A Mother's Love (31 page)

Mr Greave’s suave face changed its expression to one of concern.

‘Mrs Emmerson, with respect, I do not think you realise what a shock such a letter could be to one of your mother’s years.’

‘But she knows we’re unhappy with the will.’

‘Knowing you are unhappy and getting a solicitor’s letter setting out in legal terms that you are unhappy are two different things.’

‘I do agree there,’ Robert muttered, and got a sharp look from his wife. Mr Greave continued without interruption.

‘I take it your mother is upset by your feelings on this issue?’

‘She is a bit upset,’ Clara said quickly. She too was treated to a look from her sister. But she was made of stronger stuff than Annie’s husband. ‘I don’t think we ought to start sending Mum solicitor’s letters, Annie. I don’t feel comfortable doing this. What with losing Dad, and then knowing we don’t agree with the will, and now …’

‘My argument’s not with
her
,’ Annie interrupted. ‘It’s with John and George, what they’re getting out of it and us being given hardly anything to speak of. Mum can’t even leave the business to us when she dies …’ She ignored Clara’s gasp of horror. ‘Because it won’t be hers to leave.’

‘I don’t know, Annie,’ Robert was looking worried. ‘Perhaps she’s right. It is rather putting pressure on a woman bereaved?’

‘It’s only to make her realise that the boys oughtn’t to be getting away with it. They’re crowing, they are.’

Indignation began sweeping away her carefully studied vocabulary. ‘Them and their families are assured for life. While we make do with what’s left – bits and pieces thrown to dogs. They never even did do the right thing and offer us a chance of going in with the business. They could’ve done, you know.’

‘But it’ll still hurt Mum if we go on with this,’ Clara ventured.

Annie turned on her, her expression livid, outraged that her motives were perhaps being called into question. ‘Don’t you see? It’s to get her to put pressure on the pair of them. Surely even you can understand that, you stupid lump!’

‘Here, I say!’ Fred put a protective hand on Clara’s. ‘It’s my wife you’re talking to.’

‘And my sister. We always had arguments as kids. I’ll talk to her how I like.’

‘You most certainly will not!’ Fred’s pale eyes glared from his rounded face. ‘I’ll thank you, Annie, to mind your p’s and q’s.’

Robert leaned forward. ‘No call for that, old man.’

‘I’m not having her call my wife a stupid lump, whether they argued as kids or not. They are not kids now, and I’ll not put up with it.’

The solicitor thrust his hands towards his squabbling clients, his palms forward as though pushing against an invisible wall.

‘Please, everyone. Let’s not turn this into a bear garden.’

Annie ignored him, was on her feet. The two men also rose to glare at each other like a couple of fighting cocks, Clara’s Fred pompously puffing out his cheeks, Robert with his narrow shoulders hunched, his narrow chest out. Clara, still seated, put a hand on her husband’s arm.

‘Fred, sit down. Sit down, Fred.’

‘I’m not having Annie insult you …’

‘Sit down, Fred!’ For once Clara was asserting herself. ‘I won’t have you going on like this. I’ll walk out of here, wash my hands of the whole thing. I’m not sure we should even be going on with this.’

But Fred had already sat down, his cheeks still puffing in and out like a steam engine coming to rest.’

Robert had also returned to his seat, but Annie was still on her feet, ready to do battle with anyone who questioned her rights.

‘I come here, in the best of faith, to get us all no more than what’s due to us. And this is how I’m being served.’

Mr Greave, leaning over the table, pleaded as calmly as he could. ‘I beg of you, Mrs Emmerson, please take your seat. There’s no need for all this.’

But Annie was set on having the last word. ‘Even so, Mr Greave, I think you should write to our mother. We are paying you to carry out our wishes, not to advise us. So kindly do what we’re paying you for. It needn’t be too legal like. It can still be, well, friendly. She’ll understand that we have a point.’

But Mr Greave knew that no legal letter, couched in the terms of a family’s demand for what they considered their just rights was ever friendly. He felt faintly sorry for the elderly widow; even in his position he could imagine her feelings when she learned of the callousness of some members of her family towards her.

Harriet sat in the drawing room listening to the discussion between her sister and her husband. When Annie conducted any argument, she always made it sound like a brawl, working herself up to a pitch before hardly a word had been spoken. Matthew’s calming tones seemed only to rile her the more. He was shaking his head now, a pedagogue confronting a fractious child.

‘I’m sorry, Annie, I have listened to you and understand how you feel, but I am still of the opinion that Harriet should not be part of this business.’

‘But she’s family. It’s not the money. It’s the principle.’

‘For a principle you’d wound your mother that much, is that it?’

‘No, of course not! But principles are principles.’

‘Some are more ethical than others. This one, I believe, isn’t. I’m sorry, Annie, but I think your intentions are purely from a point of self-interest.’

‘Well, I must say!’ Annie bridled, dangerously close to creating a scene, then went back on the attack. ‘I’ve no intention of letting John and George get it all. Why should they?’

‘Because they know the business, and none of us does. They were trained by their father and they’ll keep it running efficiently, for your mother’s sake, giving her a third share, which is right.’

‘And what about us?’ Annie had hardly listened to his argument. ‘I think we should all have a share in our own father’s business. I mean, it is our right – as his children.’

Matthew spread his hands disparagingly. ‘We could go on with this argument till kingdom come and never solve it while you refuse to see any point of view but your own. My answer remains, Harriet wishes to have no part in this. We are both content to let things stand.’

‘Perhaps Harriet wishes to speak for herself?’

As the words shot from Annie’s mouth like bullets, Harriet wished only that she were out of this and back in her room where she could take a sip or two of her medicine to make her feel better. But Matthew was refusing to let himself be ruffled.

‘Harriet is in no proper state to speak for herself. She is not as well as she might be, and I do not wish to see her harassed by all this. I speak for her.’

Annie’s lips curled in a sneer. ‘You speak for her. You’re supposed to be running a journal for women fighting to have their own voice. And all the time you won’t let your own wife have hers. You know what you are, Matthew Craig? You’re a hypocrite.’

‘Be that as it may,’ Matthew said evenly, ‘there’s nothing to be gained by your labouring your point. My answer is final. Harriet will not be part of this sordid plan to terrify your mother into giving up her rights.’

‘Sordid plan? Sordid plan? I’m not staying here to listen to what we are only seeking as our just rights being called a sordid plan.’

‘That is a bit strong-sounding, Matthew,’ Robert put in, but Annie, who hadn’t sat down throughout the visit despite a tray of tea having been brought in by Ellen, began pushing her hatpins more securely into a hat she had not even allowed herself time to take off in her eagerness to sort out the business.

‘Come on, Robert. We’re not staying here to be spoken to in that way. If that’s how you’re going to act, Matthew, we’ll be leaving. And I’m not sure when we shall set foot in your house again.’

Sniffing indignantly, she gathered up her handbag and stalked to the drawing-room door, Robert following with a small shrug of his shoulders in Matthew’s direction that seemed to say, ‘We’re only doing our best.’

Annie hardly paused as Matthew got to the door ahead of her to open it for them. ‘No need to show us out.’

‘But I must,’ Matthew said, acidly polite. Seaforth was already in the hall. Like the perfect butler he was, hovering, hearing everything, knowing everything, yet totally discreet, he went with his employer’s relatives-in-law to the door. Opening it for them, he inclined his head respectfully as Annie swept past, Robert in her wake.

Sara was in the hall, too. Hovering, as Harriet saw it. As the door closed on Annie she turned upon the intruder.

‘Spying on me again, were you?’

‘Harriet, my love …’ Matthew hurried to her and took her gently by the shoulders while Seaforth moved smoothly towards the drawing room to retrieve the tea tray, giving no glance towards them. No one noticed him return, going downstairs to the pantry, unobtrusive, deaf to the domestic scene, and that was how it should be.

‘You’re upset, Harriet. It’s been a rotten day for you.’ Matthew made to persuade her towards the stairs, but Harriet continued to glare at her daughter.

‘Can’t you see it?’ she pleaded. ‘She’s always there, listening. Always listening.’

‘Annie has made you overwraught, my dear.’

‘Of course I’m overwraught!’ She tried to shrug away from his hold. ‘I sat listening to you two going on about Dad’s will as if I wasn’t there. How would you feel, never being included in anything? As if you were an idiot?’

He held firmly on to her. ‘Then you should have spoken up, Harriet.’

‘You never gave me a chance, going on about what I think. How do you know what I think? I might have had something to say about it. I could have given my opinion.’

‘What would you have said?’

She wilted. ‘I don’t know.’ She felt sick, and somewhat dizzy. She wanted to be in her room, in her nice quiet room, where she could take a little of her medicine and then have a nap. ‘I need to lie down.’

‘Yes, that will do you good,’ he soothed readily.

Harriet nodded dumbly, letting him guide her now towards the stairs. She looked around for Sara with an idea of ordering her away, but Sara had already gone quietly up to her own room unnoticed.

Sara hardly spoke when Ellen came up to brush her hair before dinner. Ellen loved piling it on top of her head as if she were grown up. It always had to be taken down again, of course. It would never have done to keep it up that way, since Sara was only fourteen. It was a game, that was all, and Sara was usually happy to indulge Ellen in it, turning her fine head this way and that on her slender neck to get a better view of the result. This evening, however, she refused to let Ellen do any more than brush it until the heavy mass shone rich and dark. Throughout the process, the accepted hundred strokes, she never once smiled or allowed her gaze in the mirror to meet Ellen’s.

Ellen knew that the master and mistress had had words again – Mrs Craig’s shrill pettish voice had penetrated down to the kitchen. It always caused an atmosphere in the house. Even in here, her young mistress’s bedroom, the air of disaccord had penetrated, and Ellen, a naturally chatty soul, felt she would have to be very careful about what she said.

At such times Mrs Downey would go out of her way to do ‘something special’ to cheer up her employers: a choice piece of gammon with pease pudding and glazed carrots for Mr Craig, a favourite with him – Ellen had come to associate the aroma of boiled gammon and pease pudding with domestic dissension. For Mrs Craig, a comforting bowl of soup or a piece of steamed halibut. Ellen would trot with it up to her room, knowing that within an hour she would be taking the lovely food back down to the kitchen, hardly touched. She’d notice, though, that the small bottle of ‘medicine’ would have gone down a deal.

Mrs Downey’s ample chest would palpitate with pity at the sight of the untouched food, for Mrs Craig could be a very sweet person when she was well, and endeared herself to her staff. She never went at them as she went at her husband, even more so at young Miss Sara, but she never harangued the staff as some employers did.

At these times, Mr Craig would call for George Barriman to get the Talbot motorcar out. Mr Craig drove himself, hardly ever needing his chauffeur, who did odd jobs about the house instead; a sort of general handyman. Ellen thought it would have been much cheaper to engage only a handyman, whose wages would have been less, but Mr Craig didn’t seem ever to worry about money, which he spent like water. He now had those new premises in the City, so she had heard, and there was talk of buying the lease of this very house.

Ellen remembered an awful argument a few months ago, to do with his wanting to get away from this area altogether, as posh as it was, to West London, to a smarter address. Mrs Craig had done a lot of protesting and crying, saying she didn’t want to move away from all her family, that here she knew where she was. Whether that had done any good, Ellen didn’t know, but there seemed to have been no more talk about it.

Her mind on these things, while Miss Sara sat silent and brooding, Ellen put all her energy into brushing hard at the dark, vibrant mass of hair, the way her young mistress liked it.

‘Are you sure you don’t want me to put it up for you, Miss Sara?’ she ventured at one stage.

‘Just brush it.’ Terseness was a sure sign that all wasn’t well and that Miss Sara was taking something very badly. Best to say little, but she had to know where Miss Sara would be eating this evening.

‘Will you be having dinner downstairs?’

‘Where is Mr Craig?’

‘Gone out. Taking a drive. I expect he’ll be back for dinner.’

‘I had better have it with him then.’

‘Very good, Miss Sara.’ Ellen went on brushing vigorously, wishing she could be given permission to put the hair up. Then the terrible tension in the air might be broken.

Matthew wasn’t at dinner. At his club, most likely, Sara thought, as she ate alone in the dining room. He often went there when Mother was in one of her self-pitying moods.

Sara sat toying with the gammon steak, made especially attractive in case Matthew returned. She had merely tasted her soup then pushed it away. Seaforth had removed it and laid the main course before her. But she had no appetite. This too he would remove, then serve her a helping of the chilled cabinet pudding, another of Mrs Downey’s specialities. She might manage its light texture. She would see.