Chapter thirty: The search for the will

 (Charles Huntingdon has proposed marriage to Louisa Wilbrahim, and been accepted)

   On returning from Stanegate, I found Martin Clifford at my house, and took the opportunity of telling him how Sir James Wilbrahim believed his household accounts were in a state of confusion after the disappearance of both his steward and his housekeeper. He shook his head sadly.

   “I never trusted that man Bagley,” he reflected, “or Mrs Piddock either. I warrant they were putting his money into their own pockets, and fled when they feared they might be discovered!”

   I passed on Sir James’s request that he might visit Stanegate to examine the books. Somewhat to my surprise, he readily agreed. I said I would accompany him; for it had occurred to me that this would provide an excellent opportunity to find Sir James’s will, and discover exactly what arrangements he had made for Louisa’s future, in the event of his early death.

   Mrs Timmis was present in our conversation, and after Clifford had left us, asked about Sir James’s health. I replied that he was still very weak, but not, I thought, in any immediate danger; and that he was now reconciled with Miss Louisa, who was now much happier.

  Mrs Timmis regarded me shrewdly. “And may I be bold enough to ask, sir, do you have a particular interest there?” she asked “With Miss Louisa, that is?”

  I did not answer, and there was no need, for she could read sufficient in my eyes. She smiled.

  “You needn’t say nothing, sir! Maybe you want to keep it a secret? I shan’t ask further. Well, sir, if it’s what I’m thinking it is, then we’re all very glad for you both, that we are! It’s what we’ve been hoping for, ever since you first set foot here. Rescuing Miss Louisa from that lonely house, and dreadful people like the Rector! But don’t worry, sir; I’m telling nobody till you give me permission.”

   “Mrs Timmis”, I said, “I promise that henceforth I shall devote myself entirely to Miss Louisa. I cannot pretend that up to now I have led a particularly good life, but …” I was conscious that I was sounding absurdly solemn, and fortunately she interrupted me.

   “Lor’ sir, nobody expects a young gentleman in your position to behave like some saint or holy hermit! It just wouldn’t be natural! But now you’re a-changing, and that’s good: it means you’re all growed up!”

   I thought it most regrettable that my housekeeper had no children of her own, for she would have been a marvellous mother to them. I also tried to imagine how Lord Staines might have reacted on receiving similar remarks from his own adored mother the Countess, but the concept defeated me.

   The Rector, incidentally, was not seen around Bereton for some time after this. His servants reported that he had departed to visit his sister and her family in Leicestershire, but had fallen ill there. It appeared we would be spared his presence for the moment!

 

   Martin Clifford accompanied me when I next visited Stanegate. We found Louisa in the library with a pile of papers on the table in front of her. She looked greatly worried.

   “Some tradesmen came with bills, and William and I had to look for money to pay them, but we couldn’t find any. I took them to my father, who denied any knowledge of the bills, and they became very angry.

   “Then I tried looking at the account-books, but I couldn’t make sense of them. I am sure father never paid sixty pounds for a new watch, for I have never set eyes on any such a thing. Neither did he ever buy me twelve new pairs of shoes! And there’s more: the food ordered for the kitchen seems very expensive. And I am certain that we sold much of our grain last autumn, but I cannot find any record of it. I think there is a great deal of money missing. Do you think Mr Bagley and Mrs Piddock had been robbing us and ran off together?

  “My poor father! It was very wrong of me to tell him: the shock was too great. He was getting better, but now he just lies there and keeps repeating, “I trusted that man for twenty years! I trusted him!” He eats and drinks nothing. I really don’t know what to do! Please can you help us?”

  Clifford volunteered to examine the account-books, while Louisa departed to sit beside her father, relieving old William in that duty. I asked the faithful old servant about Sir James’s health, and he shook his head sadly.

  

  Clifford spent two days in his investigations. “Sir James’s accounts are indeed in a most parlous state,” he told me. “Miss Wilbrahim was quite correct in her suppositions. She is a clever young lady, and would make someone an admirable wife. And Becky, her maid, who helped us, may be unschooled but she is as bright and sharp as a new pin where arithmetic is concerned. I have also questioned William the manservant, but he has revealed nothing, as no doubt he assumes to be his duty to his master”.

   “So what are your conclusions?”

   “Over a hundred pounds is missing, and that is just in recent times, for I cannot find any older account-books. There are also mysterious payments and receipts involving persons with plainly fictitious names. My suspicion is that Bagley was using income from Sir James’s estate to finance Clewlow’s smuggling activities, and that much of the money stuck to his own fingers, and to Mrs Piddock’s. I fear that Sir James’s trust has indeed been grossly abused. It may be that Alderman Stout and others are also involved. But until Bagley or Piddock are found, or until Harry Clewlow tells what he knows, I doubt if we shall ever discover the truth”.

   He shook his head sadly. I recalled that when I had explored the old quarry on the hill, one of the men I had heard talking there, and whom I took to be smugglers, had been called Harry. I wondered if this was Clewlow and the other, who seemed to be his superior, had been Bagley.

   “So what is to be done?” I asked.

   “In view of Sir James’s delicate state of health, my advice would be that he should be disturbed as little as is possible. I believe that Miss Wilbrahim, with Becky to assist her, is fully competent to control the household accounts; and she may call upon my assistance whenever she feels a need. Would such a solution meet with your approval?” I agreed. I was amused by his praise of Becky, recalling what he had said about her on the night of the fireworks.

   So Louisa was now the mistress of Stanegate, with Becky acting as housekeeper. Sir James, insofar as he could comprehend it, appeared happy with these new arrangements. Clifford and I stood by to be called upon for advice if needed, but in fact our assistance was hardly ever requested, for the two young ladies coped admirably with their new responsibilities.

 

   Clewlow, as I have previously mentioned, was arrested as a smuggler, only to be eventually released without charge, but Bagley was never seen again; at least, not seen alive. Some weeks later the body of a man, completely naked, was found hidden in the woods beyond Mulchester. He had been shot. Numerous people positively identified the body as being that of Bagley, though as it had been partially consumed by foxes and other scavengers there could be no certainty. I asked Ned Timmis what he thought might have happened, and what people were saying. Had the unfortunate man been killed by Black George or some other robber, and the corpse then stripped of its clothing by the villagers?

   “It don’t sound like Black George’s work to me”, he mused, “killing’s not his way. He’s never killed nobody; leastways, not in these parts.” He avoided any speculation as to who else might have committed the murder. Investigations into the death of Bagley ran into an impenetrable wall of silence, and the matter remains an unsolved mystery. As for Mrs Piddock, she simply vanished, unlamented.

 

     While Clifford and the two young ladies were cutting their way through the tangled thickets of the Stanegate accounts, I had another mission to undertake, which was to find Sir James’s will. I wished to discover precisely what instructions he had laid down should he die before his daughter came of age. But nowhere could I find this document, which was not with the other papers. After much fruitless searching, I approached Sir James’s trusted old manservant.

   “William, we fear that your master may well die before long.”

   “Let us pray that he be spared, sir”.

   “We all say amen to that indeed! But were he to die, which heaven forefend, what would follow? Do you love your young mistress?”

   “I do indeed, sir! Why, sir, I worship the very ground she walks on, sir, as does everyone who knows her!”

   “And what of Mr Bunbridge, the Rector?”

   William hesitated before venturing a reply. “Well, sir,” he eventually admitted, “It’s not my place to judge the doings of my betters, him being a man of God and all; but I can’t say he’s well liked. He’s tight with his money, and then there’s all those stories about him ….” His voice tailed off.

   “I see. So what would you say if I told you that somewhere in this house there is a will, drawn up by your master before he fell ill, that names the Rector as Miss Louisa’s guardian, should your master die while she is still a child?”

   William said nothing, but his look told me all that I needed to know about his feelings.

   “Well then," I continued, “I wish to find the will and examine it to discover the precise terms. Please understand that I shall not attempt to damage or change it, which would not be proper; and when I have read it, I shall replace it. But the will was not anywhere in the library. Was there anywhere else where would your master have kept important papers?”

    He considered long. “Well, sir”, he said eventually, “Sometimes I saw his honour with a large box. Dark wood it was, with brass at the corners, and kept locked. I do not know what it held, for he always dismissed me from the room before he opened it, but I think it was papers, for he always had pen and ink prepared, and his spectacles polished. And where the box was taken afterwards, I never found out. It is not here, nor is it in any of the other principal rooms”.

   “Where, then?”

  William again pondered before replying. “My father was in service here before me, and I remember him once saying that the talk was that back in the old days there was a secret hiding place in the room upstairs: the one with the carving that used to frighten the young mistress. But I know nothing about that, sir.”

   I suddenly remembered what Mrs Waring had once told me: how my aunt had suspected there might be a priest’s hole in Stanegate, to hide the sacred vessels of the Popish mass, from the time when the Wilbrahim family had been papists.

   “William”, I said, “I shall go there immediately in search of that box. Will you give me your keys in case it is locked?”

   “Oh no, sir; that wouldn’t be at all right, not without his honour’s permission!”

   “I entirely understand, of course. But supposing you happen to leave your keys by mistake on the desk here, and then come back in a few hours to find them? Remember, this is all for the sake of your young mistress!”

   William hesitated for only a moment before removing a massive bunch of keys, both large and small, from his belt and placing it carefully on the table beside him, after which he walked unsteadily out of the room without a backward glance. 

   I snatched up the keys, and, filled with a sudden hope, raced up the stairs to the room with the grotesque carvings, which I had never entered since being shown it by Louisa. I discovered Becky was there, seated on a bench and drinking something from a cup. I doubted that it was tea! As soon as I appeared, she leapt to her feet, curtsied and quickly began dusting, as if to convince me that she had been hard at work. I laughed.

   “Pray don’t bother!” I said. “I don’t expect you thought to see me up here.”

   “That I didn’t, sir! It’s normally just us servants as come here: none of the gentlemen. Except Mr Bunbridge, that is”.

   “Oh, really? He comes here, does he?”

   “Yes he does sometimes, sir. Once I come in and found him down on his knees like he was praying, looking at them old books next to that thing over the fireplace. ‘Why, sir’, I says, ‘You’ll be getting all dirty! Let me dust for you, sir.' But he wasn’t having none of it: he ordered me to go away right sharpish: told me to leave the room and mind my own business."

   “Did he now? Well, well. Let’s have a close look ourselves, should we? We’ll start with the carving itself, and then turn our attention to the books”.

   I examined the carved overmantel very closely, tapping it here and there, especially the grotesque faces. The nose of one of these appeared to have been carved separately, and was loose. I tried turning it and pressing it inwards and then pulling it out again, but nothing resulted.

   Next I examined the books on the shelves to the right of the fireplace. They proved to be mostly decaying volumes of sermons from the days of Queen Elizabeth or even earlier, of little interest today. 

When I pulled one off the shelf, the binding promptly disintegrated in my hands. The calfskin had been covering a stiffening of pieces of old parchment cut to shape, and the glue holding them together had failed through old age. One sheet fell out and fluttered to the floor, and Becky stooped to gather it up. 

   “Oh, look!” she exclaimed, “In’t that pretty!”

   The parchment was a fragment of an illuminated manuscript, the work of some monk in earlier times, depicting angels playing instruments and singing around a giant letter I, which took the form of a budding tree. I supposed it to be from the spoils of some monastery, dissolved under Henry the Eighth,with its books seized and sold as scrap to a printer. It was indeed very pretty.

   “Don’t you think this would make a lovely present for your mistress?” I said. “I’ll have it framed by a London bookbinder and then we’ll present it to her. Won’t she be surprised to hear where we found it!” Becky nodded in agreement, but then, reverting to her domestic duties, she exclaimed with some annoyance, “The floor’s all scratched here. It’s like someone’s been pushing the furniture about."

   I looked, and saw that it was indeed the case. Why should that be, I wondered, when there was neither table nor chair nearby? Then, whilst still looking downwards, I noticed that some of the books on the bottom shelf were upside down. I pulled them out, and found a panel of wood behind. When I tapped, it sounded hollow.

    A sudden hope came to me. “Becky!” I exclaimed in an excited whisper, “Go and turn that face, the loose one, and push it and twist it; try anything!” She hurried to do so, and after a few trials, a catch somewhere clicked open and I was able to drag out the shelf and the panel behind! It made a grating noise as I pulled it across the floor out of the way. There remained only a black gulf that extended behind the old carving. A secret cupboard!

   Was this indeed the refuge to hide a priest and his superstitious equipment? Looking back on my discovery, I cannot imagine it would have deceived an experienced priest-hunter for long; but at the time I was merely eager to find whether this place of concealment still contained anything. I reached in, and my fingers located something large, which I pulled out and carried to the table. It was a mahogany box, brassbound at the corners, just as William had described! Surprisingly, a key was in the lock.

   “Now, Becky,” I ordered, “This could be very important for your mistress’s future. Fetch me a candle and then stand guard at the other side of the door! Don’t let anyone in! If someone comes, find some means of keeping them out! And you must promise never to breathe a word of what we have found here. Can I rely on you to do this?”

   “I’ll allus do anything you asks of me, sir!” She replied, looking me full in the face before dropping her gaze modestly and leaving the room.   

 

   I turned out the contents of the box. There was a mass of papers and a few other small items. My first search was for the will; and I quickly found a likely document, folded and sealed with Sir James’s seal. The wax was already broken, so I had no compunction in unfolding it. Yes, it was indeed the will!

   I discovered that under its terms Mr Bunbridge was to receive a most generous legacy, a not inconsiderable sum was to be laid aside to support the indigent poor of the parish, and there were donations to servants and other people of whom I knew nothing, with the bulk of the property to be left in trust to Louisa. However, there was a proviso that she should not come of age until the age of twenty-five; and that until that time the Rector was to be her legal guardian, and she was on no account to marry without his express permission. The possible consequences of this I scarcely dared contemplate!

   I turned to the other papers, and read them with increasing astonishment, for what I discovered was treasonable. There were letters to and from a French agent, a certain James Butler, conspiring for the French army to land in England to support a Jacobite rebellion and restore the Stuart dynasty, together with a copy of the “Declaration of King James” (that is, the Pretender) from that year, denouncing the Whig government for corruption and other offences, and promising that “restoring their rightful Prince” would remedy these. So what Lord Teesdale had told me about Sir James’s Jacobite treason was true! There were references to a certain “D”, who was not identified, but who appeared to have been involved in this traitorous correspondence. Could this be none other than Danielle, I wondered?  Then, following the rebels’ stay at Stanegate in December 1745, there was letter in French from the Prince himself, thanking Sir James for the hospitality provided by his wife and servants in Sir James’s absence; this being accompanied by a medal of the Prince.

   Most startling, however, were several drafts of a letter, in Sir James's own hand, to Charles Edward Stuart himself, dated a year later, by which time the Young Pretender had escaped to France, Louisa had been born and Lady Wilbrahim had died. There were a great many crossings-out and emendations in the margins. The gist of the letter was to ask whether Charles had lain with Lady Wilbrahim during his stay at Stanegate, and might therefore be the true father of Louisa. The arguments were confused and overlapping, reflecting the state of Sir James's own mind on the subject. He wrote that he knew that the Prince had the reputation of desiring the love of women, and that it was rumoured that the highland clans would entertain him by giving him their prettiest girls; but that was not the custom in England, and that he deplored the old custom of Kings to cuckold their courtiers. He furthermore lamented that Lady Wilbrahim had become increasingly distant from him by the 1740s, so that they were rarely intimate any more, and that the birth of Louisa in early September of 1746 had been a surprise. His wife’s health had never recovered from the birth, he wrote, and she had died a few weeks later without ever speaking to him on the subject. In these drafts, the Prince was addressed as “Your Royal Highness” (abbreviated in the draft to “yr. RH”) and the tone of the writing fluctuated between accusation and obsequiousness, and as a result achieved neither.

   I wondered whether such a letter had been sent, or whether indeed it had ever been intended to be sent. Perhaps it had been drafted merely to clear Sir James’s mind? I pondered the thought that Sir James Wilbrahim, rather than being a ridiculous and foolish old man, was perhaps a tragic figure, worthy of our Shakespeare or the ancient Greek dramatists, haunted for many years past by the dark suspicion that his wife had betrayed him and that the child he was rearing was not truly his daughter. But on the other hand, could he bear the heavy responsibility of caring for a child who might be of royal blood, and who, if the Stuart dynasty were to be restored, might be recognised as the offspring of the reigning monarch! It was no wonder that Sir James’s behaviour towards Louisa appeared so strange: for all her life he must have been hoping to marry her to a foreign prince, or at least to some great British Jacobite lord. No wonder he had scornfully rejected Lord Staines and me as suitors!

   I furthermore wondered how much the Rector might know of all this? And if he did know, did that explain his hold over Sir James Wilbrahim?

    But what should I do now? Should I destroy the incriminating letters, or should I take them into my own keeping? In retrospect, I can see that either would have been a better course of action than the one I took. I can only plead that, filled with excitement at what I had discovered, I did not give the matter sufficient thought. I replaced all the documents, including the will, in the box, which I locked and took away the key. I then returned the box to its hiding place and closed the secret cupboard. Reiterating to Becky the need for absolute secrecy, I descended the stairs to find the aged William.

   “Now, William!” I hailed him with mock solemnity. “I have found a set of keys which you must have dropped. What is more, I have discovered another key that should be added to your collection. You must be more careful in the future!”

   “I shall indeed, sir.” He then paused, with the expression of someone wrestling with his conscience, before venturing, “I did once, sir, not long ago, lose the keys, and searched a very long time before I found them in the master’s desk; which was strange, sir, because I had already looked there. And I know all my keys well, but this little key that you have given me was not there among them.”

   “I see. And who else might have been in the house at the time to pick them up? The Rector? Or Bagley?”

   “I really cannot say, sir”.

   And there the matter had to rest for the moment. The consequences would only become apparent later. In the meantime, I hurried back to London. There was a vital question that I now needed to ask Danielle, and I would save her life, if I could.