Miss Appleby's Academy (31 page)

‘You may know by now that Nell Whittington has died. I would like you to conduct her funeral. Something simple will do; she has two children and a brother and it need not be a long service, just enough so that those who cared for her will understand.’

Mr Inman stared at her. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

‘Are you? Why?’ She held his gaze unflinchingly.

‘I’m afraid I won’t be able to hold a funeral here for – for Mrs Whittington.’

‘Really?’ Emma said.

‘I’m very busy this week and we have no room for such a service.’

Emma had expected this. She was beginning to wonder if she would ever again have positive feelings for any man other than pity for her half-brother which at this moment seemed as far as she could go.

‘That is a shame.’ Emma got up. ‘You see, it would have been nice because I believe that the family Nell comes from, my family, was of your religious persuasion.’

She waited.

‘I cannot think how that would have been possible,’ he said.

‘Can’t you?’ Emma said. And then she looked straight at him and she said, ‘You are a disgrace to your cloth, Mr Inman, and I shall be writing to the Bishop of Durham to tell him so.’

Mr Inman got up stiffly, his face was beetroot, so that Emma feared for his heart.

‘I don’t want women like you and Mrs Whittington in my church and the Bishop will understand.’

‘Will he, indeed? And do you think God understands?’

‘You are blasphemous, Madam,’ Mr Inman said. ‘Kindly leave my house.’

Emma got out of the house as slowly as she could; she did not want this man or his wife to think that there was any triumph in their horrible brand of Christianity and so she slowed herself down; her steps would have seen her through a cathedral, down the chancel to the aisle and with stained-glass windows all around (which she would have admired).

Mr Inman had a neglected front garden: it was full of weeds and everything was dying there in the cold winds. He was no gardener, there was little division between the paths and the beds, and Emma could not help noting that all the roses had gone wild. And since gardening was so close to God, she believed, that made Mr Inman the worst of clergymen. She thought of her father saying this of another man and then remembered that her father had left his wife and children. It was difficult not to judge
and yet she must not. She was not through with her own life yet. And you never knew what you might do.

*

Emma felt tired. She decided to leave the children with Jack while she went to see Sister Luke. Jack would talk to them so that they felt he was one of them and funny with it, and they trusted him and would put up with him reading to them or telling them how to behave. It was a rare quality to have children believe in you as they did in Jack.

He was patient and kind and explained things with that certain something she could not define, she only knew that every good teacher had it and afterwards the children understood and that was what mattered. They clustered around him and he liked that, telling them things which he knew, but he must know more before he could be a schoolmaster and a good one, Emma realized, and she was the person to help him.

She had talked to the boys about cleanliness, how important it was and how they should try to help their parents as much as they could. She didn’t mention their mothers by name, she thought it might be too much for boys in a traditional pit village where men worked hard outside the home and women inside it, but to her surprise nobody sneered, no boy looked at another and sniggered. Afterwards, Jack said to her, ‘You got that right, Miss.’

‘Did I?’ She was astonished.

‘Oh aye,’ Jack grinned, ‘you made washing sound manly.’

*

Sister Luke received Emma with better grace than the Inmans had done. She smiled and offered her a seat and the pale sun shone in that day. Emma sat in the chair and said wearily, ‘I need a service for Mrs Whittington, will you help me?’

‘Oh dear,’ Sister Luke said, ‘I’m afraid I cannot. She was not a Catholic.’

Sister Luke looked old, in the merciless light of morning every crease in her face was enhanced.

‘Are you – are you allowed to retire?’ Emma asked suddenly, and Sister Luke smiled and said, ‘Oh yes of course, we are looked after. We have a place by the seaside just outside Sunderland which is very restful. I love the sea.’

She sounded as though she was looking forward to it; there was a trace of wistfulness in her voice and Emma thought that it was hard being a nun, and then she thought at least Sister Luke had chosen her celibacy, and then she thought further and that maybe she hadn’t, perhaps her family could not afford to keep her. Catholic families were prone to sending unwanted women into convents. It was as bad as everything else, she concluded. Emma felt as exhausted as Sister Luke looked.

‘I don’t know where to turn next. The vicar was obstructive,’ she said.

Sister Luke nodded. ‘I think he might have mistaken his calling,’ she said. And then she straightened and looked directly at Emma. ‘I wish I could help you.’

A church which could not offer help when someone
had died was not much of a church, Emma thought as she made her way back to the schoolhouse.

*

That afternoon, Emma decided to go and see the Methodist minister, Mr Ogilvie.

Mr Ogilvie did not look surprised to see her. ‘Mrs Ogilvie is at a chapel meeting,’ he said, as though the whole thing were little to do with him. ‘Come in, Miss Appleby, do.’

Emma was astonished. She had never met the Methodist minister formally, they had done nothing more than nod at one another in the street, and yet Mr Ogilvie greeted her as though they were friends.

‘I have a problem,’ Emma said.

‘Of course, of course,’ Mr Ogilvie said, as though everybody said the same thing, and Emma had no doubt that they did. There was something about this man which made you want to break down and tell him all your problems.

He was not fat, he was not thin, he was not tall, he was not short, he was not jolly, he was not sober, fatherly, brotherly or anything which Emma could have understood, but the moment she went into the house, was it a manse or whatever – she couldn’t remember – it was just that she had a feeling that she was at home here, it was so restful, so easy. It was a place for poor souls to ease themselves and she was grateful. She was half inclined to ask Mr Ogilvie if he and his wife adopted disillusioned teachers who had nowhere to go.

Mr Ogilivie ushered her into a study that was full of
books, had a decent fire in the grate and a lot of papers on the desk.

‘Do sit down, Miss Appleby. I would offer you tea, but I have no idea how it’s made and since Mrs Ogilvie isn’t here I cannot do anything for you that way. Let me guess.’ Mr Ogilivie sat back in his chair, made a steeple of his fingers, frowned, pondered, and then he said, ‘You can’t persuade anybody to bury Mrs Whittington and you think I might do it.’

‘Exactly,’ Emma admitted, sitting down and then getting straight back up and extricating a Charles Wesley hymn book from beneath her before she sat again.

‘She was not a good woman, is that it?’

‘I suppose it depends what you mean,’ Emma said. ‘She was left alone with two children, she had no money. She did the best that she could.’

‘I’m sure,’ Mr Ogilvie said.

‘Will you help me?’

Mr Ogilvie sat back in his chair and looked straight at his visitor, and then he said, ‘You could have her buried, you don’t need a service.’

‘I need a service to take her children to,’ Emma said. ‘I thought you would understand. And for her brother and for her and for me.’

‘Children do not go to funerals,’ Mr Ogilvie said.

‘These two will. I want them to remember something good about her death, so don’t offer anything if you think that way. I will find somebody to help.’

Mr Ogilvie held up both hands in protest. ‘You are a
remarkable woman, Miss Appleby, and I admire you for your courage. You will have your funeral and you will bring her children.’

Emma couldn’t believe she had finally succeeded.

Mr Ogilvie said, ‘They must remember her well and I will speak of her well and you will come and you will bring them and we will bury her. They do have somewhere to go?’

‘I have taken them into my school. Mrs Whittington was my half-sister, you know.’

I had heard something of it,’ Mr Ogilvie said.

At that point Emma heard the outside door. Mr Ogilvie called out, ‘Olivia, we are in here,’ and she came through. She was a pretty woman, not at all young, but comely – that was the word for her – like a bird, sprightly and pink-cheeked and smiling as though she had done a lot of smiling as the wife of the minister and become very good at it.

‘Miss Appleby,’ she said, ‘how are you? I am so sorry for the death of your sister, how very hard for you,’ and she came across and shook Emma by the hand in a way which Emma had never seen before and much admired, where she took your hand and then put her other hand on top so that you felt comforted immediately. ‘I shall put the kettle on,’ she said.

She made tea and she gave Emma sponge cake which was very good.

As Emma left she turned at the door and said to them both, ‘You are very kind. Thank you. I don’t know what I would have done without your help.’

They stood there like a pair of beaming lights. She had no idea what they said or thought after she had gone, but she was so grateful that she didn’t want to go. She made her way down the garden path and onto the pavement with some regret.

She felt warmed by the Ogilvies and she thought that it was strange how Methodism had saved her. John Wesley had had all the right ideas. She thought she would have liked him; he had united people who had no one to help them.

*

‘What an unusual woman,’ Olivia Ogilvie said as they stood and watched Emma disappear into the evening.

‘Yes.’ Her husband considered for a few moments. ‘A brave woman.’

His wife looked at him and smiled. ‘Absolutely,’ she said, and she took him by the arm. ‘Come inside, it grows cold and we have much to discuss now that you have offered to have a funeral for Mrs Whittington.’

‘I am a lucky man to have you.’

‘Indeed you are,’ she said, and they laughed together.

He nodded and then he walked into the house feeling that John Wesley might have been pleased with him. He hoped so.

The day that Nell was buried was cold and wet. The wind blew straight from the moors and kicked at your ankles and made you wish you were comfortable by the fire. Emma had not been inside a chapel before and she had thought it would be plain, but in her eyes it was neat and orderly and she liked the way that the upstairs was a gallery and she enjoyed the clear glass in the windows where the rain fell and battered upon the ground, it seemed a fitting accompaniment to the words that Mr Ogilvie said. She could not remember having been so moved by a funeral before.

He spoke of Nell as though he had known her, as he probably had, since it was such a small town. He said that she had been born there, was a child of the earth and a good woman and had done everything she could to look after her children. This, Emma thought, was very true, but she admired him the more for having said it.

The girls clung one at either side of her and George seemed to have grown taller. Mick in a good suit, shaved, bathed, hair cut, looked almost respectable. Also Mr Higgins and Jack and Laurence, though she was convinced Laurence still expected Nell to come home.

The service brought her comfort too, but in a way she
had had so little of Nell that she thought she might always find herself in the graveyard, talking to someone who was no longer there and thinking of the days and months and even years they might have had together: summer with picnics and the children playing in the fields, and winter by the fireside talking, especially when the girls were in bed. She had wanted to make things so much better for Nell and now it was too late. She could not even weep.

The girls hid their faces in her skirt, and what she wanted to do was go back to the schoolhouse and carry on with the teaching.

The best thing about it was that she would be able to go to Nell’s grave and take them. Mick had bought a stone, which would be erected later, with Nell’s name. It said, ‘Beloved mother of’ and both the girls’ names, and ‘sister of’ and Laurence’s name and her dates, and it seemed to Emma that she had lived such a short time, but that was only because they had not known one another for a decent amount of time. What was a decent amount of time? She wondered. She did not think you could tell. When you didn’t love people even an hour was too long and when you did love them a hundred years would not suffice.

She took the girls and George home, and when they got there Hector was waiting outside. How had he got out? Dogs were like magicians, she thought, and she didn’t really want to know how he was there, just that he was, wagging his tail upon the cold wet ground, his eyes welcoming, his mouth open and smiling for her.

It was beginning to rain again.

Mick went to see Henry Atkinson. Henry owned a fine hotel in Durham across from the County Hotel in Old Elvet, which was the best hotel in the town. It was called the Three Tuns. It was not particularly pretty, but something about it gave the people who went there a feeling of belonging.

There was no view unless you counted the houses across the road or the stabling behind. Mick could see what drew people to the Three Tuns Hotel. It had comfort, fires and intimacy.

Henry seemed surprised to see Mick and he looked ashamed. He greeted Mick as though he had been the lord lieutenant. ‘How can I help?’ And then, less audibly, ‘How is she?’

‘Sober.’ Mick sat back in his chair. He wanted to add more, that she was horribly, horribly sober and that he couldn’t bear it and he might kill her, kill himself, die of frustration, die that he couldn’t spend the night with the woman he loved, but he thought of Connie and he couldn’t say anything or change anything.

*

Isabel was not easy to appease. ‘I want her here with me,’ she had said.

‘Well, you cannot have her,’ he said. ‘It isn’t going to be just what you want. This is also about Connie’s happiness.’