“Could we stop here for a moment, Joe?” asked Aunt Sophie, and Joe obligingly did so.
When I stood among those ancient boulders I felt the past close in about me. I was excited and exhilarated, yet I was aware of a sense of dread.
Aunt Sophie told me a little about them.
“Nobody’s quite sure,” she told me.
“Some think they were put there by the Druids about seventeen hundred years before Christ lived. I don’t know much else, except that it was a sort of temple. They worshipped the heavens in those days. The stones are laid out to catch the rising and the setting of the sun, they say.”
I took her arm and held it tightly. I was glad to be there with her, and I was very thoughtful as we got back into the dogcart and Joe Jobbings drove us home.
I was so happy to be in this place, particularly when I looked back to the Middlemore days in the shadow of Cedar Hall.
We went regularly to see my mother. She seemed comfortable but not quite sure what had happened to her or where she was.
I felt sad when I left her; and, watching Aunt Sophie, I could not help feeling that, if my mother had been like her, how much happier we might have been.
And Aunt Sophie was becoming dearer to me every day.
There were many practical details to be arranged my education foremost among them.
Aunt Sophie took a prominent part in the affairs of Harper’s Green.
She had unbounded energy, and liked to direct. She kept the church choir together, organized the annual fete and bazaar and, although she and Miss Hetherington were not always in agreement, they were both too wise not to recognize the talents of the other.
True, Aunt Sophie lived in a small house which could not be compared with St. Aubyn’s or the Bell House, but she had been brought up in a great house and knew the obligations of such and was well versed in the management of village life. I quickly realized that, though less affluent, we were in the same bracket as the gentry.
Before I met the people who were to play an important part in my life, I learned something of them through Aunt Sophie’s descriptions. I knew that old Thomas, who spent his days on the seat looking over the duck pond had been a gardener up at St. Aubyn’s until the rheumatics ‘got to his legs’ and put an end to that. He still had his little cottage on the St. Aubyn estate which he used to tell anyone who was sitting beside him he had ‘for the term of his natural life’, which made it sound more like a prison sentence than the boon of which he was so proud. I was warned that I must say a quick good-day to Thomas when passing if I did not want to be drawn into reminiscences of the old days.
Then there was poor old Charlie, who had long ago said goodbye to any wits he might have had; and Major Cummings, who had served in India at the time of the Mutiny and spent his days recalling that important event.
Aunt Sophie referred to them as the “Old Men of the Green’. They assembled there each day when the weather permitted it and, said Aunt Sophie, their conversation was a mixed grill of Thomas’s cottage and rheumatism and the Indian Mutiny while poor Charlie sat there, nodding and listening with rapt attention as if it were all new to him.
They were the background figures the chorus, as it were. The people who interested me were those of my own age in particular the two girls from St. Aubyn’s Park and the Bell House.
Aunt Sophie explained: “There’s Tamarisk St. Aubyn. She’s a bit of a wild one. No wonder. The St. Aubyns mere and pere were wrapped up in themselves. Never much time for the youngsters. Of course, there were nurses and nannies … but a child needs special care from the right quarter.”
She looked at me almost wistfully. She knew that my mother would have been too obsessed by those lost ‘better days’ to have had time to try to give me some good ones.
“Merry pair, they were,” she went on.
“Parties … dancing. They had a riotous time. Up to London. Off to the Continent. You might say, what of it? They always had the nursemaids and governesses. Lily says it was unnatural.”
Tell me about the children. “
“There are Crispin and Tamarisk. Tamarisk is about your age.
Crispin’s quite a bit older ten years, I think. They had their son and I don’t think they wanted any more although as soon as the little mites appeared they could be handed over to someone to be looked after. But there would be that period before they arrived. Very restricting. Very inconvenient for the sort of life Mrs. St. Aubyn liked to live For a long time it seemed there would only be Crispin. He did not interfere with the merry life at St. Aubyn’s. I think they hardly knew him. You can imagine the sort of thing brought down to be inspected now and then. He had a nurse who thought the world of him. He doesn’t forget her. I will say that for him. He’s always looked after them. There are two of them, sisters. Gone a bit odd, one of them. Poor Flora. They’ve always been together. Never married, either of them. They’ve got a little cottage on the estate. Crispin sees they’re all right. He remembers his nanny.
But you were asking about the young ones. Well, the father died. Too much riotous living, people say. But they do say things like that, don’t they? Late nights, too much gadding up to Town and abroad . too much alcohol. In any case, it was all too much for Jonathan St. Aubyn. She went to pieces after that. They say she’s still too fond of the bottle . but people will say anything. It was a mercy that Crispin was of a responsible age when his father died. He took over. I believe he’s a great one for taking over. “
“And he looks after the place very well, doesn’t he?”
“Very much the squire ” and don’t you forget it” kind. Most admit it is just what the old place needed, but there are some who haven’t got a good word to say for him. He’s got a fine opinion of himself to make up for that, though. That’s the son of the house now the Lord of the Manor.”
“Is there a Lady of the Manor?”
“I suppose you’d say there was Mrs. St. Aubyn, the mother. But she’s hardly ever out of the house. Gave up when her husband died and took to invalidism. They were devoted to each other. And she didn’t care for anything but living the wild life with him. Crispin was married. “
Was? ” I asked.
“She ran away and left him. People said they weren’t surprised.”
“So he still has a wife?”
“No. She went to London and soon after there was an accident on the railway. She was killed.”
“How dreadful!”
“Some said it was just retribution for her sins. Pious old Josiah Dorian at the Bell House was sure of this. The more charitable said they could understand the poor girl wanted to get away from her husband.”
“It sounds very dramatic.”
“Well, dear, that depends on the way you look at it. We’ve got a mixed brew here, but you get that in any village. It all looks so peaceful and calm, but probe below the surface and you’re bound to find something you didn’t expect. It’s like turning over a stone to see what’s beneath. Ever done that? Try it one day and you’ll see what I mean.”
“So this Crispin, he’s married … and yet not.”
“It’s called being a widower. He’s rather young for that, but I suppose the poor girl couldn’t stand living with him. Perhaps it will warn others not to attempt it. Although, I must say that, with a grand place like St. Aubyn’s and he being master of it, it might be a temptation to some.”
“Tell me about Tamarisk.”
“That was what I was coming to. She must be a month or so older than you … or perhaps younger. I’m not sure. She was what they call an afterthought. I don’t think for a moment that merry couple wanted another child. Think of the jolly life Madam would have to give up for a few months. Well, Tamarisk arrived. It must have been at least ten years after the birth of Crispin.”