Hope - Lesley Pearse [260]
Hope put some flowers in St James’s graveyard, for although she suspected that neither Gussie, Betsy, nor any of the cholera victims had actually been buried there, it was a place they had often walked through together. She even thought she heard Betsy’s laughter on the wind, and knew her friend would be thrilled to think she was accompanied by a titled gentleman and that she had given her name to her child.
The strangest thing about that visit was finding she was a target for beggars. Until then she’d imagined she could walk around there at any time without being troubled. She realized then it wasn’t only her neat dress, bonnet and fur-trimmed cloak which identified her as someone who might hand out a few pennies, she remembered how she too had once been able to sniff out sympathy and concern and play on it. She gave what little money she had to some ragged barefoot children, and then walked quickly away.
‘When Bennett comes back,’ she said thoughtfully on their way home, ‘we’ll have to find some way of really helping those children. A hot pie now and then does little. But education with a hot dinner thrown in could do such a lot.’
Aside from the day-to-day chores and making clothes for Betsy, who seemed to be growing at an alarming rate, there were many visits from all her brothers and sisters to keep Hope’s mind off Bennett. She also visited Matt’s farm, Ruth’s home in Bath and many of her old neighbours in Compton Dando. Sometimes during the family gatherings Hope felt an overwhelming desire to tell them that she wasn’t a true sister, especially when Ruth claimed that her daughter Prudence was just like her. But she refrained from the temptation; she needed to discuss that with both Lady Harvey and Angus first, for they would be the ones to suffer scandal, not her and Rufus.
Rufus kept saying that he would bring Lady Harvey over to see her and Nell just as soon as there was a mild, dry spell. But on 30 November she died in her sleep.
Matt brought the news to them. Leaving Betsy with Dora, Matt drove Hope and Nell over to see Rufus, and they arrived just after the doctor had left, confirming her heart had given out.
‘She was a little odd last night,’ Rufus explained distractedly. ‘She said she thought she saw Father on the drive and that he was waiting for her. But she went to bed as normal, and when I went in there early this morning, she was dead.’
Once Matt had gone home leaving Hope and Nell alone with Rufus, they all cried. ‘I should have come over again,’ Hope sobbed. ‘I might have known that she was too frail to live much longer. Now I can’t say any of the things to her that I wanted to.’
‘I wish too that I’d been kinder,’ Rufus admitted. ‘She was on her own so much, I used to get so impatient with her. But you’ve got nothing to reproach yourself for, Hope, you were kind to her.’
‘I could have said I understood how it was for her when she had me,’ Hope said. ‘I could have told her that none of that mattered any more.’
‘I think she knew that was how you felt,’ Rufus said, drying Hope’s eyes with his handkerchief. ‘A few days after you’d been here, she said that she was proud of you, that you had all the best of Angus in you and that the Rentons had made you strong and loving.’
Nell had listened to all this saying nothing. Then she got up from her chair and put an arm round each of them. ‘If I’d seen her one more time I would have pointed out how lucky she was to have you two and how fortunate it was that neither of you inherited her selfish nature.’
‘Nell!’ Hope exclaimed. ‘Don’t speak ill of the dead.’
‘I can say it for I was with her through thick and thin,’ Nell said firmly. ‘I loved her; I would have done anything for her, and I think I knew her better than anyone. She didn’t want to be an old lady, she’d settled everything, and I think she was happy to go. Maybe William did come back for her. There was a lot of love between them despite all the problems they had. So we should be happy for her.’
‘Would you like to see her now?’ Rufus asked, biting back tears. ‘I was going to get Jane Calway