Heirs of the Body (3 page)

“Mother can pack a lot into a few pithy sentences when she tries. Ah, I might have guessed. It’s all Edgar’s fault. He was unforgivably remiss not to ascertain the identity of his heir as soon as he had appropriated the title.”

“Appropriated? Is that the word she uses?”

“I told you she’s by no means resigned to dowagerdom. Dowagership? Dowagerhood?”

“All the same, she has a point about his being remiss.”

“Remember, the poor man wasn’t brought up to the business of being a lord.”

“Lordhood, as it might be.”

“To do him justice, though he must be glad not to be surviving on a schoolmaster’s pension, he doesn’t care two hoots about the title. So, not having any children, why should he care who gets it next? Mother does, however. Wouldn’t you think she’d have learnt that she has no say in the matter?”

“Your mother considers herself a law unto herself.” And her younger daughter occasionally followed her example, as he’d discovered the very first time Daisy had interfered in one of his investigations.

“Anyway, she intends to keep a close eye on things, since Edgar has neither the common sense nor the breeding to.… Yes, well, we’ll skip the invective. Aha, here we are. She expects me to bring you down to Fairacres, because if a policeman can’t sort out the impostors from the real heir, what’s the use of having one in the family? She’ll be very disappointed in me if—As if that was an inducement! She’s disappointed in me whatever I do.”

“Whereas,” Alec smugly pointed out, “she has at least acknowledged the value of having a policeman in the family. Although she seems a little confused about the function of the various branches of the law. Pearson would have every right to resent my poking my nose into his business, supposing I were inclined to interfere, which I’m not.”

“But you must admit it’s an intriguing situation. Gruntled or not, I wouldn’t miss it for anything. Besides, Bel and the twins will enjoy seeing their cousins, and you’ll have time to spend with them, darling.”

“I can’t say intriguing is the word I’d use.” The word he’d use was not to be pronounced in feminine company. “Still, I expect you and Pearson will sort them out before we get there. How difficult can it be to tell the fake heirs from the real one?”

THREE

On a
warm, damp morning in early May, Daisy took the number 63 bus from Hampstead to the City. She disliked driving in central London, especially in the rain.

Not that it was exactly raining. The air was heavy with lilac-scented moisture. It was neither falling in droplets nor visible as mist, but she knew from experience that as it settled on the windscreen it would obscure her vision even worse than actual rain.

Though Alec kept telling her she ought to take taxis, the years of penny-pinching between her father’s death and her marriage had taken their toll. Why waste money on a cab when the bus would take her within ten minutes’ walk of Lincoln’s Inn? Besides, she needed to think; in a taxi the inexorable tick of the meter always distracted her with worry about whether she had enough change in her purse.

She had to marshal her arguments. A chat with Madge had dispelled her impression that Tommy was enthusiastic about including her in his initial interviews with the claimants. Apparently he’d had second thoughts about Geraldine’s sensible suggestion and would have to be persuaded.

Daisy had put on her navy costume, the plain one she wore for calling on editors. The skirt reached below the knee, which had been a businesslike length when she bought it, though now it was fashionable. A silk blouse in a blue paisley pattern and a speedwell-blue cloche brightened it up. She didn’t want to look like an ordinary shorthand typist.

Come to think of it, though, looking like a secretary for the interviews wasn’t such a bad idea. She would put it to Tommy.

The bus duly deposited her at Ludgate Circus. She always enjoyed walking along Fleet Street, feeling herself a small part of the great machinery of news gathering and disbursement, even if “news” wasn’t quite the word for her largely historical articles. Like the reporters dashing in all directions around her, she dealt in words and information. The offices of
Town and Country
magazine, her English publishers, were tucked away in the labyrinth of alleys, courts, and lanes to the north of the bustling street.

Fleet Street became the Strand. Rising ahead was a Victorian Gothic building holding a different kind of court, the Royal Courts of Justice. Just before reaching it, Daisy turned right into Bell Yard. Now the figures passing her were barristers in black gowns and white wigs, and solicitors in dark suits and bowlers or—among the elderly—frock coats and top hats.

In these surroundings, no wonder Tommy had grown staid. Had he become too old-fashioned to let a woman have her say in legal matters?

As he had advised, she entered the precincts of Lincoln’s Inn by the Carey Street gate, an elaborate archway with two coats of arms above and fanciful wrought ironwork supporting a gas lamp below. She confirmed his directions with the porter.

“Number 12, New Square, madam? Pearson, Solicitors? Straight on. You’ll pass two passages with a bit of a garden between them, then it’s the second door on your right.”

Daisy thanked him and went on into New Square. On three sides of a wide stretch of lawn and trees stood terraces of four-storied brick buildings. Most had regular rows of sash windows, with the symmetry beloved of the Georgians. As she approached numbers twelve and thirteen, Daisy saw they were obviously older, their windows odd sizes and misaligned, very likely replacements for the original mullioned casements.

The interior matched, Daisy found when she entered after ringing the bell, as instructed by a small sign. The entrance hall boasted centuries-old carved oak panelling and stairs—and electric lights.

The rattle of typewriters halved in volume and a girl came out of a room to one side. She escorted Daisy up to the second floor, to a small room gloomily lined with shelves of black deed boxes, where she presented her to Tommy’s secretary. Miss Watt had steel-grey hair set in steely marcel waves. Her plain costume was steel-grey, the skirt four inches below the knee, worn with a severely plain white blouse. Her eyes, examining Daisy over half-spectacles, were also steel-grey. Daisy suspected they could be as cold and sharp as steel if required to guard her employer from unwanted intruders.

However, Daisy met with Miss Watt’s approval. “You’re a few minutes early, Mrs. Fletcher, but I believe Mr. Pearson can see you immediately. I’ll let him know you’re here.”

Tommy appeared at once to usher her into his office, and she remembered to address him as Mr. Pearson. She had met him and Madge at the military hospital in Malvern where Madge had been a VAD nurse and Tommy a patient after one of his more perilous exploits. Daisy herself had squeamishly stuck to working in the hospital’s office, but she’d become good friends with the older girl, a friendship that had continued after both she and Madge married.

“Will you be needing me, Mr. Pearson?”

“No, thank you, Miss Watt. No interruptions.”

The office was a further example of mixed eras. The panelling, especially the ornately carved mantelpiece, was certainly older than the large Victorian rosewood desk, with its silver inkwell, and the leather chairs. Shelves bore row after row of legal books, the older bound in calf, the newer merely clothbound. The window, open at the top, looked out over New Square.

Daisy sat down in front of the desk, Tommy behind it. “I’ve been reconsidering,” he said, steepling his fingers.

Though she had been expecting this, Daisy was annoyed. “I do think you might have let me know. I needn’t have—”

“Reconsidering,” he repeated, “not decided against. But it would be most irregular to allow anyone other than the head of the family to attend the interviews.”

“The head of the family would be worse than useless. Apart from his lack of interest in anything other than moths and butterflies, Edgar didn’t grow up as part of the family and never heard the stories—”

“Ah, the stories! Those are what you expect to trip up any false claimant? You do realise it’s close to a hundred years since Julian Dalrymple ran off to Jamaica?”

“Julian? I’d forgotten his name, if I ever heard it. I realise he wouldn’t have known anything that happened since he left, but there’s plenty of family history—the sort that doesn’t get into
Burke’s Peerage
—dating from much earlier.”

“The sort that he might have told his children and grandchildren?”

“How can I know? Was he the strong, silent sort, or a tale spinner? Did he ramble on about the past in his old age? He must at least have told them his father was a lord, or his descendants wouldn’t be turning up hoping to be recognised as heir to the viscountcy, would they?”

“You’d be surprised. I’ve had two letters from men whose surname is Dalrymple, as attested by a clergyman and a judge respectively, but who admit to having no reason to suppose they might be related. Also several from people who claim to be Dalrymples but adduce no evidence; and one from a person living in the village of Dalrymple, in Scotland, who considers his abode to be proof of a relationship to the family, albeit his name is McDorran.”

Daisy laughed. “Heavens above! You can dismiss those at once, though.”

“The last, yes. The rest will have to be investigated. Those who can provide proof of their surname, I’ll have to interview. If I can’t debunk them at once, I’ll have to send a clerk to Somerset House to trace their ancestry. The records there go back to 1837 and Julian left England in 1831, so there’s a gap. Besides, those are records from England and Wales. We have no reason to suppose he or his descendants ever returned to Britain.”

“Gosh, it does sound like a complicated job.”

“I assume you’re not interested in the preliminaries.”

“Not really,” she admitted. “Once you’ve whittled it down to those who are serious contenders, I do think I might be able to help to separate the sheep from the goats.”

“You do realise your opinion of them will carry no weight. Only primogeniture and legitimacy count with the College of Arms, who are the final arbiters.”

“Give me a little credit, Tommy, I do know that much! I won’t be able to prove anything, but I might manage to disprove someone’s story, or part of it.”

“Hmm.” Tommy sounded sceptical. “What sort of family history are you thinking of?”

“Well, going right back to the beginning, for a start. Back to the fifteenth century, the Wars of the Roses, and how the Dalrymples rose to the nobility.”

“Good lord! I’ve seen the original patent, as it happens, but it doesn’t provide reasons for the ennoblement. It was talked about in the family when you were growing up?”

“Not exactly talked about, but Father told Gervaise. He told Violet—my sister—and me. I should think even younger sons would be bound to have heard about it, and it’s not the sort of thing they’d forget. I don’t suppose anyone else knows, except a few fusty old historians in ivory towers.”

“Probably not. How did it come about?”

Daisy shook her head. “If I tell you, then you won’t need my help.”

“Daisy, you can’t possibly tell me everything that happened in four centuries!”

“So you
will
need my help!”

“Let’s say I still have an open mind on the subject. Let’s hear about the Wars of the Roses. The short version.”

“If there’s a long version, I can’t remember it. I can never keep Lancaster and York straight, either, nor remember which is red rose and which is white. Anyway, legend has it Sir Roger Dalrymple was an obscure knight who fought for the wrong side. However, at the Battle of Bosworth he managed to switch sides just in time, taking his men with him. Henry Tudor was duly grateful and made him a baron. The story is that he’d promised a monetary award, but handing out titles was cheaper.”

“Henry VII was a notorious penny-pincher.”

“The funny bit is that the Petries, our neighbours, fought for Henry all along and were also rewarded with a barony.”

Tommy grinned. “That can’t have pleased them. And I see what you mean. It’s not the sort of story the Dalrymples would be keen on broadcasting to the world.”

“I don’t suppose anyone would care two hoots nowadays. Or be in the least bit interested, come to that.”

“Except those ivory-tower historians of yours. The Petries—I met your friend Phillip Petrie at Fairacres, but I didn’t make the connection. It was the Petries’ governess Julian Dalrymple ran off with.”

“Propinquity,” said Daisy. “The two families have always been friendly in spite of inauspicious beginnings. There was probably lots of visiting back and forth. She—What was her name, by the way? I can’t keep calling her ‘she.’”

“Marie-Claire.”

“Julian and Marie-Claire. I can’t help thinking of her as Jane Eyre. I picture her looking like Mabel Ballin. Have you seen the film?”

“Madge dragged me to the 1915 version, with Louise Vale,” Tommy said impatiently. “To return to business. We know that Julian and Jane—Louise—Marie-Claire, that is, you’ve got me thoroughly confused. They were married in Bristol and the marriage properly registered, so the legitimacy question doesn’t arise that far back. The letter from Julian found in the muniments room declared his intention of taking ship for Jamaica if his wife wasn’t welcomed into the family.”

“Which she wasn’t? I gather that’s another family legend come true.”

“So it seems.”

“What about the travellers’ tales of their having a large, barely respectable family?”

“Just that: travellers’ tales. Rumours, hints, but no details, and certainly nothing that could be described as evidence. Even if it’s true, my correspondent in Kingston hasn’t been able to discover records of the births of Julian’s children. There was a halfhearted attempt to set up a national registry in 1843—”

“Twelve years after they left England. Time enough to have any number of children.”

“Exactly. And in any case, that law was pretty much neglected. It wasn’t till 1880 that the civil registration of births, marriages, and deaths was really put into effect. Besides, the islands had all sorts of upheavals: earthquakes, tidal waves, slave revolts and the freeing of slaves, sugar tariffs—”