‘Honestly, Ottie,’ said Rosie, ‘what would we do without you? You’re an absolute treasure, and we all really do love you.’
‘What on earth did we do in the days before telegrams?’ asked Christabel.
71
A Kindness
Hamilton McCosh had invented a new gadget called the Puttperfecto, which was not very different from a carthorse shoe. The idea was to place it on the carpet and use it as a target for putting practice. In its latest incarnation it was like three horseshoes stuck together, so that three people could use it at once, from different directions. He, Mrs McCosh and Christabel had been trying it out in the drawing room, with considerable success despite the disruptive attentions of Caractacus, and Mr McCosh had decided to try to sell it to the Army & Navy stores, who produced their own line of golfing equipment. He had had an idea for another improvement, in the form of a springloaded plate that would send the ball back, in the event of a direct hit.
He was therefore in very good humour when he went upstairs and came across Millicent, in tears, and employing a duster as a handkerchief. When she saw him she got to her feet, exclaimed, ‘Sorry, sir,’ and ran off down the stairs.
‘Dear me,’ said Mr McCosh to himself, and he went downstairs to the kitchen, expecting to find Millicent there. Instead he found Cookie, who was making Norfolk dumplings amid much sighing and puffing. ‘Good evening, sir,’ she said.
‘And a very good evening to you, Cookie. I must say, the kitchen smells very nice.’
‘As it ought, sir,’
‘I perceive you are in a huff.’
‘I am vexed, sir.’
‘Vexed, Cookie?’
‘It’s poor Millicent, sir.’
‘Poor? Has poverty descended upon her, in one of its many forms?’
‘Indeed it has, sir.’
‘And in which of its many forms has it descended upon her?’
‘Far be it from me to question the mistress,’ said Cookie righteously.
‘It has descended in the form of Mrs McCosh?’
‘It has, sir.’
‘Manifesting in what manner?’
‘She’s fined Millicent fifteen shillings, sir, over a matter of woodworm.’
‘Woodworm? Gracious me.’
‘It’s the dressing table in your bedroom, sir, the mahogany one. It’s got woodworm.’
‘I fail to see how this impacts upon the poor distressed Millicent.’
‘The mistress says that it wouldn’t have got woodworm if Millicent had been polishing it properly.’
‘That is true, is it not, Cookie?’
‘Nobody polishes a table on the underneath, sir.’
‘And that’s where it started?’
‘Yes, sir, but it’s got into the legs.’
‘That’s a valuable piece,’ reflected Mr McCosh.
‘Well,’ continued Cookie, ‘the mistress got in someone to look at it, and he says it’ll cost fifteen shillings to treat, and the mistress is taking fifteen shillings off Millicent’s wages, seeing as it’s Millicent’s fault. In her opinion.’
‘And not in yours?’
‘It’s not my place to question, sir. But nobody polishes a table underneath, sir, like I said.’
Millicent earned twenty pounds per annum, and Hamilton McCosh performed a swift mental calculation. ‘That’s nearly two weeks’ wages,’ he said.
‘The mistress said that seeing Millicent gets board and lodging, it ain’t much of a loss, sir, but it is, sir, ’cause what the mistress don’t know is Millicent’s got a sick mother what can hardly move any more, and that’s where she sends the money, sir, and that’s why poor Millicent is inconsolable, sir, on account of her mother what can hardly move.’
‘You realise that the master of the house cannot overrule the mistress of it when it comes to domestic matters? It’s very bad form, as I’m sure you know. One of the unwritten rules.’
‘Maybe it is,’ said Cookie sceptically. ‘But the master’s the master in my opinion. And the mistress isn’t quite herself these days, if you don’t mind me saying so, sir, ever since she got caught in that raid. I don’t believe she’d have dreamed of doing this in the old days. And she wouldn’t have got taken in by someone saying it would cost fifteen shillings.’
‘I dare say you’re right, Cookie, I dare say you’re right. We all have a lot to put up with. More than before, at any rate.’
Hamilton McCosh went to his study and took his cash box from the bureau. He removed six half-crowns, and then returned the box to its drawer. As an afterthought, he took it out again, unlocked it, and removed an extra florin.
He found Millicent in the morning room, still sniffling as she cleaned out the grating on her hands and knees. ‘Ah, I’ve found you,’ he said, ‘looking very like Cinderella.’
The maid got to her feet and wiped her eyes with her sleeve, leaving a streak of ash across her face.
‘Something has been troubling me, Millicent,’ he said.
‘I’m sorry to hear that, sir,’ she replied.
‘Yes,’ continued Mr McCosh. ‘I have been fearful for some time that your Christmas bonus, was, shall we say, a little ungenerous?’
‘Oh no, sir, it was most generous, sir.’
‘Indeed it wasn’t. It has been a trouble to my conscience for some months, and I am anxious to rectify it.’
He put his hand into his pocket and removed the small, sealed brown envelope into which he had placed the six half-crowns. He then reached into his waistcoat pocket and brought out the florin, which he put into her hand. She gazed at it in wonderment. ‘Very happy Christmas last year, Millicent,’ he said, and walked quietly away. Just as he got to the far end of the hall he heard her small cry of joy as she opened the envelope and saw what was inside.
He went into the drawing room and looked out over the garden. As always his eye settled on the mound of Bouncer’s grave in the orchard, and he smiled. ‘Good evening, you good old boy,’ he said softly.
It seemed such a long time ago that one used to give a sick and dying old dog to the head gardener, to be hanged. Nowadays, reflected Mr McCosh, one took them to a vet for a fatal injection. Some things change for the better, he thought, and felt a pang of guilt about Bouncer’s undignified death. Still, that used to be normal, like so many other horrible things.
72
My Soul Calls to Yours
As her wedding to Daniel approached, Rosie felt doubt and apprehension weighing her down, but she was committed and could hardly back out. She thought that she probably loved him, or might be able to, but it still did not seem right. In some ways he was too much like Ash. He was not only bold and athletic and amusing, he was even an engineer. How would she ever be able to behold him without seeing the ghost of Ash over his shoulder? Or embrace him and notice how different his body was?
Rosie went to church and prayed. In her room she frequently unwrapped her madonna and looked into that painted face for some hint of advice or direction. She went and sat by the Tarn. She went down into the orchard and looked at Bouncer’s grave, as though that might yield a little inspiration. She sat in the conservatory flicking through her autograph book, looking at the loving messages and beautiful drawings, the humorous cartoons of the men she had nursed at Netley. Their faces had faded already, leaving behind an atmosphere in place of an image.
Rosie knew what convention required. Before you married you destroyed all your love letters from everyone else. That’s what you had to do, and it made some symbolic sense; it was how you signified that there was now, irrevocably, only one man in your life. It was like the commitment you made when you changed your name.
She had a thick sheaf of Ash’s letters, from 1910 to 1915, bound up in a ribbon, and she kept them in her dressing-table drawer, right at the back, behind the powder puffs and compacts, and the cotton wool. They had acquired the feminine smell of cosmetics and scent, and there was no longer any point in sniffing at them. She took them out often and reread them
. Their passionate hyperbole never failed to fill her with longing and regret. In those days every month had seemed to be July.
One Sunday after matins she was whiling the time away before lunch when she suddenly found a politician’s solution to her dilemma, and accordingly she went out on Monday and bought a small ruled notebook from the stationer’s. It was bound in red-and-black leather, and had a ribbon that served as a bookmark. She calculated that it should be exactly the right size if only she edited out the chit-chat and unnecessary detail, and just retained all that was most beautiful and moving. Sitting at the escritoire in her room, with a photograph of Ash propped up at the back of it, she wrote on the first page ‘The past is part and parcel of the present’ and then she began to redact.
‘You are now a part of me – I hold and cherish you as a thing sacred.’
‘Dearest, dearest heart, my soul calls to yours and I feel worn out.’
‘To me you are holy and I sometimes wonder if Heaven is better than your dear kisses.’
‘My thoughts are my visionary arms. They cling to you always.’
‘Last night I dreamed that you came to me and kissed me, and said “I have come to stay with you tonight” – why is Heaven so cruel? Just as I was about to cling to you I was awakened.’
‘I sit all alone from 8.30 to 10.30 thinking of you – these hours are the most sacred in the day, beloved.’
‘When you smile on me again the curtains will be drawn from the sun.’
‘I want to be alone in sunlit fields and feel your dear head against mine until the end of all things.’
‘I would work and give my life’s blood to win you, my beloved. I know I am not worth considering, but I love, want and must have you. I crave for you all day, and sometimes find myself not listening to people, but hearing your voice calling me.’
‘During the evening will you give yourself to me for just one second? All things earthly and heavenly are outshone by you.’
‘My prayer tonight is: God, You can take away all that I have, but give me a garden of flowers with my sweet one, for us to live in.’
‘All I want is a kiss from your lips to fire my blood.’
‘You know, dearest heart, how an autumn morning can make your blood tingle. Well, that’s what happens when I think of those kisses I shall steal from you.’
‘You will probably never appreciate or understand the gaps you have filled in my life. I was so very lonely before you came. You seemed to understand at once how desolate this country seemed to me, how I struggled with its rigid ways, even as a little boy, and how I couldn’t understand its archaic institutions, how I felt so much like a bird forbidden to fly, how I longed to go home to America. It was you who gave me England, made England my home. Thank you for giving me England. Flower of my Eden, goodnight.’
On the eve of her wedding to Daniel, having copied out all that was most intimate in Ash’s letters, when the rest of the house was all afluster with preparations and jollity, Rosie set about doing what she had resolved to do. She arranged balls of newspaper in her grate, adorned them with kindling, and placed lumps of coal strategically. She took the box of matches from the mantelpiece, and found that they were damp. The head of the first match simply came off, and the second broke, but the third one caught, and she tilted it to make the flame climb. Carefully she set light to as many balls of paper as she could. She laid the letters reverently on top.
With horrible detachment she began to watch as Ash’s messages burned, the beloved handwriting turning brown and then flaring.
Suddenly she knew that she couldn’t bear it. She saw the fire taking, and had the wild thought that if only she acted fast enough her fingers would escape the flames. Her hands darted in, and seized one letter after another, dropping them on the hearth and beating out the flames. She felt the sting and sear of it, but knew that it was too late to stop trying to rescue the letters.
Once all the charred paper was on the hearth, she realised that she had burned the backs of her hands as well as the palms and fingers. As the horrifying pain welled up and the skin blistered, she knew there was nothing she could do but run for the bathroom.
Her hands were too damaged to grip the knob. She kicked furiously at the door and began to wail and moan, waving her hands in the attempt to cool them with currents of air.
It seemed like an age, but it was moments before Millicent opened the door, and Rosie rushed past her, falling headlong on the landing, and unable to use her hands to save herself, she crashed down on her face and elbows. Sobbing, she scrambled to her feet and ran. Millicent ran in her wake. Once in the bathroom, Rosie cried, ‘Turn on the tap, turn on the tap! Quick, Millie, quick!’
As Rosie stood there with cold water running over her burns, crying with the agony of it, Millicent hurtled downstairs and, on her own initiative, ran out of the front door without her hat and down Court Road to fetch Dr Scott.
Later that evening the entire family held court in the drawing room whilst the two servants hovered in the hall. Rosie was their favourite of the sisters, and they were overcome with anxiety and confusion. Rosie had resisted being taken to hospital, and had duly succumbed to shock. She had lain on the sofa, pale and with almost no pulse at the wrist, cold sweat pearling on her brow. She neither moved nor seemed to breathe, and the family were appalled by the prospect of her dying the night before her marriage. Hamilton McCosh went up to her room, inspected the charred letters, and immediately understood what had happened. When he returned and informed the others, they all had the same thought. Ottilie said, ‘The wedding’s got to be called off. Sophie, you and Fairhead will just have to go ahead and get married on your own.’
Dr Scott, a portly middle-aged man of great experience and considerable natural wisdom, arranged Rosie so that her feet were above her head, in order to increase the flow of blood to the brain. ‘It’s more important to treat the shock than the burns,’ he told the family. ‘The burns can wait, and they aren’t nearly as bad as they look. Kindly ask one of the servants to fetch a large bowl or bucket. The other must fetch blankets, and make as many hot-water bottles as you have in the house. Otherwise I must ask you to remain calm and not to interfere.’
Mrs McCosh bridled, not because she wanted to interfere, but because she felt it was something to which she had the natural right.
Just as Dr Scott had hoped and anticipated, Rosie woke up and was promptly sick into the bowl that he had requested. ‘Excellent!’ exclaimed the doctor. ‘Now we can be certain she’ll live. A pot of weak tea please!’
Dr Scott set about preparing the wounds for dressing. The split in her lip he did nothing about. He made sure that no charred paper still adhered to the wounds on her hands, and cleaned them very gently with warm water. Rosie winced and whimpered, and Sophie went behind her and put an arm round her shoulder, placing her head side by side with Rosie’s. ‘Be most heroical and valorifical and undauntical,’ she whispered, and Rosie managed to laugh.
The doctor punctured the blisters and snipped away the pieces of loose skin. He rummaged in his substantial Gladstone bag, and produced a bottle of picric acid, with which he soaked several pieces of gauze. Carefully he arranged Rosie’s fingers in a natural position and placed gauze between each one so that scarring would not seal any of them together. Then he placed more soaked gauze over the remaining burns, and gently wrapped the hands in bandages.
In the hall he gave his instructions to Mrs McCosh. ‘The dressing can stay on for several days unless there is considerable discharge, in which case I must be sent for. It is possible that shock may return. It sometimes does. If so, send someone for me immediately. The patient will be in great pain for some considerable time, but in my opinion most of the burns are second degree and should not scar to any great extent. If the picric acid soaks through to the outside of the dressing, I must warn you that any linen she touches will be stained a pleasingly deep shade of yellow.’
‘Thank you, Doctor,’ said Mrs McCosh, genuinely grateful
. ‘Please do not omit to send your bill at the end of the month.’
‘That is something I never forget to do,’ said Dr Scott, ‘however great the temptation. And I trust that you will pay it promptly, as is sometimes not your wont. Good day to you.’ And with that he donned his top hat and set off briskly for home.
Rosie resolutely refused to cancel or postpone her marriage, repeating, ‘I never break promises.’ Despite her inability to exorcise Ash, she had an intuition that marrying Daniel was the right thing to do, and in any case she could not spoil the day for Fairhead and Sophie.
73
The Day
It was a splendid morning, to the immense relief of the household, who had set up trestles in the garden, spread with crisp white linen, and laden with food and champagne. A little boy armed with shingle and a catapult had been hired to fend off any birds or squirrels that might take an interest whilst everybody was at church. However, he made more inroads into the spread than the wildlife might have done, and was entirely responsible for the disappearance of a bowl of Brazil nuts and two pies. Caractacus made off with a large cube of Cheddar cheese and ate it in the orchard.
Cookie had been working flat out for days making delicate little items for the reception, and had been adamant that a cake must not be bought in. Accordingly she had created two tremendous confections in three tiers that occupied the centre of the kitchen table, and around which the rest of the preparations had to be conducted. She fussed and perspired and frequently declared that she had never been so busy or so put upon in all her born days.
Ottilie and Christabel had had the idea that it would be very fine if Daniel and Rosie were to be married by Fairhead, prior to his being married to Sophie by the rector, but ultimately it seemed altogether too complicated, and Fairhead himself said that it would be impossible to concentrate on the other wedding when he was preoccupied with his own. Christabel had also had the idea that she should take the wedding photographs, until Rosie had pointed out that if she was taking the photographs, then she herself would not be able to be in them, and that in any case it would seem a bit strange to have one of the bridesmaids take the pictures, all dressed up in frills and furbelows, and partially concealed under a black cloth. Gaskell offered to step in, but in truth Mrs McCosh, for all her egalitarianism when it concerned her own case, was not to be convinced that a lady photographer could be relied upon to do the job properly, so Gaskell curled her lip in quiet disdain and resigned herself to being a mere guest. She arrived on a motorcycle, attired in a manner that would have reminded many people of the flamboyant costumes of Oscar Wilde, were it not for the flying helmet and goggles.