Undue Influence Part 1

Undue Influence

Mrs. Margery Gosse was 82, a widow, self-reliant, and independent-minded. But people in their eighties, especially when they live alone, are p.r.o.ne to accidents. Mrs. Gosse trip- ped, fell, and fractured a femur in her leg. Luckily she still had one blood relative, a niece, who insisted on taking care of Mrs.

Gosse after she left the hospital. Luckily? Taking care? A story of "loneliness and fear and hopelessness". . .

Why, Evelyn!" Mrs. Gosse exclaimed. "What a lovely sur- prise! I never dared to expect you."

"And how very, very naughty of you not to have let us know what happened straight away," Evelyn Ha.s.sall said, stooping to kiss the old wrinkled forehead, sallow against the snowy white of the pillows. "To leave it to that daily of yours to tell uswhich it took her a fortnight to think of doing. We only had her letter this morning."

"Ah, Mrs. Jimson, so well-meaning, but she shouldn't have bothered you." Mrs. Gosse smiled up at her niece as she stood by the bedside, holding a bunch of jonquils and some magazines.

"But it's sweet of you to have come, dear. I know what a busy life you lead."

"Well, really! The hospital people should have phoned me at once."

Mrs. Gosse was touched by the concern in Evelyn's voice. Yet the truth was that the old woman was a little surprised by it. It was two years since Evelyn had been over'to see her, and Evelyn and Oliver lived only 50 miles away, a distance which, if they had happened to feel, say, like dropping in for lunch some Sunday, was nothing nowadays. So Mrs. Gosse had slipped into the habit of believing that her niece and her husband did not really want to be bothered too much about her.

That occasion, two years ago, when Evelyn, as now, had come over bearing gifts, had been Mrs. Gosse's eightieth birthday party.

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A lovely party. Her stepdaughter Judith, with her two little girls, had been there, and of course Mrs. Gosse's darling husband An- drew had still been alive then. He'd had his coronary about six months later, although he had been a year younger than his wife and no one had ever dreamed he would die before her. Evelyn and Oliver had not 'been able to come to the funeral because they had been away on a Caribbean cruise, but they had sent a beautiful wreath.

The strong scent of the jonquils that Evelyn now laid on the bedside locker, saying that she supposed a nurse would bring a vase for them if she rang, made Mrs. Gosse suddenly remember that wreath. And that made her think of death. Naturally she had been thinking of death a good deal since her accident, and sometimes it had been with a dreamy sort of fascination. But more often it had been with a quietly stubborn resistance. She did not want to die yet.

Evelyn sat down on the chair by the bed and undid the collar of her fur coat. She was a pretty woman in a pallid, fluffy-haired way, not much over 40 though she looked rather more, because behind the pink and white softness of her face there was a certain hardness of bone, a tightness of the muscles.

"Now tell me what happened," she said. "Mrs. Jimson isn't the most literate of letter writers."

"Well, dear, really nothing much happened," Mrs. Gosse replied.

"I fell, that was all. I was on the way to the kitchen to get my breakfast, and you know those three steps in the pa.s.sage1 just tripped there and fell. And I don't really remember much about it, because apparently I faintedand d'you know, I've never, I mean never, fainted in my life before. Then when I came to I was here.

So I hardly know anything about it.

"But I've been told Mrs. Jimson came in at her usual time and found me and got Dr. Bryant at once, and he called for an ambu- lance and sent me here. And it turns out that what I've got is a fractured femur and I'm going to be stuck here for quite a time.

But really I'm very lucky, because I understand a good many people of my age would simply have got pneumonia and died. And they're so kind to me herenuns, you know, mostly Iris.h.i.+'ve never been called 'darlin" so often in my life before!"

"Well, it just shows I've always been right, doesn't it?" Evelyn said. "You shouldn't be living alone. I hope Oliver and I can per- suade you to be more reasonable about that now."

Actually Mrs. Gosse could not remember when Evelyn had pro- tested at her living alone. Judith, Andrew's daughter, had tried hard after Andrew's death to persuade her stepmother to live with her and her husband, Ronald. But Ronald, who was in the oil business, had just been posted to Venezuela, and Mrs. Gosse had not been able to see herself, past 80, pulling up all her roots and going to live in such a strange and distant place. Besides, lov- ing as Judith and Ronald had always been to her and dearly ah she loved their children, Mrs. Gosse had always had a dread of becoming a burden to others, particularly to those for whom she cared the most.

"Anyway, when they let you out, of course you'll come to us,"

Evelyn went on. "No, don't argue about it. You couldn't possibly go home alone. You must come and stay with us as long as you need to."

"That's very kind of you, dear," Mrs. Gosse said. "It's a very tempting suggestion. I suppose I'll find it rather difficult to man- age on my own for a time. I'll think it over."

But really there was nothing to think over. It was obvious that even when Mrs. Gosse could move about on her two aluminum crutches and go to the bathroom by herself, she could not possibly have looked after herself in her own apartment, with only Mrs.

Jimson coming in to help her in the mornings. It was inevitable that she should accept Evelyn's invitation. So when at last Mrs.

Gosse left the hospital it was in an ambulance that was to carry her to the Ha.s.salls' home.

Mrs. Gosse was rather dismayed by the ambulance. She had imagined she was well enough to make the journey by car. But Evelyn reminded her that her spare bedroom was on the second floor and that as Mrs. Gosse would not be able to manage the stairs, she would have to be carried upstairs on a stretcher. Re- gretfully Mrs. Gosse thought of her own apartment in which she would quite soon have been able to hobble out into the garden to look at the crocuses coming out under the beech trees and to sit on the bench there in any early spring suns.h.i.+ne that might brighten an occasional day, and to pick big yellow bunches of forsythia for the vases in the sitting room.

In the Ha.s.salls' house she would be cooped up in one room until she could go up and down the stairs, and who knew how many weeks that would be? However, it was a very attractive room with pale gray walls and a dark red carpet and pearly white closets and some nice photographs of Greece on the walls and a beautiful little bathroom opening out of it.

Oliver carried Mrs. Gosse's luggage up for her. He was a short round man of 50, a stockbroker, with plump jowls and a bald head spa.r.s.ely fringed with dark hair. His eyes were dark, rather pro- tuberant, and looked oddly intense in the pink placidity of his face.

"You see, there's a lovely view from here," he said, waving at the window. "Nothing between you and the downs. You'll enjoy that, won't you? We thought of that when we asked you to come."

"How kind you both are, how very kind to me," Mrs. Gosse said, and just then would have been immensely pleased if she had been able to think of something more to say to make up to the Ha.s.salls for the fact that in the past somehow she had never thought of them as particularly kind people. But no doubt there would be opportunities later to show her grat.i.tude. She only added that she was feeling rather tired and would like to go to bed.

"And you're longing for a cup of tea too, aren't you?" Oliver said and hurried out so that Evelyn could help Mrs. Gosse undress and get into the bed in which the electric blanket had thoughtfully been turned on, waiting for her.

The next three weeks were very pleasant. It was true that Mrs.

Gosse found them rather quiet. She missed the bustle of the nurses round her and the visits of her bridge-playing circle and of faithful Mrs. Jimson. Evelyn sat with her aunt when she could and Oliver generally paid her a visit when he got home from the City, but Evelyn lived a busy life, filled with voluntary work and committee meetings, and Oliver was usually tired in the eve- nings. And unfortunately the one thing the Ha.s.salls' spare bed- room lacked was a telephone.

Mrs. Gosse loved chatting with her friends on the telephone and now that she was too far away for them to be able to drop in to see her, she would have liked to be able to ring them up and set- tle down for a nice long comfortable gossip. Always, of course, finding out from the operator how much the call had cost and pay- ing the sum to Evelyn, for Mrs. Gosse would no more have thought of telephoning at the Ha.s.salls' expense than of allowing them to pay for the stamps on the numerous letters she wrote to her friends and which Evelyn took away to mail for her.

It was the fact that none of these letters was answered that first began to worry Mrs. Gosse. She could not understand it. Her friends were not neglectful people. Always, when she or any of them had gone away on holiday, they had sent one another pic- ture postcards. At Christmas, even when they were meeting every few days, they sent each other the season's greetings. And those who, because of infirmities or domestic problems, had not been able to visit her in the hospital had written to her.

But now there was silence. It seemed very odd. She began to get querulous about it and one day actually asked Evelyn if she was sure she had remembered to mail the letters.

Evelyn laughed and said, "Of course, darling. I don't forget things."

"But I haven't had any answers," Mrs. Gosse said. "I don't un- derstand it."

"You're too impatient," Evelyn said. "Very few people answer letters by return mail. I know I never do."

"But you're quite, quite sure you did post my letters, aren't you?"

"Quite, quite sure."

Mrs. Gosse accepted it. Yet a nagging worry remained. She began to feel cut off from the world in a way that slightly scared her. But that, of course, was absurd. There was nothing for her to be afraid of. It was just that her relative helplessness and the long hours she sometimes had to spend quite alone were begin- ning to get on her nerves.

Then one day she and Oliver had a rather curious conversation.

It was Mrs. Gosse herself who thoughtlessly began it. Oliver had come into her room to bring her coffee after a particularly de- licious dinner that Evelyn had cooked. She was an excellent cook and she understood how much it meant to an invalid to have a real meal served with s.h.i.+ning silver and a pretty tray cloth. That evening there had even been a few snowdrops in a little gla.s.s jug on the tray. Mrs. Gosse was touched by the thoughtfulness.

"You're really so good to me, both of you," she said to Oliver.

"You'll see, I won't forget it."

Rather to her surprise he answered with a self-conscious laugh.

She had an odd feeling she had just said something for which he had been waiting. But he said, "Now, now, we don't want to talk about that sort of thing, do we?"

"But I mean it," she said. "You do so much for me and I couldn't bear it if you didn't understand how grateful I am."

"But there's no need to talk of .things like that yet, is there?" he said. "Why, goodness me, I expect you'll outlive us all."

"Outlive?"

Mrs. Gosse was startled. She realized he had thought, when she spoke of showing him and Evelyn that she would not forget their kindness, that she had been speaking of what she would leave them in her will. But in fact she had simply been thinking of making a present to Evelyn of a pearl and ruby brooch inherited by Mrs. Gosse from her grandmother, a very charming thing and probably quite valuable and which she was sure Evelyn would like. And Mrs. Gosse meant to think of something for Oliver, too.

He was an incessant smoker and there was that gold cigarette case of Andrew's. Perhaps Oliver would like that.

But she did not want to embarra.s.s Oliver by letting him know how he had misunderstood her.

"Oh, well," she said, "we all come to it sooner or later. There's no point in being afraid of thinking about it, is there?"

"Well, of course I've always hoped you'd remember Evelyn," he said, "but as the money was all Uncle Andrew's it wouldn't be surprising if you felt you had to leave your share of it to Judith."

As he spoke he was watching her with disconcerting intentness.

Mrs. Gosse sipped her coffee.

"No, perhaps it wouldn't," she said. "Of course, I made out my will thirty years ago and I've never thought of changing it. I re- member when Andrew and I went along to the solicitor together and made our wills at the same time. Not that I had anything of my own to leave then. It was just to save trouble later if he should predecease me, as of course happened. We both agreed about the terms. They were very simple. Dearest Andrew, I should never think of doing anything I thought he wouldn't like."

"No, no, of course not, of course not," Oliver said and his eyes seemed to fill with a hungry kind of curiosity, as if he were trying to determine if the ambiguity of her reply was the result of delib- erate evasiveness or merely of aged muddle-mindedness. Then suddenly he went hurriedly out of the room and let the door shut behind him with a loudness that was almost a slam.

Mrs. Gosse put her coffee cup down quickly on the bedside table because her hands had started to tremble violently and she was afraid of spilling coffee on the flower-patterned sheets. Clasping her hands together, she lay there rigid in the comfortable bed, trying to think clearly and not let confusion and a perhaps utterly irrational panic overwhelm her.

She told herself that Oliver had never had much tact and that it was just like him, if he was curious about her will, to blurt it out as crudely as he had. And what more natural for him than to be curious? Yet there was a callousness about it, an indifference to'her feelings, which offended Mrs. Gosse deeply.

For the question of what would happen to her modest fortune when she died could be of no interest to Oliver and Evelyn unless they had already talked freely to one another about her death.

And she was 82. Her mother had lived to 93 and her father to 97 and he had enjoyed a game of bowls on the very day of his death.

And as longevity was said to run in families, wasn't it a little im- patient, to say the least, of Oliver and Evelyn to be wondering about her will?

Unless Unless they had been told something in the hospital about her health that had been kept from her. Was her heart, for instance, not as strong as she believed? Was there anything the matter with her arteries? Had they some reason for expecting her to die soon? And was that why they were looking after her so a.s.sidu- ously, and while they were at it, keeping her virtually a pris- oner, denying her all other human contact, perhaps never mailing the letters she had written, giving her no access to a telephone, and now beginning, when she was all too conscious of her com- plete dependence on them, to suggest to her that she should make a will in their favor?

No, that was all nonsense! She was letting her nerves get the best of her, allowing herself to be overcome by senile suspicious- ness. Of course she was not a prisoner. She was being devotedly looked after. She ought to feel nothing but grat.i.tude.

All the same she must think, she decided. She must think very clearly, without getting lost among hysterical thoughts and fan- cies. Lying still, except that her fingers plucked at the edge of the flowered sheet, she gazed at the ceiling and presently began to make what she thought was really a rather clever little plan. She meant it as something just to set her own mind at rest, and it would be so easy, so simple even for her to carry out that it seemed very sensible to try it. She would do it tomorrow.

Having decided on that, she dropped off almost at once into a pleasant doze, from which she did not awaken until Evelyn came into the room to settle her for the night and to give her her sleep- ing pills.

Mrs. Gosse put her plan into execution the next day, as soon as she heard Evelyn leave the house to do the shopping. Oliver, of course, had gone off to London some time before. So while Evelyn was out, Mrs. Gosse had the house to herself. Moving carefully and slowly, leaning on her crutches, she crossed her room to the door, opened it, went out into the hall, and hobbled along it to the door of Oliver's and Evelyn's bedroom. For there was a telephone in there. She had overheard both of the Ha.s.salls speaking on it.

She had never suggested using it herself because this had never been offered and she regarded bedrooms as private places into which one did not intrude without an invitation. Yet really, with no one to see her, what was to stop her going in and ringing up, say, good Mr. Deane, her solicitor, and asking him to visit her?

She put a hand on the doork.n.o.b of the bedroom door. It did not open. It was locked. The Ha.s.salls did not intend to let her reach that telephone extension to call Mr. Deane or anybody in the outer world. So her fears had not been crazy. She was, in fact, being held a prisoner.

With her heart beating in a way that frightened her, she made her way back to her room. At the head of the stairs she stood still and looked down. There was the front door. There was escape. If she gritted her teeth at the pain, could she somehow get down the stairs and reach the street?

But what would she do when she got there? Wave her crutches at pa.s.sing cars? Hope some driver would not think she was mad and would give her a lift of 50 miles to her home?

Probably before a car stopped Evelyn would return and gently force her back into the house and her captivity. And anyone who saw it happen would be on Evelyn's side.

For the moment there was nothing for it but patience.

It was soon after this that a subtle change came over Evelyn's att.i.tude to Mrs. Gosse. All at once she seemed to have become very tired of looking after the old lady. She hardly spoke to her, there were no pretty tray cloths, and the meals she brought in as often as not consisted of meat of some sort out of a can and a lump of mashed potato that had certainly come out of a box. And Evelyn's face seemed to have become all bony jaw and veiled, re- sentful eyes.

One day, just as Evelyn was leaving the room, Mrs. Gosse said on an impulse, "Evelyn dear, don't you think it's time I was going home?"

Evelyn paused in the doorway. "So you want to leave us," she said.

"It's just that I think I've imposed on you long enough," Mrs.

Gosse answered.

"You can go home tomorrow if you want to," Evelyn said.

Mrs. Gosse tried hard not to look startled. "Just whenever it's convenient for you, dear."

"Only tell me one thing first." Evelyn's voice suddenly grated.

"Let's stop pretending, both of us. Oliver and I want to know if you've ,left us anything in your will or does everything go to Judith?"

"I don't think that's a very nice thing to talk about," Mrs. Gosse replied. "I'd sooner not discuss it."

"But we want to know where we stand. It won't hurt you to tell us. We aren't as well off as we look. Oliver isn't as clever as he thinks about money."

Mrs. Gosse considered her answer carefully.

"Well, you know everything I have was left to me by Andrew,"

she said. "And Judith is his daughter. You're actually no relation of Andrew's at all. I wouldn't say you have any right to his money."

"Didn't he leave half of what he had to Judith and half to you, without any strings to it?" Evelyn said. "I remember his saying so once. You can do what you like with your share."

"And you think I ought to make a will leaving it to you?"

"I do. We're your only blood relations."

"And if I make this will, I can go home?"

"As soon as you like."