The Ghost Tree

  Yet again, Thomas’s conscience could not allow him to give up on the case. The woman was undoubtedly as guilty as sin, but she deserved the best defence and that was him. London was as always a ferment of excitement and disorder, concentrating its restless and often violent displeasure against its rulers by avidly supporting Caroline against the king’s demand for an annulment of their marriage.

  It was as he sat by the fire, the pile of notes about the queen on his knee, a glass of port in his hand, that the idea came to Thomas. He was here alone in the country because he and Sarah did not get on. Never had. Never would. He pushed the king’s papers onto the floor and leaned back in his chair taking another sip from his glass. Divorce. He could not seek annulment, not with two children, but surely he of all people, with his experience of the law, could find a way of obtaining a divorce.

  79

  Mal caught the early train home. Ensconced in his window seat, a cup of coffee on the table in front of him, his briefcase on the seat beside him, he was engrossed in one of his favourite history books, reminding himself about the intricacies, complexities and sheer bloody excitements of Georgian London as the train thundered north. By the time they pulled into Waverley station he had slipped seamlessly back into Thomas’s world.

  The mutual infidelities and scandals surrounding the marriage of the prince regent and Princess Caroline had culminated in her leaving the country for a riotous life abroad, but on his ascent to the throne at last as King George IV, she returned to claim her place at his side as queen. The move was wildly popular with Londoners but appalled George. It was at that point that he decided that the only course of action open to him was divorce. Battle lines were drawn. The king was as dissolute and extravagant as she was and widely disliked in the country. The whole nation was engaged. The divorce proceedings went as far as a bill in the House of Commons, but in the Lords it was a different matter. There, opposition to the king’s wishes became more and more entrenched.

  In the end there would be no divorce, not for Caroline, but not for Thomas either. Thomas was sitting in his morning room back in Hampstead while a footman poured coffee from the elegant silver pot on the tray. He was enjoying the warmth of the sun streaming through the window. London was delirious with excitement, and Thomas, one of the architects of Caroline’s triumph after the eleven-week hearing in the House of Lords, found himself one of the most popular men in town. Much to the king’s disgust, he had as usual taken the role his conscience dictated and he found himself grievously offending his one-time friend, the king, but a hero of the hour. They were selling little copies of a marble bust of him all over London and he was told it was as though every house in the land had one on its mantelpiece. Only yesterday, much to his alarm, the cheering mob had brought his coach to a halt, unharnessed his horses and insisted on dragging the coach themselves all the way to the House of Lords.

  ‘Congratulations, my lord.’ Even the footman was smiling. ‘A glorious victory for Her Majesty, if I may say so.’

  Thomas’s pleasure in the moment was short-lived as Sarah appeared in the doorway, her face like thunder as she commanded the footman to leave and close the door behind him.

  Thomas looked up, his heart sinking. Sarah had a sheet of paper in her hand and was waving it at him. ‘So, you thought you could cast me off! So pleased with yourself now, you thought you would take the chance to get rid of me!’

  ‘What is that, dear?’ He knew very well what it was. It was one of the notes he had so carefully penned to draw up his own plea. He sighed. There was no point in pretending. ‘Where did you get that? Those papers are private. The matter of the king’s affairs is of the utmost confidentiality.’

  ‘The king?’ she shouted. ‘This is nothing to do with the king! This is about you. Look! You, you, you! You plan to divorce me!’

  He sighed. ‘And can you blame me, shrew that you are. I want no more of this, Sarah. Listen to yourself.’

  There was a long silence. He stood up warily as he watched her face, seeing it darken, working with fury. For an instant he wondered with a pang of disgust if Farquhar was going to speak through her, but when she opened her mouth the voice was gentle, kind. ‘Darling Tom,’ it was Fanny’s voice. ‘Don’t be so silly. You know you love Sarah. What would we do without her?’

  ‘No!’ he shouted. ‘This is nonsense. You are not Fanny! This is all make-believe! Get out!’ He pointed at the door. ‘Leave me alone. I cannot stand this another moment! Roberts!’ He shouted for his butler. ‘Roberts!’

  There was a roaring in his ears. He was dimly aware of Sarah running from the room sobbing loudly, of the butler appearing at the door, his face a picture of anxiety, then everything went black.

  When he woke at last, Frances and Samuel were there, and his son, Davy. He was dimly aware of them in his darkened bedroom. Samuel had prescribed more laudanum and a warm fire and rest. There was no sign of Sarah.

  It was several days before he was well enough to get up. Restored by nourishing soups and peace and quiet Thomas was sitting by the fire in his bedroom, wrapped in a dressing gown, his feet on a stool. ‘Sam?’ He indicated that his son-in-law should sit down opposite him. ‘Tell me what happened. Am I dying?’

  Sam laughed. ‘No, you’re not dying. You are well on the mend.’

  ‘I had seizure like this before when I was speaking in the Lords.’ It had terrified him at the time, and those around him. They had suspended the sitting.

  ‘You were suffering from exhaustion, then and now,’ Sam said slowly. He scanned his father-in-law’s face. ‘You have been under terrible strain.’

  ‘Where is Sarah?’

  ‘She has returned to her house with the children for now. We deemed it better. They were too noisy to be here with someone who was so ill.’

  He smiled sadly. ‘Noisy? Agnes and Erskine? Poor little mites, they are too frightened ever to be noisy.’ He saw Sam’s lips tighten with disapproval.

  ‘They will be well looked after,’ Sam persisted. ‘Their nursemaids and the cook we found are answerable to, and paid by Davy. The children will want for nothing.’ He stood up. ‘Frances wants to speak to you. Do you feel strong enough to see her?’

  Thomas grinned. ‘Will I need strength? Is she very angry with me?’

  Sam laughed. ‘All she wants is your welfare and happiness,’ he said.

  Frances bent to kiss him on the forehead. ‘You gave us a such a fright, Papa. When Davy sent for us to come we thought you would have breathed your last by the time we got here.’

  She was still neat and slim and pretty, this eldest daughter of his, for all her children, so like her mother it hurt to look at her. He reached out for her hand. ‘My darling, I have caused you all so much worry.’

  ‘Indeed you have.’ Her voice was brisk. ‘Papa,’ for the first time she hesitated. ‘Davy and Henry and Thomas and Sam and I have been talking about what to do for the best.’ She paused, waiting for him to say something. When he remained silent, she went on. ‘We feel it right that you and Sarah live apart for a while. She clearly upsets you.’ Again she hesitated, waiting for him to object. ‘There is something in this house when she is here,’ she shivered. ‘We can all feel it.’ Again a pause, then she took a deep breath. ‘You mentioned to Davy that you could no longer afford to live here, Papa. It is a large house and expensive to run. It is time to give it up. We have all been so happy here. With Mama here, our childhood was idyllic. You made us so happy …’ She slipped off her chair and knelt before him, taking his hands in her own as tears began to roll down his cheeks. ‘It’s not a happy place any more. Would you not wish to remember it as it was?’

  He sighed. They were right. About Sarah, and the children, and about the house. Sarah had spoiled it for him. And the money. They were right about the money too. ‘I have investments,’ he said at last.

  ‘No, Papa. Your investments have gone. You remember? At Davy’s suggestion, you invested in securities in America, but they were not sold in time, an
d with the war they disappeared. And Buchan Hill, beautiful as it is, is worth nothing as an agricultural estate. Birch brooms will not make your fortune.’ She smiled, teasing. ‘You have to live on your income now.’

  ‘Which is far from inconsiderable.’

  ‘For most people, yes.’ She smiled fondly. ‘But your way of life is extravagant, Papa. You entertain princes and politicians and poets and playwrights, you hold court here; and that is as it should be, you are a great man, but you can no longer afford this place, nor the house in Lincoln’s Inn.’ Her voice was firm and he was reminded so strongly of her mother he almost wept out loud.

  ‘You will not take Buchan Hill from me,’ he said, determined to win that point at least.

  ‘No, Papa, no one will take Buchan Hill, with its legends and its dragons.’ He had told her children the stories. ‘We know how much you love it. Besides, no one in their right mind would buy it!’ Again the spark she had inherited from her mother. ‘You will still have your beautiful little house in Arabella Row which is so close to the heart of things, to the House of Lords, to Carlton House and to Buckingham House, and from there you can visit Sarah and the children whenever you want to. You know this is for the best.’

  ‘The king will longer speak to me, since I defended Caroline.’ He was wistful.

  ‘He will. He is too fond of you to give up your friendship.’ She scrambled back to her feet. ‘Papa, I have something for you.’ She had had a reticule hanging from her wrist when she came in, and she turned to pick it up off the chair. ‘You gave me this when I married, to keep me safe.’ She handed him the bag. ‘I want you to have it back. I know it is powerful and I know what it does.’ She hesitated with a half glance over her shoulder towards the door. ‘I have never told Samuel. He would not have approved. I have him to keep me safe now, and I want you to have it back. There is something evil here in this house, something that came with Sarah, and it’s wearing you down. You need this more than I do.’ She bent and kissed him again.

  He sat without moving for a long time after she had left the room, the bag lying on his knee. He knew what was in it without having to look. He could feel its magic, its power and its strength spreading slowly out around him. He rested his hand over it and smiled. Andrew Farquhar would not come back to this house. Future generations who lived there, whoever they were, would not be bothered by his malicious presence. He felt it as a certainty.

  As Mal turned up the drive he was stopped by a police car parked diagonally in front of him. For a moment he was paralysed with fear. Had something happened to Ruth? But the young policeman on duty reassured him. ‘It was thought best she go and stay with friends, sir. Bradford was here yesterday, ringing the doorbell.’

  Mal and Ruth spoke on the phone for twenty minutes. ‘You must be exhausted,’ she said. ‘You don’t want to drive all the way back to Edinburgh to fetch me tonight. It’s my fault. I didn’t tell you I was here because I didn’t want to worry you. Come tomorrow.’

  The house was empty without her. He had collected the dogs on his way home and he could tell they were missing her too. Pol came and sat at his feet, his huge spaniel eyes full of reproach. He took the hint. Locking the door behind him he set off to walk to the chapel. In his head he was still in the nineteenth century and Thomas too had headed north to Edinburgh once more.

  Thomas found it strange to be back in Edinburgh without his mother or Harry there. The invitation had come, not from a member of the family but from the city corporation. They planned to give a dinner on 21 February in his honour. Everyone who was anyone was coming; even his brother, the earl, had accepted an invitation.

  He allowed himself time to see his nephews and nieces, Harry’s children and, much as he enjoyed being feted as a hero of Scotland, managing to escape his hosts and their overwhelming attentions he allowed himself one afternoon to wander incognito through the old town of his childhood.

  It was snowing and a bitter wind blew down the High Street, but undaunted he walked alone down towards the old palace of Holyrood, to the now-ruined abbey where his parents were buried, then up past the entry to Gray’s Close where he had been born, and on towards St Giles’ kirk where as a wee boy he had seen the ghost of a murdered man rise from his body. He remembered the incident as though it were yesterday. Standing there in the street, the snow drifting down, clinging to his greatcoat, he shivered violently.

  ‘My lord?’ A man had stopped beside him, elderly, swathed in a rough coat and scarves. ‘Do you remember me?’

  A swirl of snow surrounded Thomas and he pulled his collar up around his ears. He had assumed no one would recognise him without his entourage.

  Studying the old man’s face he felt a stirring of memory. ‘Forgive me …?’

  ‘I worked for your father when he lived here. When he left, his steward failed to pay me what was owed. I asked your brother, the earl, but he said he would not pay his father’s debts.’ Again a flurry of snow blew down the street. There was no one about, no sound but the howl of the wind in the high tenement roofs, the eerie squeak of an inn sign swinging back and forth over the deserted thoroughfare. ‘I was his butler. I knew you to be an honourable man. I knew you would pay.’

  Thomas took a step forward, but the man had gone, hidden in the whirling snow. He shivered, feeling the familiar prickle at the back of his neck. If the man had worked for his father that would have been long ago, when he himself was a boy. The name was coming to him. John Barnett. He had been kind to the little boy then. He and his wife had lived near the bookshop close to the university and had welcomed Thomas in to browse amongst the shelves.

  Almost without meaning to he turned and began to walk back down over the slippery cobbles, skirting piles of rubbish and broken slates that had come off the roofs in the wind, following his memory, unable to leave without finding out if anyone remembered John Barnett and his family.

  The bookshop was still there. He did not expect to find the man’s wife still alive, the old lady huddled over a brazier of coals in a small ground-floor flat at the end of a dark close, cared for by her son’s family. She remembered the incident, remembered to the last bawbee the sum owed and Thomas dug in his pockets to find the money, appalled that such a small amount had meant so much to them. As he pressed his purse into the old lady’s hand and received her strangely dignified thanks he felt humble. ‘How did you know?’ She looked up at him, her eyes milky with age, glistening with tears in the light of the tallow candle that stood at her elbow. He smiled gently. He could never tell her he had seen her husband’s ghost. As he turned away and walked back into the street he felt sharply the ironies of parting with a purse full of coins to that family, to whom the debt had meant so much, while he was on his way to a banquet which would cost thousands.

  He attended plays and concerts while he was in Edinburgh, dinners and parties, he planned to travel more widely as the spring approached, to reclaim the childhood so abruptly cut off by the family’s flit to St Andrews, but far too soon he was summoned back to London to attend a banquet being held to celebrate Queen Caroline’s victory, his victory, if he was given his due, against the king. ‘I will come back to Scotland,’ he whispered to his younger self. ‘I will come back and we will visit Mama’s cave at St Andrews, and we will row again across the loch to Inchmahome, and we will ride in the Pentland Hills and sail on the Forth to the Bass Rock to see the whirling birds as they fight over the ledges on the cliffs.’

  In truth, he dreaded returning south. In London he had to face two insuperable sources of torment. Sarah and Andrew Farquhar.

  80

  It was good to be outside again. Even two days in London was too long! The dogs ran ahead of Malcolm up the path through the trees, barking with excitement, and he found his heart was lifting as his optimism came back. When the dogs reappeared from the trees and returned to his side, quiet and watchful, their exuberance gone, he felt a lurch of anxiety. They were near the chapel now, on the narrow track that wound up through the larch
es.

  At first he didn’t see anything wrong; it looked much as usual. But he could feel it. The energies of the glade were jagged, the birds were silent, not even the harsh call of a pheasant ringing across the hillside. He moved closer. The dogs hung back. He could see now that the door was open a few inches and with a feeling of deep foreboding he looked inside. The place had been trashed, the little table and chairs overturned and broken, the candles and crystals gone, the little statue of the Mother and Child broken into a dozen pieces. Whoever had done this had tried to set fire to the place, piling bits of broken chair and handfuls of dried leaves in the centre of the floor. They had flared and charred and then the flames had died. As a final insult the whole place stank of urine.

  Stooping to pick up a small quartz crystal that had rolled near the door Malcolm slipped it into his pocket, turned and walked outside again. He took a deep breath and almost blindly made his way over to the ancient oak tree that overlooked the glade. Ever since he was a boy he had regarded this old tree as his friend and advisor and he leaned against the trunk now, trying to draw strength from it. ‘Who did this?’ he asked the tree but he already knew. It was Timothy.

  ‘You will not, cannot divorce me!’ Sarah was backed against the wall in her small sitting room, her fists clenched. ‘To divorce requires an act of parliament and you will not get it!’

  He gave a grim smile. ‘You do not have to teach me the law, madam!’

  ‘You want to make my children illegitimate!’

  ‘I do not want to make my children illegitimate!’ he repeated, emphasising the word, ‘and I would not do so. Besides, divorce does not result in illegitimacy.’ He sighed. ‘There are other ways to solve our problems. I will seek a legal separation. You will be looked after as you are now, with your own house and sufficient money for your needs and for the children’s. You will want for nothing, Sarah. You will keep your title.’