‘Certainly very fortunate for you. But a curious arrangement. Who is this somebody?’
Shipton looked at Richard with harassed eyes and a nerve began to twitch in his cheek.
“Twas part-er of the bargain, sir. Heving took-er advantage of it like-er, ‘twouldn’t be right-er for me to teller.’
His disability increased with his nervousness and was in itself enough to annoy his listener past bearing.
‘Such a sale could be easily traced, you foolish fellow,’ Richard said. ‘You can save me time and considerable displeasure by telling me.’
Shipton looked down at his feet and cracked his knuckles.
‘Oh well, possibly Mrs Shipton could hazard a guess.’
‘You wouldn’t-er tell her, sir?’
‘Would I not?’ Richard’s smile sent something cold through Shipton’s blood.
‘If I teller…?’
‘Then I need make no inquiries.’
‘ ‘Twas Miss Parsons, up-er at Dower House-er.’
‘Oh.’ Richard sat for a moment, mentally adding the acreage of Bridge Farm to the amount of land which Miss Parsons owned openly and speculating upon the form of madness which would lead a woman to buy land
on such a strange condition. Then he rode away. And soon he found that another man, ostensibly the owner of several strips in Old Tom and in Layer, had in fact sold his land to ‘somebody’ who wished the deal to remain secret.
‘Not so much of a secret,’ Richard ventured. ‘Miss Parsons’ kindness is better known than she realises.’
‘She saved me from beggary,’ the man said simply. ‘I’d had a run of bad luck, and to top all broke my leg. Old Scrat alone knew where I’d have been but for being able to sell out and yet stay on for such a small rent.’
‘Most fortunate for you,’ said Richard absently. And perhaps, he thought, fortunate for me too. He remembered Monty’s remark about the old woman being perhaps sane enough to make her mark and not quite sane enough to watch her rights. Certainly she now ranked second to himself as a landowner, and her claims to the Waste when it was divided would be considerable. He set out to visit Dower House.
Miss Parsons was feeling very well. It was a long time since she had felt so well in body and so clear of mind. Damask, dear child, had now been with her for a fortnight, and in that brief time had worked wonders. Saunders and his dreadful wife had gone. How that miracle had been brought about Miss Parsons did not fully understand; Damask had told her to stay out of the way while she dismissed them, but she had been worried and had gone down and stood outside the kitchen door, ready to go in and support the child if necessary. No sounds of strife reached her, however, only the sound of voices; Damask speaking quietly, the man and the woman muttering at first, and then becoming quiet. Later in the day they had left the house and Miss Parsons had been hysterical with relief. When she was calm again she said, ‘And you promise to stay with me—promise.’ ‘Of course I shall stay,’ Damask said. ‘Then would it not me wise of me to write to the Poor Farm?’
‘I am not from the Poor Farm. It might be as well to
write Mrs Cobbold, at Muchanger. That was where I was working and my quarter isn’t up until Michaelmas. She might make a fuss if she knew I was here.’
‘Oh no, not if I write and say how much I depend on you. I’ll do it at once.’
She showed Damask the letter when it was written. It began well—the courteous, formally-phrased letter of one lady to another, asking as a favour that she should allow a maid-servant to break her time and enter new employment. Then it deteriorated suddenly because Miss Parsons’ mind had slipped a cog and it was fifty years earlier and she was writing to thank another Mrs Cobbold for a very pleasant dinner-party on the previous evening and asking whether anyone had picked up a silver button which had dropped from the Captain’s waistcoat—of no value, no value at all, and if it had not been found no one
was to bother to search for it–-
‘That will do very well,’ Damask said, rightly concluding that this unmistakable evidence of the state of Miss Parsons’ mind would strengthen the force of the appeal in the opening sentences. Mrs Cobbold, when the letter reached her, said to her husband, ‘Oh well, this explains. Now which do I answer—the first half or the second? Poor old thing, she must be quite demented! Still, she chose well! that solemn little creature will not take advantage. And Cook always resented her going out on a Sunday–-‘
So that was settled. Miss Parsons’ next concern was the finding of substitutes for the Saunders. ‘I’m not going to have you ruining your pretty hands and working yourself to death, dear child. If you did you might just have well stayed at the Poor Farm. Could you go and find some servants in the village?’
‘I could,’ Damask said. ‘But some from away would be better, if you want me to keep them in order.’
‘Of course, of course. Oh, how clever you are! And how stupid of me. I know what I shall do. I shall write to Mr Turnbull.’
She did so. That letter too was most oddly compounded of reason and dementia; but it roused the old lawyer’s sense of responsibility towards his client and resulted in the arrival, ten days later, of an elderly married couple; the woman stone deaf, the man, an old sailor, lacking some fingers on his right hand. Conscious of their handicaps, they were delighted to find employment, touchingly anxious to give satisfaction, and when Richard Shelmadine came to pay his visit to Miss Parsons the house was cleaner than it had been for years and a considerable, stretch of the lawn in front of the house had been roughly scythed.
Nevertheless, as he approached the house he wondered again why anyone living in such obviously straitened circumstances should have bought land and then accepted such nonsensical rents.
Miss Parsons, on this bright September morning, was alone in the library at the back of the house, busily and happily mixing the ingredients of potpourri in a large Chinese bowl. It was years since she had made potpourri. Damask had suggested it, had dried the rose leaves for her and emptied and washed the smaller bowls which now stood ready to receive the mixture when it was blended. The room was clean and in perfect order, the sun shone in at the wide window and gleamed on the polished floor and the surfaces of the furniture. Miss Parsons was calm and lucid of mind; it was all like old times.
Into the calm came Bennett, the old sailor, saying:
‘Sir Richard Shelmadine to see you, ma’am.’
Miss Parsons took her fingers out of the potpourri and held them to her nose. Scents, more than anything else, are evocative of memory; everything slipped backwards in time.
‘Show him in. And bring Madeira and biscuits,’ she said. Charles always enjoyed a mid-morning glass of Madeira. Charles? Oh, how foolish! Charles was … oh dear! Richard, of course, the man had said. Richard. And now here he was, smiling and bowing over her hand and saying that he hoped that she remembered him.
‘Oh, very well; very well indeed,’ she assured him. It
was not true; entering the room unannounced he would have seemed a stranger. He bore no resemblance either to his father or to the young man of nineteen or twenty whom she did remember.
As soon as he was seated Richard began to apologise for not having called upon her earlier, pleading press of business; there had, he said, been so many things to see to.
‘Oh, I do not expect to be visited nowadays,’ she said abruptly. ‘I expect you want something now. What is it?’
He exerted his charm. ‘Of course I wanted something —to renew our acquaintance. In the old days I always greatly enjoyed coming here; you have so many curious and interesting things—and the fact that you used to offer me a sip of wine and a biscuit as though I were grown-up much endeared you to me.’
‘In those days the fact that you were your father’s son endeared you to me,’ she retorted crisply. ‘Later on I deplored the way you behaved to him; the fact that the poor man is dead makes no difference to that. I’m still alive and able to speak my mind.’
He had guessed that it would not be an easy interview; he had expected to find her senile and vague, probably cantankerous, but not inimical to him personally. Nobody else had held his behaviour to his father against him; why should she?
The entry of the servant, rather flustered, explaining that he could find no Madeira, was a welcome interruption, giving him time to consider his next words. It would be unwise to make any further reference to the past, he decided.