very well. Is anything the matter?”
“Here, have some tea, dear.” Beth got up to make room for her daughter and sat her down next to Eliza. “A cup of tea will do you good.”
Elizabeth sat down, still suspiciously quiet. Her face was indeed very pale and her fair hair scraped back into a rather unattract
ive bun at the nape of her neck. She wore a cotton dress, no stockings and a pair of off-white shoes which had seen better days. Eliza also thought she had lost weight.
“You’re not pregnant again are you?” she asked anxiously, leaning forward, but Elizabeth shook her head vigorously.
“I nearly went to gaol!” she burst out and it was obvious that she was in an overwrought state, close to tears.
“Gaol!” Beth looked appalled and her hands flew to her face. “Whatever for?”
“I’ve got things to do in the house,” Sarah Jane said hurriedly.
“No, do stay,” Eliza pleaded.
“Seriously. I’ve got the children’s tea to get.”
“I’ll come.” Beth rose to go too, but Elizabeth put out a hand.
“I want you to stay, Mother. There are things I want to know, about my past. About who my mother and father were.”
A shadow flitted across Eliza’s face and, involuntarily, she shuddered. She had a feeling that fate was now going to catch up with them.
“I also want to know, though it may have nothing to do with this other question, why Sir Guy left me money and a ring.” Elizabeth swallowed. “The solicitor said I should ask. In his opinion someone is hiding something.”
Elizabeth, hands resting on her lap, looked calmly, first at Beth and then at Eliza. Her gaze was now level and controlled. “Sir Guy left me a hundred pounds and a ring which is very valuable. I went to have it valued because I needed the money and wanted to sell it. The jeweller thought that, as I looked so poor, I must have stolen it and told the police. I was,” she choked, “taken to the police station and put in a cell.”
“Oh my dear!” Eliza clasped her arm. “Oh Elizabeth, you should have come to me ...”
“But I didn’t want to come to you, Mrs Heering, don’t you see? You have been very good to me and my family. I chose to marry Frank Sprogett, and the fact that the war came and things didn’t turn out as we hoped, well ...” She fumbled with her skirt, her long thin fingers notable for their delicacy, even though the palms of her hands were calloused with work. “Anyway the solicitor, who was very nice, rescued me from the police station, restored the ring to me and said he would do all he could to help me. He was a real gentleman.”
“He sounds very nice,” Eliza said approvingly.
“He said it was a very strange bequest, made to no other member of my family, and he implied there were things I should know.” Elizabeth looked straight at Beth. “Is there anything I should know, Mother?”
“Well...” Beth’s own fingers, not nearly as fine as Elizabeth’s, plucked anxiously at her skirt and she looked across at Eliza, who straightened her back and clasped her hands in her lap, resigned, now, to the inevitable.
“Yes, Elizabeth, there is something you should know, and now that it has come out like this, and you have endured such humiliation, I feel guilty that you were not told before. It is only ...”
Suddenly overcome by a feeling of inadequacy, she looked over to Beth for help, but Beth shook her head, her face flushed, and she avoided looking either at Elizabeth or Eliza.
Eliza appeared to make an effort to compose herself and put an arm lightly around Elizabeth’s waist.
“It is time you knew the truth, but, well, it was very difficult. Extraordinarily difficult. Perhaps, when you hear the circumstances, you will realise why.”
And there and then, keeping her voice as unemotional and as steady as she could, she told Elizabeth how Guy Woodville had had an affair with Agnes Yetman thirty years before. Guy was married and Agnes an unmarried woman working as a governess for Lady Mount who, when she discovered her pregnancy, dismissed her.
She, Eliza, arranged for Agnes to go to Weymouth in the care of Beth; but soon after the baby was born Agnes disappeared and was not seen or heard of for another twenty years. Those were the days, Eliza said, when illegitimacy was such a stigma, indeed in many ways it still was, but then it was considered a disgrace. Beth agreed to pass the child off as her sister’s and brought her home and, under Eliza’s supervision, was willing to bring her up.
Once Guy found out she was his daughter he wanted to recognise her but, of course, his wife Margaret was still alive and, well, being a man, he lacked the courage.
When, however, Margaret died and Agnes returned and subsequently became his wife he wished to acknowledge their child openly, but Agnes would not hear of it.
All in all it was a very difficult situation, was it not, and one that poor Guy tried to redress by leaving her a small sum of money – he was not a wealthy man – and a ring that had belonged to his mother.
In a way, Eliza concluded, it was a shameful tale and one that was bound to cause Elizabeth much anguish. No one, other than Beth and Elizabeth herself, came out of it very well, even she, but also in many ways it was understandable, and at the time everyone had acted in the way they thought best. It was so easy to be wise after the event.
When she stopped no one spoke for some moments. Beth realised that none of them had touched their tea which was stone cold. The singing of the birds in the garden seemed particularly loud, not sweet but strident and accusatory.
Looking at Elizabeth it was not difficult to believe that this was one of the most momentous, if not the most momentous, day in her life. Momentous, and shocking too.
Eliza put out a hand and clasped Elizabeth’s, which seemed to lie lifelessly in her lap, and did not respond to the woman she now knew was her aunt.
“I understand how difficult it is for you to take all this in. In telling it I can hardly believe it myself, or that we were so foolish as to keep it from you all these years; but you must believe how strong and determined Agnes was.”
“She was ashamed of me.” Elizabeth’s tone, when she spoke for the first time, was hard and bitter.
“I think she was ashamed of herself.”
“I worked as her maid at the Crown Hotel. My own mother! I was not married then. She could have spared me Frank and all the misery that I’ve had since.”
“Well ...” Eliza gesticulated hopelessly, “she didn’t.”
“It’s because I was a servant, a maid.”
“My dear, do not torment yourself as to the reason. Now you know and now we must try and make up to you for the mistakes of the past, which we as a family truly regret.”
“And what does my ‘mother’ think now?” Elizabeth demanded, in the kind of haughty tone Agnes might have used. Eliza realised, not for the first time, how like her mother Elizabeth was, in looks as well as temperament.
“I think Agnes might not be averse to seeing you. We will have to break it to her gently, that you know. She has been very damaged emotionally recently and is not in the best of health. However she is a lonely woman; you are her flesh and blood and, who knows?”
Eliza tentatively reached out to stroke her hair. “My darling Elizabeth, in order to find happiness, which you both desire, you must try and be generous with each other. You need each other, and must help each other and, in the process, which might be painful, you might at the end form a bond of deep affection.”
Chapter Fourteen
She had not seen her since 1912 when she had returned to Blandford after years in exile with the purpose of claiming her inheritance, that which she believed to be rightfully hers: Pelham’s Oak and the title of Lady Woodville. Then it was as a serving maid, waiting on her in a hotel, neither realising that they were mother and daughter, though Agnes, deducing it after a matter of time, kept the knowledge to herself. After she became Lady Woodville she never saw her daughter Elizabeth again and resisted all Guy’s attempts to claim her openly.
But here she was: her closest living relative, flesh of her flesh. Yet a stranger who now had a look of such uncompromising hostility on her proud face that it reminded Agnes even more vividly, if that were possible, of her own rebellious youth and young womanhood.
At first Elizabeth had not wanted to meet her real mother. The shock of discovering that she was a
Woodville, that Sir Guy had been her father, Carson was her half-brother and that she had been left to survive in near poverty since her marriage, at first made her very angry and resentful. She determined to sell her ring and continue with her plan to disappear; but then reality set in and with it came a sense of proportion, an idea for taking advantage of missed opportunities as she took stock of the situation.
Well she was a Woodville; there was no question of it. It was no dream. Everyone admitted it. She had a baronet for a father and a ‘lady’ for a mother. However disreputable their behaviour, so much was fact. She had blue blood in her veins.
Instinctively she’d known all along that she was different. But people – the children at school, her adoptive brother and sister, Jo and Jenny – had all laughed at her for giving herself airs and graces.
But she was right. She had a stack of posh titled relations with money. The lawyer had said the money from the ring wouldn’t last long, even if she kept it all for herself. She felt now that it was time to cash in on her new-found fortune, however bitter she was about the past. Let them pay.
It had been decided that mother and daughter should meet alone, at Agnes’s house. Eliza took her there, left her at the door and said she would be close by with Sophie at the Rectory if needed. She would then drive Elizabeth home again.
Grace, the maid, admitted Elizabeth and led her to the drawing room where Agnes, feeling far from comfortable herself, awaited her.
Elizabeth wore a new dress, printed cotton, simple but charming. She had on silk stockings and white calf shoes with a high heel. Her pretty hair had been set professionally and was coiled about her head, giving her a rather old-fashioned appearance. Dressed like this she looked more like her mother in her youth than ever. It almost took Agnes’s breath away.
For a long time Elizabeth stood by the door and looked at her. Agnes had changed in the nine years since she’d seen her. Her beauty had faded and so, seemingly, had her arrogance. She realised it was almost impossible to think of her as her mother.
In This Quiet Earth (Part Three of The People of this Parish Saga) Page 22