The Duke (Silver Linings Mysteries Book 6)

by Mary Kingswood

  At that moment, Brent came softly into the room, and even with her small experience of the household, she could see that there was something very wrong. The imperturbable retainer was ashen, and although he approached Ran, he seemed uncertain what to say.

  “Whatever is it?” Ran said, his voice sharp with unease.

  Brent leaned forward and whispered in his ear. He murmured, “Oh my God,” and without a word the two hurried out of the room.

  Ruth could not hear all that was said, but the words ‘His Grace’ were unmissable. She rushed out after them. Ran had already disappeared, and Brent was in huddled conference with the footmen.

  “Brent! What has happened?”

  “My lady, I—” He gestured uncertainly with his hands.

  “Brent, by this time tomorrow, I shall in effect be the mistress of this house, so tell me what has happened to His Grace?”

  “His Grace was observed entering the old schoolroom, my lady.”

  Ruth went cold. She knew the implications of that all too well. She picked up her skirts and ran up the stairs, along the corridor to the family wing then more stairs, up and up… the nursery suite, long disused now, lay on the top floor, just below the attics. The night nursery, the day nursery and then the old schoolroom. The door stood open and she crept in.

  Only one shutter was open, and at first she could not see anything but the outline of a neat row of desks, the lectern for tutor or governess, the large working table. Then, as her eyes adjusted, an assortment of large toys — a rocking horse, a baby house, a model of a castle for battles with tin soldiers. But in the furthest corner, almost invisible in the gloom, two huddled figures. Ger was sitting on the floor, knees drawn up to his chest, his face buried. Ran knelt beside him, close but not touching him, murmuring soothingly.

  “Is he all right?” she said, weaving through the furniture to reach them. Such a stupid thing to say. “Oh, Ger! Do not despair!”

  There was no response.

  “I thought he was past all this,” Ran said helplessly. “He will not even talk to me!”

  “May I try?” He nodded, and she knelt on the dusty floor, and reached out cautiously to stroke Ger’s arm.

  He threw both hands in the air, brushing her off, and raised an angry face. “Do not touch me! Go away! Both of you… leave me alone. ”

  “We only want to help,” she whispered. “Is there nothing we can do for you? Tell us what troubles you, Ger.”

  “I wish I were dead. I should have died. When the Minerva sank, it should have taken me with it. Leave me to do what I must.”

  Ran cried out, “No, Ger, no! You have so much to live for!”

  But he had lowered his face to his knees again, unresponsive.

  “Ginny,” she said distractedly. “She can reach him if anyone can.”

  “Of course,” Ran said, relief in his tone. “She will be in the Old Manor.”

  “I shall find a footman to—”

  “No, it will be quicker to go yourself.”

  “Yes, yes! Where?” She jumped up, bursting to be off.

  “Straight down the Stable Stair to the lowest level, through the tunnel, then up again.”

  Her feet flew. She crashed open the door to the stair in her haste, then down, down, down, her slippers pattering on the stone steps, endlessly down. Past the door to her apartments, past the floor with Ran’s rooms, on downwards past the door she used coming in from the stables, and down, down again. The stairs decanted her into an ante-room with doors on three sides, and the fourth… There was no door, just a dark, empty opening. The tunnel… but it was night-black, not a glimmer of a light anywhere. Frantically, she looked about her for a candlestick, found one on a high shelf, then she fumbled to light it from the smoky tallow candle in the nearest sconce.

  The tunnel was not as bare and forbidding as most cellars, for the walls were plastered, the sconces set out on the floor at intervals ready to be affixed. Here and there, a ladder had been left, or a box of tools, but she raced on, the candlelight flickering wildly. Abruptly, the candle blew out and she was plunged into darkness. She stopped, gasping for breath.

  A light ahead of her! Dim and wavering, but enough to set her running again, although she kept one hand on the wall of the tunnel to guide her. Once she tripped and almost fell, but she righted herself at once and ploughed on. She must find Ginny! There was no time to lose…

  Another ante-chamber, this one carpeted, with polished wood consoles and a single lamp burning. There were no doors here, only stairs leading upwards, where daylight filtered down, encouraging her.

  Up and up again, to another ante-chamber, a twin to the one below. Her lungs protested the unaccustomed exercise. A single door — she hurled it open and rushed through. She was in a large entrance hall, panelled and high-ceilinged, with an arched wooden roof to proclaim its medieval origins. It was empty.

  “Help!” she shrieked, as loud as her tortured lungs could contrive. “Ginny! Someone! Where is… everyone?”

  For several agonising moments, there was no sound but her own laboured breathing as she struggled for breath. Then, with a loud creak, a door half opened.

  “Yes?” said a suspicious male voice.

  “Where is she? Ginny… Miss Chandry? It is imperative—”

  “Kitchen.”

  He pointed to a door, and off she raced again, and as she drew nearer the inevitable sounds and smells of the kitchen led her on without the need for further guidance. She burst in upon a scene of such peaceful domesticity that she would have smiled had the case been less urgent. The cook, the kitchen maid and Ginny herself were floured to the elbows at the kitchen table, while Molly sat with her sewing at the other end, well away from the encroaching flour. All four were enjoying a joke, laughing together like old friends. As Ruth burst in, they turned to her as one, surprise writ large on their faces.

  “Lady Ruth!” Ginny cried. “Whatever is the matter?”

  “Ger… schoolroom… needs you…”

  Ginny, bless her, required no other information. Wiping her hands hastily on a cloth, she ran straight out of the room.

  Ruth could not follow. She could not even breathe. It was Molly who pushed her into a chair, lifted a fallen lock of hair from her face, soothed her and reassured her.

  “Poor Jon! I mean His Grace. But don’t you worry, milady. Ginny will sort him out.”

  “Will she?”

  “Course she will! He’s clay in her hands, so he is.”

  “But he wants… to kill himself!” Ruth cried. “Did he… feel so… in Cornwall?”

  Molly pulled a chair nearer to Ruth, and gestured to the cook and kitchen maid to carry on working. “No, I can’t never say he was that desperate in Pendower. I only once saw him bad, milady, a little while after that London lawyer came to talk to him.”

  “Mr Willerton-Forbes?”

  “Aye, that were him. He came to give him some money from that Benefactor person, and you’d think that would be good news, wouldn’t you? But Mr Ellsworthy — His Grace, I mean — he got terrible quiet, and one day he went and sat out by the old fountain all by himself, his arms all wrapped around himself and his head down, really sad-looking. But Miss Ginny went out to him, and talked him out of it, and he never did such a thing again. Very happy he was, after that.”

  “Molly, with all my heart and soul I pray that she will be able to do so again, because he is as bad now as I have ever seen him.”

  ~~~~~

  Ran sat cross-legged in the half-light of the schoolroom beside his brother. He could not touch him and nothing he said seemed to reach him, but he could not sit impotently in silence, so he maintained a patter of soothing nothings. He talked about Ginny and the coming child, he talked about the home they shared and the prospect of many years of happiness ahead of them. None of it raised the least reaction from Ger, and that was more disheartening than anything else. If even the thought of his beloved Ginny could not rouse him, what hope was there? But as long as Ger
sat passively in the schoolroom there was some hope. He had not yet taken the next step, of going up to the roof. So Ran talked and prayed and hoped.

  And then Ginny was there. She still wore an apron, and smelt of flour and stewed gooseberries, but she was there and at the sound of her voice, Ger lifted his head.

  “Jon.”

  That was all she said, but it was enough. He looked up at her with such grief in his face as wrung Ran’s heart. She flew across the room, sat down on the other side of him and took him in her arms, and he wept piteously on her shoulder.

  “Jon, Jon. Hush now. It isn’t so bad.”

  “It is, it is.”

  “Nonsense. You mustn’t get yourself into such a state. There’s nothing to be so upset about.”

  “There is. I am the lowest worm in the world, Ginny. I am nothing but a piece of pond scum.”

  “No! You are a good man, Jonathan Ellsworthy. Have I not told you so a hundred times? You are a good man.”

  “You do not know what I have done, Ginny. I have done a wicked, wicked thing. I should have died that night when the Minerva sank. Then Ran would have been the duke, as he should have been, and you would never have been burdened with a useless man like me.”

  She pulled away from him, cupping his face in her hands so that he was forced to look her directly in the eye. “Don’t you dare to talk like that. Do you know how insulting it is to be told that the man I love — the father of my child — thinks he’s useless? You are a good man and you’ve done nothing wrong.”

  “But I have,” he said in a low voice. “It was all my fault. I killed them, all those people on the Minerva. They died because of me. It was my fault. I am a murderer, Ginny.”

  29: The Schoolroom

  Ran could barely breathe. How was it that Ger could have caused a ship to founder? For one wild moment, he considered whether Captain Edgerton had been in the right after all when he wondered if Ger had deliberately sunk the ship in an attempt to end his own life. Yet even now, he could not believe it of his brother. So he listened as Ginny coaxed the story out of him.

  “I was so miserable, coming home,” he said, his face streaked with tears. “I was the duke, the last person I wanted to be. I had been in America for three years, and for two and a half years I had been able to live in the shadows while Joe Meadows dealt with all the sycophancy. It was wonderful, Ginny. I was free to be myself, to lurk in the background and no one took the least notice of me. But then Father died and I had to come home, and it would be all over. I would be trapped in this cage for ever. Dublin was the last of my freedom, the last time I could hide from the world. Or so I thought.”

  He fell silent, and Ginny settled herself more comfortably beside him, one arm around his shoulders. He rested his head against her with a sigh. In the darkness across the room, Ran caught the shimmer of Ruth’s gown as she returned, but she said nothing, drawing a little closer, then waiting, listening.

  “Tell me about the Minerva,” Ginny said softly.

  “The Minerva… but first I must tell you about Dublin. I had always played cards for money. I paid my way across America with my winnings, earning enough to keep Joe and me in the best hotels, and cover his losses. He was a terrible player. Anyone who knew anything about me would have known that he was not me, for I would never have played so badly. In Dublin, we stayed at the Earl of Kilrannan’s house, and two of his sons ran a very genteel gaming room, where Joe lost night after night, and I won. I met Barantine there, the jewel merchant, and Lord, was he a good player! After the regular tables had closed, we played piquet for hours, coins on the table, as I always insist. He lost almost a thousand to me, but I would not take his vowels, so that was that.

  “But two nights later, the last night before the Minerva sailed, he asked if I would play him again. He had no coins, but he had diamonds, he said, worth around six thousand pounds, and would I accept them instead? Just the two of us, privately, but he said he had never enjoyed playing more and to him it was worth it, even if he lost the whole amount. I accepted. We started at three in the afternoon, and we came to an end at three the next morning. I had won everything, and he smiled and said he would remember that night for his whole life, and hoped we would meet again, and perhaps he would have a chance to win some of his gems back.”

  When he lapsed into silence again, Ginny said, “So what about the Minerva?”

  “Barantine told me to sew the diamonds into the seams of my coat, to hide them, so that was what I did. I spent the last hours before boarding the ship sewing. Some went into my boots, as well, and what was left of the coins after Joe had taken some to play with. Then onto the ship. There was no cabin free, so I went steerage with the two valets. That was quite an experience, a hammock down below with the ordinary sailors! So soothing, being gently rocked.

  “Not that it helped much. I was still terrified of coming home, of being the duke, so my spirits were low, but then something happened that—” A long pause. The only sound in the room was Ger’s ragged breathing. Ginny gently stroked his cheek and he gave her a wan little smile. “Barantine was travelling with his business partner. Newbold, his name was. An unpleasant man. He complained about everything. He cornered me after breakfast, when everyone else had gone about their business, and he laid into me in no uncertain terms. I had ruined his friend, he told me, everything was over for him. It was my fault that he had been sucked into a gambling fever, so that the earl’s sons drew him into madness. He had seemingly gambled away the title to his entire business to them, and then I had taken everything he had left, the diamonds with which he might have rebuilt. He would have no alternative but to end his existence, and then his daughter, who thought herself a great heiress, would be a penniless orphan and what was to become of her?

  “Naturally, I at once offered to return every last diamond to Barantine, but the fellow just laughed. Do you know what he said to me? ‘If you were a gentleman and had any concept of honour, you would know that Barantine could not accept.’ I said to him that Barantine had accepted his loss with equanimity, and had never given the least sign of being ruined. He laughed that off. Of course he was cheerful in public, but in private he was devastated, he told me.” Ger turned his face towards Ginny. “I could not bear it, not on top of everything else! To be the means of destroying a man utterly, and his daughter, too — it was too much. It is the one thing I have always tried to avoid, never taking vowels or anything but cash on the table. I had to find a way to return the diamonds to him, and the perfect plan came to me in a flash. I would end my own existence, but bequeath him the diamonds. He could not refuse to accept them then!

  “I had paper and pencil, so I scratched a note to say that if anything should happen to me, Barantine was to have all my clothes. I left it in my hammock, with my coat and boots. I had got hold of a flask of rum to build up my courage, so I set off up to the deck to drink myself into the state of mind to throw myself overboard. Of course, it was just my luck that Captain Caldicott was still up and about, just descending from the deck. Seeing me with my flask, he said, ‘Going above to view the stars? You will need your coat… and your boots. It is freezing up there.’ I had no option but to don coat and boots, thinking that I could remove them again before throwing myself overboard.

  “Caldicott was right! It was freezing up there, and the stars were magnificent, but I was not there to enjoy the view. I found a quiet corner out of the biting wind, and settled down to become miserably drunk. If fortune favoured me, the world might look rosier through a rum-soaked haze, but if not, I was but three steps from the rail. I had not taken more than two mouthfuls before I was discovered. The deck boy first, and then he must have told the Second Mate, Blackwell. I daresay he saw what I was about, for he sat down beside me and tried his level best to talk me out of it. Well, he just talked, but every time I suggested he need not linger, he chattered on. He had a woman in Dublin, it seemed, and an urge to tell me all about her. It seemed only polite to share the rum with him. How was
I to know that he was in sole charge of the vessel? Captain Caldicott had only been making a final check before retiring to his cabin, and Blackwell was supposed to be at the helm. Instead, he was talking to me, keeping me from jumping overboard. We were pretty well foxed, the pair of us, when he leapt up yelling something about a rock — somebody’s rock.”

  “Tomey’s Rock,” Ran said. “It came up at the inquiry. It was marked on the newer charts as a hazardous rock underwater at high tide, but the locals called it Tomey’s Rock. So Blackwell not only knew of it, but knew its name. Interesting.”

  “Why is it interesting?” Ger said.

  Ran’s fears began to recede somewhat. Ger was talking, he was asking questions and that was a promising sign. “Because the fellow denied all knowledge of it. Claimed it was not even on the charts. Go on, brother. What happened next?”

  “We hit it! Almost at once there was this horrible scraping, splintering sound and the ship shuddered and lurched. I was pitched forward and slid across the deck until I hit something — coiled ropes, I think. I ended up against the rail, then there was icy water and I remember nothing after that until I woke up in Ginny’s house, with Molly bending over me. I have no idea why I survived, but I wish to God I had died that night! So many people died because of me… so many children orphaned, so many wives made widows. I should have died, not them.”

  “But God chose otherwise, in His mercy,” Ginny said quietly. “Besides, it seems to me that the blame, if blame there must be, lies with Mr Blackwell. He was steering the ship, after all. He came to see you, afterwards. He came several times, but you were not well enough to talk to him at first. Eventually, Mama let him see you, and after that he never came back.”

  “He asked me if I remembered what had happened, and I told him I recalled nothing after leaving Dublin. He just smiled and said that was good, but that if I remembered anything, it would be best not to mention it to anyone. And I never did until now. But it was not his fault, it was mine, Ginny. I was the one who took the rum on deck, I was the one who offered him the flask, I was the one who let him drink and talk and neglect his work.”