Act of Will. Barbara Taylor Bradford
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older than he. Pandora, who had married in the spring and moved out of Calpher House, was twenty-two. Antonia and Felicity, both now attending finishing school in Switzerland, were nineteen and eighteen respectively; all three happened to be sophisticated young women who were well educated, well travelled and had been exposed to a variety of people and a great deal of radical thought in this house. And so they also were much older than their years and, not unnaturally, they had had an influence on their small brother. The girls called Theo ‘the afterthought’, and although Audra disliked this term, considered it to be rather unkind, she realized that there was a degree of truth in it. He had been born to Mrs Bell when she was forty-two, long after she had expected to bear any more children, and, as she had said to Audra, ‘Theo just missed being a change-of-life baby, thank heavens.’
Audra considered it a small miracle that the Bells had not fallen into the usual trap of pampering and spoiling Theo, which so often happened to an only son who came to his parents later in life and who was their pride and joy. He was indulged occasionally, but this seemed to have little or no effect on him, and he was not given to making excessive demands on anyone, nor was he a temperamental child.
In actuality, Theo was a lot like his mother. Certainly he had inherited Irène Bell’s quick-wittedness, her intelligence and her studious nature. And if he was sometimes unnerving in his forthrightness, he was, nevertheless, a good child, very obedient; he had never given Audra one moment’s trouble in the past twelve months.
Ten loud chimes, echoing through from the bedroom, suddenly alerted Audra to the hour. Theo had been suffering with a sore throat, and although he was better she was taking him to the doctor this morning for a check-up.
Hurrying through into the other room, she glanced at herself in the glass, smoothed one hand over her hair, newly bobbed that summer, then went to the wardrobe in the corner. She took out her heavy winter coat and hat, and a thick woollen scarf and gloves in anticipation of the Arctic weather which had apparently descended on them, just as the gardener had predicted it would yesterday.
His name was Vincent Crowther and he was something of a rebel.
He was born in the year 1903, at five minutes to midnight on the twelfth day of June, in the middle of the worst thunderstorm the new century had witnessed.
A lusty, robust, nine-pound baby, he came screaming into the world, fists flailing, face red and contorted, and giving vent to such a fierce and angry display of temperament the doctor told the midwife that the baby’s tantrums were only out-matched by the violence of the weather outside.
His mother secretly called him her Stormy Petrel thereafter, and she was the least surprised of anyone when her rebellious child grew up to be an equally rebellious man, one who was a maverick, who always stood out in a crowd.
He was a natural star, one who drew others to him by sheer force of personality, dashing looks and more than his fair share of a most beguiling charm. Further, it did him no harm that he had what his father called ‘the gift of the gab’.
The first born of Eliza and Alfred Crowther’s eight children, Vincent boasted an almost feminine beauty as a child, but this turned into a masculine type of handsomeness as he matured to manhood. And there never was any question about his virility. It was like a gloss on him. In consequence, women fell at his feet swooning and they had done so since he was sixteen. He was well versed in their ways and in love and sex; he was master of these games at a very tender age, had broken many a heart. He was twenty-four. His looks dazzled.
It was his colouring that was so sensational. The gleaming black hair and the black brows were in marked contrast to a light, creamy complexion and cheeks that held a tinge of pink like the bloom on a peach; he had cool green eyes, the colour of light, clear tourmalines, fringed with thick black lashes. His eyes and his skin were the envy of his sisters – and most other women.
Matched to the striking colouring and handsome profile was a superb athletic body. He was exactly five feet nine and a half inches tall, well muscled, firm and taut and without one ounce of fat or flab on him.
Immaculate at all times, Vincent considered himself to be a bit of a dandy, loved clothes, wore them with flair and elegance. He cut quite a swathe wherever he went, especially on the dance floor, where his easy grace and good looks showed to such advantage.
He was his mother’s favourite.
His siblings were aware of this. They did not care. Neither were they jealous. In fact, they shared their mother’s feelings about him. His brothers admired or hero-worshipped him; his sisters adored him.
Only his father treated him like a normal, ordinary person.
Alfred Crowther loved his first-born child, but he had no illusions about him. A former sergeant-major in the Seaforth Highlanders, Alfred was a veteran of two great wars, having fought the Boers on the African veldt and the Germans on the fields of Flanders. Subsequently, he knew men and their motivations, could read them well, and his own son was no exception. He had a great deal of insight into Vincent.
Alfred recognized there was a lot of devilishness in the boy, not to mention temperament, stubbornness and a good measure of vanity. He thought Vincent was too handsome by far for his own good. But, being a realist, Alfred knew there was not much point in worrying about this eldest child of his who had been born with the looks of a matinee idol. Fretting would not alter these facts nor accomplish anything. The elder Crowther believed that what was meant to happen eventually happened. His fatalistic attitude could be ascribed to his Irish mother, Martha, who, when he was growing up, had constantly told him, ‘What will be, will be, Alf, sure an’ it will. Tis preordained, I am thinkin’, this life each one of us poor souls be livin’ in this hard and cruel world.’
Father and son were good friends. They enjoyed sharing a pint of beer, usually stopped off at the pub together at weekends, and often they went to race meetings in Doncaster and York, especially in the summer weather. However, despite a certain masculine camaraderie, there was not as much intimacy between them as might have been expected. It was his mother who was Vincent’s confidante and friend. She always had been. She always would-be – until the day she died.
His manifest physical attributes and pleasant demeanour aside, Vincent Crowther was no dunce. He was quick, bright, and intelligent; he had powerful analytical ability, and a retentive memory.
But coming from the working class as he did, he had left Armley Council School when he was fourteen and had found himself a job in one of the tailoring shops in Armley. He had quickly grown bored, mainly because his interests lay elsewhere. He was particularly drawn to building and construction and frequently wished he could have studied architecture.
After leaving the tailoring shop, he had a short spell labouring in the local brickyard, before finally finding an opening with a building firm. He was currently learning his trade; he liked working in the open air, drew pleasure and satisfaction from seeing each building take shape and grow and so fulfil the architect’s original vision.
Sometimes Vincent told himself he was going to enrol in night school in Leeds, to learn draughtsmanship, but he put this off, was always sidetracked and distracted by other more pleasurable activities. He was partial to dancing and he had been a voracious reader when a boy, but otherwise he had no real hobbies to speak of. For the most part, he spent his free time drinking with his cronies and could usually be found propping up the bar in the tap room of one of the local pubs, quaffing down pints or studying a tissue, the pink racing sheet that was published every weekday and was his bible.
He was engrossed in his tissue on this cold Saturday morning in late December, wondering which horses to back at today’s Doncaster races. In particular he was concentrating on the runners in the one o’clock race, turning the salient facts over in his clever mind, considering the virtues and the weaknesses of the trainers and the jockeys as well as those of the different horses, and carefully weighing the odds.
Vincent was