quite aware that Raikes may go to desperate lengths, but that will never deter me from my public duty. I will be careful, yes; I may ask the police to provide some discreet surveillance. But in the end I must take my chances with the rest of them. I must; otherwise Justice will be dethroned, and the likes of Mounteagle and Raikes will reign in her stead. And that must never be!’
Sir William sat down again, opened a folder of papers, and began to read. Soon, though, his attention wandered. What a splendid help and support Lardner had proved to be over the years! Poor fellow, he had begun his training as a solicitor, but chest illness had prevented him from taking the requisite examinations . Despite that, though, he had many friends in lesser legal circles, who kept him well informed of the current state of criminality.
Could there be danger? Would that desperate scoundrel Raikes dare to interfere with the administration of justice? It would, after all, be as well to talk to the police. Not yet, perhaps, but soon.
*
Adelaide Porteous wondered why she should have felt impelled, after Baby had left the room, to rise from her sofa and stand in contemplation of the portrait of her father, which hung in a deep alcove to the right of the fireplace. Her mind had been preoccupied with her family’s future, not her own past life.
The fine, full-length oil-painting was one of the few items salvaged from the ruin of her family’s fortunes, and brought out of storage when she and William had moved from their modest house in a street off Russell Square to the spacious splendours of Queen Adelaide Gate. Her father had been thirty years old when the portrait was painted, which was why he looked so haughty and upright, posed in front of the great oak tree near the gates of Astley Court. He wore court dress, with knee breeches and white stockings.
It was almost certainly her own fancy that made her see the weakness and indecisiveness in the artist’s depiction of her father’s face. It was as though the skilled painter had subtly hinted at his subject’s essential evasiveness in those pale-blue eyes. Or perhaps he had caught the sadness of recent bereavement?
This likeness of Sir Roderick Astley, Baronet, had been painted in 1843. In the dark background the artist had depicted a proud image of Astley Court, and it had always fascinated her to think that she had been lying in a cradle in that house while her father posed in the grounds, a shotgun cradled in his arm, and a brace of freshly-shot pheasants lying at his feet. She had been born inthe January of 1843. The painting was dated the August of that year. Her father stood beneath the great oak tree. She lay in the cradle. Her mother lay in the churchyard, dead in childbirth.
All that Roderick Astley had ever possessed was pedigree. The Astleys had been at Astley Court for 600 years, in fortified castle and medieval grange, in spacious Elizabethan hall, and elegant Queen Anne mansion. Every acre of their land had been mortgaged to outsiders, and Adelaide Astley had grown up as her father, and his patrimony, declined into inevitable ruin. She had matured into a beautiful, but wild and ungovernable girl, fiercely protective of her weak, debt-ridden father.
Father and daughter lived amiably together in their shabby, half-ruinous mansion with its flaking stucco and leaking roofs, ministered to by a couple of old servants who had got into the habit of not being paid for their labours. And then, in 1865, just after her twenty-second birthday, her father had borrowed enough money to take them both to London.
He had rented one floor of a house on the fringes of Mayfair, and made his last desperate bid for solvency by launching his daughter into Society. He would provide the breeding; someone else, without breeding, could provide the money. And so, at one fateful glittering social occasion, she had been introduced to a young lawyer with expectations – Gideon Raikes.
A noise outside
Sir William sat down again, opened a folder of papers, and began to read. Soon, though, his attention wandered. What a splendid help and support Lardner had proved to be over the years! Poor fellow, he had begun his training as a solicitor, but chest illness had prevented him from taking the requisite examinations . Despite that, though, he had many friends in lesser legal circles, who kept him well informed of the current state of criminality.
Could there be danger? Would that desperate scoundrel Raikes dare to interfere with the administration of justice? It would, after all, be as well to talk to the police. Not yet, perhaps, but soon.
*
Adelaide Porteous wondered why she should have felt impelled, after Baby had left the room, to rise from her sofa and stand in contemplation of the portrait of her father, which hung in a deep alcove to the right of the fireplace. Her mind had been preoccupied with her family’s future, not her own past life.
The fine, full-length oil-painting was one of the few items salvaged from the ruin of her family’s fortunes, and brought out of storage when she and William had moved from their modest house in a street off Russell Square to the spacious splendours of Queen Adelaide Gate. Her father had been thirty years old when the portrait was painted, which was why he looked so haughty and upright, posed in front of the great oak tree near the gates of Astley Court. He wore court dress, with knee breeches and white stockings.
It was almost certainly her own fancy that made her see the weakness and indecisiveness in the artist’s depiction of her father’s face. It was as though the skilled painter had subtly hinted at his subject’s essential evasiveness in those pale-blue eyes. Or perhaps he had caught the sadness of recent bereavement?
This likeness of Sir Roderick Astley, Baronet, had been painted in 1843. In the dark background the artist had depicted a proud image of Astley Court, and it had always fascinated her to think that she had been lying in a cradle in that house while her father posed in the grounds, a shotgun cradled in his arm, and a brace of freshly-shot pheasants lying at his feet. She had been born inthe January of 1843. The painting was dated the August of that year. Her father stood beneath the great oak tree. She lay in the cradle. Her mother lay in the churchyard, dead in childbirth.
All that Roderick Astley had ever possessed was pedigree. The Astleys had been at Astley Court for 600 years, in fortified castle and medieval grange, in spacious Elizabethan hall, and elegant Queen Anne mansion. Every acre of their land had been mortgaged to outsiders, and Adelaide Astley had grown up as her father, and his patrimony, declined into inevitable ruin. She had matured into a beautiful, but wild and ungovernable girl, fiercely protective of her weak, debt-ridden father.
Father and daughter lived amiably together in their shabby, half-ruinous mansion with its flaking stucco and leaking roofs, ministered to by a couple of old servants who had got into the habit of not being paid for their labours. And then, in 1865, just after her twenty-second birthday, her father had borrowed enough money to take them both to London.
He had rented one floor of a house on the fringes of Mayfair, and made his last desperate bid for solvency by launching his daughter into Society. He would provide the breeding; someone else, without breeding, could provide the money. And so, at one fateful glittering social occasion, she had been introduced to a young lawyer with expectations – Gideon Raikes.
A noise outside
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