Chapter 21
Abby and Lara decided to start at the top of the house and work their way back to the flower room.
The bedrooms had a cold unlived in feel to them and there were covers over most of the furniture.
The décor of each room was always attractive, but each quite different.
But however beautiful the surroundings nothing detracted from the sense of emptiness.
Lara put aside her distaste and checked all the bathrooms. There were two small finds, an empty packet of Valium and a bottle of out-of-date sleeping pills – some four years old.
There were three pills left inside and the bottle was made out to Lady Porter.
They were about to go downstairs when Abby suggested exploring the attic.
‘Do you really think we need to?’ Lara was uneasy.
‘I believe it would be good to check in case we did discover any more of the Meissen set. This might be the only opportunity we have to do so,’ Abby advised.
Lara reluctantly headed back to the small flight of stairs she had seen off one of the bedroom corridors. At the top of the stairs was an arched door. Lara tried the handle but it was locked. ‘Well, that’s that,’ she said, with a sense of relief.
‘You really do give up far too easily,’ Abby remarked with the air of one who has been helping to break into other people’s houses for over 190 years.
She stood for a moment, her head slightly on one side.
Eventually she said, ‘I believe you will find the key in the second drawer of Lady Porter’s dressing table. ’
‘Yeah, I know,’ Lara muttered before Abby could speak, ‘it’s a knack.’
The key was exactly where Abby had said it would be, wrapped in a linen and lace handkerchief.
Soon Lara was back fitting it into the lock.
She turned the key and pushed open the door.
Inside was a small room with a vaulted ceiling.
It was immediately obvious that this was very far from being a room for storing old junk.
Lara gazed around her in wonder. All the walls were decorated in jewelled colours overlaid with intricate gold filigree patterns.
From the central apex of the roof fine silk hangings were suspended.
These fell in great swooping swathes of purple, gold, cerise and red – cascading from above to form a canopy over a beautiful bed that took up the main part of the room.
Rich tapestry cushions with images of tigers, elephants, lilies and lotus flowers lay in sumptuous piles on the cream and gold bed covers.
At the foot of the bed were two chairs and in front of these a small table was crowded with mosaic and glass lanterns.
‘Oh, Abby,’ was all Lara could say. Then she repeated, ‘Oh, Abby, we shouldn’t be here. ’
Abby understood just how Lara was feeling and tried to reassure her.
‘This room was clearly cherished by Lady Porter and it still holds within the fabric of it a strong sense of her. I know you are disturbed by invading Lady Porter’s privacy, but I believe that this forms part of the secret that surrounds her death and I think it is important that we have witnessed it. ’
Lara looked at Abby sadly. There was something indescribably poignant about the room.
As she pulled the door to and relocked it she thought of them going downstairs and returning to the heart of the house, but then Lara realised that the very heart of the house lay above them in that small secret chamber.
‘I wonder if Mrs M knows about that room?’ Lara said, thinking about the housekeeper’s obvious reluctance to invade her employer’s privacy. Surely she must have opened it since her employer’s death? If not before?
‘Hmmm,’ was all Abby said thoughtfully, as they descended the stairs.
Reaching the ground floor, Lara and Abby continued their methodical search in silence.
They found the tea set as Mrs M had described it in a sideboard in the dining room.
It was almost a full set – only missing, Lara judged, the pieces in Jason’s shop.
Lara turned one of the teacups around slowly in her hand and thought it would not be long before Mrs M placed it away somewhere more secure.
Abby echoed what Lara had been thinking, ‘With the china pieces that I observed in Honeybourne Antiques, that makes a full set I believe.’
‘Apart from the tea caddy,’ Lara reminded her.
‘Ah, yes, Mrs M said that piece was broken. Nevertheless, the combined set would be of considerable worth, I feel,’ Abby surmised.
They continued their search. At the back of the sideboard they found an old photo album that Lara drew out for them to get a better look at.
On inspection it appeared to be more of a scrapbook than an album, charting the rise of Reggie Porter.
There were photos of him as a young man standing beside printing machines and motor bikes; a swarthy looking man with a big smile.
Lara thought she could see a slight resemblance to Joe, but nothing more.
Then she wondered if she was imagining it.
There were numerous press cuttings and also some photographs detailing the visit of a minor Royal to his printworks in 1979.
In these Lara discovered several of Lady Porter.
Her hair was much darker than Lara had ever known it and it was flicked back around a short bob.
She wore a broad-shouldered suit in navy blue and a pair of enormous gold earrings.
Lara found it hard to equate the woman she saw in the photos with the room she and Abby had just discovered.
There were also group shots of a celebration where Reggie was being toasted.
It was Abby who spotted a younger, plumper Dr Patil in the crowd applauding Lord Porter.
‘Do you think…’ Lara left the question unasked.
‘That the room upstairs has anything to do with the good doctor?’ Abby finished for her.
‘Yes, I was thinking that. It just seemed to be so romantic. Do you think he really didn’t know about Lady Porter’s past?
It would seem the most natural thing in the world for them to share that.
’ Again, Lara thought of Dr Patil crying after Lady Porter’s funeral.
She was beginning to believe that the doctor really had loved her.
‘At the time I thought his surprise was genuine, but…’ Abby admitted with no small degree of pain, ‘I have been wrong in the past.’
‘Have you?!’ Lara grinned, startled by this uncharacteristic revelation.
‘Well, yes,’ Abby continued with a marked degree of reluctance, ‘I really did believe Sheik Al-Khalid when he said he knew absolutely nothing about the death of his second wife.’
Lara would have patted her consolingly on the shoulder if she could have done.
‘Or his third wife. Or for that matter his fourth,’ Abby finished, shaking her head.
‘It’s nice to know you’re human,’ Lara commented, grinning even more broadly.
Abby raised an eyebrow at her.
‘Or were,’ Lara conceded.
They turned back to examining the scrapbook.
The pictures and clippings stopped about two thirds of the way through and flicking through the back pages there appeared to be little more than some envelopes containing copies of a few of the press cuttings.
There was only one envelope that had anything written on it and this was empty.
The name on the envelope was not one that either Lara or Abby recognised: Miss E Abbott, and an address in Nottingham.
Something prompted Lara to get out her phone and take a photograph of the address.
She liked to think it was not just the very pointed look that Abby gave her.
As Lara put everything back in place, Abby sat on the window seat in the dining room mulling over the results of their search.
‘So, we have a private, very beautiful room evocative of India, we have established that Lady Porter did at one time in the past take sleeping pills and that Dr Patil is indeed an old family friend. And maybe more recently, a lover. Although I wonder…’ She went on, ‘And we have a mysterious Miss E Abbott from Nottingham to consider.’ Abby paused.
‘I wonder if that could be for “Elizabeth”? We must find out Lady Porter’s maiden name. ’
‘I hadn’t thought of that but it would make sense,’ Lara agreed.
‘Did anything else strike you?’ Abby asked Lara.
‘Well, you were right, there are gaps about the house. It does look like someone has been taking or moving the pictures around,’ Lara suggested.
Abby nodded. Lara continued, ‘I hate to even think it, but it occurred to me that it would be the easiest thing in the world for Mrs M to take what she wanted.’ Having voiced this, Lara was flooded with a mix of guilt and shame, still she pushed on, ‘And I did wonder if Mrs M would actually know if Lady Porter had another child. After all Richard was grown up by the time she met her.’
‘Yet, the prospect of another family will not seem to go away… and it has attracted the interest of Julian Armstrong… which is intriguing…’ Abby mused.
Lara wasn’t sure what she felt about this.
The mention of Julian still made her go hot and cold.
Then she thought of Kate’s words and smiled.
She turned her thoughts to Joe and his possible connection to Lady Porter.
‘I know half a million is a huge amount of money but I still don’t think Joe had anything to do with it,’ she insisted.
‘So, you will defend him, but you won’t dance with him,’ Abby reflected.
Lara sighed, ‘I know, I know I said all the wrong things. It was just when he mentioned the ball, I thought about Julian and it came out all wrong.’
‘You have wasted far too much time thinking about that young man,’ Abby said in her best Aunt Augusta voice.