The Last Earl

by Lara Blunte

  "I am glad to hear it, Lady Catherine," Charles managed to say.

  "We are in mourning, as you see, for Uncle Thaddaeus."

  "I am sorry to hear it, Lady Catherine."

  "Mama is with Father Wright at confession,” she went on. “He is a martyr for listening to her, she certainly has nothing interesting to confess and yet feels she must do it constantly."

  Charles did not know how to reply, for he had never heard a woman speak quite like that, or seen a girl of twenty so in control of a room. Jack, on his turn, smoothed his mustache and saw with pleasure that she was a satirical little devil. He was sophisticated enough to know that with a great fortune and good birth, intelligence in a woman need not be ridiculous.

  "But Captain Dalton, you were in the Crimea!" Catherine exclaimed.

  "Ah," Jack cried. "Do you not know that he was almost keeelled?"

  Catherine turned to Jack, still smiling brightly, "Mr. Dalton, you are a linguist! You manage to speak French like an Englishman and English like a Frenchman!"

  It was Charles' turn to laugh, while Jack desperately sought a sally which he launch as a response.

  "How were you wounded?" Catherine asked Charles.

  "It was a flesh wound, nothing of consequence. It is already healed,” he said, somewhat embarrassed by the attention.

  "Nothing?" Jack interrupted again. "It is a fascinating story, and he has come here especially to tell it."

  Charles looked alarmed. Catherine saw it and inclined her head to one side. "What is it, Captain Dalton? It can't be a tragedy, there is no one else of my blood left to die. Noble Catholic families are such thin herds. I seem to remember that my very last cousin was carried away by a flood!"

  He was slightly shocked at her levity, but she was still waiting for him to speak. "It's precisely the opposite, Lady Catherine."

  "Someone was born?" Catherine asked, confused.

  "Someone's back from the dead!" Jack blurted out, unable to control himself.

  Catherine froze and raised an eyebrow at him, "What can you mean?"

  At that moment Lady Ware entered by the garden door, a prayer book and rosary in one hand. When she saw Charles her whole face became animated and she walked quickly towards him, "My dear, dear boy! How wonderful to see you!" She stretched her hand and Charles kissed it with true affection. Lady Ware had turned to Jack.

  "Your brother, Charles?" Lady Ware asked. "I remember him as a boy, many years ago."

  "The years have not passed for you, Lady Ware," Jack said gallantly, also kissing her hand.

  She sat near Charles and looked at him sadly. "Seeing you again does bring such memories back. My dear Edward─"

  "It was a great loss, Lady Ware."

  "Such a silly, silly accident," Lady Ware was saying. She frequently said these words as if she would never come to terms with how Lord Ware had died. "And now Thaddaeus, too! It's so heartbreaking to think that there are no men left in our family...And when I think that I would have had more children, had they lived, and that my cousin gave birth to two boys! All dead."

  Charles took a deep breath. "Lady Ware, Lady Catherine, I have come to give you news which touches precisely on the subject which you have just mentioned."

  Catherine, who had been handing her mother a fresh handkerchief — an action she felt she had performed too often lately — froze and raised an eyebrow at him, "Will you not tell us what the matter is, Captain Dalton?"

  He nodded and gathered his thoughts. "You mentioned my wound, Lady Catherine. I was shot in the arm during an ambush."

  "Oh, Charles, how horrifying!" Lady Ware exclaimed.

  The captain made a motion with his hand, wishing to wave away his own story. "It was only a flesh wound and I am recovered, as you see. Just before it happened, we were severely outnumbered and would certainly all have perished, if it weren’t that a band of men appeared on our left flank and started to shoot at the Russians."

  Images of the frozen steppe flashed across his head. His men had turned and turned in confusion and the unexpected arrival of the mercenaries had been an act of heaven, he was sure ─ even if the Russians had probably thought they had come from hell.

  "I was hit suddenly by a stray bullet while the enemy was retreating," Charles continued. "And one of the Russians was coming at me with his saber raised when I heard a shot. The Russian just fell off his horse. I had been saved."

  He thought of the dark-bearded face in the moonlight. His savior had shouted impatiently in good English, "For God's sake, will you move?" And then he had galloped off, as Charles recounted to Lady Ware and her daughter.

  When the attack was over and the Russians gone, Charles had given the order for his soldiers to find the wounded and the dead. Not very far from where he had been shot lay the man who had saved his life, his chest punctured by a bullet hole. His companions had all disappeared as if in thin air.

  "'Es a 'ard one, cap'n," his orderly had whistled, feeling his pulse. "Should by all rights be dead, but ain’t."

  "And what happened?" Catherine asked, intrigued.

  "He wasn't supposed to survive, but he did," Charles said. "He remained unconscious a while, but a week later I was finally summoned to the sick room. They had shaved off his beard, and that's when I finally recognized him."

  Catherine saw that understanding had started to dawn in her mother's eyes. "Adrian..." Lady Ware muttered.

  "Yes, Lady Ware. It was your cousin, The Earl of Halford."

  Three. Old Murders

  Adrian Stowe: the last Earl.

  He had been known as such for the past eight years, ever since he had become the nineteenth Earl of Halford, as well as heir to the titles of Viscount Montrose and Baron Layne, not to mention lavish properties in England, Ireland, Scotland and Italy and one of the greatest fortunes in Europe. More importantly, he was the last member of his family.

  At times people referred to him as the lost Earl because he had disappeared without a trace and without an heir, leaving the titles dormant.

  No one had mourned his disappearance as much as Lady Ware, for Adrian's mother, Anne, had been her second cousin and they had loved each other like sisters. Even if thrice or four times removed, Adrian had also been their last male relative, apart from Thaddaeus.

  Adrian's father, the eighteenth Earl, had been a powerful force in politics in spite of being a Catholic, something which was still regarded with suspicion and even alarm in England. The Stowes had been barons as far back as the eye could see, and had been made Earls in 1401, when an ancestor took part of Henry IV's successful rebellion against Richard II. It was an old name, and the line had continued unbroken, father to son, for four hundred and fifty years.

  Together with the Howards, the Stowes had stuck to the Catholic religion under Henry VIII in spite of pressure and even threats. However, apart from a night of two in the Tower for one of them during Elizabeth's reign, the family had remained unharmed. They had been around a long time and had shown no propensity for spontaneous revolt. Furthermore, they had always been fantastically rich.

  The Earl had married Anne Leighton because she was beautiful, well bred and of his faith, when there were so few noble people who were. He named his eldest son, James, after Catholic kings and Adrian after the only English Pope.

  A few years later, Anne's cousin Helen had married the Earl's neighbor, Lord Ware.

  Catherine had loved Aunt Anne, who was so beautiful and expressive, and who liked to make a little adventure out of everything. Interesting people suddenly appeared at Halford when she was there, trooping out of carriages, and there would be music, dancing and laughter.

  The Earl always discussed politics with Lord Ware and some other men who would smoke, put their hands behind their backs and say, "Great Britain this, England that.” Catherine had learned to duck whenever she passed by him, because he had a habit of reaching out to pat her on the head as if she were one of his dogs. She would, as revenge, stare at him until she unnerved him.

>   She could not remember Anne's two sons at all, for while the Lyttons spent most of their time in the countryside, the Stowes lived in London as the Earl's political obligations dictated. When the two families met, the boys were always away at school or traveling in Europe. They had spent their childhood at Halford but never returned there when Catherine was a child. She was told she was to think of them as her cousins and include them in her prayers.

  Halford Castle itself was considered one of the most beautiful houses in England. It had been built during the reign of Queen Anne, after an earlier castle was burned to the ground by an Earl who went mad and strangled his wife. The house that rose up on the ruins was meant to display all the considerable wealth and power of the sixth Earl and all the taste and talent of his architect. The grounds were a mixture of careful landscaping and wild nature that was breathtaking.

  The house was full of exquisite objects, but Catherine had taken the most delight in the portrait gallery. Walking along it in the company of the old nanny, Mrs. Brenton, she had asked about the history of all the Stowes hanging there.

  "This is His Lordship's father," Mrs. Brenton would say, standing before the portrait of a young man arrayed in late eighteenth century fashion. His eyes were humorous. "A fine master, everyone loved him. But a terrible scapegrace."

  "What did he do?"

  "He gambled, that's what."

  Catherine kept up the interrogation.

  "What else did he do?"

  "Oh, you are too young to know. Eventually he married an Italian princess, here she is." She walked to the portrait of a handsome young woman whose black curls framed a face full of arrogance and impatience, but also laughter. "They loved each other for a few years and hated each other for many more. I was their child's nanny."

  "The Earl was their only child?"

  "No," said the woman sadly. "They had a girl too. Bianca."

  "Which one is she?"

  "She's not here. She disgraced herself," said Mrs. Brenton, sighing.

  Finally, they would come to the last portraits in the gallery, that of the Earl with his wife and sons. The portrait was superbly executed by a Spanish master and the Countess was shown in the prime of her beauty, sparkling with sapphires, one of her hands holding a bouquet of violets and the other resting on the shoulder of a small smiling boy, as blond as she: her eldest son James. Adrian, smaller and as dark as the Earl, sat at her feet and fixed the painter with intelligent eyes.

  "And here is Her Ladyship. How beautiful she still is, just like in that picture! The painter, what was his name, was mad about her. And look at the little ones," Mrs. Brenton continued with fondness in her voice. One so mischievous and the other...the other so himself."

  On another day Nanny Brenton took Catherine to her private parlor: she didn't live with the other servants, but had her quarters upstairs in a different wing from the family. She opened a wardrobe and took out a framed painting covered in flannel.

  Unwrapping it carefully, she revealed the portrait of a very beautiful young girl. Her eyes were dark and expressive and her skin flawless. Catherine scanned her face, holding her breath.

  "It's Bianca," Nanny Brenton said. "His Lordship's sister. Isn't she ravishing?"

  There was a tear in the old lady’s eye, but she pressed her lips and didn't shed it. Catherine realized that she had been nanny to the girl as well, and that perhaps she had loved her more than the grim Earl, who had not found it in himself to forgive his poor sister for whatever she had done. Catherine wondered for a long time what Bianca could have done that was so terrible.

  The family, full of mystery with curses, foreign princesses and a beautiful exiled girl, seemed extremely romantic to Catherine, and for a long time served as unending theme for speculation.

  

  The tragedy happened in 1848.

  The Stowes arrived the day before Anne's 45th birthday, on the 1st of February, and Catherine was excited by the prospect of a party: she would wear a beautiful dress, see her aunt who was always so warm and amusing and finally meet her cousins.

  Instead of a celebration, however, there had been her mother's screams and her father's attempt to explain that her aunt and uncle, as well as her cousin James, had died in a terrible accident, and that she was to pray for them and to try as much as possible not to upset mama in any way, as she was very ill. Her cousin Adrian was also ill with sadness and she couldn't meet him just yet.

  Catherine had to be careful not to disturb her mother, who lay in nervous prostration for almost two months, and could not get any information about what had happened. She only knew that Adrian had survived but that he had left, and no one knew when he would return.

  At the castle, all the furniture had been covered and all the shutters had been closed. And that is how it had remained ever since.

  

  When she was older, Catherine finally learned that the Earl, Aunt Anne and James had all been murdered that night, stabbed to death in their sleep. Adrian had only survived because he had been detained on the way: his horse had thrown a shoe.

  It was he who, arriving early in the morning of his mother's birthday, found them all dead. Everyone said that he must have gone insane, especially when he disappeared without a trace.

  The police had found the assassin in a ditch a few miles from Halford: Harry Coogan had been the Earl's manservant years before and had been dismissed, and then committed to an asylum when an obsession with the Countess had proven too much for his wits.

  One night he had dressed in the Earl's dinner clothes and ambled into Anne's chamber to plant a kiss on her shoulder as she prepared for bed. The Countess realized immediately that the poor man had gone mad and that he would not harm her if she kept calm, which she did. She spoke to him as if he were her husband and when her maid walked in and almost shrieked in shock to see her mistress arm in arm with a servant, Anne let her know through a firm look what the situation was and what she was meant to do.

  Coogan was entertained by the Countess as the maid sought the help of the Earl and the servants, who were able to extricate Anne from the man's tearful and desperate embrace. He had pledged, at that time, that he would not bear any separation from her, vowing that they would be together in heaven.

  Not four years later Coogan escaped the madhouse and immediately made his way to Halford. Coogan knew the castle well and was able to go in undetected at night. He avoided the servants' quarters, made his way first to the Earl's room, where he stabbed his rival through the eye without making any noise. He found James reading in his room and cut his throat. The Countess was dragged through the room and stabbed to death in frenzy.

  Coogan left a trail of blood all over the rooms and the stairs. He also left the front door open as he escaped. No one in the house stirred. The mad servant was found a mile away, having cut his own wrists and bled to death in the snow.

  The case had been laid to rest.

  It was thought that Adrian might be alive, and that he might not have been able to deal with the horror of the murders. The only person who could have succeeded him, his first cousin Edmund Lawson, had died two years before in Madras, while serving in the army of the East Indian Company.

  Very noble Catholic families were a thin herd, as Catherine had pointed out, and there was nobody left to inherit. The firm of solicitors that looked after the large Halford fortune appointed stewards for the castle and the several other properties, while they kept the lands running and the money multiplying itself through investments the murdered Earl had outlined during his life. The titles lay dormant until it could be proven beyond a doubt that Adrian Geoffrey Alexander Stowe was in fact dead.

  

  However, it seemed that the nineteenth Earl of Halford was very much alive, and a letter came from him briefly announcing his return. Looking at his uncompromising handwriting, Catherine began to feel interested by the prospect of his arrival.

  Lady Ware became suspicious when her daughter sat meekly by the window, day
after day, holding a forgotten book on her lap while she stared at the snow outside. She was right to mistrust that strange serenity, for Kitty would only interrupt her reverie sometimes, and then always to ask the same question.

  "Mama, but surely you remember more about Adrian?"

  Her mother secretly hoped that he would be nothing like the man Catherine seemed to expect so eagerly.

  Four. Arrival

  The Earl of Halford arrived at Lytton Hall in March 1856, a little over eight years after he had disappeared.

  Lady Ware and Catherine had been expecting him daily for almost a week, busying themselves about the house, ordering fresh game and vegetables, unearthing the finest wines from the cellar, airing the room that had been Lord Ware's and lighting a fire there every evening. They would then settle down in the parlor with a lamp until well after midnight, when Lady Ware, leaving her sewing aside, would get up and light her candle.

  "I don't think he will arrive tonight. Good night, Kitty. Do not sit up too late."

  Catherine would give up less easily , and vowing that she did not feel tired, would sit reading or simply thinking about the imminent arrival of her mother's mysterious kinsman.

  She had not been able to get much information from Lady Ware about him, though she had been as insistent as her natural sense of discretion would allow her. She could see that Adrian's return was a mixed blessing: Lady Ware would again see Anne's son, whom she had thought dead, but with him all the painful memories of that terrible tragedy would come back.

  Lady Ware, in fact, had not always been as jittery as she was now, though she had always been timid. Losing two of the people she had loved the most, her husband Edward and her cousin Anne ─ one to an accident and the other to a horrible murder ─ had shattered her nerves. Catherine knew that she had also suffered two miscarriages in the years prior to the tragedy, so she couldn't blame her mother for a nervous collapse of sorts.