The Sibyl in Her Grave (11 page)
Read The Sibyl in Her Grave Online
Authors: Sarah Caudwell
I wondered whether Daphne might not be right in thinking that the burglar had had some specific objective. She was the heiress to a professional blackmailer: could he have been in search of some item of incriminating evidence, perhaps a document of some kind, which he believed to be now in her possession? Might he be in some way connected with—might he even be—the man in the black Mercedes? Was this the possibility that was worrying Julia?
Observing, however, that Julia was still diligently writing her Opinion, I continued my reading without disturbing her.
24 High Street
Parsons Haver
West Sussex
Monday, 2nd August
Dear Julia,
Though one should not speak ill of the dead, I am prepared in Isabella’s case to make an exception. She is managing—and it is, in her case, a considerable achievement—to make more trouble dead than alive. She has left poor Daphne in a quite
impossible position, and Maurice thought you might know if there was anything to be done about it.
As I mentioned in my last letter, we’ve all been a little worried about the poor girl, but the one thing we didn’t think we needed to worry about was her financial position—the solicitor had said that she was going to get the income from Isabella’s estate, and we assumed that meant she’d be quite well provided for. It wasn’t until yesterday that we found we were wrong.
Maurice and Griselda and I were sitting in the Newt and Ninepence, as usual on a Saturday morning, working hard at our crosswords. We’d polished off the
Times
and were getting on quite nicely with the
Guardian
when poor Daphne arrived, very moist and sticky and clearly on the point of tears. She was sorry to interrupt, she said, but she was in the most terrible trouble, and could she please talk to Maurice as soon as possible? So Maurice downed his beer and went straight back with her to the Vicarage.
“When she says she’s in trouble,” said Griselda, “she surely doesn’t mean—?”
I said I didn’t think so.
“Men can be such pigs,” said Griselda.
Which of course they can, but I still didn’t think it was that kind of trouble. Later on Maurice came round and told me what kind it was.
It had taken him quite a while to find out what was upsetting her. What he gathered at first was that she’d been insulted by Mr. Iqbal at the supermarket. He was very surprised about this, because Mr. Iqbal is usually most polite and
obliging, but when Maurice asked exactly what had happened Daphne just started crying and saying she hadn’t known that people could be so beastly. It was some time before he realised that all Mr. Iqbal had done was ask when she expected to be able to settle her account. And she can’t, and has no prospect of being able to.
Yes, it’s quite true that under Isabella’s will Daphne gets the income from the estate—but only as long as she provides a home at the Rectory for the beastly Roderigo and the wretched ravens. At the Rectory, mind you—she isn’t allowed to move anywhere else, even if she takes them with her. Either she stays here in Parsons Haver for the rest of her days with no chance of finding a job or making friends of her own age or doing anything with her life, or she gives up everything and is left homeless and penniless.
Well, as it turns out, she’s penniless anyway. After taxes and legal expenses and so on the house is just about all that’s left in the estate, and if it can’t be sold there isn’t any income. Or hardly any—Mr. Godwin, the executor, says she can expect about twenty pounds a year. How could Isabella have expected her to live on that? And maintain the house? And feed the wretched birds?
And of course, the poor girl can’t afford to get any legal advice, which might turn out to be no help anyway, but Maurice thought you might be able to tell us whether it’s legal for anyone to make a will like that. I’m enclosing a copy of it, and I’d be most grateful if you could let me know what you think.
Can Isabella really go on controlling Daphne’s life like this? Can she reach out of the grave to
keep hold of her? It’s monstrous—I can’t believe it’s allowed, and if it is it ought not to be.
Yours with much love,
Reg
There was a lull in the noise of drilling and Julia had paused in her labours to pour further cups of tea. I enquired whether she had been able to assist with the problem of Isabella’s will: it seemed to me to be one rather outside the area of her professional expertise.
“Yes, it is, but fortunately Selena and Ragwort had a similar case a few months ago, so they were well up on the authorities.”
“A case about a vulture?”
“No, no, about a pet tortoise, which the testator had evidently held in high esteem and wished to make provision for. Ragwort represented the trustees of the will and Selena represented the residuary beneficiary.”
“Who represented the tortoise?”
“No one—this placed it, I’m afraid, at something of a disadvantage. So with the benefit of their advice I was able to send my aunt a comprehensive account of the current law relating to testamentary dispositions for the benefit of animals, with particular reference to the provisions of Section 106 of the Settled Land Act. The gist of it was that if Daphne wanted to challenge the will she’d have to go to the Court of Appeal, if not the House of Lords, and the costs of the action would be prohibitive.”
“And you were unable, I suppose, to suggest any other solution?”
“On the contrary,” said Julia with some degree of indignation. “We suggested a perfectly sensible and
practical alternative involving almost no expense at all. The will provided, you see, that Daphne was to have the income of the estate during her lifetime or until she ceased to live at the Rectory and provide a home there for Roderigo and the ravens.”
“Yes,” I said, “I gathered that.”
“And subject to that, everything went to Isabella’s sister, Marjorie, or if Marjorie predeceased Isabella, to Marjorie’s child or children. Which meant that Daphne and Marjorie, or Marjorie’s children, were together absolutely entitled to the whole estate and if they agreed to divide it up between them there was nothing Isabella, or indeed the vulture, could do to stop them. So we suggested that Daphne should approach Marjorie or her children with a view to doing a deal—selling the house and sharing the proceeds and putting the vulture in the care of the community.” She sighed. “But you know what beneficiaries are like.”
The drilling began again with redoubled vigour; I resumed my reading.
24 High Street
Parsons Haver
West Sussex
Saturday, 7th August
Dear Julia,
Thank you for all those interesting stories about people leaving money to cats and donkeys—I’m afraid I must have put you to more trouble than I realised, and as it turns out completely wasted.
Maurice has explained your suggestion to
Daphne, about coming to some sensible arrangement to divide up the estate, and Daphne says she’d rather starve. She’d rather beg. She’d rather go on the streets. (This isn’t a very practical idea—there’s not much scope for that sort of thing in Parsons Haver, and even if there were I frankly don’t think it’s something she’d have a talent for.)
Isabella’s sister Marjorie died a year or two ago, leaving one son. Isabella’s sister, according to Daphne, was an unkind and horrible person and hadn’t been to Daphne’s mother’s funeral (so Daphne didn’t go to hers) and hadn’t spoken to Isabella for nearly fifteen years. So it obviously follows that her son is also an unkind and horrible person and Daphne doesn’t want to have anything to do with him. And anyway, there can be no question of dividing up the estate, because Aunt Isabella wanted her to stay at the Rectory and keep the birds there and she could never even think of betraying Aunt Isabella’s trust in her.
Naturally, Julia, I think it’s very proper for a niece to regard her aunt’s wishes as sacred, but in the present case it simply isn’t practical. What is Daphne to live on?
She seems to imagine that everything will go on just as it did when Isabella was alive, and refuses to understand that it can’t—they were living on the income from the fortune-telling business, which seems to have been quite profitable, and an annuity Isabella had bought which ended on her death. (How like Isabella!) But Daphne doesn’t seem to understand that this means that she has to make some money—she just goes on blaming poor Mr. Iqbal, and saying that he’s insulted her.
“She says he ought to know,” said Maurice, “that she isn’t the kind of person who doesn’t pay their debts.”
“If she hasn’t the money to pay them,” I said, “what other kind can she be?”
“She’s the Custodian,” said Maurice. “The Custodian does not break faith. I wonder, Reg, if I could have a spot more gin?”
Poor Maurice, I’m afraid he’s finding the whole thing rather wearing. You see, it isn’t just her practical problems that she expects him to help her with, it’s her great spiritual problem—can the Custodian go to church? She wants to go to church, so that she can listen to Maurice’s sermons and help him with his important work, but the Custodian must keep faith with the Book, and she doesn’t know if she can do both.
She apparently regards this as the most agonising spiritual dilemma that anyone’s ever had to face since the Temptation in the Wilderness, which makes it perfectly reasonable for her to expect Maurice to spend hours every day discussing it.
The fact is that Maurice isn’t all that keen on having Daphne in his congregation—she’s a little on the intense side for St. Ethel’s—but he feels rather conscience stricken about not wanting her.
“Because after all, Reg, one’s supposed to believe that in the eyes of God every human soul is infinitely precious, and I suppose one’s supposed to believe that He likes them all coming to church, though I’ve never quite understood why, so who am I to say that He wouldn’t be pleased to see Daphne sitting in a pew in St. Ethel’s? I mean, for all I
know He’d be thrilled to bits. Anyway, she thinks He would be and if I suggest He wouldn’t she’ll be terribly hurt. So I’ve simply told her that God is very broad-minded nowadays and if she feels it wouldn’t be right for her to go to church He’ll quite understand and do His best to manage without her. But of course that wasn’t the end of it.”
Which with Daphne it wouldn’t be. She isn’t the kind of girl, you see, who asks for one’s advice and then either takes it or doesn’t and leaves one to get on with something else. She’s the kind who asks for one’s advice and looks as if she’s listening to it and comes back next morning to ask for it all over again.
One certainly can’t accuse her of not being grateful to Maurice for the help he’s given her—she’s always saying how kind he’s been and how lucky she is that he’s there to give her spiritual guidance. And she’s always trying, poor girl, to find ways to repay him—she goes round to the Vicarage every day to take his rubbish out to the dustbin and ask if he wants any shopping done and see if she can do anything to make herself useful. The trouble is, though, that Maurice doesn’t really need anyone to do things for him—he has Griselda to help with the garden and Mrs. Tyrrell to clean for him two mornings a week and otherwise he’s quite good at looking after himself.
He came round for supper with me yesterday and we spent nearly the whole evening talking about Daphne’s problems, drinking more gin than was good for us and not getting anywhere. With great difficulty—she evidently thought it beneath the dignity of the Custodian—he’s persuaded her to ask
for some money from the Social Security people. He helped her to fill in the forms and they’re supposed to give her enough to keep her from starving. Apart from that, it’s hard to know what to suggest.
I wondered for a while whether perhaps she could go on with the fortune-telling business—if she’s going to go on claiming to be the guardian of some sort of sacred text I thought she might as well make some money out of it. But Maurice isn’t sure it’s something he could encourage—he feels it rather savours of witchcraft.
“And you might think, Reg, that in these ecumenical times that wouldn’t matter much. But the Bishop’s very down on witchcraft, almost as down as he is on ordaining women, and you know how he feels about that.”
Besides, if it was the kind of business that Ricky says it was, it’s out of the question—she couldn’t get information by the same methods as Isabella, and even if she could, of course, it would be very wrong. It’s rather a pity in a way, though, because she actually sometimes seems—
I don’t mean I think that she can see into the future—that would be too ridiculous. But some quite sensible people do believe in telepathy, and she does sometimes say things—
Two or three weeks ago in the Newt and Ninepence, Ricky was buying a round of drinks and asked her what she would like. She hesitated a bit and then she said, “Oh well, as you’re getting all that money next week, I’ll have a glass of wine.”
Ricky wasn’t expecting any money, and asked her what she meant. She looked slightly bewildered, as if she didn’t quite know why she’d
said it, and said, “I just thought you were going to get some money—for some medicine you’d sold, or something.”
Ricky was most amused by this—rather more noisily, in fact, than was quite kind or polite, and I told him so afterwards—and said he’d never sold medicine to anyone in his life.
But two days later, when he opened the post in the morning, he found he’d got quite a large dividend from a pharmaceutical company he had shares in. Poor Ricky, he was quite shaken—mind you, it serves him right for making fun of poor Daphne.
And then there was the day she came round to give me a box of chocolates, to thank me for helping her with the funeral and so on—very sweet, squishy chocolate creams, actually not at all what I like—it breaks my heart to think of her spending her money on them. Still, she ate several while she was here, so at least she did get some pleasure out of it. Just as she was leaving, she said, “Oh—give all my best to Mrs. Tyrrell. I hope she finds whatever it is she’s lost.”
I said that I didn’t think Mrs. Tyrrell had lost anything—she’d been here that morning, and hadn’t said anything about it. And again Daphne looked rather bewildered, and said, “Oh, I thought she’d lost something quite important—something to do with someone who’s dead.”
And half an hour later there was Mrs. Tyrrell at the door, saying she couldn’t find her ring and wondering if she’d left it here. It’s a very pretty ring and rather valuable—late Victorian, turquoise set in silver—left to her by her grandmother, so
naturally she was quite upset. We looked everywhere for it, and I’m glad to say we found it—she must have taken it off when she was cleaning the bathroom, and it had rolled behind the sink.
But the extraordinary thing is that the moment she discovered it was missing must have been almost exactly the same moment that Daphne told me she’d lost something.
Yes, Julia, I know it’s all very trivial and I dare say it’s only coincidence, but I can’t help finding it slightly eerie. Which is why I’m feeling a little bit worried about Maurice, who seems to have disappeared.