Lord Mullion's Secret

by Michael Innes

  ‘Yes, indeed. She is an old lady, now, and it may be that we have to fear the worst.’ Dr Atlay advanced this consideration with a kind of routine clerical unction. ‘It is hard to tell how her death would affect the matter.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ Honeybath felt he had been offered a curiously inconsequent remark.

  ‘Various family matters and interests, I mean.’ Dr Atlay, who had not really shed his mysterious initial agitation, produced this amplification in some confusion. ‘Camilla Wyndowe was the only child of the late Lord Sylvanus Wyndowe, who was himself one of only two children of Henry’s grandfather, the twelfth earl. So Camilla may be a woman of some property. One cannot help thinking of these things at such a time, although assuredly one ought not to do so.’

  ‘I suppose not.’ Honeybath didn’t believe that Dr Atlay had in fact been thinking of this, and his former suspicions returned to him. But was it really rational to imagine that this almost venerable clergyman went round picking up unconsidered trifles in the houses of the nobility and gentry of the neighbourhood? The idea was not unattractive in itself, answering to a strain of mild anticlericalism in Charles Honeybath. Yet when one considered it one had to acknowledge the notion as more painful than absurd – but as pretty absurd too. If Atlay were pursuing some dark design it was of a more arcane sort than pilfering costly trinkets. Having arrived at this not very illuminating conclusion, Honeybath glanced at his watch. ‘Dear me!’ he said. ‘Can you tell me where on earth to find the Mullions? I was late for their luncheon yesterday, and mustn’t be remiss in the same way today.’

  ‘Let us go together, my dear Honeybath, and I will venture to propose myself as an addition to their board. It is a privilege I enjoy while working on all those very interesting Wyndowe family papers.’

  15

  It transpired that the family had in fact fled the castle, as was their custom when an open day coincided with fine weather. Their retreat, however, was only to a small walled garden beyond the moat, upon the sole entrance to which it was possible to turn a key. In this hortus conclusus, which was entirely devoted to roses and might have suggested to an instructed taste the setting of some medieval allegorical poem current long before Sir Rufus Windy had made any impact upon history, a simple repast had been laid out on a long table. The company, which was dotted around on garden chairs in a manner only moderately sociable, was more numerous than Honeybath would have expected, the explanation being that Sylvanus Wyndowe, accompanied by his wife and three daughters, had dropped in to share the simple meal.

  Honeybath was introduced to the female members of this fresh contingent. Mrs Wyndowe and her girls were built on much the same scale, evinced approximately the same coloration, and talked quite as loudly as Sylvanus himself. It seemed to Honeybath fortunate that the gathering was taking place in open air, since the din in a confined space would have been far from pleasing. Even so, the gathering being scattered as it was and with a good deal of long-distance communication going on, there was a decided effect of decibels flying around. The impression of this was the more striking because all the Wyndowes had at the same time an air of being properly subdued as a consequence of their great-aunt’s sudden illness. What they didn’t betray was any consciousness of being under observation. Yet this they certainly were, since from the uppermost windows of the castle they were being intermittently stared down upon by the wandering hordes. Honeybath even wondered whether this was an entirely inadvertent state of affairs, or whether the landed classes at their unassuming refection in fact constituted part of the show.

  He had the further thought that he was surrounded by a distinctly matriarchal society. Lady Mullion was much more in command of her family than her husband was, and it was a role which it could be felt that Patty would take over at need. If Cyprian, for instance, who liked the idea of making his inferiors toe the line, had to be constrained to toe the line himself, it would be his mother, seconded by the firmness of Patty and the vehemence of Boosie, who would do the job. And the Sylvanus Wyndowes somehow hinted a similar state of affairs. Sylvanus himself might be a satyr abroad, but seemed (even at his loudest) much more subdued in his domestic circle. He seemed, moreover, keener to talk to Cyprian than Cyprian was to talk to him. He had already betrayed to Honeybath a feeling that he lived amid a monstrous regiment of women, and it looked as if in this context ‘regiment’ was to be taken in the strict sense proposed by John Knox. Honeybath was reflecting on this no doubt sad state of affairs when he found that Boosie Wyndowe, carrying a large plate of sandwiches, had sat down beside him.

  ‘Patty alleges,’ Boosie said, ‘that you and she held a long confabulation in the small hours. Is that true?’

  ‘Perfectly true.’

  ‘Well, she doesn’t waste much time, does she? Can I book in for tonight? I’d like to be told a lot about artists and people of that sort.’

  ‘I’ll be a mine of information, Boosie. But it needn’t involve our both losing sleep. As you must have gathered, Patty and I got talking because we were both involved in your great-aunt’s unfortunate wandering.’

  ‘I can’t think why Mrs Trumper doesn’t lock up the old dear at night. It would be perfectly simple.’

  ‘I scarcely think so. Miss Wyndowe strikes me as being, at least in some ways, a strong-minded woman.’

  ‘It doesn’t prevent her being as mad as a March hare. And she was that, it seems, long before I was born.’ Boosie spoke as if this were a very long time ago indeed. ‘Everybody is very close about Great-aunt Camilla. Patty and I believe she has a guilty secret. My idea is that she was mixed up in a divorce when divorces weren’t thought proper.’

  ‘I think that rather improbable, Boosie. Unmarried ladies really very seldom got themselves mixed up in divorces. At least that’s how I remember it.’

  ‘Then she was just in an illicit relationship with somebody. I expect it was Dr Atlay.’

  ‘My dear child!’

  ‘Well, they’ve always been rather thick, those two. And they must be about the same age. Dr Atlay has put in a lot of time being what you might call solicitous about Great-aunt Camilla. And look how upset he can be seen to be now. That’s because of the old duck’s sudden illness. I expect they were lovers, don’t you? They were reading a religious book together in an arbour, like those people in Dante, and it suddenly came all over them. And it would be awfully serious, of course, in Dr Atlay’s case, because of his being a clergyman. Clergymen aren’t like us; they’re absolutely forbidden fornication and adultery. So that would make Great-aunt Camilla feel particularly bad. She was driven insane by remorse.’

  It was impossible to tell whether Lady Lucy Wyndowe was advancing these monstrous conjectures seriously, or whether she supposed herself to be achieving a species of wit habitual among fully grown-up persons. But at least the general proposition that there was something mysterious about Miss Wyndowe’s past was persuasive enough. That sensible woman Lady Mullion had admitted to a conviction that it was so. As for Honeybath himself, he had advanced to a theory of it not utterly remote from the field of Boosie’s imagination. It certainly hadn’t occurred to him, however, to insert Dr Atlay into his picture, and he was wondering whether there could conceivably be any sense in this when the alfresco luncheon party was subjected to a minor interruption. Savine had appeared in the garden; being sombrely attired in the manner appropriate to his calling, and the gentry being for the most part summery and therefore gay in suggestion, the effect was rather like that of the arrival of the ominous messenger Monsieur Mercad‚ upon the innocent fête champêtre at the close of Love’s Labour’s Lost. Savine advanced upon Lady Mullion (who thus became a Princess of France) and murmured discreetly in her ear. Lady Mullion immediately rose and, without word spoken, accompanied him out of the garden. The whole company was silent for a moment. What had happened, everybody knew, was the arrival of Dr Hinkstone at the castle. Even Sylvanus Wyndowe was briefly subdued. But anything of the kind being uncongenial to him for long, he a
lmost at once treated the company to a vociferous shout.

  ‘The old sawbones, eh?’ he bellowed with Dickensian vigour. ‘Just in the nick, perhaps. Haul the old girl back from the brink by her short hair, if you ask me. Devilish smart at his work, Hinkstone. Always take a fence with more confidence myself when I know he’s out with us.’

  It had to be presumed from this that the family doctor (although apparently advanced in years) was a keen fox-hunting man. Cyprian seemed to find his uncle’s remarks entertaining and it was perhaps because he was going to produce some indecorous response that his father produced an abrupt change of topic, looking round to collect everybody’s attention as he did so.

  ‘Interesting thing this morning,’ Lord Mullion said. ‘That lad Gore came to see me. Offended dear old Savine by showing he felt he had a right to do so. And so he had, of course. He said he wanted to better himself.’

  ‘Was that his expression, papa?’ Patty asked.

  ‘Not exactly, perhaps. Rather a well-spoken boy, as a matter of fact. It seems he did more at school than you’d expect in the way of all those certificates they go after. Came into the gardens as one of Pring’s assistants just because it seemed the thing to do – his father, Ammon Gore, having been there before him. Wants to go to some sort of college now, it seems, and thought he ought to consult me.’

  ‘And what did you say, papa?’

  ‘I said I’d back him, of course. Laudable ambition, wouldn’t you say, Patty? As a matter of fact, I said I’d foot the bill. Gores around here for a long time, you know. He seemed a little taken aback.’

  ‘As he well might.’ Patty’s tone showed every intention of sounding tart – but it seemed to Honeybath that her colour betrayed her. At least young Swithin hadn’t (as Honeybath had suspected on first hearing of the interview) made a formal request for Lady Patience’s hand. But Honeybath was far from reassured about the relationship (or non-relationship) of these two young people. He was wondering what more Patty might choose to say when Sylvanus came in on the talk in his customary roaring manner.

  ‘I don’t know this pushing boy,’ he shouted, ‘but I do remember his father – and his grandfather too, for that matter. Name of Abel, I think. Ugly devils, both of them, but decent workers enough.’

  ‘I think you’ve been splendid, papa.’ Boosie came out with this with remarkable warmth, so that Honeybath wondered whether she was in her sister’s secret (presuming that Patty, like her great-aunt, had a secret). But this forthrightness was at once otherwise explained as being the issue of Boosie’s political persuasions, which were at present vehemently egalitarian. In any decent society, she went on to assert, all garden boys would go to college and as a necessary consequence end up as Prime Ministers or (at the least) Fellows of the Royal Society. Lord Mullion, who plainly held the sagacity of both his daughters in high regard, was perfectly willing to agree with this proposition, and it was left to Cyprian to offer a somewhat satirical commentary. He knew Swithin Gore, and was inclined to judge him too big for his boots. Nevertheless, he added, the chap had decent instincts in his way. Only yesterday he’d rescued Cyprian’s tennis things from the rain and handed them over in a proper fashion at a back door of the castle.

  The party now showed signs of breaking up – chiefly, perhaps, because Sylvanus Wyndowe had finished the wine provided with the meal. It may also have been felt it was time they all displayed a becoming desire to hear Dr Hinkstone’s report on their sick relative. But Honeybath rather strongly felt another urgency. It was time he faced up to Henry on a related matter. With this end in view, he managed to detain his old schoolfellow in the convenient seclusion of the rose-garden.

  ‘Henry,’ he said firmly, ‘you remember my speaking to you about those two watercolours?’

  ‘Watercolours, my dear chap?’ It was almost as if Lord Mullion, that most innocent of men, was being disingenuously evasive.

  ‘Yes, watercolours. Something uncommonly odd has happened to them. Those Italian scenes have vanished since we were all looking at them. And two French ones have turned up in their place.’

  ‘Good Lord!’

  ‘I don’t want your Good Lords,’ Honeybath said – much as if he had summoned young Henry Wyndowe into the prefectorial presence. ‘Are you responsible?’

  ‘No, I am not.’ Lord Mullion, in his turn, spoke as with the confidence of a privileged if hazardous position: that of the personal serf of his senior, whose word would be believed. ‘There would have been no point in it.’

  ‘But somebody might have thought there would be a point in it?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, certainly. We’d better sit down.’

  So the two gentlemen sat down, surrounded by roses. Honeybath did so not without at least momentary misgiving; he was perhaps going venturesomely and even impertinently out on a limb.

  ‘Perhaps I ought to have held my tongue,’ he said. ‘But I pointed the thing out to one of those women: Miss Kinder-Scout.’

  ‘Ah!’ Lord Mullion appeared relieved. ‘Well, Bella Kinder-Scout is all right. A good scout, you might say.’ This joke being without much effect, he added, ‘I can’t, you know, tell you all that.’

  ‘My dear Henry, there’s no reason why you should.’

  ‘No, no – I don’t mean anything of that kind. I simply don’t know myself, you see. And what my father knew, I don’t know. He was always on the cagey side on family matters. Hated scandal, and so on. Feel a little that way myself.’

  ‘Of course Camilla did go to Italy?’

  ‘Of course, of course. Plain as pikestaff, eh? Came a bad purler there. Sent her off her rocker at once.’

  ‘Do you mean she was seduced – something of that kind?’

  ‘Couldn’t have been anything else, if you ask me. And by some quite impossible chap. I’ve no idea whom. But – do you know? I’ve always rather thought of a good-looking young peasant lad in a corner of a vineyard. Sudden overpowering thing, and nothing revolting about it in a down-to-earth way. Yes, I’ve liked to think of it as something bang-off of that sort. But no future in it. An earl’s grand-daughter can’t marry a contadino – not even if he looks like Phoebus Apollo.’

  ‘But all this is pure speculation?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Henry, you may be romanticizing something quite different. And I don’t see why such a misadventure should have sent the woman – the young woman, as she was – clean crazy.’

  ‘Well, she is.’ Lord Mullion paused on this inconsequent reply. ‘Or if she’s still alive she is.’

  ‘I rather think Mary doesn’t know this story?’

  ‘No, she doesn’t. Seems all wrong. But I think she feels I don’t like such buried family matters dug up. It was all buried straight away, you know. And I don’t believe my father told anybody but me. So nobody else knows. Oh, except perhaps Martin Atlay! You remember that joke of mine about the skeletons in the library. Martin is a great digger of things up.’

  ‘It’s fairly clear, isn’t it, that Camilla, despite her disordered mind, has retained her grip on the whole thing and been dead determined it will never he brought up? It must have been a shock to her last night when she realized you had two of her Italian sketches hanging in the castle. She probably believed she’d covered her tracks by destroying all she’d ever made. And you see what happened after that. Whether somnambulistically or not, she went to work on the problem in the small hours – in fact rather pointlessly, as you say – and now it looks as if the effort has proved too much for her.’

  ‘Perfectly true. Charles. But at least her secret will be going to the grave with her. Nobody except you and me is ever going to think about those watercolours again. Or you and me and Bella Kinder-Scout. But I can have a word with her. A good soldier. Bella, as I said.’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ Honeybath wondered whether this tolerably comfortable view of the matter really represented Henry’s true mind, and whether he was as unaware as he appeared to be of anything dubious or unsatisfactory about the vaguen
ess in which Miss Wyndowe’s early history was apparently to be left in the interest of family decorum.

  And by this time, surely, Mary had passed on to her husband Honeybath’s bewildering discovery about the Hilliards. The puzzle about the watercolours had presumably been solved, but that other puzzle remained – as did the lesser puzzle of the recent perturbation of the Reverend Dr Martin Atlay. It was in vain that Honeybath told himself at this point that these matters were (precisely as was the affair of the watercolours, indeed) no business of his. His curiosity had been aroused and was unlikely to let him rest.

  16

  It proved to be Dr Hinkstone’s opinion that his patient might get better, or might get worse, or might remain the same. As this assessment of the situation was (reasonably enough) offered with unflawed confidence it was received by the family as a triumph of diagnostic skill, and everybody settled down to wait on the event. Even Patty, who had expressed herself to Honeybath on their nocturnal occasion as not quite assured that the family doctor was altogether up-to-date, appeared satisfied. And Dr Hinkstone could at least not he judged to be of other than ripe experience in the field of clinical medicine, since he appeared almost as aged as either his patient or his patient’s spiritual adviser, Dr Atlay. It was a part of the world, Honeybath thought, in which people decidedly hung on. Perhaps Miss Wyndowe was going to do just that.

  As she was pronounced too ill to be moved into hospital and enjoy the full resources of scientific medicine, certain of these resources had to be imported into the castle. A couple of nurses arrived, and were followed by a good deal of equipment in the way of oxygen cylinders and the like, which could be regarded as reassuring if one chose to think that way. Mrs Trumper remained unglimpsed by Honeybath, but her status – or her sense of her status – in face of these changed circumstances gave rise to some anxiety. So did the problem of Mullion Castle as a show place overrun twice a week. It was a relief when the last of Wednesday’s visitors were seen safely despatched beneath the portcullis, but at once the problem of Saturday loomed up. Could the castle simply be declared closed? Telephone calls were made, and difficulties appeared. Whole coach-loads of tourists were booked up in advance; there were contractual obligations to fulfil; matters of courtesy might even be conceived as involved. In such a situation it might remain true that an Englishman’s house was his castle, but it didn’t look as if an Englishman’s castle was very securely his house. Lord Mullion was much worried by all this, and had finally to be persuaded that there would be no indecency in letting Saturday go ahead.