Deadly Inheritance (30 page)

‘And what advice did you give her?’

‘Why to say to the man, whoever he was, that she would tell me his name if he did not do the decent thing by her.’ He thrust his hands deep into his pockets, his rage now blackened with a deep sense of guilt. ‘I was responsible for her death, Miss Grandison. When she told him that, he killed her, he must have done. And I was not here. His lordship had sent me to try and sort out trouble in the Mountstanton Yorkshire mine. It took longer than either of us had expected. There is deep feeling running against the owner there.’

There was silence for a long time.

‘What a shock it must have been to find that Polly was dead,’ Miss Grandison said finally. ‘But you surely cannot hold yourself responsible for your daughter’s death.’

‘I shall always hold that I brought about Polly’s death, Miss Grandison. But you are wrong;
I
was wrong; Polly was not my daughter.’

Richard Simon Arthur Philip Stanhope, sixth Earl of Mountstanton, approached the portrait of his father, Simon Richard Arthur Philip Stanhope, the fifth Earl, with caution.

The walls of the picture gallery were hung with works browned with age; their heavily ornamented frames often offering more interest than the pictures themselves. More recent additions, though, leapt out with fresh colours to charm the visitor.

The art-laden walls seemed to hang about Richard like prison chains, dragging him down into a dungeon of history from which escape was impossible. He felt the eyes of his ancestors judging and dismissing him as the least of their number; three hundred years of Stanhope history pinning him to the spot.

There, towards the end of the gallery, was the portrait of the man who had dominated so much of his life. He almost turned back, as though it was a sleeping animal he feared would wake. Instead, he confronted the vibrant figure that seemed to glory in his youth and strength.

The eighteen-year-old Mountstanton heir stood on a hill beneath a spreading tree, looking slightly to his left, beyond the viewer, down at the house.

A visitor, one familiar with portraiture, once looked at the work and said of the artist, ‘Ah, he always makes a statement with his paintings. Look at the simplicity of the landscape, the authority that is conveyed in the subject. He holds a gun, broken over his arm, ready for shooting. His breeches and waistcoat are almost nondescript, yet with them he sports a long and stylish coat that can hardly be held suitable wear for a country pursuit. However, the absurd combination is carried off in an entirely natural manner. It is the portrait of a man of position who cares not what others think. A complex character, I think, perfectly captured by the artist.’

Richard had listened sourly to this assessment. When he was eight, his father had once explained the reason for the coat. ‘The painter was the old man’s choice; I was to be captured for posterity, as he had been.’ Over the other side of the gallery was a portrait of the fourth Earl, Richard’s grandfather, arrayed in his Grenadier Guards’ uniform, keen blue eyes looking out with humour and dash. ‘I didn’t want the bother of posing,’ his father had continued. ‘I agreed as long as I didn’t have to dress up in some absurd fashion. But the artist feller said he didn’t like my tweed jacket, he wanted something with “a bit more drama”, was the way he put it. He took off his coat and told me to put it on, said it was just the job, and so that was that.’ The fifth Earl had laughed. ‘What shall we dress you up in when the time comes for your portrait, eh?’

Richard had looked up at his father. ‘Can I be a pirate?’

Richard recognised with dread the expression of distaste that so often appeared on his father’s face when in the company of his elder son, then he had given another laugh. ‘Don’t think so, old chap. Your mother wouldn’t like it.’

Richard looked now at the arrogant tilt of the head in the portrait, the autocratic line of the slightly hooked nose. As Belle had observed, he himself had inherited the Mountstanton nose – and the finger – but not the arrogance; that had been painfully acquired and never enjoyed.

Was there anything he enjoyed in life now?

Helen came up with a piece of paper in her hand. ‘I’ve been looking for you everywhere. What on earth are you doing here in the picture gallery?’

‘Wanted a look at the old man.’

Helen turned her attention to her dead father-in-law. ‘It’s a good likeness,’ she said after a moment, as if she had never seen it before. Richard remembered, though, how keen she had been on her first arrival for a grand tour of Mountstanton. She had taken in everything, commenting as they went in her soft voice that contained only a hint of an American accent. She had been horrified at the decay she saw all around her; bubbling over with plans for rescuing what she called ‘its heritage’. Funny, Richard had never noticed any decay. The place was … well … just Mountstanton. He was comfortable with it. Had been comfortable with it.

‘He was a devil, all right,’ Helen said with a reluctant chuckle, gazing at the picture with affection. Richard looked at her properly; saw how tired and stressed she seemed, and how, most unusually for Helen, a strand of hair had come adrift from her carefully arranged coiffure and hung beside her beautifully formed right ear.

‘Did I ever tell you it was my father who insisted I went to America to look for a bride?’ Richard remembered with frightful clarity that awful session with his father. The Earl had been in his most autocratic mode; Richard, filled with a terrible sick feeling, unable to meet his condemning eyes.

‘No, you didn’t.’ Helen looked at him with a glint in her eye that he hadn’t seen since the early days. ‘You didn’t seem reluctant to be there when I met you.’

He’d been thinking about those early days for some little time now; now that his options seemed to be narrowing dangerously. ‘Not after I arrived in Manhattan.’

There was another glimmer of the old Helen as she smiled. ‘I remember. You were full of how you wanted to see everything. You were going to tour the Rockies, Mexico, California …’

For an instant he was back there, with that feeling of freedom he had sensed the moment the boat docked. In America he had been sure he could do anything, be anyone. ‘But then I met you.’

‘It was that party at Newport; someone introduced us, said you had just arrived and would I look after you.’

‘And you did.’ He had a sudden vision of her standing on that wide Newport lawn that led down to the water, dressed in a slim gown of white watered-silk with a blue silk belt that showed off her tiny waist and matched her eyes. Her only jewellery had been a single string of magnificent pearls. She had smiled at him with such friendliness that he had been enchanted.

As she looked at him now, he knew she also remembered that moment.

‘Where did it go wrong?’ he said quietly, more to himself than to her. Would matters have gone differently if they had remained in America?

‘As you have to ask …’ she snapped and the moment of togetherness passed.

‘Why were you looking for me, Helen?’

She seemed to gather herself together and dismiss memories of those weeks in New York. ‘It’s about the fireworks for your mother’s fête.’

Over the years, increasingly lavish rituals had surrounded his mother’s birthday celebrations. Every year now, a party was held in the grounds for all the Mountstanton staff and the villagers, complete with an entertainment. It would end with a firework display, for which an expert would be brought in. Despite the work it made, everyone seemed to enjoy this annual party.

‘The designer wants to know if we would prefer her name spelt out in a fiery finale or, as he puts it … ,’ Helen looked at the piece of paper she held, ‘“to have the sky alight with cascading diamond waterfalls”. Hmm, I didn’t know he had so much poetry in him. Well? What do you think?’

With an effort, he tried to focus on the matter. It all seemed so unimportant. He raised a hand in a helpless gesture.

Helen shrugged. ‘If you have no particular feelings, I think Mama would consider finishing the display with an outline of her name in sputtering fireworks incredibly vulgar. I’ll tell him we would prefer to end on “cascading diamond waterfalls”. You have organised a gift for her, haven’t you, Richard?’

A gift! ‘Of course, Helen.’ He had better go into Salisbury that afternoon and find something.

‘I wrote off for a Kashmiri shawl she admired. And Belle will give her a Chinese lacquer box; Father organised it.’ Helen paused for a moment. Richard said nothing. ‘I hope Belle will enjoy the fête; the fireworks should please her. I’m a little worried about her. She has seemed quite peaky recently.’

Richard found he did not care whether Belle was pleased or not.

He had never quite understood why Helen had been so keen on inviting her younger sister to Mountstanton. Had she and his mother really plotted to make a match between her and Charles? More fool them if they had. He had raised no objection to the visit; thought a young girl could not interfere with his life. That, though, was before her companion had found Polly’s body.

Helen took another look at her list. ‘Have you heard if Charles is returning for tomorrow?’

‘You mean, you haven’t?’ Richard could not resist the comment.

Another shrug. ‘Your brother forgets he isn’t still in the army. He needs to be more considerate of his family’s feelings. He’s been away now nearly four weeks without a word to say when we can expect him back.’

‘Charles is a law unto himself,’ he said at his most bored.

Helen tapped a foot in controlled irritation. ‘He hasn’t told you what his plans are now that he has resigned his commission?’ Was that why she had tracked him down? To see if he knew what Charles had in mind for himself?

Richard looked again at the portrait of his father. All that vitality, all that youth, all that supreme self-confidence. His brother had inherited more of it than he had.

‘And young Warburton? Will he be back for tomorrow?’

Ah, the very slightest of flushes on Helen’s cheeks.

‘His mother is much recovered; he returns today.’

‘Then he can help me with some papers this afternoon,’ Richard said pleasantly. ‘Good morning, my dear.’ He strode past Helen and along the corridor.

Charles was another matter he needed to give thought to. Who could have imagined his brother would give up his army career like that? Richard felt uneasy; he had been unable to extract even a hint of Charles’s intentions and felt his brother had always been a darn sight too intelligent to be comfortable around. He’d left for London without any explanation. What was he doing there?

* * *

Walking purposefully, Richard passed the servants as though they had melted into the fabric of the mansion. He had learned early on the trick of always appearing to have business elsewhere and they, of course, were not allowed eye contact. He both envied and despised Helen’s ability to hold a conversation that appeared to suggest equality without losing an ounce of dignity.

Once outside, Richard skirted the haha where the pyrotechnic specialist was supervising the erection of the framework for his display. He paused for a moment to assess progress, then caught sight of Helen emerging from the house, obviously intent on delivering the firework finale verdict. Richard walked through the yew-framed parterre with its intricate box hedges, then the rose garden, reaching the herbaceous-bordered lawn, which led up to the little belvedere that stood in the far corner. With its pillars and stone seating, it almost matched the pavilion on the roof. He and Charles had played in both as young boys, their games almost always involving brave soldiers repelling invading forces. Charles had gone on to realise their imaginary dramas and Richard – Richard had tried to live up to his father’s expectations – and failed.

He sat on the stone bench, his back to the house, and stared out over the green parkland. Its specimen trees that led down to the silver band of river flowed prettily round the wooded hill and made such an attractive feature. It was a view of pastoral delight. That was what a belvedere was all about, his mother had told him and Charles years ago, objecting to their use of it as a battleground.

Now Richard could not look down the parkland without thinking of Polly ending up in those swiftly flowing waters; of her body being found by that sharp-eyed Grandison woman.

After a moment, he rose and walked slowly round the house to the stables.

* * *

In the yard, four horses were being harnessed to the closed carriage, its glossy finish receiving a final polish. Helen had hardly looked dressed for going out; it must be for the use of his mother. Richard felt relief. There would be no summons for him to attend her this afternoon. The last trace being secured and the stable boy holding the harness of the lead animal, the coachman swung himself up onto the box. The grooms got onto the back platform and the stable boy let go. Slowly, in stately style, the heavy equipage moved round the corner on its way to the front of the house.

Richard helped himself to a carrot from the bowl that was always ready just inside the stables, and went to check on his much-loved horse, Snowy.

‘What sort of a name is that?’ his father had snorted as Richard proudly led his new mount around the yard.

‘It matches his colour,’ Richard had said belligerently, putting his foot into the stirrup and lightly gaining the saddle. The thoroughbred horse had, of course, a much more elevated name, but Richard had insisted on keeping to the one he’d given him. Confident in little else, he knew his ability to choose first-class horseflesh could not be challenged by his father.

As he approached the stable, there came from round the side of the house the most extraordinary honking sound followed by screeches, panic-stricken shouts, horses frantically neighing, and a grinding of gravel under wheels.

Dropping the carrot, and followed by several stable lads, Richard ran to see what had happened.

On the side-drive the carriage stood at an angle, the horses snorting, throwing their heads in the air and pulling in different directions as the coachman and grooms tried to pacify them.