Deadly Inheritance

by Janet Laurence

  Annie brought her up a jug of hot water. Ursula remembered the huge bathroom with its piping hot water in the Adelphi Hotel and wondered what Mr Seldon thought about the sanitary arrangements at Mountstanton House.

  ‘Hope you had a pleasant time in Liverpool,’ Annie said brightly.

  For a moment Ursula couldn’t think how to respond. ‘Mr Seldon’s ship arrived on time,’ she finally managed.

  ‘That’s good, miss.’ Annie arranged a towel conveniently close to the washstand. ‘Her ladyship has given me a message for you.’ Which meant that Helen’s maid had relayed it. Annie screwed up her face in concentration. ‘Her ladyship would be grateful if Miss Grandison could sit with Miss Seldon while she and Mr Seldon dine this evening.’ Her face broke into a broad smile. ‘There, I got it exactly, miss.’

  ‘Thank you, Annie. Would you please say that I shall be delighted to sit with Miss Seldon? I will go to her room as soon as I have freshened up.’

  ‘Of course, miss.’

  Ursula stripped off and washed away the dirt of the train journey, wondering what she should do now. Of course she wanted to sit with Belle but it was essential she met with the Colonel.

  Or was it?

  Dressed in the simple black evening gown she had been supplied with for her mourning, Ursula brushed her hair into the same plain knot she had worn since setting off for Liverpool, then searched in her case for the account she had written of everything that had happened at Mountstanton. She scribbled a couple of lines at the top, folded the sheets, placed them in an envelope, sealed it and wrote the Colonel’s name on the front.

  Downstairs, John was in the hall. She gave him the envelope and asked if it could be delivered to the Colonel as soon as possible.

  ‘Of course, miss,’ he said with a smile.

  Confident the Colonel would receive it immediately, Ursula made her way to Belle’s bedroom.

  Sarah, now Belle’s maid, was sitting with her.

  ‘Her ladyship is changing for dinner, miss. She said she’ll see you before going in.’

  Ursula looked towards the bed where Belle appeared to be sleeping, her face pale but peaceful. ‘How is she?’

  ‘Much better, miss.’

  ‘She’s very weak,’ said Helen in a low voice from the doorway. She beckoned Ursula outside. ‘We nearly lost her.’

  ‘What happened? Was it a fall?’

  Helen shook her head. She looked as though she had aged over the last few days. There were dark circles beneath her eyes, her skin looked patchy and wrinkles had appeared on her forehead and beside her mouth. ‘She didn’t feel well enough to rise the morning you left. Sometime later she miscarried.’ Helen closed her eyes. ‘I’ve never seen so much blood.’ She looked at Ursula for a brief moment. ‘When Dr Mason arrived, I told him everything and he said the ride or the alcohol or both must have killed the baby. Apparently it can stay in the womb for several days before … before … Oh, Ursula, if she’d died, I’d never have forgiven myself.’

  ‘Nor would I,’ Ursula said fervently.

  She looked at Helen and wondered if she had heard about Liverpool. Was this the moment to tell her of those last words?

  Helen placed her hand on Ursula’s arm. ‘Thank you for sitting with Belle. Now, I must go, I am already late and you know what a stickler for time Papa is.’

  Back at the bedside, Ursula found Belle awake. ‘I’m so glad you’re here, Ursula,’ she said.

  Ursula felt tears pricking at the back of her eyes. She took the girl’s hand. ‘And I’m so glad to see you, darling. How are you feeling?’

  ‘Tired,’ she said.

  ‘Have you seen your father?’

  Belle nodded. ‘He wants me to get well very soon, then he’s going to take me back to America.’

  ‘Is that what you want?’

  Belle moved restlessly in the bed. ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘Would you like something to drink?’

  Ursula helped her to some barley water.

  ‘Shall I read to you?’

  ‘That would be nice. Helen has been reading Little Women. It’s my favourite; it makes me think of home.’

  Ursula picked up the book and opened it where marked. Before she could start, Belle, sounding a little stronger, said, ‘I think of Meg as Helen. You are Jo, and I hope I’m Amy. I don’t want to be Beth and die before I’ve done anything in life.’

  Ursula took her hand. ‘Of course you’re Amy; a pretty, talented and sweet girl. You’re going to get better and go off to Italy, or Paris, or London, and find the love of your life.’

  Belle’s eyes filled with tears. ‘Really, Ursula? Is that really what is going to happen?’

  ‘I’m sure it is,’ said Ursula firmly as she opened the book. ‘Now, where did Helen leave off?’

  Gradually Belle drifted off into sleep again.

  Ursula closed the book and sat quietly. Until there was a knock at the door.

  Opening it, she found Mr Warburton.

  ‘How is Belle?’ he whispered. ‘No one will tell me anything.’

  He looked haggard and was dressed in his ordinary day clothes – no mourning outfit – with his hair unkempt.

  Ursula slipped outside and closed Belle’s door. ‘She is recovering.’

  He closed his eyes. ‘Thank heavens. These last few days have been torture. I’m supposed to keep to my room. I think I’m still suspected of killing the Earl.’ He looked at her, his eyes haunted. ‘You believe I didn’t do it, don’t you, Miss Grandison?’

  ‘I believe you,’ she said quietly. ‘And if you admit to seducing Polly, I think you will be allowed to go back to your family tomorrow.’

  He looked askance at her. ‘Only to seducing her? Not to causing her death as well?’

  ‘Not unless you did!’ But she was certain he hadn’t.

  He sighed and leaned back against the wall. There was no trace of his previous debonair charm. Slowly he nodded. ‘She was so very pretty and such fun. I couldn’t resist.’ He pushed his hands into his trouser pockets and studied his shoes for a moment. Then he looked up at Ursula and somehow his eyes looked very honest. ‘But I didn’t kill her. I didn’t even know she was with child.’ He rubbed at his face. ‘What has happened to remove me as a suspect in the case of the Earl’s death?’

  ‘New evidence,’ Ursula said firmly. ‘Thank you for admitting your involvement with Polly and, for what it is worth, I believe you didn’t kill her. Now, I have to get back to Belle.’

  He caught her arm. ‘I’m so sorry, Miss Grandison. I never meant any of this to happen. I didn’t think …’

  ‘No, you didn’t, did you Mr Warburton. I hope this has taught you a lesson and you will not take advantage of any female again.’

  ‘Miss Grandison, I hate myself,’ he said simply. ‘It’s as though someone has shone a bright light into my soul and all I can see is rotten matter.’ He dashed a hand across his eyes. ‘If I really can leave tomorrow, would it be possible to see Belle before I go?’

  Ursula was shocked. ‘I do not think the Countess will allow any such thing. Belle is very weak.’

  ‘But you will ask?’

  How different he was now from the charmer who could produce a fetching smile to gain whatever he wanted. Ursula almost felt sorry for him – almost. ‘Goodbye, Mr Warburton.’ She went back into Belle’s room.

  Would the girl want to see him? Ursula did not think she was strong enough to be faced with such an emotional decision.

  Later Sarah returned. ‘Dinner awaits you in the Morning Room, Miss Grandison. I will sit by Miss Seldon now.’

  ‘I have read a little to her and now she is sleeping again.’

  ‘Doctor said sleep was the best thing for her.’

  In the Morning Room, Ursula found Mr Haddam finishing his meal.

  ‘Some place, this,’ he said as she came in. ‘I thought Mr Seldon’s the grandest house I’d ever been in but this has, I don’t know, gravitas?’

  ‘A good word, Mr Hadda
m.’

  ‘But it sure needs work done on it. Seems to be falling apart.’

  That could not be denied.

  He rose. ‘A number of cables have arrived for Mr Seldon. They require my attention so I regret to say that I have to take my leave of you, Miss Grandison.’

  She was happy to be on her own.

  When she’d finished her meal, she looked at the clock on the mantleshelf. Five past nine. Mr Jackman would be arriving any minute. Had the Colonel read the pages she had asked to be delivered to him?

  Suddenly, there he was, holding her account in his hand.

  ‘Miss Grandison, we need to talk.’ He started to pull out a chair.

  She nodded. ‘Can we go somewhere else? They will need to clear in here.’

  He gave her a brief smile. ‘Thinking of the troops again, Miss Grandison?’ He led the way to the Smoking Room and lit a couple of lamps. He waved her to a chair then sat opposite, placed the sheets of Adelphi Hotel paper on a table beside him and looked at her, his expression bleak. ‘We should have talked as soon as you returned but Mr Seldon gave me such a clear account of what you had told him, I foolishly thought I had the full story. I should have known it was essential to speak to you as well.’

  Now that they were together, she found there was nothing she wanted to say.

  ‘How much does Jackman know?’

  ‘As much as Mr Seldon.’

  He fingered the pages. ‘You make some assumptions about Helen’s actions. Do you have evidence?’

  She shook her head. ‘I only wrote it down that way because it seemed to make sense to me. I did not intend you to have that account; I wanted to tell you face-to-face, so you could question my conclusions, but there seemed no opportunity. I thought it was important you should know everything before Mr Jackman arrived, and giving you that,’ she indicated the pages, ‘seemed the easiest way.’

  ‘God what a mess!’ he said violently, rising and plunging his fists into his pockets. He walked jerkily down the room. ‘I apologise,’ he said as he turned.

  ‘There is no need, I quite understand.’

  ‘But you at least can distance yourself to some extent.’ He walked some more, then stopped again. ‘I must see for myself.’

  ‘That is why I persuaded Mr Jackman we must bring back his body. I told him you would want to make sure Mr Russell was really dead.’

  Another bleak smile. ‘Miss Grandison, once again I have to thank you for your good sense and foresight.’

  ‘Have you given orders as to what is to happen to the coffin?’

  He nodded. ‘It is to be placed in the carriage house.’ He seemed to reach deep down inside himself. ‘I have told the stable staff it belongs to a friend who has died in an accident.’

  She nodded, wondering if it would do.

  There was a knock on the door. A footman came in and said that Mr Jackman had returned and would like to report to Colonel Stanhope.

  He nodded, asked that the investigator be given dinner and to say that he would be with him shortly.

  The door shut behind the footman.

  The Colonel looked at Ursula. ‘Will you come with me?’

  She was too astonished to respond.

  ‘You have been present at almost every stage of this sorry saga and I would be most grateful if you could be there now.’

  ‘Of course.’

  He led the way out through the garden door. The evening was light enough to see the way across the parterre to the stable yard. There he found a lantern and lit it.

  When, though, he carefully opened the wide doors to the carriage house, there was already a lantern balanced on the back of one of the carriages, shining its light on the simple, unadorned pine coffin that was supported on two trestles.

  Bent over it, using a chisel to try and force open the lid, the skirt of her black silk evening dress ripped and dragging over the dirt and dust of the stone floor, was Helen.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  The Colonel walked over and took away the chisel.

  ‘Give me that.’ Helen struggled to wrench it back. Her hair was all adrift, her eyes wild. ‘I have to see him. I have to. Charles, you must understand.’

  ‘I do,’ he said gently, placing his lantern where it would intensify the light. ‘I, too, have to see him.’

  He had with him a hammer and another chisel.

  Ursula tried to put her arm around Helen’s shoulders but was shaken off.

  With quick, skilled movements, the Colonel forced open the lid all the way round the coffin. He put down the tools and looked across at Helen. ‘Are you ready?’

  She nodded, swallowing hard.

  He carefully lifted off the lid.

  Ursula moved unobtrusively so that she could see Helen’s reaction as she saw for the first time the coffin’s contents. The little trail of blood from his ear had been cleaned away. The exit wound at the back was hidden and his face appeared undamaged. Exposed in the light of the lanterns, looking as though he slept, was the body of Richard, sixth Earl of Mountstanton.

  The Colonel gave a long sigh. It was as if, even knowing what he was about to see, he’d somehow hoped that it would be different.

  Helen closed her eyes, shuddered and swayed. Ursula held her tightly.

  The Colonel balanced the lid back on top of the coffin, not quite matching the nails and the holes. He gave it a few light taps until it looked closed. ‘I’ll come back later and secure it properly,’ he said. ‘It’ll take too long now, some of the nails are bent. Helen, take my arm, let’s go somewhere comfortable so we can talk.’

  Tears were streaming down her face. ‘There’s no point, you’ll never understand,’ she screamed at him. ‘He wasn’t like you.’

  ‘You must make me understand; please, Helen.’

  Ursula kept her arm around the woman’s shoulders.

  The Colonel extinguished the lanterns and shut the carriage-house door. ‘Where is Mr Seldon?’

  ‘Gone to bed,’ Helen sobbed.

  ‘He always goes early,’ Ursula said.

  ‘And my mother, thank heavens, has also retired. We’ll go to the library.’

  The night was warm but by the time they reached the room, both Helen and Ursula were shivering.

  There was a fire already laid and the Colonel lit it. ‘I don’t think we need call a servant for this,’ he said, applying a match then watching the flames catch and climb until he was sure the wood was satisfactorily ablaze. He went to the drinks table and poured out three brandies.

  ‘Shall I fetch you a wrap, Helen?’ Ursula asked.

  Helen advanced to the fire and shook her head. ‘I’ll soon be warm.’ After a moment she flung herself into one of the huge leather chairs.

  Nothing was said for a while. Ursula sat down, sipped at her brandy and watched Helen dispose of hers, almost in one gulp, then hold out the glass for more.

  The Colonel replenished it then took up a stance with his back to the fire.

  ‘Where to start?’ he asked.

  ‘You can start with your father,’ Helen said viciously.

  ‘My father?’

  ‘It’s all his fault that Richard was how he was.’

  The Colonel took a deep breath. ‘Please, explain.’

  ‘Running around the countryside, seducing any girl he wanted who would let him. As far as I could see, they all did! He was over sixty by the time I met him but even then I could see his charm. Neither of his sons could match it.’

  The Colonel looked at his shoes, ‘Yet you married Richard.’

  ‘Oh, he was a big prize on the marriage mart and, thanks to my mother’s behaviour, at any time I could have been exposed as damaged goods. If Society had found out that instead of being killed in a railway accident she’d run off with Ursula’s father, well, goodbye to a successful marriage.’

  The Colonel looked at Ursula and she realised he’d known nothing of this. He took a deep breath.

  ‘By successful, I take it you mean money and sta
tus?’

  ‘Of course, Charles. What else is there? Oh, you mean love? Love comes afterwards.’ She drank more of her brandy. ‘I liked Richard. He seemed to think he loved me. I thought we could make a go of it.’

  She held out her brandy glass and the Colonel gave her more, recharging his own at the same time. Ursula declined, her glass was still over half full and she wanted to make sure she kept her head clear.

  ‘Maybe we would have managed, if it hadn’t been for your father. Not content with insisting that Richard emulate him in every other field, he wanted him to be successful in bed. Well, I’m afraid that wasn’t possible.’

  The Colonel looked across at her. ‘You mean?’

  ‘He was impotent.’ Helen rubbed one hand along the leather arm of her chair. ‘I asked if it was just me or whether it happened with other girls. He said he’d thought I’d be different. Turned out I wasn’t.’ More of her brandy disappeared. ‘It didn’t help that your father kept making remarks suggesting Richard wasn’t really a man, asking when the heir to Mountstanton was to arrive.’ She looked across at the Colonel. ‘You came back on leave when we’d been married just over a year. You must remember the nasty remarks dearest Papa would make.’

  He turned away and looked down into the fire.

  ‘Come on, Charles, look at me. Look at me the way you used to, when I thought you were more than a little in love with me. I pointed it out to Richard and he actually suggested you could be a way out of our difficulties.’

  Ursula took a gulp at her brandy. How could Helen behave like this? The Colonel had closed his eyes.

  ‘It would have kept it in the family, you see? Didn’t Richard explain it to you?’ The Colonel opened his eyes but his face was expressionless. Helen continued, ‘Oh you were far too upright, loyal and true blue to even contemplate the idea before you disappeared again, off to another theatre of war. But now, there in the wings, so to speak, was Max. You only had to look at him to realise he was part of the family. Your father thought he was wonderful. Typical chip off the old block, as he might have said if he was into the business of acknowledging his by-blows.’