Over the next hour, the family ate around the coffee table where the King had taken his last breath. Jon had concocted a platter full of leftovers and put them on the sideboard. The family filled their plates. He made Miss Darcy her own Christmas dinner, and she sat down and ate with the family. She was one of them, just as he had always wanted to be. When he was done, there wasn’t anything left but meat and gravy.
Jon was starving. He didn’t know if the pain in his gut was the tumour or his stomach screaming. But he didn’t have time to eat – and wasn’t interested in the scraps. He probably wouldn’t have been able to keep anything down anyway.
When the doctor told him it was cancer, he didn’t cry. When he was told it was inoperable, he didn’t even flinch. He only cried when he thought of leaving the Royal Family behind. Now, he saw they were more than fine without him. They were flourishing.
The younger ones were playing Monopoly. The King couldn’t be further from the topic of conversation. It was almost as if it had never happened. All was the same except his favourite armchair, which remained empty.
Martin was already out – he was pestering his elders. David and Marjorie sat furthest from the table, their plates perched on their laps, deep in muttered conversation. ‘Did you know that gorillas don’t beat their chests with their fists, they beat them with their open palms?’ The two of them barely heard the boy and definitely didn’t acknowledge him.
Miss Darcy had just finished her meal and was currently buying a swath of houses to put on her purple set. She was winning the game.
In more ways than one.
‘More wine please, Jon.’
This from Emeline. At one time, she was his chief defence. It was her idea that he become the investigator. He came over and poured her a glass, making sure everyone else was topped up as well. Maybe David had been right all day – he was the butler.
Not one of them had questioned the food they had been brought. Jon had gotten back to the kitchens to see the leftovers all exposed, and he thought long and hard about whether to serve them. Any of the family could have poisoned the leftovers – they all had ample opportunity. But no one else seemed concerned with that anymore. And he would have been lying if he said that he didn’t simply serve it because he was expected to.
A life of doing as he was told. That was the life he’d left Barbados to find – apparently. Ever since he’d left, he’d sought out someone to lord over him. Well, he’d hit the mother lode here.
‘That’s not fair,’ Matthew wailed as he landed on one of Miss Darcy’s populated spaces. ‘I’m bankrupt. No – I’m not mortgaging anything. I’m gracefully going down with the ship.’ He thrust himself back on the chaise longue, laughing.
Could Jon blame them? The family were mourning. They were suggestible. It was highly likely that at least some of them were putting up some kind of shield. Jon had seen it plenty of times – that shield. They were all acting like they were in public. He’d also seen the shield come down.
Matthew shuffled back so far on the chaise longue, that he ended up losing balance and falling off the end. He fell to the floor in a tipsy bundle of limbs. Something that had been placed under the chaise longue skittered off to the side and collided against the right wall. Matthew burst out laughing, and everyone else did too.
But the laughter soon stopped when the tinkle of a music-box tune started. ‘God Save the King.’ It was the puzzle box, Interregnum, that had skittered to the wall, and its impact had triggered the tune to commence.
The shield came down.
The family let the day back in.
‘I may turn in for the night,’ David said, finishing his drink and swallowing a sob along with it.
‘Good idea,’ Marjorie said – her liver, no doubt, rejoicing.
‘Bloody hell, it is late, isn’t it?’ Matthew said, getting up, dusting himself down, and looking at the clock on the mantel. It was almost eleven p.m. Almost Boxing Day.
‘Maybe we should all go to bed, yes?’ Miss Darcy said. ‘Everything will seem a trifle better in the morning. Maybe the blizzard will have even stopped.’
They all started collecting themselves and filing out of the room. Emeline went first, eyeing the music box and drying her eyes with her handkerchief. Maud collected her family group and ushered them out. David strode out of the room. Not one of them acknowledged Jon standing at attention by the door.
The only ones left were Jon, Miss Darcy, and Marjorie. The Princess Royal was trying and failing to get up from the chaise longue. ‘You know, maybe I should just sleep here tonight.’
‘Nonsense,’ Miss Darcy said. ‘Hardly a bed fit for a queen, is it?’
This was the right thing to say.
‘I’ll help you to your bedroom, ma’am.’
Miss Darcy had bent down to help her but stopped and turned. She stared directly at Jon, that damned smile still haunting her face. ‘Jon, what are you still doing here? You are dismissed. If I were you, I’d have half a mind to stay out of everyone’s way from here on out, yes? Why don’t you go back to your little kitchens and say goodbye?’
Jon didn’t glorify that with a response. He merely nodded to her, ‘Miss Darcy,’ and to Marjorie, ‘Your Royal Highness. Happy Christmas to you both.’ He liked to think that that stuck in them somehow – him taking the high road – but the reality was that they probably didn’t even care.
Out in the corridor, Jon dropped the decorum. He sank to his knees and let out a sob of pain. His gut was on fire. Standing so still for hours had physically exhausted him, and the scene had destroyed him. It was over. It was all over.
Wilson the cat trotted up to him out of nowhere and started rubbing himself on Jon’s shin. At least someone was still on his side. Jon went to stroke him, but Wilson seemed to have other ideas – he went to the drawing room door and started pawing it, trying to get it open.
Jon went to the door, and was just about to open it, when he heard the conversation from within. He picked up Wilson to stop him banging the door. At first the cat relented, and then it settled into his arms purring softly. So much so Jon had to strain to hear.
‘Oh, leave me alone, silly little girl. You do not know what you’re talking about.’ One did not have to point out that this was Marjorie.
‘I do not want to speak out of turn, Your Royal Highness, but would now be a good time to let go of that secret you have been holding on to so firmly? The barriers are down now, it could almost be some kind of redemption story.’
‘What would be the good of that?’ Marjorie snapped.
Miss Darcy applied the sweetness of which she had an infinite supply. ‘This family is cracking – we need a new glue to hold it together. For you. For the country. For the British public. This could be that glue. A new chapter.’
‘And I suppose you know everything of this secret, do you?’
‘I know everything about you, Your Royal Highness. It is my job. And everything about every other member of your family. I could let you know things.’
‘Do you know where my daughter was that day in Plymouth?’
‘What?’ It seemed Miss Darcy was caught off guard by this.
‘Did I stutter? Do you know where my daughter was that day in Plymouth? She was thirty minutes late for the opening of that stupid cat place. How does that happen? Do you know where she was?’
‘. . . No. No, I don’t.’
‘Then what use are you to me? You know what? How dare you. I see your game, Tharigold. You are trying to threaten me. Well, curse you, and curse Fairfax before you. I can give as good as I get. My secret is just that – mine. I’d like to spill some of your secrets too. Your family has plenty – the mighty Stellan Tharigold’s niece, hmm? How many skeletons are in his closet? Be gone. I will stay here for the night. I rather think a nightcap is in order anyhow. Be gone. Unless you have a wine bottle opener. A corker. A skewer. One of those things.’
‘Ma’am, I did not mean . . . ’
‘Be gone.’
Miss Darcy’s footsteps could be heard coming closer, and Jon shrunk into the nearest alcove as she appeared out of the door. She stalked past him before stopping. She couldn’t have seen him, but she had. ‘Jon, you’re still here.’
Jon stepped out of the alcove, making a show of drying his eyes. She seemed to believe that he wasn’t eavesdropping. ‘I’m always here. Or I used to be. For the King and for the Crown.’
Miss Darcy rolled her eyes. ‘Give me your walkie-talkie. I am going to try and hail Tony. I’ll get a signal if it kills me. I’ll climb to the top of the tower if I have to. This all needs to end, I’m sure you’ll agree.’
Jon let Wilson jump from his hands and unclipped the walkie from his belt.
‘It’s better this way, Jon,’ Miss Darcy said as she took it. ‘You may even see that one day. Now, off to your kitchens.’
Jon obeyed, never looking back – thinking on Marjorie Windsor-Nueberner’s secret every step of the way.