The Venice Sketchbook(17)

CHAPTER 7


Caroline, England, October 2001

“You’ll find the house empty without her, won’t you?” Caroline said as the kettle started to whistle and her grandmother lifted it from the cooking surface.

“Horribly empty,” Granny said. “She has lived with me since our mother died, when your own mother was a baby. She was never intrusive, you know. Kept herself out of the way when your grandfather was still alive, as if she appreciated that this was our house and she was an interloper. But I think she really appreciated being here in those difficult years right after the war. And I certainly liked having my big sister around, especially after Jim died so suddenly and I was left with a young child.”

Caroline took down two mugs from the Welsh dresser as Granny poured boiling water into the teapot.

“It was really hard for me, coming back to England, having spent the war years in India,” Granny went on. “Servants to do everything. And of course your grandfather was in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp much of that time. I was stuck miles from home, never knowing if I’d see my husband again. Poor man—he didn’t know for two years that our son had died.”

“I didn’t even know you had a son,” Caroline said.

“I don’t talk about him much. It was a painful episode in my life. I was stuck in India when the war broke out. Your grandfather was called up into the army. And then our little boy got typhoid.”

“Oh, Granny. How awful for you. You poor thing.” Her thoughts immediately went to Teddy and the ache in her own heart. If anything happened to him, how would she bear it?

“I survived.” Her grandmother gave a sad little smile. “Most of us survive the hardest things. We are quite resilient.”

“I am trying to be,” Caroline said. She carried the two mugs over to the table by the window. Rain was now sweeping across the expanse of lawn. They sat facing each other. “Will you be all right for money now that Aunt Lettie is gone?”

Her grandmother looked down at the tea she was stirring. “I have to admit that her pension did help with expenses.”

“Then I’ll definitely move in with you. I think Teddy should go to the Church of England primary school, don’t you? If you want me here, of course.”

“Want you here? My darling child, I can’t think of anything nicer than having you and Teddy here. And don’t you worry. He’ll be back soon.”

“God, I hope so.” Caroline stirred her own tea savagely. She took a sip. It was naturally too hot, and she put it back on the table. “Granny, Aunt Lettie was trying to tell me something. Did you hear what she said? Could you understand it?”

“I couldn’t really hear,” Granny replied. “I heard her, but I couldn’t tell you what she was talking about. Her speech was affected, wasn’t it? Talking out of one side of her mouth. And she couldn’t find words. I found her like that when I brought in her morning cup of tea. She said, ‘Think I’ve had a stroke. No hospital. Caroline. Want to tell Caroline . . .’ And she repeated that when the doctor left.”

“Gosh,” Caroline said. “I wish I knew what she had wanted. It sounded like something about sketches. I couldn’t really understand. Perhaps her mind was already gone.”

“Before I forget,” Granny said, “Lettie left everything to you. She made a will, and you are her beneficiary.”

“Really?” Caroline flushed with embarrassment. “But that’s not right. Everything should go to you, Granny. You’re the one who has taken care of her all these years.”

Granny smiled. “To be frank, I don’t think there was that much to leave. She hadn’t earned any money for years, besides her pension, and our mother didn’t leave anything to either of us other than this house. They lost all their money, you know, in the Great Crash of ’29. Apparently my father invested in American stocks and lost everything.”

“Oh dear. Our family doesn’t seem to have been too lucky, does it?” Caroline said.

“I suppose my father was doing what he thought was best for us. He was wounded in the First World War, you know, and never quite well again afterward. He probably put all his hopes on making money on the stock market.”

“So do you know what Aunt Lettie actually left me?” Caroline asked. “If there is any money, I’m handing it over to you.”

“I do happen to know, as a matter of fact. She made me her executor. She had a savings account with about a thousand pounds in it. But apart from that, not much more than her clothes and a couple of pieces of jewellery inherited from our mother. Nothing of great value. However, there is a box in her wardrobe with your name on it. She was most insistent that you have that.”

Caroline looked up. “A box. That was one of the things she tried to say. A box. Up there.”

Granny nodded. “She mentioned it the other day, when she talked about no extraordinary measures—as if she knew she was going to die. ‘Make sure Caroline gets it, won’t you,’ she said. I don’t know what’s in it. She never told me.”

“I don’t want to go in there now to get it. It seems disrespectful,” Caroline said. A box with her name on it. Maybe a piece of jewellery Lettie had never told her sister about, money she’d been stashing away . . .