Jeremiah's Trunk

Part One

One

Melbourne, Australia – April 5, 2013

My Aunt Jane spent most of her lifetime under spotlights, but from where I stood, her most significant performance was delivered from the grave.

Eighteen months after her death, a solicitor from Wright and Wright called me to convey Aunt Jane’s last wishes. He caught me off guard. I’d just buried my mother, Dorothy, before Easter and I was still grieving for her.

‘Ms Skinner? Am I speaking to Ms Abigail Skinner?’ he asked.

‘Yes, speaking,’ I confirmed. Mr Wright wasted no time talking about the weather. He had the late Ms Jane Skinner’s orders to carry out upon the death of her sister-in-law, Dorothy Skinner.

Confused, I think I muttered an ‘Oh . . .?’

‘Ms Skinner, this bequest was supposed to be handed over to you as soon as we knew of your mother’s death.’ I sensed a slight sniff of disdain in his voice. ‘Of course, Mrs Dorothy Skinner took her business elsewhere after her husband passed away, so we weren’t immediately informed.’ Then I understood his real complaint, ‘We’re also owed storage fees for twelve months.’

My mother and her sister-in-law often disagreed. Mum probably feared breaches of privacy if she stayed with the same solicitor that my father, Edward, had shared with his younger sister Jane. However, the two women certainly grew closer when Aunt Jane was diagnosed with cancer. Mum was her primary carer until Aunt Jane needed palliative care in her last weeks.

‘Oh, by the way, you’ll need a car. It’s much too heavy to take on the bus.’

Mr. Wright’s final words piqued my curiosity so I stirred myself and set off. On arriving at the small legal office, situated up a narrow flight of stairs above a hairdresser’s shop, I was greeted by a relieved receptionist, who was nursing a bruised big toe. She’d apparently stubbed it on an enormous trunk that took up half her small office.

‘Thank goodness, you’ve finally come,’ she said and pointing at the old trunk added, ‘I’ve told the Mr. Wrights that there’s room for only one of us in this office!’

I blinked in surprise. ‘You m . . . mean that thing is for me! I presumed I’d be picking up a large parcel or box at the most.’

‘Well? Isn’t that thing a large box?’

Feeling nonplussed, I stared stupidly at the wooden trunk and hoped I’d get it into my car. I paid the storage bill and a balding Mr. Wright appeared with a trolley and quite expertly manoeuvred the trunk through the office door, down the stairs and onto the footpath. Looking around, his face dropped when I clicked open the boot of my small Mazda.

‘Don’t worry, Mr. Wright. It’s amazing how much can fit in my car. It even carries a small fridge whenever I shift flats.’

Serves you right, Mr. Wright. You should have told me exactly what I’d inherited from Aunt Jane.

Getting the trunk into my family home was tricky, so I foxed out an old skate board left by an ex-boyfriend and wheeled it inside. But opening it would prove to be a bigger challenge as the trunk was very firmly locked with no key in sight. It would have to wait for the moment; I just wasn’t ready to think about Aunt Jane’s heirloom. Looking around the big, empty house, a fresh wave of grief washed over me. Would I ever get used to the lack of silence from the kitchen or Mum’s call of greeting?

*

Describing my house as the family home is a bit of a misnomer. My parents had purchased it in Brighton, a leafy bayside suburb in Melbourne, over thirty years ago. My childhood memories always involved the beach. Dozens of sand castles disappeared under waves, tiny fish and shell creatures inhabited rock pools at low tide and the beach boxes always attracted a few impromptu parties with teenage school friends.

My much older siblings, Ignatius and Hilary had spent their childhoods in boarding schools and until my arrival, had never enjoyed the security of a permanent home. My father had been a member of the Australian Diplomatic Corps, so for years my parents had travelled between countries, some less desirable than others.

Iggy was fifteen when I came bawling into the world and with Hilary, our self-indulgent sister, merely eighteen months younger than he, they managed to make my life miserable. They treated me as an unwanted parasite that had imposed itself on their time and space, but fortunately both my parents doted on me. However, when I was only four, we experienced a huge tragedy. Our father suffered a fatal heart attack. Ignatius naturally took over the reins as his version of head of the household before he discovered an academic life which allowed him to postpone getting a real job for years. On graduating with honours in archaeology, he took up various appointments at minor universities overseas to fund his world travels. From where I stood Ignatius aspired to be a twenty-first century Indiana Jones character. But he was no hero and he preferred five star hotels to roughing it in the wilds.

By the time she turned eighteen, Hilary was already in pursuit of any eligible man that had dollar signs for pupils, looking for an occasional amusing distraction. When she met Carlos, a much older man who called her his ‘Baby Doll’, she left home and rarely bothered with Mum or me for the next twenty years.

With such indifferent older siblings, I became the centre of my mother’s universe. She guided and supported me through every stage of my formative years and chose to be a stay-at-home mother until I was in secondary school. Then she took a casual position in an antiques centre that allowed me to accompany her when I was on school holidays. After-school jobs gave me pocket money in my teens and shifts at McDonalds between lectures helped fund my university years. With my love of literature and history, I treasured my career as a teacher. Over the years, Ignatius and Hilary, with her doting husband, sent obligatory Christmas cards and occasional post cards, often from faraway places, to remind us of their existence. It never occurred to me that perhaps they felt unsettled and were rebelling against their upbringing.

Neither of my siblings managed to visit our mother before she died. Her final stroke was a shock and by the time they arrived, I’d already made the funeral arrangements trusting that their timetables wouldn’t be unduly affected.

*

The vibration of my mobile on the bedside table awoke me with a start. After a hectic school week of teaching spirited fifteen-year-olds followed by late Friday night outings, my Saturday mornings traditionally were reserved for sleep-ins. But since I’d taken compassionate leave to nurse my dying mother, I had rarely overslept for weeks.

‘Hi, Abby. . . How about a walk and talk over coffee on this lovely autumnal morning?’

Sophie’s bright greeting sounded a little hesitant and who could blame her. I’d been out of circulation for a long time.

Rubbing my sleep-filled eyes, I thought about my mother. She was in good hands now and I no longer had to consider her. ‘Sounds great, Soph. See you in half an hour?’

As I laced up my sneakers, I remembered Aunt Jane’s trunk. It could wait.

The early morning sunshine invigorated me as I jogged along the beach path to meet my best friend. Small yachts with wind-filled sails raced across the foam-capped waves while in the background, Melbourne’s city towers slowly materialised through the mist. Hordes of cyclists treated the beach café as their exclusive domain, but Sophie commandeered a table away from the stacked bicycles. With steaming coffees to sustain us, Sophie and I shared our news – hers being her latest boyfriend, Chris.

‘I really think he’s the One, Abby,’ she said confidently. Chris sounded devoted to her. Her green eyes glowed as she tucked a few stray auburn highlights behind her ears. ‘He always arrives on time and never complains if I need to attend to Dad.’

Sophie’s widowed father had dementia and lived in special accommodation. He had Sophie’s phone number as number one on his dial pad and he tended to phone her at all hours of the day and night. Usually he’d lost his keys of a car he no longer drove or couldn’t find the cat which had died years ago. I really hoped that Chris was Sophie’s One because she was in need of a special person to care for her, while she herself was being a carer to others.

Naturally, I bitched about my siblings to Sophie. Just hours after our mother’s funeral, Ignatius and Hilary had arranged an appointment with her solicitor for the reading of her Will. I’d thought I knew what to expect.

Not long before she’d died, my mother said, ‘Abby, nothing would please me more than to leave everything I own to you.’ She sighed. ‘But I also gave birth to Ignatius and Hilary, and it was difficult for them when their father died. So, despite their lack of interest in us, I feel they are entitled to their share of the house and its contents.’

I remembered that I placated her. ‘Don’t worry Mum, I don’t mind.’ At the time, I didn’t want to think of a future without her. Now the future had arrived. We’d sell my childhood home, but as it was in need of a thorough renovation, I knew in time I wouldn’t regret its sale. A huge surprise among the cash bequests had been a $100,000 windfall for me, while Ignatius and Hilary each received only a quarter of that amount. How had my mother stashed away so much in savings? She’d always been a good manager and often made one dollar do the work of two. But I was really surprised and I feared that such a discrepancy in the Will could cause a real rift with my siblings.

‘Does Hilary still speak in malapropisms?’ asked Sophie. ‘Remember she’d speak of decapitated coffee and that an optional doctor had tested her eyes.’

I smiled. ‘Hilary can be quite endearing,’ I murmured. Sophie raised her eyebrows. ‘When she stood up to leave the solicitor’s office, she said earnestly, "‘Carlos and I will indulge a real estate agent to sell the house, so we’ll need to hurry with the pack up.’"

Sophie laughed delightedly, ‘Pity the poor agent she engaged. By the time she screws him for the smallest of commissions . . . ’

‘. . . He’ll feel anything but indulged,’ I added soberly.

*

We arranged to meet again soon and I headed home to face the locked trunk. Dumped in the middle of the lounge room, it looked incongruous among Mum’s carefully chosen pieces of Victoriana, a side benefit of her antique centre days. I studied the trunk for a few moments and realised it was much older than I had first thought.

Made of oak, the trunk measured about one and a half metres long by a metre wide. It stood about seventy five centimetres high. Its curved, raised lid was strengthened by rusty bands of iron secured with a few surviving tacks. The original lacquer coating was scratched and chipped, but I could just make out the initials J.S. above the hasp and latch lock secured with a padlock. It puzzled me that I’d never seen it in Aunt Jane’s home.

Aunt Jane had been a constant in my life. The consummate actress, she’d always arrive, usually unannounced, with gifts from various overseas countries where she’d been appearing in some theatrical production. Even in her later years, she would steal scenes playing classic cameo roles. She was also a gifted writer and performed in plays she’d written for the company. On retirement, she’d chosen to live as a virtual recluse. But she’d happily listen to my gripes and grumbles, whenever I popped in to see her.

‘I hope you won’t leave your run too late to settle down,’ she’d been fond of telling me. ‘It’s no fun being on the shelf in old age.’

In my mid-twenties at the time, I figured I had plenty of time ‘to settle down.’ ‘Don’t worry about me, Aunt Jane. I enjoy my life.’

Now past thirty, if I admitted the truth, I was so over the would-be bachelors who’d abandoned wives and children of earlier lives to pepper the domains of happy singletons like me. From where I ‘sat on my shelf’, unhappily married couples were far worse off than I.

When Aunt Jane was diagnosed with cancer, my mother urged her to come and live with us but she protested and said, ‘I want to finish my despicable memoirs as a tell-all of all the infamous people I’ve known throughout my lifetime!’

I remember my mother paled at such a suggestion. ‘But . . . but Jane, you’ll be sued!’

Aunt Jane only laughed. ‘Let them sue. I’ll be dead and gone by then!’

Of course, that upset my mother even more. Strangely, whenever I visited, there was no sign of any writing at all, let alone a manuscript. Her computer screen remained blank and after she died, I discovered the hard drive was empty.

Arming myself with pliers and a claw hammer, I tackled the trunk’s rusty padlock. It yielded quite easily to my efforts, although the equally corroded hinges protested with audible grating sounds as I forced Aunt Jane’s ‘Pandora Box’ open. Expecting a musty odour of her ancient treasures, I was pleasantly surprised to encounter the faint smell of camphor wood sticks and potpourri.

The padded post office package addressed to me caught my eye immediately. I picked it up with a sense of foreboding. It was surprisingly heavy. My hand began to shake as I battled with the sturdy sticking tape before I removed a heap of typed sheets of paper and copies of old newspaper cuttings held in place with numerous bull-dog clips.

But it was a handwritten note paper-clipped to the typed pages and dated about a week before Aunt Jane died, that really captured my attention. As I started to read her words, they seemed to shimmer and fade. Struggling to breathe, I sank to the floor.

Two

Melbourne, Australia – April 6, 2013

My ears were ringing, so it was a few moments before I heard an insistent banging on the door. Staggering to my feet, I checked the porch from behind the lace curtains. I saw my brother with a face like thunder. He clenched his hands as if to bash the door down. Despite my awful shock, I wouldn’t let Ignatius bully me and I mentally shook myself into recovery mode to face him. I shoved the package of paperwork into the sideboard drawer and dropped the lid on the trunk.

‘Why wouldn’t my key work?’ Ignatius demanded as he brushed past me into the hall. ‘Have you changed the locks?’

The new dead-locks were security against opportunists who cased houses of the recently deceased. My hands shook, my head ached and I needed to eat. After all I’d only breakfasted on a cup of coffee and gossip.

I ignored his question and tried to breathe normally as I headed for the kitchen. ‘I’m making tea and sandwiches,’ I said. ‘Please join me . . . and drop the histrionics, Ignatius, or leave immediately.’

I shocked him for a moment because he blustered a bit and followed me somewhat reluctantly into my small domain that doubled as an eating area. Tall with greying hair at the temples, Ignatius wore his academia like a cassock. All that was missing was a crosier that he could use as a weapon to pound his opinions into the heads of the students, naïve enough to enrol in his university courses. I thought his florid weather-beaten jowls betrayed his love of whisky and I suspected he was losing his battle with his middle-aged spread. His mere presence dominated the kitchen as I hurriedly reached for bread, ham and cheese to make toasted sandwiches.

‘I have to fly back to Oxford this evening,’ he said, as he accepted my meagre offering. ‘Hilary should be here soon, too.’ I turned away from him. Thanks for the warning, Iggy. Even now, they treated me as the unimportant afterthought. ‘She wants to talk auction dates.’

When Hilary arrived, she too was annoyed because I’d changed the locks, but minus her handbag-husband she seemed less sure of herself and meekly accepted a cup of tea. Nearly as tall as Ignatius, it occurred to me that she was still attractive in her willowy blond way. She and Carlos had never had a family and Mum always felt ‘deprived’ of grandchildren. Hilary led the way to the lounge and I thought of Aunt Jane’s trunk. Was I going to be denied the chance to explore its contents before I shared its arrival in my life with my siblings? I followed behind with a tray of sandwiches and heard the combined intakes of breaths. But unlike me, neither of my siblings was particularly surprised by the sight of the trunk.

Hilary burst out, ‘What’s that mangy old trunk doing here? We used to see it at Aunt Jane’s, donkey’s years ago!’

But it was Iggy’s sudden agitation that caught me off guard. ‘What are you doing with Jeremiah’s trunk, Abigail?’ he demanded. ‘That’s rightfully mine! Aunt Jane promised it to me.’

My heart missed a beat and my knees began to tremble, as I sank down into my rocker.

Jeremiah’s trunk? Who’s Jeremiah?

Before I could stop him, Ignatius had thrown the lid open and began to rummage through the contents. I tried to protest, but when he held up a couple of paintings that had been carefully wrapped in old pillow cases, I gasped, ‘They’re beautiful.’

Iggy paused to examine them. The first painting was a waterways scene that showed a horse-drawn boat emerging from mist under an arched bridge. A young girl guided the animal. The sun was just beginning to peep through as it caught the profile of the girl’s face in its warming light.

The second was a portrait of a young woman, with curls that glowed like burnished copper. She lovingly nursed a cherubic baby whose hand reached towards an onlooker.

The signatures on both paintings were the same – Jonathan Sargood. Why were they stored in the truck? Ignatius seemed disinterested and hastily put them aside to continue to rummage. I found my voice and spoke with as much authority as I could muster. ‘Will you stop your foraging, Ignatius? They’re my belongings that you are damaging.’

But Iggy was beyond being reasonable. He scanned the room and eyed off our mother’s collection of porcelain on numerous shelves in glass cabinets. His eyes seemed to bore into the sideboard drawer, where I’d shoved Aunt Jane’s package.

Turning to me, he said urgently, ‘Where is it? What have you done with it?’

Obviously as puzzled as me, Hilary said, ‘What are you looking for, Iggy?’

‘The Canaliaware, of course! It’s priceless and . . . it rightfully belongs to me!’

Since my siblings’ arrival, I’d wondered whether to mention Aunt Jane’s letter. Iggy’s behaviour silenced my disquiet. It definitely wasn’t the right time.

I pointed to the door. ‘I think you’d better leave, Ignatius.’ My head was throbbing and he was frightening me.

Ignatius checked his watch and stabbed his finger at me. ‘I have a plane to catch, so I’ll leave you with this warning, Abigail. You may be in possession of Jeremiah’s trunk, but a valuable two hundred-year-old artefact belongs to me. Aunt Jane promised it to me, her eldest nephew. If you have it, I will challenge you for it.’ He turned on his heel and threw one last barb from the doorway, ‘I’ll be back in Melbourne again in time for the Auction. I expect that you will produce the Canaliaware by then or suffer the consequences.’

Ignatius exited then and left me dumbfounded.

I had no idea what he was on about, but I’d never before seen him so angry and agitated. Turning to my sister, I asked, ‘What’s his problem, Hilary? Do you know anything about some Canaliaware? And who’s Jeremiah?’

She shrugged her shoulders. ‘I don’t really know. Some far-off ancestor? I think he was a convict and somehow, Aunt Jane ended up with his trunk. As kids, we wanted to play in it, but she always shooed us out of the room.’ Obviously she was unfazed by our brother’s outburst. ‘But I wouldn’t worry about Iggy,’ she said. ‘He only wants his righteous inheritance.’

Still feeling a little shaken, but needing to move the trunk into the corner, I persuaded Hilary to pull on the one remaining handle on the end panel and I pushed at the other end of the trunk.

Hilary straightened up and reached for her handbag. ‘By the way, Abigail, I’ve organised some dates. The house will be auctioned on May 4 and the contents will be a fortnight later. You’ll hear from the agents about an open house inspection next Wednesday. I’ll come by then.’ With that, she pulled the front door closed leaving me in complete turmoil.

Tears welled in my eyes as I sank into my chair. Iggy’s peculiar conduct had upset me deeply. He’d been quite desperate to find an artefact that he called Canaliaware. What was it? And Jeremiah? Was he really a convict ancestor? Neither Dorothy nor Jane had ever mentioned him to me, but as children, both Ignatius and Hilary had seen the trunk and agreed about its origins.

I struggled to think straight. Eyeing the trunk in the corner I said aloud, ‘Well, you’re one big shocker, aren’t you? I don’t know much about Jeremiah and why Jane left you to me instead of Ignatius as he claims. But for better or worse, you belong to me now.’

As I carefully replaced the paintings in it, I checked for obvious damage among the trunk’s contents. The contents were surprisingly few for a heavy trunk. There were some black and grey sketches on yellowed paper with torn edges, old paint boxes and a broken artist’s easel which occupied most of the space. But such items could await closer inspection. It was Aunt Jane’s package that needed my scrutiny.

I handled it gingerly as if it might explode. Not a bad euphemism for Aunt Jane’s letter, I thought wryly. As I shook out the reams of paper, a small plastic sandwich zip bag with a USB stick, dropped into my lap. Curiosity was beginning to overtake grief.

On her personalised stationery, Aunt Jane’s hand-written words were still the same. Taking a deep breath I reread the short confession that would change my own life forever:

My Darling Abigail,

What you are about to read will come as an enormous shock. As I presume that Dorothy has now gone to God, there is no longer any reason to conceal the truth about your birth.

To put it in its simplest form – Abigail, you are MY Darling Daughter, given lovingly and willingly to my brother Edward and his wife, Dorothy Skinner, to be raised as their own.

For the moment, I suggest you do not tell Ignatius or Hilary until you feel the time is right and are ready.

As a peace offering, I’m leaving you the resources for a family story that I’ve been developing on and off for many years. The more I’ve researched, the more fascinating our ancestors have become. I wanted to leave you something tangible, so you could discover your roots and more importantly, something about me your mother, warts and all, and perhaps, yourself.

The family story is very much a work in progress. I’d intended to write several chapters this year, but now, I’m running out of time and energy. I cherish the thought of you writing it to your own satisfaction.

Remember, my Darling Abigail, it’s your story too.

Your devoted and always loving,

Mother – Jane Skinner

October 22, 2011

Three

Melbourne, Australia – April 6, 2013

I read Aunt Jane’s note again and again. My befuddled brain struggled to differentiate between my Aunt Jane versus Jane, my mother. The most important, but devastating news for me, was delivered in only one sentence – you are MY Darling Daughter. Aunt Jane’s almost flippant words were her way of telling the truth and despite the intervening years, would have pained her to pen. But the fact remained. Aunt Jane gave up her baby – not just any baby – but ME! Why did she give me up just to become an occasional presence in my life? And my real father? There’s no mention of him. Who was he?

I don’t think I read the last bit about the ancestors’ story before Ignatius arrived. But who cared about the ancestors when my own life was a fabrication! Besides, writing a family history story was a big expectation compared with my hobby of penning short stories.

As I was aching to know the whole truth, I dropped Aunt Jane’s letter on the coffee table and flipped through her typed sheets of paper hoping my name would pop out at me. The pages appeared to be just copious notes of the ancestors’ story. Dragging myself from the rocker, I booted up my computer, inserted the USB stick and scrolled through a document listing web sites with titles like convictrecords.com.au, waterwaysuk.co.uk and victorianeducation.co.uk. Scores of word documents were copies of internet searches such as canal age, Chartism and famous potters. I looked in vain for any mention of me as Jane’s daughter, but it was clear the stick’s information was research for the family story.

I began to question my own naivety. I scratched my memory for clues like hushed silences between Mum, or rather Dorothy, and Jane when I entered the room. A few came to mind, but I’d always presumed that Dorothy was criticising Jane for her lifestyle. Despite their relationship by marriage, they weren’t close friends.

I remembered that Dorothy had seemed disturbed when Jane spoke of writing her memoirs. I wondered whether she was teasing Dorothy or was Jane acting more subtly? Perhaps a form of pay-back . . . ? Would she have spilled the beans about me? You’ve had my daughter all these years. It’s now time for the truth to emerge? Or perhaps, the exact opposite that smacked of guilt. As half of my life-time involves my daughter, how can I write that I gave her up for adoption?

I suspected that if Jane had outlived Dorothy, she would have claimed me instantly. But Jane’s mysterious intentions had never materialised. I’d been brought up by an in-law aunt instead of by my own mother. A mother who couldn’t completely part with me by conventional adoption methods. She still wanted to play an occasional role in my life – like a reprise performance in a stage play!

My mother had discouraged any desire I had to travel overseas. She always put a negative spin on her own travels. But now I thought of her opposition in a whole new light. When I turned twenty-one, I considered a trip to Bali, but she suggested Queensland instead.

‘I think you’d have much more fun on the Barrier Reef, Abby. Why don’t you invite Sophie to go with you? Book yourselves into a resort and the trip can be my twenty-first gift to you.’

I also recalled Aunt Jane’s enthusiasm for such a trip and she’d given me a generous amount of spending money. Now, in my new found knowledge of my parentage, rather than opting to reveal the truth as I’d reached adulthood, they’d prevented me from applying for a passport and therefore, kept the information on my birth certificate from exposure.

A smouldering anger began to take over from my grief. Dorothy must have had adoption records of some description! I immediately tackled her filing cabinet. Grabbing the ‘Abigail’ file, I sifted through it and mentally begged it to eject my birth certificate or my adoption papers. But it only contained school reports, vaccination, medical and dental records and a few childhood achievement awards. There were no adoption papers of any description. I frowned in concentration as I tried to get into my mother’s head. Where would she have stashed such important information?

I ran to her room and tugged open the drawers of her bedside table. The smell of her perfume momentarily stopped me in my tracks before I pulled the drawers out and tipped the contents onto the bed. Some of her bits and bobs dated back to my childhood, but I caught my breath when I reached for her bible. Between the old and new testaments was a buff-coloured envelope addressed to me. I tore it open. It contained a couple of certificates which I perused before I turned my attention to a short note from Dorothy that post-dated Aunt Jane’s letter.

My Darling Abigail,

After my death, you will receive a special bequest from your Aunt Jane. She promised me that she wouldn’t reveal her true identity to you while we both lived, but when the time was right, she wanted you to know her story in full.

Please forgive us.

With her brother Edward, we made a pact which meant it gave you a different life than what she had to offer you. For my part, you were the greatest gift that any mother could receive. Your father and I loved you as much as we ever could have loved our own. Sometimes, I think we over-compensated – if that is possible – to the detriment of our older children. But I have no regrets and I like to think that Jane had none as well. She always said that her daughter was so much better off with us, and after your father’s sudden death, with me. We have her to thank for your education and my final cash bequest too. She was always financially generous in matters that affected your welfare.

Abigail, my dearest wish is that you will understand our reasons for our duplicity and forgive us for what we did.

I worry that Ignatius and Hilary will never forgive us (or you) so please ponder carefully the outcome of any revelations you choose to share with them.

Your ever-loving Mother,

Dorothy.

I seized my birth certificate and studied it carefully. The space allotted for my father’s name was blank. However, I was interested to read that I was born in London.

Were all my ‘parents’ living in Britain at the time or only visiting?

My baptismal certificate showed I was just four months old when baptised into the Catholic Church, Dorothy’s faith. Ted and Jane had been of no obvious religion, although Dorothy claimed Ted was a better Christian than many people who attended Church regularly.

There were no adoption papers in the envelope.

Jane and Dorothy had honoured their unashamed agreement my entire life. From what I understood about adoption procedures, adoptive and birth parents were usually unknown to each other. Once adopted children turned eighteen years old, they could contact specific organisations to search for their birth parents. In my case, my true parentage had never been revealed. My birth mother, Aunt Jane, and my adoptive parents, Dorothy and Ted, had made a private arrangement about me. Such an agreement struck me as a devastating betrayal of all they’d taught me. The simmering anger was festering into uncontrolled hatred for my parents before I broke down and began to cry.

An insistent voice in my head taunted me – They have lied to you all your life!

After what seemed like hours, I pulled myself together and confronted my dilemma. The disconcerting mother, father, uncle and aunt tags needed to be realigned. In addition, I had lost a brother and sister too. Perhaps, it explained a sense of estrangement between us. I wondered how Ignatius and Hilary would react when I told them. I trembled a little at the thought and then told myself sternly, ‘It’s not your fault, Abby.’

But of course, the greatest tragedy of all was I’d re-lost my deceased father, Ted – and had no replacement for him. The secret had gone safely to at least three graves and regardless of my feelings, it was now mine to own.

Four

Melbourne, Australia – April 7, 2013

After the revelations in my mothers’ letters, I tossed and turned all night. My head ached as I checked the trunk’s contents the next morning. I removed the two paintings and examined them closely.

They shared identical frames about forty by thirty centimetres in dimension. The signatures were the same, but barely legible on the horse and boat painting which seemed older than the portrait. Perhaps the artist painted that one as a child. It certainly showed talent, but the portrait of mother and child was exquisite. Jonathan Sargood was written clearly on the bottom right-hand side. Neither painting was dated, but an art expert would be able to ascertain their ages. I guessed that the trunk had been a storage facility for a painter, so I presumed that Jeremiah Skinner had been an artist too. The ‘broken’ easel had been pulled apart to fit inside and when I removed it, I noticed the holes in the legs needed wooden pegs for strength and adjustment purposes. The pegs lay on the floor of the trunk with a couple of pallet boxes which the artist must have used to mix his paints.

I turned my attention to Jane’s notes. She had jotted down names and dates connected with the Industrial Revolution in the Potteries area of the English Midlands. Some names in Jane’s column headed ‘who / character’ had their lifespan years, so she must have checked some official records. Jane had listed Leticia Skinner Sargood (1790 – 1854), Rosie Lyttleton (1812 – 1840), Humphrey Sargood (1766- 1830), Benji Lyttleton (?-1832), Prudence Lyttleton (?-1827) and Jonathan Sargood (1787 – 1837), among the first few.

But it was the name Jeremiah Skinner (1810 – 1894) that caught my full attention. Was he the original owner of the trunk in the corner of my lounge room? And the other people? How many were my direct ancestors? If Jane was writing a true story, then Jeremiah Skinner, the Trunk Owner, was my many times great-grandfather. Was Leticia Skinner his mother? And where did Jonathan Sargood fit into the family? Husband to Leticia? I presumed that the same Jonathan Sargood painted the pictures in the trunk. Was he my ancestor too?

I began to feel like a participant in a television program called Who Do You think You Are?

*

For the rest of the day, I rambled through the house, opening cupboards and pulling out stuff I hadn’t seen for years. Dorothy claimed she had to live with the bare minimum of possessions while Ted was in the Diplomatic Corps. Once she started to work at the antiques centre, she developed an interest in collecting. Most of her ornaments were on display, but the cupboards were full of bric-a-brac that should have been recycled or thrown out years ago. I was in no mood to sort anything, but at least it gave me something to do rather than agonising over my surreptitious adoption.

There were many boxes in the garage also. Expecting some to be empty, I was shocked and then excited to find they were full of Jane’s possessions. Had Dorothy kept them deliberately for me to search? Would I find me in them?

Alas, they were full of books, theatre programs and photograph albums of a life without me. There were some history books of the Industrial Revolution, English countryside and early Australian settlement. Small pop-up flags acted as highlighters on dozens of pages of information that Jane had researched for the ancestors’ story.

The majority of the theatre programs dated back to the late 1950s, the 60s and early 70s. There were photographs of Jane in costumes which varied from peasant to Edwardian grandeur, saucy 1920’s beach wear to Japanese kimonos, mini-skirts to crinolines. She loved all Noel Coward’s plays, and as an older thespian, she’d played Lady Bracknell in Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Ernest in a local amateur company. I remember the small theatre being packed to the rafters each night.

Any photographs of fellow actors were worth closer scrutiny. Could my father be one of her leading men? With heavy makeup, wigs and moustaches, it was nigh on impossible to identify any of my own features in them. I studied some close-ups of Jane’s face and I recognised my slightly turned up nose and what I knew was my best feature, my sparkling sky-blue eyes. I’d presumed I’d inherited them from Ted, my father.

I pondered the contents of the boxes and it struck me that something was missing. There was nothing of a personal nature in them. No letters, postcards or family photograph albums. Years earlier, Jane had told me that she loved to keep diaries, but there were none in sight.

‘My diaries are not for general exhibition, Abby,’ she used to say. ‘But they’re a great opportunity to say what’s REALLY on my mind and how I really FEEL about someone or something. And I’ll be able to use them as prompts for writing my memoirs.’

Where were Jane’s diaries? Maybe she’d recorded her feelings about her pregnancy and me. Perhaps they would tell why she gave me away or – too horrific to contemplate – perhaps she’d destroyed them?

If the diaries still existed, I was determined to find them because I was not going to be left in the dark anymore. As far as I was concerned, my time for enlightenment had arrived.

*

By Monday afternoon, I felt much better. I’d always hated clutter, so after I’d filled several garbage bags for delivery to the nearest Vinnie’s shop, I was ready to start some serious cleaning. I decided to move the trunk into the half empty cupboard under the stairs as it looked out of place among Dorothy’s ornaments. I removed the artist’s paraphernalia for ease of movement and tried to pull the trunk. It didn’t seem much lighter. Fetching the old skate board, I lifted one end up onto it and to my surprise, there was a muffled sound of something shifting inside the trunk.

Puzzled, I reopened the lid and looked inside. It was empty – or was it? Eyeing the internal space, I realised it was not as deep as it looked on the outside and there appeared to be some felt fabric caught in the base of the box against the front panel. With closer examination, I could see it was a tab handle and there was a rough remnant of a second tab at the other end.

I grabbed pliers and a screw driver and after I applied some force, I felt a slight movement in the base. I jammed the screw driver between the floor and front panel at the missing tab end, and pulled steadily on the remaining tab. A musty smell assaulted my nostrils as the false floor lifted on hidden hinges. A heavy moth proof bag was revealed. On closer inspection, I realised that it was smothering a smaller draw-string cloth bag.

With both hands, I seized the larger bag and unzipped it to reveal its contents. Three books were nestled inside and with a thudding heart I thought at first that I’d found Aunt Jane’s diaries before I realised they were quite ancient journals. I could hardly breathe.

Removing them carefully, I gingerly opened the soft leather cover of the first aging volume. Some old newsprint scraps stitched into small booklets and covered with faded writing tumbled out. All thoughts of Jane’s diaries vanished as I read the words on the age-spotted frontispiece of the old journal – Leticia Skinner Sargood – Winston Manor Hanley – 20th November, 1822. I checked the other two journals. They were dated after 1822.

I turned my attention to the old newsprint booklets. My hands were shaking and I fingered them carefully as I turned the brittle pages to try and decipher the tightly written script. The first appeared to be in July of 1822. It must have been a special time for Leticia Skinner Sargood who felt the need to record her thoughts and feelings on any paper at hand. My heartbeat quickened in anticipation of what life had dealt her.

For me, house cleaning needs disappeared out the window and I settled down to begin to read my ancestor’s story. I knew another sleepless night lay ahead of me.

Five

Stoke-Upon-Trent, England

12th July, 1822

Tonight, a ‘Dame Letty’ booklet is the recipient of emotions that I’ve kept dammed behind a wall of silence since Jeremiah was a baby. I’ve stitched dozens of newsprint booklets for my students, so I can spare a few for my own thoughts. At least a maid won’t find my ‘journal’ under my mattress, read it and hand it to my father!

At twelve years old, Jeremiah shows exceptional talent as an artist. This morning he presented me with a present for my birthday. His best painting to date, he’d mounted it on a piece of strong cardboard to display on the wall.

With his grey eyes shining, he eagerly awaited my hug and praise, but instead I accidently blurted, ‘Your father likes to paint narrow boats!’

Jeremiah’s face paled before whispering in disbelief, ‘My . . . my father? Is my father alive, Mama?’

My heart was breaking as he twisted his dark curly head to look around the tiny cottage, as if expecting a strange man to pop out of the nearest cupboard. Biting my lip, I turned away. My young pupils were about to arrive, but of course Jeremiah could not rest. ‘But where is he, Mama?’ he asked as he hurried down the stairs behind me. ‘I . . . I thought he was dead.’

I had to harden my heart because what could I tell him? I felt tears pricking my eyes and brushing them aside, I said more harshly than I intended,

‘No, as far as I know, he’s not dead, Jeremiah. But he’s abroad and doesn’t want us. So we have to live with it.’

Of course, over our supper Jeremiah tried to draw me out with questions about his father again, but I ignored them. He has gone to bed quite upset and tonight, I feel particularly lonely. I’m a thirty-two year old woman and it’s time to face the fact that my talented son is no longer a baby and deserves proper tuition. We don’t actually live in penury, but my Dame school earnings barely allow us to survive and remain independent.

However, I won’t give into self-pity. I’ll eventually think of something, but for the time-being I’ll have to be content with writing my thoughts on newsprint scraps.

*

Leticia Skinner had arrived in Stoke-Upon-Trent from London, soon after the Battle of Waterloo. Dressed in black widow weeds and with her five-year-old youngster in tow, she approached the parish aldermen and offered to run a Dame school for the children of the potteries. As parishes were bowing to the country’s law makers regarding schooling for children, they quickly found her a suitable cottage and seven years later, the locals respected her, even if she was still a mystery woman.

‘Didn’t Dame Letty lord it over them wardens!’ a tavern gossip monger would say. ‘All high and mighty, ’cos she ran a ragged school in Lunnen.’

‘An’ what’s more, she don’t attend Chapel on Sundays,’ sniffed another of the inebriated god-fearing drinkers.

‘Well, if you ask me, she’s not a widar. She’s hiding somefing,’ a third had concluded.

Six days a week, a dozen boys and girls between the ages of three and seven filed into Dame Letty’s only room on the ground floor of her small cottage. Dressed in their grubby threadbare clothes, they sat on low wooden forms at her knees. In her mop cap and spotless apron, she encouraged them to wash their hands before class and emphasised good manners. Sadly, educational resources were lacking. The parents could not afford the extra pennies to buy slates and pencils. Pebbles and buttons acted as tools to add and subtract and newsprint scraps with the use of charcoal, replaced using sticks on the dirt floor.

With the aid of a long pointer, Dame Letty taught them their letters and numbers by indicating the colourful alphabet cards which fought for space between framed sketches and prints around the walls. The children repeated the letters parrot fashion, before they individually named a new word that began with each letter. The younger children usually sat cross-legged on the rag mat covering the earthen floor and listened to Dame Letty as she read them stories from special books with magical pictures. It was their favourite part of the day.

*

Jeremiah found it lonely without boys of his age. His mother’s young students started work at the potteries on their seventh birthdays. To pass the time, Jeremiah often sat on the top stair in the cottage and sketched the children’s expressions to add to his canal scenes. But after his mother’s astonishing confession about his father being alive, his eyes strayed regularly to the print of the Duke of Wellington which hung in pride of place over the mantelpiece. It showed a haughty-looking Duke in his scarlet uniform decorated with medals with a rosette and gold badge dangling over his shirt.

Over the years, Jeremiah had decided his father had been a loyal soldier who’d fought at Wellington’s right hand at Waterloo. Of course, he was struck down by Napoleon himself! That day, if he was honest with himself, Jeremiah felt shocked that his mother told people that she was a widow. But, he accepted her reasoning because society would prefer an unmarried mother to starve in a workhouse. A ‘widow’ was to be pitied and could be employed.

Dame Letty’s little brick cottage was situated about a mile from the Trent and Mersey Canal with its own small garden in front and a privy out the back. Nearby, chimneys of coal pits joined with dozens of pot banks to belch filthy clouds of smoke into the sky. But on fine days, Jeremiah would drag the wooden forms out into the sunshine. His mother would hear the children’s reading before she allowed some games which involved singing different nursery rhymes. When some of the pottery folk hovered nearby, they’d observe their children in action and comment proudly.

‘I can’t see the use of reading for my ’Liza,’ Ma Barnes would say. ‘But the Dame is also teaching her to knit and crosha. They’ll be handy when a husband comes calling.’

‘And my Ernie’s larning some right good manners, as well,’ said another.

‘Well, she’s obviously not one of us!’ chortled Milly’s Ma.

On overhearing such comments, Jeremiah would flush with pride. He knew his mother was ‘different’ to other parents, but once he knew his father was alive, he began to wonder about his mother’s early life. In many ways, she was just as much a mystery to him.

*

Frequently on Sundays, Leticia and Jeremiah wandered the towpaths beside the Trent and Mersey or the Caldon canals. Brick walls and grimy windows of factories, warehouses and pot banks lined the navigations, so that any greenery and colour from woody buddleia stems and hardy weeds lay crushed by barrels, baskets, pottery saggars and rubbish that accumulated close to entrances and overhanging verandas.

The canal banks were crowded with two and often three narrow boats breasted up together, either laden with coal or with yawning hulls awaiting loads of pottery goods to ship down to London or Liverpool. Most of the women and children lived on the bank while the men plied the canals. The boatmen used their enforced day of leisure to catch up on news and gossip, while cleaning the boats or repairing ropes and tarpaulin cloths. And a few humble boatmen took the opportunity to attend chapel on the Sabbath. John Wesley’s teachings were popular in the potteries and worshippers crowded into local Methodist Chapels, while scores of children attended Sunday school every week.

Once Jeremiah had asked, ‘Why don’t we go to Chapel, Mama?’

Leticia’s