The Property of a Gentleman: One House. Many secrets. Page 4

  ‘You know he’s here, then? It’s hardly been a week ...’

  ‘He asked me here. I might presume to say I am a friend.’

  The man looked at him for a moment longer. ‘A friend. I’m surprised to hear he had such a thing as a friend in England. Well, no matter. I believe you. And I might be able to help you.’

  ‘Yes?’

  Now the man glanced towards me. ‘If the lady here is game ... the road isn’t easy, but it would save you about twelve miles. And quite a bit of traffic in the town. Saves you going into Kesmere, and about three miles out of it again. It’s a loop. Gets you back a few miles from here.’

  ‘How?’ Gerald said with characteristic directness. ‘The place is padlocked.’

  ‘Well ... I rent a piece of land from Askew. I have to have access. And I have the key.’

  Gerald brightened. ‘Well, then, let’s get on.’

  For the first time the man turned to me. ‘You used to driving steepish inclines?’

  ‘I’ve driven mountain roads – I take it all carefully.’

  ‘Well, then, take it carefully. I wouldn’t want the responsibility of sending you over the side of a fell.’ With this, he brought out a bunch of keys and selected one. ‘Watch it up there – it’s slippery in places.’

  I was back in the car, the engine ticking over. I didn’t want the man to change his mind, Gerald’s influence to wear off. I was conscious of his weariness – and my own. We shouldn’t have tried to do Draycote Manor and finish this journey all in one day. ‘Thank you,’ I said, as the man swung the gates open for us, and we drew level with him. ‘How far?’

  ‘About three miles. Up over the rise, and down again. A valley with two narrow openings. Very private – as the earls wanted it.’

  I gave him a salute in the mirror, and thought about his last words: ‘as the earls wanted it.’ As if he talked about many generations, not this one man who had returned to England after so many years. The last glimpse I had in the driving mirror before we rounded the first bend was of him closing the gates and beginning to padlock them again. Faintly reluctant to lose sight of him, as if he were the last contact with the outside world, I slowed almost to a halt again.

  ‘Go on,’ Gerald said.

  We went on, and the dim green beauty would have forced silence on us, even if we had not been so tired. There were moss-covered rocks among the plantation of trees, and all the time the sound of rushing water, as though a stream, or several of them, accompanied us all the way. We crossed several little dangerously humped bridges, and the water was white beneath them. A flash of the last of the sun came through the trees. I almost expected a temple bell, and the figure of a Japanese monk, motionless. It seemed the idealised scene in an Oriental watercolour, the mossy green stillness, the rocks, each seemingly placed with its own significance, each stone of these walls laid by hand. A thousand men could have taken a thousand years to create it. And it had grown here, naturally, in this remotest part of England, like some child’s picture dream.

  The shock was all the harsher when we emerged from the larch plantation and topped the rise. Here was the roof of heaven. We were almost, but not quite, now among the clouds. The moorland was rough, wild, nearly barren. The fells slipped down into a narrow cleft to the green of pasture, to the dark beauty of a long, slender tarn; there were great scars on the hillside where patches of scree had tumbled during the centuries; and those unbelievable stone walls still marched relentlessly up the sides, into the heights, the clouds – put there time out of mind to mark one man’s land from another’s, to keep sheep from straying. How could men have built such straight lines over the roughness of a mountainside, and how many hundreds of years ago, with no instrument to guide them but their own eye?

  There was nothing to be seen, nothing but the intensity of the terrain about us. In all this secret place there was nothing but sheep grazing down by the tarn, and the narrow, stone-lined road, winding on, winding down, going on for ever. It could have looked this way when the Romans came through, but as close as this strange country was to the ultimate line of the Roman occupation of Britain, Hadrian’s Wall, I guessed that this might have been one of the hidden places where no legion had ever penetrated.

  ‘Go on,’ Gerald said again, because I had, once more without thought, halted – compelled, shocked almost. ‘It can’t be much farther. God Almighty, what a forsaken wilderness! I haven’t even seen a shepherd’s hut.’

  I went on, taking the pace very gently on the steep grade. About a mile down beyond the crest, a copse of white birches, still only with the green catkins of spring hanging from their boughs, straddled two sides of the road. Here, we were getting into a lesser grade, the walls, tumbled and broken in places, had been left to lie as they fell. As we went down into the copse we were in the shadow cast by the opposite fells. The cloud finally spilled over their edges, and they were lost. I saw the cloud roll down like a silent avalanche. The tarn turned black. If the cloud came lower we would be caught in it. Suddenly, in spite of the car heater, it was cold.

  It was then I saw it – that tall white wraith of a dog who stood for an instant’s time beneath the birches, and then took flight straight across our path. I slammed on the brakes. Whether it was weeds beneath our wheels, or wet leaves, or just the suddenness of the braking, the car slipped perceptibly and sickeningly sideways, sliding too fast down the slope towards the next bend, the wheels locked in a skid. I corrected as much as I could, easing my foot off the brake, doing a kind of manic steering exercise through the bend and letting the car right itself. We grazed the wall with the back fender, and I heard stones topple. Then we were straight again; I put my foot very gently on the brake, and eventually we came to a halt. Without a word to Gerald I turned and looked back; the dog had crossed the road and was almost lost among the birches, the long high stride like a deer in flight.

  It was a time before Gerald spoke. ‘My God, Jo! What possessed you? Is there something wrong with the car?’

  I turned back to him. ‘You didn’t see it – the dog? It took off from the trees straight in front of us! I would have crashed right into it!’

  ‘The dog? What dog? I didn’t see a dog. What would a dog have been doing up here alone? What sort of a dog?’

  I shook my head, and I suddenly knew that I had to conceal from Gerald the trembling of my hands on the wheel. ‘Not a little dog, Gerald. A very large dog, a whitish dog with long legs. You had to have seen it! ’

  He took a very long time in replying, taking yet another cigarette from his case and lighting it. There was no possible way for him to control the trembling of his hands, but it was caused by a different reason from my own. I knew he did not believe me; he had seen nothing.

  ‘I must have nodded off, Jo, dear. No, I missed seeing the dog. Let’s get on then, shall we. It’s getting dark.’ The words were spoken with infinite kindness. Whatever he thought had gone through my mind in those seconds when I had believed I had seen the dog, he would not comment on it further. He was prepared to give me the benefit of the doubt, or at least not to call me any further into question. But it was equally impossible to believe that at this stage of the journey, so close to its end, in such a place as this, he had nodded off in sleep. My eyes had seen what his had not. That also was hard to believe.

  We went on, and very soon the road was down to the level of the water, and here it skirted one great pile of scree which tumbled almost to the edge of the tarn; the valley opened out. Then we saw the house, about another mile away. Neither of us had spoken in this time. I put on the windscreen wipers again because the mist had truly reached us now, and hung like rain. The house kept appearing, vanishing, and reappearing as the mist moved before us – a stone pile, a formidable and strangely beautiful outline in the settling dusk. I wished Gerald would speak; I began to think this perhaps was something I also had imagined.

  He did, and his words reflected my own sense of unease, but at least he saw what I did. ‘I would feel bet
ter if there was even a light,’ he said. ‘I suppose they do have electricity.’ I remembered that I hadn’t seen any power poles or lines, but I didn’t say so now. He was already more nervous than I had ever known him.

  ‘It isn’t quite dark yet.’

  ‘It feels dark.’

  The valley floor widened farther as we drew nearer the house; here were meadows where cattle grazed, and sheep and their new lambs being given the higher, sparser pasture. Around the house itself was a parkland of ancient oaks and beeches, flushed with the first green of spring, the grass about them was cropped close by the cattle. The tarn drifted off into a slim dark finger, close to the walls of a sort of outer garden of the house, a garden dark and tangled with plants and hedges gone wild with neglected growth. The edge of the tarn was lost in a small forest of rushes.

  There was, at last, at a ground-floor window, a light; but that was swiftly blotted out, as if someone had drawn a curtain. ‘I hope you saw it too,’ Gerald said. ‘And it looked like electricity. Perhaps, after all, there will be ice ...’ We passed over a cattle trap and the first of the walls that were meant to mark the formal garden. Little remained of it; great untamed masses of rhododendron and laurel sprawled under the beech and oaks. In the clear space, if there had ever been flower beds, they had given way to long grass where daffodils now held sway, thousands of them, rampant, wild, thin little things, growing weaker with the years, but always finding new territory to move into to re-establish themselves. Quite abruptly we reached a wide gravelled area, weed infested, in front of the house. Half obliterated paths led off towards the lake and the rhododendron forest. ‘Well,’ Gerald said, ‘this is where the road ends so this has to be Thirlbeck. And ... yes, by God, it is worth the seeing.’

  It was a magnificent piece of domestic Tudor architecture, loosely wedded to a rough stone tower that must have been some centuries older. It would have been mostly built in Elizabeth’s reign, I guessed, when noblemen, even in these remote wild areas, were beginning to feel some security and peace in the land, no longer enclosing themselves in castles and fortresses. It was a house of windows, in those times a sign of wealth – everywhere there were tall mullioned windows thrusting out in square bays. It was symmetrical, save for the tower – two huge bays to each side of the doorway, and rising two storeys, topped with a lacy stone frieze decorated with what appeared to be heraldic animals. It was perfectly proportioned – not too big, the height just right to the length. There were only three steps rising to the doorway, a modest disclaimer of too much grandeur. It was a great country house which made no pretensions to being a palace. Its builder seemed to have borne in mind that its origins were firmly rooted in that crumbling stone tower which must once have been the refuge of the whole manor, beasts as well as people, at the times of the Border raiders. There was still a strong sense of the wildness of Scotland across the Solway Firth even in this graceful structure; its stone matched the dark slate colour of the tower, as if it knew where its strength lay.

  ‘And to think it’s been here so long, and no one seems to know about it – or care ...’ I said softly.

  We had sat feasting our eyes on what we could see in the growing darkness, the last outlines fading rapidly. And, as we sat, the door had opened. A light shone out on the steps, and suddenly what seemed like a dozen or more enormous shapes came bounding towards the car with a silent, deadly kind of speed. Within seconds the hounds were all about the car – not really more than eight, I thought, though they seemed more. They planted themselves there, perfectly still, the largest dogs I had ever seen – I guessed that at their shoulders they must have been three feet high; they stared at us, great heads on long necks, deeply whiskered brows, with hairy, bristly faces and little beards. Long thin tails curled over those powerful but slender backs.

  Gerald said faintly. ‘One might have expected it. These, without doubt, are the hounds of the Birketts.’

  We didn’t attempt to move, and the dogs remained motionless and uncannily quiet, those eyes under bushy brows fixed intently on us. It seemed an interminable time before another figure started down the steps, a tall lean man with faintly hunched shoulders, hands in pockets, and the air of someone who doesn’t often hurry. As he drew near, Gerald risked rolling down the window a few inches.

  ‘Is it safe, Robert?’

  The man bent to the level of our own, and the dogs’, faces.

  ‘The dogs? My dear Gerald, they’re gambolling puppies. I’m glad you made it before dark. I saw your lights up on the edge of the fell. The drive over from Uskdale is not for the timid in the dark. But this driver doesn’t look at all timid, and is a great improvement over that one I saw in – was it Italy? How are you, Gerald? It’s good to see you. Good of you to come. Come in – come in! No, really, the dogs are all right. They’ll just annoy you by being over-friendly. Here, let me help you with the bags. You’re both staying, of course.’

  He was, as Gerald promised, completely charming. He spoke with the nonchalance of someone who has a staff of twelve, and bedrooms always ready, and that could not have been so, if the neglect of the garden was evidence. But I warmed to him because he behaved as if my coming had been entirely expected and welcomed. He was round at the boot of the car before I had slid from the seat. The dogs moved silently away to let me pass. He took the keys from my hand and undid the lock. The great hounds hung about us, their heads seemed to reach almost to my shoulder; with endearing curiosity four of them thrust themselves forward to sniff the suitcases in the boot. Even in the fading light I was aware of the man’s curious combination of silver hair which must once have been very blond, with a rather dark complexion and brows, a seamed face whose lines were all vertical, still an incredibly handsome face. The eyes were a light colour, grey or green I couldn’t yet tell.

  ‘Gerald seems too paralysed to introduce us. I’m Robert Birkett.’

  ‘Joanna Roswell, Lord Askew,’ I answered. ‘I work at Hardy’s, and Mr Stanton and I have been on a valuation job this morning. I often drive him. We thought ... well, we expected that I would go on to Kesmere. There must be rooms there so early in the season.’

  ‘Of course you won’t. We’ve rather a lot of rooms here. We’ll be delighted to have you. I wouldn’t dream of parting Gerald from one of his comforts – if you don’t mind my describing you that way.’ He smiled as he spoke; I could take no offence.

  ‘It’s been my privilege to be ... one of Gerald’s comforts. He’s been a friend since I was a child ...’

  I stopped because he had put the suitcases down again, among the whole pack of hounds, and was staring at me with strange intentness. ‘You said Roswell, didn’t you? Roswell ... Are you related to the artist, Jonathan Roswell?’

  ‘His daughter. You know him, Lord Askew?’

  ‘I used to. But that’s years ago. It must be – well, it must be close to thirty years since I last saw him. Of course he’s become famous since then. But he doesn’t live in England, does he? I read somewhere ... Where is it he lives now?’

  ‘Mexico.’ I smiled now, pleased. So few people seemed ever to have met my father.

  He answered my smile. ‘And your mother ... he stopped abruptly. ‘How clumsy of me. Please forgive me. She died in that plane crash. I was shocked to read her name in that list. Forgive me,’ he repeated.

  He bent to pick up the cases, and I sensed real distress at what he thought was his blunder. He added quickly: ‘If you’ll let me have the keys I’ll put the car away after we’ve had a drink. There isn’t much lighting around the outbuildings, and although it looks respectable enough here in front, round the back the ruts would challenge a tractor.’ And as Gerald emerged warily from the car, and all the hounds in turn moved to sniff at him, ‘Well, then – welcome to Thirlbeck.’ And in a different tone he called to the dogs. ‘Ulf, Eldir, Thor, Oden – mind yourselves now!’ They moved back obediently.

  We followed him, I left only with my handbag and our two coats to carry. I looked up towards the hous
e. The double doors had now been opened wide, and more lights had been turned on. I knew, without being able to see her face, that the woman standing there in the doorway was beautiful. She carried the assurance of beauty stamped on her in the indelible lines of bone structure. A little sharp wind blew from the tarn which moulded her long thin pale dress about her body. Her long hair was dark, with the sheen of blue caught from the light behind her. She was like something captured and transplanted from those birch woods, a creature of black and white, with hands whose incredible grace and form I could already see and marvel at. She was the sort of woman whose feet would be beautiful too.

  We had mounted the steps, and now her face was half-turned to the light. Yes, beautiful. Lord Askew paused.

  ‘Carlota, may I introduce Miss Joanna Roswell. Miss Roswell, this is the Condesa de Avila. And this, Carlota, is my friend, Gerald Stanton.’

  She murmured something in a low voice. Gerald was gazing at her, enchanted. She smiled, knowing the effect she had had on him, and being accustomed to it.

  ‘Please ... you must both be tired after the drive. It is a fierce one, over that mountain, is it not?’ Her voice was almost accentless, but if there was an accent, I guessed it was Spanish. She moved before us into the hall. The dress, high-waisted and long-sleeved, low-cut on a beautiful bosom, was pale champagne in colour, not white as I had first thought. Several of the dogs flanked her silently; they seemed, for these moments, like creatures from a medieval tapestry. Uncannily, she belonged in this setting. We followed through a second pair of doors into a great and splendid hall, almost bare of furnishings, but warm with the richness of the panelling which reached the height of the full two storeys. The carving of the balustrade of the staircase, which split and went off on two arms to an upper gallery, was deep and intricate. The whole place was lit only by a few electric sconces, and the ceiling carved, beamed, was nearly lost in the shadows. There was the scent of flowers from a large jar filled with daffodils on a long oak table. There was the brightness of two fires burning in opposite chimneys. There was little else – a few tall carved oak chairs, one silken rug – and this graceful creature gesturing towards an open door. ‘Here is a fire – and the drinks. Roberto remembers that you like Martinis, Mr Stanton ...’