Fic: Delirien (3/5)

[lareinenoire]

Prologue
Part I

ii. 'Tis much when sceptres are in children's hands,
But more when envy breeds unkind division--
There comes the ruin, there breeds confusion.
--Henry VI, Part I (IV.i.192-4)



Humphrey Lancaster hadn't intended to argue with his brother on his wedding day. In fact, he'd had quite the opposite in mind. Unfortunately, certain things were simply unavoidable.

He'd managed to get a garbled story out of Edmund Somerset after handing him a flask and wincing as the boy threw back a truly alarming amount of not-inexpensive whisky in one gulp. Something about John walking in on him and Catherine with precisely the wrong idea, clearly put there by someone who hated him, and he strongly suspected York.

Humphrey sighed. He could hardly point fingers, but it was quite discouraging when otherwise sensible young men arbitrarily decided to hate one another.

And now York had disappeared, to God only knew where, and Humphrey couldn't hear his side of the story.

Catherine had settled herself on a window seat with a stolen glass of cognac from the library. "Did Harry show you the secret spirit collection, then?"

"The hidden cabinet behind that silly-looking painting? No, I saw him open it for you once," she said with a small smile. "You know I never meant for this to happen, Humphrey."

"Of course you didn't. You haven't seen young York, have you? I hope he'll be kind enough to explain himself."

"He was dancing a moment ago with...oh, what is her name? Sir Ralph Neville's youngest girl." Unexpectedly, she smiled. "He'll be in for a surprise if he expects anything but trouble from that one."

"Oh?"

"A lady who knows her own mind, mon cher. But perhaps she'll turn his thoughts to better things." She took a sip of cognac. "He clearly meant harm."

"Well," Humphrey paused to think this over, "from what I can gather, there's bad blood between those two from Oxford. Edmund has always been...superior, if you take my meaning. And I expect he thought Richard a suitable object for scorn. I certainly can't blame him for wanting his own back."

"It just seems so...underhanded." She shook her head. "Mais ça suffit. What did John say to you?"

"Aside from the usual?" he laughed. "He told me off for ruining his wedding, reminded me of my own indiscretions, and informed me that if I hadn't dealt with the problem by the time he and Annabel return from their honeymoon...well, he didn't quite manage to figure out what dire threats he intended to heap upon my head, but I'm sure he'll think of something."

"That sounds like our John," she agreed, muffling her laughter behind her hand. "Oh, there is your missing Mr York. Although..." her grin widened mischievously, "I think it's quite clear he's not thinking about poor Edmund."

She had a point. The young man looked distinctly dishevelled, and was having difficulties hiding a smile. The appearance of young Cecily Neville several moments later, cheeks flushed and eyes sparkling, confirmed his suspicions. Something in her smile reminded him rather of Eleanor and he laughed ruefully. "I can't fault his choice."

But Catherine was frowning. "Do you think that's wise? The Nevilles have a great deal of money and influence."

"All the better for him, say I. Harry managed to turn the Perrivale estate into the nastiest legal tangle I've ever seen so it could be decades before Richard saw a penny of it--assuming he should even be so lucky. If he can marry money, so much the better."

"I suppose it's wrong for me to judge him on such short acquaintance, but..." She trailed off with an expressive shrug. "I don't know, Humphrey."

"It's just young men's posturing. If you'd seen the things Harry got up to--" He stopped, turning aside. He'd never quite come up with the best way to discuss his dead brother with Catherine--not that it was easy to discuss Harry with anybody, really. "It's nothing to concern us, Catherine. They'll need to deal with it themselves like gentlemen."

As the weeks wore on, Catherine admitted grudgingly to Humphrey that she might have been wrong. Richard York and Edmund Somerset barely spoke three words to one another. Edmund, admittedly, was caught up in his new position with the Home Office, and Richard equally caught up in courting Cecily Neville.

Eleanor roared with laughter when he told her of it. "That little Neville girl? She fancies herself the Queen of Sheba. It'll take her down a peg or two to marry Robert York's son!"

Humphrey hadn't believed that for a minute; Sir Ralph was nothing if not canny, and he'd succeeded in marrying all his children exceptionally well. And Humphrey had heard from the family solicitors that Neville had been asking about the missing Perrivale will, the one in which Richard York's maternal uncle had been designated the rightful heir to the estate.

Not for the first time, he wished Harry were still alive. He and John had things well in hand, but they wouldn't live forever and Henry...

He sighed. The boy was young yet. He had time enough to grow into his inheritance. And Richard would have enough to keep him busy once he took the bar. Handing him over to John had been a good move. Whatever one thought about John as a person, it was impossible to fault him as a barrister, and once Richard had his own reputation and family to consider he'd have better things to do than chase after a missing--perhaps even mythical--will.

And, despite Catherine's misgivings, he couldn't help but admire little Cecily Neville wreaking havoc on their corner of London society. After all, the man who had fallen in love with Eleanor Cobham when he saw her play Cleopatra could hardly deny that he had a romantic streak. Even John didn't seem to disapprove, although he made some acid remark about overly bold young ladies who clearly hadn't been raised properly.

Of course, John had no patience for wilful females of any persuasion. Their younger sister Philippa had heard no end of lectures on the subject of inappropriate behaviour ever since she'd announced her decision to join the WSPU. Humphrey had no particular objection to suffragettes; as a lifelong proponent of various lost causes, he could certainly understand the appeal.

"But, Humphrey, you don't understand," Philippa sighed. "What have you got against women's suffrage?"

"I've told you a thousand times, Pip, I've got nothing against it! I just can't conceive of why ladies have any interest--it's a bloody great nuisance, to be quite frank. You elect your member of Parliament and watch, mired in boredom, as nothing ever gets done."

"But that isn't the point, Humphrey!" She raised the cup of tea to her lips, the perfectly balanced posture at odds with the dirt under her fingernails and smeared across her face. They had made quite the stir when they first walked into the teashop and Philippa had practically inhaled a plate of sausages. Humphrey could hardly blame her; after all, what else could one possibly expect from a lady who had chained herself to a post in Trafalgar Square in the middle of a demonstration? He didn't suppose Scotland Yard felt obliged to feed disturbers of the peace. "The point is that women deserve to have some say in the realm's future."

"Well, of course they do! What do you think husbands are for?"

"Humphrey--"

"Can't we stop arguing, Pip? You should be grateful I fetched you myself and didn't let John come. Although I don't doubt he's got a lecture planned for when he next sees you."

She groaned. "I don't want to think about John. It'll make me lose my appetite and they've got cherry crumble."

Humphrey glanced over his shoulder and caught sight of the shop's owner setting down what indeed appeared to be a plate of cherry crumble doused in cream. Philippa was staring at it with the same concentration she ordinarily reserved for Mrs or Miss Pankhurst and, with a sigh, he gave in. "Oh, very well. Cherry crumble it is."

"And I will have you know, Humphrey," she insisted through a mouthful of crumble several moments later, "that if women were in charge, we wouldn't be mired in this ridiculous situation with the Kaiser."

"You mean to say you'd have solved the entire problem over tea and cherry crumble?"

She threw a sugar lump at him. "I mean to say, Humphrey, that you men are so busy trying to prove your superiority to one another that you don't even think about how much easier things would be if you simply listened to each other."

"And you mean to tell me women listen to one another?" Humphrey snorted. "I've endured enough Afternoons during the Season to know better than that."

"Well, at least we don't insist on building bally Dreadnoughts all the time!" With a snort of her own, she buried herself in the crumble. "Thank goodness Henry's got more sense than that."

"Henry is a child--"

"He's cleverer than you think, Humphrey. Just you wait and see."

He knew she was right about that at the very least--Henry was a clever boy. His tutors gave nothing but glowing reports not just of his progress, but of his demeanour: quiet, mild-mannered, and obedient. In some long-ago time, he might have made the perfect monk.

But there were no monks in London now. And Humphrey decided that it might be best for the boy to spend more time around others his own age. That he had a place at Eton was assumed--after all, the Lancaster men had been Etonians since time immemorial--and John approved wholeheartedly.

John also approved wholeheartedly of Richard York. For this, Humphrey could not help but take the credit since he knew John had a particularly selective memory for unpleasant things Harry had done and would have been content to forget about the events of that house party. It therefore came as a great surprise indeed when he discovered why John had invited him to his club for dinner.

"I did have something I need to discuss with you, Humphrey. It concerns both of us, and Henry as well."

"Out with it, then," Humphrey said, content to lean back in the creaking leather chair and let the excellent dinner settle somewhat.

John pursed his lips and looked at the fire, piled high against the November chill. "Edward York made a second will. A later will, dated just before his departure for the Transvaal."

Several dozen questions crowded Humphrey's mind, but he finally decided on, "How on earth did you find this out?"

"That's not the point, Humphrey. Harry paid off a solicitor to keep it secret. Harry suborned Edward York until he disinherited his own nephew." He stared uncomfortably into his glass of port. "I knew something wasn't quite right about that whole affair, but I didn't want to think too hard on it."

"Harry never did encourage one to think very hard on his actions," Humphrey said. "You can't blame yourself for what you didn't see."

"That's not the only thing, Humphrey." John raised his head and looked Humphrey directly in the face. "Father never destroyed Richard Perrivale's will. The will that left everything to Edmund Mortimer. I can't imagine why--"

"Guilt?"

John glared at him. "Maybe. But that isn't the point, Humphrey. In legal terms, Richard York is just as entitled to the Perrivale inheritance as Henry is." He took a shallow breath. "And it is my intention not to tell him."

"And have it on your conscience?"

"If I can restore him to what is his by right of his father," John steepled his hands, "I think that can be the end of it."

"And the Perrivale will?" Humphrey leant forward. "John, you can't just let these things sit about until someone with far fewer scruples finds them."

"I know," John said, burying his face in his hands. "But it's a legally binding document, Humphrey. You ask me about my conscience..."

"And what happens when he does find it?" Humphrey demanded. "You're training him yourself, John. You know he will."

"By then, he'll have no need of it, God willing. He's a bright boy, and between the York inheritance and Miss Neville's portion, he'll hardly be wanting." John took a large gulp of port. "And Henry will be old enough to defend his own, if it should come to that. I just..." he sighed, "I cannot conceive of what Harry was thinking. Did he honestly believe I wouldn't find out about Edward York?"

Humphrey sighed. "Harry expected to live far longer than he did; I'd wager you anything that solicitor wouldn't have breathed a word if he weren't dead. And, to be perfectly frank, Johnny, you never did strike him--or me--as the sort of person who would question anything."

"I almost let it lie," John said softly. "I found the Perrivale will quite by accident. Father had hidden it very well. Once I realised what it was, I nearly threw it into the fire. But I couldn't, Humphrey. Not after I'd learnt about Harry..."

"You knew what Harry was capable of doing, John. You always knew."

John nodded wordlessly. They watched one another in silence for a few moments before Humphrey drained the last of his drink and stood.

"You can trust me, Johnny."

"I know." John looked up at him with an odd, painful smile. "I know I can, Humphrey."

It was most assuredly not a coincidence that, within a week of John's revelation, Sir Ralph Neville gave consent for his daughter to marry Richard York. The wedding date was set for July of the next year, at the height of the Season, and Eleanor whispered wickedly to him that she'd rather like to set a bet on how early the young pair's first child would be.

Humphrey had, rather foolishly, taken her up on it and, at the first party they attended after the opening of the Season--the first of any size that John and his wife had hosted--found himself provisionally in debt to Eleanor for one shopping trip to Paris.

The clock had just struck eleven when Eleanor rather smugly pointed out that John's protégé and his fiancée had disappeared and suggested that Humphrey might do well to find them before he lost their wager. So Humphrey struck off and realised rather quickly that she might be right.

There were two empty champagne glasses on the garden wall, near the entrance to the conservatory where John paid his gardeners exorbitant sums of money to indulge his wife's love of exotic plants. And, rather unexpectedly, a fan.

Humphrey picked it up--a delicate ivory-and-silk thing, painted with white roses. And, from the corner of his eye, he could have sworn he saw something move in the conservatory. As he stepped closer to the door, he could make out a flash of white and gold amongst the moon-splashed ferns and heard the low murmur of a man's voice.

"Are you sure?" If there was a response, it was out of earshot.

The first thing he saw when he opened the door was the dinner jacket discarded on the tiles with a pair of white ladies' evening gloves. As for their owners, they were tangled together unmistakably on a pile of sacking and picnic blankets. The moonlight spilled through the glass roof to catch the gleam of pearls and silver cufflinks, illuminating flashes of pale skin and burgundy silk.

It was the colour that jogged his memory, and he retreated on instinct. However, the fan slipped from his fingers, hitting the floor with an audible clatter, and he found himself the object of two pairs of horrified eyes. Richard was the first to move, instinctively blocking his fiancée from view. It was all Humphrey could do to keep from laughing aloud, even if his bank account was already wincing at the thought of Eleanor stepping through the doors of Paquin's salon because he'd forgotten what it meant to be young and thoughtless and madly in love.

"Mr Lancaster."

"Richard. Miss Neville," he added, catching a glimpse of bright hair tumbling in disarray across Richard's arm. "I appear to be interrupting."

"Mr Lancaster, I must ask you not to tell Sir John--"

Before Humphrey could say anything, Miss Neville spoke up. "It is my hope, Mr Lancaster, that you of all people would not be so hypocritical as to say a word to anybody." He could just catch a glimpse of her face in the slant of the moonlight, all flushed cheeks and reddened lips, blue eyes meeting his boldly, almost insolently. "It hardly seems fair play for Antony to lecture anybody on the subject of love."

"Sir?" Richard was looking at him too, now, a smile tugging at his mouth. "What say you?"

It was presumptuous, to say the very least. But they were due to be married in less than two months, and he certainly couldn't claim the little miss was wrong. "I hadn't realised anyone still thought of me that way."

Miss Neville lowered her eyes without a trace of demureness. "When one is fifteen, sir, that is what catches one's attention."

Humphrey smiled. "Be very happy it wasn't my brother who found you. And, for further reference," he pointed to one of the potted palms near the door, "there's a key underneath that pot. I suggest you lock the door after me."

He did tell Eleanor later that night, smiling indulgently as she howled with laughter. "Oh, I wish I'd been there! Did she really call you Antony? If she weren't such a stiff-necked little snob, I might like her just for that."

"But I am Antony, aren't I?" Humphrey bent close to press his lips to her shoulder. "Even now."

Eleanor's fingers twined through his and he met her eyes in the mirror, the light of laughter oddly muted. "If it be love indeed, tell me how much."

"There's beggary in the love that can be reckoned," he said, the words muffled against her skin. "For you make hungry where most you satisfy--"

"That isn't Antony," she protested, sternness undercut by a gasp as his teeth grazed her neck. Twisting away, she faced him, one hand against his chest, her voice pitched low and purring, "Eternity was in our lips and eyes, bliss in our brows' bent; none our parts so poor but was a race of heaven--" Slowly, deliberately, she kissed him.

It had been just such a kiss--stolen in a dressing room at the Théâtre Royale des Galeries in Brussels--that had turned Humphrey's life upside down three years before. I don't believe in regrets, Mr Lancaster. But if you walk out that door, I will. He'd returned to the ancient, creaking house on the Rue des Minimes hours later and sat in the empty library until morning. He ought to regret it--unlike Miss Eleanor Cobham, he had his fair share, not the least of which...but that was unfair to Jacqueline. He knew they'd been happy once, in London, before Harry scarpered off to Brazil and got himself killed. Before his world had become little more than a long string of unpaid creditors and lawyers' fees.

It was his own damned fault, of course. Swept away by the idea of dashing to a lady's rescue, he'd married Jacqueline before the divorce papers she'd sent to her cad of a husband had been fully settled. Now they lived in the decaying, dust-choked corridors of what had once been the Bavière family's house in town--the estate near Mechelen had already been broken up and sold to pay Jacqueline's father's debts--huddling in the cold as Jacqueline grew thinner and paler and the laughter vanished from her face as if it had never been.

He was secretly relieved that there had been no sign of children. How they could possibly afford to keep them under these circumstances, he had no idea. John, predictably, refused to speak to Humphrey in public until he was no longer married to a bigamist. And, though Humphrey was aware that the delays were hardly Jacqueline's fault, he could not help but wish she hadn't assumed the divorce would take care of itself when her family had already spent the last of its fast-fading influence.

"Where were you, Humphrey?" His wife's voice broke through the reverie, sharply accusing.

He shrugged. "Does it really matter?"

"Of course it matters!" Jacqueline drew the faded velvet wrap tight around her fragile frame. "Who is she?"

"I'm sure I don't know what you mean," said Humphrey, keep his eyes carefully fixed on her face. "And even if there were, I can't imagine it signifies."

Jacqueline laughed. The sound was far removed from mirth. "No, I don't suppose it does. I daresay you mean to point out that our marriage was never valid in the first place, and adultery therefore doesn't count?"

"I said nothing of the sort."

"Of course you didn't. You've always been very good at not saying things, Humphrey." Before he could respond, she'd crossed the room to kneel beside the chair. "I never meant for this to happen. You know that."

Absently, he covered her hand with his. "Christ, Jacqueline, I know you never meant harm. But I can't live like this. Neither of us can."

Her family had been embroiled for nearly fifty years in a legal battle with the Vaillant over a disputed will that, in Humphrey's opinion, made Jarndyce and Jarndyce look like a complaint letter in the Times. It had drained the Bavière resources while the Vaillant threw in their lot with Harry, undercutting and ruining their own Paris cousins in the Transvaal and making their fortune in the bargain.

"It's only a matter of--"

"You've been saying that for three bloody years!" Thrusting aside her hand, Humphrey shoved the chair back and strode to the window. "Three years, Jacqueline. I've all but abandoned Henry and I promised my brother I'd care for him--"

"John--"

"John has his own responsibilities. Harry left him in charge of all his operations in Africa, not to mention the Vaillant mess, and you know for a fact that he hated this idea from the start." Humphrey watched unseeing as people began to appear on the street outside, an entire world taunting him from outside this prison of glass and stone and bloody signatures. "You're miserable, Jacqueline. As miserable as I am. You can't possibly deny that."

When he glanced back at her, she was staring blankly at the theatre programme he'd left sitting on the desk. Eleanor Cobham's eyes, kohl-rimmed and mesmeric, gazed up from the cover. "Cleopatra."

"I beg your pardon?"

"You couldn't take your eyes off her at the theatre last night." Her voice was shaking. "I told myself I'd imagined it, that you wouldn't--"

He closed his eyes and Eleanor Cobham was suddenly there, her smile holding in it everything he'd forgotten he wanted. "Jacqueline, don't."

"--and you come back here, reeking of perfume, and saying these awful things. Nom de Dieu, Humphrey, look at me!" He obeyed just as she pressed her trailing sleeves to her eyes, already red-rimmed as if she had been crying for hours. Jacqueline never cried in public--not even as judge after judge declared her a whore and ordered her to return to her real husband; indeed, her stony indifference had graced the gossip sheets time and time again. But she'd cried every night, face pressed into his shoulder.

He wanted to say it had all been an awful mistake, that he'd been young and stupid--but he hadn't, really, had he? Humphrey had never been stupid, and he hadn't been young since his father had had Cousin Richard murdered in a madhouse. So he said nothing and took her in his arms.

It was another year before her family's attorney informed her in no uncertain terms that they didn't stand a chance against the Vaillant, and furthermore, they could no longer afford to keep him retained. Jacqueline had joined her mother in Biarritz, where the Vaillant had--generously, or so Jacqueline was repeatedly informed--given them a small villa in return for retiring altogether from society.

Humphrey, in his turn, had given up attempting to bribe judges for a verdict on Jacqueline's divorce and returned to London, where Eleanor joined him. John had been horrified and, apparently finding newly sanctioned adultery as reprehensible as not-quite-sanctioned bigamy, still refused to speak to him publicly; a turn of events that had stung far more than Humphrey had anticipated.

It had been little over a year since he and Eleanor had finally married, and two years since his career at the Foreign Office had dissolved in the wake of the scandal. John had, through his reluctant connections, found him something unobtrusive in the Home Office and at least traded stiff greetings with Eleanor although he would vouchsafe her nothing more.

But Society would move on to different things soon enough. The newly married Yorks' first child--named Edward after his great-uncle--was, as per Eleanor's wager, born just within the bounds of respectability while they were on holiday in France. An unsinkable ocean liner smashed into an iceberg in the North Atlantic and Henry declared that he never wanted to travel on a ship again. And Humphrey began to see a country called Serbia appearing here and there in newspapers as the war in the Balkans dragged on.

"It's more important than anyone wants to let on," John said one evening as he and Humphrey left the club. "Too many people want war."

Humphrey sighed. John may have lacked imagination in all its useful contexts, but he did have a brilliant mind for magnifying crises. "Even the Germans can't manufacture a war from nothing, Johnny."

"They'll find an excuse," John muttered darkly. "Bloody Germans."

It wasn't especially surprising, Humphrey had to admit, that John turned out to be right in the end or that he insisted on joining up. What was surprising was his adamant insistence that Humphrey remain behind. "You're responsible for Henry. You've already left him once--"

The reminder of Brussels still stung even now. "But I don't understand why you feel the need to go traipsing off to France in the first place."

John just looked at him, a volume of scorn in his eyes. "God and Country, Humphrey. Have you no sense of national pride at all?"

"It isn't as if that matters, since you're so determined I should stay here," he protested. "You'd damned well better tell Henry yourself. Don't wait for bloody Beaufort to twist the knife."

"Speaking of Beaufort--"

"Oh, let's not."

"Humphrey, do be serious." John rolled his eyes heavenward. "Henry likes him--why, I cannot conceive, but that is simply the fact of the matter--so you must at least endeavour to be civil to him."

"But you admit," Humphrey stopped to look him in the eye, "that the man is positively intolerable."

"Dear God, Humphrey, of course I do. I can't stand the sight of him."

"Would you swear to it in court?"

"Shut up, Humphrey."

He told himself it would all be over by Christmas, that such an utterly silly war had to burn itself out sooner or later, and that John couldn't possibly be serious about joining up. It was all posturing and no substance.

But Henry's birthday, and then Christmas, came and went with a letter and a box of Breton marrons from John that Henry ate slowly and thoughtfully by the fire.

"When will Uncle John come home?"

Humphrey couldn't answer. He folded John's letter and tucked it safely into his pocket. Finally, he bowed his head, unable to look at his nephew. "I'm afraid I don't know, Henry. The war isn't...it'll be over soon, I'm sure. But not yet."

It was the first time of many thousands that he would speak those words, and they would become increasingly empty of meaning.

For the war did not end. John did not come home.

The black-edged telegram arrived after Humphrey had already read in the newspapers how the Germans had turned the very air to poison at Ypres. What hurt the most was that it hadn't surprised him. What did was Cecily York appearing on the doorstep of Lancaster House, tears gleaming at the corners of her eyes as she held out a letter in what Humphrey recognised as Richard's handwriting.

"I'm so very sorry, Mr Lancaster."

Henry had been away at school, thankfully. He hadn't seen Humphrey cry for the bull-headed, cantankerous, idiotically noble brother twenty years too old to have died in those trenches.

Henry returned from his third year at Eton quiet and subdued, raising his voice only in the middle of the night when he awoke screaming about poison gas. Humphrey never found out who had told him but decided it would be best to have Henry schooled at Carnarvon. Again and again, he looked for his dead brother in this shaking, terrified boy and found no trace of him.

They didn't even know where John was buried, in the end. Just like Harry. And, just like Harry, they placed a plaque in the family mausoleum at Lancaster House beside the tombs of their parents and grandparents. Humphrey couldn't help but wonder where he would die, or if the war would ever end and his nephew would smile again.

It was all such a senseless, bloody waste.

Part III