Mark Hodder - The curious case of the Clockwork Man

He looked down at the woman, his lips curling back from his teeth.

“Attend her!”

The physician crouched and pulled Lady Mabella over onto her back. Her eyes rolled then fixed intently on her husband. Her lips moved.

“What?” de Tichborne snapped. “Doth she speak?”

“Aye, my lord. She biddeth thee bend closer.”

The aristocrat snorted but, nevertheless, squatted on his haunches.

The old woman whispered: “Two fields of wheat, sir. Two fields!”

Her husband hissed vehemently.

“Thinkest thou that I would honour my word to a slattern and sorceress? Foul necromancer! Scold! Shrew! Two fields of wheat to the poor? Never! They shall receive naught from me!”

“Then listen thou to my final words, O husband,” Lady Mabella whispered. “From my heart, I curse thee and thine, and this curse shall hold true through all the ages. Should the allotted dole fail for e'en a single year, there shall be seven sons born to this house, aye, and nary a one shall sire a man-child. Seven daughters shall follow, and the name of de Tichborne will thus be lost for all time. And the house itself shall fall into ruin, until naught but wind-borne dust remains of thy family!”

Her eyes closed and a rattle sounded from her throat.

The physician looked up.

“The Lady Mabella is dead, my lord.”

“And may the devil have her eyes!” The squire looked across the wheat fields. “Hang it! Twenty-three acres, Jankyn!”

“Wilt thou accede to the lady's wish, then?”

“I have but little choice. The witch's curse is upon the family now.”

He looked up at the stars and muttered: “Heaven grant mercy upon those who follow!”

Sir Richard Francis Burton sat with his mouth open, his wine glass held inches from it. He blinked, took a breath, and gasped: “Good God! The man was an animal!”

Henry Arundell agreed: “A cad of the first order, and his brutality has had a lasting influence, for every year since he killed his wife-let us not pretend he did otherwise-the Tichbornes have paid the dole, with the exception of a short period that began in 1796.”

“What happened then?”

“The seventh baronet, Sir Henry, who'd been travelling overseas for some considerable time, returned to Tichborne House, stopped the dole, and declared the estate off-limits to all. For the next few years, he lived as a recluse, not emerging from his self-imposed isolation until the Napoleonic Wars. By this time, the eldest of his seven sons had produced only daughters and the others were childless. When a large part of the manor fell down, Sir Henry realised that the curse was upon him. He immediately restored the annual contribution, had the rest of the house demolished, and built the current manor on its foundations.”

“You say he travelled,” Burton interjected. “Do you know where?”

“Mainly in the Americas, I believe. Anyway, despite the resurrection of the dole, the Tichbornes’ misfortunes weren't quite over. While fighting in France, Sir Henry's third son, James, married an ill-tempered girl named Henriette-Felicite. Though she bore a male heir to the estate-Roger Charles Doughty Tichborne, born in January of 1829-her marriage to James soon faltered.”

Arundell broke off as a waiter approached. “Shall we order?” he asked Burton.

The king's agent, who'd been absorbed in the other man's tale, waved his hand distractedly and said: “Yes, yes, of course, please do.”

Henry Arundell requested a chicken vindaloo and Burton, hardly caring what he ate, asked for the same.

“So this Roger Tichborne is the prodigal who's lately been the preoccupation of all the journalists?”

“Yes. He was doted on by his mother and raised as a Frenchman. He didn't learn to speak English until he was about twelve years old, and always spoke it with a strong French accent.

“A second son was born, too. A surprise, really, considering that James and his wife grew to hate each other. This one, Alfred, was a weak-willed lad, and was all but ignored by Henriette-Felicite, who remained devoted to her firstborn.

“To return for a moment to the grandfather, Sir Henry; when he died, one of his other sons, James's elder brother Edward, became the eighth baronet. Edward had changed his surname to Doughty as a condition of an inheritance. This is where my family comes into it, for after becoming Sir Edward Doughty, he married my aunt, Katherine Arundell, and they had a child, ‘Kattie’ Doughty, in 1834. She became romantically involved with young Roger Tichborne, who had, after being educated at Stonyhurst Jesuit School, joined the Sixth Dragoon Guards, and was spending his furloughs at Tichborne House. My aunt objected strongly to this romance on the grounds that Roger lacked prospects and didn't act in a sufficiently English manner. Plus, of course, he and the girl were cousins.

“Having been banned from seeing Kattie for at least three years, Roger determined to prove himself. Typically, he followed a flight of fancy. According to a family legend, Sir Henry had discovered a fabulous diamond in South America-”

“ What?” Burton cried, causing an outbreak of tut-tutting from the surrounding tables.

Arundell looked at him in astonishment then shook his head. “No, no, Burton,” he said. “It's just a fancy. There's never been anything to substantiate it-certainly no such gem has ever been seen, and, considering the family's current finances, it obviously doesn't exist.”

“Frankly, I hardly know what to think!” Burton revealed.

“Why so?”

“Because the-the-well, it doesn't matter-suffice it to say that I've experienced rather a profound coincidence!”

“Anything I should know about?”

“No. Yes. No. Um-my apologies, sir, I'm somewhat at a loss. A few weeks ago there was a rather daring diamond robbery-”

“I don't remember that.”

“It wasn't reported. Scotland Yard has been keeping it quiet while the investigation proceeds. I had some involvement with the affair, and my subsequent inquiries suggest that the missing diamonds are connected with one that is rumoured to have been discovered in Chile by an English aristocrat.”

“Ah.”

“I wasn't told the aristocrat's name.”

“So now you're thinking it was Sir Henry Tichborne? I'm sorry to disappoint you but, really, the whole thing is nothing but a fairy tale.”

Burton cleared his throat at the mention of fairies.

“An enticing one, to be sure,” Arundell continued. “Certainly young Roger fell under its spell, and decided to visit all the places where his grandfather had travelled in the hope that he, too, would stumble upon untold wealth. A quite ridiculous endeavour, and it would have been an utter waste of time had he gone through with it-but no sooner did he step ashore at Valparaiso than word reached him that his uncle, Sir Edward Doughty, had passed away.”

“So the baronetcy passed to his father, James?”

“Quite so-until, seven days later, Sir James dropped dead from heart failure. Our prodigal was now the new baronet, entitled to all the wealth and estates of the Tichbornes. Rather eagerly, I imagine, he hopped aboard a ship- La Bella -to make his way home. On the 20th of April, 1854, it sank without a trace, and the third baronet in less than a fortnight was lost. His young brother, Alfred, inherited the estate instead, and would have bankrupted it in no time at all had his mother not sent her friend Colonel Lushington to Tichborne House to take him in hand.”

Henry Arundell paused to sip his wine and to nod a greeting to an acquaintance seated at a nearby table.

Burton asked: “If Sir Alfred is such a liability, why are the Arundell and Doughty families so concerned that his elder brother has shown up alive and well? Why contest Roger Tichborne's claims to the baronetcy?”