Inheritance

by Ellen Kefferty

  “Miss Pimlico?”

  Edith looked up to see a short middle–aged woman standing before her. The woman wore large, functional glasses and clothes which were so boring they would defy further description. Edith stood and towered over her.

  “Yes.” Edith replied with a nod, uncertain whether to offer a handshake.

  “You say you have an appointment?”

  “Yes, remember, I emailed you on Monday?”

  “To come at half two?” Lynne furrowed her brow. “I think I suggested that we, meaning the college, would be quiet after that time. For your own research.”

  “But I don’t know how to...can’t you help me?”

  “There’s a fee. And a wait.” Lynne ruffled through the leaflets in the waiting area. “It’s quite reasonable.” She pulled one out and handed it to Edith.

  “A wait?” Edith stared down at the leaflet in disbelief.

  “A few weeks, not much.”

  “But I can’t wait, this is important.” Edith stooped without thinking, hoping to look Lynne straight in the eye.

  “Really?” Lynne leant backward, away from Edith’s stare. “The college deals in centuries, Miss Pimlico, a few weeks is nothing.”

  “Somebody’s life depends upon it!” Edith raised her hand to her mouth. There was no easy way to explain the outburst.

  Lynne stifled a laugh. Speech failed her. Laughter seeped from a tight–lipped mouth. Edith, even in her shame, began to laugh too.

  “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

  “Come on then! It’s good to see a young person so interested in heraldry, even if you might be taking it a little too far.”

  With a friendly tap on her elbow she led Edith through the far door and along hallway. After a sharp u–turn they climbed a flight of stairs.

  “I’m sorry to lead you in through the back way,” Lynne explained, “but there’s a group tour and it’s best to avoid them.”

  “No worries.”

  “Might I ask, you’re not related to the Pimlicos of Bedmond Neville, are you?”

  “Not that I’m aware of. Are you a friend of theirs?”

  “No. Not quite.” Lynne sighed.

  “I’ll ask my Dad, if you would like. But I don’t know much about his family, other than that they’re from Gorton.”

  Lynne looked back over her shoulder as she continued the climb. “Gorton–under–Dove in Herefordshire? Near Wingfield Abbey?”

  “No. Gorton, Manchester. Near the greyhound track.”

  At the top of the stairs they entered a hallway with numerous doors. Brass plates attached to each gave impressive–sounding title. One of the doors lay open, revealing an empty room beyond.

  After a right turn at the far end they descended more stairs. A small plain door stood at the bottom. The moment Lynne opened it Edith gasped.

  Beyond lay a long, high–ceilinged room with book–lined walls. Not small paperbacks like those she read on the tram. But tall, thin tomes which, judging by the man struggling with one at a far shelf, had some weight to them. The bookshelves stood ten foot tall. An upper gallery encircled the room, giving access to another layer of bookshelves. Eight tables stood on the floor of the library, some laden with books outspread. Readers searching for recondite knowledge.

  Despite the quietness of the room, Lynne spoke with full voice. Nobody turned to look at her in disgust.

  “Let us take a reading table, then you can show me what you have.” Lynne led Edith to a table in the middle. “You did bring an image of the coat of arms, didn’t you?”

  “Erm, yes.” Edith from her bag a piece of paper onto which she had copied the arms from Samuel’s business card. By hiding the source it prevented any trouble. He might be using it without permission. Edith feared that it somehow constituted a criminal offence.

  “These are the arms I need to identify.”

  “Ah,” Lynne let out a disappointed sound, “this is an escutcheon, or a shield, not a full coat of arms. It is an elementary mistake, but not to worry. We can still identify it.”

  “That’s good.” Edith tried to catch Lynne’s eye but she was intent on the picture of the shield.

  “Vert, two chevronels argent between three plates.”

  “What?” Edith looked around wondering whether Lynne was speaking to somebody else. Somebody who understood what the hell she had just said.

  “That’s the shield in this image.” Lynne glanced up and smiled. “Heraldry has a special language to succinctly describe any possible design. Saves having to draw them all out.”

  “Right.” Edith grinned like an idiot and nodded deeply.

  “Though we do actually draw them all, as it happens.” Lynne raised a hand and swept it slowly through the air as though she were running her fingers along of the spines of the books. “These books are all armorials. They record the designs of all the coats of arms, and shields, and various forms of heraldry, ever used in England. We have another library for flags. And a vast depository for genealogy and pedigrees.”

  “Impressive.” Edith span her head round and took in the room once more. “So do you know where this shield comes from?”

  “As a matter of fact, I don’t.” Lynne giggled incongruously. “There are thousands upon thousands of such shields. I certainly can search for it, and will almost certainly find it. This is why we recommend people use our search service, it really does take time to look. I’m not sure I can help you today.”

  “Okay,” Edith sighed, unwilling to waste her journey given how much the ticket had cost, “can I have a look through myself?” She pointed hopefully to a bearded man coming down the staircase from the upper gallery, labouring under a huge volume.

  “Only staff and registered researchers can access the volumes directly. Some of them are very old and fragile. You would need an induction to handling them. Which I suppose I could do...” Lynne likewise pointed to the bearded man, wincing as he slammed his volume down on a reading desk. “Robert, be careful!”

  “My apologies, Lynne.” Robert caught sight of Edith. He abandoned his book and approached. “They’re very heavy,” he smiled at Edith, “I don’t know how Lynne shifts them around. I can hardly manage it.”

  “I’m surprised you’re not all muscle working here.”

  Robert wasn’t paying attention to her answer. Instead he craned his neck to inspect the picture Lynne held in her hand. “Vert, two chevronels argent between three plates. Hmm, interesting.”

  “Is it?” Edith hoped to have attracted a recruit to her cause. “Do you recognize it?”

  Robert leant down and whispered something in Lynne’s ear.

  “Well, go get it then!” Lynne’s voice was mischievous. She had just agreed to something she shouldn’t have. Robert shot off and back up the staircase while Lynne turned back to Edith. “Our Robert thinks he knows where the shield is from. You may be in luck.”

  Robert returned just a few minutes later with a small book as thick as a spread hand. He laid it carefully on the reading desk in front of Edith and moved aside to let Lynne speak.

  “Dugdale’s Ancient Baronies,” Lynne began, “it records in detail all English peerages created before 1337.”

  “Why 1337?” Edith asked more to maintain their enthusiasm than for enlightenment. They seemed to like the fact that others might take an interest in their obscure work.

  “The start of the Hundred Years’ War,” Robert butted in, “Edward the Third reorganized and expanded the peerage significantly. He created six earls in one day in 1337, diluting the exclusiveness of that rank. He also often ennobled men of very humble backgrounds. Thus those peerages created before that date have a special, shall we say, cache. Ancient baronies.”

  “So you think this shield is of an ancient barony?” Edith noticed Lynne flicking through the book, letting Robert answer.

  “I think I have seen it before,” Robert tried to look humble at his feat of memorization, “or certainly something very similar.”

  “
Hmm,” Lynne ran her finger down the page, locked in concentration, “here it is...yes, this is it. Baron Sisel.”

  “Baron Sisel?” Edith glanced at Lynne and Robert. It had been good policy not to let on that the Faircotes were using it.

  “Granted in 1295,” Robert added, “so pretty ancient. Maybe only a few dozen older.”

  “Are the Sisels still around?” Edith tried to sound relaxed, disinterested even. They either were still around and potentially very angry over the misuse of their shield, or long dead and long past caring for the finer points of heraldic protocols.

  Lynne considered Edith’s question with a blank stare. Robert too looked nonplussed.

  “The title of Baron Sisel is still extant, if that’s what you mean.” Lynne hesitated. “We could easily find out who the current holder is. Though an internet search would do just as well. It wouldn’t be hard to perform yourself.”

  “Right,” Edith spied the door. Now that she knew Samuel had been misusing the shield she wanted to leave. Divulging more information might cause him trouble, “so, thank you.”

  “Is there something wrong?” Robert read her nervousness. “You seem a little disappointed.”

  “It’s just unexpected.”

  “How so? What did you expect?”

  “A different name.”

  Robert frowned.

  “Look, I don’t want to get anybody into trouble.”

  “Go on.”

  Edith confessed. “Somebody has been using this shield as their own, yet they’re not called Sisel.”

  Robert craned his head once more to read the book in front of Lynne. “What are they called? Their surname, I mean?”

  “Faircote.” Edith admitted. The chance to escape without damage had gone.

  “Well, no problem then.” Robert span the book round to face Edith. His finger on a line.

  Edith read, ‘granted 1295 to Edmond Ferrecot de Sysel’. “So, this fellow had two surnames?”

  “It would seem that way. The barony took one but the family must have kept the other.”

  “Does that normally happen?”

  Lynne grinned. “My dear girl, anything can happen over seven hundred years. Problems and complications multiply profusely the older a peerage is. There are literally hundreds of peerages which lie unclaimed because rivals heirs continue to fight over them. Sometimes they have been this way since Tudor times.”

  “People fight over them?” Edith’s mind piqued at the suggestion. She cursed herself for thinking such a thing without proof.

  “Yes, they do. It is unseemly, really.” Lynne looked away. “Our work is about the dignity of great and ancient houses. To see how some of them behave is heartbreaking. They disgrace centuries of history by accusing each other of illegitimacy and bastardy.”

  “Indeed.” Edith wondered why Lynne felt so strongly. Acting without dignity wasn’t quite the same as killing people. Maybe the principle was the same. Rival claimants fighting it out, seeking to exclude others from the inheritance. Kill them or kill their claim.

  “I’m sorry if this is a stupid question,” Edith figured most her questions were stupid compared to what they knew, “but how is it decided who gets the title?”

  “On the death of a holder the title goes to the eldest son. If a man without children dies it goes to his next–eldest brother. If a man dies with only daughters it is shared equally between them. Each share is then inherited in the same way as the title, passing to eldest sons first. Yet nobody can hold the title without all the shares to it being vested in them. In that circumstance, the title is in abeyance. Now, the process for termination of abeyance...”

  “That’s very thorough,” Edith held a hand aloft to stop Lynne, “thanks. So the title is always held by a man?”

  “Titles almost always descend through men, and to men.”

  Edith’s head filled with the sense of a breakthrough. Both the dead are men. Have any women been killed?

  “Would you have the genealogy for Baron Sisel?” Edith ventured.

  “We may have the genealogy of the family, yes,” Lynne began, “in the form of a pedigree. But, as before, it would take us time to retrieve from our archives and...”

  “If you’re willing to wait, I’ll go find it now.” Robert was half way to the door before Edith could answer. A quick nod from her let him escape before Lynne could countermand his offer. The door shut softly behind him as he disappeared.

  Lynne sighed and lifted Dugdale’s Ancient Baronies. Without saying a word to Edith she began to climb the staircase to replace the book.

  Edith took a seat against one wall and waited. So far, so good. In just a few minutes she would have information she could take out into the world and follow up. Knocking on doors and speaking to people had been more enjoyable than she expected. The thought of digging up dozens of distant relatives and examining their interests in the barony excited her. It was real detective work.

  Then she checked herself. Would somebody really kill for a title? It was a wild theory. Did anybody feel that strongly in the modern world? Samuel couldn’t accuse her of not earning her fee if she was doing something. He might be displeased that she chose to concentrate on this of all things.

  Minutes passed. Edith’s gaze searched the room for Lynne. She was helping another researcher. Robert hadn’t yet returned with the pedigree. The time on her phone was nearly half three.

  There was a message from Sunny.

  ‘We need to talk. Can you come to my flat tomorrow? About 1 pm?’

  Edith guessed that Sunny wanted to try and talk her out of the investigation again. It was impossible to refuse the meeting. She was reliant on Sunny’s car. Better to face her and make excuses than to ignore a request that would only become a demand if unmet.

  ‘Sure. I’ll see you then.’ Edith resisted the temptation to enquire further. If Sunny wanted the car back she could ask tomorrow. Edith would be sure to travel on the tram to have an excuse not to return it immediately.

  Robert burst into the library while Edith still was still on her phone. He muttered at Lynne, and then they approached Edith together. Something was wrong. Robert’s hands were empty.

  “I’m sorry,” Lynne began, “but the records for Baron Sisel are missing.”

  “Missing?”

  “They’re just not there. I looked in the right place, but the location is empty.” Robert shook his head.

  “This is unprecedented,” Lynne was open–mouthed, “these records are irreplaceable. We keep them under close watch, researchers can’t access them without a staff member. Nobody can just walk in off the street and steal them. We don’t even let staff leave the building with them. They don’t just grow legs and walk away. Somebody must have taken them, and they must have known exactly what they were doing.”

  Day 9: Thursday 9 November

  Edith pressed the button on the intercom marked ‘Merode’ and wondered why it didn’t read ‘and Pimlico’. Sunny and Frederick weren’t married and, given her job at the auction house, Sunny must have been paying her share of the rent. Maybe they worried that one outlandish surname was enough. In contrast, the button below, belonging to another cohabiting couple, read ‘Potter and Smith’.

  “Edith?” Sunny’s voice came from the speaker.

  “Yeah.”

  A buzz and the door popped open lazily as the magnetic bolt unlocked.

  Edith climbed the stairs and remembered why she never visited Sunny. Sunny and Frederick’s flat was on the sixth floor of a building with no lifts. Edith reckoned Sunny must have spent half her life in this stairwell coming or going, more or less The thought alone of having to lift shopping bags up six flights would make her give the landlord immediate notice to quit.

  At the top landing Sunny stood in the doorway to her flat. Her dyed blonde hair pulled back into a ponytail, wearing jeans and a jumper which must have belonged to Fred.

  Edith panted as she climbed the last few steps. Sunny shook her head.

&nbs
p; “You’re so unfit. It’s hardly exercise to climb a few stairs.”

  “You try it.” Edith suggested ironically. “Nice jumper.”

  Sunny smiled and turned to enter her flat as she spoke. “Fred thinks so too.”

  Edith followed her inside and shut the door. “Is Fred here?”

  “No. He’s teaching this afternoon.” Sunny stopped to face Edith. “I wouldn’t want him here anyway.”

  “Why? What’s this about?”

  Sunny walked off through the hallway. “Let me get us something to drink.”

  Edith followed. The entrance to the flat, through a windowless hallway flanked by a cramped bathroom on one side and a box room on the other, was depressingly misleading to visitors. Only upon entering the lounge was the main attraction of the flat revealed.

  The double height room was generous enough for sofas, a dining table, and a small impromptu dance floor to comfortably coexist, with a panorama window overlooking south central Manchester. The roofs of countless suburban houses were below them, almost lost in a sea of trees which, in summer, formed an near endless green canopy. It was amazing that from the ground it seemed that trees were occasional and scattered. From up high the city was clearly crammed with them. The only drawback was that the flat faced east, overlooking Whalley Range. Had it faced south it would have had both the sun and views of Chorlton.

  To the rear of the lounge a staircase on the right of the hallway led up to a mezzanine bedroom which shared the lounge’s view. On the left a portal to the kitchen. Inside the kitchen Sunny pulled cups from the cupboard.

  “Hot chocolate okay?” Sunny asked not needing a reply.

  “Of course.” Edith took a seat at the dining table.

  Frederick and Andrius both considered themselves to be dating the only person in the whole of England who drink neither tea nor coffee. Except, of course, for their sister. Their father had drunk plenty of both while they were growing up, and so did Aunt Shelley. Yet for some unknown reason the girls had adopted the same eccentricity. They were now doomed to spend the rest of their lives explaining it.