It was not long before Gil came to the point of the visit.
“Oh, indeed, we remember the letter from Sir Rathbone Willerton-Forbes,” Mr Kilroy said. “Is it not so, my dear?” The two ladies nodded their agreement. “Such an exciting day for us! We rarely have any letters from London, so it was quite an event to receive such an important communication. Why, we have it here, and a copy of our reply.” The ladies rose as one, and together fetched the two papers from a drawer. They were so conveniently located, that Genista suspected them to be prizes which were often brought out to be shown to their acquaintance.
Gil gave both pages a cursory glance, then passed them at once to Mr Merton, who studied them for several minutes. “You have the register to hand, Mr Kilroy?”
“Oh yes, indeed we do. Is it not so, my dears?” Again the two ladies rose and went out of the room together. “Since learning of the significance of this particular entry in the register, we have kept it under lock and key here in the house, as you may imagine, my lord. It is even more secure than the law requires. We should not wish anything untoward to happen to it. Think of the possible consequences! How dreadful it would be if it should be required as evidence by the House of Lords! If, perhaps, His Gracious Majesty should require sight of it and it could not be produced… How catastrophic! We could not assuage our guilt if such an eventuality should occur.”
“Your letter appears to be an exact copy of the register entry, Mr Kilroy,” Mr Merton said. “In addition, it matches the special licence in every particular. The register entry is not the only record of this marriage, so you need not worry unduly about its safety.”
“Oh!” Mr Kilroy looked very startled. “Even so, sir, it is very important evidence, is it not? One must do one’s utmost to keep such records safe, surely? It would be unforgivable to fail in such an endeavour, for safeguarding such evidence is a matter of sacred duty, imposed on us by the highest in the land. Are we mistaken in supposing so?”
“I believe Merton is saying that it will not be a treasonable offence if the mice should get to it,” Gil said.
It was fortunate that the two ladies returned at that moment, for Mr Kilroy seemed about to take offence at the very thought that he might tolerate mice anywhere in the vicinity of the precious book. However, in the act of laying it with all due ceremony on the table, and carefully turning the pages to the correct place, his ire was dissipated, and nothing further was said of mice.
Mr Merton then produced a small writing box and proceeded to make his own copy of the entry. Returning the precious book and the two letters to Mr Kilroy, whose two ladies replaced them in their homes, the party turned back to the rather good cherry cake.
“The clergyman who performed the marriage ceremony does not live in the town any longer?” Gil said, between sips of Madeira.
“Mr Culpepper? No, oh no. As I explained to Sir Rathbone Willerton-Forbes, when Mr Culpepper became too elderly to undertake his duties here, he engaged me as curate and went to live with his daughter, at Haddlewick. That is quite some distance from here, on the Scarborough road. He is a very elderly man, very elderly indeed. We do not know whether any communication was received by him from Sir Rathbone Willerton-Forbes.”
“We plan to visit Mr Culpepper,” Mr Merton said. “The two named witnesses are both dead, I believe? Mr James Granger and Mrs Winifred Caulsby. They were employed here, it seems.”
“Oh yes. Mrs Caulsby was the housekeeper here, and Mr Granger was the coachman. Long dead, sadly.”
Mrs Kilroy coughed.
“Yes, my dear?”
She leaned forward and practically whispered in his ear. “Meg Caulsby is cook at Holly House, and Jack Granger is head groom there. Perhaps…?”
“Oh, indeed. Meg is Mrs Caulsby’s daughter and Jack is… um…?”
“Mr Granger’s nephew,” she said, in a mouse-like voice.
“Should you like to talk to them?” Mr Kilroy said. “We can fetch them here in a moment.”
And without waiting for a reply, the two ladies jumped up and shot out of the room again.
“How obliging,” Gil murmured.
Mr Kilroy was so affected by this innocuous remark that he must leap to his feet and bow deferentially. “Your lordship is most condescending. So gracious. Such an honour.”
Silence now fell upon the room, which Mrs Merton broke by making some complimentary remarks about the church, and from there, with the aid of Mr Merton, the conversation flowed readily onto the subject of Garthorpe itself, its streets, buildings, shops and inhabitants all coming in for their share of the praise. All of this, Mr Kilroy responded to with bows and expressions of gratitude.
Eventually, when even the civility of the Mertons was wearing thin, Mrs Kilroy and her sister returned with Meg Caulsby and Jack Granger. The latter was dispensed with almost at once, since he had no memory at all of the marriage or his uncle’s role in it. The cook, however, remembered it well.
“Oh, yes, milud, it were right here in this room it happened, so my ma said. I must ’a bin about ten or thereabouts at the time, but she talked about it after. She was allus talkin’ ’bout it! Special licence an’ all — even Mr Culpepper were excited ’bout that.”
“And did you see the couple that were married?” Mr Merton asked.
“Oh no, no one did, ’cept Mr Culpepper and my ma and James Coachman. My ma let them in the front door, they came straight into this room, then out the front door after. Everyone wanted to see them, but no one did.”
“Did no one happen to look out of the window?” Mrs Merton said in amusement. “There is always so much interest in a bride that I should be surprised if no one peeked.”
“Oh, but it were night,” the cook said brightly. “Dark night, nothin’ to be seen at all.”
Mr Merton questioned her diligently, but there was nothing else of interest to be learnt from her.
The four walked back to the inn in silence, and it was only sometime later, when their dinner had been laid out in the parlour and the servants had withdrawn, that Mr Merton exclaimed, “At night! That is very odd.”
“May I ask a question?” Genista said timidly.
“Of course, Lady Gilbert,” Mr Merton said politely. He was so unfailingly polite.
“I don’t understand why they didn’t just marry in the church. It’s right next door to the parsonage, after all. I wouldn’t want to get married in that shabby little parlour instead of the church.”
“It is a good point,” Gil said. “Why marry in Garthorpe at all? They both came from High Berenholme, where there is a perfectly good church, or, if they preferred it, a parsonage with a parlour just as shabby as Mr Kilroy’s.”
Mrs Merton laughed. “I must take issue with you about the shabbiness of the parlour, Lord Gilbert.”
“You astonish me, Mrs Merton. I thought it an excessively shabby parlour myself.”
“Oh, certainly it is now, but it surely was not so at the time of this marriage,” Mrs Merton said. “Remember that Mr Culpepper was wealthy enough to keep a carriage and employ a housekeeper. Mr Kilroy is only the curate, and lives very impecuniously, that much is clear. What is also clear is that the late marquess wished to keep this marriage very secret. The special licence, the marriage in a different town altogether where neither party was known, even marrying at night — they did not wish to be seen, or have the marriage known about.”
“But why marry at all, in that case?” Gil said impatiently, setting his knife down with a clatter. “Why go to all the trouble of obtaining a special licence, which is a great deal of bother when one lives so far from London, and then marry in this havey-cavey way, and not tell a soul? And look at the date — Grandfather was already the seventh marquess by the time Father married Amelia Gartmore, so Father was Lord Charles by then, and there is no mention of that. Even if the special licence was in the old name, he should have married under his new title. And then less than a year later, he married Mama! That makes no sense to me, and I do not und
erstand any of it.”
For a while they all ate and drank in silence. The bowls and platters gradually emptied, and the jugs of wine and ale, and eventually the servants cleared away the dishes, and replenished the jugs, and placed small dishes of nuts and sweetmeats on the table.
Mr Merton raised his glass to his lips, took a small sip and then set the glass down, smoothing the cloth around it. “There is a possible explanation that springs to mind, my lord.” He sounded almost apologetic.
“Let us hear it, Merton,” Gil said. “I am willing to listen to anything plausible at this stage.”
“Suppose that Mr Charles Marford, as he was then, found himself in difficulties with Miss Gartmore. They were unofficially betrothed, let us say, and he had no reason to suppose there would be any objection to his marrying the lady. He was very far from the succession at that point. So, finding the matter urgent, he rushed down to London to obtain a special licence—”
“But why?” Mrs Merton said. “The banns would be almost as quick.”
“When Lord Reginald visited Mr Kiddleston at High Berenholme,” Mr Merton said, “the old gentleman said that his wife was very sick at the time, and the special licence would allow them to be married at the house, so that she could attend.”
“So the intention to marry was public knowledge?” Gil said in surprise.
“It was,” Mr Merton said. “Clearly, the special licence was obtained, but that was at precisely the moment when news of the death of the sixth marquess and his heir would have reached London. At that point, your grandfather became the seventh marquess, and your father became of great importance to the family. His oldest brother was sick, and his second brother had only daughters and was not likely to have a son. There would have been pressure on him to make a society marriage and set about securing the succession. So, instead of the public marriage, he married Amelia Gartmore in great secrecy and established her in such a way that she could have her child without public censure and live a quiet, but respectable life thereafter. And then he married a viscount’s daughter, Miss Adela March, in a fanfare of publicity, and no one ever knew about his previous secret marriage. Until now.”
There was silence, apart from the coals shifting on the fire, sending sparks up the chimney.
“Well, my lord?” Mr Merton said.
“It is very ingenious,” Gil said. “It is almost plausible.”
“Almost? You see deficiencies in my explanation?”
“Several,” Gil said. “For one thing, Father may have been the most likely person to inherit the title in the end, but he also had two younger brothers, one of whom already had sons, so the succession was secure and the pressure to marry would not have been so great. Secondly, Miss Amelia Gartmore was at least a lady, unlike Great-Uncle Francis’s wife who was a bootmaker’s daughter. From bootmaker’s daughter to marchioness would have been a great leap. Although it was undoubtedly something of a scandal at the time, no one stopped him marrying her and she was accepted into society without any difficulty as soon as she had produced a couple of lusty sons. It was not her fault that they were later carried off by putrid fevers. She was a redoubtable old lady who lived to be almost a hundred.”
“You think there would have been no objection to your father marrying Miss Gartmore?” Mr Merton said.
“There would have been objections, but I cannot imagine Father giving them a moment’s thought. He never cared two straws about the opinions of others. But the greatest deficiency in your theory, Merton, lies not with Miss Gartmore at all. My father was a reprehensible human being in many ways, and makes me look like a saint, but he was very, very careful to keep his activities to the sort of gentlemanly racketing that society and the law can both ignore.”
“Ah, I see your point,” Mr Merton said.
“It is to be hoped that you do, for to my mind it informs every part of this strange business. However wild he may have been, my father would never, ever have married one lady and then later bigamously married another. It is utterly impossible. Whatever happened all those years ago, there is another explanation for it.”
22: A Leaky Roof
The party left Garthorpe the following morning, but not for Haddlewick and the elderly Mr Culpepper. They were to visit the village of High Berenholme and investigate the leaky roof of Watersmeet. Gil was not averse to investigating roofs, leaky or otherwise, having spent a good part of his boyhood clambering amongst the Drummoor chimneys, and moreover he had had plenty of time to grow bored with their journey. There was a certain pleasure in ambling about the countryside with a pretty wife at his side, but he was unused to sitting idly in a carriage and was growing restless. He missed his horses, and the possibility of a fast ride across the open countryside to blow away his fidgets. He wished he had his curricle with him, but he had gambled it away months ago and had not yet had an opportunity to replace it.
Having bespoken rooms at the inn, the four set out to walk the short distance to the house. The tenants, Mr Barton and his wife Lady Anne, received them gratefully. The house was not large, but pleasingly proportioned.
Before they could discuss the business which had brought them there, it was necessary to sit in the drawing room drinking tea, eating cake and fruit, and making boringly civil conversation. Gil wanted only to look at the roof and be off to Haddlewick, but nothing could be done in a hurry. He tapped his foot impatiently as Lady Anne talked about their children, and their convoluted and uninteresting reasons for leaving their previous home and moving to High Berenholme, which involved pigs in some unfathomable way.
“Are you aware, my lord, of the dangerous nature of pigs?” Lady Anne said.
“Oh, indeed,” Gil said. “That reminds me of poor Mr Penicuik, our former chaplain who once…” He gazed around at the expectant faces watching him. “But it is of no consequence.”
Merton leaned forward. “Oh, do tell us about poor Mr Penicuik.”
“Is it an amusing story, my lord?” Lady Anne said.
How to answer such a question? It was amusing, in a way, but also not. “It was too dreadful for words, and we never speak of it. I should not have mentioned the subject.”
To turn the conversation into a different channel, he asked about the Bartons’ neighbour in the great house.
“Mr Kiddleston lives alone, I gather?” he said.
“Oh dear, did you not know?” Lady Anne said. “Old Mr Kiddleston died last year, and the sons had a very good offer for the estate, so they sold out. They live in York now, and spend part of each year in London, I believe. Yes, we have new neighbours now. The Prestwicks. An elderly couple and several grown children. Two surviving sons, for one died tragically, we are given to understand. Four daughters, which is another kind of tragedy. Well, the daughters are not properly out, I believe, although what that means I cannot say.”
“You have not met them, my lady?” Merton said.
She pursed her lips. “Mr Barton called upon Mr Prestwick, Mr Richard Prestwick and Mr Harold Prestwick,” she said. “Mrs Prestwick has been in Bath for her health until very recently, and so I have not yet made my first visit. It must be done soon, I suppose.” There was just a hint of superciliousness in her manner that Gil could recognise.
“Trade?” he said.
“Wool,” Lady Anne said, with an almost visible shudder. “They have sold out now and live quite as gentry, so one is obliged to recognise them, or at least Mrs Prestwick and Mrs Richard Prestwick, not to mention however many of the daughters are out. Still, it is disconcerting to have neighbours with whom one has no acquaintance in common. No one has ever heard of the Prestwicks of Oldham. And they got rid of Mrs Huddleston, too. One does not turn off a housekeeper in such a manner, on a whim, and without even meeting her. The cook, too. They asked for a list of servants and struck out a great many, some of whom had been there for years, to be given immediate notice. What sort of people are they, to act so?”
“You are too fastidious, my dear,” Mr Barton said, smiling. “N
o doubt they wanted a fresh start. Mr Prestwick is not, perhaps, from the top drawer, but there is nothing in his behaviour to disgust anyone, and the sons might move in any society. The young ladies are each to be given a season in London. A chaperon has been engaged, since Mrs Prestwick’s health does not permit her to undertake the task herself. Miss Prestwick is already on her way south.”
“I am sure I wish her good fortune there,” Lady Anne said, sniffing. “No doubt the objective is to buy a titled husband for her, and then she may bring the others out, but I cannot like it. Such people should stay in the sphere to which they belong.”
“We all started with nothing and climbed upwards,” her husband said mildly. “Your distant ancestor was nothing but a lowly member of the King’s army before he was noticed and ennobled, and I am sure Lord Gilbert’s family has a similar history.”
Gil was bored by so much talk about people he did not know and long forgotten family history, so he took the first opportunity to turn the conversation to the matter of the leaky roof. The Bartons took up the subject with enthusiasm.
“It is the night nursery which is the worst afflicted,” Lady Anne told them. “It is most inconvenient, as you may imagine, for the children must now sleep on the same side of the house as we do ourselves.”
“They are directly above us,” her husband said, with a rueful grin. “You may guess how much sleep we are able to obtain in such circumstances. A man came and inspected the roof, and that gave us some relief for a while, but now the case is as bad as it has ever been, and we dare not use the room for fear of the ceiling collapsing. I do not understand it at all, for the entire roof was retiled and releaded only five years ago. There should be no question of a leak.”
They were shown upstairs, past a cloud of giggling children, and into the affected rooms, with their many buckets and bowls collecting drips, and an ominous bulge in the corner of the ceiling in one room.
“This is very bad,” Mr Merton said. “We must attend to it at once. How does one access the roof?”
Lord Gilbert (Sons of the Marquess Book 5) Page 21