Chapter 12 Secrets
Lance had almost finished his portrait of Rowena Merrington.
On balance, he was pleased with it, feeling quietly confident that he had captured the steely woman inside the soft and very beautiful exterior.
Had she grown up in an aristocratic family, fêted and petted and told from the moment of her birth how wonderful she was, she would have been so spoilt as to be beyond hope.
Instead, her secluded parsonage upbringing had rendered her humble and yet indomitable, so that the artist in Lance could see clearly the formidable duchess she would one day become.
Whereas the current duchess was not formidable at all, merely a gentle woman, in the most literal sense, swept into a life not of her choosing by the forceful character of her husband.
Lily still came often to watch him paint, and although she said very little, and nothing at all when Charlotte was there too, he liked to have her there, sitting motionless behind him, simply watching as his brush created hair and eyes and lips so real one half expected them to speak.
The lady on the canvas was now complete, and only the background still awaited the final touches.
Lance was in no rush to finish. He had already tentatively lined up his next commission for the duke, to paint the four Merrington sisters, based on a sketch by Payne, the architect, and he finally had the duke’s agreement to improve the spider on the ceiling.
And after that… how long could he spin out his stay at Staineybank?
Since he was unlikely now to go to Pentavon for Christmas, it would suit him to stay until the spring.
He would have liked to paint Lily, but there was already an excellent portrait of her in the library.
He would paint the duke if he asked, but men beyond their three score years and ten generally disliked to see themselves as they truly were.
They could look in the mirror and still see a fine-looking fellow of forty or fifty, but the portraitist’s eye could not remove the years in that way.
So perhaps he would be forced back to town before Easter.
Still, he had plenty there to keep him busy.
It might even be necessary to retreat sooner, for Denny was getting restless. Lance had gone upstairs to dress for dinner one afternoon, and found the valet prowling around the room in a murderous rage.
“That Hammond fellow — he needs to be sorted out, once and for all, Lance. Poking his nose in where it is not wanted. What business is it of his, I should like to know?”
“He is not even here at the moment, my friend,” Lance said, pulling off his neckcloth with a sigh of relief. “He has gone to Oxford. How can he poke his nose into anything when he is not even here?”
“There is a letter arrived for him — from Tuscany! From Florence, for I recognised the mark, and that means he has been asking questions about me. Damn his eyes, why can he not leave me be? What have I ever done to him that he should persecute me in this way?”
“Where is this letter now?”
“That Hester woman took it and locked it away, so I cannot even prise open the seal and—”
“I hope you would not!” Lance said sharply. “That would be the quickest and most certain way to have us both thrown out of here. I wondered only if there was anything to be deduced from the hand, say.”
“It is not one I recognise,” Denny said, easing Lance out of his coat. “But Florence! Why else would he be writing to Florence?”
“A thousand and one possible reasons,” Lance said, with a shrug.
“Look here, Denny, I have never asked any questions about your history, but it is as plain as day to any half-educated person that Denzil Pendleton is not your real name, and you were not born to be a valet. Now, whether you are running from your family, or a woman, or the law, or a debt, or any other scandal is of no consequence to me, but you are clearly running from something, so you cannot blame the man for being curious.”
“Curious, yes, but does he have to be so persistent about it?” Denny said, whisking Lance’s shirt over his head. “All I want is to be left alone. It is not a great deal to ask, is it?”
“But it is also not much of a life, keeping my boots clean and my neckcloths starched,” Lance said. “Besides, what is he going to learn from Florence? Did anyone there know your real name? Or why you left England?”
“No and no.”
“There you are, then. Nothing to worry about.” Lance poured water from the ewer into a basin on the wash stand.
“I agree that Hammond is like a particularly annoying wasp, constantly buzzing about, but he has a theory about this Mr Goodenough who brought us here, and the connections between the three cases, and he is determined to follow every scent. He has discovered nothing about me, so now he is looking at you instead, to see if you are the legendary black sheep his thesis requires. When he fails to find anything, he will give up and then you may be easy again, but for heaven’s sake let me hear no more talk of prising open seals.
Now buck up, man, and get me a towel. I refuse to go down to dinner with a wet face. ”
Denny said nothing more, but the conversation was still on Lance’s mind the next day. No one seemed to be about after breakfast, so he drifted into the library, whisked the cover off the painting and sat in Lily’s chair contemplating the details of a tree he was adding to the background.
Yet Denny’s concerns kept bubbling to the top of his mind.
What was he running from? And was it truly so urgent that he had to remain hidden?
The valet had left England ten years ago, so any scandal associated with his departure would long since have blown over, surely.
Yet he was still terrified of discovery.
Lance was aware of Lily’s entry even though she came through the door from the Chinese Room, hidden from his view by a cabinet. Perhaps it was the almost inaudible rustle of her skirts, or a faint hint of her perfume, but he knew at once it was her.
“Not painting today, Mr Chamberlain?” she said in her quiet way.
“I am letting yesterday’s efforts dry. Today I am merely contemplating the next steps.”
She pulled a footstool near to his chair and sat down, almost as if she were sitting at his feet.
For a while they were both silent, but he had no wish to disturb the mood by speaking.
If she had anything to say to him, she would eventually say it, and until then, he was content to sit near her and enjoy her calm presence.
Eventually, she shifted on her stool, sitting a little more upright. “Cousin Hester is a little concerned about your valet. He seems to be… out of sorts. Is there anything we can do to help?”
“Thank you, but no. It is a personal matter which he needs to deal with himself.”
“Ah,” was all she said, but she made no move to leave, lapsing into silence again.
For some reason, Lance was reluctant to leave the matter there, with so much unsaid, unexplained. “He has had a difficult life, I think,” he said slowly.
“You think? You do not know?”
“I have never asked, but I am sure there has been some great tragedy in his life which affects him still.”
“It is a fortunate person indeed who suffers no tragedy in this uncertain life,” she said with unusual seriousness. “Those of us who are less fortunate must accept it and… and learn to live with it, however painful.”
“I beg your pardon! I did not mean— My words were careless. I would not for the world remind you of your grief.”
Her face softened. “I do not need words to remind me of my loss. My grief is with me every moment of every day. I even dream of him sometimes, and that is the cruellest cut, Mr Chamberlain, because then I wake happy, with the memory of my child heavy in my arms, only to discover that it is not true and he is still gone from me.”
Impulsively he reached down to squeeze her hand. “I am so very sorry, Lily. Was there nothing could be done to save him? The physicians had no cure?”
“He did not die of illness,” she said sorrowfully.
“Perhaps that would have been easier to bear, for we are all vulnerable to fevers and infections, are we not? Yet he never had a day’s illness in all his life.
Such a strong, healthy boy! So full of life and energy and curiosity!
So full of energy that one day he escaped from his two nurses and ran away from them.
And somehow he fell into the river and drowned. ”
“Oh, dear God!” Lance cried, horrified. “Poor little boy! And yet a river is such a fascinating place to a child. I fell in a few times myself.”
“Exactly so. One cannot blame him for what is no more than the natural inquisitiveness of a child, and had he not tricked his nurses and escaped their watch, they would have got him out and no harm done. It was the gamekeeper, Ben Lovell, who saw his little body face down in the water and dived straight in to rescue him, yelling for help the whole time. He set up such a cry as everyone in the house could hear. But it was too late. There was nothing could be done to save my poor darling.”
“Did not the duke want to—? But forgive me, such questions are too personal. I have no business to pry.”
“Try again, you mean? Get me with child again? He decided against it. Our only agreement was for one son, or if the first should be a daughter, then one more child, and the duke is a man of honour, Lance. He holds to that agreement, and hands the torch to his cousin to continue the line. He has had three wives covering more than half a century, and if he has no living sons, then clearly God does not mean him to have an heir of his blood.”
“But he still has your charming company to brighten his old age,” Lance said quietly.