Free A Corpse in Shining Armour by Caro Peacock Page B

anybody?’
    ‘As far as I’m aware, no.’
    ‘You’d known her socially since they were married?’
    ‘Even before that. To be honest, Lord Brinkburn asked my opinion before proposing to the lady.’
    ‘And your opinion was…?’
    ‘There was a difference of some twenty years in their ages, but when the gentleman is the elder party, that’s no great objection.
     Apart from that, nothing could be more suitable. Her family owned estates adjoining his family’s in the north-east. She brought
     a very considerable settlement with her and was an accomplished and good-natured young woman.’
    ‘That’s hardly the language of a passionate love match.’
    ‘Why should it be? It was an arrangement beneficial to both parties. In many respects, it has been a good marriage.’
    ‘Except that they’ve spent a lot of it living apart.’
    ‘It suited them both. Lady Brinkburn preferred a more secluded life and Lord Brinkburn found the Italian climate beneficial
     to his health.’
    ‘And in more than twenty years, she’d never mentioned the matter of the stranger on her honeymoon until a few months ago.
     Can you account for that?’
    He’d abandoned his attempt to break the penholder. It was in front of him on his blotter, and he was sitting back in his chair.
     Now that the decision had been made–to employ me, though not to trust me completely–some of the tension seemed to have
     gone out of him.
    ‘Yes, I think I can account for it. Lord Brinkburn returned from Naples last January. Before he left Italy he wrote me what
     I regard as a very courageous and honourable letter. He said he’d been conscious for some time of a decline in his physical
     and mental faculties. He had consulted several distinguished physicians who had told him that his malady could only become
     worse. What had up to then been occasional alarming episodes were becoming more frequent. He was facing the prospect of a
     permanent derangement of the mind, probably in the quite near future, and increasing physical incapacity. While he still had
     his reason left, he was determined on making his own arrangements. He selected an establishment in Surrey where he knew he
     would be permitted to live out his days with all possible comfort and dignity, returned to England accompanied only by his
     valet, and took up residence there much as a gentleman might settle into a hotel.’
    ‘The valet being Simon Handy?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Did Lady Brinkburn know about this?’
    ‘It was my sad duty to tell her. I visited Lord Brinkburn at the establishment. It was all too clear that the doctors’ prognostications
     had been borne out by events and his mind was irretrievably affected.’
    I decided not to mention what Disraeli had told me about the Emperor Hadrian. In spite of the lawyer’s dry manner, he was
     clearly distressed.
    ‘I went down to Buckinghamshire to see Lady Brinkburn,’ he went on. ‘She was naturally affected by what I had to tell her,
     but seemed at first to take it quite calmly. I broached with her, as tactfully as possible, the question of who was to take
     on the considerable task of managing the estates now that Lord Brinkburn was incapable of doing so. I suggested that, since
     Stephen was of age and would inherit, probably within months rather than years, I should set about arrangements for giving
     him power of attorney. Lady Brinkburn made no objection to the proposal at the time, but in retrospect I believe it may have
     started her on this potentially disastrous course.’
    ‘How did the story of the honeymoon get into circulation?’ I said.
    ‘I’m afraid there is no doubt at all that it came from Lady Brinkburn herself. Two weeks after I visited her at Brinkburn
     Hall, she came up to London unexpectedly and asked to see me.’
    ‘Was this an unusual event?’
    ‘Yes. I shouldn’t want to give the impression that Lady Brinkburn is a recluse, but she prefers country life to the city.
     Although she lives a little