Free A Child of the Cloth by James E. Probetts Page A

in need of a fresh coat of paint. As we entered the house there was a strong smell of damp but there was one very noticeable sound missing, the insistent ringing of the hand-bell from her mother’s bedroom.
    Even though it was mid-morning, all the blinds of the house had been pulled down. She informed me that the house had been shut up for about one year as her mother had been living in a nursing home. At the time of her death her deterioration, mentally and physically, had been swift but not unexpected, she had initially tried to look after her mother at home, not wishing to see her go to a nursing home but finally had to give up, accepting that a nursing home was the only answer. She said that some days her mother could be quite lucid and other days her mind would just wander. We walked down the stairs to the basement kitchen to make the coffee. It was much as I remembered from past visits, scrubbed quarry tiles, the same old scrubbed pine table with four yew wheel-back chairs, the Welsh dresser and, standing on the dresser, a beautiful and extremely large inlaid mahogany music box which I remembered well from one of my previous visits. On being left alone in the kitchen my curiosity got the better of me and I foolishly lifted up its lid to see what was inside it, not thinking for one moment that it was a musical box. As I lifted the lid the mechanism started and it then played, with surprising volume, a well-known hymn. I immediately put the lid down thinking this would switch the mechanism off but to no avail. I was convinced everybody in the house could hear it. I was saved by the kind intervention of Mrs. Wiggins, the house keeper who, with a smile on her face said, “You are not the first person whose curiosity got the better of them,” she then lifted the lid and pressed a small catch to silence the box.
    Miss Stephenson, placed the coffee pot and cups on the old silver tray, excusing its need for a good clean. The tray and its contents were placed on the old plate lift. A good pull on the rope and the tray disappeared up to the dining room above. We walked up the stairs to the ground floor drawing-room, most of the furniture had been covered with dust sheets, the drawing-room was next to the dining room. I collected the tray from the plate lift and as we sat down she said, “I would like to tell you of my life in the last year. As I’m sure you have noticed the house has not been lived in for some time. It has been a year of extremes, of delight and some sadness; a year that I’d never ever thought possible.”
    This was a totally different woman, not the same cowed character who had been completely crushed by her domineering mother. She now had brightness in her eyes and was no longer the woman I remembered from my last visit, who had always described herself with certain sadness in her voice as ‘Just a child of the cloth’.
    â€œIf you’ve time,” she said, “I would love to tell you of my earlier life and especially the year that has just passed. Mother was extremely troubled in her mind when she first went into the nursing home, expressing great fear of dying and continually saying, ‘I shall be turned away from heaven because of my sins,’ and repeating the same words over and over again: ‘I lied; I should not have kept the truth from you. I hope and pray one day you will be able to find forgiveness in your heart for me and pray for my salvation’.
    â€œMother greatly feared death but not the manner of her death. No more did she quote my father saying: ‘ death come but come quietly ’. It was the judgment and punishment that she was convinced awaited her in the life hereafter which frightened her so much. After my mother’s death my solicitor suggested that I should put an announcement in the Church Times and The Daily Telegraph , to inform friends and past parishioners of mother’s passing. I did not dream my life would change