by May Woodward
‘Good Lord!’ Richard came to an abrupt halt. ‘Janet Wilkes-Rodney. She was a friend of Bella’s.’ He stared at the other man. ‘I had forgotten… but now I remember.’
‘Yes! Magic-lantern show…’ Aubrey’s eyes grew distant. ‘To us it truly was magical. We’d never seen the like. I mind something you said, Dickon. You said…’ he narrowed his eyes in thought, ‘you said our whole lives were like a magic-lantern show: false, dancing images projected onto a wall.’
Richard stumbled… and gripped the latticed ironwork of the gate.
Clemence wandered through Dwellan House’s parkland.
In the fields beyond the gate, the stalks of wheat rippled as the breeze blew through. An odour of burning drifted from the heath. It must be the swaling of old heather – first hint of the season on the turn towards winter.
The drone of machinery grew louder. The harvest team was rumbling Clemence’s way. This must be one of those mechanised reaper-binders she’d heard of – a thoughtless, bloodless creature which did the work of fifty men. In her youth, a battalion of labourers used to slice their way across Eardingstowe land, sunlight glancing from scythes.
She turned to the ivy-clad house which had been her prison for three years. She could remember which had been her room – up there in the dormers, with the light shining on the glass. Even though she came only as a visitor these days, and a welcome one as she had become a benefactress, she loathed the place because of its memories.
Aunt Cassandra’s first meeting with Aubrey had passed as well as Clemence might have hoped.
‘Look, Auntie, it’s Aubrey back from the war at last.’
‘Would you like to know the news from the war, Auntie?’ Aubrey had cooed. ‘Sebastopol has fallen. The city held out for almost a year. But eventually we captured the Malakhoff and the city fell. The Czar surrendered.’
‘That was fifteen bloody years ago, you fool! Are you a madman?’
After two hours of humouring a twelve-year old in a sexagenarian’s form, Clemence had left Aubrey to his private thoughts. She could see him still, ambling around the other side of the garden, taking a good look at the chestnut and the shelter.
What was worse than a brother’s disappearance? The homecoming of a stranger she could not recognise, know… or love. Smiles she gave him were assumed, embraces so perfunctory they made her ache for shame. Shared, obscure memories he insisted on coming up with only irritated. The wisest judge in the land believed he was Aubrey. Why was there no response in her… why?
Aubrey returned to her side.
‘How can you bear to come here as often as you do?’ he asked.
‘Because I love my auntie dearly.’
‘Our auntie.’
‘Oh! Yes… of course, Aubrey… I’m sorry. Just a slip of the tongue…’ Clemence summoned a smile. She bent and observed a Painted Lady which was resting, quivering, on a yellow pimpernel, until the butterfly took flight.
‘Somehow, I imagined the patients would be walled-in,’ Aubrey said. ‘But all they’ve got are a few wattle fences, hedges and that big chestnut tree.’
‘There’s no need,’ she answered him. ‘They watch all the time. Up there, see.’ You couldn’t see behind any of the windows, which either had the light shining on them, or were shuttered. But she knew from her own time here… ‘If an inmate strays beyond the hedge, they are down at once.’
‘Were you really a patient here, Clemmie?’
‘Yes! You’d not believe the weird things I saw and heard. I saw you, Aubrey, many times – a lost soul on the bank of the mere, trying to get our attention and we couldn’t hear you. It was heartbreaking.’
‘Ah, that was the grief of loss, Clemmie, not madness.’
‘Well, it was Amathia and Philoctetes who had me put away – with some assistance from Florence Nightingale. So they could get their fingers on Lysithea’s legacy.’
‘Clemence, this is terrible! It’s criminal that you were sent here!’
‘I’m not so sure, Aubrey. Even now, people who recall the night of the Apsley ball give me odd looks.’
‘As I heard, you just got a bit potted! That hardly makes you mad. You aren’t the Clemmie I remember, though. Always laughing and happy.’
‘The war changed me, Aubrey – likely not for the better.’
‘I don’t suppose I’m the brother you knew, am I?’ Aubrey smiled suddenly.
Little as she’d wanted to say it, it was true. Sometimes she thought – that smile, yes, that was how Aubrey smiled; or the way he flicked the dandelion clocks which caught in his hair – she was sure she’d once seen the old Aubrey do the same.
But am I really? Or am I just hoping? Seeing what I want to see?
THIRTY-THREE
Richard was walking his horse along Rotten Row in Hyde Park. The still, warm air was fragrant with the scent of roses in the last bloom of autumn. As he went along, he exchanged greetings with the great and good who one met on this, the capital’s most fashionable bridle path.
‘Ah! Lady Carbury. Is this your charming daughter? What a sporting bonnet.’
‘Thank you, Sir Richard. And will you put in a word with the Party whippers-in about dear Lord Carbury’s recent spot of trouble?’
‘Certainly, ma’am. Would you excuse me? I see an old friend waiting.’ He touched the brim of his hat and rode on.
Mounted on a handsome grey opposite Wellington’s statue was Roger Cormorant.
By mutual consent, Richard and his shadowy business partner did not see much of each other. Hundreds had invested in the gold mine over the previous decade, each passing what he trusted was an exclusive whisper to family and cronies… and Richard was laughing all the way to the bank.
‘Sir Roger!’ Richard drew up beside the other man.
‘Good day to you, Sir Richard,’ Cormorant said. ‘How are you by the by?’
‘Fine, sir, fine!’
Richard eyed him with a degree of caution. What would his associate make of Richard’s recent rather high-profile humiliation?
‘Shocking business over in France, what?’ said Cormorant. ‘The French Emperor captured! Battle of Sedan was a catastrophic defeat for the Frenchies, eh? Can’t see them fighting on with half their army wiped out, Bonaparte in the Prussian King’s hands – ’
‘Or the Kaiser as he now likes to style himself,’ said Richard. ‘As for that Prime Minister of his – dangerous knave, that. Heard Bismarck wants to unite all the German States under Prussian rule. A German Empire? Makes me shudder!’
‘Indeed, sir! And now I hear the Prussian army is marching on Paris. Gloomy days again on the continent, Sir Richard. Hope we keep out of it, don’t you? Still, at least we’re enjoying dashed warm weather, what?’
‘So we are, sir.’
Richard kept an eye on the well-to-do riding to and fro along the path. Top hats being raised in greeting everywhere you looked. Ladies in velvet riding habits. Careers could be made or dashed here on the avenues of Hyde Park. The jangling sound of the horse bit could be the clink of coin on coin.
So, Cormorant was not vexed, was he, by all that bad baronet business? Quel relief, as Aubrey would say.
‘On Friday I’ll be going down to Eardingstowe to see my wife and new son,’ Richard continued. ‘And there’s the Exmoor Hunt, too. And then, as you may know, I’ve a new brother to introduce to Somerset society!’
‘Ah yes, I was following the case in the ‘paper,’ Cormorant said. ‘Must say I thought the blackguard an impostor. Had every sympathy with you, old boy.’
‘Yes, well, impostor or not, I’m bound to accept him by order of the court.’
‘Perhaps you might persuade him to invest in the mine, sir?’ Cormorant was smiling mildly.
Yes, that was an idea, wasn’t it? Get back some of what that deceiver had stolen from him? In the meantime, Richa
rd had a few notable kills to report to impress Cormorant with.
‘I’ve just come from a meeting with Prince Karl of Romania. He’s bought one thousand pounds worth of shares. And Viscount Van Schalten’s made a profit of five hundred pounds on his first purchase. He’s in the process of spreading the word, ever so discreetly, among his fellows at Boodles.’
‘Excellent, Sir Richard.’
‘And I’ve at last persuaded my closest friend Fanny Fanshawe to invest.’
‘The Fanshawes of Woodmancote, eh? Very old family! I’m delighted, Sir Richard.’
‘So far he’s shied from the subject whenever I’ve raised it. But Brandon recently lost his wife, so I thought a little good fortune would buck up his spirits. And the value of his estate has been falling every year since 1865, you know. So, I assured him that if he could find a hundred pounds in his coffers, he’d be building new hunting stables with his returns by Christmas.’
‘You really are invaluable to me, Sir Richard, invaluable!’
‘Thank you, Sir Roger.’
‘The best thing which ever happened to me was running into you at the opera that night. You more than anyone, Sir Richard, have made Smoky Mountain the global success it is.’
Windsor Castle’s soaring Waterloo Chamber this evening in November was ablaze in amber brilliance. Around all four walls one hundred gasoliers were alight. A rainbow merry-go-round of waltzing pairs went by. Diamonds, rubies, amethysts and pearls all shining in the light.
Richard ambled around the edge of the dance-floor. He nodded to the Count of Flanders, greeted the Duke of Cambridge, and paused to pass a few words with Baron Hampton.
Always fascinating to see who had and who had not graced a state ball. Who was in favour and who out? Beside the Prince of Wales and his infirm, half-crippled Princess danced the French Ambassador; but Richard looked in vain for his Prussian counterpart. And here – the ovine features of the Anglophile Jew who led Richard’s party; but maverick Prime Minister Mr Gladstone was absent.
A torchère lit with flames stood close by the minstrels’ gallery. There Richard halted.
Among the dancers he spotted his brother cutting one hell of a dash in the regimental dress of the Eleventh Hussars. Aubrey was a celebrity wherever he went these days.
Tonight, he had claimed the Queen’s daughter, Princess Helena, among his conquests. Her fingerless glove rested on his shoulder; his arm circled her waist above the bustle. Richard observed Aubrey whisper in her ear, and Helena laugh.
So, Aubrey could even make a matronly princess look starry-eyed and dreamy like an unstable schoolgirl. The world danced with him – and sniggered at Dickon. No Cossack who struck Aubrey from his horse, or Serb who shackled him, could hate Aubrey as did Richard. Oh, how can I make you disappear again?
‘Dickon, m’boy!’ said someone, giving him a jolting tap on the shoulder.
Richard pulled himself together. He turned to see an elderly High Court judge at his side. The man had been at college with the first Sir Richard Somerlee.
‘Good to see you here, Sir Mervyn.’
‘Even the gout won’t keep me from a state ball,’ the judge chuckled. ‘Heard the latest from the war, old chap? You know Fritzy’s got Paris under siege? A rumour spreading, you know, that the Parisians are starving! One story I’ve heard… they’re shooting the elephants in the city zoo for food. And using those balloon things to get food in and people out. But the Prussians shot ‘em down, the dirty swine! Dreadful business.’
‘Yes, indeed,’ Richard said.
‘Napoleon’s dynasty has fallen at last, eh? To that at least I can drink!’
‘Ah, don’t speak so soon, Mervyn! With all the German states in Bismarck’s iron grip, we might be sorry the Bonapartes are no more.’
‘Quite… quite… by the way, my boy, what’s this I’ve been hearing about you and some sort of mine, Smoky something…?’
Richard forgot his other cares for a moment. What had come over him? Jealous of a shallow-headed fool like Aubrey just because he looked good on the dance-floor? Richard had shares in Smoky Mountain to sell, and there were dozens of likely buyers at a grand occasion such as this. Ere long, Sir Mervyn was parting from him, yet another satisfied customer.
Half an hour later, the Duke of Sutherland joined him.
‘Evening, Sir Richard. Ghastly affair over in France, eh? I’ve heard Bismarck’s even proposing to bombard Paris and all those starving civilians. Frightful! Don’t see how we can do business with a fellow like that, do you?’
‘No, Your Grace, I don’t.’
The duke cleared his throat.
‘Thing is, Sir Richard… I was speaking with Lord Pendlebury recently. He was saying you’d tipped him about some shares. Said it was all hush-hush and I mustn’t mention it. But just between the two of us… what’s it all about, old chap?’
Richard smiled to himself.
‘Well… if you can promise to keep it quiet, Your Grace… it’s a mining company… gold seeping out of the seams apparently… but not too well known about yet. Marvellous opportunity if you’re interested. And if you are interested, sir, my advice is buy now, before too many others winkle it out and get in on the act.’
‘Oh, I can be discreet, Sir Richard!’ Sutherland said on a chortle.
‘The director and I are bosom bows,’ Richard went on. ‘I could put in a word if you’re wanting to buy.’
‘Absolutely! Absolutely! Perhaps we might meet next week to discuss it further, Sir Richard?’
Richard agreed. The two shook hands, sharing conspirators’ smiles.
The duke looked back to the dance-floor.
‘That’s your brother, isn’t it, Sir Richard, dancing with Princess Helena? The one you took to court. Still think he’s an impostor, do you? Handsome devil, ain’t he! Suppose he makes you wish you’d looked after your looks and figure, what?’
Richard muttered an excuse to get away.
An archway festooned with floral garlands led through to St George’s Hall. Fewer people were here. Richard might sulk undisturbed.
Here, the supper table was set for the five hundred guests. It stretched from one end of the chamber to the other. Seven huge candelabra were spaced along its length.
Richard sent a footman to fetch him a drink. When the man returned with the brandy, Richard was gazing out over the Middle Ward and Round Tower. It was a night cold enough for breath to steam. Six flambeaux lit the courtyard. You could make out frost glinting on the stones.
Richard heard footsteps approaching from behind him. They were on the heavy side, but their sound was muted by the Persian silk carpet. A very large shape eased in beside him at the window. A miasma of cigar fumes blew his way. Who the devil was intruding on his solitude now? He turned… and leaped to attention.
‘Your Highness!’
Prince Albert Edward, heir to the throne, chuckled as if to forgive the unwelcoming expression which had been on the Baronet of Eardingstowe’s face.
‘Enjoying an early stiffener, eh, Sir Richard? Think I might join you out here in the cool. Getting stuffy in there. Anyway, I don’t have a partner for the quadrille. The Princess of Wales is soliciting the hand of that rogue of a brother of yours after my sister has finished with him.’ The Prince of Wales rumbled with laughter. ‘Must be damned frustrating for you, what? A brother who gets all the girls?’
Well! Richard thought. At least my wife can’t stand him!
‘Quite a pleasant, dry evening,’ observed the prince who was known to one and all as Bertie. ‘A bit of a nip in the air. But nothing to stop one taking a stroll on the North Terrace. Care to join me, Sir Richard?’
Whether Richard would or wouldn’t, Queen Victoria’s son and heir steered him towards the State Entrance. The pair passed a column of bowing footmen, and then out into the chill.
‘So, Sir
Richard,’ Bertie said. The two men crossed the courtyard to the Lancaster Tower and went beneath the arch of the King George Gate where the flames of two more flambeaux pranced in the wind. ‘You’re a veteran at Westminster, aren’t you?’
‘I suppose so, sir,’ Richard replied. ‘I’ve been in Parliament since I was twenty-three. And little to show for it, I fear.’
‘Scandalous that a man of your distinction has not been recognised ere now. Quite scandalous! You deserve better, my good chap. The fortitude you showed when you lost that court case was quite praiseworthy. If some jack-a-napes turned up claiming to be my sainted sire who we all believe went to his rest in 1861… well, I doubt I’d welcome him with open arms…’
What could Bertie want with him? If the whiskery, over-sexed, not-overly-endowed-with-brains fatty took an interest in a fellow, it was usually because he fancied his wife. If he was after Amathia he was welcome and good luck to him.
‘Yours is an old family is it not, Sir Richard?’
‘Yes, sir.’ Older than yours for a start! ‘Geoffrey de Somelay came over with the Conquest.’
‘Never been in the nobility, though. Great pity… And there’s a vacancy for a new Knight of the Garter, too.’
A tingly feeling ran through Richard – usually a warning that he needed his laudanum dose. A ball he had not been enjoying suddenly looked more promising. How dreamy looked the Brunswick Tower – from each turret and window slit, gay lanterns hanging.