Anne Perry - A Christmas Visitor

“That’s ridiculous!” he said quickly. “No one would believe him. You must have your man of affairs warn him that if he repeats such an idiotic and completely false charge, you will sue him.”

The shadow of a smile touched her mouth. “I have already done that. Gower took no notice. He insists that Judah took the estate after charging him falsely and imprisoning him, when he knew he was innocent, all in order to buy the estate cheaply. And of course that was before the Viking site was found.”

He was confused.

“I think you had better tell me the whole story from the beginning. I don’t remember Ashton Gower, and I know nothing about a Viking site. What happened, Antonia?”

She drank the last of her tea, as if giving herself time to compose her thoughts. She did not look at him but into the dancing flames of the fire. Outside it was already growing dark and the winter sunset lit the sky and burned orange and gold through the south windows onto the wall.

“Years ago Ashton Gower’s family owned this estate,” she began. “It belonged originally to the Colgrave family, and the widow who inherited it married Geoffrey Gower, and was Ashton’s mother. It all seemed very straightforward to begin with, until Peter Colgrave, a relative from the other side of the family, raised the question as to whether the deeds were genuine.”

“The deeds to the estate?” Henry asked. “How could they not be? Presumably Gower’s father was the legal owner, on his marriage to the Colgrave widow?”

“It was a question of dates,” she replied. She looked tired, drained of all strength. The story was miserably familiar, even if it was also inexplicable. “To do with Mariah Colgrave’s marriage and the death of her brother-in-law, and the birth of Peter Colgrave.”

“And this Colgrave contested Gower’s right to it?” he asked.

She smiled bleakly. “Actually he said the deeds were forged, and that Ashton Gower had done it in order to inherit it himself. He insisted it went to court, so naturally in time it came before Judah, up in Penrith. The first time he examined the deeds he said they looked perfectly good, but he kept them and looked again more closely. He became suspicious and took them to a very good expert on documents in Kendal. He said they were definitely not genuine. He would testify to that.”

Henry leaned forward. “And did he?” he asked earnestly.

“Oh, yes. Ashton Gower stood trial for forgery, and was found guilty. Judah sentenced him to eleven years’ imprisonment. He has just been released.”

“And the estate?” Although he could guess the answer. Perhaps he should have known, but when he had been here before, there had always been better, happier things to talk of—laughter, good food, and good conversation to share.

She shifted a little in her seat.

“Colgrave inherited it,” she said ruefully. “But he did not wish to live here. He put the estate on the market at a very reasonable price. I think actually he had debts to pay. He lived extravagantly. Judah and his brothers all put in what they could, Judah by far the most, and they bought it. He and I lived here. Joshua was born here.” Her voice choked with emotion and she needed a few moments to regain control.

He waited without speaking.

“I’ve never loved a place as I do this!” she said with sudden fierce passion. “For the first time I feel absolutely at home.” She gave an impatient little gesture of her hand. “Not the house. It’s beautiful, of course, a marvelous house. But I mean the land, the trees, the way the light falls on the water.” She searched his face. “Do you remember the long twilight over the lake in the summer, the evening sky? Or the valleys, grassland so green it rolls like deep velvet into the distance, trees full and lush, billowing like fallen clouds? The woods in spring, or the day we followed Striding Edge up toward Helvellyn?”

He did not interrupt her. To remember the beauty that hurt was part of grief.

She was silent for a moment, and then resumed the story. “Of course it’s worth a great deal financially as well, even before we found the Viking site. There are the farms, and the houses on the shore. It’s easily sufficient to provide for Benjamin, Ephraim, and Nathaniel to follow their own passions.” Her face tightened. “And now that Nathaniel’s dead, for Naomi, of course.”

“What is this Viking site you keep referring to?” he asked.

She smiled. “A shepherd from one of the farms found a silver coin and he brought it to Judah. Judah was always interested in coins, and he knew what it was.” She smiled. “I remember how pleased he was, because it was rather romantic, it was Anglo-Saxon, Alfred the Great, who defeated the Danes, or at least held them at bay, in the late 800s. The coin we found might have been part of the Danelaw tribute, since the rest of it was Viking silver, ornaments, jewelry, and harness. When we found the whole treasure there were Norse Irish brooches, and arm rings, Scandinavian neck rings, Carolingian buckles from France, and coins from all over, even Islamic ones from Spain, North Africa, the Middle East, and as far as Afghanistan.” Her wonder stayed for a moment or two longer, then faded as the present intruded again.

“Judah invited professional archaeologists in, of course,” she resumed. “And they dug very carefully. It took them all of one summer, but they uncovered the ruins of a building, and in it the whole hoard of coins and artifacts. Most of the things are in a museum, but lots of people come to see the ones we kept, and naturally they stay in the village. Our lakeside cottages are let nearly all the time.”

“I see.”

She turned to look at him directly. “We had no idea it was there when we bought the estate! No one did. And the whole village profits from the visitors.”

“Is Gower suggesting that you did know about the hoard?” he asked.

“Not in so many words, but he is allowing it to be understood.”

“What exactly is he saying?” He could not help her to fight it if he did not know the truth, however ugly or distressing. The thought of Judah, of all men, being accused of dishonesty was most painful.

“That the deeds to the estate were genuine,” she replied. “And that Judah knew it all along, and bribed the expert to lie, so Colgrave could inherit, sell the property quickly and cheaply, because he needed the money, and Judah could buy it, and then pretend to discover the hoard.”

Henry saw at a glance both that the charge was preposterous, and that it could also be extremely difficult to disprove because it rested on no reasonable evidence. Gower was obviously a bitter man who had been punished for a particularly stupid crime, and now lashed out seeking some kind of vengeance, rather than trying to salvage and rebuild his life.

“Surely no one believed him,” he said aloud. “The expert said the deeds were forged, and there is nothing to suggest anyone at all knew of the Viking site. After all, it must have been there for centuries. None of Gower’s ancestors knew of it, did they?”

“No! No one had the faintest idea,” she agreed.

“Chance,” he replied.

“I know that. But Gower is saying that we only waited long enough to make it seem as if we didn’t know. But it alters nothing, if the deeds were genuine. It is only a small lie on top of a greater one.” Her voice dropped a little. The fire was burning lower and the lamplight softened the misery in her face. “Can you think of anything worse than to send an innocent man to prison, and blacken his reputation in order to steal his inheritance? That is what he is saying Judah did. And now he is not even here to defend himself!” She was close to losing control. The careful mask, which cost her so much, was beginning to slip.