The Lost Ancestor (19 page)

She walked slowly down the path towards
Blackfriars, basking in the warm sunshine and the inner glow that she was
feeling.  In just a few moments she would meet Mary walking up the path
and she would hand her a big bunch of flowers.  She was so relieved to
have patched things up with her twin.  Like all sisters, they had their
ups and downs but they shared a bond which could never be broken.

Edith spotted the white field pansies just
off the path and headed towards them.  She was careful to take just enough
to provide balance to her growing posy.  As she stood up, she saw a flash
of movement in the corner of her eye.  She hoped that it was Mary and
smiled.  But it wasn’t, it was a girl who she knew to be the scullery
maid.

‘What you think you’re doing?’ the girl
called at Edith.

‘Just gathering one or two flowers,’ Edith
said, irked that she had been caught out doing what so many of the villagers
did.

‘That’s thieving, that is,’ the scullery
maid said.

‘Oh go away, you silly girl,’ Edith said,
beginning to turn her back.

‘Expect you’re looking for your sister,
aren’t you?’

Edith had no patience and decided to
ignore her.  It would be much simpler to walk back up the path and wait
for Mary outside the gates.  She began to walk away when the scullery maid
started again.

‘You’ll probably find her with her fancy
man.  Her fiancé, I should say.’

Edith stopped in her tracks and turned
towards her.  ‘What are you talking about?  Mary doesn’t have a
fancy
man
.  Go back to the scullery.’

‘She hasn’t told you!’ she said with a
mocking laugh.  ‘Your own twin sister hasn’t told you that she’s engaged
to your cousin, Edward!  That’s funny.’

Edith felt her stomach fall.  It
couldn’t possibly be true.  There was no way Mary and Edward were an
item.  Engaged!  The very idea was plainly absurd.  Mary would
never humiliate her like that; she knew that Edith liked him.  ‘Don’t talk
such rot.  Will you please just go away and leave me alone?’

‘Ask her.  She’s got a ring and
everything.  He gave it to her.  It was his grandmother’s. 
Your
grandmother’s.’

Every part of Edith wanted to scream at
this awful, tittle-tattle-telling vixen, but she maintained her composure and
smiled, watching and waiting as she walked up the path and out of the estate.

It was true.  She knew it.  Her
sister—her twin sister—had betrayed her and done the unthinkable.  Edith’s
blood ran cold, as feelings of betrayal were replaced with feelings of
anger.  With her blood boiling, Edith ran to the old abbey ruins and
smashed the bouquet of flowers violently against one of the walls. 
Watching as a handful of blooms tumbled to the floor, Edith drew the bunch back
and again smashed them into the wall.  She kept on thrashing them back and
forth, angry tears rushing down her cheeks, until she held nothing but a few
pathetic stalks.

She would make her twin sister pay. 
As she stood by the wall giving a view over to the path, Edith spotted the
sandstone lintel and the initials etched onto it.  That was the last
straw.

Lady
Rothborne nervously watched from her bedroom window.  But for the usual
abundance of wildlife attracted to the estate’s varied habitats, there was
little stirring outside.  She could see Mr Phillips and one of the local
lads employed as a gardener working in the kitchen garden, but other than that,
the gardens were still.

She looked directly below her window and
watched as Mary Mercer, audibly in great distress, was ushered out into the
courtyard by Mrs Cuff.  A slight altercation with raised voices—but not
clear enough for Lady Rothborne’s ears—took place before Mary marched
indignantly up the path towards home and Mrs Cuff headed back inside the house.

Almost not daring to breathe, Lady
Rothborne clutched her Bible and watched as a smile appeared on her wizened
face.

Morton
was sitting in The Apothecary Coffee House on the corner of Rye’s East and High
Street, gazing through the small rectangular window panes as an endless torrent
of rain fell from the miserable skies.  Given the current weather and his
position on the Mercer Case
,
he had assigned today as a computer-based
research day and, rather than being cooped up in his attic study all day,
Morton had decided that he would rather be working in the cosy and atmospheric
coffee shop.  Of the plethora of tearooms and cafes in Rye, this was one
of Morton’s favourites, retaining as it did many characteristics from its rich
and colourful history as an apothecary.  The modern features of a coffee
shop had sympathetically been placed alongside vestiges from the past.  Morton
enjoyed looking at the banks of original wooden medicine cabinets which lined
the room.  As he ran his eyes over the neatly labelled drawers, he could
only imagine what mysterious illnesses such exotic Latin names as ‘B.Capsici,’
‘Amylum,’ ‘Vermicel,’ ‘G. Benzoin,’ and ‘Glob Tussi’ were once dispensed for.

Outside, the streets were empty.  The
rain had kept away all but the most ardent tourists and Morton was able to sit
in relative solitude by the window with a good excuse to drink copious
quantities of coffee all day without being reprimanded by Juliette.  He
was already in her bad books.  His dilemma about whether or not to tell
her about the anonymous, threatening package sent to him or the slashing of his
car tyres had been decided for him yesterday.  It had taken him so long to
find a tyre-fitters who had the correct tyres in stock and who were willing to
come out to him to change them that Morton knew his lateness home meant either
telling her exactly what had occurred or lying to her.  Up to now he had
omitted to divulge everything, but he hadn’t actually lied.  As he had
finally driven back from The Keep, he played out the impending scenario in his
mind.  She would tell him about her day at work, then she’d ask about his
day.  He would
have
to tell her about the tyres. 
Oh, and I
forgot to say that I also received an anonymous letter through the post which
basically threatens your life.
  Something along those lines.

‘Hi,’ Morton had said when he got in.

‘Hi.  You’re late—The Keep must have
shut hours ago,’ Juliette had remarked, sitting in her uniform on the sofa,
reading a dreadful celebrity-gossip magazine.

Seeing her in uniform always unnerved him
slightly and made him feel guilty, usually without reason.  Today, he had
a reason to feel guilty.  ‘Yeah, it did,’ Morton had replied. 
Literally hours ago.  First he had seen all the remnant visitors and
researchers leave, shortly followed by the staff: the receptionist had been
lovely and asked if he needed any assistance; Quiet Brian had quietly walked by
with a barely audible acknowledgment; lastly, Miss Latimer had waltzed gaily
past him looking like Mary Poppins.  Morton had considered
that
to
be the worst part about having his tyres slashed—that she had seen and clearly
gloated about it.

‘Where did you go then?’ Juliette had
quizzed.

‘I had to have someone change the tyres on
my car,’ Morton said, knowing full well that using the word
tyres
would
immediately kick-start Juliette’s investigation.  It would just take a few
seconds for her to register what he had just said.  And it did.

Juliette had put down her magazine and
turned to face him.  ‘What do you mean,
tyres?
’ she asked. 
The investigation had begun.

Taking a deep breath, Morton sat down
beside Juliette and told her what had happened.  Inexplicably, he decided
not
to start at the beginning, but to start at the end—with the slashing of the
tyres.

‘But why would someone want to slash all
your tyres?  Were any other cars vandalised?’ she had asked.

‘No, just mine,’ Morton had said, recalling
the sight of the totally deserted car park.

‘So, you were
targeted,
then?’
Juliette had asked, sweeping her dark hair back over her ears.  ‘Why would
that be?’

‘The Mercer Case,’ Morton had muttered.

Juliette’s eyes had rolled
dramatically.  ‘What now?  Come on, Morton, there’s
plenty
you’re not telling me.’

And so, the majority of their evening last
night had been spent going over the ins and outs of the Mercer Case
.
 
Morton had mentioned the threatening package he had been sent, half-expecting
it to freak Juliette out, but she had taken it all in her stride.  Police
Constable-in-waiting, Juliette Meade was not at all phased.  ‘I look a bit
rough, don’t I?’ had been her initial reaction to seeing the picture
previously.  ‘I think I should wear a bit more make-up.’

Surprisingly, Juliette had been more
intrigued in the case than anything else—not what he had expected.  Even
more surprisingly, she hadn’t warned him off it.  She had just asked that
he tell her
everything
that went on with the case, which Morton had
readily agreed to do.

‘Here’s your latte and fruit scone,’ the
waitress said, bringing Morton back to the present.

‘Thank you.’ He fired up his laptop, ready
to get stuck in: he had a lot of research avenues to pursue today. 
Flipping his notepad back to the lists of people close to Mary in 1911, Morton
re-read each list in the light of recent developments.  He had made good
progress finding out more about Edward Mercer.  His gut reaction was
currently that he and Mary were more than just friends, work colleagues and
cousins.  That placed him
very
highly in the rank of people who
might have known what became of Mary.  But, as he had died the month
following her disappearance without having married or had children, Morton
couldn’t think of any other areas of research concerning Edward that could
currently push the case forward.  Looking at the rest of the Blackfriars
domestic servants, Morton began a mundane, yet necessary line of enquiry:
finding their marriages, deaths and, with luck, living descendants.

He had finished his latte and ordered a
second cup in the time that it had taken him to find living relatives to a good
portion of the names on the work list.  He had drafted letters outlining
the bones of the case with a request for any information or photos to
descendants of Charlotte Cuff, Walter Risler, Sarah Herriot, Clara Ellingham
and Joan Leigh.  Owing to his unusual name, Morton had found an email
address for Bartholomew Maslow, grandson of Jack Maslow.  Morton could
find no marriages or children to Susannah Routledge, Agnes Thompson or James
Daniels.  Charles Phillips had married another Blackfriars servant, Eliza
Bootle and they had emigrated with their two children to Australia.  Since
he did not appear again in the UK, Morton guessed that the chef, Guillaume
Bastion, had returned to France.  He would print and send the letters
first class later today.  For the other employees on the list, history had
left little to trace easily.  If this initial batch of people went nowhere,
he would more ardently pursue the remainder of the list.

Next, Morton added the Mercer’s immediate
neighbours to the ‘Friends’ list.  Of course, he didn’t know if they
actually
were
friends or not, but they needed to be considered. 
Running the same types of searches, Morton found living descendants from the
adjacent properties and occupants of the two houses opposite to the Mercers in
1911.

Morton’s second latte had been finished
for some time when the waitress returned to clear his table.  A few
customers had come and gone since his installation by the window, but the
coffee shop was not busy.

‘Another latte?’ the waitress asked with a
pleasant smile.

There was a question.  His
coffee-addicted brain desperately wanted him to say yes, but, from the dark
recesses of his mind, he could hear Juliette reprimanding him for his caffeine
intake.  She was like some wartime minister, handing out rations of
coffee.  ‘Decaf, please.  Thank you,’ he said, satisfying himself
with the compromise.

Whilst he waited for his drink, Morton focussed
his attention on the Mansfield family.  Of the main family line, much had
already been documented in various sources.  Morton cross-referred the
various burial dates for the Mansfield family that he had procured from the
Winchelsea parish registers with what was available online.  Lady
Rothborne, her son Cecil and his wife Philadelphia had all been interred in the
family vaults of St Thomas’s Church, along with their only son, George, who was
the last member of the family to appear in the burial register when he was
buried in July 2008.  The only other family member present at the time of
the 1911 census had been Cecil’s cousin, Frederick Mansfield.  Morton
racked his brain to think if he had read anything about him in the guidebook to
Blackfriars, but nothing came to mind.

He picked up his laptop case and rummaged
among the collection of Mercer Case documents that he had brought with
him.  He found the guidebook to Blackfriars, flicked to the index and
found just one mention of Frederick Mansfield.  He turned to the relevant
page and found a family portrait taken on Empire Day, 1911.  The grainy,
sepia image showed Cecil, Philadelphia, Lady Rothborne and Frederick Mansfield
standing haughtily outside the front entrance to the main house.  Below it
was a photograph of the domestic staff taken on the same day, but this one was
taken outside the servants’ kitchen door.  Just underneath the photo was a
list of some of those present, although the addition of several question marks
indicated that not all of the servants had been identified.  Morton kicked
himself for having missed that the photographs had been taken in such a key
year.  A quick Google search revealed that Empire Day in 1911 was on
Wednesday 24
^th
May.  It was an annual event from 1902, celebrating
the British Empire, which tactfully transformed into Commonwealth Day in
subsequent years.  These pictures had been taken the month following
Mary’s disappearance and just six days after Edward Mercer had drowned in the
Blackfriars lake—just a few yards from where the picture had been taken. 
Morton held the picture up close.  It had not reproduced very well in the
guidebook, leaving the faces of the servants small and indistinguishable.

Morton pulled out his mobile and dialled
Sidney Mersham’s extension at Blackfriars.  He was in luck—Sidney was
sitting at his desk in the basement archives and picked up straight away. 
After initial pleasantries had been exchanged, Morton asked Sidney if a larger
copy of the Empire Day photographs could be emailed to him.  Sidney agreed
to do it right away.  Morton thanked him and ended the call.  He
would check his emails as soon as his current research thread had ended.

The
phone tap had worked.  The man listening to the conversation that had just
taken place between Morton Farrier and Sidney Mersham smiled.  It was much
easier to intercept a phone conversation than he had ever realised.  When
given the task, he had asked some of his more nefarious friends about how to
obtain the necessary equipment.  However, he easily found what he needed
on a legitimate website for a hundred and forty-nine pounds.  Getting the
necessary software onto Morton’s phone had been the hardest part and required
him to enter Morton’s house at night to place the software onto his phone. 
It wasn’t the first time in his life that he had made a trip to an ironmongers
for the requisite breaking and entering equipment and he doubted that it would
be the last, despite a deliberate attempt to try and legitimise himself of
late.  With the software in place, he had access through an online console
to all of Morton’s key information: SMS activity, voice calls, emails, GPS
location, internet browser history, call recording and the ability to listen
and record background noise around the mobile phone.  He was going to
monitor Morton Farrier’s every move.

The
young waitress tottered over to Morton’s window-seat table and placed a mug
down in front of him.  ‘Decaf latte,’ she said.  ‘Will there be
anything else?’

‘Not for now, thank you,’ he answered. 
He would likely end up having lunch here, but it was all down to how much he
achieved on his list of research areas.

Morton returned his attention back to
Frederick Mansfield.  His only mention in the guidebook was in the Empire
Day photograph and on the genealogical pull-out chart at the centre of the
book.  Morton double-checked the burial register entries for Winchelsea
and confirmed that he had not been buried in the family vault.

Running a marriage and death search for
Frederick revealed that he had died young, shortly after marrying in
1922.  A further, generalised search brought Frederick up in the
Andrews
Newspaper Index Cards 1790-1976.
  Morton clicked to view the original
image, which was for a newspaper clipping, stating that Frederick Mansfield had
been killed in an automobile accident.  Little more of the incident was
mentioned, so Morton switched to the Findmypast website and searched their
British newspaper collection 1710-1953.  He quickly found that
The
Times
had a more detailed report on the accident.  It stated in no
uncertain terms that Frederick, excessively intoxicated with liquor, had driven
his Rolls Royce Silver Ghost over the cliff-top at Beachy Head in Eastbourne,
following a late-night gambling and soliciting foray in Soho.  He left his
wife, Emmeline and young daughter, Vivien Mansfield.  The Mansfield family
had declined to make a statement to the newspaper, but Morton guessed that they
were mortified by such scandalous revelations.