The Poisonous Seed (36 page)

As the last lights were extinguished and Frances made herself as comfortable as possible, she wondered if, in July 1870, Percival Garton had guessed the true nature of Henrietta’s condition. It did not, she thought, matter whether or not Garton was the father, only that he might have believed that he was not and suspected Henrietta of infidelity with young John Wright. Had he then contrived, through someone hired for the task, to eliminate the man he thought was his rival, while he himself was establishing an alibi in London? Or had there been another motive entirely? If John Wright had confided in his new friend about his imagined wealth, he could have been killed for his fortune. Frances realised, just as she dozed off to sleep, that her mind was spinning off into wild theories again. Each time she learned something new she tried to make sense of it, but the facts resolutely would not make sense.

She awoke to the scent of frying bacon and despite the large supper of the previous night felt very hungry, and appeared at the breakfast table as soon as was commensurate with ensuring that she was presentable.

‘This morning I will show you where Mr Wright is buried,’ said Mrs Cranby, who was busy tying a bunch of supple branches into a small wreath. ‘And you can talk to Reverend Jessup. He will say exactly what I have told you, that Mr Wright was a very pleasant young man, and not at all what his sister claimed.’

Frances wondered if pleasant manners and madness were necessarily incompatible, but did not say so. ‘I know that after the murder it was some time before the police knew who Mr Wright was. Were there no clues when he lived in Tollington House about his life before he came there? Did he have no portraits, photographs, diaries, ornaments, jewellery, that said anything about him?’

Mrs Cranby shook her head. ‘He took the lease of the house ready furnished, so everything was in place. He brought his clothes of course and toilet articles, but nothing else. He said he had been living abroad and most of his effects were in trunks at sea and would be following.’

‘And did they follow?’ said Frances, feeling sure that she knew the answer.

‘Do you know, they never did, and I never liked to ask what had happened to them, as it was none of my business.’

Frances looked at her notes again. ‘Did you not think it odd that he dyed his hair?’

‘I didn’t even know that he did until after he was murdered and the police found the bottle of hair dye. But I thought nothing of it, even then. So many gentlemen have their little ways.’

After the breakfast things were cleared, and had been well scrubbed by Dora in a little stone sink at the back of the house, Will came in the butcher’s cart to take them to church. The day was dull but with a crispness to the cold, and a strange quality in the air which Frances could not identify at first. Eventually she recognised it for what it was, a complete absence of London grime. The church was not far, and she found it a handsome edifice, in keeping with the village’s past glory, with a neatly kept graveyard. Will assisted Frances, his mother and sister from the cart then drove away to bring the rest of the family. Frances and the two women walked together up the path to the church door, Dora with her arm linked to her mother’s very like the way that Frances had walked with her father in his later months. ‘There,’ said Mrs Cranby, pointing her stick. ‘That is the grave.’ It was a bare mound of grass, with no slab or headstone, only a small wooden board carved with the name of John Wright. ‘I asked Willie to make that for him,’ she said.

They walked together to the graveside and Mrs Cranby dropped the little wreath on the grass, and uttered a sigh. Soon afterwards the remaining Cranbys arrived and Frances greeted Alice, Will’s wife, a rosy-faced young woman in a loose gown that suggested an impending addition to the family, and four other healthy-looking children clustering about her, in their Sunday-best clothes.

After the service, Frances was introduced to Reverend Jessup, a stout gentleman in his early fifties with a handsome ruddy face and once flaxen hair fading to grey, and Mrs Cranby explained the reason for the visit.

‘Yes, I remember John Wright very well,’ said the reverend, nodding, ‘and I agree with Mrs Cranby, he did not appear to me to be suffering from any delusions. I used to call upon him as I do all of my parishioners and found him always in good spirits and with no trace of insanity.’

‘Of course,’ said Frances, ‘it may be that he was insane but was adept at giving the impression that he was not.’

‘I have heard of such persons,’ said Jessup, ‘but it was not only his manner that convinced me. I have heard that his sister claimed he was convinced that he was the heir to great wealth and indeed owned all of Hertfordshire. I have had in my time to deal with some very unfortunate cases, persons suffering from the wildest of delusions. Had John Wright suffered in this way, I am convinced that he would have revealed it to me. His madness would not have permitted him to put a stop to the thoughts that, according to his sister, consumed him. But I was in his company many a time and I can assure you that never once did he tell me he was the heir to a fortune, neither did he make any reference to Hertfordshire, or indeed any other county. In fact I cannot recall that he ever spoke to me of money at all, but only how happy he was with his life in the village and the charms of the country hereabouts.’

‘Who paid for his burial?’ asked Frances, recalling that no money had been found in the possession of the deceased man.

‘The parish coffers, I’m afraid. His clothes were distributed to the poor and there was nothing else of any value. I have a picture of his here that you can see, it hangs in my office. Would you like to look at it? It’s a very poor thing, but it is of the church.’

‘I should very much like to see it,’ said Frances. He took her into a small office room, barely furnished with a desk and chair, and scattered with papers and pamphlets. There hung on the wall a pencil drawing of the church in a simple frame.

‘It was found in the house after his death,’ explained Jessup. ‘No one else cared for it, so, in view of the subject and its associations …’

It was, thought Frances, undoubtedly a picture of the church in which she stood, but not by any talented hand. The artist had made a great effort to get the proportions and perspective correct, efforts made obvious by repeated pencil lines, but had only succeeded in producing an effect of untidiness and confusion. Was this the work of the supposedly talented Mr Wright? She peered more closely at the picture. In the very bottom corner was what might have been thought to be a small tuft of grass, but because she now had a very good idea of what she might be looking for, she was able to see it for what it was, a signature. The initials were PG. This was not the work of John Wright, but of Percival Garton.

The family was waiting for her in the church vestibule, where Mrs Cranby had been found a comfortable chair. ‘Will has told me you are looking for the man who killed Mr Wright,’ said Alice, eagerly. ‘And after all these years!’

‘It seems from what everyone says about him that he was very well liked here,’ said Frances.

‘Oh, he was, Miss. My sister Clara was a housemaid there, and she was so upset when he was found like that.’

‘Does Clara still live here? I should very much like to talk to her.’

‘No, Miss, she married a carman and they’ve gone to live in Bethnal Green. I still write to her. Shall I ask her if she would mind talking to you?’

‘Yes, I would be very grateful.’

Will took Alice, Dora and the children home, then returned for Frances and Mrs Cranby, and drove them further up the main street to a handsome manor house surrounded by gardens. ‘This is Tollington House,’ he said. ‘It used to be the home of the mill owner back in the old days. I heard say he had a dozen servants or more, but was a very cruel man. Mr Armitage, who has it now, is a retired military gentleman.’

Mr Armitage was about seventy, but very active, and his wife was about the same age, dignified but amiable. They both greeted Mrs Cranby with great warmth, and made Frances very welcome. Although Mrs Cranby had been a servant, and in one respect remained so, it said much for the kindness and condescension of the couple that they now treated her as a favoured guest. Mrs Armitage sat with Mrs Cranby in the morning room while her husband showed Frances the house. ‘The house is very beautiful,’ said Frances as they toured the elegant apartments. ‘Are the contents much as they were when Mr Wright was here?’

‘Yes, the furniture is of excellent quality. The various decorative articles are our own.’

‘I expect that when you first saw the interior it was in some disarray,’ said Frances, ‘Mr Wright having departed so suddenly and then the police coming here to search everything.’

‘It had been very thoroughly cleaned by his servants, but as you say, all had been practically turned upside down by the search.’

‘You yourself found nothing of his, I suppose? No letters or papers?’ asked Frances hopefully.

‘Nothing at all I am afraid.’

‘What a pity,’ said Frances. ‘If I could only discover why he left.’

‘And he had just renewed the lease for a whole year only a month before,’ said Mr Armitage.

‘Oh?’ said Frances. ‘Then he cannot have anticipated having to leave.’

‘Yes, according to Mr Mullin, the land agent, Mr Wright initially leased the house for only three months from the first of June, but he liked it so much he renewed in September. Each time Mr Mullin thought Mr Wright would leave he renewed again and then in May he said he was so content that he would make it his home for good, and signed for another year.’

They joined Mrs Armitage and Mrs Cranby, who were conversing in the morning room, and their hosts insisted that the visitors stay for luncheon. Frances, who was anticipating a long train journey home that afternoon, was grateful for what might be her last meal for some time. She was, it had to be admitted, a little disappointed in her visit to Tollington House. What had she been hoping for – a vital letter slipped down the back of a drawer, a trinket with initials coming to light years after the strange events of the summer of 1869? But the police had searched and there was nothing left for her to find.

Over soup and roast mutton and almond pudding, the conversation was mainly taken up by Mrs Cranby talking about her happy times at Tollington House. ‘And I say it is such a shame that Mr Wright’s sister has never even been here to visit his grave!’ she said firmly.

‘Neither has his brother ever visited,’ said Mrs Armitage.

‘Why, I didn’t know that he even had a brother,’ said Mrs Cranby, astonished.

‘Nor I,’ said Mr Armitage.

‘Oh dear!’ said his wife, ‘I had really thought I mentioned it.’

‘Did you meet this brother?’ asked Frances.

‘No, no, it was something Mr Mullin said. Let me think – yes, it was not long after we settled here and he visited on a day when Mr Armitage had been called away unexpectedly. We were conversing about how strange it was that we knew so little of Mr Wright and he told me that one day, when he called upon him, a letter was delivered. Mr Wright opened the letter and read it, and straight away flew into a terrible passion. He said, ‘My foolish brother!’ or some words of that sort. Then as soon as he had said them he apologised to Mr Mullin for such a display. ‘There is never a chain that does not have a weak link,’ he said, or something very like it, and he asked Mr Mullin not to reveal what had passed. Mr Mullin assumed that the brother was not very respectable, and agreed to say nothing. Of course after Mr Wright’s death, he did not feel bound by the promise.’

‘Do you know if Mr Mullin told the police about this conversation?’ asked Frances.

‘I really cannot say,’ said Mrs Armitage, and Frances sensed that she had told all she knew.

‘Would it be possible for me to speak to him?’

‘I regret that he died some years ago.’

Frances was silent for most of the remainder of the meal. Taking her leave of the Armitages, she and Mrs Cranby were collected by Will in the butcher’s cart. At Ivy Cottage she bid the Cranbys farewell and promised faithfully that she would write to them. As she left, Dora thoughtfully provided her with a slab of fruit cake wrapped in paper. She spent the journey studying all the notes she had made, but it was not until she was on the train to Paddington that the true import of what Mrs Armitage had said struck her. When Wilfred had told Frances about Mary Ann Wright, and she recalled this with great clarity because the poignancy of it had affected her at the time, he said that Mary Ann had told the police that she had cared for poor mad John because he was her only brother.

That night, back in her own cold bed, her last thought before she slept was that the mystery of John Wright – who he was and and why he had come to Tollington Mill – which the police had thought was solved over nine years ago, was not in fact solved at all.

M
onday was the busiest day of the week; with anxious customers bringing their Sunday coughs and chills into the shop, and the weekly wash to be tackled. Frances had barely a moment to herself, but at last when the evening drew in, she ate her simple meal and decided what course to take next. It would mean more expenditure, and time away from the shop where she had more than enough to do, but she felt she had to visit Somerset House. It was late morning, after she had completed her household duties, that she departed, feeling some measure of guilt at not being in her appointed place behind the counter. It only occurred to her as she was on the way that she was essentially, albeit for a brief time, mistress of the business and could therefore do as she pleased. Nevertheless she did not wish to waste time, and deemed that to walk all the way there would take too long. It cost five pence to take the yellow omnibus to Chancery Lane. Crowded together with other ladies and an assortment of baskets and parcels, in the stuffy interior, she felt fortunate that the weather was dry, or the straw which lined the floor would have been churned to a muddy foetid slush by that time of day. Progress was slow, for the vehicle stopped every few minutes for the boarding and alighting of passengers. By the time she reached her destination, much cramped and stifled and jolted about, she wondered if the journey would have been faster and more salubrious if she had walked. From there it was just a short distance to the Strand. Somerset House, home to numerous Government offices, was a daunting building so large that, approaching it, Frances feared she might spend all day just walking around it to discover where it was she had to go. She entered by the main gates from the Strand, and found herself in a great courtyard with the buildings continuing on all sides around her. Fortunately, a list of departments was posted there, and she found that the General Register Office was in the front portion of the building on the first floor. She was aware that Somerset House had been designed a century ago to house artistic and historical institutions, and, inside, those origins were still apparent, with high ceilings, decorative plasterwork, graceful columns and a curved sweeping staircase – all, she thought, sadly wasted now on what was no more than a collection of documents.