Powerscourt could see that an alliance with a Catholic family might present a few problems here in Thorpe Hall.
‘My family,’ she went on, ‘have been active in the business of this county or this country for centuries. We have hunted across these fields beyond these windows for generations. Generations, Lord Powerscourt. The Gresham stirrup cup, the hunt has always said, is the best in the county, if not in the country.’
She stopped briefly. This woman’s spirit would never be broken, thought Powerscourt. They could tie her to the stake for her beliefs. She wouldn’t make a sound. Greshams don’t cry.
‘Edward is the latest in the line. The long line, Lord Powerscourt.’
Something softened in her voice as she talked of her son. Suddenly Powerscourt could see them, Edward and his mother, rowing round the lake in the summer, the sun caressing the golden curls of the pretty boy, the power of a mother’s love caressing his heart. Then the softness went away.
‘I expect you want to ask me about his marriage, Lord Powerscourt. I will spare you the trouble of framing what might be an embarrassing question. I expect you have heard the gossip, what they are saying down there in London.’
She made London sound like Sodom, thought Powerscourt, keeping still and silent in his chair, his eyes flickering outside to the frozen landscape.
‘I never met the girl. I did not attend the wedding. I did not attend the funeral, dare I say it, a happier event for me. I believe she was called Louisa. Such a common name. Shopgirls are called Louisa, I believe. So are grocers’ daughters. The marriage was simply impossible. Greshams don’t marry shopgirls. They don’t marry Catholics. They never have.’
But they did. They had, thought Powerscourt, wondering how he could steer the conversation in the direction he wanted.
‘Did Edward ever bring Prince Eddy here? To Thorpe Hall?’
‘Prince Eddy? That one who has just died? Yes, he did. He came on a number of occasions. Very feeble young man, I thought. Bad blood, thin blood. Something wrong there. Fancy being carried off by something so mundane as influenza at his age. It just proved there was something wrong with his breeding.’
‘Did Prince Eddy know Louisa at all?’ Powerscourt tossed it in lightly, like a hat into a ring.
‘My dear Lord Powerscourt, do you expect me to know the answer to that question? I have told you. I did not attend the wedding. I did not attend the funeral. I was hardly likely to pop over to that place where they lived for grocer’s tea.’
‘Forgive me for asking, but do you know anything of the circumstances of her death?’
‘I do not. I did not ask. I did not inquire. I did not regard it as any of my business. I was merely glad that Edward was rid of her.’
Powerscourt wondered if a mother’s love was strong enough to send Lady Blanche over to the little house, bought by the grocer father, and push a daughter-in-law she had never seen down the steps to her death. He didn’t think so. Nearly, but not quite. But he felt she was not telling him all she knew. But then, she never would, even if he waited until the frosts had thawed and the lake could welcome rowing boats once more.
‘And where is Edward now, Lady Gresham?’
‘Edward? Oh, he went away after his time at Sandringham. He came back looking quite pale, terribly pale. I expect it was the weather up there in Norfolk. Some people say he was still upset about the death of that girl.’
She couldn’t say Louisa, thought Powerscourt. Not again. Once, or was it twice, was all she could manage. Greshams, some Greshams at any rate, don’t say Louisa.
‘And where did he go? When he went away?’
‘He said he was going to Italy, Lord Powerscourt. He only left last week. Edward said he had to make a journey to Rome. I never asked him what he meant by that. Maybe it had something to do with that ghastly religion. Do you know Italy at all, Lord Powerscourt?’
She made Italy sound like a next-door neighbour, the nearest county family perhaps.
‘I do, Lady Gresham. I know it quite well. Did he say if he was going straight to Rome?’ He’s gone straight to Rome already, thought Powerscourt, like Newman and Manning and all those other converts to Catholicism, hundreds, if not thousands of them in his lifetime. But he felt it wiser not to mention that.
‘He did say something about that. I think he said he was going to Venice first.’
There were two fires burning in the long long room. All the time he sat there Powerscourt had felt cold. The room was cold. Maybe it would never be warm again.
‘I took him to Venice for his first visit when he was sixteen years old, Lord Powerscourt. Just the two of us.’
Powerscourt could see the two of them, not in a rowing boat, but in a gondola edging its way down the crowded waters of the Grand Canal.
‘Edward adored Venice. He always said it was the whole business of being there that made it so attractive. He loved walking round some of the poorer quarters, you know, Lord Powerscourt, rotting palazzos falling into the street, washing hanging out above the windows.’
‘I know exactly what you mean, Lady Gresham. I do indeed. How well you put it.’
She smiled a condescending smile. Powerscourt had a great urge for train timetables. Trains across Europe. The fastest way to get to Venice before Lord Edward Gresham, one-time equerry to the late Duke of Clarence and Avondale, moved off on his journey to Rome. Maybe he could telegraph to Rosebery’s butler from the railway station.
At least Lady Blanche didn’t offer me any fruit cake, Powerscourt said to himself as he left, the rich mixtures of Shapston coming back. In fact she didn’t offer me anything at all. Maybe she found the whole business pretty distasteful.
He saw her watching from the windows of her long long room as his carriage skidded across her frozen park towards the station, an old woman, icy with pride, watching her last visitor depart from the Gresham home at Thorpe Hall. She was alone again in that huge cold house with its baroque ceilings, alone with memories of her long-departed husband and her wayward son, memories of the Greshams of old haunting her from the walls of her salon, greeting her from their cold marble tombs in the family vault when she went to worship. Maybe she’s not all that lonely, he reflected. Maybe she lives through today by living in the past.
Greshams don’t cry. Not then. Not now.
Anyway, he thought, you couldn’t see Lady Blanche Gresham making a fruit cake. She’d have to send out to the shop for one.
To the grocer’s shop.
‘Seven o’clock train to Dover, my lord. Connects with the boat to Calais. Quickest route, my lord.’
A note from William Leith, Rosebery’s butler, waited for Powerscourt back in St James’s Square in reply to his telegram. He hasn’t wasted much time, Powerscourt thought. Then he reflected that for a man with Leith’s resources, shelves and shelves of timetables, this was probably child’s play. Calcutta might prove a challenge, or the twin cities of Minneapolis and St Paul.
‘Express to Paris. Arrives at 4.30. Gare du Nord, my lord. Would suggest Parisian taxi to Gare de Lyons. Night train to Milan, my lord. Departs at 7.30. Breakfast in the station. Very fine rolls in the Milan station buffet for breakfast, my lord. Connections to Venice every hour on the hour from 8 o’clock. Could reach Venice by lunchtime or early afternoon, my lord. Have taken the liberty of making you reservations on all these conveyances. Except the taxi, My Lord. Prior booking difficult if not impossible. Rooms reserved at the Danieli. Central location. Recommended by My Lordship.’
How on earth, wondered Powerscourt, did the man know about the rolls in the buffet? Maybe his customers reported back, to add to the encyclopedias of railway knowledge in his little eyrie half-way down Rosebery’s basement stairs.