The Twisted Way

by Jean Hill

  Felicity leaned close to Robbie in their pew near the front. He felt the unwelcome warmth of her plump thighs against his. He edged away but she placed her hand on his arm with an almost possessive and restraining gesture.

  ‘This is a happy day Robbie,’ she whispered, shifting herself so that she almost touched his body with her right hip. ‘It is lovely to have such good friends. We are lucky.’

  Robbie was not too sure he liked the word ‘we’ and an icy feeling claimed him like a clamp. He smelt her latest expensive floral perfume and shuddered. It crept into his nostrils and he blew his nose fiercely in an attempt to get rid of it.

  Felicity held his arm for support as they left the church and made their way to the Red Rooster for a meal. Robbie, like a pitiful canary trapped in a small cage who could not stretch its wings and fly away, submitted to her attentions. She made sure that they sat next to each other at the wedding feast. When they toasted the bride and groom with champagne she turned her face to him and whispered, ‘I wonder who will be next?’ Robbie vowed vehemently that it would not be him. He had no doubt now that she fancied him. He was old and ill and she was the last woman in the world he wanted around him. He had felt happier when he thought she wanted to get rid of him. If Janet died, well, Felicity may be mistress of Primrose House. His job would be done, the wretched woman would have what she wanted, she would lose interest in him and his first priority in any case would be to escape from her clutches. He relaxed. If necessary he would move from Enderly, though he did not want to. He only had a few more years to live which he wanted to share with Janet.

  Chapter 23

  Rosalie

  The small child scurried down the lane to the pale grey stone cottage. She was looking forward with eager anticipation to seeing her mother. She liked the village school and had made a lot of friends but her mother was the most important figure in her young life. It was 1943 and her father had been drafted into the navy. He was serving as an officer somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean, they did not know exactly where, and his visits home were few and far between. They were proud of him. He was engaged in protecting food convoys, food essential for the country to survive. Her mother had told her many times that her daddy was doing a wonderful job for them all.

  The Yorkshire hills rolled green and brown behind her home and the large uneven field at the back of the cottage, which was separated from their small garden by a wire fence and a thick hawthorn hedge, contained sheep whose frolicking lambs in the spring never ceased to amuse her with their antics. She was a clever child, happy, vivacious and full of energy, who showed academic promise.

  She threw open the small garden gate and skipped like a small elf along the gravel path to the old wooden front door that was framed with bright red roses. As she approached, her mother threw open the door and lifted her into her arms.

  ‘I thought I heard you coming, darling.’ There were tears on her cheeks, her eyes edged with what appeared to the child to be a strange red tinge from crying.

  ‘Mummy, what is it?’ Rosalie whispered, as her small frame tensed.

  ‘It is Daddy, dearest, he is ...’ She did not know how to continue.

  A voice from behind her she recognised as Granny Barbara’s called out, ‘Now Mary, the child will not find it easy to understand, come here dear, let me explain.’

  ‘No, Mother, that is up to me.’

  Her mother lifted her up and sat on a kitchen chair, balancing her on her knees.

  ‘We, I ... have a telegram ... Daddy will not be coming home. He was brave and has given his life for his country. We too must be brave and carry on as he would want us to.’

  ‘The child cannot understand,’ Granny Barbara interrupted. ‘I do,’ Rosalie said, her face pale and strained. The vision of her beloved father sinking below cold turbulent water drifted in front of her eyes and would stay with her to haunt her dreams for a long time.

  ‘What? Why Mummy?’ she stuttered. Mary tried to explain what had happened. ‘Daddy’s ship was hit by a torpedo.’

  Rosalie tried to make sense of her explanation. Life changed for Rosalie and Mary. They continued to live in the cottage but Mary who had been working part-time in a library in a nearby town had to find a full-time job to earn enough money to keep them in reasonable comfort. Granny Barbara, a widow, rather elderly and crotchety at times, or so it seemed to the young child, moved into the cottage to help look after Rosalie.

  Rosalie resented Barbara’s old-fashioned rules. She was a large woman who exuded Victorian values, strict and forceful. She was kind but nagged incessantly. ‘Eat up those greens,’ Don’t lean on the table,’ Hurry up or you will be late for school,’ and so on. Rosalie loved her mother but was determined to leave home as soon as she could. She wanted to be a teacher and worked hard to get good grades at school.

  Rosalie grew into a slim and energetic young woman. She would brush her fine brown hair to make it shine. ‘At least one hundred strokes each time,’ Granny Barbara told her, and it repaid her by exuding glints of red that lit up the brown. She often looked at her hair in her old bedroom mirror and wondered about her colouring. Her eyes were grey-blue flecked with brown, more flecks in the left eye than the right and emphasized by fine arched eyebrows. She did not look like anyone else in her immediate family. Perhaps some ancient ancestors had passed their genes to her. Her skin was fair and clear and she had an intriguing dimple in her left cheek. She was pretty but her mouth was slightly big for her face which her small straight nose tended to emphasise.

  When she was eighteen her mother told her she was adopted. ‘We wanted you, always, darling and I will love you until the day I die. We could not have children of our own and a friend told us about you and how you needed a mother and father .’

  Rosalie was stunned but knew what her mother had told her was true. Her mother was short and stocky with fine fair hair and green eyes. Motherly and lovely in Rosalie’s eyes but not very academic. Her father she remembered as tall and slim with red hair and a freckled skin and during the short time he had remained in her life he had seemed dependable, kind and reliable. She had loved him. He played with her and took her for walks, read to her and encouraged her when she had tried to read at an early age. She missed him a great deal when he went to sea. She had always felt wanted and loved, what was adoption anyway? She had been fortunate but sometimes wondered about her biological mother. Did she resemble her? Why had she given her up for adoption? She would, she vowed, look for her in the future, and maybe her father, but first of all she had to consider her career.

  After attending a teacher training college she worked in a primary school only three miles from her home, and was content. When she was twenty she married a colleague in the school and worked for a few years before the birth of her own daughter, when she became a housewife, happy to look after Liz, her only child, before returning to her teaching career when Liz was ten years old. Liz, like her mother, had brown hair with red glints, blue flecked eyes and high aristocratic eyebrows. She too became a teacher, got married and had one daughter named Ellie. Ellie, in a quite uncanny way, resembled her mother and grandmother. It was as though the fathers did not enter into the equation. As she watched Ellie growing up, Rosalie wondered again about her own real mother and father. Perhaps they all looked alike! Peas in a pod! She would like to know before she was too old but she had never felt a great urgency to search for the parents who had abandoned her. It was probably only curiosity now and she had been reluctant to start searching while her adoptive mother was still alive. She did not wish to hurt her by looking for her biological parents, who probably didn’t care about her fate anyway and who were most likely dead. It was better to let sleeping dogs lie, she concluded and her earlier vow to find out about her roots became irrelevant.

  Liz had been curious at times. ‘Wouldn’t you like to know where we get our odd eyes and other features from?’ she asked her mother. ‘Ellie looks just like us.’

  Rosalie sm
iled wisely. ‘It doesn’t really matter, we are happy. If my parents gave me up for adoption there must have been a good reason.’

  Liz shrugged. Perhaps her mother was right. She should leave well alone. She too was happy with her life, what did it matter?

  ‘We’ll try and trace them one day if it is really important to you,’ Rosalie said but that day was postponed and tucked away in the back of her daughter’s mind as it was in hers. She feared that she may not like what she would find.

  However, tracing one’s ancestors became fashionable, many of her friends had done just that, and Ellie began asking questions about her to which she could not provide answers. Rosalie thought that she could be opening a can of worms by searching for her absent blood relations after so long but she would do it for Ellie’s sake. But before she could start her search she received a letter from a solicitor in Russetshire, a letter that would answer her questions about her biological mother and change her circumstances in a completely unexpected way.

  Chapter 24

  Two Funerals

  Joyce became more concerned about Janet’s health as the days passed. Her memory was getting worse and she was often short of breath.

  ‘Who are you?’ she had said to Joyce several times over the past few weeks, then after a few moments she recognized her housekeeper. Once she asked Joyce if she was her daughter.

  ‘You have not got a daughter,’ Joyce answered. Oh dear, the poor woman would soon have to go into a nursing home. She was imagining things; she no longer knew what was real.

  ‘I have a daughter,’ Janet insisted. ‘She will come and see me soon, I know she will.’

  Joyce discussed the situation with Robbie. She preferred to ignore Felicity. She would never feel happy about the woman who she still thought of as a money-grubbing parasite, but she had to admit that the greedy niece had been a useful companion for her aunt during the past few months.

  They decided that her doctor would have to be consulted. ‘I will see to that,’ Felicity made clear to Joyce when the subject was broached. ‘It is my place, I am family after all! I’ll ask Dr Parker to visit her sometime soon. He should be able to make a reasonable assessment.’

  Felicity too did not like the idea of Janet going into a home. She wanted to keep some control over life in Primrose House as long she could. She was comfortable and could manipulate the finances to suit herself. She also enjoyed the Enderly Bridge Club where she had made new friends and in particular Robbie, although he did not reciprocate her attention but she was too thick skinned to notice any reticence on his part.

  Jeremy’s drinking habits took a final toll on his health. He had seemed to recover for a short time from the stroke he had suffered after Matthew’s death but a second and fatal stroke soon followed. Jeremy was cremated, as he had wished, and his ashes were scattered over the graves of his father and son. Janet was unaware that he no longer came to visit her at Primrose House. She did not miss him. Felicity did not consider it worth mentioning his death to Janet. ‘There is no point in upsetting Auntie,’ she had remarked solicitously to Joyce and inwardly heaved a sigh of relief.

  Jeremy’s funeral was sparsely attended. There were a few people he once knew, consisting of a couple of old clients and four friends, who mourned his passing. The wake had been arranged in haste by a second cousin named as a beneficiary in his will who hoped for a generous handout, but Jeremy had been an embarrassment to the business before it was sold and Matthew had kept the creditors at bay with promises of repayment in the near future. They now closed in like eager vultures and the Mace home and contents were quickly disposed of to pay the numerous outstanding debts. Felicity thought, with a smug smile, that the avaricious cousin would have little with which to line his pockets.

  Jack was becoming difficult. He was often incontinent and Felicity considered giving him a dose of poison to solve the problem to her satisfaction but she did not want to upset Janet. What a ghastly animal he is, she thought and looked forward to burying him in the garden before he wrecked all the carpets, and that idea gained momentum as the days passed.

  In early July the garden surrounding Primrose House was looking particularly attractive. Robbie’s bedding plants promised to fill the area with vibrant colour and Janet had watched him work with a burst of interest from her comfortable chair in the lounge. The way he stood was so familiar.

  ‘Joyce,’ she said, with a rare flash of comprehension, ‘I think my evacuee has come back to me. It is Tom in the garden and now I can rest in peace.’

  Joyce was startled. ‘I think she is rambling,’ she muttered to herself. Things were getting serious. She must prompt Felicity to get the doctor for an assessment but doubtless that witch would postpone the visit as long as possible.

  ‘What are we going to do, Robbie?’ Joyce said to Robbie over a cup of coffee in the kitchen that morning. She told him what Janet had said and was surprised that he was so quiet.

  ‘I am not sure,’ he answered after a few moments during which he appeared deep in thought. ‘We will have to ask Felicity.’

  Janet knows, he thought, after all this time, but she will not remember for more than a few minutes. A deep feeling of sadness came over him. Perhaps he should have told her who he was long ago but he could not bring himself to stir up the past. He had kept an eye on her for a long time and he had, in his way, repaid her and her family for past kindnesses. He walked sadly down the road to his cottage contemplating the unwelcome and difficult situation. At least he had a cheese and onion sandwich, downed with a pint of cider, in the Green Man and a chat with old Pat to look forward to.

  Felicity walked back from the village after visiting Marianne. They met at least once a week to discuss bridge, local gossip and anything else that took their fancy. She was looking forward to the lunch that she knew Joyce would have prepared and afterwards a nice nap on her bed. Janet seemed to sleep most of the day now and would not notice if she was missing for a while. In some strange way she thought she had become quite fond of the old bird and that realization surprised her. She must be getting soft. She would miss her comfortable life at Primrose House if Janet’s will was not favourable. That was something of which she was sure.

  Joyce prepared the lunch of a light salad and salmon flakes with fruit compote to follow which she anticipated Janet would enjoy. As she turned the handle of the dining room door she heard Jack whine; a pitiful sound emerged from his throat. He was sitting at Janet’s feet and as Joyce approached he gave a warning growl as if protecting a precious bone. Joyce felt puzzled and placed the lunch tray down on the dining-room table with a thump.

  Janet seemed to be asleep. A slight smile lingered around her generous mouth, her head rested on the soft pillow that she placed under her neck to support her worn bones. She looked peaceful. Joyce approached with caution whilst an increasing tightness in her chest threatened to restrict her breathing. Was she ... dead? Jack growled low and deep then whimpered.

  At that moment Felicity returned and opened the front door. ‘Hullo,’ she called out. She wondered if Joyce had served up lunch yet, her mouth filling as usual with saliva.

  ‘I’m back. I’m late so I’ll have my lunch in the kitchen if that’s all right Joyce? How is Auntie?’

  Silence greeted her. She walked down the hall and noticed the dining-room door was open. Joyce was staring at Janet, ashen and shaken.

  ‘She’s dead,’ she sobbed. ‘Poor dear woman, the best employer I ever had.’

  ‘I’ll call the doctor,’ Felicity said in a businesslike tone. She too had paled. She had not expected to feel such regret when Janet died, it was on the cards anyway, but she did. Whether it was for the possible loss of her comfortable existence in Primrose House or some genuine feeling for the old girl she was not sure. The thought that Janet’s will would clarify her financial status gave her some comfort but meanwhile there was a lot to be done, including arranging a funeral. Adrenalin started to pump through her veins and she to
ok charge; after all she told herself, she was the next of kin.

  She consulted Robbie, something she would not have done a few months ago. He told her that he was willing to help in any way he could. Janet’s doctor signed the death certificate which gave the cause of death as heart failure. He said that it was just old age and probably a blessing when one considered her deteriorating mental and physical health.

  The local firm of solicitors who now held Janet’s will were approached and they arranged to read it to the beneficiaries after the funeral. ‘We have contacted all interested parties,’ they told Felicity, ‘and four o’clock that day will be all right for the reading.’

  Felicity wondered why they made such a fuss about contacting the interested parties; they all lived locally now and there were no wretched Maces or Ronald Brown to consider. ‘We must prepare the lounge for the reading,’ she said to Joyce but thought she would leave the hard work to Joyce. Joyce arranged to have, with Felicity’s approval, cold meats, salmon, salads and wine for the lunch after the funeral, to be consumed in the back room of the Green Man. All Janet’s friends and acquaintances they knew of were invited. Felicity comforted herself with the knowledge that Auntie’s estate would be paying the bills and hoped the solicitors would sort things out quickly. She was getting short of ready cash now, and looked forward to her inheritance though she realised that probate would take some time. She had placed some money into a local building society, a few pounds each week secreted from Auntie’s account, thinking it would be a handy nest egg for this kind of situation, and hoped there would be enough to last until Auntie’s financial affairs had been resolved.

  The coffin she had chosen for her aunt and considered to be suitable for a wealthy widow was made of fine oak with gleaming brass adornments. It was draped lavishly with colourful flowers from well-wishers in the village together with individual wreaths from Felicity, Robbie and the Skillet family. Many of Janet’s past pupils, now quite old themselves and some of whom were grandparents, attended the service. The church, to Felicity’s surprise, overflowed with people who wished to pay their last respects. Felicity wondered wryly from where they had all crawled. What a pity they did not visit the lonely old woman when she needed company, she thought, and almost spat with genuine derision.