'Chapter 7 - The Last Days of the Aunts'

'Harts' - circa 1930

AN INFORMAL AUTOBIOGRAPHY
Chapter Seven: The Last Years of the Aunts
by Monica Vincent (née Pease)
Life at Harts
My last paragraph in Chapter Three about the unchanging and tranquil world at Harts was only partly true. It was not, to those inhabiting it, a magic world where time almost stood still, though it appeared so to the occasional visitor. Even while I was writing that chapter, in 1949, things were coming to a head.

Aunt Dora had been living at Harts for several years, because it was a convenient and pleasant home for an invalid; she lived there more or less permanently and shared the household expenses. During the war her daughter Daphne was summoned from Cambridge, where she was doing war-work, in order to devote herself to Aunt Dora, who was becoming more and more helpless with her arthritis. But this plan did not work well; Daphne was not happy, living an idle life. Aunt Dora did need her sometimes, but it was not a whole-time job for an able-bodied woman of about forty.

The real trouble, however, was Dinah, who could not get on with either Aunt Dora or Daphne, and who made things very unpleasant for both of them by her rudeness and lack of co-operation. Nellie was completely under Dinah's thumb and appeared to side with her, though I don't know what her real feelings were. Dinah happened to like me, and was always very kind to me when I was there, but if you got on the wrong side of her she could be unbelievably vindictive. This was partly due to her health, which was never good, while at times she suffered from a sort of hysteria and was not really responsible for her actions.

Things went on like this for some years, peaceful on the surface but full of friction underneath.

Return to List

Shift to Wraxhill Cottage
Meanwhile the Aunts were getting very old and much less active, and the house and garden as well as the staff were getting too much for them to manage. In August 1949, Aunt Rosa was taken ill, and Aunt May decided that the only thing to do was to move to a smaller house and to get rid of both the maids. After a few months a suitable small house was found, and a purchaser turned up for Harts. He gave £8,000 for it.

The new house was called Wraxhill Cottage, and it was in a very quiet and secluded corner of Street, in Somerset, five minutes' walk from Tony Clark's house. Tony, who used to come to Cote Bank as a little boy and also came once to Brittany with us, was now a managing director of Clark's, the family shoe business. He had a capable wife, Eileen, and a large family. Tony found this cottage for the Aunts, and he and Eileen were extremely good to them all the time they were there; and not only to them, but to all the various relations who used to come down to Street to see the Aunts.

I was very sad at the thought of never going to Harts again, because I loved the house and garden. I remember my last visit, to tea on a December afternoon. Contrary to my expectation the atmosphere was one of hilarity, because Aunt May was so pleased to have solved her problems that her happiness communicated itself to everybody else. She made little paper boxes to amuse Vanessa, who was about eight, and played some game of blowing them about on a polished table. Aunt Rosa at this time was in bed and very much of an invalid, having had a serious stroke. Aunt May felt it would not do if Rosa were to die at Harts, under Dinah' s care and away from any capable younger people. Aunt Dora had now gone back to London with Daphne.

Return to List

Inside Wraxhill Cottage
The cottage was much smaller then Harts; it had two sitting-rooms and four small bedrooms, and a pleasant little garden with apple trees and daffodils, reminiscent of Harts in that respect. Aunt May, when she saw it, pronounced it "Perfect". Various friends and relations planned what furniture to take there, and the rest was given away or sold. Aunt May began giving things away right and left, explaining that people were to have them now instead of waiting till after her death. You could have almost anything you asked for, within reason, but of course you didn't like to take advantage of so much generosity. We were given the antique dolls' house which had belonged to Aunt May since she was about five years old, and a big useful mahogany bookcase, and a large framed Medici reproduction of Botticelli's "Primavera".

There was also the affair of the gilt mirror. Aunt Rosa had left this to me in her will, and Aunt May decided it would be better to send it straight to me in Bristol, rather than taking it to Street for a few years or months first, especially as there wasn't much room for it at Wraxhill Cottage. Aunt Rosa however put her foot down and said she had had that mirror all her life and didn't intend to give it up yet. I tried to keep out of the wrangle and appear indifferent. Aunt Rosa won, and the mirror was duly hung in her bedroom at Street, whence it was removed after her death and sent to me.

Return to List

Death of Aunt Rosa
Nellie and Dinah were both pensioned off and enabled to live without working. Nellie went to her sister in Bridgwater and Dinah to Gloucester. The gardener, Mr. Withers, tried working for the new owner, but gave it up, because, he said, the innovations were "Heart-breaking". He said to me, one day when I had gone over to dig up some plants from the garden after the Aunts had gone (with permission)

- he said : "I suppose the reason why they left was because they couldn't stand the atmosphere." That was pretty astute, I thought.

I was sad about Harts, but to be deprived of it while Aunt May was still alive softened the blow: I still had her to go and see for five years after the departure. They left in December 1949. Aunt Rosa never recovered from her stroke. She was taken down to Street in an ambulance, and remained bedridden until she died in August 1951. It was painful to see her in this illness - her body thin, her face waxen like that of a corpse, and her mind wandering. She used to be so vigorous in both body and mind. Aunt May was mercifully spared a lingering death like that.

Return to List

Aunt Dora and Daphne at Chelsea
Aunt Dora and Daphne, as I mentioned earlier, left Harts a year or two before the final exodus, and returned to their house in Chelsea. Here Daphne became cook (of a sort), housekeeper, nurse and companion, and was much happier than she had been at Harts. They lived almost in one room with only a gas-ring to cook on and no sink or fridge - in spite of their wealth - but they seemed perfectly contented to pig it like this. I think they considered cooking and housework a waste of time, which could be better spent in reading or talking. Aunt Dora was mentally in excellent health in her old age, though more than ever a martyr to arthritis.

Return to List

Death of Aunt May
Aunt Rosa did not like living at Street, but Aunt May was delighted to be surrounded by Quakers, and she blossomed out after Aunt Rosa's death. While Aunt Rosa was alive she used to worry about her, but now she had nothing to worry about, and waited calmly and courageously for her own death. She lived to be 95. Many friends and relations came to visit her, and there was nothing she enjoyed more.

I sometimes used to think it rather a bore having to make a two-hour bus journey each way in order to spend an hour or two with her, but always when I got there I would feel that here was a person who gave as much pleasure to her visitors as she received from them. One felt the strength and goodness of her personality even when conversation was reduced to writing notes for her to read and comment on. The nurse who had come to look after aunt Rosa when she was dying became so fond of Aunt May that she stayed on for three years until Aunt May had died too.

Aunt May. finally died of pneumonia, lucid in her mind. A friend who was staying in the house at this time happened to admire a new grey dress in the wardrobe, and Aunt May said , "Won't Dora be pleased when she gets that dress next weekl" Her last words were: "Eileen, do open that window? It feels stuffy in here, and it doesn't matter if I catch cold now."

After the cremation in Bristol, there was a family tea at a hotel in Street, which was a pleasant occasion. When we were about to go, Eileen gave me a bag of apples to take back to Bristol. This gift, from the garden of Wraxhill Cottage, bad a sort of pathos about it; I had so often been given apples by Aunt May, and this seemed like a final present from beyond the grave.

Return to List

Inadvertently Missing Aunt Dora's Funeral
Whether Aunt Dora got the grey dress or not I do not know: probably not. But if she did, she didn't enjoy it for long, because she too died in the following February. (1955). Another cremation followed - this time at Putney. I decided to go up for the day to attend the funeral. When Vanessa, aged twelve, heard that I was going, she begged me to take her because she would so much like to have a day in London. I didn't really see any reason against it. But there was no train that would get us to Putney in time for the funeral at 10.30, except one that left Bristol at about 4 am. So we decided to take this one. We arrived at about 7, I think, so we had a lot of time to kill. First I think we had some breakfast, then we set out for Richmond, that being on the way to Putney.

We looked at the swans on the bank of the Thames. It had snowed during the night, and the swans looked dirty against the whiteness of the snow. We dawdled about, and bought a coconut, and then suddenly found it was time to take a bus to Putney. We made enquiries, got on to the bus, and after a long journey the conductress - who was quite vague about the route - said she thought we were getting near. The other passengers confirmed that we must get off at the next stop for the "Creematoriuim" as they called it. We did so, and found to our horror that we had been directed to Mortlake Crematorium.

It was ten minutes .before the appointed time, and there were no taxis. The situation was hopeless, so we gave up the funeral and decided to telephone to Daphne later, and meanwhile we went to Hampton Court Palace and wandered through the almost empty rooms, looking at the pictures. From the windows we could see the deserted park with footprints of birds on the snow-covered walks,

Finally we got in touch with Daphne and went along to Oakley Street, where she gave us tea, and politely said that she was glad to see us after everybody else had gone and she was all alone.

After our long and tiring day we arrived back at Temple Meads at about 8.30, and I found that I had lost Vanessa's return ticket.

Never have I been so scatter-brained before or since: going to the wrong crematorium and missing the funeral, and then losing the return ticket. It really did seem as if Aunt Dora's spirit had taken possession of me!

Return to Top

email previous home next