Touchstone (17 page)

Stuyvesant glanced at him; Grey appeared serious.

“Honestly?”

“Oh yes. Sarah and I used to call him Uncle God—his name is Godlake, but God seemed more appropriate. He’s an interesting mixture of twelfth and twentieth centuries. Feudal to his bones but with a peculiar fascination for modern mores. There was a huge uproar two years ago when the Duke gave a speech in the House of Lords supporting the Labour Socialists. The Duke of Hurleigh, of all people! The King was shocked, and called him on the carpet to explain that he hadn’t meant to suggest that the Communists had any justification for murdering the King’s cousin the Tsar, just that shaking things up a little might stimulate the blood of England. He’s big on the blood of England, the Duke is.”

“Even if he’s shedding it with a shotgun.”

“He’s a terrible shot, hasn’t hit an undergraduate yet. Although rumor had it that, during that same year, he invited MacDonald and his daughter out for a weekend and young Ishbel winged a prowling Christchurch man.”

“MacDonald the Prime Minister?”

“And his daughter.”

“You’ve got to be kidding.”

“Have I?”

“The papers would have been full of it, a Prime Minister’s daughter shooting an Oxford student on Hurleigh land? There’d have been an enormous stink.”

“You think so? You could be right, perhaps it was merely a rumor. However, my dear Stuyvesant, you need to remember that our newspaper barons belong to the same clubs as our aristocracy. Not everything juicy makes it to ink.”

That, come to think of it, was true. The newspapers might well have splashed the event all over their front pages had it merely involved the MacDonalds, but enter the Duke of Hurleigh, and English heritage stepped in. Hurleighs had won major battles for a dozen monarchs in a score of countries; Hurleighs had played billiards with kings since the game was invented; Hurleighs had advised prime ministers since the days of Cromwell.

Yes, without question, a house guest of the Duke of Hurleigh would be permitted to plant the odd piece of lead shot in an importunate Oxford undergraduate.

And what of a stray American motorcar salesman? Stuyvesant was aware of a touch of something like heartburn, or anxiety. “I wonder if he’ll set the dogs on me, or just reach for the gun.”

“Neither, if you can convince him you’re a poor benighted Colonial who is filled with humiliation at not having had an Englishman’s opportunities in life, such as learning to ride properly. Of course, then you’ll have to expect a series of pitying lectures.”

“Couldn’t I just be a lost cause?”

“You could try that approach, if you didn’t object to being invisible the rest of the week-end. Just for pity’s sake don’t suggest that foxes should be dispatched with a gun: You’ll have both of them on your neck. Daniel brought a school friend home who had the temerity to suggest such a thing: The police had to be called to rescue him from the tree the dogs had run him up.”

“Thanks for the warning.”

“And another thing I should mention,” Grey said. “The Duke has a knack of blurting out the most appalling
bons mots
and Spoonerisms when he’s upset. When the children were young and we used to race about, wild as a tribe of red Indians, he’d come storming out of his library and bellow at us to ‘cease and desist from all this damnable hurly-burly.’ It always reduced us to helpless giggles, which only made matters worse, as his rages could be honestly terrifying. One summer Thomas and I started a newspaper called the
Hurleigh Burleigh,
but we had to stop because even talking about it made us dissolve in tears of laughter.”

“So: no talk of shooting foxes, no reacting to accidental word play, come up with an excuse for not riding, and never use the word
week-end
in front of the Duchess.”

“That should see you nicely started.”

“I think I’d rather infiltrate a ring of rum-smugglers. The most I’d have to worry about then would be handguns and brass knuckles.”

“You’ll be fine. As I said, the Duke likes Americans, when they’re humble enough. If they’re not, he curses them for ‘spongers’—he hates to feel people are sponging off him—and vanishes until they’ve all left.”

Stuyvesant drove in silence for a while, holding to himself the unlikely image of this deeply wounded man beside him caught up in a fit of boyish giggles. Six miles farther, and Grey directed him to turn off.

They had left the relatively flat farming country around Oxford and entered a landscape of small hills and many trees, set with houses made of a honey-tinted stone. Sheep decorated the hillsides, many of them trailing lambs.

“Are these what they call the Cotswolds?” Stuyvesant asked.

“You haven’t been here before?”

“I spent two weeks in England in 1919, on my way home from France, working my way from London up to the Lakes District. It was February. All I can remember is how damned cold it was, and how little food I could find.”

“I can imagine. Take a right up there past the church.”

They were negotiating the narrow road—in a city he’d have called it an alleyway—through Hurleigh village, which comprised a bank of houses whose doors opened directly onto the road, some shops with window boxes of spring flowers, a hall of some kind, and a church. The village green, where the weekly market would be held, had a war memorial at one end, a stone pillar with names of the dead. Every village they’d been through had a memorial, large or small, grand or simple, all of them just beginning to shed the raw look of fresh-cut stone.

The road left the village just past the church-yard, passing between stone walls topped with clipped hedgerows that bristled with spring nettles. After a mile, the ground dropped away and the hedges lowered, and Stuyvesant saw they were traveling up a wooded valley at whose bottom ran a tidy reed-grown stream. Nestled into the opposite hillside was a cluster of buildings with a square bell tower rising above the trees, a miniature village. It could have illustrated the perfect, timeless beauty of England: quiet, unassuming, precisely the right proportions for their setting, the very arrangement of buildings God had in mind to adorn that patch of landscape.

After passing three small but prosperous-looking farms, the track veered and dove across the stream by way of a ford. Just upstream was a narrow bridge for foot traffic and livestock, a series of graceful stone arches connecting the banks. Stuyvesant geared down and aimed the car’s nose into the rock-laid dip beside it, splashing through six inches of smooth brownish water before slithering up the slope on the other side. Here the road divided, and Grey pointed him towards the left; only then did Stuyvesant realize that the cluster of buildings he’d been admiring was their destination.

Hurleigh House was not what Stuyvesant had expected.

Chapter Twenty-Three

“C
OUNTRY HOUSE” WAS THE STANDARD
British understatement used to describe what Americans would call a mansion, if not a palace: Enormous, ornate, and self contained, the British country house could be an entire village under one roof, designed primarily to impress the hell out of everyone in sight.

Hurleigh House was small, as country houses went—and that by itself spoke of the profound eccentricities of generation after generation of Hurleighs. In any other family, some eighteenth-century modernizer would have razed its Tudor bones to bare ground, carved away the hills behind it, and lifted up in its place a piece of generic Baroque glory. Instead, here was simply a house in the country. Only a part of the structure had the tiny windows and small stones of great age, but the changes and additions had been sympathetic, as though subsequent generations had merely consulted an original master plan whenever they needed to add space.

It was a place like its family, both influential and apart. As if a pope had set up house in a cave, taking with him the authority of the papacy, but leaving behind all the trappings.

The drive came out from under the trees near the stream and through a stand of Brobdingnagian rhododendrons. They passed a stables with open doors, then a stables with closed doors, followed by a long stretch of walled orchard with old, nicely pruned trees and a gate with a glimpse of white chickens scratching in the grass. The orchard gave way to a kitchen garden with neat rows of staked peas and lettuces, followed by a lodge-house, narrow but deep. This building was kept at a demure distance from the main house by the beginnings of a seventy-five-foot-long curve of greenery that wrapped around the circle formed by the end of the drive: assorted shrubs at either end, bracketing a stretch of high, closely trimmed hedge.

It was an oddly anticlimactic arrival to the house, designed more to speed the departure of visitors than to welcome them in. Even the house itself turned a shoulder to the drive, presenting a noncommittal façade of stone, roof-lines, and small windows that looked like afterthoughts. The wall of green was interrupted by three gates: a low, wooden one leading to the lodge-house, a slightly wider iron one set just to the right of the house itself, and downhill from the house, half-concealed by an ancient tumble of rose vine with enormous white blossoms just coming into bloom, another wooden one.

Next to the iron gate at the drive’s end-point there was a gas street-lamp on a tall post. The house had no
porte cochere,
no broad steps up to wide carved doors, and the drive’s circle surrounded not a fountain or sculpture of brazen lions, but a small, thoughtful mountain of deliberately arranged boulders and rocks, planted with alpine miniatures. Stuyvesant wondered if they had come to the servants’ entrance.

Near the street-lamp stood a man of perhaps sixty, wearing a dark suit, and a young woman in a plain blue dress. The man’s suit seemed a touch formal for a family member in his own house in the country, and the girl’s woolen dress was as plain as her face and hair. Stuyvesant tried to think which of the family these might be.

Whoever they were, the man was beaming with pleasure at the sight of Bennett Grey. “Good afternoon, Captain Grey,” he said; there were traces of Scotland in his voice.

“Hello, Gallagher, good to see you again. This is Mr. Stuyvesant, from America.”

“Good day, sir,” the man said, at which point his deferential attitude and Grey’s lack of an honorific arranged themselves in Stuyvesant’s mind, and he caught his hand before it was fully extended: These were servants. Gallagher appeared not to notice the truncated gesture. “I fear I’ve been forced to put you and your guest into the barn. We shall have quite a full house by tomorrow.”

“We’ll be very comfortable there, I have no doubt. Is my sister here yet?”

“I believe her train should be in Oxford within the hour. Shall I tell her that you have arrived?”

“If you would, thanks—I didn’t know when she was coming, or I’d have picked her up as we came through. I think I’ll take my friend for a walk up the Peak. Drinks at the usual time?”

“Six o’clock in the solar, although if you care for tea beforehand, you need only ring. Shall I come and show you to your rooms?”

“Have there been any changes, since I was here last?”

“Nothing has changed in the barn in thirty years, sir.”

“If that’s the case, why don’t we just help ourselves to any free rooms?”

“As you like, sir. Your bags will be over directly.”

“You left the keys in the motor, didn’t you, Stuyvesant?”

“They’re in the ignition.”

“Come along, then. Thank you, Gallagher.”

“Sir,” the butler said.

Somewhat bemused, Stuyvesant trotted after Grey. “We’re sleeping in a barn? I spotted a nice-looking inn, back at that last village.”

Grey laughed, a sound so care-free, it might have issued from the boy who had known Hurleigh House during that unimaginable idyll before the guns of France. “Don’t worry, there won’t be a hay-stack in sight.”

A shady path followed the north side of the house, through a miniature woodland of fern, primrose, and tiny white flowers. To the left were a couple of narrow doors with over-hangs, both of them tucked behind shrubs. To the right, where the sun cleared the roof-lines, was a strip of rose garden, the leaves glossy with spring growth and showing the first tentative flowers. An unruly stand of dark evergreen shrubs forced the path into a dog-leg, then the barn came into view.

It had, indeed, once been an agricultural out-building—had functioned as such for centuries, by the look of the bulging walls and the various shapes of stones used in repairs—but its purpose had changed before the century’s turn. Generous windows had been hacked out of the ancient Cotswold stone; when they stepped through the door into the barn’s wide entrance, it was startlingly cozy within.

Stuyvesant did not know much about English houses, but of one thing he was sure: Heat was not a priority.

Even without the unaccustomed warmth, the barn’s entrance was a singular space: The walls were teeming with frescoes: Near the door was painted a twining grape arbor through which could be seen men and women in togas with odd instruments; down the hallway the vista opened onto a landscape of olive trees and ancient buildings. Underfoot, the floor was mosaic, tiny tiles in colorful geometric patterns. And, Stuyvesant noticed, no radiators. He squatted down to lay a hand on the stone tapestry. “The floor is warm,” he said in surprise.

“That’s the hypocaust. Grandfather Hurleigh—the present Duke’s father,” Grey explained, “had a passion for the Romans. Ancient Rome, that is. One of his plows dug up some bricks that turned out to be from a Roman villa, and he had the whole thing meticulously excavated by a team from Oxford. There used to be a scale model of it in the library, and when Grandmamma Hurleigh asked for a place to put the family—they had nine children, and each of them had at least four children—he jumped at the chance to build an hypocaust. Roman under-floor heating. Although this one is fed by pipes, else he’d have had to tear down the barn and build from the ground up. While he was at it, he brought in a crew of Italian mosaicists to do the floor, and hired young art students for the frescoes. Those musicians are his children.”

“Which explains the English-looking faces on top of the Roman robes,” Stuyvesant commented.

“That countryside is odd as well, neither Italian nor English. Which I suppose is not altogether inappropriate for Roman Britain. Let us see, is anyone in here? No—how is this?”

They had climbed the stairs, following a painted valley of small farms in summer browns along their right. In the upper corridor, Grey turned left and crossed the hallway to the farthest door down, where he stuck his head inside, checking for signs of occupation, before standing back to let Stuyvesant enter.

The room was awash with light. It was not large, about fourteen feet on a side, but both external walls had a broad mullioned window topped by a half-circle of painted glass depicting a hill with a tree. After a moment, Stuyvesant saw that they were the same hill and tree, flipped to make a mirror image, although the tree on the east wall bore bright springtime leaves, while its mate to the right dazzled the floor with the oranges and maroons of autumn.

The arboreal theme extended to the bed itself, a mahogany object with four tall posts carved to resemble bark and drapes woven with a pattern of leaves.

“I’m going to feel like I’m sleeping in a tree-house,” he told Grey, and was surprised to hear the pleasure in his voice—this was like some childhood hideaway, and it appealed to a boyish urge he’d have thought well buried. He was smiling as he studied the room, which fortunately was papered not in leaves, but an off-white and light green stripe. The south window showed the long view down the valley, the one on the left overlooked the house and the shady garden they had come through.

“More comfortable than hay and a stable-blanket?”

“You Brits have some interesting ideas about barns.”

“I shouldn’t expect to find anything like this outside the Hurleigh sphere. The family has been noted for its eccentricities for centuries. Ah, here come your things.”

The maid in the blue dress and a young man in corduroy trousers and a pull-over—a footman, Stuyvesant supposed—appeared up the stairs, cases in hand. “Mr. Stuyvesant will be in here,” Grey told them, “and you can put my kit down at the end.”

“The coach room or the secret room?” she asked.

“The secret room will do fine—er, what is your name?”

“Deedee, sir,” she told him, sketching a brief approximation of a curtsey. “And this is Alex.”

“You’re both new here since the War, I think?”

“We are, sir, although Alex’s mother was in service here when she was young.”

Grey turned to study the young man’s face. “Emily? Something, started with a P.”

“Porter, sir.”

“You have her eyes. She used to sneak us bread and dripping, when we came begging at the kitchen door. Remember me to her, would you?”

“Will do, sir.”

Alex laid Stuyvesant’s battered leather case on the holder beside the wardrobe and carried the other case down the hallway. Stuyvesant turned an eye on Grey. “‘The secret room’?”

Grey gave him a grin that made the man look a decade younger than the headache-ridden wretch of Cornwall. “Come and see when you’re settled in.”

Turning back into his room, Stuyvesant nearly ran down the young maid, who lingered just inside the door. “Sir, if I might have the key to your valise, I could put your clothing away.”

“Oh, no, honey—er, Deedee. That’s fine. I’ll do it myself. Thanks.”

The young woman turned pink and slipped out, closing the door gently behind her. Stuyvesant, making a mental note not to call the staff “honey,” slid the bolt and carried his valise over to the bed. He pulled a small key from his watch-pocket, unlocked the case, and upended shirts, linen, evening dress, and shaving kit onto the bed. He then righted the case and reached inside, peeling the bottom back with his fingernails until he touched cold steel.

The Colt was smaller than his revolver of choice, sacrificing power and accuracy for ease of concealment. He couldn’t see himself swaggering into an English drawing room with a six-shooter strapped to his side, but no way was he going on a job unarmed—and sure, he had a lock-blade knife and the well-worn brass knuckles he’d had made to fit his hand, but those didn’t really count as “armed.” At the reminder, he burrowed back into the valise’s false bottom and came up with the knuckles as well; the knife was already in his pocket.

The question was, where to put the weapons? Not that anyone was going to search his room here, but he had a feeling that his valise was going to be tidied away as soon as his back was turned, so he looked around for a place where servants might not go, or curious snoops poke their noses. It took him five minutes of prying to discover a loose board on the floor of the wardrobe. He settled the gun and the knuckles in there and pushed the board back into place.

He thrust his clothes onto hangers and stuck them in the wardrobe, shoveled his other garments into the drawers, and arranged his shiny evening shoes and his worn walking boots atop the loose board. When he had splashed water on his face in the corner sink, he crossed the hallway to use the toilet, then followed the voices to the other end of the barn.

Grey’s chosen room was the last on the same side of the corridor, with one door between it and Stuyvesant’s. It was simple room, stark even, compared with the one Stuyvesant had been given, but more serene than secretive: unadorned bed-posts, a plain blue bed-cover wound about with rows of stitching, a subtle geometric design on the floor’s throw-rug. It might have been a monk’s dwelling, except for the quality of each object.

Grey was still talking with the two servants when Stuyvesant tapped at the open door and put his head in. Alex instantly took his leave, looking abashed at having been caught chatting with a guest. The maid, Deedee, scurried out after him, some of Grey’s garments draped over her arm.

“‘Secret room,’ huh?” Stuyvesant asked. Grey did not answer, merely raised his eyebrows and waited for the American to figure it out.

The woven rug on the floor caught Stuyvesant’s eye first: The geometric design wound around and around and back and forth, some lines coming to a halt, others connecting: a maze, in blue and brown wool. And the stitching on the bed-cover? Another labyrinth, intricate and tightly detailed; it would take hours to unlock the puzzle.

His eyes traveled across the walls, then to the bed itself. Its corner-posts were capped with flattened pyramids; one of them was at a slight angle to the others. He examined it, running his fingers up and down the post to search for the controls, but he had to go all the way to the bottom before he found the button that freed the post cap.

The shallow space beneath the cap was empty. He replaced it, pressed down until he heard a click, then investigated the other three posts. All were empty but for a sweet-wrapper in the bottom of one.