Long Acre

by Claire Rayner

  ‘Please, sir, is there anythin’ else you’ll be a’wantin’, Mr Bastable says, on account ’e wants to be on ’is way early tonight as you promised.’ The young man with the high collar was standing by the door, looking rather less imposing than he had, and Mr Onions looked up at him irritably.

  ‘What’s that? Bastable? Oh, the deuce take it — yes, I did say that he could — hmm. Well, now —’

  He looked thoughtfully at Amy for a moment and then at his partner’s empty chair, mutely accusing on the other side of the desk. ‘Has Mr Vivian gone yet?’

  ‘Indeed, yes, sir. Went off in a right ’uff ’e did. Beggin’ yer pardon sir, but he wasn’t in the best o’ moods, I oughta say. An’ ’e was gone by ’alf past four —’

  ‘Hmm. Wait outside a moment, Thornton. Then come back in when I call, and I will give you a message for Bastable.’

  The young man went, and Mr Onions looked seriously at Amy.

  ‘My dear, as I am sure you realize, a lawyer’s first responsibility is to his client. But we are humane men at heart, those of us who are best at our appointed tasks’ (he threw a contemptuous glance at Vivian’s empty chair) ‘and must sometimes decide between what is most proper and what is most humane. Now, I must repeat what my partner told you — that Mrs Lilith Lucas is not our client and never has been —’

  He held up his hand as Amy opened her mouth to speak. ‘No, do not look so dismayed! That does not mean I have no news for you. Indeed I have. You see, through a client of ours, it so falls out that I have news of this lady who, I must hasten to tell you, is no longer with us, having been gathered to her fathers, God rest her soul, in Constantinople in — let me see now — it must have been in 1854 or thereabouts. The second year of the affair in the Crimea, you know.’

  ‘She is dead,’ Amy said, and there was a note of tragedy in her voice. ‘I had supposed she must be, but I had hoped, just a little, that —’

  ‘My dear, please do not distress yourself,’ Mr Onions said imploringly. ‘I could not tell you all there is to explain if it is going to cause tears —’

  At once Amy was still, her face displaying to a nicety her performance of Brave Little Lady, and Felix bit his lip. It would take many years and much effort, clearly, before he could teach his Amy to be always as sincere and direct as she might be. But even as he deplored her ability to sway others to her will by means of her posturings, he had to admire the skill she used. There was no question but that Mr Onions would, if she were to ask it of him, go down on his knees and bite the carpet for her. But she made no such request, simply sitting there and looking at him with her eyes wide and her soft mouth drooping.

  ‘I can tell you,’ Mr Onions said portentously after a long pause, ‘that I have in my possession a copy of the Will made by Mrs Lucas just before she died. I have it since the sole legatee is in fact our client. That is how I know. It is he who owns the house in Grosvenor Square, and all other property that the lady left.’

  ‘Is he alive?’ Amy said.

  ‘Alive? But of course! As I said he is our client — not was,’ Mr Onions laughed merrily at his own joke. ‘Why do you ask such a question?’

  ‘Because of the state of the house,’ Amy said. ‘I saw it. I went all over it, and it is so neglected! Dust everywhere and falling into shocking disrepair, and yet so rich a house! It seems so strange that a man should own such a house and not live in it. Or sell it.’

  Felix stirred in his chair. ‘My dear, you cannot ask such questions, really you cannot! Mr Onions has been exceedingly kind and told us what you wished to know. Can we not now leave the matter alone, and forget it all? You said you wished only to know whether your grandmother lived or died and —’

  ‘But, Felix, I wish to know also if I have other connections! The stage doorkeeper said Lilith Lucas had four children, and one of them was called Benedict, who must have been my Papa who everyone called Ben. He is dead — but what of the others? And — ’ Her eyes glazed suddenly and she stopped. She had a sudden vision of Oliver standing there in the middle of Martha’s drawing room and polishing his spectacles. ‘My father,’ he had said, ‘was married to Lilith Lucas’s daughter Celia —’

  She turned back to Mr Onions, ‘I — it is possible that there are other connections,’ she said awkwardly, and did not look at Felix. ‘That is all I meant.’

  Mr Onions looked at her for a long moment, and then seemed suddenly to make up his mind. He got to his feet and went over to the door throwing it open suddenly and the young man in the high collar jumped away with his face red; clearly he had been listening very carefully indeed.

  ‘Thornton! Tell Mr Bastable to fetch for me the Lucas Will — he will know the one I mean — it is in the box that deals with the Grosvenor Square house — and then he may go.’

  He came back to his desk and smiled at Amy with great good humour. ‘Well, my dear, there is only one way to set your mind at rest, I think, and that is to tell you all we know of the lady. I have sent for the copy of her Will. It lists the names of some people to whom she deliberately did not wish to leave money, and so may be of some help to you. I will permit you to hear its contents. There! I can offer you no more than that —’

  ‘It is uncommon kind of you to be so helpful to a lady who is not your client, Mr Onions,’ Felix said dryly and Mr Onions reddened a little and shrugged.

  ‘Well, as to that, she could see the Will soon enough if she went to the Registry so why not make it easier for her? M’partner is a stickler for the details of legal practice, but me, I am a humane man, sir, a humane man. I still have not quite caught your name?’

  Even as Felix opened his mouth to reply the door opened and back came the tall-collared Thornton bearing a document in one hand, and Onions took it from his and nodded a dismissal, and the young man bobbed his head and went.

  There was a long pause and Amy sat and stared at the document in Mr Onions’s hand. The afternoon sunshine was dwindling now and the room was dim, but she could see the glow of the heavy paper in the softer blur of Mr Onions’s hand, and for a brief moment tried to imagine the woman who had caused the document to be prepared, all those years ago. In 1854 Amy herself had been but eleven years old, a silly giddy schoolroom chit just beginning to discover her own abilities and to feel the urgent hunger of her ambitions moving within her, and she tried now to imagine the loneliness of a woman dying in a remote alien city and compare it with the life she herself had been living in Boston then. And could not.

  Mr Onions stirred and leaned forwards and with a match taken from a silver box he wore on his watch chain lit an oil lamp on his desk, and fussed with the wick for a moment or two before returning his attention to the document.

  ‘It is an interesting Will,’ he said at length. ‘Such a long time since I saw it, but I recall it was interesting. But not as interesting as what happened when it was brought back to England from Constantinople.’ He looked at Amy with his eyes bright in the lamplight. ‘It was a large legacy, you see, a very large fortune indeed that the Will left. It mentioned only one beneficiary apart from my client — a servant of some sort, to whom she left all the property she died with there in Constantinople. The rest — the house, the various parcels of land about the city, the bank moneys, the jewellery — all of it left to my client. And he would have none of it. A strange affair.’

  He seemed to be talking almost to himself now, and Amy watched him in silence, willing him to tell her more, to be more and more indiscreet. And he seemed to feel the compulsion coming from her and went on almost dreamily. ‘All that money, all that property and he refused to even speak of it. So what could we do? We filed the Will and set a caretaker to the house, and did no more. But it seems so wasteful, so foolish. All that money and property lying idle. Such a wicked waste —’

  ‘Why did he refuse?’ Amy asked softly. Perhaps if she could encourage him to speak generally of the whole matter, he could be persuaded to tell who this mysterious legatee might be. It was none of her affair
, she knew, but she was eaten with curiosity all the same. What sort of man could it be who could turn his back on a fortune, and leave a house like the one in Grosvenor Square to rot in neglect?

  ‘I don’t know — he refused to even speak of it. Oh, I tried. It would have been a dereliction of my duty had I not tried. But he would have none of it. Consigned me to perdition, and told me to do as I wished. So what could I do? Nothing. Sad, sad —’

  He sighed deeply then and looked down again at the document in his hand. ‘I can tell you there is no mention here of any connection of Lilith Lucas, except for deliberate exclusion of her younger son, Jody — he was Jonathan, I believe, but she called him Jody — from any inheritance. The rest went to my client. And here are the witnesses’ signatures affixed — ’ He turned the page and the document rustled softly in the lamplight like an autumn leaf. ‘Quite clearly signed and dated. Alexander Laurence and Martha Lackland, in Constantinople on —’

  ‘Who?’

  Felix’s voice seemed to crack across the dreamy quietness of the room, now almost dark except for the pool of lamplight in which Mr Onions sat, and the lawyer started and peered at him.

  ‘What did you say?’ Felix’s voice was quieter now but still very incisive, and Amy stared at him, puzzled, and trying also to sort out the confused feelings those two names had created in her. She too had been affected by the soft atmosphere of the room, and had not been thinking at all clearly, quite caught up in her fantasy of the lonely woman dying far away from her Grosvenor Square home, and it was only now that the import of what Mr Onions had said began to sink in.

  ‘The names of the witnesses,’ Felix now said in a tight hard voice. ‘Did you say Martha Lackland and Alexander Laurence?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Mr Onions, and now the bonhomie had disappeared and he was watchful and sharp as he began to fold up the document almost protectively, as if he feared Felix would seize it from him. ‘I cannot deny those are the names I said. Are they — ah — of significance?’

  ‘They are,’ Felix said very grimly. ‘They are very significant. My father was Alexander Laurence, sir, and my — I was adopted after his death, by Miss Martha Lackland. Those names are indeed significant to me.’

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  ‘Who?’ said Amy. ‘Who did you say? How could that be? You told me that your father hated her — that he would never let you go to theatres because of her, that —’

  ‘I know,’ Martha said wearily. ‘But who am I to explain the ways of such a woman? I know my father had come to hate her, bitterly. But that did not mean she felt so about him. And she left it, all of it, to him. I tried to tell her she should not, but Alex said — he said it was wrong to balk a dying woman. And of course it was. So she left it all to him. That is all I know.’

  ‘Why did you not explain all this on Sunday?’ Felix’s voice came sharply out of the dimness of the window embrasure where he had been sitting throughout, and Martha turned her head and looked at his shadowed face, trying to see some expression on it, and felt an increase of the chill that had been in her ever since they had both come bursting in on her while she was doing her accounts; that Felix, her own loving gentle Felix, should sound so remote, so coldly angry, filled her with a curious sick fear that mixed ill with that icy coldness.

  ‘Amy asked you then if there was anything else you could tell her. Yet you kept silent. I find this strange, I cannot deny.’

  ‘I wanted no more fuss!’ Martha cried and clasped her hands lightly in her lap. ‘I abominate fuss and trouble above all things. You must surely know that, Felix, after all these years with me! I could not imagine that it would make any difference to you, Amy, so I kept quiet. That was the only reason —’

  ‘I can understand that, Miss Lackland,’ Amy said, but her voice came mechanically, as she tried to set all the new information she had been given into some sort of order.

  There was a pause and then she said, ‘I find it all so confusing. There is your father, Abel, and there is my grandmother, Lilith — and you do not deny now that she is my grandmother — and —’

  ‘I have been certain ever since the suggestion was first made that it had to be so,’ Martha said. ‘I knew her only in her last hours, when she was ill and dying and tired, but she had about her much that you have — an inner quality —’

  An ability to fill me with a jealousy that is sickening in its intensity, she thought, and looked again at Felix’s shadowed face. I suffered jealousy of Alex when that woman looked at him and spoke to him, and now I feel the selfsame jealousy when my Felix looks at this one. It is wicked, wicked, and it should not hurt so much —

  ‘I am glad of that,’ Amy said. ‘I wanted to know of my connections, to know if there were any like me, as I am now, and I am glad to know there were. That I had a grandmother who was so — so — well, everyone says she was exciting and — and dramatic and beautiful — all the things I want to be thought myself —’

  ‘You do not need reassurance on that, Amy, do you? Not really.’ Felix said, and once again jealousy slid into Martha at the tone of his voice; loving, bantering, above all vibrating with warmth. ‘Watch yourself, my dear —’

  Amy laughed, a little shamefaced. ‘Yes, I daresay I was fishing for a compliment — well, let that be. It is confusion that now concerns me. How can it be that your family and mine are so entwined? You told me that they — Lilith and Abel — were once connected. And then Oliver said that his parents were one from each family, and now I hear that my grandmother’s property is left to your family as well — all so confusing —’

  ‘It has always been so,’ Martha said, and turned her head to look at the dying embers of the fire in her grate and drew her shawl closer about her shoulders. The April evening was chilly, but she would not call a servant to tend the fire. This matter between them had to be sorted out in privacy, uninterrupted by even a parlourmaid. ‘There have been other — episodes. Lydia. Your aunt Lydia —’

  Amy looked up sharply. ‘The one who went to America? What of her?’

  ‘There was — a problem. With Phoebe. But it was all a long time ago, now, and all forgotten.’

  ‘But she is my aunt — and I have a right to know about all that affects my family.’

  ‘Indeed, you have not!’ Martha said sharply. ‘Only as much as they would wish you to know. If Phoebe wishes one day to tell you of her past experiences, then that will be her affair. You will be crass indeed if you ask her to do so, just as she would be crass to ask you to tell her every detail of your life, including those that you would rather not discus.’

  Amy face flamed. ‘I have nothing to hide from anyone!’

  ‘I did not for one moment suggest you had. But I daresay you, like all of us, have had thoughts and ideas and possibly experiences you would rather forget. We cannot all lead blameless lives. And it ill behoves any of us to display undue curiosity about our fellows, whether they be our relations or not.’

  There was a silence for a while and the embers settled in the grate with a sharp crack that made them all jump, and then Amy said, ‘Will you tell me more about Abel Lackland — about your father? Why does he not live in that house in Grosvenor Square? It is neglected shockingly, but it is a very beautiful house.’

  Martha smiled thinly. ‘He refused the legacy.’

  Amy sat up very straight and stared at Martha, her mouth lax with amazement. ‘Refused it? How could he do so? The lawyer said — I do not understand —’

  ‘There is much you do not understand, my child, nor ever will until you learn to listen to what you are told! I doubt the lawyer told you anything at all about my Papa. As I understand the matter from you, Felix, he told you only that a Will had been made, naming his client — but he did not tell you who the client was.’

  ‘That is true,’ Felix said and turned his head to look at the two women sitting primly beside the fireplace, for all the world like a pair of tea sippers enjoying no more than a harmless gossip.

  ‘I am sorry,�
� Amy said almost impatiently. ‘But of course I assumed — I mean, can a person refuse a legacy? When someone who is dead has decreed something, it is not possible to argue, is it?’

  ‘You do not know my Papa,’ Martha said, and for the first time since they had arrived in her drawing-room she smiled. A thin mirthless smile, but a smile none the less. ‘If he decided he wanted no part of something then not so much as a tittle of it would he have! He refused to accept the legacy, refused to discuss it, and so the Will was set in the hands of the lawyers, who have dealt with it ever since. My father knows nothing of what has happened to this property and never will.’

  ‘He must be very rich,’ Amy said, a note of awe creeping into her voice. ‘To refuse so large a benefit. The lawyers did not say precisely how much it was, but I believed from what Mr Onions did say that it was a considerable amount.’

  Now Martha laughed aloud. ‘My dear child, you are so lacking in understanding that you quite frighten me! A man may be as poor as a church mouse and still refuse to accept money and property to which he does not feel entitled! Or because he bears ill feeling to the source of it.’

  ‘She will learn,’ Felix got to his feet. ‘She will learn, will you not, my love?’ He came and stood beside Amy now, and put one hand on her shoulder, and looked up at the older woman with a very straight gaze. ‘Martha, I think it is right that I tell you now — that we tell you now — there is an understanding between us. We have not yet spoken of any details, but we will be wed. As soon as we may.’

  There was a long silence as Martha stared back at him. All she could think was, ‘He called me Martha, not Aunt, just Martha. He called me Martha. The happy years are over. He called me Martha.’ The she swallowed and said carefully, ‘I wish you joy, indeed I do.’

  At once Felix smiled, a wide warm smile that brought back the boy she had watched over and loved for more than ten years, and he came over to her and bent and kissed her cheek.