‘We believed in duty once,’ said the older man, drifting off into contemplation and blurred memories.
‘Seven-day wonder, she was. And yet the society gossips would have had us believe that an announcement was imminent.’
‘If you ask me,’ boomed the oldest man in the room, a retired Home Secretary whose voice carried more weight than anyone else’s present and for whom everyone remained silent; even the shot on the black was held up for his pearl of wisdom. ‘The whole thing is a lot of stuff and nonsense dreamed up by chaps like Beaverbrook for public titillation. He should simply do what his ancestors have been doing for years. Take a wife and keep a mistress, like any decent man would. An honest to goodness whore.’
‘She’s no oil painting, though, is she, sir?’ asked Alexander, the whisper of a smile breaking out around the corners of his mouth.
‘I am led to believe,’ said the old man in a perfectly serious tone of voice, ‘that love is blind.’ He arched an eyebrow for this was a statement that he considered to be humorous and one that might outlive him and be replayed at his own funeral one day. ‘And if that’s true, then one can only assume that the king is in need of eyeglasses.’
‘A seven-day wonder,’ repeated another young man, shaking his head and laughing. ‘I say, I rather like that.’
‘Well that’s what it will be, you mark my words. Next week it’ll be some other floozy. Another man’s wife, another man’s daughter, another divorcée.’
‘Where’s the damn girl with the damn brandies?’ asked the former Home Secretary, whose alcohol level was becoming dangerously low.
‘I’m here, sir,’ said the damn girl, all of nineteen years old, who had been standing right beside him, holding the damn tray all along.
* * *
SIR DENIS TANDY STOOD alone in the library and ran his fingers appreciatively across the spines of a leather-bound collection of the complete Dickens. The room was in astonishing order, mahogany bookcases lining the walls, each one a dozen shelves high with ladders positioned to run along a top rail to help the ambitious reader stretch ever higher in their pursuit of knowledge and entertainment. The books were separated around the room into categories, with histories of London occupying almost six shelves of their own on a left-hand wall. In the centre of the room stood a heavy oak reading table with a couple of lamps on either end. Bound folio editions of maps were gathered underneath, some of which contained references to the many plots of land, whole streets at a time in fact, that were owned by the Montignac estate, their value enormous, their annual income difficult to calculate with any accuracy.
He had known Peter Montignac for almost forty years and had slowly moved from the position of lawyer to close friend and confidant in midlife, before returning to the role of functionary and employee during Peter’s final years as the old man grew grouchy and despondent. It was the death of his only son, Andrew, that had brought this on; anyone with even a slight acquaintance with the older Montignac knew that he had never quite got over the tragedy. The boy’s death in a shooting accident at the age of eighteen had never been explained to the father’s satisfaction; Andrew had been an experienced marksman after all, Peter pointed out whenever the subject came up. And he knew how to clean a rifle. It was too ridiculous to suggest that he would have made such a fatal error.
The relationship between lawyer and client had been fractious at times over the years but he knew that he would miss him nonetheless, his unpredictability and charm, the bursts of anger and venom he reserved for his enemies. Peter Montignac had been a man of extremes, capable of the fiercest loyalty to his friends but also willing to exact bitter revenge against those who had betrayed that friendship over the years. Sir Denis knew him well enough to feel pleased that he had managed, for the most part, to stay on the right side of him.
He had spent a half-hour since returning to Leyville from the funeral trying to locate Owen Montignac in order to arrange a suitable time for the reading of the will, but Peter’s young nephew was nowhere to be found. He had certainly come back with the party—that unmistakable shock of white hair had been visible emerging from the first car to arrive back at the house—but he had failed to put in an appearance since then, which Sir Denis found to be in poor taste. Mourning was mourning, of course, but it should be kept to private time and not allowed to surface when there was a house full of guests. And as for that eulogy he’d delivered; well, he could just imagine Peter turning in his grave at the thought of such stark emotion.
Sir Denis wanted to arrange the reading for as soon as possible and planned to fortify himself with several stiff brandies before it began as he could not imagine the interview having a happy conclusion. He glanced at his watch; if Montignac did not appear within the next half-hour, he decided he would speak to Stella instead; she had also kept a low profile throughout the day but was managing to contain her grief with a lot more dignity than her cousin had displayed. And this despite the fact that she was the man’s natural child.
It was in this house that Peter and Sir Denis had drafted his original will many years before, leaving all his money and interests to his now late wife, Ann; it was here that it had been amended in favour of his son, Andrew, within hours of the boy’s birth. It was here that allowances for Stella and his nephew, Owen, had been added as a codicil and here that the entire thing had had to be changed again after Andrew’s death.
He didn’t relish the idea of the reading, wondering how the relatives would react when they heard the news. Perhaps it wouldn’t be unexpected, despite the Montignacs’ sense of tradition; perhaps they might have predicted one final outburst of spontaneity from their late patriarch. It was difficult to know. Sir Denis couldn’t even guess at their reaction for they were a strange family, given to unpredictability and capriciousness.
4
RODERICK BENTLEY HELD THE breakfast tray gingerly in his hands as he opened the door to the bedroom, trying his best not to surrender the carefully balanced contents to the carpet beneath him as he stepped inside. Jane was already awake but dozing and sat up in bed with a sleepy smile when she saw her husband appear.
‘Darling,’ she said. ‘What a perfect servant you are.’
He smiled and stood before her like a well-trained butler while she arranged the pillows behind her back, and then settled the tray on her lap carefully.
‘Breakfast, madam,’ he announced in an affected voice and she smiled and took the lid off the plate to reveal a selection of scrambled eggs, bacon and sausages.
‘Scrambled,’ she said with a frown. ‘I’ll have to speak to Nell about that. They’re very twenties, don’t you think? But she refuses to poach, for some unfathomable reason.’
‘I’m afraid I’m not up to date with the current fashions in eggs,’ said Roderick, settling himself in an armchair by the window as his wife buttered a slice of toast.
‘You should have brought up another cup,’ said Jane, pouring herself some tea. ‘There’s enough in the pot for two.’
‘No, I’ve had enough tea,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘I’ve been up since five o’clock drinking the stuff and I better stop or I’ll have to keep excusing myself from the bench this morning.’