Summer on the River by Marcia Willett Read Free Book Online Page A

waits.
    â€˜David was given an income from the estate and was generally looked after but it was nothing compared to his older brother, Thomas’s, inheritance: the wine import business, property, investments. Thomas married later and there was only one child, Charles, TDF’s grandfather. OK so far?’
    Claude nods. ‘All clear.’
    â€˜So we fast-forward through three generations. Cousins, second cousins, until we get to Charlie and Ben. Now just before he died, TDF found two very beautiful little etchings in Totnes market. He brought them back as a present for my birthday and, because he didn’t have much time to get them framed, he decided to use two frames from the cartoons. They are all different and they aren’t very valuable but there were two exactly the right size and colour for the etchings. When TDF took them apart he found that in the back of one of them was a piece of paper.’
    Evie sits back and takes a breath.
    â€˜A letter?’ asks Claude.
    She frowns and shakes her head. ‘Not as such. It was a piece of paper that looked as if it had been torn from a notebook. The family history relates that the cartoons were sent to TDF’s grandfather, Charles, each birthday when he was a small boy from his uncle David. Charles had a Cairn terrier and there is a little sketch of the dog in each of the cartoons.’
    She pushes one across the table.
    â€˜David sent sketches to his own son, George, and to other members of his family when he was working abroad but only Charles’s cartoons had the dog. It was like a signature, a code between them.’
    Claude draws the cartoon towards him. There is the dog: eyes bright, ears cocked. In one sketch he is lifting his leg and a small puddle is forming. Claude gives an amused snort.
    â€˜They are very charming.’
    â€˜Yes. Delightful. Except that the implication is that David is writing to his son and not his nephew. He writes that it is very hard not to admit the truth and that he hadn’t imagined how difficult it would be not to be able to acknowledge Charles as his son. TDF was intrigued. He checked all the cartoons and found several other pieces of paper. On one of them David writes that they are like letters in a bottle cast into the sea hoping that someone will find them and discover the truth; that he, not his brother, Thomas, was Charles’s father and that some kind of restitution be made.’
    â€˜But nobody had found them? Not before TDF?’
    Evie shakes her head. ‘If the papers had been found they would almost certainly have been destroyed.’
    Claude is puzzled. ‘But why? Surely there’s no great harm even if it’s true, is there? It was all a long time ago. So David, apparently, had an affair with his sister-in-law. It’s not unknown. What does he mean by restitution?’
    Evie leans forward. ‘Think about it, Claude. Apart from the scandal it would have caused at the time it means that, if it’s true, then Charles shouldn’t have inherited when his father died. He was illegitimate. The estate should have gone to Thomas’s brother, David, if he were still alive, or to David’s own son, George, who was older than Charles.’
    â€˜Good God! You mean that technically … Bloody hell.’
    â€˜The estate should have come down on David’s side to George. Thomas had no other children. TDF checked back through the family records. David died first of some disease he picked up abroad. At that point his son, George, was the legitimate heir. But when Thomas died everything was left to Charles.’
    â€˜But how serious is this stuff? I mean, can you really believe these letters? Maybe he was just a bitter younger brother.’
    â€˜TDF believed them to be genuine. And he believed that it was true that Charles was David’s son. Thomas was often abroad on business and there was a kind of family rumour that his wife was much too friendly