The Caverel Claim

by Peter Rawlinson

  Willoughby paused and looked round his audience. Most, he noted with satisfaction, had their heads buried in their notebooks.

  ‘Julian Caverel, whose parents were divorced,’ he went on, ‘had been brought up during his early years by his mother who was living in Buenos Aires in the Argentine. When he was a young man, he’d spent a few years in England but soon left for the USA where he wandered across the continent from state to state, supplementing an allowance paid to him from England by playing the piano in clubs and bars. In 1970 in South Carolina he met and fell in love with a girl from Beaufort County. He married her and conceived a child. But he was a feckless and irresponsible young man, and before his wife had even borne his child, he had disappeared, abandoning his pregnant wife who never heard from him again. In 1978 he himself died in San Francisco.

  ‘His daughter, who was born in 1971, had been christened Fleur by her mother who herself died soon after, and the baby was taken in and raised under the name of Sarah by Mr and Mrs Wilson, a devout chapel-going couple with no children of their own. But the little girl being brought up in St John’s Parish, Beaufort County, South Carolina, was in reality a half-English orphan, her existence unknown to any other member of her family. Save for one, and the knowledge of that person was only vague and uncertain.’

  Willoughby paused. ‘After he had left South America, Julian, with his usual fecklessness, rarely communicated with his mother, but in or about 1971 he sent her a postcard, with no address, in which he wrote quite casually that he’d been informed that he was to be the father of a child. She never heard from him again and knew no more of the grandchild of which her son had written, whether it was a boy or a girl or indeed whether it was ever born. Ten days ago she arrived in London from South America, and met the granddaughter she had never seen. She is with us today – the Senora Lucia Martinez.’

  At the mention of her name, the Senora made as if to get to her feet but found difficulty in shifting her bulk out of her chair. Willoughby hurried on, so the Senora had to be content with a wave and a series of majestic bows.

  ‘Three years ago, Walter, Julian’s old father, the 15th Baron Caverel, at last died, many years after his elder son, and his younger son, Robin, born of a later marriage, and unaware of the existence of any child by his deceased elder half-brother, assumed the title, took up residence in Ravenscourt, the ancestral seat of the Caverel family, and took his place in the House of Lords. But Robin had little enjoyment of his estate. Two years later he was tragically killed in a car accident and was in turn succeeded by his infant son, Francis. However, unknown to either of them, there existed an heir with a superior title, this young lady, Miss Fleur Caverel.’

  Jameson was only half listening; his eye was fixed on the Senora who, when she was not smiling at the audience or at her granddaughter, was, he saw, sipping more and more frequently from the glass in front of her.

  A man’s voice suddenly interrupted Willoughby, a journalist in the front row who asked if the family had been told of Fleur’s existence and of her claim.

  ‘They have,’ Willoughby replied, ‘and, we acknowledge, it must have come as quite a shock. But let me make clear, Miss Caverel, as we must call her for the present, accepts that the family was quite unaware of her existence when Robin and later his son assumed the title and took possession of Ravenscourt.’

  ‘What has been their reaction?’ another asked.

  ‘We’re waiting to hear from them.’

  ‘Hasn’t there been any contact? Hasn’t Fleur been to see them?’ a woman reporter asked.

  ‘No, not as yet.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘She has not yet been to see them because, as a stranger to this country and unaccustomed to our ways and forms, she knew nothing of titles and estates and when she arrived in this country she chose to seek advice. As an American, or as someone raised in America, she did what all good Americans do.’ He grinned knowingly. ‘She went to see a lawyer, and that lawyer, the distinguished solicitor, Mr Michael Stevens, decided to lodge her claim officially and formally by letter.’

  ‘What happens if the family rejects her claim?’ the woman reporter went on.

  ‘I hope they won’t. There can be no doubt that Fleur is the child of the elder son and accordingly she takes precedence over a younger son and his family, and this is a barony which a woman can inherit.’

  ‘But what if they don’t accept her?’ the journalist persisted.

  ‘Then it will become a matter for the courts to decide, to the advantage of none save the lawyers. But as I said, we trust it won’t, for there can be no doubt who Fleur is, and to support her and vouch for her is none other than her own grandmother.’

  Willoughby paused to look down at his notes and the Senora seized her opportunity. This time she didn’t attempt to rise.

  ‘I am so happee,’ she announced loudly in a stagey Latin accent, ‘so happee to have found my darlink little granddaughter, my Julio’s little Fleur. Julio’s daughter.’ She pronounced it ‘Shoolio’. She grabbed Fleur’s hand. ‘I am so proud after all these years to be with this little one. Since the death of my darling Shoolio, I have been so much alone, so lonely, so unhappee. Now I have my Fleur, my Shoolio’s little daughter, my own granddaughter and –’

  ‘Where’s the postcard?’

  The question came from a man sitting to one side of the audience, at the end of a row about five from the front, a stout, neat little man in a dark suit, with a notebook on his knee and a bowler hat and a rolled umbrella on the floor beside his chair.

  Startled, the Senora put her hand to the beads swinging in front of her ample breast and peered in the direction of where the question had come. ‘What was that? What did he say?’

  ‘I said where’s the postcard you say your son wrote to you about him expecting a child?’

  Willoughby intervened. ‘Unhappily the Senora no longer has it. It was after all written quarter of a century ago and –’

  ‘She’s not South American at all, is she? She’s English, isn’t she?’

  The Senora had her hand to her ear. ‘What’s he saying? I can’t hear what he’s saying.’

  ‘I said you’re English, aren’t you?’ the man repeated more loudly.

  ‘What do you mean? I’m Argentinian from Buenos Aires. My name is Martinez. I arrived in London, when was it, a week ago. I live in the Argentine. I’ve lived there for years and years and –’

  ‘But you’re English.’

  The Senora took a swig from the glass. ‘Well,’ she said, her South American accent not now so pronounced, ‘if you’re askin’ was I born in England, I was. And that was more years ago than I care to remember.’ She laughed but it sounded forced. She went on, ‘I don’t think of myself as English. I ’aven’t been back ’ere for years. I’ve lived in the Argentine for what seems to me like a century.’ She giggled again, not very convincingly. ‘My name, as you have heard, is not English. My name is Martinez.’

  ‘Your name used to be Bull, didn’t it, Lucy Bull, from Berners Road, Clapham?’

  Willoughby felt he’d better intervene again. ‘However long the Senora may have been away from this country,’ he began gallantly, ‘we’re all delighted to welcome her back to the land of her birth and delighted she has come all this way to join us this afternoon –’

  ‘How is the girl sitting beside you your granddaughter?’ the stout little man called out.

  Willoughby answered for her. ‘Miss Caverel is the Senora’s granddaughter because Miss Caverel is the daughter of the Senora’s son.’

  ‘Is she? How do you know? Julian Caverel was a well-known homosexual, wasn’t he? Didn’t he die of what’s now known as Aids?’

  ‘Look here,’ Willoughby began, by now quite rattled. ‘I don’t know which newspaper you represent or who you are but –’

  ‘Even if she is the homosexual’s daughter, which is unlikely, on which side of the blanket was she born? Can she tell us that?’

  ‘That’s quite
enough –’ began Willoughby.

  ‘And if it comes to that, even if the former Lucy Bull is Julian’s mother, who was Julian’s father? Tell us that, madam.’

  “Ow dare you!’ the Senora shouted back, struggling to rise from her chair.

  ‘It wasn’t Walter Caverel, was it? He wasn’t Julian’s dad, was he? Just tell us who was Julian’s dad?’

  The Senora had managed to extricate her bulk out of her chair, knocking it over behind her. She had the glass of liquid in one hand; with the other she swung the glass beads fiercely round her neck. She bent forward, her face red with rage. ‘You fuckin’ little bastard,’ she shouted, the accent now not South American but South London. “Ow dare you, ’ow dare you come ’ere and insult me! I know who you are. You’re a fuckin’ messenger boy from those fuckin’ Caverels. They sent you ’ere to bad-mouth me. I know them, those fuckin’ snobs,’ she shouted, redder in the face than ever.

  ‘Who was Julian’s dad?’ the stout little man repeated.

  ‘Shut your face, you arse-creeping little bastard. You’ve been sent here to insult me because those toffee-nosed shits’ll stop at nothing to keep their hands on what they’ve stolen from my little girl. They won’t ’ave her because she’s black, that’s why the buggers want to stop ’er getting what’s ’ers. They don’t think she’s good enough for them, isn’t that it? Just as I wasn’t good enough when I was with that swine Walter. She’s just a nigger, that’s what those fuckin’ snobs are saying, like they said I was just a tart. Well, you just tell them that she’s my Julian’s kid even if she is a nigra, and to hell with them, them fuckin’ lords and ladies.’

  She swung her arm back. Some of the liquid from the glass fell on Fleur and on to the table before the Senora flung the glass towards the questioner. It barely reached the front row of the audience who, seeing it come, ducked and put their hands over their faces as the glass crashed and broke on the floor in front of them. They got to their feet but ducked again when they saw that the Senora had now grabbed the carafe. It didn’t get as far as the glass, but exploded on the floor with an impressive crack.

  Willoughby was now on his feet. Jameson started to run up the side aisle to get to the platform. As he did so, he brushed past the questioner who had slipped from his place and, umbrella in hand, was walking quietly to the door at the back of the room.

  ‘It’s all right, it’s all right,’ Willoughby was shouting through the microphone. ‘Everyone keep calm, please keep calm.’

  The Senora was still yelling when Jameson leaped on to the platform. She tried to slap his face but he grabbed her, pinning her arms to her side and hustled her, still struggling, through the door at the back of the platform. Once out of sight, Mrs Campion held the Senora’s arms while Jameson struck the old woman in the face three times, first with his open hand; then twice with the side. Mrs Campion let the old woman slide to the floor and they both stood over her as she lay at their feet.

  On the platform, Willoughby had put his arm around Fleur. ‘It’s all right, my dear, it’s all right.’

  She looked up into his face. She was laughing. She was still laughing when he escorted her off the stage.

  * * *

  At the hotel in Kensington, a doctor was summoned to examine the Senora, who was unable to speak. He pronounced that her jaw was dislocated, perhaps broken. She’d had a bad fall, Jameson told him, stumbling off the platform and falling on her face. She was taken by ambulance to a private clinic in St John’s Wood.

  Later in the evening, Willoughby joined Michael Stevens in his office.

  ‘In her inimitable and colourful way, the old darling said what none of us could possibly have said.’ He smiled and lit a cigar. ‘She was spot on, bless her old soul. Let’s take a look at the TV.’

  There was a short clip on the Channel 4 seven o’clock news bulletin, but only about the claim for the title and estates by the lost daughter of the lost heir. There were pictures of the platform party before the conference had begun and no reference to the fracas or the Senora’s words, except to report that in the course of the conference the claimant’s grandmother referred with considerable hostility to the aristocratic Caverel family into which she had once been married. Close-ups of the girl made clear that the claimant for the ancient Caverel title and estates was black.

  ‘I’ve had a word or two so it’ll be better in tomorrow’s tabloids,’ Willoughby said. ‘You’ll see.’

  And next morning Stevens did see. The Senora’s words, with a few suitable asterisks, were fully reported. The story of the Caverel Claim, as it came to be called, was carried by every newspaper, including the broadsheets. There were many reproductions of the wistful photograph of Fleur and one of the tabloids had an imaginative picture of what was meant to be a share-cropper’s cabin with a large, black ‘mammy’ seated in front of the door, with the caption, ‘Birthplace of Caverel claimant’. There were photographs of Ravenscourt, with some of the hall and staircase with the portraits of the Caverel ancestors. There was a picture of Andrea with Francis on her knee, which had been taken by a photographer from a local newspaper when Robin had inherited; and an old one of Major Nicholas Lawton, in his scarlet tunic and bearskin cap. He was described as the member of the family now managing the Caverel estates and beside his picture was that of a dismissed estate worker standing by the cottage from which he was shortly to be evicted. There was a formal statement from the family’s solicitors, Messrs Goodbody, that the claim would be strenuously defended. ‘Classic Court Case Looms. Challenge to Ancient Title. A Fortune at Stake’ was one of the more reserved headlines. ‘Black girl seeks title and fortune from toffs. Snobs and cheats charge. Court battle ahead’ was the headline in the Daily News.

  ‘Splendid,’ Willoughby said cheerfully to Michael Stevens. ‘And all thanks to the old darling.’

  ‘But what will she be like when she comes to court?’ Stevens asked. ‘What kind of a witness would she make? It’s a judge who’ll decide,’ he muttered.

  ‘I know, old son, I know. But that little introduction to the Great British Public won’t have done any harm. The Albert Hall to a china orange, our little conference has rattled the family. And over the weeks to come, old cock, there’ll be a few more rattles. You’ll see. I’ve only just begun.’

  17

  In the afternoon of the following day, another conference of a different and more staid kind assembled at four thirty in the room of Mordecai Ledbury QC in King’s Bench Walk in the Temple. Oliver Goodbody entered, followed by Nicholas Lawton and one other – a short, stout, middle-aged man with an agreeable rather cherubic face, dressed in a tight-fitting dark suit. He was the man who had witnessed Fleur’s visit to Greg in Fulham, who had attended Paul Valerian’s funeral in Paris and who had asked the questions at Willoughby Blake’s press conference.

  Mordecai was seated behind a vast eighteenth-century desk. He did not rise but waved to them to take a seat. Oliver Goodbody lowered himself into a red-leather armchair on his left, crossed his long legs and placed both hands on the gold knob of his cane.

  ‘Mr Rogers,’ he said, indicating the stout little man.

  Mordecai nodded, and Mr Rogers bowed as he took a chair beside Oliver. The barrister, with his dark, swarthy skin, his outsize head bald except for the few strands of hair brushed across it and his prominent hooked nose above his thin twisted lips and high white stiff collar, reminded Mr Rogers of a vulture. And at the thought, Mr Rogers smiled happily to himself.

  Nicholas was on Mordecai’s right, perched bolt upright on a straight-backed Regency chair. He was wearing the blue and red tie of the Guards Division.

  When they were all seated, Mordecai’s clerk, Robins, drew the curtains across the windows behind Mordecai’s chair and turned on a television set at the far end of the room. ‘Begin,’ said Mordecai, and in silence they watched the short tape of the broadcast of Willoughby Blake’s press conference.

  ‘Again,’ said Mordecai when it ended. He had it played three more t
imes before he signalled Robins to switch off the set and leave. As the door closed behind the clerk, Mordecai bent his head to read the copies of the newspapers spread on his desk in front of him. ‘Repeat, if you please, Mr Rogers,’ he said, ‘the report you made to Mr Goodbody.’

  Mr Rogers gave his account of what had happened at the press conference. When he had finished, Mordecai said, ‘The tabloids at least seem to have got most of it, with a suitable display of asterisks.’ He looked up. ‘Did anyone at the conference know you?’

  ‘Not that I am aware.’

  ‘You had disrupted their proceedings. Did no one attempt to stop you as you left?’

  ‘No.’

  Mordecai grunted and leaned back in his chair. ‘Blake will be well satisfied,’ he said grimly.

  ‘Satisfied?’ interjected Nicholas, looking at Mordecai with surprise. ‘I’d have thought the whole show was a disaster.’

  Mordecai turned his head towards him. This, he presumed, was the military cousin who, Oliver said, was managing the estate; and making enemies. ‘I said that Blake will be satisfied,’ Mordecai repeated slowly. ‘He got all he wanted.’ He paused, still looking at Nicholas. ‘Are you contradicting me?’

  ‘No, of course not,’ Nicholas said hastily. ‘Only it seemed to me that it was a fiasco.’

  ‘Then you haven’t grasped the significance. The grandmother said things Blake could never have said himself. As a result he achieved more than he could have hoped for. She focused this case where Blake intends it shall remain – on race and class. Race because the claimant is black and the Caverels white; class because she comes from a humble background and is poor and the Caverels are aristocrats and rich.’

  ‘I sent Mr Rogers and I told him the questions I wished asked,’ Oliver said. ‘I decided to show Blake that we were aware of what they were up to – and that we knew the kind of people we are dealing with. I wanted to test how serious they are.’

  Mordecai shook his head. ‘Blake’s purpose was to secure public attention and whip up public opinion. He hopes that if the media is sufficiently manipulated and takes up the cause, this might influence some weak judge – and if the pressure is strong enough, frighten off the family.’