Southend U3A

Writing for Fun

October 2019

Grudge - Bob Wendelkin

All his life Harrison felt there was a strange connection between him and his American cousin Jackson. They had been brought up together from young children at Stow Court, the family’s ancestral home. In their early years they were happy together. In their summer holidays they played and used to fight, the way that boys do. They both enjoyed their Private School that they were sent to as most of the family had done so in the past.

Then Uncle Richmond came on the scene and he had deep connections with Jackson and quite suddenly the friendship between Jackson and Harrison became strained and then broken. It felt like that Jackson held a grudge against Harrison. Somehow it seemed that the future ownership of Stow Court was at the back of the problem. Although Harrison was not able to exercise his ownership rights as he was too young but he was the next in line as the ownership will eventually pass into his hands. It seems that Uncle Richardson had placed in Jackson’s mind some doubts about how the ownership might not be rightfully for Harrison but should be his.

The problem dates back to their Great-great-grand Father sometime in the early 19th century when Jackson’s Great-Grand Mother had defied her father and married an American. Her father didn’t object to him being an American but as the marriage took place a few years before the American Civil War and the man she had chosen was a Southerner and an owner of a Large Cotton Plantation. He owned many black slaves who were forced to work on the plantation. Although to his credit he could see that things were changing he had freed many of his workers so that they could work for him for wages or travel north, he was a kindly man so many of the freed men stayed with him.

Here the grudge arrived in the family. The American came into the family but because of his Slave ownership background her father decided that any children of the marriage would never inherit anything and that included Stow Court.

More that a century had passed but still the American side of the family couldn’t inherit any of the British property as they were still cut out of the will. Then World War Two started and even though Jackson’s father didn’t have to fight for Britain he came straight to the U.K and joined the RAF as apart of the Eagle Squadron. He was fortunate that he was stationed on an Aerodrome close to Stow Court. When he had any free time he would visit his relatives and enjoy their company. The family made him most welcome and he would often play tennis with his distant cousins if the weather was fine. He being of that age he fell in love with one of his distant cousins and she with him. They were sufficiently distant cousins that marriage between the two was not genetic problem. It just so happened that the cousin was in direct line to inherit Stow Court, not that either of them knew this at the time of their engagement. The problem that eventually emerge was that Jackson’s father was an American and therefore he and his off spring were exclude from inheriting Stow Court, however on his mother’s side she and so Jackson was free to inherit the property.

There was the problem between young Harrison and Jackson a grudge set by their joint distant great-great-grandfather. How was it to be resolved?

The two boys still liked each other despite the inheritance problem both wanted what was right for Stow Court and for themselves. Jackson felt that although his legal claim on paper was perhaps a little stronger than his cousin’s he felt that as he would inherit lots of property in America, the English property should pass to his cousin Harrison. Harrison secretly didn’t want the property as he had seen that the ownership of Stow Court involved lots of obligations to look after the property and the farms. The property sort of gave with one hand and took with the other.

The years passed and suddenly the current owner of Stow Court and the farms passed to the next world. Unfortunately they hadn’t protected the property from Death Duty Tax and so most of the property would have to be sold to pay the tax. This meant that neither Harrison or Jackson would inherit anything of Stow Court. As they talked together they could tell that there was disappointment and relief in that their inheritance as it was virtually out of their hands. Property that had been part of their family for well over three hundred years had gone to the tax man.

This was to be their last night in Stow Court tomorrow a new owner would come through the front door and take control. Harrison and Jackson decided they would make it a grand finally, they had found in the cellar a box of the best wine and they asked cook to make them a special meal for them and the rest of the staff. It was one of the best nights they had ever spent at Stow Court, but that may have been due to the wine.

Eventually, they retired.

The next morning, as they were having their last breakfast a car pulled up at the front door and someone got out and entered the house. The person who entered the room was their Uncle Richmond.

‘You’ve come to welcome the new Owner of Stow Court and also to say goodbye to the family’s ancestral home?’ asked Harrison.

‘Not at all, I’m the new owner of Stow Court. I couldn’t let it go out of the family could I?’ replied Uncle Richmond with a great smile on his face.

The two cousins smiled at each other, they shook hands and realised that the century old Grudge was at long last a thing of the past and slipped into a part of the family history. Also it was no longer any of their problem but now it was Uncle Richmond’s.