The Silent Boy (47 page)

Savill said: ‘My wife died last August, sir.’

‘I am sorry to hear it. But Mr Rampton – or perhaps Mr Veale – foresaw that possibility. In the eventuality of Mrs Savill’s predeceasing him, then he willed his estate to her children living at the time of his death.’ Mr Rowsell glanced at the paper. ‘To be precise, “to the heirs of her body”. It is rather a curious phrase, but entirely unambiguous. Are there children still living, sir? Mr Rampton mentions two in a letter to Mr Veale. Charles and Elizabeth.’

‘Yes,’ Savill said. ‘They are both living with me now.’

Rowsell looked up. ‘But not earlier?’

‘That’s partly correct. At the time of her death, my wife and I were estranged. She resided in Paris with Charles, while Elizabeth was here with me in London.’

‘I see.’ Rowsell’s eyes were small and very blue; they looked as they might see further than most but only if it were prudent or necessary to do so. ‘Well, we need not trouble ourselves with that. No other children alive at the time of Mr Rampton’s decease?’

‘Not that I am aware of.’

‘I should add that there is one condition. The will stipulates that, in order to inherit, a child must adopt the name of Rampton. Unless the child is a girl and already married, in which case her firstborn son must bear the name. That’s not unusual in these cases. A man wishes his name to live on after he is gone.’

‘The estate, sir.’ Savill hesitated. ‘What does it consist of?’

‘I cannot be precise at this time, I’m afraid. There is the country house in Stanmore, which is freehold, as is the house in Westminster. There are a number of small farms in Hertfordshire – good arable land, I’m told, about four or five hundred acres altogether, perhaps more. None of these is encumbered with a mortgage, so far as I know. Mr Rampton derived a considerable income from various positions he held, but that of course will have ceased with his death. He banked at Wavenhoe’s – they will be able to tell you what they hold in deposit for him there. Mr Veale handled the purchase of various bonds and securities for him, too. They will be at Wavenhoe’s as well.’

‘So you cannot estimate the approximate value of it all?’

‘Not yet, sir. Though I should be surprised if it did not amount to a comfortable sum. I—’ Rowsell broke off from what he was saying, distracted by the sound of laughter from the outer office. ‘I beg your pardon. Before we continue, I should mention that Mr Rampton made one other provision. In the event of Mrs Savill’s predeceasing him, he wished his estate to be transferred into a trust to be administered for the benefit of any surviving children by two trustees until they had reached the age of twenty-five. He appointed Mr Veale, or his successor, as one trustee; and he desired you to be the other.’

Savill looked up sharply. ‘Are you sure?’

Rowsell peered at him ‘Quite sure. There is no possiblity of error or even doubt about it. But I should warn you, it will take time for the will to be proved. Still, I cannot think there will be any difficulty about the matter. The dispositions are entirely straightforward. I understand there are no other living relatives. And there is no evidence whatsoever that the testator desired to change his mind.’

They talked the matter over for a few minutes more. Savill agreed that Mr Veale, or rather Mr Rowsell as his deputy, should continue to act for the estate. Rowsell asked Savill to provide attested certificates of his marriage, the children’s baptismal records and their mother’s death.

These were straightforward matters, and Savill listened and talked as if he were in a dream, paying hardly any attention to what either of them said.

Rampton had disliked Savill and destroyed his career in the American Department when it had been expedient to do so. He had spurned Augusta after her elopement and killed her when she tried to blackmail him. He had ignored Lizzie, his great niece. His interest in Charles had seemed, at best, purely dynastic, a rich man’s obsession. At worst, he had seen Charles as a danger to him, an obstacle to be removed.

And yet. Did the will hint at another story?

The heirs of her body.

There was another burst of laughter from the next room.

Mr Rowsell coughed in a way designed politely to attract attention rather than to clear the throat. ‘You will need time to consider all this, I am sure. There is no great haste, sir, after all. It is always the tortoise who reaches the end in matters of the law, not the hare.’ He laughed at his own wit, and then blushed.

‘I must talk to the children,’ Savill said.
The heirs of her body.

‘That will be as you see fit, of course. Shall we make an appointment for next week? If you were able to look out the certificates in the interim, or at least those you have to hand, that would be of great assistance.’

Rowsell escorted Savill to the door. In the outer office, the staid clerk was smiling broadly, leaning forward over his desk. Before him, sitting at his ease in the visitor’s chair and dressed from head to toe in black, was Monsieur Fournier.

The house was in an alley north of Long Acre, where it clung to respectability like a martyr to his faith. The lodgings were up two pairs of stairs and at the back: they consisted of two apartments, the one opening from the other.

Savill and Fournier stood in the outer room. It had a window that admitted a dull green-grey light from a greasy court hemmed in by the backs of houses.

‘We could afford little better,’ Fournier said, with a hint of apology in his voice. ‘But it was not merely a matter of money. This is a discreet neighbourhood. No one asks questions in case the answers are inconvenient.’

‘When?’ Savill said.

‘When did we take the apartments? Late September, though they weren’t occupied until October – while you were with us at Charnwood, in fact. Dr Gohlis made all the arrangements. Not just for this. For the journey from France. The nurse. And of course the treatment.’

The room was furnished with a table, three chairs, a wall cupboard and a battered travelling trunk. It was perfectly tidy. The floor was swept. The window glass was cracked but it had recently been cleaned. A coal fire in the grate had dwindled to ashes.

‘The Count paid for everything,’ Fournier said. ‘Though God knows he can ill afford to do so.’

‘Why did he bother?’

‘He felt it was his duty. It is quite absurd, I know. One might even say Quixotic. He’s not a fool – he is perfectly well aware that there were others, both before him and afterwards.’

‘Thank you for the reminder.’

‘Pray forgive me, sir. I spoke without thinking. Won’t you sit down?’

Savill shook his head, wondering whether Fournier ever spoke without thinking. They waited in silence on either side of the window until at long last the door to the inner room opened.

Dr Gohlis stood in the doorway. He bowed to Savill. ‘You may enter now, sir, if you wish.’

Now, when at last the time had come, he wanted to put the clock back, to set the hands whirling in reverse through the hours, the days and nights, the weeks, the months, the years until he reached a time when everything could be made new. When everything was innocent.

For are we not innocent when we dream?

The draught from the cracked window touched his cheek. He felt the weight of his solitude. He could talk of this to no one – not Lizzie or Charles or Miss Horton (always supposing he ever saw her again). He would have to be careful with his sister Ferguson, for she would undoubtedly interrogate him at dinner in an attempt to discover why that charming Monsieur Fournier had called at Nightingale Lane this morning in search of Savill, when she had obligingly told him where to find her brother at Lincoln’s Inn.

He came to give me a lesson in morality, dear sister.

Dr Gohlis stood aside to let him pass.

‘You must prepare yourself,’ Fournier murmured.

Savill walked through the doorway of the inner room.

His wife lay in bed with the curtains tied back. The window was open. It was very cold. The air brought the hard tang of coal smoke with it, but it could not quite disguise the odours that lay beneath.

The nurse stood at the head of the bed. She curtseyed as the gentlemen entered. She was a respectable-looking woman in a grey dress, with a black shawl about her shoulders and draped over her hair that gave her the appearance of a secular nun. She waited with her head bowed and with her hands clasped before her.

The shroud was folded over the back of the chair. There was a washstand, with a bundle of soiled linen placed beside it on the floor and pushed against the wall. The only other furniture was a chest of drawers, a close-stool and a press with a shelf fixed to the wall above it. A crucifix hung from a nail in the wall opposite the bed.

The body had been washed but the jaw had not been tied up.

‘Why?’ Savill said. ‘Why did she not come to me? Why did you hide her away?’

Fournier glanced at Gohlis. ‘Doctor? Pray have the goodness to wait next door a moment, and take the nurse with you.’

Savill turned aside. He stared at the crucifix. He found he was trembling.

‘It was by her own desire,’ Fournier said gently.

‘Because she’d wronged me?’

‘Perhaps that was part of it. But she was a proud woman, and she had been beautiful. I think she did not want you to see what she had become. Not you, and not the world, either. Look closely at her.’

Savill approached the bed. Augusta lay on her back, looking up at him with blank eyes, dulled with death. He doubted he would have recognized her if they had passed in the street. Her complexion was already waxen, apart from the left cheek, which was an angry red, the smoothness of the skin disfigured by miniature mounds and craters. The eyelid was damaged too, and the orb itself was cloudy.

He said: ‘What in God’s name happened?’

‘Oil of vitriol,’ Fournier said.

Savill stared at him. ‘Who did it?’

Fournier said nothing.

‘Rampton? Surely not …?’

Fournier limped to the door and made sure it was firmly closed. ‘I will tell you what I know – that will be better in the end, rather than leave unnecessary doubt. One’s own disordered fancy can be one’s worst enemy, I find.’

‘The truth,’ Savill said, gripping Fournier’s arm. ‘The truth, sir. You owe me that at least.’

Fournier was a small man. He looked calmly at Savill but said nothing.

In a moment, Savill removed his hand and stepped back. ‘Forgive me.’

‘It does not matter. But pray moderate your voice. You came into this affair at an angle, as it were, so you have never seen its true dimensions. The heart of it is not Charles. It is this poor lady lying here. You remember when she left London for the Continent?’

‘How could I not?’

‘
I have an appetite
,’ she had said all those years ago as she sat astride him, her belly already swollen with Lizzie. ‘
And you shall feed me
.’
And if he were not there to provide nourishment, then naturally she would have looked for it elsewhere.

‘It was the summer of seventy-nine,’ Savill said. ‘I was in New York for the Government, and my commission lasted longer than either of us thought it would.’

‘That, I suppose, was part of the trouble. I wonder if Rampton had a hand in prolonging your stay?’

Augusta had not eloped with her Bavarian adventurer solely for love of him, Fournier explained: she had also thrown her reputation to the winds in order to escape the attentions of her uncle Rampton. ‘He was making love to her, and pressing her hard, but she resisted, time and time again. A woman in her position is so very vulnerable. When von Streicher came along, he offered a way of escape. I dare say he was a handsome devil too, and very plausible.’

‘But Rampton?’ Savill protested. ‘An old man. And her uncle.’

‘He was younger then. As for the near relationship, well, these things happen every night in peasants’ cottages – so why should they not happen in the houses of their betters? Lust is a matter of opportunity, sir, not morality.’

When Rampton had lost his position as under secretary in the American Department, he had gone abroad for six months, partly to escape the attentions of his political enemies. He had travelled first to Germany and then to Italy, where he had found his niece in Rome.

‘Von Streicher had abandoned her by then. She was living in a precarious manner, dependent on her beauty. When her uncle laid siege to her again, she no longer had a refuge. In exchange for her favours, he set her up in a modest establishment before he left and remitted funds to her for a year or two.’ He hesitated. ‘That was when Charles was born.’

‘Are you saying that Charles is the son of Mr Rampton, as well as his great-nephew?’

Fournier spread his hands. ‘It is possible. On the other hand, other gentlemen paid court to her. Monsieur de Quillon’s advances certainly met with success, and for a time, just after Mr Rampton left, she was his principal mistress. That’s why she came to Paris, to try to rekindle his ardour.’

Savill looked at the woman lying on the bed, her passions spent, her desires set aside and her needs cancelled. ‘So the Count may be right?’

‘There is simply no way of knowing.’

‘Did she see her uncle again?’

‘Not until last year. After he left Rome, he had no wish to prolong the connection between them and indeed every reason to end it. But then’ – Fournier gestured gracefully at the window as if there were another country on the far side of the glass – ‘the situation in France worsened, and Mr Rampton found employment with another branch of the British Government. I don’t know how far you are acquainted with the secret activities of the Black Letter Office?’

‘I believe I can hazard a guess as to some of them, sir.’

‘Then you may understand why Mrs Savill and Mr Rampton had something in common again. Mrs Savill had the ear of Monsieur de Quillon and his party, and she was in a position to supply valuable intelligence of their activities and plans. She was also in need of money, and Mr Rampton was able to provide her with some. That’s why he came to Paris in August.’