Hugo opened the box and gazed in at a pair of Purdey percussion duelling pistols. The octagonal barrels were finely patterned, the locks and mounts elegantly engraved, the butts saw-handled and deftly carved. About the sleek opposing lines of the two weapons nestling in their green-baize compartments there hovered still, more than forty years after their last fateful outing, a strange, seductive aura that was a grudging love for the means and methods of vengeful death.
Hugo lifted one of the pistols out and weighed it in his hand, feeling the crafted balance of it, sensing the treacherous perfection of its purpose. Then he held it at arm’s length, pulled back the cock with his thumb, imagined James Norton standing in front of him, squeezed the trigger, heard the lock strike – and found his target.
VIII
Emily Sumner had concluded an exhausting awestruck tour of the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence in great need of sunlight and fresh air. Emerging by the south door of the cathedral into the open dazzling expanse of the Piazza del Duomo, she paused for a moment to let her eyes adjust to the sudden brightness. As she stood there, she was surprised to see, a short distance away, the retreating figure of Sir James Davenall, whom she had believed to be enjoying a late breakfast with Constance at their hotel, the pair having long since professed an inability to keep pace with Emily’s arduous schedule of sight-seeing.
Before she could call out, James had reached the doorway at the foot of the campanile, near the western end of the cathedral. Stepping in, he tossed a coin to the attendant and disappeared up the stairs. Emily had not intended to ascend the tower until later in the day, but, seeing her friend, she changed her mind and decided to follow him.
The stairs were steep and ill-lit, the treads shallow and worn in places. Accordingly, Emily made slow progress. At every bend, she looked ahead for a sight of James, but to no avail. Eventually, on the third flight, she observed that some relief was in prospect: the stairs led up to what appeared to be an open floor about a quarter of the way up the tower. She pressed on towards it.
It was as she neared the doorway at the top of the stairs that she heard James’s voice, raised and lacking its usual gentle tone. ‘I intend to marry her. Is that clear enough?’
Emily pulled up. What could it mean? James had entered the campanile alone, yet now he was talking to somebody, apparently about Constance. From the step where she had halted, she could see the flagged floor beyond the stairs, glaringly bright in the daylight that reached it through tall windows set between the pillars and buttresses of the tower. Nobody was visible, but James must be close by, so well had his voice carried. Emily was about to venture further when she heard James speak again.
‘You are entitled to reproach me. Of course you are. But I have come to love her and she to love me. I cannot betray her.’
Emily had to thrust her hands against the stone wall either side of the stairs to steady herself. Breathless now from more than the climb, she craned her head and listened.
‘I admit that. But I must weigh her needs against yours.’
Emily realized that she could hear only James’s share of the conversation. She edged closer and, this time, caught the other’s words. ‘Have you forgotten all that I did for you?’ It was a woman’s voice, young and almost certainly English.
‘I have forgotten nothing. But, sometimes, what I remember seems like another life, not my own.’
‘You promised me a share of all you gained.’
‘You may have it. As much as you want. Regularly, via the bank in Zurich.’
‘It’s not money I want. I want to be what you said you would make me: the wife of Sir James Davenall.’
Emily clapped her hand to her mouth to prevent herself crying out. What was this? She had come to trust if not to love James as much as Constance. Who was he talking to? What was she to him? ‘I cannot help it,’ James replied as she listened. ‘You will survive without me. Constance would not.’
‘Have you any idea what I have done to help you?’
‘Don’t think I’m not grateful, but—’
‘I won’t let you marry her!’ The voice was suddenly harsh and insistent.
A brief silence fell, during which Emily could hear no sound but the pounding of her own heart, then James replied: ‘You can’t stop me. Not now. Follow me as long as you like. Dog my every footstep. It won’t make any difference. I’m sorry. So very, very sorry. Our love is dead, and nothing you can say or do will bring it back to life.’
‘I won’t let you marry her.’
‘For God’s sake, be reasonable.’
‘Why should I be? So that you can have all and more than your due? Be warned: I know more about you than you do yourself. If you go through with this, if you marry that woman—’
‘I will, believe me.’
‘Very well. You will. But, when you do, remember that you bring the consequences on your own head.’
‘What do you mean by that? What consequences?’
‘You’ll find out. I’ll make sure you do.’
‘This is foolishness. We—’
‘I won’t follow you any more. But I will wait for you. Not long, but long enough, should you see reason. If not …’
Silence was re-imposed. Emily felt trapped, physically as well as mentally, between flight and confrontation, between complicity and accusation. She could not turn and run, nor could she go on. She could not guess what looks or meanings were passing between James and his companion now they were not speaking, nor could she make sense of all that she had heard.
‘I love you,’ the woman said abruptly.
‘I love another,’ James replied.
‘Then, goodbye. And God help you.’
Suddenly, in a flurry of skirts and a scattering of powdered stone, a figure burst on to the staircase, blotting out the light behind her and plunging down the steps. She hardly seemed to notice Emily as she brushed past her in the darkness and rushed on towards the turning and the next flight beyond.
James did not follow. When Emily looked up at the doorway, there was no sign of him. Perhaps he had gone on up the tower. Perhaps he had stayed where he was. Unable to bear the uncertainty any longer, Emily took several deep breaths, composed herself as best she could and climbed the steps into the daylight.
James was standing on the far side of the tower, leaning against the parapet and smoking a cigarette as he gazed out across the city. He could hardly have looked, in his panama and cream linen suit, a more perfectly composed or untroubled figure. It was scarcely possible to believe that he had just been involved even in the mildest of disagreements.
Some movement caught his eye as Emily approached. He whirled round – and smiled broadly. ‘Emily! What a surprise!’ She could detect no tension or unease in his voice as he added: ‘How long have you been there?’
This was the moment, if there would ever be a moment. This was her chance, the only one she would ever have, to challenge him on her sister’s behalf, to call him to account for whatever he had kept from them. Yet, even as she began to frame the words, she began to see and fear the consequences. Constance was so happy at last, so perfectly contented, and James had said nothing disloyal to her: if what she had witnessed was what it seemed to be – a secret quietus with a woman from his past – why not leave it at that? What could anybody gain by dragging it into the open?
‘Is there something wrong?’
‘No,’ Emily replied hastily. ‘Somebody coming down as I was coming up nearly bowled me over, that’s all. And I didn’t expect to find you here.’
James smiled sheepishly. ‘Felt the need of a stroll before breakfast. Would you care to accompany me to the top?’
‘Yes. That would be delightful.’
And so they went on, neither giving the other the slightest hint that anything was amiss. From the summit of the tower, they admired the dome of the cathedral, identified Florentine landmarks and gazed about at the hazy rim of the surrounding hills. James was, as ever, charming and so
licitous, the ideal guide, the perfect companion, the considerate friend. When Emily glanced at him, she still saw the man whom she regarded as her sister’s rightful husband, but she also heard, above his genial commonplace remarks, the voice in which he had denied the love of another. Then she realized, with the shock of a brutally shattered illusion, that she did not really know him at all. He had become what she had refused to believe he was: a stranger.
IX
Davenall & Partners,
4 Bellows Court,
High Holborn,
LONDON WC.
24th September 1883
Dear James,
I have today received your cable from Rome indicating that you will be returning to this country around the middle of next month. I trust your decision to come home earlier than planned does not mean there is something amiss.
I thought it best to write this letter now for you to read upon your arrival, since there is every likelihood that I will not be on hand to welcome you in person. I have arranged to visit Carntrassna early next month in order to satisfy myself that Kennedy’s management of the estate serves your best interests. I have, of course, no way of knowing how long I will need to spend there, nor, indeed, what I may learn in the process.
Until we meet again, I remain
Ever Yours,
Richard
Chapter Seventeen
I
THE STEAMER IN which Constance had travelled with James and Emily from Naples docked in London on a still grey October morning. Constance suspected that she would have found her first sight of London’s drab relentless skyline depressing enough, after the warmth and colour of Italy, even without the added sadness of knowing that it meant she and James must soon be parted. It was small wonder, then, that her heart sank as the dockside approached.
Curiously, she could not escape the impression that her two companions were relieved to be home. The proximity imposed by shipboard life had reinforced a suspicion she had first felt in Florence: that James and Emily were, in some strange way, at odds with each other. They had done their best to keep it from her, but she had guessed it all the same. It explained why they had argued in favour of cutting short their holiday, which she had hoped to extend to Greece, and why, now, they did not seem to share her sorrow that the voyage was over.
Constance had not expected her father to bring Patience up from Salisbury to meet them. In her present mood, indeed, she preferred that reunion to be postponed. She had, however, assumed that Richard Davenall would be on hand to greet them. Instead, when they left the tender, only Richard’s clerk, Benson, was there to welcome them. Benson had a letter for James from Richard, which James read to her during the cab-ride away from the docks. Richard, it seemed, had gone to Ireland on estate business, news which James appeared to take amiss.
Such, at least, was Constance’s fleeting impression, though, in her distracted state, she paid it little heed. Her thoughts centred now on how best to tolerate the brief separation which she and James were obliged to endure before they could marry. Compared with that, even the coolness she had detected between James and Emily faded into insignificance. As for what Richard might be doing in Ireland, it was the last question likely to occupy her mind. So far as she was concerned, it had no bearing on her future, no bearing at all.
II
It had rained heavily during the night. Richard had been woken several times by gusts rattling against the windows of his room. But now, when he parted the curtains and looked out across the rank lawns of Carntrassna House, it was hard to believe, so blue and untroubled was the sky, so calm the distant waters of Lough Mask. He wrenched up the sash and breathed in the sweet mild air, wondering how long the serenity would last before some engulfing storm rushed down from the mountains behind the house. It would not be long, he felt sure. If he had learned little else in his three days at Carntrassna, it was that nothing there could be relied upon.
He turned back to the wash-stand, poured some water into the bowl and immersed his face in it to goad his sluggish brain into alertness. He was growing too old for such far-flung journeys as this, he told himself, too reliant on the orderly predictable ways of London. Carntrassna, with its vistas of dark peat and brooding mountains, its vivid, ever changing weather and inky-black impenetrable nights, had unnerved him.
Dabbing his face with a towel, Richard remembered his arrival at Westport station and the ride from there to the house in Kennedy’s dog-cart as if they had happened an age ago. He had got the measure of the man since and knew now that he had been anxious to impress Richard with both his diligence and his difficulties.
‘That’s where they found Lord Ardilaun’s bailiffs last year,’ Kennedy had said, pointing out across the lough as they caught their first sight of it from the muddy rutted track. ‘Trussed up in sacks and drowned like runts in a litter.’
‘It seems hard to believe such violent acts could be committed amidst all this natural beauty,’ Richard had lamely replied.
‘Don’t let the look of the land deceive you, sir. It’s a treacherous place, particularly for those of us doing our duty. You never know when Captain Moonlight may come calling.’
It was true enough, Richard did not doubt. Yet, if so, why had Kennedy – and the local constabulary – been so certain Mary Davenall’s murder had not been politically motivated? The journey to Carntrassna had passed the neglected Church of Ireland chapel where generations of Fitzwarrens, Mary amongst them, had been buried; and there, pausing to pay his respects at the graveside, Richard had challenged Kennedy on the point.
‘You’re sure the Fenians had no hand in this?’
‘Sure as I can be, sir. Lady Davenall was well liked and respected. Many of the older tenants still speak gratefully of her kindness to them during the famine years.’
‘Even so …’
‘And Fenians wouldn’t steal jewellery. No, sir, it’s my belief the old lady disturbed a burglar.’
Richard had stooped to inspect the inscription on the stone: MARY ROSALIE FITZWARREN, 1798–1882. It had seemed as pointedly stark to him then as it seemed perversely inaccurate now. ‘Why is only her maiden name used?’ he had asked.
‘That was her wish, sir. She was most insistent on the point. I suppose …’
‘Yes?’
‘I suppose she regarded herself as more of a Fitzwarren than a Davenall. That’s all I can think.’
Patently, it was so. Richard had never met the old lady, but her determination to exile herself from the Davenalls was mirrored in the overgrown forgotten setting she had chosen for her final resting-place. Even their name, in the end, she had discarded.
Richard returned to the window and gazed down the drive. There was Kennedy, in the dog-cart, starting early for an appointment in Castlebar. He would be likeable enough, Richard conceded, if he were not so anxious to please. As it was, this would be the first day when he would not be obliged to accompany the man on his endless rounds of the estate, when he would be free to begin the task he had come to Carntrassna to perform.
Small thanks to Kennedy, even so. It had been left, in fact, to the man’s wife to give Richard the clue he needed. She had talked more willingly than her husband of their predecessors, the Lennoxes, and Richard had asked her what memories she had of them.
‘None at all, sir. They were gone by the time we arrived in these parts.’
‘Did Lady Davenall speak well of them?’
‘She hardly mentioned them, sir.’
‘Do you know why they left?’
‘To emigrate, we were told.’
‘Not a step you’ve ever considered?’
‘No, sir. Of course, we don’t have a child to think of. The prospects here for—’
‘The Lennoxes had a child?’
‘A son, sir, yes. A bright boy, apparently. They must have been looking to his future when they decided to try their luck in Canada.’
Canada. And a son. More than twenty years ago. A short step from Richard’s room took
him to the landing, where an oil painting of Mary Davenall hung high on an ill-lit wall. He had stared at it several times since his arrival and now did so again, puzzling over the secretive, reclusive, hidden personality of its subject. A handsome woman, he could not deny, somewhere in her mid-forties when the portrait was made, to judge by her appearance and the style of her dress, red-haired and fiery-eyed, confident and domineering, not at all the sort to hide herself from the world. Why had she done so? Why had she been killed?
‘How do you know the Lennoxes had a son?’ Richard had asked Mrs Kennedy. ‘Did Lady Davenall mention him?’
‘No, sir. Not that I can recollect. But, shortly after we’d moved into Murrismoyle, a gentleman from Galway came calling, under the impression that the Lennoxes still lived there. Evidently, he was tutor to their son. He seemed quite taken aback that they hadn’t told him of their plans.’
‘A gentleman, you say?’
‘A very learned gentleman, sir. That I know, because he still writes articles in the Connaught Tribune from time to time. Mr Kennedy often reads them to me. They’re very edifying pieces.’
The more Richard learned, the less he understood. As agent for the estate, Lennox would have been little better than a glorified servant. What business had he engaging a tutor for his son? What business had he being paid ten thousand pounds by Sir Gervase Davenall? Perhaps the one man who had known the Lennoxes and could still be found might give him the answer.
‘Can one of the men drive me to Claremorris, Mrs Kennedy? I wish to take the train to Galway.’
‘To Galway, sir?’
‘Yes. I may spend the night there before returning.’
Waiting on the front steps of the house for the gig to be hitched and brought round from the stables, Richard felt himself shivering, for all the mildness of the morning. Carntrassna, with its peeling stucco and clinging shanks of ivy, its weed-clogged gardens and gaunt shuttered remoteness, had eaten into his reserves of self-discipline. But that was not all. Something else was clawing at his resolution, something more potent by far than the air of resentful dereliction Mary Davenall had conferred on her family home.
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