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“My stars!” Mrs. Angel exclaimed. “Who'd have thought?”
“The Arundells still consider that my breaking the engagementcaused her to run off to Arabia in the first place. I expect toreceive a frosty response from her father.”
His housekeeper left the room, went downstairs, lifted a whistlefrom a hook, opened the front door, and blew three quick blasts.Moments later, a ru
In his study, Burton had settled at his main desk and waswriting in his journal, copying out the notes he'd taken at theBritish Library and adding copious a
At four o'clock, a ru
H. Arundell
“To the point but satisfactory,” Burton muttered.
He abandoned the desk, flopped into his armchair, andcontemplated the case at hand.
Burton met his former prospective father-in-law at the appointedtime and place. As they shook hands, the elder man exclaimed: “Youlook positively skeletal!”
“A bout of malaria,” Burton explained.
“Still bothering you, eh?”
“Yes, though the attacks come less frequently. Have you heardfrom Isabel?”
“I don't want to discuss my daughter, let's have that clear fromthe outset.”
“Very well, sir,” Burton replied. He noticed that Arundell'sface was haggard and careworn, and felt a pang of guilt as theymade their way into the club's dining room.
The Athenaeum was crowded as usual, but in keeping with itsreputation as one of the bastions of British Society, the membersrestricted their voices to a civilised murmur. A low buzz ofconversation enveloped the two men as they passed into the opulentdining room and were escorted to their table by the maitre d’. Theyordered a bottle of wine, deciding to take a glass beforecommencing their meal.
Arundell wasted no time with niceties. “Why has Lord Palmerstontaken an interest?” he asked.
“I really don't know.”
“You haven't enquired?”
“Have you ever met Palmerston?”
“Yes.”
“Then you know how blasted tight-lipped he is, and I don't meanthe surgery!”
Burton was referring to the Eugenicist treatments the primeminister had received in an attempt to maintain his youth. Hislifespan had been extended to, it was estimated, about a hundredand ten years, and his body had been stretched and smoothed untilhe resembled an expressionless waxwork.
“He's evasive, that's true,” Arundell mused. “As are allpoliticians. Goes with the territory. But I'd have thought he'd atleast give you something to go on.”
Burton shook his head. “When he offered me my first commission,last year, it was simply a case of ‘look into this,’ then he leftme to it. This is the same. Perhaps he doesn't want to plant anypreconceptions.”
“Maybe so. Very well, how can I help?”
“By telling me about the Tichborne family curse and theirprodigal son.”
Henry Arundell tapped his forefinger on the table, gazed at hiswine glass, and looked thoughtful for a few moments. He raised hiseyes to Burton and gave a curt nod.
“Tichborne House sits on a hundred-and-sixteen-acre estate nearthe village of Alresford, not far from Winchester. The Bishop ofWinchester granted it to Walter de Tichborne in 1135, and it was,just a few years later, inherited by his son, Roger de Tichborne, asoldier, a womaniser, and a brute. It was his treatment of his wifeas she lay dying from a wasting disease that brought about thecurse.”
“Tell me what happened.”
“What sayest thou, Physician Jankyn? Shall the bitch die thisnight?”
Squire Roger de Tichborne threw his riding crop onto a table anddropped into a chair, which creaked beneath his considerable bulk.There was a sheen of sweat on his brow. He'd been riding with thehounds, but the one fox he and his colleagues had flushed out hadbeen a mangy little thing with no fight in it. The dogs had broughtit down in a matter of minutes. He and the men had vented theirfrustration in a tavern. He was now drunk and in a foul mood.
He yelled at his valet, though the man was less than fifteenfeet away: “Hobson! Dost thou stand there a doltish idler? Getthese accursed boots off me, man!”
The valet, a short and meek individual, hurried to his master'sfeet, knelt, and started to tug at a boot.
“Well, Jankyn? Answer me! Am I to be free at last, or wouldstthe filthy harridan dally?”
Physician Jankyn, tall, bony, and gloomy in aspect, wrung hislarge hands nervously, his mouth twitching.
“The Lady Mabella be sore stricken, my lord,” he a
Hobson, gripping de Tichborne's left calf, looked up and said:“My Lady doth wish to see thee anon, sire.”
De Tichborne pulled back his right leg and, with a viciousgrunt, sent his heel thudding into his valet's face. Hobson yelpedand tumbled backward onto the floor, blood spurting from hisnose.
“Pardieux! That's the case, is it?” de Tichborne snarled. “Getthee upstairs, thou whimpering dog, and tell the harpy that I'llsee her at my own convenience and not at hers, the hell-spawnedwitch! Get out of my sight!”
The valet clambered to his feet and staggered away across theopulent parlour, knocked into the corner of a table, almost fell,and stumbled out of the room.
“So thinkest thou she'll tarry, hey?” de Tichborne enquired ofthe medical man. He bent and started to yank at his boots. “For howlong, pray? Hours? Days? Weeks, may God preserve me?”
“Weeks? Nay, my lord. Not a week-nary a day. I have it thatshe'll live but the night through and will be taken by sunup.”
Finally liberating his right leg, de Tichborne flung the ridingboot across the room. It hit a wall and dropped to the floor.
“Praise be! Fetch me a draught, wouldst thou, Master Physician?And take one for thyself.”
Jankyn nodded and moved from the fireplace to a bureau uponwhich decanters of wine stood. He filled two goblets and took oneover to de Tichborne, placing it on an occasional table beside hishost's chair.
The squire's second boot came free and followed the firstthrough the air. It crashed into a vase atop a cabinet, shatteredthe ornament, and fell to the floor amid the fragments.
“Fortune grant me a single boon: to be free of that damnable nagby the morn!” the aristocrat muttered.
He took the wine and downed it in a single gulp, then jumped tohis stockinged feet, pushed past the doctor, and crossed to thebureau to pour himself another.
“Prithee, repair to the library awhile, Physician. I shall takeme up to see the whore.”
“But my lord!” Jankyn protested. “The Lady Mabella is in no fitcondition to receive!”
“She'll receive her damned husband, and if the effort shouldkill her, thou canst aid me in quaffing by way of celebration!”
Jankyn moistened his lips, hesitated, nodded unhappily, and,with goblet in hand, shuffled out of the parlour through the doorthat led to the library.