Heirs of the Body(8)
However, Daisy met with Miss Watt’s approval. “You’re a few minutes early, Mrs. Fletcher, but I believe Mr. Pearson can see you immediately. I’ll let him know you’re here.”
Tommy appeared at once to usher her into his office, and she remembered to address him as Mr. Pearson. She had met him and Madge at the military hospital in Malvern where Madge had been a VAD nurse and Tommy a patient after one of his more perilous exploits. Daisy herself had squeamishly stuck to working in the hospital’s office, but she’d become good friends with the older girl, a friendship that had continued after both she and Madge married.
“Will you be needing me, Mr. Pearson?”
“No, thank you, Miss Watt. No interruptions.”
The office was a further example of mixed eras. The panelling, especially the ornately carved mantelpiece, was certainly older than the large Victorian rosewood desk, with its silver inkwell, and the leather chairs. Shelves bore row after row of legal books, the older bound in calf, the newer merely clothbound. The window, open at the top, looked out over New Square.
Daisy sat down in front of the desk, Tommy behind it. “I’ve been reconsidering,” he said, steepling his fingers.
Though she had been expecting this, Daisy was annoyed. “I do think you might have let me know. I needn’t have—”
“Reconsidering,” he repeated, “not decided against. But it would be most irregular to allow anyone other than the head of the family to attend the interviews.”
“The head of the family would be worse than useless. Apart from his lack of interest in anything other than moths and butterflies, Edgar didn’t grow up as part of the family and never heard the stories—”
“Ah, the stories! Those are what you expect to trip up any false claimant? You do realise it’s close to a hundred years since Julian Dalrymple ran off to Jamaica?”
“Julian? I’d forgotten his name, if I ever heard it. I realise he wouldn’t have known anything that happened since he left, but there’s plenty of family history—the sort that doesn’t get into Burke’s Peerage—dating from much earlier.”
“The sort that he might have told his children and grandchildren?”
“How can I know? Was he the strong, silent sort, or a tale spinner? Did he ramble on about the past in his old age? He must at least have told them his father was a lord, or his descendants wouldn’t be turning up hoping to be recognised as heir to the viscountcy, would they?”
“You’d be surprised. I’ve had two letters from men whose surname is Dalrymple, as attested by a clergyman and a judge respectively, but who admit to having no reason to suppose they might be related. Also several from people who claim to be Dalrymples but adduce no evidence; and one from a person living in the village of Dalrymple, in Scotland, who considers his abode to be proof of a relationship to the family, albeit his name is McDorran.”
Daisy laughed. “Heavens above! You can dismiss those at once, though.”
“The last, yes. The rest will have to be investigated. Those who can provide proof of their surname, I’ll have to interview. If I can’t debunk them at once, I’ll have to send a clerk to Somerset House to trace their ancestry. The records there go back to 1837 and Julian left England in 1831, so there’s a gap. Besides, those are records from England and Wales. We have no reason to suppose he or his descendants ever returned to Britain.”
“Gosh, it does sound like a complicated job.”
“I assume you’re not interested in the preliminaries.”
“Not really,” she admitted. “Once you’ve whittled it down to those who are serious contenders, I do think I might be able to help to separate the sheep from the goats.”
“You do realise your opinion of them will carry no weight. Only primogeniture and legitimacy count with the College of Arms, who are the final arbiters.”
“Give me a little credit, Tommy, I do know that much! I won’t be able to prove anything, but I might manage to disprove someone’s story, or part of it.”
“Hmm.” Tommy sounded sceptical. “What sort of family history are you thinking of?”
“Well, going right back to the beginning, for a start. Back to the fifteenth century, the Wars of the Roses, and how the Dalrymples rose to the nobility.”
“Good lord! I’ve seen the original patent, as it happens, but it doesn’t provide reasons for the ennoblement. It was talked about in the family when you were growing up?”
“Not exactly talked about, but Father told Gervaise. He told Violet—my sister—and me. I should think even younger sons would be bound to have heard about it, and it’s not the sort of thing they’d forget. I don’t suppose anyone else knows, except a few fusty old historians in ivory towers.”