Lord Mullion's Secret Page 11

  ‘I don’t think I’d come after you with a horsewhip.’ Lord Mullion’s agreeable capacity for amusement prevailed over any sense of shock he may have felt at this outré question. ‘But it might be a long time before I next offered you a square meal.’

  ‘But if it was your great-great-grandfather. And if I were a professional historian, and felt the information to be relevant in assessing the character of, say, an eminent statesman–’

  ‘My dear Charles, we’ve never gone in for eminent statesmen, although I suppose we damned well ought to have. So it all doesn’t apply – and you can shut up, old boy. If you ever have to find a new way to the day’s bread and cheese, you might get a job as one of those fellows who do probing interviews for the BBC.’

  There had been a touch of asperity about this – as well as unexpected evidence of a power of freakish repartee on Lord Mullion’s part. But at least he wasn’t remotely offended, and the two gentlemen descended into the castle as well pleased with one another as before. Honeybath, however, came to feel that he had been probing. It had not, indeed, been about any specific situations or episodes which might have been giving Henry uneasiness over his son and heir – or, for that matter, over his daughters either. But Honeybath did wonder how Henry would have received the information that Lady Patience Wyndowe was giving serious thought to the problem of misalliance as it might bob up within a noble family. He was himself in the dark as to what could have lain behind that peculiar nocturnal colloquy with Patty. But on this – as it happened, and in a peculiar manner – a perfectly clear light was to be shed quite soon.

  There was now a good deal of bustle in the castle: more than enough to make Honeybath feel that his own professional business there was unlikely to be advanced that day. He realized that his hosts were not in the position of grandees owning so vast a mansion that they could live spaciously in a quarter of it and run the rest as a museum. The tourists who could pay up and enter the castle (twice weekly, if they cared to) at ten o’clock in the morning were authentically viewing apartments from which the Mullions had scurried five minutes before. It was an extraordinary state of affairs for any quietly disposed family to put up with, and Honeybath could only suppose that the takings at the till were essential to the Mullions if they were to hang on to this place in which they had lived for centuries. No doubt turning the castle into a business concern carried other financial advantages or easements well understood by accountants and solicitors. But Honeybath, who would have found quite intolerable holding on to his small Chelsea studio on any sort of analogous terms, judged it a rum go, all the same.

  As he and Lord Mullion returned from their aerial mission they were met by Savine, who was in what was presumably a customary Wednesday and Saturday state of gloom.

  ‘One of the outside men has been asking for you, my lord,’ he said glumly. ‘I told him it was a most inconvenient time. He said he’d wait and see.’

  ‘The devil he did! Wait and see what?’

  ‘Yourself, my lord. Or that appeared to be the implication.’

  ‘Who is he, Savine?’

  ‘Gore appears to be the name, my lord. One of Mr Pring’s men.’

  ‘Then why doesn’t he see Pring? And do you mean this young man is still around?’

  ‘Yes, indeed. By “waiting” he meant taking a seat in the servants’ hall. It was something of a liberty. But I have your lordship’s instructions to maintain good relations with the outdoor staff at all times.’

  ‘Well, well – he’s a very decent lad. Send him into my office, Savine, and I’ll have a word with him at once. Charles, I’ll just go and see what this is about. You’ll find Mary somewhere around, doing the flowers. She’ll dig you out a lurking-hole for the day.’ With this semi-serious remark Lord Mullion departed for whatever it was that he chose to call his office. Savine, having done his duty, departed too. Honeybath himself lingered for some minutes in the great hall of the castle, where a couple of servants were already arranging a long table with various wares to be peddled to the visitors: guidebooks, picture postcards, a range of mysteriously ‘home-made’ preserves, and bits and pieces of pottery emblazoned with this and that. Having gone in for this sort of effort, the Mullions, very properly, didn’t do things by halves.

  It has to be observed at this point that Honeybath, although a man of keen observation of what was going on around him, was at present quite without certain of the gentle reader’s advantages. So what now came into his head he had to account a very bizarre notion indeed. He had not ceased to think from time to time of Swithin Gore, his rescuer of the previous day. But he thought of him not only as his rescuer but also as the young man whom he had so unjustly aspersed outside the barn later in the afternoon. What he remembered in particular, and still with keen discomfort, was the strength and quality of Swithin’s reaction to the inference that he had been misconducting himself amid the hay with some compliant village girl. It was the reaction – Honeybath now told himself – of a youth who is accused of some piece of casual carnality when it so happens that he is rather seriously in love.

  This line of thought was sensible enough. But now a wild leap of the imagination befell Honeybath. It was in the direction, needless to say, of Lady Patience Wyndowe. Here was what that strange conversation had really been about. The gardener’s boy was in love with Patty, and Patty was not at all sure that she wasn’t in love with him.

  This, again, only seemed extravagant. It was, as we happen to know, the truth. But now Honeybath’s mind went sailing on. Swithin Gore had established himself in his mind as a very forthright and purposeful young man. He might be good at having flowers grow under his fingers, but wouldn’t be disposed to let the grass grow under his feet. He had come to an understanding with his employer’s daughter. And the interview now taking place he had sought for the purpose of asking his employer for her hand.

  Possessed of this astonishing vision, Honeybath felt very rightly appalled. Only a singularly romantic turn of mind would see the likelihood of anything other than misfortune and even disaster in such an entanglement. He had spoken sagely to Patty about unequal marriages, but now felt that he had been far from speaking strongly enough. Such love-affairs happen, and no doubt they sometimes turn out well. But at the start the love involved can only be eye-love and nothing else: a matter of sudden overwhelming physical attraction unsupported by any of those compatibilities and next to instinctive assumptions in the field of manners and conduct and interests which constitute the stabilizing element in marriage. Honeybath, as a sensible man of the world, knew this very well. It was true that his heart spoke to him otherwise. Moreover he was himself commanded, as an artist has to be, by his eye. With the outward eye he had never seen Lady Patience Wyndowe and Swithin Gore together. But with his inward eye he could do so perfectly. And they were as beautiful as Ferdinand and Miranda – or, for that matter, as Florizel and Perdita. You could take your choice.

  Having thus let his fancy run away with him, Charles Honeybath was greatly troubled. Henry, he felt sure, would be completely bewildered. Henry, in an easy-going and unreflective way, was the most liberal-minded of men. If Dr Atlay’s grand principle of subordination were proposed to him he would merely make fun of it. But this would be because no intimate challenge to the general idea of it had ever come his way. Henry would be confounded. It would be on Mary that there fell the task of sorting things out.

  As Honeybath told himself this, Lady Mullion appeared in the hall. She was carrying a mass of white roses.

  ‘That admirable Swithin Gore,’ she said, ‘has persuaded Pring to let me have all these Mermaids. Of course they keep on coming and coming, but the old man is absurdly jealous of them. Have you seen Patty anywhere, Charles? She must help me with them at once.’

  ‘No, I’ve been with Henry hoisting the flag.’ Honeybath glanced around, and saw that he was now alone with Patty’s mother. ‘Mary,’ he said, ‘I’ve something rather difficult to tell you.’

  ‘Difficult?
’ Lady Mullion put down the roses, and was serious at once. ‘Whatever it is, do say.’

  ‘I really don’t know–’ Honeybath, moments too late, had come to his senses. If his conjecture was correct, it was for Henry to break the news to his wife. If he had got the thing wholly wrong, then he would be making a hopeless fool of himself. In this wretched quandary, precipitated by over-impulsive speech, he fumbled about in his mind and found what reflection would have suggested to him as a more than dubious way out. ‘It’s about the Hilliards,’ he said.

  ‘The Hilliards?’ Lady Mullion was bewildered. ‘Is there anything wrong with them? Are they fakes?’

  ‘No, not exactly that. But something very unaccountable has happened, and last night I hesitated to worry Henry about it. It seemed to me that – well, that there might be some obscure family explanation.’

  ‘I see.’ Lady Mullion looked at Honeybath (Honeybath felt) much as if he had made a lucid and intelligent observation. ‘But just what has happened?’

  ‘One of the three miniatures – according to Dr Atlay, of an unidentified male member of the Wyndowe family – has been removed, and a reproduction of another miniature substituted.’

  ‘Martin Atlay noticed this?’

  ‘Oddly enough, he didn’t. He was discoursing on the things, but not really looking at them. It was only I who noticed what must have happened, and I decided for the moment to say nothing.’

  ‘You may have been very wise.’ Lady Mullion had picked up one of the Mermaid roses, and was studying it with apparent care. ‘Just what do you make of it all, Charles?’

  ‘The most obvious explanation is that a thief devised a method of making away with one of the miniatures and contriving that the fact should be undetected for some time.’

  ‘You don’t think, Charles, that you may have something to do’ with it?’

  ‘My dear Mary!’

  ‘I know it sounds silly. But, for a start, this can’t have happened long ago. Henry and the children are not much interested in these things, and might notice nothing amiss for quite a long time. And that goes, in a way, for those women who take people round. They declare this or that to be tremendously interesting, but they don’t really look themselves. But I am rather fond of the Hilliards, and do look at them quite often. All three were certainly undisturbed only a few days ago. And then, you know, you turn up. So it’s almost as if somebody had decided, rather hurriedly, that the real miniature must be kept out of your sight, and took a chance that you wouldn’t, during your stay, detect that any funny business had taken place.’ Lady Mullion paused, and looked searchingly at Honeybath. ‘Can you make anything of that?’

  ‘Absolutely not, Mary dear. It seems to me to make no sense at all.’

  ‘I am quite sure that most people would agree with you.’ Lady Mullion produced this slightly ambiguous remark with continued gravity. ‘The question is, what do we do now? And I’m rather glad you said nothing last night.’

  ‘I’m uneasy about that, actually. But you will understand, Mary, that I saw various rather awkward possibilities.’

  ‘Quite so – and they remain awkward. So for the moment I think you and I will keep this to ourselves.’

  ‘Very well.’ Honeybath couldn’t help feeling slightly surprised by this decision – excluding, as it appeared to do, even Henry from a knowledge of the affair. ‘But there is one thing I ought to point out. If the Hilliards are insured and a claim has eventually to be made, it might be awkward if it transpired that you and I had kept the loss under our hats for any length of time.’

  ‘I have no doubt that is true. Nevertheless, I’d like to think it over for a few days.’ For the first time, Lady Mullion hesitated. ‘I have to think of Henry,’ she then said. ‘You mayn’t know this, but he has an almost pathological dislike of scandal.’

  ‘As a matter of fact, I’ve had a glimpse of that.’ Honeybath was a good deal perplexed by the final turn this conversation had taken. He had a sense of bewilderments gathering all around him at Mullion Castle. But was it possible that they were, so to speak, only so many facets of a single master bewilderment? He had just arrived at this obscure idea when Lady Mullion looked at her watch.

  ‘Good heavens!’ she said. ‘There will be a first coachload in fifteen minutes. I simply must find Patty and set her to those Mermaids.’

  13

  Because she was briskly busy, and perhaps also because she was a little upset, Lady Mullion neglected to suggest to Honeybath anything in the nature of what her husband had facetiously called a lurking-hole. It was improbable that the family really hid themselves in cupboards when the public began to pour in. Their retreat must be to quarters at least reasonably commodious somewhere in the castle. But nothing, as it happened, had been said to Honeybath about this.

  He could, of course, with perfect propriety retire to his bedroom (which by this time he was able to locate with confidence). It would already have been scurried through by a housemaid – probably the elderly woman who had brought him tea and pulled up his blinds at eight o’clock. He really did have correspondence to attend to, and the various pieces of professional equipment with which he hoped soon to be getting busy required a certain amount of sorting through. But the morning was fine and already very warm, and he thought it might be pleasant to wander out into the gardens for an hour or so. Two considerations, however, restrained him here. The first was the knowledge that the gardens, too, would soon be full of visitors, or so he supposed, since he had gathered that it was possible to ‘do’ this particular aspect of spacious living for a lesser fee than was required to view the interior of the castle. He felt no disinclination to thus mingling with the herd. But it did occur to him that if he did so he might be mistaken for Lord Mullion, and in consequence stared at, photographed, and even accosted. This was an idea demonstrably absurd, and he realized that it was the second consideration that really deterred him. This one, looked at fairly, was pretty silly too. In the gardens there might be gardeners, and one of them might be young Swithin Gore. If he encountered Swithin he would have to speak to him. There was no rational reason why he should not do this. Indeed, he knew that he must seek Swithin out quite soon for the honourable purpose of apologizing to him over his own improper suspicion of the previous afternoon. But he felt that Swithin needed a little thinking out first. Why he felt this he didn’t know. He was, perhaps, dimly conscious that he had (like the reader) some odd ideas lurking in his head about the young man.

  In this exigency he thought of his late perch beneath that fluttering flag. The view from up there had been exceedingly attractive, and it might be pleasant to settle himself before it with a sketch-book until it seemed desirable to find out what happened on visiting days about that soup and bread and cheese.

  He put this plan into operation, first providing himself with what materials it required, and presently found himself in a solitude shared only with a few pigeons that had strayed upwards from the manorial dovecot. He decided that they were collar-doves and perhaps nowadays to be regarded as a pest. They were pretty creatures, all the same, and it was a pity that nothing much could be done about them with a pencil on dry paper. So he settled himself down in a reasonably comfortable coign of the masonry and plumped for the church tower as the pivot of an unassuming sketch of the park. It was just visible beyond a grove of oaks. Within a few minutes he was entirely absorbed in initial problems. of perspective – so much that it was with a start of surprise that he presently found himself to be no longer alone. Lord Wyndowe had appeared on the leads, and was now standing behind the artist, apparently studying his work. Honeybath put down his pencil.

  ‘Good morning, Cyprian,’ he said. ‘Are you taking refuge up here too?’

  ‘Good morning, sir. More or less that.’ Cyprian advanced to the battlements and peered over them. ‘Bloody buses rolling up, all right,’ he said. ‘The motor cars are mostly people on their own. The buses – coaches, they call them – are all fixed up with a firm in London. You
have to get on one of the major tourist itineraries, and then you’re OK. But there’s the hell of a rake-off.’

  ‘I see.’ It was a shade reluctantly that Honeybath transferred his attention from the church tower to the heir of the Mullions. Cyprian had not appeared at breakfast – a circumstance consonant with the fact that he was now still wearing pyjamas and a dressing-gown. But this state of the case obtained only for a few moments. Cyprian was carrying a rug, which he now spread out on the sloping roof before stripping himself of both dressing-gown and pyjamas, tossing these garments at random round him, and stretching himself supine beneath the warm sun.

  ‘Business of keeping bronzed and fit,’ he said. ‘I’m what would have been called a hearty in your time. Just look at my flat tummy. What do you think of it?’

  ‘It seems perfectly in order, Cyprian.’

  ‘Yes – but is it going to last after I’ve finished up with all that bloody rowing? Or am I booked for a flabby middle age?’

  ‘It depends on what you do with yourself, I suppose.’

  ‘How right you are! Why don’t you strip off too? This place is made for sun-bathing. Nothing to goggle at you except those blameless birds.’

  Honeybath refrained from falling in with this suggestion. He took no exception to sharing his solitude with a naked young man, and even felt a certain attraction in the idea of transferring his professional attentions from the church tower to a recumbent male nude. But establishing a kind of mini-colony of nudists thus beneath the ancestral Mullion flag made no appeal to him. In addition to which he was not without a certain self-consciousness about his own flabby middle age.

  ‘Do you mean,’ he asked, ‘that you’re beginning to wonder about a career for yourself?’

  ‘Well, about a course of life, you might say. My father says that running this place oughtn’t to be a full-time job in itself. Or not any longer, he says. Changing times, and so on.’