‘Those confounded swallows,’ Rampton said. ‘You cannot begin to comprehend the mess they make on the terrace.’ He too was staring out of the window; he too was glad of an excuse to think of something other than Augusta. ‘They nest under the eaves of the house or in the stables – I’ve tried for three years to get rid of them. But wherever they nest, they use my terrace as their privy.’
‘Where?’ Savill said.
‘What?’ Rampton turned from the window, away from the swallows, from one annoyance to another. ‘Paris. The foolish, foolish girl.’
‘How did you hear, sir?’
‘Through the Embassy. It happened just over a week ago.’
‘When the mob stormed the Tuileries?’
‘Yes. By all accounts the whole of Paris was delivered up to them. Riot, carnage, chaos. It beggars comprehension, sir, that such a civilized city should sink so low. The poor King and his family are prisoners. Tell me, when did you last hear from her?’
‘Five years ago,’ Savill said. ‘A little more. She wrote for money.’
‘And you sent it?’
‘Yes.’
Rampton grunted. ‘There was no necessity for you to do that.’
‘Perhaps not. But I did.’
‘On the other hand,’ Rampton said, ‘perhaps it was for the best. If you hadn’t, she might have been obliged to return to England.’
‘You mean she might still be alive?’
‘Would that really have been better? For her or for anyone else? For Elizabeth? After all, you could not have taken her in, even if you desired to, and she could not have been received anywhere.’
Rampton had lost all his teeth. As a result his voice had changed. Once it had been precise and hard edged, with every consonant squared off like a block of ashlar. Now the words emerged in a soft slurry of sound. No doubt he had a set of teeth, but he had not troubled to put them in for Savill.
Savill said, ‘She was in Geneva when she last wrote. She had parted from von Streicher, though she kept his name for appearance’s sake.’ The words still hurt when he said them aloud, but only his pride. ‘She said she had set up house with an Irish lady and they planned to take in pupils.’
‘Pupils? You did not believe her?’
‘I didn’t know what to believe. In any case, it didn’t signify. All that mattered was that she was in Geneva and she needed money.’
‘If she did not apply to you again, that suggests that she found it elsewhere.’
‘What were the circumstances of her death?’ Savill asked, his voice harsher than before. ‘Had she been in Paris for long? Who was she with?’
‘She had been there for several years. I believe she had granted her favours to a number of gentlemen since von Streicher’s departure. But I have not been able to ascertain whether she was under anyone’s protection at the time of her death. I’m afraid she was killed during the riots. I understand that a band of sans-culottes attacked her in the house where she had taken refuge.’
‘Was she alone?’
‘I believe so.’ Rampton took his spectacles from the lectern and turned them slowly in his hands. ‘Despite the German name she bore, you see, she was known to be British. It was said that she was a spy and she had been forced to leave her former lodgings for fear the mob would find her, or the police.’
‘Was she?’
‘A spy?’ Rampton shrugged. ‘Not as far as I know. Does it matter now?’
The frame of the glasses snapped between the lenses. Rampton stared at the wreckage in his hands. For a moment neither man spoke.
‘She was stabbed, I understand,’ Rampton went on in a rush. ‘It must have been a quick death, at least. And the place was ransacked.’
Savill turned his head so Rampton could not see his face. He thought of Augusta as she had been when he had first seen her: at Mr Rampton’s house in Westminster. Seventeen, coolly beautiful even then, with a way of looking at you that would heat the blood of any man. Ice and fire.
‘We must look ahead,’ Rampton said. ‘Sad though this occasion is, sir, I believe I should congratulate you.’
Savill stared at him. ‘What?’
‘You are free at last, sir. Should you wish to marry again, there is now no impediment to your doing so. Your unhappy condition, this limbo you have been in, cannot have been easy for you.’
That was true enough. Augusta had given Savill ample grounds for divorce when she eloped so publicly with her German lover to the Continent, while he himself had been three thousand miles away in America. But divorce was a rich man’s luxury, even when the husband was so clearly the injured party.
‘This will draw a line under the whole sad affair,’ Mr Rampton went on.
‘She was my wife, sir,’ Savill said. ‘Not an affair.’
Rampton spread his hands. ‘My dear sir, I intended no disrespect to the dead.’ He folded his hands on his lap. ‘I fear I have been clumsy. You have had a shock. Will you take a glass of wine? A cup of tea?’
‘Thank you, no. Tell me the rest.’
‘I do not yet know the whole of it. But I am told that someone informed a friend of hers, a Monsieur Fournier, and he communicated with the Embassy. Everything was done as it should be, which must be a great comfort. There was a doctor in attendance to certify the death. A notary took down a statement concerning the circumstances of her demise, and it was signed by witnesses.’
Savill gazed out of the window. The swallows were still there but they had moved further away. Like charred leaves above a bonfire, he thought. A pyre.
Rampton cleared his throat. ‘It would give me great pleasure if you would stay and dine.’
‘Thank you, but I believe I shall ride back to London.’
‘There’s plenty of time yet,’ Rampton said. ‘And there is something else that we need to discuss which may perhaps take a while.’
Rampton paused. Savill said nothing.
‘There are the documents I mentioned,’ Rampton said. ‘The notary’s statement and the death certificate.’
‘If you have them, sir, I shall take them now,’ Savill said. ‘If not, then perhaps you would send them to me. You know my direction. Nightingale Lane, near Bedford Square.’
‘I don’t have them. They are in the possession of Monsieur Fournier. And he has something else of hers that may interest you.’
‘I doubt it,’ Savill said, rising from his chair. ‘There is nothing of my late wife’s that interests me.’
‘The matter is more delicate than it first might appear,’ Mr Rampton said. ‘And that is why I asked you to wait on me here at Vardells and not in town.’ He smiled up at Savill with unexpected sweetness. ‘Augusta had a son.’
‘That scar on your cheek from New York,’ Rampton said when they were at table. ‘I had expected the wound to have healed better over the years. Does it pain you?’