The Ugly Sister Read Free

women, and I kept the family. It is no difference with him gone; I still have to work.’
    â€˜A pity you have had no time to learn whist,’ said Aunt Anna.
    â€˜Do you never persuade the Admiral to take a hand?’
    â€˜Oh,’ with a sniff ‘the Admiral cannot concentrate. Put him in a chair before a card table and he will grunt and wriggle his posterior as if he had the worms, and frown and grunt again and trump his partner’s ace. I do not know how he controls men when he cannot even control himself.’
    Place was never exactly quiet: with four children growing up in it and eight indoor servants supervised by the saturnine Slade, there was constant movement and activity, but when Aunt Anna was having one of her illnesses, the noise was muted. Parish, who had clearly been trained as a puppy that barking was forbidden, still snuffled and snorted as he padded up and down corridors or wriggled his way through a door that had been left ajar. Only when Uncle Davey arrived did he make himself scarce.
    Sometimes the head of the house would come in in a bad mood; he would shout at the servants, swear at Slade, quarrel with Aunt Anna, saying the house was like a jakes, the walled garden neglected, the lawns a disgrace; and everyone would tremble. But at other times, especially if he brought one of his elder children with him (particularly Anna Maria, the eldest and favourite), he would have half the house laughing. His own laughter, Aunt Anna said, would no doubt be taken as a signal for sending out the pilchard boats from St Mawes.
    â€˜Beware of him,’ Aunt Anna whispered to me once, ‘he’s a great practical joker. D’ye know what happened on our honeymoon? He put honey in my evening shoes!’
    All the time we were growing up Mama would be here for a week or two, then gone off to London or Scotland or Bath. She would seldom tell me when she was going, but kiss me goodnight and the next morning be gone. As she seldom showed me much affection (she doted on Tamsin) I became accustomed to her absences and transferred most of my affection to Sally Fetch, who seemed to show less aversion than most adults for my battered face. In no time, it often seemed to me, Mama would be back again smelling of new perfumes and fresh clothes – for in spite of her protestations she earned good money and freely spent it. She usually travelled by sea, sailing in a ‘tin boat’, and left the same way. Possibly her experience of coach travel when she was carrying me had put her off land travel when another choice was available. Aunt Anna constantly warned her of the danger of French or Algerian pirates, showing an unbecoming lack of confidence in her husband’s ability to keep them out of the Channel.
    Not that this was an unwarranted apprehension. The St Anthony in Roseland promontory was specially vulnerable to a raider, as in fact was all of Falmouth. During the war, which ended while I was still a child, the defence of Pendennis Castle overlooking the great harbour had depended solely on the threat of three field cannon which dated from Blenheim; and St Mawes on the other headland had been commanded by a seventy-year-old captain of artillery, with two crippled soldiers and a range of antique musketry to support him. There had also been a battery mounted near Zone Point; but through the last years of the Napoleonic Wars the Sprys had paid for two marines to keep watch for their own defence, since Place House was the only substantial property on this promontory. In time of war a landing there would have proved a considerable embarrassment – most particularly to the Sprys themselves – and however short-lived the occupation, it was likely to have outlived the inhabitants of the house.
    Even in peace it was a succulent morsel for corsairs – a place to sack and steal from before vanishing into the night – and the end of the war proper had not pacified everyone. There were