When I was little, I was convinced the house was haunted. Even in bright sunshine it was an imposing structure. We’d visit several times a year for a few days and I always looked forward to leaving. The joists creaked throughout the night and the nearby trees cast skeletal shadows across the moonlit walls. I always mistook the hoot of an owl for the mutterings of a ghost or ghoul… and in the mornings we had to endure Aunt Agatha and her housekeeper Bernice. Agatha’s husband, Uncle Quentin was always away on business until he was lost at sea many years ago. With no children of her own, Agatha’s approach to youngsters wasn’t ideal. Seen and not heard was the way she saw it.
When I was young I felt it was just myself and my elder sister Mabel that she despised. But as I got a little older, I came to believe that she disliked pretty much everybody. Aunt Agatha was a cantankerous old bag. I don’t think a single member of the family liked her either, but the various strands had a tendency to visit her two or three times a year. She’s rich… stinking rich. She’s also a childless widow and her various nephews, nieces, and distant cousins were only interested in one thing: getting their hands on a chunk of her wealth. Agatha has already disinherited Uncle Albert because she didn’t approve of his second marriage and often claimed she’d leave everything to charity since her own family are so unworthy of inheriting her wealth.
That didn’t stop them from visiting and sucking up to her, trying to find favor and secure a place on her final Will and Testament. After Bernice passed away, Agatha managed to upset the entire family when she took in one of my cousins as Bernice’s replacement. It wasn’t the fact that she had a new maid and housekeeper that pissed my mother and the rest of Agatha’s nephews and nieces off… but the fact that she’d changed her Will to benefit Uncle Rupert and Aunt Beryl only… my mother and Agatha’s other nieces and nephews would receive nothing.
Some strands of the family turned their back on Agatha since they now have nothing to gain, but my mother and a handful of others continued to visit, sucking up and feigning friendship in the vain hope she’ll leave them a portion of her wealth in her final Will & Testament.
My cousin Rebecca didn’t seem at all happy living with Aunt Agatha, and it was an oft-repeated rumor that her parents (Rupert & Beryl) had pretty much sold their daughter into servitude. Rebecca used to have beautiful long hair, often tied in plaits and ribbons but Aunt Agatha insisted that it should be cropped short, in a style more suited to servitude. Rebecca didn’t suit her short curls and detested having to maintain the style. My sister told me that our cousin has to sleep with numerous itchy steel rollers in her hair, but I’m not sure if I believed her or not. Agatha was always ordering the girl about, belittling her, telling her to hurry then berating her for being noisy as her heels clacked on the parquet floors of her huge house. Whenever we visited, Rebecca was always fetching or carrying, scrubbing, cleaning, toiling or tidying. Being a similar age to my sister and a few years older than myself, we often tried to engage her which often ended up having to help her. I recall her complaining to Mabel about having to wear a corset and my sister expressing how awful it must be. I also recall the first time I saw Rebecca’s bedroom. Unlike the nine spare bedrooms in the manor house, the maid’s quarters is little more than a broom cupboard. An iron-framed bed fills one wall. There’s a tiny wardrobe by the door and an old dressing table and mirror in the remaining corner. It’s dank and draughty and I recall expressing how awful it must be, having such a tiny bedroom. Rebecca told me that after a whole day slaving away for Aunt Agatha, she does little more than sleep in her room so it doesn’t need to be any more than it is. “There are nine other rooms though,” I said. “It’d be nice if she’d let you have a bigger one than this.”
“Being nice isn’t one of Aunt Agatha’s priorities,” Rebecca told me. “Not to members of her family anyway.” She worked from dawn ’til dusk, seven days a week for no reward save for room & board. She appeared to be stuck there until the cantankerous old bat gasped her final breath. But that was not to be. After a couple of years, Rebecca couldn’t stand it any longer and much to her parent’s disappointment, she left Aunt Agatha and never returned. Uncle Rupert and Aunt Beryl were livid since it meant they were no longer the sole beneficiaries of Agatha’s estate, and it was rumored that Rupert had disowned his daughter as a result of her ‘selfishness’.