He was flabbergasted at her words and her behaviour. He shrugged off her hand, stepped back, turned his eyes to Audra on the sofa. They exchanged looks of astonishment.
Audra was on her feet swiftly and hurried across the floor. ‘They’re not your paintings, Aunt Alicia. They’re mine,’ she said in a firm but reasonable voice. She wondered if the woman had lost her senses. ‘Unless you’ve forgotten, my father painted them. And they always hung at High Cleugh. They are part of my legacy from my father and my mother, and I—’
‘Your mother!’ Alicia screamed, whirling on her. ‘Don’t you mention your mother to me. She was nothing but a whore!’
Audra gasped, recoiled.
Vincent could not believe he had heard correctly.
‘Here, watch it,’ he exclaimed. ‘Don’t you talk like that to my wife. I won’t stand for it.’ He drew closer to Audra, slipped his arm around her and glared at Alicia. ‘Where do you get off, calling Audra’s mother such a terrible thing?’
‘Don’t you like the word whore? Then pick any name you prefer… trollop, slut, harlot, strumpet! They all fit her. Because that’s what she was. She took him away from me, she stole my darling Adrian.’ Alicia’s shrill voice now turned into a wail. Near tears, she rushed on, ‘He belonged to me. We had an understanding. We were to be married. Until she set her cap at him, turned his head, inveigled him into her bed with her wiles and her fancy ways.’ The words choked in her throat. Alicia began to take gasping breaths, holding her hand to her chest as if in pain.
Audra was so appalled, so sickened by what she had heard, she could only stare at her relative in horror. ‘So that’s what it’s been about all these years,’ she said finally, shaking her head in disbelief. ‘Oh my God! My brothers and I were punished merely because you were jealous. How despicable—to tear us apart when we were children just because of something as ridiculous and futile as that. And when my parents were already dead, when the past no longer mattered. You are a foul woman, Alicia Drummond, foul. As for you and my father being involved—’ Audra paused, took a deep breath. ‘I hardly knew my father, but from what I’ve heard about him, Adrian Kenton was a fine and sensitive man. I don’t believe for one minute that he could have ever been interested in the likes of you. That’s a figment of your imagination.’
Filling with disgust, Audra turned away from the woman. She said to Vincent, ‘Please take down the other paintings by my father and then we can go.’
Vincent did as she asked.
Audra walked over to the sofa, picked up her handbag and the jewellery box.
Additional restraints, self-imposed over the years, began to snap inside Alicia Drummond. And all of the ancient hatred she had harboured for Edith Kenton, and which had not abated even in death, rose up in her. It seemed to congeal in her face, which was contorted into an ugly mask.
She scurried across the carpet to Audra, leaned close to her and hissed in her face, ‘Adrian Kenton was not your father! Not your father, do you hear? You’re a bastard. Peter Lacey’s bastard. She was carrying on with him when Adrian was still alive. My poor Adrian, my poor darling Adrian, having to bear witness to that.’
Audra took a rapid step back, shaking her head from side to side frantically, denying the woman’s words. ‘It’s not true! It’s not true!’ she cried.
‘Yes, it is,’ Alicia snarled, ‘your mother was a whore and an adulteress and you are a bastard!’
‘And you are a liar, Alicia Drummond!’
***
Vincent knew he must act immediately.
He seized hold of Audra’s arm and almost dragged her into the entrance hall. Pivoting on his heels, he sped back to the drawing room, grabbed the three paintings he had taken off the walls, then swung to Alicia Drummond.
She stood in the middle of the room, twisting her hands together in agitation. There was a febrile look on her face and a wildness in her eyes. He thought she had gone quite mad.
He said, ‘I’ll be back next Saturday for the rest of Audra’s stuff, and everything had better be in good condition—or else.’
‘How dare you threaten me!’
‘I’m not threatening you, I just want you to know that I mean business. And the law is on our side; think on, Mrs Drummond.’
Audra was standing where he had left her in the hall, clutching the jewellery box to her chest. Her face was white and she trembled.
‘Come on,’ he cried, ‘and open the door please, love, my hands are full.’
‘Yes,’ she said, trying to throw off the sense of shock she was feeling, hurrying after him to the front door.
Once they were inside his Uncle Phil’s motor car and driving away from the house, Vincent breathed a lot easier. As he came to the gates at the end of the long driveway he slowed, eased the car out onto the main road to Ripon. He drove in this direction for a few minutes, wanting to put a bit of distance between themselves and The Grange; soon he brought the car to a standstill, parked under a tall hedge.
Audra and he turned to face each other at precisely the same moment.
Vincent had never seen her looking so pale. She hugged the wooden box as if she was afraid someone was going to wrest it from her. But at least she had stopped shaking. His heart went out to her as he stared into her eyes. They were awash with hurt. He wanted to make her feel better but he was not sure how to do so.
He said softly, ‘It’s all right now, love. And you don’t have to set foot in that bloody awful house ever again.’
Audra nodded. ‘Yes,’ she said.
There was a small silence as they continued to look at each other.
Eventually, she asked in a low voice, ‘You don’t think it’s true, do you, Vincent? You don’t think that I’m… illegitimate, do you?’ Her lip began to quiver and her eyes brimmed.
‘Oh I don’t! I don’t!’ he exclaimed, his vehemence echoing loudly in the confines of the small car, ‘you said it yourself and right to her face… she’s a liar.’
‘But why would she make up something so awful, something as despicable as that?’
Startled by these questions, Vincent now looked askance at his young wife, and said, ‘Audra… love… you’re not daft, you know why. She spelled it out to you.’ His voice changed, grew much harder and sharper. ‘She’s a bloody old cow, bitter and spiteful. Not only that, she’s crackers, if you ask me. Off her rocker, that one. I wouldn’t be surprised if they cart her off one day, put her away in a padded cell…’
‘Yes, perhaps you’re right,’ Audra said slowly, wondering if he really was. Her eyes turned reflective as she ruminated on Alicia Drummond. The woman was wicked, wasn’t she? Evil. Madness might not be involved at all. Audra’s mind automatically swung to her brothers and she sighed as she thought of them, remembering their years of hardship and worry in Australia, and her own problems and loneliness after they had been sent away. The shocking thing was that none of it need ever have happened. It had all been so unnecessary.
‘Are you all right?’ Vincent asked.
‘Oh yes,’ she murmured, ‘I was just thinking… people can be rotten, can’t they?’
‘Aye, lass, they can,’ he agreed, then reached out, touched her arm lightly. ‘Try and relax… nobody’s going to steal the jewellery box.’
Audra half smiled. She loosened her tenacious grip on it, let it rest on her knee, and after a moment or two she remarked, ‘Well, I suppose we’d better be getting along. We can’t sit here all day.’
‘Okay… but where to, Audra? Do you still want to go and see your great-aunt? Or shall we forget it and make tracks for Harrogate instead?’
There was a fractional hesitation on Audra’s part, then she said, ‘I think we should go and see her. She is expecting me, and I want you to meet her.’ Audra gave him a reassuring look. ‘She’s nicer than her dreadful daughter, I promise you.’
‘I’ll have to take your word for it,’ he said with a grin and turned on the ignition. ‘Just point me in the right direction.’
‘We’re not very far away, as a matter of fact. Drive down this road, for about ten minutes, until we come to Cobbler’s Green on the right-hand side. That’s where we turn off, Bedelia Cottage is at the bottom.’
Neither of them spoke as Vincent drove along at a steady speed, and it was only after they had turned into Cobbler’s Green that Audra said, ‘It could be true, you know.’
Instantly understanding what she meant, he answered quickly, ‘Maybe it could, but I wouldn’t spend any time worrying over it, if I were you.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because you’ll never know, the answer. Your mother is the only person who could have told you the truth, and she’s dead.’
‘She might have confided in Great-Aunt Frances. I told you before, they were close.’
‘You’re not going to ask the old lady, are you?’
‘Well… well, yes, I may.’
***
But in the end, Audra did not ask her great-aunt anything at all.
From the moment they arrived at Bedelia Cottage it was easy to see that the old lady was very frail indeed. Even though it was late afternoon, it was still a lovely day, sunny and warm. Nevertheless, the windows were tightly closed and she sat in front of a huge fire in her cluttered parlour, a silk shawl draped around her withered shoulders, her hands outstretched to the warming flames.
Audra led Vincent through the maze of Victorian furniture and bric-à-brac, the long-forgotten smell of the room immediately assailing her. The dry, dusty air held a hint of over-ripe apples, furniture polish and potpourri, as it had for all the years Audra had been coming here as a child. And when she bent to kiss the wrinkled cheek she caught a faint whiff of moth balls mingled with lavender water and peppermints and she felt a rush of affection for Frances Reynolds. Sudden nostalgia took a grip on her, held her in its spell for a few moments.
Her great-aunt was overjoyed to see Audra after such a long time, and to meet Vincent. Surprised though she was that Audra had appeared with a husband, whom she had heard nothing about, she took to him at once, or so it seemed to Audra. She chirped away like a small bright bird, smiling at them benevolently. From time to time she nodded her head and patted Audra’s hand and as she did she plied her with innumerable questions about her life.
Audra, equally glad to see her great-aunt, answered her as best she could, all the while observing the octogenarian closely. She looked as delicate and as translucent as the paper-thin china cups they were drinking tea from, and Audra thought that if she breathed too heavily on her the old woman would shatter. Silver-haired and slight of build for as long as Audra could remember, there was a new fragility, a brittleness, about her; Audra wanted to wrap her in cotton wool.
Old bones, old flesh, soon to turn to dust, Audra commented silently, and a little shiver ran down her arms despite the warmth of the room. Audra’s intuitiveness told her that she was probably seeing her aunt for the last time. Frances Reynolds was very, very old now; her life on this earth was coming to an end. It was then that Audra also knew that it would be quite wrong to start probing into her mother’s past. That would be too upsetting to this gentle old lady, who had so adored her mother, who was always so affectionate towards her, and who had made Vincent feel so welcome.
And Vincent is correct in what he said, Audra now thought. Only my mother knew the truth and she has taken it to the grave with her. It suddenly struck Audra that it would besmirch her mother’s memory to start talking about adultery and questioning her own legitimacy.
And so she remained silent.
They spent almost two hours at Bedelia Cottage and it was only when they made motions to leave that her great-aunt mentioned Edith Kenton.
Peering at Audra through ancient eyes, she said in her whispery voice, ‘When my darling Edith died Alicia removed all of her papers from High Cleugh. But I took them away from her, because I wanted to keep them for you, Audra, until you were grown up.’
Frances Reynolds paused, smiled slightly and shook her silvered head. ‘Ah, dear child, you are looking so eager, but I’m afraid there is nothing of great importance amongst your mother’s papers. Some old letters, her birth certificate, her marriage lines, a few old photographs, nothing much else.’
Audra’s face fell, then she said, ‘But I want them anyway.’
‘Of course you do, my dear, and that is why I kept them safe for you all these years.’ She glanced at Vincent. ‘The papers are in that case over there on the floor. Could you bring it here, please?’
‘Right away,’ he said, leaping to his feet. He was back in a moment, offered it to the old lady.
‘No, no, give it to Audra, the papers belong to her, Vincent.’
‘Thanks,’ Audra said, taking the case from him. She noticed that her mother’s initials, EWK, were stamped in gold on the front between the locks. She snapped these open, peeped inside, touched the papers on the top, then decided to examine everything later, in the privacy of their room, after they arrived at the White Swan Hotel in Harrogate.
‘Thank you very much for keeping the papers for me, Great-Aunt Frances, I’m most appreciative.’
The old lady smiled and nodded. ‘I know you were going to see Alicia,’ she said in her weak voice that slightly quavered. ‘I presume that you did so and that you collected your mother’s jewellery.’
‘Yes,’ Audra said and paused awkwardly, afraid to say anything more than this. She glanced across at her husband.
Vincent came to her rescue. ‘Everything was fine, and I’ll be driving over with my brothers and a van next week, to get the furniture and the rest of Audra’s things.’
The old lady beamed at him and a satisfied, almost triumphant look entered her eyes. She reached for her cane. ‘Come along the two of you, let us go into the dining room. I want you to choose a piece of silver for your first home.’
CHAPTER 14
‘Please, Vincent, you have to get up,’ Audra said, shaking his shoulder.
He shifted his position in the bed, turned on his back and opened his eyes, blinking in the filtered light coming in through the filmy curtains. ‘Why?’
‘Vincent, you know very well why,’ Audra exclaimed as lightly as possible, trying to sheath her annoyance with him. ‘Gwen’s coming to supper.’
‘If she shows up.’
‘It was my fault last Sunday,’ Audra said hastily, ‘I got the dates mixed up.’
He threw her a sceptical look, said nothing.
‘Please, Vincent,’ she begged, her voice rising, ‘please get up.’
His answer was to reach out and catch hold of her wrist. He pulled her down next to him, wrapped his arms around her and hugged her. He whispered against her cheek, ‘Come to bed with me for half an hour.’
Audra struggled against him. ‘I can’t, you know very well I can’t, there isn’t time.’
‘You mean you don’t want to,’ he said and let go of her at once.
Rising quickly, Audra stepped away from the bed and looked down at him, pursing her lips. ‘You’re being terribly unfair.’
‘Oh no I’m not. You’ve turned cold on me lately.’
She flushed. ‘I haven’t. You always pick the wrong time!’
He looked at the alarm clock on the bamboo night stand. ‘What’s wrong with four-thirty on a Sunday afternoon. It strikes me it’s the perfect time.’
‘We’re expecting a guest.’
‘Ah yes. La-di-da Miss Gwen Thornton.’ He pronounced the name with acerbity, added, ‘I don’t know what you see in her, why you run after her.’
‘I don’t run after her!’
‘Yes, you do. I’m beginning to think you prefer her to me.’
‘Don’t be so ridiculous,’ Audra exclaimed, staring at him in total astonishment, ‘you know that’s not true.’ She felt a sudden surge of anger towards him and went on crossly, ‘Anyway, I’m not in the mood to… come to bed, to make love, not after your behaviour these past few weeks.’
‘My behaviour! What t
he bloody hell are you talking about?’ He sat bolt upright in the bed and glared at her, his brilliant green eyes flashing as his temper flared.
Audra shook her head, very slowly, swallowing her exasperation with him, suddenly comprehending. ‘You just don’t know what you do, Vincent, do you?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Oh Vincent, Vincent, you’re impossible. And you make me so cross at times. For one thing, I’m getting impatient with your performance every Sunday at lunch time. You go off to the pub with your brothers, think nothing about strolling in well after two o’clock, having promised to be back by one at the latest, and then you turn nasty on me because lunch is spoiled… as if that were my fault.’
‘I didn’t turn nasty today.’
‘Yes, you did. Actually, alcohol doesn’t agree with you at all, it brings the worst out in you, makes you belligerent and touchy.’
He was about to ignore these criticisms, since she had lately developed a habit of carping, but changed his mind. ‘Don’t start giving me a lecture,’ he snapped, ‘I don’t like it. I’m a man not a kid. I’ve always gone to the pub on Sundays, ever since I was eighteen, and I’m not going to stop now. Not for you or anybody else. And anyway, everybody goes to the pub on Sundays, it’s an old English tradition.’
Only with the working-class, she thought, and instantly hated herself for even thinking this; she despised any kind of prejudice in others. She said, ‘There’s something else… you left me alone to mark time at your mother’s again last night, whilst you went off carousing in the pubs with your brothers—’
‘It was our Bill’s birthday,’ he cut in indignantly, all of his defences going up.
‘That’s true, and I don’t begrudge it when you celebrate a special occasion of that kind. But it wasn’t Bill’s birthday last Saturday, or the Saturday before, or the one before that, when you also went off on your own.’
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