Amy leant in and kissed his cheek. “Thanks, Tom,” she said, and she sat on that low wall until Laity was gone and his fishing boat appeared as nothing more than a gull at rest on the evening calm. Her thoughts were of the box and of Gabriel; of the journey that now lay ahead of her as she strove to understand the connections she was so desperate to make.
Chapter Twenty-One
Jefferson Tayte was sitting up on his bed at St Maunanus House, settled in for an early night with a freezer block to sooth his head and no appetite for his host’s recommendations on where to eat. His attention strayed from the laptop screen in front of him, across a powder-blue room to a sash window that was raised several inches, inviting a soft breeze to play at the edges of sail-white curtains. The window framed a landscape of late harvest farmland and a swathe of indistinct trees that appeared to reach up from the Helford River towards Mawnan Smith. Above them, scarlet ribbons underlined a fading sky.
Tayte thought he was getting a little too settled, like jet lag was calling his number. He swung his legs off the bed, thinking he should call the police and let them know he’d been attacked, but he reconsidered; the process would waste precious time he didn’t have and he could give them nothing to go on. His interest in the Fairborne family history had pissed someone off, that’s for sure. But who and why? The questions just made him all the more determined to find the answers.
He removed his jacket and went through the pockets turning everything out onto the bed: Judith’s pamphlets, his notebook, a cheap pen and an empty crisp packet from Heathrow airport that was tangled with several miniature Hershey-bar wrappers. The last thing he came to was Julia Kapowski’s calling card. He’d forgotten about that. He read it for the first time: ‘Julia Kapowski, Valuations. Skinner, Inc. Auctioneers and Appraisers of Antiques and Fine Art. Boston, MA.’
Tayte smiled as he recalled the injections she’d given him with her fingernail to wake him up after he’d finally fallen asleep on the plane. He could laugh about it now. He dropped her card and the empty crisp packet into a waste bin that was recessed into the grate of a disused fireplace beside the bed and returned to his laptop, dragging his thoughts back to the call from Schofield and what promised to be an interesting lead. 1829 … Made headline news, he thought. Then like an archaeologist with a new bone, he began to dig deeper to see what else was there.
He brought up his preferred newspaper archive - a website that boasted access to twenty-nine million newspaper pages dating back to the late eighteenth century. He punched Fairborne into the search field and it came back with almost two hundred thousand matches. He narrowed the search: Fairborne plus 1829. Better, but still nearly three thousand results. Then he added scandal and only five results came back. Two were for Scottish publications. He dismissed them. The rest were for The Times, the oldest of which was for Monday, June 15th, 1829. Midway down the second column the section heading read ‘Fairborne Scandal - Unknown Heir?’ The article described how twenty-six year old Mathew Parfitt from Plymouth was challenging the right of succession to the wealthy businessman, the late Sir James Fairborne and all his estate and titles.
Tayte paused as he read the name, ‘Parfitt’. It was familiar, but like a childhood tune he couldn’t place. He opened the next download file: an unrelated article about a protest in the north of England, prompting him to move on to the last of the pages from The Times. It was dated Wednesday, June 24th, 1829 - nine days after the first. The heading read ‘Fairborne Claim Dropped’. The article was short, stating that Mathew Parfitt had withdrawn his claim. It gave no reason and the obvious conclusion left to the reader was that it had been nothing more than a hoax. He scribbled himself a reminder to call the Cornwall Record Office for a copy of James Fairborne’s last will and testament then he wrote, ‘Mathew Parfitt - born 1803’ - the date of the publication minus Parfitt’s age at the time.
“No smoke without fire,” Tayte mused as he considered who this man was.
He accessed the online census and was soon looking at the heading ‘1851, England Census Record - About Mathew Parfitt’. He read that Mathew was forty-eight when the census was taken and that his relationship to the head of the household was ‘son’. It showed where Mathew was born, in which parish, his address at the time and his occupation. Tayte clicked the hyperlink next to the ‘Household’ entry and the screen displayed a list of people who lived under the same roof as Mathew Parfitt in 1851. It was a very short list.
He learnt that the head of the household was Jane Parfitt, Mathew’s mother, and reading her name gave Tayte a déjà vu feeling, but like before, he couldn’t place it. No father was listed at the address and there were no entries for a daughter-in-law to Jane Parfitt or for any grandchildren. In 1851, Mathew Parfitt lived alone with his mother. If he’d married and had any children, they either lived elsewhere or they had died.
No father listed, Tayte thought, considering that Mathew’s birth record would tidy up that loose end. He grabbed a shortbread biscuit from the tray on the bedside table, tore the tartan wrapper open with his teeth and bit the contents in two. His eyes remained fixed on the screen as another website came up - the International Genealogical Index. Tayte knew the information held on Family Search was rarely as full as the original documents and that it was prudent to verify the information you found with other sources, but he also understood that it was a valuable resource nonetheless.
He punched in all the pertinent information from Mathew Parfitt’s census report and selected to view all events from birth to death. A few entries appeared, but only one matched the civil parish listed on the census. He clicked the entry. No birth details were available and he wondered why as he stuffed the rest of the shortbread biscuit into his mouth. Then an entry against ‘Christening’ drew him on.
According to the IGI Mathew Parfitt was christened on November 23rd, 1803. That tallied with Tayte’s birth year calculations, giving him confidence that he was looking at the right record. He wrote the details in his notebook then read the names in the ‘Parents’ section. The name of Mathew’s father, Lavender Parfitt, held his eyes as his earlier déjà vu episode rushed back at him. He almost choked on his biscuit. He knew he’d found something important and he had the document to prove it.
He lunged across the bed for his briefcase, flipping his laptop onto the quilt. So many names lived inside Tayte’s head; he could forgive himself for not recalling plain Jane Parfitt. But a man called Lavender… What were his parents thinking? To Tayte names were like keys, each unlocking a door to another name - another story. Most of those stories were now long forgotten, trapped in another era like glitter in a snow-shaker, but there were others still waiting to be told and Tayte instinctively felt like he had hold of one of those keys now and he could feel it starting to turn.
He pulled a bulging manila folder from his briefcase and rifled through the contents until he found what he was looking for - a marriage record transcript. He read the poignant words to confirm what he now already knew. ‘Name and surname - Lavender Parfitt.’ Beneath that was the bride’s maiden name.
“Jane Forbes,” Tayte read aloud, smiling. “Father’s name and surname - Howard Forbes.” Tayte had finished his research on the Forbes and he was smiling because that surname also belonged to James Fairborne’s second wife, Susan. She and Jane Parfitt were sisters.
Tayte flopped back on the bed and pinched the sleep from his eyes; he could feel it creeping up on him like the evening was creeping up to the bedroom window. Jane Parfitt and Susan Fairborne were sisters… It was a good connection, two families bound together through Mathew Parfitt who had claimed to be his uncle’s rightful heir. He wished it was earlier in the day; wished he could call the record office in Truro right now about James Fairborne’s will, but it would have to wait.
He started to pack the documents back into the manila folder, removing the section on the Parfitts so he could slot the marriage record back in its proper place. It was a small section. Jane and Lavender Parfitt’
s dependants report stood out clearly, drawing his eye. He recalled their misfortune as far as children were concerned. He’d found records for the births of two dependants and two more records for their deaths the same day; two babies whose lives were over almost before they began. Nothing before now had suggested a son called Mathew Parfitt.
So why did Mathew have a christening record and an entry on the 1851 census showing him as Jane’s son?
The census was good at finding people - especially if they had no reason to hide. He studied the details he had for the two ill-fated babies. Nothing unusual, though the birth dates were barely more than a year apart suggesting they hadn’t delayed in trying for another child after losing the first. That was in October 1802. The second was in January 1804, leaving just one year in between - 1803. The year Mathew was born.
Then it hit him.
He reached for his notebook and read the date of Mathew’s christening - November 23rd, 1803. He threw the book in the air and smiled, wide and cheesy. Jane Parfitt could not have been Mathew’s mother. It was a biological impossibility. Jane Parfitt was seven months pregnant and on her second attempt when Mathew was christened. When Mathew was born in 1803, Jane Parfitt was carrying another child.
“So who were his real parents?”
Tayte mocked himself. It was a question he felt unqualified to answer. He stared over at the photograph on the bedside table; at the black-and-white image of his mother that was taken sometime in the sixties, he supposed, maybe earlier. She was standing alone between two stone lions in the doorway of a building that, from the partial lettering at the top of the photo, Tayte figured was a hotel somewhere. Her hair was styled in a short bob and he thought it must have been cold when the picture was taken; she was wearing a three-quarter length coat that kicked out at the hem and her hands and knees were locked together, rigid as a sentry. Her smile always looked apologetic to him somehow.
Who are you?
Tayte heaved a familiar sigh and forced his thoughts back to the articles from The Times and the connection he’d made to Susan Fairborne. What if Mathew was a Fairborne? An unwanted child from another family member perhaps, given to Jane Parfitt to conceal an indiscretion. Had Susan had an affair? An unwanted pregnancy? Did she give her unwanted child to her sister? Tayte had no idea at this point, but even if Mathew was a Fairborne, he wondered how he could claim to be James Fairborne’s rightful heir in place of any of his five legitimate children, all of whom were born long before Mathew Parfitt.
A coincidence suddenly struck Tayte. It was something that had been right under his nose, perhaps too close to see. James Fairborne’s five children… He could find no marriage or death records for any of them and he didn’t care much for coincidences. A thought that he could barely entertain reached into his mind like a claw. Unless the five legitimate children were all dead by 1829. Someone had clearly gone out of their way to hide something from the Fairborne past and Tayte knew it had to involve all the Fairborne children in some way. This was no longer just about Eleanor and her children. As far as Tayte was concerned all their lives, and perhaps even their deaths, were inextricably linked.
His eyes began to sting. He yawned as he shuffled down the bed to rest his head on a pillow that felt so soft it was barely there. His mind was a confusion of possibilities, but two things remained clear: he needed to see James Fairborne’s will, and he had to pay a visit to the current Forbes family. It was his first rule of genealogy: talk to the family. And there were always two sides.
Across the road, just beyond the shadow of a street lamp at the front of St Maunanus House, a man wearing a three-quarter-length, black leather jacket was partially hidden behind an open broadsheet newspaper, like he was waiting for a bus - only there was no bus stop there. His head was bowed into the pages but his eyes were raised well above them, looking at the house, taking in the name of Tayte’s accommodation from the sign at the end of the driveway.
His eyes drifted to the silver car parked there - to the Ford Focus with the conspicuous hire company logo on the boot hatch. He paused on the registration number while he committed it to memory and when he was satisfied he folded the newspaper and tucked it under his arm. His free hand reached over his chest and through his clothing he felt the outline of a silver crucifix, hanging by a thick leather cord that was almost brittle with age.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Thursday.
It was just after 1pm, and having lost more time than he cared to at the record office in Truro, Jefferson Tayte was in Devon, driving through Dartmoor at the end of an eighty mile journey in search of the Forbes - the descendants of James Fairborne’s second wife, Susan. Apart from meeting Penny Wilson - the face behind the voice he’d spoken to so many times from back home in the States - his visit to Truro had been a disappointment. James Fairborne’s last will and testament should have been there according to the indexes but, like so many other Fairborne records, the original and all copies were missing. Penny already had his number and she was looking into it, but he wasn’t holding his breath.
Tayte’s hopes were higher for the afternoon, although he was looking for an address he now realised he had little hope of finding unaided. The map that Judith, his bed and breakfast host, had given him before he left mainly concerned itself with trunk roads, showing little of the area he now found himself in. He’d driven through Buckland-in-the-Moor, skirting Dartmoor Forest for a while before plunging in. Now he was out the other side and none the wiser.
The forest was to his left now; Dartmoor to his right. In the distance he could see the moorland tors and cairns rising from the landscape like swollen bruises, and though not yet raining, the clouds that appeared with his arrival were gathering over Dartmoor. He was looking for a place called Dunworthy. The 1901 census confirmed that the Forbes address at that time was the same address that appeared on all earlier census reports back to 1841. He was taking a chance that the house still belonged to the family a hundred years on, but even if they had moved on, he supposed that whoever lived there now might be able to point him in the right direction. If only he could find Dunworthy.
Tayte slowed the car, looking for clues. In the background a jazzy tune was spilling from the Chicago soundtrack CD he’d picked up at a petrol station on the way there, keeping him focused. A cyclist approached over the horizon in bright yellow-and-blue spandex prompting Tayte to pull over. He got out and waved, hoping to stop him for directions. Then he saw another cyclist, this one in lime-green, closing on the first until the pair sped past and a whole bunch of them rose up on the brow of the hill.
Tayte leant back against the car and watched the chasing pack arrive. “Dunworthy?” he called. Most had their heads down and no one seemed to hear him over the whir of racing spokes. “Can you tell me where Dunworthy is?”
The last cyclist in the group sat up, resting his hands on his thighs, panting. He was pointing back the way Tayte had come. “Take a right down there and follow the lane!”
“Thanks!” Tayte called after him, though his gratitude was wasted on the backside that waggled back at him as the cyclist rose above a razor sharp saddle and began to work the pedals.
The Forbes residence was well known in Dunworthy. It was an imposing thatched house on the edge of the village and the gaggle of old dears Tayte had spoken to outside the post office had fought over themselves to rush out directions. The sitting room in which Tayte now found himself was decorated in dusty rose-pink between light oak beams and the entire ground floor had been lowered at some time, adding height so you didn’t have to duck everywhere you went. He was sitting on a William Morris design sofa that matched the curtains, waiting for a pot of tea to brew. Opposite, were his hosts, David and Helen Forbes.
Helen sat back in a button-up blue denim dress, flicking out a mint-green espadrille as she crossed her legs. Tayte thought the spiky hair, which was all the colours of autumn, gave her a funky look that conflicted with the floral surroundings. She looked like she was rebelling aga
inst something - age perhaps. David’s hair appeared to be in a race with itself to go grey before it fell out. He looked casual in taupe corduroy trousers and a forest-green shirt. They were sitting perpendicular to a vista of endless landscaped gardens, which they had been nurturing when Tayte arrived.
Helen poured the tea from a Royal Copenhagen teapot. “Do you take sugar, Mr Tayte?”
Tayte edged forward. “Two, please.” He patted his stomach and grinned. “I know I shouldn’t.”
Helen just smiled politely. “This is all rather exciting,” she said. “So what do we do?”
Tayte settled back with his tea. “Well, there’s no real formula, Mrs Forbes. I’m working on an assignment that’s led me to a relationship between your family and the people I’m working for. I’ve some loose ends I was hoping you could help with.”
“I’m sure we can,” Helen said before she even knew what Tayte wanted to know.
David finished stirring his tea. “I’ve a golf game booked at two. Do you play, Mr Tayte, we’re looking for a fourth?”
“I don’t. Often thought I’d like to, but I never seem to get around to it.” Tayte checked his watch.
“There’s plenty of time,” Helen said, frowning.
Tayte set his cup and saucer down on the table and opened his briefcase. He pulled out the chart, unfolding a section on the table as Helen edged closer, clearing the contents of the table out to the edges to give him more room.
“This is the family tree I’m working on,” Tayte said. He had the names facing them. “It’s for a client back home in the States. Their family settled there in the early 1700s, and just after the revolutionary war - the American War of Independence, that is - most of the family moved back to England. Did you know that around 70 percent of Americans alive today can trace their ancestry back to Great Britain or Ireland?”
JT01 - In The Blood Page 10
