The Wolfe's Mate Part 18

Lord Erskine said frostily, 'I don't want your grat.i.tude, Mr Wolfe, undying or otherwise, but to please you and in the hope of bringing this matter to a speedy end I shall instruct Mrs Harte to humour you. Were we in a real court of law I should not do so.'

He leaned forward to say gently and kindly to the witness, 'Pray answer Mr Wolfe's questions, madam.'

She stared at Ben before saying, defiance in her voice for the first time, 'Why, your mother gave it to me. It is inexpensive, tin and gla.s.s, but I treasure it in her memory.'

'Do you, indeed? That is most gracious of you. Tell me, when did she give it to you?'

She smiled at him for the first time. 'That is easily answered, sir. The day I was promised to Tom Harte.'

'Which was?'

'A fortnight before she disappeared.'

'A fortnight before she disappeared. You are quite sure of that?'

'Quite sure, sir.'

Mr Herriott, agonised by this series of non sequiturs, pulled at Ben's coattails to urge him to sit down. Ben ignored him and tried not to catch the eye of Lord Erskine or the by now baleful glare of Mr Gascoyne.

Instead he said to her, his voice still honeyed, 'Do you know, Mrs Harte, I do believe that you are not telling me the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.'

Her hand flew to the brooch again. 'Oh, but I am.'

'No, and I can prove you to be a liar. If I am not mistaken, that brooch was bought at Lavendon Fair and given to my mother on her birthday, the very day she disappeared, and I was the one who paid for it, and gave it to her. I bought it out of my pocket money.'

She was now as agitated as she had been calm. 'No, it is you who are lying. You have been living a lie all your life. It was as I said, she gave it to me on the day I was betrothed to Tom.'

Pray G.o.d, thought Ben, that time has not betrayed me, nor erased my handiwork of over twenty-five years ago.

'You see,' he said, and his kind smile never wavered, 'I was only a little boy of nine then, and I was so proud of my gift that I scratched my name and the date on the back. I don't suppose that you ever saw it, or, if you did, thought that the marks were other than random. Pray give m'lud the brooch that he may inspect the back of it.'

He knew that he was taking an enormous risk, but as Herriott had said the night before, they needed a miracle and perhaps here was one for the asking-if the marks were still there.

'You see,' he said, more into the silent room than to the now-unhappy witness, 'I gave my mother that brooch a fortnight after the day on which Mrs Harte claimed that my mother gave it to her. Two points must follow from that false statement. One, that if she has lied about that, then she can lie about anything, including my birth, and two, when I kissed my mother goodbye on that last terrible afternoon she was wearing my brooch to please me-so how did Mrs Harte come by it?'

Everyone was staring at the pair of them. Ben was still smiling his now terrible smile at the white-faced woman who was shrinking away from him in her chair.

Lord Erskine said at last, 'Pray hand me the brooch, Mrs Harte, so that I may inspect it.'

'No,' she wailed. 'It's my brooch. I made a mistake...my husband gave it to me...'

She got no further. Lord Erskine had motioned to one of the ushers who came forward, his hand outstretched, ready to take it from her. Her face a rictus of shame, she unfastened it and handed it to him.

Regardless of whether or not Ben's childish marks were on the back of it, she had given herself away by trying to change her story.

Lord Erskine took the brooch, turned it over, picked up a quizzing gla.s.s and inspected the back.

'What do you claim to have scratched there, Mr Wolfe?'

'My name, Ben, and the date, 12.6.94.'

M'lud bent his head, raised it and said, 'The marks are just visible, Mr Wolfe, and confirm that what you have said is true. Bearing in mind your second point, I shall ask the court's tipstaff to detain Mrs Harte for questioning in connection with your mother's death, which, I understand, has been a mystery ever since the day you gave her your present. I am afraid that the court must retain it for the time being.'

Mr Herriott's face was one smile. Mr Gascoyne was shaking his head ruefully, and Lord Babbacombe looked ghastly as his strong case against Mr Wolfe dissolved before his very eyes.

Chapter Fourteen.

'That was deliberate, was it not?'

Ben smiled, a lethal smile. 'What was deliberate, Mr Herriott?'

'All that clowning which you did. Pretending not to know the rules of evidence, bringing Lord Erskine into the case, making the witness think first that you were harmless, and then that you were not.'

'If you say so, Mr Herriott.'

'Oh, I do say so. You did not make a great fortune out of mere guesswork, I am sure.'

'No, indeed. But I also took risks. The brooch was made of tin. Mrs Harte has been wearing it for over twenty-five years. I took an enormous risk in a.s.suming that the marks were still legible enough for m'lud to read them.'

Mr Herriott shook his head admiringly. 'By G.o.d, that was a risk.'

'But one worth taking, you will agree. You will be admired as the man who had the sense to allow his princ.i.p.al to take over, and the case to be won thereby, will you not?'

For, after hearing Mr Harte's halting evidence, and warning him not to incriminate himself in matters not relevant to the court of enquiry, Lord Erskine had given judgement.

'Unless Lord Babbacombe has further direct evidence to present, which I understand is not the case, his action against Mr Benjamin Wolfe must fail. Without independent evidence to support that of Mrs Harte and her husband, it would be dangerous to find for him, given her proven lack of veracity in relation to an even more important matter.

'I now declare this court of enquiry closed and urge both parties to keep to their agreement that, whatever the result, they will not take any further action regarding the question of Mr Ben Wolfe's legitimacy and will refrain from comment on it. The matter of Mrs Wolfe's reappearing brooch will be pa.s.sed on to the proper authorities for investigation.'

The usher shouted 'All rise,' and Lord Erskine left the room. Lord Babbacombe swung round to address his attorney. 'And that's it? Have you nothing more to say?'

Mr Gascoyne shook his head gravely. 'No, m'lord. Mr Wolfe sank your witness. Or, rather, she sank herself by lying about the brooch. Whatever can have possessed her?' and he fixed Lord Babbacombe with a glittering eye.

'But that,' persisted Lord Babbacombe, 'did not necessarily mean that she was lying about Wolfe's birth.'

'No, indeed, but you heard what his Lords.h.i.+p said-that it meant that her evidence could not stand on its own. Since we could produce no other witness to the birth, he was compelled to disallow what she had said-and so your case could not be sustained.'

'But she told her husband-'

'What she said to her husband was hearsay and, as such, could not be admitted into an English court of law.'

Lord Babbacombe, in an agony of frustrated rage, would not be silenced. 'A more nonsensical rule I have never heard-and besides, this was not a true court of law.'

Mr Gascoyne began to gather up his doc.u.ments, 'Unfortunately you, and Mr Wolfe, both agreed that the rules of an English court of law should obtain at this enquiry. No, I am afraid that you must grin and bear it-'

'Pray cease patronising me, you d.a.m.ned pen pusher,' snarled Lord Babbacombe, 'and do not trouble to send me a bill for your inefficient conduct of my action for, thanks to you, I have nothing left to pay you with.'

He stalked off, his head in the air, his unhappy son George trailing after him.

'Could have told you he would turn nasty if you lost,' remarked Mr Herriott cheerfully, 'which you were bound to.'

'No such thing,' returned Mr Gascoyne, snarling nearly as fiercely as his late patron. 'Nearly dished you, didn't we? And would have done so if that silly b.i.t.c.h had held her tongue.'

'Ah, but you hadn't coached her on the questions Ben Wolfe asked her, had you? How much did Babbacombe pay her to lie for him, do you think? Or was it only a promise of money in the future? For sure, she will get none now-and, by the by-how did she come by the brooch?'

Which sally he repeated gleefully to Ben when talking to him in the anteroom outside the court. He was still laughing when the Duke of Clarence walked in, his royal hand outstretched towards Ben.

'Never enjoyed m'self in a courtroom so much before, Wolfe. Wouldn't have missed it for the world. A pleasure to watch you demolish that lying old besom. My congratulations, didn't believe a word of what she said, although she said it well. Too well for my money, but you pinned her down royally.'

He laughed heartily at his own pun. 'Royally, since I was there-and at last you may find out what happened to your poor mother. Erskine said we weren't to gossip about today's excitements, but I'm willing to bet they will be the talk of the town tomorrow.

'And now you can marry your pretty girl with a light heart, what, what! I'll send you a fine piece of silver for a wedding present. No tin and gla.s.s this time, eh, what!'

'Did he really say that?' asked Susanna when Ben visited Stanhope Street that night to tell them that he was still legitimate Ben Wolfe, and the melancholy news that his mother's death was to be investigated again.

'Indeed, he did.'

'And this woman, Mrs Harte, I suppose that the fairy stories about your birth which she told yesterday were the reason why you did not visit us last night. How could she lie so convincingly that you nearly lost your case?'

Ben shrugged. 'I suspect, and Herriott thinks so too, that she was well paid to do so by Lord Babbacombe.'

'You're not happy about your mother's death becoming a topic for rumour again, are you?' asked Susanna shrewdly.

Ben, who looked better than he had done for weeks, said slowly, 'Not really, but you must understand that the discovery of the brooch changes things completely. For where did it come from? Mr Herriott swears that Lord Babbacombe must be involved-although I understand that there was no question of that at the time. Mrs Harte began to say that her husband had given it to her. Was that the truth-or another lie? She's lodged in Newgate tonight and tomorrow the law will harry her until she does tell the truth-if she knows what truth is.

'What is strange is that the strains of this enquiry, as I told you a few days ago, caused me to remember a great deal about my life both before and during the day on which my mother died, things which I had completely forgotten. A week ago I could not have identified Joan Shanks as she then was, and I had no memory of my birthday gift to my mother. That I fortunately recovered in court whilst she was testifying.'

Madame, who had so far said nothing, now rose and walked to the fireplace to look down into the empty hearth, her back to Ben and Susanna, who stared at her breach of manners in some astonishment-she was usually so circ.u.mspect.

'There is something of which I should have told you before, Ben,' she said in a low voice before turning to face them both. 'It was wrong of me to keep quiet. I did not think that anything I knew was important and, like you, Ben, I had forgotten, almost deliberately, much of what happened on the day that your mother disappeared.

'You see, at the time I was staying at Lord Exford's, the daughter of his cousin who had married a Frenchman who became an emigre during the revolution of '89. I was then twenty years old. I am sure that you have no memory of me, for what little boy of nine would know much of one young woman among many, and one who took little interest in him.

'Later I married another emigre who had become an India merchant and there, in India, I met you again, much changed from what you had been when I last saw you. I saw no reason to remind you of the unhappy past, the less so when you helped me when my husband died suddenly. Like you, I wished to forget that unhappy day.

'But now, I too, must try to remember it, for as your memory saved you in court today, mine might contain something which did not seem important to me at the time, but which might help to solve the mystery surrounding my two lost friends. When I asked Susanna to recover La Rochefoucauld's Maximes for me I was, for the first time, revisiting the country of my youth.'

'But why should you feel regret,' Ben said, 'at saying nothing to me of this? It does explain, perhaps, the affinity which I felt for you when we met in India-and the many kindnesses which you have done for me since-including helping me when I found myself in difficulties after kidnapping Susanna.'

'You must understand,' said Madame, 'that in some way I felt that I owed you something, having known you as a happy child before your life fell apart-and you ended up, penniless, in India. I could not but admire your courage and resolution in making yourself such a successful life after such an unpromising start.

'And, more to the present point, although Lord Erskine would undoubtedly not accept it as evidence, I never heard anything to suggest that you were other than Charles Wolfe's legitimate son. You are most remarkably like him.'

She resumed her chair before going on, 'As to your mother's disappearance...since you told us of the mysterious reappearance of her brooch I have been trying to recall something of that day. I do remember that I had a slight summer cold; consequently, when your mother asked me to accompany her and Lady Exford on their walk, I refused her kind invitation. Would that I had not-perhaps my making it a party of three might have averted a tragedy. But how can I logically a.s.sert that? As it was I watched them walk down the terrace steps and into the Park, not knowing that I was never going to see them again.

'I also remember your father leaving us to visit Lord Beauval. He usually accompanied your mother on her painting and sketching expeditions and reproached himself bitterly afterwards for having not been with her that day.'

She stopped, to put her head in her hands for a moment. Neither Ben nor Susanna said anything, except that Susanna went over to her to take her in her arms. Madame lay there for a moment before continuing.

'I have been trying to remember whether or not I saw Lord Babbacombe that day. I don't think that I did. You must understand that he was then a handsome young man and I was very taken with him until, one day, his dog snarled at him and he beat it cruelly with his crop-he thought that he was alone. He did not know that I had seen him coming up the drive and was on my way to meet him. I turned back and went into the house. I never felt the same about him again.

'There was one thing, though. You remember that I told you that Lord Babbacombe testified that Lord Exford and Mr Wolfe had had a fierce argument at a dinner he gave the night before, which Lord Exford always denied-well, I was at that dinner and I can remember no such argument. What I do now remember is that later, after dinner, Mrs Wolfe went upstairs to the room which had been set aside for the ladies' coats, jackets and shawls, saying that she was feeling the cold. I was careless of servants those days and would have sent a maid to collect it-and so I told her.

'She laughed and said that Jane, her lady's maid, deserved to enjoy her evening in the Babbacombe kitchens and that she was strong enough to climb the stairs and collect her own shawl. When she came downstairs again she seemed very agitated. So much so that I remember asking if anything was amiss. She said "no", but when Lord Babbacombe returned from some errand she asked him if he would allow her and Charles to leave early-she had begun to suffer from a slight megrim, she said. I thought nothing of it at the time, and it was only this wretched business of a court of enquiry which set me trying to recall the past again.

'What if the fierce argument was not between Lord Exford and Mr Wolfe, but between Lord Babbacombe and Mrs Wolfe? Did he try to accost her when he found her alone? Both of them were certainly absent at the same time. Lord Babbacombe had taken it very ill that your mother had refused him, Ben, but later he appeared to forget his anger and he became friendly again with both your father and your mother. He said that he would never marry, having lost the woman he loved, and indeed, he did not, until after your mother's death.

'None of this may mean very much, I know. Lord Babbacombe was never suspected of being involved in your mother's disappearance and was only lightly questioned by the authorities. His agent testified that they had spent the afternoon together at Babbacombe House and that it was on his way home shortly after that he saw Charles Wolfe when he was supposed to be some miles away.'

Ben, who had been listening eagerly to her, his face fierce, said, 'Suppose that the agent was lying? At Lord Babbacombe's orders. Is it preposterous to suppose that Lord Babbacombe was behind the disappearance of my mother and the attack on Lady Exford?'

He struck his hands together. 'So far we have no evidence of any such thing-other than the ferocity with which he has pursued me-and the fact that my mother's brooch has reappeared on the breast of the wife of one of his servants. Until Mrs Harte and her husband have been questioned, we are making bricks without straw. We must contain ourselves and wait for the tidings which tomorrow will surely bring us. I have never felt so helpless before.'

He was thinking that always before in his life, once he had reached manhood, he had been in control of events. Even in the enquiry it had been he, who in the end, had dictated matters, he who had blown down Lord Babbacombe's house of cards. He wanted to do-what?

There was such a look of anguish and frustration on his face that Susanna was now compelled to leave Madame and comfort him.

'Come,' she said, putting her arms around him and stroking his warm cheek gently, before releasing him in order to sit by his side again. 'You have been patient all your life. You can be patient a little while longer, I am sure. Neither you nor Madame have anything to reproach yourself with.'

'I have,' Madame said sadly. 'I should have told Ben the truth about myself long ago, but I said nothing in order to spare him. We both thought that the past was over and done with and that we could forget it.'

'We were both wrong,' Ben said. 'Once I returned to England it lay in wait for me. Whilst I was a n.o.body in India it hibernated, but when I arrived here, rich and relatively powerful, it revived again. While I was on the other side of the world Lord Babbacombe must have felt safe-indeed, he was safe. But when I returned one of my first tasks was to try to account for my father's sudden ruin, and after much investigation I found, to my surprise, that Lord Babbacombe had engineered it.

'That was when I tried to revenge myself on him by kidnapping his son's rich bride and marrying her-but I ended up by kidnapping Susanna by mistake! After that I decided that revenge, too, was a mistake and decided to let the past stay dead. But Lord Babbacombe was a fool, for he allowed his hatred of me and mine to remind the world of it by constantly attacking me so that the old ghosts began to walk again, clamouring for justice. The only thing which surprises me is that I never thought to connect him with my mother's disappearance before.'

'Ah, but he thought that he could destroy you, didn't he,' said Susanna sensibly, 'by proving you to be both illegitimate and dishonest? Let us pray that by making that mistake he may have destroyed himself.'

'The Duke of Clarence said that you were my pretty girl: he did not know that you were my wise girl, too. He also told me to marry you straight away,' said Ben. 'Will you? I think that I was wrong not to marry you before. I must not let my past destroy my present, and with you by my side I think that I could face anything.'

'Tomorrow, if you wish,' exclaimed Susanna joyfully. 'Yesterday would have been better!'

Ben's face cleared as she uttered this naughty joke. The misery he had worn on it since he had destroyed Mrs Harte's credibility, at the cost of reviving his anguish over his lost mother, disappeared.

'You are right. Life must go on. All I would ask is that we should wait until the Hartes have been questioned. I should not like the prospect of their revelations hanging over our wedding day.'

'I'm willing to agree to that,' Susanna told him. 'Only if, whatever happens, you marry me as soon as possible afterwards. No further delays, if you please. At least Francis Sylvester managed to get me to the church-we have not been in sight of it yet!'

'Oh, but even if we marry in church, I want the ceremony to be as private as possible since church has unpleasant a.s.sociations for you. I certainly don't want many curious spectators who have only turned up because we have both been objects of scandal. If Madame agrees that we can be married from here, I propose that we invite only our most immediate friends-like the d.i.c.ksons and Lord and Lady Devereux. The only thing is, I can't offer you a honeymoon at present, I've too many deals tied up-but once they have been concluded then you may choose to go where you please: France, Italy or the moon!'

'Wherever you are, is where I please to be,' Susanna told him, her face rosy with suppressed joy. 'I think that the moon might be taking things too far. Later on we can arrange together where we might like to take our ease.'