Scold's Bridle

all, but Granny took great delight in telling me what a worthless person he was. His name was Steven, Steven Lascelles.' She lapsed into silence.

'How did your mother meet him?'

'At a party in London. She was supposed to get off with a deb's delight but got off with the guitarist instead. Granny didn't know anything about it until Mum told her she was pregnant, and then the shit hit the fan. I mean, can you imagine it? Mum up the spout by a Jewish rock guitarist with a heroin habit.' She gave a hollow laugh. 'It was a hell of a revenge.' Her arms were turning blue with cold but she didn't seem to notice it. 'So, anyway, they got married and she moved in with him. They had me and then six months later he was dead after spending all their money on heroin. He hadn't paid the rent for months. Mum was a widow-before she was twenty-three-on the dole with a baby and no roof over her head.'

'Then coming back here was probably her only option.'

Ruth pulled a sour face. 'You wouldn't have done it though, not if you knew you'd never be allowed to forget your mistake.'

Probably not, thought Sarah. She wondered if Joanna had loved Steven Lascelles or if, as Ruth had implied, she had taken up with him simply to spite Mathilda. 'It's easy to be wise after the event,' was all she said.

The girl went on as if she hadn't heard. 'Granny tried to change my name to something more WASP-you know, White Anglo-Saxon Protestant-to erase the Hebrew in me. She called me Elizabeth for a while but Mum threatened to take me away, so Granny gave in. Other than that and her refusal to let Granny put the bridle on me when I cried, Mum let Granny dictate terms on everything.' Her eyes flashed scornfully. 'She was so wet. But it was easy to stand up to my grandmother. I did it all the time and we got on like a house on fire.'

Sarah had no desire to be drawn into a domestic squabble between a mother and daughter she barely knew. She watched the long shadow creep across the lawn again as the sun emerged from behind a cloud. 'Why did you ask me to come here, Ruth?'

'I don't know what to do. I thought you'd tell me.'

Sarah studied the thin, rather malicious face and wondered if Joanna had any idea how much her daughter disliked her. 'Don't do anything. Frankly, I can't imagine what your mother could have said or done that would have driven Mathilda to kill herself and, even if there were something, it would hardly be a chargeable offence.'

'Then it should be,' said Ruth harshly. 'She found a letter in the house last time she was down here. She told Granny she'd publish it if Granny didn't change her will immediately and move out of the house. So Granny killed herself. She's left everything to me, you see. She wanted to leave everything to me.' Now there was definite malice in the immature features.

Oh God, thought Sarah. What were you trying to tell me, Mathilda? 'Have you seen this letter?'

'No, but Granny wrote and told me what was in it. She said she didn't want me to find out from my mother. So, you see, Mum did drive her to it. Granny would have done anything to avoid having her dirty linen washed in public.' Her voice grated.

'Do you still have the letter she wrote to you?'

Ruth scowled. 'I tore it up. But that one wasn't important, it's the one Mum found that's important. She'll use it to try and overturn Granny's will.'

'Then I think you should find yourself a solicitor,' said Sarah firmly, drawing her legs together under her chair preparatory to getting up. 'I was your grandmother's doctor, that's all. I can't get involved between you and your mother, Ruth, and I'm quite sure Mathilda wouldn't have wanted me to.'

'But she would,' the girl cried. 'She said in her letter that if anything happened to her I was to talk to you. She said you would know what to do for the best.'

'Surely not? Your grandmother didn't confide in me. All I know about your family is what you've told me today.'

A thin hand reached out and gripped hers. It was icy cold. 'The letter was from Granny's uncle, Gerald Cavendish, to his solicitor. It was a will, saying he wanted everything he had to go to his daughter.'

Sarah could feel the hand on hers trembling, but whether from cold or nerves she didn't know. 'Go on,' she prompted.

'This house and all the money was his. He was the elder brother.'

Sarah frowned again. 'So what are you saying? That Mathilda never had any rights to it? Well, I'm sorry, Ruth, but this is way beyond me. You really must find a solicitor and talk it through with him. I haven't a clue what your legal position is, truly I haven't.' Her subconscious caught up with her. 'Still, it's very odd, isn't it? If his daughter was his heir, shouldn't she have inherited automatically?'

'No one knew she was his daughter,' said Ruth bleakly, 'except Granny, and she told everyone James Gillespie was the father. It's my mother, Dr. Blakeney. Granny was being fucked by her uncle. It's really sick, isn't it?'

Joanna came to visit me today. She fixed me with that peculiarly unpleasant stare of hers through most of lunch-I was reminded of a terrier Father once had which turned vicious after a beating and had to be put down; there was the same malicious gleam in his eyes just before he sank his teeth into Father's palm and ripped the flesh from the bone-then spent most of the afternoon searching about in the library. She said she was looking for my mother's book on flower arranging, but she was lying, of course. I remember giving that to her when she moved back to London. I did not interfere.

She looked very tarty, I thought-far too much make-up for a trip to the country and in a ridiculously short skirt for a woman of her age. I suspect some man brought her down and was abandoned to forage for himself at the pub. Sex, to Joanna, is a currency to be used quite shamelessly in return for services rendered.

Oh, Mathilda, Mathilda! Such hypocrisy!

Do these men realize, I wonder, how little she cares for and about them? Not through contempt, I think, but through sheer indifference to anyone's feelings but her own. I should have taken Hugh Hendry's advice