A Death at Fountains Abbey (33 page)

‘But Francis was impatient to marry, as you can imagine. He became convinced the delay implied some doubt on the Castletons’ side – though in truth they were very fond of him. He was such easy company, so cheerful and generous. I wish you could have known him as he was then.’ She smiled at me. ‘I believe you might have been friends.’

‘Indeed? Was he not interested in architecture at this point?’

‘Oh, it was always his great passion,’ Mrs Fairwood replied, oblivious. ‘He wanted to rebuild the house in Lincolnshire in the new style. He became quite obsessed with the idea.’ She looked down at her hands. ‘It is our passions that destroy us, is it not? We lose all sense, all perspective. Francis was convinced that the Castletons would respect him if he could show them some great accomplishment, something he had created for himself. He was determined to begin work on the house that summer. He spent every moment on his designs, barely eating, barely sleeping. The servants in our London home would find him slumped over his desk, half-delirious with exhaustion.

‘He completed his plans as he had promised, and they were magnificent. The trouble was, he had not considered the
cost
. Francis was never sensible when it came to money. My father had encouraged him at first, but when he saw the designs, he was horrified. They were too elaborate, too ambitious: even with Maria’s fortune, the cost was too great. Perhaps in ten or fifteen years, with a simpler design, it might be possible. Francis was furious. He said he would find another way to pay for it, without my father’s help.’

‘The South Sea Scheme,’ I said.

‘Yes.’ She frowned. ‘He was was one of the first to buy shares. He’d stayed in London when we all returned to Lincolnshire. We couldn’t understand what kept him in town, when Maria waited for him at home. And then the letters began to arrive. He had invested in the South Sea Company, and had made a vast fortune overnight. And no, we must not fuss, because there was no risk! The Chancellor of the Exchequer himself had said so.’

She glanced over her shoulder. Aislabie kept his gaze upon the wall in front of him, his nails pressed deep into the green leather of the desk.

She turned back, lifting her eyes to mine. ‘All through that summer, Francis wrote such feverish letters about his shares and how much he was now worth. It was all he could speak of. My father wrote back begging him to sell out before it was too late. Francis said the world had changed and that cautious old fools should keep their own counsel. And on paper he had amassed an extraordinary fortune. In one summer, he had earned enough to build a
palace
.’

‘Then the bubble burst,’ I said.

‘
Then the bubble burst
,’ she mimicked. ‘Such a passive phrase, so free of blame. Let us not be delicate, Mr Hawkins. Let us not use
metaphors
. The South Sea Scheme was a fraud played upon the nation, and the men who promoted it are black-hearted thieves.’

Aislabie could endure it no longer. ‘
Not true!?
’ he cried, thumping the desk.

‘Worse than thieves!’ Mrs Fairwood shouted, rising to her feet. ‘At least a highwayman has the common decency to admit what he is. You stood upon the floor of the House of Commons and you
swore
that we could trust the company’s directors. You encouraged people to invest, even at the very end when you must have known the misery that lay ahead. Do not deny it, sir!’

‘What should I have done,
madam
?’ Aislabie snarled, defiant. ‘How easily you judge me, when you understand so little. I promise you, Mrs Fairwood – if indeed that
is
your name – if I had even
hinted
of my concerns, there would have been a universal panic. It would have been a catastrophe, a hundred times worse than the one we suffered.’

‘
We
suffered?’ Mrs Fairwood laughed, incredulous.

‘I had a duty to maintain order, to search for a safer path.’

‘You had a duty to speak the
truth
.’

‘And who would have listened? The world had turned mad. Do you know what the king said to me, when I advised him not to invest in more shares? He called me a timorous fool.
The king!
I might as well have shouted into the wind.’

‘What specious logic is this?’ Mrs Fairwood cried. ‘You say you held your tongue to prevent panic – but claim that if you had indeed spoken out, no one would have listened?’

Mr Aislabie began to argue his case again, but I held up my hand to stop him. We might spend the rest of our lives in this room, debating the rights and wrongs of the matter – he would never admit to any fault, and Mrs Fairwood would never grant him any mercy. ‘What happened to your brother, madam?’

‘He was ruined,’ she said, still glowering at Aislabie. ‘He’d bought his shares on speculation. When the price collapsed he was left owing thousands of pounds.
Thousands
. My father had to sell most of our estate to pay the debts. Land we had owned for generations.’

‘I am sorry,’ Aislabie said, though he didn’t sound it. ‘But how does that give you the right to torment me and my family? Are you insensible to my own trials, madam? Is it not telling that John Aislabie – a commoner – was sacrificed to the fury of public opinion, while my noble colleagues were protected and promoted? I was thrown in the Tower! Stripped of office. Suffered every possible abuse to my reputation—’

‘
Oh!??
’ Mrs Fairwood groaned, collapsing back into her chair.

I understood her frustration. Aislabie’s insistence on casting himself as the victim in all of this was excessively tedious. Also – unforgivably – he had referred to himself in the third person. I thought it best to nudge the story along. ‘Mrs Fairwood: why was your brother transported?’

She blanched. ‘How . . . how did you know?’

It had been eight years since the South Sea calamity. Long enough for a man to be transported and serve his seven years of enforced labour, before returning to England. Seven years, slaving beneath a burning sun.

Mrs Fairwood’s hand upon the globe, spanning the Atlantic, had offered me the first clue. After all, if Francis Forster sought revenge upon Aislabie, why wait for so long? But it was the puzzle of his broken arm that had convinced me – the bandage wrapped about his wrist and hand. ‘He was branded, was he not?’ I touched my left thumb, between the knuckles. ‘They mark them here, with a letter. T for theft. M for murder.’

‘Dear God,’ Lady Judith breathed.

‘The bandage was ingenious,’ I said. ‘Hid the brand and his strength at the same time.’

‘Is this true?’ Lady Judith snapped. ‘Madam! Did you let a murderer into my home?’

Angry tears sprang beneath Mrs Fairwood’s lashes. ‘You refuse to hear me. I told you, Francis was a gentle, generous boy. That was his undoing. He’d amassed such a great fortune over that summer, but he couldn’t persuade my father or Mr Castleton to invest. He decided to buy some shares in Mr Castleton’s name. He never intended to keep them. He was going to present the profits to his father-in-law as a gift, at the wedding. Then the whole scheme collapsed
and he couldn’t sell them. His broker wrote to Mr Castleton, demanding payment.’

‘How much was the debt?’ I asked.

‘Two hundred pounds. He bought them at the height of the summer.’

‘And Mr Castleton had him charged for theft?’ That seemed cruel. It was a huge debt, but the families could have come to an agreement without involving the courts.

‘No . . .’ Aislabie said, clicking his fingers ‘. . . I remember this story. I read about it, or heard it somewhere . . .’

Mrs Fairwood twisted in her chair, so she might seem him the better. ‘You remember? Francis Ellory?’ She glared at him until he lowered his gaze.

‘I don’t recall the name,’ he muttered.

‘Mr Castleton waived the debt, but it made no difference. Francis had bought shares in another man’s name, signed legal documents. He was arrested for forgery and fraud. A hanging offence.’ She paused. Took a deep breath, and continued. ‘My mother collapsed when she heard the news. She was too ill to travel, so I accompanied my father to London. We must not despair, everyone said so. But the law . . . once a thing is set in motion, it can be hard to stop.
You
know this,’ she said to me. ‘The trial was set for November. My father wrote countless letters, tried every connection. Everyone offered the same advice – we must find someone in the government to support our case. So he wrote to you, Mr Aislabie.’

Aislabie covered his mouth. ‘I don’t recall . . .’ But he did. I’d seen it in his eyes – a flash of guilt, swiftly hidden.

‘You were still in office at that time. Imagine – the man who had ruined the country,
still
in power. My father begged you to intercede. You could explain to the judge the hectic madness of that summer. There was a good deal of talk about town, blaming the crash upon foolish young investors. But you knew that wasn’t true.
You
knew who was to blame. Not the investors. Not poor Francis. But men like you, Mr Aislabie. Men like
you.
’

Aislabie’s lips tightened. Of course he had received the letter, and of course he had not answered. To do so would have been to admit his own culpability.

‘Two dozen men stood up in court to defend my brother’s character, including Mr Castleton. It made no difference. He was found guilty.’ She shook her head, tears in her eyes.

‘But he didn’t hang,’ I said.

‘No. How
lucky
we were. Seven years and a branding upon his thumb: an F for Felon.’ She drew a deep breath, that turned into a shudder. ‘I was there when they burned it into him. My little brother. I will never forget his screams. The smell of his flesh, burning . . . Then they put him in chains and took him away.’

Chapter Twenty-three

Mrs Fairwood insisted on a walk about the yard, to compose herself. She would not continue her story otherwise.

‘You may accompany me to the stables,’ Lady Judith said, icily polite. ‘I wish to see how Athena fares.’

‘You care of nothing but your precious horses,’ Mrs Fairwood sneered. But she rose and drifted from the room, grey and silent as the shadow that trailed at her feet. Kitty gathered up her skirts and followed at a close distance. If Mrs Fairwood had plans to run, she would find herself stopped with a boot, or a bucket, or whatever else might be lying about the yard.

‘How can I have been so deceived?’ Aislabie said, watching from the terrace door. ‘I never knew a woman could be so wicked.’

I took a sip of brandy. ‘She told me she was afraid, the first time we spoke. Afraid of
him.
’

‘You think she was coerced?’

‘I believe so. More than her pride allows her to confess.’

‘Hmm.’ He looked at me for a moment, from the corner of his eye. ‘You are not entirely without value.’

I clapped my hand to my chest, accepting the compliment.

He laughed, but it soon faded. ‘Have you ever lost someone you loved, Hawkins?’

‘My mother. A long time ago now.’

‘Do you remember her?’

I turned the brandy glass between my fingers. Nodded.

‘My children can’t remember their mother. They were so young when she died. We never speak of her.’ He sighed. ‘I thought it best in the beginning. Now they have no memory of a time before the fire, not even Mary, my eldest. Sometimes I think I am the only one who remembers Anne, and Lizzie. Those brief days. When you lose a child, Hawkins . . .’ He paused, and swallowed. ‘. . . it leaves a wound that never heals. The world forgot her, but I never did
.
I think of them both, every day.’

‘Metcalfe remembers Lizzie.’

‘He does?’

‘He said she was a merry little girl.’

Aislabie’s dark eyes lit up. ‘She was. She
was
.’

Mrs Fairwood left the stables, heading back through the yard.

‘
Look
at her,’ Aislabie muttered. ‘To think how many hours I wasted, studying the contours of that woman’s face.’ He returned to the desk, taking the bottle of brandy with him.

Mrs Fairwood arrived at the terrace doors, the bottom of her gown flecked with hay from the stables. She glided past me to the fire and brushed her skirts clean with a fastidious hand, dropping the hay into the flames. Her wrist, when not being observed, seemed to work perfectly well.

Kitty and Lady Judith had also stepped back into the library. The air had grown stifling, so Kitty and I swapped places – she stood by the fire while I guarded the door. Lady Judith was talking with her husband. ‘Do you wish to rest for a time?’ she murmured, stroking his back. He leaned into her for a moment, then shook his head.