A Mother's Gift (25 page)

‘Would you like another glass of sherry, Mr Fox?’

The solicitor’s glass was almost empty and Robert lifted a hand to call Benson’s attention to the fact. Daisy offered a tray of canapes but Mr Fox waved them away.

‘Not at the minute, thank you, Mr Richards, I must get back to the office,’ he replied. ‘But I would like a word with you first.’

‘Oh yes, I got your letter,’ said Robert. In all the flurry of his stepfather’s sudden death he had put the letter aside telling him that the solicitor would like to speak to all the family about the will on the Tuesday after the funeral. He had felt a brief surprise that Mr Fox wasn’t going to read
the
will after the funeral but it was a very minor mystery. There were more important things to think about.

‘I thought you would read the will this afternoon,’ he said now. ‘After all, it can’t be very complicated can it?’

‘I can’t today. There is another major legatee who will have to be present. What I was going to ask was, could the family come to my office? No, no, that won’t do, I can see you think it won’t. Well, the only answer is for me to come to the house tomorrow. Which would suit you best, morning or afternoon?’

Robert sighed. ‘Afternoon, I suppose. I must go to the works in the morning. There are so many things to see to in the run up to nationalisation.’

‘Yes of course I—’

They were interrupted by Bertram; who had noticed them having a quiet talk in the corner. Now he came up to them and rudely butted in on the solicitor.

‘Are you discussing business? You know of course that I am my father’s heir, do you not?’ he asked Mr Fox. ‘Robert is only a stepson.’

Mr Fox looked embarrassed. ‘Em, er,’ he stuttered.

‘Behave yourself, Bertram,’ Robert said sharply.

‘Don’t tell me what to do! This is my house now, I’ll do what I like and say what I like too. You have no authority over me!’

One or two people near turned to look at them for Bertram’s voice was raised petulantly. They turned back quickly and carried on with their own conversations but a number of eyebrows were raised.

‘I see we have joined in the airlift to take supplies to
Berlin
,’ said one. ‘These communists have to be kept down, I say I—’ Whatever else he had to say was drowned in a murmur of agreement.

‘Bertram, come here, dear,’ Mary Anne said quietly and Bertram, flushed and scowling, had no alternative but to go to his mother’s side.

‘It’s only right, Mother,’ Robert heard him say. He turned back to Mr Fox.

‘Will three-thirty suit you?’ he asked. ‘I can be back by then. And I’m sure the others will be in. But what do you mean, another major legatee? How can there be?’

‘I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to divulge the name of the person until tomorrow. I gave my word to Mr Hamilton. Now I’m afraid I must get back to the office. I’ll just have a word with your mother, poor lady. Pay my respects.’

Robert was glad when all the visitors finally took their leave; the reception seemed to take for ever. When the last of the cars crunched over the gravel on its way out he breathed a sigh of relief.

‘Thank God that’s over,’ he said to Bertram as they turned back into the Hall. ‘Now what was the point of that little tantrum you threw earlier? Mother must have been ashamed of your behaviour.’

Bertram turned to him in fury. ‘Don’t talk to me as though I were a child! I am a man now and head of the firm, it is for me to take my father’s place and I can throw you out if I so wish. So you’d better mend your manners when you talk to me.’

Robert sighed. ‘Oh I can’t be bothered,’ he said tiredly. ‘If you consider yourself an adult then act like one,
especially
where Mother is concerned. If you can’t then keep out of her sitting-room until she retires.’ He turned his back and walked into the little sitting-room that Mary Anne had made her own. She was seated in a chair by the window looking out over the rose garden. At this time of year the scent of the roses was heavy in the air coming in through the open window.

‘How do you feel, Mother?’ he asked as he went over to her and put an arm around her shoulders. ‘If I were you I’d have an early night, I will send Daisy up to you with some light supper if you wish.’

‘No no, I’m fine here,’ said Mary Anne. Indeed, though there were shadows beneath her eyes and she was a little pale, she looked quite serene. ‘I’ve sent Maisie upstairs though, she has a headache. Poor Maisie.’

Poor Maisie, that was how most people thought of his sister, Robert thought. When he had come home from the prisoner-of-war camp in Malaya in 1946 he had been as shocked at her appearance as she had been at his. He himself had recovered fairly well; he was lucky in that he had only been a prisoner for a matter of months. Maisie, however, still moped after her lover who had been an RAF pilot shot down over Arnhem in 1944. Geoffrey Walker had been the only man ever to take an interest in Maisie, so small and thin and mouse-like with her fine fair hair which just missed being blonde and which she kept in an old-fashioned bun at the nape of her neck.

‘I’ll go up and see her shortly,’ Robert promised. He was fond of his sister but was beginning to wonder if she did not need professional help to bring her out of her
melancholy
. There had been some improvement lately; she had had her hair cut in a more fashionable style and, even bought a fashionable hat for the funeral. The death of their stepfather hadn’t helped either, she had told him only that morning that she felt death was all around her.

‘Now I’ll ring for tea,’ said Mary Anne.

They sat drinking tea from an exquisite china tea service, the cups almost transparent they were so fine. Mary Anne ate a sandwich and a slice of fruit cake with evident enjoyment, surprising Robert. But then, he told himself, she had eaten very little since Father died, perhaps it was just the relief that the funeral was finally over that had brought back her appetite.

‘Where is Bertram?’ she asked idly after sipping a second cup of tea. She replaced the cup and saucer carefully on the tray then looked up at Robert for his reply.

‘I think he went for a walk,’ he answered.

‘The fresh air will do him good.’

‘Yes.’

They sat quietly together, looking out at the roses. The weather had improved and evening sunlight shafted across the lawn and along the tops of the sycamore trees bordering the garden. ‘Mr Fox is to read the will tomorrow morning. Eleven-thirty, he said. Is that convenient for you?’

‘Quite convenient.’

‘He did say there is a major legatee not in the family.’

‘Oh?’ Mary Anne sounded barely interested.

‘Father asked him not to say who it was until the will was read.’ Robert felt he had to warn his mother that there
was
something strange about the proceedings, but he didn’t know what. He glanced anxiously at her now. Did she know about his women, his visits to a certain area of Middlesbrough? But surely it could not be one of them.

‘That’s not usual, is it?’ asked Mary Anne.

‘No. But it is no good speculating about it. We will all know tomorrow.’

‘Yes. Well, thank goodness, the Richards part of the business is yours, Robert.’

‘Yes. And evidently too small to be included in the nationalisation plans. Now that the coal interests have gone that way.’

‘I think I’ll go up now after all, Robert,’ Mary Anne said suddenly. She rose and patted the back of her hair with one hand. ‘I am tired, I have to admit.’

‘Yes, you go up Mother. Goodnight.’

After his mother left the room Robert sat on, thinking of the business and what was going to happen. Everything was in a state of flux at the moment, the Labour government determined to nationalise. The electricity industry had gone in April, coal in 1946. How the miners had loved that, they had shouted for it long enough. Transport and gas had been nationalised, it was all one big new experiment. He was not like some of his colleagues, hoping it would prove disastrous, they didn’t seem to realise that would bring the country to its knees. His stepfather had been going to be one of the executives to run the industry; he hoped they would ask him in place of the old man. It could all be very exciting.

His thoughts kept returning to the mystery of the two
women
who had been lurking in the cemetery. But perhaps he was imagining things. They could have been visiting another grave and simply been curious about the funeral.

‘WHY DIDN’T YOU
tell me, Mother?’

Kate and Georgina sat, one on each of the two couches which faced each other in the sitting-room. Kate was pale but composed, the shadows under her eyes accentuating her dark eyes. There were a few streaks of grey in her fair hair. Georgina noticed them for the first time and it gave her a small shock. After all, her mother was in her thirties, she wasn’t old. The reality of death had been brought home forcibly to Georgina today though and she looked anxiously at her mother. ‘Don’t bother tonight Mother, I’m sorry I asked.’

‘Oh, you might as well know it all, petal,’ Kate sighed. ‘You had to find out Matthew and me weren’t married. Did you not suspect it?’

Georgie thought back over the years. Father had been away such a lot but then, during the war many of the girls’ fathers had been away. In the forces, or on some sort of war work. And she had got used to it anyway. Still she had thought there was something different about her. The
way
her mother prevaricated when she asked for her birth certificate. The university had wanted it with her application.

‘Won’t your identity card do?’ Kate had asked. ‘All the details are there, surely? Anyway, there’s no rush, you have a few months yet. I’m not even sure it is a good thing to go up a year early. Why not wait until you are eighteen? Have a year at home with me. I’ve seen little enough of you since you went to Saltburn.’

Georgie thought about this conversation now. For a supposedly bright girl, university material, she had been as dim as a Toe H lamp.

‘Tell me then. But stop if you are becoming too tired. I don’t want you to be upset either.’

‘It all started, I think, just after the 1926 strike,’ said Kate. She had a faraway look about her. She lifted her still slim legs and tucked them beneath her, holding her ankle with one hand as she talked. Her voice was low and matter of fact, it was almost as if she were talking of someone else.

‘I was brought up by my grandda and grandma,’ she began. ‘And Grandda was out of work because the pit was idle; the pit at Winton Colliery. That was where we lived. And one day Grandda and me went to get pitch balls for the fire. We had no coal, you see, and a pit man’s house with no coal is – well, there was no electricity, no other means of heating the house or cooking. And we bumped into a gentleman.’

Georgie sat as the shadows in the room lengthened and listened. It was a revelation to her. For so long she had
wondered
how her mother could be content to live in this isolated house in a fold of the moor, living only for her to come home from school. No, that wasn’t right, she lived for Father to come home from his mysterious business. When Georgie had asked questions about it they had always been evaded, his work was very important, they had said, very hush-hush. It was an expression that was common during the war and immediately after it. And her mother also lived for her to come home from school, of course.

Georgie had idolised her father, she thought of it now as Kate told the story of how ambitious she was as a young girl, how she desperately wanted to become a nurse, how she had actually achieved her ambition in that she had managed to become a probationer nurse. And then how she had met Matthew Hamilton again. And his wife. How he had pursued her. And how that had been the end of her nursing, career. Then Kate sat silent for a long time. A single tear slipped down her face and she wiped it away angrily.

‘Oh, Mam, don’t get upset,’ Georgie said, swiftly crossing to the other couch and putting an arm around Kate. ‘Don’t say any more now, there’s no need. I know how you loved Father, I do.’

Kate looked sideways at her. She blew her nose and wiped her eyes and patted Georgie’s hand.

‘You’re a good lass, Georgie,’ she said, slipping back into the idiom of her youth. ‘But you don’t know the half.’

‘I’m sure you’ll tell me in your own good time,’ said Georgie. ‘I’ll get Dorothy to start supper now, shall I? I
think
we could both do with an early night.’

As she opened the door the telephone began to ring in the hall, causing Kate to jump visibly.

‘Who can that be?’ she cried. ‘No one calls here except your father!’ And then she was overwhelmed by the fact that Matthew would never call again, never ever. She sat down suddenly, forced to confront the enormous hole in her life. Whoever was on the telephone didn’t matter compared with that.

‘I’ll get it, don’t worry it can’t be anything important,’ Georgina said, trying to reassure her mother. She picked up the telephone from the hall table feeling a little eerie herself.

‘Miss Hamilton? This is Joseph Fox. I was your father’s solicitor.’

‘Oh. Yes?’

In that split second many things raced through her mind. Were they about to be evicted from their home? Had she and her mother any rights at all? Had her father made any provision for them? Surely he had! Such was the whirling of her thoughts that she missed what the solicitor was saying at first and had to ask him to repeat it.