Autumn, 1874
Court of Chancery
He had not known she was there that day. How could he know? The court was always crowded, noisy, disorganized, with folk pushing in to spectate and gossip, to bathe in the lurid details of other people’s family scandal.
“Professor Mayferry, this letter, newly discovered by you and presented to the court today, shows nothing more than your uncle’s fondness for his sister’s son. Even if the handwriting can be proven, it is no more compelling an argument for your case than the scribbled notation you contend, erroneously, to be Sir Mungo’s true last will and testament. A scrap of paper that— to paraphrase Mr. Charles Dickens— has more gravy than grave intention upon it.”
The crowd bubbled and spat with laughter.
Dash looked then, properly for the first time that morning, at the gentleman on the stand. The professor appeared ghostly grey and worn, he thought. Much older than the last time he attended court with some new piece of “evidence” in his suit.
“I would advise you, sir, to turn your efforts elsewhere. Surely you have other affairs that would better benefit from your attention. You are a respected scientist, a man of invention, but I fear you have let your mind be wasted on this matter for far too long. This claim has become another of your inventions, I think, but one that will lead you not to success and fortune, but will undo your good works and end in your ruin.” He looked over at the Lord Chancellor. “M’lud, there is nothing new here. This letter is no more evidence of Sir Mungo’s plans, than the pattern of wet tea leaves in a china cup, turned in the hands of a gypsy, can foretell the future.”
Later, Dash would think he should have been gentler, but he was just as frustrated with this case as anybody and, truth be told, had Professor Mayferry actually come forward with strong evidence to clear up the matter, once and for all, he could have been relieved. If anybody had unequivocal proof to slap down before the Lord Chancellor, they could all put their heavy files away and move on.
After all, this was not his only active case. Stempenham warned him against taking on too much, but for Dash there was no such thing as too much work. He lived to be busy. Work drove him, turned his cog wheels, fired his passion.
Inside that courtroom, from its clattering, muddied floorboards to the cobwebbed rafters, there was an atmosphere he relished; the seething energy, the pulling, pushing and thrusting made him feel renewed, no matter how tired he had been when he rose from bed that morning. Many found those surroundings gloomy and bereft of hope, but he believed in searching through the detritus to find justice. He strongly felt that his purpose was to set right the wrongs in which folk found themselves entrapped.
“You have not had time yet to know the futility of trying to save the world,” one of his fellow lawyers had laughed scornfully. “It will come.”
The Lord Chancellor, in his fine silks, sitting high above them all, found Dash Deverell an amusing young man— liked his vigor and, perhaps, saw in the youthful figure his own self, some years ago, before he grew jaded and weary. He praised and welcomed Deverell’s vitality; his determination to get things done; the fresh air he seemed to bring into the courtroom, and the energy he possessed to stir things up.
In his unkempt wig, with grizzled cheeks and the breath of an old, warm cheese, the Lord Chancellor leaned down slowly and bellowed in a condescending tone, “Do you have anything else for us this morning, Professor Mayferry? If not, I suggest you take your daughter out of the courthouse and find for her a good, hot pie and some strong ale. She looks decidedly green about the gills. We do not want her fainting in the court, do we?”
That was the moment Dash turned and saw her seated there in the shadows, just a thin, bluish light slipping through a small, grimy, upper window and touching her face with wistful fingertips. Their eyes met, and he felt her hatred as if it got up and struck him. With both hands.
It was then eighteen months since he saw her for the first time, at a ball with Frederick Ellendale. He had saved her from that ignominy, but she would never know.
“Miss Mayferry?” he murmured. A belated bow, did nothing to ease her evident contempt.
She rose up swiftly, took her father’s arm and hurried him out of the room, pushing their way through the crowd of spectators, reporters and waiting barristers.
He paused a moment, at a loss, the blood draining out through his boots, and then he went after them, putting the strength of his own shoulder to the unruly crowd, pushing to separate the knot of people and help her get free. For these efforts he received only a scowl of intense fury, flung over her shoulder.
Dash followed them out of the courthouse.
“Professor Mayferry, allow me to—”
“Kindly leave us alone, Mr. Deverell,” she exclaimed, breathless.
“But I wanted to say—”
“I believe you have said quite enough and you seemed to take great pleasure in doing so, with no deference granted to a man twice your age and five times your consequence. To humiliate a man like my father in that public way! How dare you! Wretched, despicable man!”
“Daughter! Daughter!” The professor patted her arm. “You must not speak so hotly in the street. You are a lady and a Mayferry. We must not let our tempers get the better of us, must we? That would make us no better than a Deverell.” He fell into a wracking cough that almost sent him to his knees, and Miss Mayferry turned to him in concern.
Dash stepped forward, meaning to assist again. He was worried, not only about the professor, but also for the young lady, who looked pale and thin. Her hand, pressed to her father’s brow, was clearly trembling.
But they would not accept his help. Father and daughter walked away, the cold autumn air blowing her skirt about with enough thrust to push her sideways. She put her head down and strove onward.
He felt fresh rain in his face, spiteful prickles that reminded him of spittle and of a windy autumn day from his boyhood, when two village lads waited in the leaf-strewn lane to spit on him, throw conkers and call him a bastard. An idea they soon regretted.
Since there was nothing else to be done, he went back to work.
That evening, in his lodgings above The Mad Boar, he sat down after supper and wrote a letter to Professor Mayferry; an apology that was also well-meant advice, but which suffered somewhat from the disease that pervades most young men who, starting out in the world with what they believe is a keen understanding of its ways and wherefores, have known early success to assure them of it and very few failures to disabuse them of the notion— the fever of overconfidence. Although Dash Deverell was not known for admitting his own faults— indeed, he did not think he had any— his letter conceded that Miss Mayferry was in the right when she said that he should not have spoken as harshly as he did, in public, to her father. But these things still required to be said. His only fault, he allowed in this letter, was that he did not say them privately. Miss Mayferry, he wrote, did not conceive of how the law worked, the process of court, and how a man who stood up to push his suit should expect to be challenged and quizzed. It was not within her powers of understanding. Miss Mayferry, he added, ought not go to court, if she found it so objectionable.
“Ladies of delicate emotion and frayed nerves,” he wrote, “should stay at home. And sew. Or find some other occupation, where they can be of use without harming their health, or that of anybody else.”
It should be said that he had imbibed several glasses of wine with his supper and followed that up with more than a few brandies. And he was unaccustomed to the excess, being a young man generally of moderate habits; a man who savored good food and drink, despising waste and abuse of any kind, and appreciating fine brandy as an occasional luxury, rather than a nightly tipple.
Before he might think twice, he blotted his letter, sealed it, and found a boy to take it across town to the house of Mr. Randal Hawtry, where he knew the professor stayed whenever he came to London.
He received no reply from Professor Mayferry, but a letter from the gentleman’s daughter arrived the following afternoon, while, yet to recover from his thumping headache, he had resolved never to drink to excess ever again.
She had made a resolution of her own.
“From now until the end of time, I shall consider you my Mortal Enemy and hope never to look upon your face again.”
They were all fools, he thought. Born into wealth, comfort and luxury, and apparently not possessing the slightest idea of how to hold onto it. They were too full of pride and so accustomed to having other people do everything for them, that they lost the use of their own wits. Like muscles that were never put to work, they atrophied and became useless, soft. Withered.
Well, he had offered his advice— and his advice, by the way, earned him good money from those with the sense to want it— and had it handed back to him with neither gratitude nor civility.
He should have thrown her letter into his fire and let it burn. But he did not. He kept it. The paper, you see, smelled of her fragrance. Not deliberately, he was certain, but some little part of her had left its trace there inadvertently. Also, of course, it contained her writing, which was very neat, concise and beautifully set upon the paper, as if it flowed like the sweeping flight of a swan.
Every so often, he took the letter out and enjoyed a stolen breath of her. Eventually he took it to Stanbury House and put it away in his locked desk drawer, in the library, along with another souvenir he kept of the delightful Miss Daisy Mayferry, his self-proclaimed “Mortal Enemy”.
He really had no good reason for saving these items, which is probably why he kept the drawer locked to save himself from any need to find either an explanation or an excuse.
* * *
Sir Mungo Lightfoot Mayferry McClumphy, despite having reputedly enjoyed several lusty affairs with ladies from various walks of life in the span of his fifty-five years, never took a lawful bride. Consequently, he died without legal heir, but with a great fortune, accumulated through years of reckless and yet surprisingly successful investments, gambles and contrivances that— some might say— skirted the boundaries of law.
Upon his sudden, explosive demise on the last day of the year 1856, a number of letters and wills were produced, some discounted immediately as fraudulent, but some unable to be dismissed for one reason or another. And so began the confusion which led to disagreement, strife and, ultimately, the infamous lawsuit entangling three different branches of Sir Mungo’s family.
The gentleman had two younger brothers, both of whom had married and produced sons— this formed the McClumphy side of the fight. But he also had two sisters who married cousins and also produced offspring: the Lightfoots and the Mayferrys. Professor Marius Mayferry, therefore was the son of Sir Mungo’s sister, Rosanna, who, so the Mayferrys insisted, had been his favorite sister.
It was well known that the gentleman had little fondness for his brothers. They were now both deceased, but their sons were still living, the eldest of Sir Mungo’s nephews having inherited the baronetcy and the title, while the fortune remained in dispute. A few years before Sir Mungo died, much to the old gentleman’s disgust, this nephew had married a shrill, dominating woman by the name of Madeline. The old gentleman could not abide Madeline and made no secret of it. Almost all communication with that side of the family had thereby ceased. Nevertheless, the McClumphys maintained that, at some point in his last few months, Sir Mungo had put aside this feud and offered an olive branch, and the reason for this change of heart? Madeline had birthed a son that summer— his first great nephew— and this child, being male, would be heir to the baronetcy. It made sense, they said, that Sir Mungo would make amends on the birth of a great nephew and wish to leave his fortune where it was needed to uphold the ancient and crumbling estate.
But while Sir Mungo could not dictate which of his nephews inherited the title, he could dispense of his privately amassed fortune however he wished.
“It only makes sense that the old man’s money would go with the title,” Lady Madeline McClumphy had exclaimed, standing in Dash’s office one day, soon after he took over the case in the eighteenth year of its existence. “I declare myself quite sick of saying it. There is a fourteenth-century castle in need of repair, and one can hardly expect a person to live there without having the means to restore and maintain it. Naturally, my husband’s uncle intended for the money to come to us, in conjunction with the baronetcy. All of the money too and not a pittance of an allowance, which the damned Lightfoots have the gall to suggest.” She had tapped her husband’s shoulder, since he sat in a chair beside her, suffering a bad case of gout and with his foot thickly wrapped like an Egyptian mummy. “Tell them, Sir Montagu. Must I always be the one with a sore throat? Will you not speak up on behalf of our son and your heir?”
“My dear, I am quite capable of speaking. If only there was an opportunity to be heard. And I should dearly love to save you from a sore throat. If only there was a chance to stop you talking, without making it a permanent arrangement.”
Hiding a smile, Dash had said, “I agree, madam, that the sensible course of action would have been for the gentleman to leave a large portion of his fortune—”
“The bulk of it, if not every penny!” she insisted firmly and loudly.
“—Along with the title, in order to finance the necessary repairs to the castle. But it would also have been sensible to make a concise, official Last Will and Testament, stating his desire in such a manner as to avoid all confusion. Unfortunately, the reason we are all still here is that Sir Mungo did not act in a sensible manner. He was, in fact, renown for not acting in a sensible manner.”
She did not like this answer. It made her shoulders wriggle and her bosom rise up like two giant sea monsters from the frothy lace waves of her gown. “And why, may I ask, are we now to be fobbed off with a junior?” she demanded, tapping her husband’s shoulder again. “This boy has not long been admitted to the bar, surely. He cannot be much older than our Mortimer.”
“Lady McClumphy, I assure you I am well-qualified, capable and dedicated. Mr. Stempenham would not have allowed me to take on this case, if he did not have every confidence in my work.”
“He’s quite right, Madeline,” her husband grumbled. “We can trust Stempenham to know whether this lad is up to it. Besides, from what I hear there are few solicitors so tenacious as Deverell here. Now, put a cork in it and let the lad speak. You’re making my foot hurt with the ruddy vibrations of your flapping epiglottis. Dearest.”
She was not happy about it, but since Dash had agreed to work for less fee than previously charged and Stempenham was now semi-retired, the McClumphys had agreed to let him continue representing their suit for a trial period. When he proved to be a fierce and staunch defender of their cause, a tough, unflinching fighter, there were no more complaints.
But it seemed as if, every month or so, some new claimant appeared upon the scene. Some were friends of Sir Mungo, to whom he had promised a gift upon his death. Some were lovers. All had papers to “prove” their case, and all had to be investigated.
Sir Mungo had been a gentleman of contrary moods and passionate, sudden decisions. All his correspondence stood as proof to this fact. His life was full of ups and downs; a friend one day, could become a foe the next. He traveled about a great deal, growing bored quickly if he stayed too long in one place, and he conducted his relationships in the same way as he undertook his restless, unpredictable travels. Like a Roman Emperor, he gorged on wine, women and food; his appetite was insatiable, the pleasures of life ransacked like an enemy encampment.
He was, in short, a remarkable figure, larger than life.
Evidently, he had lived just a little too hard in the end and his own body could not keep up with his spirit.
Dash Deverell strongly suspected the fellow would have been exhausting to know, infuriating, perplexing and downright unreliable. But he wished he’d known him, all the same. Sir Mungo would have been an interesting old bird to study.
Besides, had he been in a position to advise the gentleman, he would have made certain he wrote a proper, blasted will.
After that day in court, when the professor and his daughter fled the scene in a tantrum, Dash decided he must have a better, more complete picture of the man at the heart of all this chaos, and so he embarked upon a trip about the country, following Sir Mungo’s tracks from Northumberland to Devon, Cardiff to King’s Lynn. He visited the McClumphy fortress on the border with Scotland, and called in upon toll-house keepers, talked to hotelier’s wives, interviewed barmen, bankers, beekeepers, pawnbrokers, wigmakers and even an actress. As many folk as he could find, who had ever known Sir Mungo. He read rolls of paper, searched caskets and old chests, studied scribbled notes left in the margins of books, and he listened to stories — not only those told about the man, but those told by him too. It was a project that continued over several years, but slowly he collected these facts and figures. Piece by piece he began to build his own picture of Sir Mungo McClumphy and the sort of man he was.
Dash Deverell went above and beyond the boundaries of his responsibility in this matter, but he was driven to find the truth and see that justice was served. One way or another, this matter must be brought to an end, so that everybody could get on with their lives.
Most of all, he went to these extremes in the hope that, one day, before it was too late, Miss Daisy Mayferry could be set free of it, once and forever.
* * *
After her letter, he did not see Miss Mayferry again until several years later, one winter’s day, in Lockreedy and Velder’s Universal Emporium. He had gone there on an errand for Lady Audley and was waiting for face-powder, perfume, hairpins and stockings to be wrapped, when he heard a voice, cool and soft, admonishing in a quiet, bemused way,
“Don’t be foolish, sister. How can I afford something so impractical? There are many more important things we need.”
And then her scent drifted across, seeking him out like a playful ghost.
“But Daisy you always loved to paint. I have not seen you sit at the easel for such a long time.”
“With good reason. There is too much else to be done.”
“Nonsense. Now that father is married again, you need not take on so much.”
“Dahlia, it may have escaped your notice, but our step-mother is not exactly diligent about the housework or taking care of papa. Apparently, you have also paid little attention to the fact that we now have only one, tired maid who, if spoken to again by the second Mrs. Mayferry in that sharp tone, is likely to drop everything, pack her trunk and walk out, never to return.”
“She will get no reference if she does.”
“So, with that blackmail we expect to keep happy staff? I strongly suspect that she would prefer work in a shop or a factory, than suffer the sting of our step-mother’s bitter tongue one more day, reference or not. I would not blame her for leaving. She is overworked and underappreciated. Nobody likes to be treated thus. Nor should they.”
“But you are the eldest daughter of the house of Mayferry. You should not be scrubbing floors. What would people think if they knew?”
“I am a spinster of twenty-six with no other discernable accomplishment. What else am I to do in a house with a floor that needs cleaning? Sit and look at it?”
“Well, you had a much sweeter temper in the old days, when you did not scrub floors but painted bowls of fruit.”
“That were very poorly done. I never had the talent to match my enthusiasm.”
“Well, it is your birthday next month, we should buy you that set of watercolors.”
“We have not the coin.”
“Papa will put them on his account.”
“Accounts have to be settled sooner or later, sister. Must I explain that to you too?”
“How very dull and drear you are today.”
“Should I break into a song and dance? You know I hate shopping.”
“But your birthday—”
“Falls under the shadow of Christmas, in any case. There is too much else to be done. The last thing anybody needs to worry about is the day I was brought into the world.”
“It is not fair, though. You never have anything special for yourself, Daisy.”
“Because there is nothing special about me. I am an unremarkable woman, who, failing to be decorative, had better find use for herself. The fact that I was born is hardly cause for great celebration. I know for a fact that our parents were disappointed when I turned out to be a girl, rather than the much-anticipated son. And I certainly cannot compete with Jesus Christ, can I?”
“Oh, sister, there is no reasoning with you in one of these moods, when everything is hopeless and nothing can ever be good again. You really ought to have hope.”
“I can’t afford that any more than I can afford a new set of watercolor paints.”
“But your dream was once to be an artist.”
“When I was eight.” She laughed curtly. “It is a good thing I no longer have time for dreams.”
Dash realized he had been holding his breath. Unable to move away, he was frozen there, listening slyly, not knowing what he would do if she came into view and saw him. He knew what she would do, of course. Put her nose in the air, turn away and swiftly steer her sister in another direction.
She must be in London with her father again, he thought. Hopefully, he would not see her in court this time. Her father must know better than to bring his daughter there these days. The Court of Chancery was dissolved now, all its business moved to the chancery division within the High Court, but there had been no great move forward in the case of Lightfoot and Mayferry and McClumphy. If anything, there was more confusion, with some parties falling away due to death and sickness, while new claimants pushed forward, new solicitors coming up and a never-ending stream of folk, some of them younger than the case itself, lining the walls, waiting to say their piece.
Sir Mungo’s nephew— the gout sufferer— had died a few years before, leaving Lady Madeline to fight the cause for their son, Sir Mortimer, now Baron McClumphy, a sallow, mawkish fellow built like a mop stick, entirely reliant upon his mother to speak for him, lead him about by the nose and, very probably, feed him his supper.
The case had become something of a joke to all but the most steadfast, victory-or-death minded combatants.
The way Miss Mayferry spoke, she had given up any hope. Her voice was sad, weary and vexed. But he sensed the fight was not gone from her. Perhaps she did not want to know it was there; did not want anybody to see it, for fear they would mock her. She kept her battle shield raised high.
“One day, you must paint again,” said her sister. “You must not let that pleasure be lost. When our lawsuit is won and we are rich—”
“Oh, for pity’s sake, sister, when our lawsuit is won and we are rich, I’ll shave off my eyebrows and run through the streets of Mayferry Marsh in my bloomers.”
There was a pause and then her sister replied, “Might I advise against that course of action, sister? You really will look very plain without your eyebrows.”
They were moving away. Dash took his chance and peered around a pillar, just in time to see Daisy Mayferry’s gloved fingers trail wistfully across a wooden box of watercolor paints, before she walked after her sister.
As soon as she was out of sight, he bought the box of paints and some brushes that the salesgirl assured him were of the finest quality. He had them wrapped and delivered, anonymously, to the Mayferry house in Mayferry Marsh. He knew her address now, because Sir Mungo was not the only fascinating character in the family that he’d researched and studied from any available source.
It must have been about that time when he began to make a plan. But it would be another four years before he could put the cogwheels into motion.