3 Great Historical Novels

by Fay Weldon

  ‘That’s a lie!’ She laughed.

  ‘It is, but I’m pleased to see you all the same.’

  Michael raised his voice until everyone was listening. ‘I’ve paid a visit to Ryan Mahoney’s solicitor, and persuaded him to hand over a letter that Josiah Blake posted to Ryan.’

  ‘How ever were you able to convince him?’ Antonia asked.

  ‘I’d rather not say, Mrs Blake.’ Michael turned to Rhia who took the envelope from her cloak pocket. She broke the seal. Inside was another envelope, already opened. The address on this was China Wharf and it bore the stamp of the Bombay postmaster. Inside this was a single leaf of parchment.

  Rhia unfolded it and read Josiah’s letter aloud.

  Arabian Sea

  March 1840

  My dear Mahoney,

  My pen is slipping in my damp grasp and the mirth of the ocean is rattling my inkpot. The closeness of the air is stifling, but not so much as my fear. It has grown since I stumbled on the opium sheds in Calcutta and was mistaken for Isaac.

  It might be only fear that makes the shadows follow me, scorning my good sense. I have prayed like a condemned man as we navigated the east India shore and through the Strait of Ceylon. But the feeling of danger has only grown and now I am unable to distinguish between the shadow of a mast and that of a man. The crew from Calcutta are neither men I recognise nor trust, so I keep to my cabin, seeking only the company of my goodly companions.

  Before we left Calcutta I sought out the sailor who apprehended me thinking that I was Isaac. I found him in a tavern, drunk. But instead of telling me more about the Mathilda being chartered to Lintin Island, he was rambling about two ships meeting in the open sea. He assured me that he could tell me no more or I’d certainly have the law after him.

  Our friend Isaac has seen fit to trade outside of the law of Emperor Tao-kuang and in defiance of the Quaker ethic. Perhaps you knew this? The trade may not be illegal in England, but it is immoral. The emperor’s trade law is farcical of course. It is not honoured by the merchants of Jardine Matheson and the East India Company, and indeed the Queen herself seems content to ignore a reasonable request in order to expand her empire. If this is the new world, then I prefer the old.

  I had a private word with Mr Beckwith last night, and he seemed distressed. He promised me that he would investigate, and I told him that I would write to you so that you might make discreet enquiries from London. The Jerusalem should have a record of charters with signatories. If there is a criminal in our company, and it is neither you nor I, and it is not Isaac, then it can only be Jonathan Montgomery. I hope I have not overly distressed poor Mr Beckwith whom, I now realise, must also have come to this conclusion.

  As you know, we are often in Calcutta for up to eight weeks so that we might travel to the indigo dyers and wood block printers in remote villages. The ship’s crew is usually entirely different for each passage, sailors being itinerant and not inclined to wait in port, idle, when they could be at sea earning a wage. Calcutta is a busy sea port with a sizeable ship building yard. It was my mistaken belief that Mathilda was in the dry dock during our last stay. It was a convenient misapprehension, and Isaac was not then obliged to tell me an untruth.

  I entreat you to make your own enquiries, Mahoney, and I beg you to be cautious. I admit that I always felt curious to know more of Jonathan’s past, which he has kept private. One does not wish to pry. Perhaps he has other crimes to hide.

  I hope to be returned safely to you, and that this foreboding that I have is no more than cowardice. But should any ill befall me, please take care of my beloved Antonia. I need convey no message of my affections to her, she can be in no doubt of my devotion.

  I remain your steadfast and loyal friend,

  Josiah Blake

  Rhia folded the page and returned it to its envelope. Antonia was weeping. Dillon held out his hand for the letter. ‘It will be needed as evidence,’ he said quietly. Rhia gave it to him and their fingers brushed against each other. It was a light touch only, but its current spread through her.

  Dillon waited for Antonia to compose herself, and then said, ‘I promise I will take good care of the letter, Mrs Blake. Your husband was wrong about one thing only. Mr Beckwith would not have been shocked to hear that Jonathan Montgomery, once John Hannam, is a criminal. He is not only Montgomery’s associate but also his accomplice. How else could Montgomery have discovered that Ryan had the letter? Josiah told Beckwith he was writing to Ryan. It could only have been Beckwith who killed both Josiah and Ryan.’

  The room was silent as everyone considered this. Shy, retiring Mr Beckwith, a killer?

  ‘When I met Ryan,’ Dillon continued, ‘it was because I was investigating London merchants who were trading with China. I knew he was hiding something from me. I was curious about his firearms, and he assured me that his interest was antiquarian, and that he didn’t even know how to fire one. Furthermore, he said that he kept no bullets. I saw no reason to disbelieve him, and I still do not. If he were to take his own life, it would have had to be premeditated, not something he did in a moment of despair.’

  ‘Then it was not his own pistol that shot him?’ Rhia heard her voice as though from afar.

  Dillon shook his head. ‘It was not. The shot was taken from a greater distance than an arm’s reach. It was a simple matter for Mr Beckwith to arrive with his own firearm, and then to place Ryan’s in his hand once he was dead. It is easy enough to dust gunpowder residue around the barrel of the gun so that it appears to have been fired.’

  Antonia, now composed, was looking around the room. ‘Where is Juliette?’

  Juliette stepped forward from the shadow of the doorway.

  ‘When did you suspect Mr Montgomery?’ Antonia asked.

  ‘And how?’ Rhia added.

  ‘It was the day I came to the emporium with you,’ she said breathlessly. ‘He rolled up his shirtsleeves when I knocked that organza to the floor. I saw a scar the shape of the burn that I left on John Hannam’s arm before he killed my father. And then I just knew that it was he – there was something about him. I couldn’t say what, but I knew.’

  Juliette didn’t bother to hide her tears, and now Eliza was weeping as well and dabbing her eyes with her crochet.

  ‘I think I know what John Hannam was up to when your father found the banknotes hidden in the barn, Juliette,’ said Dillon. ‘I’ve acquired some old newsprint from around Manchester. There was a racket that made the papers, involving forged banknotes being exchanged for coin. Each exchange took place in a different part of the city and at a different bank. More than three thousand pounds was extorted in and around Manchester over two years.’

  This, Dillon argued, was the means by which John Hannam had transformed himself into Jonathan Montgomery, a little-known cloth magnate from an aristocratic northern family. It was an easy task to seduce London society; it only took money, which allowed one to marry into more money. No doubt Prunella had been hoodwinked like everyone else, charmed by the art of manners and the attentions of a handsome man. Then there was Francis Beckwith’s beautiful copperplate. Rhia had thought it ill-suited to his character, but it was well suited to a forger. She should have suspected him immediately she saw the handwriting on Jerusalem calling card.

  Rhia looked at Dillon. He and Michael were making preparations to leave, as though an unspoken message had passed between them. And it was not just a room full of weeping women that was calling them away.

  Sid noticed too. ‘I’m coming,’ he said.

  ‘And I,’ Isaac added. Antonia was still holding onto his arm. He looked at her kindly. ‘If you’ll be all right on your own?’

  ‘Heavens!’ she said indignantly, ‘I have a business and a household to run. I don’t have time to swoon.’

  Isaac smiled and his face changed. He was looking at Antonia with such tenderness that Rhia looked away. Why had she not noticed it before?

  ‘We could do with the extra men,’ Michael agreed.

>   Dylan nodded. ‘I’ll take Isaac’s chaise and call at the Westminster station on the way to Regent Street. I imagine they’ll spare a couple of constables if I ask nicely. They like to have something to wave their truncheons at.’

  ‘Montgomery could be at Belgravia,’ Sid said.

  ‘I’m coming with you,’ Rhia said, preparing to stand her ground. She caught Dillon’s eye. He opened his mouth to protest, hesitated and then nodded. Michael looked at her sharply and she returned the look. He shrugged. ‘I’m not going to argue with you, I can see there’s no point. I suppose it’s your right to accuse the man who did that to your hair.’

  ‘Off we go then!’ Sid rubbed his hands together, and then buttoned up his waistcoat and straightened his cap as if he was off to the music hall.

  Leather

  It was agreed, en route, that Sid would go into the House of Montgomery on his own first, to see if Mr Montgomery was there. Rhia wouldn’t set foot in the place without good cause, and as far as she was concerned no cause was good enough. She didn’t much care to see Grace, either.

  The Regent Street hackney stand was just outside the em - porium and fate and fortune were riding with them because a carriage pulled away just as they arrived. Sid disappeared into the emporium, and Rhia watched from the carriage while Michael and Isaac stood on the footpath outside. Michael looked like he’d stepped out of another time, with his thick linen shirt and rough wool breeches. He leant on a lamp-post smoking and watching the bustle of the street. Isaac stood talking to him. They made an unlikely pair, the Quaker and the dissenter. They barely attracted a curious glance, though, amongst Londoners.

  Ladies went in and came out. Rhia saw a ghost of herself entering through the same door in her red cloak a lifetime ago. She hardly knew that Rhia now. She had thought herself so fine and worldly.

  Sid came out after a few minutes and they climbed back into the carriage. ‘Grace says her boss is at Belgrave Square,’ he said. ‘But we’d best wait for Mr Dillon before we set off.’ They waited, each lost in their own thoughts.

  ‘Grace decided to stay at the emporium, then?’ Rhia asked Sid.

  ‘That’s right. She said she saw no reason why she shouldn’t keep her position just because we were being married. I wonder who might have put that idea into her head, Miss Mahoney?’

  All around the sanctuary of their carriage, London jostled and shouted and hurried as though this were just any other day. It could take some time for Mr Dillon to arrive if the roads were this busy all the way from Westminster. Everywhere Rhia looked, now, she saw the ghosts of parts of her; young women in crinoline cages in awe of the fancy shops, as though this place might magically turn them into someone other than who they were. She no longer felt in awe of the capital, she might be in it, but she was not of it. She could almost hear Mamo, chuckling, at her shoulder.

  Isaac’s chaise stopped beside them, accompanied by two constables on horseback. Mr Dillon sat on the hammercloth holding the reins. His hair was loose and he was wearing a shallow-brimmed black hat and his leather coat. He looked like he was ready for anything. After a short conference they agreed on their plan and set off again.

  All the way to Belgravia, Rhia felt her anger building as she thought about Mr Montgomery, the man she had wanted to impress. The man whom she had admired. To think that she had even felt grateful to him! She wondered if he had offered her a position to find out exactly what she knew. He had probably never intended to use her designs.

  They stopped beside a copse of trees a short distance from the Montgomery residence. The policemen would wait at the gates until they were called for. As agreed, Rhia and Isaac climbed the cold marble steps to the front entrance as though they were simply paying a visit. At the imposing black doors that could hide anything, they stood still for a moment and looked at each other. Isaac smiled. Although he looked strained, he also seemed liberated; as though he, too, had been freed. They waited until Dillon, Michael and Sid had disappeared around the side of the building towards the servants’ and tradesmen’s entrance, then Isaac nodded.

  Rhia lifted the heavy brass knocker.

  The butler opened the door, a squat man with a dour expression and depressed air. ‘Yes,’ he said.

  ‘We are here to see Jonathan Montgomery,’ said Isaac.

  ‘I’m afraid the Montgomerys are dining, sir.’

  Isaac nodded unsympathetically. ‘I suggest you interrupt their luncheon, then. Perhaps you could show us straight to the dining room?’

  ‘That is out of the question,’ the butler replied blandly.

  ‘I see,’ Isaac replied. ‘There are two constables waiting on the street, and I would prefer, at this stage, not to involve them.’ The butler’s grey eyebrows shot up and he looked over Rhia’s shoulder towards the gates. He stepped aside immediately to let them in.

  Although the butler was hurrying, it seemed to take an age to reach the dining room, buried deep in the house. Blood-coloured walls and dark wainscoting rose on either side making Rhia claustrophobic. Her heart pounded. What if the others couldn’t find their way in, or got lost in the house?

  ‘There’s no need to announce us,’ said Isaac quietly, when they finally reached the right door. ‘And, if you don’t mind my offering you some advice, I suggest you hastily find yourself another employer.’ The poor man merely shook his head in confusion and hurried away.

  The dining room was dim, the curtains almost fully drawn. Mr and Mrs Montgomery, Mr Beckwith and Isabella all sat at one end of the long table. Two candelabras were lit as if it were a formal dinner.

  When the door opened, they all looked up expectantly – as though their silence, rather than their conversation, had been interrupted. Prunella Montgomery looked dreadful. A strand of hair hung over her painted face, and even the most expensive powders and paints could not disguise the bloodless skin. The hand that clutched the stem of her claret glass had a visible tremor.

  ‘Miss Mahoney!’ Isabella stood up so quickly that she knocked her chair over. She ran across the room in a blur of buttermilk chiffon, and flung her arms around Rhia’s neck as though she were the dearest of long-lost friends. ‘I’m so pleased to see you! I didn’t know you were in London!’ She turned to her father. ‘Papa! Have you kept it a secret from me? Is Rhia to come back to work at the emporium?’

  ‘No,’ said Rhia, ‘I am not.’ Isabella was playing the ingénue. Perhaps she always had. Her eyes had a desperate look that told worlds more than her incessant, meaningless chatter. Isabella knew, as everyone in the room knew, that something was wrong.

  Mr Montgomery and Beckwith were on their feet, ostensibly polite, but Beckwith’s usually impassive expression had a new alertness. The only person who barely stirred was Prunella, who took a large swallow of claret, then picked up a piece of bread and nibbled on it as though things were perfectly normal.

  Mr Montgomery bowed, and smiled his captivating smile, but it was a mask and he was clearly on guard.

  ‘Good afternoon, Isaac! What a surprise. And Miss Mahoney, how … delightful to see you returned to us safely.’ He could not have looked less delighted.

  ‘Greetings, Jonathan,’ said Isaac. He frowned, choosing his words slowly and carefully. ‘We thought we’d call since your name came up today. Twice. Once in association with a counterfeiting racket in Sydney and once in connection with a murder.’ Rhia had not expected Isaac to be so daring. She thought he would be careful until the rest of their party arrived.

  Mr Montgomery kept smiling as though Isaac was playing some kind of prank. But his eyes darted to Beckwith, who put his hand on his waistcoat pocket. Beckwith was on edge, and for the first time Rhia saw that he was not, after all, a passive man. He suddenly looked as mean as a cornered stoat. No one moved or said anything.

  Rhia noticed a movement out of the corner of her eye. The door opened and Michael, Dillon and Sid entered. They could have been waiting at the door for any length of time. Beckwith slid his hand into his pocket and pulled out
a black pistol, which he pointed at Rhia. He wasn’t looking at her, though, he was looking at Michael. Michael was holding his knife.

  ‘You’d all best be leaving now,’ Beckwith said slowly. His voice chilled Rhia more than the sight of his gun pointed at her breast. She had hardly heard Beckwith speak before, and now she knew why. Unlike Mr Montgomery, he had a distinctly northern accent. Did a bullet kill one instantly, or would she bleed to death? Ryan’s prone body was like a photogenic drawing in her mind. Michael’s knife was a primitive-looking weapon; it was the colour of ivory, and it had saw-like serrations an inch down either side of its deadly sharp point. It was aimed at Beckwith. ‘I learnt to throw a knife from a real Australian,’ Michael said steadily. ‘They take aim at their prey while it’s moving and they never, ever, miss their mark.’

  Dillon was watching Beckwith, his eyes darted to Rhia; a wordless supplication to stay perfectly still. As if she wouldn’t. She was made of stone.

  The only sound was Isabella’s soft whimpering. Prunella had put down her glass. Beckwith’s hand stayed steady, pointing the pistol at her. Mr Montgomery’s eyes were darting about as though searching for an escape route. There wasn’t one. Sid, who’d rolled up his sleeves, blocked the door. He had his hands on his hips and he was leaning forwards slightly, like a rugby player hoping for a scuffle.

  If she didn’t say anything now, she may not have another opportunity.

  ‘Did you kill Ryan Mahoney, Mr Montgomery?’

  Rhia heard Isabella catch her breath.

  Montgomery looked at her, hard and cold. She’d seen this side of him before, she remembered, at Isabella’s party. Just a flash. But she had ignored it because she had been so taken in by the mask of success and respectability. ‘I did not,’ he said.