White Stone Day (12 page)

speaks without looking up: 'You have been brought to us on charges of
the most serious kind. However, it is not for me to judge your
innocence or guilt. You will be treated in the same manner as any
other prisoner. Innocent or guilty, you will receive the full benefit
of the programme.' Brass it out. 'This is a disgrace, sir, and the
charges against me are preposterous. I demand to see my solicitor at
once.' 'I shall overlook that outburst because you have just arrived.
Another like it, however, and you shall receive an admonition, and
from there a rising scale of punishment for each subsequent offence.
Mr Clive here will read you the rules of the institution in due
course, along with an explanation of the refractory system.' The
refractory system, from what Whitty has heard, follows an almost
mystical principle having to do with the propensity of both plants
and people to require light as a source of energy. Therefore, so it
goes, if one wishes to reform a man, one must remove the energy that
nourishes his misbehaviour. With good behaviour, light is gradually
restored to the prisoner, giving life to virtue. Heaven knows what
the refractory system will produce when combined with the silent
system – a population of lighthouse–keepers, perhaps.
'You will be taken to the surgeon for a thorough examination. Having
been judged fit, your hair will be cut, you will be dressed, and you
will be placed in a cell in the receiving ward. There you will
remain, separate and in silence, for a period of six months. Your
progress rests with you as you contemplate your sins and pray for
God's mercy, on your journey to the light. Be aware that you are
being watched, sir, by the eyes of your superiors and by Almighty
God, and that you will answer for every move you make, both here and
in the hereafter.' 73 WHITE STONE DAY The governor turns to the
officer: 'Mr Clive, you will see to the prisoner's admittance, and
that he maintains strict silence. 'And a good–day to you, Mr
Willows.' Upon hearing himself addressed by that name, Whitty's hopes
for rescue evaporate. Salmon has buried him in an unmarked grave. He
will never be found. 74 13

Bissett
Grange, Oxfordshire How cheerfully he seems to grin, How neatly
spreads his claws, And welcomes little fishes in With gently smiling
jaws! Nestled in the petals of a red silk dressing–gown, the
Duke of Danbury warms himself at the fire before contemplating the
duties and pleasures of the day; diminished, alas, since olden times,
when a Danbury owned a third of the county's available land, when
two–thirds of the popu– lation were serfs, and England
stood united by ties of blood and service. In its sober, antiquated
elegance, the room maintains a well–bred, co– operative
silence. A liver–coloured Maltese named Fetch sits lightly upon
the duke's lap, its forepaws crossed, inquisitive face turned upward,
intent upon the slightest motion of its master's face. 'Turn out the
brute, will you?' says Danbury, lifting neither his voice or his
gaze. As with Fetch, the estate manager awaits Danbury's word with
the unflagging constancy expected of his position. Betraying no sign
of resentment, Lush rises from his stool, takes hold of Fetch,
carries her to the hall in such a way that he will not get hairs on
his coat, and hands her to a footman. Returning to the library, he
places his stool at an angle from which he can see the duke's face.
'Your Grace is to meet with the solicitors today. Do you wish to ride
or drive?' 'Neither. I shall not speak to the solicitors at all.'
'Your Grace did not speak to them yesterday,' Lush says, then
switches his mode of expression to the familiar Oxford style, to
remind the Duke that they are fellow–alumni, that he is
something more than just a servant. 'Sailing close to the wind,
Harry. Cash–flow is much improved, but prices cannot remain
this high – you continue to run up debts, eh what, old chap?'
'I will not be bullied by clerks. Surely they are not unaware that
Uncle will soon join the choir invisible.' 'At present, Lord Donlevy
remains sufficiently alive to make troubling statements about your
Grace in public.' 75 WHITE STONE DAY 'Donlevy is superfluous. Nobody
listens to him.' It is true, thinks Lush, that life at Bissett Grange
will become very much easier when Lord Donlevy expires. The duke is
the logical inheritor of the Ryelands estate, worth £12,000 a
year – sufficient to put behind the regrettable business to
which they have had to stoop, periodically, for over half a decade.
Making things doubly difficult, financially speaking, the duke has
taken a keen, nay fanatical, interest in resurrecting the atavistic
glory of the Danburys at Bissett Grange. The duke's staff are now
entirely male as tradition demands. The footmen are Irishmen of
Cro–Magnon pro– portions, while the gardeners, plucked
from isolated islands, speak an archaic dialect incomprehensible to
the modern ear. Unless addressed by the duke, butlers and footmen
face the wall when in his presence. There are many who suspect
Danbury to have a slate loose; yet the same is said of many
aristocrats in the countryside, with no loss of status. 'Harry,
surely it is the thing to court your creditors, don't you know.
Remember that the heirship is not absolutely certain.' 'It is too
early in the morning for this discussion. Servicing debt is a beastly
business.' True, Lush thinks – beastly in more than one sense.
The estate manager has his complaints, Heaven knows; yet for the most
part, he is content. His accounts have made steady progress, with
retirement in the offing, which will bring this grovelling to an end,
and he will be free and clear. Taking a heaping spoonful of snuff in
each nostril, Danbury says, without sneezing, 'I wish to discuss the
family at Crouch Manor and our overtures to them.' Lush utters a
suppressed sigh. 'I sent cards and preliminary pleasantries, as
requested. I continue to strongly advise your Grace against it.' 'And
if you think I give a tinker's damn what you think, you are
catastrophically mistaken.' The estate manager draws out a notebook
and moistens his pencil. His colourless eyes glance at the far wall,
containing an arrangement of military pistols. He could make good use
of one, right now. 'Shut the door, will you?' Danbury says, while
selecting a cigar from the box on the side–table, I shan't
speak into the corridor.' Lush obliges. 'Your Grace is set on having
them to dinner, then? With the usual crowd?' 76 BISSETT GRANGE,
OXFORDSHIRE 'Yes. The photography set is rather a ragged lot, yet
Boltbyn must be included. Without the others as well, it would appear
odd.' 'It requires very little for Mr Boltbyn to appear odd.' 'I want
him under my protection – with the family, of course.' 'London
is the largest city in the world. Isn't it the height of folly to
pursue subjects so close to home?' 'London is a source of unlimited
trouble – as recent events indicate. I want the business to be
entirely under my purview.' Danbury has two voices, thinks Lush. One
voice is a superficial drawl, dripping with ennui; the other is a
melodious murmur with humorous accents, and a peremptory undertone; a
silken sensibility masking a will, or a whim, of iron. 'Are there any
other guests your Grace wishes to invite?' Danbury takes two long,
luxurious puffs of his cigar before replying. 'Just be certain that
the daughters come. Later we will invite them to tea, together with
Mr Boltbyn – and the mother, of course.' 'Harry, I really
cannot think what is wrong with the current system.' 'That is because
you do not think at all. Now is the time to increase production, to
take advantage of the current market. London abounds with policemen
and journalists, sniffing about for scandal. There will be none of
that sort of thing at Bissett Grange.' The duke grows greedy, thinks
Lush, and overestimates his sphere of influence. The estate manager
is worried. A spot on his head has sprouted an itchy rash, like the
bloom of a discouraging thought. He has known the duke for a very
long time. As a student of mathematics at St Ambrose College, Albin
Lush attached himself to a set of gentlemen–commoners by
supplying certain substances and services that were off limits.
Eventually, his noble associates deemed his presence worthwhile, and
invited them to their gatherings. Then came an opportunity to assist
Danbury after the death of the parents. In this position Lush curried
favour with his charge by any means necessary, so that when the duke
reached his majority there was no question who should manage the
estate. In the years since, however, familiarity has bred contempt on
both sides. Lush is well aware that Danbury finds their old–school
past an irritant, and he views his superior as an effete squanderer.
He knows he will be kicked out of the manor as soon as the duke has
the wherewithal to do his own kicking, and looks forward to his
emancipation – Provided that he has skimmed sufficient cash to
fund it. In the 77 WHITE STONE DAY meantime, he treads carefully
for it is in precisely this mood that Danbury will announce his
dismissal. 'Leave me alone, will you?' says Danbury, at which Lush
heads for the door, only to be stopped midway by that contemptuous
drawl. 'On second thoughts, you will oblige me by bringing pen and
paper, and wait for this letter.' Lush must now stand by while the
duke scrawls a brief note in his impossibly elegant, baroque script.
'Tell O'Day to deliver this at once, will you?' he says, passing the
letter to Lush without looking at him, as if he were as much an
implement as the pen and paper. 'By the way, is the London matter
resolved?' 'Not quite, your Grace. The journalist should be rotting
in Newgate, but from the newspapers it seems he has mysteriously
disappeared. Our brutes will require another £50 to undertake a
pursuit.' Lush intends to keep £45 for himself; he will forward
the brutes at least a fiver for then– trouble. 'Confound their
prices, whoever they are. They are bleeding me white over this.' 'I
have no belief in psychic phenomena,' replies Lush, 'but we cannot
have old issues, for whatever reason. Pre–emptive action was
required.' 'In future, stock Buckingham Gate with some sort of
religious cult. I've had my fill of psychics.' With a grimace, the
duke tosses his cigar into the fire, and partakes of another pinch of
snuff. Spared the presence of his estate manager, Danbury settles
into the armchair that once embraced his father and grandfather.
Before him the lawn undulates upward as far as Dragon Hill, where the
Roland Stones stand like hunchbacked sentries against the horizon –
the remains of a neolithic temple and, fittingly, a monument to the
ruling class of its era. As always, one stone dominates – the
Knight Stone, its features rotted as though by leprosy. In the Middle
Ages, barren women pressed their breasts to it in hopes of a child;
in Tudor times witches conducted pagan rituals at its feet. Even
today, something about the place evokes vague, disturbing energies, a
coalescence of time, light, electricity, and an intensified gravity
of spirit. On the far side of Dragon Hill sits a small cave known as
the Wayland Smithy, named for a legend that the shoes of St George's
steed were forged within. According to tradition, if a man leaves his
horse beside the Smithy with a penny in payment, the horse will be
shod upon 78 BISSETT GRANGE, OXFORDSHIRE his return. Men who swear to
have witnessed the miracle have worked this soil for so many
generations, they might as well be made of it; men whose loyalty
Danbury trusts for the same reason one trusts a dray horse –
because he knows nothing else. The Duke of Danbury likewise draws no
real distinction between himself, his estate, his legacy and his
position, and would no more seek to separate fact from legend than he
would take apart his own eye to see how it functions. And yet,
momentous changes have befallen the great families of England.
Noblemen have to consider how to afford the maintenance of the
grounds, how to finance a hunting party, how to pay for a new roof
for the stables. Rather than face this crushing burden, many have let
their estates to industrialists and bankers, and retired to France as
exiles, driven by penury from the country they once led. That will
not happen at Bissett Grange. Filling his glass with aqua vitae from
the crystal carafe on the side– table, Danbury rises, takes a
tiny silver spoon, and scoops a portion of medicinal powder from the
little ebony box on the mantel. Waiting for the powder to take
effect, he pulls open a drawer in the side–table, removes a
stack of photographs and examines them one by one, using a
magnifying–glass in order to appreciate Boltbyn's uncanny
crispness of focus. Each depicts the elder daughter of the new
precentor at the Church of St Swithan, as an actor in an imagined
dramatic tableau: – seated sideways in a chair in a frilled
morning–dress, face cocked on an angle with an expression of
impudent boredom stealing into the wood away from her sleeping
governess, an expression of delicious mischief in her eye – as
a runaway, climbing out of a bedroom window onto a white ladder
decorated with a garland – frolicking in the forest, her
dress in tatters and flowers in her hair – as a beggar girl,
palms together, with one bared shoulder and a coquettish look of
supplication. Bracebridge Hemyng presented these images to him as
part of a Proposal to publish a sentimental picture–book
entitled, The Runaway: Tale of a Prodigal Daughter, a cautionary
fable designed for the drawing–room tables in Manchester.
Naturally, Danbury is expected to underwrite the initial printing.
What a superb model she makes, and what a captivating face and form!
And to think that these pictures were taken by the insufferable 79
WHITE STONE DAY prig Boltbyn! Who would suspect that his tastes ran
in that direction? With some adjustments in costume, these very
pictures would arouse the most ardent sentiments in the viewer, and
the highest prices on the market. How does a photograph attain such
clarity yet appear as if the subject has been caught in an unguarded
instant, frozen in time? Danbury thinks of his own compositions,
always stiff and clumsy. Even with the forced co–operation of
the subject, the results are about as life–like as a mannequin.
He has neither the sensibility nor the skill of a Boltbyn, and must
discard far more plates than he uses. Bissett Grange would be solvent
by now, were he possessed of Boltbyn's skill – or better yet,
Boltbyn himself . . . His ears begin to buzz like an extended cat's
purr, and the girl before him recedes into cloud. Ah yes – the
powder. Feeling slightly queasy, he pours eau de Cologne upon his
handkerchief, wipes the perspiration from his forehead, leans back,
closes his eyes – and another face appears, covered by a thin
white hood, wet with rainwater. At the age of fifteen, Harry Godwin,
for reasons understood only by boys of that age, once attended the
execution of a woman. The event was heavily covered in the press. Her
relative youth, her fine form and features (engravings were sold,
with varying authenticity), added a prurient component to the
excitement over her approaching death. A sight not to be missed.
Harry played truant by counterfeiting an ague then bribing the
servants with his tuck money, then took a cab to Dorchester in the
early morning to claim a spot with a view of the square. Hundreds had
already gathered by the time he arrived; but he was able to creep
within twenty feet of the gallows, as if the whole universe were
co–operating with his desires. A massive intake of breath
issued from the mob as the woman appeared upon the platform; followed
by a silence so profound that the future Duke of Danbury could
actually hear the rustle of her black silk dress as she mounted the
scaffold. She was a housewife from Beaminster, condemned for killing
her husband with a hatchet after he had striped her face with a
tantor's whip during a quarrel. The circumstance surrounding the act
might have brought a reprieve had she not attempted to conceal the
crime by claiming that he had been kicked by a horse. Having lied to
the authorities, she earned no credit for her subsequent confession
and her fate was sealed. 80 BISSETT GRANGE, OXFORDSHIRE Her head was
covered by a thin white hood. A light but penetrating rain had been
drizzling since dawn, and the white fabric soon clung to her so that
one could almost discern her features, like a marble statue, so calm
and so lovely that even Calcraft the executioner appeared
uncharacteristically distracted; only after he ascended the iron
stairs did he remember to tie her dress around her body, so that her
limbs would not be indecently exposed. When she dropped, the burly
tradesman standing next to the future duke fell to the cobbles in a
swoon; yet young Harry's eyes remained open, greedily taking in the
sight as though it were the last wine left in Europe, to be savoured
in memory ever after. Since then, Danbury has since witnessed a good
deal of death – the death of children, the death of his only
friend – as necessary, mundane evils, for the greater good.
None had the effect of that first experience. You never forget your
first. A SCENT OF SPITE by Henry Owler Special Correspondent The