Old Hall, New Hall Page 6

  ‘But I’ve just seen somebody. A woman. She’s disappeared somewhere below.’ Sadie’s voice was excited. ‘She must have scrambled down this tremendous old ivy. Dusty but not dangerous. I’m going too.’

  ‘I don’t in the least see why you should.’ The ivy had a trunk like a tree, and its branches seemed to niche themselves securely all over the place. So it certainly wasn’t a particularly formidable descent. But Clout had some doubts about getting up again; and moreover if somebody was really exploring the mausoleum he didn’t see why Sadie and he should barge in and interrupt. Sadie however was now clambering down, and he felt he had no choice but to follow. She had been right about the dust. He was coated in it and his lungs felt full of it by the time he arrived at the bottom. They stood side by side, looking and listening. Clout had a notion that Sadie wanted to take his hand – not by way of suggesting any reviving of their former flame, but because of an intuition that something was going to happen; that the unexpected and disquieting was about to confront them.

  It was warmer inside Sir Joscelyn Jory’s mausoleum than it was without; their sensation as they looked up was of being at the bottom of a well so broad and shallow that the mild October sun reached down into it and soaked it. And the cooing of the doves was louder; they could be seen high up, comfortably tucked away wherever a stone had sufficiently crumbled to provide a shelf. It was evident now that this queer folly had never been completed. There seemed to have been a proposal to sheath it in marble that hadn’t got very far; and four or five bays of arcading, with the beginning of a shallower arched gallery above, hinted at the sort of lay-out that this peculiarly funeral museum was to have assumed. The whole place breathed the double melancholy of achievement fallen into ruin and of intentions unfulfilled.

  It was perfectly possible for more than one explorer to have withdrawn from observation – for the moment, at least – by slipping into one or another of the chapel-like recesses which had presumably been designed to house major exhibits. But nobody would remain invisible for long unless positively concerned to hide. They waited. There wasn’t a sound. Clout turned to Sadie. ‘You really think you saw somebody?’ He found he was speaking in a half-whisper.

  ‘Yes. A figure in grey – gliding silently amid the tombs. Do you think it would be a ghost?’ Sadie, although she asked this satirically, had also lowered her voice.

  ‘It might be Sir Joscelyn himself – but alive and in the flesh.’ Clout’s uneasiness for some reason prompted him to fantasy. ‘All his life he had this obsession with the tomb. And it acted as some sort of inoculation – like Mithradates, you remember, and the poison. The poor old boy just can’t make the tomb. It won’t open for him. He lives on and on, haunting it.’

  ‘Like the old man in Chaucer, striking the ground with his staff. “Leve moder, leet me in!”’ Sadie was delighted with this. ‘But I think it’s more probably a real ghost – a Jory one, of course. What about the bad-hat brother? I expect it’s him. His spirit must be condemned to haunt the mausoleum, expiating some frightful crime. Let’s conjure him, Colin.’

  ‘Perhaps you’d like to try dancing for him.’ Clout had recalled Sadie’s exploit with the ridiculous Lumb.

  But Sadie ignored this. ‘Let’s give a shout,’ she said.

  ‘Oh, rot. We’d better…’

  ‘Whatever Jory you are, appear!’

  Feeling herself challenged, Sadie had called out in a clear voice that rang through the mausoleum. And the effect was remarkable. Quite close to them, a young woman stepped into the open – a young woman in a grey dress. Clout took one glance at her, and stood dumbfounded. It was his girl. She took a step forward in the clear sunshine, and for a moment looked from one to the other with an equal lack of recognition. Then she gave an exclamation of surprise. Clout felt his head swim – it was now an old, familiar sensation – and realized that it was because she had smiled. ‘Hullo,’ she said quietly. ‘Isn’t this an odd way of meeting again? And how did you know my name?’

  7

  Rather curiously, Clout’s first feeling was one of anxiety about Sadie. It was he who had proposed a walk to the mausoleum, and Sadie mightn’t accept the marvellous girl’s turning up like this at the end of it for the piece of pure chance that, in fact, it was. She might suppose that he had been planning to disconcert her in some way, or to exhibit her to his new acquaintance as something quaint and funny out of his past. It would be hateful if Sadie got anything like that in her head and was hurt by it.

  But Sadie wasn’t showing any sign of being disturbed; indeed, she was looking at the girl with a discreet curiosity that seemed entirely friendly. And she found something to say before Clout himself did. ‘My name’s Sadie Sackett,’ she was announcing. ‘And this is Colin Clout. But I don’t at all understand what you’ve just said about your name.’

  The girl was surprised. ‘But I’m sure I heard you calling it. Jory. I’m Olivia Jory.’

  Sadie laughed. ‘And interested in your ancestors?’

  ‘Well, yes – I am, rather.’ Olivia Jory spoke with a shade of caution. ‘Otherwise I wouldn’t be poking about in this mausoleum.’

  ‘Neither would Colin. You two have something in common.’ Having said this, Sadie sat down composedly on a stone slab, put her knees and toes together, folded her hands in her lap, and assumed with a certain ironic obviousness the appearance of a disinterested spectator.

  Clout didn’t feel happy. He was wondering whether Olivia – it was the perfect name for her – had recognized in his present companion the impudent young woman whose hand he was holding in that wretched photograph. It seemed only too likely. Sadie’s wasn’t a very usual hair-do; and it was precisely now as it had been then. But that wasn’t all. Since last seeing Olivia Jory, he had, by an amazing coincidence, indeed acquired an interest in her ancestors. But the Shufflebotham seemed to him a quite painfully fatuous thing to have to explain to her. And he couldn’t be certain that she wouldn’t find his suddenly accepted mission to research into the Jory family history impertinent rather than either admirable or amusing.

  Yet all this, of course, was as nothing compared to the fearful joy of this unexpected and dramatic reunion. Moreover Olivia Jory, whatever she thought about Sadie, was looking at him now with open pleasure, as one might do on unexpectedly encountering an old and intimate friend. It was true that this wasn’t quite the most satisfactory response that he could conceive; reserve, maidenly shamefastness, and a discernibly quickened respiratory system would be the ideal thing; nevertheless he might well be thankful for what he had got. And now it would be wise to speak up. This silent awe business was perfectly sincere. But a girl might feel a little of it was nicer than a lot. ‘I’d better explain what Sadie means,’ he said. ‘You’ll probably find it a bit odd. I’m to write a life of the Jory who built this place: Sir Joscelyn. It’s part of my new job – the one, you know, I was hoping for.’

  ‘How very interesting!’ Olivia had started – but now she spoke with what seemed to Clout a disappointing air of polite unconcern. ‘And is Miss Sackett to work on Joscelyn Jory too? Is it a partnership?’

  ‘It has nothing to do with me.’ Sadie remained composed on her slab. ‘I don’t go in for research. Mine’s just a job in the Library. There’s a small Jory collection there, by the way. I’ve just remembered it. It’s tucked away in a small room nobody bothers about. Perhaps, Miss Jory, you’d like to have a poke about there, too?’

  This wasn’t so friendly. In fact the pause before that ‘too’ had been more barbed than anything Sadie commonly contrived. It was almost as if she had felt herself to have received a declaration of war. But Olivia – Clout noted with admiration – at once gave her an extra nice smile. ‘That’s very kind of you. Perhaps I’ll come along one day. It’s true that family history interests me very much.’ She turned to Clout. ‘You must think it funny. I didn’t speak the other day of my connexion with Old Hall. But it would have sounded awkward. And, anyway, it’s not a very direct one.’
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  ‘Are you a descendant of Sir Joscelyn’s?’

  Olivia shook her head. ‘Oh no! Only of his younger brother.’

  ‘Edward?’

  ‘Yes – do you know about him?’ She showed a swift interest. ‘But I forgot. It’s all part of your research.’

  ‘Not Edward. I mean, I’m expressly not to do anything about him. Because somebody else may.’

  ‘I think that very unlikely.’ Olivia was amused. ‘For one thing he didn’t, being a younger brother, have Joscelyn’s scope. He couldn’t take it into his head – she waved at the mausoleum – ‘to run up anything like this. Not that it’s as amusing as I expected. I’ve always wanted to have a look at it; and I’d have asked you to bring me here the other day, if we’d had time. I’d imagined Joscelyn to have got rather further with it.’

  Olivia stopped, as if aware that these remarks were somewhat disjointed. There was a short silence, which was broken suddenly by Sadie. ‘Did you find the ladder like that, or did you heave it up yourself?’

  ‘I heaved it up. Do you think it was very wrong?’

  Sadie shook her head. She seemed concerned to ignore a faint mockery in this. ‘Not a bit. Colin and I followed you, after all. But you do suddenly seem to be doing this ancestral home business with a will, Miss Jory.’

  Olivia laughed. ‘I may as well tell the truth. I’m going to write a book. Or try.’

  Clout was simultaneously startled and delighted. ‘A book! About Sir Joscelyn? Then this silly thing I’m required to do just mustn’t get in your way.’ He paused, a little disconcerted by the observation that Sadie had provided herself with a daisy and was playing, with the appearance of a profound absence of mind, that simplest form of rural patience, She loves me, she loves me not.

  ‘But it won’t be anything learned.’ If Olivia too had noted Sadie’s occupation, she gave no sign of it. ‘In fact, it’s just going to be a historical novel.’

  ‘Really?’ Clout was properly enchanted by this further sign of a natural affinity between his mistress and himself. He had never, until this moment, thought very highly of historical novels. They belonged with commercial fiction, and had done ever since their invention by Sir Walter Scott, Bart. But now he suddenly saw that that was just it. The thing had been set going on the wrong lines, and so nobody seriously bothered about it. But, given a fresh approach…

  ‘And what you’re doing – real research – could be a tremendous help.’ Olivia Jory had announced this with an air of sudden discovery and impulsive confidence. ‘Of course, I wouldn’t want to waste your time, or pick your brains…’

  Clout’s head was swimming again, and he was aware of himself as babbling enthusiastic words. Being a person of literary training, he was also aware, ever so faintly, that there had been some element of fatuity in his immediately preceding line of thought. But he couldn’t remember what it had been, and he didn’t a bit care. He would willingly have pitched every achieved page of The Examination (theme: the hero C’s inability to discover whether he is the examiner or the examined) into the waste-paper basket if the action would in any way help to bring Olivia’s less experimentally conceived masterpiece to birth.

  ‘I suppose it’s official?’ Olivia had almost cut him short. ‘I mean, the people at New Hall – Sir John Jory and his family – approve of your biography?’

  ‘They approve of my having a go. Whether they’ll approve of the result remains to be seen.’

  ‘Have you met them yet?’

  ‘No. It’s only today that I’ve heard about Sir Joscelyn Jory’s being my job. But it seems Sir John says he’ll help with family papers, and so on.’

  Sadie tossed away her denuded daisy. ‘Is he nice – this good Sir John?’

  Olivia hesitated. ‘I hardly know him. I think he’s all right.’

  ‘You say he has a family. Grown up?’

  ‘Yes. A son and two daughters.’ Olivia was answering Sadie with charming patience. ‘From what I’ve seen of them, I’d say they were all right too. But our acquaintance is quite casual. I don’t go around a lot, that way.’

  Clout remembered that at their first meeting Olivia had said something about being a secretary. He had been right in his guess about her social background; but it seemed likely that her own branch of the Jorys were quite poor, all the same. What might be called the badly landed gentry. This was a cheerful circumstance. Finding himself in love with any sort of minor heiress could be nothing but awkward. Clearly his marriage with Olivia was going to be ideally happy; and would be so, regardless of one sort of financial circumstances or another. Still, any man would find a slight tiresomeness in his wife’s being free of more money than he himself was ever likely to earn.

  This line of thought – which did credit to the solid morality on which he had been brought up – had distracted him for a moment from the rather odd catechism to which Olivia was being subjected. But Sadie’s next question pulled him up. ‘Do you’, she was demanding, ‘know George Lumb?’

  ‘I don’t think I do. What is he?’

  ‘He’s a writer. Another novelist.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘And he’s working, oddly enough, at New Hall. Cataloguing a very neglected library. I think the idea is to see if the books are sufficiently valuable to have a fairly grand sale.’

  ‘I see.’ Olivia was frowning. ‘I shouldn’t be surprised.’

  ‘You might have a go at George some time. I mean for more background for your romance.’

  ‘I suppose I might.’ For the first time, Olivia’s tone was chilly. But not markedly so. Clout found himself enormously admiring her knowledge of how to drop the temperature, so to speak, just the requisite couple of degrees.

  And this moderation was now thrown into relief by the answering brusquerie of Sadie’s reaction. She jumped to her feet and gave Olivia Jory a straight, grave stare. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I’m going.’

  ‘I suppose we’d better all go.’ Clout offered this in a not very clearly thought-out desire to avoid friction. ‘It’s likely to be quite a scramble.’

  ‘I’m going first. I’ve more of those library tickets to give out. And the climb isn’t going to worry me. But of course Miss Jory, when she’s finished her investigations, must be given a leg up.’ Sadie’s tone ingeniously contrived to make this last image sound highly ridiculous. ‘So long,’ she added – and took visible satisfaction in a form of words so socially unassuming. She turned and marched off to the ivy-clad wall.

  Clout made a movement to follow her, and then thought better of it. Sadie, he remembered, had dangerous moods during which, if you got her wrong, she turned outrageous. Anything of that sort now would be most uncomfortable. He felt surprisingly uncomfortable as it was. He was going to be alone with Olivia once more, and the sense of this ought absolutely to exclude anything else from his head. But in fact he had – what was quite absurd – a lurking consciousness of infidelity. There was no sense in it at all. If Sadie hadn’t happened to be still at the University on his coming back, her memory might never have recurred to him during all the rest of his life. And he hadn’t the slightest reason to suppose that she would ever have thought of him. But here they were again, both with jobs in the same place – and it would take him, he saw, a little time to feel quite easy about it. It was that solid morality, once more. Presumably it asserted the duty of all men to marry the first child they kissed.

  ‘What an awfully nice girl.’

  Clout turned to Olivia and stared at her. If she had spoken satirically, or even if he had been positive that her remark was flatly conventional, he would almost not have liked her at all. But if she was just saying the right thing, then saying the right thing was so bred into her that it had the sincerity attaching to any spontaneous expression of personality. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘Sadie’s very nice indeed.’

  For a moment Olivia looked at him thoughtfully, and he had a notion that his unqualified agreement had somehow improved her opinion of him. Then she glanced back at Sa
die, who was already half-way up the ivy. ‘Will she be all right?’

  ‘Absolutely. I can remember her as an undergraduate – a student – doing some famous climbs.’

  ‘Rock climbing?’ Olivia was interested.

  ‘No. On buildings – for fun.’

  ‘I’ve never done anything like that.’ Olivia Jory said this with an air of deferring to some large and wonderful world unknown to her. And yet she couldn’t really regard the University as other than a thoroughly provincial little place, swarming with up and coming young vulgarians, intent upon grabbing places and privileges that her sort was progressively letting slip. One couldn’t deny, then, that her attitude was a bit artificial – but of course that was just one small part of her charm. Socially, her surfaces would always be marvellously smooth; it would always be gracefully that she would glide about among all sorts and conditions – without bumps, without friction. But he was sure that she had, at the same time, infinitely more than this. Strength of character, for a start. There was a tiny hint of that just in the masterful way she had marched in and taken the mausoleum, so to speak, in her stride. And now she was sitting down on the slab from which Sadie had risen. It was almost with a faint symbolism of assuming possession of something. She glanced upward. Sadie had vanished. ‘What about you?’ she asked. ‘You’ve got a little more time to spare?’

  ‘Yes, of course. What’s going on today is a sort of preliminary ritual at which I’m quite superfluous.’

  ‘And Sir Joscelyn?’ She smiled at him. ‘My great-great- grand-uncle?’

  ‘I just haven’t got on to him yet. I know hardly anything about him.’

  ‘Later, you’ll be able to tell me a lot.’ Olivia Jory brought a cigarette-case from her pocket and opened it. ‘Meanwhile, perhaps I can tell you a little.’