“I would rather join an expedition to Antarctica or the American frontier than fight men who have done me no harm,” William said quietly but firmly.
“They have done harm to our young Queen and the Colonies.”
“How can you say that when we fight spears with guns?”
“I would go if I could, but I—”
“We know, you have told us, you have your responsibilities as the head of the family to marry and have sons. The line must be secured.”
“Now, now Henry, William, today is Christmas Eve,” Patience said with some false joviality, “Let us enjoy this wonderful feast the kitchen has provided and anticipate the entertainments Josephine has organised for us.”
*
The following afternoon was set aside for the programme of games and music devised by Josephine. As Patience watched William throw himself into the entertainments with gusto while Henry held back, apparently assuming an attitude of superiority that set him apart from his brother and cousin, she came to the decision that her husband must not choose Henry for Josephine’s husband.
That evening, as the young ones prepared for dinner, she began her campaign.
“The boys are growing to be very different men are they not, Claude?” Patience said with apparent innocence. “William seems to be the more thoughtful and—”
“Sympathetic? Yes I agree. But I suspect Henry shows more bluster and puff than he intends and being the older, he must be preferred.”
“I fear William feels his inferior position in life most keenly,” Patience suggested.
“I am certain Henry will not shrink from explaining the differences in their positions to all and sundry and at every opportunity. I recognise that, my dear, but despite his character he is the elder. The title is his.” Claude allowed little romance in the decision that was his alone but that he understood his wife was trying to influence.
“And the estate,” Patience added wryly.
“That is an unarguable factor. Although we would never allow William to want for anything he will have to earn his position in life.”
“Such a difference one hour’s chance makes.”
“But there is a difference and therefore Josephine must accept Henry. It was Sir Bernard’s intention that she would, one day, become Lady Lacey.”
“Have you spoken with Henry yet?” Patience hoped that the arrangement had not already been made.
“He knows well enough that it was his father’s wish just as she knows well enough she must have him. It is something that had been accepted since the boys were born. Although he is still a young man, too young yet for the marriage to take place, the engagement must be agreed upon before our daughter is much older.”
“But what would happen if she prefers William?”
“You will not allow her to know which she prefers. Josephine will take Henry.”
Patience was not giving up her position in the argument easily. She did not think she liked the man Henry was becoming. “Delightful as it would be for her to be Lady Lacey I would hate to see her unhappy.”
“What makes you presume she would be unhappy with young Henry and what makes you consider happiness to be an element in any decision regarding marriage? Marriage is a contract, an alliance between families. The happiness of the man, or the woman, does not signify.”
Patience allowed her husband a few moments to appreciate how his words might have hurt her. When he showed no sign of doing so she chose not to comment.
“Have you spoken to him yet?” She repeated her earlier question.
“As I said, I have not. But of course he will agree. He knows as well as she that this was what was always intended for them.”
“Perhaps they have both thought they would not be forced to do anything they did not wish for themselves.” Patience knew she was near to showing her disagreement too strongly on a subject on which she should have no say, so she softened her voice. “She is, of course, aware of our hopes, we have spoken of it and she knows it is what is expected, but she worries.”
“What can she worry about?”
“She worries that whichever is chosen the other will leave. She believes that the decision will cause the brothers to quarrel and she cares enough about them both to want to delay that eventuality for as long as possible. And she is right, is she not?”
Claude paused before he answered. He was remembering things he had long pushed to the back of his mind concerning his last conversation with Sir Bernard. “I believe she might be.”
Allowing her husband time to think, it was some time before his wife continued. “Whichever is chosen the other will leave and I suspect she wants to postpone that day for as long as possible.”
“She would have William?” Claude asked, uncomfortably aware that he should have known his daughter sufficiently well to understand her preference.
“It is too early to say but from the evidence of this one day I believe so. They have changed in their three months in Oxford. Perhaps William is gaining in confidence with his new friends and interests whereas Henry is not finding it so easy to be the top dog he has always been in the past. Perhaps increased maturity is bringing out the best in one and the worst in the other.”
“Perhaps.” Claude was unwilling to admit the truths in his wife’s arguments.
It weighed heavily on his mind that the decision would affect not only his daughter’s happiness but also the control of The Lodge estate, and with it the destiny of Sir Bernard’s diaries, hidden as they were in the chapel in the woods.
“Speak with her. Let me know her thoughts.” He spoke as if it had been his own idea.
“Yes, husband.”
“And I will talk to both Henry and William.”
They both knew Patience had won that small, but critical, battle.
*
“But they are both like brothers to me.” Josephine’s response to her mother’s interrogation was unconvincing. “How can I prefer either as a husband?”
“You are nineteen years old. There are girls of your age married with heirs already presented for their husbands. The decision about your future must be made.” Patience spoke more firmly than was her usual tone. She had a great deal of sympathy for her daughter’s situation.
“But surely the boys are too young to be married? They have three years more at Oxford. Surely neither wants to be tied before their education is complete?”
“Of course the marriage cannot take place immediately but an engagement is necessary.”
“I care for them both, but as brothers, and I can’t imagine feeling for either as a wife should feel for a husband.”
“You read too many romances, Josephine. What you believe you feel cannot come into the choice of husband. I did not know your dear papa well when we married, if I had been consulted I would have said I had no particular feelings for him at the time, but I have grown to admire and respect him and you must know how fond we are of each other.”
“It would be best if they were allowed to choose elsewhere and Papa could find some other match for me. Mama, you could explain it to Papa couldn’t you? I will be friend to them both till the day I die but it would be better if I were wife to neither. It would be far better if Papa settled on someone else. Far better, and I would obey him then. I would. Even if the man he chose was old and fat and stank of tobacco. Just don’t make me marry one of the twins.”
Josephine was determined not to cry so she screwed her hands tight and dug her nails into the palms of her hands.
“He could not force me to marry if I did not wish to.”
“You know your father would not force you, and you know I would not allow that, but he would explain all the circumstances to you, he would explain all the advantages of the match and you would, sooner or later, be made to accept the rightness of his decision.”
*
As Josephine and her mother sat in their parlour sewing their samplers and disagreeing, Henry and William were with their uncle seated around the
fire in his library.
“You are men now, no longer boys.” Claude spoke seriously. “You must know how much I have missed your father and how your aunt has missed your mother these past seven years. It will not be long before you attain your majorities. What do you plan to do with your lives?”
“As I have said, I will move into Oakridge.” Henry spoke first. “I will take over the running of the estate, I will interest myself in local activities and act as Member of Parliament. I will, therefore, need a house in London and will divide my time accordingly. It is what I have always known I would do.”
“And what of you William? Have you plans?”
“None so firmly set, sir. I would like to travel, see something of the world—”
“Go to Antarctica?” his brother interrupted with something approaching a sneer.
“There are other continents to explore, so much of the world to see, but America is an exciting continent.”
“And what would you do for money were you to head for the Colonies?” The supercilious note in Henry’s voice was lost on neither Claude nor William.
“My needs have never been as extravagant as yours, Henry, so the income I will have from my father when I am twenty-one will be quite sufficient. To occupy myself I will find work, there are many geological expeditions I could join. But surely there is time enough for a final decision when I know more of my own mind.”
Claude, remembering Sir Bernard’s history decided, on instinct and without much consideration, that it would do the boys good to know more about their father. “You may still have connections in the Americas,” he said quietly.
“Connections, sir?” William realised that his uncle had something of importance to share.
“Your father was from the Colonies.”
Claude waited for the twins to understand the implications of what he had said.
It was Henry who responded first. “Impossible! How could he have been from America? He was a baronet!”
“The two are not mutually exclusive, my boy. Men from all parts of the world settle in this country and, if they give service, as your father did, that service will be recognised by their adopted nation.”
“But an American!” Henry spoke as if he had been told his father had been an escaped convict from one of the newly established penal colonies of Australia.
“Your father was a very brave and a very good man, Henry, I expect you to appreciate that.”
“But he must have been a nobody. My family—”
“You certainly do not come from a long line of blue-blooded aristocrats, if that is what you have believed. Your title does not come from your great-grandmother being bedded by a prince of the realm.” Claude spoke in a tone that failed to hide his long-felt contempt for the system of honouring the sons born on the wrong side of a royal blanket. “Your father’s title was granted after a lifetime of service, the worth of which I cannot expect you to understand but I will demand that you respect.”
Henry was silenced but his understanding of himself had been changed forever. In the moments it took for him to understand the implications of his uncle’s words he determined that he would give no one, at any time, the slightest reason to believe that he did not descend from a long line of highly bred aristocrats. He had never concerned himself with the detail that he was only the second Baronet Lacey of Oakridge, believing that earlier generations of Laceys had simply not been formally honoured.
The effect on his brother was very different.
“Do you know where in America? Do you know from what stock his family came? Were they farmers? Traders? What more can you tell us? I could go to where our grandparents lived. We may have family there, uncles, aunts, cousins may survive.” William’s voice was filled with his excitement and enquiry.
Thinking that perhaps he had made a mistake by mentioning Sir Bernard, Claude turned the subject. “We will talk of all that another time. Now I have something of greater importance to discuss. I wish to speak to you of Josephine.”
“Josephine?” William repeated tentatively.
“You will know that it is my greatest desire, and that of your aunt, as it was the dearest dream of your mother and father, that our families be united through marriage.” His voice betrayed the fact that he felt awkward discussing his daughter in this way, even with two he knew so well. “No, please do not interrupt me.” He had noticed William seemed about to speak. “This is not easy as there are the two of you and I have only one daughter. It is essential that you decide which of you shall be husband to her. She is a girl no more and the matter must be settled before you return to Oxford.”
“She’s our cousin, our sister almost.” William found his answer first but Henry’s soon followed.
“Why should that make any difference?”
“What do you mean Henry? You want her? For your wife?”
His brother didn’t answer.
William did not think he loved Josephine as he understood a man should love his wife, but he loved her as a sister. She had always been kind and gentle to him, even when teasing him the most, and she had reminded him so much of his mother whose memory faded more each year. He did not think Henry would treat her well, however charming he could be when he chose.
“Why, little brother, you want her for yourself.” Henry spoke with understated menace.
Claude looked from one to the other. Patience had been right. His words had focussed the boys’ growing discomfort with each other into a competition that could have no good end and whichever brother was the loser would not take his failure easily.
He also saw that Patience had been accurate in her understanding that, if allowed the choice, their daughter would prefer the younger, gentler and more interesting brother. He also saw that if she were to be allowed to make that choice then Henry would, indeed, cut himself adrift from the family, a situation that could have unthinkable consequences.
When Henry received the letter Sir Bernard had left him he would know of the existence of the diaries. He would demand they were given to him and he would have no hesitation in disobeying his father’s wishes. He would open them and he would read the truth of who and what his, and Josephine’s, family really were. Only if Henry were still at The Lodge or at Oakridge could Claude be in a position to keep Henry from gaining control of the diaries. He needed time to arrange the matter better.
“Perhaps it is too important a decision to make when so much about your future is uncertain. I will give you until your twenty-first birthday. Enjoy your time at Oxford, make good use of it, become the men you will be and then we will decide.”
Claude had no firm idea how he could reconcile his obligations to Sir Bernard with his fear of exposure but he had won many battles in the past by keeping his options open for as long as possible.
*
In the weeks before the celebration of the twins’ twenty-first birthday Claude shut himself in his study and spent many anguished hours finding a solution to what seemed to him to be an insoluble conundrum.
He wanted his daughter to have the status and security of being Lady Lacey of Oakridge but he had seen Henry develop into a man who possessed a character that was neither likeable nor honourable. However, if Josephine were to become Mrs William Lacey she would have the gentler husband but neither fortune nor status. And in his mind the issue was rendered impossible by its being tied to the fate of Sir Bernard’s writings.
Many times Claude wished that Sir Bernard had not committed their secrets to paper. Had he not written everything down the truth would have been lost and no one would be any the wiser. But the diaries had been written and their existence could not be ignored. Claude could not rid himself of the feeling that Josephine’s sons, and their sons, had a right to know the richness of their ancestry. He could not let the truth be known while his daughter still lived, as it was unbearable to him that she would know he had lied to her throughout her life, but when there was no longer a direct link to anyone living, he persuaded himself, no har
m could be done.
He had watched as his nemesis the Duke had turned to politics and spent his years in office resisting reform and change but now, in 1843, he was again Commander in Chief of the British Army, Leader of the House of Lords and a minister in Peel’s cabinet. He would be ruthless in his punishment of anyone who threatened his position. Sir Robert and Lady Frances Frensham were prominent members of society, what would the truth do to them and to her son, Lewis, who Claude knew to be his son also? No, Claude said firmly to himself, the truth must not be known while they lived. And that, he recognised, meant he could not allow Henry to know of their existence.
“History is a set of lies agreed upon.” Claude said the words aloud to himself and they reverberated in the silence of the book-lined library. And the lies had been agreed. History could not record that he had cooperated with the English, sharing intelligence and the benefit of his experience to resist revolution and prevent war. To all but a very small number of people living Napoleon Bonaparte had been captured and exiled and had died on St Helena in 1821.
For three years Claude had watched Henry grow into an arrogant and devious man and for three years he wrestled with finding a course of action by which he could protect those people who needed his protection whilst fulfilling his obligations to Sir Bernard. For three years he had procrastinated but with the day of celebration looming, he had to find an answer.
He considered giving Henry the diaries and the letter without the codebook, but he had not read the contents of the folders and had no idea how much of what Sir Bernard had written lay in plain text amongst those hundreds of sheets of closely written paper. He could not trust that there were no uncoded secrets. No, Claude concluded, Henry could not have the folders even without the codebook.
He had the idea of giving Henry the letter alone, unattached to any book or folder. But Henry would learn of the existence of the folders and would demand to know where they were and why they had not been given to him. It would be impossible for Claude to lie, brazenly, that he had no idea where they were. Claude rejected that idea. The letter on its own would not do.
A Set of Lies Page 14