The Secret Rooms: A True Gothic Mystery (19 page)

I found myself completely torn. In sending him away so soon after the funeral, it was possible that Violet and Henry had wanted to punish him. It would also explain why Violet had resented Charlie for the ‘spoiling kindness’ he had shown towards John at the time. But if it had genuinely been an accident, then his parents’ behaviour towards him was unforgivable. Ordinarily, the loss of a sibling would have been damaging, but John had been made to feel murderously responsible for the death of his brother. In casting him out, they had prevented his mourning from progressing in the usual way;
they had failed to give his feelings a proper hearing. Cumulatively, his parents’ behaviour would have fuelled a belief that he was dangerous – dangerous to the people that he loved.

So was he innocent or guilty? Worryingly, when he was older, John had shown an unhealthy fascination with things deathly and peculiar. As a young man, he had exhumed numerous tombs. He had also collected human bones. Was this a manifestation of the psychological damage his parents had inflicted on him? In clinging to the deathly had he been clinging to his dead brother? Or did his morbid obsession with death point to something more sinister?

The challenge, more than a century after the event, was to construct a narrative of the accident. I needed to find out how Haddon had ‘twisted something inside’. John had removed his family’s correspondence, but the letters of condolence that friends and relations had sent to his parents were still in the Muniment Rooms. It was just possible that among them I would find someone who had been privy to the details of the accident. I was not expecting them to be spelt out; John would not have left the letters there otherwise. But the correspondence might at least offer pointers as to what exactly had occurred.

The letters were mostly to Violet. In the bleak days following the loss of her eldest son, her friends had rallied round.
Mary, Countess of Minto
, had written on 6 October, two days after his funeral:

My darling – it
was
dear of you to write to me and every word just cut my heart like a knife. I know exactly, exactly how you are feeling – the rebellious indignation at the sorrow coming to you, and taking your best most beautiful cherished one. Oh I understand it all.

I quite know
how
difficult
faith
must be when things go wrong. I don’t think you can
really
feel that death is death. I am so sure there is a future, and about his being frightened and alone remember that he is now the strong one, and you the weak. And fancy what the certainty of happiness must be to a child, without one sin staining their record – it must be absolute happiness. I shouldn’t grieve for
him
, but for you, for Henry, for the children, for all who loved him. This sorrow has come home to me almost as if it was one of my own children, the sickening feeling ‘can this awful tragedy be true’.

Am I writing a sort of sermon? I don’t mean to. Oh how well I know how watching those agonies must have taken all belief in God away – why can’t I say anything to do you good! I think of his lovely angel face illuminated with intense joy and peace, and somehow that brings me comfort, for I know he is unspeakably happy. Then I think of you without him – the anguish and misery and how
can
I pity him? My heart longs to comfort you. I know till you can think of him as he is – ‘around the throne of God in heaven’ – you will never find one ray of hope.

Bless you darling

Mary, Countess of Wemyss
, whom Violet had known since she was a child, had also written. Mary had lost her own son when he was three years old:

Darling Violet

I was so touched at your writing to me telling me all about yr darling beautiful boy. It is difficult for me to say all I feel about it, because my heart answered every word in yr letter – every pang, every sigh, every bitterness, that terrible terrible longing and feeling of regret – that something might have been done differently – the cruel burning thought of the tender one’s pain and suffering and one’s own helplessness, the longing to live the time over with one’s experience and the horror of the pain endured – oh! dear Violet, I feel for you so much and alas!

I know that one is tormented, maddened for months and months. The only comfort is that as far as
they
are concerned the pain once over is as if it had never been but it lives in one’s own memory. Then you have the consolation of feeling that yr love and care eased his suffering – what a brave splendid little fellow he was! One cannot think his pure little life was in vain, as you know he was happy and well every minute of it and died like a hero. But it’s so true, what you say, of when people write and tell one that Death is best. It’s small consolation and does not remove one’s sense of pity and wrong at the bright happy useful life so full of promise being snapt off – seemingly in such a wanton meaningless way.

When the Spring comes and the flowers or games or anything bright and beautiful that they would have
loved
, when one sees the others
rejoicing
in life and when
all other
people have forgotten then one’s heart bursts within itself with grief, that they are not there too and nothing ever replaces the silent aching gap in one’s own heart. To a mother it is the sorrow of all sorrows that leaves one not the same, the place can never be refilled.

I hope my letter may not pain you in any way you poor dearest. I hope the other children are well and I hope they are some comfort and distraction to you. I hope Henry is well. I wonder where you are? I’ve heard nothing of you since you wrote. I have left Gosford and go to Panshanger tomorrow and Loseley on Sat.

yr loving

Mary

Lucy Tennant, a cousin of Violet’s, had written from Glen House, the family’s castle in the Scottish borders:

Oh darling Violet – poor poor Darling. My heart is all bleeding for you – how cruel how dreadful to have your best your lovely lovely child taken away. It is too terrible a stroke almost for a human being to bear. So sudden and relentless and fearful.

Your wonderful letter goes to our hearts – Darling – what fearful agonies you have been thro’. That lovely darling child. It is too fearful to think of – a most cruel fate – and it all seems dark and blind and a mad wicked waste of goodness and beauty and strength, in which no glimmer of intentions or wisdom pierces. Try to be glad he had such a perfect child-life, the happiest that could be – with an ideal Father (the most delightful I have ever seen) and a Mother who was perfect and heavenly to him, and then he had not even had the small childish sorrow of leaving for school. His little lovely flower-life was cruelly broken, but so complete and flawless and exquisite while it was with us. His whole self and beauty was most like you – the others are much less like you – I do mourn him very truly and deeply and am glad I saw him twice at Hatley.

Daisy [Countess of Warwick] and Etty [Ettie Grenfell, later Lady Desborough] were here but left today. I showed them your heart-wringing letter thinking you wd forgive my doing so, and you said Daisy might see it.

This in haste

Yr loving and sorrowful

Lucy

The love and sympathy that Violet’s friends expressed was terribly moving. Their heartfelt words brought the tragedy of Haddon’s death – and the sudden shock of it – to life. But none of the letters revealed the cause – or the circumstances – of his accident.

Interestingly, however, Violet had written to some of her friends immediately after Haddon died. A number were writing
in reply
to her. Had she told them what happened? If her letters were preserved in other family collections, I might find the answer there.

There was something else. Several of the correspondents had had the temerity to ask for further details of Haddon’s illness. ‘What was the matter that an operation was necessary?’ Cecil Drummond, Henry’s second cousin, had asked. ‘What illness was the poor boy suffering from?’ another had enquired. His sudden death had clearly prompted questions to be asked at the time.

So what was the gossip? More than likely, it had also circulated in the servants’ halls. In those days, lady’s maids and valets accompanied their masters and mistresses on the constant round of country-house visits. Had the Granbys’ servants told other servants what they had seen or heard at Cockayne Hall? Had they, in turn, reported the gossip – as was customary – back to their employers?

I jotted down the names of those who had written to the family. Then I made a list of the friends and relations who had attended Haddon’s funeral. The long roll call of aristocratic families pointed to the archive collections that I needed to search.

For months, the search proved fruitless.

The pool of collections turned out to be far smaller than I expected. A significant number of the families who were close to the Rutlands in the 1890s had died out. Their possessions had been dispersed to distant heirs, and their papers lost.

Besides scouring national and county records offices, I contacted archivists at the historic houses where Violet and Henry had stayed in the 1890s, and where the letters of those they were visiting were still held. Even here my hopes were dashed. Winnie, Duchess of Portland, and Mary, Countess of Minto, had been great friends of Violet’s, yet while large numbers of their letters had been preserved, there wasn’t a single one from Violet, or any that referred to Haddon’s death.

At times, I came tantalizingly close to finding what I was looking for. At Cadlands in Hampshire, the home of the Drummond family – the Rutlands’ cousins – I found a wonderful cache of letters dating from the 1870s and 1880s. They were full of family gossip and vivid descriptions of visits to Belvoir Castle, but in the 1890s the letters came to an end. There wasn’t anything sinister behind it; it was simply that the next generation of cousins was not as close.

Working my way through collections of correspondence belonging to other families on my list, I came across occasional references to Haddon’s death, but there was no mention of how his ‘accident’ had occurred.

I found the answer to the question that had eluded me for so many months at Stanway House, the home of the Earl of Wemyss, near Toddington in Gloucestershire. There, in the family’s archives, was Violet’s reply to the letter of condolence Mary, Countess of Wemyss, had sent her – the only surviving reply to the mountain of letters Violet had received.

She was writing three weeks after Haddon’s death. Mary’s third son, Colin, had died of an illness at the age of three. Knowing her friend would understand what she was feeling, Violet had poured out her heart to her.

Violet’s letter, which was twelve pages long, brought the traumatic events of the last days of Haddon’s life into sharp focus. Yet it is only on the fifth page –
en passant
, and in one short sentence – that she mentions the accident. In her own words, she explains
how
it happened. But in light of the fact that she sent John away almost immediately afterwards, the glaring omission was that she failed to tell her friend
why
it happened. Particularly when, as she describes it, the accident itself was so tragically – and innocently – prosaic:

Mary dearest

It was dear of you to write. You know poor dear what it all means – and how bad it is!

I couldn’t have imagined it could be so awful – and it all gets worse and worse. The memory of him ill and dying and the week’s agonies is torturing enough – and the cruel little bits of hope that gave one breathing time while watching and nursing and the dashing of hopes, and the tortures he suffered are maddening to live over again – and yet the thought of him alive, and strong and brimming over with eager happy life – the beautiful, beautiful face, and lithe, agile, peaceful body, and the darling, tender, artistic, dexterous hands and all that
never
again for my poor eyes to feast on – that is too heartbreaking to bear.

Poor Henry misses his
eldest
son! Sees no joy or reason for the future in life and suffers dreadfully to have lost his companion. They were such
friends
and the boy was devoted to him, and Henry so proud of him.

I
haven’t got to the future yet. That’s got to come. I am only still raging that
why
should that beloved have suffered such tortures. Why should he have been given his beautiful life – and then have it taken away before having a chance of using it! Of making it! I fret at it being so unfair, so unjust to
him
. I am not thinking of what matters to me, or the missing him yet, but him, him, him.

If he had been killed dead, it would have been easier to be patient now. Or if he had had an illness!

But he was always so strong. So well. Never ill. And it was just only a tiny acrobatic trick that twisted something inside – and gave him intolerable tortures for 6 days.

The operation was a successful one because they found the twisted thing and untwisted it. But just a day too long had he suffered – just
too
long had the thing been twisted. It could not regain power. The Drs marvelled at his wonderful strength and vitality – no weakness or collapse from the operation. And he just died of starvation – just the most awful death imaginable.

The Drs loved him, and wondered at his strong character and will, and his clear brain (a strong constitution that would fight to live) and his patience. I heard one Dr say to him ‘Do you know what a hero is? You are one!’

The Drs nursed him in the most devoted way. But I cherish a tiny thing he said – ‘Oh, you Drs, you are all so clumsy! Mother must do it – she is the only one who knows how to do it.’ And then: ‘Mother dear, if you hadn’t thought of doing that, I think I should have died really.’ I was stroking his forehead with a wet handkerchief and he kept saying ‘Lovely, oh lovely, Mother dear.’

There is no comfort
anywhere
yet! No daylight. Nothing but gaping wounds.

Nothing can be the same again. Nothing, also, can hurt again like this.

If all the others were swept away, it would mean nothing more of pain to me.

Mary dear, he was the best, the kindest, the tallest, the most beautiful amongst them all. The one who loved to draw, and to play, and who had the darlingest hand touch – the simplest, the most generous.

If only he had not been so beautiful! My eyes govern me! And they seem now blinded to all else. All grieve who knew him, not for us, I mean, but just that they find he was a thing to miss.

People write and say I ought to be pleased that he is out of this world, away from the troubles and the bufferings that must come to those who live, and that Death is better than Life.

I say Death is good for those who are tired and sad and hopeless, and for those who are crushed and maimed and disappointed. It is good for those who have gone through fire and flames and tragedies. But it is
not
best for those who only know life’s sunshine and brilliant lookings forward!

Dearest M, will you tell that dear Ld Wemyss about me and Haddon. I have not courage to write more to him than dear thanks for his sympathy. I have let my pen run away with me to you and I know you won’t mind. You know and understand.

Yr most loving VG

(What is so dreadful to me is, that if any of the others had the same thing happen, we could save them easily with our experience. I rage to think we had no experience ready for
him
, the best treasure of all.

I do not blame anyone. It is a risky thing to have an operation if nature was likely to put itself right by itself. But another time I would not wait at all.

They mentioned hoping till the end, because he was not
ill
. Only starving. What a selfish letter. Why do I harrow you? But you will forgive.)