Caroline England by Noel Streatfeild

Author:Noel Streatfeild
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-07-25T14:51:21+00:00

Chapter XIV

AGNES’S death synchronised with John’s arrival at the Manor. Neither James nor Caroline was upset at her death, but both had a deep respect for a death, to whomever it occurred. Although the morning was hot, they spent it sitting in the drawing-room with all the curtains drawn. The very fact of James being in the drawing-room at such an hour marked the day as funereal. He had not sat in it during the morning since his father died. The similarity of the two occasions took his mind back. The silences which both he and Caroline considered fitting, he punctuated with ‘My poor old father had a very movin’ funeral.’ ‘Beautiful wreaths when my poor old father went.’ Caroline felt there was injustice in remembering her grandfather on this occasion; the day was Agnes’s, and should be treated as such. She recalled James firmly to the subject of their grief: ‘Poor dear Aunt Agnes would have loved that bowl of roses,’ or ‘Poor dear Aunt Agnes, so sad to die in such beautiful weather.’ At mid-day James ordered a decanter of port and some ginger biscuits which, swallowed at such an unlikely hour, seemed to him suitable funeral meats. In spite of the heat the port cheered them both enormously. James at once sent up to the schoolroom for ‘Make them to be numbered with Thy Saints,’ and on its arrival jovially removed its back, and took out the cardboard, holding the portraits, in order to write ‘Numbered July 3rd, 1902,’ under ‘Agnes.’

John arrived during the port-drinking. He had driven up from the station torn with confused feelings. A few years ago he would have been the boy at the lodge who touched his hat. Half of him wanted to say, ‘Hi, you, don’t touch your hat at me,’ and the other half was snobbishly pleased. Fun to be one of a family who had a livery for their coachman, and a coat of arms to paint on their carriage door. But as that same coachman and carriage drove round to the back, he looked after them regretfully. “I wish,” he thought, laughing at himself, as he climbed the terrace steps, “I felt more like a son-in-law and less like a tourist paying a shilling to see round the place.”

Mary opened the door to him. The coachman had already told him of Agnes’s departure, so her lugubrious air and in-the-presence-of-death whisper were no surprise. “If you will please to step this way, Mr. Torrys and Mrs. England are in the drawing-room.”

John looked at the drawn curtains of the hall and shuddered.

“I expect they’d rather be alone.” He succeeded in surpassing the gravity of her tone. “I’ll walk round the garden until luncheon.”

Helen and James had been put to sleep in the nursery. Elizabeth was left to play by herself in the garden. She walked proudly amongst the coronation oaks.

“Hullo, George the Fourth. I’m Betsy, and I don’t care a bit about any of you.” She made a face down the line of trees.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.