Deanna Raybourn - Bonfire Night

Plum spluttered into his whisky, but Brisbane remained unperturbed.

Portia turned back to me. “And you never answered Plum’s question. How did you manage to forget Jack?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. If I knew why I did it, I could stop. But it just happens. I will take him out for some air and then start wool-gathering about something. Before I know it, I’m somewhere entirely new and he’s nowhere to be found.”

“Thank God for Morag,” Plum said fervently.

“Yes, thank God for Morag,” I echoed, my voice tight. The fact that my lady’s maid had taken it upon herself to act as nanny to the child was both a godsend and the rankest betrayal. She had served me faithfully for five years, and while I would cheerfully have cut her throat a dozen times a day, I had taken her defection badly. But it had been love at first sight between Morag and the baby, and I did not have the heart to keep her from him. From the day Brisbane and I had agreed to bring up the child as our own, Morag had been there, coddling and crooning, securing the best wet nurse and jealously guarding her Little Jack as she insisted upon calling him. My only consolation was that it meant her incessant mooning over Brisbane was a thing of the past. She had transferred her affections to his tiny half-brother, the child Brisbane and I had brought into our house after we could make none of our own.

“Morag as devoted watchdog,” Portia said in a state of wonder. “It still doesn’t quite bear thinking about. What a journey she has had. Whitechapel prostitute to lady’s maid to the daughter of an earl, and now nanny to the little foundling.” My lips tightened and Portia flapped a hand. “Don’t pull a face, darling. I call Jane the Younger the same. Who would have guessed it? That we two should become mothers to other women’s children?”

“Who indeed?” I said. I put on a deliberately cheerful face. “Now, who is ready for dinner? I think the banana sandwiches must be ready by now.”

* * *

After a better supper than I had expected—chops and vegetables with an excellent soup, passable pudding and no bananas to speak of—we repaired to the only room in the house besides the cellars that had not yet suffered from the invasion of the builders in search of dry rot. Brisbane’s study was my favourite room, perhaps in all the world. It reflected the man and his travels and the life he had led before me. I think I began to fall in love with him in that room, and it never failed to take me back to those first heady days when he was enigmatic and implacable, observing everything with witch-black eyes that gave nothing away. We had just settled in with small cups of Turkish coffee and water pipes full of apple-scented tobacco when our butler, Aquinas, appeared.

“There is a caller, my lady, sir,” he said, proffering a card to Brisbane. “He apologises for the hour.”

I poured out a cup of the thick black sludge that Brisbane preferred and handed it to my brother. He took a sip and pulled a face.

“I will never get used to this,” Plum protested. “It’s like drinking tar.”

“Peasant,” Portia said sweetly. “It takes a sophisticated man to appreciate other cultures.” As Brisbane was easily the most travelled—and the only one of us with any claim to mixed blood—Portia’s comment was nothing more than good-natured raillery, and Brisbane took it as such. He lifted his cup to her in silent salute.

I nodded towards the small creamy card in his hand. “Who is it, dearest?”

He shrugged and handed it over. “No one I’ve ever met. A solicitor, and one that keeps damnably strange hours.”

I looked to Aquinas. “Show him up, please.”

Plum settled his cup into the saucer. “Shall Portia and I go then?”

“Why?” our sister demanded, relaxing further into the cushions of the sofa. “I quite like it here, and besides, strange solicitors showing up at odd hours speaks to an intrigue. I’d love a good intrigue.”

Brisbane and I exchanged smiles. There was no possibility of shifting Portia once she became interested in a subject, and Plum was technically a member of the enquiry agency. Besides, living in the bosom of a large family meant keeping precious few secrets. Whatever the business this solicitor had with us, I would no doubt confide it to them in the end.

In a very few moments the creaking of the stairs signalled his approach. Aquinas opened the door and announced him, but almost before he finished saying the name, the fellow was upon us. He was middling in height and portly with a ruddy complexion and well-trimmed whiskers of the faded ginger hue that comes when redheaded men begin to age badly. He was well-upholstered in an expensive suit and carried a small case of dull green morocco.

“Thank you for seeing me so quickly, sir, and I do apologise for both the lateness of the hour and the intrusion upon your guests,” he added with a glance towards the rest of us. There was something faintly off in his expression as he looked at us, as if he smelt something not entirely pleasant.

“Not at all,” Brisbane countered. “My wife, Lady Julia Brisbane. Her sister, Lady Bettiscombe, and their brother, Mr. Eglamour March. And you are Mr. Sanderson of the firm of Sanderson and Weevel, I believe?” he added with a nod to the card.

“I am indeed, sir.” He inclined his head towards the rest of us in turn. “My lady, my lady, Mr. March.” He turned back to Brisbane. “The matter I have come to discuss is somewhat confidential in nature,” he began.

Brisbane waved a hand. “I have no secrets from my wife, and I have been married long enough to know better than to believe she has any from her family. Please, be seated, Mr. Sanderson and state your business freely.”

Still looking doubtful, Mr. Sanderson took the chair Brisbane indicated. He looked from his left, where I sat on a hassock, to his other side, where Portia occupied one end of the sofa. I lifted the pot of Turkish coffee. “Coffee, Mr. Sanderson?”

He started a little at the sound of my voice and darted me an odd glance, sliding his eyes away from me and back to my husband. “How very kind. Erm, no, thank you, my lady.”

He cleared his throat. “Now, Mr. Brisbane, as I say this is confidential, and perhaps it would be best—”

I took up a plate of rose water biscuits. “Biscuit?” I asked sweetly, shoving the plate under his nose.

He flinched a little. “No, thank you, my lady.” His tone was firmer this time, and I flicked a glance to my sister.

She did not disappoint. She took a cushion from the sofa and thrust it at him. “Cushion, Mr. Sanderson? That chair is frightfully uncomfortable.”

He put up his hands as if to ward her off. “I am quite comfortable, my lady. Thank you.”

Plum, who had no notion why we were tormenting the fellow but was always ready for a bit of mischief, picked up the closest water pipe. “We were just about to light the hookah , Mr. Sanderson. Would you care for a smoke?”

“No, no, thank you,” the solicitor said, fending him off. “I wish to speak with Mr. Brisbane about a matter of some importance,” he said tightly.

“My wife and her family are nothing if not hospitable towards guests,” Brisbane said, giving me a fond look. “You were saying, Mr. Sanderson?”

The solicitor darted glances at my siblings and I as if to reassure himself that we did not intend to molest him with further courtesies. He fished in his morocco case and drew out a slender document that bore the hallmarks of a legal decree.

“This is the last will and testament of Josiah Thornhill of Thorncross Manor in Narrow Wibberley in Berkshire” he began. “The gentleman was a solitary soul—some might call him a recluse. He lived in this house for the whole of his life and never married. When he passed, it was discovered that he left no heirs, and it was believed, no will. But this document has been found and authenticated, and in it he makes clear his wish that you should be the beneficiary of his estate.”