“All right,” she said. “But I really do think you would have made a success of marriage.”
“It takes two.”
“It should be easy enough. Two people make up their minds that it is going to work, then it couldn’t fail. People are too absorbed in their own wants—that’s it.”
“People are human.”
“I like the Landowers,” she went on. “It’s funny … the rivalry between the families. Still there, perhaps. It’s a pity we didn’t have our Romeo and Juliet … but with a happy ending, of course. I like Jago.”
“Everybody likes Jago.”
“He could be tamed.”
I laughed. “You talk as though he is some wild beast.”
“I thought he might have some fine feelings under all that froth.”
“He’d never change.”
“I think some woman might change him … make him serious … make him settle down.” She looked at me wistfully.
“Dear Cousin Mary,” I said, “I’m no Juliet and he’s no Romeo. It’s quite incongruous.”
“I daresay you are right.”
When I left her that night she seemed much as usual.
Next morning when I was getting up there was a knock on my door. It was one of the maids. She was white-faced and trembling.
“Miss Caroline,” she said, “I went in to wake Miss Tressidor with her tea and …”
“What? What?” I cried.
“I think something’s wrong.”
I hurried along to Cousin Mary’s room. She was lying back on her pillows, white and still. I went to her and touched her cheek. It was cold.
A terrible desolation swept over me. Cousin Mary had died in the night.
As soon as the doctor came I took him to her room. He shook his head.
“She’s been dead some hours,” he said.
“She was as usual last night.”
He nodded. “But it was inevitable,” he said, “and she would not have wished to go on as she was.”
“But I thought she was going to get better.”
“She was too badly injured for that. It was her spirit that kept her alive, her determination to set her house in order. I guessed that. It couldn’t have lasted. You have made her final weeks happy, Miss Tressidor. There was nothing else that could have been done.”
I felt stupefied. I was going about in a dream.
I could not bear to think of Tressidor without her. I could not believe that I should never see her again.
I had to rouse myself from my stupor. There was a great deal to be done, the funeral arrangements to be made, people to be notified.
The day after Cousin Mary’s death, her lawyer came to see me; he expressed his deep concern and he said he hoped I would regard him as my friend, as Miss Tressidor had done.
“I have a letter which she left with me and which was to be delivered to you on her death. She wrote it after the accident and it is in my keeping. It will explain the will, I think, but she wanted you to be prepared and to tell you in her own words.”
I took the letter. I knew she had done a certain amount of writing in bed and that some of these communications had been to her solicitor. She must have known that she could not live long. She was fully aware of how badly damaged she was. She had often said that she was lucky that her injuries caused her the minimum of pain, but she knew that what had been done to her body had rendered part of it insensitive.
I took the letter to my room, for I knew that reading it would be an emotional experience—and indeed it was.
“My Dear Caroline,” she had written,
“When you read this I shall be dead. The last thing I want you to do is grieve for me. I’m better off like this. You don’t think I could have endured months … perhaps years … incapacitated as I was. It wouldn’t have been in my nature. I should have been a horrible, crotchetty old woman—ungrateful, irritable, biting the hand that fed me … which would have been yours, for you my dear, are the one who has brought the most joy into my life. Yes, from the moment you came, I took to you.
“Well, now I’m going and what I want more than anything is to make sure that you are all right … as far as I can make you, I mean … for mostly it depends on yourself.
“You have worked for Tressidor and you have a good knowledge of the estate. So I am leaving you Tressidor … lock, stock and barrel, as they say. It’s all drawn up legally. I daresay Imogen might try to put her spoke in, but I’ve dealt with that. She’ll say she’s the nearest blood relation and the place is hers by right. Can you see her here? What would she do with it? Bring it to ruin in next to no time … or rather sell it. That’s what it would mean to her … hard cash. No, that’s not to be. Tressidor is mine and I say it is going to be yours.
“I know we found out that there was no blood tie between us, but you’re like me, Caroline. You’re strong. You care about the place. You’re a Tressidor by adoption. Blood’s thicker than water, they say. It’s true about blood and water but that doesn’t mean it’s true about people. You’re closer to me than any of the family have been.
“Well, there it is, Tressidor will be yours. You know something about the management and you’ll learn more. When they read my will you’ll see how it’s worked out. Jim Burrows is to be looked after if he stays to help you. He’s a good worker and loyal, I know. You’ll do well. I’ll prophesy the estate will prosper under you. You’ve got the touch.
“I know you’ve always been uneasy about what you should do with your life and thought about getting posts and so on. Well, there’s no need. You’ll be mistress of Tressidor.
“The lawyers will explain everything. They’ll help you when you need help. With them and the bank and Jim Burrows you can’t go wrong. You’ll find everything in order. Tressidor is yours and everything you need to keep it in the state in which it comes to you.
“Now a word about you. I know it was a terrible shock when that silly young man turned from you. I think it did something to you. It embittered you. That was natural. Then I believe there might have been happiness for you in another direction … and that’s a blind alley. Sometimes I fancy there is a little canker in your heart, Caroline, a seed of bitterness which gives you a jaundiced view of some aspects of life. If I say to you, Cut it out, you might say you cannot. I know it is hard, but you won’t be completely happy until you are free of it. Take what comes to you, Caroline, and be grateful for it. Sometimes life is a compromise. It was with me. I made the best of what I had and on the whole it was a good life.
“We have talked of marriage now and then. I should have liked to see you a happy wife and the mother of children. I suppose that would be reckoned the ideal state. You need a very special sort of man. One, if I may say so, who will direct you to a certain extent and to do that he will have to be very wise and strong as well. He will have to be someone you can respect. Remember that, dear Caroline.
“Now I have finished sermonizing.
“Goodbye, my child. That is how I think of you … the daughter I never had. If I had had one I should have liked her to be exactly like you.
“I thought you should be prepared for all this when they read the will. It might have been a shock to you.
“There is one other thing I have to say to you and that is, don’t grieve for me. Remember this is the best thing that could have happened since poor old Caesar tripped over that tree trunk. I couldn’t have gone on like that. Much better for me to go while I could do so with some dignity and a certain self respect.
“Thank you for being to me what you have. Try to be happy. I’m not much given to poetry as you know but there is something I came across the other day. Shakespeare, I think—and it expressed more beautifully, more poignantly than I could have believed possible all that I want to say to you about my passing. This is it: