by Mary Malloy
There had been some very hard times in the first half of the twentieth century, Helen told her. Farm land in Somerset and real estate in London had been sold, some of it, she thought, quite valuable. In the last few decades much of the family’s fortune seemed to have been recovered through investments.
“That’s what Richard does,” she said. “He moves the money around and has made piles of it.”
“And Edmund works.”
“Yes, he does. But I think he would have become a doctor in any case. He certainly isn’t in it for the money, and second sons. . . .” She left the sentence hanging, as if it was obvious what happened to younger children in an aristocratic household.
The conversation turned again to the two Irish sisters, and when Helen began once more to prod her for details about her great grandmother, Lizzie felt that she couldn’t carry the pretense of a familial relationship any farther. She was growing too fond of the older woman.
“I don’t think my great grandmother could be related to your grandmother,” she said softly. “Manning was her married name, not her maiden name.”
Helen gave her a look that was hard to read. “And what was her maiden name?”
Lizzie felt slightly uncomfortable giving the answer. “I’m not completely sure,” she said, “but I think it was Hatton.” She gave Helen a wry smile. “Now that is a weird coincidence, isn’t it?”
Helen looked very thoughtful. It seemed that she might have more to say on the subject, but couldn’t easily formulate her thoughts or questions. Lizzie felt, in any case, that she should wrap up the evening; the Jeffries were very early risers. She brought the tea dishes to the sink. Helen got up to see her out of the kitchen, and Lizzie impulsively kissed her on the cheek.
“Thank you,” she said. “I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed the evening.”
“Maybe you’ll join us again,” Helen answered.
“I’d like that.”
As she was leaving, Helen said her name again.
Lizzie turned around and waited for her to speak.
“Lizzie,” she started again, “We talked earlier about those Hatton girls who wrote the poems I saw today. . . .” She hesitated again. “What is your interest in them?”
“Only curiosity,” Lizzie answered. She could tell that Helen was really concerned. “I wondered if they could be related to something Francis Hatton said in a letter to his sister, but couldn’t find any real connection.”
Helen nodded and seemed satisfied.
“Why do you ask?” Lizzie continued.
“I just think that you need to be careful about following down any path that makes you identify yourself too closely with them.”
Lizzie was completely perplexed by this. “Why would I?” she said.
“It’s an inherited thing, I think.”
“What is?” Lizzie demanded in a stronger tone than she intended.
Helen immediately backed away. “I don’t know,” she stammered. “I can’t really give you any more information. I don’t understand what happened to them, I just worry about you getting involved in it.”
Lizzie liked Helen, but was losing patience with the vague gothic quality of the present conversation and again said a warm good night to the woman before leaving.
As she left the kitchen and passed through the Hattons’ family dining room to the grand hallway with its elaborate parquet floor and double staircase, Lizzie felt the change of station in a very pronounced way. She wondered if the Jeffries felt it each time they moved from their part of the house to George’s.
Helen’s comments nagged at her. The woman clearly had suspicions about something, but could not commit to just saying outright what they were. Her implication seemed to be that she thought Lizzie might not only be related to herself, but also to the Hattons. The coincidence of the two names was certainly strange, and Lizzie couldn’t deny that there was surprising satisfaction in contemplating a relationship to this house.
On her second night at Hengemont she had tried to sneak into the medieval hall, but thought that she would be embarrassed if found there. Now she felt a strong desire to see it again, and more comfortable about the distant whereabouts of both George and the Jeffries, and also with her own place as a guest if she encountered any of them. She went boldly and directly to the doors beneath the double staircase and opened both sets, first those that exited the Georgian hallway, and then the big oak door into the medieval hall beyond it.
Except for two small night lights, the massive room was dark. Her steps echoed on the stone floor as she went to a lamp on a table along one wall and turned it on. The light barely penetrated to the ends of the room; this was a space designed to be lit by dozens of torches.
Lizzie walked to the center of the hall and looked in each direction. Her eyes scanned up the tapestries that dominated two of the walls, and across to the musicians’ gallery above where she had come into the room. The details of the carving along its front face were obscured in the dim light.
What would it be like to know a thousand years of your own family’s history? It was a powerful notion for Lizzie, more powerful than a connection to wealth or position. To be one of these Hattons, rather than one of her Hattons—who couldn’t remember back two generations—that would be something.
• • • • •
Despite the excitement of having found the missing pages to Francis Hatton’s logbook, Lizzie did not feel that she had a clear direction of where to take the project next. Francis Hatton’s story was disturbing, and his response so poignantly sad. George’s response had also taken her by surprise. His discomposure the afternoon before, when he learned about the corpse of the young Chief Eltatsy, had kept her from asking about other references in Hatton’s text, especially his odd reference to another corpse “that could not be buried in the family tomb.”
By the middle of the morning, George had made no appearance and Helen informed Lizzie that he would not be coming down to lunch. Despite their warm exchange in the Jeffries’ kitchen the night before, Helen was all business again this day, as she offered to bring Lizzie a tray in the library.
The day was spent transcribing and studying the missing pages of the journal, and Lizzie looked forward with eager anticipation to Edmund’s return. He would, she felt, be her best source of information for solving the puzzles in the text, especially since his father seemed to be avoiding the subject.
When she heard the sound of his arrival in the hall, she collected the papers and returned them to their hidden compartment in the box so that she and Edmund could share the whole experience of discovery. The latch on the box was just snapping shut when the wrong brother entered the room. It was Richard.
Lizzie felt a knot form in her stomach, the bile well up in the back of her throat. She nodded at him curtly, he ignored her, and she turned back to her work. The atmosphere in the room could not have been more uncomfortable. Richard poured himself a drink and sat in one of the wing chairs opposite the fireplace. Lizzie could sense his clenched jaw moving tensely back and forth. Once again she asked herself where the hostility toward her could possibly come from, and there seemed two possible explanations. The first was that he was just an arrogant son-of-a-bitch who disdained anyone below his class, a “snotty twit,” as Helen had called him. The second possibility was that he did not think she was either important enough or smart enough to put the material from Captain Cook’s voyage into a package that would be publishable or exhibitable by the British Museum. According to Tom Clark, George had made the decision to hire her, apparently without hesitation and without consulting his son, when he saw her book. Admittedly there were a number of scholars better known in the field than Lizzie—including Tom Clark himself—who must have been preferable to the snobbish Richard.
After several minutes of tense silence, George arrived. He was obviously surprised to see his son. “Mrs. Jeffries just told me you we
re here, Richard,” he said. “I didn’t expect to see you back again this winter.”
“I’m still concerned about this British Museum project.”
Lizzie gave George a little wave of greeting and turned back to her computer, though her attention was focused behind rather than in front of her. She didn’t think that there was any physical exchange of greeting between the two men, not even a handshake; certainly there was not any sort of embrace.
“Have you asked Lizzie about her progress?” George asked his son.
Richard drained his drink and set the glass on the table beside him.
“No,” he said cooly, “she’s your employee, not mine. I thought it was best to ask you.”
Lizzie was hoping that George would put Richard in his place, but to her disappointment he once again acted as if there was nothing amiss in the relationship between Richard and herself.
“She’s found some wonderful things, Richard,” he babbled, “and she’s shared everything with me.” He brought the decanter of brandy and two more glasses to the table. “Let’s have a drink,” he said, “and then Lizzie you can show Richard what you found yesterday.”
He poured the drinks and Lizzie took a gulp. She felt the heat of anger retreat and be replaced with the flush of alcohol. She forced herself to calmly show Richard the missing logbook pages.
He read them without any change of expression. “Interesting,” he said, “but I don’t think you should include any of this in an exhibition or book.”
Lizzie was speechless for several seconds before she was able to sputter a response. “What?” she said, shocked by his response. “It’s the best part of the story. It should definitely be included.”
“I don’t think so,” Richard responded, clearly working hard to control his rising anger. “You weren’t hired to expose our ancestor as a thief and a grave robber.”
“I thought I was hired to find out what Francis Hatton did on his Pacific Voyage and describe it.”
George finally began to show his son that he was upset by the direction of the conversation.
“I don’t see what your problem is Richard. This happened more than two hundred years ago, and there is every indication that Francis was filled with remorse for his actions.”
“I just don’t like it,” he said.
“Well, this whole conversation is premature anyway, because Lizzie hasn’t finished her research.”
Lizzie sat silently through the exchange, wishing she was home in Boston or anywhere besides this room.
George turned to her. “Lizzie, my dear,” he said politely, “you go ahead with the work as you see fit. When you have finished your research we’ll have a chance to look at everything together and decide what to do next.”
“Thank you, George.” She replaced the papers in the box and closed the latch, turned off her computer, picked up all of her file folders and, clutching them in her arms, excused herself and went to her room.
• • • • •
Lizzie sat in her room for more than an hour fuming. She wiped at tears of frustration as they welled up in her eyes, determined not to let them roll down her cheeks and start her sobbing. She would not give Richard the satisfaction of making her cry.
Her earlier analysis of Richard’s hostility and what lay beneath it seemed somewhat more understandable after his recent outburst. He was both a snotty twit and unimpressed with her credentials. She had never thought that another scholar would do a better job than herself, and she did not think that Tom Clark or any other potential candidate for the job (almost certainly male and English) would bow to Richard’s ridiculous demands to hide information once it had been uncovered. His expectation that he would be able to control the story once he made it public was completely arrogant and unrealistic. And why would he want to?
George had said that Richard hoped to enhance his position on the London cultural scene through the presentation of Francis Hatton’s collection and journal. Lizzie figured that the Hatton name was old enough and distinguished enough to put Richard in the right social circles, but perhaps new money and foreign money, which he would want to attract for his investment business, required that he bring himself to attention with the sort of splash and cachet that was assured with a big new exhibition that had the Hatton name at its center. If that were the case, she thought, then he would want his family to appear noble and important, and the corpse of Eltatsy could come back to haunt him.
Lizzie did not return downstairs again until Helen came to tell her that dinner was almost ready and that Edmund had arrived. His presence would, Lizzie knew, lighten the mood in the house. Unfortunately, when she got to the dining room, only Richard was there.
“Do you always eat your meals with my father, Miss Manning?” he asked peevishly.
“Yes, of course,” she answered, “and I would prefer it if you would call me Dr. Manning.”
“Just what are your intentions here?” he demanded.
“I’m here to work on a project for your father and then leave,” she answered, matching his tone. “What’s your point?”
“Well, I’ve seen secretaries set their sights on their employers in the past,” he said, “and all this ‘Lizzie’ and ‘George’ business seems more than casual.”
“Oh for God’s sake,” she said. “Grow up.”
“I guess you’re finally noticing that I would be a rather old son for you.”
“Thank you so much for pointing that out,” she said with mock seriousness. “My husband and I were considering adopting an upper-class twit, but now that I notice, you are too old for consideration.”
Edmund had entered the room behind his brother and now he laughed out loud. “Touché, Lizzie,” he said. “And for God’s sake, Dick, don’t be such an ass!” He smiled at Lizzie and she relaxed a bit.
George arrived to hear the last exchange and ordered Richard to apologize, which he did in the most perfunctory manner. “So you’re married,” he said, as if a superficial attempt at civility would make up for his horrendous rudeness. “And where is Mr. Manning?”
Edmund came and graciously took Lizzie’s arm and lavished consideration on her during the meal to make up for his brother’s crass behavior. After dinner, the two of them went to the library where Lizzie showed him her discoveries of the previous day. His response was exactly what Lizzie expected and wished for: enthusiasm, regret, sympathy for both Francis Hatton and for the family of Eltatsy, and curiosity about what had happened. He had none of his brother’s concern about reputation, no hesitation that the story should be told as found, no doubts about Lizzie’s judgment in handling the information.
Edmund and Lizzie were admiring the miniature when George and Richard joined them. They were deep in conversation, but Lizzie heard George shush his son as they entered the room.
“Enough!” he said angrily, “I won’t have it discussed further.”
“But is it her maiden name or her married name?” she heard Richard whisper.
Lizzie and Edmund pretended to be engrossed by the tiny portrait that they were putting back into the Chinese box, but the tension in the air was palpable. George resorted once again to liquor as the cure for the room’s bad temper. In addition to whiskey, brandy, and sherry, he even offered to order up some tea or coffee from Mrs. Jeffries.
“What do you fancy, Lizzie? We have some liqueurs in the salon, if you would prefer one of them.”
“Actually, I’d prefer wine, if there is still some left from dinner,” she said.
“I think there was,” George said graciously. “Richard, would you please go see?”
Richard made a bow to his father and left the room. When he returned several minutes later he had a bottle in his hand and offered to pour for Lizzie. She thanked him, the four acted civilly for ten minutes, and then Richard departed for his own room; George followed soon after.
&
nbsp; Lizzie took advantage of the time alone with Edmund to return one more time to Francis Hatton’s letter to his sister.
“What’s going on here?” she asked, pointing to the passage about the Crusader.
Edmund poured himself another drink and held up the bottle of wine to Lizzie. She nodded and he filled her glass again as well.
“Sit here by the fire,” he said, “and I will tell you a story.”
Always somewhat susceptible to the effects of alcohol, Lizzie seldom drank this much. After two glasses of wine at dinner, this now made her fourth for the evening. She was finding it particularly potent, but it was also giving her a nice buzz; she felt slightly flirtatious with Edmund and, most important, Richard was entirely gone from her thoughts. She stretched herself out comfortably in her chair as Edmund began to speak.
“One of my ancestors, whose name I can’t remember, lived in this house in the middle of the thirteenth century,” Edmund began. “He had two sons, Richard and John. Richard, the oldest, was engaged to marry a young woman named Elizabeth something-or-other.”
He stood beside the fireplace and Lizzie looked up at him.
“The last name doesn’t matter,” he explained before continuing. “Elizabeth came to Hengemont to meet her husband-to-be and ended up falling madly in love with his younger brother.”
“A scandal,” Lizzie said, “and true love. Good elements of a story.”
Edmund nodded and continued. “But John, the younger son, was pledged to go on a Crusade with his father, and anyway the fair young maiden was supposed to marry Richard, and so it didn’t make any sense for her to change horses as it were.”
Lizzie made a snort of laughter. “Excellent metaphor,” she said. She was really feeling the effect of the wine, but did not decline when Edmund drained what was left of the bottle into her glass.
“As luck would have it, Elizabeth had a younger sister with her, and she was pretty cute too, and eventually Richard was persuaded to marry her.”
“Just like that?”