‘How clever of you to remember,’ Powerscourt replied gallantly, thinking that Lady Lucy was looking a little apprehensive.
‘You remember I said I had something to tell you about those equerries of yours. The day we met at the bottom of St James’s Square.’
Lady Lucy as Anna Karenina, thought Powerscourt, himself a reluctant Vronsky, the high fur collar and its owner tripping off towards Piccadilly. ‘Of course.’
‘Well, I still haven’t written it down. I mean I have written it down, but it didn’t seem to make sense. It’s such a strange story, almost like a fairy tale from long ago. I was always very fond of fairy tales when I was a child, Lord Francis. Were you?’
‘I used to get very frightened,’ said Powerscourt, thinking that Lady Lucy’s childhood must be twelve to fifteen years more recent than his own.
‘A long long time ago, twenty-five or twenty-eight years ago . . .’ Lady Lucy spoke quietly, her eyes and her mind far away. Powerscourt thought she must tell Robert bedtime stories like this, the little boy’s head tucked up against the pillows, his mother’s soft voice coming from some still place deep inside her. ‘. . . a little boy was born into one of England’s oldest families. His mother was quite old, in her late thirties or early forties. This was her last child. All the rest were daughters. And she loved him so much. She watched him growing up on the great estate. She cried in secret when he went away to school. All through the long terms she waited for him to come home. Home to his mother.
‘When he was quite small his father ran away. He went off to Paris or Biarritz or one of those places where wicked husbands go and he never came home again, not even to see his little boy. The sisters got married and went away. There was only the mother and the little boy left in the great house with the park and the lake in front of the windows. The little boy used to go boating on the lake, rowing his mother round and round until it was time for tea.
‘The little boy grew up. He was a very pretty little boy, they say, and very handsome when he turned into a young man, almost like a prince with his very own castle. All the girls fell in love with him. And his mother didn’t like that. She didn’t like that at all.’
It was growing dark outside. Lady Lucy got up and drew her curtains, pausing to toss a couple of logs on the fire. Her granddaughter clock ticked hypnotically behind her chair.
‘Not very far away, ten or fifteen miles away, there was a great city. As the little boy grew up, the city grew up too. But while he was growing in feet and inches the city was growing by the thousand, tens and tens of thousands of people, all crowding in, looking for work and happiness.
‘More tea, Lord Francis? I could make some more if this lot has gone cold.’
‘No, thank you.’ Powerscourt didn’t want to break the spell.
‘Most of the people in this city were poor. Terribly poor, poor souls.’ Lady Lucy shivered slightly although the room was warm from the fire. ‘But some of them were very rich. They made things. They ran great businesses. They owned shops. The man in our story, Lord Francis, owned a great many shops, grocers’ shops, in the great city and the other cities round about. He became the richest of them all. And he had a daughter, an only daughter. They say she was beautiful, so beautiful that the young men were almost frightened of her beauty.
‘The young man brought lots of girls back to his house in the country. There were dinners before the great dances and balls of the county, hunt balls, charity balls, that sort of thing. His mother looked at all these young women, coming to take her beautiful son away, and she sort of hated them. She couldn’t bear it. But he never grew attached to any of them. Perhaps he was being kind to his mother. We don’t know. Perhaps, like the prince in the story, he was waiting for someone else to come along.
‘They did, of course. Perhaps they always do. One day, the prince met the grocer’s daughter. I don’t know where it was. But they fell in love just like in the fairy stories. The young man had resisted all the great beauties of county society all his life. Now he fell over in a great rush, as if he was in a waterfall, hurtling towards the bottom. Can you have waterfalls of love, Lord Francis?’
‘I’m sure you can, Lady Lucy. I’m certain of it.’
‘Where was I?’ Lady Lucy was temporarily knocked over by her torrents of emotion. ‘Inside a month they were desperately in love. They wanted to get married. But there was a complication, Lord Francis. There usually is. The girl was a Roman Catholic. Her parents were very devout. They didn’t want her to marry a Protestant, even if he came from one of the oldest families in England. They said they would forbid the match.’
Lady Lucy took a sip of her cold tea. Powerscourt watched her tell her story, his mind racing ahead. He wondered where it would end. He didn’t like to think about the end.
‘But there was a complication on the other side too. The boy’s mother didn’t want her precious son marrying a grocer’s daughter, however rich her family were. And she certainly didn’t want him marrying a Roman Catholic. She said she would forbid the match too. She said she would bring the boy’s father home from wherever he had gone, whatever he had done in the meantime, to stop this marriage.
‘So they were all stuck. The young man, the beautiful girl, two sets of parents. Maybe it would have been better if the parents had never been so obstinate. What were the young lovers to do? What could they do?’
Lady Lucy paused once more, looking at the flames dancing in the fireplace as if the answer might be hidden in the blaze. ‘I don’t think young lovers are ever very sensible, do you, Lord Francis? The young man had to choose between his love and his mother, between his past and his future, perhaps, between old age and the glory of youth.
‘The young man started taking instruction in the Catholic faith. They say he followed his lessons far more intently than he ever did at Eton. When he was accepted, or whatever happens to them, they were married. The boy’s mother refused to attend. Not to a grocer’s daughter, she said. Not to a Roman Catholic. Not in some pagan chapel, decked out with bleeding hearts and the false idolatry of Rome.
‘Well, some of them were happy now, especially the young lovers. The girl’s father bought them a lovely little house between the city and the old house where the young man was born. The girl became pregnant, there was tremendous happiness all round. But it didn’t last, Lord Francis. It didn’t last.’
Lady Lucy looked thoughtful. Her eyes were far away, lost in the fairy story.
Powerscourt waited for the end, for some horror yet to come. The faces of the equerries he had questioned at Sandringham flashed through his mind. Five of them, one of them must be the young man in the story.
‘Then she lost the baby. She had some sort of terrible accident. The young man was away on military duty at the time. I think I forgot to tell you that he joined his father’s regiment. It was a terrible accident. The baby died. The young mother died. The young man rushed home to find his life in ruins, the love of his life lying at the bottom of a great set of stone steps, the baby dead inside her.
‘There was a row about the funeral, about where the body was buried. The boy’s mother wanted the girl and her grandchild buried in the family vault in the family chapel in the family seat, even though she had refused to attend the wedding. The girl’s parents refused. They said it was their grandchild too. I don’t know where they were buried in the end.
‘But the point of the story, Lord Francis, is this.’ Lady Lucy leaned forward and fixed her blue eyes on Powerscourt’s face. She looked at him intently. ‘The young man told very few people about his wedding. I suspect he thought of the pain it would cause his mother, all those county women inquiring about the church service and making pointed remarks about the price of groceries. I don’t think he told any of the other officers in his regiment. I don’t think he told any of his other friends.
‘But Prince Eddy knew. Prince Eddy knew the girl. When the husband was away, they say that Prince Eddy was never away from the house. They say that he was
forcing his attentions on her. Maybe he thought married women were fair game, just like his father. Well, I don’t think this girl was. Fair game, I mean.
‘On the day she died, they say that Prince Eddy was at the house, that he was seen running away after a scream, a horrible scream that went on and on and on. They say that he didn’t go back, Prince Eddy. He just kept on running, running away.
‘I don’t think I know any more. It’s a terrible story.’
Powerscourt rose from his seat and walked over to the fire, as if to break the spell. ‘Who told you the story Lucy? Where does it come from?’
‘Two people, Francis. I had to invent some terrible pack of lies to get the story out of the second one. One of them was a cousin of the dead wife. The other was the uncle of the boy. You see, he’s my uncle too, in a roundabout sort of way. He’s my late husband’s father’s brother, uncle-in-law, if you see what I mean. I think he heard it from the boy’s mother.’
The truth was lying about on your own doorstep, thought Powerscourt. While he had been charging round England in a variety of trains, Lady Lucy merely talked to her relations round the corner.
‘And what is the name of the young man?’
Lady Lucy paused. She suspected that everything would be different after she told him. Then her courage came back.
‘The young man is called Lord Edward Gresham.’
Powerscourt had wondered about that for some time. Had there been something not quite right about his demeanour at Sandringham? Nothing tangible, maybe the kind of thing that would come over you if you had murdered the heir presumptive to the throne and smashed the picture of his fiancee into small pieces on the floor.
‘Lord Edward Gresham. Lord Edward Gresham, equerry to His Royal Highness the Duke of Clarence and Avondale. The late Duke of Clarence and Avondale, Prince Eddy.’ Powerscourt was already thinking about more journeys. ‘And his mother is Lady Gresham, Lady Blanche Gresham, of Thorpe Hall in Warwickshire. And the great city must be Birmingham. Am I right?’
‘You are, Lord Francis. You are. ‘The young man in the fairy story, the young man with the dead wife at the bottom of the stone steps, is Lord Edward Gresham.’
19
It really was the most improbable ceiling. High above were putti in angelic plaster frozen into the corners, plaster maidens draped in scanty wraps, plaster maidens carrying trumpets or spears or sheaves of corn. Wrapping them all together in a filigreed embrace, the elaborate plasterwork itself danced round the four walls and the over-elaborate corners. In the centre, in an oval shape, was an allegorical painting in pinks and vivid reds. Apollo in his chariot, on a hunting mission, was surrounded by yet more female forms with plaster thighs and plaster breasts.
‘Most people stop here, my lord,’ said Lyons, the butler of Thorpe Hall in the county of Warwickshire. ‘To look up. The ceiling was built in 1750, my lord, by a man called Gibbs, James Gibbs, my lord.’
While Powerscourt gazed up at the baroque ceiling and the delicate outlines of the chariot above, Lyons deposited his hat and coat in some distant corner of the great entrance hall. Powerscourt wondered what the decoration was like in there. Hatstands made of plaster perhaps, contorted putti disguised as coat hooks preparing to bear the weight of the visitors’ cloaks.
‘This way, my lord.’ The hall was very long, a number of ornate doors closed on either side.
‘Lord Powerscourt, my lady.’
He was shown into a great salon with large windows at either end, paintings lining the walls. Lady Blanche Gresham advanced from her chair at the far end of the room to greet him. There was ample time to take in her stiff elegance, pride and dignity in each aristocratic step on her slow walk across the carpet.
‘Lord Powerscourt. I am delighted to make your acquaintance. Please sit down.’
An imperious nod indicated that he was to retrace his steps with her to the seat by the window, the journey long, the stiff frozen lawn outside beckoning them on.
‘Lord Rosebery wrote to me about you. Do you know Rosebery well?’ The question was almost a command.
‘He is one of my greatest friends, Lady Gresham. I have known him for many years. And I have a letter for you from the Prime Minister as well. I did not like to entrust it to the postal services.’
Lady Blanche was tall and slim. Powerscourt thought she must have been in her early sixties, probably born in the reign of William IV. She was wearing a long black skirt and a silk shirt of deep red. Round her neck was a string of pearls which she fingered from time to time as if checking they were still there.
‘Rosebery I knew as a young man. This Salisbury I don’t know at all.’ The Prime Minister was dismissed as though he came from poor stock or had made his money in trade. ‘Rosebery was quite charming. He came here to a house party many years ago. I think Disraeli was here that weekend.’
Powerscourt wondered how Disraeli had gained admittance if Salisbury was persona non grata. Charm and flattery, he supposed, the usual Disraeli tricks.
‘He was most amusing, Rosebery I mean. He kept us all quite entertained for the days he was here. Such elegant manners.’ Her voice was high. It cracked from time to time, like glass in a mirror. ‘But you haven’t come here to reminisce about Thorpe Hall in the days of its glory, Lord Powerscourt. How can I be of assistance to you in your business?’
There was something very special about the way she said Thorpe Hall, as if it were sacred, something to be kept safe from strangers.
‘I wanted to ask you a few questions about your son, Lady Gresham.’
‘My son? My son?’ Lady Blanche Gresham sat ever straighter in her chair, her back stiff, her eyes haughty.
‘The first thing you have to remember about my son, Lord Powerscourt, is that he is a Gresham. A Gresham.’
That emphasis again. Earlier Greshams, Greshams in uniform, Greshams in repose, seemed to nod their approval, staring down from their family seats on the walls of the long long room.
‘Greshams have played their part in the history of England for over six hundred years, Lord Powerscourt. They may have come over with William the Conqueror. We cannot be sure. One of my ancestors was burnt at the stake in the reign of that dreadful Queen Mary, burnt to death for his beliefs. They say that the other Protestants who perished with him cried out as the flames took hold. They repented. They said they were sorry, they hadn’t meant it. The Gresham spoke not a word, Lord Powerscourt. Greshams don’t cry.
‘I have looked at the records of the time, our family records somewhere in the attics of this house where we sit. The priests were corrupt, Lord Powerscourt. The abbots were greedy. They took from the rich. They took from the poor. The friars were more interested in the sins of the flesh than the redemption of souls. Those indulgences! Sold to indulge the whims of a Pope in Rome who wanted to glorify his city with the buildings of this world, not with the blessings of the next.’
Powerscourt could see that an alliance with a Catholic family might present a few problems here in Thorpe Hall.
‘My family,’ she went on, ‘have been active in the business of this county or this country for centuries. We have hunted across these fields beyond these windows for generations. Generations, Lord Powerscourt. The Gresham stirrup cup, the hunt has always said, is the best in the county, if not in the country.’
She stopped briefly. This woman’s spirit would never be broken, thought Powerscourt. They could tie her to the stake for her beliefs. She wouldn’t make a sound. Greshams don’t cry.
‘Edward is the latest in the line. The long line, Lord Powerscourt.’
Something softened in her voice as she talked of her son. Suddenly Powerscourt could see them, Edward and his mother, rowing round the lake in the summer, the sun caressing the golden curls of the pretty boy, the power of a mother’s love caressing his heart. Then the softness went away.
‘I expect you want to ask me about his marriage, Lord Powerscourt. I will spare you the trouble of framing what might be an embarrassing q
uestion. I expect you have heard the gossip, what they are saying down there in London.’
She made London sound like Sodom, thought Powerscourt, keeping still and silent in his chair, his eyes flickering outside to the frozen landscape.
‘I never met the girl. I did not attend the wedding. I did not attend the funeral, dare I say it, a happier event for me. I believe she was called Louisa. Such a common name. Shopgirls are called Louisa, I believe. So are grocers’ daughters. The marriage was simply impossible. Greshams don’t marry shopgirls. They don’t marry Catholics. They never have.’
But they did. They had, thought Powerscourt, wondering how he could steer the conversation in the direction he wanted.
‘Did Edward ever bring Prince Eddy here? To Thorpe Hall?’
‘Prince Eddy? That one who has just died? Yes, he did. He came on a number of occasions. Very feeble young man, I thought. Bad blood, thin blood. Something wrong there. Fancy being carried off by something so mundane as influenza at his age. It just proved there was something wrong with his breeding.’
‘Did Prince Eddy know Louisa at all?’ Powerscourt tossed it in lightly, like a hat into a ring.
‘My dear Lord Powerscourt, do you expect me to know the answer to that question? I have told you. I did not attend the wedding. I did not attend the funeral. I was hardly likely to pop over to that place where they lived for grocer’s tea.’
‘Forgive me for asking, but do you know anything of the circumstances of her death?’
‘I do not. I did not ask. I did not inquire. I did not regard it as any of my business. I was merely glad that Edward was rid of her.’
Powerscourt wondered if a mother’s love was strong enough to send Lady Blanche over to the little house, bought by the grocer father, and push a daughter-in-law she had never seen down the steps to her death. He didn’t think so. Nearly, but not quite. But he felt she was not telling him all she knew. But then, she never would, even if he waited until the frosts had thawed and the lake could welcome rowing boats once more.
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