It had been Sir Bernard’s idea to bring Doctor Peter Roget to the island for regular walking holidays, during which the young philologist had spent many hours in conversation with the man he knew could not be Claude Olivierre from Jersey.
“I believe I shall marry her,” Claude said firmly. “I need company and a woman to run the house and make me, how shall I say, comfortable.”
“I am sure that would not be a mistake. Patience is a very sensible woman.”
“She is a girl no more, I have to say I prefer them young, but she is very personable and has a tantalising exoticism about her. She is dark-skinned for an Englishwoman is she not?”
“Although her father is English there is some oriental blood on her mother’s side. He spent time in India, you understand.”
“Has she no children?”
“She gave her husband three sons but they have all died.”
“She is not infertile then?”
“That is important to you? Of course it is.”
After a few moments Claude tapped his friend on his sleeve. “And what of her sister Constance? I believe you yourself may appreciate her charms even though she is the lesser beauty of the two, and older I believe.”
“Again, it is a sad story. India.”
“There are no children?” Claude asked.
“None living and we understand that there is no reason why there should not be more. She, like her sister, is not yet past the age. But Olivierre, you are still a young man while I approach my sixtieth year and am far too old to think of marriage. I have always lived the life of an independent man, I would have no idea how to take on the responsibilities of a wife and family.”
Sir Bernard was not inexperienced with women, Lady Frances had taught him much, but there had never been any romance in their relationship, nor in any with the other women he had admired over the years. At times he had persuaded himself that he was not capable of holding deep feelings. His liaisons had never led to any lasting tie.
“Now is the time to settle, my friend. You must enjoy your retirement as I am to do. So it is agreed I will take the younger in marriage and you the elder.” Claude laughed at the neatness of his solution.
“You mention marriage,” Sir Bernard began cautiously.
“You remind me I am still, in the eyes of God, a married man.” Claude looked towards the taller man but did not meet his gaze.
His implied request was understood.
“May I ask why Duchess Marie Louise did not join you in your, shall I say, your sabbatical, on Elba?”
Sir Bernard had not expected a direct answer to his direct question and was surprised at the honesty of Claude’s answer.
“She bore me a son, which was her duty, but within three years she fancied herself in love with a servant and was with child. She informed me, via my secretary, mark you, that she considered us to be formally separated and any action of hers no concern of mine.”
“The child?”
“That second child could not have been mine.”
“How unfortunate.” Bernard hoped for more information.
“She wanted me to understand that although she felt esteem for me, and gratitude, her future happiness did not lie in my hands.” Claude’s voice exhibited a bitterness he had not known he felt.
“She was young?” Bernard prompted.
“She was eighteen years though in many ways still a child when we married but a woman of twenty-four when we parted for the last time. Even had things gone differently we would not be together. I spent as little time with her as I could engineer.”
“You spent enough time with her to sire a son.”
“She was nothing but a strategically expedient body within which to produce a legal heir and I tired quickly of her penchant for bedding equerries and chamberlains. My heart was then, as the greater part of it will always be, in the possession of the Empress Joséphine.”
“But Marie Louise is still your wife.”
“And must not remain so for long.”
“An annulment will be arranged.
Claude smiled, his voice brighter, his face clearer of worry. “In which case, Sir Bernard, I will make my advances to the Shaw sister with a clear conscience.”
*
On the first warm spring day of 1816, Claude Olivierre Esquire of The Lodge was married to Patience Shaw of Burley, Hampshire in the parish church in Newport. Some months later, in the same church and with many of the same small company of witnesses, Constance Shaw became the first Lady Lacey of Oakridge Court.
In the months following the marriages Sir Bernard spent more time worrying than he had at any time in his life. Now there were women, and would eventually be children, to be responsible for he spent many hours planning his actions should their ruse be discovered. But on the hours spent on his regular trips to London he worried most about what would happen when the prisoner on the island in the South Atlantic succumbed to the poison that was already being administered. Then, he knew, the Duke would break his word and cut the purse strings that maintained the two households on the Isle of Wight.
*
In his earliest visits to London, as the country faced the threat of revolution, as rioters destroyed factories and the price of bread soared beyond the means of most men, Sir Bernard had had long meetings with the Duke who had once been his friend and comrade in arms, but as the situation in the country became more settled the Duke was frequently occupied elsewhere and he met with aides and secretaries.
Sir Bernard had not risen in his service to the level he had without being sensitive to changing political atmospheres. He recognised that the government, and the department he had been so central to, were moving on to other matters.
*
“I fear what will happen if we are exposed.” Sir Bernard confided in his neighbour as they shared a bottle of Armagnac after dining together with their wives.
“You worry too much, I have absolute trust in my people. They will maintain the pretence and would die before giving away any hint of the secrets we share. No one will learn from them that the man who lives, and will no doubt soon die, on that God-forsaken island is just a poor Cornishman whose only disadvantage was to bear a close resemblance to a famous man.”
“The news-sheets rarely mention the name of Bonaparte. He is no longer a topic of conversation for women in their salons or men in their clubs.”
“It is a good, is it not, that there is no longer fear of England’s greatest enemy?”
“It is a cause for concern, Olivierre. Whitehall loses interest in us. The balance of what is and is not useful in national and international affairs has altered. I regret I no longer have the confidence of those who hold power and am no longer privy to their machinations.”
“As I say, you worry too much Sir Bernard.”
“Our sponsor is now Prime Minister. He has other concerns. He forgets us and he conveniently forgets how we have helped him reach the exalted position he now occupies.”
“We cannot control what we cannot control, we must accept those things we cannot influence. Now allow yourself to enjoy this very good brandy my friend.”
Sir Bernard was not to be deflected from his mood.
“Do you not regret that your legacy in history will be one of war and conflict, of revolution and destruction, of death and ultimate failure? Do you not regret that your greatest legacy to the world will never be known? Do you not wish that history would record your role in assisting this country with the advancement of peace, stability and prosperity?”
“Napoleon Bonaparte achieved far more than you say. He set in motion changes in the laws of France that will last forever. Do not confuse his legacy in England with his legacy on the Continent. England, my dear Sir Bernard, is not the world, nor should it ever imagine itself to be.”
*
One morning in June 1821 Claude Olivierre walked gingerly along the cobbles of Newport’s St James’s Square. Even after more than five years on the island he did not of
ten venture into Newport though, as the years passed, he felt the threat of recognition less keenly.
As he paused outside The Hare and Hounds he heard a commotion and a man, clearly the worse for drink, rushed out into the street, nearly knocking him over. “Old Boney’s dead.” the drunk called out to no one in particular, but when he caught the gentleman’s eye he spoke directly to him. “Must have happened months ago on that God-forsaken island they sent him to. He never deserved that, he didn’t. They should have given him parole like they would any officer and gen’leman. Though they do say Boney were no gen’leman, just an upstart, but I think he were an officer worthy of more respect than most. We need a man like him here and now, that’s what we need to put the world right again, someone firm, who will keep unruly citizens in order. That’s what we need.”
There was no time for a response as the old man weaved his way across the crowded square to The Red Lion where he would, no doubt, be given a quart of porter on the strength of the news he bore.
Claude allowed himself a wry smile as he walked through the bustling town. His feelings were not confused but they were complex.
He felt relief that the charade might be over but he also felt a deal of sadness for the man who now was dead and who had done nothing to deserve that fate other than bear a resemblance to a famous man, albeit, as Sir Bernard had said some time before, a very strong resemblance to an exceedingly famous man. His overwhelming emotion, however, was one of satisfaction. With the man the world had known as Napoleon Bonaparte in his coffin, there could now be no fear of exposure. The complicated ruse which had been carried out under the threat of great danger for so many people, but which promised rich rewards for some, had succeeded. Perhaps the long period of being shut away from the world would be over and he and Patience could, at last, be introduced into a wider society.
“Napoleon Bonaparte is dead.” he said so quietly no one in the busy market square would hear him. “Long live Claude Olivierre.”
*
“I have some news for you, my dear.” he said as he joined his wife in her sitting room in The Lodge. “Bonaparte is dead.”
She looked up from her sewing and smiled. She was somewhat younger than her husband but he had been good to her and she had grown to be fond of him.
“But he is only a young man.” She showed some sadness at the news.
“About my age, my dear.” Claude said with no trace of irony.
“That is indeed too young to die.” She raised her hand from her needlework and he took it in his. There were times he felt guilty that he deceived this open-hearted lady who shared his life and had been through so much for him.
Although it was far from unusual it still saddened him that they had lost their first three children as infants. Two sons and a daughter lay in their small tombs in the stone chapel in the grounds of The Lodge.
It was for Josephine, his one-year-old daughter, that he reserved his greatest feeling of guilt. She could never know her rich heritage because, if that were ever discovered, she would have no life at all. Achievement of happiness for his daughter was Claude’s greatest ambition in life. He had been no parent at all to his other children.
“I have some news myself.” Patience spoke tentatively.
“What is that my dear?
“Constance is with child. It is very early days and she has yet to tell Sir Bernard. You will say nothing until she feels sufficiently confident to give him hope of a living son.”
“He will be delighted as he is forever asking after our young lady, and this son of his, for the child will undoubtedly be a boy, should not be too young to court Josephine when she is of suitable age.”
“Claude,” she chided with a smile, “the child is not yet born and you have him married.”
“You must surely agree that the joining of our two families would be most acceptable.” Claude had spent much of his life planning dynasties and the destinies of unborn children.
“It is impossible to look so far into the future. Even if my sister were to have a son and were that son to survive, he would be Josephine’s cousin. Would that not be a danger?”
Claude did not answer her, excusing himself. “Now I have things to do. I must leave you to your needlepoint.”
*
The trunk and the canvas bag that had been locked in the attics were all that he had retained of his past life. They contained uniforms and flags, pictures and notebooks, and some of his many medals. They had come to The Lodge with him in the winter of 1815 and had been kept securely away from the prying eyes of the staff who lived on the floor below.
Many times in the first years he had unlocked the door on the landing and climbed the steep stairs to the attic floor there to look through the mementoes of his previous life. Many times he had thanked the man who had taken his place on that God-forsaken island, giving him these years of peace and happiness.
Now, he thought as he unlocked the door and looked around the attic room, now is the time to clear away what is unworthy and hide what is incriminating. Bonaparte is dead. Only Claude can live on.
*
Sir Bernard and Lady Constance were dining with their neighbours that evening and at the end of the meal when the women withdrew to discuss the things that women did, the gentlemen retreated alone to the comfort of the library where they could smoke and talk of the things that men spoke of.
“Constance told me of her condition this afternoon. She felt that Patience would not be able to keep the news from you and you would not be able to keep it from me. Apparently I am to be a father.”
“I trust all will be well. I can only recommend the felicity created by a child.”
“I have hopes for a son.”
“It is dangerous to wish too hard for a son.” Claude chewed thoughtfully on his plug of tobacco, a habit he insisted on retaining if only in the privacy of his own library. “He would not have broken the heart of one he loved, and who, he believed, loved him despite her frequent infidelities, had he not been obliged to have a legitimate son and heir.”
Sir Bernard understood that his neighbour talked of his previous life in the third person only when he talked of matters close to his heart.
“It is a deep-felt need, is it not Claude, to see the future of one’s name, to know that one’s estate is secure?”
“And one’s title?” Claude asked provocatively.
“I should care nothing about that but it is difficult not to be seduced by it and I would like it to continue. If the child is a girl, of course, the title will die.”
“Would you not try for a son?”
“You have not.”
“I am more than content with my little Josephine. I’m afraid the women in the house fear for my sanity sometimes as I dandle her on my knee.”
“Yet she will not carry the Olivierre name.”
“What is in a name? The name of Olivierre is nothing to me.”
For some time the quiet was only broken by the sound of Claude expectorating into the copper basin and the crackling of the fire. “No, Sir Bernard, the perception of a need for a son can bring only heartbreak.”
“That notwithstanding I would like us to talk of future generations.” Sir Bernard’s voice was serious as he refilled their glasses. “One day it will be safe for the world to know of our little charade.”
“The world will know one day. My history has been written in the pages you have sent to St Helena but I believe you wish to write the truth. You are too honest a man to allow the world to be misled as it has been so many times in the past.”
“I may one day write the truth but more immediately do you not think that those mementoes that you kept with you may be preserved?”
“It is a tempting idea, but how would this be done?
“You have a stonemason working here, I believe?”
“Yes. I am told that the chimney is of insufficient size to cope with the new range we must acquire. I hardly think one small child necessitates so much more cooking
but I am told that is the case.”
“So a new chimney is being put in place? A large chimney with double wall? I have no doubt it will be.” Sir Bernard answered his own questions. “So there will be ample room.”
The gentlemen caught each other’s eye as they drank their brandy. Claude spoke first. “Let us raise a toast to the man who will find my treasures.”
“Whoever he may be.”
“May he have the wit and wisdom to recognise their importance and use them well.”
“Let us pray that that is not all too much to ask of Providence.”
Chapter 4
Saturday afternoon
Carl Witherby was not in the best of moods as he parked his car behind Fergal’s by the quay in Yarmouth. He had not had the easiest of journeys.
“Well, dear boy. I am here. Why is it you’ve dragged me from the peace and serenity of my college rooms and brought me to this foreign land?” Carl asked as he shook his erstwhile student firmly by the hand.
“How was your journey?”
“Bloody. My head aches, my back will be stiff as a board in the morning and all for what will undoubtedly be nothing other than a wild goose chase.”
“I promise you it won’t be. Now follow me, The Lodge is a little difficult to find.”
Fifteen minutes later Fergal rang the bell by the impressive front door. He had thought about using the back door but wanted the professor to get a real impression of the importance of the house.
Fergal made a point of formally introducing Skye as soon as the door was opened. “Professor Carl Witherby, allow me introduce you to our host, Skye Lacey.”
“Skye Lacey? Lacey?” He looked at Fergal questioningly.
“Yes, Professor, Skye is Sir Arthur’s daughter.”
“His illegitimate daughter,” Skye added, perhaps unnecessarily. “Please do come in.”
As they settled around the table in the kitchen Skye realised that the professor had not looked her in the eye once and spoke only to Fergal.
A Set of Lies Page 7
