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.