Chapter 1; Part 1

“You know what I like best about the country, Pond?” I mused as I took my coffee-cup from the proffered tray.

“My lord?” unburdened of the cup, he went to fiddle with the curtains, letting the morning light come streaming through the high lancet window of my tower bedroom at Castoris Castle (the stately home of the Duke of Buckland, near Beverborough, Leics.).

“No corpses,” I hummed with delight after my first sip; the Duchess’s kitchen sent up first-rate coffee, almost better than Pond’s, “It’s been almost two months since I last saw a dead body, and I have to say I don’t miss it.”

“I thought your lordship enjoyed sleuthing,” Pond had my discarded evening clothes folded up and draped neatly over his arm in a single fluid motion.

“Sleuthing, yes,” I conceded, “when it’s a matter of theft or kidnapping or blackmail. Nice neat problems with plausible solutions. But death always makes things so weighty, don’t you think?”

“Yes, my lord,” he looked at me sideways, no doubt wondering if I was going somewhere on this train of thought or if I was just idly spinning my wheels.

“On the other hand,” I swallowed the last of my coffee, and Pond was there in a flash to refill it from the pot, “I do miss the people. One was always meeting someone new in Town, but in the country it’s the same faces every day.”

“Perhaps, my lord, that is why so many people live in Town year ‘round and only visit the country on week-ends.”

“Well, if one’s country-house was in the Home Counties,” I agreed, “But I’d hate to go all the way from London to Gloucestershire every Friday.”

“I believe the train service is faster on week-ends, my lord, for just that reason.”

“Well, something to think about, certainly. And now you mention it, I think I might like pop down to London before going to Foxbridge, take in a nightclub and a show,” though to be completely honest, my mind was less on cultural enrichment than on finding a like-minded new friend to relieve a certain sort of itch, one that hadn't been scratched since I came to the Castle two weeks before.  It was making me edgy.

“If your lordship wishes,” he cast an eye over the neat pile he’d already made of my luggage: I was due to depart Castoris for Foxbridge on the eleven-o’clock train, “I can pack an overnight case. Most of our Town clothes are still there.”

“Never mind, it’s too much bother to change plans,” I decided after thinking it over a minute; Twister was coming to Foxbridge in two days, and he'd scratch me just right all I wanted.  I put down my cup and kicked off the covers, feeling around on the floor for my slippers.

“No trouble at all, my lord,” he lied with a perfectly straight face.

“Besides, Caro is coming with me, and her friend Lady Heard,” I slipped into my dressing-gown preparatory to a trip down the corridor for my bath, “It wouldn’t be nice to send them on to Foxbridge without me, what? And Bunny’s coming tomorrow, I want to do the whole country-squire ‘Welcome to Foxbridge Castle’ bit for him, and I’d look a complete ass doing it if he got there first.”

“Very good, my lord,” a vague sort of smile flitted across his face, as it usually did when he got his own way, “I’ll go and draw your lordship’s bath.”

“Thanks, Pond,” I went to the dressing-table and poured myself another cup of coffee. Though the coffee at Castoris couldn’t be beat, it was sent up with a dainty little demitasse cup that I had to refill seven or eight times to get the amount I was used to drinking of a morning. I took a couple of gulps and then topped it up again for the trip down the very long and draughty corridor to the bath.

Unlike Foxbridge, Castoris is a real castle, occupying a site that was fortified by the Romans and has remained fortified ever since. Though the thick wall rising straight up from the river had, over the centuries, become the outside wall of a mansion of mismatched wings and ells and annexes that had grown against it like a great stone bramble-patch (in recent eras pierced with big windows in deep embrasures that would have made that side of the castle indefensible in the rowdy days of the Plantagenets), the rest of the medieval structure was still in place, restored every now and then but never enlarged or diminished.

But, also unlike Foxbridge, Castoris is as frigid, draughty, and inconvenient as any other medieval castle in England, with meandering staircases, whistling chimneys, and hardly any bathrooms. It was also severely haunted: the Chatroys boast that Castoris Castle has more ghosts than the Tower of London; and while that may be only a bit of family-pride hyperbole, I had seen one of the castle ghosts several times in the passage outside my bedroom over the previous two weeks.

It was said to be a Viking warrior of the seventh century, represented by a glimmery sort of mist that congealed into an indistinct human shape in the middle of the corridor, came about twenty feet forward, and drifted to the left through a solid wall that had once been a doorway a long time ago — but certainly not as long ago as the seventh century. My guess it was the ghost of a servant whose routine had taken him through that doorway over and over every day for his whole life, and kept repeating despite his death; but nobody wants to have a castle haunted by mere functionaries, so a more romantic (if historically improbable — that wing was distinctly fourteenth-century, and the corridor much higher than Castoris's walls could have been a millennium ago under the Danelaw) story had to be invented.

Of course, it might have been some scientifically explicable phenomenon, a miasma from an old pipe or something, catching on a convenient draft and passing through a refracted light-source, which would be even less romantic.  At any rate, the shape was pretty much identical to the silhouette of Pond carrying a tray that I saw every morning when I woke up, so I'll stick to my theory.

The bathroom in that wing was a cluttered, narrow, icy little chamber converted from an ancient garderobe, and still had a stone privy-seat against the outside wall, where refuse would once have been dumped straight into the river below (which can’t have been very sanitary); the bath fixtures were mid-Victorian, with  copper pipes bolted directly onto the stone walls, a wood-burning iron stove to heat the water, and a commode encased in wood that looked oddly like a sedan chair with a round china tank on top. But the copper tub was incredibly deep, and the stove made the little room wonderfully warm and steamy when it was burning, so it wasn’t all that bad.

Pond buggered off so I could use the commode, but returned with a fresh cup of coffee when I got into the tub; the hot fragrant water came up to my chin, and I just floated for a while in comfortable bliss while sipping my hot fragrant coffee.  Eating or drinking something hot while floating in hot water is one of life's most potent pleasures.  Setting the cup aside, I pulled the shaving-mirror on  its accordion arm in front of my face to see if a new whisker had happened in the night.

I was looking terrifically pretty after two weeks in the country, with roses blooming on the lilies of my cheeks (as Wilde might have said) and a healthy sparkle in my round chestnut-coloured eyes; I'd even let my auburn hair get a little long, the loose curls bouncing around my face untamed by brush and brilliantine.  I'd rather left off exercising while living in London over the summer, never going riding or playing cricket or swimming, as I had done most of my life up until then; I hadn't realized that this sedentary behaviour, mixed with too many late nights and too much rich food, had loosened my figure and dulled my complexion.  I would have to hunt up a swimming-bath in my neighbourhood, and buy a horse to ride in Hyde Park, when I got back to Town.

"Sorry, old man, can't wait," Claude Chatroy burst into the little room, lifted his nightshirt, and dropped down onto the commode with a sigh of relief. Pond and I stared, frozen with shock and more than a little disgust at the ensuing sounds and smells.

Claude, you may remember, is the cousin of my fiancée, Lady Caroline Chatroy (known by me and all her family as 'Caro'), the eldest son of her father's youngest brother, if you follow me; I'd recently rescued him from a white-slavery ring, only to drop him off on a dominatrix of my acquaintance when I discovered he liked that sort of thing.

He is a gorgeous young man, dark and lively and very like something you'd see in the Græco-Roman wing of the British Museum; but he's not very bright, and has a tendency to overlook the niceties of civilized life — like properly addressing his elders, thinking before speaking, and preserving his own and others' privacy.  But he was raised eccentrically, with no governess, no formal schooling, no sisters to temper the wildness of four boys born so close together they were practically quadruplets, and very little interference from his woolly-minded-scholar father and his overindulgent Italian mother.  One has to make allowances for such a deprived childhood.

"Thanks, Foxy," he said when he'd finished, going over to the sink to wash his hands and face, "I waited too long, and then it was too late to go anywhere else."

"Think nothing of it," I said airily with a wave of my sponge, though I could see out of the corner of my eye that Pond was still as stiff as a very offended board, his eyes bugging out just the tiniest bit and his mouth an anatomical illustration of disapproval.

"I say, Foxy," he ambled over and perched himself on the side of the tub, reaching down to dabble his hand on the surface of the water, "I wonder if I could cadge an invitation from you?"

"You want to come to Foxbridge?" I hadn't thought to invite him; at seventeen, he was a good deal younger than the rest of my friends, and those guests who were not my particular friends would be older still, "What for?"

"Lady Beatrice is going to be there," he said a little bashfully, like a child revealing a secret wish to a department-store Father Christmas, "I miss her since we came back to the Castle."

"Of course, dear boy," I grinned wickedly: Lady Beatrice Todmore is the aforementioned dominatrix, who had been trying to beat some discipline into the boy but was forestalled by the Duchess dragging the entire Chatroy clan away from London at the end of the Season, "You're more than welcome to join us."

"Oh, thank you, Foxy!" he gushed, grabbing my chin and kissing me on the mouth; the kid was just one inappropriate gesture after another, "I'll go pack."

"That goof is trouble on toast," Pond observed in his non-valet voice once Claude had left us.

"At least he's decorative," my shrug didn't show above the water, "I'll shove him in next to Bunny, he'll love  sharing a bathroom with someone whose sense of decency is so rudimentary."

"I'd have thought you'd want him handy to Lady Beatrice," Pond smirked, still in his informal persona.

"Aunt Em would have kittens if I put a bachelor adjacent to a married lady," I laughed, "She believes in the separation of the sexes.  Boys go in the keep, girls go in the south wing, and married couples in the central block, with plenty of corridors and stairways in between."

"I look forward to meeting her ladyship," Pond was suddenly back in valet-form, scrubbing my back a little too briskly with a long brush, "It will be a pleasure to be part of a well-run household again."

"Do you miss working in a big establishment?" I wondered.  I'd never before thought about what a wrench it might have been for Pond to come from a great house where he was one of a platoon of servants, valeting a sober and magisterial baronet, to living in a hotel and doing triple duty as valet, butler, and even nanny to an  impetuous and (I must admit) often silly peer's son fresh out of University.  But then, I didn't mind him having it on with gamekeepers or coachmen, while his former employer had been somewhat hidebound on the subject, so I'd assumed he was happier with me.

"London life has been a bit of an adjustment, my lord," he admitted to me, "I'd been in service in a country-house since I was a child, and my parents and grandparents before me.  But I always traveled with Sir Eustace, so I am quite accustomed to hotels."

"Well, you'll love Foxbridge.  It's very pretty, and the staff are particularly agreeable.  And there will be a lot of new faces.  I authorized Coldicott to hire twelve new servants, so you won't stand out as the only newcomer."

"I am sure it will be quite pleasant, my lord," he bowed a little and then held the towel out for me to step into.  I preferred him to leave me alone in the bath, as he had a tendency to handle me like an infant if I let him; but he didn't like being out of earshot of me at that most crucial time of his workday, and my bedroom was about a quarter-mile from the bathroom, so I let him stay.  I'd have to break him of the habit again when I got home — or habituate myself to his presence, one or the other.

I ran as fast as I could from the steamy bath to my cozy room, but my feet were frozen by the time I got there; I collapsed into an armchair and thrust my toes into the fireplace to warm them as close to the hot little coal fire as I could get without burning myself.

"Your lordship forgot his slippers," Pond remonstrated mildly as he entered the room a few moments later, my empty coffee-cup in one hand and my warm velvet slippers in the other, making me feel a bit of an idiot.

"Slippers are for women," I replied loftily in a weak attempt to save my dignity, "Don't stand around like a statue holding the silly things, let's get me into my tweeds."

"Yes, my lord," he laughed at me, without making any sound or changing his face at all.  It was all in the tone, but I was learning his language: I could hear the laugh clear as a bell, and it humbled me just a bit.  I suppose it was good for me, though.  I liked to think of myself as terribly clever, and mostly I was; but as I said, I could also sometimes be very stupid.  Running damp and barefoot down twenty yards or so of uncarpeted stone floor was but one example.

Pond got me into my salmon-and-wheat herringbone tweed suit, which was fast becoming my favourite: beautifully cut and tailored for me at Anderson & Sheppard of Savile Row, though the fabric was from one of the great ducal estates in Scotland, which I'd found in a little shop of Scotch wares in Piccadilly.  It was much softer than new tweed usually was, silky smooth, warm but not heavy.

Once I was dressed, I went down to the stately dining-room for breakfast; I was so late getting out of bed that I was the last one down, and only Claude was still eating, bolting his food in that savage way he had.  Caro was sitting across the table from him, sipping her tea and reading a newspaper, glancing indulgently at her cousin over the top.  She looked terrifically pretty with her gleaming spun-gold hair pinned back with a pearl comb, her dark blue shantung dress trimmed with Battenburg lace, her face artfully painted to look entirely unpainted — one would never guess, looking at her, that she could be so ravishingly handsome when disguised as a young man.

"Foxy, darling, you're finally up," Caro called out when she saw me come in, "Claude finished the eggs and the sausages, the greedy pig.  And the toast is stone-cold, but there's plenty of kedgeree left."

"It's a good thing I'm particularly fond of kedgeree," I dipped to kiss her on top of her head as I passed on my way to the sideboard, "It's all that's ever left when I drag myself out of bed."

"You aren't going to be the first one down when you get home?" she teased me, "The head of the house is supposed to greet his guests at breakfast."

"Aunt Em is still the head of the house, as far as I'm concerned," I replied, sitting down next to her with my bowl of kedgeree and tucking in, "She's very excited about having a party again after so long.  She'll be in the breakfast-room at the crack of dawn, waiting for you all to come down."

"You have a separate room for breakfast?" she looked at me oddly, "What's wrong with the dining-room?"

"Mummy thought it was too gloomy in the mornings.  She was American, you remember, breakfast-rooms are very common there.  It used to be called a solarium, though it's really just a glorified landing of the Great Stair, and nobody ever used it for anything before."

"How very peculiar," Caro shook her head and stood up, tossing her newspaper onto the table, "When we marry, I may have to make some changes.  And not to be indelicate, but why does Lady Emily keep up your late mother's traditions?  She's chatelaine, now, after all."

"Aunt Em loved Mummy very much, she does it to keep her memory alive.  And she doesn't need to assert herself by making changes.  She was born at Foxbridge, she didn't marry into it.  It's when you marry in that you have to change things.  Ask your mother."

"Mamà didn't change anything here," Caro hoisted herself up onto the table by my elbow.

"How do you know?  You weren't born yet," I laughed up at her.

"I know because she hasn't redecorated a single solitary room in this Castle.  It's all so dreadfully out-of-date.  All those flimsy little occasional tables covered with cheap bric-à-brac, folding screens in the corners and potted palms in the windows.  I'd have cleared it all out, if I was her."

"Well, then, she must be the exception to the rule.  We're not overburdened with occasional tables or palms, but I'll expect you to redecorate extensively when you become Countess."

"Wait a minute," Claude interrupted us; I'd quite forgotten he was there, "You two are getting married? When?"

"Not for ages, yet, dumpling," she draped herself across the table and ruffled her cousin's hair, "And not a word out of you to anyone, hear?  It's not to be public yet."

"Why not?" the boy looked puzzled, which one has to admit is a becoming look on him.

"Because I don't want it to be public yet," her hair-tousling became a peremptory tug that made her cousin yelp, "So shush, or I'll scalp you.  I'm going to go annoy my sisters for a little while before we go, I'll see you both when we set off for the station.  Claude's told me he's joining us."

"I'll pick up a couple more tramps and strays on the way, no doubt," I winked at Claude to show I was kidding, not sure he'd know a joke if it bit him, "I'd better go take my leave of the Duchess."

Caro and I parted in the great hall, which was absolutely cavernous, its high walls glittering with a dazzling array of armour and weapons (including a pair of taxidermied warhorses, caparisoned for battle, flanking the room-sized fireplace), she toward the family wing and I toward the Duchess's morning-room in the opposite direction.

The 'State Rooms,' which all look out over the valley across the Beve River from enormous arched windows cut into the outer wall, were lined up one after the other like huge railway carriages; the room in which Her Grace spent the mornings writing letters and receiving visitors was at the very end of this enfilade.  She could have chosen from a dozen other rooms for this purpose, more convenient to her own rooms in the family wing and to the servants' wing; but I suspect she liked walking through all those other grand and impressive chambers, some of which were quite beautiful, on her way from breakfast.

The morning-room is small compared to the great salons one passes through to achieve it, but is still quite grand, with a beautiful oriel window, white-painted paneling set with peach-colour damask, and overfurnished in that late-Victorian fashion Caro so disdained with dainty French pieces that had once belonged to Madame Pompadour; but it still managed to be graceful and welcoming, and perfectly suited to the very Edwardian-styled Duchess of Buckland, with her piled-up Titian hair and her morning-dress dripping with cream lace and pearls.  The Duchess was enthroned at one end of an overstuffed settee in the middle of the room, her feet up on a fussy little pouf, a golden lorgnette held before her eyes as she read her second newspaper of the day.

"Dear Sebastian," Her Grace crooned as I bent to kiss her hand, "We are going to miss you when you go."

"It has been a great pleasure to stay with you, Duchess," I replied, taking a seat on an elegant little chair close by, facing her.

"I hope you'll come and stay more often, now that you and Caro are to be engaged."

"How in the world did you know about that?" I gaped at her.  Our engagement-to-be-engaged was becoming the worst-kept secret in Leicesteshire.

"Oh, I always know what's going on with my daughters," the Duchess twinkled at me, "I've set them to spy on each other since they were in the nursery.  Each one thinks she's the only spy, earning special treats at her sisters' expense, so dares not tell the others...which prevents them from uniting and conspiring."

"How brilliantly devious," I said admiringly.

"Not my own idea, I'm afraid," she patted my hand confidentially, "My mother did the same with me and my sisters.  One has to be so careful with girls, their reputations are so fragile and their mistakes so catastrophic.  They can't be allowed to have secrets of any kind after the age of twelve."

"I'd have thought the modern age would have relieved mothers of so much worry," I suggested.

"With middle-class girls, certainly, and working-class girls," she folded up her lorgnette and let it dangle on its chain, "They have so many more opportunities now to make their own way.  But our sort are still in the age of Austen, regardless of having the vote."

"Well, I hope you'll approve the match," I smiled at her with all the charm I have, which is not inconsiderable, "when the time comes for us to announce the engagement."

"Oh, absolutely," she grasped my hand again, "I don't mean to be gauche, but aside from you being so nice and so good-looking and having such an old name, you're quite rich.  You'll be less likely to kick if we stint a bit on the dowry.  With four girls to marry off, one has to be economical."

"I hadn't thought to ask for a dowry," I frowned thoughtfully, "It's not really the done thing, anymore, is it?"

"I suppose not," she conceded, leaning back again, "But a girl should always have a settlement of some kind, in case things don't work out."

"I wouldn't dream of being so caddish as to toss her out without a bean, no matter the provocation," I said airily, though I meant it very seriously.

"No, I don't suppose you would," she looked at me appraisingly, her head to one side, "But you are aware of Caro's — how shall I put it? — romantic inclinations?"

"Oh, yes," I assured her, wondering exactly how much she knew about her daughter, "There are no secrets between Caro and me."

"I know I'm prying most dreadfully, but... are your inclinations similar?"

"If I take your meaning," I said carefully, "Yes, it's something that we share in common."

"Oh, good," she relaxed visibly, "I thought as much, but you're not at all girlish so it's hard to be sure.  One more uncomfortably rude question, which I know you'll forgive since it's my daughter's happiness we're discussing: you don't suppose there will be any difficulty about providing heirs?"

"I don't think so," I felt my face go red.

"Good, I am glad," she leaned forward to pat my hand again, beaming, "Now tell me, does Lady Emily prefer marmalade or jam?  I wanted to send something from my stillroom with you, but I didn't know what she'd like best.  We put down some excellent jams this year."

"She's partial to strawberry jam," I said, relieved to be out of that particular conversational minefield, "We don't get very good strawberries at Foxbridge, too much iron in the soil."

"Oh, wonderful, I'm especially proud of my strawberry jam.  I'll send some along with your luggage.  Oh, you'd better get going, the car will be out front to take you to the train in twenty minutes.  You don't want to be late, it's the only westward train out of Beverborough today."

"Thank you, your grace," I stood and bowed formally, kissing her hand again (it was my favourite new affectation, kissing ladies' hands).

"Good journey to you, dear boy," she waved me off, reaching over to pick up the old-fashioned speaking-tube that would connect her to the servants' hall.

Having done my duty to my hostess, I climbed the stairs to my own room to check with Pond that I hadn't forgotten anything.  I knew he wouldn't have left anything behind, but I might have left something tucked away somewhere he wouldn't think to look.

"Oh, I forgot the tips!" I cried when I got to the room and found Pond there waiting for me, his sober black suit reminding me of the Castle servants, "It used to be a half-crown for the butler and a bob for the stableman, but that's when I was in University.  I'm expected to tip more, now I'm of age, aren't I?"

"I already distributed tips on your lordship's behalf," Pond said, unruffled, rising from the hard chair by the dressing table where he tended to perch when I wasn't in the room.

"Generously, I hope," I relaxed.

"Generous, but not lavish, my lord," he stepped close to me in order to rearrange the handkerchief in my top pocket, which I had stuffed untidily back after using it to blot my brow during the long hike upstairs, "Your lordship will no doubt be visiting Castoris frequently in the coming years, it would not do to raise expectations below-stairs too high."

"Quite," I agreed, though it's not what I would have done, if left to myself: I like throwing money around, it's great fun.  But Pond always knows best, and I'd stopped fighting him over such trifles by then.

"Your lordship left this under the bed, I found it when I sent down the luggage," he handed me my little morocco-bound diary; I thought I'd put in the bedside table, but I must have missed my aim.

"I don't mind you reading it, you know," I told him as I took the volume and shoved it into my coat-pocket; I knew he'd already read the thing, but I wanted to give him permission so that we could discuss its contents without me having to explain myself first, "It's not meant to be secret."

"I thank your lordship for the confidence, but I do not wish to pry," he lied again with such grace that I'd have believed him, if I didn't already know him to be as inveterate a snoop as myself.  I'd have to take lessons from him: I was terrible at lying with a straight face, I was always being caught out.

"Well, then, I guess there's nothing to do but go downstairs and wait for the car," I shrugged, glancing around the pristine room, which was a good deal neater-looking than when I'd arrived.  I suspected that Pond had rearranged the furniture slightly, he tends to like things lined up to strict geometric angles — the circular room must have made him uneasy, and I wouldn't put it past him to go over the place with a compass and a ruler.

We went down by our separate paths, he to the kitchen-yard where he would get into the van with the luggage, I to the great hall to wait for the car that would take me, Caro, Claude, and Lady Heard to the station.

Lady Heard, by the way, is the fourth female Member of Parliament ever, and as such something of a celebrity.  The widow of the incumbent Member for her district, she had followed in the Viscountess Astor's footsteps and run for her husband's vacant seat in a by-election.  Unlike Lady Astor, though, she was in deep with the suffragists' movement, had once been arrested at a march on Westminster, and had a great deal of support from women's groups in London as well as in her home district; sadly, she also lacked Lady Astor's eccentric style, and had yet to be quoted in any of the papers.

I really hadn't seen much of her at Castoris, as she was a very serious-minded person and spent most of the day in the library, shouting at Westminster over the telephone and writing dozens of letters, while the rest of us were frivoling about in the gardens and park.  At dinner, she spoke of nothing but politics, and as the widow of a knight was placed pretty far away from me, the heir of an earl, so I didn't even hear much of it; afterward,  in the drawing-room, she was about as entertaining as a stump of wood, playing neither cards nor piano but just sitting there watching the clock and wishing she could be doing something more important elsewhere

Nevertheless, Caro absolutely worshiped her, and had insisted I invite her along when I went home.  I supposed Lady Heard would prefer Foxbridge to Castoris, anyway, since we have telephones in the bedrooms (another of Mummy's American modernisations) and she could shout at her secretary in greater privacy and comfort.  I hoped Aunt Emily and Nanny would be a civilizing influence on her, being her own age and more interested in politics and social questions than the Duchess of Buckland would pretend to be.

All the way to the station, and then all the way to Gloucestershire on the train, she read a book and said not one word to any of us as she devoured its closely-printed pages. It was a very thick book with one of those impossibly long titles that don't make any sense, but she made pretty good headway through it in the four hours we were stuck together.  And Caro was just as quiet, though she consented to play cards with me so long as we played something simple that required little concentration: she stared, rapt, at the lady MP the entire time, studying her movements and mannerisms.

I prayed she wasn't going to become a dour lump like Lady Heard, but I understood her need for an older role-model; someone who combined a somewhat mannish personality with a very feminine outer layer (she was just as lacy and matronly in the pre-War manner as the Duchess, though her silver-gray hair was fashionably shingled) would be an interesting model for a young lady of fashion who dressed as a man in her spare time.

Claude wasn't much companionship, either:  he went to sleep the minute the train started.  I was sorely tempted to toss things into his open mouth, as one would flip cards into a hat, but I didn't want him to choke to death on a salted nut.  It was one of the most boring journeys I'd ever endured.

Eventually, we found ourselves disembarking at Falksbrook, the town that lies some five miles downriver from Foxbridge village, which in turn stands at the other side of the ancient Roman bridge from Foxbridge Castle.  Most of the towns and villages along the Fox River were named Fox-something, though the 'fox' part was spelt in many ingenious ways: Falksbrooke, Fockston, Fawkesford, etc.

Mummy's old green Packard was there waiting for us, one of those big boat-like touring cars with a tiny bonnet that were the fashion before the War.  It was in perfect repair, though, and quite comfortable, though rather noisy and bumpy. It was chauffeured by one of Foxbridge's oldest servants, Grimmett, who'd been my great-grandfather's stable-boy and then my grandfather's coachman, and had been running the stables (and later the garages) ever since.  He looked like he was ready to chauffeur my children and grandchildren, too: he was one of those gnarled but hardy old creatures one finds in the country, like a scrubby little oak tree that could cling to the side of a weatherbeaten cliff for centuries.

I frequently make jokes about Foxbridge Castle, particularly about it's fake Victorian castellations, but I am nonetheless inordinately proud of the old place, and my chest swells with an almost painful joy when I catch sight of it across the long meadow as we cross the bridge.  It had been standing there for three and a half centuries, and my ancestors had been on that land for three centuries before the house was built.  When I was at Foxbridge, I felt part of the great stream of human history — more than a mere individual, I was a length of fabric in a tapestry that would run for a thousand generations.  It made me feel immortal.

But that day, having already taken on the housekeeping expenses as well as hosting my very own house-party, I looked at it from a slightly different point of view: I'd always known in an abstract sort of way that Foxbridge would one day be mine, to care for and preserve for future generations; but coming up on it that lovely September Wednesday, I saw it as something more — something that was going to cost me a packet to keep up, something that would claim my fortune and my time, something that would tie me down to the earth until I was swallowed up by it and filed away in the chapel crypt with my ancestors.

It was rather a sobering thought, but also comforting.  Foxbridge was a heavy burden, but it would give my life a purpose one day, and could give my life pleasure now.  Besides, Pater was only fifty-something and looked good for a long run, so I wouldn't have to take up that mantle for a while yet.

When we pulled up into the courtyard, I saw Aunt Em had rolled out the red carpet and mustered the entire staff, indoor and outdoor.  When I'd told Colidicott (a handsome old soldierly type who stood at the head of the line one step below Nanny) to hire twelve new servants, I hadn't thought of what the grand total would look like, ranged at a diagonal from the front steps.  Twenty-three people in black livery, white uniforms, or green coveralls made quite an impressive display (twenty-four counting Grimmett, who joined the line as soon as he'd handed us out of the car).  I nodded to each one as I passed, noting the new faces and grinning at the familiar ones as they bobbed before me in their bows and curtseys.

"Bassie, my love," Aunt Em embraced me ebulliently, using my childhood nickname (which I knew Caro was going to tease me about later), "I'm so glad to see you!"

"Hullo, Auntie," I replied, kissing her on both cheeks and lifting her up off the ground a little to demonstrate how much taller I was, then reached out my hand to shake with Nanny, "Hullo, Nanny!"

"You're looking thin, Sebastian," she said severely, but with a smile, grasping my hand firmly.  One does not hug or kiss Nanny, she doesn't like it.

I should by rights be calling her 'Miss Ingleby,' as she was now my aunt's secretary, and had been since I went away to Eton.  But Aunt Em became habituated to calling her Nanny when I was little, as had the rest of the household, and Nanny was so good-natured that she allowed it to go on after her change of situation.  You'd never have guessed she was so soft inside, though, from looking at her: she resembled one of Dickens's meaner villainesses, a perfect Mrs. Squeers or Miss Murdstone with her angular figure, narrow face, and prim features, intensified by her customary black bombazine dresses and her dark hair pulled tight into a bun at the back of her head.

"Introduce me to your friends, Bassie!" Aunt Em insisted, dragging me back down the steps with her usual breathless enthusiasm.  She gushed all over Caro and Claude, and only damped down the gushing a little bit when she was introduced to Lady Heard, taking that august lady somewhat by surprise.  Hooking herself to Lady Heard's elbow, she led the way into the house, chattering all the time like a happy magpie.  She pointed out some of the notable features of the great hall and staircase before we fetched up in the family drawing-room on the ground floor (our formal rooms were on the upper floors, in the usual Elizabethan manner), where tea had been laid.

There hadn't been a dining-car on the train, and though we had a basket thoughtfully packed by the Duchess's housekeeper to keep us from starving, I fell on the hot muffins and scrambled eggs as if I'd not been fed in weeks.  Our cook, Mrs. Stinchcomb, baked the most incredible muffins in all Britain (in my opinion, anyway), and I made quite a pig of myself, cramming them into my mouth like a child — though I slowed down to a more civilized pace when Nanny quelled me with one of her patented gimlet stares.