A Question of Inheritance (11 page)

Gus drew out a flat black object.

‘Is it an album, or a notebook?’ Polly asked.

Layers and layers of black tissue paper came off, to finally reveal a faded photograph behind glass in a silver frame. Gus stared down at it, and then read the slip of paper that had been tucked into a corner of the frame.

He said, in a quiet voice that was full of emotion, ‘It’s a photograph of my mother.’

‘Let me see,’ Polly said, reaching out for it, but Gus was still gazing at it. ‘I never saw a picture of her. There must have been photographs of her from her childhood in France, but they were all lost. In the confusion of war, I suppose.’

Babs got up and went to stand behind her father. He put up a hand to touch her face. ‘She looks like you, Babs.’

He passed the photo to Freya to hand on to Polly. Freya looked down at a hauntingly beautiful face. ‘Quite lovely,’ she said as she gave it to Polly.

‘Has it upset you, Pops?’ Polly asked anxiously.

‘A little, honey. I never knew her, so it’s not like you looking at a photo of your mother. But one can’t help but be moved.’

Pam, who had been watching fascinated, came to put a jug of thick cream down on the table. At which moment the lights flickered and went out, leaving the room illuminated only by the candles in the heavy silver candlesticks on the table.

Scene 6

Mrs Partridge’s voice came from outside the door. ‘Drat those lights, I can’t see a thing.’

Hugo went to the door, turned the handle to open it and she came in. ‘It’s those old fuses, it’s high time they were seen to.’

Gus got up from the table. He picked up one of the candlesticks and said, ‘Where’s the fuse box?’

They had had a power cut once before, and Hugo, taking another candle, said, ‘It’s at the far end of the kitchen passage. There’s a torch in Grace Hall, we can get it as we go through.’

Rupert joined them. ‘Although it won’t need three of us to repair a fuse, but I can always hold the torch.’

The passage outside the kitchen was cold and dark and their footsteps echoed on the flagstones. The fuse box was located in a kind of cupboard, which had a stiff catch. They got it open and looked at the array of fuses.

Hugo said, ‘I wonder which fuse has blown?’

Gus took out the fuses one by one and checked the fuse wires. ‘It’s this one. There’s no proper wire at all, it’s been cobbled together with a piece of copper. No wonder the main fuse went.’ He peered at the faded lettering above the fuse. ‘It’s the one for the hothouse.’

‘There’s some fuse wire on top of the box,’ Rupert said.

‘Yes,’ Gus said, ‘I’ll have to do what I can with that. It’s not the right kind, but it should work for now.’

While Rupert held the torch, Hugo watched with admiration as Gus’s nimble fingers repaired the fuse and put it back.

‘There,’ he said, brushing the dust from his fingers. He put back the main fuse and levered the stiff switch into position. A dim light came on in the corridor.

‘Nice work,’ Rupert said. ‘Shall we get back to our cherry pie?’

Gus said, ‘I’ll have a look at the whole system in the morning. Can’t have this happening again.’

Hugo followed him back into the dining room, thinking what a competent man Gus was. He was quite capable of changing a fuse himself, but he couldn’t have done it with the speed and the dexterity that Gus had shown. The lights were on again in the dining room and Mrs Partridge was serving out slices of pie.

The party broke up early, Sonia yawning widely and declaring she was going off to bed. ‘Exhausted by the drive.’

Freya didn’t believe a word of it; Sonia had the constitution of an ox. But Polly and Georgia were yawning as well, and so went grumbling off to bed, followed by Babs who said she was going to have a bath. Rupert and Oliver went to the billiard room for a game and the others headed to the library for coffee and brandy.

Night settled over Selchester Castle. An owl hooted in the woods. ‘Owls are birds of ill omen,’ Georgia said to Polly as they parted on the stairs.

‘No, they aren’t,’ Polly said firmly. ‘And I don’t believe in omens.’

Scene 7

Gus was in Grace Hall, looking up at the shadowy portrait of his father. Freya hesitated, then went over to stand beside him.

He said, more abrupt than usual, ‘What was he like, Freya? Why did he marry my mother and abandon her?’

‘He was a young man, who fell in love and didn’t think of the consequences.’

‘Fell in love, or in lust?’

He’d have to know. He was owed that. His father was more than a stranger to him, and he’d never known his mother, who had died so soon after he was born. The photograph of her had touched him deeply.

‘It was a long time ago. They’re both gone, can we ever know the truth about them?’

‘Not what went on in their minds and hearts, no. I’d be grateful for the plain facts. I deserve that, Freya. I reckon you knew him as well as Sonia did, and you and Hugo and Leo found out about his secret marriage, and tracked me down, so that I’m here now. What made you think he might have a male heir?’

Freya took a deep breath. This was going to be difficult. She knew what kind of a man Selchester was; the way he’d treated Gus’s mother was the least of it. ‘Wait here a moment. I have something to give you.’

She was back in a few minutes, breathless after running up the steps to the Tower where she had her rooms.

‘Read this.’ She held out a letter and Gus, moving to where the light was better, read it aloud.

Oxford, May 1912

My dearest husband, for that is what you will always be to me. You have betrayed me. I leave in shame. I shall never see you again, but my heart is yours forever. May God bless you and forgive you.

Mary Louise

‘Mary Louise? She was Marie Louise.’

‘She liked to call herself Mary, as she had married an Englishman.’

‘My father, in fact.’

‘The letter worried me. I asked Aunt Priscilla if she knew anything about it, and she said my uncle had been involved with a young woman when he was an undergraduate at Oxford. Their father got to hear of it, judged it was more serious than most amours are at that age, and came down on his son like a ton of bricks. He threatened to disinherit him – oh, not the title, he couldn’t deprive him of that, but he didn’t have to leave him anything else.’

‘But by then my father was married?’

‘Yes. In a Register Office, not in a church. That’s probably how he made Marie Louise believe they weren’t properly married.’

‘Odd, that he didn’t have a church ceremony. Do you suppose he always thought he could slide out of it somehow? In which case, why marry her at all?’

‘She was very beautiful; dozens of men were wild about her. She was also virtuous.’

‘So the only way he could get her to bed was if she had a ring on her finger.’

‘Yes.’

‘How on earth did you find all this out?’

‘Leo discovered that his tutor is still alive, and he knew quite a lot about it. Next time you’re in Oxford, you should look him up. Your father had another close friend, who was ordained and is now a bishop. He knew even more, but wasn’t keen to share his knowledge; all he wanted was to preserve your father’s good name.’

‘So my mother went back to France.’

‘Yes, and when it was obvious she was pregnant, her father shipped her off to America, where her sister lived.’

‘My aunt, who brought me up.’ He fell silent, then said, ‘It’s not a pretty story.’

‘No.’

‘Did he never try to find out what had happened to her? Did he know she was pregnant?’

‘I’m not sure. However, in 1918, when he was going to marry Hermione, he hired private detectives to trace her. They said she’d died, so he knew he wasn’t going to make a bigamous marriage.’

‘He had that much of a conscience.’

Little comfort in that. Freya wasn’t going to tell him about the other sins that lay on Selchester’s conscience. Not now. Not yet.

Chapter Seven

Scene 1

Mrs Partridge came into the dining room at breakfast the next day, bearing a coffee pot and the news that she’d just heard on the wireless. ‘There’s been heavy snow all down the east side of England. In London even. Severe disruption, they say, on roads and rail. On Christmas Eve, the worst time for people wanting to get away.’

Oliver, paused, a piece of toast halfway to his mouth. ‘Disruption?’

Mrs Partridge nodded, enjoying the drama. ‘They say it’s coming this way, but we won’t get it until after Christmas.’

Freya thought that was a pity, she rather liked the idea of a white Christmas.

Oliver said, ‘I was going to catch a train back to London this afternoon. I’d better check to see what’s happening.’

Hugo had finished his breakfast and he got up. ‘I’ll telephone the station. Mr Godley will know what the situation is with trains to London.’

He was back in a few minutes, and his face told Oliver that the news wasn’t good. ‘I’m afraid there’s not a chance of your getting to London. It seems that they’ve had heavy falls of snow on top of frozen points and the lines won’t be cleared at all today. Of course what with it being Christmas Day tomorrow, they’re going to have no end of a job trying to get everything running again.’

Gus said, ‘In that case, Oliver, you’ll have to resign yourself to spending Christmas with us. You’ll be a welcome guest.’

Freya, looking at the faces around the table, did not feel that this statement met with universal agreement. She liked Oliver well enough, but it didn’t look as though he was too keen on the idea either.

Gus went on, ‘We’ll have plenty of time to go through the inventory and look at some of those paintings you want me to see; no need to do it this morning.’

Georgia bounced into the dining room. ‘The Christmas tree is up in the Great Hall.’

‘I know,’ Hugo said. ‘A big one; Ben nearly mowed me down when he staggered in with armfuls of holly.’

‘Come and see,’ Georgia urged.

Oliver, who looked far from merry, stayed where he was. Sonia, who’d come down late to breakfast, yawned and said, ‘A Christmas tree? How too, too festive.’

‘How about trying for a bit of Christmas spirit, Sonia?’ Freya said.

Sonia said, ‘I’ll get into the Christmas mood once lunch at Veryan House is over. You may look cheerful, Rupert, but you don’t know what you’re in for.’

‘Why? Do they have an incompetent cook? I can’t believe that of Sir Archibald.’

Sonia said, ‘You’ve not met my aunt. And with her family gathered round her, she’ll be in full materfamilias mode. At her most forthright, bossy, overbearing and difficult. She’ll interrogate you about your people, your education, your army career and when she’s finished you’ll feel like she’s fed you through a mangle. Once you’ve been wrung dry, she’ll turn on me with all sorts of questions I don’t want to answer.’

Leaving Sonia and Oliver to toast and gloom, the others made for the Great Hall. Ben had lit a fire in the vast fireplace, which was blazing ferociously, but even that wasn’t enough to take the ancestral chill off the hall.

‘Are there any electric heaters?’ Gus asked.

‘No,’ Freya said. ‘My uncle hated them and wouldn’t have them in the house.’

Hugo said, ‘There’s the other fireplace. Could we get a fire going in there?’

‘It tends to smoke,’ Freya said. ‘But there’s not a breath of wind, so we could give it a go.’

‘I’ll bring in some logs,’ Hugo said. ‘Ben’s had enough to do. You can give me a hand, Rupert.’

Mrs Partridge, set against having wax candles on the tree, had unearthed a set of electric Christmas lights. They were in a box, and she looked at them doubtfully. ‘These won’t have been used for years. I don’t know if they’ll work or not.’

Georgia said, ‘I hope not. Much more fun to have little candles all over the tree.’

Mrs Partridge said, ‘Yes, and much more fun to have flames licking up over the woodwork and burning the Castle down.’

Georgia argued, ‘They must always have had candles on the tree and the Castle hasn’t burned down yet.’

Mrs Partridge said, ‘A wing of the house of the Castle did burn down.’

Gus had taken the box of lights from Mrs Partridge and was examining the wiring. ‘When did that happen?’

‘During the war. When all those strange people were here doing deception and camouflage and that kind of thing. They housed a lot of them in the Victorian wing, as it was called. It had been the servants’ wing, back when they had a lot of staff. The other ranks were put in there, and one day it caught fire. Burned to the ground.’

‘Was anybody hurt?’ Gus asked.

Mrs Partridge said, ‘It happened in the daytime and so no one was in there.’

‘What time of year was it?’ Georgia said.

‘June. Midsummer’s Day. Just as well, because a lot of the men had to make do with tents before they got other accommodation sorted out.’

‘In which case,’ Georgia said triumphantly, ‘it was nothing to do with candles on the Christmas tree.’

Mrs Partridge had to concede this point. ‘They said that it might have been a cigarette that had fallen down the back of one of the sofas in the sitting room they had there. But I think it was the electrics. I heard the men used to overload the sockets with all their bits and pieces plugged in.’

Gus said, ‘I didn’t realise there had been another wing.’

Freya said, ‘Only the foundations were left, and some rubble. My uncle had it cleared away after the war. It was at the back, between here and the hothouse. There’s still another wing, in fact. Lady Mathilda’s wing, on the other side. You hardly notice it from outside, because although it’s nineteenth century, it was built in the Gothic style and is much smaller than the one that burned down. The officers used it in the war, and it’s been left empty and locked up since then.’

Gus was still inspecting the Christmas tree lights, methodically taking out each bulb, holding it up to check it before replacing it in its socket. Satisfied, he plugged in the set. The lights flickered and came on, then went out again.

He said to Mrs Partridge, ‘Are there any spare bulbs in that box?’

She handed the box over to him, and he looked into it. ‘Good. Yes I’m sure we can get this going, and it will be much more practical than candles, Georgia. Apart from anything else, think of the tedium of having to blow the candles out every time we leave and then relight them. At least with an electric set it’s just a question of switching them on and off.’

He replaced three bulbs and the fuse bulb and tried again. This time, the lights came on and stayed on. He unplugged them and began to drape them around the tree.

‘You’ll need a ladder,’ Mrs Partridge said. ‘I’m off back to the kitchen now, and I’ll tell Ben.’

Hugo came in with a big basket of logs. ‘No need to do that, Mrs Partridge. Ben’s already on his way with a ladder.’

Georgia was about to switch on the lights again, but Gus said, ‘Wait, Georgia. After the trouble with the fuses last night I just want to check that all the other ones are in order.’

Polly pulled a face. ‘Don’t fuss, Pops. All the lights work, why should there be a problem?’

Gus took no notice. ‘Where’s that flashlight, Hugo?’

‘On top of the fuse box, I think.’

Scene 2

Gus paused at the kitchen to warn Mrs Partridge that he’d be turning all the electricity off for a few minutes. She shook her head at him. ‘Shouldn’t be doing that messing with those fuses, my lord. Anything needs doing ask Ben, he can change a bulb or mend a fuse. Anything more than that, you want to get the electrician in. Mr Trusby does all the estate work.’

‘I thought he was the sexton,’ Hugo said, remembering Mr Trusby arriving with his spade in hand when the late Lord Selchester’s body had been discovered in the Old Chapel.

‘He’s both.’

Gus said, ‘I doubt if he’d want to come out just to check things on Christmas Eve. I can do it, Mrs Partridge, don’t worry. Is there a small screwdriver anywhere?’

Mrs Partridge was putting mince pies into the oven. She shut the oven door, dusted the flour from her hands and looked disapprovingly at Gus. ‘There’s a toolbox on the shelf in the old boot room.’

‘Boot room?’ Gus said.

Hugo opened the door into a small dank room with just a tiny high window. ‘It’s not where they kept the boots; it was where the boot boy did his cleaning work. He must have had his hands full when they had a houseful of guests. All the shoes left every night outside the guests’ rooms. And he’d have had to deal with hunting boots and shooting footwear and all the rest of it.’

Gus said, ‘It really was a strange world.’

‘Even more strange in its glory days before the First World War.’

Gus said, ‘I can’t imagine coping with any more than is here already. I think one must be grateful the Victorian wing burned down. That is if it was of no particular architectural distinction?’

‘Ask Freya. There’s a collection of prints of prints and drawings of the Castle over the years in the library.’

Hugo found the toolbox, Gus chose a couple of screwdrivers and, joined by Rupert, who said he’d had enough of those girls arguing about tinsel, they went to the fuse box. Hugo watched as Gus turned off the current and checked every fuse. ‘I only had a brief look last night, one has to make sure.’

He finished, slotted them all in place and then, removing the fuse for the hothouse, said, ‘I think I’ll just go and have a look at the hothouse. Something must have made the fuse blow, although the condition it was in, it could have gone any time.’

They didn’t bother putting on coats but walked briskly across the courtyard and into the welcome warmth of the hothouse. The same smell of greenery and wet earth greeted them, but Gus wasn’t there to admire the foliage and the plants. He walked round looking up at the lights hanging down on their wires and said, pointing at a dangling lamp, ‘That’s what did it, that bulb has blown.’

Hugo said, puzzled, ‘Surely that fuse with the wrong wire looked as though it had been there a long time. I asked Ben this morning, and he said that nobody has needed to go near that fuse box not since Selchester . . . not since your father was still alive. Yet you’d think the bulbs wouldn’t have lasted so long.’

Rupert, who was leaning against the door said, ‘Unreliable things, light bulbs. They last for years or blow in a few weeks.’

There was a stepladder leaning against the wall. Gus brought it over, climbed up and removed the bulb. He gave it a rattle. ‘Yes, definitely gone.’ He stepped down again. ‘There’s no knowing, a bulb can blow and not cause any trouble or it can take out the fuses. Fuses are quite temperamental and these ones are the old-fashioned kind. So, even fixed the way it was, a light bulb could go, or several of them and it wouldn’t affect the fuse. These things happen, that’s all.’

‘We’d better put another light bulb in before you switch the current back on.’

Gus said, ‘I’ll check the sockets and switches first. You have to be careful with electricity in a damp atmosphere like there is here.’

‘You seem quite an expert,’ Rupert remarked. ‘If we ever have revolution, and you aristos are all turfed out, you’ll be able to work as an electrician.’

Gus went to the corner of the hothouse to look at the array of switches and plug sockets. Hugo said, ‘I’ll go and get a bulb,’ and set off back to the kitchen.

When he got back, Gus had finished his inspection. ‘I need some fuse wire and I can get something to make sure that this is safe. I assume there is an electrical supplier of some kind in the town?’

Hugo said, ‘Hodges the ironmonger carries quite a lot of electrical stuff. He’ll probably have anything you need.’

They went back indoors. Rupert said he was going to go and read
The Times
, if Father Leo had finished with it, and he went off to the library. Gus replaced the hothouse fuse and said, ‘Will this store you mentioned be open this afternoon?’

Hugo said, ‘It should be, early closing is on Wednesdays.’

‘I thought maybe they’d close early before Christmas.’

Hugo said, ‘I doubt it. Business is business, and everyone lucky enough to have electric tree lights will be popping in for replacement bulbs or fuses. I think the shops will be open all day, I expect a lot of people do their shopping on Christmas Eve. In fact, if you’re going down into town I’ll come with you – I have a couple of last-minute things I want to get.’

Scene 3

Meanwhile, her mince pies safely in the oven, Mrs Partridge had unearthed the Christmas decorations from some distant part of the Castle and carried them into the Great Hall. Freya sank to her knees, opening the boxes and exclaiming at the glass baubles, the delicate angels, the ribboned reindeer, the tinkling silver bells. ‘Oh how this brings back memories. It’s amazing that they’ve survived.’

Babs, who hadn’t shown much interest in the proceedings until now came in to see what was going on. She took charge of the decorations and Freya noticed how carefully she placed the ornaments as she hooked them on to the tree. Georgia and Polly were inclined simply to hang them anywhere, but Babs, when they weren’t looking, removed the ornaments and arranged them with more style and finesse.

Georgia and Poppy were arguing about what was going to go on top of the Christmas tree. Babs held up a shimmering star, which she said was the right thing to go on top of a Christmas tree. Polly had found an angel. ‘It has such a melancholy expression, it looks as though it would like to be on top of the tree.’

Georgia wasn’t having it. She was arguing the case for a silver dragon, an exquisite piece with intricate overlapping scales.

Babs said, ‘Whoever heard of a dragon on top of a Christmas tree?’

Polly said, ‘I don’t know, he’s kind of cute. But the angel looks unhappy and deserves a break.’

Georgia said, ‘We don’t want something unhappy at the top of the Christmas tree. It’s supposed to be a cheerful festival.’

Mrs Partridge came through a little later to find the two of them still squabbling. Asked for her opinion, she settled the matter by saying, ‘What’ll go on top of Christmas tree is what always goes on the top of Christmas tree at the Castle.’