Ten Lords A-Leaping: A Mystery (Father Christmas)

by Benison, C. C.

  “No, Oliver,” Marguerite cut in before Tom could respond. “You really must view Roberto’s wonderful addition to the Labyrinth. You’ll find it extremely compelling, I’m quite certain.”

  Oliver looked from the older woman to the younger man, his eyes narrowed to a black intensity. “I’ll give it,” he replied slowly, “some thought.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Tom studied the chimneypiece’s timber overmantel, which he’d glimpsed in the late afternoon as he hobbled from the terrace—the whole day seemed to have been spent outdoors—to a loo tucked under a staircase in Eggescombe’s labyrinthine interior. Then, with the curtains drawn against the hot sun, the drawing room in cool shadow, the overmantel’s elaborate carvings had seemed a squirming abstraction of light and shadow. Now, with evening’s fall, with a chandelier switched on and the room aglow, the abstraction resolved into a phantasmagoria of roiling and terrified figures in macabre dance around an imperious skeleton like some Caesar of the underworld risen to destroy the world of the living. Orbless eyes mercilessly scanning the bleak landscape, one hand raising a scythe, the other preparing a sword, the figure trampled on tokens of earthly vanities—sceptres and crowns and coins.

  “Not the most welcoming motif, is it?” Jane joined him where he was steadying himself against the back of a chair set at an angle to the fireplace, unlit on this warm summer evening.

  “The Triumph of Death? No.” Tom felt a laugh catch in his throat. “The Jacobeans had a taste for moral imagery, I seem to recall. Or perhaps Lord Fairhaven’s ancestor was particularly keen on this sort of didactic moral ornament.”

  “I wonder if it’s inherited,” Jane murmured, though the chatter in the room masked any need for discretion. “I am fond of him, but Hector can be kind of a scold at times. He’s involved with various traditional-values groups and the like.”

  “Oh?”

  “And he’s standing for Parliament if he wins the open primary, did you know? The MP stood down over some expenses scandal, so there’s to be a by-election this … October, I think. Hector’s chair of the local Conservative Association, so …”

  “Did he ever sit in the Lords?”

  “Hector? For about two minutes. His father died quite young, but Hector inherited the title about the time the Lords was being reorganised. So he lost his seat along with most of the hereditary peers. There’s—what?—about ninety hereditary peers in the Lords these days? And six hundred life peers? Anyway, since hereditary peers may now stand for election and serve in the Commons, Hector’s keen to get in. His grandfather and great-grandfather pushed their weight around in government years ago from the Lords.” She smiled at him appraisingly. “I’ll bet you’ve never voted Conservative in your life.”

  “I worked many years in an inner-city ministry so I think, Lady Kirkbride, that you’ve made a safe bet. And you?”

  “Well, Father Christmas, I think …” She surveyed the room. “I think you and I may be a party of two here. Promise not to tell my husband?”

  “I won’t.” Tom’s eyes stole once again to the overmantel.

  “Eggescombe is full of such carvings.” Jane followed his glance. “When you’re a little more mobile, you can take the tour. There’s a Judgement of Solomon over the fireplace in the dining room—judging the quality of the fare maybe. I think Hector and Georgina’s bedroom has the Virtues … accompanied by the Vices. You’re not laughing. Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “You don’t sound it.”

  “I expect I’m feeling a bit mortal, spraining my ankle and all.”

  “Nothing to do with Eggescombe, then.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Eggescombe can be a sort of gloomy pile in the wrong light. It’s been used in films for effect, did you know?”

  “Mrs. Prowse mentioned something about an Agatha Christie.”

  “And an American outfit hired the place for some sort of horror film—along the lines of Devon Chainsaw Massacre. Can’t remember the real title. Hector held his nose and took the money. I wouldn’t let my kids watch it—it was a bit disturbing. The shots of Eggescombe Hall looming out of the murk made me shiver. I’m shivering now, and it’s a warm evening! Perhaps”—Jane lowered her voice—“I’m having a …”

  “Frisson?”

  “That’s the word. Or perhaps the ghost of Eggescombe is set to walk tonight. There is a full moon.”

  “Is there a stately home in England without a ghost?”

  “Bridgemary, my father-in-law’s home in Shropshire, seems to be ghost-free. As far as I know.”

  “And what does Eggescombe’s ghost do?”

  “I’m not sure. You should ask Max. He loves all the lore of the place.” Jane sighed. “Actually, I think Eggescombe’s ghost haunts the park, not the house. Something nasty happened on the grounds five hundred years ago. Anyway, I think ghosts are a crock.”

  “Me, too.”

  “Perhaps then the barometric pressure is rising … or falling, or whatever it is. Marve was telling me when she and Roberto walked over from the dower house, they could see clouds massing over the moor.”

  “I’m not sure I’m very susceptible to those sorts of atmospheres.”

  “More the sorts between people then.”

  “Possibly.”

  “You’ve noticed the fforde-Becketts don’t play happy families very well.”

  “You did warn me.” Tom’s eye happened to catch Lucinda’s at the moment. She was speaking with one of the guests—introduced to Tom at the airfield as Jimmy (James, Baron Pownall, in fact), the shortest of the Leaping Lords—but suddenly she turned her head and cast him a smile of such radiance, he could only respond with his own giddy version. Lucy excused herself to her interlocutor and moved to where Dominic was nursing a gin, his pale features lit by a lamp. Tom turned back to Jane, startled from his thoughts by her appraising glance.

  “You’re not feeling a bit mortal because you’re coming to a certain significant birthday, by any chance?”

  “Lady Fairhaven has been talking.”

  “She happened to mention it.”

  “I suppose certain birthdays give one pause for reflection. I count my blessings however, and they are many.”

  “Most of us are much more blessed today than they would have been when that thing was carved.” Jane gestured to the overmantel. “When it was installed five centuries ago it must have terrified. People then literally believed in hell. But now …” Tom felt her shrewd glance. “Tom, you don’t …?”

  “Believe in a literal hell? Fire and brimstone? No. The Church views all that as outmoded, though there are some dissenters. ‘Separation from God,’ I tell my confirmands. But ‘hell’ can be an apt metaphor, can’t it? The hellish things people have done to one another in war or to the world, to the environment. Or people dwelling in a sort of private hell—living some lie, carrying around some corrupting secret. I expect we’ve all had a moment, a day, a week, a year—or more—in which we live in hell, haven’t we?” He turned his attention back to Jane. “I do apologise. I’m being morbid, for some reason.”

  She laughed. “I told you Eggescombe had an atmosphere. Now you won’t be able to sleep.”

  “Speaking of which.” Tom scanned the room. “My child should be getting off to bed before very long. Where is she?”

  “Don’t worry. The Gaunts are wonderful with Max. I’m sure Mrs. Gaunt has already got her settled. You might,” Jane responded as he frowned at his wrapped foot, “find it a bit of a climb to the nursery floor.”

  “No ‘good night’ for me then.”

  “They do grow up. If I phone Olivia now at Tullochbrae to say good night, she’ll just groan and say, ‘Oh, Mummy, really!’ Look, what’s this?” Jane gestured towards the door at the far end of the room through which Gaunt was pushing a trolley laden with half a dozen bottles and fresh glassware, the gentle tinkle of which pierced the low hubbub of conversation.

  “What’s this?” Hect
or’s echo sounded sharply behind Tom. He and Georgina had entered the drawing room from the terrace at the same moment, Bonzo following.

  Gaunt stopped the trolley by the fire screen and settled one of the wobbling bottles with a gloved hand.

  “Lord Morborne’s wishes, my lord,” he replied, turning as Hector rounded the Hepplewhite sofa.

  “Are these from the cellar?”

  “No, my lord.”

  “Good. He can’t have brought them from London. Champagne couldn’t possibly have survived Oliver’s …”

  “Oliver’s what, Hector?” Jane asked as Hector’s voice trailed off.

  “Oh, nothing.” Hector flicked his hand dismissively.

  “Lord Morborne asked me to purchase these at the Pilgrims Inn yesterday afternoon,” Gaunt explained.

  Hector’s lower lip protruded in a pout. “He’s got a cheek. Do you know any of this, my dear?” He addressed his wife, who had twisted one of the bottles to examine the label.

  “Nothing,” she replied.

  “I hope this isn’t on my behalf … or St. Nicholas’s,” Tom amended in a muttered aside to Jane. “Everyone has done so much already.”

  “I doubt it’s on your behalf, Vicar.” Hector had evidently overheard, adding with a swift glance at Tom, “Oliver wouldn’t have the consideration.”

  “Really, darling.” Georgina’s tone was admonishing.

  “Well, he wouldn’t! He tried to kill me this afternoon.”

  “Hector, don’t be ridiculous!”

  “Lord Morborne says it’s to be a surprise.” Gaunt’s visage, pale and square, showed no emotion, but a nuance in his tone contained a world of disapproval.

  “I’ve had quite sufficient … surprises this week,” Hector muttered darkly. “Well, where is he then? He’s not on the terrace. Georgie and I were the last.”

  As if everyone shared the same thought, Oliver’s name began to percolate through the room. “Olly!” Someone moved to the French doors and shouted onto the shadowy terrace.

  “He’s not bloody out there!” Hector countered.

  “I’m right here, Hector. Keep your hair on.” Oliver pushed through the second of two entrances from the corridor to the drawing room, mobile phone in hand, his pique melting into a grin as he crossed to the fireplace.

  “What are you up to, Mad Morborne?” one of the guests joshed.

  “Wait and find out.” Oliver stopped next to the drinks trolley. “Gaunt, start on those bottles, there’s a good man.” He lifted one of the fluted glasses and pinged it with his mobile. “My lords,” he began to little effect. “My lords,” he roared to quell the noise. “Thank you.” He smiled as silence descended. “My lords, ladies, and gentlemen … Vicar,” he added, in a faintly mocking tone, to Tom. “As you know, I’ve honed to a, well, somewhat different path than most of you, I would say, don’t you think? No RAC Cirencester and a life as Farmer Olly for me or being a director of some merchant bank in the City.”

  “You were in the Paras, Olly,” someone remarked. “You can’t be all bad.”

  “A mere idyll, my boy. It pleased Papa, somehow, though we all know he was a wicked old man and not the cynosure of conventionality himself.”

  “Apples and trees, Olly,” someone called.

  “Possibly. I wouldn’t know. I’ve always thought myself pure as the driven snow, spending my humble life dedicated to serving the needs of the Great British Public for wholesome entertainment and pleasant venues for conversation and light refreshment.”

  “You are mad!” called another.

  “ ‘Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t.’ ”

  “Money in’t more like, Olly,” retorted the same voice. Laughter rippled through the room.

  “A comment unworthy of you, unkind sir,” Oliver said mockingly as Gaunt peeled the foil on the champagne bottle. “But I must wax serious: There comes a time in every man’s life when one begins to take the long view. I thought as I was down in Devon with my family—my sister, my nephew, cousin Jamie, his charming wife … my other kin.” He bared his teeth at the word in the direction of Dominic and Lucinda, who received the apparent slight with cold stares. “And of course you, my friends …” He made a sweeping gesture of the room. “… that I would make this very important announcement that I’m sure you will all greet with … well, some emotion appropriate to the occasion, I’m sure. Especially if you’ve had enough to drink.”

  “You’re finally having that bloody awful boy band you manage drowned in the Thames,” one person suggested.

  “You’re to be the new judge on X Factor,” said another.

  “You’re opening a new club.”

  “My lords, et cetera, all those may be true, particularly the last one, but unworthy—perhaps—of this toast. In truth, I come before you, to humbly announce that—wait for it; you will be delighted, I guarantee—that I am about to close a life of iniquity by an act of timely repentance, after which it will be as if I had led the most virtuous of lives.”

  “Oh, hell!” came a voice. “You’re not taking up the vicar’s line of work?”

  “No, you gormless twit. I am shortly to become a married man.”

  “About bloody time, Morborne!” Someone laughed, breaking the moment of stunned silence.

  “And may we know whom you are marrying?” Georgina wore a worried frown.

  “Serena Knowlton.”

  “Serena …? Lord Knowlton’s daughter! Olly, she’s half your age!”

  “And your point would be, Georgie dear?”

  “Where did you …?”

  “Happened across her at Icarus. Couldn’t keep my eyes off. She’s been my PA for the last six months.”

  “Your personal assistant?” Roberto sounded disbelieving.

  “Yes, what of it?” Oliver snapped.

  “Does Frank Knowlton know?” Georgina asked.

  “That she’s my PA?”

  “No, you pillock,” Hector intruded, “does he know that you’re intending to marry his daughter?”

  “He will.” Oliver blasted Hector with his ice-blue eyes. “I thought you at least would be pleased, Georgie.”

  “I’m not displeased. I’m … startled, that’s all. When—”

  “Yes, when are the nuptials, Olly?” A male voice crushed Georgina’s. “Do tell.”

  “Soon. Very soon. We are expecting, Serena and I—”

  “What, Olly? An appointment from the prime minister.”

  “No, you young idiot, our first child—”

  “Not your first child, Olly!” someone said to a chorus of laddish chortles.

  “Yes, well”—Oliver’s humour appeared to be growing thin—“that’s all in the past. More significantly, Serena has had one those test thingies—I can’t think what they’re called—and I’m very pleased to say—” He paused and turned his head with great deliberation towards Dominic and Lucinda, whose strained smiles, Tom noted, appeared the product of intense effort, then turned back to frown at Gaunt’s slow, methodical untwisting of the wire cage around the champagne bottle cork. “—that we’re having a male child.”

  “Excellent news!” a shout came from the back.

  “Yes … Give me that, Gaunt.” Oliver tried without success to snatch the bottle from the butler’s hands. “A son and heir.”

  But the moment brought no further encomiums, for a rich and frothy explosion suddenly ricocheted around the drawing room’s gilded paneling. Tom’s eyes had travelled helplessly back to Lucinda but it was Dominic, a head above and behind her, who commanded his attention now. The fixed smile had vanished: His lips were pinched to a small mean moue; his eyes were flecked with loathing. But before Tom could give this transformation a moment’s thought, a new sound diverted him, a roar of rage intense as a lanced bull’s, attended by a barrage of cursing so vile he could only thank God for his daughter’s absence. The flying cork had found its target in Oliver’s face.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Tom prepared to slip betwe
en the cool sheets. Someone, Gaunt most likely, had placed on the bed a pair of crisply pressed and folded pajamas as white as a bride’s gown, but they weren’t his. Tom’s own sleepwear was informal—a T-shirt and cotton lounge pants most times—and almost always mismatched, frayed, and inelegant, and he guessed Gaunt had thought him lacking proper sleepwear—or any sleepwear at all—when he had unpacked his bags. The evening held its warmth, the room, too, so he hopped across the room to a daybed and set the pajamas down unmolested, returning to plunk his naked self down on the edge of the bed, an exotic four-poster with scarlet hangings, a japanned and gilded frame, surmounted by a pagoda roof with winged golden dragons at each cornice. His eyes travelled from the dragon’s lewdly curling tongue down to the lacquered lattice-backed chairs to the ornate mirror frame over the fireplace to the delicate cream silk wallpaper with foliate motifs. Tom supposed it was all very lovely, if out of character with the rest of the house’s Jacobean gloom, but somehow it reminded him more of a high-class tart’s boudoir, not that he had ever been in such a place. He eyes fell to the carpet—unadorned and green, like a lawn—and to the terminus of his right leg. Oh, my poor little foot. Alice contemplating hers when she’d grown nine feet tall came to his mind. Will I be able to put a sock and shoe on you tomorrow?

  Not bloody likely.

  If his wife were alive, she would be a helpmeet, though it would be a day or two at least before the compression wrap could come off and she could fit him into a shoe. But Lisbeth was gone, lo these several years, he thought wistfully, and a little sleepily. Perhaps this was why he was thinking of Alice: She had ingested something—Was it a piece of cake? A pill? He couldn’t remember—that had made her open out like a telescope. He had ingested a sleeping tablet, which was making him shut down like the same instrument. Lady Fairhaven had suggested it for the discomfort he was sure to have sleeping. She herself took fifteen milligrams of zopiclone to sleep. By her tone, it sounded like the done thing at Eggescombe. And as she had taken the trouble to come to his room with it and remained while he fumbled on the bedside table with the water carafe, refusing had seemed impolite. Lady Fairhaven’s mother-in-law, the dowager countess, had been the one to lead him to his room earlier, and she had said sweetly, echoing Alice, “You must manage as best you can, but you must be kind to it.”