“You know,” I said.
“Why shouldn’t I? What happened to this Jessica?”
“She died,” said Mrs. Bucket.
“When she was very young ?” I asked.
“It was after they left Oakland,” Hannah told me, ‘so we wouldn’t know much about it. “
“She was older than Miriam, and Miriam was fifteen when they left,” I prompted.
“About seventeen,” said Hannah, ‘but it’s not for us . Mrs. Bucket shouldn’t have. “
“I’ll do what I like in my own kitchen,” said Mrs. Bucket.
This is no kitchen matter, “protested Hannah.
“I’ll thank you not to be impudent to me, Hannah Gooding.”
I could see that they were making a quarrel of this to avoid telling me. But I was going to find out. I was determined on that.
I left the Hall and went to the churchyard and looked at all the graves. There was only one Jessica Clavering among them, and she had died about a hundred years before at the ripe age of seventy years.
Then I went to the Waste Land. There it was-the grave and the plaque engraved with her name and the date Ju . 1880.
So this is where they buried you, Jessica,” I murmured.
3.
A LETTER FROM THE DEAD
The next day when I was sitting by the stream Hannah appeared on the other side of it, carrying a package.
“I wanted to speak to you. Miss Clavering,” she said.
“All right, Hannah. I’ll come over.” As I crossed the bridge I noticed how solemn she was looking.
“I’ve been thinking the time has come for me to give you this,” she said.
“What is it?”
“Ifs something that was given to me to be given to you when the time came or on your twenty-first birthday-which ever came first, and I reckon, after all that’s been said, that the time is now.”
I took the packet which she thrust into my hands.
What is it? ” I repeated.
“It’s writing. It was written to you and given to me When ? And who gave it to you ?”
“It’s all in there. I hope I’ve done what was right She hesitated for a moment, her brow puckered in consternation then she turned and hurried across the bridge, leaving me standing there with the large envelope in my hands. I opened it and pulled out several sheets of paper on which someone had written in dear neat writing.
I glanced at the first page.
“My darling child. Opal,” it began.
“It will be many years after I write this that you will read it, and I hope when you do you will not think too badly of me. Always remember that I loved you, and that what I am going to do, I do because it is the best way out for all of us. I want you to know that my last thoughts were of you …”
I could not understand what this meant, so I decided to take the papers to the Waste Land where few people ever came and there, close to the grave of Jessica, I started to read.
“I shall start right at the beginning. I want you to know me, because if you do you will understand how everything happened I think in every family there is one who is different, the one in the litter who doesn’t bear much resemblance to the rest They called it a win nick I believe. Well, I was like that. There was Xavier who was so clever and good at lessons and ready to help everybody; and there was Miriam who could get up to mischief but mostly when I led her into it. Miriam was malleable; she could be moulded any way and would at times be a model child. I was always a bit of a rebel. I used to pretend I was a ghost and play the spinet in the gallery and then go and hide when people came to look so that the rumour started that the gallery was haunted and the servants wouldn’t go up there alone. I used to flatter Mrs. Bucket into making the special cakes which I liked and she would always bake an extra one for me. I was Papa’s favourite, though not Mama’s. Papa taught me how to play poker. I shall never forget Mama’s face when she came to his study and found us there with the cards in our hands. I think it must have been then that I first realized the uneasy state of affairs in our household. She stood there, so dramatic that I wanted to burst out laughing. She said: ” Fiddling while Rome’s burning! ” I said: ” This isn’t fiddling. Mama. It’s poker. ” She cried: ” I wonder you’re not ashamed. ” And she picked up the cards and threw them into the fire.
“Now ifs cards they are burning, not Rome,” I said, for I could never guard my tongue and words always slipped out before I could stop them.
Mama lifted her hand and slapped me across the face. I remember the shock it gave me because it showed how distraught she was. Usually she was calm and her reproaches were verbal. Papa was shocked too. He said sternly:
“Never lift your hand against the children again.” Then it came out:
“And who are you to tell me how to behave? You are teaching our daughter to be as dissolute as you are. Cards, gambling … and gambling means debts, which is why we are in the position we are in today. Do you realize that the roof needs immediate repair? There is water seeping into the gallery. There is dry rot under the floor boards in the library. The servants have not been paid for two months.
And what is your answer? To teach your daughter to play pokeri “I was standing there, holding my face where she had slapped it. Papa said pleadingly: ” Not in front of Jessica, please, Dorothy. ” And she answered: ” Why not? She will know soon enough. How long before everyone knows that through your gambling your fortune away . and mine. we cannot afford to go on like this. “
“I saw the Queen of Hearts writhe in the flames and then Mama had gone and Papa and I were alone together.
“I don’t know why I should tell you this. Ifs irrelevant really. But I do want you to know something of me. Opal, and what our lives were like. I don’t want to be just a name to you. I want you to try to understand why things happened as they did, that’s why I’m writing all this down. Perhaps I shall tear this up when I’ve finished. Perhaps I shall decide that there is no need for you to know it. Perhaps ifs just making excuses. However, just at first I will write whatever comes into my head, and that scene in Papa’s study seems to me in a way a beginning, because if it hadn’t been for the fact that we had to sell Oakland Hall it would never have happened the way it did.
“It wasn’t long after that that there were scenes quite often. It was always money. Money was wanted to pay for this and that, and it wasn’t there. I knew Papa was wrong. It was some devil’s streak in the family which had come down and was in him. He used to talk to me about it in the long gallery, where he would show me pictures of his ancestors and explain what they were noted for. There was Geoffrey, born three hundred years before, who had nearly brought us to ruin. Then there was James, who had gone to sea and was a sort of buccaneer. He had filched treasure from Spanish galleons and we grew rich on them. Then there was Charles, who gambled again. This was at the time of Charles I, and then came the war and we were naturally for the King yet managed to live somehow through the Commonwealth until the Restoration when we acquired more land and riches because we had been loyal to the monarchy. For a hundred years we lived in comfort and then came Henry Clavering the greatest gambler of them all-friend of George, Prince of Wales, a dandy and a spendthrift. We never recovered from him, although in the early part of this century we made an effort to.
Papa’s father, however, inherited the family failing and then it was passed on to Papa himself. Two generations running of gamblers was more than Oakland could take. That was how it came about that there was one course open to us. We had to sell Oakland.
“I was sixteen at the time. It was so depressing. Papa was so miserable that I feared he would take his life. Mama was bitter. She kept saying it need never have happened. We had to sell not only the house but so much that was precious in it. The lovely tapestries, some of the silver and furniture. Then we went to the Dower House. It’s a beautiful house, Xavier kept saying, but Mama wouldn’t hear of it and grumbled continually. Nothing was right, and I used to hate the way she reproached Papa. She would bring it into everything that happened.