by May Woodward
‘But poor Sir Dickon’s startin’ to realise something’s badly wrong – he cannot find the cormorant anywhere. The address I gave don’t exist. “This fellow who sold you shares in Smoky Mountain,” Sir Dickon says to Lord Spuffington. “What do you know about him?” “Smoky Mountain?” says His Lordship. “Dash it all, Somerlee, I’d never heard of it until you started your blethering!”
‘And now they know it was all a con, and how much they’ve lost. “Thanks to you, Somerlee – you blithering dunderhead – I’ve lost sixteen thousand pounds on this damned-fool escapade! I’ve a good mind to horsewhip you, sir!”’ Will gave a crooked half-smile. ‘And there’s some who’ve lost so much, they’re ruined. Sir Dickon’s brother-in-law, the Duke of Ardenne, put a gun in his mouth two nights ago.’
Michael turned his eyes away.
‘I’ve sailed a few choppy waters since I left the Old Country,’ he said. ‘Paying an impoverished Serb to teach me his language… fighting the Yankees’ war for ‘em… well, truth be told, I caught sight of the Rebs on the Gettysburg horizon, did a fast one into the trees, sneaked back to the battlefield after dark, and planted some of me personal effects on a likely-lookin’ corpse. So almost everyone who’d known Michael McFarland believes him dead.’
‘You carrying on as Aubrey, then?’
‘I ain’t made plans yet, Will.’
‘What do you suppose happened to the real Aubrey Somerlee?’
‘Who knows?’ Michael gave a slow shake of the head. ‘Maybe he did what I did at Gettysburg – an about-turn and head for safety, and he’s too ashamed to show hisself.’
He leaned across the board. A hush came into his tone.
‘You know Eardingstowe’s fallin’ to its knees, Will? Yesterday, Flitcroft clutched his heart and tumbled down the grand staircase, his silver tray clattering after him.
‘Dickon’s youngest brother Carswell came home two weeks ago on furlough, and he went strolling by the mere. He’d downed a fair glass or two of cider. Well, he stumbled and fell in. They ain’t found the body yet. There’s a kitchen-maid and two labourers on the estate say they were lookin’ out as he fell. They say they saw two arms, wreathed all about with fronds of weed, reachin’ up out of the water, grabbed a hold of him, and pulled him down never to be seen again.’
Michael sat back. He gazed into the rafters for a moment.
‘Ah… let’s not be thinking sorrowful thoughts, lad!’ Will Kidney said. ‘Let me be filling your cup.’ He summoned over the serving-girl.
‘Do you know the Prince of Wales bought shares in Smoky Mountain?’ Kidney said as the girl refilled both their cups with jacky. The sailors singing around the piano had moved on to Haul away, Joe. ‘Somerlee knows Harty-Tarty, see, the Prince’s best friend. And Lord Hartington t’was who passed the word to the future King.’
‘Will…’ Michael said as a slow-burning grin spread over his face, ‘we’ve done more to bring down the English, us two between us, than all the Fenians. Half the aristocracy is toppling in the bankruptcy courts.’
‘Well now, we all know our brave countryman, Captain Nolan, deliberately led the Light Brigade to its death because he secretly wanted the Russkies to win.’
Michael tossed back his head and laughed into the rafters.
‘“Not tho’ the soldier knew someone had blundered: Into the Valley of Death rode the Six Hundred.”’
‘It won’t be long before the law’ll be treadin’ a path to Eardingstowe and Sir Dickon. When they do, Sir Roger Cormorant’ll be nowhere to be seen.’
‘It’s been a pleasure workin’ with you, Will. And not just for the money. Hey, but can the money be traced to either of us?’ said Michael.
‘Course not. Your share is in your bank account, mine… waitin’ for me in Americay.’ So that was where Will was heading then? ‘Aye. I’m past fifty, Mickey. Aussie swamp fever weakened these old bones. I’m getting out while I’m on top, and I’ll see me days out peaceful.’
‘Tell me, though, Will?’ Michael leaned across the table. ‘How much are we worth?’
‘Give or take a penny or two?’ Kidney smacked his lips dry with the back of his hand. ‘About two hundred thousand!’
A spillage sloshed from Michael’s mug onto the board. He gulped five mouthfuls and dribbled. The two guffawing men got up and threw their arms around each other.
THIRTY-SIX
A shuffling retainer led the visitor through the vestibule and into the great hall.
Clemence could hear her own footsteps echoing emptily.
A lantern dangled from the ancient butler’s skeletal hand. It dribbled fingers of yellowy light up the banister and cast blacker-barred shadows. Gasoliers jutted from the walls, but they were dead – like most of the interior, it seemed to Clemence.
The lantern’s jigging beam lit up a chair-shaped, white dust-cover in one corner. Then a picture-sized darker patch of wall-panelling, which said ‘something of value must have hung here, until recently sold.’ This old-timer who had answered the front door to her was, she guessed, born on the Woodmancote estate, devoted to the Fanshawes, and had stayed when all the rest had flitted away.
They came across Lord Brandon Fanshawe sitting by the hearth in the morning-room, huddled inside a coverlet. A high colour in cheeks and nose told of a winter ailment. He’d not been expecting Clemence but looked up without surprise when she was announced.
‘May I take your cloak, Your Grace?’ said the butler, suddenly remembering what should already have been asked.
‘I’ll keep it on, Kincaid,’ she replied. Brandon’s must be one of the few fires alight anywhere in the house. ‘I’d welcome something warming inside me, if you could stretch to a glass of sherry? And something for my suffering coachman who I had to leave outside?’ She looked hopefully from master to servant.
Brandon nodded to the butler, who hobbled away.
‘Sherry…’ Brandon mused. ‘Yes, I’m sure we can still reach to a tipple or two. Gone are the days when Woodmancote entertained royally, though.’
Clemence moved from the doorway to stand by his side. His eyes looked bloodshot and watery. She’d not seen him wearing spectacles before. You could see mini-fires flitting in the round lenses.
‘I was sorry to hear of your loss,’ Clemence began.
‘Thank you, Clemence. A short illness – an influenza in the late summer. Phyllis didn’t suffer much.’
In the pause, Clemence took the chance to look about her. A seventeenth-century tapestry covered one wall, the trumpet banners of an ancestor who had been High Sheriff of the Shire hung opposite, a leather-bound travelling chest with brass knobs stood in one corner, and on the mantelpiece was a gilt and ebony eight-day clock. She pictured these things disappearing one-by-one like the painting which had gone from the hall. He must dream of displeased forbears who had garnered these treasures.
‘Yes, I know – place is going to ruin,’ he said as if reading her thoughts. ‘How could it have come to this? Well, unlike the Somerlees we Fanshawes have not oiled our fingers on the cotton looms. And the value of land has been falling and falling. And Phyllis liked her dresses and jewels. Then bailing her three ne’er-do-well brothers out of debt took its toll.’
Clemence eyed the fretful hand which was poking from his blanket.
‘And buying shares in Smoky Mountain? At least you can blame the Somerlees for that.’
‘Ah, no, Clemmie. I bought the shares. I didn’t have to listen to Dickon.’ A smile was struggling to break through. Like a beclouded sun shining out and vanishing again. ‘You know, Clemmie, I’ve heard appalling rumours about conditions in the workhouses. Is this an opportunity, I wonder, to undertake a fact-finding mission since I might end up there myself before 1872 comes around? Well… in debtors’ prison at the very least.’
‘Oh, Fanny, surely it’s not as bad as that?’
; ‘Woodmancote is mortgaged to the rafters, Clemmie. It won’t be long before the bank’ll be foreclosing.’
Clemence wandered to the window as he rambled on.
‘Maybe Dickon will take me in as a dependent? He owes me as much, I daresay. And I’m Amathia’s cousin.’
‘There is not room at Eardingstowe to house all the bankrupts Richard owes!’ Clemence said.
‘No, I fancy not! Besides – I might have no money, but I’ve not lost my pride.’
The window where Clemence looked out from was in one of the wings. She could see most of the neat Carolinian mansion’s frontage and gardens. Really – from outdoors, Woodmancote looked in better fettle than Eardingstowe. What would in summer be luscious roses climbed the porticoed great chamber, and a brass sundial hung above the porch. A rill ran through the grounds. It passed so close to the edge of the house that Clemence could hear the tinkling of the water.
A ruby sun peeped through the dip in the Sussex downs. The ice clinging to the rose-stems, lawn, hedges and orchard trees glowed with a modest blush. A mistle thrush hovered, and plumped onto a branch, making a shower of powdery whiteness. A corn dolly tied to a post flapped in the wind – the harvesters’ offering to the goddess of the land so that rebirth should come. Bossy life was breaking out from wintry death.
‘Fanny… You know why I said yes to James Swynton when he asked me to marry him? Because Dickon wanted me to marry you.’ She turned around to face him. ‘I was sixteen and a rebel. Didn’t care to be pushed about by a big brother.’
Brandon stretched out a hand.
‘Come here, Clemence.’
She crossed the room and stood beside him.
‘I courted Phyllis because you’d chosen someone else,’ Brandon said. ‘Even after James was killed. I assumed that was what made you ill – losing a man you loved so much. Didn’t think I could compete with a love, even a dead love, like that.’
‘Fanny… I didn’t come here today just to pour out my heart to you…’
The inefficient tread of Fanshawe’s man was heard approaching. She waited while he shuffled in, laid down a tray, mopped up the spillage he caused in so doing, sniffed, blew his nose, and poured out the refreshments.
When he’d pottered out again, Clemence perched on the wing of Brandon’s chair. She downed gulps of sherry until a warm glow spread through her.
‘I’ve come with news you have likely not heard – cooped up here as you are. Half of Burke’s Peerage invested in Smoky Mountain, you know. You are in some exalted company.’
‘I daresay. But it don’t help me knowing that, does it, Clemmie?’
‘Philo was one of the biggest losers. Even Richard didn’t realise just how many shares Philo bought. The Bank of England has seized Kingsmede. Ardenne treasures, such as they are, will soon be going under the hammer at Christie’s and the Dorotheum.’
Brandon gave a short laugh.
‘The Consetts have been going to the dickens for years. We knew that, however much they tried to keep it quiet. What Philo’s lost on that cursed gold mine, he likely did not have in the first place. More mess for Dickon, I fear. But the Consetts will come out smiling. They always do.’
‘Not this time. Philo’s put a gun in his mouth.’
‘What…?’
‘A housemaid found him two days ago – in the Kingsmede drawing-room, in a pool of blood. Amathia is quite inconsolable. The carpet was rather valuable it seems.’ Fanny looked as if he wasn’t quite taking it in. Couldn’t he work it out? ‘Your father was the former duke’s next eldest brother, I believe, who married the Fanshawe heiress and took her name? Deary me – I never could keep up with the genealogies one has to listen to at dinner-parties. But I believe I got that right?’
‘Yes. So, I’m Duke of Ardenne, it seems.’ Brandon gave an unfunny laugh, and then sank his head in his hands. Another bankrupt estate and a disgraced title? Oh, that was just what he needed right now.
‘That’s partly why I’ve come – to break the news before the Ardenne lawyers get here. But there’s another reason too.’
Clemence stared into the flames for a few moments.
‘Look. My aunt did not invest in Smoky Mountain. Not for want of an offer. The Earl of Bedingfield tried to interest her – said he’d wield his influence on her behalf with someone right at the heart of Smoky Mountain. Dickon, probably, with hindsight. But Lysithea thought it sounded suspicious.’
‘Of course. One of the smartest people I know is Lizzy.’
‘She would settle your debts, though, Brandon. All of them. Pay off your mortgage, I feel sure.’
‘And why should the Countess of Schwangli offer me such charity?’
‘Because it is what I want, Fanny! We’ll sort out it all out, Lizzy and me. In exchange for something.’ She slipped her fingers into his. ‘You see… I actually quite liked being Duchess of Ardenne…’
Amathia peered around the study door.
Her husband sat slumped there, head in hands. A cider bottle lay on its side on the bureau before him, dripping its lees onto the carpet.
‘Dickon?’ Amathia spoke softly.
She repeated it, louder. Two blotchy, watery eyes rose to meet hers.
Amathia crossed to his side. He wore no jacket or waistcoat – only shirt and braces. The button of his trouser waistband, unable to cope with the burden, gaped guiltily.
‘You were not at breakfast. Or luncheon, Dickon.’
‘Skipping meals won’t harm me.’ Richard gave his belly a pat.
‘But this will.’
He suddenly sat up.
‘For heaven’s sake, woman! Fanny and I drank each other under the table as undergraduates! I can take my liquor.’
‘I didn’t mean the cider.’ Amathia nodded towards the chiffonier which stood to the side of his desk and which no-one but him had access to. ‘I know you have a supply of laudanum in there, Dickon. The servants all think it’s where you keep the key to the demon chamber. Suppose they’re right in a way.’
Amathia settled on the wing of the chair. She slipped an arm around his shoulder.
‘Dickon, you need help…’
‘Oh yes, Amathia, I do indeed!’ Richard let out a tragic laugh. He shifted his seat to ease his cursed rear-end pain. As if calamity was not enough – his haemorrhoids were back.
‘Will hiding in a fug of laudanum put your world to rights?’
He stared at his wife for a moment, and then ran a hand through his hair.
‘No. No, it won’t. I’m a coward as well as a dunderhead.’
‘You’re no coward, Dickon. If you were, you would have shot yourself like Philo.’
‘I still might.’
He looked past her to the window. Somewhere on the mere, bitterns could be heard calling yutter-yutter-yark. But could not be seen because fast snow was sweeping across the parkland. The marsh-lights could be made out though, glowing then vanishing.
His poor brother Carrie was out there still. They’d likely never find the body. If a Somerlee went missing in the mere, he was unlikely to be found. A new plaything for Jenny in her reedy realm.
‘Look at that brooding old tree, Amathia. Withstanding one more winter storm. How many must it have survived?’
‘Hundreds,’ said Amathia. ‘No, thousands. And the Somerlees are still here.’
‘Not for much longer. The yew is going to topple soon, and I’ll be the Somerlee to watch it fall… the Somerlee who brought about Eardingstowe’s ruin.’
A canine padded across from beside the fireless hearth, laid her head in his lap, and whined. He fondled her furry ears.
‘At least I haven’t let you down, old girl,’ he said to the dog.
‘But, Dickon, if you’ve lost money it’s hardly the end of the family. Think what disasters that old yew must have seen over the centuries �
�� and we’re still here!’
‘Amathia!’ Richard sagged forwards, brow in hand. ‘If only losing money was all it was!’
‘Tell me, Dickon,’ said Amathia, ‘how much, exactly, have you lost?’
‘Oh, we could survive. If I sold Gainsborough’s Black Beauty, it might keep you in frocks for a twelvemonth. But the money isn’t the issue, really. It’s the disgrace which will ruin me… us.’
‘What then, Dickon? What have you done?’ Amathia demanded.
‘Amathia – I’ve been selling shares in a company I thought I was part owner of. Smoky Mountain. A gold mine.’ He eased himself upright and reached for her hand. ‘But it was a fraud! And I had no inkling! Never smelt a whiff of suspicion! And now the crook who flimped me has disappeared without trace – and I’m left to face the angry victims!’
Amathia’s eyes grew wide. Her lips parted.
‘I heard of this gold mine, you know. Lady Wycherley was gushing about the profit she’d made. She’d invested half her late husband’s estate.’
‘She and about a thousand others, Amathia. I was taken in by a rogue. But all the hundreds of fooled investors who’ve lost money – life savings! – won’t believe that.
‘And think of all the others who will suffer along with them. It’s as if an earthquake has struck and Smoky Mountain has collapsed into rubble! And the climbers on its precipice are pulling others into its maw – all those roped to them. Servants might lose livelihoods, tenants their homes.’
Richard righted the bottle, and downed whatever drops were left.
‘Tempestibus hiemis defendimus…’ he mumbled and began to cry.
‘God, he even convinced me he was a Wykehamist!’ he sobbed into clasped, trembling fingers. ‘The hollering horde’ll soon be beating on Eardingstowe’s door, and unlike the cormorant I cannot fly away to sea.’