“I’ve lived with this family nearlyfifty years now, since I was younger than you are now, Georgy, since Will’s father was just a toddler. I was married once, a long time ago, when I was still just a teenager. My husband was a soldier, a Royal Marine, and he wasn’t much older than me, but we wanted to be married so our families gave in. He was killed in Northern Ireland, and I had to find a job, my family couldn’t support me forever. I answered a job advert your grandmother had placed in the Labour Exchange, looking for a nanny and housekeeper, and here I stayed.”
She looked sadly at me, her eyes soft and sorrowful.
“Your poor, dear father was just two years old when I first came here, Will, and I have always been very happy here; this was my refuge, the home and family denied me when I lost my husband, and I have loved every moment of my life here. Your grandparents never treated me like a servant, and your father was the son I never had. Your grandmother and I raised your father, I watched him grow into a fine young man, and I was there the day your grandparents welcomed your mother into the family.”
She sighed, obviously saddened by what she was telling us.
“When your father was lost it really was like losing my own son. I had spent most of his life raising him, and it was a terrible loss, but then your dear mother met and married your father, Georgy, and she was happy again. Will had a good man for his new father, and then you came along, Georgy, and your mother was so happy, she finally had the little girl she’d always wanted. I have watched this family grow and loved each of you every day of my life. I know you’ll do the right thing by your sister, Will”
She smiled vaguely into the distance, obviously seeing something only she could see.
“Your mother and I were very close, I was her friend, her confidante, and, when your father passed away, it was me she leaned on, because she didn’t want to burden you children with her grief. I watched as that man wormed his way in and took over her life, I tried to get her out of his clutches, but, well, you know what happened. Before he completely took over her life, she gave me this, please read it, both of you, it concerns you both.”
She passed me a fat, padded envelope with something hard and small inside it. I passed it to Georgy, indicating she open it. She pulled out a crisp folded sheet of buff vellum notepaper, and my eyes blurred as I recognised my mother’s elegant copperplate handwriting. Georgy looked at me, her eyes bright with unshed tears, but I gestured to her to read it.
“My Darling Tyler and Georgy-Girl,
If you are reading this, it means I’ve passed away and dear Mrs. Kinnison, your Aunt Kay, is with you, as I asked her to be. The reason for this subterfuge is that this matter concerns immediate family only, and all three of you are the only family you have, so please follow these instructions carefully.
In the envelope with this letter are two keys-”
Georgy looked at me then tipped the envelope out, and two flat steel keys dropped into her palm.
“-these keys are important, hold on to them carefully. Somewhere in the house, I don’t know where, I made sure your Aunt Kay never revealed to me where it was, is a steel trunk, one key will open the trunk, and the other key will open what is in the trunk.
Use what you find there well, children, both of you, it was the best I could do with what I could gather. The rest of the estate will come under the provisions of my will, and for you Tyler, will be governed by the conditions of the Wilmot estate trust, but what you find in the trunk is for both of you and you alone. I hope it serves you well, my own dear, sweet children, and remember this: when you need to, rely and depend on Mrs. Kinnison, your Aunt Kay; she has loved and cared for you all your lives, and she knows you better than anyone else in the world. She will help you decide what is best for you if you need help or guidance; I am gone now, so your Aunt Kay must be your mother now, please respect her as such in my memory, and rely on her, she will only do what is the very best for both of you.
God bless you both, my darling children,
Mummy”
Georgy’s voice was hoarse with emotion as she read the note, tears running down her cheeks, as they were on mine, and Mrs. Kinnison’s, Aunt Kay’s eyes, were brimming too at my mother’s last words.
“When you’re ready, Will, Georgy, come with me, please,” said Aunt Kay, dabbing at her eyes. “It’s time. Your mother wanted this, it was the last thing she managed to do for you before that… that creature came here and destroyed everything. Come on now, spit-spot!”
Georgy grinned through her tears at her favourite expression from ‘Mary Poppins’, a movie she’d watched time and again on either mother or Aunt Kay’s lap when she was a little girl.
We followed Aunt Kay upstairs, Georgy with her hand in mine, up to the fourth-floor attics. Long ago these rooms had been the servants’ quarters, little hutches and garrets for the chambermaids and scullery maids, cooks, footmen, and boot-boys to sleep in (but the not the head cook; in the grand households of old the head cook was all-powerful, and the cook’s slightly grander room as was, was next to the main kitchens “below stairs.”)
There were even three steep little servant’s staircases leading from the attics all the way down to concealed landings on each floor, the doors on each floor cleverly disguised as linen closets in the corridors, or tucked away in chimney-corner reveals, and finally ending in the scullery kitchen, the old laundry, now dad’s old workshop, and the linen presses. Heaven forbid a guest should be traumatised by actually seeing a servant on the elegant main staircase! How times have changed…
Georgy and I used to play and chase each other up and down those surprisingly solid ancient staircases and little hidden landings until mother put a stop to it.
My grandfather had renovated the attics sometime in the 1950’s, removing walls and opening out the warren of garrets into more useful lumber rooms stacked floor to ceiling with furniture and bric-a-brac that had outlived its usefulness or had gone out of taste or fashion as the years passed but was too good and well-made to be simply thrown away.
There was a confusing jumble of elegant Georgian and Regency, ugly Victorian and eclectic and unfashionable Bauhaus and Art Deco chairs, sideboards, armoires, dining tables, chaise-longue’s and bookcases, dusty, faded Grandfather and Grandmother drawing room clocks, writing bureaux, and knee-hole desks stashed away up there.
Apparently my family had never thrown anything away, preferring to just stash it in the attics and forget about it, because there was probably enough drawing room, parlour, and dining room furniture up there to completely furnish a more modest house than ours.
There were even a whole range of huge, imposing dressing-room linen presses and mirror wardrobes stored up there that Georgy and I used to clamber around in when we were young, hoping to find Narnia.
Some rooms, but not many, were left pretty uncluttered; I grinned as I recalled playing ‘Hide & Seek’ up there with Georgy and our assorted friends when we were young, and there was even a large playroom-cum-bedroom that my friends and I had used for sleepovers when I was a boy. This was where she led us.
The room had a large walk-in closet currently being used as a linen store, where all the old table and bed linens that were too good to be just thrown away were stored, bales of them, on dowelling racks.
At the very back of the closet, surrounded by and hidden under a stack of probably priceless Regency and Victorian cotton Lawn tablecloths and linen table napery I could see a huge riveted steel steamer trunk, three times the height of an army footlocker, so a chest really, such as one sometimes saw in the retro furnishings stores (usually with a hefty price tag attached).
Georgy and I took all the linens off and piled them elsewhere, and finally revealed my Great-great-grandfather’s name and service number stencilled on the trunk; obviously this huge thing had been part of his campaign furniture back in the day. Georgy looked at me and I nodded, so she knelt down and fumbled the right key in the lock.
When she opened the heavy lid, we were confronted with rows of neatly folded antique baby clothes. Georgy looked at Aunt Kay in puzzlement, but she just motioned for her to move the clothes out of the way. As it happened, the clothes were just a single layer, folded there to disguise what was underneath, a flat steel tray or lidded box about six inches high that fitted exactly into the trunk.
I’d seen these large campaign trunks before, although none as big as this one; there was one in the Imperial War Museum in London and several in the Guard’s museum with one of these fitted boxes inside, which was usually a travelling gun case, probably from ‘The Army & Navy’ store, the Victorian campaign furniture and tailored uniform outfitters in London.
These fitted trunk-boxes were usually where the owners pistols, often cased matching pairs given as gifts when the owner went to war, sabres, ceremonial swords, and awards and insignia were stored.
Obviously the remaining key opened that, which Georgy did, and we both gasped in wonder. Inside the red baize-lined gun-box were jewellery boxes, dozens upon dozens of blue fish-skin or green velvet ring, brooch, and necklace boxes stacked three deep and filling the case completely, with names like Lalique, Boucheron, Cartier, and Verver stamped on them in gold leaf. In the centre of the tray there were more than a dozen flat, green and blue fish-skin boxes with the magical imprint stamped in gold on them that I’d seen so many times on television: Faberge, a king’s ransom of the rarest, most beautiful, most desirable jewellery in the world locked in a trunk in the attic of my home; it was almost surreal.
Georgy stared wide-eyed at me, while Aunt Kay smiled down at her.
“This is your mother’s, grandmother’s and great-grandmother’s collection and family pieces going all the way back to Tudor times, Will. Your mother took it all out of the vault at Coutts Bank after your poor father passed away because she didn’t want estate taxes or Death Duties to grab any of these pieces if anything happened to her. Your family has spent generations acquiring these pieces and loving them, she wanted you to have them, not have them disappear or be sold off to pay bills. Your grandmother and your mother loved and treasured each and every piece there, and she knew you would too. She had me hide them against this day, reasoning that if she didn’t know where they were nobody could ever make her reveal their location. She trusted me to keep them safe for you, something I was both honoured and privileged to do.”