The Wooden Legacy

Night Stories

THE WOODEN LEGACY

            Tilly-Ann slowly wavered up the hill, breathless as a wheezing fish by the time she reached the top, the longest hill in Ulster, especially on a rustic bicycle that had seen better days.  The black and white Welsh collie kept up with her and knew that even though she was on a bicycle he had to stay on the ‘heel’.

            Scoot was his name and scoot his nature but he was an obedient animal and responded to a myriad of whistles, the one for ‘heel’ having been given at the bottom of the hill for, halfway up or near the top, Tilly-Ann could only gasp and pant.  A whistle would have been impossible to perform.

            The Great Aunt had eventually succumbed to a peaceful passing after a long and fitful illness.  The wake had been equally long and tedious with a multitude of visitors paying their respects to an Elder.  Not just three days but a fortnight of plying relatives and strangers with perfectly made tidy sandwiches, poshed up with the crusts severed, and homemade creamed fairy cakes that were Tilly-Ann’s speciality, all served on blue delft plates.  However, by the end of the fortnight, the last dribble of visitors had old buns from Junkin’s Bakery, slapped-up jam sandwiches with no butter, complete with stale crusts well-attached, no finesse whatsoever, and piled on top of paper plates.

            By then, Tilly-Ann’s patience had dwindled and turned her into a deviant, having had no help from any in-laws or third cousins once removed.

The washing-up was monstrous enough.

Now, she pedalled on the straight, Scoot taking rare advantage and running ahead, knowing he could get away with it for that last leg of the journey.

Tilly-Ann knew she had to get there to go through her Great Aunt Ada’s belongings before the once-removed cousins arrived like vultures.

She had promised Great Aunt Ada, who did not believe in paper wills, that she would rescue all the little treasures named on the bottom and give them to the appropriate allotted relatives and neighbours.  They were to be put aside in a box for Tilly-Ann’s husband Jack to collect later and dispense accordingly.  She just hoped that she would get there before the gannets.

Tilly-Ann breathed a sigh of relief that there were no vehicles in sight, not a bicycle, car or tractor to be seen.

Entering into the house was eerie enough, her last memory being the ‘vigil’, where she and Jack took turns watching the body all night in the back bedroom, lest the soul be spirited away by the Devil.  The mirror in the bedroom was still turned backwards flush with the wall.  The fireplace was closed up with cardboard, the curtains still closed.

Tilly-Ann felt stifled, and Scoot slouched, tail between his legs and heckles up on his neck.

“There, there, Scooty,” she soothed, glad the dog was with her.

She threw open the curtains and opened a window, glad of the rush of air into the room.  She stood on a chair and turned back the mirror, then wrenched the cardboard away from the chimney.  She could still smell the lavender scent favoured by her Great Aunt Ada. 

“I hid a purse with a hundred pounds in it, you know, for a rainy day.”

Ada’s voice was clear in her head.

“It is in the front bedroom, I don’t mind where, somewhere near the old chest of drawers.”

Tilly-Ann moved slowly to the front bedroom, stopping to lift the odd ornament on the way.  Sure enough, the little Victorian shepherdess that looked like Bo-Peep had a name stuck on the bottom: Charlotte Brice.

Curiosity got the better of Tilly-Ann.  The King Charles Spaniels on either side of the windowsill were earmarked for Dot Swift; the fire-tongs for the range were going to Charlie McAllister; a painting of Mullaghmore was going to the coalman; an old flat iron was being given to Mrs. Mackay.  Every single object had been named for somebody.  She hoped that Jack knew where they all lived.

Hoping that Jack would hurry up, she wrapped the objects carefully in old towels and cloths that had been left in the house.  One box would not be enough.

Jack’s van groaned up the drive in third gear.  Scoot ran out to greet his master, tail wagging away ten to the dozen.

Jack arrived with two more boxes.

“Quick, Jack, there’s a sight of stuff to box before the gannets arrive.  The painting of Mullaghmore has been given to Plum the coalman!  Sure, what will he do with it, eh?  I don’t think he ever saw a seaside in his life!”

Jack giggled.  “That is why the old doll is giving it to him.  Maybe the old girl had a soft spot for him.  Sure, we don’t know the half of it, do we?”

“Don’t be daft, Jack, she was as old as the hills.  He must be less than half her age!”

“Maybe she liked his rosy cheeks, Tilly.  That’s how he got the name Plum in the first place.”

“And Mrs. Mackay has the flat iron.”

“Maybe she needs it.”

“I can’t see her heating that up on coals.  It’s only useful for a door-stop.”

Tilly-Ann left the wrapping and packing to Jack and headed off to the front bedroom to look for the rainy-day purse.

There was a very old, tall chest of drawers that reached nearly the height of the wardrobe.  It must have been out of the seventeen-hundreds.

She opened the drawers and found old fusty smelling linen covers and woollen jumpers, all neatly folded, smelling of moth balls.  No purse anywhere and no other dresser in the room.

Groping through the clothing, she found nothing, drawer after drawer.

Then, she reached under the bottom of the chest and found something lumpy and hard taped there.  It did not feel like a purse.  It was wooden, whatever it was, and wrapped in old brittle newspaper, so she tugged and tugged to free it.

Prising her fingers into the tape, she tried to rip the binding that was keeping it stuck to the floor of the chest.

One giant effort loosened it.  She dragged it out.

Tilly-Ann carefully removed the crumbling newspaper, old, yellow, and faded, from another century.

Not a purse, that was for sure.

She opened her mouth to call to Jack and then clamped it shut as she stared at the carved object she had uncovered.

“Good grief!” she gasped aloud.

“Tilly, are you okay?”

“Yeah, just wrestling with spiders.”

She quickly hid the object again, her face burning a flaming fire.

“Do you need help?”

“No, no, you keep packing, Jack.  They’ll be here soon.”

They’ll be here soon!  They’ll be here soon!  The words echoed in her head.  Lord, she had to get rid of this…  this ‘thing’… she would be mortified if anyone saw it.  The once-removed cousin Bethany, when she arrived, was bound to trounce that story all over the length and breadth of Ireland.  She wondered if the other cousins would bother to come or just wait for the reading of the non-existent will.

Great Aunt Ada would be blamed and shamed to Kingdom come!

And Tilly-Ann would not tell her husband.  No way.

Scoot charged into the room and made a beeline for that bit of stick, sniffing and prancing like a puppy that had found a new toy.

“Out, out!”  She shoved it further back under and shooed Scoot back to the other room, closing the door behind her.

In the same room as Jack again, she stared at the fireplace.  Could she burn it in the range?  No.

“Are you okay, Tilly?  You look a bit florid.”

“Just the effort of searching through stuff.”

Jack was distracted.  “These tablemats from Bundoran are marked for the coalman too!”

“They are not!  Are they?  Why is she giving everything from the seaside to him…  odd, isn’t it?”

Tilly-Ann had a mortifying thought.  She never dreamed to look.  Was the ‘thing’ marked for anyone?

She grabbed a box of matches and made up her mind, that if this ‘thing’ were marked for anyone, it would never see the light of day for them.

She kept the dog out.

“Keep Scoot with you.  He’s looking and sniffing about and disturbing what I am doing.”

But Jack was in another realm.

“And this poker is for Patrick Daley.  He doesn’t even have a fireplace, only the electric fire!  I seem to remember something else but can’t recall it.”

“Nothin’ for relatives?”

“So far, no.  Don’t think she liked them much!  She liked you, Tilly!  Don’t think she had much time for us lads.  Didn’t like visitors too much.”

“I don’t want anything.  We have too much in our house as it is.”

Tilly-Ann went back into the room, slipping the matches into her pocket.

Maybe it was a meat tenderiser or a mallet of some sort, but she knew by the bulbous head on it, it was no meat tenderiser.  It was smooth, well-polished, not a splinter in sight… well-made, carved by an expert hand.  It was part of the male anatomy but a wee bit grander in size and girth.  Surely it had not belonged to Great Aunt Ada?  No, that belief was staggering.  She shook her head and doubted if Ada had known anything about it.  Her late husband had been an old Quaker.  He certainly would not have known about it either. 

Well, whoever had owned it or put it there, had just caused a terrible nuisance to her.  It was about to be destroyed and before once-removed Bethany got there or any other cousins.

Tilly-Ann thought fast, her mind travelling like lightning.

The deed could not be done near the house.

She stuffed the object under her coat, trying not to think of it as flesh.

Opening the door, she swiftly walked past Jack through to the scullery.

“I’m taking Scoot out for a run before Bethany gets here.”

The dog was only too eager, knowing she had that stick under her coat and he wanted to play ‘fetch’.

Out the back door, and Scoot was jumping madly.  Tilly-Ann hurried through a gate and up the hill at the farm, getting as far away from the house as possible so no spiral of smoke could be seen from the lane.

She found a spot not overlooked by neighbouring farmers.

The brown newspaper was perfectly dry and nestled in it was the ‘thing’.  Quickly, her face as red as Plum the coalman’s, she looked to see if there was a name on the bottom of it, almost fainting when she saw a ‘T’ carved on it, with a row of X’s, probably for kisses.

“No, no, no,” she said, “not possible!”

Scoot tried to grab it from her.  She picked up a nearby stick and threw it as far as possible and he ran after it immediately.

Tilly-Ann struck the match, feeling guilty, and watched as the fire caught the paper right away.  The whole thing began to roast in yellow and blue flames, crackling and spitting its ire as it went up like dry tinder.

For a moment, Tilly-Ann had remorse surge through her.  It was a work of art she was burning.  Someone had spent a long time creating something to bring what… to someone else?  Pain or pleasure?  She did not want to imagine anything.  It was nearly twelve inches.  And now she harboured a secret, even from Jack, who did not deserve to have secrets hidden from him.  Not a soul would ever know.  She dared not speak of it again.

It might have been better buried and not burned.  No, Scoot would have frantically dug it up again like a buried bone, his paws and nose going ten to the dozen like his tail.

It was best burnt to cinder, away from prying eyes, to protect Great Aunt Ada from malicious gossip.  She watched it burn and darken the grass.

The sound of a car chugging up the lane in the distance made her stomp quickly on the fire, kicking soil over it to smother it.

Scoot was already racing towards the house, the substitute stick in his mouth.

Once-removed cousin Bethany had arrived, thankfully alone, and she would be nosing and rummaging through everything soon.

“Scooty!  Come Back!”

Scoot had no intention of returning once he heard the car.

Tilly-Ann arrived breathlessly just after Bethany reached the door.

“You are lookin’ a bit flushed and out of breath, runnin’ after that yappin’ cur!”  Bethany eyed her suspiciously.  “Strange time to be up in the hills?”

“You know collies.  They need a lot of exercise.  One hill is nothing to them and agony to us.  Well, hello Bethany, are you coming in for a wee cup of tea?  You’re looking well, if I may say so.”

“Aw, I can’t say the same for you, Tilly-Ann.  You look very red in the face.  Are yeh not well?”

“As well as can be expected.  The wake went on for days… it was a bit daunting and hard work.  I thought it would never end.”

Bethany looked nonplussed. 

“Don’t know how you catered it with dry eyes.  The tears were tripping me, so they were.  I couldn’t lift a finger to help, so I couldn’t!”

That was an out and out lie.  Tilly-Ann hadn’t seen her cry once, but she ignored it.

“Only to be expected, Bethany.  I wept in private.  Didn’t want to wet the sandwiches.  Kept myself busy.”

That was the truth.

Bethany made a sour sort of ‘harumph’ noise.

“Well, have you stripped the place yet?  You and Jack seem to be busy.  You were quick enough to get here.  Did you find any treasures?”

“None that you would appreciate.”  That was true too.

“Has she left anything to the family?  I suppose it’s too soon for the will to be read.”

“She clearly marked everything in the house to be left to different ones.  No will that I know of, Bethany.”

Bethany was startled, her eyes widening in disbelief.

“What do you mean… marked?”

“Great Aunt Ada has names clearly written on the bottom of the ornaments.  Jack is gathering them up for distribution, as we speak.”

“I have to see this to believe it,” spouted Bethany once removed.

“See for yourself.”

“Surely the old biddy wouldn’t be that mean?  I always coveted the picture of Mullaghmore, painted by a famous painter she once told me.”

“Gosh, I always thought she painted it herself,” said Tilly-Ann.  “She liked the cows paddling in the sea, was always worried that calves can’t read the signs for ‘Danger, Quicksand!’  Anyway, famous painter or no famous painter, she left it to the coalman.”

Tilly tried not to sound triumphant.

Bethany was horrified.

“What!  Plum Good-For-Nothing?  I don’t believe it!  Sure, what would he do with a famous painting?”

“Hang it?” offered Tilly-Ann, ushering Bethany into the scullery and filling the kettle with water to put on the range.

“Drop it, Scoot!  No sticks in the house!”

Scoot looked mournful and obediently dropped the stick.

Jack had lit the fire in the range.

“Thought youse might want some tea,” he said. “So, how’s your health, Bethany?  You’re lookin’ well at such a sad time, eh?”

Bethany ignored him.

“Hang it on what?  Mullaghmore on a nail in his toilet?  I can’t believe she did that!”

Jack stoked the fire and put the kettle on the hob while Tilly fetched the teapot.  She scooped two teaspoons of loose tea out of a Queen Victoria Coronation tea-caddy and put them in the teapot to wait for the water to boil in the kettle.

“Did she never hear of teabags?” said Bethany, a bit surly.  “Plum Good-For Nothin’!  How could she do that?  I gave her enough hints about it too.  Sure, when did that Plum ever get to the sea, eh?  He’s never seen the ocean in his life!”

“That is precisely why she gave it to him,” said Jack.  “She always referred to Plum as the ‘Salt of the Earth’, so she did.  Plum probably looked at it one day and said he had never been to the seaside…  just a passing remark.  That would have tugged at Great Aunt Ada’s heartstrings.  I bet that was the precise moment she decided to give it to him and probably wrote his name on the back of it, as soon as he was out the door.”

Tilly-Ann smiled as she filled the teapot and left the tea to draw for a few moments before pouring it into the cups along with the milk and sugar.  This was becoming more enjoyable now, after the strain of the last week.

Bethany had four sugars, but Tilly doubted that would sweeten her.

Bethany could hardly wait to finish the tea and some ginger biscuits offered by Jack.

She began looking at other things, the crumbs still falling from her mouth.

“A poker to Mr. Daley?  What the heck will he do with that?  Poke his electric fire?”

“That is sentimental,” said Jack.  “I mind old Pat borrowing Ada’s poker to punch holes in the soil when he planted seeds in her garden.”

“Did he now?” asked Tilly, remembering no such thing, but pleased with the story.  “Well, there you go, Cousin Bethany, he will know why he has been given the poker and he will always remember her fondly.  She was kindness itself.”

Bethany ignored the gifts that were already wrapped and began looking on the bottom of anything and everything to see if her name existed at all anywhere, to no avail.

Tilly-Ann poured more boiling water into the teapot and let the tea stew on the range again.  Jack always loved the second cup.  He winked at her.  They exchanged a warm look.

Eventually, Bethany found something.

“A key!  And it has my name on it!” she spurted excitedly.  “At last, a treasure!  What does the key fit, I wonder?  There must be a box somewhere.”

Jack gave the dog a biscuit, then he looked at the key and said, “Too big for a box.”

Bethany’s eyes grew round.  “Maybe a chest?” she said, hopefully.

Jack shook his head.  “Naw,” he said, “this is the old key for the coal-shed!”

“The coal-shed?  But there’s nothin’ in there but coal!”

Tilly-Ann couldn’t help herself and muttered, “If you wait long enough, coal turns to diamonds, you know!”

“I’d be happy with coal,” said Jack.  “Keeps you warm in the winter.”

Bethany, cousin once-removed, was not amused.

“Maybe there is a method for her madness,” said Jack.  “With that coal, you have the choice between courting the man with the poker or the coalman with the painting of Mullaghmore.  You could become the proud owner of the painting after all, if you get in with Plum, and think of the excitement of driving him to see the seaside for the first time, maybe even Mullaghmore?”

Bethany looked thoughtful for a moment.  There was appeal there.

“You know, you might be right, Jack,” she whispered, and so it was, that Bethany changed her tune.  “He’s a hard worker, Plum, isn’t he?  A good man.”

‘Poor Plum’, thought Tilly-Ann.

Jack and Tilly drove home that night, Scoot in the back of the van with the bicycle and the boxes, and after distributing the various legacies to the different neighbours who were overjoyed with their unexpected gifts, Tilly sat thoughtful in the passenger seat and sighed.

“Our names were on nothing, Jack, but I don’t mind.”  She meant it.

“Tilly, our names were on the house.  I found them on the key when I was locking the door.  I expect the solicitor will be calling us in due course.”

Tilly-Ann laughed out loud.  All was well, and would have been well anyway, even without the house.  The thought crossed her mind to tell Jack the secret she had found under the chest of drawers, but she didn’t.

They moved into the house soon after.  She never did find the purse for the rainy day and wondered if it was to lead her to the wooden legacy after all.

Years later, long after their children had grown up, and Scoot had died to be replaced by Scooty-Two, and Bethany once-removed had married Plum the coalman, Tilly-Ann, at last, told Jack the story of the wooden treasure she burned.

Jack shook his head in amazement and perplexity.

“Tilly, you goose, you found a Napoleonic wooden phallus.  I saw one recently that went at auction in Enniskillen for five thousand pounds!  Five thousand pounds?  You went into the hills and burnt five thousand pounds!  The Irish mercenaries who went to fight for Napoleon against the English used to carve them for their wives, so they wouldn’t cheat when they were at war.  We could have sold that!”

Tilly gasped and then went very red in the face.

“What?  The stupid men, filling their wives full of splinters!  Do you think for one minute I would have carried that ‘thing’ in a Wellworth’s carrier bag to a public auction?  Are you mad, Jack?  Shaming poor Great Aunt Ada and ending up on the front page of the Impartial Reporter with the whole world laughing at me?  And then, Cousin-once-removed Bethany putting it all around the country that we might have even used it!  Your head’s cut altogether if you think all that is worth five thousand pounds!  I did the right thing, turning it to ashes!”

And that was that.  Tilly-Ann had saved the family from ridicule and gossip.  Nothing would tell her otherwise, and Jack had to agree in the end that she was right.  Tilly-Ann was always right.

Dwina**