had refused to remove in defiance of all English custom, stood for everything which Benjamin Grimes deplored. A mannerless rebel come to mock his late masters.
Worse, Matthew Falconer was allowing this creature, who was merely his valet-cum-secretary-cum-man-of-all-work, to address him as familiarly as though they were both of the same rank, and made no effort to check his rudeness to Grimes himself.
‘I say again, Mr Falconer, before we even begin to dispose of your late great-aunt, Lady Emily Falconer’s estate in Yorkshire, that you ought to consider the olive-branch which your father is holding out to you. You are, after all, his only remaining son…’
Matt found all this boring beyond belief. ‘Why, sir, do you persist in telling me things I know? I am well aware of my position vis-à-vis both my father and Lady Emily. So far as the Earl is concerned you may tell him, with my compliments, timeo Danaos et dona ferentis. I am sure that he will know what I mean.’ This last came out in a mocking drawl reminiscent of the young rattle-pate about town he had once been, so different from the large and sombre man he now was. He could see the lawyer registering shock again.
Priestley saw fit to put his oar in once more. ‘Well, your pa might know what you mean by that gibberish, Matt, but, sure God, I don’t. Try translating it into good American, would you?’
Matt knew that Priestley was, in his words, twisting the lawyer’s tail. Uncouth he might look and sound, but his knowledge of the Classics equalled Matt’s own, he being an alumnus of Harvard. Nevertheless, Matt decided to join in Jeb’s game.
‘It translates, Jeb, being said by a Trojan with whom the Greeks were fighting, into, “I fear the Greeks even when they bring gifts”, or, in other words, It is dangerous to accept presents from an enemy.’
‘Tro-jans,’ drawled Priestley. ‘An’ which are you, Matt?’
‘A Trojan, of course,’ smiled Matt, ‘ever since I was born to be my father’s curse. Isn’t that right, Mr Grimes? How many ultimatums had you the honour to face me with until the final one before I left England? No, don’t answer; it would tax your memory to recall them all.’
Grimes’ face flamed scarlet. He looked away at the shelves of law books on the wall behind his desk, and said in a low voice, ‘I suppose it is useless to tell you how much I regretted m’lord’s treatment of you, Mr Falconer, but I must also tell you that your father is a broken old man…’
‘Only that, I suppose,’ returned Matt, his eyes wicked, ‘could bring him to wish to see me again—and Rollo’s death, of course. That must have been the final facer.’
‘You are pleased to be heartless…’
‘My father cut my heart out long ago,’ returned Matt carelessly. He was suddenly regretful of his baiting of the old man who had been the scourge of his childhood, youth and young manhood, until he had finally left England nearly twelve years ago, and added, a trifle stiffly, ‘I am wrong to allow my dislike of my father to take the form of tormenting you. You were kind to me, I remember, when I was invalided out of the Navy after Trafalgar, and no one else was.’
‘You brought your own doom on you,’ Grimes could not help retorting, ‘when you ran off with your brother’s wife. My sympathy for you died on that day.’ He saw Priestly’s face change, and knew that here was something Matt Falconer’s impertinent shadow had not known.
Matt Falconer was not nonplussed. He was no longer the eager boy who had yearned for his father’s love and whom his father’s lawyer could patronise.
‘Leave that,’ he ordered in his quarterdeck voice. ‘It has nothing to do with you, or with the business I have come to settle.’
But Grimes must have thought he had found a chink in Matt’s armour, although Matt was not conscious of possessing one, for he continued, although in a lower tone, ‘And her death does not lie on your conscience, Mr Falconer?’
Oh, the old man did have weapons to fight with after all! Matt closed his eyes, only for a sad and beautiful long-dead face to swim before them. The memories that face recalled had him swinging away from both men. For the first time in the interview he was struggling for self-control.
‘I lost my conscience with my heart,’ he asserted stiffly. ‘And if you refer to my late sister-in-law again, I shall leave this office and England within the day, and you, my inheritance from Lady Emily and my father may all go to the devil. Is that plain enough for you, sir?’
Matt was himself again—cold, strong and unshakeable, the man whom Jeb Priestley had always known, and whom the lawyer had never met. After that they returned to the business at hand, Grimes recognising that the man before him would never agree to any of his father’s demands, and consequently now wishful to settle the matter of the inheritance as rapidly as possible.
Pontisford Hall, his late great-aunt’s home on the borders of Nottinghamshire and Yorkshire, was the last reminder of Matt’s childhood, and the only happy one. He had a sudden burning wish to see it. He remembered warmth and love, and a place where he, as well as his older brother, had been welcome. Before he had reached England, on the boat over, re-reading the letter which told him of his great-aunt’s death and his inheritance, he had resolved to sell the Hall and its contents, to raise capital to enlarge his Virginia plantation, and partly rebuild and beautify the stark house which he called home.
But stepping ashore in England, travelling to London, seeing that great city’s sights, smelling its unique smell, had reminded him agonisingly of his past, of his youth, before the world had fallen in on him. He had a sudden yearning to revisit the scenes of his childhood—if only to say goodbye to them before he parted from his homeland for the last time.
He said nothing of this to Grimes, merely, ‘I shall travel to Yorkshire, sir, to pay my respects to Lady Emily’s tomb in Pontisford church, and to visit the Hall for the last time. She was kind to me, and I must not let her go without a proper farewell. You will inform the staff there of my proposed arrival. I shall set out as soon as I have completed other urgent matters here.’
Matt could imagine Jeb’s raised and mocking eyebrows at this rare display of sentiment, and the silent cynicism of the old lawyer, but damn that for a tale. When he had reached his middle thirties a man had the right to say goodbye to his youth.
And so it was settled. Mr Grimes did not pry into his client’s life. He assumed that Matthew Falconer had not married while in the United States, for there was no talk of a wife. He assumed that he had had some success as a plantation owner, but made no move to discover how much of a success. If the grim man before him wished him to know these things he would have told him. Once or twice he sighed for the carefree young man he had once known, who had faced life with a smile despite his father’s displeasure, but it was plain that that man was long gone.
Business was done, and done quickly—after the fashion of Yankees, Grimes presumed. The old Matt Falconer had never been businesslike, or hard. Now he was both. He even kept his insolent man on a tight rein while he and the lawyer went through the necessary business of establishing identity, examining Lady Emily’s will, and signing and witnessing the necessary documentation.
It was soon all over, and Matt and his man were in the street, holding their top hats on, braving the keen wind of early November, before Jeb spoke again.
‘Well, there’s a fine tale, Matt. Did you really run off with your brother’s wife?’
‘Yes, but not for the reason you might think.’ For once he was short with Jeb. Revisiting
