Fatal Inheritance (14 page)

‘Rose,’ I said. ‘Oh, Rose, I don’t know what to think!’

‘We’ve found Lydia,’ she said. ‘We simply must have. The two little girls were Lydia and Tanis. They must have been!’

‘Yes,’ I replied, ‘but don’t you see the problem? Both girls were adopted – so our idea that Lydia was the true daughter of the Kriegers must have been wrong. So even if Sebastian was her son and not Tanis’ – why, it still does nothing to explain the “cursed inheritance”!’

‘Oh, blow,’ she said, ‘you’re right. We had it differently in our heads, didn’t we?’

‘We had thought that Tanis might be the daughter of friends of the Kriegers who had died,’ I recalled. ‘Maybe both girls were. Any friends of the Kriegers were probably musicians, and perhaps that would explain where Sebastian’s talent came from.’

She laughed. ‘If one admits that it needs any explanation at all,’ she said. ‘You know that Sebastian wouldn’t agree. Anyway, it isn’t the talent that needs explaining, it’s what Professor Pezze said. He saw a
real
resemblance to Joseph Krieger, Vanessa. I can’t not believe him – but neither can I see how it could be true! Oh, this is annoying – just when we were getting everything to be so plausible!’

‘We simply must find out who the children really were, and where they came from,’ I said, and at that moment, well before we had had time to finish reading the diaries, let alone digest the new information, the door opened and Professor Wessely came back in.

‘You seem very busy,’ he remarked. ‘Have you found interesting things?’

‘Extraordinarily interesting,’ I blurted out. ‘Did you know that Mrs Cavendish was adopted by Joseph Krieger and his wife?’

‘Really?’ He looked surprised. ‘No, I didn’t know that. I always assumed that Sebastian’s talent came from his grandfather through his mother. It seemed something that ran in the family. I am not aware that Sebastian’s mother played any instrument, but I noticed more than once that she has a profound feeling for and understanding of music. From seeing her over the course of several years at the concerts and recitals that take place here at the Academy, it was clear to me that she had a remarkable ear. In fact, I have more than once noticed her actually wincing at a wrong note, and when I say a wrong note, I am speaking of something very subtle, just the smallest bit off-colour, not something that would disturb an ordinary amateur.’ He smiled. ‘In any case, what importance does it have? None at all. As I told you, talent can flower anywhere, and the important thing is to nurture it once it is discovered. I am very grateful for the idea you have given me. I will certainly write to Mrs Cavendish about Wolfe.’

‘Please, do not mention our visit!’ said Rose quickly. ‘We are acting on what we felt to be an unspoken wish of hers. She does not know of our search on her behalf, and might perhaps be annoyed by it.’

‘Of course, of course,’ he replied understandingly. ‘Rest assured, I shall be most delicate.’ He hesitated for a moment, glancing at his watch. ‘I am sorry, I must lock the office and leave now. But you have been very helpful. Is there something that you would like to borrow from all this?’ He indicated the papers scattered over his desk.

I gratefully took the notebooks for the years 1849 and 1850, and stowed them in my bag.

‘I will take the best possible care of them,’ I promised him, ‘and bring them back to you tomorrow.’

He smiled again, warmly.

‘They have lain untouched for a long time,’ he said. ‘Monsieur Sainton would be pleased, I think, to know that someone was reading them. It is important not to forget those who are dead.’

‘They have much to say to us,’ I agreed, but I was thinking of Sebastian, not Prosper Sainton.

‘And many ways of saying it,’ added Rose, and I knew her thoughts were running in the same channels as mine.

I stood with Rose in the wind and cold damp which rendered even the luxurious gardens and splendid monuments of the Highgate Cemetery drab and gloomy, and stared down at the smooth earthen plot where Sebastian Cavendish reposed, his vibrant voice forever silent. The grass had been replanted, but the chill had not encouraged it to flourish, and only a couple of patches showed some straggling blades. Faded bouquets with brownish petals, tied with discoloured ribbons, still lay at the foot of the large stone cross, together with a few fresher ones. Clutching her own bunch of white lilies, Rose stood and contemplated them motionlessly.

The base of the cross was a solid four-sided block in grey stone, and in the frontal panel were carved the words:

Joseph Krieger had prepared a tomb for his family, but they were not there. The other three sides of the block were bare and smooth. In front of one of them, a small wooden cross had been planted, upon which was mounted a tiny brass plate containing the words:

‘They haven’t had time to carve it into the stone yet,’ said Rose. ‘It’s such a little epitaph.’

‘It’s more beautiful so,’ I said. ‘Adding words wouldn’t make it any better.’

‘No one knows exactly what time he died, before or after midnight,’ she went on with a catch in her voice. ‘The carvers offered him 1900 as a kind of gift; that he should have seen the new century before he died.’

‘That is a touching thought,’ I said, and she burst into tears.

‘No, it isn’t,’ she sobbed. ‘He could have been spared those last hours. They must have been horrible.’

I had never asked about the precise circumstances of Sebastian’s death, contenting myself with the brief mention of taking poison that Rose had let fall on that first day at the memorial concert. Even now, when Rose spoke of it spontaneously, I felt inhibited about asking for details. Whatever Sebastian had taken, it would not make any difference, and I had no need to know.

If he had really taken it. Of his own will.

The thought entered my head unbidden, but not for the first time. In the last few days, it had presented itself there with a persistence that increased in proportion to the tenacity with which I pushed it away. I did not want to behave like a seeker after sensation – and yet – it did seem that the unfolding pattern was leading to discoveries which, exciting though they were and liable to cause a tumult of emotions, could not comprehensibly have led to a state of suicidal despair.

Consciously, at least, I tried to reject the idea. I told myself repeatedly that there might be, there must be, a missing link of some kind, and that I was not to jump to conclusions before knowing the full detail of Sebastian’s actions on the day he died. But it lingered stubbornly in the recesses of my mind.

Someone could have been jealous of Sebastian.

Someone could have been angry with him.

Or someone could have been afraid of him, or of something he might do, or discover.

It wasn’t difficult to construct mad theories. It was perhaps useless, and in any case certainly premature. But Rose’s tearful words gave me an opening to find out something I had not known how to ask.

‘Was it very dreadful?’ I asked, taking her hand in both of mine.

‘It was arsenic,’ she wept. ‘It was right there in the house; it had always been there. It’s a terrible death, Vanessa, they say. Hours of terrible illness before you die.’

‘Why on earth did he have arsenic in the house?’ I asked, instantly alert. Chemists do not sell pure arsenic. Anyone in possession of arsenic may be justly suspected of planning a suicide.

‘He took it from a porcelain pot on his mother’s dressing table,’ she said, wiping her eyes. ‘She bought it in America. We went there three years ago on tour with the Academy orchestra. Sebastian was concertmaster, and we also played solo – we played the Brahms Double Concerto together. It was so exalting – I’ll never forget it. The way we played that night. Oh, Sebastian!’ Leaning forward, she suddenly set her bouquet of lilies in the middle of the patch of earth over the grave. She laid it down with both hands, almost pressing it, as though she could push the message of loving memory through the earth to the body below. She remained there for a moment, bent over, her hands on the flowers, communing silently. Then she stood up, her face calmer. Drawing my arm through hers, I led her towards the large entrance gate as she went on speaking.

‘Mrs Cavendish came with us on the tour; she took care of some of the organisation. I suppose she enjoyed the opportunity to hear Sebastian, and also to see something of the United States. It really was great fun, and fascinatingly different, too. One of the things we found out was that American women believe that tiny doses of arsenic are splendid for the complexion. You can buy pots of it over there, and Mrs Cavendish got one. I found out later that some ladies actually do use it over here as well, but they’ve got to soak it off fly-papers. Personally, I should hate the idea of poisoning myself every day, but Mrs Cavendish does have a marvellous complexion for her age; she quite glows. Sebastian took the powder from her pot and put nearly all of it into a cup of coffee. He was all alone; alone and too ill to go for help.’

‘He didn’t want help,’ I said. Again that little voice inside me argued. And Rose argued, too.

‘I know why you say that, Vanessa. But he did want help – I know he did! He wasn’t made to lie down and give up. Maybe his brain didn’t want to be helped, but the life-force running through his veins – it must have!’

She was upset again, but she pulled herself together as a man in a black coat came towards us, holding up an umbrella against the rain that had now begun to fall, and a second one in his hand.

‘It’s coming down, ladies,’ he said kindly, ‘and it’ll be worse in a minute. Would you like to take shelter in the lodge till it’s over?’ He looked at Rose’s face and added, ‘We’ll make a nice cup of tea over my spirit lamp.’

The caretaker’s room was stuffy, but it was not too cold and there was a bench covered with a ragged blanket upon which we sat while he bustled about with kettle and mugs.

‘You been visiting a new grave?’ he asked conversationally.

‘Yes, Sebastian Cavendish’s,’ I told him. ‘The epitaph hasn’t been carved yet.’

‘Oh right. ’E ’asn’t started yet on that one, our carver. ’E’s finishing another one; a posh one it is, in the Circle of Lebanon. Someone new in a family vault. ’E’ll do the Cavendish stone next.’

He glanced out of a tiny window divided into even tinier panes, dimmed with raindrops on the outside and grime and spiderwebs within.

‘’E was out there working this morning. I expect ’e’ll come in ’ere in a minute. ’E doesn’t much like the rain. Oh, ’ere ’e comes now.’

The man who entered the lodge, the collar of his rain-streaked workman’s jacket pulled up over his head, was grizzled and so old that I was surprised he could still manage such a demanding task. But his knotted hands were strong. He set down a few tools and sat next to me on the bench. I squeezed over a little to make room for him, and we greeted each other.

‘Sheltering from the rain, eh?’ he said. ‘Visiting tombs, were you?’

‘Yes. And you have been working?’

‘Oh yes, I have. Gold leaf inside the letters on that one,’ and he smiled largely, showing a missing front tooth. ‘Which is yours? Or were you just seeing the sights?’

‘No, we were visiting a new one. Sebastian Cavendish.’

‘Oh right, yes. I’ll be doing that one next. Poor old Joseph’s finally got some company.’ He smiled again gappily, and took the mug of very sugary tea that the caretaker offered him, remarking sympathetically,

‘Been lonely for a long time, ’e ’as.’

‘The dead people here are your friends,’ I said, seeing suddenly how simple and obvious this was, and how much sense it made.

‘Why, of course they are,’ said the caretaker. ‘We know ’em all, every one in-di-vi-dually, don’t we, Jack?’

‘Carved dozens o’ their stones with me own ’ands,’ answered the carver with quiet pride. ‘And no worse than the ones that came before, if I do say so myself.’

‘Did you carve Joseph Krieger’s?’

‘No, I didn’t do that one, but I saw it done. I was serving my apprenticeship then. I ’ad a good master; good technique and plenty of style. Those words will be legible for a long, long time yet. I’m going to use the same lettering for young Sebastian’s.’

‘What about Joseph Krieger’s wife?’ I asked, suddenly curious. ‘Why isn’t anything carved for her?’

‘She’s not buried ’ere,’ he said, and then added unexpectedly, ‘I remember ’er well. She came to the grave with ’er daughters twice a year to garden it a bit, clean it up, set in some flowers. Every year twice, she came. In the autumn, and she’d plant bulbs around the edge, and then in the spring, when they bloomed, to clear off the winter’s debris. Only one kind of flower: yellow tulips. Never anything else. The
Black Tulip
novel came out that year, and ’alf the graves ’ere ’ad them on it the next spring, only it was the purple ones that everyone was planting – there weren’t no black ones for real. But Mrs Krieger, she went on year after year, always the same thing: a ring of yellow tulips right around the edge and a grass plot in the middle. That’s why I remember it so well. As soon as I’d see those tulip buds in February, I’d start expecting ’er next visit.’

Mesmerised by this discourse, I waited until he had stopped speaking and even several seconds after, afraid to disrupt the natural flow of his memory by insistent questions. When I finally spoke, it was just to gently repeat his words.

‘She used to come with her daughters?’

‘That’s right. Just little things they were in the beginning, all dressed in black like their mother. Energetic little creatures, quite a ’andful they must have been and she a widow. I saw them grow from little girls into big ones and then one year they stopped coming.’

‘Do you know why?’

‘I didn’t then,’ he said, ‘but I do now, for I asked young Sebastian’s mother about it last month when I met with ’er about the epitaph. One of the little girls, she was. The littler one. Anyway, it seems that the Kriegers ’ad ’ad a child who died out in the country somewhere, and was buried there, and Joseph Krieger’s wife wanted to be buried with ’er child.’

‘I would want the same thing, in that situation,’ I said.

‘She might easily ’ave asked for the child’s coffin to be exhumed and brought ’ere,’ he said with a note of huffiness in his voice. ‘The Krieger plot is for four; all paid for and everything, it is. I wonder she didn’t do that. No one told ’er, perhaps. A pity. They could ’ave all been together. It isn’t too late now, either,’ he added. ‘I told Mrs Cavendish, I did. “Why don’t you ’ave your mother brought ’ome,” I said to ’er, “so you can all be together?” ’

‘And what did she say?’

‘She said they were well where they were. But I’m thinking that she wants to keep one of the places for ’erself. Save ’er ’aving to buy one, and they’re getting more expensive than they were. And it stands to reason that she’ll want to be with ’er son. Poor woman,’ he added in a slightly perfunctory tone, a token of respect for the unofficial aspects of mourning, so much less familiar to him than the formal ones, amongst which he felt easy and comfortable.

The rain stopped and a feeble ray of sunshine gleamed palely through the grey clouds. Rose and I got up to leave, handing our mugs back to the caretaker.

‘Vanessa, everywhere we go, we find out something,’ she said as we made our way out of the gate. ‘Now we
know
it’s all true, what we read in the notebooks about the adopted children! It’s not that I didn’t believe it, of course, but meeting someone who actually saw them does make a difference, doesn’t it? The younger one was Tanis, and the bigger girl simply must have been Lydia!’

‘Illegitimate children of Joseph Krieger,’ I blurted out. This thought had been vaguely in my head since we had read about the adoption of both girls in Prosper Sainton’s notebooks. But I had not liked to mention it to Rose; it seemed to open doors upon such a world of impropriety and sin and evil.

Rose looked at me in surprise.

‘You really think that?’ she said. ‘But surely Mrs Krieger would not have wanted to adopt her husband’s children by some mistress, and love them, and bring them up as her own.’

‘You’ve heard of Edith Nesbit?’ I asked thoughtfully. ‘You know, the woman socialist – one of the founders of the Fabian Society. My friend Sir Oliver Lodge belongs, and so does Bertrand Russell, the mathematician – I met him once. She’s published some absolutely wonderful children’s books; I’ve read them to the twins. Anyway, they are all very advanced, these people, and everyone knows that Edith Nesbit lives with her husband and his mistress all together in one house, and they’re bringing up the children of both women as one big family.’

‘You call that advanced?’ said Rose. ‘It sounds to me like the behaviour of people from a primitive tribe somewhere, or from Biblical times.’

‘No,’ I said, ‘the difference is that these women bring up their children together from their own choice. They feel that they are in the vanguard of a movement to break out of the bonds of conventional morality.’

She looked at me askance.

‘You think Mrs Krieger was like that?’

‘Well, not really,’ I admitted. ‘But she wouldn’t have had to live with the mistress or even know her. Perhaps the mistress died. And she did long for little children to care for.’

‘You’re sure there was nothing at all in the rest of Sainton’s diary?’ she said hopefully. ‘If Krieger had a mistress, there might have been rumours.’