“Mrs. Morton?”
“Gibson. I am Mrs. Gibson.”
The man pulled a piece of paper from his pocket. “Ah yes, I have that name here also.” He handed me his card: Theodore Godley and Company . . . Solicitors . . . EC4.
A shiver ran down my spine at the sight of that name, Godley, the name I’d seen on a birth announcement so many years before.
“It’s with regard to the estate of the late Lady Ottoline Campbell. I’ve called a number of times . . . May I come in?”
He followed me upstairs and into my small sitting room. “Please,” I said, my heart pounding as I stared at him, and gesturing to the sofa, “do sit down, Mr. Godley.”
“Ah, I’m afraid I am not Mr. Godley. He’s my boss. My name is Jacobson—Roger Jacobson.” He sat down. “This shouldn’t take too long, Mrs. Gibson. My first task was to locate you, which I was able to do with the help of His late Lordship’s former butler.”
Former. That word sounded so strange. His life must have fallen apart. I said, “I haven’t heard from Mr. Watts in some time.”
“Mr. Watts has been most helpful. As I say, it was he who informed us of your address. In cases such as this we prefer to establish contact in person—face-to-face, so to speak—rather than by letter. Letters can so easily go astray and fall into the wrong hands,” he added, and smiled. “I’m afraid my next task is . . . a little sensitive. Legal protocol demands I see some proof of identity—but a birth or marriage certificate will suffice.”
I had neither. And I told him. “They’re lost, I’m afraid. But I have plenty of other documents—mainly bills.”
At first, he wasn’t sure about this, but then he relented. So I reached for the unpaid bills on the mantelpiece and handed them to him.
“Oh dear, final reminders . . .”
“I also have this,” I said, handing him my post office savings book.
He looked at the name, the balance, then raised his eyes to me and smiled. “You know, it’s at times like this that I love my job,” he said.
I was still on my feet and standing in front of him, and it was his turn to say, “Please sit down, Mrs. Gibson.”
So I sat down and he told me. Told me I had come into some money, a considerable amount of money. At first, I thought I heard him say five thousand pounds. And I stared at him as he said it again: “The sum of five thousand pounds—to you, Mrs. Gibson.” Then he said, “And for your daughter . . .” Here, he paused and checked his paperwork, and I pinched the flesh on the back of my hand—once, twice, thrice. I kept thinking five thousand pounds, five thousand pounds . . . “Yes, for your daughter—the late Lady Ottoline’s goddaughter—the sum of thirty thousand pounds.”
Yes, it was a dream, had to be. That name Godley and thirty thousand pounds . . .
“Mrs. Gibson . . . Are you quite all right?”
“Can you just tell me all of that again, please?”
And so he did. And afterward, when I opened my mouth, tried to speak, the words wouldn’t come. But then, at last, eventually, I heard myself say, “Thirty thousand . . .” And my voice sounded far away, and not like my voice at all.
“Thirty thousand,” repeated Mr. Jacobson.
“Thirty thousand?”
Mr. Jacobson smiled. “Thirty thousand pounds, Mrs. Gibson.”
At some point he must have gone through to the kitchen, because the next thing I knew he was handing me a glass of water, and as he did so, he said, “This is one of the reasons why we prefer to deliver news like this face-to-face.”
Mr. Jacobson sat back down. “Do tell me when you’re ready for me to continue, Mrs. Gibson.”
“You mean there’s more?”
I took a few sips of water, then looked up at him and nodded.
“The other part of Her late Ladyship’s bequest to your daughter concerns a property in Scotland. A place named Delnasay . . .”
Mr. Jacobson unfolded a large sheet of paper, a map. He went on to explain that Ottoline’s bequest to Lila was not the entire estate but included the house, formal gardens, and land amounting to some fifteen acres. He then took time to explain more about the money Ottoline had left to Lila. It would be held in a trust until she reached the age of twenty-one, he said. However, the terms of Ottoline’s will stipulated that Lila and I should receive an income from the capital sum until that time. According to Mr. Jacobson, the money would guarantee us a generous income—easily enough, he said, to cover the costs of maintaining Delnasay.
“When your daughter reaches the age of twenty-one, the capital sum along with any interest not taken as income will legally become hers. She’ll be able to reinvest it, spend it—do whatever she wishes; it’ll be up to her, her decision. But I’d very much hope that you’d guide her in moderation and prudence, and that by then you’ll have excellent advisers in place. You see, she’ll be a very rich young woman, Mrs. Gibson, and these waters are—as I’m sure you already know—filled with sharks all too hungry for rich young women.”
I had concentrated hard on his words. I said, “My daughter isn’t yet five. It is a long time away, twenty-one.”
“Rest assured, sixteen years will go in the blink of an eye, Mrs. Gibson.”
“But what if I’m not here—what if something happens to me? My daughter might have money now, but she has no other relations, no family. We’re on our own . . . Who will advise her then?”
He laughed at this. “You’re still young. I’m quite sure nothing is going to happen to you, Mrs. Gibson.” Then he became more serious. “But, in the unlikely event that something were to happen to you, the trustees—of which Mr. Godley is one—would continue to ensure your daughter’s money was safely and wisely invested. In fact, I can assure you here and now that Mr. Godley would personally see to it, and would continue to advise her—and yes, even after she reached the age of twenty-one.” He smiled.
“And will I meet him . . . this Mr. Godley?”
“Oh yes. I am simply the messenger, Mrs. Gibson. In due course, once probate is granted, we’ll need you to come to our offices, meet with Mr. Godley, sign the relevant paperwork—and, of course, be issued with your money.”
I glanced at the map on his knee. “Is the cottage—the one near the house—included in the bequest to my daughter?”
He wasn’t sure which cottage I meant. So I moved over to him to view the map of the estate. I saw the house and gardens—now Lila’s—clearly marked in red. And saw, too, that the cottage was beyond the boundary of Ottoline’s bequest.
Even so, I placed my finger on the shape.
“Ah, the old gamekeeper’s cottage . . . No, that property is not included.”
“But what is to happen to the rest of the land? Is it to be sold—broken up?”
“Possibly, but I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to disclose any further details, Mrs. Gibson. At this stage, our task is simply to locate the beneficiaries—which, with the exception of your good self, has not been at all easy,” he added.
“But there are others?”
“There were. However, it seems the war claimed them.” He looked at me. “It’s the ongoing tragedy of the times we live in, Mrs. Gibson . . . So many wills were not amended during and after the war. And why would they be? I imagine the last thing on any grief-stricken mind is administration, the updating of a last will and testament. Increasingly, we find ourselves having to stretch the net wider and wider in order to locate a beneficiary still alive. Death was always a sad business, but it seems to me all the sadder now, in the absence of so many sons and heirs.”
I would never again need to worry about money. Reminders were a thing of the past. Ottoline had seen to that. And though I was grateful, immeasurably grateful, seeing the map of the estate, that tiny, almost insignificant oblong shape, had made me realize: I would have handed back all of it—every single penny and piece of granite—if Lila and I could have ha
d Ralph with us. We might have been poor, Lila might have grown up in rags, but she would have had her father. We would have been together. A family.
Bittersweet was my good fortune.
It was later that fateful Thursday and early in the evening when Leo arrived. He brought a bottle of wine, and made a thing of it, its vintage and cost. Then he asked me if I’d had a nice day. But I was in a strange place, an unreal place: caught in the limbo of disbelief, soaring and crashing with each exhalation. Everything around me appeared tawdry and cheap; everything, including him, Leo Holland.
And so I didn’t look at him. I said, “Oh, just the usual, you know . . . nothing special.”
And when he reached out and touched me, I pulled away.
Then, “What’s this?” he asked.
“Steak.”
He laughed. “You must be flush,” he said, and he rubbed his hands together. “But I’m not complaining,” he added, winking at Lila, who was sitting on the linoleum step in her dressing gown and a moth-eaten fur hat, once Ottoline’s, and drawing a picture of me.
I had already decided not to tell anyone—at least for the time being—about Ottoline’s bequests. And in truth there was no one to tell, apart from Amy and Leo. I certainly couldn’t tell—or even begin to explain to—my almost-five-year-old daughter that she had just come into a fortune and been left a house in Scotland. Money to her was copper pennies; a silver sixpence was rich. Thirty thousand pounds was . . . unimaginable. And not just to her, but to me.
Earlier that day, after Mr. Jacobson had left, I’d poured myself a glass of sherry from the bottle at the back of the cupboard, the one left over from Christmas. At first it tasted disgusting, and I’d winced and shivered, but then—and like all alcohol, it seemed to me—it got better. So I’d had another and sat with my feet up on the sofa and cried, and laughed, and then cried again. For I was rich and I was poor. I had money, but I didn’t have Ralph—and never would again.
I comforted myself. I had enough money to buy a home, to furnish and decorate that sitting room, that bedroom. I had enough money to buy a motorcar, and still enough to travel abroad—first-class. I’d take Lila to Biarritz. Yes, Biarritz, I thought. The Hotel du Palais . . . We’d take a suite, make friends, dine with them each evening at eight, and I’d invite them all to Delnasay—where we tend to spend our summers . . .
I saw ocean liners and pictured New York: the Statue of Liberty, skyscrapers and streets more bustling than in London. I saw an open road, the green patchwork of counties. And with windows wound down and the wind in our hair, Lila and me—crossing borders and heading north. Always heading north—back to him.
And muddled in with all of this, and interrupting each imagined trip, was that name, Godley.
Bittersweet was my good fortune.
Leo and I waited until Lila had gone to bed before we sat down at the table. He poured the wine and I served our supper. He spoke about the store, those people who did not pay their bills, and went on about one in particular, a duke, no less.
He said, “I hope you haven’t forgotten—I’m going away next week.”
“When?”
“On Saturday . . . I told you, remember?”
“No, I don’t recall you telling me. Where are you going?”
“Home—Manchester—to visit my mother.”
“But you only just visited her.”
“She’s not well . . . very frail.”
“Yes, I know, you said that last time. And the time before that.”
We finished our meal in silence, and then I picked up our plates and took them through to the kitchen. I’m not sure what irked me, why I was suspicious—if I was. Perhaps it was simply that Leo’s trips north were something apart from me, a former life I still knew little about and felt excluded from. He’d never invited me to meet his mother, and it was telling, I thought. If I’d been important to him, if he’d had even the vaguest notion of making me his wife, surely he’d want me to meet this frail lady—before it was too late?
My emotions were undoubtedly out of kilter that evening, and yet, in some other way, I felt stronger and clearer headed. I had never had a father, brother or husband to look after me, and now I no longer needed one—or any man. I was, as they say, of independent means, and with the dawning of that knowledge came a strange new courage. And so, when I went back into the room, sat down, watched Leo pick up his lighter, hold it to a cigarette, when I said, “I hope you don’t have a fancy woman up there,” I was not angry or insecure. I was, though Leo could hardly have known it, curiously dispassionate. My passion had been ring-fenced years before; my passion belonged to one name.
Leo smiled and rolled his eyes. “As if.”
“You do go up there quite a lot,” I said, reaching for a cigarette from his packet and then pouring myself another glass of wine.
“You’re in a funny mood tonight.”
“Not really.”
“I’ve never seen you smoke before.”
I shrugged.
“Has something happened today?”
I shook my head.
“I have to see my mother, Pearl. And I have some holiday to take—and she’s not well. It seemed like a good opportunity for me to spend some time with her . . . I’m sure you’ll cope without me for a week.”
I stared at him: “I’m sure. Actually, I’m planning on having a holiday myself . . . I’m going to buy a motorcar, take Lila on a trip.”
He raised his hand to his mustache and stroked it, as though weighing up the likelihood of this happening. “Really? And just how are you going to buy a motorcar?”
I looked away from him, tapping my cigarette on the edge of the ashtray: “With money, of course. I have some savings . . . some money I’d forgotten about.” I raised my eyes to him and smiled. “I thought I might visit Rodney Watts in Northumberland . . . and then head on, to Scotland.”
At this, he laughed. He stubbed out his cigarette, rose up, moved round the table and stood behind me. He rubbed his hands over my neck, my shoulders, and then down over my blouse to my breasts. “I’ll take you away, Pearl . . . I’ll take you to Scotland if that’s where you’d like to go . . .”
And I closed my eyes to shut it all out. That room. Him. Me. All of it. But later, in my bed, as I felt hands and then tongue, as I closed my eyes again, I saw a fierce gaze not years away but inches away; I saw golden hair falling over a suntanned brow: a fantasy no longer indistinct, still there for me to hold.
Chapter Twenty-two
Dear Pearl,
I hope you are well. Thank you for your kind letter and condolences. You must forgive me for not having written to you sooner, but as I’m sure you can imagine, it has been a very sad and busy time for those of us still here at Birling. Everything happened so very quickly—the accident itself, such a sudden and violent ending, and then the funeral, an impossibly sad day.
Yes, the house is to be sold—in fact, I think it is to feature in the Country Life magazine. Meanwhile, I have been assisting the local auctioneers in preparation for the sale of furniture & artifacts, and various personal effects. Listing it all, checking and then checking again for the catalog. (I enclose a copy for your perusal. I am sure many of the items listed will bring back memories and be familiar to you.) But it is a grim & heartbreaking task, to take a final glance upon everything—still in one place, belonging to one family—and know it is to be scattered without any true provenance or story. And yes, as you so rightly say, the end of an era.
Other than a few of the outdoor staff, everyone has been paid what they were due, and all have gone. Mrs. Lister’s final day was today. We took our time to walk about the house together, and we remembered the family & the happy times we shared with them. So many Christmases, Master Hugo’s and Master Billy’s birthday parties, and in particular, the New Year’s Eve party at the dawn of a new century—1900. We both agr
eed that was the very best evening the house had seen, at least in our day.
As I think you know, Mrs. Lister’s husband recently passed away, and she has, albeit somewhat reluctantly, decided to live with her sister. But she was most grateful for your picture postcard of Old Vistas of London—and, I’m sure, will write to you in due course. As regards my own future, I have given my word to the executors that I shall stay on here until after the auction; then I shall return to the county of my birth, Yorkshire. I’m not sure if I ever told you, but I recently acquired a bungalow at Scarborough—a modest but spacious place, with a good-size garden & an uninterrupted view of the sea. I very much hope you & Lila will come and visit me. Rest assured, you will always be most welcome.
Yes, it is irregular, dear Pearl—all of it. And I still wonder—what are we to make of this, our journey in life? What are we meant to learn? And each and every time I come back to one thing, and one thing only. And it is this: Love is the only thing that matters, and without it, we learn nothing.
I enclose my new address at Scarborough and look forward to hearing from you.
Very best wishes,
Rodney Watts
I saw from the catalog Rodney had enclosed with his letter that the sale was to take place in three days’ time, and I decided then and there I had to go. I had missed the funeral, but I wanted to pay my respects, to see Rodney and take a look about the house once more. I told my supervisor at work that my elderly aunt in Northumberland had taken seriously ill. I was all she had. I asked Myrtle if she could stay at the flat for a few nights—earn a few extra shillings. She could. I found out train times, sent a postcard to Rodney, and the next morning I headed to King’s Cross.
Memories came flooding back to me on that journey north. It had been summer, early July, and the countryside had been a patchwork of green and gold, church steeples bathed in sunshine, sleepy villages unaware of what was to come. And I, as green as the fields, as innocent as those white-smocked people working in them, and entirely oblivious that I had just met my destiny.
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