A Set of Lies

by Carolyn McCrae

  She wanted to help Henry and Rose Lacey as much as it was possible for her to help them because she was jealous of the love they had for each other, a love she knew she would not experience with William.

  “Thank you, Lady Lacey,” Rose said as she followed Eva to her car.

  “You will call me Eva and I will call you Rose. We are sisters, we are equals and don’t let any of the snobs on the island, and I’m sure there will be many, let you think you are inferior in any way. Keep your accent, Rose, I lost mine to try to fit in with society and it is not worth it. Never be anyone but who you are. Henry chose you and you must trust his judgement. Never think that you are not good enough.”

  Rose put her hand up to the pendant as she had many thousands of times before as she waved Eva goodbye and turned back into the house that would be her family’s home for the rest of their lives.

  Chapter 17

  Wednesday 8pm

  The coffee was finished, the last of the wine drunk but not one of the three sitting around the kitchen table in The Lodge felt too tired to carry on.

  “I do find it sad that we can’t really know anything about these people and we’ll never know what made Bernard and Catherine marry each other in the first place when we know they hated each other.”

  “We know?”

  “Uncle Henry told Audrey.”

  “Hearsay, ignore it,” Carl said firmly.

  “But we shouldn’t, especially when it’s backed by evidence,” Skye argued. “Fergal has said about the birth certificates and I bet the censuses will say the same.”

  “But it does seem fairly obvious that they managed to see enough of each other to conceive two children,” Fergal pointed out.

  “Yes, that’s true enough but Audrey said Uncle Henry rarely spoke of them and then with no affection at all, for either of them. She said they must have been dreadful parents. Uncle Henry was particularly scathing about his father.”

  “Let’s get back to the facts,” Carl commanded Fergal.

  “As I was saying, Bernard and Catherine had two sons, William, Skye’s grandfather who was the elder son in this generation, and her great uncle Henry. William was born in 1888 just about nine months after they married, and Henry two years later.”

  “Yes, yes, we know all that,” Carl said impatiently. “Haven’t you found anything new?”

  Fergal looked down at his iPad. “When he was twenty-six years old Bernard inherited a considerable amount from his father William. Not only did he have all the estate connected to The Lodge, but there was William’s Australian fortune which had been well invested in the quarter of a century since his return. According to probate on William’s estate Bernard would have inherited somewhere in the region of two hundred and fifty thousand pounds.”

  “When was that?”

  “1878,” Fergal answered after a quick check of his notes.

  “What would that be now?”

  “About fifteen million pounds.”

  “That much?”

  “And it wasn’t just the property and the capital. From his investments I reckon he had an annual income of around five thousand pounds,” Fergal continued.

  “Which is the equivalent of…?”

  “About three hundred thousand.”

  “A year?”

  “Yes. As I said, ‘annual income’.”

  “Now that probably would not have been that generous an amount if he had been a man of fashion or wished to live the life of an international playboy with a villa on the Côte d’Azure and a crewed yacht on the Mediterranean, but it was certainly a very great deal of money for a country squire,” Carl said with some awe.

  “And Catherine had money of her own.” Fergal continued the list of assets Bernard would have had access to. “We cannot know what her father gave her as dowry but it would be odd if he hadn’t been generous. His mining and banking businesses would have thrived in the economic boom years of the 1880s.”

  “Very rich indeed,” Carl said, as if to himself. “Tell me Fergal, did they mix in society at all?”

  “I haven’t really been looking. But at that time the island was quite fashionable. I would be surprised if they didn’t.”

  “No matter. Back to the money side of things.”

  “What we do know is that Catherine’s father left most of his business interests to Bernard when he died. Apart from a few smaller bequests to the husbands of his other daughters, everything went to Bernard.”

  “Not his daughter Catherine?” asked Skye.

  “The limits of what married women were allowed to inherit and keep for themselves were very strict. If he had left property and businesses and investments to a married woman much of it would have been under the control of the husband anyway. There was great fear at the time that a wife having her own property under her own control would lead to what they referred to as ‘discord in the home’ and it was generally felt that it was better if the man had control of a family’s finances,” explained Carl.

  Both he and Fergal waited for Skye’s indignant outburst, so both were surprised when she just grimaced.

  “Well, whatever the reasons were, by 1918 when he inherited the baronetcy Bernard and Catherine not only had the title but they were also immensely wealthy. The settlement of Sir Bertie’s affairs apparently incorporated all the Swann property as well as that side of the Lacey family’s.”

  “The Swann property?” Carl asked.

  “Yes. We’re back with property laws and women. Sir Gussie had acquired all the Swann property on his marriage to Lucille and so Sir Bertie inherited it almost before he was born, and then on his unfortunate demise it all went to Bernard.”

  “Good grief. They must have been absolutely rolling in it.”

  “So it would seem. But…”

  “But?”

  “You have to take into account Estate Duty. The rate was about forty percent on large estates. Bernard would have had to pay that on Bertie’s estate and then, two years later, William would have had to pay it again on Bernard’s.”

  “They would still have been pretty rich though, wouldn’t they?” asked Skye.

  “But remember, after the war ended there were strikes and a deep recession, even before the great depression of the 1930s, so I can understand that they could easily have lost practically everything in two generations, especially if…”

  “…things were not managed well.” Carl completed Fergal’s sentence.

  “Audrey always blamed her father. She said he hated the idea of being connected in any way with what he called ‘trade’. She believed he managed to lose pretty much everything except this house. She never mentioned anything about paying taxes.”

  “She would have got her information from Henry, wouldn’t she? And you’ve already explained that there was little love lost between Henry and William, or with his father for that matter. He wouldn’t have been prepared to give either of them the benefit of any doubt would he?” Fergal put another side to the story.

  “I suppose not,” Skye accepted reluctantly. “She always said that when William lost everything he headed for London to find a rich American woman who would marry him for his title and refill the Lacey coffers.”

  “Which, of course, he did.”

  “Ah. Lady Eva Lacey.” Fergal checked the details on his expanded family tree.

  “Audrey’s mother, my grandmother. Henry liked her.”

  “They met?”

  “Oh yes. I think she used to come over to the island quite often. She came without William of course, he wouldn’t go anywhere near Henry. The brothers hated each other. Audrey said it was all about an accident when they were children that William said was Henry’s fault but Henry always said was William’s. She said it was funny how little things that happen as children can become enormous barriers to a relationship. I often wondered if she was talking about her and her brother, not just William and Henry.”

  “Siblings not getting on with each other seems to be a family trait,”
Carl said ruefully.

  “Luckily I don’t have any.”

  “Anyway, Eva often came down to visit Audrey, especially in the years immediately after the war. Audrey said she was open and fun-loving and they really looked forward to her visits. She was brilliant with Henry, she was one of the few people who ever made him laugh. Rose loved her too.”

  “What happened to her?”

  “Eva? She went back to America for her father’s funeral in 1950, I think. She was on a train and it crashed. She was killed.”

  “And William?”

  “He had stayed in London.”

  “And, of course, inherited all her money.”

  “And, presumably, her just-dead father’s.”

  “Henry?”

  “Audrey used to talk about him all the time. It was what we did when the electricity was cut off or there was nothing worth watching on the television. At least we did until she had her fall. After that she never said anything about Henry except that one time when she told me about the Bible.”

  “She knew him well then?”

  “Yes. According to Audrey William had hounded his brother out of the family in the years before the First World War, and Henry went to live in Wales where he met and married Rose, who was a miner’s daughter, and they had Rowan. Then he went to war and was injured and blinded. Eventually William let him come back here to The Lodge, where he was looked after by a man called Michael Wickens before Rose was found and turned up in 1923, I think it was.”

  “Rose was found?” Fergal quoted.

  “Those were the words she always used.”

  “I wonder what she meant. Did Rose ever tell her?”

  “If she did Audrey never told me.”

  “At least you don’t remember,” Carl said bluntly.

  “Anyway, when she and my father were evacuated to The Lodge in 1940 Henry was living here with Rose and their daughter Rowan. Audrey said he used to sit here, in the kitchen, and tell them stories when he was in a good mood or he would just sit if he was in a bad one. He was not only blinded in the war but he was never well, with his chest she said, but his mind was also affected. She said he’d never regained all his memories. He knew he had lived here in The Lodge and he remembered certain incidents of his childhood, he remembered he hated his brother and being happy in Wales. She said he used to talk about working as a miner, which she didn’t really believe. She said he had blotted out a great deal and probably had received memory, you know, other people had told him things about their lives that he believed were his own memories.”

  “How sad.” Fergal said sympathetically.

  “But not unusual.” Carl said harshly. “Many men are said to have wished they had been ‘forever young’ and had died with their pals in France.”

  “Anyway, as soon as the second war began Rowan joined the Women’s Air Force and went to Kent where she was killed in an air raid and then a couple of years after the war ended Rose died. She was only young, just over fifty.”

  “She seems to have had a hard life, looking after her invalid husband.” Fergal braved Carl’s harsh look as he tried to show Skye he was trying to understand the lives that lay behind the names.

  “Anyway, when she died Audrey took over looking after her Uncle Henry until he died in 1971.” Skye wanted to say more about Audrey’s life but was cut short.

  “So that brings us pretty much up to date with the extended Lacey family tree. And basically we’re exactly where we were when we started,” Carl interrupted sharply. “Apart, that is, from providing you with most of the information you need to write Sir Arthur’s wretched hegemony.”

  “Which I’m obviously not going to write.”

  “We are not one step nearer to establishing the identity of Claude Olivierre. However fascinating the details we have uncovered we have absolutely nothing to link Claude Olivierre with anyone other than Claude Olivierre. I have been meaning to ask you, Skye, in all the talks you had with your aunt did she ever mention anything about any relation further back than her grandfather Bernard?” Carl asked slowly.

  “No. Never.”

  “She never mentioned anything that might have given a hint that she knew about some family secret?”

  “No. Only what I told you about Henry ripping out the pages from the front of the family Bible. There was obviously something there that he didn’t want anyone to know.”

  “What I wouldn’t give to see those pages.” Carl’s voice could not hide his frustration. “We are still so far from proving any of this. That Bible could have been the documentation we need. ”

  “Are you sure you can’t think of anything? Anything at all that would help?” Fergal pressed. “Any clue at all?”

  Skye shook her head. It was too late to tell them now. She would have to wait until the morning.

  “Well let’s call it a night, Fergal. I’m exhausted.”

  Skye felt guilty as the two men dispiritedly packed up the papers and notes they would take with them back to their hotel. As she watched them drive away she wished she had found the right moment to tell them about her other find.

  She wished they had shown just a little interest in what she might have found in the attic. Then she would have told them.

  Even if it had only been an old letter and a book of gobbledegook tied together with dirty ribbon that had once been pink.

  Chapter 18

  1928 to 1970

  Eva was overjoyed when, in the autumn of 1928, it was confirmed that she was pregnant. As soon as he heard William set about planning the life and education of his son. The Laceys always had sons and it did not occur to him that there would be any other outcome from Eva’s confinement.

  When the doctor announced the safe delivery of a girl William had to ask twice, “Are you certain?” and did nothing to hide his disappointment. His daughter, christened Audrey Catherine, was decidedly second best.

  Eva always thought of that day as the beginning of the end of any chance of happiness in their marriage.

  William became single-minded in his demands that she give him a son. He no longer wanted her to entertain. He forbade her from travelling. He made it unpleasantly clear to her that she had one purpose in life and that was to give him a son and heir.

  There were times when she felt she had never known him and that the man who had been her husband for eleven years had been a fraud. Two miscarriages did nothing to help her frame of mind but when she passed the fourth month of pregnancy, in May 1935, she allowed herself to feel confident that this would be the son her husband demanded.

  Arthur Bernard Llewellyn Lacey was born in the early hours of the fourteenth of October 1935, to the enormous relief of the mother, the father and the doctors who attended the birth.

  When Audrey, aged six, was introduced to her brother she was told by her father that she was to respect her brother. “Arthur will be the head of the family. In the fullness of time he will be Sir Arthur Lacey, seventh Baronet of Oakridge.”

  “What about me?” Audrey had asked.

  “In ten years you will be married and then you will be your husband’s responsibility.”

  Audrey had turned to her mother. “Have I been very naughty?”

  Eva had looked to her husband to answer but he said nothing and the delay of several moments before she was able to answer, “Of course you haven’t, darling,” the opportunity had been lost.

  From that moment Audrey knew she was less important, less wanted and less loved than the baby in the cot who was her brother.

  By the time, a little more than four years later, war was declared Audrey had accepted that her expectations in life were very different from those of her young brother. She accepted that she received less attention, less of an education, less of everything than Arthur.

  *

  In October 1939 Eva telephoned Rose.

  “Can you take the children?”

  “Of course we can.”

  Despite Henry’s disabilities the years since Rose had f
ound him had been good ones. They had enough money for their needs, none of which were extravagant, and for the first time in many years The Lodge was a happy family home. They had discussed the coming of war and had anticipated Eva’s hopes to evacuate the children to the island, hopefully safe from bombs and the gas that she feared that war would bring.

  “Of course, send them over. We will meet them at the ferry.”

  “I’ve spoken to the lawyers and they have amended the agreement we made back in 1925. The Lodge is to be Audrey’s or Arthur’s home for as long as they want it to be. We have no idea what will happen to us. William insists on staying in town.”

  *

  Ten-year-old Audrey took to the house immediately. She played in the garden, helped in the kitchen, sat by her Uncle Henry in the kitchen as he told what he remembered about The Lodge.

  “What’s in the attics, Aunt Rose?” Audrey asked at teatime one day when she had lived in The Lodge for less than a week.

  “Where?”

  “There’s a door at the top of the landing.”

  “The one right up at the top?”

  “It’s locked,” Audrey’s Uncle Henry answered slowly. “And it’s locked for a reason.”

  “What’s that?” Audrey asked, though she didn’t feel as confident as she sounded.

  “It’s really not very safe up there,” Henry answered tentatively. “Behind the door there’s a very rickety staircase, thirteen steps through cobwebs, and at the top there’s a landing with another door, and through that a room with a very weak floor.” Rose and Audrey stared at Henry as he spoke, his sightless eyes filling with tears. “Your father, my brother, fell through the floor when he was a boy. He was badly hurt and so our father had it boarded up. So no one could get hurt. Like William was hurt. Like I was hurt.”

  Rose and Audrey exchanged a glance as Henry’s voice gave way and he could say no more.

  “Couldn’t it all be fixed?”