Act of Will

They crowded around the fireplace.

They sang carols and drank the eggnog from little crystal cups and lifted the steaming chestnuts from their bursting shells. And their laughter reverberated through the house.

Three red felt stockings hung from the mantelpiece. They opened them…she and Frederick and William. In hers there was a treasure trove. An orange, an apple, a bag of nuts and a new penny tied in a scrap of silk; a sachet of potpourri, Pears soap and yards of silk ribbons for her hair plus a box of Egyptian dates, lavender water and a book of verse with the name Edith Kenton written on the flyleaf in her mother’s flowing script. Little things which had cost nothing but whose value was priceless to her.

Snowdrifts were banked outside the house.

Sleet and bitter winds rattled against the window panes and heralded the new year. The Christmas decorations had disappeared. The house was hushed and desolate without her mother’s laughter. It was the time for Uncle Peter to go away again. She saw the sadness on his face, and her mother’s eyes, blue like the sapphires she wore, were filled with tears…

Audra’s face was wet with tears…she had not realized she had begun to cry. She straightened up and brushed her eyes with her fingertips, tearing her gaze away from High Cleugh.

She lay down and buried her face in the cool, sweet-smelling grass, then squeezed her eyes tightly shut as she felt the sharp prick of tears once more. But now she did not bother to suppress them; instead, she allowed herself the luxury of weeping.

And she wept for those she had lost and for the past and for the way things had once been.

Eventually her tears ceased. She lay there quietly, staring up at the china-blue sky, watching the drift of the scudding clouds, ruminating on her beloved family and all of the things which had happened in the last few years.

CHAPTER 3 (#ulink_29b16517-ea48-5a23-a07c-e28f4ac326b8)

Audra’s father was a shadowy figure in her mind.

He had died in 1909, when she was only two years old, and her memories of him were smudged and indistinct.

But the images of her mother, and of Frederick and William, were potent and fresh, so very vivid to her the three of them might have been standing there, looking down at her lying on the grass. And Uncle Peter was as indelibly imprinted on her heart as the other three were.

How inexorably their lives and their destinies had been bound up with his.

Peter Lacey had died in 1920 whilst still a young man. He had been an officer in the British Army during the Great War, and had fought in the trenches of France, where he had been badly gassed in the Battle of the Somme. His lungs had been so seriously damaged his health had never been the same, and that was why he had died. Or so they said at the time.

Audra’s mother, the Beautiful Edith Kenton, had been inconsolable. She had followed him to the grave less than a year later, in July of 1921. She had been thirty-seven.

Frederick, Audra’s eldest brother, had told her that their mother’s death was due to heart failure, but she had recently substituted heartbreak for the latter. Audra had come to believe that their mother really had died of a broken heart as she had pined away for Peter Lacey; since Audra had grown to young womanhood she had come to understand their relationship so much better. They had been lovers, of course. There was no longer any doubt in her mind about that.

As a child Audra had never questioned his presence. He was their Uncle Peter, a distant relative of their father’s, a third cousin, she had been led to believe, and he had been there for as long as she could remember.

After Adrian Kenton had died of consumption, Uncle Peter had become an even more frequent visitor, staying with them at High Cleugh for a week or two at a time. Because of his business interests and financial affairs he had returned to London at regular intervals, but he was never absent for very long. And whether he came for an extended visit or a brief few days he never came empty handed. There were usually presents for them all.

‘Isn’t it wonderful the way Uncle Peter looks after us,’ her mother had said once to Audra. ‘I am a great burden to him, I fear. He is such a busy man…but very kind and generous, and most uncommonly thoughtful. He wishes to take care of me, and of you and your brothers. He insists, and will not have it any other way.’ Edith had sighed, then smiled her shimmering smile. ‘He was devoted to your father, of course. That is the reason why he has made us his responsibility, Audra.’

But it was not devotion to their father at all, Audra had come to realize. It had been adoration of their mother that had caused Peter Lacey to become their benefactor and protector.

Once she had come to understand the reality of their life together, Audra had accepted the truth about them, and she had never blamed or censored her mother and her uncle in her heart. They had been very much in love. He had also loved Edith’s fatherless children, and behaved as a father would towards them; he had taken care of the Kenton family to the best of his ability and his financial means. There had been a wife somewhere in the background, and two children, a boy and a girl, otherwise Edith Kenton and Peter Lacey would have married.

Audra and William had not understood the situation when Edith and Peter were alive, but Audra had lately come to wonder if Frederick had ever had his suspicions. After all, he was the eldest. He had been seventeen when Edith had died, and William fifteen, and Audra had just celebrated her fourteenth birthday the month before.

The Kenton children had been stunned and heartbroken at the unexpected death of their mother, disbelieving. It had been so sudden. And then, only a short hour after her coffin had been lowered into the ground, they had suffered another terrible blow.

They were dazed, so shocked they were unable to speak, when they learned that Edith had died penniless, and that they were not only destitute but without a roof over their heads. High Cleugh was not their property as they had always believed. It had never belonged to their father, in fact. He had merely rented it from the owner – Peter Lacey. Peter had permitted Edith to live on at High Cleugh, without paying rent, since 1909.

Apparently a codicil in his will had protected Edith after his death – but not them. High Cleugh was to remain her home for as long as she lived; after her death it must revert to his estate. The annuity he had left her also ceased when she died.

There was no separate provision for them, most probably because Peter Lacey had not anticipated that their mother would die at such an early age. Obviously neither had she, despite her great sorrow at his passing, since she had not left a will.

The three orphans were told all this by their mother’s cousin, Alicia Drummond. She had taken them back to her house, The Grange, after the funeral service at St Nicholas’s Church and the burial in the adjoining cemetery in the village of West Tanfield. She had hurried them into the library, a cheerless room filled with gloomy shadows, dolorous paintings and ponderous Victorian furniture, where tea was to be served later. Aunt Alicia’s husband, Uncle Percival, her daughter, Cousin Winifred, and her mother, Great-Aunt Frances Reynolds, had attended the funeral and had joined them for tea afterwards.

Although the Kenton children disliked the Drummonds intensely, they held a certain affection for their great-aunt, who had always shown a particular fondness for Edith, her only niece, and the Kentons. And so they automatically gravitated to the Chesterfield sofa next to her chair. Here they aligned themselves in a row. They were a staunch little trio, wearing their best Sunday clothes and black armbands of mourning, sitting stiff-backed and controlled. Somehow they managed to hide their sorrow behind expressionless faces, and, amazingly, not one of them showed their nervousness.

Aunt Alicia had poured tea from a Georgian silver pot, and the maid had passed around the delicate china cups, then offered them plates of watercress sandwiches and carraway-seed cake. They were not able to eat a thing.

Audra was the first one to speak up, after Aunt Alicia had delivered her devastating news about their impecunious state. ‘What’s going to happen to us? Are we to be sent to the workhouse?’ she asked in a small but curiously steady voice, fixing Alicia Drummond with a penetrating stare.

Great-Aunt Frances, shocked, exclaimed, ‘Of course not, dear child!’ and then she reached out and patted Audra’s hand. She was a much nicer person than her daughter, and she continued in a kindly tone, ‘I’m too old to take you in, I’m afraid. However, you will all come and live here at The Grange. Your Aunt Alicia and Uncle Percival have very generously offered to provide a good home for the three of you.’

The Kenton children, with no other living relatives, had been obliged to accept this offer, dubious though they were about moving in with the Drummonds. After only a few days at The Grange they realized just how much they were going to detest living there.

The large Victorian mansion, situated between West Tanfield and Ripon, was as cold and as forbidding as Alicia Drummond herself, who was also a snobbish, bigoted, avaricious and crafty woman. The house was run on ludicrous timetables; the rules were rigid; the atmosphere was depressing and unpleasant; the food mediocre at best. The Kenton children had been brought up with a great deal of love, understanding and freedom by a woman who was also an excellent cook, and they were shocked by life at The Grange.

A week after Edith Kenton’s funeral, some of her furniture and other possessions from High Cleugh were sold at the auction rooms in Ripon, to pay for her funeral expenses and settle her debts. At least, this is what her children were told by their aunt. The best pieces of furniture, a number of good paintings, and choice items of silver were removed to The Grange by Alicia Drummond. ‘I shall be happy to store these things for you until you are old enough to have them,’ she had explained to the three young Kentons.

Despite the fact that this sounded reasonable enough to Frederick and William, Audra, who was far brighter than her brothers, did not trust the woman. And her distrust only increased when, several days later, she noticed her mother’s things appearing in various rooms of her aunt’s house. And so that night, when everyone was asleep, she had crept down the corridor to the room which Frederick and William shared. She had awakened her brothers, and, curling up at the bottom of Frederick’s bed, she expressed her concern to them both, whispered that they must make an inventory of all of their mother’s possessions which were now in this house.

William, who knew Audra was much cleverer than he or his brother, nodded in agreement. But Frederick blanched in alarm, afraid that they would be thrown out if they so much as put one foot wrong. ‘She’ll take offence,’ he whispered back, frowning. ‘We can’t do it, Audra. It would be throwing aspersions on her character – as if we think she’s dishonest.’

Sweeping aside his protestations, Audra hissed, ‘I’m sure she is, so we must do it. To protect ourselves. And what about Mother’s jewellery? The sapphires in particular? Does she have those too, Frederick?’

Frederick shook his head vehemently. ‘No, she doesn’t, and that I know for an absolute fact. But they have disappeared. I looked everywhere for them the day after Mother died, and to no avail. When I was searching her drawers I suddenly remembered that I hadn’t seen her wear them since Uncle Peter’s death. She must have sold them, Audra, and used the money to help support us over the past year. It’s the only possible solution.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me about the sapphires before now?’ Audra demanded in a low but fierce voice, throwing him a reproachful look.

‘Because I didn’t want to worry you,’ Frederick hissed back, and then. his voice sank as he added, ‘But Aunt Alicia does have Mother’s other jewellery. She took the box away from me…for safekeeping, she said.’

Although she had faithfully promised Frederick she would not do anything rash, and so risk incurring their aunt’s disfavour, Audra was determined, nevertheless, to have her own way about the inventory. Alicia Drummond did not intimidate her, but after thinking it through she wisely decided to bide her time, to wait for the right moment to introduce the subject to her aunt. This had presented itself much sooner than Audra had anticipated.

At the end of that same week, on Sunday, Great-Aunt Frances returned with them for lunch after church services. And it was the old lady herself who inadvertently gave Audra the perfect opportunity. They were all seated in the dark and depressing library, where Uncle Percival proceeded to pour careful glasses of sherry for the adults, when unexpectedly their great-aunt brought up the matter of Edith Kenton’s jewellery.

Out of the blue, she said, ‘I think Audra is old enough to have something of dear Edith’s, a memento of her mother. Perhaps the cameo brooch. Please be kind enough to fetch me Edith’s jewellery box, Alicia.’ Aunt Alicia, tight-lipped and sheathing her annoyance, did so.

Smiling at Audra warmly, the old lady took out the cameo and pinned it on the front of her summer frock. ‘Take care of it, child, it was a favourite of your mother’s,’ she said.

Audra promised that she would, and thanked her great-aunt for allowing her to have it now. Then she shrewdly seized the moment. ‘Frederick, William, come and look at Mother’s jewellery. You must have your share of it when we grow up.’

As her two brothers joined her at their great-aunt’s side, Audra exclaimed to Frederick, ‘Perhaps I ought to make a list of these things, so that we can talk about them later, and decide what we’d each like to have. That’s only fair, isn’t it, Frederick?’

There was a startled silence.

Frederick gaped at her, aghast, and bit his lip worriedly, knowing full well what she next had in mind. William tried to hide his delight in her audacity without succeeding; his eyes danced mischievously.

And then, before anyone could make a comment, Audra ran to the desk, found a pencil and scrap paper, and returned to her great-aunt’s chair, where she pored over the box. At one moment, as she scribbled away, Audra looked up at the silver-haired old lady, and remarked in an off-hand manner, ‘Great-Aunt Frances, do you think I should also list Mother’s furniture and her possessions which Aunt Alicia is storing for us here? You know, so that my brothers and I can divide everything else properly.’