~§~
Toward noon, the rain becoming a nasty squall, my train pulled into Wimsett-by-Sea, a dismal little resort town of closed shops, empty hotels and wet cobblestones. Professor Trevor-Finch, in Rex Harrison tweeds and floppy-brimmed hat, was waiting on the station platform. We shook hands like old friends, after which there was an awkward moment as we both remembered we were not.
We proceeded through the small station, put my suitcase in the trunk of the professor’s Volkswagen, and set out through gusts of wind and rain. A narrow winding lane took us out of town and up to the hills that stretched south along the coast, where, nearly torn from the road by sudden blasts, the little car crept along a fairly spectacular series of cliffs. Silhouetted against the stormy sky I saw what looked like the ruins of an ancient castle.
“Curious things, those,” said Trevor-Finch. “There are a good many of them along this coast. Old forts dating back to the Napoleonic Wars, most of them unusable now, but I have one on my land which is in better shape than most. I’ve had it fixed up as a sort of laboratory. You might find it of some historical interest, even if its scientific features don’t intrigue you.”
I told the professor I would be interested in anything he wanted to show me—that I’d come for the full tour.
“And a full tour you shall have,” Trevor-Finch promised. “I’m fond of this spot of ground, and my roots here go back a long way. There was a Philip of Trevorre who came over with the Conqueror, and who was known as one of the harsher of the Norman warlords—though his sons were reported to be even worse.”
“And the land has been in your family all this time?”
“One branch or another has had it, yes. My father commissioned the College of Heralds to authenticate our coat of arms and we dredged up a bit of family history in that way. Daddy was rather a snob, I fear. When he inherited the remains of the feudal domain—only the house and a few hundred acres—he exhausted his modest fortune in renovations and genealogical research. Wanted to set himself up as a proper country gentleman. But the land proved useless for farming or anything else—of no earthly value beyond family pride. Fortunately, Mama has a trust fund from her side of the family, or I should’ve been obliged to sell the place long ago. The taxes alone are catastrophic.”
‘‘Does your mother live out here all alone?” I asked.
“She has her nurse and companion, a most respectable old thing named Mrs. Archer. And we have a couple to care for the house. I come down for the vacs, do a bit of shooting and fishing when I can, and tinker in my laboratory. My daughter also comes up from London now and then with some of her friends. She’ll be joining us, by the way. Clever girl; I think you’ll like her. She could’ve gotten into Cambridge—Girton College—but she chose a more active life. A regular ‘career girl,’ as you’d say in the States. Doing quite well in the fashion industry.”
“As a model?” I asked, for a man can always hope.
“Heavens, no; as a designer. Stephany’s much too bright to function as a mere manikin. She’s not that sort of a girl at all.”
I anticipated one of those stocky, mannish women who would humiliate me at tennis and try to treat me as a great chum, but I told the professor I would look forward to making Stephany’s acquaintance.
“She’s anxious to meet you, too,” Trevor-Finch said. “She’s quite fond of Americans. Finds them refreshing, she says.”
By this time the road had swung inland and we left it at the next ridge to follow a muddy lane that ran across a hillside meadow, where the sea seemed to hover above us like a single immense wave. I was glad when we reached the brick wall at the meadow’s end and passed into the wooded grounds of the manor. I caught my first glimpse of the house itself waiting for us at the end of a long avenue lined with tall, mossy-trunked trees.
Abbotswold was larger than I’d expected, its compendium or architectural styles testifying to a long and confused history. The central core of the house, built of Norfolk stone and slate, was no doubt the oldest, rude and barbaric in appearance, with a medieval tower that rose above the tiled and many-planed rooftops. On either side there were newer wings—one of rosy Georgian stone, the other of Victorian brick which had weathered to a variety of mournful shades. The classical simplicity of one side vigorously contradicted the neo-Gothic extravagance of the other, so that the house seemed to suffer from a split personality, its opposing factions held forcibly together by the primitive dominance of the phallic tower.
As the professor’s car pulled up before the massive though unadorned front door, a short, stocky, shabbily dressed old fellow came shuffling out to greet us with a pair of umbrellas.
“Giles Mortimor, my caretaker,” Trevor-Finch said. “He’ll take your bag, Fairchild. Run along in while I put the car away.”
I accepted the umbrella the old man pressed upon me, caught a glimpse of his red nose and grizzled chin, his dark and inhospitable eyes, and went on ahead to the house.
Beyond the large front door was an anteroom, unfurnished but for hall tree, umbrella stand and several pairs of muddy galoshes. Beyond that, and down several steps, I entered the great hall—dark, drafty, tainted with cellar dust and mold. The floor and walls were made of great blocks of stone, and there was a gargantuan stone fireplace against the inner wall. Heavy wooden beams spanned the shadowy ceiling and two long, narrow windows looked in from either end. The furnishings were few and austere, large clumsy pieces hand-hewed from oak and obviously very old. I felt as if there ought to have been display cases, a suit of armor or two along the walls, and a little old lady in ruffled lace to sell me a ticket and guidebook for a shilling. It was hard to believe that anyone could still live in such a house.
Trevor-Finch came up behind me. “Great gloomy old place, isn’t it? This part goes back to the twelfth century and is still structurally sound. A few of the outbuildings and a portion of the cellar may be even older—remnants of the very first castle built on this site by Philip of Trevorre. The rest of the house isn’t exceptionally old. The east wing, where we dine and entertain, was built around 1750. The west wing, where most of the bedrooms are located now, wasn’t put up until rather late in the nineteenth century. It’s a nuisance, actually, having a house this large on one’s hands. I’ve often thought it should have been made into a school—perhaps even an orphanage or a lunatic asylum. But there’s nothing I can do with it as long as Mama remains alive.” At which point the professor glanced quickly up and to the left, as if somewhere in the house Mama might have been listening in.
“Let’s get you settled in your room,” he continued. “Then you can pay your respects to Mama, we’ll have a bite of lunch and go out for a look at my laboratory. Giles here will show you the way.”
Old Giles stood dripping in the entryway with my suitcase. “Right along here, sir,” he rumbled, and started up the broad curving stairway.
In the darkness of the second-floor corridor something small and furry slipped in front of us and I broke step, my neck prickling, before I realized it was just a cat. The cat curled along the wall and watched us pass with glowing eyes. I then realized that the faintly sour odor I’d noticed downstairs was the lingering aroma of cat-mess.
Giles seemed to be wondering which of the many rooms he should give me. He looked into a couple. “Huh —chimney smokes in that one, and the casement’s a bit drafty in the one over there. Don’t know which the missus has made up for you . . . Ah, this should do. Got a nice lookout, too. Right in here, sir.”
I followed him into a small but comfortably furnished room with double windows providing a view of the sea, tall oaks in the foreground, their barren branches supporting a colony of cawing rooks. The room was already occupied by a large gray cat, which observed our arrival with typical feline insolence from the center of the bed. “G’wan—get out of here!” the old man said to the cat, but it refused to budge until he took a swipe at it with his cap.
“Is the professor fond of cats?” I asked.
T
he old man squinted at me. “I don’t know as he likes ’em very well at all, sir. It’s the missus and me as raise these creatures. We’ve always had lots of cats.”
“You’re fortunate that the professor puts up with them,” I said.
“Aye. We’ve got a bit to put up with ourselves, if it comes to that,” he said, and left, taking the cat with him.
The room was cold, but a coal fire had been laid in the small hearth, so I put a match to it. Then I laid my suitcase on the bed and began to unpack. The first dresser drawer I tried was filled with lacy underthings. I checked the large wardrobe and it contained several dresses. Either Giles had made a mistake, or the professor’s daughter used the room to store extra clothes. The dresses did not look particularly large and some of them gave off a most promising scent. I was debating whether or not I should try to find another room when a car rumbled up to the house. I went to the window in time to see a girl jump out and run through the rain to the front door. In mac and rain scarf, she passed too quickly out of view for me to guess what she looked like.
I sat on the bed and waited. Presently I heard high heels clicking smartly along the corridor. She opened the door and came right in.
“Oh—you’ve taken my room,” she said.
“I’m sorry,” I said, rising from the bed. “This is where they put me.”
“That’s all right. I didn’t mean I actually wanted this room. You’re here now, so I’ll take another room. Well! You must be Daddy’s young man from the College. I’m Stephany.”
She extended her hand, taking off her rain scarf with the other and giving her head a vigorous shake to loosen her long light-brown hair. It’s amazing what flowing locks and shining tresses will do for a woman; on the instant, she was beautiful.
“David Fairchild,” I said, taking her hand. “I’m very pleased to meet you,”
“Fairchild,” she said flirtatiously. “What a wonderful name for an innocent abroad! Daddy says all Americans are innocents—but then he has all these horrid prejudices.”
Though her handshake was firm, she was hardly the tweedy, mannish type. Her raincoat was partially unbuttoned and in the gap I could see her full breasts pushing out against a green sweater. No, she wasn’t nearly thin enough to be the model I’d first hoped for, but I certainly wasn’t going to hold that against her.
I had to say something to disguise the fact that I could scarcely keep my eyes off her breasts. “I think your father means to subvert me. He’s very big on politics, isn’t he?”
“Oh, God,” she said, with an attempt at sophistication which wasn’t quite convincing. “He can be quite a bore on the subject, I’m afraid. Do you have a cigarette? I ran out on the way up here and didn’t want to stop in all this beastly rain.”
I gave her one of my Senior Service and lit it with my all-American Zippo. I leaned against the dresser and watched her take off her raincoat, sit on the bed and cross her legs. Stephany’s eyes were blue; her complexion was delicate; and if she had a bit too much of her father’s brow and nose, she had a mouth so sensuously molded it must have come from her mother’s side of the family. I liked the way she sat there smoking, as if she were being a very naughty girl to take such liberties in a gentleman’s bedroom. It made me think that the world of the London fashion industry had yet to spoil the child in her—but then I was prone to romanticize every attractive woman I met.
“Will you be staying long?” she asked. “I hope so. It gets so dreary here with just Daddy and Grandmama. I wasn’t going to come at all, until I heard about you.”
“I guess I can stay several days,” I said, “or until your father feels he’s done all he can with me. I intend to resist his indoctrination, and I can be very stubborn.”
“Drag it out for as long as you can. There’ll be other things for us to do between debates.”
She gave her head another toss to show me once again how fetchingly her hair could caress her cheeks and shoulders. “Are you interested in painting? I often go out with my watercolors when I’m down here. There are some lovely spots along the coast. We could make a day of it, when the weather improves.”
“I’ll pray for fair skies,” I said.
She chuckled and ground out her cigarette. “Not if you listen to Father, you won’t. Daddy’s deadly on religion. Well, I must get out of these wet clothes. See you later, hum?”
“See you later,” I said.
After she was gone, I walked over to the window and pressed my burning forehead to the cold glass. Whoever would have thought, I mused, that a pompous old ass like the professor would have such an altogether charming daughter? Wait until Archie Cavendish hears about this!
I stood looking out at the sodden lawn, the black and shining trees, the bleak expanse of sea just a shade darker than the glowering sky. The rooks, perched among the tree branches like a convocation of demons, cawed imprecations down upon the dismal scene. Giles Mortimor, in his cap and mac, was just coming up the drive from the barnlike structure where he’d stowed Stephany’s car. He paused and looked off into the woods. He put his hand to his mouth, and I thought he was calling to someone, but the sound of his voice was indistinguishable from the ceaseless squawking of the birds. Then I saw a large, dark, rain-soaked figure emerge from the woods and shuffle toward the old man along a muddy path. He was hatless, his fair hair plastered to his skull, and though he was huge and powerfully built, he stumbled along the path like a child who had just learned to walk. Old Giles gestured angrily, shaking one fist and pointing back into the woods with the other. Then I recognized the thing the large shuffling man held dangling by the tail. It was a dead cat.
The old woman watched us with a falcon’s alert and predatory gaze. “I was wondering when you’d come up to see me, Kenneth,” she said. “After so long an absence, you might have shown a greater eagerness to pay your respects.’’
Trevor-Finch gave me an embarrassed glance, then leaned quickly forward to kiss the old woman’s polished brow. There was no love in the gesture, nor did it evoke any affectionate response from the mummy in the wheel-chair who glared up at him—and at me—with undiminished distrust.
“You were sleeping when I arrived last night, Mother. At any rate, I’m here now. And I’ve brought a friend to visit you—Dr. David Fairchild, from America.”
The old creature turned her dark eyes on me. She didn’t offer the withered hand she held curled in her lap, so there was no need to touch her ancient and somehow repugnant person. I simply smiled and nodded, my most disarmingly boyish smile and nod.
The old woman was not disarmed. “An American, are you? How nice. You must feel terribly honored to have attracted the attention of my illustrious son.”
“Mother, really!” Trevor-Finch said. “Fairchild is much too ignorant of modern physics to understand the slightest thing about my work. I asked him down so that he could meet you, among other things.” He gave me an apologetic grin, as if acknowledging that he had meant all along to throw me to the family wolf.
“How generous of you,” the old woman said. “Another way to avoid seeing very much of me yourself, I imagine. What is your field of study, Dr. Fairchild?”
“Medieval literature.”
The professor and his mother exchanged not quite a glance, but a signal on a wavelength I could intercept but not interpret. “Now, that is interesting,’’ she said. “You must tell me about your work. I have a considerable interest in the medieval period myself . . . but here’s Archer with our tea. Sit down, please. Surely you can spend a few minutes with your mother, Kenneth, having neglected her so shamefully all winter.”
Mrs. Archer, a hatchet-faced old nurse, who looked robust and blooming in comparison to her mistress, wheeled the tea cart to the old woman’s side. Mrs. Trevor-Finch tried to pour, but her grasp was too weak, her hand too palsied. With an impatient nod, she let Mrs. Archer do the honors.
We were in the sitting room of a suite on the third floor of the Victorian wing. There were windows on two
sides of the room and the clouds had broken up since the downpour, so that the room passed through phases of sunshine and shadow, its antique furnishings alternately gleaming and fading, as if an electric torch were probing the darkness of a pharaoh’s tomb. The fire in the tiled hearth was making it uncomfortably warm, but the old woman seemed to be repressing shivers in her tangle of blankets and afghans.
When we had our cups of tea to balance on our knees, the professor said, “Actually, Mother, Fairchild’s present concern is with some papers in the College library, some manuscripts from—which century did you say it was, Fairchild?”
“They’re usually dated in the late thirteenth to early fourteenth centuries,” I said, “though I’m convinced there’s one which is much older—a remarkable poem from the twelfth century.”
“And it’s this poem, I gather, which you’ve associated with our local legends—is that right?” the professor asked.
The old woman glared at me; the professor was inspecting the shine on his shoes. A scythe of sunlight swept the room and was gone.
“Yes. I’ve tentatively identified the author as one Geoffrey Gervaise, an obscure priest and scholar who lived for several years at Creypool Abbey, was captured there and burned at the stake.”
The professor’s mother looked as if I had just dropped something obscene in her blanketed lap. Trevor-Finch said, “Isn’t that an amusing coincidence, Mama? I mean, those manuscripts in the College library having something to do with our own Creypool Abbey, not five miles from the house. I told Fairchild he ought to have a look at the place, and a chat with Parson Tompkins.”
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