Death at Balfefield Abbey

Chapter 14, Wiltshire, 1899

Miranda sat beside the bed feeding her Uncle Alfred a thin broth. After she poured each spoonful into his mouth, she wiped his chin with a cloth and waited for him to part his lips for another.

Earlier, she lit a fire in the room to keep away the damp coldness of the November afternoon. Now an early darkness descended, so she rose to draw the curtains and light an oil lamp. When she returned to her seat, Alfred was slowly opening and closing his toothless mouth. He looked like one of those featherless chicks begging to be fed by their mother, or a dying fish on a slab, but with eyes that remained lively and insistent.

She fed him another spoonful.

On the previous Sabbath, Alfred gave a church sermon on the salvation of the righteous. A discourse all too familiar to Miranda. She recognized the mounting, oratorical intensity as he and the congregation reveled in the prospect of the destruction of transgressors, but then suddenly Uncle Alfred choked on his words. He gazed out over the flock with a look that Miranda took to be surprise, at first, but his eyes lacked focus. It was more a look of stupidity. He grabbed hold of the sides of the pulpit for support, but his knees folded, and he crumbled.

Men from the congregation carried him home aloft on a makeshift litter constructed from an old, discarded door. Miranda followed the cortege enveloped by women who sought to comfort her with a litany of prayer. She walked with her head held low, a posture taken by others as an expression of sadness and concern for a good and God-fearing man. However, in truth, she hung her head because she did not want to fabricate facial contortions of sorrow. They placed him in his bed, prayed in unison for a short while, then left.

A doctor was summoned and examined him for several minutes. When finished, he guided her out of earshot of the patient, for the old man had regained consciousness, and said: "I'm afraid this is a severe case of apoplexy of the cerebellum."

The doctor admitted the prognosis was not good. Alfred had lost substantially all of his bodily function and given his age, was most unlikely to recover. He advised Miranda to make her uncle as comfortable as possible and feed him only soups, broths, and milk-soaked bread, assuming he could hold any of them down. He then promised to call back in a couple of days. Just before the doctor departed, he advised her to write to any members of the family who lived at a distance and prepare them for the worst.

There was only one person to write to, his son Edgar.

On finishing college, Edgar took up a position, purchased by his father, with a firm that traded coffee and rubber. He went to work in their office in Singapore and wrote to her frequently about how beautiful it was there, although overrun with natives and Chinese. He socialized with other expatriates determined to carve out their own piece of England by hanging onto social rituals such as afternoon teas and garden fetes, reading newspapers from home, and forming cricket teams.

His letters were also full of witty observations and salacious gossip concerning the people in his life. Miranda suspected, especially when he digressed to matters concerning a return home with his fortunes secured, that such diversions deflected feelings of lonely exile. In her letters to him, she would sometimes ask why he had not found a suitable candidate for marriage. Surely there must be lots of opportunities for romance among the daughters of the Mercantile elites. His responses, while humorous, were always dismissive.

In truth, she knew he was waiting for any sign, however subtle, that she might accept his invitation to join him and build a life together in the tropics. And there were moments when she seriously contemplated it. During periods when Matthew's letters became rare, outnumbered ten to one by Edgar's. Periods when months blurred into years between her stepbrother's visits, and she watched her youth slip away in the mirror, day by day.