The Secret Rooms: A True Gothic Mystery Page 14

  I began by telling her that the book had changed course, and that my focus was now on John and the missing periods in the correspondence in the Muniment Rooms. I also told her it was now clear that he was responsible for the gaps in the letters. I went through them in detail: the gap in 1894 when John was eight, and which concealed his brother’s death; the one in 1909, when he was Honorary Attaché at the British Embassy in Rome, and which the coded letters presaged; and the gap in 1915, when he was twenty-eight, and serving with the 4th Leicesters on the Western Front. As we discussed them, the Duchess could not think of a single reason why John would have wanted to remove the correspondence. His motives were as mysterious to her as they were to me.

  ‘You know Charles – John’s eldest son – closed the Muniment Rooms after his father died,’ she said. ‘It’s never been clear why. He appeared to have some sort of a block about them. It was almost as if he attached some sort of feeling of fear to them. Perhaps it was because John kept him at a distance. He never confided in him.’

  ‘Didn’t Charles get on with his father?’ I asked.

  ‘No, their relationship was complicated. John adored his second son, who was also called John. He was his favourite. No one thought Charles would live to succeed – he was a sickly child. It was why John lavished all his attention on his younger brother.

  ‘I know it sounds strange,’ she continued, ‘but it goes back to the witches’ curse. They lived in the castle’s grounds – up on Blackberry Hill, where the mausoleum is now. Two were hung at Lincoln for murdering the Earl of Rutland’s sons. It was some time in the early 1600s, I think. The women were said to have placed a curse on future generations. It has haunted the family ever since. Time after time, their eldest sons – or one of their sons – have died in infancy. It skipped that generation – John’s children. But Charles lost his second son. He was my husband’s brother. After we moved into the castle, I asked a priest to exorcize it. I was frightened the curse would strike our sons too.’

  Our conversation returned to the closing of the Muniment Rooms. I mentioned the trunk of correspondence that I’d found which suggested that John was working on his mother’s letters when he died.

  ‘Charles was at the castle when his father fell ill. There was a stove in the Muniment Rooms. Perhaps he saw John burning the letters. We don’t know. But if he knew there was something he wanted to hide, he must have realized that the race to destroy whatever it was had not been completed when he died.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ I said. ‘Why close the rooms? Wouldn’t he have wanted to find out what the letters contained.’

  ‘No, not necessarily,’ she replied. ‘Family papers and historical documents were of no interest to Charles. He hated those rooms. His father had created them. It was a place John had warned people off from entering. I think Charles felt intimidated by them – a sense that his father was the great expert, and he didn’t know what was inside them. Perhaps it went back to his childhood – the memory of being kept out of this dark, secret place when he was a small boy. He knew there was something bad in there, but he couldn’t bring himself to confront it. The simplest solution was to close the rooms. That way, there was no danger of anyone discovering what his father had wanted to hide.’

  22

  I returned from lunch to find a note on my desk. Beside it, there was a bundle of letters, and a thick, well-thumbed journal.

  The note was from the archivist:

  Have you seen this? I found it at the back of the drawer in John’s desk. I can’t find the death cast – or the box. Both appear to be missing.

  I’ve left you the letters of condolence that Violet and Henry received after Haddon died.

  The journal is Violet’s.

  The ‘this’ to which he had referred was the small pale-cream envelope that he had pinned to the note. Six ominous words were written on it: ‘A Death Cast of Lord Haddon’. The words – written in Violet’s hand – had been heavily underlined.

  Cautiously, I opened the envelope; it obviously had something to do with the death mask Sir Alfred Gilbert had cast the morning after the boy died. Inside it was the note that Violet had enclosed in the box that had contained the missing cast:

  April 9 1907

  A cast of my best beloved boy of nine years old who died on 28th September 1894 after six days agonies and starvation from an accident twisting something inside. And then my heart was broken. He was my Joy and Pride.

  But I hid it away. For it was not like my beautiful big fair child of beauty. And yet I cannot destroy it and shut it up now in this box to be sent to Belvoir Castle to rest there.

  His mother

  Violet Rutland

  I leant back in the chair, stunned. This was a major discovery. Here, at last, was the secret that John had been determined to hide. His brother hadn’t been ill; he had died as a result of an accident ‘after twisting something inside’. The notice on the plaque beside Haddon’s tomb stated that he had died of tuberculosis. Contemporaneously, the newspapers had been told that the boy had died from ‘an illness’. Clearly, it wasn’t only John who had wanted to cover up the accident: his family had clearly been at pains to conceal it at the time.

  Why?

  Violet’s note pointed to some sort of internal obstruction: a blow to a vital organ. But what had caused the accident?

  I made three further discoveries that afternoon.

  By law – according to the Coroner’s Act of 1887 – any violent, sudden or unnatural death was subject to a judicial investigation. A call to the Bedfordshire Record Office revealed that there had been no inquest following Haddon’s death. Nor had there been a police investigation. The appropriate authorities had not been told that he had died as the result of an accident. The information on Haddon’s death certificate corroborated Violet’s note: ‘Cause of death – Intestinal Obstruction’. But the underlying as opposed to the actual cause of death had been omitted. In failing to report the accident, Violet and Henry – then Marquis and Marchioness of Granby – had broken the law – a crime, which, had it been discovered, would have resulted in a criminal prosecution.

  Henry, it seems, had also concealed the truth from Queen Victoria. The day after Haddon died, he sent a telegram to Balmoral. I found the Queen’s reply among the letters of condolence:

  I am most deeply grieved at the news you give me and much surprised as we knew nothing of the dear boy’s illness. Was it sudden? Say everything most kind and sympathizing to dear Violet.

  The third thing I discovered was that Haddon’s accident had occurred on John’s birthday. This grim detail was buried in the pages of the journal which the archivist had left on my desk. Violet had kept the journal in the mid-1930s. At the time, she had been thinking about writing her autobiography. In mapping out the chapters she proposed to write, she had noted the things that had happened to her over the course of her life. The entries were chaotic; no more than fragments. But still, the few lines that she had written about Haddon’s death struck a jarring note. They were hidden among a jumble of memories of the places she had visited and the people she had met in the weeks before he died:

  Aug 14 Go to White Lodge. Draw Royal baby, future King Edward VIII. Difficult won’t go to sleep. Start at 9, finish at 4.30. German governess will clap her hands to wake him and make him open his eyes! I sit for Shannon. On 16th I go again to White Lodge.

  I go down to Hatley – Haddon lovely at Station. To Longshawe. Babies with me. [Earl of] Wharncliffe, Charlie L [Lindsay], Sir Henry James, Miss James. Darling children arrive towards evening (Spt 7) cut Haddon’s hair. Lockinge – Manoeuvres – Blues and Horse Guards etc. in Camp. Big children arrive from Longshawe next day. Happy day for Haddon. He dines down. He sits next me. No hurrying to bed. Dance and play after. Haddon plays harmonium. Tea party for John’s birthday. Play after. Haddon ill that night – Sept 22. Operation 26th successful. Worse on 27th, despair. On 28th a spark of hope! Died at 10 pm.

  Violet had not mentioned
the accident. It was as if it had never happened. All that she had said was ‘Haddon ill that night.’ The loss of her eldest son had been the central tragedy of her life – ‘my great sorrow’, as she repeatedly referred to it. But half a century after his death, as she planned her autobiography, she had drawn a veil over it. She had opted to keep to the official version of events.

  Clearly, the death of this 9-year-old boy had been no ordinary accident. It had happened at the family’s home at Cockayne Hall in the tiny village of Hatley Cockayne. If it had been straightforward – if Haddon had fallen from a tree, or a pony – his parents would not have gone to such lengths to cover it up. Someone must have been to blame for it: someone they had wanted to protect.

  Awful though this was to contemplate, the finger of suspicion pointed at John. It would explain why he had been sent away within hours of the funeral. His parents had wanted him out of the way.

  And there were the excisions that John had made in the family’s correspondence. The accident resolved the mystery behind the length of the gap he had created in the records. The correspondence in the weeks leading up to it would have revealed that Haddon had not been suffering from tuberculosis. Over the course of the six days it had taken the boy to die, the letters and telegrams that had flown between Belvoir Castle and Cockayne Hall would have contained details of his condition, exposing the myth of illness. In reporting the accident to the Duke and Duchess, in all probability, Henry and Violet had described how it had happened.

  But what had actually happened?

  If John was to blame for Haddon’s death, had it simply been a tragic accident, or had there been more to it than that?

  The lengths to which both John and his parents had gone to cover it up presented the chilling possibility that he might have actually killed his brother. Of course, the likelihood that he had killed him by design was infinitesimal. But he might have wanted to hurt him.

  My best beloved boy. My joy and pride. These were the words Violet had written in the note she enclosed in the box containing Haddon’s death cast. As the second son, John had lived in his brother’s shadow. He had had every reason to be jealous of him. The accident had occurred at his birthday party. Had the two boys been fighting? Or had a game they had been playing gone wrong? Had something provoked him to harm his brother in a fit of jealousy?

  I found myself completely torn. In sending him away so soon after the funeral, it was possible that Violet and Henry had wanted to punish him. It would also explain why Violet had resented Charlie for the ‘spoiling kindness’ he had shown towards John at the time. But if it had genuinely been an accident, then his parents’ behaviour towards him was unforgivable. Ordinarily, the loss of a sibling would have been damaging, but John had been made to feel murderously responsible for the death of his brother. In casting him out, they had prevented his mourning from progressing in the usual way; they had failed to give his feelings a proper hearing. Cumulatively, his parents’ behaviour would have fuelled a belief that he was dangerous – dangerous to the people that he loved.

  So was he innocent or guilty? Worryingly, when he was older, John had shown an unhealthy fascination with things deathly and peculiar. As a young man, he had exhumed numerous tombs. He had also collected human bones. Was this a manifestation of the psychological damage his parents had inflicted on him? In clinging to the deathly had he been clinging to his dead brother? Or did his morbid obsession with death point to something more sinister?

  The challenge, more than a century after the event, was to construct a narrative of the accident. I needed to find out how Haddon had ‘twisted something inside’. John had removed his family’s correspondence, but the letters of condolence that friends and relations had sent to his parents were still in the Muniment Rooms. It was just possible that among them I would find someone who had been privy to the details of the accident. I was not expecting them to be spelt out; John would not have left the letters there otherwise. But the correspondence might at least offer pointers as to what exactly had occurred.

  23

  The letters were mostly to Violet. In the bleak days following the loss of her eldest son, her friends had rallied round. Mary, Countess of Minto, had written on 6 October, two days after his funeral:

  My darling – it was dear of you to write to me and every word just cut my heart like a knife. I know exactly, exactly how you are feeling – the rebellious indignation at the sorrow coming to you, and taking your best most beautiful cherished one. Oh I understand it all.

  I quite know how difficult faith must be when things go wrong. I don’t think you can really feel that death is death. I am so sure there is a future, and about his being frightened and alone remember that he is now the strong one, and you the weak. And fancy what the certainty of happiness must be to a child, without one sin staining their record – it must be absolute happiness. I shouldn’t grieve for him, but for you, for Henry, for the children, for all who loved him. This sorrow has come home to me almost as if it was one of my own children, the sickening feeling ‘can this awful tragedy be true’.

  Am I writing a sort of sermon? I don’t mean to. Oh how well I know how watching those agonies must have taken all belief in God away – why can’t I say anything to do you good! I think of his lovely angel face illuminated with intense joy and peace, and somehow that brings me comfort, for I know he is unspeakably happy. Then I think of you without him – the anguish and misery and how can I pity him? My heart longs to comfort you. I know till you can think of him as he is – ‘around the throne of God in heaven’ – you will never find one ray of hope.

  Bless you darling

  Mary, Countess of Wemyss, whom Violet had known since she was a child, had also written. Mary had lost her own son when he was three years old:

  Darling Violet

  I was so touched at your writing to me telling me all about yr darling beautiful boy. It is difficult for me to say all I feel about it, because my heart answered every word in yr letter – every pang, every sigh, every bitterness, that terrible terrible longing and feeling of regret – that something might have been done differently – the cruel burning thought of the tender one’s pain and suffering and one’s own helplessness, the longing to live the time over with one’s experience and the horror of the pain endured – oh! dear Violet, I feel for you so much and alas!

  I know that one is tormented, maddened for months and months. The only comfort is that as far as they are concerned the pain once over is as if it had never been but it lives in one’s own memory. Then you have the consolation of feeling that yr love and care eased his suffering – what a brave splendid little fellow he was! One cannot think his pure little life was in vain, as you know he was happy and well every minute of it and died like a hero. But it’s so true, what you say, of when people write and tell one that Death is best. It’s small consolation and does not remove one’s sense of pity and wrong at the bright happy useful life so full of promise being snapt off – seemingly in such a wanton meaningless way.

  When the Spring comes and the flowers or games or anything bright and beautiful that they would have loved, when one sees the others rejoicing in life and when all other people have forgotten then one’s heart bursts within itself with grief, that they are not there too and nothing ever replaces the silent aching gap in one’s own heart. To a mother it is the sorrow of all sorrows that leaves one not the same, the place can never be refilled.

  I hope my letter may not pain you in any way you poor dearest. I hope the other children are well and I hope they are some comfort and distraction to you. I hope Henry is well. I wonder where you are? I’ve heard nothing of you since you wrote. I have left Gosford and go to Panshanger tomorrow and Loseley on Sat.

  yr loving

  Mary

  Lucy Tennant, a cousin of Violet’s, had written from Glen House, the family’s castle in the Scottish borders:

  Oh darling Violet – poor poor Darling. My heart is all bleeding for you – how cruel how dread
ful to have your best your lovely lovely child taken away. It is too terrible a stroke almost for a human being to bear. So sudden and relentless and fearful.

  Your wonderful letter goes to our hearts – Darling – what fearful agonies you have been thro’. That lovely darling child. It is too fearful to think of – a most cruel fate – and it all seems dark and blind and a mad wicked waste of goodness and beauty and strength, in which no glimmer of intentions or wisdom pierces. Try to be glad he had such a perfect child-life, the happiest that could be – with an ideal Father (the most delightful I have ever seen) and a Mother who was perfect and heavenly to him, and then he had not even had the small childish sorrow of leaving for school. His little lovely flower-life was cruelly broken, but so complete and flawless and exquisite while it was with us. His whole self and beauty was most like you – the others are much less like you – I do mourn him very truly and deeply and am glad I saw him twice at Hatley.

  Daisy [Countess of Warwick] and Etty [Ettie Grenfell, later Lady Desborough] were here but left today. I showed them your heart-wringing letter thinking you wd forgive my doing so, and you said Daisy might see it.

  This in haste

  Yr loving and sorrowful

  Lucy

  The love and sympathy that Violet’s friends expressed was terribly moving. Their heartfelt words brought the tragedy of Haddon’s death – and the sudden shock of it – to life. But none of the letters revealed the cause – or the circumstances – of his accident.

  Interestingly, however, Violet had written to some of her friends immediately after Haddon died. A number were writing in reply to her. Had she told them what happened? If her letters were preserved in other family collections, I might find the answer there.

  There was something else. Several of the correspondents had had the temerity to ask for further details of Haddon’s illness. ‘What was the matter that an operation was necessary?’ Cecil Drummond, Henry’s second cousin, had asked. ‘What illness was the poor boy suffering from?’ another had enquired. His sudden death had clearly prompted questions to be asked at the time.