A Question of Inheritance (4 page)

Barbara brought them down to earth. ‘Cold, damp and unwelcoming. Primitive I call it, with those animal heads on the wall.’

Freya took them through to Grace Hall, less threatening but still stone-walled and chilly.

‘It’s difficult to see in this light, but that portrait there is of your father, Gus.’

He peered up at it. ‘I guess I can see a resemblance.’

‘Why do you have a telephone in here?’ Barbara said.

‘It’s the nearest convenient place to where the telephone line comes into the house,’ Freya said.

Barbara stared at her, aghast. ‘You mean if you want to use the phone you’ve got to sit in this draughty place where everybody can hear your conversation? And you’d die of cold meanwhile.’

Freya said, sounding apologetic, ‘Phone calls are expensive in England, so people mostly don’t linger in here, just three minutes and that’s it.’

‘Three minutes?’

Polly said, ‘In America, Barbara stays on the phone for hours.’

Her father said, ‘In England, she won’t.’

Scene 11

They ate that evening in the dining room. It was a strangely formal affair, with everybody on their best behaviour. Barbara said little and mostly gazed down into her plate. Georgia and Polly, whom Freya had taken care to seat apart, occasionally cast covert glances at one another.

Freya felt disoriented. It was so extraordinary that she should be sitting here with this stranger who was her cousin at the head of the table. If she closed her eyes, it could almost have been her uncle there. Gus’s voice was so like his father’s. Mind you, the late Lord Selchester would not have been talking about epic poetry, Roman farming or the Rubicon.

Freya’s mind strayed back to 1947, to that fateful evening which was the last time she or anyone else had seen her uncle alive.

Bad weather had prevented many of the invited guests from being at the Castle, and that had put Selchester into a bad temper. Her cousin Sonia, Selchester’s daughter, had been upstairs, struck down with a ferocious migraine, which was why Freya had been summoned by her uncle to act as hostess. Of course, it wasn’t just the missing guests that had annoyed Lord Selchester. He’d been angry at his son’s engagement, and he and Tom had such a furious argument that Tom had stormed out halfway through dinner. Freya had left with him.

As she looked at the soft light of the candles reflected in the silver epergne that Mrs Partridge had insisted on placing in the centre of the table, tears pricked Freya’s eyes. Such sad memories. She and Tom had only just got away before the blizzard drew in and the Castle was cut off for nearly ten days. It had been assumed that Lord Selchester had, for some unknown reason, gone out into the snow and had been caught in the ferocious weather. He had been missing for almost seven years before his body was discovered under the flagstones in the Old Chapel, and it turned out that he had never in fact left his ancestral castle. He had been murdered that very night.

Freya found herself give a slight shiver and Hugo looked at her enquiringly.

‘A ghost walked over my grave,’ she said, forcing her voice into lightness.

In a quiet voice, Hugo said, ‘You’re thinking of your uncle. And Tom.’

Freya was no longer surprised by Hugo’s perceptiveness, by his almost uncanny ability to read her mind and her moods. And so she merely nodded and asked Gus what kind of a crossing they’d had from New York.

He gave her a searching look, said they’d had a day of rough seas but nothing too bad, and then Barbara, breaking the uneasy politeness of the dinner so far, gestured towards a portrait that hung at the far end of the dining room.

Freya always wondered why her uncle kept that picture here, rather than with the other portraits in the Long Gallery. The other paintings that adorned the walls of the dining room were mostly naval battles, with surging seas and improbable-looking ships firing little cotton wool balls at one another.

Freya said, ‘That’s Hermione, the last Lord Selchester’s wife.’

‘So she’d be kind of our step-grandmother?’ Barbara said. ‘She looks beautiful in that picture. Was she beautiful?’

Freya said, ‘Is beautiful. She’s still very much alive. She lives in Canada. Yes, Aunt Hermione was very lovely.’

Gus said, ‘Is that by Sargent?’

‘Yes. I always liked it, and it’s a good portrait of her, but my uncle never cared for it much. There’s a matching one of him, in Grace Hall.’

‘She went away from England before the war,’ Polly said. ‘They were separated and never lived together after that. They couldn’t get divorced, of course, because they were Catholic. Is she going to marry someone else now? It said in the newspapers that she is. Somebody called Walter Berkshire. He’s her constant companion. I read about her when I went to the library and looked up about the murder.’

Gus said, ‘Really, Polly, you can’t believe what you read in the newspapers.’

‘Not all of it, no. But there’s usually some truth in the stories.’

Hugo murmured in Freya’s ear, ‘We’re going to have trouble with this one.’

Freya whispered back, ‘Not our problem. Remember, it’s
exeunt
severally for us as soon as Christmas is over.’ And then, to Polly, ‘So you’ve been doing some research into the Fitzwarin family.’

‘I like to have the facts,’ Polly said with some severity, and then applied herself to the apricot tart Mrs Partridge had set in front of her. After a mouthful, she said, ‘I suppose there have been a lot of murders in this castle.’

Not quite so insouciant as she wanted to seem. Sensing Polly wanted reassurance, Freya said, ‘Perhaps, long ago. Not these days.’

‘I hope not. I don’t want anyone to murder Pops. But they caught the murderer, didn’t they? So even if he didn’t like Earls, he won’t come back to do it again.’

Hugo broke the awkward silence by asking Gus if he played billiards.

‘We don’t play it in the States, I’m more used to pool. But I played billiards a few times while I was in Oxford. I suppose there is a billiard room here? I’d be happy to give you a game.’

Freya felt grateful to Hugo. It would make things easier over Christmas, if Hugo and Gus got on well together. It would be an odd Christmas this year. Not like in the days before the war. Then the Castle had been filled with Fitzwarins and friends, all generations from babies to great-grandmothers. Music and games and wonderful food. It was one of the few times in the year when she remembered her uncle unbending a little. He wasn’t one to dress up as Father Christmas, he wouldn’t go as far as that, but he liked to be generous at Christmas, to his family and to his tenants. One Christmas, he’d given Freya her first pony. She must remember the good things about him, his kindness to her. The fact that he had turned out to have a private life quite different from his public persona couldn’t take that away.

‘Penny for them,’ Hugo whispered in her ear. ‘You still have a melancholy look.’

Freya flashed him a smile. ‘Just remembering Christmases here before the war.’

Gus overheard the words, and he gave Freya a sympathetic look. ‘This was really your childhood home, so the lawyers told me. With your father being abroad so much with his diplomatic work and you spending your holidays here . . . These last years must have been a very difficult time for you.’

Freya said, ‘It all seems a long time ago. It was a different world then. The war changed everything for us here in England.’

Barbara said, ‘What did you do in the war, Cousin Freya?’

What Freya did in the war was something that she never told about to anyone, but she said glibly and without thinking as she always did, ‘Oh, office work, typing, that kind of thing.’

Barbara’s mouth curled in contempt. ‘No uniform, no real war work?’

Georgia sprang to her defence. ‘Lots of people did all kinds of important things in the war and they didn’t wear uniform. My mother did lots and she was never in any of the armed forces. She drove an ambulance.’

Any moment now, somebody was going to ask Georgia where her mother was, and Freya decided to prevent this happening by saying decisively that they would take coffee in the library. ‘Georgia, why don’t you give Mrs Partridge a hand clearing the table and then you can help with the coffee.’

Georgia rose slowly to her feet, not looking as though she was very keen on the idea. Rather to Freya’s surprise, Polly said, ‘I’ll help, too.’

‘That’s right, Polly, you give a hand with the washing up as well,’ Gus said. ‘That was a most delicious meal, Mrs Partridge. You are some cook.’

Mrs Partridge nodded her head in recognition of what was her due, and then said, ‘We’ll have to see about getting ration books for all of you.’

Barbara, who was going out of the door, stopped and looked round, her mouth in an O of surprise. ‘Rationing! You can’t be serious. What’s rationed?’

Georgia was very happy to tell her. ‘Meat and bacon and butter and sugar.’

Freya said, ‘It isn’t as bad as Georgia makes it sound, because everything is gradually coming off rationing. And living in the country with so much provided on the estate you won’t go short of anything here. But Mrs Partridge is right, you’ll all need ration books.’

Polly said, ‘I read about rationing and austerity. But you do have lights. I thought everybody in England sat about in the dark, because there isn’t enough coal or enough power to keep the electricity on.’

Hugo said, sounding amused, ‘It’s been difficult, but things are better now.’

Gus said genially, ‘I, too, am pleased to see electricity in the Castle. I had wondered whether we would have to cope with candles, oil lamps and flares on the wall.’

Freya said, ‘My uncle was always very up to date. And when the Castle was requisitioned during the war, the Army did a lot of work on the plumbing and wiring and so on. Although there are still parts where it needs modernising.’

Polly said, ‘Pops is keen on electricity. He loves messing about with wires and things.’

Gus stood by to let Freya leave the room in front of him. ‘I kind of got interested in it because of going on some archaeological expeditions. I’m no archaeologist myself, the written word is my thing, but I like to keep up with what’s going on in the field. Some of these sites you need to know how to use a generator and rig up lighting.’

‘There are dungeons here you could excavate,’ Georgia said. ‘Bet you’d find all sorts of interesting things.’ She gave Polly a sideways look. ‘Skeletons, I shouldn’t be surprised.’

Chapter Two

Scene 1

Lady Sonia was spending the midnight hours at the Blue Venetian, a newly fashionable London nightclub. Rupert Dauntsey, coming on after a dinner party, had stopped off in the hope of finding her. She waved at him to come over and join her table.

‘All by yourself, Sonia? That doesn’t seem like you.’

She gestured towards the tiny dance floor, where couples, picked out in pools of blue from the spotlights, were dancing. ‘I’m with the Hunsonbys, but they’re on the floor. Sit down, it’s an age since I’ve seen you.’

Rupert said, ‘No, let’s dance.’ He liked dancing with Sonia, who was light on her feet. He pulled her chair back for her, and they went on to the floor, moving into a swift quickstep.

Sonia was wearing one of her Paris frocks and was looking at her best. Hers was a Plantagenet beauty, marred only by a frequent look of discontent, which made her perfect Elizabeth Arden mouth droop at the corners.

‘Are you in London for Christmas?’ he asked, as he swung her expertly round.

‘I planned to be, but now I’ve decided to go down to Selchester.’

‘What, as a guest of the new Earl? That, Sonia, my love, will make you look ridiculous. Half of London knows how you hate him, since you’ve said so at every opportunity.’

Sonia waved an airy hand. ‘Oh, that. I don’t exactly hate him. He isn’t really the kind of man you can hate. What I hate is his being the Earl and inheriting everything instead of me. Am I supposed to be delighted at that? I don’t think so.’

‘Has he invited you?’

Sonia considered that for a moment. ‘Not exactly. He didn’t say, “Sonia, come and share a family Christmas at the Castle.” It’s more that he issued one of those vague invitations, the way that people do. You know. He said that the Castle had been my home and I must feel myself free to come at any time. Any time is going to be this Christmas, that’s all.’

The music ended, and they drifted back to the table. The Hunsonbys stayed on the floor for another dance, and Rupert lit a cigarette for Sonia. She sat back in her chair, a long elegant cigarette holder poised between two fingers, eyes half closed.

He laughed. ‘You look decadent.’

‘Oh good. I need to feel decadent before I can face the horrors of a family Christmas. I mean, only think of the company. Gus and his daughters. Freya and that man Hugo Hawksworth probably, although God knows why. You’d have thought he and his ghastly young sister would have had the grace to buzz off at Christmas.’

‘I take it you’re not a fan of this Hugo? Impervious to your fatal beauty – surely not?’

‘Hugo’s an attractive man, dark and saturnine, but not my sort. Not that he ever showed any interest in me. He runs around with that Valerie Whatsit creature. He’s a fool, he’d much better ditch her and turn his attentions towards Freya.’

‘Matchmaking?’

‘No, I couldn’t be bothered. But I know Valerie slightly, and Hugo’s wasted on a woman like that.’

‘So it’ll be the family and your cousin Freya and this Hugo. What about your Veryan relations?’

‘Thank God they won’t be staying at the Castle. Aunt Priscilla always has her brood at Veryan House at Christmas. Plus Oliver; I’m taking him with me. Although not for the whole of Christmas. He’ll come back to town on Christmas Eve.’

Rupert said, ‘Oliver? Who’s Oliver?’

‘You know, Oliver Seynton. The art man.’ Sonia took a deep draw of her cigarette and let out smoke in elegant little circles. ‘I’ve said I’m bringing Oliver to advise Gus, but actually I want him to look at some paintings that are tucked away in the attic, which weren’t ever included in the inventory. They’re no use to Gus, they’d just be a burden to him. He’ll have to sell no end of paintings and things, or hand them over to the nation, because of all those dreadful death duties. So, out of the kindness of my heart, I thought I might put him in the way of avoiding some of that unjustifiable tax by taking away those pictures.’

‘A spot of theft?’

‘I have as much right to them as Gus. No questions, no lies. Oliver will dispose of them quietly and discreetly for me.’

‘Doesn’t Oliver work for Morville’s? I can’t see them involved in anything like that.’

‘Sharpen your wits, darling. Oliver, like any man of any sense, is always glad of a little extra. His work for Morville’s is completely above board and respectable. That was the Oliver who came and did the inventory. Now I’m taking him down to Selchester in his other persona. He has quite a reputation for doing private deals for people who have assets they want to dispose of without attracting any attention.’

Rupert didn’t like the sound of this. ‘Do you know why your father bought these paintings? And why he kept them in an attic?’

‘Heavens, don’t ask me. I suppose he was planning to have some kind of new gallery. I personally would have taken all those dreadful family portraits down and used the present gallery, but you know how tradition minded he was. He said one day these would be worth ten times what he’d paid for them. Thank goodness they were tucked away. Out of sight, out of mind and therefore out of reach of the tax man.’

Rupert looked at Sonia with something like despair. Did she really not understand? ‘Sonia, when people sell paintings, there’s a little thing called provenance.’

‘That won’t bother Oliver. He knows if paintings are genuine or not, and as long as he’s sure they are, the kind of collectors that he sells to aren’t that fussy.’ She gave him a sidelong glance. ‘Anyhow, didn’t you have something to do with those paintings? I seem to remember Selchester saying you put him in the way of acquiring them. You’d never have dared do that if you weren’t sure they were pukka.’

‘Wrong, my darling; I’ve never been a picture dealer.’

‘Of course not, that would be quite beneath you. Anyhow, if need be, and if any of his clients ask awkward questions, Oliver will just have to a do a bit of research. That’s what he has to do at Morville’s in any case.’

Rupert was thinking swiftly. It was a damn nuisance this lost heir popping up from nowhere. Sonia didn’t care, but if the new Lord Selchester came across the pictures or Sonia didn’t convince him they were hers, it could spell trouble. Oliver Seynton might prove useful, but could he be trusted?

‘Tell you what, Sonia, why don’t I come to Selchester with you?’

Sonia eyes widened in surprise. ‘You always go to the Westerhams for Christmas.’

‘It’s time for a change.’

Sonia said, ‘It’s all very well my accepting Gus’s open invitation, and Oliver will be there for professional reasons, but I don’t know that I can just invite you out of the blue. You don’t know Gus.’

Rupert said, ‘I knew his father. I’ll be a welcome guest. I know what, tell him we’re engaged. I did once ask you to marry me.’

‘Yes, you did. After Tom died, when I was going to inherit the Castle and all that lovely money and land and so on. Oh, happy days! Then time passed and I don’t remember you mentioning it again.’

‘A man has his pride. You didn’t exactly leap to accept my offer.’

‘I don’t want to marry you, that’s why.’

‘Your half-brother doesn’t have to know that. If I come with you as what he no doubt would call your fiancé, he’ll welcome me with open arms. How can he do otherwise? Besides, Americans have such perfect manners, he won’t turn me away from his ancestral doors.’

Sonia hummed a few bars of the
Wedding March
. ‘It’s not such a bad idea. It’s going to be a bore, a family Christmas. More fun if you’re there. And you’ll charm them, as you do everyone. They’ll adore you.’

‘If it’s such a bore, don’t go. Come to the Westerhams with me.’

Sonia’s face took on a closed look. ‘No. It isn’t just those paintings. There are various other things of mine there that I want.’

Deliberately casual, Rupert said, ‘Did Selchester’s notebook ever turn up?’

Sonia was suddenly alert. ‘Notebook? What are you talking about?’

Rupert said, ‘Selchester had a notebook. He called it his little black book, you know, like the one Thurloe had to keep him safe when Charles was restored.’

Sonia stared at him. She said sharply, ‘What on earth are you talking about? Charles? Restored? He’s dead.’

It was easy to forget just how ill-educated Sonia was. ‘Of course he’s dead. King Charles II, my love, he died a long time ago. Thurloe was in charge of intelligence during Oliver Cromwell’s time. You know about Oliver Cromwell? Puritan England?’

‘Of course I do. That Charles; I know about him. He hid up an oak tree. Dark days for the Selchesters; they kept having to bundle Jesuits into the attics. Then he came to the throne anyhow and enjoyed all those jolly wenches, Nell Gwyn and so on. The Merry Monarch.’

‘Yes. Well, Thurloe knew where the bodies were buried.’

‘Which bodies? Are we back to my father and the flagstones?’

‘No, we’re still in the seventeenth century. Thurloe knew which members of Cromwell’s circle were really in cahoots with Charles when he was in exile. And, more to the point, he knew which of Charles’s circle were secretly working for Cromwell. He wrote everything down in his little black book. Which meant that when Charles was restored to the throne there was no danger of Thurloe being prosecuted or held to account in any way for having served Cromwell so faithfully. As a result, he died peacefully in his bed.’

Sonia shrugged. ‘If you’re saying that Selchester had a black book, I never heard of it.’ She was lying. Rupert was sure she knew about the black notebook. ‘I’d quite like to get my hands on it,’ he said.

‘Afraid he wrote notes about you, Rupert? Wicked deeds that you’d rather no one knew about?’

Rupert said, ‘What wicked deeds? I’ve nothing to hide.’

That brought a peal of genuine laughter. ‘Oh, Rupert, you have plenty to hide.’

Rupert sat back, savouring his own cigarette. ‘Everybody has a few things in their life that they would rather didn’t come to the public eye.’

‘And, as a rising young politician with a promotion on the horizon, you don’t want anyone rocking the boat.’

‘What promotion?’

‘You don’t need to pretend with me. You saw the Chief Whip yesterday. Hamilton’s got to go; such a messy divorce; it simply won’t do. I hear that you’re going to be the one who gets the tap on the shoulder. That is, as long as you can flourish a blameless reputation. There have been a few too many scandals in the party, aren’t I right? Now you all have to be whiter than white.’

Rupert was confident that he had covered all his tracks well enough for it to be unlikely he’d to run into that kind of trouble. The few people who might be a threat to him could be headed off. Which was exactly why he wanted to get hold of that notebook of Selchester’s. For if ever there was a man who knew things about people that could be useful, it was Selchester. And Rupert, having been his personal private secretary at one time, had a fair idea of just how much Selchester wrote down in the notebook he kept so closely guarded.

‘Speak to your half-brother. I’m sure you can wangle me an invitation.’ He stubbed out his cigarette, grinding the end into the ashtray, and stood up. ‘Another turn about the floor?’

As Sonia slid into his arms, she said, ‘I shan’t ask Gus to invite you, I’ll simply ring up the Castle tomorrow and say you’re coming.’

Scene 2

Freya was on the telephone in Grace Hall when Hugo came down the next morning. She was having an animated conversation, the curly cord twisted round her fingers and a look of exasperation on her face. She mouthed at Hugo as he went past, ‘Sonia.’ He lifted his eyebrows in sympathy and went on his way towards the dining room.

Sonia was in full flood. ‘I wish the ghastly man would drop dead. Because, unless it turns out that he’s had a secret marriage and has a son that nobody knows about – like father, like son, how ironic that would be – I’m his heir. If he pops his clogs I inherit as Selchester always intended I should.’

Freya wasn’t going to let that pass. ‘That’s nonsense. Tom was the next heir. When your father died he had no idea that you were going to inherit.’

‘Of course I’d much rather that Tom hadn’t been killed but I did take a great deal of satisfaction in thinking that I could sell the Castle and get rid of everything that Selchester was so keen on.’

Freya had not yet got to the bottom of the bitterness that Sonia felt towards her father; a bitterness so intense that Freya had always wondered what had been in the pills beside his bed the night he died, that Sonia had ordered her to go and collect. ‘Nonetheless, Sonia, he is not going to die. He looks perfectly fit and healthy.’

Sonia interrupted, ‘I didn’t say he was going to catch the plague or anything like that. Accidents do happen. What are the daughters like? American rednecks? I’m sure they’re quite ghastly.’

Freya took a deep breath. She wasn’t going to lose her temper with Sonia although she felt like lashing out at her. ‘They’re perfectly civilised. Although the older one has obviously been reading rather too much Sartre.’

Sonia said, ‘Sartre? You mean she fancies herself an existentialist? Oh, spare me. Anyhow, I shall see for myself, because I’m coming to the Castle for Christmas.’

She dropped this bombshell without any warning and Freya was left speechless for a moment. ‘Are you sure that’s wise?’ she finally managed to say.

‘I’m not going to stab Gus in the back or poison him if that’s what you mean. He invited me to come visit, as he put it, at the Castle whenever I liked. I don’t suppose he meant over Christmas, but I intend to take him at his word. There are things in the Castle that are mine and I want to take them away. Oh, and I’m bringing Rupert with me.’

‘Rupert? Rupert who?’

‘Sharpen your wits, darling. Rupert Dauntsey. We’re engaged.’

Another bombshell.

‘You must know him. He was father’s Personal Private Secretary for a while before he moved on to higher things. He’s an MP now. Too, too Establishment, but he’s deliciously rich.’

Freya shut her eyes for a moment. Would it be better to have Sonia on her own or with Rupert? She vaguely remembered a rather charming, suave man, who’d made no particular impression on her.