In My Father's House by Miranda Seymour

Author:Miranda Seymour [Seymour, Miranda]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781471149696
Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK

13

THE FULFILMENT OF A DREAM

My father had been anticipating only a lifetime’s tenancy of the House he worshipped; outright possession was the unlooked-for gift magnificently extended by a devoted aunt. Anna took frank delight in the naïve expectation that she was free to dispose of her late husband’s home as she wished – and to exclude his surviving relatives from any part of the House’s future.

In the autumn of 1949, Anna went to a meeting with the family lawyer and two trustees appointed by her husband to act for the interests of the estate. Gently invited to explain how Lord Byron had dealt with his correspondence, she grew flustered. Charlie was always prompt in answering handwritten letters; it was the other kind he didn’t like. And how, the principal lawyer asked, did Lord Byron respond to this other kind? Had he answered these letters later? Anna shook her head. Had he answered them at all?

The answer was reluctantly given. She had noticed that all official-looking letters lay on his desk for a certain time, unopened, after which they disappeared. Did she know where to? Anna was growing impatient: after all, there were so many places! Good heavens: drawers, boxes, the backs of cupboards. When space ran short, she added helpfully, Charlie often stored tiresome-looking letters behind the House’s heavy cast-iron radiators. Should she start a search?

The lawyer shot a discreet glance at the trustees and shook his head. This was when Anna learned that Charlie had unwittingly thrown away eight years’ worth of dividends. A search would be a waste of time; their present value was nil.

Worse was to come. Charlie Byron, an inveterate procrastinator, had failed to act in the best interest of the House’s future. The tax bills raised by his death were enormous; they could only be met by a sale of the Estate, the House, and its contents. Anna must not be too alarmed, the lawyer reassured her. She would not be homeless. Lord Byron’s principal home in Essex had recently been demolished after a fire, but a smaller house on the same estate was available for her use – if she remained a widow. Dazed, Anna listened to the one condition over which Charlie had taken real care: all of her future benefits were to be cancelled if she remarried.

George’s affection for his aunt was sincere; his first instinct was to comfort her. But what reassurance could he offer?

Little correspondence survives from the period following Anna’s dismaying interview. All I know is that the University of Nottingham put forward an offer to buy the House as an investment, and that my father persuaded the trustees to reject it.

‘And then?’

My mother shoots a wistful glance at a pile of creased cloths stacked on the ironing board. ‘It’s almost eleven,’ she says. ‘I wanted to go shopping this afternoon.’

‘I’ll take you. What happened after the University backed out? I’ve nothing to do until lunchtime but listen.’

She sighs. ‘But you know all this. George must have talked about it.

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