‘I must no longer delay. My story begins long ago in the last century when I was even younger than you are now—when I was plain Thomas Cleeve with apparently no hope of succeeding to the Earldom since the senior and junior branches of the family had separated so long ago. It was the year 1765, and I had met a beautiful and devoutly religious young woman by the name of Sophia Goode and fallen desperately in love with her.’
He smiled a little wryly at Marcus’s slight start of surprise. ‘I think that you will shortly guess where your half-sister’s name came from. It was I who chose it, you see, but I must resume. We were so in love that we decided to marry, since there was nothing to prevent us. Her parents and mine were delighted that we should do so, since love matches are rare in our class.
‘We were about to prepare for the wedding when she sent me a letter which destroyed the happy world in which I had been living. She said that she had changed her mind about marrying me and had decided to convert to the Catholic faith. Her one wish now was not to be my bride, but to be the bride of Christ, and to achieve that end she was entering a convent.
‘You may judge of the shock I sustained on reading this. I drove to her home to try to persuade her to change her mind, but she had already left and I was never to see her again in this life. I was like a madman when I realised that she had gone for ever. I railed against God and fate, since everything I saw was hateful to me if I could not see and share it with my lost love. I left for India to get away from everything which reminded me of her. After ten years I married your mother, as much from loneliness as anything else—and I was rewarded for my careless folly by the marriage being a disaster.
‘Finally she left me for another, and shortly afterwards died. I was never quite sure of the circumstances, nor did I care enough about her to discover them. I was happy to be a free man again, with a son whom I wickedly neglected because he reminded me of her. Then I met Marissa, who has become my guiding star—and yours, too, a little, I think, and have been happier than perhaps I have ever deserved to be. So much time had passed that I began to forget my first love, and enjoy what was left of my life on earth without that shadow hanging over me.
‘Alas, early this year I received a package which contained a few small personal possessions and a letter which was addressed to me. It came from someone called Sister Mary Margaret, something which puzzled me until I read it. It told me, among other things, that she was my dear, lost love. The package had been sent to me by the Abbess of her convent because she had recently died, and her last wish had been that I should receive it.
‘It was bad enough to learn of her death, but what was even more shocking was what the letter told me. It explained why she had deserted me so suddenly and without warning. She had been deliberately seduced and virtually raped by my friend, Lord George Ormiston, he who later became the Marquis of Sywell. Sywell was then a most attractive and handsome man. He had traded upon her innocence, which had been so great that she had assumed that once having bedded her he would marry her. That would have compelled her to give me up—but, in any case, she no longer wished to marry me after giving way to Sywell.
‘She was grossly mistaken in him. Sywell treated the whole business as a joke, jeered at her for expecting marriage, and she was left having betrayed herself, myself, and the religion which she prized, for the love of a wretch who had taken her virginity and had then made a mock of her. She felt that she was so damaged by what had happened that not only could she not marry me, having dishonoured herself, but she must retire from the world altogether.
‘You may imagine my feelings after I had read the letter. A past I had thought long dead had sprung from the grave to revive all the misery of my departed youth. On learning of Sywell’s wickedness all that I wished for was to be revenged upon the monster who had caused my love to leave the world altogether. I remembered with pain the years of misery I had endured after she had gone. I burned to see him, to reproach him…to do…I knew not what. I forgot my happy life with Marissa in remembering the suffering which Sywell had inflicted on the woman whom I had loved so dearly.
‘I went at once to the Abbey to confront him, to reproach him, to make him pay for what he had done to me and to her. You may imagine with what results. Debauched and degenerate, he was a caricature of the man whom he had once been. He mocked me for having lost my love first to him, and then to God. He told me, laughing, “The bitch wanted it, and it’s not my fault that she had a religious fit after I’d bedded her. It seems to me you were well rid of such a silly cow. When all’s said and done I did you a favour.”
‘I would have killed him there and then, except that his by-blow, Burneck, was always in attendance on him, and stood by, watching him. I made up my mind to finish him off in such a fashion that no one could be suspected—even that vile brute, Burneck. So I swallowed my hate, thanked Sywell for doing me a favour, which made Burneck laugh, and even pretended to do a little business with them.
‘That made it possible for me to invite Burneck to Jaffrey House on the night I had decided that I would kill Sywell. There was no moon, and no one would be likely to see me. I contrived some excuse in order to keep him at the house overnight. He slept in the servants’ quarters, which meant that suspicion could not fall on him. Unfortunately, what I had not considered was that it might fall on the missing wife, Hanslope’s daughter. Later, though, Jackson assured me that there was no way in which she could have committed the crime, seeing that she lived in London and had not the means to pay anyone to kill him for her.
‘I dressed myself in gamekeeper’s clothes in case anyone saw me in the dark. I took my pistol with me and all the way to the Abbey I thought of killing him without feeling the slightest remorse. I told myself that, for all his many crimes, he deserved to die a hateful death. I was still thinking this when I entered the Abbey and climbed up one of its secret ways so that if by ill chance anyone were about I might not be seen.
‘I found Sywell in his bedroom. He was even more disgusting than when I had first confronted him over his debauchery of my love. I could not help remembering what he had been like when we were young men together: he had been a very Adonis. And now he was this wretched, bloated thing on the bed. He had been trying to shave his hairy face and his razor and towel lay on a table by the bed.
‘He stared at me, and said blearily, “What the hell are you doing here at this time of night, Yardley?”
“‘Come to send you to hell,” I told him. “The ball I shall kill you with is my present to you from Sophia.” I lifted the pistol and pointed it at the thing. It wasn’t a man any more.
‘He slipped out of bed and stood facing me. He grunted, “You haven’t the guts, Tozzy, to kill your old friend in cold blood.”
‘He had used my nickname, the one I had been given at school, and whether it was that, or something else, I don’t, and shall never, know. It was as though I’d had a blinding revelation, or else my happy life with Marissa flashed before my eyes, but whatever it was, I knew that I could not kill him, even if he deserved it. I thought of what might happen if the law caught me, and of what that would do to Marissa, to my Sophia, and to her marriage already arranged for Christmas, by which time if I had been arrested I should be due to hang.
‘It came upon me that he wasn’t worth it. That he was already in hell, in a hell of his own making. By his own actions he had destroyed his beauty and addled his brains, while I, one of his victims, had survived to build myself a happy and prosperous life, and raise a loving family.
‘That took a long time to say, but no time at all to think. I lowered the pistol and, like a fool, laid it on an occasional table, saying, “Die in your own ordure, Sywell. I’ve no wish to put you out of your misery.”
‘Oh, I had misjudged him again! He gave a great bellow and sprang at me before I could pick up the pistol. He had snatched his cutthroat razor up and was upon me in an instant, determined to kill me, whatever the ultimate cost to him. But he had misjudged his last victim. Ol
d and feeble though I was—and am—I was infinitely more powerful than the thing he had become. I caught him by the wrist and wrenched the razor from his grasp, only to have him spit in my face and say, “I told you that you hadn’t the guts to kill me, Tozzy, didn’t I?”
‘I don’t know what came over me then. It was something like the old berserker rages our Viking ancestors used to experience. I was suddenly a madman, cutting and thrusting at him until exhaustion overcame me, and he lay on the floor, dead. This time he was the victim of his last insult. I reeled away, throwing down the razor and picking up the pistol which had fallen to the floor. I was covered in blood myself and had to get away.
‘I don’t clearly remember what happened next because I was both shocked by what I had done, and at the same time could feel no remorse for having done it. After all, if I had not killed him, he would have killed me. Before I left I took Sywell’s greatcoat from where it had been flung on the floor and carried it away with me.
‘When I reached the pool where he and I had swum as boys I stripped off my outer garments, which were soaked with his blood, and buried them—where I have no notion—I was in no condition to trouble about such things. I then washed myself, put on Sywell’s coat to make me at least a little respectable, and made my way home. I met no one and reached my bedroom without disturbing anyone—so far as my valet and staff were concerned they had seen me to bed at the usual time.
‘When the uproar about Sywell’s murder began they were able to testify, quite truthfully, that they had seen me to my bed at the usual time, and that I was in it early the next morning. Jackson questioned me, but could not shake me. My one worry was that someone innocent might be accused of Sywell’s murder—which was not a murder, but self-defence—and I would then have to confess to what I had done. I could not let another go to the gallows in my place.
‘Today, as I told you earlier, I learned that the authorities believe that it is not possible either to find, or to convict, anyone of the murder. Unless something further is discovered which might reveal who killed Sywell, the matter will remain forever a mystery. All the obvious suspects, including myself, have unbreakable alibis, so the problem remains on the table, as it were.
‘I have lived with this burden of knowledge on me for so long, that, coupled with the illness which my doctors believe will kill me before a year has passed, my life has become not worth living. I tell you of it in case any innocent person should be accused of murder after I am dead and gone. Then, and only then, will you take this paper which I will give you now, and which contains my confession, and hand it to the authorities—I wish no one else to suffer for what I did.’
By now the Earl’s face was ashen. There was a glass of water on his desk. He drank it down with a shaking hand and looked into his son’s face, which was as white as his own.
Marcus, an expression of enormous pity on his face, said, ‘Of course, I will do as you ask, Father. Knowing Sywell’s reputation and yours, I believe that what you did, you did in self-defence, but without witnesses you would have difficulty in proving that. More particularly because, by your own confession, you went there intending to kill him. And I quite understand what drove you to that.’
His father said, ‘Thank you, Angmering. I think that I went a little mad after reading Sophia’s letter. Only when I looked down at what I had done to Sywell did sanity have me in its grip again. I knew, too, that whatever else, my lost Sophia would not have wished me to seek to avenge her. Nothing excuses what I did, nor the lies I have told. I, who have always prided myself on my truthfulness, have had to live with the knowledge of my falsity…’
Marcus rose, and walked round the desk, saying, ‘Stop, Father, stop! What’s done is done, and besides Sywell, who got what he deserved, the only person to suffer has been yourself. In the end everything against any other suspects fell down because, fortunately, they could prove their own unshakeable innocence. Now that you have confessed, try to find peace again. Rest assured that I shall say and do nothing other than the two things which you have asked of me—silence and the passing of your confession to the authorities, if that proves to be necessary. Now, go to your room and try to rest.’
His father said simply, ‘I don’t deserve you, Angmering, nor do I deserve Marissa. For a time in my youth I was nearly as profligate as Sywell. Whether Sophia would have steadied me I shall never know. Only her desertion of me achieved that. Oh, God, one always thinks that the past is over and done with, but heaven help me, it returned to destroy me again.’
What could he say which would lessen his father’s agony? Nothing, only gently help him to his feet, saying, ‘Let me take you upstairs, father, where you may lie down and try to forget the past in sleep. Living or dead, Sywell is not worth tormenting yourself to your own death. Think that he brought his own upon him by his wickedness, and leave it at that.’
His father consented to do what his son wished and, arm in arm, the Earl of Yardley and the son whose worth he had come to value in his old age mounted the stairs together, where Thomas Cleeve, purged by his confession, at last found in sleep the peace which had long been eluding him.
Between his thwarted love for Louise and what his father had told him, Marcus was in a ferment, and that night, having helped his father to rest, was unable to sleep himself.
When at last he did he was haunted in his dreams by the terrible tale which his father had told him. Sywell rose from the dead to haunt him, and Louise was there, too, her face white with misery as it had been when she had told him her sad story.
Except that at the end, the darkness which had surrounded him lifted, and he was at Steepwood, walking in the woods, and Louise was by his side, and when he turned to look at her, her face was rosy, and her eyes were filled with love and happiness. She was carrying a bouquet of winter flowers, and was saying to him, ‘There, I wish to go there…’
He tried to speak to her, but in the doing the dream vanished and he was awake in the grey light of early dawn. But the shadow which had hung over him since he had heard his father’s confession had lifted, and he was ready to face the day and the future.
Louise was tired of the knowing stares which she was receiving from some of her customers these days. They told her that they had heard the gossip linking her with Marcus. Oh, nothing was said openly, but it was plain that it was going the rounds of society and would continue to do so until some new piece of scandal arose to entertain those whose lives were so dull and empty that only the current tittle-tattle could enliven them.
She had just completed the trying on of the wedding dress of yet another young woman who was to marry at Christmas, and was sitting down alone in her little office for the first time that day, when the girl who kept the shop came in, saying breathlessly, ‘Oh, Madame Félice, the gentleman who wanted you to make him a shirt is here again. He said, “Tell Madame that Mr Marks wishes to see her urgently on a matter of business.”’
Marcus! It was Marcus, calling on her in Bond Street regardless of who might see him. Whatever could he want? What was urgent? At their last meeting he had seemed to say that he would send her the documents which Jackson had recovered from Burneck—but did his presence here mean that he had changed his mind?
Her assistant, still breathless—and was that just Marcus who made her so, or was it her usual habit and she had never noticed?—said, ‘What shall I tell him, mam?’
‘Madame Félice, not mam,’ said Louise automatically. ‘Tell him that I will see him.’
And when she did what would she say then? She had thought long and hard of what she ought to do. Marry Marcus—or not marry him? Make her claim to be Louise Cleeve, the present Earl of Yardley’s distant cousin—or not? Try to have her marriage to Sywell annulled—or not? She had thought of that last action after Marcus had left her, since she had no wish to be known as the Marchioness of Sywell. After all, a brief examination by midwives would be enough to confirm her untouched virginity.
Once she had thought that if she c
ould prove who she was then the decisions which would follow would be easy ones. No such thing…
Marcus’s entry put an end to these musings. He was dressed in his Mr Marks’ clothing and was carrying a despatch case—for her papers presumably. Why was it that when she saw him after a few days away from him he always looked particularly desirable?
Her wayward heart gave a frisky little jump when he came in, and her breathing shortened. She told her body to behave itself, but it wouldn’t. The worst thing—or was it the best?—was that he did not even have to touch her to make her feel that her only rightful place was in his arms—a place which she had never really visited.
‘Do sit down, Mr Marks,’ she said to him as though he were a real lawyer’s clerk. ‘I take it that you have come to deliver my legal papers to me.’
Oh, the darling! was Marcus’s internal response to that. I have only to see her to want to make her mine in the shortest time possible, and I do believe that the minx knows that and is teasing me! That must be a good sign.
‘Indeed,’ he replied, with an underling’s bob of the head which set her smiling, and oh, what a joy to see her looking happy. ‘I decided that it would be best to deliver the documents in person. That way I would know that you had received them.’
‘Very thoughtful of you,’ she returned graciously, and put out a hand for them after he had extracted them carefully from the case. ‘Particularly when I understood at our last meeting that you would not come yourself.’
Marcus smiled, and arranged it so that his hand touched hers at the precise moment of take-over. His reaction to that simple contact was rather like that of one of Signor Galvani’s frogs when attached to a battery—all his senses jumped together.
By Louise’s expression something similar was happening to her. She was becoming even more breathless than her little assistant. She began to put the papers down, but he said immediately, ‘I think that you ought to check them against the list I have made. I have also your mother’s diary to give you.’ And he lifted that from the case and handed that over, too, again contriving to touch her hand.
The Missing Marchioness (Mills & Boon Historical) Page 13
