Foxlease 09
Previous Page Pick a Page Back to Foxlease Next Page
. . . of the deterioration of her marriage. Tensions between Mr and Mrs Saunderson were undermining their seemingly idyllic existence. The rift between them deepened and Armar Saunderson spent less and less time at Foxlease.
Mrs Saunderson, a militant feminist, was frustrated by the English divorce laws. After consulting her lawyer she discovered that her chances of winning a divorce in an English Court were minimal. This discovery prompted her decision to take her children and return to America and start a new life. She enlisted the help of Mr Francis E. Powell, the President of the Anglo-American Petroleum Company. Mrs Saunderson's hurried and rather unorthodox departure from England was aboard the "Saranac", the largest tanker in the Standard Oil Fleet, on a cold foggy day in March 1919.
And so the house stood empty again.
The long passages were silent. The roses twined over the window sills, but no one came to pick them. The house was left to itself, to brood on its long history and wait for the next occupants. For three years it remained waiting. During that time strange things happened. People came to camp in the park and the house beheld again the sight of scattered tents and the smoke of camp fires. This was in 1921 and in the same year, the house itself was opened. For one week-end it hummed with life. The new inhabitants brought no furniture and were content to sleep on camp beds or on the floor. The shades of the powdered ladies who once swept from room to room must have been stricken with horror at what they saw there, for the Guides had come to Foxlease and the house, true to its character, made them welcome. Afterwards the house was left to itself again and the empty rooms stood expectant. There was little left of their old glory. All the fine paintings and ornaments had gone. In the . . .
