by A. O'Connor
“Excuse me?”
“You are not a Vanderbilt or a Van Hoevan – you are a member of a class that I believe has its best days behind it. And this government Land Act has thrown you a lifejacket that you should cling on to. In a few months your finances will be so bad that even the Land Act won’t rescue you – my lord!”
Charles glared angrily at Joyce. “Is there anything else?”
“No.”
“Then I wish you a safe journey back to Dublin,” said Charles.
Joyce stood up and nodded at him. “Good day, Lord Armstrong.”
Charles was shaken after the visit from the bank manager. He had never been good at looking at the finer details of finances, which his experiences in London had testified to. But when he came into the Armstrong estate, he had believed all his money worries would be over. Only now to be told that his finances were in a dire situation. He summoned James to the library.
“The situation can’t continue, James – we are being starved of funds with those bastards not paying their bloody rents,” he raged.
“What do you expect me to do about it?” James had nearly given up hope on the situation at this stage.
“I expect you to solve it, as the estate manager!” insisted Charles.
“Oh, I’m the estate manager now, am I? You’d never bothered telling me that before, or ever listened to my advice to indicate I had that position,” James said jeeringly.
“I think they’re near to breaking – I think the tenants will give in soon,” said Charles.
“They have no intention of giving in. Sure they aren’t losing anything. They are still farming away and just not handing you their rents because of the strike.”
“They’re trying to force me to sell them my land with this new Act by making things as difficult as possible for me,” said Charles.
James shrugged.
“The only thing we have over them is the fear of evictions. So we’ll have to increase that fear.” Charles reached for the estate journals. “We’ll pick the first twenty families in this journal and evict them. Get Brompton on the case.”
“Twenty families all at once! You can’t do that!” declared James.
“Why not? Since no tenant has paid a penny to me in nearly a year, they are all liable for eviction. And if I have to evict every last one – then I will!”
chapter 72
Present Day
Kate hadn’t rung Nico since she left for Dublin to do her next leg of research at the Irish Automobile Club. He wandered into the library. He raised his eyes to heaven as he saw all his architectural work had been unceremoniously shifted to a corner of the room. Kate had the whole room taken over with the documents and boxes from the attic. He wandered over to the pile of boxes with a big note saying ‘To Do’ in Kate’s handwriting attached to them. He started looking through the boxes. A lot of them were financial records stretching back to the nineteenth century. He imagined Kate had never even looked through them previously as she hated anything to do with finances. He sat down and started going through the boxes.
Returning from Dublin that night, Kate braced herself as she let herself into Armstrong House. She wanted to rush in and share what she had found out in the Royal Irish Automobile Club with Nico but decided it was best not to. It was obvious from their argument he didn’t support her in this quest she was on.
“I tried ringing you earlier,” he said as she came into the room.
“I had my phone off,” she said.
“Find anything interesting in Dublin?” he asked.
She nodded in a noncommittal way and was surprised to notice Nico had a pile of documents out on the coffee table.
“What’s all this?” she asked.
“I thought, with you being up in Dublin and us under time pressure for the filming, I’d give you a hand – so I went through some of the boxes in your ‘To Do’side of the library,” he said, half smiling at her.
She smiled gratefully at him as she sat beside him. “Ah, thanks. Nico.”
“I ignored all the papers in the years before 1903. From what I can see Charles was in severe financial difficulty by then. Looking at the rent books, the tenants had stopped paying any rents the previous year. He had big overdrafts and there’s a lot of letters from the bank to him warning him of his dire situation.”
“Very interesting,” she said as she started to take up the papers and look at them.
“There’s also a letter from his solicitor the week he was shot saying that as per Charles’ instructions he would start the ball rolling for the estate to be sold to the tenants under the Wyndham Act which would provide him with much-needed finances.”
“But we already know the vast majority of the estate was sold off after Charles was shot under that government act.”
“Yes – but we thought the estate was being sold as a result of Charles’ being shot. This shows he had intended to sell it before that.”
“Very true,” said Kate, not wanting to come across as unappreciative of Nico’s work.
“But what was most interesting was these two,” he said, reaching forward and taking two papers and handing one to her. “One is a copy of a bank statement depositing £20,000 into his account from a Hugh Fitzroy that week . . . and this is a letter from same said Hugh Fitzroy.”
“And who is Hugh Fitzroy?” wondered Kate out loud.
“I checked on the peerage website of Great Britain and Ireland. He was married to Charles’ sister Lady Emily, who we know gave a statement to the police when Charles was shot saying she was staying with her mother, Lady Margaret, that night.”
Kate’s eyes widened at Nico’s good work. “I’m impressed!”
“You should be! Now read the letter and you’ll be even more impressed. It’s on paper from the Castlewest Arms Hotel where he was obviously staying and dated the 6th of December 1903, two days before the shooting.” Nico sat back smugly.
Kate read the letter.
Castlewest Arms Hotel
Main Street
Castlewest
Co. Mayo
December 6th 1903
Dear Armstrong,
The £20,000 has now been deposited to your account as we agreed and find enclosed the copy of the bank transaction. I want to return to London without any delay. Talk to Emily at once to make her see sense and return to London with me this week.
Fitzroy
Kate resumed her work in the library. What Nico had found concerning the payment and the note from Hugh Fitzroy had opened her eyes to another avenue. She checked the 1901 census records online and saw that Emily was living with her husband Fitzroy at Hanover Terrace in London. She then checked the 1911 census and discovered that only Hugh was living at the address with servants. Emily was no longer living there. Kate reasoned Emily had left her husband and that’s why she was staying with Lady Margaret in Hunter’s Farm, which explained why she had been in Ireland in December 1903. The 1911 census made Kate think it was a permanent separation unless something had happened to Emily in the meantime.
Checking the peerage website she saw Emily had lived until 1954 and so she hadn’t died in the meantime. Emily never returned to her husband. Kate sat back, thinking, at her desk. The note to Charles indicated that Fitzroy had entered into some kind of a financial agreement with Charles to make Emily ‘see sense’ and return to her marriage and London with him. Kate decided she needed to find out all she could about this character Hugh Fitzroy.
Kate came into the drawing room with print-outs from the internet.
Nico looked apprehensively at her papers and her excited face. “What have you got there?”
“I’ve been trawling through the online archives of the newspapers at the time to see if I could come up with anything about Hugh Fitzroy,” she said.
“How did you manage to do that? There must be millions of archives,” he said.
“There are! But I was able to narrow down the search by using the information I got from the census rec
ords of the time.”
“Clever old you!”
She smiled sarcastically back at him. “What I did discover was that this Hugh Fitzroy was a very unsavoury man. He cropped up a lot in the social columns, attending this do and that do, and he appeared to be very wealthy.”
“Hence how he afforded to pay Charles’ £20,000,” said Nico.
“Exactly, in what I believe was bribe money paid to Charles to get Emily to return to him, which I imagine she wasn’t aware of. In this article from The Times in 1904,” she handed him an article, “it says that Hugh Fitzroy was charged with attempted murder for trying to shoot a man who owed him a fortune in gambling debts in London.”
Nico quickly read through the article. “But it says the charges were dropped because of insufficient evidence.”
“Yes, but look at this article from the Daily Mirror in 1905. The newspaper had just opened in 1903 and the article is quite salacious.” As Nico read through the article Kate continued to speak. “Hugh Fitzroy was brought to court for brutally assaulting a Mademoiselle Claudine Farger, a daughter of a French Count, at Fitzroy’s home in Hanover Terrace where the article says she had been staying with him. Claudine Farger had been courting Fitzroy at the time of the attack. She gave evidence that the man was a brute, often prone to violent attacks, with a vengeful and malicious personality. He was given a suspended sentence and ordered to pay Claudine Farger £5,000 or risk imprisonment.”
Nico nodded. “And this man who we now know was violent with a temper was in Castlewest the week Charles was shot.”
“And, as we know Emily was here the night Charles was shot and hadn’t returned to London with her husband, it’s safe to say Fitzroy was still in the vicinity that actual night. And since Fitzroy had this Frenchwoman living with him in 1905 and lived alone in the 1911 census, it’s safe to say Emily never did return to him.”
“Which means Charles got £20,000 from a violent and vengeful man and didn’t deliver on his agreement to make Emily ‘see sense’,” said Nico, piecing it all together.
“Could Fitzroy have been waiting for him at the gates to exact his revenge?” mused Kate. “And the family covered it up as they couldn’t have Emily involved in the scandal?”
“Or I’m sure if Emily discovered what Charles had agreed to, it would drive anyone to a murderous rage. Her brother selling her! Maybe the fox fur and shoe were hers? Also why the family went to such lengths to protect her,” offered Nico.
Since Brian had practically banned Kate from the set for interference, she took the opportunity to return to the library where she had nearly finished going through everything there. She decided to take a look through the cook’s diaries at the time. Mrs Fennell had continued working at the house until it was evacuated years later during the War of Independence, and like the rest of the occupants at the time had left many things behind in her hurry to escape. When she had gone through Mrs Fennell’s diaries before she had found it laborious work. Mrs Fennell seemed capable of writing pages and pages of diaries filled with the mundane details of her kitchen being run. She used large-sized ledgers – no doubt provided by Armstrong House for official purposes – and they were filled with recipes, shopping lists and accounts. Previously Kate had gleaned just enough for the docudrama. She hadn’t wanted this film to be distracted by the workings of downstairs – she wanted it to concentrate on the family.
She started looking through the diaries again, taking time to actually read them.
Kate soon discovered that Mrs Fennell also included passages and references to the Armstrongs, particularly Arabella who she was scheduled to meet regularly to take orders.
For the page of January 20th 1903 Mrs Fennell, after a full page writing notes on how she prepared a lunch of Shepherd’s Pie, had written: Meeting with Lady Armstrong 12 o’clock – cancelled – again!
Her interest piqued, Kate continued reading the pages, making notes of the crucial parts that were nestled in amongst the domestic minutiae.
14th February – Valentine’s Day – Not much romance between his lordship and her ladyship! Rowing till one in the morning.
8th March – Managed to get a meeting with her ladyship. Explained to her the difficulty we were having in the kitchen as some of the shops won’t deliver to the house due to this blasted Land War and another kitchen maid walked out on me.
All her ladyship said was – we must manage as best we can!
30th March – Lady Prudence saw off another governess today. A kindly woman from Dublin, left in tears! Lady A said she had other things to worry about than substandard governesses!
12th April – a big dinner at the house tonight. Mr Harrison and his wife the American coming along with Lady Margaret up from Hunter’s Farm. All hands on deck.
30th April – Order more gin! Lady A has drunk it all dry!
15th May – The two of them nearly lifted the roof off with their shouting and screaming last night! Lady A didn’t emerge from their bedroom till two this afternoon! When I asked her about lunch, she asked – is it not dinner time yet?!
18th June – Terrible antics on the estate with the Land War. I don’t know where she’s hiding all the gin bottles, but they’re disappearing at an alarming rate from the drinks store.
19th July – That brat Prudence has taken it on herself to start coming down to my kitchens and giving orders. As the mother seems incapable of running this house, her daughter seems to think it’s her place to take over. We had some set to!
28th August – Young Master Pierce has been packed off to school.
As Kate read on she found an alarming picture emerging of a house falling into disarray. And the more disarray emerged, the more Mrs Fennell started talking about the politics of the house rather than the domestic side of it. Mrs Fennell painted an alarming image of Arabella and Charles’ marriage being conducted in almost a war-like situation. Arabella seemed incapable and disinterested in the running of the house and Charles’ time was taken up with conducting the Land War. Kate became disturbed as she could almost sense the tense and destructive atmosphere that was there at the time. And as the diary continued closer to the date that Charles was shot in December the house seemed to be reaching a fever pitch, a boiling point of tension and rows.
Kate turned hesitantly to the first weeks in December, waiting to see what Mrs Fennell had written about the fateful night Charles was shot. At the bottom of a page she had written: December 7th – Terrible news, Master James is leaving his post as estate manager! He’s devastated and I’ve never seen such anger in him towards Charles.
She looked at the next page and stared in disbelief – the page for the 8th of December had been torn out. Also there were no further entries in the diary for the rest of the year. Kate turned the blank pages in disappointment.
Nico had been in Dublin on business that evening. On his return he found Kate sitting up in bed with Mrs Fennell’s diary, looking very dissatisfied.
“I can’t believe it,” she said. “Mrs Fennell ripped the page out and we’ll never know what she had written for December eighth and ninth. And she had become gloriously indiscreet by then.”
“Which was probably why she ripped it out!” Nico pointed out.
“But what had she written? What had she seen and written that she felt she had better destroy it afterwards?”
Nico put his arm around Kate. “Don’t worry, maybe some things are best left not found out.”
“She names somebody else with a grudge against Charles – his brother James,” mused Kate.
Kate parked the Range Rover outside the house and, getting out, walked in a daze up to the front door and let herself in. She walked into the drawing room and sat down, staring into space.
She saw the box of cigarettes lying on the coffee table and reached out for them. She picked up the packet and was about to take one when she quickly dropped it back down on the table. She heard a car pull up outside and a minute later the front door opened and closed.
&nbs
p; “Kate?” called Nico.
She didn’t answer and a few seconds later Nico came in.
“Kate, we need to get the Renault to a garage, it’s playing up again,” he said, coming in. He looked at her transfixed on the couch. “Kate?” he asked, seeing her expression and coming and sitting beside her.
She slowly turned to him. “I was at the doctor’s this morning.”
“Is everything all right?” he asked, concerned.
“I’m pregnant.”
Nico’s mouth opened and his eyes widened in shock. They stared at each other.
She wasn’t sure if she was more worried or relieved that he looked as shocked as her.
Looking at his terrified expression, she suddenly burst out laughing.
“Kate?” he asked, even more concerned.
“Oh, Nico, you should see yourself!” she said between her laughter.
He started giggling too and then they both fell back laughing.
Ever since Kate had come to live at Armstrong House, ever since she had met Nico, she had always had an obsession with it and the Armstrongs who had lived there. But even after she had married Nico she never felt part of it. She always felt like an observer, an intruder standing at the doorstep of their history. But suddenly, since she knew she was pregnant, that had changed. The child she was carrying was a direct descendent from all those people who had lived in the house before them. The child would be part of them, carry the same genes and maybe the same outlook and characteristics of all those who had come before him or her. And she suddenly became aware of her own part in the history of the house.