by Sheila Walsh
‘That’s the barber!’ said Benedict approvingly, as the two elderly servants left the room, supporting one another. ‘Take your time. No need to hurry back.’ He closed the door firmly behind them and waited for Beau to unleash his wrath.
He was not disappointed. Gone was the languid dandy as Beau launched into a tirade of abuse, which included, among other accusations, that Benedict was attempting a persistent subversive undermining of his authority, culminating not a moment since in a deliberate attempt to institute a brawl in front of the servants in order to provoke him beyond what was bearable. Benedict watched him with a curious air of detachment ‒ the bored face, held rigid within the confines of that ridiculous high collar, transformed by the hatred spewing from the normally fastidious mouth.
Only when the older man finally paused for breath did he intervene with cool precision. ‘Had you not overstepped the bounds of decency by invoking your so-called authority almost before our uncle was cold, none of this would have happened. Panic, my dear Beau, and greed are responsible for your present discomfort.’
‘What the devil are you on about? It is my right …’
‘You have no rights here until Great-uncle Edmund’s wishes are made known ‒ and that won’t be until after the funeral, when Cartwright reads the Will,’ said Benedict harshly. ‘Until then, you will touch nothing.’
Beau was very still suddenly, staring at him through narrowed lids. ‘And who gave you leave to be so damnably officious of a sudden?’
‘Not officious. Simply exercising my authority as one of the executors of Uncle Edmund’s Will.’
The silence screamed with unspoken obscenities.
‘Oh, how clever you have been, Cousin Benedict,’ Beau said at last, his voice low and full of venom. ‘And I wonder just how unspeakably cunning. No doubt, having wormed your way into that old cretin’s confidence, you will have arranged matters exactly as you want them.’
‘I hope so,’ said Benedict without expression.
‘And will we all be expected to jump to your tune?’
‘We shall just have to wait and see, shan’t we? And now, if your lordship will be so good …’ He turned to open the door, and in so doing saw that the door from the bedchamber was open and Theo was standing there, her expression frozen somewhere between misery and horror.
Beau looked from one to the other with arrogant loathing and swept from the room without a word.
‘How long have you been there?’ Benedict asked harshly.
Theo stared at him as though uncomprehending. She had come in by the door leading from the corridor to the bedchamber as she had always done, and finding Gorton not there, had been drawn to the bed, where her grandfather was laid out in stately simplicity under a white satin sheet, his aggressive features softened in death. Great-aunt Minta was right ‒ he did look at peace ‒ but Theo missed that surging unpredictability of temperament that had smouldered beneath the surface even when he was so ill, and knew exactly what the old lady had meant about the empty feeling.
It was only gradually that the sound of voices had penetrated her reflections. She moved to the door between the rooms in time to hear the last part of the exchange between the two men. That they should be arguing at all with her grandfather’s remains hardly cold was bad enough, but as to what they were saying …
‘Have you arranged things exactly as you want them?’ she asked tonelessly.
He made again that sound of exasperation. ‘Don’t you be idiotish, Theo, for God’s sake! It is quite enough to have Beau ranting like a lunatic! And before you start leaping to conclusions, I suggest you reserve judgment until you have spoken to Gorton.’
‘Gorton?’ Theo shook her head as though ridding it of unworthy thoughts. ‘Yes ‒ where is Gorton? He isn’t ill?’
‘Not precisely,’ drawled her cousin sardonically. ‘Though he isn’t exactly in prime twig either! A condition not improved by Beau’s haranguing him for refusing him access to your grandfather’s effects!’
‘Oh, the poor man! I must see him. Where is he?’
One of Benedict’s eyebrows lifted faintly. ‘At present Purley has him in hand, and is I hope plying him with enough small libations to make him feel much more the thing!’
‘I hope so. Perhaps,’ she said uncertainly, ‘I’ll come back and see him later.’
‘As you wish ‒ but he may not be too coherent!’
Dinner that evening was attended by an air of unreality. Beau, to everyone’s relief, declined to be present. He had taken himself off, according to Purley, soon after the unfortunate incident earlier, without a word as to when he might return. And Great-aunt Minta was in a very strange mood, acting for all the world as though nothing had happened and eating her way steadily through every course as it was presented to her and chattering non-stop throughout. Benedict behaved with great solicitude towards the old lady, and Theo desperately tried to keep her own demeanour cheerful, though she could eat little, and she was very doubtful if her great-aunt would have noticed one way or the other.
Nevertheless it was something of a relief when the old lady announced her intention of retiring to her room at once, so that Theo was not obliged to continue the charade in the drawing room. She visited Aubrey briefly, but found him weary after the journey and disinclined to talk, so she retired early herself, though for a long time sleep eluded her.
The air of unreality continued throughout the following day, and Theo suspected that nothing much would change until after the funeral. Beau had returned late on the previous night, but he kept to his room and did not trouble anyone. Benedict was preoccupied with affairs of business, spending much time closeted with the estate manager in preparation for Mr Cartwright’s visit.
Great-aunt Minta, too, kept to her room for much of the day, and so Theo was thrown very much on her own resources. She rode for a while, visiting one or two of the estate cottages, where to her surprise she found much grief over the Viscount’s demise, and much apprehension concerning the future, for whatever faults her grandfather may have had, and they were many, he had never neglected those in his charge.
When she returned, she visited Aubrey again and found him much more alert. For some reason best known to herself, Maddie had elected to take him in charge, and although he made faces about her bluntness, Theo guessed that Maddie’s curious mixture of outspokenness and rough kindness might be just what he needed.
Aubrey was almost embarrassingly grateful for all she had done in his behalf ‒ ‘Benedict says that I would be dead but for your resourcefulness!’
Theo protested that her part had been grossly exaggerated, but it was clear that he was determined to see her surrounded by haloes of angelic light ‒ and she would have to suffer it until she could give his thoughts a new direction.
‘I’ve been an awful fool, I know,’ he admitted awkwardly. ‘Benedict says I was the biggest cawker ever, and must lie low here until my shoulder is completely healed, as the Runners aren’t above finding me even now!’
Theo was to find the phrase ‘Benedict says’ cropping up quite frequently in the conversation, and she suspected that he too was marked down for adulation.
‘But I’ve learned my lesson,’ Aubrey continued ingenuously. ‘And when I am fit again, I mean to make a new start.’ He looked sideways at Theo, a half-eager light behind his eyes. ‘Has Benedict said anything to you about the possibility of my going to India?’
‘He did mention it,’ she said cautiously.
‘Well, I wasn’t sure at first, but the more I think about it, the more sure I am that it would be just the thing for me! Benedict says that I could really fulfil myself out there!’
‘India!’ cried Selina. ‘Oh, no ‒ that’s quite out of the question!’
She had arrived late that afternoon, reluctant and clearly ill at ease in the house she had always hated, and was regaled by Aubrey with the news rather sooner than might have been considered propitious.
To Theo’s dismay, she had been accom
panied by the Comte de Varron, but he had dismissed her fears by assuring her in his most engaging way that he had not the least intention of intruding upon a time of grief ‒ and would rack up for the present at that charmingly rural hostelry they had passed some way back. He gave no reason for his presence other than as escort to Selina, but Theo feared that his motives might be rather less altruistic than he would have her believe, and it was with a degree of unease that she watched him depart.
‘But why India of all places?’ Selina had demanded of Benedict. ‘Aubrey’s case cannot be so desperate that he must needs be dispatched to some barbaric outpost at the other end of the world!’
‘Strange as it may seem, I had not originally conceived the idea with any such object in mind,’ said Benedict impatiently. ‘Your son, my dear Selina, wishes to be a soldier ‒ and I happen to have the means at my disposal to gratify his wish. I had made enquiries before ever he landed in his present predicament.’
‘You seem to know a great deal more about my son than his own mother!’ she snapped.
‘And whose fault is that, pray?’
‘Benedict!’ Theo threw him a reproachful look and went to sit beside Selina. ‘You know, I felt just as you do at first, but Aubrey really is keen to go, and it could be the very thing for him.’
‘I might have expected you to take Aubrey’s part,’ said the other ungraciously.
‘Oh, good God!’ Benedict exploded with soft vehemence. ‘Would you rather the boy continued his aimless existence, getting into more trouble? Always supposing we can bring him off safe from this scrape! Or are you willing to allow him a chance to make something of himself?’
‘There is no need to make it sound like an ultimatum!’ But it was evident that Selina was beginning to see the advantages in the idea.
‘Benedict has a friend ‒ a colonel in the Indian army who is here on leave at present,’ Theo pressed home the idea. ‘He and his wife are agreeable to taking Aubrey with them when they return in about six weeks’ time. He should be fit by then.’
‘And in the meantime I shall use my influence with the East India Company to buy Aubrey his commission and put in a good word for him.’ Benedict looked sanguine. ‘Incidentally, India is not all barbaric. Life out there can be highly civilised!’
Selina looked from one to the other. ‘Well, I suppose I must give way.’ She gave a little sob, dabbed at her eyes with a scrap of embroidered cambric, and gathered her wrap about her. ‘No one,’ she concluded tragically, ‘shall accuse me of standing in my son’s light!’
It was quite late that evening, when Theo had already gone to her room, that Purley came to knock softly on her door. He begged pardon for disturbing her so late. ‘It’s Gorton, Miss Theo. I wonder if you would come and have a word with him. He’s been properly on edge all day, but I took it as he was working himself up to the funeral tomorrow.’ The old butler shook his head. ‘Howsoever, it must be something more that’s troubling him, for he’s just come to me saying he must see you, miss ‒ and right away! I did suggest Mr Benedict might be more proper, considering the hour and Gorton’s state of mind, or better still, that he should wait until morning, but he was quite adamant ‒ it had to be you and it had to be now.’
‘Then I had better go and put him out of his distress,’ she said.
‘You’ll find him in his late lordship’s sitting room, miss.’
She entered the room quietly. It was softly lit, and Gorton was sitting thin and tense on the edge of his chair. He saw her and came to his feet, his sparse figure sternly erect from long years of habit.
‘It is very good of you to come, madam,’ he said with the quaint formality that was so much a part of him. ‘I fear you will think my behaviour exceedingly odd …’
Theo smiled reassuringly. ‘I am certainly intrigued, Gorton, but I know that you wouldn’t do anything without good reason.’
‘Thank you, madam. The matter is one of great delicacy, and I have given it considerable thought before coming to a decision.’ He indicated the chair he had just vacated and begged her to be seated. ‘If you will bear with me for a few minutes …’
Theo made herself comfortable and hoped he wouldn’t take too long coming to the nub of his peroration.
‘Perhaps I should explain at the outset, madam, that the relationship between a gentleman and his valet, especially when of long duration, is a very singular one ‒ indeed, it would not be over-fanciful, I think, to attribute to it a confidentiality not dissimilar to that of the confessional.’
Theo resigned herself to a long wait.
‘Thus I had been aware for some weeks before his passing of a conflict raging within his lordship’s mind concerning a certain item of considerable worth which, many years back, had been consigned to his care.’
She was suddenly all attention.
‘The Diamond Waterfall!’
‘Just so, madam. I believe it came as something of a shock to his lordship to be reminded of the necklace, reviving as it did unhappy memories ‒ and he was at first quite adamant that no one in the de Varron family could have survived the Revolution, so that when a claimant did come forward, he convinced himself that the man was an impostor.’
‘He continued to think it, so far as I know,’ Theo said, recalling his most recent letter.
‘Not with anything like so much certainty as time passed, madam. His lordship did go so far as to have his lawyer institute enquiries, though at the time of his death nothing was proved, to my knowledge. And his lordship being a man very set in his opinions’ ‒ Gorton paused, looking apologetic, but Theo waved him on impatiently ‒ ‘he regarded the claimant, even if genuine, as being much too coming, and therefore unworthy of the name. He seemed to see the case’ ‒ now Gorton really did look uncomfortable ‒ ‘as a parallel with his own, madam, if you follow me?’
‘I follow you perfectly, Gorton,’ she said drily. ‘But I still don’t see why you asked me here.’
‘Ever since your last letter, madam, his lordship had brooded even more, and a few nights ago ‒ almost as if he had a presentiment ‒ he said to me, “Gorton, if anything happens, I want you to give that troublesome gewgaw to my granddaughter! No one else, mark you” ‒ he grew quite heated about that. “She’ll know the right thing to do,” he said.’
‘Oh dear!’ Theo said, but she was consumed with a desire to see at last this precious bone of contention. ‘Well, then …’
‘Quite so, madam. If it wouldn’t distress you to come into the other room?’ He led the way into the bedchamber, lit only by two candles at the head of the bed. At a place near the bed where the rococo panelling was at its most riotous, Gorton moved one of the acanthus leaves to the right and pressed the centre of a flower head, and a panel slid silently back to reveal a dark recess.
He took from it a flat oval case, carried it almost reverently into the other room, and set it down on a table beneath the lamp. The case was of soft padded leather, beautifully tooled and worked with gold.
The elderly valet shakily released the ornate clasp and raised the lid.
‘Oh, Gorton!’ Theo breathed softly.
Chapter Fifteen
‘… and that the house and estate known as Shallowford, together with all its attendant assets, shall become the property of my grand-daughter, Theodora Elizabeth, for her absolute use, conditional only upon her willingness to take up permanent residence in England. It is further my earnest hope that she will in due course have the good sense to marry her cousin, Benedict Radlett, but in no way do I stipulate this as a condition of …’
‘No, by God!’ Beau was on his feet, his chair scraping back, the flat of his hand landing with a resounding crash upon the polished table-top. The library echoed to its reverberations, and the Cavalier Radlett glared down in disapproval.
So he had done it! Theo could not bear to look at Beau’s face, knowing full well the extent of his rage.
‘I knew that the evil old fool hated me, but that he should thus deprive me
… it is not to be borne!’
‘Be quiet, Vincent, and sit down!’ ordered Great-aunt Minta from the depths of her armchair near the fire. ‘You were a greedy little boy, and you haven’t changed. If you cannot be satisfied with Grosvenor Square and that very pretty house in Warwickshire, not to mention the Radlett sapphires …’
‘Which should be mine by rights!’ interposed Selina hotly.
‘No, no, dear. That is to say, you ought to have had the use of them until poor Geoffrey’s death ‒ and my brother was lax there ‒ but you could not have kept them, you know. They are part of the estate.’
‘The estate!’ Beau almost choked on the word, his normally sallow face almost puce. ‘There is no damned estate, my dear aunt ‒ or at any rate no income to speak of, without this place!’ He pointed a shaking finger at Benedict, who was sitting unmoved with his chin sunk in the folds of his neckcloth. ‘And he knows it, devil take him! He devised the whole infernal scheme to serve his own ends!’
Mr Cartwright, shocked into silence by Beau’s tirade, shuffled his papers uneasily. He had expected trouble, of course ‒ it was a hazard frequently encountered upon such occasions ‒ but there was a malevolence in the air here which went beyond all his worst fears.
Benedict straightened up, his tone uncompromising. ‘Be so good as to let Mr Cartwright finish, Beau ‒ the objections can come later.’
The dry voice began again: ‘ “Should my granddaughter decline to fulfil the condition of residence, the house and estate shall be sold in its entirety, and the monies derived therefrom shall be divided in equal parts between my nephew, Vincent Radlett, my great-nephew, Benedict Radlett, and the above-mentioned Theodora Elizabeth Radlett …” ’
Theo hardly heard the rest of what was said. To be squabbling over his fortune so soon after her grandfather had been laid to rest seemed little short of indecent.
It had been a simple funeral, attended only by the family and servants, and the workers on the estate. ‘Edmund had few friends,’ her great-aunt had said, ‘and those there were are mostly gone before him.’ The Duchess had sent a great basket of flowers, but had a self-confessed abhorrence of funerals, and so had declined to come. For the rest, only Gorton apart from herself seemed to exhibit any real signs of grief.
