In Pale Battalions (48 page)

Unable quite to believe the evidence of my own eyes, I fetched the key and went up to the observatory. It commanded a view of the whole house and grounds and I knew that, if John really was there, I could be certain from that vantage point of seeing him go. The sun was only just getting up, but it was light enough to show a lone figure, stealing away across the park. There was no mistake. It was John. He looked back once, then vanished into the trees.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a drift of smoke from the window of one of the guest rooms below me. The rising sun was shining on the raised pane and there I saw, standing behind it, clad in a dressing gown and smoking a cheroot, none other than Mompesson, smiling to himself and staring fixedly towards the spot where John had just slipped from view. So Mompesson knew as 324

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well—and the knowledge gave him the hold over Leonora that he might have prayed for. By succumbing to the temptation to visit her, John had handed his enemy the weapon he needed.

At first, I expected Mompesson to denounce John as a deserter.

God knows, there was nothing I could do to stop him if he chose to—nothing, that is, short of the one step I hadn’t yet realized I would have to take. But nothing happened. It was as if I’d dreamt it all. Leonora gave no sign that she was not a widow. Mompesson refrained from showing his hand. I concluded he wanted more proof before taking action. So long as he lacked it, we were safe.

In early September, Franklin came to stay at the house. As a friend of John’s, he was, unwittingly, as much of an enemy as an ally. Out of sheer confounded loyalty—and, I suspect, a growing affection for Leonora—he threatened to stumble on the truth. I wish I could have been more open with him, but I knew I must not be.

For Leonora’s sake and for John’s, I had to keep my own counsel.

On the morning of Friday, 22nd September, I heard from Maitland at last. His letter had taken six weeks to reach me. What it told me was worse than I’d expected.

“I hope this information will be valuable to you,” he wrote.

“Getting it cost me near as much as selling you that cotton in ’63.

Ralph Mompesson, as far as I can judge, is the sort of man who’d have taken your money, then shot you in the back and sold the mer-chandise all over again.

“What he’s told you about himself is true as far as it goes. His family owned a lot of land in Louisiana before the Civil War. But his father went to the bad and sold it all for a pittance to a carpet-bagger. Young Ralph, it seems, was neither hero nor fool. He served briefly in the Army during the war with Spain, then went north. I gather he made a pile in the Northern Pacific Panic of ’01. After that, he never looked back. He was mixed up in every railroad swin-dle going—of which there were plenty, believe me. But he’d served with Roosevelt in Cuba and, while Teddy was President, he was fire-proof. When Roosevelt retired in ’08, it was bad news for our friend. Federal agents began to inquire into his dealings and I’ve no doubt they’d have called time on him in the end.

“In fact, though, it was the suicide of a Massachusetts heiress in the summer of 1913 that brought the roof down on him. They were engaged at the time and, through her, Mompesson stood to get his

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hands on the Reveson banking fortune. It must have been a blow when she took her life. She left a note saying some damned unsavoury things about him. Nothing actionable in law, but worse, in a sense. Brutality, perversion, sadism—that kind of thing. Old man Reveson didn’t want it brought into the open, but he did want rid of Mompesson, so he paid his passage to Europe and had done with him. Maybe Mompesson reckoned it was time to quit. From what you say, he’s started all over again.” I sat down to breakfast that morning, my old head whirling with all that Maitland had told me. A villain, a fraudster—and something worse. Mompesson had to be stopped. That much was certain. But how?

Amidst all my ponderings, Franklin joined me at the table, cast down for reasons of his own. He reminded me that Mompesson was to join us that evening for the weekend, though, God knows, I needed no reminding. Then he delivered a shattering blow.

“I have it from his own lips,” he said, “that he hopes to marry Leonora.”

I laughed it off as best I could, but that’s when I truly had the measure of Mompesson’s capacity for evil. To protect John, Leonora would have to submit to a bigamous marriage. Mompesson could expose the crime whenever he chose, posing as its innocent victim; yet, in the meantime, could demand his marital due. I wondered if Olivia knew of his plans and approved, but it didn’t really matter what she thought. Only Mompesson’s intentions counted for anything.

That afternoon, pacing the grounds, I rehearsed my options.

They were pitifully few. I clung to the hope that Franklin might be mistaken. But it was a faint hope.

Then I saw Leonora walking up the drive towards me. She looked strained and upset. Wherever she’d been, it had done her no good. Even to my old eyes, it was obvious she’d been crying.

“Hello, Charter,” she said. “What, no smile? Are even you depressed?”

I put my arm round her and led her towards the house. “Only at the thought of you being unhappy.”

“It’s not so bad,” she replied, smiling bravely.

“If you’re in any kind of trouble . . .”

“No. There’s no trouble—nothing for you to worry about.”

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“I worry about Mompesson. I think he might have his eye on you.”

“What nonsense!”

“If you say so. Can I take it, then, that if he had the nerve to ask you to marry him, you’d reject him out of hand?”

She stopped and looked at me intently. “What makes you ask such a question?”

“Just idle curiosity, my dear.”

“What would you think if I accepted such a proposal?”

“I would think you had your reasons.”

She squeezed my hand. “It’s good of you to say so.” Then she trembled. “I must go in. It’s becoming cold out here.” She stepped free of my arm and moved on towards the house. I watched her go, certain at last what I should do. She’d not answered my question, but I had my answer all the same.

I spent the hour before dinner in my room. From the old trunk where I kept it, I took the derringer I’d bought in Savannah in ’63, when I’d thought I might need it. Now the need had arisen. I cleaned and oiled it, checked the action, loaded it and put it away again. Then I went down to dinner, smiled benignly at Mompesson over the table and weighed my chances of surprising him.

He was the last to go up afterwards, leaving me asleep by the fire—as he supposed. After a few minutes, I followed him upstairs.

I fetched the gun, slipped it into my pocket, then made my way to his room. I knew neither Thorley nor Franklin was back yet, so only Cheriton’s room, among those nearby, was occupied.

I went in without knocking. Mompesson was on the other side of the room, by the dressing table, taking off his cufflinks, his back towards me. Without turning round, he said: “You’re early. You wouldn’t want to be thought over-eager, your Ladyship—would you?” Then he turned and saw it was me. “What in hell do you want?” I told him. “I want you out of this house—and out of my family—for good. And I want you out . . . tonight.”

He laughed—as I knew he would. “Go back to the fireside, old man, before they put you away in a home for the senile.” He turned away again.

There was a discarded towel lying on the chest of drawers beside me. I lifted it up and draped it over my hand as I drew the der

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ringer from my pocket and moved towards him. I knew I had to use the gun at close range, which was just as well: my eyesight wouldn’t have been up to it otherwise. Yet I knew also that I’d regret it if I gave him a chance to overpower me.

“Still here?” he said, noticing me out of the corner of his eye.

“The problem is: you’re still here. I know what you’ve done since coming to this house and I mean to put a stop to it.”

“The hell you do,” he began. That’s when I shot him, while he was still turning to look at me. It was a clean shot. He died instantly, with a fixed look of surprise on his face. He was a clever man, whose one mistake was to think he could treat me like a fool. But playing the fool and being a fool are two very different things. I don’t think he ever understood that.

When I left the room, the house seemed quiet. Nobody had stirred. Or so I thought. Then, as I crept along the passage, I saw him. Cheriton, deathly pale, standing in the doorway of his room, wide-eyed and shivering. He looked at me as if he couldn’t believe what he saw. Whether he noticed the bloodstained towel, bundled, and slightly singed, in my hand, I don’t know.

“I . . . I thought I heard . . . something,” he stammered. “Like a . . . a shot.”

“I heard nothing,” I replied. “Perhaps you dreamt it.”

“Perhaps. I dream a lot . . . these days.”

“Go back to bed, young fellow. That’s my advice.”

And off he went, meekly, without further ado, closing his door gently behind him. I went back to my room, cleaned the gun, hid it beneath the floorboards and burned the towel on the fire. I’d just climbed into bed when Fergus came knocking on my door to raise the alarm. Olivia had found Mompesson—as I’d expected she would. Her claim to have heard the shot was a lie, designed to explain why she’d gone to the room. As for Sally, I don’t blame her for backing up her mistress. She had her livelihood to consider, after all.

I said nothing to Cheriton the next day. I hoped he would believe meeting me was a dream, if he remembered it at all. Now I think he probably did believe he dreamt it, as he may have thought he dreamt many things in that house. I must take my share of the blame for his suicide. We all failed him. It was a bad business.

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believe? The man they put on the case—a fellow named Shapland—came to question me two days afterwards. Cheriton’s death had knocked all the stuffing out of me. I didn’t want him to be blamed for killing Mompesson as well as himself, the conclusion which Edward and Olivia were both eager to draw, so I proposed to lay all the facts before Shapland and make a clean breast of it.

It never came to that, entirely because of the fellow’s brass-necked insolence. I don’t know what fanciful theory he was cooking up, but he dragged in Miriam’s death and the old story that she had some connection with an industrial agitator named Fletcher. He had the confounded cheek to ask me if I thought Fletcher might have been John’s father, rather than Lord Powerstock.

My immediate reaction was to throw the blighter out, but then he asked another question: what significant event had occurred at Meongate in the middle of June? My blood ran cold. He could mean only one thing by it. He knew, or suspected, that John wasn’t dead. Suddenly, Inspector Shapland became a dangerous man.

Confession was out of the question if it might lead him to the truth.

I told him it was past my bedtime and showed him the door.

I was mightily relieved when the inquest failed to name Cheriton as the murderer. It eased my conscience more than a little.

By then, there was nothing to be done but hold my tongue and trust that matters might turn out happily. Alas, they didn’t. Leonora died, Franklin was killed and John stayed in hiding. I’ve often wondered since where he might be, but now I don’t suppose I’ll ever find out. There’s nothing more I can do to help him. I’m glad, at least, that I was able to help you.

If I had my time over again, I still wouldn’t hesitate to kill Mompesson. You were Leonora’s friend, so you’ll understand: I did it for her. She needed a helping hand—I gave her mine. When you’re my age, the risk of being hanged doesn’t weigh too heavy.

And I knew there was only one way to deal with Mompesson. I’d met his type before, you see. He reminded me of a Russian noble-man I ran into in St. Petersburg in the winter of ’61. I ended up killing him too. Did I ever tell you about that?

six

Even had I not been indebted to Charter in so many ways, I would have kept his secret. When he died the following year, I found the derringer among his possessions and disposed of it, over the cliff, before it could arouse anybody’s curiosity. I admired him for what he’d done to help Leonora. I thought often of all the younger, better-qualified men at Meongate who might have gone to her rescue and reflected that only old Charter had had the nerve and the sense to do what needed to be done. You should remember, if you ever think your father failed you, that your great-grandfather avowedly did not.” That, then, was Charter’s victory over Olivia. She’d wasted her life—and a portion of mine—seeking the man she thought had killed her lover: a foolish fate indeed for one so proudly impervious to feeling. Hatred had snared her where love never could. Yet it had also deceived her. In all her serpentine imaginings, she had never so much as glimpsed the truth. The rumble-voiced man with the white whiskers, who’d held me in his arms at Droxford station all those years before, had escaped her, to laugh away his days in his cottage by the sea. The fat old man they’d thought a fool had been too clever for all of them.

“I’m sorry if I’ve shattered an illusion,” said Grace. “Did you want so badly to believe that your father killed Ralph Mompesson?”

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“I suppose I did,” I replied. “It seemed to make up for . . . everything else.”

“You blame him for deserting you?”

“A part of me did, when Willis first told me that he hadn’t died as I thought. But not now. Now I don’t blame anyone. It is enough . . . to know the truth.”

As if to prove that the truth couldn’t hurt me any more, I persuaded Tony to drive all three of us down to Meongate the following day. It was a dare, if you like, a conscious act to exorcize all that the place had meant to me—and it seemed to work. It was the same time of year as when Tony and I had first met, and Grace had not been there since my parents’ wedding, so, for all of us, its associations were never worse than mixed.