AUNT ELLIE’S INHERITANCE Rose Boucheron 1970 I suppose it was inevitable that we should take Aunt Ellie in when Uncle Roderick died. There we were in the old family home with ample room and space to spare, the boys approaching manhood, our daughter almost fourteen. “But,” we argued weakly, “the house is cold in winter—and she is old” It was not that we didn’t want her, exactly, you understand, but an elderly lady, and someone as vague and scatterbrained as Aunt Ellie... Yet she was a dear. “She has quite a bit of money,” my mother-in-law said, trying to make her point. “Roderick left her a small fortune by all accounts.” We pricked up our ears. “Poor old thing,” she said. For my mother-in-law, although only a year younger than Aunt Ellie, was as active and independent as an elderly lady could be. Long, long ago when her husband had died, she had relinquished the old Victorian house to us, with her blessing, she said. She had installed herself in a modern two room flatlet in town, and spent her time visiting her friends, art galleries, museums, going to matinees, and so forth. It made me breathless just to think of it. It was as if she’d spent so many years bringing up her family and looking after The Cedars that when the chance of freedom came, she upped and left it all without a backward glance. Aunt Ellie was her husband’s sister, who had married “beneath” her, as they used to say. Aunt Ellie was the pretty one, although I never thought she was quite as dim as they imagined her to be. Boy friends by the dozen she had had in her youth, having a penchant for par-ma violet scent and mauve lingerie, and judging by her early photographs, it wasn’t difficult to imagine that the young men of the day had flocked around the girl with the soft, sweet face and deep grey eyes beneath a cloud of chestnut hair. However, to cut a long story short, Aunt Ellie had eloped with a gambler. A handsome young rake who frequented the race courses, and who made and lost fortunes in as many minutes. They had never had children, and once or twice a year Aunt Ellie came down to London to see us all, then departed in a flurry of furs or shabby tweeds, dependent upon what sort of year her reckless husband had had. With the passing of time, however, Uncle Roderick had settled down and bought a little business. Then suddenly he had died, leaving Aunt Ellis quite alone in her north country village with a nice little sum to end her days. Mother-in-law had traveled up for the funeral and returned full of plans. “Poor old thing,” she said. “We must bring her down to London so that she can be within the bosom of her family again.” “But where will she—?” I began. “Now listen, my dear,” she said confidentially. “I have an idea. I thought if you would let her have your dear little top room, after all, she’d be no bother - she’s not senile, you know - she could pay her way and help towards expenses!” “But I don’t really want—” I said to John. “No, I know what you mean,” he said. “I’m not at all keen on the idea myself.” “And she’s your aunt,” I murmured. Still, I did feel a bit unkind. “Apparently, she’s quite well off,” my mother-in-law said meaningly, “and I thought with the sale of the cottage, and the insurance, and the money Roderick left her, which apparently is quite substantial —” she paused for breath — “I thought it might go towards installing central heating.” She nudged me. “If, after all, she is part of the home.” “Oh,” I said, brightening visibly, “I see what you mean. But, we couldn’t—I mean—” “Oh, yes, you could,” she said firmly. For I should explain that with the children’s education, and the rising cost of rates, well, you know how it is yourself. And were we ever going to do anything sensible, like leaving this old Victorian house? Not at all. We clung on to it for dear life, year in, year out, since I had been brought here as a young bride many years before. “So —” mother-in-law said. “It could solve a big-problem.” For it is a problem. Every winter we spend arguing the merits of having central heating installed. Every winter we tell each other we should have decided on it the previous summer. We sit, towering over the neighbourhood, while our contemporary edifices are pulled down to make way for town houses and pseudo-Georgian residences which are centrally heated and warm with all the pleasures of low and split level living. Well, we have the pleasures of high level living, and we don’t want to let it go. They weren’t so silly, those Victorians either, except in winter. Bathrooms, play-rooms, cupboards and attics, we have them all. All the room we need to breathe, to expand, to express ourselves. In summer, our friends come to visit us. “Aren’t you lucky?” they say. “Such character. Those long, long windows—and marvelous tiled floors.” In winter, they keep away. Our younger son says: “Double glazing is the answer. If we did the downstairs alone, it’d help.” “If we did the downstairs alone, it would cost a fortune,” my husband says, helping himself to more heartwarming soup, and asking who left the back door open. “Who got the fuel in today?” “I got a bucket when I came in. “Not yet,” says the other guiltily. My husband looks resigned. “Anyone looked at the cooker?” I should mention that we also have a solid fuel cooker. Marvelous, I tell everyone, which it is. It is also another fire to be stoked. Our daughter reigns supreme as the only member of the family who does not spend the entire winter humping coal. “Surely,” she smiles with her one dimple, “with two big brothers…” Our sons emerge from the Victorian coal stores, dirty but triumphant. “Which one?” “Make ‘em both up,” my husband says cheerily. It is his free half hour. His turn is yet to come. After dinner, we run across the hall to the drawing room, where the flames leap and cast shadows on the wall. We rub our hands with pleasure, and sit around the fire. “Nothing like a coal fire,” we say, until the next bucket is needed. Our sons’ friends visit us, and look upon us as relics from a bygone age. “Where are you going?” asks Angela, seeing our elder son for the first time in coal gloves with bucket. “To get coal,” he says. “Really?” she says, “May I come?” “Sure,” he says, glad of the company. She returns, sooty but enchanted. “That cellar is simply fab,” she says, while we register her as a possible coal humper. I n the bedrooms and on the landings are gas fires, convector fires, bar fires. “Do not go out and leave a gas fire on at seven in the evening when you intend to return at midnight,” my husband says to our sons. “Surely a couple of hours is ample to warm a room.” Our elder son, who is studying law, reasonably asks whether it is not a fact that if we had central heating it would be on all the time? We look at each other, impressed. We ask the plumber, who is our dearest friend, for advice. He has helped us out of many a watery problem in the middle of the night, and after a burst pipe or leaking tank, we sit around the kitchen table and sup tea, while he warms us with stories of his holidays in Yugoslavia or Greece. He goes into the technical details of central heating, and with every sentence he soars a further hundred pounds. “The cost,” he says carefully, “is a little prohibitive in a house like this. Although I’m the last person,” he says, “to turn business away.” He laughs, and we laugh with him. As my husband says, the work he gets from us alone is enough to pay for his holidays in the Bahamas. We are suitably impressed with his stories of small bore, etc. We are also shattered by the cost and complications, and put more woollies on. Ah, well, I suppose Aunt Ellie could go into the little room on the second landing, which reminded me of its last occupant. She was Désirée, a delightful French au pair girl, whom we misguidedly thought was going to repay us in return for the hospitality she received. We had some difficulty in getting rid of her as, cold or not, she resolutely refused to leave. “Do you really,” my husband asked, “need the gas fire on night and day up there?” It was, after all, midsummer. “But of course,” she said shivering delightfully. “All night?” asked my husband, to whom the allure of the French had palled when confronted by the gas bill. “It gets very cold in the middle of the night.” She casts a speculative eye at our sons. We decide it is safer to pay the gas bill. So you can see, we have problems, but like drowning rats clutching at a straw, we clutched at Aunt Ellie. In due course, she came. Caroline and I papered the top bedroom with rose sprigged paper, draped muslin across the windows, and hung the walls with Edwardian prints we had found in a dimly lit cupboard. “Should she,” I asked tentatively, “climb so many stairs at her age?” “Oh, she’s all right,” my husband said. “She was brought up here, remember, she’s used to stairs.” I thought this remark irrelevant as she hadn’t lived here for fifty years. Came the day when she arrived. I must say, the children were delighted. She was a special favourite with them, arousing an old world gallantry in the boys, while Caroline could hardly wait to get into her room and watch her unpack her treasures. “Do you know,” she said. “She has a hair tidy, and a silver dressing table set – and a bunch of false curls!” She whispered, as though telling tales out of school. She was very impressed. Before long, our eldest son had offered to exchange rooms so that she wouldn’t have so far to climb, but Aunt Ellie was adamant. “No, thank you my dears. I’ve always loved that little room – it’s so cosy.” She had a passion for pretty scarves and bits of tulle around her neck, frilly jabots and lacy cuffs, and Caroline adored her. She paid her way, giving me a fixed amount each month, and I never asked her to do anything, although she dusted and laid the dining table, and saw to the flowers, which she arranged with fairy-like simplicity. She spent a lot of time in her room with her treasures, and sang always in a small high treble. “Pale hands I loved beside the Shalimar,” “Only a rose,” and the “Desert Song.” Sometimes in the garden from way above you came the strains of “Oh, for the wings of dove,“ in the high sweet tones of a choirboy. As summer turned to autumn, and winter loomed large, we thought more and more about warmth. Several times we mentioned central heating, and Aunt Ellie turned vague eyes to us and said: “Oh, yes. That will be nice.” Once, and it did seem a bit much, we asked her what she thought about it. “What do you think, Aunt Ellie? It’s quite a major operation in a house like this, and very, very,” we stressed, “expensive to install.” We hastened to say: “Although it pays for itself very quickly.” “I shouldn’t bother,” she said brightly. “It has always been a lovely warm house. Father never bothered with things like that, and we managed.” “But will you be warm enough in your room?” we urged. “Goodness, yes!” she cried. “I have the gas fire, and it’s such a cosy room.” “But in winter, you know how draughty it gets on the landings.” “Oh, I shall just put a sausage down at the door. We always used to do that. I wonder where they are now?” She looked around her hopefully. We felt mean and calculating – how could we have thought that Aunt Ellie would -? Should we openly ask her to lend us the money? “You know, there used to be an Irish tweenie in my room, such a pretty girl,” she reminisced. “I remember Father once –“ and my husband coughed. I don’t know how long Aunt Ellie had been with us when Caroline said one day: “You know, Mummy, Aunt Ellie never spends any money, does she? No new clothes, or perfume, or - or anything.” “No,” I said, “You’re right. And I thought for a moment. Was she an old miser, hoarding every penny she could save? Yet, I couldn’t imagine it. A couple of weeks afterwards, just before Christmas, my mother-in-law came for a flying visit. “My dears,” she said, “I’ve done a most dreadful thing!” One of the most endearing things about my mother-in-law is her humility on occasion. “John, Millie, I’ve something to tell you. When I suggested Aunt Ellie coming here, I honestly thought it might help out the family coffers. Remember, I know how difficult it is to make ends meet with a growing family, and I understood that Ellie was really quite well off. I thought, you see, rather than live in a cold house in winter she would lend you, or invest the money in having the house heated anyway. I don’t know what I thought, except that it seemed a good idea at the time. And be honest, now, she isn’t a nuisance, is she?” Her eyes pleaded for reassurance. “No,” I said. I meant it really. “Well, she went on. “I have received a letter from her. It seems that Roderick’s will and everything has been proved or whatever it is and far from being well off, my dears, she has nothing.” We stared at her in silence. “They didn’t own the cottage - it was rented, and after paying the funeral expenses, there was nothing, not a penny. Just her pension.” “Oh, lord!” we said. “So,” my mother-in-law went on, “she has written to me to say she feels she ought not to stay on, since she can only just afford to pay her keep, but she did not want anyone else to know just how poor she was. It seems she wanted to stand by her Roderick to the end, to let everyone think he left her well provided for. She asks for my advice as to how to tell you she must go without losing face.” “Poor Aunt Ellie!” John said. “Well, darling, you’re the one most concerned in this thing.” “I don’t mind,” I said bleakly. I mean, what can you say? “She’s no trouble,” I said again. Mother-in-law pressed my hand. “Bless you. Don’t say anything to her. Let things go on as they are, and I’ll make it all alright with her.” “And I have an idea,” Caroline said. “You know all those little bits and bobs she has, lace covered boxes and Victorian posies and things. She’s jolly good at making things like that. I’ll ask her to make some for my friends. She can crochet, too.” “We’ll see she’s all right, Gran,” the boys said. “Don’t you worry.” “Oh, you are a nice family,” my mother-in-law said. “Quite mad, but nice.” She got up quickly and left the room. She’s not given to displays of emotion. So we are back where we were. The electricity bills follow the gas bills, and the coal and coke bills arrive with unfailing regularity. We are never without fuel, since the very mention of our name at the coal office is enough to galvanize them into activity. We are, after all, their best customers. The coal merchant himself drives around in a chauffeur driven Rolls-Royce, undoubtedly financed, my husband says bitterly, by us. “There is one answer,” he says. “Given another bad winter, we could think of moving. Perhaps a smaller house.” We turn on him furiously. “Leave this house? You must be joking.” “Then who is for getting in a bucket of fuel?” He sits back, having made his point. The boys bump into each other on the cellar steps, one with coal, one with coke. Come the spring, we emerge, our eyes red-rimmed from coal dust, and breathe again. “Now is the time,” I say tentatively, “to think about installation of central heating for next year.” “What nonsense!” says my husband. “Central heating, indeed. We’re far healthier without it. After all, you can’t call this a cold house.” He pats the crumbling brickwork lovingly, while from upstairs drifts the sweet strains of “I dreamt that I dwelt in marble halls.” THE END © Rose Boucheron 1970