That it was indeed the truth, no more and no less, I knew very well. I waited, saying nothing, keeping a calm steady gaze on him; the old interviewer’s trick by which you hope to stampede the victim into saying rather more than he meant. But Emory was not easy to stampede. He smiled at me as he leaned forward to tap ash from his cigarette. ‘That goes for the inquiry, too. What has happened to us as a family can’t be changed by apportioning whatever guilt there is. That’s a matter for the police, and they’re the ones it will satisfy. It can’t do anything for us, except keep a wound open. Both James and I feel that it’s better forgotten.’
‘I’m sure you do.’ I said it flatly and pleasantly, but I saw his gaze flick towards me. I looked away, and began to arrange William Ashley’s books neatly side by side on the table in front of me. ‘Well, I suppose the police will go on probing away until they do find something, or else have to close the case. There’s no point in our doing anything more. When I’m next in touch with Herr Gothard, or with Mr Emerson, I’ll tell them so.’
There was no telling whether Emory was relieved or not. He merely nodded, and drew on his cigarette. I looked away, afraid that my gaze was too intent and too inquiring. It was shocking how quickly I had been able to adapt myself to suspicion. Only two short days ago it would have been unthinkable. And now . . . It was shocking, too, how easily I had adapted to deception. I smiled, and peeled off smoothly into talk about my homecoming, and Madeira and Bad Tölz, and Emory followed my lead with the same smooth ease. I wondered if there were still things he wanted to know. For me it was simple; I stayed off the doubtful ground and waited to see if he would tread on it.
He did, but not straight away. He spoke of the Underhills, and I found myself hoping that he would keep off the subject of his relationship with Cathy; I had had enough of that for the moment, and there were things I was more concerned with. I need not have worried. James would certainly have told Emory of my reactions to the ‘theft’ of the Court treasures, and for the present Emory preferred to let that lie. He did, when he was talking about the Underhills, make a sidelong and innocuous reference to Cathy as ‘a sweet girl and very easy to be fond of’, but when I declined the bait he went on to talk about Jeff Underhill’s business, and the family’s eventual departure from the Court.
‘And what are you going to do, Bryony? James seemed to think you wouldn’t stay here – in the cottage, that is.’
‘How could he?’ I said, more sharply than I meant to. ‘As far as I remember, I didn’t tell him what I intended to do.’
‘And here am I,’ said Emory, with a smile that was as disarming in him as in his brother, ‘hammering at you within twenty-four hours about your future. And you know why, don’t you? Cousin Bryony, dear sweet cousin Bryony, have you had time yet to think any further about breaking that trice-damned trust and letting your poor and dishonest relations have a pound or two to fiddle with before they’re due to it?’
I had to laugh. ‘Well, if you put it like that—’
‘I do put it like that. Cards on the table, cousin dear. An Ashley could always be relied on to look after his Ashley self with the greatest possible devotion.’
‘Which,’ I said smoothly, ‘is exactly what I’m doing.’
The faintest line between his brows. ‘And what exactly does that mean?’
‘It means no. I will not break the trust.’
He flung his cigarette into the hearth. ‘For God’s sweet sake, Bryony—’
‘Not even for that. No. Not yet.’
‘But have you thought—’ he began.
‘Give me time.’
I’m not sure what showed in my voice and face, but he bit back what he was going to say, and sat back in his chair. He gave me a long look. It was a shrewd look, and one I didn’t relish under the circumstances. I said, rather quickly: ‘Emory, will you and James please do me a favour?’
‘Such as?’ He sounded understandably wary.
‘Don’t take me up wrong, but would you both just not hound me for a day or two? Just, in fact, keep away from Ashley till I’ve had time to get my bearings? I’m not saying that I refuse utterly and for ever to break the trust. I don’t see that you should have the Court, just as it stands now, tied round your neck like a millstone for ever, but surely there can’t be all that urgency about it? Good heavens, you haven’t even let me talk to Mr Emerson! I’ve got to, surely you can see that? Another week – only a week would give me time to think it all out . . .’ I paused, and finished drily: ‘And surely you can live for a week on what you got for the T’ang horse and the jade Fo-dog seal?’
He looked startled, then he burst out laughing. ‘No police, Cousin Bryony?’
‘No police. But leave it alone, Cousin Emory, or I might surprise you yet. And leave Cathy Underhill out of it, or I will surprise you, and that’s a promise.’ I got up. ‘Now I’m going to make some tea. Will you stay and have some?’
I half expected him to refuse, but I had underestimated him. He leaned back in his chair, still smiling. ‘I’d love some, thank you.’ He was obviously enjoying the situation. Yes, I thought, as I went through to the kitchen, that was my cousin Emory; not the shadow of regret or guilt for anything he might do. That was the Ashley self-sufficiency – and just where, one might ask, did it part company with the criminal mentality? A look back through the family records might make one wonder: and these were days as wild and violent in many ways as the days of the Norman marauders with their rule of strength, or the days of their ‘civilised’ counterparts the elegant duellists and the Mohocks of the eighteenth century. It threw the memory of James and his guilt-ridden contrition into very sharp relief. I had been right, I thought, I had been right. Whatever wrong had been done to Cathy, or even more to my father, it must have been Emory who had acted. It would not, could not, be James. Surely, the most that James had done had been to hear of it afterwards, and feel himself bound to stand by his twin’s actions.
And the silver pen with the initials J.A.? There must be an answer even for that. Emory might have borrowed his brother’s pen, and left it on the Wackersberg road. It was even possible that James had not missed it, and genuinely thought he might have dropped it in the churchyard.
When I went back into the sitting-room with the tray, my cousin was standing by the table, with one of William Ashley’s books in his hand.
‘What’s this?’
‘I’ve been checking through the locked section,’ I said. ‘No, not the porn, so you can put it down again. It’s only Shakespeare. I thought it might be interesting to read Romeo and Juliet again, alongside William Ashley’s attempt to play Romeo.’
‘Heavens, why?’
‘Just a thought. Do you still take three sugars?’
‘Yes, please.’ He turned the volume over and looked at the spine. The Tragicall History of Romeus and Juliet. ‘Hm. It’s a poem, not a play. I thought you said it was Shakespeare?’ Listen to this:
‘This barefoot friar girt with cord his greyish weed,
For he of Francis’ order was, a friar, as I rede.
Not as the most was he, a gross unlearned fool,
But doctor of divinity proceeded he in school.
The secrets eke he knew in Nature’s work that lurk;
By magic’s art most men supposed that he could wonders work.’
‘My God,’ said Emory, ‘they made their money easily in those days, didn’t they? I could do better myself.’
‘What on earth? Let me see.’
He ignored me. ‘It can’t be a prologue or something, can it? No, I thought as much. It isn’t the play at all . . . Wait a minute, it isn’t even “Romeo”. It’s “Romeus”. Romeus and Juliet, and not Shakespeare at all. It’s by a chap called Brooke.’
‘Brooke?’
It came out in a kind of yelp. He looked up, surprised. ‘Yes. Why? Do you know it?’
But I had myself in hand. ‘No. Sorry, I spilt some hot water on myself. It’s nothing. Have a biscuit. You were sayin
g?’
‘This isn’t the Shakespeare play. It’s a poem called Romeus and Juliet, by Arthur Brooke, and it seems to be – hey, it’s dated 1562!’ He sounded excited. ‘I say, I wonder if this could possibly be Shakespeare’s source for his play, or something like that. I don’t know the dates, but surely 1562 – hell, yes, that’s long before he was writing, isn’t it? When did Elizabeth come to the throne?’
That was the kind of thing we knew at Ashley. ‘1558,’ I said, reluctantly. ‘It might be, I suppose, but I can’t see . . . Look, Emory, leave the books, will you? I haven’t had a chance to look at them yet, and I really think we should go through them pretty carefully, and get someone who’s an expert. They might be valuable. Wait till I’ve checked them; we don’t want to risk marking them—’
‘“Might be valuable”, indeed! Anything first printed in 1562 stands a damned good chance of being valuable, I’d say.’
‘Well, don’t start counting chickens till we know a bit more about it. I’ll tell you what, Emory, I’ll write, first thing in the morning. I think someone at Hatchards, or even perhaps the British Museum—’
‘Why don’t you just telephone someone now, this minute? This is your line of country. Isn’t there someone local who might at least have a rough idea? What about what’s-his-name, Leslie Oker, over at Ashbury? He’d have some idea, surely?’
‘I don’t really think—’ I began, unwillingly, but he ignored me.
‘At least he’d have some way of looking it up. Do you know his number?’
He already had the directory in his hand, so there was not much point in stalling further. I gave him the number. He pulled the telephone towards him and began to dial. His movements were quick, incisive, excited. At least, I thought, as I sat across from him sipping my tea, I would be able to read the thing before I had to send it away. Emory could hardly insist on taking it from me. From the length of the poem, and the apparent tedium of the verses, it wasn’t a task I particularly looked forward to, but I would do it, even if I had to stay up all night. For that this, at last, was ‘William’s Brooke’, I was quite sure.
Emory was talking rapidly into the telephone. ‘. . . Yes, Arthur Brooke, “The Tragicall History of Romeus and Juliet, written first in Italian by Bandell and nowe in Englishe by Arthur Brooke”. It’s dated 1562. There’s a piece at the bottom of the title page which says, “In aedibus Richardi Tottelli Cum Privilegio.” Yes. Yes, quite small, . . . about four by eight . . . Tan leather with a brown edge to the paper. No, no inscription, except the owner’s bookplate, and that’s reasonably historic, too. Put in by William Ashley, his own bookplate. He died in, let me see—?’
He raised a brow at me, and I supplied it. ‘1835.’
‘1835,’ said Emory into the telephone. ‘Yes, well, I don’t know about such things, but I’d say it was in pretty good shape. No, no crest or anything on the cover. Oh, the title page is a bit yellow, with some of that brown spotting.’
‘Foxed,’ I said, behind him.
‘My cousin says you call it foxed. Not badly, no, but I’ve only just glanced at it . . . Yes?’
Silence from Emory, while the telephone talked. It was a loud telephone, and, even with the receiver held tightly to my cousin’s ear, I could catch something of what Leslie was saying. But even without that, I could have caught the gist of it from my cousin’s face, where growing excitement fought with worry and slight apprehension. Eventually, after a few more brief queries, and expressions of thanks, he rang off, and turned back to me.
‘He knows the book.’ He spoke very quietly, with a calm belied by the gleam in his eyes. ‘That is, he knows of it; he’s never seen a copy in his life. And for a very good reason. There are only three copies of this particular edition known. One of them isn’t perfect; it’s at Cambridge. The other two are both in Oxford, one in Bodley, and the other in Duke Humphrey. And if this is a fourth . . .’ A short laugh, which betrayed his excitement. ‘He says he has no idea how valuable it might be, but there’s only one thing certain, that it is very valuable indeed. There’s a snag, of course, there’d have to be. It may have been rebound. He couldn’t tell, from my description. If it has, of course, its value will be diminished – but it would still fetch a lot of money . . . Enough, anyway, to see us through. What’s the matter, Bryony? You look as if you hardly cared.’
I could not tell him that I was conscious of only one overmastering wish, to have him go and leave me alone with the book and let me read it. I picked it up and began to turn the pages. ‘Why, of course I’m pleased! It’s marvellous, Emory! And I see no reason at all why you shouldn’t sell it. The only thing we mustn’t do is rush it, and even if we do send it to Christie’s to sell, you know they might take ages. They wait for the right book sale, and that mightn’t be for months.’
‘Yes, I understand that. But they could give us some idea, surely, of what it might bring? One can borrow on expectation, you know.’
‘Fair enough,’ I said. ‘I think the best thing to do is to send the book up to an expert, and let him have a look at it. No, Emory, please—’ This as his hand reached for it again. ‘You’ll have to leave this to me. I promise you I’ll see about it tomorrow, but I want to ask Mr Bryanston about it first.’
‘Mr Bryanston? What does he know about it?’
‘Quite a bit, you’d be surprised. And then I’m going to ring up Mr Emerson, and see just where we stand.’
His brows drew down quickly. ‘He can’t have any objection, surely?’
‘I didn’t mean about this. I meant about the trust.’
It was blackmail of a kind, and it worked. He hesitated, then smiled and nodded, and, to my great relief, at last got to his feet and took his leave. He was going back to Bristol this evening, he told me, and yes, he would keep his promise and stop badgering me about the trust.
‘But for heaven’s sake, you will see about this book straight away, won’t you? And if you can get into the Court and look at what else is there—?’
‘Yes. As soon as I can.’
‘And let me know?’
‘Of course,’ I said. ‘Or James?’
‘Of course.’ The echo held an inflection of surprise, as if it went without saying. As, I reflected, it did. I had been right. And that left me – and my lover – where?
‘Emory?’
He was in the doorway. He turned. ‘Yes?’
‘Where’s Francis? Have you any idea?’
‘Not the least. I dare say he’ll turn up when he feels like it. It’s obvious he can’t have heard the news yet. Why, do you need him for something?’
‘It would be nice,’ I said carefully, ‘if he were here, don’t you think?’
‘Well, of course,’ said his brother, then kissed me again and went away.
I watched him right out of sight past the orchard and beyond the maze and the Overflow, then I went upstairs and began to hunt for a photograph which Walther could show to the police in Bad Tölz.
Ashley, 1835.
He turned his head on the pillow, searching with his cheek for the hollow where her head had lain. The linen was cold now, but still smelled faintly of lavender.
‘Eh—’ he said it aloud, in her phrase ‘—eh, but I love thee.’
The moon had set, but faint shadows moved with the breeze, as the creepers fretted at the walls. The shutter masking the south window moved, creaking, as if some ghostly hand had pushed it. For a half-dreaming moment he thought he saw her again, kilting her skirts to climb the low sill, then standing tiptoe, laughing, watching herself in the glass.
‘What is it?’
Then the shutter went back with a slam, jarring him fully awake. The room was empty.
14
Comfort me, counsel me.
Romeo and Juliet, III, v
It was a good photograph, taken the last time the twins had been at Ashley Court together, showing them both with Rob Granger on the banks of the Pool. They had been fishing for eels, and the picture showed Rob just
tipping the bucketful of wriggling creatures out on the grass, while the twins stood over him. James was laughing, while Emory, looking away into the middle distance, was sober. Both were good likenesses, even though the photograph was four years old. If either of the two had been seen at Bad Tölz, there would be very little difficulty in identifying him.
I wrapped the picture up and found an envelope to fit it. A very common-place action, but it felt like burning a whole fleet of boats, and crossing a delta of Rubicons. Then I sat down and resolutely addressed the envelope to Walther. I had only the haziest idea as to how much it should cost air mail to Bad Tölz, but finished by putting enough stamps on to carry it well east of Suez. That done, I locked William’s books away in a drawer, and, without giving myself time for further thought, set straight out to post the letter.
The pillar-box was nearly half a mile away, where the side-road from One Ash, winding past the church, met the main road. I took the short cut across the farmyard.
In the old days of the farm’s prosperity this had been the stackyard, with the row of stacks spaced beyond the big Dutch barn crammed full to the roof with straw. The cool caverns of the old cart sheds had housed the farm machinery, and whole families of cheerful hens that perched, crooning, on mudguards and shafts, and laid enormous clutches of eggs in various secret places which took, Mrs Granger used to say, an expert egg-diviner to discover. Now the afternoon sun beat down through the gaps in the perished roof of the barn, striking a rusty harrow left there to rot, and the raw green paint of Rob’s cultivator, a stack of oil drums and a pile of chain. An old wagon with a broken shaft stood like an exhibit from some badly kept museum. Two of the sheds had been fenced across with hurdles, and pigs slept there in the slatted sunshine. In another stood Rob’s battered fifth-hand Ford Cortina, and the fourth opening was filled with a stack of firewood. The hens remained, diminished in numbers but not in stately cheer; they clucked and strutted and raked among the fallen straw, ignoring Rob’s collie which lay curled asleep on the mat outside his cottage door. As I crossed the yard the collie woke and smiled with lolling tongue and tail beating the ground, but he didn’t move. I caught a glimpse of Mrs Henderson at Rob’s window, then the door opened and she appeared in the doorway, wiping her hands on her apron.