by May Woodward
She puffed out her cheeks. Pressed a warm forehead against a marble urn full of flowering hollyhocks.
Across the flagstones zigzagged the moonlit trail of a night creature which had lately scuttled by. Past the steps lay the lawns. Chinese lanterns lit the walkways. A lady and gentleman ambled arm-in-arm beneath blossomy cherry boughs. The glow from the city’s lights made a milky canopy over the grounds.
A soft footfall paused a few feet behind her. Had Brandon pursued her after all? Would he make her his lover here on the terrace of Dorchester House, with Sir Robert’s party guests looking on? What a rainbow Armageddon that would be.
‘Clemence? You are Clemence, are you not?’
But it was an unfamiliar, male voice. Something about the sound made her shiver.
‘I almost wouldn’t have recognised you! Why – you were only seventeen last time I saw you.’
She could feel her heart hammering like an old fruitcake she’d known back at Dwellan shut up in isolation and banging thump-thump with his fists on the door for hours on end.
‘Aren’t you going to greet me, Clemmie? I thought Bella might have told you she was bringing me here tonight.’
Her unsteady legs would not support her. Where was the bench…? She fumbled her way along the wall and crumpled onto the seat.
Slowly, she raised her eyes. Couldn’t look into his face… stared instead into the beams of a lantern which hung beside the French windows… all she saw in her side vision was a blurry, smiling, masculine figure in evening dress, scarlet sash, and dark hair shiny with oil.
‘You are Aubrey?’ She heard the piping of her own voice.
‘Aye, Clemmie. Lost all these years! Back from the dead.’
He took a step closer. She leaped up from the bench. Stumbled behind it so that it shielded her from the apparition.
‘Oh, my sweet sister!’ He stretched out his arms towards her. ‘The last time we spoke, you and I, was the night before the Light Brigade charged. We ate the fruit of the strawberry tree together, do you recall, on the cliff top overlooking the bay? And we could hear the bells of Sebastopol.’
Clemence backed a further pace away from him.
‘I was scared, remember? You were the only one I could admit that to,’ the stranger said. ‘Recollect what we said to each other that night, Clemmie? I said I was afraid I might be riding to my death. You said… “All that loss of life, Aubrey. Those poor, dead men… English, Russian… and the wives grieving at home. But maybe it will mean there will be no more wars. Wouldn’t that be worth dying for?” Then you gave me the locket which Mater gave you on your confirmation day – the one with the engraving of St Anne and the Virgin. And I carried it with me into battle.’
Around her the garden, the house, everything went whirling. He dashed and caught her in his arms.
TWENTY-NINE
Cramped between the corner of King Street, and the church of St Katharine Cree, Somerlee House’s only elegance was a colonnaded porch. The baronet’s residence in town was four narrow storeys of smoky brick and Georgian-era windows. Leadenhall Street was not terribly fashionable; the family rarely entertained here.
‘Do you know there are some exquisite, modern establishments for sale in Berkeley Square and Regent Street?’ Amathia said one day. The parlour where she was looking out from overlooked the office of a maritime insurance company. Wagons carrying fruit and vegetables to Covent Garden market were lumbering along, and drovers chivvying soon-to-be-eatable-meat. You could see stray dogs and sots, too, using the historic Aldgate pump as a public convenience. ‘Eardingstowe has its faults, but it does possess a certain quaint charm.’
Richard looked up at his wife who was perched in the window-seat. Her shape was very enceinte. From it, any month soon, the next baronet should pop. Or just another daughter. The way Richard’s luck was going right now, what were the chances?
‘Do you realise we’ve had a property around this site for as long as we’ve had Eardingstowe?’ he asked.
‘Oh, that does not surprise me, Dickon. No doubt they are original drains, too.’ Amathia wrinkled her nose.
‘I wouldn’t have thought so. The original drains probably didn’t survive the Great Fire. But some of the stonework has! Once, when I was very young, one of our longest-serving retainers took Ivo and me, with Aubrey toddling along after us, right down into the deepest reaches of the basement! We saw some very old bricks with black fire stains. But this wasn’t from that piffling mishap of 1666, no, this was from Boudicca’s conflagration. That’s how long the Somerlees have lived here, Amathia, so tell me again you prefer more refined neighbourhoods!’
‘Boudicca tried to burn this place down, did she? Good for her!’
But he wasn’t listening any longer.
‘Are you coming with me to Westminster Hall?’
‘I most certainly am. Never mind how unsightly I am in this condition. I’ll go to the witness-stand if necessary to tell the world this upstart’s an impostor.’
‘Well, it’s comforting to know that at least I have your support, Amathia! Although not everyone believes this man’s a charlatan, you know. Isabella’s convinced he’s genuine,’ he said – to himself.
He got up from the sofa and sauntered over to look out. A cart jolting its way along the street shed a cabbage which plumped into the gutter. An urchin dashed to scoop up the bounty.
‘And I made up my mind to take out the lawsuit before I met him,’ he finished.
‘Richard! You’ve seen the fellow. Spoken to him. You’d know your own brother for heaven’s sake however many years he’d been away!’
‘Yes! Absurd. Of course, I would.’
Truth be told, his memories of Aubrey weren’t especially endearing. He pictured the juvenile Aubrey climbing the Eardingstowe yew tree… doing gymnastic fancy stuff while swinging from the lower branches, something the young Richard had been too plump to do well. Aubrey braving the legend to wade into the mere waist-deep. Aubrey tumbling a farm-girl in a hayrick when he was barely out of school.
So what? Richard had everything else – house, land, title, cut-glass wife, a politician’s power to send men to their deaths on a remote peninsula, flunkeys to wipe his backside if he wished.
And then he had met the man claiming to be Aubrey. Those eyes, that smile… By George, they were remarkably similar, weren’t they…? Stirred some feeling in him, somewhere…
‘Ivo believes in the fellow too,’ Richard went on, troubled. ‘Ivo’s told me, in no uncertain terms, he thinks I’m quite callous.…’
Oh, let this bothersome person just be a fortune-hunting impostor. It would make everything so much easier.
Lysithea faced the drawing-room door as the butler brought in the visitor. Clemence was seated beside the hearth, feeling antsy.
‘Your Grace, My Lady… Mr Aubrey Somerlee Esquire,’ Pickford announced. How to designate the man was debateable in fact. Technically he had never left his regiment and Cornet Somerlee was still correct.
The man stood for a moment on the threshold, surveying the room. A smile melted his features. He stepped forward, lifted Lysithea’s hand and kissed it.
‘Aunt Lizzy! Clemmie!’ he said as he bowed to each in turn. ‘Tea by the fire, just the three of us! Quel cosy delight!’
Middling height. High cheekbones. Slim to medium build. Cavalryman’s moustache. Softly curling hair between black and dark brown in shade, gleaming with Makassar oil. Bright eyes of an autumn-sky blue. A nonpareil of manly beauty, indeed. A well-spoken beau in checked, nankeen trousers, morning coat and embroidered, piqué waistcoat. An urbane officer… Everything Aubrey had once been. Yes, he could be Aubrey. But he could be plenty of men who you’d chance to meet in the park.
Quel… yes, Aubrey used to say that, though…
‘My dear nephew!’ Lysithea took a deep breath. ‘How pleasant to see you restored
to us!’ She hesitated before laying a cautious hand on his upper arm.
‘Aunt Lizzy.’ Aubrey smiled, and kissed her on both cheeks. He held her at arm’s length, studying her face. ‘You have barely aged at all!’
Well, that was a brazen fib for a start. The countess’s once-raven hair was claymore-grey, and she’d taken, this year, to walking with the aid of a stick.
‘Do sit down, Aubrey. Would you care for some tea?’
‘Yes please, Aunt.’ He perched on the ottoman, crossing one leg over the other. The countess sat opposite, tea-table between them. ‘I see you no longer have that Chinese carpet with the yellow and mauve lotus flower pattern,’ the newcomer said, espying around. ‘I never forgave myself for spilling tea on it that time. Do you recall? Mind you, little Peking, your dog, loved it remember? He was lapping it up.’
‘Yes! Yes…’ Lysithea’s words came out in an awkward squeak.
Clemence twisted her quatrefoil around and around. What is he trying to do? Prove he’s Aubrey by remembering things only the real Aubrey could have known? And who could blame him after the aspersions the press had cast? And Richard taking him to court to expose him as a fake? Well, Dickon and his wife would, wouldn’t they? They were the ones who had most to lose by Aubrey’s return.
But what if Richard is right? Could this courtly swain taking tea with us be a cheap conman after Uncle George’s legacy?
The countess handed him a cup. Clemence stared… and caught a flash of gold as his lips parted to thank Lysithea. The tooth Aubrey’d broken, tumbling from the hayloft one merry harvest-time.
‘So! You have endured a great ordeal, Aubrey,’ said Lysithea.
‘Mercifully, Aunt Lizzy, I recall very little from those lost, dark years. My captors told me I was an Englishman. But that I think I perhaps knew. I mean, isn’t it in the blood, being an Englishman?’ Aubrey smiled. He sipped his tea and his look turned to Clemence. ‘Do you know what became of Dora, Clemmie?’
Dora? Who on earth was she? Oh, yes…
‘Your sweetheart before you went away? Well, I believe she married a merchant seaman. Her eldest must be at Charterhouse by now.’
Aubrey nodded.
‘Yes… couldn’t expect her to have waited really I don’t suppose…’ He drank some more, then turned to the countess. ‘And how is dear Aunt Cassie?’
‘Still at Dwellan, Aubrey.’
‘Ah, that is sad to hear. She was the most loving lady I knew – so kind, and gentle.’ He gave a wistful smile.
‘I was a patient in the madhouse too, Aubrey, for some time after the war,’ said Clemence. He looked up, startled. ‘Did they tell you? I was ill, you see…seeing strange things, hearing voices…’
‘A scone, Aubrey?’ Lysithea handed him a plate.
‘However many years you were gone, Clemence,’ he said, ‘you cannot imagine the decades of loss which I endured. Do you realise I did not even know who I was? No name, home, history, nothing.’
‘And how did you come to remember?’ Lysithea asked.
‘My memory started to come back. My own version of your voices and pictures, Clemence, you might say. Images that meant nothing at the time. The violet bushes in the parterre which you and I helped plant, Clemmie. Then one day my name came back too.’
He munched a scone.
‘Thank you for looking after my faithful Sparkle,’ he said to Clemence.
‘Sparkle?’ Clemence replied. ‘Yes, he was found wandering loose after the charge. Most of the horses were killed. You saw their great, fallen shapes all over the valley. Like boulders left over from a battle of gods and titans! But Sparkle survived. Richard kept him at Eardingstowe until he died.’
‘Richard has his last shoe in fact… had it silver-painted,’ said Lysithea. ‘It’s hanging in the gunroom. By rights it ought to come to you, Aubrey.’
‘No. Leave it be! It can be a curiosity to show future visitors. The shoe of a horse who rode in the Charge of the Light Brigade.’ He finished his cup of tea. ‘You must miss Eardingstowe,’ Aubrey said to Clemence. ‘Why did you leave?’
Clemence gazed beyond him towards the light shining in through the window.
‘I don’t believe I would have… if it had been up to me.’
‘Have you been home to Somerset yet?’ said Lysithea.
‘No, no I haven’t, not yet.’ He smiled as he looked away for a moment. ‘So many memories coming back now like old friends! Clemmie, do you call to mind that time you and I ran away together to Dowsborough?’
Clemence pictured the deserted, windblown banks and ditches of the Iron Age hill-fort high in the Quantocks.
‘There’s a legend about that place. No Somerlee is welcome there,’ she frowned to herself. ‘So, two arrogant little Somerlees wanted to defy the curse,’ she went on with a half-smile. ‘I suppose we Somerlees must have done something unspeakable there once.’
‘Which we’ve fortunately now forgotten!’ Aubrey said.
‘Well, you and I thought to spend the night there, remember? But we got hungry for our tea and scurried back to Eardingstowe—’
‘—before the shadows got us,’ said Clemence.
‘—and we found when we got back they’d shut the main door! Flitcroft let us in, though, through the garden door.’
‘So he did…’
‘A young footman he was then, and a kind heart to be sure.’
The stranger downed another mouthful of scone. He looked up at the countess.
‘I believe you’ve lost Uncle George while I’ve been away? Killed during the Indian Mutiny, I understand? My condolences, Aunt Lysithea. He was your favourite brother, I know.’ Aubrey laid down his plate. He sat back, an arm resting on the back of the sofa. ‘Dash it, I was fond of George too, Aunt Lizzy. Recall how he used to visit us children in the nursery and tell us about Waterloo? I used to ride that old rocking-horse remember, and pretend I was there in the cavalry charge in Flanders. Pegasus…’
‘Yes, well… I think we’ve had enough reminiscences now, Aubrey!’ said Lysithea. She rose and rang the bell. ‘I’ve had a room prepared for you.’
‘Well, I’m quite comfortable at the Carlton, Aunt Lizzy.’
‘Oh, we’ve years of catching up to do, Nephew. And we’ll begin over dinner.’
Was there a glint in Lysithea’s eye, Clemence wondered? Did she, too, suspect him a fraud?
THIRTY
‘So! You have no recollection of leaving the battlefield at Balaclava?’ Sir Berkeley Mountjoy Q.C. boomed into a hushed courtroom in Westminster Hall.
‘No, sir,’ mumbled the man on the witness-stand. ‘There is much, still, I don’t remember. The headaches come and go.’
‘And yet you claim you are Aubrey Somerlee of Eardingstowe, Cornet 7460 of the Eleventh Hussars, last seen on October the twenty-fifth, 1854! Remarkable memory, really, wouldn’t you say?’
Press and public benches were so crammed they looked like overcooked sausages bursting at the sides – Somerlee versus Somerlee was the must-see event of the season.
Could the stranger really be the vanished cavalryman, returned from the Valley of Death after sixteen years? Or was his brother Sir Richard right and he was an impostor?
How uneasy Richard seemed. And who could marvel? The world knew the baronet had declared Aubrey legally dead – and had been gaily spending his not inconsiderable fortune. How very awkward. How very unbrotherly.
Richard could hardly bear to look at his fellow litigant. He focussed instead on Mr Justice Porteous’s quill scratching away as he made notes. Gazed at Sir Berkeley’s wig. At the clerestory windows. At dust particles floating in the ochre-coloured light which beamed down from them. All around the grand courthouse where England’s justice creaked and crept like a glacier gouging valleys and raising mountain ranges. Studied his wife’s wedding ring as she showed her solidarity w
ith him, laying a hand over his and squeezing. That plump, pale appendage had done nothing more strenuous in its life than throw erring servants into vats of boiling oil.
Tiny bits of silver threaded the fellow’s dark side-whiskers; just a very few lines beginning to make inroads on his brow. So – about the right age. Aubrey would have been thirty-five. The right height, too. But so were half the men in the courtroom. Lean. Consistent with a man who’d withstood a hard life in captivity. Even the way he’d swaggered a little as he’d climbed the steps to the witness-stand… it stirred something in Richard’s memory.
None of the Somerlee children had been photographed, more was the pity. The pater had been something of a fogy. He’d never ridden on a train. And he’d not had his or his children’s photographs taken. Only the miniature watercolour of Aubrey existed – and it had been painted when he was still in Eton jackets and caps.
But Aubrey’s gold tooth? One of the young cornet’s few distinguishing features which those close to him could summon up. Of course, someone out to impersonate the missing Somerlee for the money would affect all Aubrey’s idiosyncrasies as part of his grand scheme, including deliberately disfiguring his gnashers for authenticity.
‘He’s not Aubrey, Amathia!’ Richard whispered. ‘I’m sure… certain – yes, absolutely certain. Beyond a shadow of a doubt. Yes!’
Sir Berkeley Mountjoy Q.C. had been questioning Aubrey all morning.
‘When did your memory begin to return?’
The litigant put a hand to his brow. He claimed he suffered from mal-à-têtes – a symptom one supposed of his catastrophic head injury. His eyes rose to meet Sir Berkeley’s.
‘About a year ago… I believe… I was in hospital. But I don’t know how or when I got there.’
‘This was the hospital in Vienna, loveliest of cities. What do you remember of Vienna?’
Aubrey shook his head.