House of Shadows (38 page)

‘I
’ve got something for you,’ Mark said. They were having breakfast of coffee and croissants under the apple tree in the orchard garden. It was the sort of late summer day that would burn hot at noon but cool down with a hint of autumn later. The seasons were starting to turn, the trees in the wood slipping from green to gold.

‘What is it?’ Holly felt drowsy with warmth and love, happy and sad, all mixed up.

Mark reached for a folder he had laid on the seat next to him. ‘I’ve found Lavinia,’ he said. ‘Or rather my friend did. Harry, the genealogist?’

‘You found her?’ Holly put her cup down sharply. ‘I didn’t know you were looking for her.’

Mark looked shamefaced. ‘It seemed so important to you to know what had happened to her so I thought I’d ask Harry to try. I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want to get your hopes up. Harry thought the prospect was pretty
unlikely. Anyway, it took him a bit of work but he got there in the end.’ He held the piece of paper out of her reach as she made a grab for it. ‘I think you’ll like this. I hope so.’

‘Tell me then,’ Holly said.

‘Right,’ Mark said. ‘Well first of all, you were correct that Kitty Flyte was Lavinia’s daughter although by the time Kitty married into the Bayly family her mother had changed her name to Jane Flyte and long given up her first profession. She was a very successful milliner.’

‘Lavinia became a milliner?’ Holly was so surprised her mouth fell open.

‘She set up in Bath in 1802,’ Mark said. ‘She features in the trade listings every year. Very gradually she built up a respectable name and a reputable clientele. Her designs were much sought after and she made a lot of money.’

‘Well I’ll be damned,’ Holly said. Lavinia had put her sharp mind and acquisitive nature to work on making a fortune in a very different way from writing erotic memoirs. Holly felt incredibly proud of her. What a girl.

‘It’s expensive setting up in business,’ she said slowly. ‘I’m more sure than ever now that Lavinia sold the original diamonds from the mirror to reinvent herself and give Kitty a good education and start all over again.’

‘Yes,’ Mark said. He smiled at her. ‘I think you’re right.’

‘I don’t suppose we’ll ever know,’ Holly said. ‘Nor whether Robert Verity was her father.’

‘Not for certain,’ Mark said, ‘but I’d like to think he was.’ He looked at the piece of paper and then up at her. ‘There’s something else,’ he said slowly. ‘I’m not sure how you’ll feel about this.’

‘Go on,’ Holly said.

‘Kitty Bayly had seven children,’ Mark said. ‘Amongst them was a daughter called Helena. Her husband was a man called John Darcombe. They were a military family, quite a distinguished one. He died young, in battle and Helena was left to bring up her young family alone.’ Mark was watching her face, his eyes gentle. ‘They continued the military tradition. The most recent Darcombe was a Brigadier. It’s a name I imagine you know?’

‘Yes.’ Holly wrapped her arms tight about her, feeling the shivers run over her skin. The world was spinning, the pattern changing, re-forming.

‘Darcombe was my grandmother’s maiden name,’ she said a little shakily. ‘Her father was Brigadier Robert Darcombe.’

‘Yes,’ Mark said. ‘You are descended from Kitty Flyte and possibly from Robert Verity too. And via him from William Craven.’

Holly smiled ruefully. It was no wonder that she had not been able to find Kitty on the Ansell family tree. The descent had not been in the male line. It was all those strong women, Lavinia taking her daughter and forging a new life, Helena bringing up seven children alone, Hester taking on her orphaned grandchildren and giving them new hope, who had carried Lord Craven’s legacy down to the present day.

‘There’s just one other small thing,’ Mark said. ‘Lavinia herself was descended from Elizabeth and Frederick of Bohemia. Henry was really chuffed when he discovered that.’

Holly stared. ‘What? How?’

‘From what I gather, Elizabeth’s sons were a philandering bunch,’ Mark said. He grimaced. ‘I should know. My family were descended from one of the other lines ourselves and it wasn’t a legitimate descent either, but straight down the wrong side of the blanket from Prince Rupert,’ Mark said. ‘I’d never paid much attention to the family history before all this, but …’ He let the sentence hang and Holly knew what he was thinking. William and Elizabeth, Robert and Lavinia, all connected by fate and blood and destiny and spirit.

‘So whom was Lavinia descended from?’ she asked.

‘Elizabeth and Frederick had a son called Philip,’ Mark said. ‘By all accounts he was a bit of a bad lot; he killed a man in a duel and was forced into exile and after that he became a soldier of fortune. He died in battle at only twenty-three, but not before he had fathered a child on a camp follower, a woman called Jacqueline Fleet. Fleet became Flyte over time, I guess, but there was never any hint by Lavinia’s generation that they had royal antecedents.’

‘No,’ Holly said. ‘I imagine Lavinia would have made the most of it if she had known. She would probably have persuaded George III to have given her a pension, or something.’ She sighed. ‘I see now what Flick meant,’ she said, ‘when she said that she thought that she and Ben were part of the chain. She really believed that they were the lovers in this generation of the story. She thought they were destined to be together.’ Her eyes met Mark’s. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said.

‘Yes,’ Mark said. ‘Poor Flick.’ He reached out and touched her cheek lightly. ‘Because she was wrong, wasn’t
she. There were two lovers who were destined to meet in this life, just as William and Elizabeth, and Lavinia and Robert, had done before. But it wasn’t Flick and Ben.’

‘No,’ Holly whispered. She could see the pattern now, whole, beautiful. ‘No,’ she said again. ‘Those lovers were you and I.’

Mark’s fingers linked with hers, long and strong. ‘Shall we see if we can get it right this time?’ he said.

‘We can do our best,’ Holly said.

Flick had not been awake to share breakfast with them but now Holly saw her coming towards them down the drive, her high wedge heels scattering the gravel. This morning she was dressed down in leggings and a long shirt that was at least three sizes too big. She still managed to look elegant.

‘How does she do it?’ Holly sighed.

‘It’s in the genes,’ Mark said, with a smile.

Flick waved and quickened her pace, wobbling all over as though she was about to fall. She looked all leggy and edgy, like a deer, poised on the edge of flight. The whole atmosphere around her felt as though it was suffused with nervousness.

‘Holly,’ she said, ‘could I have a word?’

‘Of course,’ Holly said.

‘I’ll go and—’ Mark waved a hand vaguely towards the house.

‘No,’ Flick said. ‘Don’t go, Mark. I need you to hear this.’

She sat bolt upright on the very edge of the seat. She
was fidgeting with something she had in her hands, a book wrapped in a plastic supermarket bag. She held it out to Holly.

‘This is yours,’ she said. Her gaze fell. ‘At least … it was Ben’s. He was the one who found it.’

‘Ben’s?’ Holly said. She took the parcel from her and slid the book out of the bag. The leather was smooth and worn under her fingertips. In the light it gleamed deep green. It was the same shape and size as Lavinia’s diary but instead of the lavender and old dust smell of the memoir it smelled of damp and simultaneously, curiously, burning.

‘Careful,’ Flick said, as she opened it. ‘It’s very fragile.’

Holly turned the page. She could feel her heart beating fast. The sound filled her ears. At the same time she had a strange sensation of time spinning backwards again to a March night in 1801 when Lavinia had planned to rob Lord Evershot and run away, and Robert Verity had disappeared.

The writing was practically illegible. Part charred, part blurred by water damage, it swam across the page in a riot of numbers and formulae and the odd scattered word here and there. The date 1801 and the words ‘January’ and ‘downs’ and ‘stone’ were the ones that leaped out at Holly from the disintegrating pages.

‘Robert Verity’s notebook,’ she said. She looked up from the disconnected words on the page to look at Flick. ‘Where did you find this?’

‘I took it from the Mill,’ Flick said baldly. ‘I stole it.’ She looked at Mark. ‘I’m sorry, Mark.’ She carried on talking, quickly, jerkily, not looking at either of them. ‘I just wanted
something of Ben’s. A memento. You know what I mean. I—’ She studied her hands, locking the fingers together until her knuckles gleamed white. ‘It was so hard, not knowing, not telling anyone. I needed something of his just to keep, to hold.’ A tear rolled down her cheek and she dashed it away. ‘I’m sorry.’

Holly shifted along the seat and put her arms about her. ‘Hey,’ she said. ‘It’s OK.’

‘I took it that day I came to see you about the bowl,’ Flick said. ‘I don’t know where Ben found it but I knew he kept it in a drawer in the dresser.’ She scrubbed at her eyes. ‘I hope it wasn’t important. The notebook, I mean.’

Holly’s eyes met Mark’s. ‘No,’ she said. ‘It doesn’t matter at all.’

Flick put her head on Holly’s shoulder and cried as though her heart would break and Holly held her tightly feeling Flick’s hot tears soak her jacket. Over Flick’s shoulder she could see Mark turning the pages of the book, studying diagrams in Ben’s handwriting, annotations and drawings.

‘I’m probably going to do this a lot.’ Flick drew back, sniffing. ‘I’m so sorry for everything. But I do love you, Holly. You are the best.’ Silently Mark passed her a handkerchief and she gave him a watery smile. ‘I’ll go now,’ she said. Her gaze darted from one of them to the other. ‘I guess you have stuff to discuss.’

Holly squeezed her hand. ‘You’ll be all right?’

‘Yeah,’ Flick said. ‘Thanks.’ She took a breath. ‘I’ll never forget him.’

‘She’s very lovable, your sister,’ Holly said, watching as
Flick’s slender figure walked away, head bent. ‘And she’s very generous with her love too.’

Mark took her hand. ‘I’m not surprised she loves you,’ he said gruffly. ‘You have been more forgiving and generous than either of us had a right to expect.’

He released her. ‘Look at this.’ He handed the book to her.

Ben had created a most perfect line drawing of the house, tall, elegant, gracious with its soaring roof and little golden ball. Beneath it was a line in his neat handwriting:

‘The Sistrin was concealed in the cupola.’

Holly caught her breath on a gasp. ‘So Ben did find the pearl’s hiding place,’ she said. ‘He must have worked out its location from Robert Verity’s calculations.’

She fumbled in the pocket of her jacket and took out the battered gold chain. ‘Flick said Ben tried to give this to her. She refused to take it and he had it with him when he died.’ She looked up and met Mark’s eyes. ‘But where is the Sistrin itself?’

Mark smiled. ‘I think you’ll find it’s somewhere at the Mill,’ he said. ‘Although perhaps not quite in the form you might expect.’

‘What do you mean?’ Holly said.

‘I think Ben found the pearl in the wine cellars,’ Mark said slowly. He touched the links of the gold chain very lightly. ‘This looks as though it’s been badly damaged. You remember me telling you that the cupola fell all the way down through the house during the fire?’

‘Of course,’ Holly said. ‘The pearl necklace would have been buried under a load of rubble when the house burned down.’

‘The cupola falling into the cellars smashed a lot of bottles as well,’ Mark said. ‘There was red wine sediment all over the floor.’

‘Pearls will dissolve in wine.’ Holly was gripping the edge of the table tightly now. Her heart hammered in her throat as they pieced together the last elements of the story.

‘Do you think the Sistrin was destroyed?’ she asked.

Mark shook his head. ‘Not completely. But it must have been damaged and if it lay in the acidic wine for any length of time it would change colour and lose its lustre—’ He stopped. ‘What is it?’

‘I know where it is,’ Holly said shakily. ‘I found it the very first day I came to Ashdown but I didn’t realise …’ She was thinking of the little secret compartment in the window seat in the bedroom and the misshapen yellow stone she had found in it.

The day was quiet, but for the call of the birds in the trees and the run of the stream.

There was silence between them for a couple of moments and then Holly started to laugh.

‘It is the ultimate irony,’ she said. ‘There was Lord Evershot looking all over the estate for clues to the hiding place and all the time the Sistrin was above his head. Literally. And he never knew.’

She stood up, scooping the Sistrin’s chain into her hand. ‘There’s something I need to do,’ she said. ‘Come with me?’

They walked back to the mill together. Mark waited by the door as Holly went up to the bedroom, opened the lid of the window seat and reached in to take out the pearl. It sat in her palm, shrunken and yellow, without light or lustre,
its beauty lost. Yet Holly knew that the sheen of it might have gone but the power remained.

They walked over to the gate and both leaned their elbows on it. The Ash Brook ran alongside the track here and, Holly could hear the soft splash of the water. Soon the mill pool would be full again and next summer the dragonflies would return and the parched earth would turn the lush green she remembered from her childhood.