Fergal and Carl left their hotel in Yarmouth the next morning without waiting for breakfast and spent the short journey to The Lodge confirming their decisions about how they were to proceed with their research.
“We must find out about Claude Olivierre and what his connection might be to the Lacey family. He is our priority and our best source would seem to be the library at The Lodge since he clearly has a connection with the house.” Carl said in a tone that did not invite discussion. “You put your trust in the internet if you must.”
“I will, but for that I’ll have to go back to Oxford,” Fergal said, surprising himself at how little he wanted to leave the island. “I didn’t come prepared for this and I need stuff that’s on my desktop. I’ll just drop you off and then be on my way. I should be there easily by lunchtime with a bit of luck with the ferries and Sunday traffic.”
“You’ll look for Claude, of course,” Carl insisted.
“I thought I’d concentrate first on the detail of the family tree. I’ve got the outline but we need the detail, every date, every relationship, every location that might be involved. I’m thinking that I’ll find Claude somewhere by looking at the Lacey family.”
“Will no one think it odd that you’re working on a Sunday?”
“If there’s anyone else in the office, which I doubt, I will say I’m working on Sir Arthur’s project. Which, in a way, I am.”
“You mustn’t allow anyone to think you’re doing anything you shouldn’t. That would cause no end of trouble. He has some very nasty people in his pocket you know.”
“I’ll be careful.”
“How long will you need?”
“If everything works first time I won’t be long, I’d say a couple of days. I’ll aim to be back here by Tuesday evening. I should have found enough to at least be able to see where to look next, if you see what I mean.”
“In my day all that would have taken months,” Carl reluctantly admitted as they turned off the main road and headed up into the forest.
“But now there’s so much online, especially if you have the right access.”
“And you have that?”
“Sir Arthur may be an obsolete old bugger but he does have contacts. I’m set up on various military and government archives I’d never heard of before last week as well as the obvious census and property databases.”
“You’ll keep in touch, won’t you?”
“Of course. Will you two be OK? What will you be getting up to?”
“I’ll be exploring the library. The family have lived there since God knows when so if there is any evidence to connect it to Claude Olivierre and him to our friend the General one would think it must be there.”
“And Skye?”
“She will assist me.”
“Well don’t be too hard on her, she isn’t used to you and I suspect she’s a tad vulnerable at the moment.”
“I shall be the perfect guest.”
*
Carl stood in the library, mug of coffee in hand, looking around, Skye thought, as though he owned the place.
She had done her best to hide her disappointment when she heard Fergal’s car leaving and saw only the professor standing at the door. She had hidden her disappointment but she could not hide her resentment as the professor said, in a tone that brooked no argument, that they would be beginning their search for evidence in the library.
Throughout the night she had thought about the attics and the information that must lie in the boxes and tea chests of household documents she knew had to be there. She had been looking forward to her search but the professor took control and insisted she help him. She did not argue, but she showed her annoyance by following him wordlessly and then answering his questions with no enthusiasm.
“How big do you think this room is?”
“Almost exactly eight metres square. Fergal measured it yesterday.”
“Proper money please.”
“Each wall is about twenty-six feet long.”
“And how many shelves are there on each wall?”
“Six,” Skye answered, wondering why Carl wasn’t able to count them for himself.
“So, since three of the four walls are encased with shelves, how many feet of shelves?”
“What about the fireplace and the door?”
“We’ll come to them. So that’s, let’s see, twenty-six feet per wall multiplied by three walls multiplied by six shelves, give or take, how many feet of shelves does that make?”
As Skye took out her phone to access the calculator Carl asked brusquely whether she could not have done the calculation in her head. “I would have thought that simple calculation would have been possible even for someone who’s had most of her education in this current century.”
“I could do it with pen and paper but it’s easier by phone. The answer is four hundred and sixty-eight,” Skye replied coldly.
“Now we allow for the fireplace and the door. Shall we say sixty-eight feet are lost that way, just to make the calculations easier?” Without waiting for an answer he continued. “Now, how many books do you think per foot of shelf?”
Skye counted a shelf at random. “It varies but I’d say ten.”
“Fair enough, though chosen, I suspect, for continued ease of calculation. So how many volumes have we to work our way through? That shouldn’t need your infernal phone.”
“Four thousand. Surely there can’t be that many?”
“Probably more, I would say, so we’d better get started. We have got to look at every single one.”
Within half an hour they had established a routine whereby Skye took a handful of books down from the shelf and placed them on the table where Carl photographed their title pages and added their titles, authors, publishers and date of publication to a spreadsheet on Skye’s laptop. She suggested it would be quicker if she input the data but Carl said she would not know what information he needed. “No, you just bring me the volumes and return them to their exact location. Now begin on the top shelf by the window and work round. Be systematic. We don’t want to miss any out. There will be something here that gives the game away,” Carl said firmly.
Resisting the strong temptation to tell him that she wasn’t that stupid, Skye did as she was told.
After an hour during which they worked in silence Carl spoke, more to himself than to engage in conversation. “I can’t imagine that any of these books has been looked at for decades.”
“One book was taken out.” Skye could not keep up her resentful silence any longer. She doubted Carl had noticed anything untoward in her attitude anyway.
“What was that?”
“It was the family Bible. Audrey told me that all the births, marriages and deaths of the family back generations were written on the flyleaves.”
“Where is it then?” Carl snapped. “Surely you could have told me sooner than this. Come on, you silly girl. Where is it?”
“That’s what I was going to say. Uncle Henry asked Audrey to get it for him. He told her exactly where it was.”
“When would that have been?”
“I don’t know. Sometime in the 1950s or 60s I suppose. Does it matter? Anyway, she got it for him and he ripped it to bits, well, all the pages with the family on them.”
“Well that is, to put it mildly, something of a disappointment.”
“That’s why I didn’t say anything about it,” Skye said defensively, wishing even more that Fergal had not gone back to Oxford. She wasn’t sure she could stand more than a day alone with the professor. “She told me about it only a year or so before she died. It really upset her to talk about it, it really bothered her. She told me like it was a really big deal.”
“Perhaps it was,” Carl said thoughtfully. “Do you know where it is now?”
“I’ve never seen it.”
“That is unfortunate. Now I need an injection of caffeine. A cup of coffee would be appreciated, Skye. I need one nearly every hour of the day.”
So Skye made him the first of the six cups that she fetched as they continued working throughout the day.
“I wonder how Fergal’s getting on?” Skye broke the silence as she brought Carl his cup of coffee as the hall clock struck three o’clock.
“As we know, he has established the skeleton so he will be developing the musculature and the nervous system, and no doubt also assembling the lesser known organs, of the Lacey family history in which he feels certain he will find Claude Olivierre. When we eventually learn what it is we are looking for we will have some idea where to concentrate our efforts.”
“Don’t you think we need something we will never be able to get?”
“What’s that?”
“Well, we’ll know the names of all the Laceys and their dates but we won’t have a feeling for who they really were, as people I mean. We might find portraits in the attics and be able to see what they looked like, but we’ll never know what they thought, or what they might have known about each other, unless we find things they wrote at the time.”
“I would have thought that that went without saying and is hardly the most perceptive comment I’ve heard about the difficulties of studying history.”
Skye ignored him. “And surely we’re looking in the wrong place? Aren’t we more likely to find things like that in the attics, you know, diaries, letters, that sort of thing? Their own words?”
“For a family of this stature anything worthy of record will have been collected together and professionally bound. Every town of any substance had a bookbinder for exactly that purpose. And as I am sure you are aware, books are kept in libraries and that is why we are looking through this one in such detail.” Carl was so scathing of her suggestion that Skye decided not to mention again how important she thought a search of the attic’s contents would be.
“I should have thought earlier,” she said as the clock struck four.
“About what?” Carl prompted after Skye said nothing more.
“David Green, that’s our solicitor, he will have all these books on his inventory. We could just phone and get the list.”
“Delighted as I am that you are trying to make a sensible suggestion I fear we can hardly do that.”
“Why not?”
“Because, surely it is obvious, we should have to explain why we need it and that, even you will agree, is hardly a sensible course of action.”
As she brought book after book down from the shelves she decided that Carl was more interested in them than in finding anything useful to their search for Claude Olivierre. Too much of an effing academic, she thought many times as she continued, well into the long evening, removing sections of books from the shelves while the professor carefully recorded titles, authors and dates whilst sipping at his mug of coffee.
“That’s five hundred. At this rate we’ll be done in little more than a week,” Carl commented and he sat back in his chair, feeling his stiff back. “We’ll call it a day for today. Drive me into Yarmouth and I’ll treat you to a sandwich or something. Unlike young Fergal I’m not on an expense account.”
She had planned to start searching through the attics once she had The Lodge to herself. But it was nearly dark by the time she got back and Audrey’s dire warnings of the unsafe floor rang in her ears. Reluctantly, she decided to leave the attics until the next day.
*
Monday was a carbon copy of the day before. Skye could barely contain her frustration as she took books from shelves, made more cups of coffee or twiddled her thumbs as Carl recorded the details he wanted, then climbed the stepladder to replace the books and retrieve more. She knew she did not need Carl’s permission to search the attics but she found it very difficult not to do as he said.
“Have you saved?” she asked when the silence became too much to bear. When there was no reply she added, “You should save every few minutes. If you don’t save and we have a power cut we’ll have to do all this all over again.” Still Carl said nothing but she noticed that he did begin to save his spreadsheet after every pile of books and she felt an unreasonable surge of satisfaction.
After another long period of silence Skye couldn’t help herself asking, “Are we actually getting anywhere?”
“There is a treasure trove here, a veritable treasure trove.”
“But are we doing anything to, you know, find who Claude Olivierre really was ?”
“We will find something, of that I am certain. You must have some patience.”
“Well I’ll bring you one more stack of books and then I’m going up to the attics for an hour or so. I know there will be something there, if there’s something anywhere.”
“Why do you keep saying that?”
“Because you’re ignoring what my great-grandmother, her mother and all the other people who lived in this house had to say. You won’t find who came and went in the house here, will you? You’ll find all that in the domestic logs and the household accounts. And if they’re anywhere they’ll be in the attic.”
“You will stay here assisting me,” Carl answered very precisely. “If you are going to progress in any career, especially one in historical research, you must learn the almost forgotten art of patience.”
Skye was unreasonably annoyed that he and Fergal must have talked about her and that Fergal had told him she wanted to study history.
*
When they broke off for lunch they sat at the kitchen table in uncomfortable silence picking at the sandwiches Carl had brought from the town and sipping at more mugs of coffee.
“Why don’t you like me?” Skye asked, thinking that a direct question might elicit a direct answer.
“Who says I don’t like you?”
“Everything about you. The way you speak to me, your tone of voice. The way you look at me.”
Carl did not answer for a long minute. Then, as if having decided that the question was worthy of an answer, told her sharply, “You are your father’s daughter.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“You will have something of his character and he is not a nice man.”
“I’m not anything like him.”
Carl continued as though he had not heard her. “More than that, he is a dangerous one.”
“Fergal told me.”
“He did?” Carl looked at her sharply, obviously surprised by her answer.”
“Well he told me he wanted to overthrow the government.”
“And did you believe him?”
“Not really. I mean, this is England. People don’t do that sort of thing do they? I know there’ve been city riots and stuff and the online banks and air traffic control systems are always breaking down one way or another, but surely that can’t all be organised.”
“Your father has been quoted many times as saying that democracy in this country is a farce. He believes that the ruling classes should rule and that we citizens are not qualified to judge what is best for ourselves. He rants about democracy entrusting our country’s future to unmarried mothers and unemployed youths who can barely read or write and who care little and know less about the world. Of course, there is some truth in what he says. Even the most educated and intelligent amongst us cannot begin to appreciate the true complexity of the world unless and until every piece of government business is openly discussed and every secret international treaty laid bare to the public gaze. But parliamentary democracy is not about everyone needing to know everything. It is about understanding who we trust and who we do not trust to have that knowledge, and who we trust and who we do not trust to make those decisions for us. I, and others, believe that he is planning to remove that choice.”
“Fergal said he could shut down cashpoints and crash bank websites and then there would be riots when people couldn’t get at their money—”
“Did he now?” he interrupted. “And do you believe your father could do that?”
“Fergal seemed to think he could.”
“You shouldn’t believe everything you are told, especially by imaginative and impressionable young men.”
They finished their lunch in silence but Skye had the feeling that Carl was beginning to thaw in his attitude towards her and that, perhaps, he might not be the arrogant shit she thought him to be.
*
When Skye dropped Carl off at the hotel that evening she was surprised to see Fergal sitting in the bar.
“You didn’t spend long in Oxford,” she said, trying not to show how pleased she was that he was back.
“Well, no, not as long as I’d thought. Actually I got back to the island soon after lunch.”
“Oh.” Skye wasn’t going to show how disappointed she was that he hadn’t gone straight up to The Lodge.
“Obviously you’ve had an interesting day or so or you wouldn’t be sitting here like the cat that got the cheese.” Carl grinned.
“Cream,” Skye corrected. “It’s the cat that got the cream, not the cheese.” She hadn’t meant to sound so touchy.
“Whatever makes you think cats don’t like cheese?” Fergal asked, smiling. He was used to Carl’s habit of mangling sayings.
Skye told herself firmly that she had no reason to feel hard done by and smiled reluctantly.
With the atmosphere becoming more relaxed the three settled around a table with a bottle of wine.
“Now, Fergal, what have you to say for yourself?” Carl asked, taking control as Skye now expected he would.
“I slaved over a hot computer long into last night, with some success I should add. Anyway, I kept coming across the fact that the best source of information on the early Lacey family was here on the island.”
“Where?”
“In Newport. A local history society put me in touch with a chap who spends his time researching individual families and then selling them to Americans.”
“He’s done the Laceys?” Skye asked, knowing the answer was to be ‘yes’.
Fergal nodded. “There’s a Lacey family in Washington DC who turned out to be an illegitimate line. A girl who called herself Mrs Florence Lacey from Freshwater, which is only a couple of miles from The Lodge, gave birth to a son in June 1872, within weeks of arriving in America. He hasn’t found any evidence of any marriage but she called the child Bernard Lacey so there has to be some sort of link with your family, Skye.”
“Interesting as all that is, I can’t think for one moment that it helps us and it’s certainly no reason to be grinning like that proverbial Cheshire Cat. Are you going to tell us what you have actually achieved?” Carl asked firmly.
“As I was waiting for the ferry over to the mainland yesterday morning I decided to follow the narrative as it evolved. Was it Alice in Wonderland who said start at the beginning?”
“It was the King in Alice in Wonderland, yes. Begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end: then stop,” Skye answered. “Audrey always said it was the best advice ever.”
Carl nodded. He was beginning to warm to Audrey Lacey, a woman no longer young, who had taken in her brother’s illegitimate daughter and raised her as her own. He wished he could have met her, she obviously knew far more about her family’s history than she had ever passed on to Skye. The incident Skye had described concerning the family Bible had been worrying him.
“So you’ve decided to begin at the beginning. I would have thought it was easier to work back from the present using birth certificates and censuses.” Carl brusquely questioned Fergal’s methodology. “So was it good plan?”
“I would say I’ve pretty much struck gold. Where Claude is concerned.”
“You’ve found him?” Skye whispered.
“I have.” Fergal smiled. “And something of his connection to Bernard Lacey. The first Sir Bernard that is, not the illegitimate one in Washington.”
“No wonder you look so bloody pleased with yourself,” Carl added drily.
“Obviously he was the first person I tried to find when I was in Oxford yesterday but there was almost nothing about a Claude Olivierre, or any other Olivierres for that matter, anywhere on the internet. What my friend in Newport showed me today were local Parish records and other documents that haven’t been uploaded and they prove that Olivierres not only existed but were closely connected to the Lacey family.”
“Well come on then,” prompted Carl.
Fergal began to read from his iPad. “Claude Olivierre first appears as a donor to the winter relief fund in February 1816. He is described as ‘gentleman resident at The Lodge, near Freshwater’. Sir Bernard Lacey is also mentioned in that fund’s report as ‘Baronet of Oakridge Court’. Since that is the first mention of either of them it is reasonable to assume they had both only recently arrived in the area.”
“You know how I detest assumptions, but that one seems fair.” Carl nodded. “And not just because it fits our argument,” he added swiftly.
“The next reference to either of them is the marriage between Claude Olivierre and Patience Shaw, which was solemnised in April 1816 witnessed by—”
“Don’t tell me, Sir Bernard Lacey?”
Fergal nodded and smiled.
“Who was Patience Shaw?” asked Skye.
“She is described as ‘widow’ though Shaw appears to be her maiden name as her father is named as ‘Colonel James Shaw of Burley in the County of Hampshire’.”
“A military family then, interesting,” Carl commented, almost to himself.
“What is even more interesting,” Fergal continued, “is another wedding noted in October 1816.” He looked down at his notes and read carefully. “Bernard Lacey, Baronet, was married to Constance Shaw, also described as ‘widow’, whose father is also Colonel Shaw of Burley.”
Eventually Carl broke the long moments of silence as he and Skye took in this information.
“So, to summarise, within a few months of moving to neighbouring estates in the area Sir Bernard Lacey and Claude Olivierre married sisters, both widows, from the same military family. It appears then that there is, from the earliest record, a close relationship between the two.”
“Did Claude witness Sir Bernard’s marriage?” Skye asked.
“He did.”
“It seems the one man is keeping the other close. Now there will have been a purpose for that.” Carl allowed himself to speculate on what their relationship could have been.
Fergal continued. “They don’t appear just to be marriages of convenience because there are some baptisms and interments in fairly quick succession. Claude and Patience appear to have had two sons, both called Charles, both born within a year of each other in 1817 and 1818 and both dying before reaching a week old. And there was also a girl, Mary Lettice, who died aged one year in 1820.”
“Lettuce?” Skye asked with a frown.
“Quite a common name in those times, spelt with either an I or a U,” Fergal answered without a hint of a smile.
“Then, also in 1820, there is a baptism and no accompanying death, a daughter, Josephine.”
“Look at the names.” Carl spoke with a calmness he did not feel. “Charles is Carlo, the name of Napoleon Bonaparte’s father. Maria Leticia was the name of his mother and we all know about Joséphine.”
“Coincidence?” Skye ventured.
“No such thing.” Carl and Fergal spoke in unison, looked at each other and smiled conspiratorially. Skye realised this was something that went back to Fergal’s student days.
“Continue,” Carl prompted.
“In 1822 the baptism was celebrated of twin sons, Henry Claude Lacey and William Bernard Lacey.”
“Twins? That must have been difficult then. Poor woman, especially as she probably wasn’t that young.”
“You really must become more detached Skye. You are far too sentimental to make an historian.” Carl’s voice was firm, but Skye noticed it didn’t have the hard edge it had had all through the previous two days. “You are correct, though. It would have been difficult. There is a lot of anecdotal evidence that when twin sons were born to families with titles the weaker one would be lost, leaving an undisputed heir. But here both survived and both were baptised. Interesting also,” he continued thoughtfully, “is the fact that they gave both boys second names, it was not common practice in those days, and it is even more interesting that they gave the elder boy Claude’s name and the father’s only to the younger, it is obvious Bernard held Claude Olivierre in high esteem. This choice of names is a very deliberate compliment.”
“And there’s more about their baptism.” Fergal made sure Carl was giving him all his attention. “The boys had one godmother, their Aunt Patience, who was present, and two godfathers, both absent, who were represented by Claude. The first was Robert Banks Jenkinson, Earl of Liverpool, who was, as you will be well aware Carl, the Prime Minister at the time.”
Carl was silent. He had not expected that.
“He was named at the christening of the twins Henry and William in 1822, though it was noted he was absent at the ceremony,” Fergal continued. “The other sponsor for the boys was rather less well known.”
“Yes? Are you going to let us into the secret?” Carl prompted as Fergal hesitated.
“Sir Robert Frensham.”
“Frensham? Sir Robert Frensham?” Carl could not immediately place the name. “Is that supposed to mean something to me? You say it as though I should recognise it.”
Skye didn’t like to say that the name rang a bell with her too, though she couldn’t think why.
“I was able to check out the Frenshams,” Fergal added. “They had a property on the island though their main house was in Mayfair. Do you want me to investigate them any further?”
“No need. I remember the name Frensham now.” Carl was smiling. “I have come across Lady Frances Frensham many times over the years. She was one of those mistresses of Arthur Wellesley’s who lasted rather longer than others. She not only lay with men of substance but was one of those rare women who could also get on with others of her sex. One of her better documented friendships was with Joséphine de Beauharnais. Lady Frances was, in fact, at Malmaison when the Empress caught a chill and died. She was then rumoured to be the exiled Napoleon’s mistress when she paid an extended visit to Elba in 1814. It was said of her that she spread her favours not widely but too well. I find it intriguing that she makes an appearance here.”
“If Claude was who we think he was that must have been quite an interesting christening. Claude and Frances, assuming she was there, meeting up again after how long? And with her husband there?” Skye suggested.
“Seven, eight years since he was on Elba,” Fergal confirmed.
“It might have taken some explaining.” Skye smiled as she imagined the meeting.
“Unless, of course, they all knew what was going on, then it could have been all incredibly civilised.” Fergal grinned back.
The professor was not amused at their imaginings.
“Fergal, you should know better than to romanticise. Skye has several times made the rather obvious point that we cannot know these people. You cannot think that any ideas you may have of their emotions, their circumstances or their motivations have any validity whatsoever.”
“I know,” Fergal conceded, “but you can’t argue against the fact that these powerful men knew Sir Bernard and Claude. I mean, getting the Prime Minister to be godfather is something pretty special isn’t it?”
“There’s something else,” Skye added rather sheepishly. “I haven’t really had a chance to show you.”
“What?” Carl asked impatiently.
“In the drawing room there’s a citation. Audrey was really pleased it was at The Lodge and not with her brother.” She looked across at Fergal with something approaching guilt. “Sorry. I should have shown it to you. But we can’t do everything at once. Anyway, it’s a beautiful, ornate document advising Bernard Lacey that he was being appointed Baronet of Oakridge for personal services to the Earl of Liverpool. I’m sorry. I didn’t know who he was. I didn’t realise it might be important.”
“Many baronetcies were created in the 1810s,” Carl said calmly. “There were the wars in India and in Europe where many men were rewarded for their military service, but here you say the reason given is ‘personal services’ to the man who was Prime Minister at the time, well, it is unexpectedly vague, and unexpectedly interesting.”
“It could mean almost anything from saving his life to espionage to procuring prostitutes,” Fergal added.
Carl nodded his agreement. “There was certainly more than one Prime Minister of that century who wasn’t averse to sampling the less savoury aspects of life but what is interesting is that this could be an early example of something that happens quite frequently today.”
“Today?”
“In Northern Ireland through the 70s, 80s and 90s, and most recently in Iraq and Afghanistan, unknown men are given honours for ‘personal services’ to someone in government when their specific activities cannot be brought into the public domain. Basically they were agents of some sort, spies if you like.”
“So you think Sir Bernard might have been a spy?” Skye suggested tentatively. She didn’t want to sound ridiculous.
“That would make sense in our scenario wouldn’t it? It would explain why he was looking after Claude, keeping him close? Being his minder? Continuing any interrogation?” Fergal agreed with Skye.
“It’s an avenue I have been considering,” Carl added. “There was a broad network of very clever people at the time and not just in the military. The authorities in England were paranoid about revolution spreading from France to these islands. We need to check out our Sir Bernard’s history very thoroughly. It could explain a lot.”
“I know you said we shouldn’t be romantic but I really wish we could magic these people here. I mean, this was an inn even in those days, they might have sat in this very room. Wouldn’t it be great if we could find a wormhole in time and ask them all the questions we need answered?”
Skye looked at Carl and saw exasperation in his expression, and she looked at Fergal who shrugged and smiled.
“Well if this were a film or an episode of Doctor Who that’s what they’d do,” she said in her defence.
Carl was unable to cope with Skye’s whimsy. “Let’s call it a day. There’s another long one tomorrow.”
“I won’t see you, Skye, I’m off to the archives in Newport first thing, then probably back to Oxford.”
Disappointed as she was, Skye was pleased that Fergal had, on this occasion, explained that he would be away.
*
Ten minutes later, as she drove home in the dying light, Skye was thinking of all the things that had happened in the five days since Fergal’s first phone call.
“Frensham.” She said the name out loud. “Frensham!” Now she realised why she had recognised the name.
When she had been researching Fergal on the internet she had seen a copy of his family tree, created by the television company when his mother was a subject on a family history programme.
Sir Robert Frensham had been the name at the top.
As she drove along the familiar lanes she wondered why he had said nothing about the connection.