A little more than three months after he left The Lodge William’s letter arrived. Claude read the letter carefully several times before sharing long sections with his wife and daughter.
This communication is the first of what I expect to be the thirteen I will send you through my travels.
I have arrived on the island of Saint Helena just as the Southern Hemisphere’s spring is becoming summer and it is remarkably beautiful. It is smaller than I had expected, a little less than one quarter the size of our island of Wight, and far wilder, the soils not being conducive to agriculture. Jamestown is unexpectedly bustling. We are, of course, on the route to the Cape Colony and to India so there is a regular round of visitors. There is also a naval squadron based here to hunt down the ships that continue to transport human beings from West Africa to the Americas, thereby breaking our new laws against the African slave trade. You would not believe the degradation that men subject their fellows to and I could not find the words to describe its full horror.
I have found lodgings and my landlord, known to all only as Root, has shown me the depot where the liberated Africans are housed. It was a frightening spectacle. I had believed I had seen poverty and deprivation in inner cities and in the countryside but nothing could prepare me for the sight of a slave ship being unloaded of its cargo. It is difficult to remember that these poor creatures are as human as you and I. Slavery has to be something of the past now.
William’s letters were received regularly at The Lodge and Claude always read them first so that when he read them to his wife and daughter he could leave out the more graphic descriptive sections.
Root has introduced me to the sizeable community of scientists on the island and I do my best to fit in well. Although my days are spent alone as I walk the island, noting and sketching the landscape, my evenings are spent in convivial conversation with the men from England who are researching the tides and studying the stars at the observatory on Ladder Hill. I enjoy myself immensely in their company.
In the letter to Claude that marked the anniversary of his arrival on the island he announced that his work detailing the basaltic dykes of the north-east of the island was to be published in the papers of the Royal Geographical Society I can, at last, hold my head up in the company of these men who have become my friends. He also said he was not, yet, returning to England as, although he was beginning to make a name for himself, he had yet to make his fortune.
The social life is more than ever I could have expected. We frequently are offered hospitality by our island governor, Hamelin Trelawney, and just last month we were joined by Peregrine Maitland, governor of the Cape Colony who regaled us with tales of his service in the Low Countries, on the Peninsula, at Waterloo and in Paris during the 1815 occupation. He had many tales to tell of Wellington, whom he knew well, and Wellington’s inner circle which included a man he knew as ‘Lacey’ but he was unable to tell me much about this ‘Lacey’ so I can anticipate no connection with our family.
Claude read the section relating to Maitland many times, aware that William knew far more than he had written. He decided to ask more about Maitland, a family with which he had had dealings, on William’s return which, he hoped, would not be much delayed. He was disappointed, therefore, to read William’s letter received in February 1846.
Christmas Day, 1845. I can hardly believe I have been on this small island more than twenty-five months. I have another paper accepted by the Royal Society (on the volcanic arrangements of the island) but have been retained by the Governor to locate mineral deposits that may assist the island in its development. I shall be here a while longer.
William’s letters kept Claude informed of his efforts to locate minerals but gave no hint about his return to England. Claude opened every letter he received from William in the hope that it would contain news of his return, but was dismayed by the letter received in in August 1846. I fear I have failed, or at least the island has. We have found no minerals of use to man. For an island a little more than ten miles by six miles there is still so much to explore but it is time to move on. I have been given the opportunity to find success in my search for minerals, but elsewhere. I have been flattered into joining a party aiming to find gold and diamonds in the colony of New South Wales. We leave next month for the port of Melbourne and thence who can tell? An adventure at any rate.
William had kept his promise to Claude. He had written every month and had passed on all he had learned, not only of the island’s physical appearance and construction but of the people and in particular, its most famous former resident, Napoleon Bonaparte.
On the receipt of the last letter from St Helena Claude sent the bundle of William’s letters and the copies he had made of his replies to a bookbinder in Newport. Letters from Melbourne, he knew, would be few and far between. It disappointed him that William had not discovered any person who had met the General nor had he found any evidence that Sir Bernard Lacey had visited the island but he would enjoy reading and re-reading his nephew’s letters that had arrived, so regularly, from St Helena.
*
William had had no intention of going to Australia. He had been ready to return to England, despite being well aware that he had not made his fortune, when he was persuaded that an investigation of a copper mine in Australia would be worth a year of his life.
Had William intended to remain a bachelor he would have been happy with the annuity he had from his father’s estate, funds that Henry could not take away from him. But he was to marry Josephine, and have a family, and he was uncomfortable with the knowledge that everything he would have would be from Claude. He had hoped to use his time away to obtain wealth of his own but this had not been possible on St Helena. Despite keeping him away from The Lodge for so much longer than he had hoped he believed that Australia was too good an opportunity to pass up.
It took six months to travel via the Cape, India and the Malay islands and when William finally disembarked in the port of Melbourne in the colony of New South Wales on the continent of Australia he found that his life was no longer his own.
On his arrival in Melbourne he sent a letter home explaining that he was heading into the interior where there was no regular mail service and he would not be able to send any news of himself, nor receive any of them. He warned them that he would be out of contact for some time and they were not to be concerned. But even as he despatched the letter he knew the pain his prolonged absence was causing the only three people in the world he cared for.
For the first time in the nearly three years he had been away he felt homesick for the winds and rains of The Lodge. But he had set himself to make his fortune and he could not return until he had given it his best shot.
*
Along with the men who had persuaded him to travel with them he headed into the interior in search of silver and copper. As the geologist of the group it was his responsibility to find new sources of these valuable metals and on his advice they acquired land in the Barrosa Valley and set about the business of developing surface and underground copper mines.
Within a year the copper mine had provided well and he knew he would be a tolerably rich man on his return to England but there were rumours that gold, and its promise of unimaginable wealth, was to be found so he remained. His decision was vindicated when his group of prospectors was amongst the first to find a rich seam in the area that in future months would become the centre of a gold rush.
In the heat of mid-summer 1849 William rode into the growing town of Ballarat and realised it was Christmas Day. As he drank with his companions he imagined the dining room at The Lodge and remembered the Christmases past, the games the family had played and the musical entertainments they had enjoyed together and he knew it was time to go home. The next morning he wished his friends well, took his share and rode the seventy miles to Melbourne alone.
At the Post Office he found many letters awaiting his arrival. He had the long voyage to read them and the more he read the more he knew he had been away too long.
The early letters were enthusiastic about his plans and notes from Josephine wished him luck. After a year there were strictures from Claude saying he should return soon, a fortune was not as important as being with the ones whom he loved and who loved him. One of the letters told him that Henry had sold Oakridge Court and had left for London after his unwanted advances to Josephine had been rejected. Josephine, Claude noted in every letter, looked forward to William’s return.
As he checked the dates of the letters William realised there had not been one for more than a year. Perhaps, he thought, they think me dead.
*
Six months after leaving Melbourne, having stopped briefly in St Helena, William was in London and his adventures were over. It was July 1850. He had been away nearly seven years.
He had never intended to be away that long. But then he had never imagined he would return with such wealth.
The morning his ship docked in London William telegraphed the news of his arrival to the household of The Lodge. At last in London. Will be home in three days. He kept the telegraph short as he had no idea what to say and how his words would be received.
He could not leave London immediately as he had two tasks to fulfil. First he had to attend at the offices of Coutts and Company on the Strand, a bank to which he had been recommended and where he spent a satisfying afternoon discussing his financial situation.
And then he had to find his brother.
He had no idea whether or not it would be straightforward to locate Sir Henry Lacey in the metropolis so he went to the University Club in St James’s.
“The gentleman is known to us, but is not seen often here. You will likely find him at the Carlton.”
At the Carlton he was told Sir Henry would normally be in attendance by ten in the evening.
“I will wait then.”
“Whom may I say is waiting?” the concierge asked with a superior tone. He did not like the look of the tanned, scrawny man who spoke with an accent he could not fathom.
“I am Sir Henry’s brother, William Lacey.”
There was no discernible change in the man’s attitude. “You may wait here in the foyer. I cannot allow you into the club as we have no one’s word for that but yours.”
When eventually Henry appeared William held out his hand. Henry did not respond, and showed no surprise at seeing his younger brother.
“It’s been a while William.”
“Indeed.”
The concierge showed no sign of particular interest as he watched the two men walk into the smoking room. He had thought he knew everything there was to know of importance about the members of his club but had had no idea Sir Henry had a brother.
The two men sat appraising each other for some minutes as the attendants left a decanter of brandy and two glasses on their table.
“You look somewhat weather-beaten.” Henry eventually broke the silence, speaking with obvious disdain.
“I have been in the Colonies.”
“America?”
“Australia.”
Conversation did not flow easily between the two.
“I suppose you were indulging your love of rocks?”
“I was. And I suppose you have simply been indulging your love of yourself?”
“I have. With great energy.”
“You sold the Oakridge Estate?”
“I had no use for it.”
“Are you married yet?” William persevered in making conversation. “Have you the son and heir you defined as your responsibility?”
“I have not. Have you? How is Josephine?”
“I have seen no one for nearly seven years. That is how long I have been away.”
“So you will soon be married. She will have waited for you, chaste and virginal. You are welcome to her, brother, I have no taste at all for virgins, they have no idea how to give pleasure to a man.”
Ignoring his brother’s crudity William kept his voice level as he replied. “I have hopes that, despite my prolonged absence, she will agree to be my wife.”
“Just as selfish as you ever were.”
“What do you mean?”
“She is no longer young, you have ruined her prospects and now, should she dislike you on sight, which I have to say I would consider the civilised reaction, she is too aged to find another. I tried to persuade her that her future lay with me. I told her you were either dead or uncaring but she was obstinate in her belief in you. I will await correspondence to say you have failed and she has, after all, decided to take the only offer left to her.”
“And what would that be?”
“Me, my title and, of course the irresistible clincher, my fortune.”
William smiled, uncrossed his legs, straightened his back and re-crossed his legs. “If she will have me still she will be very comfortable,” he replied calmly.
“How could she ever be comfortable with the younger son?”
“She chose me, brother, remember that and forget any idea of taking her as your wife.”
“Then I will take her as my sister! One way or another, brother, I will take her. Even should she be sufficiently desperate to become your wife, one day, brother, I will have her beneath me, I shall see what it is she hides between her legs.” He slapped his thighs and finished his glass of brandy.
Still William did not rise to his brother’s crudeness.
“You do not hit me?” Henry taunted. “You don’t lash out in defence of your lady’s honour? You are weak as you ever were.”
“I will not rise to your rather pathetic attempt to make me envy you. Why would I? I will have everything in life that I need.”
“You may have the woman and you may have your rocks but what of money? You have nothing but the pittance allowed to the younger son. I would never stoop so low as to be dependent on a wife’s money.”
“I have wealth of my own Henry, far more than you can imagine. Where do you think I got this skin? Australia. And what are there in abundance in that colony? Minerals. And what did I find in great abundance? Minerals. You say I have my rocks, indeed I do, and those rocks are gold. So don’t talk to me of wealth. I have more than you could possibly imagine.”
Henry realised through the haze of hatred that it was possible that what his brother said was true, so he did as he always did when in danger of losing an argument, he stayed silent.
William knew the tactic of old and did not respond. He would wait until Henry’s curiosity got the better of him, as he knew it would. Eventually the silence was broken and Henry asked, “Why have you sought me out?”
William had rehearsed his meeting with Henry many times during the last part of his passage from Australia and he was pleasantly surprised that it had gone in much the way he had expected.
“I wanted to see if, after the passage of so much time, we could overcome the bad feeling between us.”
“There is little chance of that.”
“There were objects at Oakridge I would have liked to have kept. Have you anything from the old house with memories of our mother and father?”
“I have kept nothing. And even if I had you would have no right to any of it.”
“Is that the way you feel?”
“What other way is there?”
“I had hoped that we could, once again, be friends.”
“We were never, and will never be, friends.”
“Perhaps you can answer me one question though, and I would appreciate an honest answer.”
“You can appreciate whatever you like.”
“Did our father ever leave anything of his past, of his history? Did he ever talk to you of his experiences during the wars in Europe? Did he ever mention anything about his role in that dangerous period of war and revolution?”
Even asked a direct question Henry could not give a direct answer. “War? Revolution? Danger? You live a romantic life if you imagine anything our father did was in any way important. He was a country landowner from a family of country landowners. He probably never left the Isle of Wight in his life.”
“You know better than that. Have you forgotten our uncle telling us of our father’s origins in the Americas? Have you forgotten how he told of his respect for our father and his bravery?”
“Tosh. Lies. Total fabrication manufactured to cause us to be unsettled. My father was from a long line of honest and respectable Englishmen.”
“So he never fought in the wars against Napoleon?”
“I suppose our uncle has fed you with such ideas. You are a sop to believe anything that man would say. He isn’t even English.”
“He is from Jersey.”
“That is as near the continent as it is possible to be. He is no Englishman. You are a fool to believe anything he says. You need only look at his face to know he is no Englishman. He is too swarthy, and his accent is rarely precise. I wonder sometimes if I shouldn’t make it my business to find out who the man really is because if he is Claude Olivierre of Jersey I am Louis Napoleon of France! He is undoubtedly a Frenchie who skipped parole.”
“Whereas who are we, Henry?”
“Our family is as I said, descended from a long line of honourable Englishmen. Everything the man says is a lie.”
“He never spoke to you as his heir? He never gave you anything that would tell us of his life, of who he was and where his family came from?”
“My father gave me nothing,” Henry lied. He fought back memories of the unpleasant interview with his uncle when he had been told William was Josephine’s choice. He thought of the small packet and the letter tied together in legal ribbon. He had been made to swear that he would not break the seal and he had not. He had thought of destroying the reminder of his father’s disgrace but he had, almost ashamed of his obedience to his uncle, kept it to give to his own son, just as he had sworn he would do. “Nothing. He gave me nothing,” he repeated.
William looked at his brother and felt a sudden sympathy for the man.
In those years before their mother’s illness and their father’s death, when they had been young children in a happy home, Henry had been his friend. They were twins, it had been the two of them, feisty and inquisitive, together against the world. But then they had been taken away to school. They had stuck together but nothing had been as it had been at Oakridge. They had grown apart as they grew older and now, as they approached thirty years of age, they were strangers.
“I suspect you are an unhappy man.”
“What kind of statement is that? Happiness? What is that? I eat when I am hungry. I drink whether thirsty or not. I gamble though I have ample funds and I buy the favours of women as I choose. Is that happiness? I think it is and therefore I am happy.”
William had no answer to the cynicism and bitterness in his brother’s voice.
“Now leave me. I have guests arriving and a game to play. Go back to your virgin and your comfortable provincial existence. Breed. Just don’t bother me with the details.”
William was angry with himself for losing what he knew would be his last opportunity to question his brother about the question that had been worrying him since his latest visit to St Helena.
*
He had been aware that his route back from the Antipodes would mean a visit to St Helena and he had looked forward, in the long repetitive days at sea, to meeting again with the friends he had left nearly four years before.
On the third of the three days his ship spent anchored off Jamestown he had taken the opportunity to walk into the centre of the island and there had fallen into conversation with an old woman who had worked in the house where Napoleon had lived.
She had been quite drunk when she had sat down uninvited at his table and said, “You have the look of ‘im.” When William had asked her to whom she referred, more by way of hastening her leaving him than in serious interest in her comment, she had replied, “Mister Lacey. We ‘ad to call ‘im Mister though ‘e were no gen’leman like what he said ‘e wuz.” As William had asked her for more detail his mind raced at the coincidence. The old woman continued. “I never did trust that Mister Lacey. He were a rough sort. It were thirty year ago but I remember ‘im. He weren’t the sort you forgot once you’d crossed ‘im.”
She did not answer William directly when he had asked if she had crossed ‘Mister Lacey’. She shook her head and continued in a changed voice. “I don’t believe it were ‘im, the other one, the Frenchie, ‘e were no Frenchie. ‘E were drunk one night and talked of a place called Carnwarll an’ ‘e said Lacey would be the death of ‘im and that Boney wer’n’t Boney at all an’ when I talked of it to Mister Lacey he tell me I wuz wrong. ‘E was angered, very angered. Oh yes. I crossed Mister Lacey.” She had then given William a sly look that he caught and then wondered if she wasn’t as drunk as she was making out. “You’re Mister Lacey too ain’t you? You were ‘ere before.” He had nodded. “You ‘is boy?” He had nodded again. “You tell ‘im I knowed all along but said nothing.” William had told the woman that his father was dead and she had shaken her head. “He weren’t ever goin’ to make old bones, ‘im. Never.”
William had spent many hours of the final leg of his journey back to England wondering what link his father could have had with Napoleon Bonaparte and the island of St Helena, and whether the ‘Lacey’ Maitland had remembered from his time during the wars with Napoleon may, indeed, have had a connection with his family.
He had decided, as the ship was being buffeted by Biscay storms, that when he got to London he would seek out his brother. Henry had spent so much more time with their father, he had been the heir, the elder, and therefore would inevitably have been taken more into their father’s confidence than the younger son.
But William had learned nothing from his interview with his brother and the only person with whom he might raise his suspicions was the man who, William suspected, might have the most to lose by answering them.
*
“You were away somewhat longer than anticipated William.” Josephine spoke shyly as the carriage took them from Newport towards The Lodge.
“Somewhat.”
They were both unexpectedly shy with each other, a situation about which Patience felt entirely happy. As she sat next to her daughter, opposite the man who William had become, she knew that everything would be well. They were no longer brother and sister, they were young lady and young man, bursting with interest in each other.
*
That evening William and Claude sat together after dinner and William told Claude something of his time in Australia.
“I must thank you for your letters, my boy, certainly in the earlier years of your tour. I have kept them all, I had to have them bound as I have read and re-read them so frequently. Now they sit in my library along with the publications to which you have contributed so magnificently. We have all been very proud of your achievements. And now you are an independent man are you off again on your travels or are you ready to settle here?”
“I would be honoured if Josephine would have me.”
“I have no doubt of that. You have become a fine man, William. Your father would have been delighted with you.”
Talk of his father gave William the opportunity to voice his thoughts, possibly wild imaginings, of his father’s relationship with St Helena.
“I have bought you a cutting of a plant from the island of St Helena.”
“I shall enjoy watching it grow. There will be some part of that God-forsaken island thriving here. How interesting.”
“Uncle,” William’s tone changed, “before I left you suggested my father had visited St Helena and I discovered that that was correct. He was known and remembered there. I met someone who knew him and she was very mysterious. Do you know why that might be? Are you able to tell me?”
Claude looked hard into William’s eyes.
“I am pleased that he is remembered. What did this ‘someone’ have to say?”
“That he was not who he was meant to be and that neither was the other man.”
“Do you think there was anything to be believed in what she said?”
“She made out that she was very drunk but I wonder whether every word she said could be true.”
Claude was silent for a while, unsure whether this was a time for truths to be told, but he decided he could not risk his daughter’s knowing how he had allowed her to remain in ignorance of so much for so long.
“I think it is best not to ask questions that can never be answered truthfully.”
In the following months William’s attempts to turn conversations with Claude to his father’s relationship with the European dictator always met with a change in subject. Eventually it passed to the back of William’s mind as his marriage, a year to the day after his return, was soon followed by the news that his wife was anticipating the birth of their child.
*
“It will be over soon,” Claude said almost inaudibly.
William wondered whether Claude was referring to Josephine’s suffering or his own.
“Why is this giving birth so very dangerous?”
Claude answered obliquely. “It is as dangerous for the child as for the mother.” He had been thinking of the two sons and the daughter he had lost before his wife had been safely delivered of the healthy daughter who was going through that dreadful experience herself in a room above them. He had been thinking, too, of his wife’s sister who had nearly died giving birth to her twins and had succumbed ten years later being delivered of their dead sister.
The two men sat, trying not to imagine the worst, waiting for nature to take its course.
As Claude’s thoughts turned to the small stone coffins in the mausoleum in the old chapel in the woods he remembered the packets hidden with Mary Lettice. He wondered, as he often did, whether he had been wrong in not trusting Henry sufficiently to give him his father’s writings and once more he considered telling William of their existence.
After some minutes of silence Claude spoke with an attempt at confidence. “Josephine will come through.”
He knew that, just as William had looked forward to this day, he had feared it as if it were the end of his world. Childbirth had taken his mother and the child who would have been his sister, and as the hours passed he wondered whether his father had made the same pact that he was making with fate, that if one had to be taken it should be the child, leaving the mother.
“If only one can live it must be Josephine,” William said with weary resolution as his wife’s labour entered its second day.
“It will not come to that, my boy, you will have both.”
“I pray so.”
Claude looked sharply across at his son-in-law. He knew William was not a man of religion. Claude attended church every Sunday, as was expected of a man of his station in life, and he ensured he was accompanied by his wife and daughter and the senior servants of the house, but he could not make William join them. Claude’s own beliefs he had always preferred to keep to himself. He saw many uses for organised religion in maintaining order in society but, although he never acknowledged it, he could not believe everything he heard or read and was more in tune with William’s defiance than he could admit.
“You do not pray, William.”
“It can do no harm.”
“Remember that what is happening is nature, my boy, it is nature, and nature probably knows more than any god that may or may not exist.”
They sat in silence but no matter how assiduous Claude had been at closing doors nothing could stop the sounds of Josephine’s cries reaching her husband and her father.
“Come, William. We will go for a walk. We do no good worrying here.”
They walked into the woods. It was a fine day, presaging a warm spring and it was the direction of their walk that decided Claude on his course of action.
“I will tell you something,” he began hesitantly, not continuing until they had reached the chapel in the woods and settled on one of the stone benches that flanked the doors.
“I haven’t long for this life.” It told him something of his nephew-son-in-law that there were no false denials of the truth of his words. “And there is something I really cannot trust to your brother.”
“Henry?”
The name was rarely spoken by either of them.
“You must listen to me and remember what I say. On the day your father died, he entrusted me with his writings. There were four folders of papers, a notebook and a letter. In his years of retirement he had written about his life and his work…” Claude noticed that William showed a high degree of interest but had the sense not to interrupt. “…much of which, in the service of this country, must remain secret for many years. History, my dear boy, is agreed upon by men who have the power to determine what they want history to be and how they wish themselves to be remembered.” He paused, waiting for William to say something in agreement but he didn’t, he just showed continuing interest in everything his father-in-law said. “Your father wished certain lies should be exposed and truths to be known. On the day he died I promised him that I would give the volumes to Henry on his twenty-first birthday. Your father believed the custodian had to be Henry,” Claude sounded apologetic, “because he is the elder.”
“That is something I have long ago come to terms with.”
Claude looked relieved that the younger man seemed not to blame him.
“I have not read the volumes, it would have been an imposition too far on my friend’s good will, but I have my suspicions as to the overall gist of the contents. That is why, when the time came, I could not do as your father wished.”
He paused, looking at William to see if there were any signs that he was passing judgement on Claude. There were none so he continued.
“I handed Henry the letter only, with the notebook that I know contained only the ciphers to interpret any sections of your father’s writings that had been consigned to paper in code. I did not give Henry the diaries, I am afraid I could not do as your father asked because I could not bring myself to trust your brother.”
Claude paused, overcome with a spasm of pain. William knew well enough not to fuss but to leave him be to recover his breath.
“Perhaps I have done wrong but what is done cannot be undone. The other volumes I have kept, may your father’s spirit forgive me. These I have hidden away as I could not bring myself to destroy what your father had wanted preserved. I could not bring myself to destroy them so I have hidden them.”
“They are well hidden I suspect.” William showed interest rather than the condemnation Claude had no doubt would have come from his brother.
“It is my hope that they are not discovered for many years, though I have every wish that one day they will be found and their contents revealed. When that day comes they will undoubtedly tell the strangest of tales and have the strongest of implications for England, its government and the monarchy.”
“Is this connected with my father’s visits to the South Atlantic?” William asked tentatively.
“Undoubtedly.”
“You will tell me nothing of that though.”
“The story must wait.”
“Does Henry know any of this?”
“I trust not.”
“You want me to have responsibility for them?”
“I do. But you will be bound to your father’s demands, just as Henry is.”
“And those were?”
“That, if found, the packets are not to be opened until the fifteenth day of the seventh month of the year nineteen hundred and fifteen.”
“I am unlikely to be able to do that.” William smiled his gentle smile.
“You will hand the knowledge on to your son on his twenty-first birthday. He is entering the world today, in 1915 he will be sixty-three years old. If they have been found he may then open the bundled papers. You must maintain contact with your brother, William, he has the cipher and without that much of the story will remain a mystery. Do not lose contact with Henry. Your son must continue contact with Henry’s son or the cipher and the writings will never be together.”
“You are confident I will have a son.”
“I am.”
“Where are these secrets held?”
“Josephine has a locket. I bought it some years ago to give to my daughter Mary Lettice who lies inside this chapel.”
“It is a beautiful pendant, I have long admired it. She wears it always.”
“It is no pendant. It is a locket with a finely worked secret catch. Inside there is an inscription Mary Lettice. That will point any future generation to my poor daughter lying here.”
“That is where my father’s papers are?”
“Indeed.”
“I will do as you say. I will pass the knowledge on and please know that I will not break your pledge to my father.”
“I know you will not.”
“It may be difficult to maintain contact with Henry. What if the cipher book is with Henry’s descendants and they do not know to what it relates? What if the folders are found but there is no way of making the code comprehensible? I cannot believe you have not set something in place should that be the situation.”
“They will open the notebook and they will be pointed towards The Lodge. They will come here and the clues will be joined together.”
Claude placed his hand over that of William. It was, the younger man realised, one of the very rare times they had touched so intimately.
“It’s at times like these that one needs friends is it not?” Claude broke the silence. “Sir Bernard was a good friend to me. We came from very different places, he and I, yet we came to respect and, I believe, have some affection for each other.”
“You know more about him than you have ever told me.”
“I’m afraid the answer has to be ‘yes’ to that, William. I know more about your father than I can ever tell you and it is a great sadness that you will never know. Be borne up by the knowledge that your son will.”
“You are very mysterious, sir.”
“That I have had to be is one of the greatest sadnesses of my life.”
There seemed nothing more to say so the two men sat lost in their own, very differing, thoughts. It was a silence interrupted some time later by a woman’s voice.
“I thought I would find you both here.”
“Patience. How…?” Claude hardly dared ask.
“Both well. William, you have a son and Josephine is resting. She is tired but she has come through well.”
“I have a son?”
Patience sat by her husband and took his hand. “Claude, my dear, come out of the chill. You must take care of yourself.”
“That is of no matter at all my dear. There is a son. The line is secure for another generation.”
“The baby is well formed but small. She had no difficulty out of the ordinary.”
“What shall we call the boy?” William asked, amazed that the sounds that still reverberated in his ears represented an ‘ordinary’ delivery.
“Have you no ideas?”
“I had thought of Bernard, after my father.”
“That is good.”
“In fact I had thought of Bernard Claude Oliver Lacey as a grand collection of names.”
“I am touched, no I am honoured, that you should want your son to carry my name.”
“He will be instructed to call his sons, in due course, William and Henry and that time William will be the elder.” William thought he had successfully hidden the bitterness from his voice and was rewarded with a handshake from his father-in-law and a kiss on both cheeks from Patience.
“Let us go back to the house. Josephine will want to show off her son to his father.”
Patience tucked her hands between the arms of her husband, to her right, and her son-in-law, to her left and led them back to The Lodge.
*
“Come upstairs and see your son. You, husband, can break open the bottle you have kept for just this occasion.” Patience led William upstairs to his wife’s bedroom.
He stood staring in wonder at his son lying in his crib. What life would he have? What changes would he see in the world? What would the world be like when he, in his turn, looked down in amazement at the miracle that would be his son? What would he learn about his family that he, William, could never know?
Never had William felt the burden of continuity that was ‘family’ as strongly as he did at that moment. He felt he knew that moments like this were what everything in the entire world was all about.
“You are so very clever, my love.” He tore himself away from his son and turned his attention to his wife.
“He is perfect, is he not?”
“Perfect.”
“Life could not be better, could it?”
“We are truly blessed.”
*
It was a little more than a year before Josephine was asking her husband, in despair, “Are we truly cursed?”
*
Their son, Bernard, had proved to be a difficult baby, falling ill frequently, and the doctors were surprised that he survived infancy. The boy caught fevers and colds and the constant worry about their son took its toll on both parents. It was with little ceremony that they marked Bernard’s first birthday since there was resignation in the household that he would not reach another.
In the January of 1853 Claude Olivierre died.
He had had a fever for some days and had been confined to his bed but seemed well enough to be supplied with his daily newspaper. He had been reading a report in The Times when he had rung the bell by his bed that called Patience to his side.
“Louis had overreached himself,” he said, waving his hand ineffectually at the paper.
“Louis?” Patience asked, frightened by the colour in her husband’s face.
Claude held up the newspaper and Patience caught a glimpse of a report concerning President Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte.
“He was elected, he had legitimacy, now he has called himself Emperor! He has no right.”
“But what is that to us, Claude?” Patience asked soothingly.
“He has let us all down. The man is son of a whore and will act as a whore’s son.”
Claude recollected himself and realised he had gone too far in his anger.
“I knew… I knew the man’s father. Many years ago. I knew him.”
“But that was brother to Napoleon Bonaparte.”
“Louis, yes, brother. But Louis was not the father. His wife was a whore. All in that family were whores.” Patience knew that Claude was not well and listened helplessly as his delirium led him to talk of people he should long ago have forgotten. “Hortense could be nothing other than a whore. She was the daughter of her mother. La fille de sa mère.”
Patience tried to calm her husband as he raved, unaware of the words he uttered.
“Elle est morte. Morte. Tout le monde est mort.”
“Claude? Who is dead? Claude? Talk to me.” Patience was becoming more anxious.
He turned his face to look at her and spoke with a clarity he had not shown for some days. “Louis will fail. He believes himself to be greater than he is, mieux que moi; il va échouer!” Claude looked into his wife’s eyes one last time. “Je suis coupable, je suis désolé. Il y a longtemps que je t’aime.”
She held his hand gently as colour left his face and she wondered who it was he was saying he had loved.
She watched as the minutes passed, as he quietened, as his frame seemed to shrink in front of her eyes. She watched in silence, holding his hand, until there was no movement in his chest and no breath in his body.
Her husband, the man she had always known was not Claude Olivierre, was dead.
*
A little more than a month later William and Josephine followed a second coffin to the grave in the town’s burial ground as Patience joined her husband.
Not for the first, nor the last, time William thought of the stone tomb in the chapel in the woods and the mysterious papers secreted there. Not for the first time, nor for the last, he was filled with regret that it was too late to find an answer to his questions.
“Are we cursed?” Josephine asked wearily as they laid her mother to rest next to her father; her mind full of worry for her son who lay in the house, dangerously ill with diphtheria.
“No.” William spoke more harshly than he had meant to. “No.” He softened his voice. “We have Bernard, we have each other, we have our home, we must never forget how much we have to be thankful for.”