A Corpse in Shining Armour (16 page)

More of their holiday friends packed up and headed home. Lady Brinkburn began to acquire packing cases for some of the china
and pictures she’d picked up on their travels. There were fewer sketching expeditions. Her journal entries began to take on
a regretful tone about the people and places she would miss and the darkness and cold of an English winter in prospect, but
there was still nothing to give any hint of what was to come. August 26 started as a normal day in the journal.

Sky overcast, the heat heavy and oppressive. The Italian seamstress called this morning, about the alterations in my blue
travelling costume. C has taken the carriage and gone to the Desmonds, where they are getting up a party to play bridge.

A few more domestic details followed, then a later entry:

Evening. C not back, so I had a light supper of poached chicken and fruit brought to me here in my drawing room. I have little
appetite and my head is aching from the heat. I tried to sketch boats on the lake this afternoon, but could not get them to
come right. Even now that the sun is going down, there is no sense of relief from the oppressive atmosphere. A storm is brewing,
preceded by thunder echoing from the hills like a big bass drum. Now and then, distant lightning illuminates the undersides
of the clouds on the far side of the lake with a sullen kind of glow, nothing like the bright pulses of previous storms I
have witnessed from this window. I suppose it is Nature signalling the end of the summer.

Unusually, there were no sketches on the page. I hesitated before turning it, knowing we must be very close now to the entry
that mattered. Outside, two gardener’s boys were kneeling on the gravel drive, rooting out weeds invisible from where I was
sitting. Further away in the fields, men and women were turning over lines of mown hay to dry in the sun. When I turned the
thick paper it made a creaking noise that sounded loud in the library. There was just one line of writing on the double page.
The hand was the familiar one that had led me all the way from Newcastle to Lake Como, but it slanted across the paper as
if the writer lacked the strength or energy to hold the journal straight while she wrote.

August 27

This morning, Lord Brinkburn has told me something terrible, terrible.

Nothing more. I turned the page. The next two pages were blank. The journal resumed, after a fashion, two weeks later when
they were on the far side of the Alps and on the way home. But it was a different journal altogether, a mere record of miles
travelled and hotels where the party stayed. No descriptions, no poetry, no sketches. The last entry recorded
Arrived Brussels 5.30 p.m.
After that, only more blank pages. Not a word about the return to England or whether the same horses were waiting. I felt
as if the talented, resourceful young woman I’d been travelling with had suddenly died.

A door opened. A man’s footsteps came across the floor. When I turned there was Robert Carmichael. My face must have shown
my distress. He came and stood beside me. On an impulse, I moved to shut the journal, with some obscure idea of protecting
her secret, even though I still didn’t know it.

‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘I read it some time ago, at Lady Brinkburn’s invitation.’

His voice was quiet, with the same sense of loss that I was feeling. I turned back to the page with one line of writing, then
forward again to Brussels, not knowing what to say.

‘You’re wondering if that page could have been inserted afterwards?’ he said.

I hadn’t been, but the suggestion brought me back to my investigative senses. I thought about it.

‘I don’t think so, no. It would have been hard to tamper with the stitching of these pages, and you’d need silk yellowed with
ageing, as this is. The binding is scuffed just as it would be from travelling.’

‘Books may be restitched and bindings changed,’ he suggested.

He didn’t add, ‘…
as I know very well
’, but the suggestion was in the air. His work among the family’s books would have brought him into contact with the trade.

‘In that case, somebody did an expert job. Then there’s the question of the ink.’

‘Yes?’

He was listening politely, head on one side. He’d thought of all this in advance.

‘If you look at that one sentence on the twenty-seventh and then the passage about the storm the day before, the ink is exactly
the same colour and the same degree of fading,’ I said. ‘Those short entries at the end of the journal are in a variety of
different inks, as they would be in different hotels.’

‘So you conclude…?’

‘I don’t conclude anything yet.’

I closed the book and tied the tapes. He picked up the journal and slotted it into place on a shelf near the desk, among bound
volumes of maps. I stood up, feeling wearier than was reasonable from a morning in a library.

‘I’m sorry to say Lady Brinkburn is indisposed,’ he said. ‘She has one of her headaches. She sends her apologies and hopes
to meet you again soon. I hope you’ve been offered coffee.’

‘Yes, thank you.’

‘May I call the pony chaise for you?’

‘I’ll walk, thank you. I need the fresh air.’

‘In that case, perhaps you’d permit me to walk with you, as far as the top of the drive at least.’

It would have been rude to refuse. Had it been her decision or his that I shouldn’t talk to her after reading the journal?
He escorted me to the hall and asked me to excuse him while he went to fetch his hat. It took him several minutes, long enough
to talk to Lady Brinkburn, or perhaps I was being unfairly suspicious.

At first Robert Carmichael didn’t attempt to talk as we walked up the drive together, leaving me to my thoughts. The amazing
thing about the journal was how close it came to bearing out Lady Brinkburn’s story. All the elements were there: the storm,
the tower, the husband’s absence, the shock in the morning so appalling that it had crushed the life out of her. Hearing the
story for the first time, in Mr Disraeli’s voice with its hint of mockery, it had been so clearly a romantic woman’s fantasy
that I hadn’t believed it for a moment. Now, that disbelief was wavering. I was sure that the journal was genuine and that
the entries had been made at the time events were happening. Either Lady Brinkburn had gone mad quite suddenly, with nothing
in the journal to give the slightest warning of it, or something terrible had happened in the course of that night and day
beside Lake Como.

‘So what did you think of the journal?’ he said.

‘Fascinating. Observant and beautifully illustrated.’

We were fencing with each other, and these were no more than opening moves. He made no attempt to follow up his question,
so I tried one of my own.

‘Have you worked for Lady Brinkburn long?’

‘Longer than I care to admit. I was engaged as tutor to Miles when he was ill and away from school. When he went back, Lady
Brinkburn asked me to stay and help with the library and tutor both boys in their holidays.’

Tutors were often engaged straight out of university, so that would make him perhaps ten years older than Miles, therefore
in his early thirties. In spite of his occupation, he had the look of an active and athletic man.

‘Are you happy with a life among books?’ I said.

His eyes widened in surprise, as if at an unexpected move, then he smiled.

‘You think I should be out in the great world? “‘I am half sick of shadows,’ said the Lady of Shalott.”’

‘She died, out in the great world,’ I said.

‘And Sir Lancelot lived and had no notion what he’d done. It hardly seems fair, does it?’

‘He didn’t mean her any harm,’ I said.

‘I suppose no man ever does–no normal man, anyway. In answer to your question, yes, I am content with my life here. There’s
the river to row on and swim in, a horse to ride, paths to walk and a perfectly adequate library. What more could I ask?’

Somehow, we’d already passed the boundaries of normal conversation. The gateposts of the hall were behind us and we were out
on the public road, alongside a field were women were still turning hay with long wooden rakes. He showed no sign of turning
back.

‘Lady Brinkburn’s not mad, you know,’ he said.

I stopped and stared, wondering if he’d really said the words, or if I’d imagined them. He stopped too and stared back at
me. He’d taken off his glasses before leaving the house. His brown eyes were sad.

‘But I think you’ve come to that conclusion anyway,’ he said. ‘I think you like her.’

I hesitated, so as to be clear on what I did think. We started walking again.

‘Yes, I do like her. And from what I’ve seen and read so far, I don’t think she’s mad either,’ I said.

‘Will you be reporting that?’

He knew or had guessed so much that there was no point in pretending.

‘In all conscience, I can hardly do otherwise.’

I was sure that was not what the family’s lawyer, Mr Lomax, wanted from me. He might refuse to pay my fee, which would be
a hard blow, but I could do nothing about that.

‘On the other hand, she may be misguided,’ he said. ‘As you’ll have seen, she’s a strong-willed lady.’

‘Misguided and mad are two different things. If they weren’t, most government ministers would be in asylums.’

He laughed. We’d passed the hayfield now and were alongside a copse.

‘And there’s a legal difference,’ I said. ‘A court won’t listen to a person who’s known to be mad, but it has to decide for
itself who’s misguided.’

I was sounding him out, trying to see what side he was taking in the family quarrel. He must have guessed that, because it
was some time before he spoke.

‘I like both the young men–though they both have their faults–and I hold no brief for one against the other. If I have
any interest in this, it’s to see that the family doesn’t inflict more damage on itself than it has done already.’

‘And to protect Lady Brinkburn?’

‘Yes, that especially.’

A jay flew out of the woods on one side of the road, into them on the other. His eyes followed the blue flash of its wings
into the leaves.

‘Miss Lane, you implied that I’d chosen to live a retired life…

‘I didn’t mean any criticism of–’

He pressed on, as if he’d nerved himself to say something and wouldn’t be distracted.

‘As it happens, that’s largely true. But I’ve some experience of the world and I pride myself on being a good judge of character.
That’s why I’m about to take a step which may be a mistake. Whether it is or not, depends very largely on you.’

I said nothing. We walked on a few paces.

‘I don’t think you should ask Lady Brinkburn any questions about the journal or anything else.’

I didn’t reply. That was a decision for me to take.

‘And I think you should report back to Mr Lomax that Lady Brinkburn is, unfortunately, not in her right mind,’ he said.

‘What!’

For the second time, I came to a halt. The minor surprise–that he knew that Lomax had sent me–was outweighed by the greater
one.

‘But we’ve just agreed that she isn’t mad.’

‘Not mad, exactly. Certainly not mad in the sense that she’d need to be restrained or confined in any way. Simply subject
to delusions, fixed ideas, eccentricities. I’m sure you could gather evidence quite easily. You’ll find plenty of people in
the village with stories about her–wandering in the woods reciting poetry to herself and so forth.’

He was speaking fast now, like an inexperienced barrister who senses he’s lost the sympathy of the court but is determined
to get through his piece. I started walking, so that he had to fall into step beside me.

‘Mr Carmichael, you know as well as I do that walking in the woods reciting poetry is not evidence of insanity. Eccentricity
and insanity are not the same thing. Are you asking me to perjure myself?’

‘No, of course not. In any case, we hope it won’t come to anything as serious as perjury.’

‘So I’m to lie, and hope it won’t have to be in court?’

He blushed from hat brim to collar stud, but kept doggedly to his brief.

‘Miss Lane, this whole affair has been fed by gossip, most of it in London. At least, let’s try and use gossip against gossip.
If enough people in society become convinced of Lady Brinkburn’s mental instability, perhaps it will die as quickly as it
arose, before any more harm is done.’

He was talking as if I were already part of this conspiracy.

‘But why?’ I said.

‘Surely you see? You tell me that you like Lady Brinkburn. Can anybody who has any consideration for her at all bear the thought
of her standing up before the House of Lords, telling the story we both know about?’

‘Even if the cost of preventing it is having her thought mad?’

‘Yes. Even at that cost.’

We came to the track through the woods that led to the cottage and turned on to it.

‘There’s something you should know,’ I said. ‘There’s a policeman down here from London who’s trying to find out what happened
to Handy. He was there just after they found the body. He’s not the usual sort of policeman.’

He went tense.

‘How do you know that?’

‘He spoke to me. Not that there was anything I could tell him.’

I didn’t add that he’d spoken to the family coachman as well. Let him find out some things for himself. He didn’t speak again
until the chimney pots of the cottage were in sight.

‘Well, are you going to do as I suggest about Lady Brinkburn?’

‘I can’t do it,’ I said. ‘I want to help her, I think, only I can’t do it this way.’

He said nothing, just raised his hat to me and turned back along the track.

When I reached the cottage, Mrs Todd was just preparing to leave. Goodness knows what she and Tabby had found to do all morning
in so small a place, but it looked tolerably tidy.

‘Polly says that fisherman you didn’t want me to talk to has gone back to London,’ Tabby told me as soon as I came through
the door.

She sounded regretful. Mrs Todd nodded.