Michael Cox (56 page)

36

Aftermath

I
In Which I See My Future

‘Y
OU’RE UP
early, miss,’ says Charlie Skinner, tight-collared and red-faced, whom I meet outside Emily’s apartments puffing his way up to Mr Perseus’s room with a tray of coffee.
I tell Charlie that, having been unable to sleep, I had got up to take a walk in the rose-garden, and watch the sun rise.
‘Her Ladyship’s been up with the lark, too,’ he then remarks, nodding towards Emily’s door. He seems uncharacteristically subdued, and I realize that he has not favoured me with one of his customary salutes.
‘Miss Allardyce is all of a twitter,’ he confides. ‘Says she can’t understand it. The bed’s been slept in, but there’s no sign of her Ladyship – or her night-gown.’
‘Night-gown?’ I ask, assuming a puzzled air.
‘Well,’ Charlie whisperingly explains, ‘Miss A is of the strong opinion that, in the unlikely event that Lady T dressed herself, she would of course have taken off her night-gown. But it’s nowhere to be found.’
Then he looks me up and down, dwelling particularly, first, on my wet dress, and then on my boots, which are still spattered with caked mud and clinging blades of grass.
‘Are you all right, miss?’ he enquires. ‘You look a little flushed. Is there anything I can do?’
I assure the dear fellow – for I have grown quite fond of Sukie Prout’s eccentric young cousin – that there is nothing wrong, even though I am all afire with suppressed excitement, mingled with recollected horror at what I have so recently witnessed by the Evenbrook.
When Charlie has gone, and with every part of me bursting with nervous anticipation, I frantically push open the door to Emily’s apartments and, after retrieving the key from the jewellery box, run to the portrait of little Anthony Duport.
The photograph of Phoebus Daunt, of course, has gone; but in its place I find a shallow wooden box, stamped with the Duport arms, which I immediately take out and open, my hands shaking.
Several documents meet my eager gaze.
The first is a single sheet of paper, headed ‘To Whom It May Concern’, and consists of a briefly worded admission of the plot to deny my father his rightful inheritance, signed by Emily, and dated two days earlier.
Underneath this covering statement are two letters, written – in a most beautiful hand on thin, fragile paper – from my grandmother to her son, my father.
Next, an affidavit, also in my grandmother’s hand, dated 5th June 1820, witnessed and signed in the presence of a notary from the French city of Rennes, swearing that my father was the legitimately conceived son of Julius Verney Duport, 25th Baron Tansor, of Evenwood, in the County of Northampton. With it is another affidavit, signed by two witnesses, testifying to the baptism of Edward Charles Duport in the Church of St-Sauveur in Rennes, on 19th March 1820.
In the first affidavit, my attention is immediately caught by the following declaration:
I, Laura Rose Duport, do hereby further affirm and swear that the aforesaid child, Edward Charles Duport, was born without the knowledge of his father, the aforesaid Lord Tansor, and placed in the permanent care of my dearest friend, Mrs Simona Glyver, wife of Captain Edward Glyver, late of the 11th Regiment of Light Dragoons, of Sandchurch, in the County of Dorset, at the express and settled wish of myself, Laura Rose Duport, being of sound mind and body, to be brought up by the said Simona Glyver as her own son.
Now, at last, the year of my father’s birth could be inscribed on the moss-covered slab of granite in the sunless corner of the Cemetery of St-Vincent. He had been forty-two years of age when he died. Why this simple fact affected me so, I cannot say; but I sat for several minutes, hands covering my face, unable to staunch my tears.
Lastly, in the bottom of the box, is a bundle of letters from my grandmother, written to her dearest friend, Mrs Simona Glyver, in which, as I quickly apprehend, the whole scheme to keep my father’s birth a secret, and then to place him in the permanent care of Mrs Glyver, is clearly laid out. With these letters is another covering statement from Emily:
These were the documents that my father, Mr Paul Carteret, knowing their importance, and that they would deprive Mr Phoebus Daunt of his expectations, had placed in the bank in Stamford for safe-keeping. They tell, in Lady Laura Tansor’s own words, of how she planned, with her friend Simona Glyver, formerly Miss More, to keep from her husband, my late cousin, all knowledge of his son’s birth – the son who should have succeeded him instead of me. My father had discovered the letters during the course of his researches into the history of our family, on which I assisted him, and through which work I too came to know of them. He was carrying them back to Evenwood, in gamekeeper Earl’s old bag, on the day he was attacked and killed by the man, Josiah Pluckrose, who had been instructed by Mr Daunt to take them from him – only take them, nothing more, as God is my witness. But Pluckrose exceeded his commission, as Mr Daunt feared he might.
May God forgive me for what I have done. I never meant for him to die.
E.G.D.
With these letters, the affidavits, and the evidence that the police already possessed concerning the birth of Perseus, it appeared to my untrained legal mind that the case for the reclamation of my right to succeed Emily, as the 27th Baroness Tansor, was unanswerable. The Great Task would be accomplished. Evenwood and everything in it would be mine – every treasure-laden room through which I had wandered; the unparalleled Library; every corridor and staircase; every turret and soaring tower; the great green Park, over which the morning sun was now throwing its blessed radiance – everything that lay to sight and touch, mine to possess, and to bequeath to my as yet unborn children.
Yet of more consequence by far than this stupendous material inheritance was the now certain knowledge of who I truly was. My ancestors – my centuries-old family – were all around me. I saw their painted, frozen faces every day, in the portraits that lined the walls of so many of the rooms and corridors: proud ladies and self-satisfied gentlemen in their various antique fineries; pretty children dandled on their mammas’ knees; steel-suited soldiers, and sober lawyers; well-fed, bewigged prelates, and cautious-eyed men of affairs – every one of them staring out from their frames as they had when they first sat for their portraits, all once living, breathing, feeling people, whose blood I shared.
This place, then, was my true home, not the house in the Avenue d’Uhrich, although it was to my dearly remembered former home that I was now resolved to return, without prior announcement, and as soon as circumstances allowed, to tell Madame in person of our unexpected triumph.
Placing prominently on her escritoire, where it could easily be found, the letter that Emily had directed for the attention of Inspector Gully, I took the box and its precious contents back to my room, changed my dress and boots, and went downstairs to have my breakfast, in the confident expectation that I would soon do so as the next Lady Tansor.

BY A QUARTER to nine, the house is in turmoil. Questions are flying thick and fast.
Where is Lady Tansor? Has anyone seen her? Who saw her last? Had she told anyone that she would be rising early? Why were none of her outdoor clothes missing? (Miss Allardyce is tearfully adamant on this point.) Most puzzling of all, where is her night-gown? Surely she has not gone out in it?
Perseus, who has been up for most of the night working on his poem, paces up and down, saying nothing, his dark face tense with anxiety. His brother moves amongst the throng of servants gathered in the vestibule, talking in quiet enquiring tones to each one. Of his wife, however, there is no sign, for which I am thankful.
I stand alone amidst the hubbub by the portrait of the Turkish Corsair. Although a glance is occasionally thrown in my direction, neither of the brothers seems minded to speak to me.

AT NINE O’CLOCK sharp, the front-door bell sounds. The door is opened to Inspector Gully, accompanied by four officers, including stony-faced Sergeant Swann. The inspector asks whether Lady Tansor is at liberty to grant him an interview.
‘No, sir,’ intones Barrington. ‘I regret to say that her Ladyship is not here at present.’
On being pressed, Barrington reluctantly concedes that Lady Tansor has not been seen since Miss Gorst left her, in bed, at half past ten the previous evening.
The inspector is at first puzzled, then displeased, and then decidedly put out. His face shows his certainty that this turn of events does not bode well. Something has happened that even he had not foreseen, and he does not like it. Not one little bit. He then rather firmly requests an interview with Mr Perseus Duport instead, and is shown to the Library, with a rueful air, by Barrington, who then goes to fetch Perseus from the Morning-Room.
The ensuing conversation has a marked effect on Perseus, as I later learn from the inspector. When he leaves the Library, some fifteen minutes later, having been told by Inspector Gully that he wishes to question her Ladyship concerning the murder of a certain Mrs Barbarina Kraus, his face bears the unmistakable look of a man in extreme shock.
He storms up the main staircase, deliberately and conspicuously cutting his brother, whom he passes thereon, and slams the door to his study, having shouted back orders to Barrington, who seems to be everywhere this morning, that he is not to be disturbed on any account, except when news is received of his mother’s whereabouts.

I AM STANDING by the front door when Inspector Gully returns from the Library.
‘May I have a word, Miss Gorst?’ he quietly inquires. ‘In private.’
We repair to the Morning-Room, recently vacated by Perseus, and the inspector softly closes the door behind him.
‘Well,’ he begins, rubbing his hands and giving me a look of grim anticipation, ‘here’s a thing. Where can she have gone?’
There is a new steeliness about my formerly affable co-member of the triumvirate, and I sense now, in his concentrated look, that his reputation is well founded.
‘I’m unable to say,’ is my instinctively evasive answer, not wishing him – at present – to know that I had done nothing to prevent Emily from taking her own life, so allowing her to escape the due process of the law. I tell him that I have not seen her since the previous evening.
‘Quite so, quite so,’ nods the inspector, managing nonetheless to insinuate a strong measure of doubt that I am telling the truth. ‘Serious matter, though,’ he then observes, ‘if she’s made her escape – perhaps with the help of others. A lot to answer for.’
‘Indeed,’ is all I can bring myself to say under his discomfiting eye.
There is a brief silence. The inspector taps his right boot on the floor, and purses his lips to make a soundless whistle.
‘Anything else you wish to tell me, miss?’ he asks at length.
‘What else should I have to tell?’
‘Beg pardon, miss. Concerning Lady Tansor and her present whereabouts.’
‘As I have already stated,’ I return, warming to the lie, and knowing that he will learn the truth of Emily’s fate soon enough, ‘I last saw her at half past ten last night.’
‘Up early this morning yourself, I believe?’
‘I am often up early.’
‘Of course. Why not? Perfectly understandable. Do it myself.’
Another charged silence.
‘But you saw no sign of her Ladyship? Apologies for pressing you.’
‘I saw no one.’
The inspector now regards me with barely disguised suspicion. I can see that he knows I am lying, although not what I am keeping from him, and that he also realizes he will get nothing more out of me. I feel guilty for the untruth, but it is for the best under present circumstances.
‘Well then, miss,’ he says, now rubbing the sole of his left boot on the carpet, no doubt to relieve one of his itches, ‘it seems there’s nothing more to be said – for the moment. And so I’ll bid you good-morning.’
I remain alone in the Morning-Room for several minutes, considering what I should do next, my mind still in a whirl from discovering the keys to my lost inheritance, and intermittently assailed by the sickening recollection of Emily’s body succumbing to the racing waters of the Evenbrook. At length, I go up to my room, to await the news that must soon come.

THE CLOCKS OF the great house chime out the hour of ten.
Inspector Gully has waited long enough. He calls up Mr Pocock and requests him – with Mr Perseus Duport’s permission – to send out as many men as possible to make a search of the Park. Sergeant Swann is then ordered upstairs to Emily’s apartments, accompanied by Miss Allardyce and by an insistent Barrington, who seems unusually exercised by the presence of Inspector Gully and his officers in the house.
A little while later, the sergeant returns with a letter, found by Barrington on her Ladyship’s escritoire, and addressed in her hand to Inspector Alfred Gully, who immediately turns away to read it. When he has finished, he places it in his coat pocket, and beckons to Sergeant Swann.
They move away from the various groups of anxiously chattering servants towards the portrait of my grandparents in its candle-encircled alcove. I have just come down from my room and am standing at the head of the stairs, from where I can just make out what is being said by them.
‘All done, Sergeant,’ says the inspector, tapping his coat pocket. ‘Full confession. Chapter and verse – delicate matter of the eldest son’s natal secret, Mrs Kraus, even the Carteret business. Mr W and his uncle were right – Mrs Gully, too, God bless her! The succession’s been the thing from the start. Everything done at first for the sake of Mr Daunt’s rosy prospects, and then Master Perseus’s ditto. The rest we know. Poor old Carteret had found out who the true heir was, and had the documents to prove it. That did for him, although I’m willing to believe they meant him no fatal harm. And who do you think he was, Sergeant, the cheated heir?’
Sergeant Swann shrugs his shoulders, as if the answer is of the least possible interest to him.
‘I’ll tell you, then,’ says the inspector, with a wry smile. ‘Edward Glyver. Now there’s a familiar name, Sergeant, to us both, I think, and to the Department. Edward Charles Glyver. Still wanted for the murder of Mr Phoebus Daunt. It’s a tangled web, no question, but we’re cutting through it now. It’s all here. Signed and dated, in her Ladyship’s own hand. All we want now is to find her.’
They leave the alcove, and I continue on my way down the stairs, just as Barrington appears, in his usual tight-lipped way, creeping forth from the little green-painted doorway through which Emily had passed earlier that morning, on her final journey to the Evenbrook.
‘Ah, Barrington,’ says the inspector to the head footman. ‘I’ll need another word with Mr Perseus Duport, if you please.’
‘Mr Duport has gone out, sir,’ Barrington tells him. ‘He felt the need to take some air. He will be back shortly.’
‘Perhaps you’ll let me know when he returns,’ suggests the inspector.
The footman gives him the merest bow, and slips quietly away.