The square of sevens, p.12
The Square of Sevens, page 12
Our faces were twin masks of inscrutability. I’d hidden the codicil beneath the loose floorboard in my bedroom. I couldn’t think about it now, and yet Henry’s search demanded that I did. How did he even know about the codicil? Lazarus Darke, I presumed.
‘No matter,’ he said, when I offered nothing more upon the subject. ‘I want to talk to you about that old parchment of my cousin’s: The Square of Sevens.’
‘It burned in the fire,’ I said. ‘Only a few copies of the book survived.’
‘But where did it come from originally? Did he ever say?’
‘From my former guardian, Mr Williams.’
‘You’re sure about that?’
‘His servants liked to read it. It’s how I learned to lay the Square of Sevens.’
‘Do you know how Mr Williams acquired it?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘But I was very young then. I’d scarcely remember.’
Since then Henry had never stopped looking for the codicil, opening every drawer, every cupboard. I didn’t know how to stop him. I didn’t know how to stop any of this. I rested my head against the newel post at the bottom of the stairs.
‘Rachel, is that you? Can you come in here, please?’
Henry was standing by the mahogany cabinet, some folios in his hand. More papers were piled upon the desk. The doors of Mr Antrobus’s cabinet of curiosities were open. Henry had replaced some of the lesser treasures with his favourite birds’ eggs. More eggs in glass-fronted cases were arranged around the room.
Henry followed my gaze. ‘They look very well there, don’t you think?’ Without waiting for an answer, he invited me to sit. ‘I met with Mr Edwards today. The power of attorney has been granted. Only, it seems we have another lamentable business upon our hands. Mr Edwards informs me that Mr Antrobus’s estate is heavily encumbered by debt. I’m afraid my cousin has been rather reckless in his spending. He wanted you to have the best of everything, and so we shall not fault him overly much, but once his debts are settled, I regret to say there will be very little money left.’
I stared at him. ‘That cannot be true. Mr Antrobus was never reckless about anything in his life. That lawyer must be lying. Mrs Fremantle never trusted him.’
‘I’ve been over the figures myself,’ Henry said. ‘I’m afraid that it’s true. Please don’t distress yourself, my dear. I have a little money, enough to secure this house. We shall not starve.’
‘Where are the accounts?’ I said. ‘I’d like to see them.’
He placed a hand upon my arm. ‘My dear, you are distressed, and little wonder. I feel rather conflicted in my emotions myself. But you must not doubt his love for you. Your welfare was always uppermost in his mind. In the event of his incapacity or death, your guardianship passes to me, a trust that I am honoured to receive. Indeed, given the parlous state of my cousin’s affairs, it makes me wonder if he had a particular design in mind.’
I frowned. ‘What design?’
He was looking at me strangely, his eyes rather misty. An odd little smile played on his lips, much like the one he’d worn that day last year when I’d told his fortune. ‘My cousin saw and understood much,’ he said softly. ‘Perhaps more than we even did ourselves.’
His matter of the heart. I stared at him, comprehension dawning. How could I have been so blind? I, who called myself a reader of souls? I pushed back my chair violently, disturbed as much by my own failures, as the realization itself.
‘We shall ask Mr Antrobus when he is better,’ I managed to say. ‘Then we shall be in no doubt as to his plans.’
Henry’s eyes brimmed with sympathy. ‘Oh, Rachel—’ He started to say more, but I fled from the room, unable to hear it.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Nine of hearts, influenced by a spade: a wish fulfilled, but followed by some detrimental event.
IN THOSE DREADFUL days after London, I thought often of the past. The woman who had given birth to me. The men who had raised me. The men who had wronged me.
To this latter list, I added the lawyer, Mr Edwards. I was convinced he was lying about Mr Antrobus’s money. One day, having tried in vain for several weeks to see the accounts, I took myself off to his office and demanded a meeting. But he only sent for Henry, who escorted me home and gave me a lecture about leaving our household affairs to him. I was perplexed by his lack of concern. He wouldn’t listen to my attempts to convince him. My frustration festered, until it more closely resembled suspicion. Had Henry and the lawyer conspired to defraud me of my money? Did he plan to coerce me into marriage, the only alternative a life of poverty?
My anger fed upon my distress. I felt powerless to act. I shut myself away with Mr Antrobus, emerging only for meals, or to take long walks across the countryside when it all became too much. One day, when I returned home from one of these walks, a hired coach was pulled up outside the house. Henry was in the hall in his travelling cloak, talking to Mrs Davenport.
‘Ah, Rachel, there you are,’ he said. ‘I have to go to London unexpectedly. I don’t like leaving you at such a time, but it is unavoidable. Mrs Davenport has offered to stay here with you while I am away.’
I heard this news with some relief. ‘How long will you be gone?’
‘The best part of a week. I hope not too much more.’
Later, after I had sat with Mr Antrobus, Mrs Davenport and I played cribbage in the drawing room. She chattered on about inconsequential matters, one of those people who respond to tragedy by banishing it from the room. Every time I opened my mouth to speak, she looked nervous.
‘I called on Julius De Lacy while I was in London,’ I said. ‘He was not at home, but I met his nephew, a gentleman named Archibald Montfort.’
She seized gratefully upon the topic. ‘Archie Montfort, now there’s a feast for the eyes. I don’t suppose he told you that his father was the De Lacys’ former steward?’
‘I don’t think he mentioned it,’ I said.
‘I imagine not.’ She smiled rather unkindly. ‘After Archie’s father died, his mother married Julius’s younger brother, Septimus. A poor match for a De Lacy, though she is a great beauty.’
I recalled that a George Montfort, presumably Archie’s father, had been the second witness to the codicil. And Septimus had been mentioned in the codicil too. He had been left the sum of one shilling, just like his brother, Julius; my mother; and their cousin, Peter, the late Earl of Seabrooke.
‘I hear the De Lacys remain in London,’ Mrs Davenport went on. ‘They normally summer at their Devonshire estate. Did Montfort say what is keeping them in town?’
‘I’m afraid not,’ I said. ‘We mainly talked about the elopement of Patience De Lacy.’
Mrs Davenport’s eyes snapped up from her cards. ‘It is talk like that which will get you into trouble. The De Lacys are a powerful family and very sensitive to malicious gossip. Especially given their legal affairs. Neither Julius De Lacy nor Lady Seabrooke are the sort to forget a grudge. Guard your words carefully, my dear.’
Disappointed by her circumspection, I changed tack. ‘I confess I find all this legal business rather baffling.’
‘You seem rather fixated upon the De Lacys,’ Mrs Davenport said, but her tone lacked censure. She always appreciated an opportunity to demonstrate her knowledge of current affairs. ‘The two are connected, of course: the family schism, and the scandal of which we will not speak. They say it was the night Nicholas De Lacy discovered his daughter missing, that he suffered his first apoplexy. His second, a few months later, was the one that killed him. Under the terms of his will, his eldest surviving son, Julius, inherited the bulk of his estate, with smaller bequests for his widow, his daughters, and his younger son.’
‘But the Seabrooke side of the family contested it?’
‘Certainly they did. To understand it, you have to first understand the family history.’ Mrs Davenport paused to lay down her cards, count her points, and move her peg. ‘Like most disputed wills, it all comes down to bad blood between fathers and sons. Nicholas’s father, the first Earl of Seabrooke, was a natural son of the second King Charles. His mother was an actress, born plain Bess Lacy. They say the first earl never quite got over not being made a duke like the King’s other natural sons. One man’s gift is another man’s grudge, that’s what I always say.’
She paused, smiling, as if in contemplation of male vanity. ‘Nicholas’s resentment was rather more understandable. His father lavished everything upon his heir, Thomas, and had no time at all for his younger son. The half-brothers were never close, and relations between them worsened after the Bubble burst, when Thomas, by then the second Earl of Seabrooke, lost most of his fortune. Conversely, Nicholas, thanks to his gypsy fortune teller, became very rich. He bought up his brother’s estates, and those of many other ruined investors. Farms, mining concerns, land on the western edge of London on which he built houses. Sadly for him, his good fortune did not extend to his children. His eldest boy, Virgil, died young, without issue, and Julius became his heir, as we have discussed. Yet both Julius and his brother, Septimus, proved a disappointment.’
‘Why was that?’
Mrs Davenport gave me a look: another forbidden topic. ‘All we will allow, is that Nicholas was known for his unforgiving nature. He disinherited both his sons, and as he desired a male heir, he sought a rapprochement with his half-brother. He then drew up a codicil to his will – a document which has become known as the Seabrooke Codicil – leaving the bulk of his estate to his nephew, Peter.’
A codicil that presumably predated the one beneath my floorboard, which was dated only a month before Nicholas De Lacy’s death.
‘Yet in the autumn of 1723,’ Mrs Davenport went on, ‘following his first attack of apoplexy, Nicholas burned the Seabrooke Codicil. That part, at least, is uncontested. He died only a short time later, and Julius laid claim to the estate under the terms of the original will. Well, Lord Seabrooke and his son didn’t accept it, not for a moment. They contended that Nicholas hadn’t been in his right mind when he’d destroyed that codicil. It was even suggested that he had been prevailed upon to do so.’
‘By Julius?’
‘Or his mother. Or the steward, George Montfort. Or other members of the family, who did not wish to see their cousin enriched. That first suit failed in the Prerogative Court and on appeal before the High Court of Delegates. So Julius inherited the lot.’
‘Then why are legal cases still being heard today?’
‘Because the Earls of Seabrooke aren’t ones for giving up. When Peter inherited his father’s lands and title, he brought new suit against Julius – his wife was said to be the driving force behind it. Where there was money – and the Seabrookes borrowed heavily – their lawyers found new avenues for legal redress. There was a suit in Chancery that dragged on for years, and a sensational trial before the King’s Bench, where all manner of wrongdoing was alleged. After the death of her husband last year, Lady Seabrooke continued the fight on behalf of her son, Leopold, the fourth earl.’
‘Was anything ever said in court about a second codicil?’
Mrs Davenport smiled. ‘The Grandchild Codicil. I was just coming to that part. Long ago, during that first suit in the Prerogative Court, Nicholas’s secretary testified that he had witnessed the signing of a second codicil, leaving the estate to his eldest grandchild. Given that he had no grandchildren at the time, it would have prompted quite a dash to the altar – but George Montfort testified that he had witnessed his master destroy that codicil too.’
Lazarus Darke must be the secretary in question, I thought. And George Montfort must have lied. Surely the codicil in question was the one in my possession?
During my hours sitting with Mr Antrobus, I had attempted to draw up an ancestral tree of the De Lacy family, and this conversation with Mrs Davenport had filled several gaps in my knowledge. Most of all, she’d cemented my belief that I was the rightful heir to the De Lacy fortune. The codicil had been signed only a month before my birth, and no elder grandchildren had existed at the time. The only part that confused me was why my father would have stolen it. By doing so, he had ensured that his own child was disinherited. It made no sense.
‘The whole episode with the second codicil did rather add to the impression that Nicholas had been behaving erratically before his death,’ Mrs Davenport went on. ‘Julius was said to be furious, and dismissed the secretary from his family’s service. Since then, of course, everything has been visited and revisited many times. The Seabrooke Codicil, the Grandchild Codicil, Nicholas’s state of mind – all to the benefit of nobody but the lawyers.’
Did that mean Lazarus Darke wasn’t working for Julius De Lacy after all? Who, then, was his client? Lady Seabrooke? Were there matters of personal revenge at work here, on top of everything else?
The conversation also raised a moral question in my mind. Even if I wanted to lay claim to the money, even if I found the means to do so, would it be right? If Nicholas De Lacy’s mind had been impaired when he had destroyed the Seabrooke Codicil, then any subsequent codicil did not reflect his true intention. Yet he had asserted in the Grandchild Codicil, that whilst weak in body, he was sound in mind.
I wondered whether I could glean any sense of his sanity from his signature. To my memory, it was written in a bold, ostentatious hand. I duly made my excuses to Mrs Davenport, and went upstairs. Fetching a bodkin from my sewing box, I knelt to pull back the rug. Carefully, I prised up the floorboard, and gazed into the void below. A cold, sick dread broke over me.
The codicil was gone.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Ten of spades, influenced by like suit: a disgrace.
THEY SIT IN the shadows, at a table sticky with spilled wine. In the centre of the room are four larger tables, on each a silver platter. On each platter stand two naked girls, writhing, kissing, and licking. The girls are too young for this sort of work, but Henry Antrobus insisted upon meeting here. Lazarus wonders if that is why he chose it.
Then Henry produces the codicil from his pocket, banishing all Lazarus’s concern for the girls and his dislike of the man in front of him. He takes it in his hands and draws it close.
It is nearly seventeen years since he held it last. He recognizes Nicholas De Lacy’s flamboyant signature, his own jagged penmanship, and the neat copperplate of the late, self-serving traitor, George Montfort.
‘Where did you find it?’ he asks.
‘In the house,’ Henry says, vaguely.
Lazarus frowns. ‘I wonder why your cousin didn’t admit to having it. It was no benefit to him.’
‘I cannot say.’ The topic plainly bores Henry. ‘Perhaps we might discuss the terms of sale?’
‘I’ll give you five hundred pounds for it.’
Henry smiles. ‘Do you mistake me for a country farmer, come to London atop my turnip wagon?’
‘Heaven forbid,’ Lazarus says. ‘Farming is an honest trade.’
‘I know the value of this document to your client, sir. I also know that there are other courses of action that I might take.’
‘And then my client would be forced to involve the law.’
Threat and counter-threat. Neither of them mean it. Henry wouldn’t be sitting here now if he wasn’t intending to agree terms. They haggle for a time and settle upon twelve hundred.
Lazarus would have paid more. As much as it takes, is his instruction from the lady. As he counts the notes, he wonders from where she obtained them. A moneylender? A friend? A lover? The thought makes him hesitate, just for a moment.
Henry tucks the money away. He takes a tiny golden heart from his pocket, and presses the charm to his lips, in what Lazarus takes to be an act of celebration.
Their business concluded, Lazarus rises to leave, and a memory weaves its way through his curt farewell.
He is in the drawing room of De Lacy House. Ten large windows overlook Piccadilly and the darkened park beyond. Anyone else would have ordered the curtains drawn by now, but Nicholas De Lacy likes the world to admire his wealth. A hundred candles burn, three vast fireplaces blazing against the winter chill. Lazarus sits next to his employer at a mahogany table, the not-yet dead, not-yet traitor George Montfort on his other side. They are discussing a proposal to establish a proprietary colony in the Americas, between the fertile soil of the Carolinas and the swamp of Spanish Florida. George Montfort is all for it. Lazarus, who fears the land is more swamp than fertile soil, has reservations.
Normally, he could clean his boots with Montfort, but tonight he is distracted by a different rivalry altogether. At the other end of the room, a small crowd is gathered around a second mahogany table. John Jory Jago is telling fortunes for the De Lacy daughters. Two red heads are bent to look at the cards. John Jory’s hair is black, thick and wild, neither short nor long. His thin face is a place of hollows in which shadows pool in the candlelight. The flames glint on the golden guineas stacked by his side and on the golden embroidery of his indigo coat. Lazarus asked him the meaning of the hieroglyphs once, but Jago only smiled. He wonders if Jago even knows himself.
Lazarus doesn’t like the hold Jago has over his employer, and he is far harder to see off than George Montfort. How can you counter the arguments of a man who laughs at reason? Who deals in stars and omens and fortunes? Mr De Lacy calls him a gypsy, but that is an insult to the Romani. He is a charlatan who once got lucky in the small matter of the South Sea Bubble. Lazarus doesn’t like Jago enriching himself at the De Lacys’ expense. He doesn’t like the confidence of Jago’s years and his awareness of his own good looks. Nor does he like the way Jago watches Patience De Lacy, just as he’s watching her now. Her voice rises: Turn over my wish-cards – no patience there! – hence Luna, her pet-name used by intimates.
The girls are flirting, touching their hair, making warm eyes at Jago. Another rivalry there, though it’s only for sport. They’ll laugh about him later when he’s gone.
I made John Jory blush.
You never did. He doesn’t blush.
