Mary Westmacott - Giant's Bread

It is difficult to say how Vernon was affected by his father’s death. He felt no actual grief – was rendered even more stolid by his mother’s obvious wish for him to display emotion. He was proud of his father – so proud that it almost hurt – yet he understood what Joe had meant when she said that it was better for her mother to be dead. He remembered very clearly that last evening walk with his father – the things he had said – the feeling there had been between them.

His father, he knew, hadn’t really wanted to come back. He was sorry for his father – he always had been. He didn’t know why.

It was not grief he felt for his father – it was more a kind of heart-gripping loneliness. Father was dead – Aunt Nina was dead. There was Mother, of course, but that was different.

He couldn’t satisfy his mother – he never had been able to. She was always hugging him, crying over him – telling him they must be all in all to each other now. And he couldn’t, he just couldn’t, say the things she wanted him to say. He couldn’t even put his arms round her neck and hug her back.

He longed for the holidays to be over. His mother, with her red eyes, and her widow’s weeds – of the heaviest crape. Somehow she overpowered things.

Mr Flemming, the lawyer from London, came down to stay, and Uncle Sydney came from Birmingham. He stayed two days. At the end of them, Vernon was summoned to the library.

The two men were sitting at the long table. Myra was sitting in a low chair by the fire, her handkerchief to her eyes.

‘Well, my boy,’ said Uncle Sydney, ‘we’ve got something to talk to you about. How would you like to come and live near your Aunt Carrie and me at Birmingham?’

‘Thank you,’ said Vernon, ‘but I’d rather live here.’

‘A bit gloomy, don’t you think?’ said his uncle. ‘Now I’ve got my eye on a jolly house – not too big, thoroughly comfortable. There’ll be your cousins near for you to play with in the holidays. It’s a very good idea, I think.’

‘I’m sure it is,’ said Vernon politely. ‘But I’d really like being here best, thank you.’

‘Ah! H’m,’ said Uncle Sydney. He blew his nose and looked questioningly at the lawyer, who assented to the look with a slight nod.

‘It’s not quite so simple as that, old chap,’ said Uncle Sydney. ‘I think you’re quite old enough to understand if I explain things to you. Now that your father’s dead – er – passed from us, Abbots Puissants belongs to you.’

‘I know,’ said Vernon.

‘Eh? How do you know? Servants been talking?’

‘Father told me before he went away.’

‘Oh!’ said Uncle Sydney rather taken aback. ‘Oh, I see. Well, as I say, Abbots Puissants belongs to you, but a place like this takes a lot of money to run – paying wages and things like that – you understand? And then there are some things called Death Duties. When anyone dies, you have to pay out a lot of money to the Government.

‘Now, your father wasn’t a rich man. When his father died, and he came into this place, he had so little money that he thought he’d have to sell it.’

‘Sell it?’ burst out Vernon incredulously.

‘Yes, it’s not entailed.’

‘What’s entailed?’

Mr Flemming explained carefully and clearly.

‘But – but – you aren’t going to sell it now?’

Vernon gazed at him with agonizing, imploring eyes.

‘Certainly not,’ said Mr Flemming. ‘The estate is left to you, and nothing can be done until you are of age – that means twenty-one, you know.’

Vernon breathed a sigh of relief.

‘But, you see,’ continued Uncle Sydney, ‘there isn’t enough money to go on living here. As I say, your father would have had to sell it. But he met your mother and married her, and fortunately she had enough money to – to keep things going. But your father’s death has made a lot of difference – for one thing he has left certain – er – debts which your mother insists on paying.’

There was a sniff from Myra. Uncle Sydney’s tone was embarrassed and he hurried on.

‘The common-sense thing to do is to let Abbots Puissants for a term of years – till you are twenty-one, in fact. By then, who knows? Things may – er – change for the better. Naturally your mother will be happier living near her own relations. You must think of your mother, you know, my boy.’

‘Yes,’ said Vernon. ‘Father told me to.’

‘So that’s settled – eh?’

How cruel they were, thought Vernon. Asking him – when he could see that there was nothing to ask him about. They could do as they liked. They meant to. Why call him in here and pretend !

Strangers would come and live in Abbots Puissants.

Never mind! Some day he would be twenty-one.

‘Darling,’ said Myra, ‘I’m doing it all for you. It would be so sad here without Daddy, wouldn’t it?’

She held out her arms, but Vernon pretended not to notice. He walked out of the room, saying, with difficulty:

‘Thank you, Uncle Sydney, so much, for telling me …’

He went out into the garden and wandered on till he came to the old Abbey. He sat down with his chin in his hands.

‘Mother could !’ he said to himself. ‘If she liked, she could ! She wants to go and live in a horrid red brick house with pipes on it like Uncle Sydney’s. She doesn’t like Abbots Puissants – she never has. But she needn’t pretend it’s all for me. That’s not true. She says things that aren’t true. She always has –’

He sat there smouldering with indignation.

‘Vernon – Vernon – I’ve been looking for you everywhere. I couldn’t think what had become of you. What’s the matter?’

It was Joe. He told her. Here was someone who would understand and sympathize. But Joe startled him.

‘Well, why not? Why shouldn’t Aunt Myra go and live in Birmingham if she wants to? I think you’re beastly. Why should she go on living here just so that you should be here in the holidays? It’s her money. Why shouldn’t she spend it on doing as she likes?’

‘But Joe, Abbots Puissants –’

‘Well, what’s Abbots Puissants to Aunt Myra? In her heart of hearts she feels about it just like you feel about Uncle Sydney’s house in Birmingham. Why should she pinch and scrape to live here if she doesn’t want to? If your father had made her happier here, perhaps she would want to – but he didn’t. Mother said so once. I don’t like Aunt Myra terribly – I know she’s good and all that, but I don’t love her – but I can be fair. It’s her money. You can’t get away from that!’

Vernon looked at her. They were antagonists. Each had their point of view and neither could see the other’s. They were both ablaze with indignation.

‘I think women have a rotten time,’ said Joe. ‘And I’m on Aunt Myra’s side.’

‘All right,’ said Vernon, ‘be on her side! I don’t care.’

Joe went away. He stayed there, sitting on the ruined wall of the old Abbey.

For the first time he questioned life … Things weren’t sure . How could you tell what was going to happen?

When he was twenty-one .

Yes, but you couldn’t be sure ! You couldn’t be safe !

Look at the time when he was a baby. Nurse, God, Mr Green! How absolutely fixed they had seemed. And now they had all gone.

At least, God was still there, he supposed. But it wasn’t the same God – not the same God at all.

What would have happened to everything by the time he was twenty-one? What, strangest thought of all, would have happened to himself?

He felt terribly alone. Father, Aunt Nina – both dead. Only Uncle Sydney and Mummy – and they weren’t – didn’t – belong. He paused, confused. There was Joe! Joe understood. But Joe was queer about some things.