individual who was not, I thought, one of the Justice staff. One of the strong young men borrowed from the neighbouring houses, no doubt. I settled my head-wrapping and went over to the house-maid.
“Emma, have you any idea where I might find Lord—I mean, His Grace?”
She did not notice the familiar face under the costume, even though I had retained my own spectacles, and responded as to a stranger’s enquiry. “I don’t believe he’s come down yet, sir. I mean, effendi.”
“Er, thank you.” The strange servant—whom I now recognised from the day of the shoot, his crooked nose being unmistakable even if the rest of him was hidden by costume—had faded away into the fronds with his drinks tray as soon as he saw me approach. He moved with a slight limp, which spoke eloquently of toes crushed by the guests; I was grateful Holmes had not inflicted sandals on me. Emma, too, took up her tray again and pushed into the throng. I, however, turned towards the peace of the old wing and made my way up the 1612 stairway to Marsh’s door.
“Who is that?” he called in answer to my knock.
“Mary,” I answered. Iris opened the door to me, with a drink in her hand; neither she nor Marsh were in costume, unless she proposed to join the party in lounge pyjamas. She looked at me uncertainly, then her face cleared with delight.
“Oh, that is very good, Mary,” she exclaimed. “You look like a boy.”
“When first she wore that clothing,” Marsh remarked, “looking like a boy was the idea.”
“It certainly succeeded. And that knife looks fierce.”
“I borrowed it from the Armoury,” I said to Marsh. “Hope you don’t mind.”
“Of course not.”
“Which is where I found this.” I fished the packet from inside my robes.
He unfolded the top page, saw the writing, and sat down abruptly. I poured myself a large dry sherry and took a chair while I waited for him to read it. When he looked back at me, his eyes took some time to come into focus.
“Have you . . . ?” he asked.
“No, just enough to see what it was.”
“Where did you find this?”
“Straight out of The Purloined Letter—one hides a thing too close for the person seeking it to find. In this case, it was inside that enormous studded chest in the Armoury. There are some old hangings or curtains or something inside—it doesn’t look as if it’s been opened for half a century, other than to deposit those.”
He looked at the papers in his hand without seeing them. “We used to hide things in the Armoury,” he mused, not really thinking about what he was saying. “In Long Tim’s helmet, inside the chest. All the time. When we were boys.”
Iris could take no more. “Marsh?” she asked. “What is it?”
Mutely, he handed the papers to her. She took them, looked curiously at the ribbon-bound packet, and then opened Gabriel’s letter. “Oh my God,” she murmured, seeing the greeting. She read the remainder in silence. Tears were quivering unshed in her eyes before she came to the end. When she had finished, she handed the letter to me, and I read it.
3 August 1918
Dearest Pater,
I know not how to write this, my last letter to you, but write I must. My uncle waits for me to put it into his hand, and from his hand it will reach yours. He is patient, but he is due back.
The verdict arrived just 12 hours ago. My first reaction was . . . nothingness. The world retreated, and my ears seemed not to hear the sounds of the men passing outside or the constant guns up the line. And then the world rushed back in on me, a tumult of memories and voices, long-forgotten tastes and smells fresh on my tongue and in my nose, as if the mind wished to gather together all the disparate moments in my life and heap them into my arms, to savour at once.
It is given to few men along this bullet-ridden strip of land to know the hour of their death. Most of us have lived so long with the possibility, it has become almost unimportant. One of the first things one learns here is that if one hears a bullet, there is no point in ducking, since if it was going to hit you, it would have. It is given only to the lawfully condemned to hear the bullet coming, to be given a time in which to look over one’s life, to hear the voices of friends and tutors, to feel the comfort of parents’ hands, to feel one’s life narrowing down to a small, quiet centre.
One of those voices has been that of old Pyeminster. Remember the summer we did Henry VI? He and I acted all the sailors in various dialects. And I was Suffolk, emerging from his disguising rags to declare defiantly that true nobility is exempt from fear. Two or three months ago, I’d have laughed hysterically at such a conceit, knowing it unlikely that I, for one, could bear more than the Huns dared to hand out.
Now, however, I stand with Suffolk. I rage at the stupidity, the smallness, of the men who condemned me. I give you free permission, after the War ends, to pursue the injustice of my case, in the hopes that in the future, no man refusing an insane order must pay for it with his life.
I die knowing that my action saved the lives of ten good men. I die in the sureness of my righteousness, and knowing, in the words of St Paul, that being judged by a human court is a very small thing.
The padre no doubt waits, his finger lodged in that fourth chapter of Corinthians. I ask that you look him up, later, for he has been good to me. I ask that you similarly embrace my uncle, who has helped me through these final hours.
But most of all I ask that you welcome your daughter Helen. If any regrets are left me, it is this, that I will have no life with her. As you will see from the enclosed, she is truly your daughter. I have no means of explaining her sudden presence in your lives, but to say that she was a gift from God, and that she saved not only my life, but my soul. The details of our meeting, our wooing, and our brief marriage you shall have to hear from her lips. I leave it to you, to choose whether or not to show her this letter. In the unreal fog in which I have moved this past twelvemonth, Helen was the only clear place. Love her, because I ask it. Love her because she brought your son laughter at a time when laughter was in short supply. Love her because I do, now and forever.
As I love you and Mother.
Your son,
Gabriel
P.S. Another text I studied with Pyeminster, one of the odes of old Horace, keeps running through my mind. It is not the rich man one should call happy, he says, peiusque leto flagitium timet, but the man who fears dishonour more than death, and who is not afraid to die pro caris amici aut patrias—for beloved friends or country. By his definition, I am a happy man indeed.
With love and gratitude to you, my beloved friend, and my country,
Your faithful
Gabriel
When I had reached the end, I felt as if his patient and dignified words had been seared onto my brain. I gave the boy’s letter back to Iris, the mother he had not known. She folded it reverently back into its envelope, and handed it to Marsh, along with the handkerchief she had borrowed. She then picked up the other documents from her lap, looking at the packet of letters wrapped in ribbon. “Isn’t that Helen’s handwriting?”
“I should think it would have to be,” Marsh replied.
“And this . . . their marriage certificate? Oh, that utter bastard.”
Marsh, however, was already looking at the means of turning his anger into action. “This will simplify things somewhat,” he said grimly.
“I agree,” I said, with feeling. Instead of having to watch the crowd of nearly 350 guests and servants to see
