Chapter 20 Savi
Savi
“You don’t have to do this so soon,” Savi murmured to her mother, their hands locked together. They sat on the patio of Silverburn House, the London residence also comprising part of the Lakenheath estate.
The garden around them was bathed in sunlight, with Ma lifting her chin to bask in its warmth.
“Yes, I do.” She looked back towards the house as voices drifted through the open back door.
“The longer I leave it, the higher the chance your father learns what has happened. By speaking out first, I control the narrative. I—” Ma’s throat worked as she paused, emotions flickering across her face.
“Ma.” Savi’s voice was hushed as she pulled her into a hug, hating that her snivelling weasel of a father had done this to her.
Ma dabbed at her eyes with an embroidered handkerchief. “On some level, I always held out hope that Franklin was lying to hurt me. How could the father of my child be the one who orchestrated my imprisonment?”
Pain seared across Savi’s chest, layering over the rest of the wounds she’d gained today.
Telling her mother that her father had been the one paying for her imprisonment had been one of the hardest things she’d ever had to do—closely followed by telling her he had remarried six months after her supposed death.
“I’m sorry,” Savi whispered, not knowing what to say.
“Don’t be.” Ma shook her head, her expression pained.
The lines carved around her eyes were deeper than Savi remembered.
“I would rather have my freedom and face the truth than live in that cellar, pinning my hopes on a lie.” She turned towards the back door, where Alex and the policeman were conversing. “Come. I’m ready to begin.”
Savi’s gut churned as she readied herself to hear the details of Ma’s captivity. Alex took the chair beside her, his touch automatically finding hers. The warmth of his hand was soothing, making the ache inside her more bearable.
“I’m Chief Inspector Clarkson,” the policeman started, sitting down on a weathered stone bench opposite them.
He brought out a small notebook encased in black leather, unhooked a pencil from within, and poised it on the page to write.
“Lord Lakenheath has given me an account of today’s events, but I’d like to gain more of an understanding of how you came to be in that situation. ”
“My own understanding of how is limited. My husband and I went out to dinner at the Savoy. It was his birthday, so I know the exact date—the 29th July 1921.” Ma’s jaws tightened. “A little over five years ago now.”
Clarkson didn’t look unsympathetic. “Then what happened?”
“I remember getting back into the car afterwards, but I confess from then on my memory becomes…hazy. The road was gridlocked; I distinctly recall looking at people spilling out of the Century Theatre, my eyes drooping all the while.” She shrugged. “And then I woke up in a cell.”
“Alone?”
“Yes. I yelled myself hoarse trying to call for help, pulling at the bars with all my strength.” Every word Ma spoke carved its mark into Savi’s heart.
“It was only after I’d slept for the first time that Seymour Franklin appeared, rapping at the bars to wake me with breakfast. He was the last person I’d ever expected to see. ”
Clarkson lifted his gaze from his notebook, a little crease forming between his brows. “You’d met him before?”
Ma’s lips turned upwards like a bad smell had wafted beneath her nose. “We were initially paired up during clinical training after our respective graduations. I found him to be deeply repugnant and not at all suited to medicine.”
Clarkson’s pencil stilled. “In what way?”
“He was the single most entitled individual I had ever met. Because his father was a baron—and on the board of governors to boot—he believed that he was owed promotions, prestigious cases, day shifts over night shifts, better lodgings, his preference of placements, even a servant to assist him. He resented being paired up with me. Not only because of my sex but because I was not of noble birth.” The longer Ma spoke, the sharper her words became.
“Franklin lorded his status over the nursing staff. His bedside manner with working-class patients was nothing short of appalling, not to mention the fact that he regularly denied them certain medications because of a belief that they would become addicted and be—and I quote—even bigger drains on society. When his actions began to impact patients’ welfare negatively, I started recording everything he did and said.
Even the doses of medications he gave to people.
I presented the evidence to the house physician, and after subsequent oversight, Franklin was removed from the programme. ”
For a long moment, there was no sound but the scratching of Clarkson’s pencil against his notebook. Finally, he lifted his head, ready with another question. “Did your husband ever visit the cellar?”
Ma looked away, her nostrils flaring. “No.”
“Do you know if your husband and Seymour Franklin ever met?”
Rolling her eyes, Ma let out a bemused huff. “Yes, they were well acquainted. I believe they connected at Boodles a year or two before the war and became firm friends.”
Clarkson’s pencil paused. “Despite your history with Franklin?”
“Raj cared little for my opinion when it came to the nobility. He would have shot his own mother if he gained the approval of a duke.”
“Speaking of your husband,” Clarkson leant back in his seat with a contemplative expression, “did he ever give you any sign that he was unhappy in your marriage?”
Ma let out a humourless laugh—before she suddenly looked towards Savi, an apologetic slant in her eyes.
Savi squeezed Ma’s hand. “I know what he is,” she said quietly. “You don’t have to hide anything.”
With reluctance, Ma carried on. “Raj made no secret of the fact that he desperately wanted a son. When it became clear that I wouldn’t be giving him any more children, our marriage…
deteriorated.” Ma glanced in Savi’s direction.
“Not long after the end of the war, he began an affair with an impoverished baroness.”
Savi sucked in a horrified breath, almost choking on it. Raj’s marriage to Katherine had been suspiciously soon after Ma’s apparent death, but to have it confirmed was a kick to the gut.
Clarkson ignored her outburst. “You knew of the affair?”
“Not at first,” Ma admitted. “But eventually, yes.”
“Did you confront him?”
Ma lifted her chin. “After I’d spoken with a solicitor to begin divorce proceedings.”
Guilt trickled over Savi the more Ma spoke. She thought her parents’ marriage had been fine. Ma had always seemed happy, hadn’t she? Yet Savi had remained completely ignorant of the fact that not only was Raj having an affair for years, but Ma was about to divorce him.
And whilst all this was happening, Savi was swanning around the Mediterranean, tumbling into the bed of her latest inamorato.
Clarkson had no such qualms, firing off his next question. “Was Raj aware of your intention to divorce him?”
“On the day we dined at the Savoy?” Ma asked. “Yes, I’d told him perhaps a week earlier.”
“And what was his reaction?”
Silence stretched between them until its threads hung between them like cobwebs. “At first, he seemed calm, saying that perhaps it was for the best.”
Clarkson’s brows twitched. “At first?”
“His attitude changed when I brought up the separation of our assets. I reminded him that the hospital business was in my name—something that had been agreed upon when my late father invested in it—and Raj felt that his years of work had earned him the right to at least half.”
Savi’s lips parted, her breath silently catching in her throat.
The list of things she’d remained ignorant of piled up the more Ma spoke, guilt seeping into her until she was soddened.
Had Savi known, would she have at least suspected Raj sooner?
Could she have saved Ma from five years’ imprisonment?
“What was your reaction to that?” Clarkson carried on.
“I laughed in his face.” Ma’s pronouncement was unapologetic. “Raj consulted a solicitor over the matter the next day, but his subsequent lack of gloating suggested—at least to me—that the consultation didn’t go in his favour.”
“Did you have a will?”
“I did, although it hadn’t been updated in some time.”
Clarkson nodded, turning a page in his notebook, giving Savi a glance at a page chock-a-block with notes. “Do you remember the provisions made for the company?”
Savi already knew the answer.
Ma’s nostrils flared, though her expression gave no outward appearance of anger. “It was to be handed to Raj.”
“I see.” Clarkson poked an obvious full stop onto the end of his sentence. “That’s all of the questions I have at the moment. Do you want to ask me anything?”
“I wasn’t always alone in the cellar.” Clarkson’s head jerked up, but Ma carried on.
For the first time, her voice became strained.
“Approximately three years ago, Franklin brought in a girl of eighteen, Ophelia. A few weeks ago, he took her somewhere and never brought her back. I desperately need to find he—”
Clarkson raised his hand. “Lord Lakenheath told me that there was a girl. I’ve already sent a pair of officers to Franklin’s home to search for her.”
Ma turned to Alex. “What did he say about her?” she asked, sounding as though she lingered on the edge of tears. “Is she alive?”
Alex’s gaze travelled to Clarkson before he spoke. “Franklin mentioned her in passing. He said he’d moved her to his home not long ago.”
“If…if she still lives, I believe she’s pregnant.” Ma pressed her shaking fingers against her lips, worry carving lines across her forehead. “Franklin lured her into the cellar with the promise of a job at the sanatorium.”
“And he’s the baby’s father?”
Ma nodded. “Will you tell me if you find her? Please? I am the only family she has left to turn to.”
Surprise froze Savi in place. It was a peculiar thing to hear Ma speak of a stranger as family, but knowing that Ma had had company for at least part of her imprisonment came as a relief. It was only natural for Ma to become close with her sole companion of three years.
“Of course.” Clarkson snapped his black notebook shut, climbing to his feet. “My team and I will be investigating over the next day or two, but we’ll keep you abreast of any updates.”
Savi let out a frustrated breath, albeit silently. She knew the police had procedures to follow, but if she was leading his sodding team, she’d march straight into Raj’s Belgrave Square home and drag him out by his ears.
As Alex led Clarkson out, Savi turned to her mother, finally able to share a quiet word. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, the words grating out of her throat.
Ma blinked. “What for?”
“For not knowing how bad things were between you and Raj.”
“Priyo.” Ma’s words came out in an incredulous laugh. “You didn’t know because I didn’t want you to know. You were in the midst of your final examinations, don’t forget.”
Somehow that felt like a thousand years ago now. “Initially,” Savi argued. “But then I was on holiday, Ma. If I’d have known that Raj was being unfaithful, I would have been here in a heartbeat.”
Ma’s dark eyes were soft with affection. “When did you stop calling him Baba?”
“When he announced he was remarrying mere months after your apparent death.”
“Did he say anything about it?”
Savi shook her head. “He was preoccupied with his new wife, and I had my own life in Oxford.”
“You were still in Oxford?” Ma’s surprise lifted her tone. “Did you go on to do a further degree?”
“God, no. Three years of living with the rules at Lady Margaret Hall were quite enough. I was offered a job at the Ashmolean Museum as an illustrator, and with you gone, I had no reason to come back to London—so I took it.”
“You don’t ever visit your father?”
Savi hesitated, her feeling of disloyalty rising like a tidal wave. “Sometimes.”
“Sometimes?”
“I’m cordial with Raj and his new wife,” Savi admitted, every word feeling like a betrayal. “I doubt I would ever see them if not for the children. I just…I could never find it in me to withhold affection from the boys. I’m sorry.”
“Priyo,” Ma chided, understanding softening her expression. “I would have thought it out of character if you had done. The children are blameless.” She turned, looking in the direction of the house. “I don’t suppose your husband is related to a man called Benjamin Yates, is he?”
Surprise had Savi straightening to recover from the abrupt change in subject. “Ben? I—yes, he’s Alex’s brother. How did you kn—?” Her question faded away as the realisation came to her, remembering her conversation with Ben after they had dinner at the Dower House.
“It was the first time I was able to discern who stood in front of me without my sight,” Ben had said. “Because I could smell her perfume.”
And how often did a person see someone with such a distinctive characteristic as a wholly white forelock?
“I treated him during the war up in Edinburgh.” Ma’s lips curved, but the sentiment didn’t reach her eyes. “I had never met someone with piebaldism before—or since. How is Benjamin doing?”
“Well. He lives on a property on the Silverburn estate, about a mile away from the castle. He remembers you.”
“Really?” Ma lit up with delight.
Savi nodded. “He’ll be ever so pleased to see you again when we get back to Silverburn.”
“We?”
“If you’d like to come, that is.”
A gentle sigh slipped from her as she smiled at Savi. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”