This? No, this could not be the place. The manor. The so-called estate.
Pru had been in the Newport home, Graycliffe. It was on the beach, fifty rooms they’d said, and so opulent it outshone its commendably palatial neighbors. But this “Grange” looked downright uninhabitable, leaning so far to the left that, well, God help town residents if there ever was a mudslide.
The home didn’t even have a proper roof. It might’ve been thatch-style once, but was now splintered and disintegrating. More windows were broken than were intact and reams of chicken wire encased the property. All around assemblages of livestock pecked and snouted at the dirt.
“Is this…?” she began.
A man burst through the front door. He was reedy and ancient, sporting a wide straw hat, soiled trousers, and no shirt. He waved madly at his visitors.
“Get away!” the person yelled. Pru quickly ascertained he wasn’t waving but brandishing a revolver. “Get away or I’ll shoot you between the eyes! I’ve done it before!”
“I thought she lived alone?” Pru said, heart pounding.
Then she realized. This wasn’t a man. The screaming, ranting figure was a woman.
“Oh my God.”
“Ah yes,” the attaché said with a sneaky smile. “We have arrived. Welcome to the Grange.”
Seven
THE GEORGE & DRAGON
BANBURY, OXFORDSHIRE, ENGLAND
OCTOBER 2001
Over the years, rumors placed the Duchess in London and Rome and Paris. A few spotted her at the Hotel Splendide in Cannes. Renowned priest Abbé Mugnier reported she was not traveling but instead holed up in a dilapidated estate in Chacombe-at-Banbury, an Oxfordshire hamlet.
According to reports, the priest visited his old friend once a year, on Christmas Day. If he tried more often, Gladys shooed him away with warning shots or a vicious pack of snapping geese. Sometimes she leaned out a window and dumped a bucket of water on his head.
The world was skeptical of Mugnier’s reports from the Grange but the doubting always struck this writer as bizarre. Here was a religious man, a fellow known as “le confesseur des duchesses,” the confessor of duchesses. Surely he would know of which he spoke. When I tracked down his fifty-seven cahiers de moleskine at the Diocèse de Paris, I found the proof I sought.
—J. Casper Augustine Seton,
The Missing Duchess: A Biography
“It wasn’t the most auspicious welcome,” Gus said, draining the last of his cider. “To be greeted by century-old nude breasts. And a gun.”
Annie tried not to blush.
Half of her wanted to chastise this dirty old man for mentioning boobs while the other half was sniggling like a thirteen-year-old boy. She felt at times old-fashioned and hopelessly juvenile, as if she could’ve been born in 1879 or 1979. Maybe that’s what happened when you grew up on a farm and were raised by someone like Laurel, who was about as nonworldly as a person could get. It was a marvel Eric found anything in common with her at all.
“Have I offended you?” Gus asked. “My apologies. I can be a real duffer. Comes with age. Though I don’t know what my excuse was before.”
As he fidgeted, Annie thought she could hear his bones creak.
“Not offended!” she chirped. “And frankly I’d be more put off by the gun. So that was her, I presume? The duchess? No offense, but how scary could she have been? She was, what, ninety years old by the time Pru answered the newspaper ad?”
“Ninety-one. Alas, my dear, we have not established the identity of the screaming harpy. It was the woman rumored to be the duchess, but whether she actually was the duchess remains to be seen.”
“What do you mean, ‘remains to be seen’? You’ve read the book, right?”
“Yes. It’s been a while, but I’ve read it.”
“Look, I know we’re playing this coy game. No spoilers and all that. But let’s be honest, we already know it’s the duchess.”
She turned the book to face Gus.
“Read this part,” she said and ran her finger below the words. “‘Amongst the writings found.’ Start there.”
Amongst the writings found in Abbé Mugnier’s journals were detailed descriptions of his visits to the Grange. In his diaries he also had a receipt from the Royal Oak, a pub not far from the Grange itself.
Oddly, few believed the claims of l’abbé, when he was alive and especially after he died. The man was probably a pettifogger, they decided, mooching off the privileged and prestigious as he did.
Plus, what would the Duchess of Marlborough, this most illustrious creature, want with the hovel he described? She once lived at Blenheim for Christ’s sake, where her blue eyes were painted on the portico ceilings and winged sphinxes with her face marked garden paths.
At Blenheim she entertained the likes of King George and Queen Mary if you’re one for royalty, Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford if you’re partial to film. How could Gladys Deacon leave this grandeur to live alone? Her only guest an aged priest, her only companions a cavalcade of forever-breeding spaniels?