The Weeping Ash (21 page)

“My dear man, how could you possibly have done that?” demanded Miss Musson. “You are not Providence itself, to be everywhere at once! There is not the least sense in accusing yourself so. Rather let us be considering what is best to be done next. You were very right to come to me at once—I must be off to the palace directly.”

And she called loudly for Abdul.

“Up to the
palac
e
? My dear ma'am—Miss Amanda—are you run quite mad? Why up there? The palace is the
last
place to be visiting just now—”

“Of
course
I must go to the palace,” retorted Miss Musson, equipping herself as she spoke with her large hat, her burqa, and a copy of the Holy Scriptures. “If I do not go there instantly and apply all my powers of argument, that poor silly woman will be persuaded that she ought to commit
sati
, and probably a dozen others along with her!”

And despite all Cameron's arguments she brushed him aside and departed, urging him to remain in the bungalow and take some supper—“for I am sure you have had none”—and keep the twins company.

As she rode off on her pony they could hear the wailing begin, high on the walls of the citadel, accompanied by the sound of drums and conches and the solemn boom of ceremonial cannon.

Cameron sat unnoticingly gulping down the food brought him by Habib-ulla. He looked both sad and angry.

“No doubt Mihal will arrange a huge state funeral now—just the kind of thing he would do, to display his pomp and wealth to all the neighboring princes—after having taken pains to arrange for the fatality—”

“You think he did so?” asked Scylla uneasily. Not, indeed, that she had any doubts on the matter; she thought so herself.

“My dear child, there is no possible question—What is the matter?” he broke off to ask. Scylla had been absently rubbing her hands together for the last few minutes as if they irritated or pained her; now she looked down at them with an exclamation of surprise and annoyance.

“My hands—I was rubbing lotion on that poor little girl in the hospital and it looks as though I must have caught her infection—I do trust Miss Musson has not taken it too—”

Scylla's hands were covered all over with a close, thick sprinkling of little red, angry-looking blisters.

For six weeks after her return from London, Fanny Paget was confined to her chamber. Thomas gave it out to the family and neighbors that she had been taken ill in London; the coach journey had been too much for her, she was to see no one, speak to nobody, not even her stepchildren. She herself seemed glad enough to accede to this prohibition.

The girls, wondering, intrigued, mystified, discussed the matter much among themselves—had Fanny somehow disgraced herself in London? Committed some extravagance? Made eyes at some young fellow? (This was Martha's contribution.) Asked for some piece of finery? (This was little Patty's idea.) None of them came near the truth. Kate, the housekeeper, who took Missus her meals, reported that she picked like a sparrow and looked like a shadow, hardly able to raise her head from the pillow. Indeed Dr. Chilgrove had to be called in and shook his head over her; he could not discover anything constitutionally wrong but said she was in a dangerously low state and prescribed port wine, nourishing broth, and cheerful company. Perhaps one of her sisters, he suggested, might be summoned, to be with her for a few weeks until the birth of her child, now some three or four months distant, and help raise her spirits?

“Tush, sir, she may have plenty of
cheerful company
, as you call it, if she chooses to avail herself of it, in the persons of my daughters,” said Thomas, annoyed.

“Yes, my dear sir, I am sure, but—her own family, you know—women at such times—not creatures susceptible to reason—I'll ask her how she feels in the matter—shall I, eh?”

And without bothering to wait for Thomas's permission, he returned to the sickroom and said to Fanny:

“How would it be, ma'am, if we were to fetch along one of your sisters to bear you company and sit with you—would that please you—hey?”

It was amazing how the poor child's eyes brightened.

“Oh yes, Doctor, if you please,” whispered the threadlike voice from the bed. “If my sister Lydia—that is, if the others can spare her since poor Papa's death—but they may be glad to find somewhere for her to stay—since they are all obliged to leave the Rectory—”

For the expected news had come that Fanny's father had succumbed to his long illness and the hard winter, and Fanny's sisters must shift out of the house to make room for the new incumbent's family, and go off to live with various harassed and unwelcoming aunts. The Rev. Theophilus must have been happy to know, as he died, that he had managed to leave at least
one
of his daughters safely settled. And now the thought that she might be able to offer a home to Lydia rejoiced Fanny's heart.

“Heaven only knows where we are to put her—she will have to go up in the attic!” exclaimed Thomas furiously when the doctor reappeared with the firm instructions that Lydia was to be sent for. And, when Chilgrove had gone, Thomas walked in to look at his wife with the usual feelings of baffled rage, thirst of unslaked curiosity—in a word, total frustration. For there she lay, weak as a blade of grass, pale as a wraith, wholly at his mercy—and yet in no possible way, by no means of persuasion at his power, could he wring from her any information as to where she had been during those days in London.

Whatever menaces he offered did not, apparently, seem any worse to her than her present state; she was invulnerable to him there. Physically, to be sure, he could still frighten her, and did; she shrank when he came into the room, and still more when he walked up to the bed; he took a certain pleasure in that; but mentally she had somehow escaped him and, whatever he might do, he could not come up with her.

However this notion of Fanny's sister visiting her could soon be scotched; and was.

Thomas's elderly mother, who had removed to the Isle of Wight upon her remarriage, and had continued there after the death of her second husband, living, upon the annuity he had left her, very modestly, in a small cottage, with a companion, was obliged, upon the death of the latter lady, to make some demands upon the doubtful kindness of her elder son. She would probably have avoided doing so if she could; there had been a total breach between them some years after her second marriage, due to Thomas's detestation of his stepfather and half brother, but that was long ago; the old lady was now half blind and nearly senile, with nobody else to call upon; and so, very reluctantly, in her difficulties, she had recourse to Thomas. He, if differently circumstanced, would very likely have found it more convenient to house her in a tiny cottage, looked after indifferently, for a pittance, by some old sloven; but as things were he was glad to make a virtue of necessity and say to Dr. Chilgrove next day, with a clear conscience:

“I am sorry to confound your plans, my dear sir, but it is quite out of my power to accommodate Mrs. Paget's sister at present. I am obliged to take in my old mother to live with me. She is on the Isle of Wight, you know, and I cannot leave her there, with gunboats stationed at all the ports and invasion expected from week to week. And my mother will need an attendant with her in the house; as it is, I am forced to get rid of my good old housekeeper Kate and have a woman come in by the day instead, so that Kate's room will be free for my mother's nurse.”

The doctor was obliged to acknowledge the force of this argument and hoped, verbally (although his private expectations were not so sanguine), that the interest of caring for the old lady, and her company, would have a beneficial effect upon Fanny's low spirits.

Thomas was delighted to have a good pretext for getting rid of Kate, who had shown, of late weeks, a somewhat defiant and partisan spirit, tending to side with her mistress over trifling matters. She was, accordingly, given her notice and turned off; a Mrs. Strudwick, a widow who lived in Petworth, was hired to come in daily and take care of the housekeeping; thus, at one stroke, Thomas was rid of a potential troublemaker and also satisfactorily reduced his household expenditure; for a daily woman need not be paid so much as one who lived in. And the arrival of his mother, though tiresome, would, financially, be a positive gain, for he would derive the benefit of her annuity, plus the proceeds from the sale of her cottage.

He assumed that his mother's annuity must perish with her own demise, but in the meantime he would have the administration of it, so it was quite in his interest to preserve her alive for a while; and when she did die, he felt sure that she must have
some
savings, for her second husband had been a well-to-do coach maker—and there might be a few trinkets, which would come in handy for the girls.

Quite cheered by these reflections, he was in an unusually benign mood and prepared to listen indulgently, for once, to a request from his daughter Martha.

“Papa, will you not let me take lessons upon the harp? You would not in Gosport because it would have meant the use of the carriage to take me quite across the town, but here there is a lady living very close, in East Street, who gives harp lessons—only two shillings an hour—and it is but five minutes' walk from our house, Tess says—please, Papa?—Unless indeed you would
buy
a harp so that we could practice at home—Jem bootboy told me of one he saw advertised in Midhurst, only twenty pounds—”

“
Twenty pounds?
Are you out of your mind, miss?” exploded her father.

But cunning Martha had phrased her request that way around on purpose, knowing that, in comparison with a twenty-pound harp in Midhurst, two-shilling harp lessons just around the corner appeared an economy; and permission for the lessons was duly given, provided that Bet accompany her sister to the lessons and they were escorted to and from the house of the instructress—a Mrs. Dawtry—by Tess or the new housekeeper.

Thomas had in fact of late been feeling a certain dissatisfaction with his daughters. Tiresome though Fanny was—obstinate, secretive, willful—he could not help seeing that, in her gentle manners, her education, all her small graces, elegancies, and friendly, solicitous ways, she was far superior in charm and appeal to his girls, and had begun dimly to wonder how much chance they had of catching husbands. He had relied upon Fanny's example to instill in them some idea of how to comport themselves, but nothing like that seemed to be happening; and he most certainly did not wish them to be left upon his hands unwed all their lives, eating far too much butter on their bread, constantly wanting new ribbons, and needing a fire in the parlor every night. If lessons on the harp would advance their chances of matrimony—and since the lessons only cost two shillings an hour—lessons would be sanctioned. Bet could doubtless pick up a few hints while watching Martha.

Accordingly the following week saw two major changes in the household at the Hermitage; Bet and Martha went off, two mornings a week, to Mrs. Dawtry's house, whence harp notes could be heard emanating, somewhat discordantly, from an upper window; and the old lady arrived with her attendant from Ryde.

A third event was that Fanny came out of her chamber.

This occurrence might not have passed off with so little remark had not Thomas been greatly preoccupied, at that time, with press gang affairs.

Although merchant-navy seamen and fishermen were, theoretically, exempt from impressment, as were harvesters and “navvies,” workers on roads and canals, this exemption was by no means total. Sailors were often taken from privateer ships, even though these were supposed to be protected by their letters of marque, and fishermen were impressed so frequently that, some years before, the entire fishing community of the town of Worthing had banded together and purchased a term of immunity in return for a contribution of five men, who self-sacrificingly volunteered, and a cash payment of forty pounds. At the time, the neighboring village of Brighthelmstone, or Brighton, had expressed great scorn over this pusillanimous and servile behavior; its fishermen had declared that they would never so demean themselves as to “pay off the scurvy gangers.” No, the free fishermen of Brighton were not going to submit to that! In consequence, their defiance of the press gang, over the years, had reached such a pass that the inhabitants had now put up a placard declaring that the whole male population of the place considered themselves immune; and this act of what practically amounted to treason was regarded very seriously indeed by the regulating officers of the local press gangs.

Brighton did not properly come within Thomas's province—the town had a gang and regulating officer of its own, Captain Pankhurst, but as his gang, numbering only fourteen men, was by no means large enough to deal with the situation, he had sought help from the neighboring impress officers. A sudden surprise attack on the town was planned, and the regulating officers were obliged to hold many meetings, at much inconvenience to themselves, and loss of local revenue, in order to arrive at a time both suitable to all of them and strategically satisfactory. Times and tides therefore had to be taken into account, and also strict secrecy had to be observed; it was a knotty business altogether and kept Thomas much from home at this time. He greatly begrudged the day required to bring his mother back from Chichester harbor and settle her into the Hermitage; and, having wasted as little time as possible on the latter process, he was off at dawn the next day to collogue with his brother regulating officers at the town of Shoreham, giving his household a terse intimation that he could not say when he would be back.

The new housekeeper at the Hermitage, Mrs. Strudwick, did not seem an accommodating woman. She was a widow, stiff, upright, with a knot of gray hair, a whaleboned torso, and a glacial eye; which factors had served to recommend her to Thomas.

However when she presently marched into Fanny's chamber with a basin of toast gruel and the rehearsed announcement that she “would not be able to keep on this running up- and downstairs with basins on trays now the old lady was come,” she was startled to find her mistress already out of bed, weakly but resolutely tying her petticoat strings.

“Thank you, Mrs. Strudwick; you may leave the gruel. I will drink it up here and be downstairs very soon,” young Mrs. Paget said with gentle dignity. Her pregnancy was very visible by now; only a couple more months to go, Mrs. Strudwick judged with expert eye; and she looked drawn and fagged, her wrists as thin as angelica stalks, but quite composed in herself, as she pulled the cambric petticoat about her.

“If you would be so kind as to send Tess to me, in about ten minutes, to help me with my hair, I should be obliged,” Fanny added, as the housekeeper stood somewhat taken aback, “with the wind taken out of her sails” as she would have expressed it herself, and she found herself replying:

“That's right, ma'am, you shouldn't be lifting your arms overmuch, not while you're expecting,” in quite a friendly tone.

“Is my husband's mother quite comfortable?” Fanny inquired.

“As to comfortable, ma'am, I'm sure I can't say; she's a rum 'un and no mistake. You can't get much sense out of her. And as for that one that's supposed to be looking after her—” Mrs. Strudwick cast her eyes to heaven expressively.

Fanny, however, showing no disposition to listen to gossip, said, “Thank you, Mrs. Strudwick. That will be all, then,” in so soft but positive a tone that Mrs. Strudwick found herself outside the door before she hardly knew how she had got there. She consoled herself for this oddity, however, by thinking, Well,
she's
in store for a shock when she sees what's come to the house, that's one thing certain.

Fanny, left alone, threw a calico wrapper over her petticoat and walked to the window, holding the bowl of hot toast gruel. There was a semicircular seat inside the bow; she sat there, with one foot curled under her, enjoying the warmth of the morning sun on her aching back, and looked out at the garden. She could hear the birds, bursting with song, and see buds on the trees; a splash of yellow showed where daffodils bloomed in front of Thomas's garden house; and a couple of cherry trees were in tender transition from coral-colored buds to the full fountain of white blossom. Beyond, the green angelic hill soared upward, the blue plain stretched off into the distance.