A Set of Lies

by Carolyn McCrae

  “The first really destructive non-colonial war, and we must consider colonial wars to be well beyond Sir Bernard’s remit, was in the Crimea in 1853. So there had been nearly forty years of peace.”

  “And we were on the same side as the French in the Crimea weren’t we?” Skye asked tentatively, conscious of the detailed knowledge of the other three.

  “Yes, basically everyone ganged up on Russia when it looked like they might take over the warm-water ports of the Black Sea.”

  “I remembered that at least,” Skye said with relief.

  “So what we are saying is that whatever it was that Bernard learned from Claude seems to have worked on both fronts.”

  “I really don’t think he did too badly. Apart from the Crimea it was ninety-nine years between Waterloo and the outbreak of war with Germany.”

  “I don’t think we could expect him to have worked against conflict with a country that didn’t exist in their time, and remember Germany didn’t exist then, did it?” commented Skye.

  “There is an argument that the rise of Prussia should have been anticipated after their assistance at Waterloo. Perhaps Bernard did? Perhaps there is something in those archives in Kew.”

  “There’s a lifetime’s research to be done, Fergal, a lifetime.” Carl spoke sadly and he was immediately embarrassed by the weakness he had shown. In only a few moments he pulled himself together as he continued more firmly. “I need a drink. Does any wine remain in your stock, Skye? We do seem to have run through a good few bottles in the last week or two.”

  Skye got up from the table to fetch glasses and the last bottle of wine, followed by Fergal who busied himself helping her while Margaret and Carl exchanged a knowing look.

  “But what on earth do we do with all this? What on earth do we do?” Margaret asked, trying not to be defeated by the sheer enormity of their find. “There’s so much detail here, chapter and verse of a government’s subterfuge.”

  “Let me summarise then,” Carl answered her. “We know something of what is in these folders. We know who wrote them and when and where. We know who they were intended for and we can piece together why they were not opened on the intended date. We know where they have been hidden and probably by whom and for what reason. We have traced the clues that told us where they were. We can prove the authenticity of everything.”

  “And we have the chest and bag,” Skye added as she sat down next to Fergal.

  “History will have to be rewritten.”

  “What was it Bonaparte said history was?” Margaret prompted.

  “Bunk?” Fergal suggested mischievously.

  “That was Henry Ford.” Skye frowned at him, only too late realising that he had been joking.

  “Supposedly,” Fergal answered back quickly. “What he actually said was History is more or less bunk. It’s just tradition.”

  “Smart arse,” Skye muttered.

  Carl interrupted them. “You must agree that means pretty much the same as History is a set of lies agreed upon, which is what Napoleon is reported to have said.”

  “Well they did all agree on it didn’t they?” Fergal pointed out. “Liverpool, Wellington, everyone at the time who knew about it, they all conspired to hide the truth.”

  “And,” Margaret added, “since the government service would never have done anything like this without files and documents and copious memorandums, they will be there somewhere, hidden away certainly, but they will exist. And if we tell someone about them we can be sure they will be found. We know the dates and the people involved. They will be in the Kew archives filed under something innocuous or in one of the old safes kept for particularly sensitive stuff, but they will be there, and they will be found.”

  “So the story isn’t the plot in itself is it?” Fergal argued. “The story is the cover-up.”

  “Like so many other plots and cover-ups,” Skye said, but her intervention was ignored.

  “If they’d come out with it, say when Claude died, it would have been a nine-days wonder and then it would have become just part of the accepted history of this country, but they never did,” Carl said before repeating thoughtfully. “They never did.”

  “Would anyone care that they didn’t?” Margaret asked as if the thought had just occurred to her. “I mean if you go public with this, you make a big splash. So what? Who will care? It may be a government conspiracy but it all happened two hundred years ago. The world has moved on. All you would achieve would be a further reduction in people’s confidence in government.”

  Skye, Carl and Fergal looked at each other. They had been so involved in proving the truth behind their suspicions, it had not occurred to them that there might be very few others who would care. When Margaret realised they had no answer she continued. “Apart from some overblown and highly romantic enactments of the battles around Waterloo everyone is far more interested in the centenaries of the events of the First World War.”

  Fergal was the first to imagine what might happen. “If we did go public there would be a few articles in specialist history magazines and perhaps in the odd Sunday colour supplement.”

  “There might even be radio phone-ins where people would be able to display their complete ignorance of who Napoleon was and what he did,” Skye suggested.

  “Jeremy Vine would sound pompous about the iniquities of governments through the ages.” Carl smiled at the thought.

  “But nothing would change. It will all have been for nothing.” Skye sounded resigned.

  “I’d have to rewrite all my books.” Carl tried to lighten the mood.

  “And remake a few television and radio programmes.” Margaret smiled. “No doubt the BBC would love to have some cheap television.”

  “It would make a brilliant mini-series,” Skye added “What would they call it? Claude?”

  “The Laceys of Wight?”

  “The French would hate it.”

  “What? The mini-series?”

  “No, silly, the fact that their wonderful mausoleum by the Seine was all for a Cornishman!”

  “They’d absolutely hate that.”

  “Actually it would probably cause a serious international incident. We’re not exactly flavour of the month at the moment with the French, what with our government’s position on Europe.”

  “Ah. The government,” Carl said thoughtfully.

  “Who’s going to care that some young woman who lives in the back of the Wight is descended from the Emperor of the French?” Skye asked.

  “I do, but otherwise probably not that many people.” Fergal smiled as he answered.

  “Though, I have to say, I think there may well be a number of people who would be interested to know that her father is,” Carl said with marked understatement.

  “Her father?” Maggie asked, looking at Skye.

  “Sir Arthur?” Fergal answered.

  “That complete bastard! He’s your father?”

  “He is.”

  “I should have realised. You realise what he’s up to? Carl? Surely you do?”

  “Yes, we all do.”

  “All this could blow him out of the water!”

  “That will be our avowed intention,” Carl said seriously.

  “But there’s another connection,” Skye said, as if she had just remembered something of importance.

  “Another?” Fergal asked doubtfully. He had no idea what she was going to say.

  “Have you forgotten your connection to the Frenshams?”

  “My connection?”

  “There’s a bit I read a while back, wait a minute, here it is. Following FF’s sojourn through the summer and autumn of 1814 on Elba, during which she provided us with much useful information, a son, she named Lewis, was born upon her return to England. Sir Robert accepted the boy as his own and was well rewarded for his forbearance.”

  “Yes?” Fergal prompted, still having no idea what Skye was leading up to.

  “FF is Frances Frensham isn’t she?”

  “Yes
, it would seem so.”

  “And this seems to imply that Napoleon was the father of the son that was born to her.”

  “It could. But—”

  “Sir Robert accepted the boy as his own, it says. Frances Frensham was Sir Robert’s wife and he was William and Henry’s godfather. He was obviously someone with power and influence, a friend of the then Prime Minister and all that, but also someone with connections to Bernard Lacey. His wife came back pregnant with Napoleon’s son, he accepted it for his and was rewarded accordingly.”

  “Possibly. But—”

  “Let me get the page up.” Skye found the page she had looked at a little over a week before with Fergal’s ancestry. “Ah. Here it is. Fergal, your mother’s grandfather was Robert Edward Savager. His mother was born Emiline Frensham, who was Lewis Frensham’s daughter, and Lewis Frensham was the son of Sir Robert and Lady Frances Frensham. Or so he was accepted to be. Look. He was born in May 1815. Count back eight or nine months. In August 1814 we know that Frances was on Elba.” Skye’s eyes shone with enthusiasm as she knew she was pointing something out that neither Carl nor Fergal had recognised.

  “Here. Give me that.” Fergal turned the screen round so he could see it. “You may be right,” he said quietly.

  “Of course I’m right!” Skye said, trying to keep the triumph from her voice.

  “You knew didn’t you? Why didn’t you say anything, Fergal?” Skye asked. “You knew the Frenshams were in your family tree didn’t you? You had to. You couldn’t have had all the interests you have without checking out your family tree. You must have known. Why didn’t you say anything? It’s not as if we haven’t mentioned the Frensham name hundreds of times in this last couple of weeks. Why not?”

  Fergal looked at Skye, then at Carl and Maggie.

  “Yes, I admit I knew the Frensham connection. But I didn’t know what had happened on Elba. I didn’t know who Lewis’ father was.”

  “But why didn’t you say anything when we were talking about it?”

  “It didn’t seem, well, it didn’t seem relevant.”

  “Relevant?” Carl asked with some incredulity. “It didn’t seem to you relevant that your family were involved in all this?”

  “We were looking at the Laceys, and the Olivierres, not the Frenshams. There wasn’t time to do everything.”

  “But you didn’t mention it? Not once?”

  Fergal looked from Carl to Maggie and back. He did not look at Skye. Maggie and Carl exchanged glances, and understood. Fergal hadn’t wanted to take the spotlight from Skye.

  “No,” he said quietly. “Honestly, I didn’t see the need. It’s Arthur Lacey we’re after isn’t it? Not my mother. And I couldn’t know what went on in that autumn on Elba. I couldn’t know that Lewis Frensham wasn’t Sir Robert’s son.”

  “Perhaps you’re right,” Carl said doubtfully.

  “Of course he is,” said Maggie forthrightly.

  “I think it’s rather nice that we’re sort of cousins,” Skye said shyly.

  “Fourth cousins once removed,” Fergal said, as if he hadn’t already worked the relationship out. “You’re a generation above me.”

  “Now let me get this straight.” Margaret spoke slowly, tactfully taking the spotlight from Fergal’s obvious awkwardness. “We have established that Claude Olivierre was Napoleon Bonaparte and that Sir Arthur Lacey is descended from him. Are we now saying that Gayle Shepherd is as well?”

  Carl nodded slowly and deliberately. “That seems to be what our clever girl here has spotted.”

  “And I wonder whose political position that will suit best when this all comes out into the public domain,” Maggie persisted.

  “It certainly won’t do Sir Arthur’s image any good will it?”

  “Not the upstanding English aristocrat is he?”

  “I would certainly say his credentials are somewhat discredited. His most ardent supporters would find it very difficult to stick by their man.”

  “And Gayle might find less difficulty in accepting that her great-great-grandfather, or whatever the relationship was, was rather pro-European integration.”

  “That’s one way of putting it.”

  “But it wouldn’t do any harm to her European argument, would it?”

  “And Lacey would hate to admit that they are related to each other.”

  “Third cousins once removed,” Fergal said firmly, then added more tentatively, “or something like that.”

  “Close enough for discomfort on both their parts I should think.” Carl grinned. “Anyway, all we’ve got to do is work out exactly how to play this. This is getting to be very, very big news.”

  “You’re going to use it then? You’re not going to hide it all away and forget about it?”

  Carl smiled. He knew what they would do and how they could use everything they had learned. “Sir Arthur thinks he’s the only person, the only man, who can lead this country. He is blind to any reasonable argument. He is undoubtedly prepared to ignore democratic process to do what he thinks is right. His faction will lose the election and they will lose the referendum and so he will use every means to overthrow what democracy we have in this country. Thanks to Fergal and people like him we know something of Sir Arthur’s plans. We know they can infiltrate banking and government websites, we know they have groups of thugs ready to mobilise and riot in the streets, we know they have men in the higher echelons of the police and the Army who are ready to back them. But now we have the ammunition to stop him in his tracks.”

  “We know what he’s up to. We know the dangers but unfortunately we have to recognise that a great many people think he’s right, and that includes some pretty high-readership newspapers. They would ignore anything that was put out about him, they would say we were dangerous left-wing traitors,” Fergal warned.

  “That is exactly why we have to be very careful. We must be very sure of our facts and we must manage the media. We won’t be able to do this alone so we may have to enlist the aid of someone with as much political clout as Sir Arthur.” Carl turned to Fergal meaningfully.

  “My mother?”

  “She’s very good, and she really gets up Sir Arthur’s nose.” Maggie supported Carl’s suggestion.

  “That’s because she’s a successful woman and he isn’t keen on women being successful is he?”

  “Even ones in his own party.”

  “He would prefer all MPs to be what he would call ‘clubbable men’, you know, ‘chaps a chap can rely on’, all men together and all that.” Maggie smiled ruefully. “It is such a narrow-minded, old-fashioned and ultimately dangerous concept.”

  “His time has long gone yet he has hung on to that safe seat of his as if it was his God-given right to live on expenses and do sod-all for as long as he wanted,” Skye added.

  “Rather like we think Sir Henry Lacey must have done.” Fergal made the comparison.

  “But without the expenses?” Skye suggested.

  “Like great-grand-uncle, like great-grand-nephew.” Fergal grinned.

  “Your mother is a particularly clever lady isn’t she?” Margaret said to Fergal as if she was changing the subject.

  “Yes. I am very proud of her. Sir Arthur thinks she’s an upstart because she studied politics at the LSE and worse, she married one of her lecturers. He is ultimately suspicious of anyone who has a brain.”

  “And you’re not biased?” Skye asked, teasing.

  “Not at all,” Fergal replied seriously. “I’m completely objective about her.” Then he saw Carl smile and he looked, with some embarrassment, at the three faces, before continuing. “I’m just very proud of her. She went into politics really late, I mean she was over forty when she first stood for Parliament and fifty when she finally got in. And she’s made her mark.”

  “Can you somehow set them up in an interview?” Carl suggested.

  “What are you thinking?” Margaret asked. She knew Carl well and recognised the look on his face. “You have hatched a plan haven�
��t you?”

  Carl nodded before answering. “Look. I have thought about getting in touch with the PM’s office, even St James’s Palace or Clarence House, but have come to the conclusion that if we let any of what we have found out go through official channels it’ll all get hushed up. They would be afraid that it would cause all sorts of diplomatic problems with the French, not to mention the hit it would have on the reputations of some of the protagonists whose descendants may object.”

  “Not to mention that there are at least five of Sir Arthur’s cronies close to the centre of government and at least one more in the very heart of royal circles.”

  “Don’t you think, in some ways, that would be best?” Margaret was playing devil’s advocate. “Stirring up trouble with the French, the Russians and half the House of Lords, not to mention the Royal Family, might not be wise.”

  “You think we should forget it all?” Fergal asked, giving Carl time to think of his rebuttal.

  “I think we should think very carefully about what we do,” Margaret continued. “If anyone had known documents relating to all this existed they wouldn’t just have had the thirty or the fifty year rule slapped on them, or even a one hundred year embargo, they would have been quietly incinerated. Why do we think we know better?”

  “There are three reasons.” Carl spoke calmly and deliberately, gaining everyone’s attention. “Firstly because if this country is about anything it is about respecting our history, five or six generations now have a false view of that and that is not good enough. Secondly, rather than ruin our relationships with France and the countries of Europe, disclosure would enhance them. We can see the lengths to which men have gone in order that peace might be preserved, we should have the same courage. If one of the world’s most celebrated warmongers changed his views and worked for peace then others, the warmongers of today, may learn the error of their ways. And thirdly, and most importantly, there is Sir Arthur. There is a real danger he is going to betray everything that is at the heart of our national interest. If he is not stopped he will bring an end to our democracy, we will be in the unknown. There will be no Parliament, possibly no constitutional monarchy, nothing but a dictatorship. He must be stopped and we are the only ones who can do that.”