“I’ve been wondering that,” admitted Perdita. “The one Granny commissioned Dad to do after his final art school exhibition. What was it Dad told us — that every summer Granny would commission a number of students after viewing their shows?”
Piper nodded.
“It was the painting that brought him here and kept him here because he took one look at Mum and fell in love with her on the spot,” she finished. “But what I don’t understand is, if Granny hated him so much, why didn’t she destroy it? Or at least hide it away?”
“It’s all a bit much, isn’t it?” murmured Perdita. Piper nodded and they managed a rueful laugh.
Half an hour later, Perdita was back in her own room, her mind whirring from her conversation with Piper. But after flicking off her bedside light, thoughts of Piper and Jeremy faded as the image of Morton Keller once more swam into her mind.
Suddenly, a strange clarity came to Perdita, as clear and brilliant as a diamond and equally as hard: Morton Keller did not want forgiveness; he was observing us as though we were rivals, challengers, she thought. He was sizing us up, checking how strong we would be as adversaries. It was an odd conclusion to draw but after a few moments pondering it, trying to dismiss it as tiredness or the product of her overwrought mind, she realised the idea had become so firmly lodged in her psyche, she could not shift it. Strangely, this did not scare her. It only made her curious and, to her surprise, she also felt herself relax. Within moments, she was asleep.
Piper left the following day. Billy Eve, the younger son of Sarah and Alan, was driving her back to Heathrow Airport. It had been an emotional parting for the twins.
“Don’t let him upset you any more than you can stand,” Perdita had said as she hugged Piper goodbye. “I can always fly to you or you can come here.”
“I’ll be OK,” Piper had reassured her. “You take care too. If it gets too emotional, come to me or go back to Chiswick.”
“I’ll be OK too,” Perdita had echoed with a smile.
She had waved until Billy’s car was out of sight, then returned to the house and spent the rest of the day unpacking her belongings before exploring the library and the grounds. In the early evening, she had asked Kit to drive her to the animal sanctuary her mother had loved. When they had arrived, she had taken a deep breath and walked into what had once been her family home, but to her surprise, no memories came flooding back. Instead, she met Briony Llewellyn who ran the sanctuary, and was introduced to the horses as well as an array of cats, dogs, rabbits, chickens and a pair of twin sheep.
It was now Perdita’s second week at Marquess House and, as promised, Jenny Procter had gathered together Mary’s research. Perdita gazed at the piles of boxes covering a series of long tables arranged end-to-end and pushed against one wall of the office that had once been Mary’s.
“I can see why it took you a week to assemble it all,” she said. “There’s so much!”
“You’re a child of the digital age, Perdita,” Jenny laughed. “You’ve probably got a few memory sticks and a small pile of printouts. Mary was old school. Everything was on paper. A lot was handwritten, but over the years we have transcribed it. Here,” she handed Perdita a small leather wallet. “All Mary’s notes and research have been digitised, so you won’t have to wade through boxes of dusty paper if you don’t want to.”
Unzipping the leather wallet, Perdita opened it like a book. Set into small compartments inside was a row of memory sticks, each with the title of one of Mary’s many publications printed alongside.
“All the pages were scanned, so you can see the original then the transcription, including all of Mary’s notes,” said Jenny. “On the table are Mary’s private copies of her own books. She left instructions that, should either you or Piper ever request to see her research, this is the set of books you were to work from. I’ve never looked in them, but I can only assume she may have written notes or updates which she felt were important. Anyway, have fun! Call if you need anything, I’m on extension 423. I’ll have coffee sent along in an hour or so.”
Petite, stylish and blonde, Jenny was in her early sixties but looked much younger. She swept out on a wave of expensive, heady perfume, giving Perdita a friendly smile.
Alone with the boxes, Perdita wondered where to begin. She sank onto one of the two large Chesterfield sofas that were situated to one side of the huge room and tried to formulate a workable plan. Mary’s office took up an entire corner of the research centre, which was, in itself, huge. When she had first seen it, Perdita had thought it was a complex of offices and reading rooms fashioned into a small, unused barn. It was only when Kit and Jenny had shown her and Piper around that she had realised that, like everything else in their new world, it was not as she had imagined.
The section she had seen from the house was only the reception and visitor’s area. Once inside the research centre, Perdita realised that it occupied the whole of what had once been an enormous barn complex and coach house.
“They were Victorian and quite ugly,” Jenny had explained. “So Mary decided to salvage anything of historical value or beauty, but convert the rest. It was a huge project but it was worth it. The storage facility alone is invaluable. Some areas have specially designed climate control and the most advanced air filters available, but others are less complicated. Mary was a real collector and saver of documents. They fascinated her as they were such keys to the past. The building right at the back has a dedicated team of conservators. We call it The Dairy because it was built in the old…”
“Dairy?” Perdita had finished, and Jenny had laughed.
“Original stuff, eh? It’s a custom-built facility that was funded by both Mary and Jerusalem. Its purpose is to restore and authenticate documents. Mary has another suite of offices near the restoration area. They’re climate controlled and she used them when she was working on original documents.”
Mary’s office had made use of the huge coach house doors, which had been glazed and offered a clear view to the lake with its island ruins. The wooden frame was carved with a frieze identical to the design throughout the house: swags of flowers held together by mermaids who, in this incarnation, appeared to be holding ornate rings. It was a pattern that repeated endlessly.
For now, though, Perdita’s mind was preoccupied with the boxes. She glanced at the memory sticks, then dismissed them. Part of the reason she had asked for the research was because she wanted to see how her grandmother had constructed her work, look at the process of discovery and how she drew the often controversial conclusions she had used in her books. No computer simulation could show her that. Only touching and reading her grandmother’s notes, seeing how the handwriting changed and how the trains of thought progressed, could be done by studying the real documents.
The complete collection of Mary’s published works that Jenny had mentioned were on the long, low table that was situated between the two Chesterfield sofas. Leaning over, Perdita picked up her grandmother’s first published book, The History and Symbolism of Names. She knew the library had pristine versions of all the first editions, many in limited edition leather bindings, which made them so valuable, but these were Mary’s copies. Her grandmother had touched these, used them as reference points. Perdita opened the book and inhaled, trying to catch a hint of her grandmother’s scent, but there was nothing, only the smell of an old book. This, too, was a first edition and to her surprise, the pages were covered in notes in Mary’s tiny, perfectly formed handwriting.
Intrigued, Perdita began to read her grandmother’s comments. They were often random and unrelated to the text: “What a wonderful year this has been. My first book published and tomorrow, I marry Hector Woodville, the man of my dreams”, followed by the date: 4th November 1955. Perdita had not expected to find anything so personal. She flicked a few pages on and smiled as she saw a Christmas shopping list including “Hector — pipe” and “Cecily — silk scarf”. Cecily Fitzroy had been Mary’s younger sister and from what Perdita had
gleaned during her research, Cecily had drowned in a boating accident in Monaco in 1974.
Picking up the next book in the pile, The Scottish Link: A Study of Trade and Personal links between the Tudor and Stuart Courts, she was once again intrigued by the private, inconsequential notes written neatly on the white space around the printed words: “Cecily and Albert Connors are getting married tomorrow, assuming she doesn’t jilt him at the altar” caught Perdita’s eye. Then near the end: “I am so excited to be having a baby at last, even stopping my writing doesn’t seem like a sacrifice”. With a lump in her throat, Perdita realised Mary was referring to her mother, Louisa, who was born on 19 January 1959.
If her grandmother had still been alive, Perdita would have felt this was an intrusion into her privacy. But Mary was dead and these notes in her books were the first glimpse of her grandmother’s true self that Perdita had ever had: it was fascinating, as well as bittersweet. What was more important was that Mary had left strict instructions for her and Piper to see these; she had wanted her granddaughters to glimpse her life. Perdita was mystified as to why her grandmother had desired that she and Piper see such intimate notes when she could have contacted them at any time over the years to tell them these details herself. She looked back at the comment and noticed that underneath, written in tiny letters, were the words: “Cecily has a son, Randolph Connors, 30 September 1959, a cousin for Louisa”.
Her mother had a cousin? Perdita read it again, Randolph Connors. She had never heard the name mentioned. Reaching for her laptop, she keyed in his name along with his date of birth. An image of a hawk-nosed man with small dark eyes and sallow skin appeared. It was a short entry on a business website dated from ten years earlier: “Businessman Randolph Connors donated £5,000 (sterling) to the Indian Orphanage Programme in New Delhi…”
She continued to search but found nothing else of interest. Instead she made a note to ask Alistair what was known about this man. Had Mary cut him from her life too?
An hour later, when there was a knock on the door and Kit came in carrying a tray of coffee and pastries, she was still deeply engrossed in the books. She had found a reference to her and Piper’s births, to her parents’ marriage, which had followed shortly afterwards, and a reminder to order some hay for the horses. Unconscious thoughts, glimpses of her grandmother’s life, an insight she had never imagined she would discover.
“How are you getting on?” he asked with his usual enthusiasm.
“Really well,” she said, clearing a space so he could place the tray on the table. He dropped onto the sofa opposite her and pushed his unruly dark curls out of his eyes.
“I’m knackered,” he said, and demolished half a croissant with one bite.
Perdita laughed. “What do you actually do here, Kit?” she asked as she picked up her coffee and sipped it. “Are you a solicitor like your dad?”
“Yes and no,” he said, stuffing the other half of the pastry into his mouth and chewing rhythmically. “I am a solicitor but I work for our family business, Jerusalem. The legal stuff is only one side of it.”
“And, apart from funding archaeological digs all around the world, what else does it do?”
“We rescue and restore important antiquities and documents. If they’re of national interest, we either lend or donate the items to the government of their country of origin, depending on the political climate at the time. Megan runs the organisation from Andorra. She covers Africa and Asia. Stuart looks after the Americas, the Caribbean and a few other places. I do Europe, Scandinavia, Australia and New Zealand. I was up until 4 a.m. bidding on an item of New Zealand origin. It’s very rare and extremely important. We didn’t want it to be snapped up by a private collector and disappear from view forever.”
“What was it?” asked Perdita, stunned by Kit’s answer. With his surfer clothes, laid-back attitude and easy-going manner, the last thing she had expected him to say he did was act like some internet Indiana Jones saving rare antiquities.
“It was an ancient document of ownership of the islands going all the way back to the 1600s, and hugely predates Captain Cook who didn’t discover them until April 1769,” he said. “The thing is, we think it’s a fake, which was why it was important we got it so we can try to verify its authenticity.”
“I’m impressed,” she said. He gave a mock nod of his head in thanks and helped himself to a pain au chocolat.
“How are you getting on?” he asked when he had swallowed his first enormous mouthful.
“Interesting,” said Perdita. “Did you know my grandmother used her first editions as personal diaries?”
“No!”
Perdita pushed a copy of The Anne Boleyn Question towards Kit.
“Look at page 162.”
Kit wiped his fingers on his faded cut-offs and flicked through.
“Today I became a grandmother to two beautiful baby girls: Perdita Elizabeth and Piper Eleanor. My heart is bursting with happiness,” he read.
“If she loved us so much, why did she stop seeing us after Mum died?”
“Perdita, I don’t know,” he said, awkward at the personal question. “She must have had her reasons. Is there anything in the next book? The Missing Heirs of Henry VIII? It came out shortly before Louisa’s accident.” Perdita hesitated. “Would you like me to look?”
Perdita pushed the book towards him. “Yes, please,” she said, then hated herself for being such a coward.
He flicked carefully through the pages but, as Perdita looked at it upside down, she realised this was the first book her grandmother had left untouched, until Kit reached the last page. He read the short inscription, then turned it to Perdita, looking puzzled.
“What does it say?” she asked, leaning forward and reading. “It is over. They have won. Mary Fitzroy, 30 May 1993,” she read. “What does that mean?”
Perdita reached for the next book in the pile. There had been a six-year gap between the books and this was the first that moved away from Mary’s study of the women of the Tudor and Stuart families. This one began her series focusing on women of importance before and after the Norman Conquest. It was about the daughter of King Alfred the Great and was entitled: Aethelflaed, Lady of the Mercians: Warrior Queen.
“Maybe there’s something in here,” she said and began flicking through, searching for her grandmother’s handwriting. But to her surprise, rather than notes, there were photographs pushed so deeply into the spine they would not fall out when the book was moved.
“It’s us,” she said. “Me and Piper.”
The first picture showed the twins aged seven, standing beside the fireplace in the house in Chiswick. What followed were identical photographs charting every birthday from then until the previous year.
“Dad took one every year,” said Perdita, “then put it in a frame on the fireplace that Mum had given him. He said it was to show her how much we’d grown.”
Kit said nothing but studied the pictures, putting them in chronological order so they spread across the table, then grinned. “Good look, blue lipstick,” holding up a picture. “Age fourteen. Your age is written on the back.”
“I loved that lipstick,” she murmured, trying to hide her bewilderment. Why had her father sent these to Mary? He had flown into a rage whenever the girls mentioned her name.
“You might want to see this,” said Kit, all trace of humour gone from his voice.
He handed her the most recent picture, the one taken a month before her father had died. It had been an emotional moment for them all, as they knew it was the last one he would ever take but he had insisted upon continuing their tradition. He had also taken image after image until they were both smiling.
She took the familiar picture and turned it over. On the back of the other pictures, her father had written their ages, nothing else, but on this, the final photograph, there was a short note.
“Dearest Mary,” Perdita read, “the cancer is rife so this will be the last photograph of the girls I will be able
to send. I have done everything we agreed upon on that terrible day and it has kept them safe. The rest is up to you. Godspeed, my old friend. Your loving son-in-law, James.”
Perdita and Kit stared at each other in confusion.
“He wouldn’t even let us mention her name, let alone ask questions about her. Why would he sign a note as ‘your loving son-in-law’? How dare he?” Perdita’s anger was rising, driven by confusion as she felt her world tilt. Her reality had always been that her father had loathed her grandmother, had blamed her irrationally for the death of her mother, Louisa. This hatred was then intensified by the fact that they had rowed and, afterwards, her grandmother had abandoned them. This was the world in which Perdita had grown up, this was the truth she had always known, even if she had not liked it. But now an earthquake of seismic proportions was shaking this fundamental foundation on which her family relations had been built. If this note was to be believed, her father and grandmother had remained in touch, were loyal to each other, cared deeply and yet, they had stayed apart, ensuring she and Piper were kept from anything concerning their mother and their past.
“You knew his writing,” said Kit. “Do you think the note is a fake?”
“No, it’s definitely Dad’s writing.”
Her father had terrible handwriting, messy almost illegible — there was no mistaking the note was from him. Suddenly, she turned on Kit.
“Explain this,” she snapped.
“I can’t!”
“Why not? You were practically brought up here. Mary was more of a grandmother to you than she was to Piper and me. You must have known what was going on. Did my father visit?”
“Yes, we were here a lot,” said Kit, trying to remain calm in the face of Perdita’s mounting rage, “but Mary didn’t discuss anything with us, we were children. Dad might know or maybe Granddad Kenneth before he died but, Perdita, truly, I never remember your father coming to visit.”
She began to pace the room, wishing Piper were here to share her confusion. Agitated, unsure how to react, she felt as though she were standing on quicksand. The past few weeks had seen her life changed beyond recognition, but this new and unexpected twist was almost more than she could bear. Her father had been in touch with her grandmother. Why? Perdita leaned over Kit to pick up the photograph. Walking away, studying the words, she re-read the note scrawled on the back.
The Catherine Howard Conspiracy Page 7
