Mrs. Malory and Any Man's Death (4 page)

And whether that would be a good thing I couldn’t, at the moment, decide.

 

 

 

“How are you settling in?” Rosemary asked as we sat at one of the small, unsteady tables in the Buttery.

“It was strange at first,” Rachel said, “being back in my childhood home. And Phyll’s put me in my old room, which feels a bit weird—it feels as though time has telescoped.”

“I’m sure she’s delighted to have you back,” I said. “She’s seemed really lost since your father died.”

“It was marvelous, the way she looked after him. There wasn’t much I could do to help, being so far away, and then, of course, there was Alastair’s long illness . . .” Her voice trailed away.

“That must have been awful for you,” Rosemary said, “and with Jamie abroad. Africa, isn’t it?”

“Somalia. He’s working in one of those terrible refugee camps.”

“It’s splendid,” I said, “the work he’s doing. I mean, he’s so highly qualified—to give all that up to go and help out there.”

“It’s what he wanted to do,” Rachel said. “Alastair was disappointed at first. He hoped Jamie would take over the practice, but then, when he saw how serious he was, he gave him a lot of support. I miss them both so much and, of course, I worry about Jamie a lot. So,” she said briskly, “this move back here is a good thing—there’s been so much to do, which helps keep my mind off things.”

“I expect it feels strange, sharing a house,” Rosemary said.

“The trouble is the kitchen—well, you know how you feel about your own kitchen. The fact is, both Phyll and I love to cook. She’s brilliant and I’m not bad, though I’m not in her league.”

“Oh dear. So what are you going to do?”

“The only thing we can do—we’ve made a sort of roster: I cook on Monday, Wednesday and Friday and Phyll has Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Sundays we take turns. We each shop for our own days and we each do our own washing up.”

“It
sounds
all right,” Rosemary said. “How’s it working so far?”

“Not bad, really. Of course it’s very difficult getting used to other people’s stove, saucepans and so forth, but I’m working on it.”

“Well-done, both of you,” I said.

“Oh, Phyll tries so hard to make things easy, bless her, and of course, we have Mrs. Bradshaw twice a week to do the housework and so forth, which helps a lot. Fortunately we’re both naturally tidy—Mother saw to that!”

Remembering Mrs. Gregory, I could well believe it. She was a highly intelligent woman who had the misfortune to live at a time when it was unusual for a married woman to have a career, so she put her energies into being the perfect doctor ’s wife. She would, of course, have liked her husband to achieve the higher reaches of his profession, but dear Dr. Gregory, although immensely easygoing, refused point-blank to be anything other than a respected (and much loved) GP, practicing in Taviscombe and living in the house he adored at Mere Barton. Being a realist, Margaret Gregory accepted this, and devoted herself to (unobtrusively) helping her husband in his practice, organizing his social life and running every voluntary organization in the district. Since she felt that the family picture required children, she had two. She was deeply disappointed when her second child was another girl (she had reckoned on one of each), but deciding that girls were easier to mold than boys (of whom she had no personal knowledge and whom she regarded with a certain degree of distaste), she determined that Rachel and Phyllis should be perfect in every respect. And I’m sure that included tidiness.

“We go our separate ways to some extent,” Rachel went on. “Phyll has quite a few commitments in the village and I’m still trying to adjust to things down here.”

“I’m sure,” Rosemary said, “there’ll be lots of places that would be glad of your help. Brunswick Lodge,” she suggested, “for one.”

“Is Anthea still running things?”

Rosemary nodded.

“Then I certainly won’t get involved
there
, just as I’m steering clear of all Annie Roberts’s things in the village.”

“There’s the Hospital Friends,” I suggested. “They’re a nice bunch, and with your nurse’s training you could bring a bit of practical common sense to some of the discussions!”

Rachel smiled. “I don’t think I’ll commit myself to anything for a while. I just want to keep my head down and find my feet. Is that a mixed metaphor? Anyway, you know what I mean. I’m still getting used to the changes in the village; nearly half the people have come since I was here last. Phyll seems to like most of them, but I can’t help resenting them as interlopers! Thank heaven for dear old Ellen; we occasionally get together and have a really good grumble.”

“Yes,” I said, “she was being very forthright about things when I saw her yesterday. I had to see Annie about this wretched village book she’s forcing me to help with, and Ellen very kindly rescued me from what could have been a
very
long session!”

“Oh yes, I heard about this famous book,” Rachel said. “It’s ranked second after the Domesday Book, in Annie’s opinion.”

“Oh, don’t mention the Domesday Book!” I exclaimed. “She’s making me spend hours in the County Records Office looking up ancient documents. She’s set her heart on proving that Mere Barton is
older
than any of the other villages. Apparently it’s a matter of pride!”

Rachel laughed. “Mere Barton forever! But that’s enough about the village. What I really want to hear is all the news about both of you. Hang on a minute; I’m going to get us all fresh coffees and some Danish pastries. Yes,” she added as we made token protests, “don’t argue—after all, this is a sort of celebration.”

 

“So, what’s all this I hear about you getting mixed up with one of Annie Roberts’s projects?” Michael asked when I was having a family lunch with them the following Sunday. “I hope you know what you’re letting yourself in for.”

“I’m beginning to,” I said.

“What exactly are you doing?” Thea asked.

“Oh, I’m supposed to be helping with this book about Mere Barton—well, I say helping, but it seems to me that Annie’s shifting most of the work onto me.”

Michael laughed. “Typical! She comes up with these schemes and off-loads the actual work onto other people and then, when they’re finished, she takes all the credit for them herself.”

“Ellen Tucker says she can be an absolute monster sometimes,” I said.

My granddaughter, who had been pushing the mashed potato round her plate in a desultory fashion, looked up with interest. “A monster?” she asked. “Like a tyrannosaurus?”

“No, darling,” I said. “It’s just a figure of speech.”

“What’s a figure—”

“Alice,” said her father, “stop being a pain! Eat up your food and stop playing with it.” He turned to me. “No, I’ve had some very tiresome dealings with Miss Roberts.”

“Really?”

“It’s one of these wretched charitable trusts. Many, many years ago a Miss Percy, who was the sister of the rector of Mere Barton at the time, left a sum of money in trust for the poor of the village.”

“That was nice,” Thea said.

“I wouldn’t say there were any poor in Mere Barton these days!” I said.

“She also,” Michael went on, ignoring our interruptions, “left a piece of land to be used in common by all the villagers to graze their animals.”

“Whereabouts is it?” I asked.

“About half a mile outside the village proper—well, so many new houses have been built there that now it’s almost
in
the village.”

“Well, apart from Diana and her horses,” I said, “I can’t think of anyone who’d want to graze anything there nowadays. Anyway, Diana’s got a perfectly good paddock and she’s not what you’d call
poor
.”

“Exactly. So we—that is, most of the trustees, feel it’s time to wind up the trust.”

“So?”

“So Annie Roberts doesn’t agree.”

“How come Annie’s one of the trustees?”

“The bequest specifies that one of them has to be a resident of the village and—”

“And Annie snaffled the job!”

“Precisely.”

“Is she the only one who objects?”

“Well, there is one other—Brian Norris—who seems to object to things on principle.”

“Oh, I know him from the Hospital Friends.”

“But I’m pretty sure he could be persuaded. No, it’s Annie who’s the problem.”

“But surely you could all outvote her.”

“Unfortunately we can’t. All decisions have to be unanimous.”

“How awkward,” I said. “What do you want to do with the land?”

“Actually, we’ve had a very good offer for it from someone who wants to build houses there. It’s a couple of acres and you could get quite a few houses on that, even large expensive ones like the rest of the ones in Mere Barton.”

“What about planning permission?”

“There’ve been so many new houses built there in the last ten years without any problem, so I don’t think that will be a difficulty.”

“Yes, well, I sort of see Annie’s point—still more houses . . .”

“I agree,” Thea said, getting up to remove the plates and fetch the pudding. “The village is quite built up enough already.”

“Anyway,” I said, “what would happen to all this money if you do sell?”

“It goes to the charity commissioners.”

“You mean you just have to hand it over?”

“That’s right—cy pres
,
if you want the legal term. I think it’s Norman French.”

“And what do they do with it?”

“They pass it on to some other charity.”

“So it’s not kept in the village?”

“No.”

“Well,” I said,“ I must say I agree with Annie. After all, Miss Thingummy, who set up the trust, expected it would stay in the village.”

“It doesn’t work like that—it’s the law.”

“The law is an ass.”

“True, but there it is.”

“So the only people who’ll do well out of the whole affair will be these property developers.”

“They will, yes, but other charities will benefit.”

“And this sort of thing’s going on all over the country?”

“Well . . . yes, I suppose it is. That kind of benefaction—soup and blankets for the poor—doesn’t work anymore.”

“No, I suppose not,” I said sadly, “and although the poor are still with us (and in villages too), I expect they’d feel patronized by Victorian charities whereas they can accept state aid quite happily. And a good thing too. It’s just sentimental to want that sort of old custom to survive.”

Thea’s return to the dining room bearing a splendid trifle put an end to this discussion, but I retained my sense of dissatisfaction about the affair and when I saw Rosemary the next day I asked her if she knew about it.

 

“I seem to remember Jack had something to do with the money side of a charity at Old Cleeve. I suppose they have to do something—I mean, you can’t just leave it lying idle forever.”

“No, but there must be things in the village it could be used for. The church usually needs money for restoring
something,
and if this benefactor was a former Rector ’s sister, I bet that’s what she’d have wanted.”

“Well, yes . . .”

I laughed. “Just for once I’m on Annie’s side.”

“Do you think she’ll go on holding things up?”

“Oh yes, there’s no way she’ll give in.”

“I wonder what everyone else in the village thinks.”

“A lot of them wouldn’t like more new houses in the village.”

“But most of them live in new houses.”

“Exactly. But then,
they
want to preserve their rural idyll. I expect Maurice Sanders would welcome more trade for the village shop and Father William would like a larger congregation—if they’re churchgoers.”

“It’s amazing what Annie gets done,” Rosemary said, “even if she uses other people to do it.”

“I just wish I knew how she does it—use other people, I mean.
I
usually end up being one of the other people, especially if it’s someone like Annie or Anthea doing the using.”

“I was amused at Rachel saying she’s steering clear of Anthea and Annie—I bet she won’t be able to help herself.”

“Well, she seems to have used all her organizing skills over the kitchen problem.”

“I’m not sure about that,” Rosemary said doubtfully. “I can’t see it lasting—Rachel won’t be able to help herself taking over—just you wait and see!”

“She always was very much the elder sister, not just being bossy, but protective too. Do you remember when Zoe Havisham tried to bully Phyll, how Rachel put the fear of God into her?”

“Goodness, yes. I’d forgotten all about Zoe; she was a nasty piece of work. She left the following year, didn’t she? I wonder what happened to her.”

“Oh, her parents had split up—I expect she was unhappy and that’s why she was so beastly—and her mother married again and they all moved up to Newcastle.”

“Really?” Rosemary said in surprise. “I suppose that would explain it. How do you know these things?”

I shrugged. “I just do. I suppose I hear someone talking about things and they sort of seep into my subconscious.”

“Anyway,” Rosemary said, “whatever her good intentions, I bet Rachel will take over and I daresay Phyll will let her—that’s what they’ve always done.”

“Even though they’ve led separate lives all these years?”

“Oh, I think so.”

“I don’t know how it would be with a sister,” I said thoughtfully. “It’s different with a brother, and Jeremy was a lot older than me—as Colin was with you—so there was never any question of who stood where in the hierarchy.”

“That’s true. And in their case it wasn’t really about who was the older—there was only just over a year between them. But Rachel’s always been a much stronger character than Phyll and she’d have taken the lead anyway.”