Lord Ampersand highly commended his son’s diligence, and even entered so fully into the spirit of the occasion as to cause the printing of an engraved card, designed as being in future the sole reply that inquiring learned persons should receive. It read:
Lord Ampersand takes pleasure in
intimating that the Muniment Room at
Treskinnick Castle will in future be open
on the first Thursday of every month
between the hours of two and five
of the clock in the afternoon
Railway station: Lesnewth: 15 miles
Afternoon tea in the Old Stables: 60p
The Ampersand men were particularly tickled by the final bit of information and its price-tag. But Lady Ampersand wisely censored it, pointing out that if several char-à-bancs full of trippers were thus enticed to Treskinnick the village women who would have to be hired to slop them out their tea would demand an outrageous wage, so that the venture must be a dead loss. Lord Skillet, who had long ago ceased trying to make his mother see a joke, reluctantly concurred in the deletion.
During the next few months perhaps as many as half a dozen hardy explorers penetrated to Treskinnick Castle. Of these the yet bolder ascended to the muniment room, looked around them, and took their departure cautiously but in evident haste. It became known that the present Lord Ampersand was mad, that his heir was madder, and that among their aberrations had to be numbered a wholly perverted sense of humour. Quite soon the learned became discouraged, and the family was left in peace.
2
‘Here is a letter from Agatha,’ Lady Ampersand said at breakfast one morning. (Agatha was Lady Ampersand’s sister.) ‘She encloses a cutting from The Times.’
‘What should she do that for?’ In Lord Ampersand’s head it had been established long ago that Agatha was a damned interfering woman. ‘The Times comes into the house every day. I notice it regularly on the table in the hall. And Ludlow looks at it when he irons it, and tells me if anybody’s dead.’ Ludlow was the marquess’ butler. ‘As it happens, nobody has died for years, so your sister can’t have sent you an obituary. So what is it? Not some rubbish about Archie being had up again for speeding, I hope.’
‘Nothing of the kind. It’s about somebody called Shelley. A poet.’ Lady Ampersand gave thought to this. ‘The poet,’ she emended concessively. ‘He was in the books at school.’
‘Shelley? I know all about him.’ It pleased Lord Ampersand to show his wife from time to time that he was quite on the ball. ‘Years ago, when I was at the House–’
‘I thought you’d never been to the House, Rollo. Or not after taking your seat.’
‘Not the House of Lords, my dear. The House. Christ Church.’
‘Oh, I see. The Oxford one. Of course.’ Lady Ampersand was a little at sea. ‘And you met Shelley? How interesting!’
‘Certainly not. Shelley was dead. He must have been, since there was this memorial to him. That’s what I’m telling you about.’
‘Yes, Rollo. Do go on.’
‘Once, when I was up at the House, I strayed into one of the colleges. I can’t think why.’
‘But isn’t the House Christ Church? Isn’t that just what you’ve said?’
‘Of course it is. One ought to know these things, my dear.’
‘And isn’t Christ Church one of the colleges?’
‘Certainly not. I was there for three years, and I don’t recall such a suggestion ever being made. I strayed into one of the colleges, as I say, and there was this memorial to Shelley. Uncommonly indecent thing.’
‘Would he have been one of the professors?’
‘Something of the kind, no doubt. But what is this stuff in The Times about him?’
‘It says he had a circle.’
‘Shelley had a circle? Doesn’t make sense. Might as well say that Shelley had a triangle. Or a trapezoid or a rhombus.’ Lord Ampersand had brilliantly recovered these figures from studious Eton days.
‘A set, Rollo. Shelley had a set. He came of very decent people in Sussex, it seems, although his father was only the second baronet. And some of his set were of really good family. Lord Byron was one of them. The sixth Lord Byron. He wrote even more poetry than Shelley did.’
‘Long-haired crowd, eh?’ It was plain that Lord Ampersand was not favourably impressed. ‘You still haven’t told me why Agatha has unloaded this rubbish on you. Ludlow, take away this toast. It’s burnt.’
Ludlow, whose attendance at the breakfast-table was one of his employer’s more outrageous insistences, judged that this injunction could be sufficiently obeyed by raising a single eyebrow to an assisting parlourmaid – who removed the offending toast so nervously that she contrived to scatter a good many crumbs down Lord Ampersand’s neck. Lord Ampersand made no protest. He was always quite as well-disposed as was at all proper to the more personable of the female domestics about the place.
‘Agatha’s eye caught the name of Digitt, Rollo.’ Lady Ampersand was now consulting the cutting received from her sister. ‘Adrian Digitt.’
‘Never heard of him.’
‘A son, it seems, of the second marquess’ younger brother. There’s quite a lot about him. It seems that he had a circle too. Or several circles. He revolved in several circles. Whereas Shelley revolved only in his own.’
‘Balderdash, my dear. Utter balderdash, the whole thing.’
‘No, I don’t think so.’ Lady Ampersand was a patient – sometimes even a persistent – woman. ‘Agatha says it may be important. She believes that Adrian, although rather far out, may have spent part of his life at the castle. He had left his wife, you see. Perhaps because of all those circles.’
‘Sounds a bit dubious, to my mind. But go on.’ Lord Ampersand held his wife’s wisdom in considerable regard, although he was not always entirely civil to her. She came of a large family and had been, he liked to say, ‘the pick of the bunch’ – whereas Agatha would have been the bottom of the barrel. ‘Go on,’ he repeated encouragingly. ‘Did Adrian know this fellow Shelley?’
‘Very well, it seems. The article says that Shelley was a difficult person, but that he was devoted to Adrian Digitt, and that it is now clear that Adrian was one of the two people who knew how to manage him. The other was a man called Peacock – who was quite obscure, I imagine, and certainly didn’t move in the best society as a Digitt would naturally have done.’
‘Naturally not. But I still don’t see what’s important, or even quite proper, about a member of my family taking up with a lot of scribblers. And fiddlers and daubers too, likely enough. Except for Lord Byron, of course. He may have been all right.’
‘It’s really the review of a book, you see, that Agatha has sent. And she has marked what she thinks is the most important passage. It’s where the writer says that few men in England can have been as widely and warmly esteemed by people destined to be famous as, it is now apparent, was Adrian Digitt.’
‘That’s very kind of you, my dear child. Put it down in front of her ladyship.’ Lord Ampersand was speaking thus paternally to the parlourmaid, who had returned with a rack of more acceptable toast. ‘But, Lucy,’ he went on to his wife, ‘does all this have any practical bearing on our affairs?’
The sixth Marquess of Ampersand has perhaps not figured so far in our narrative as a man of commanding intellect, or even of keen observation, extensive views, or wide reading. But it is undeniable that at this moment his mind was beginning to stir. If not stung by the splendour of a sudden thought, he had at least been pinched by the ghost of a perception.
‘It might have a bearing, Rollo. Agatha points out that in the earlier nineteenth century – which is when all these people appear to have lived – they were excessively fond of letter-writing and diary-keeping, and that sort of thing. This Adrian Digitt may have kept a diary, and all sort
s of people may regularly have corresponded with him. Lord Byron and young Mr Shelley may even have sent him poems, and things of that sort.’ For a moment Lady Ampersand paused, as if thinking of embarking upon useful enumeration in the field of literature. But she thought better of it. ‘There may be money in it,’ she said.
‘Money!’ Lord Ampersand was really startled. ‘How on earth can there be money in it?’
‘Agatha says that, nowadays, things that people have just written can be almost as valuable as pictures they’ve painted.’
‘We haven’t many of them left,’ Lord Ampersand said grimly. ‘Even the decent family portraits gone under that confounded hammer.’
‘Yes, Rollo, and it really is too bad. Let Ludlow give you more coffee.’
For some minutes the Ampersands continued their breakfast in silence – and with the dread spectre of aristocratic poverty making, as it were, a third at the board.
‘Agatha,’ Lady Ampersand presently continued, ‘has asked somebody who really knows. It seems that a play of Shakespeare’s – say the one about Hamlet – just written out by his own hand with a quill pen and so on, would probably fetch more money than you got for all those Romneys and Hoppners put together – or even for the Gainsborough.’
‘Good God!’ Lord Ampersand was now visibly agitated. ‘All that stuff at the top of the North Tower, Lucy – do you think there might be a play of Shakespeare’s among it?’
‘I suppose there might be. But isn’t an unknown poem by Mr Shelley more probable? Agatha has been working it all out, and she says that even that would be immensely valuable.’
‘Impossible!’ Lord Ampersand was really shocked. ‘A poem? It isn’t decent. But good heavens!’ – a fresh thought had come to him – ‘would you say that all those damned prying fellows that wanted to come around had wind of this sort of thing?’
‘Yes – but of other possibilities besides this Adrian Digitt who had a circle. I’ve heard Skillet say that various Digitts have rather gone in for literature, and things of that sort, from time to time. I’m bound to say, Rollo, that nothing of the kind has ever been known in my own family.’
‘No, of course not, my dear.’ Lord Ampersand was thoroughly humbled. ‘But – do you know? – if there might be money around in all that I’m surprised that Skillet hasn’t been on to it. Always a smart lad, Archie, wouldn’t you say? Nose for the main chance.’
‘It just can’t have occurred to him.’ Lady Ampersand had her own ideas here, and they were not entirely to the credit of her son as a properly filial person. But upon this she judged it injudicious to embark. ‘I think, dear, that it should just be looked into,’ she said comfortably. ‘Perhaps the vicar could help. Or Dr Morrison, who has that modest little collection of old china. Or it might even be possible to hire somebody to investigate. For we have got a muniment room, after all.’
‘Hire somebody!’ The boldness of this conception astonished Lord Ampersand. ‘Young fellow from the varsity – that sort of thing? But would it be possible to get one with decent manners, eh? I could write to some fellow who runs one of those places, and ask him to turn up a stone or two and see what offered.’ This image must have gratified Lord Ampersand, who chuckled softly. ‘Yes, I could do something like that. Young fellow would get his keep, and a glimpse of how our sort live. Attractive proposition for the right man.’
‘I think there would have to be a fee, dear.’
‘A fee?’ The noble Norman brow of Lord Ampersand clouded. ‘Treat him to a spot of rough shooting, perhaps. Let him go out and fish. Mount him, if he can manage more than a donkey. Thoroughly generous arrangement.’
‘Yes, Rollo dear. But I shall write and consult Agatha about it.’ Lady Ampersand was quite firm. ‘Agatha will know just the right people to ask.’
‘As you please, my dear. Time I was walking the dogs, eh? Splendid morning.’
And Lord Ampersand, mildly excited by the astonishing ideas that had been put in his head, embarked on his day’s common round.
3
Lord Skillet was the Ampersands’ only son, and now middle-aged: although enterprising, he had never displayed any interest in matrimony. There were also two daughters, Lady Grace and Lady Geraldine Digitt.
Neither Grace nor Geraldine had been interested in matrimony either – or if they had, it had been unobtrusively and ineffectively, and they were now well past an age at which marriage is a sensible idea for a woman. When not engaged in charitable exercises either in London or abroad they continued to live with their parents at Treskinnick Castle. They mingled very little, however, in what their mother called the neighbourhood, meaning the dozen or so families of any consequence resident in the western extremity of the British Isles. They had been constrained as girls to attend numerous dances and similar social occasions; to plouter down chilly streams in pursuit of otters, and round and round prickly moors in pursuit of hares; to graduate from alarming ponies to horses more alarming still. But if physically timid they were strong-minded, and they possessed their own ideas about the responsibilities of their station. Now in their forties, they were held by their father in considerable awe. They kept things called Blue-books in their rooms. They ought really to have been MPs. But only Skillet was that – and for the frivolous reason that he was determined to have sat in both Houses of Parliament in his time.
Lord Ampersand’s parents had provided him with only a single sibling in the person of a younger brother, Lord Rupert Digitt, who had been killed when pursuing a fox shortly after marriage. (This had happened in Kent, an outlandish locality in which one simply doesn’t hunt: but Lord Rupert had.) It thus came about that the heir presumptive to the marquisate (and to the barony) was Rupert’s son, a young man called Charles Digitt. Charles came around Treskinnick a good deal. He probably felt an eye should be kept on the place. It might eventually be saleable as a home for disturbed children, or something like that. Charles, because his fox-hunting father had married late, was younger than his cousins Archie, Grace and Geraldine. He was understood to be very clever, and to go in for advanced ideas. Archie, although he had declined the duty of siring an eighth marquess, rather resented the existence of this presumptive one. He had been known to describe Charles as a viewy brat. Lord Ampersand, while deferring to Charles’ position in the family and professing to look forward to his visits, was inclined to get fussed when his nephew actually turned up. He felt it due to the young man to give him an account of the present condition of the estates and of the financial situation generally. But as he really knew very little, leaving all such matters to Skillet, he easily grew confused in his exposition, and felt that he was being suspected of concealing things. It amused Skillet to enhance this quite baseless impression by himself adopting a shifty and conspiratorial attitude when appealed to by his father for facts and figures. Lady Ampersand, who understood the play of family feelings very well (although totally incapable of discursive thought on the subject), knew that Charles was not deceived or perturbed by this behaviour on the part of his kinsmen. And this was true. Charles was sure he wasn’t being cheated because he was aware that there was pretty well nothing left that he could be cheated of. His uncle and cousin were already down to those entailed and settled remnants of the family fortune of which it was only the income that could come to them. (There had been a row over the Hoppners and the Gainsborough. But it had been decently conducted by lawyers. Charles himself had, so to speak, kept out of the picture.)
Of this distinguished but not particularly ramifying family only one further member falls to be mentioned at present. Miss Deborah Digitt was a spinster of mature years, who lived in a small but genteel way in Budleigh Salterton. This quiet resort (very little intruded upon by those vulgar hordes that in England seek the sea in summer), although it may be described as located in the West of England, was at the same time at a comfortable remove from Treskinnick Castle: comfortable, that is to say
, if one is estimating what in the way of occasional attention is due to an obscure and impoverished relation. Lord Ampersand was very clear that he acknowledged the relationship; he frequently referred to ‘my kinswoman Deborah Digitt’; he sometimes even said ‘my cousin Deborah Digitt’. But he was quite vague about how the poor lady came in – a fact that may be established simply by recalling that he had never heard of Adrian Digitt, the revolver in circles. For Miss Digitt was in fact Adrian’s great-granddaughter, and Adrian’s father (as Lady Ampersand had discovered) had been the second marquess’ younger brother. So Lord Ampersand’s and Miss Deborah’s ancestor in common was the first marquess.
Lord Ampersand – in a manner perhaps uncharacteristic of his kind – simply didn’t know about all this. But the old soul in Budleigh Salterton was a relation, and he regularly sent her a Christmas card, and also occasional presents of game. What Miss Digitt (who lived ministered to by a single maid, of years even more advanced than her own) can have done with two brace of pheasants or a haunch of venison was unknown. But she always acknowledged these gifts correctly and without effusion. So Lord Ampersand had a comfortable sense that he did the old girl quite well.
If anybody did know whose great-granddaughter Miss Digitt might be it was probably Lord Skillet – who owned, however, a trick of keeping things to himself. But it was known in the Ampersands’ household that Archie, oddly enough, called in on the old lady from time to time on his way to or from London – divagating from the main Exeter road for the purpose. He couldn’t have done this from a sense of duty, since demonstrably he hadn’t been born that way. Deborah must have amused him. But it was difficult to see how. On one occasion Archie had taken his cousin Charles with him to Budleigh Salterton. It had been a mid-morning call, and their kinswoman had offered them a glass of madeira and a slice of cake. She seems not to have struck Charles as she regularly struck Archie. Charles said that she was a cultivated old creature with wide-ranging interests. Archie said that she was simple-minded, and that if she had her childhood over again now (and in a sense she was so having it) she would be classified by busybody psychologists as ESN. Lord Ampersand’s curiosity was unstirred by these disparate estimates. He just continued to despatch to Budleigh Salterton (when there was a glut of them) his sundry trophies of the chase.
Ampersand Papers Page 2