The Secrets of Armstrong House

by A. O'Connor

That night Charles was the only one up in the house as he stood at the window drinking whiskey in the drawing room, looking at the moon shining its light across the lake.

  Emily came creeping in, in her dressing gown, and closed the door after her.

  “Charles! Is what I’m hearing true? You’re marrying Arabella in the morning?”

  “It’s true all right,” he sighed heavily. “How do you know?”

  Emily stared at him. “I was listening at the door when the Tattingers were here. I know everything . . . that she’s expecting your child.”

  He looked surprised and then nodded. “You’re not to tell anybody.”

  “Of course I won’t. I’d never betray you like that.” She came over and hugged him.

  “I’m afraid our little game has exploded in our faces, dearest little Emily.” He stroked her hair.

  “I overheard you and Harrison fighting . . . What’s suddenly become of us?”

  “We’ve grown up, that’s all, Emily – it happens in all families.”

  “You picked the wrong girl to trifle with, Charles. She was too clever and her family too powerful to ignore. At least now you can be together.” Emily was studying him intently.

  He smiled at his sister, not sure if she was being naïve or just testing him. “True. And I’m getting to live in London, which is what I always wanted. And I’m getting a very substantial dowry which will keep us in the style that we need to be accustomed to . . . I guess you could say I got everything I wanted.” He bent down and kissed her forehead. She watched him saunter out of the room and up to bed.

  The wedding took place in the chapel in the Bishop’s Palace at eleven. The Bishop was a little amazed with the whole promptness and mystery that clouded the event. He had been sworn to secrecy by Lady Armstrong not ever to reveal any details of the marriage. As he stood at the altar looking at the groom Charles with a big black eye, the bride Arabella in a plain cream dress and hat, the only guests being both sets of parents positioned on opposite sides of the aisle, he could only imagine what was going on. As the bride and groom both confirmed ‘I do’, their respective mothers burst out crying. Caroline out of relief and Margaret out of sorrow.

  Armstrong House seemed quiet that night with Charles and Arabella already left for their new life and all of the drama the Tattingers brought with them gone. Lawrence and Margaret sat in a kind of disbelief, as if the past three days had been a strange and awful dream and they would wake up and everything would be back to normal.

  To their surprise Harrison came in, looking pale and drawn.

  “Have they gone?” he asked.

  “Yes, they got the train this afternoon,” said Lawrence, who had informed Harrison of their plans to go and live in London.

  Harrison laughed bitterly. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking – I need to get away.”

  “Excellent idea,” said Lawrence. “I’ll arrange a holiday for you . . . somewhere you can take the waters . . . Switzerland maybe.”

  “No, I mean get away for good. There are too many bad memories in this country and I need a brand-new start.”

  “Go away!” Margaret was horrified.

  “To New York. I’m going as soon as I can.”

  “But for how long?” asked Lawrence.

  “For ever,” he said bitterly. “For ever.”

  chapter 20

  Present Day

  There was a lull of some days in the filming and Kate decided to take advantage of the time to try and see if she could find out more about the mysterious photographs that were hidden in the police file.

  One evening Kate and Nico opened a bottle of red wine and sat in the drawing room, the black-and-white photographs glaring at them from the coffee table, contradicting what was in the official inquiry. They were studying the family’s statements in the police file.

  “All the family’s statements given to police are exactly the same as what the inquiry reported,” said Nico. “That he was shot in the carriage while travelling on his own. And the policeman investigating the case, a Sergeant Kevin Cunningham, in his official report here also wrote this and as we know later gave the same evidence to the inquiry.”

  Kate threw a pile of papers on the coffee table. “There are pages and pages of statements from locals and in the town talking about the lead-up to the shooting and the Land War Charles was involved in.”

  “But why would they not just say Charles was in the automobile?” Nico’s mind was trying to come up with a solution. He picked up the pile of papers she had flung down and began to go through them again.

  He suddenly stopped at one of the crumpled handwritten papers.

  “This is a statement from another police officer, Tadhg Murnahan,” he said.

  Kate reached forward, took the paper and started to read aloud. “‘On the morning of December 9th, 1903, I was on night duty at the Castlewest Police station. At seven o’clock in the morning an official from the hospital came and reported that Lord Charles Armstrong had been admitted to those premises the previous night with a significant gunshot wound to the chest. I rode out to the Armstrong Estate. On reaching the estate I found an automobile abandoned at the gateway. There was a bullet-hole through the windscreen and the interior of the automobile was stained with a considerable amount of blood. I set up my camera and took photographs of the scene. I called to Armstrong House where Lady Margaret Armstrong confirmed there had been an incident and requested my superior, Sergeant Kevin Cunningham, to come at once.’”

  Nico and Kate looked at each other.

  “So why did Sergeant Cunningham ignore this evidence his officer reported?” asked Kate.

  “Sloppy police work?” suggested Nico.

  “Very sloppy! In fact, too sloppy. It’s no wonder they didn’t capture this chief suspect Joe McGrath before he absconded to America.”

  “But this says something else as well,” Nico pointed out. “Lady Margaret, Charles’ mother, was not only the first at the scene of the shooting the previous night, as her statement says, but she was also at Armstrong House in the morning by daylight. She must have been aware of the damaged car and for whatever reason said it was a carriage.”

  “So, if she could get such a blatant thing wrong, then her statement that she saw a peasant rushing past Hunter’s Farm with a shotgun – in the dark, mind you – can’t be trusted either. Indeed, her sighting of that man seems all too convenient, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes – and it’s always struck me as peculiar that the culprit would rush down the road past her house anyway, waving a shotgun, when he could just cut across country.”

  “You’re right. He wouldn’t stay on the road.”

  Kate suddenly jumped up from the couch, went over to her desk and opened her laptop sitting there.

  “I’m just thinking,” she said. “McGrath was supposed to have fled to America. If he did, then all the records for Ellis Island are on the website and we can see if he actually did go there.” She started tapping on the keyboard.

  “But there will have been millions of people passed through Ellis Island on their way to their new life to America,” Nico objected.

  “Yes, back in the early 1900s it would be almost an impossible task to track a fled criminal to America, but now with the wonders of the internet . . . everything has been uploaded and a few seconds away. I’ve tracked a lot of my relatives who emigrated through this.”

  Kate typed in: Joseph McGrath – Castlewest – 1903.

  After a few moments she began to read from the screen. “Joseph McGrath, aged 30. Residence – Castlewest. Ship – Oceanic, Port – Queenstown. Destination – Queens. Date – 9th of December 1903.”

  Kate and Nico looked at each other.

  “Well, one thing for sure is Joseph McGrath, despite what Lady Margaret testified and the police report said, did not shoot Charles because he was about to dock into New York at the time,” said Nico.

  The old Victorian hospital in Castlewest which Charles had been admitted to
in 1903 was long closed down. Kate drove back into town and inquired at the local library about the records.

  “They were all forwarded to the National Archives of Ireland in Dublin,” the librarian informed her.

  Kate found gaining access to those files was not an easy task as she was told that generally they were not available for public viewing and she would have to obtain permission from the Health Service Executive. But she wasn’t going to give up that easily. She had uncovered too much already that made her believe something sinister happened with the Armstrong family all those years ago.

  She contacted a friend who worked for the Health Service Executive and finally got permission to view them but only with the permission and signature of Nico, Charles’ great-grandson.

  “I don’t know why you’re bothering to look at that file,” said Nico as he signed the consent form for her. “You said you had to sign a confidentiality agreement as well.”

  “True,” she said as she happily put the consent form in her handbag.

  “Well, you won’t be able to use anything you found for the film then,” Nico pointed out.

  Kate just smiled, delighted she had secured permission.

  The guide in the National Archives walked her down long corridors of shelves stacked with files.

  “We’ve got many of the files from around the country stored here,” said the woman, whose name was Gillian. “There are some very interesting cases, from the lunatic asylums particularly.”

  Kate nodded and smiled at her. “What kind of records do you have?”

  “Oh, a lot of management minutes, operational records – case books and theatre records as we move into the twentieth century,” said Gillian.

  Kate nodded, becoming more excited.

  “Here we are,” said Gillian. “These are from the hospital you are inquiring about. Can you tell me the information you have?”

  “Yes. Lord Charles Armstrong was admitted on the night of the 8th of December 1903 or early morning of the 9th,” said Kate.

  Kate waited patiently as Gillian sifted through the files for what seemed an eternity.

  “Here we are!” said Gillian, taking a file box from the shelf.

  Kate followed her over to a desk and they put the box on the table.

  The two women sat down at the desk and Gillian put on white cotton gloves and handed Kate a pair, then opened the file and started going through it.

  “This man was admitted to the hospital at twelve thirty the morning of 9th of December. He was signed in by a Harrison Armstrong,” said Gillian.

  “That’s all correct from what I know,” said Kate. “What I’m trying to discover is exactly what kind of injury? What caused it?”

  Gillian looked through the file. “Let’s look at his theatre record . . . He was admitted for surgery that night . . . and a single bullet was removed from his chest . . . severe internal injuries, ruptures to the –”

  Kate leaned forward and gently took the report from her. “It definitely says a single bullet?”

  “You can see for yourself,” said Gillian.

  “Yes, I do . . .” Nico was right. A shotgun wasn’t used to kill Charles. A handgun was – leaving a single bullet, not pellets from a shotgun.

  Kate and Nico were having a meeting with the director Brian while they ate dinner at their kitchen island. In front of them was all the evidence Kate had compiled about Charles’ shooting.

  “There’s no doubt something peculiar was going on,” agreed Brian.

  “I want to get to the bottom of it, Brian,” said Kate.

  “But how does this affect the filming?” pushed Brian.

  “Well, I was hoping we could delay things while I do more research,” suggested Kate.

  “Delay things! Kate! Our budget won’t allow that.”

  “Well, at least to film around the shooting for now. We can concentrate on the other areas of the documentary. The social life here, the politics of the estate. Stuff we’re already sure of.”

  “We thought we were sure about the shooting!” Brian pointed out.

  “But imagine if we put all this new stuff into the film and whatever else I can uncover – it would make it so much more engrossing.”

  Nico took a sip of his red wine, not at all liking the direction in which Kate was manipulating the documentary.

  Brian nodded. “But where else can you go with this – what’s your next step?”

  “I want to go through all the documents and journals that are being stored here at Armstrong House from the period,” said Kate. “See if there’s anything there. When this house was evacuated during the War of Independence, everyone left in a hurry and a lot of the personal items were abandoned here.”

  “But you already researched all that stuff before you began the documentary,” said Nico, becoming irritable.

  “I know, but I wasn’t looking for anything in connection to a cover-up. I was just looking for indications of what life was like here at the time.”

  Brian nodded as he finished off his lasagne. “Okay, we’ll film around it for now. But I can’t allow this to cause any delays – there’s a limited amount of time allotted to the project, Kate. You should know that.”

  “I do!” she said, smiling happily. “We’ll work round the clock on it, won’t we, Nico?”

  Nico gave her a displeased look.

  Book two

  1890–1897

  chapter 21

  The carriage drove up the curve of Regent Street as Arabella held her baby close. Charles sat beside them. They had all just returned from the Continent and were on their way home to the Armstrong family’s house in London. As Arabella looked at her six-month-old baby she marvelled how the months had passed. She had been dazed those first few weeks when they moved to London as she contemplated how much her life had changed overnight and how close she had come to utter ruination. What amazed her in equal measure was Charles during those first few weeks. The whole experience hadn’t knocked a feather out of him. He didn’t seem one bit upset or concerned or confused by the events. He behaved as if it were all the most normal thing in the world as he went about with his usual cheerful disposition. He didn’t seem one bit concerned about Harrison knowing the truth at last or his parents’ knowledge of events. He seemed immune to it all.

  He arrived back one day with an exquisite mink coat for her and told her happily that her father’s dowry had cleared successfully into his bank account.

  “The one you coerced Papa to double,” she said evenly to him.

  “Yes, very clever of me, don’t you think? Let’s face it, all your parents’ wealth will go to your elder brother, and so clever of me to negotiate an extra share now for you when we had the opportunity, was it not?” He bent down and kissed her and she raised her eyes to heaven as he happily went off to his club.

  When the time came close for her to give birth they travelled to France where they rented a house in the south near Cannes. There was only a midwife present at the birth as they didn’t want any doctor registering it.

  Arabella gave birth to a baby girl.

  “A daughter!” exclaimed Charles as he held the baby with a bemused look on his face. “To think of all that fuss and bother, and not even a son!”

  “Sorry to disappoint!” said Arabella sarcastically.

  “What are we to call her?” he said as he peered curiously down at her.

  “Prudence,” said Arabella.

  “Prudence!” exclaimed Charles. “Why on earth Prudence?”

  “A favourite aunt of mine was called Prudence. The name has happy connotations for me.”

  “I never imagined a child of mine would be called Prudence. I can’t imagine a child of mine being prudent!”

  “All the more reason to call her that. I don’t want her to follow in our footsteps. I want her to be careful and sensible and practical and never to get into any bother. I hope she is prudent in life.”

  Charles made a face as he handed the baby back to Ara
bella.

  They had waited a couple of further months in France and Margaret had registered Prudence’s birth as two months later than it actually was in a little backward town hall in a small provincial town where the elderly official asked no more questions. Armed with their daughter’s new birth certificate, they arrived back in London.

  The carriage continued as far as Regent’s Park, then pulled into the private driveway in front of Hanover Terrace. Hanover Terrace was a long row of four-storey terraced townhouses that looked across the road to the park. Lawrence owned the end house, which was the most spectacular of all the houses on the terrace. Charles got out of the carriage and reached to take Prudence from Arabella.

  As Arabella alighted, she looked up at what would be their home for the foreseeable future.

  The end house had a fleet of steps leading up to it onto a terrace which had three arches along it. Upstairs was a balcony terrace with pillars that rose to the third and fourth floor and at the top of the building was a Grecian-style triangular pediment with statues adorning it.

  Arabella and Charles walked around to the side of the house where the main door was located and knocked loudly on the door.

  The butler opened the door and welcomed them as they walked inside.

  Margaret had never really interfered with the original antique interior of the house and, as Arabella stepped inside, she got a shock. The whole interior had been refurbished. The hallway divided the ground floor in half. To the left was a study and a staircase that led upstairs and one that led downstairs to the kitchens and servants’ quarters. On the other side of the hallway double doors led into the dining room which was at the front of the house. The windows here were French windows that led onto the terrace. As Arabella looked around she didn’t recognise the gentle elegance that had been there before they left for France. In its stead was highly polished new walnut floors, a stone staircase with cast-iron balustrades, and Venetian crystal chandeliers.