“Yes. He survived, though.”
“The four friends . . . ,” Audrey mused. “Robert, Louis, Tom, and . . . who was the fourth?”
“Arnie.”
“That’s right. Robert was so distraught when he learned that Arnie had a nervous breakdown. He used to tell me stories about how the four of them grew up together and played on the same sports teams.”
“Mostly basketball. It’s very popular over here. Do you want one of these Popsicles?”
“How did Tom know who I was? Or . . . was he talking to you? Was he calling you by my name?”
“Well, I . . . He . . .”
“What’s going on, Eve?” She looked puzzled, but Eve could tell the pieces were starting to fall into place. “He called you Audrey—and you answered him!”
Eve couldn’t draw enough air to speak.
“You stole my place, didn’t you? That’s why you were at the Barretts’ house!”
“Listen, Audrey—”
“You’re posing as me and saying that Harry is Robert’s son. You keep calling him Robbie, but his name is Harry.”
“I can explain—”
“You’re even living in my house—Robert’s house!”
Eve stared at the floor. She didn’t reply.
“How could you deceive all these people, Eve? Why would you do such a terrible thing?” Audrey looked as shell-shocked as she did after the V-1 rocket attack.
At last, Eve’s fear exploded in a burst of anger. “You didn’t want this life, Audrey! You were too scared and too stupid to take it after Robert died. You tossed it into the rubbish bin, so I grabbed it! This is the only home my son has ever known. I won’t let you waltz in here now and steal it away from him.”
“Steal it away from him? You’re the one who has stolen my son’s family! Bobby has a right to his grandparents’ support. He has a right to know his father’s family.”
“It’s too late to change your mind. They’re my family now. This is my home, my son’s home—not yours. You can’t take it back.” Eve didn’t care how shocked or angry Audrey was. It was too late to change things now.
“But we have no other place to go!” Audrey cried.
“Neither do we!” Eve struggled to breathe as they stared at each other in silence. Their sons gazed in wide-eyed confusion at the drama taking place, the Popsicles forgotten. “Listen, Audrey. For as long as we’ve known each other, you’ve had all the advantages and I’ve had none. You’re Audrey Clarkson—the spoiled rich girl, the aristocrat! You went to a fancy school to learn how to marry a wealthy husband, so surely you can find a man in London who’d be willing to marry Alfred Clarkson’s rich little daughter. A man who could buy you a house twice as big as this one—twice as big as Wellingford Hall!”
Audrey closed her eyes as if trying to shut out Eve’s words. Then she bent forward and covered her face as she began to weep. Great, heartbreaking sobs shook her slender body. Eve remembered how those cries had moved her to pity when they were children. She had crept upstairs to the forbidden part of Wellingford Hall to offer Audrey strawberries and sympathy. And friendship. But not this time. No, not this time.
2
WELLINGFORD HALL, ENGLAND, 1931
“You can’t send Alfie away!” Audrey’s voice sounded tiny in the enormous lounge. Father glanced at her, then continued as if she hadn’t spoken.
“It’s the finest boys’ school in England,” he said. “I know you’ll make me proud, Son.” He stood with his hand on her brother’s shoulder as if in blessing, his expression stern yet proud. Father’s dark hair had become sparse, with gray hairs at his temples. He ignored Audrey’s outburst. She was invisible to him. She always had been.
Alfie lifted his chin, his shoulders straight. “Yes, sir.” He had grown nearly as tall as Father. If the news that he was being packed off to boarding school alarmed him, he didn’t reveal it. But then her brother always had been more courageous than Audrey. He was her best friend. Her only friend. The only person who made her life bearable.
“You’ll make friends with young men from the finest families, Son. It’s an opportunity I wish I’d had.”
A sob escaped Audrey’s throat. Mother rolled her eyes and leaned forward to tap the ash from her cigarette. Her ruby lipstick stained one end of the long holder. “Kindly take Audrey away until she can compose herself, Miss Blake,” she said, addressing their governess.
Audrey swallowed and swiped at her tears. “I’m . . . I would like to stay, please.”
“No more outbursts?”
Audrey shook her head, then caught herself. Mother hated empty-headed nodding and shaking of heads. “No, ma’am.”
Father was still talking to Alfie as if the rest of them didn’t exist. “We’ll head up there a few days before the fall term starts so you can get settled. Williams can drive us. It’s a fine school, a very fine school.”
“May I come, too?” Audrey asked.
Mother huffed. “It’s a boys’ school, Audrey.”
“I mean when Father takes Alfie there.”
Mother drew on her cigarette, then spoke through the cloud of smoke as she exhaled. “You’ll be getting ready to leave for your own school by then. That’s the other news we were about to share before you started fussing.”
“What school?” Audrey looked at Miss Blake, who had tutored her and Alfie until now. The governess averted her eyes, studying the contents of her teacup.
“I’ve arranged for you to board this fall at the same girls’ school I attended,” Mother said. “You’ll like it there.”
Neither Mother nor Father would look at Audrey. Alfie offered her a weak smile. Hysteria bubbled up inside Audrey like a fizzy drink that had been shaken. Knowing the reaction her tears would receive, she asked to be excused and fled to her room to weep alone.
She didn’t know how long she’d wept when she heard a soft knock on her door. Her pillow was damp, her eyes swollen and sore. “Who is it?” It wouldn’t be Mother or Father. She prayed it wasn’t Miss Blake.
The door opened and Alfie stuck his head inside. “May I come in?”
She scrambled off her bed and ran to hug him. “Isn’t it awful how they’re sending us away?” she asked.
He gave her a quick squeeze, then wriggled free. “Don’t take it so hard, Sis. We knew this day was coming.”
“I didn’t!”
“I’m nearly fourteen, Audrey. That’s a bit old to take lessons in the nursery with a governess, don’t you think?”
“But you’re my best friend!”
“Listen, you’ll make plenty of new friends in no time.”
The thought of making friends frightened her. She didn’t know how to do it. Father had recently turned sixty, and none of the men who came to Wellingford Hall for his shooting parties had children her age. Mother’s friends, all in their early forties, never brought their children when they visited from London. “I don’t want to leave and go away to school,” Audrey said. “I refuse to go.”