Act of Will. Barbara Taylor Bradford
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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,’