The Dead Songbird (The Northminster Mysteries)

by Smart, Harriet

  Felix picked up his soup spoon without replying. It was a fine, full flavoured clear soup – it seemed the French chef from Holbroke came even to this obscure little house along with Bodley.

  They drank the soup and then Rothborough put down his spoon.

  “Commendable restraint,” he remarked.

  “I am rather hungry,” said Felix.

  “A man cannot be civilised until he has dined,” said Rothborough. “We will eat and then will get to our business. In the mean time, we should be thankful for the blessing of a well-kept table. There are plenty in this city tonight who will not be so fortunate.” Felix stared at him. “You look surprised. Do you think I am without compassion, Felix? Or perhaps you think I have no conscience.”

  “No, sir, of course not. I know well enough how good you are to your people. My father often says that as a landlord he does not know any like you.”

  Rothborough inclined his head a little.

  “One does what one can. It is the obligation of wealth to take responsibility for those less fortunate. In this place, for example, there is much that could be done here to improve the lot of the ordinary man and woman. All those poor souls working in the manufactories, for example – they are not well served by their employers, and although I do not at all like the principle of the government interfering in a man’s business, I can see no other way, in the present conditions. Factory legislation is a pressing need. Small steps have been to be taken already, but it is not, I feel, enough. Progress must be balanced with the needs of civilisation, yes?”

  “Yes, always,” said Felix, finding this speech went strangely with the removal of the soup plates and the arrival of a quennelle of pike. Pike that, he supposed, had been pulled from the great fish-ponds at Holbroke, which were strictly reserved for the use of the family, and fiercely guarded from poachers. Anyone rash enough to poach at Holbroke found himself bound for Van Dieman’s Land.

  Felix took a forkful of fish. It had been whipped up into an ethereally light paste and set on little rounds of toasted bread. He let it dissolve in his mouth, enjoying it far more than he felt he should. Lord Rothborough was playing an artful game – as he always did – but Felix could not yet discern what it was. If he had seen the Dean and Miss Pritchard then there was no end to the calumnies that would be heaped on his him. In the normal course of things Lord Rothborough would be preparing to excoriate him for his conduct. Yet he had deferred his anger. It felt ominous.

  Perhaps Mrs Morgan was at the root of it, he thought, catching sight of the half-naked nymph who so resembled her. Perhaps, as his mysterious visitor had said, Mrs Morgan had so taken possession of him that he was distracted from his usual hobby-horses. For which Felix would ordinarily have been grateful, but instead recalled that terrible story she had told him.

  “Oh, I forgot mention it when you came in, my Lord,” said Bodley, bringing in the joint, “Juno has gone into pup. Three of them so far, all little beauties.”

  Watching the servant move across the room, Felix wondered whether Bodley had served Lord Rothborough back then. Was he the one who had pulled the pistol from his master’s mouth and saved his life? Could Bodley be persuaded to tell him the full story?

  “Excellent news,” said Lord Rothborough. “Mr Carswell will carve, Bodley.” Bodley put the joint down in front of Felix. “I thought I might give one of them to young Master Harry Morgan,” Rothborough went on. “That boy needs a dog. Perhaps you might like one too, Felix? Major Vernon is right to keep that beautiful hound of his – a gentleman needs a good dog. By the way, you don’t know if he has plans to breed from her?”

  “No,” Felix said.

  “If he does, you must tell me. The girls have been demanding a greyhound ever since they have met Prince Albert’s charming Eos – but I think, with the greatest respect to his Highness, that the points of Major Vernon’s bitch are better. Now carve me a slice of that, will you, my boy? The end piece will suit me perfectly. Indeed I much prefer it, and I remember that you don’t care for it.”

  It annoyed Felix that Lord Rothborough should remember this detail about him. If it had been his mother, he would have felt some pleasure in it, although she would have scolded him for having a preference, and told him, even now, as a grown man, that he ought to eat what was put in front of him and not question it.

  He carved the slice as he was bid and Bodley conveyed the plate to Lord Rothborough with his usual stateliness. Rothborough dismissed him after he had offered the vegetables and Felix, with a full plate in front of him, wondered how the conversation would now proceed.

  “Do you think Mrs Morgan will allow her son to accept a puppy?” he said as mildly as he could.

  “I cannot imagine why not. Children ought to grow up with animals – it’s good for them. Harry is a trifle timid. A dog will do him good. You would be a poorer soul had your father not had that raggedy white mutt of his! He is with us still, I trust – what was his name, now?”

  “Keeper. No, he died last winter.”

  “I had no idea,” said Lord Rothborough, with sudden gravity. “I am sorry to hear that. Your father must have been greatly grieved. I must write to him. I wish I had known earlier.” Then after a moment, during which he took a reflective sip of wine, he said, “I shall definitely give the boy one of the pups. It is what he needs.” He looked across at Felix and smiled. “He is a charming little fellow. Very much like his mama, which is just as well given all I have heard of his father.” Lord Rothborough went on: “It is odd how children much resemble one parent or another and never seem to be mixtures. I find it fascinating. There is nothing of your mother in you, thank God, Felix. You have all our family’s qualities, and our weaknesses. But your sisters – three of them are their mother’s daughters, but Charlotte, well – she and you are very alike.” He took another sip of his wine. “I know it offends you for me to speak like this, but –”

  “I would not worry about offending me,” Felix said. “But Lady Charlotte, on the other hand –”

  He did not like to be reminded of Lord Rothborough’s daughters, and he was sure they did not like to be reminded of him. Yet at the same time, he had often felt a fierce longing to know them.

  “If you could meet them, I am sure you would love them,” Lord Rothborough said. “That would be my greatest pleasure – to see my children together.”

  Felix looked across at Lord Rothborough, unsettled that he should have guessed at his private inclination.

  “That is a fancy that not even you, with all your powers, can accomplish,” he said.

  “Regrettably,” said Rothborough with a great sigh. “I am thinking of having a painting done – a group portrait of you all, before any of you are married, while you are all young and at the height of your beauty. I have even discussed it with Axelmann; he thinks it possible to combine two separate sittings.”

  “Axelmann?”

  “He’s a clever young German. You would be interested to meet him, I’m sure. I would like to get him to Holbroke, this summer at any rate. That is one of his,” he added, indicating the nymphs above him. “He is painting the Queen and Prince Albert – a wedding portrait. I think he will be one of the great masters of the century. I shall get him to do the girls in a group, for the London drawing room, and then you will sit for him, for a cabinet portrait. We will have a copy done to send to your parents, of course,” he added.

  “You’ve obviously given this some thought.”

  “Yes, I have.”

  “Then perhaps you should get Mrs Morgan to sit for him,” Felix said, unable to restrain himself. “For another private portrait.”

  “He would certainly do her justice, but I sense you are not making a serious suggestion, Felix.”

  “No, I am not!” said Felix laying down his knife and fork.

  “I thought we would save business until after dinner. Come, now eat your beef – you are far too thin for my comfort these days. A physician must be strong and you are always in the way of dan
ger working here – you must be fortified.”

  “I am never ill, you know that,” said Felix.

  “There comes a point when our constitutions fail us all,” said Rothborough. “At your age I believed I was indestructible – and I would like to spare you the misery that I endured when I realised I was not.”

  “Do you mean –” Felix said, searching for the best way to begin on the subject. “Was this after you had been in Paris?”

  “Yes,” said Rothborough.

  “What form did this illness take?”

  “I was half-paralysed with exhaustion and racked with pains that no-one could explain. I could not bear light, nor noise for at least two months. It was wretched – to be shut up in my room with no power to make myself any better – and being bled by all the quacks my dear mother could summon to the house. I was like a pin-cushion after all those leeches.”

  “It sounds like a form of melancholia,” Felix said. “Feelings can work powerful effects upon the body’s systems.”

  He was aware of Lord Rothborough’s eyes upon him. There was a long moment of silence and then Lord Rothborough said, “That is true – and that is why I am anxious that you are sensible in this regard. I know the dangers, more than most.”

  “I think you can trust me to avoid them.”

  “I am not sure I can. This business with the Dean’s daughter –”

  “I thought we were waiting until we had eaten,” Felix said.

  Rothborough crumpled his napkin and laid it by his place.

  “Point taken,” he said. “Finish your meat.”

  “I have had my fill,” Felix said.

  “Then we will go through to my book room,” said Lord Rothborough, getting up from the table.

  The room adjoined the dining room, and was equally lavishly furnished.

  “Sit,” said Lord Rothborough pointing to one of the chairs. He was pouring wine. “Let us get down to business. Why did you offer for her?”

  “Because – does it matter?”

  “I must press you on this – why did you offer for her? Why?”

  “Because, I suppose I thought it would do me good to be married. That a wife would make me comfortable – if you get my meaning.”

  “I do entirely,” said Lord Rothborough and to Felix’s great surprise and concern, he smiled broadly. “And I think I have solved our problem.”

  “Our problem? It is my affair. This is what you will not understand.”

  “Yes, yes, of course, you think I am a heartless meddler, do you not, Felix?”

  “No sir, but –”

  “Yes, you do. And I will have to do my best to persuade you otherwise. Now, we were speaking of young Axelmann just now. You must admit he has a great talent in capturing the female form.”

  “Yes, I suppose so.”

  “He and I have been in correspondence. At the moment he is Germany, and he was good enough to send me this.” He took from a drawer a piece of pasteboard and held it out to Felix. “As good a draughtsman as he is with paint. A great talent.”

  Felix looked at the card. It was a pencil sketch of a young woman, not much more than a girl. She did not smile or simper, but looked out intensely, her dark hair neatly parted in the centre.

  “Very pretty,” he said, as blandly as he could, and handed it back to Lord Rothborough.

  “You are not intrigued to know who she is?”

  “You will tell me, whether I ask or not.”

  “This charming girl is Lady Nina Dundas, only child of the late Earl of Thornhill. She is at school in Lausanne at present, but she will coming home after Easter. She is apparently an accomplished botanical painter – Axelman thought her work exceptional. She also speaks French and German fluently, which will endear her to the Queen and Prince Albert, since they speak German at home. How is your German, by the way, Felix?”

  “Not as good as I would wish,” Felix said, thinking how he had recently struggled over an article in German.

  “Ah, then she could tutor you.”

  “Sir, I do not think –”

  “I would like you two to become acquainted before the Season, so I have invited her to Holbroke after Easter, by which time you will be in possession at Ardenthwaite.”

  “No, no,” said Felix. “I have no intention of meeting this young woman, let alone making myself agreeable to her.”

  “You will meet her and you will make yourself agreeable. And I think you will be delighted with her. From everything I have heard, and particularly from young Axelmann’s account, she would be an ideal wife for you.”

  “Then your damned Herr Axelmann should offer for her! He has as much right to try his luck as I do. And even if I did like her, there is little chance that she would like me,” said Felix. “She will not want to make a match with me. If she has any family pride, and if she has any regard for her inheritance, I will be nothing but a speck of dirt. How on earth will I appear to her otherwise?”

  “That is not how it will appear. The way has been smoothed. Lady Thornhill and I have been in correspondence. She is prepared to consider the match – if, of course, you make a good impression on her.”

  “Are you in earnest?” said Felix.

  “You have admitted yourself that you need a wife, and you know that a suitable match for you has been in my mind for some time. The question is an important one and this is an opportunity that we cannot let slip. She is expecting to make your acquaintance.”

  “Then she is a fool – a poor fool! I dread to think what her people may be saying to her, and what a puffed-up, false picture of me you have been peddling them out of your own sense of vanity. I will have nothing to do with such schemes. Tell your young lady that I will not play this idiotic game and that she had better take her chances in the season and find a husband whose rank matches her own! Marriage to me would be a debasement and she would be laughed at. You will be laughed at if you persist in this nonsense, and I have too much regard for you to allow you make such a fool of yourself. Leave me be, for God’s sake. Leave me be!”

  “You must accept who you are, Felix,” said Lord Rothborough.

  “I do accept who I am!” he exclaimed. “I am the son of a whore. It is you that are deluded!”

  “Your birth was an accident.”

  “An accident? That is putting it mildly.”

  “An accident, and regrettable, but you are my child, my only son, and that means more to me than I can describe to you. You have no sense of it now, my boy, but you will feel it, and all the pain and pleasure of it, when you have a son of your own – though I hope he spares your feelings more than you spare mine! I pray to God each day, that he will grant you a son in wedlock, and that you may rejoice in him, as you ought, without having to shift and swivel and suffer as I have done!” He broke off and went to the fireside and looked down into the grate. “There are times I wish I did not feel as I do, but it is impossible for me not to feel as I do for you, Felix, and I must do all I can for you. It is not my vanity but feeling that drives me. Now you may think I am meddling when I put this young woman before you, but I think she and you would make a good match.”

  Felix shook his head but that, of course, did nothing to silence him. He went on: “I have looked through the ranks of all the young noblemen of marriageable age, Felix, in respect of my daughters, and they are a pack of boobies compared to you. She is an intelligent young woman. She will see the same.”

  “I do not think so,” Felix said.

  “In her eyes you are a prize worth getting – a man of talent, of character, a man of this century. Look at the young Prince – he is a German, threadbare nobody, but the Queen utterly dotes on him because he is a man of talent, of intelligence. He is new blood – as you have new blood. You and this young woman could form a dynasty – imagine that, Felix, a dynasty. Think of the great men you might people the nation with from your own nursery!”

  It was now as if he were addressing a public meeting and Felix, realising that it was futile
to argue with him, let him continue, while thinking how he might actively resist this ridiculous plan.

  “The country is changing,” Lord Rothborough went on, “and we must change with it. This young woman is intelligent enough to see the possibilities of marriage with you – now allow your intelligence to work upon the problem for yourself, Felix. It will prevent you getting into disagreeable scrapes for one thing, and you will have all the pleasures of the marital bed to keep you comfortable.”

  Felix turned the picture which was lying on the writing table face-down, for her eyes were a little too well drawn and expressive for his comfort. There was a great deal of life in such simple sketch. Axelmann was indeed talented.

  He decided it was time to go on the attack.

  “I understand that you submitted to a marriage of this nature and I do not think you have been happy. I certainly do not think Lady Rothborough has been happy. I had a visitor this morning, a friend of Lady Rothborough’s, and she said things that –”

  “She?” said Lord Rothborough.

  “Yes.”

  “Who?”

  “She would not tell me. She would not put up her veil until I begged her to do it.”

  “But it was a lady?”

  “Yes, she had her maid with her. She was clearly a person of rank.”

  “What was the maid called?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” said Felix a little astonished. “Well, perhaps it was Jenkinson or something like that.”

  “Good grief,” said Rothborough. “Not Jenkins? A tall, stout woman?”

  “The maid, you mean – yes, I think so. The lady was not.”

  “Describe the lady to me.”

  “Flaxen haired – with a touch of grey. About forty I would say. Very handsome – once a great beauty, probably.”

  Lord Rothborough had pressed his folded fingers to his lips. He looked more alarmed than Felix had ever seen him. He reached into the drawer of the desk again, the drawer from which Lady Nina’s picture had been taken, and this time took out a little golden miniature case, which he flicked open and held out to Felix.