Goodnight Sweet Prince

17

Maybe, Powerscourt said to himself, it’s because women, or more specifically, his sisters, weren’t educated properly. Back in St James’s Square Powerscourt was surrounded by his sisters’ notebooks, reporting their conversations across London about his six equerries. Random thoughts spilled across the pages, random sentences with no order and no logic. Surely, thought Powerscourt, those governesses must have taught them something up there in the schoolroom. Or maybe not. Maybe they had just gossiped all day long, looking out over the soft hills of Wicklow, dreaming of balls and horses as yet unridden.

Powerscourt’s mind kept wandering back to one phrase, just three words, spoken by the Rev. Adams as he sat in his chair underneath the Mount of Olives in The Vicarage, Dorchester on Thames.

Generous naval pension. That’s what he said. Powerscourt was so taken by the phrase that he had written it down in his notebook and looked at it on the train back to London. He looked at it a lot. He didn’t think you got generous naval pensions. If you got naval pensions at all.

William Burke had laughed. ‘My dear Francis,’ the financier had said, ‘the Royal Navy and the First Lords of the Admiralty are not known for the generosity of their pensions. Quite the contrary. If they can get away with it, they don’t give you a single farthing. And the idea that they would start paying out to somebody – how old did you say our chap was, late twenties, was it – it’s absurd. I wouldn’t go as far as to say it was impossible,’ the banker’s caution came to the fore, ‘but it’s very very unlikely. Very unlikely indeed.’

Suppose the payments coming from the Prince of Wales were disguised, disguised as generous naval pensions. It was a cover story, a convenient fiction to disguise the fact that the money came from Sir William Suter and Sir Bartle Shepstone, Private Secretary and Comptroller to the Household of the Prince of Wales. They wrote the cheques. The recipients welcomed another instalment of their generous naval pension. The blackmail circle was complete.

His mind wandered again, to the note he had sent to the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police asking him to check on the movements of a man called Robinson, first name unknown, employed in the gunshop off Piccadilly. His parents lived in Dorchester on Thames. Could the Commissioner establish where this Robinson had been on the weekend of the 8th and 9th January. Had he, by any chance, been in Norfolk? This request was most urgent. Lord Powerscourt was most grateful for the assistance.

The notebooks of his sisters, lying unread on his table in St James’s Square, called him back to work.

It really is a remarkable collection of documents, he thought, nearing the end of his sisters’ writings. Future historians will find it fascinating. Who was poor, who was rich, which families rowed and which did not, which families were selling their paintings to Americans to keep themselves afloat, which younger sons drove their parents to despair. The marriages, fixed not in the hearts of tomorrow’s husbands and wives, but in the scheming brains of their mothers: where they bought their furniture, where they bought their curtains, where they bought their kitchens, where they met their lovers.

Charles Peveril’s mother was widely believed to have had an affair with William Brockham’s father, an affair that went on for years. This, according to Powerscourt’s sister Mary, must be the key to the whole affair. Quite how, she did not reveal, as further bits of gossip chased each other across the page. Harry Rad-clyffe’s father drank too much. Frederick Mortimer’s father kept selling parcels of land, thousands and thousands of acres at a time.

But of blackmail, of secret payments, dark shadows falling across a family’s fortunes, there was not a word. William Burke confirmed the absence of blackmail when Powerscourt met him downstairs.

‘Francis, I promise you, I have written it all down. But I have left the document in my office. Let me give you the main points now.’

He drew Powerscourt aside to stand by the windows. The lamps in the square showed not a soul walking the streets of St James’s. The great square was empty, except for its resident colony of crows.

‘Money,’ said Burke, familiarity and reverence in his voice. ‘As far as money goes, they’re about average for their kind. It all depends on who got out of land in time. Four of them are still heavily invested, or mortgaged, in land. They’re getting worse off all the time. Two of them got out of land, like you, Francis, and put their money elsewhere. They’re getting richer most of the time. But of blackmail, in the active or the passive sense, I can find no trace at all.’

Before he went to sleep Powerscourt looked again at some more of his correspondence, at two letters in particular. They came from the parents of two of the five boys who had been with Eddy in the Britannia affair. Both were very happy to see him. They would be delighted. But they both recommended that he should speak first to a Mr William Simmons, of The Laurels, Shapston, Dorset. ‘He is much better acquainted with these matters, better qualified to speak, than I am.’ The wording was identical in the two letters, as if they had agreed it beforehand, decided together what they were going to say. Or had the Simmons of Shapston, Dorset, agreed the wording with the other two?

Tomorrow he would find out.

The spire of Salisbury Cathedral disappeared slowly into its valley as Powerscourt’s cab took him up into the rolling hills of Dorset.

He had expected Shapston to be a pretty little village with a pond, a cricket pitch and rows of neat houses with well-tended gardens. It wasn’t. There was a very fine Jacobean mansion above the little hamlet, and a disparate straggle of miscellaneous houses. There were a great many cows. The cows seemed to think they owned the place.

The Laurels was a two-storey building with a thatched roof and a very ancient front door.

‘Welcome to our humble abode, Lord Powerscourt! Welcome!’ gushed Mrs Simmons, as she took his coat in the large hall. Mrs Simmons was a well-built woman in her mid-fifties with a look of command in her eye. A couple of feet behind her, William Simmons waited to shake his hand. Powerscourt wondered if the gap summed up the relations between them, Mrs Simmons always in the lead.

‘This is the dining-room in here.’ She seemed to be giving Powerscourt a tour of their humble abode. He shuddered at the sight of the dining-table and chairs, but the curtains looked satisfactory. ‘We only use this suite in the winter if William has to entertain clients from the bank, isn’t that right, dear? And this is the entrance to the cottage, our little extension here, the East Wing we like to call it.’ She laughed a bright laugh. ‘Alfred, our son, the one you are interested in, Lord Powerscourt, these are Alfred’s quarters.

‘Now then,’ she went on gaily, ‘this is the drawing-room. I expect you’d like to sit down, Lord Powerscourt, after your long journey. And I expect you’d like some coffee. William always likes a cup of coffee at this time of day.’

It was a handsome room with a blazing fire and a door opening out on the garden. A couple of robins picked their way delicately across the lawn, their red breasts very bright in the sombre winter landscape of withered grass and bare fruit trees.

‘I think we’ll wait until the coffee comes before we begin our conversations, Lord Powerscourt. Muriel always likes to be in the thick of the action. I sometimes wonder if she won’t come down to the bank in Blandford one day and try to take over.’ Simmons smiled a rueful smile. He looked a lot shrewder than his wife’s comments suggested. He was nearly six feet tall, expanding round the waist, with a very thin moustache and a splendid watch chain adorning his waistcoat.

‘Here we are! I expect you thought I’d lost the coffee!’ sang Mrs Simmons, reappearing with a tray.

Powerscourt took out his letter from Prime Minister Salisbury and handed it round for inspection. Simmons read it respectfully and passed it over to his wife.

‘Oh, I say! I say,’ said Mrs Simmons, ‘isn’t this splendid! Downing Street comes to Shapston! How appropriate that the letter comes from Lord Salisbury too. Just a few short miles away. What will they say about this in the bank, William?’

‘It must never reach the bank, my dear. Never. Or anywhere else for that matter. The whole business has been kept a secret for all these years. It must remain so.’

Powerscourt thought he could see what Mr Simmons might be like in his bank, firm words to those who strayed. Perhaps he wasn’t in his wife’s pocket after all. Perhaps he just played along with her because that was the easiest thing to do.

‘Mr Simmons. Mrs Simmons. I knew you would accept the need for secrecy. And I know that you will observe that need in the future. Perhaps I could give you an indication of what I am interested in.’

Powerscourt looked round the room. That was a mistake. The walls, he saw, were covered with old maps, maps of Dorset, maps of Blandford, maps of Salisbury. Some of them looked as though they could have cost a great deal of money.

‘Forgive me for interrupting!’ pealed Mrs Simmons. ‘I couldn’t help noticing that you were admiring our collection of maps, Lord Powerscourt! It’s one of William’s hobbies. He’d go anywhere to find an interesting old map, wouldn’t you, dear!’

‘Everything in its place, Muriel. There’s a time and place for everything, as I always say. Lord Powerscourt, you were saying.’

‘I have talked to some of the officers who were involved in the unhappy business of the Britannia.’

‘That was too dreadful, too dreadful, Lord Powerscourt!’ Mrs Simmons could not be contained. ‘Forgive me for interrupting again. I’ll always remember where I was when we heard. William was mowing the lawn in our other house, much smaller than this one, I fear. And I was making him a steak and kidney pie for his lunch. It was Cook’s day off. It’s William’s favourite, steak and kidney pie. And then we heard the news! I dropped William’s kidneys all over the floor! Oh, I am so sorry.’ Her husband was glaring at her with a look of fury on his face. ‘I won’t interrupt again. I promise. I’m so sorry, Lord Powerscourt.’

Powerscourt smiled at her, one of the smiles he had learnt from the Rev. Adams in Dorchester. ‘As I was saying, I have talked with some of the officers on Britannia. I have talked with some of the officers on the Bacchante, the vessel that took the two Princes round the world. But I would really like to know how the families of the other boys reacted to these sad and unfortunate events. I don’t think we need bother with any of the medical details Mr Simmons.’

Powerscourt turned to Simmons on his left. He had the fire in front of him. Mrs Simmons, on the right, was poised for speech, like a bird of prey.

‘I have given this matter a lot of thought since your letter, Lord Powerscourt,’ Simmons was addressing the shareholders of his bank, ‘and I will try to keep it brief. Shortly after that Britannia business was over, the parents of the five boys met in London. We were trying to decide how to proceed, what to do for the best, how to look after our children in the future. The parents decided to ask me to be the spokesman for our little group. I have been so ever since.’

‘They wanted a man of business, Lord Powerscourt! They wanted somebody used to dealing with the affairs of the world. Isn’t that right, William?’

Simmons carried on as if there had been no interruption. ‘I wrote, in confidence, of course, to the Prince of Wales’ Private Secretary, William Suter. I pointed out to him that, thanks to the actions of his master’s son, all of our sons faced a very uncertain future, one where there would be a great deal of expense. There would be medical bills, trips to Europe, maybe to America in search of new treatments. I didn’t ask for any money at that stage. I waited to see what the reply might be.’

‘And there was the worry! The worry and the uncertainty of it all! Five of us mothers needing some form of recompense for all the pain we were going through! Enough to break any mother’s heart!’

Simmons sailed on. ‘I received an immediate reply, requesting a meeting in London. Mr Suter – he wasn’t Sir William Suter then, was he, Lord Powerscourt – said that the Prince of Wales had been thinking about this very carefully for some time.’

I’ll bet he had, thought Powerscourt. I’ll bet he didn’t intend to hand over a penny if he could avoid it. He waited until the loaded pistol was held to his head.

‘Suter more or less told me that we could name our price. So we did. But there was one condition. And I am sure you could guess that in one, Lord Powerscourt.’

‘Silence,’ said Powerscourt.

‘Total and absolute silence. We all had to sign a document drawn up by his lawyers. Even Muriel signed it, didn’t you?’

‘There was nothing to say that we couldn’t talk about it in the privacy of our own homes, William dear. And we did very well out of it in a way. A few years after that we were able to move in here, weren’t we?’

Powerscourt remembered a conversation about blackmail with a very intelligent Superintendent of the Metropolitan Police several years before. They had been on their own in the back room of a quiet pub by the river.

‘It’s like this, my lord,’ said the Superintendent, drinking his pint slowly and deliberately. ‘The first thing the blackmailer has to do is to get his claws into his victim.’ He squeezed the back of his left hand very firmly with the fingers of his right. Briefly, the blood drained away. The skin went white. ‘Then they start asking for more. Year one, it may be just a preliminary finger, my lord. By year two the blackmailer feels he can ask for a bit more. Then a lot more. After a while the blackmailer starts to feel that his victim owes him the money, that he, the blackmailer, deserves it. Very strange that.’

‘Could I ask you about the arrangements, Mr Simmons? How the money was paid and so on.’

‘Oh, it was all very honest and above board, Lord Powerscourt.’

‘William wouldn’t have had it any other way, would you, my dear? What would the bank have said if there had been anything strange about it all?’

What indeed, said Powerscourt to himself.

‘It came every month. The story we all agreed on was that they could be referred to as naval pensions for the boys. If anybody asked. But nobody ever did. The money came like clockwork. From a branch of Finch’s in London.’

‘And did you find that the whole business became more expensive as time went on? What with the doctors and the treatments and all that sort of thing?’ Powerscourt was trying to sound as innocent as he could. He needn’t have worried.

‘Of course it did, Lord Powerscourt!’ Mrs Simmons was indignant. ‘Every year it became more expensive! We’ve been to Switzerland, to London, to America to see the doctors there. We had to buy new clothes and new hats for all these trips. And if we stayed on for a little holiday afterwards, then no one was going to object, were they? Think what we were all going through! Think of the shame if it ever came out! I could never have raised my head in the village again! We’d have had to move! I think silence is beyond price, don’t you agree, William dear?’

‘Have the arrangements always worked smoothly? No unfortunate mishaps along the way?’ His Superintendent came back to Powerscourt. Something he’d said was teasing away at the back of his mind.

‘If any of the arrangements about paying the money ever go wrong, then it’s panic all round, my lord. Frightful panic. Very hard to put the genie back in the bottle again.’

‘They’ve always worked very well,’ said Simmons. His wife had temporarily vanished from the room. ‘They’ve only gone wrong once and that was fairly recently. But we managed to sort that out.’

‘And the boys themselves, young men, I should say. I know that one of them died last year. Are all the rest all right?’

‘As well as can be expected, that’s what the doctors say. Sometimes they go for years with no trouble, then it flares up again.’

‘And your own Alfred? Does he live here with you?’

‘Lord Powerscourt! Do have some of my special cake! My modest effort always wins the prizes here in the village. I once had a third place with it at the Dorset County Show!’

Mrs Simmons had returned, triumphant, with an enormous fruit cake, and a small, leather-bound book.

‘There! A generous slice for you, Lord Powerscourt! William always says there is no point in having mean portions of my cake!’

‘Our son is quite well. He’s our only child,’ Simmons carried on, ‘he lives most of the time here with us.’

‘William was able to secure him a small position in the bank, Lord Powerscourt! So kind of William! And, unlike most boys of his age, Alfred really loves living with his mother! Isn’t that right, dear?’

‘Is he here at the moment?’

‘No, he’s not.’ Simmons was rendered almost speechless by a mouthful of his wife’s fruit cake. ‘He’s been away since the start of this year. He’s gone to a friend of his in Norfolk, somewhere near Fakenham. Alfred goes there often. He’s always been excellent with a rifle. I think they do a lot of shooting.’

Powerscourt took refuge in his cake. One Britannia brother was good with the hunting knives perhaps. Another one was good with a rifle. They could be a deadly pair up there in Norfolk, not far from Sandringham. He began composing another note to the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police.

As he left The Laurels, he was trapped again by Mrs Simmons.

‘Lord Powerscourt! We can’t let you leave until you’ve signed our little visitors’ book! All our guests do! And if you could sign it Lord Francis Powerscourt, that would be too nice for words! Otherwise they mightn’t believe you were really a lord! Dearie me! That would never do!’

For the first time in his life, he signed himself Lord Francis Powerscourt. Simmons shook him warmly by the hand as he left, saying that if he needed further help, then he must come again. Mrs Simmons assured him that he would always be more than welcome in her humble home. There was another cake recipe she could perfect before his next visit.