During lunch Abigail was given an opportunity to voice her grievance. Sonny smiled apologetically as the maid reached for his plate on which lay a legion of untouched, rather burnt, peas. ‘The rest was beautiful, Abi. A pity about the accident.’
She blushed. ‘I’m ever so sorry, sir, but I just got ready to pour them into the tureen when Mrs Fenton rang. I thought I’d turned the gas off and put them back on the stove. When I got down they were nearly alight. Cook went wild. She said I’d spoilt the entire meal.’ Might as well rub it in, thought the maid. She’s sure to ask about Mrs F.
Sure enough, ‘I hope my mother isn’t proving too much of a burden, Abi?’
‘Well, ma’am… I wouldn’t want you to think I’m complaining…’
‘I wouldn’t think that of you, Abigail, you’re a very long-suffering soul. Come on, voice your opinion and we’ll see what we can do.’
‘Well… it’s just that Mrs Fenton does tend to be a bit heavy on the bell, ma’am. I wouldn’t mind if her requests were reasonable, but half the time when I get there she asks me something she asked five minutes before. I don’t mind seeing to her, honestly, I’m not moaning, but there is the rest of the family’s needs… then there’s the delicate subject o’ the sheets, ma’am.’
Thomasin gave an understanding nod. ‘Yes, well we won’t prolong that topic at the dinner table, I do know my mother is a full-time job on her own and we can’t expect you to have all that to see to on top of your own work. Don’t worry any more, Abigail, I’m going to hire a nurse. I shall also inform my mother that in future she must only ring when it’s absolutely necessary. If you go up to her after lunch there’s no possible reason why she should disturb you again before afternoon tea. If she does, you have my permission to ignore the bell.’
‘Thank you ever so much, ma’am.’ Abigail began to serve dessert. ‘I shouldn’t want Mrs Fenton to distress herself, though.’
‘I wouldn’t dwell too much on that. My mother has a peculiar capacity for distressing everybody but herself. She’s been provided with every comfort in that room, she must learn that this house does not revolve around her.’
‘This is nice, Abi,’ voiced Rosanna through a mouthful of trifle, and was reprimanded for her action.
The maid smiled and thanked her. ‘I’m sure Cook will be very pleased to hear it – will that be all, ma’am?’ After being told it would she bobbed and went down to tell Cook about her new instructions.
Josie wiped her tiny daughter’s mouth, then settled back with her hands clasped over the dome that bespoke the coming of her second child. ‘That was a lovely welcome, Mother. Our lodgings were comfortable but it’s not like being at home, is it?’
Her husband voiced his accord and with a fond look at his elder children had the sudden urge to indulge them to make up for the enforced parting. He seized a bowl and spoon. ‘Away – who’s for more trifle?’
‘Me,’ replied Belle immediately.
‘You would, young lady,’ answered Erin and stopped her brother from depositing the spoonful of trifle in Belle’s dish. ‘I thought ye told me that Grandma had asked to listen to your reading?’
‘Jazers, can ye not give the poor child a rest from all that work?’ cried Patrick as Sonny transferred the dollop of trifle to another’s dish.
‘I’d hardly call reading a few lines to her great-grandmother work,’ responded Erin tartly.
‘That shows how long it is since you paid her a visit,’ put in Thomasin. ‘I must remember to tell her to keep her hands off that bell this afternoon… though short of tying her arms to the bedposts I’m pressed for a solution.’
‘I suppose I should take my turn at visiting her,’ said Patrick half-heartedly. ‘But sure, all she ever does is to pick holes in my grandchildren, then I get mad an’ we end up fallin’ out as usual. She’s never happy unless she’s got something to moan about, the grumbling old groat.’ Thomasin was forced to side with this. ‘I did look in on her this morning but she was about as pleasant as a cow’s husband – had raging toothache. I don’t know about anyone else but I find myself tiptoeing past her door these days – not that it works. Her hearing’s supposed to be going but by gum, she could hear ant droppings fall onto cottonwool when it suits her.’
‘If Belle and I keep her company for a while that should give everyone else a rest.’ Erin’s words were reproachful.
‘It wouldn’t do if we all forgot about the poor soul.’ She rose and held out her hand to the reluctant child. Josie asked if she would mind putting little Elizabeth down for a nap on her way to see Hannah. ‘Certainly.’ Erin plucked the child from her seat and continued on her way.
‘See she doesn’t keep you all afternoon,’ warned Thomasin as Erin was leaving. ‘It isn’t often this family’s all together. I had hoped we could have a nice chinwag before Sonny and Josie have to go back.’
Erin promised she wouldn’t be more than half an hour. ‘But if a grandchild can’t show some compassion for her old grandmother I don’t know who will.’
Patrick rose too. ‘Don’t tell me you’re deserting us as well?’ exclaimed his wife.
He could have offered sarcasm on her habitual absences but didn’t. ‘I said I’d go see Liam. But I’ll be back well before Sonny leaves – always allowing that Father G. will let me over the threshold in the first place.’ After a consultation of his watch he kissed his two remaining grandchildren, pressed a hand to Josie’s plump shoulder and left.
Hannah was asleep when Erin and her daughter entered, but Belle’s relief didn’t last long. ‘Ah, Erin dear!’ The crackling voice drew the tiptoers back into the room. ‘How nice.’
‘I’m sorry if we woke ye, Grandmother.’ Erin hauled the child up to the old lady’s bedside. ‘Belle was just coming to read to ye.’ She helped Hannah into a sitting position and plumped her pillows.
‘Sit down, dears.’ Hannah indicated a raffia-seated chair with her spindly hand. ‘Who is going to read to me? D’you say it is Rosanna?’
‘No, Grandmother, Belle.’
‘Who? Oh, you mean Isabelle.’ The old lady squinted at the child in the white dress. ‘Come and have a chocolate, dear.’ Hannah’s fingers hovered tremblingly over the box which Belle and the others had laced with silkworms that morning.
The child spoke hurriedly. ‘It’s very kind of you, Grandmama, but I’ve just had lunch. I really couldn’t eat another thing.’ The alarm in her eyes gradually receded as the old woman’s hand moved away from the box to rest on the crimson counterpane. It would be dreadful if Grandma had opened the box in front of Mother.
‘Why are you sitting all hunched up?’ demanded Hannah suddenly. ‘Spine straight, girl, knees together, hands in lap. Erin, your daughter will certainly need to improve her carriage.’
Belle tutted and narrowed her eyes. Erin elbowed her, then exchanged long-suffering glances. Hannah’s mind did tend to wander lately. ‘Grandmother, ye mustn’t chastise Belle for what she can’t help.’
Hannah looked puzzled for a moment, then her face cleared. ‘Ah, yes, I remember now.’ Her expression became one of mourning. ‘Oh dear, such a tragedy that it should happen to this family – and Isabelle such a pretty girl, too. Much prettier than that tinker child. Does she speak?’
‘Grandmother, ye know she does. Ye’ve just heard her! She’s waiting to read ye a story.’
‘Then why does she not get on with it?’ replied Hannah maddeningly.
‘I’m sure if we’re both quiet Belle will begin, won’t ye, dear?’
Hannah addressed Erin as Belle inserted both thumbs in the book and laid it on her knee. ‘I haven’t seen Samuel for some time, dear. Will he be coming today?’
Erin sighed. This was going to be a very long half-hour.
* * *
Abigail sat nibbling her nails as her eyes pored over the open copy of Vengeance of the Vampire. She had just reached a crucial moment in the bloodthirsty tale when Cook’s voice encroached: ‘Hadn’t you better be making that
tea?’
‘Ooh, God, don’t do that to me!’ Abigail flopped back into the chair, then studied the clock on the mantel. ‘By gum, I didn’t realise it was that time.’ She tucked the book behind a cushion and went to arrange the teapot and cream jug on a silver tray, pausing to ask, ‘Is it me who’s gone deaf, Cook, or is it a fact that Mrs Fenton’s bell’s never rung all afternoon?’
Cook tilted herself backwards in the rocking chair and held her stockinged feet to the fire. ‘Aye, your little chat with the mistress seems to have worked. Get us another cup o’ tea before you take that tray up, will you?’
Abigail complied. ‘By, I’m glad they’re eating out this evening. I don’t fancy having to wash up after another big meal. Right, that’s that.’ She finished setting the two trays. ‘I’ll take Mrs Fenton’s up first. We must be due for a tinkle soon.’
‘Aren’t you taking her any of my fruit loaf?’ asked the cook. ‘Poor old bird’ll be feeling peckish I shouldn’t wonder.’
‘I certainly am not after what I got lumbered with the last time she had some. It’s bad enough having wet sheets to contend with, without a pillowslip full o’ tods.’
‘Oh, Abigail!’ Cook made a face, then laughed deep in her chest.
‘’S all very well you shouting “Oh, Abigail”. You saw what state the wash tub was in after I put her sheets an’ pillowcases in to soak. It were like apple-bobbing time. The mucky old bugger, can’t she find nowhere else to hide ’em? It’s bad enough normally but if she gets her hands on your fruit loaf I reckon it’ll be a trowel job.’
The maid departed for Hannah’s room, glad to find when she arrived the old lady sleeping peacefully. ‘Eh, now shall I wake her?’ she asked herself. ‘If I take it back down she’s sure to wake up in ten minutes, then I shall have to make another pot.’ She made her decision and shook Hannah gently. ‘Mrs Fenton, it’s tea-time.’ She rattled the cup in its saucer and clanked the spoon but none of these things succeeded in waking Hannah who lay propped against the lace pillows, jaw slightly agape.
Abigail tutted and shook her more forcefully. ‘Mrs Fenton, time to wake u-up!’
Hannah slid sideways, one of her bony arms crashing onto the tray and knocking the cup askew.
‘Oh, bloody Nora,’ breathed Abigail. ‘’T’owd bugger’s dead.’ She gnawed at the knuckle of her index finger, staring at the bed unable to move, then suddenly took control of herself and sped from the room, hurtling down the staircase.
Thomasin’s expectant smile faded when a flustered maid burst into the room. ‘Oh,’ she said half-disappointedly. ‘I thought it was my husband. I do hope he gets home before it’s time for you to leave, Sonny. He gets talking about old times with Liam and clean forgets about anyone else.’
Abigail hopped from foot to foot. ‘Oh, ma’am!’
The air of disaster brought Thomasin to her feet. ‘What is it? Something’s happened.’
‘It’s Mrs Fenton, ma’am,’ stammered the maid behind her fingers. ‘Oh, ma’am – I’m ever so sorry.’
‘Sonny.’ Thomasin held out her hand to her equally-alarmed son who took it and led her briskly towards the door. The others made to follow. ‘No!’ Thomasin motioned them back to their seats, then, apprehension putting a brake on her swiftness, she followed her son and the maid up to Hannah’s room.
* * *
‘Oh, Cook! Whatever am I going to do?’ wailed Abigail on her return to the kitchen. ‘It’s all my fault. I wished her dead. How am I goin’ to tell the mistress I killed her ma?’
Cook placed a cup of tea in front of the sobbing maid and patted the quaking shoulder. ‘Now, now, Abi, don’t let your imagination carry you off. Mrs Fenton was an old woman. She was bound to go soon. You had nowt to do with it.’
Abigail was not to be appeased. ‘But Cook, I once read a book that said you can do harm to a person just by wishing it. It must’ve been me. I’ve been playin’ holy-hell about her all week, saying she’s a moaning old bugger…’
‘Abigail Bickerdike, for the last time it wasn’t you! By, I always said it were book-learnin’ that caused all the troubles in the world an’ I were right. You’re a housemaid not a bloomin’ scholar. You remember your place, stay away from them books in future. Here, where is it?’ She tugged Abigail away from the chair-back in order to lift the cushion. Seizing the book which Abigail had been reading earlier she tossed it onto the fire. ‘There! An’ that’s what’ll happen to any more I find. Blasted nonsense.’ A more subdued Abigail sipped her tea, but she still blamed herself and knew she would never sleep until she had thrown herself on Thomasin’s mercy…
She was not alone in her guilty feelings. In the schoolroom three worried children were debating the issue.
‘It was all your fault,’ Rosie accused Belle. ‘You were the one who had the idea of putting the silkworms in the chocolate box.’
‘How was I to know she’d eat them?’ protested Belle, then looked to Nick for support. ‘Should we own up?’
‘Oh, it’s all right for you saying that!’ snapped Rosanna. ‘You’re not the one who’ll get the blame, even though it was your idea. You never get the blame.’
‘Might we get sent to prison?’ asked Belle fearfully.
‘It depends on who we own up to,’ said Nick thoughtfully. ‘I think it should be Grandad. He’d never let us be sent to prison.’
‘He’s right,’ said Rosanna to her cousin. ‘And as you’re the one who started this you can be the one to tell him. Come on, we’ll come with you.’
‘He’s not back from Father Kelly’s yet,’ hedged Belle. ‘Never mind, that’ll give us more time to think of what we’re going to say.’ Nick stretched and yawned. He of the three of them was the least concerned. ‘Don’t worry, Belle, Grandad won’t be mad. He didn’t like Grandma either.’
* * *
‘Oh, I do wish your father would hurry,’ said Thomasin tearfully. She and her son were once more in the drawing room along with Josie. What an awful thing it was to have to tell the children. Still, they had taken it well. She looked at the clock for the tenth time since re-entering. ‘It’s almost time for you to leave and I’ve not the slightest idea of what to do about poor mother.’
‘You don’t think we’re going back now, d’you?’ asked Sonny. ‘We’ll stay until after the funeral. Now don’t worry, everything’s taken care of. The doctor should be here any minute.’
‘And much good he’ll do her – oh, Sonny!’ She clasped his hand. ‘It’s my fault Mother’s dead. I was the one who told Abigail to ignore the bell. What a way to treat your own mother.’
Sonny was in the act of trying to comfort her when Patrick entered, his face drawn. ‘Abigail’s just told me.’ He came straight to Thomasin. ‘She’s taken the doctor up.’
‘Oh, he’s here then?’
‘Yes… Tommy, I’m sorry I wasn’t here. How did it happen?’ He sat beside her, presenting a stalwart shoulder of which she took advantage.
‘It was all my fault,’ she wept. ‘I told Abigail to take no notice if Mother rang, and I never went to visit her after lunch as I’d promised. The poor woman. She could’ve been ringing for someone all afternoon and we all ignored her.’
‘That’s not true, Father,’ Sonny told him. ‘Abigail definitely said that Grandma hadn’t rung since just after lunch. Nobody could’ve known.’
‘They could if they’d taken the trouble to look in on her,’ sobbed his mother. ‘But I warned everyone to keep away. Let her stew, I said, she’s had enough attention for one day. What sort of daughter am I?’
Patrick dotted her shoulder with comforting pats. ‘Tommy, Hannah was an old lady. She could’ve gone at any time. Now confess,’ he held her from him and spoke into her tear-stained face, ‘ye’ve been expecting it to happen for a long time.’
She nodded and sniffed. ‘I suppose so – but I can’t help feeling guilty.’ With a hiccupping sigh she wiped her eyes and put away her handkerchief. ‘Well, there’ll have to be arrangements made
. I’ve not the slightest idea…’
Sonny, interrupting, told her not to worry, he would conduct the funeral plans. Thomasin thanked him and sighed again. ‘Life must go on, mustn’t it? Josie, would you ring for some more tea, please? Patrick, Sonny and Josie are staying on for a while.’
‘I’m glad,’ he nodded at his son. ‘I only wish it could be for a happier reason.’ Commenting on Josie’s pregnancy he said, ‘’Tis odd, isn’t it, how when one person leaves the world another comes into it.’ Quite unexpectedly he covered his face with a hand, his posture one of deep grief.
Thomasin was stunned that Hannah’s death had affected him so; he and her mother had never seen eye to eye. ‘Sonny, get your father a drink quickly.’
Sonny hurried to pour a tumbler of whiskey whilst his mother tended the stricken Patrick. Racing over, drink in hand, he attempted to comfort his father. ‘Here, get this down you, Dad.’
Patrick’s hand slid from his racked face and reached out gratefully. His eyes were swimming. Not for a long time had his wife seen him like this. The whiskey consumed in one toss of his wrist he stared into the hollow glass. ‘I’m sorry to have to add to your troubles, Tommy, but ’tis best I warn ye now. We could be getting a visit from the police.’
Everyone was obviously taken aback. First to come out of it, Sonny went to refill his father’s glass. Patrick thanked him, tossing only half of it down this time. ‘I had a bit o’ trouble getting in to see Liam,’ he told them, then broke off to ask, ‘Where’s Erin, by the way?’ Thomasin told him his daughter, upset at the loss, was in her room. He nodded and went on, ‘Mrs Lucas answered the door and informed me that she had orders not to let anybody in. While I was trying to coax a reason from her Father Gilchrist appeared and said that Father Kelly couldn’t see me. He became quite abusive. He wasn’t the only one, I’m afraid. I threatened to render his celibacy permanent unless he let me in to see my friend.’
‘You did get in eventually, I take it?’ said Thomasin.
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