Chapter 2; Part 1

When I woke up in the East Bedchamber, with the sun streaming through the high windows and filling the place with dusty golden light, I regretted my decision to take that room as my own.  Attractive as it was, the very vastness of it was surprisingly uncomfortable.  It was like I'd fallen asleep and woke up in a public place, or in the drawing-room or the library.  I felt very distinctly that I was in the wrong place.

"Perhaps your lordship would prefer to sleep in the dressing-room," Pond suggested when I shared my discomfiture with him over my first cup of coffee.

"It seems awfully wasteful, though, doesn't it?" I wondered, peering at the far wall, which was actually a little too far away for me to see clearly, "Hogging up this great big room and sleeping in one of the side-rooms? It's not like I need to use it as a sitting-room."

"Your lordship can always change rooms," Pond suggested.

"You know, I think I will," I decided after thinking that over for a bit.  I'd so badly wanted one of the State Bedrooms, and fought Aunt Em so hard for it, that I was reluctant to let go of the East Bedchamber; but there was no point in being uncomfortable, "The problem is, the family bedrooms in the north wing are just as big, though not as grand.  And I really don't want to go back to the nursery."

"The bachelors' rooms in the keep appear quite comfortable, my lord, and as convenient to the rest of the house as the State Bedrooms."

"Oh!  I hadn't thought of that," I handed back my coffee-cup and got out of bed, "I don't fancy sharing a bathroom again, though."

"One need not give out the other room sharing the bathroom," he pointed out, following me into the dressing-room, "Or, more conveniently, your lordship can have Sir Oliver lodged in the other room when he comes."

"You should be running the country, Pond," I turned to gape at him, stunned with admiration, "Your intellect is wasted putting clothes on a young idiot like me."

"I believe your lordship's wardrobe is more manageable than the government of Britain," he smirked a little, pleased by the compliment.

"Well, then, I'll let you make the arrangements with Coldicott.  If you want to order new furniture, or have something moved from here to there, be sure to let him know."

"I will, my lord.  Thank you," he bowed formally, then handed me my underthings before putting me into my riding-clothes.  I'd hoped that being out in the country would require less formality in my wardrobe, as it had done when I was younger; but apparently the price of adult freedoms is an increased stricture around the neck and ears, and as an adult I was required to wear a tie whenever I left my room and a hat whenever I went outdoors. But since it also meant having pots of money to throw around, the liberty to change rooms whenever I liked, and the ability to arrange my romances in comfort and privacy, I supposed it was a fair trade.

And I have to admit, I looked pretty snappy in my blue serge riding-jacket with the white shirt and scarlet tie, my breeches perfectly pressed and my boots buffed to a high lustre, my gloves and bowler and riding-crop tucked under my arm.  Aunt Em cooed over my Pond-induced splendour when I came into the breakfast-room, though for Caro it was pretty old hat, and Nanny couldn't coo if her life depended on it.

"Are you joining me for a ride, Caro?" I asked, noticing the netted silk top-hat and long gloves on the table when I set mine down.  At Castoris, she always rode in the afternoons.

"I hoped you'd give me a tour," she replied, smiling at me over her teacup, "show me your favourite places and such.  My memory of Foxbridge is very dim, I haven't been here in such a long time."

"I'd be delighted," I responded, passing over the sausages and bacon and tomatoes and eggs prepared three different ways to load myself with my favourite kedgeree, then nearly tripped over the train of her riding-habit on the way to my chair, "Can you gallop in that getup?"

"I'll race you," she said smugly, fluffing the lace frills at her throat and wrists.  Caro was the only young woman I knew who still rode sidesaddle, and her riding-habits had a very distinct eighteenth-century look to them, "A guinea to the winner?"

"You're on," I grinned, knowing full well that she wouldn't have bet me if she had the least doubt of her ability to beat me.  But I'd love to see her galloping across the meadow with all those scarlet serge skirts and black silk veils flying about, a Valkyrie as imagined by Fragonard.

"One does not make bets with ladies, Bassie," Aunt Em scolded me in a distracted manner, not looking up from her newspaper.

"It's not really a bet if I know she's going to run circles around me, Auntie.  It's more of a gift."

"Nevertheless."

"Yes, ma'am," I gave in with a laugh.  I had a feeling that being an adult didn't cut much mustard with Aunt Em, and she'd keep on scolding me out of habit until I was an old man, "I'm afraid you've lost a guinea, Caro,"

"I'll just have to wait and get it from you over a game of bridge," she smirked knowingly.  I was a terrible bridge-player, generally unable to think more than two turns ahead; I usually contrived to partner a better player and follow his lead, but Caro was almost unnaturally devoted to winning and refused to partner me--I'd lost eighteen shillings at bridge the night before with Aunt Em as my partner; she's just as hopeless as I am, though she loves the game passionately.

After I'd stuffed myself with a second bowl of kedgeree and swallowed three more cups of coffee, Caro and I went down the Great Stair and through the hall; Coldicott must have some sort of silent alarm system, signaling overheard intentions to the rest of the staff from his post in the breakfast-room,  since both my and Caro's mounts were waiting in the courtyard, held by Young Grimmett (Grimmett's grandson, the head stableman) and the new stableboy, who was also a Grimmett but at fourteen was deemed too young to have a surname and was simply known as Alfie.

My usual mount was a beautiful bay mare named Polly, whose mane was the same colour as my hair--though I doubt that was why Grimmett chose her for me.  She was the offspring of the horses Mummy brought over from America, called Narragansett Pacers, spirited but biddable, high-stepping and quite graceful.  Grimmett kept them separate from the rest of the Foxbridge stable, to keep the line pure, and was realizing a lively profit for us with them on the show-jumping circuit.

Caro was given a massive gray Irish hunter called Delilah, not the usual morning-ride mount for a lady, but Grimmett's expertise could not be questioned: she looked very well on the beast, and they seemed to have an immediate affinity for each other.  When I was a boy, Grimmett told me that assigning mounts was much like breeding, taking into account the rider's temperament and seat then matching it with the horse's temperament and gait.  He was so good at it that he could judge a rider's temperament and seat just by watching them walk around for a minute.


We cantered out through the gatehouse and got up to a gallop down the drive, tearing hell-for-leather alongside the meadow to the bridge; we turned there and cut up toward the old castle ruins on the headland.  Though Caro could easily have left me in the dust, her command of Delilah so complete on her first ride, she lagged back so that I could keep up and give directions to our destination.  We slowed to a good trot when the path started to rise, so as not to exhaust the horses, and dismounted when we reached the ruins to let them rest and graze.

"Can we go inside?" Caro indicated the restored Norman keep with her crop. 

"I think so.  It's not usually kept locked," I mounted the high, narrow steps to the door, "Unless one of the village busybodies has remembered what a lovely spot it is for springtime trysts.  It happens every few years when someone gets pregnant, but then people forget and we relax the strictures.  Are you good for a climb to the top?  The view up there is incredible."

"You seem to forget that I'm just as much a man as you," she whacked me on the back of the leg with her crop, "And you're as much a lady as me."

"Well, it is easy to forget when you're gussied up like the Dauphine of France," I rubbed my leg, hoping the bruise wouldn't be too ugly, then pointed across the lofty great hall, "There's another corkscrew stair over in that corner.  I'll race you to the top."

I had a slight head start and made pretty good time, but she still beat me, so I gave her the guinea I'd promised for a race at breakfast.

"Oh, it really is breathtaking!" she marveled at the view, walking over to the crenelated parapet and leaning out precariously over the edge, "It's not as high as Castoris, but the country is so much more varied.  Can I live up here when we're married?"

"You don't want to live in the house?" I was unexpectedly stung by the request.  I hadn't given it much thought, but when I had envisioned our married life, I'd thought we'd be in fairly close proximity to each-other, and more importantly in close proximity to the nursery wing.

"I assumed you'd want to live separately," she turned to look at me, surprised by the hurt in my voice.

"Well, I didn't think we'd share a room, but I thought you'd want to be close to the children."

"I hadn't thought of that," she looked at me with her head to one side, "I was thinking more of our love-lives.  I didn't think you'd want to share a house with my girlfriends."

"I wouldn't mind at all.  But if you have an objection to my boyfriends..."

"Not in the least," she interrupted me, turning to lean against the parapet, "We've just misunderstood each other.  And perhaps I'm just a little uneasy about taking on a thing as big as Foxbridge Castle.  It was so much smaller and cozier in my mind's eye, I guess because I was mostly familiar with the nursery wing, and it's so much less vast than Castoris.  But so many rooms, and all these servants, and all the traditions?  It's a little intimidating.  This tower seems so much more manageable."

"I know what you mean," I came to lean beside her, looking over to the great house in the near distance, "But Aunt Em will stay as long as we like.  She was a great help to Mummy, I'm sure she'd be happy to help you get settled, as well."

"I'm not an American, though.  Your mother not only kept Lady Emily in the house, she didn't let the Dowager Countess leave, either.  Lady Emily was telling me about it last night, that the dowager lived and died in the room you've taken over, long after your mother became Countess. It's unheard of, to keep a dowager in residence with the incumbent, but her American enthusiasm overrode our English traditions.  I don't think the daughter of a duke would get the same laxity."

"I think we're going to have to invent some of our own traditions, Caro.  We're not exactly the most conventional couple.  If you want to live up here, or in the Lodge, or in a tent on the grounds for that matter, you'll do whatever you like so long as you're happy."

"You're awfully sweet," she turned her head to look at me, then kissed me rather more passionately than she ever had before--which I found rather more stimulating than I would have expected. 

"Wow," I breathed out when she let me up for air.

"Funny old world, isn't it?" her eyes looked as lustfully surprised as mine probably were.

"Distinctly," I agreed, then moved away from her.  I was feeling an urge that I'd only ever felt with men before, and it was disturbing--though certainly not disagreeable.  But to act on it at this juncture would be idiotic: we weren't married yet, and didn't want to be married for a couple of years.  It would hurry things along considerably if she started producing heirs before next Season even started, and I'd hate to deprive Aunt Em or the Duchess of the grand society wedding they were already starting to plan out for us.

"There's a car coming across the bridge," Caro said after we both took a moment to compose ourselves, facing in different directions, "Dark green two-seater.  A Lagonda by the look of it."

"Oh, damn, Bunny's here already?  I thought he was coming on the train.  I have to get back."

Rushing back down through the tower, we remounted and set off down the path that led toward the house at a breathless gallop, and got there just before Bunny's Lagonda came over the manmade brook that passes for a moat.  We slipped through the gatehouse just ahead of him and reined in by the mounting block; I slid off and ran over to the car, where Bunny and Lady Bea were just starting to disentangle themselves.

"Bunny! Lady Bea!" I boomed out, striding over to them and helping Lady Bea out of the car, "Welcome to Foxbridge Castle!"

"How long have you been rehearsing that line, old sock?" Bunny teased me, getting out and coming around to shake my hand.  He looked very big and extremely countrified in a slightly baggy Norfolk suit and a driving cap turned backward against the wind, his handsome round face hidden behind driving goggles.

"Weeks and weeks," I admitted with a laugh.

"It was pretty good," he leaned in and kissed me on the cheek, "I almost believed you were a country squire."

"I was expecting you on the one-thirty train," I took Lady Bea's little travel case, one of those surprisingly heavy square articles that ladies keep by them on the train when the rest of their luggage has gone into the van.

"I'm afraid I delayed Mr. Vavasor when he came to pick me up in Park Lane.  I had some difficulty with this hat," she indicated the terribly chic little black cloche that enclosed her head, decorated with a large glassy jewel and a bit of veiling, then smoothed down the rumples in her sleek sealskin coat, "It's new and just a trifle too tight, I had to brush my hair down flat to get into it.  We missed the train.  Fortunately I'd already sent my luggage on, so it will arrive on time, at any rate."

"You mean you got here in less than two hours?" I gaped.  The train I'd expected them on took four and a half hours, including a wait and change of trains at Gloucester, "How fast does this thing go?"

"Eighty-something most of the way here," Bunny beamed proudly, "Though of course we had to slow down a bit when we left the main road."

"Golly!" I gasped, impressed.  My Rolls-Royce, which I'd left in Town on the assumption that I wasn't going to need it in the country, had only ever got up to fifty, though the salesman swore up and down that it would go eighty-five if I took it out to the proving-grounds at Hendon.

"What a beautiful house!" Lady Bea exclaimed, taking in the facade that towered darkly over us like a cliff as we walked toward the steps, "I thought it was Victorian when I first saw it, but close-to it appears to be Elizabethan, and the towers look even older."

"Well spotted!" I was amazed at her perception, "It is Elizabethan, with Victorian additions made from Norman bits and pieces brought down from the old castle.  You must be something of an expert."

"My father was devoted to the study of domestic architecture," she said modestly, deferring the praise, "He had loads of books about it, filled with lovely drawings, that he'd let me look through when I was little.  And he gave passing commentary on every building he entered.  One picks things up when one hears them repeated often enough."

When we entered the house, I took them to the morning-room to meet Aunt Em and Nanny, then left them there so I could bathe after my ride.  When I arrived at my room, though, I found neither Pond nor any of my possessions.  Somewhat bewildered, I went on to the keep and peeked into the first-floor bedrooms until I found him.

"I hadn't expected you to move me so quickly," I said when I discovered him in the northwest corner suite, laying out my suit in the large alcove that was set up as a dressing-room.  The keep rooms were made up of small square chambers opening into one another through sturdy Romanesque arches, and the rooms I was occupying consisted of four squares: two squares made a sitting-room and one a dressing-room, with the fourth square in a turret raised up three steps and housing the bed in elaborate medieval hangings.

It was much more comfortable than the vast East Bedchamber, despite its northern exposure and tiny windows in stone walls: built on a more human scale, warmed with rich tapestries and lots of lamps, and carpeted in overlapping piles of fur pelts and woven fleece rugs.  I fell into an immense high-backed chair by the roaring fireplace, put my feet up on the snarling stuffed head of a great Russian bear, and loudly congratulated Pond on his endless cleverness.

"I am gratified you are pleased, my lord," he bowed before kneeling to pull off my boots.  I shed the rest of my clothes on the way to the bathroom, with him following behind and picking up the pieces as I went--though he didn't follow me all the way into the bath, much to my relief.  The tub was already filled and scented, so I sank in gratefully and lit a cigarette from the silver box thoughtfully placed on a little Moroccan stool by my elbow.

I hoped Aunt Em wouldn't be too cross with me for my sudden change of rooms after fighting her so hard for the rooms I'd had, but I was ready to point out to her that the East Bedchamber could now be used for important guests; and one of my guests was the Right Honourable James Ponsonby, sixth Marquess of Faringdon, whom she would consider impressive enough for a State Bedroom (even though I knew him as Jingo, Earl of Jarrow by courtesy before he acceded, the prefect I'd seduced in my first year at Eton--six years my senior, he was already married and embarking on a Parliamentary career, but we still met up occasionally in London for a nostalgic afternoon).

Between the unexpected aftermath of Caro's kiss and then thinking about Jingo at Eton, I had to spend a little extra time in the bath, and was feeling pleasantly tired when I came out.  I was lost in thought as Pond put me into a pretty blue-and-gray lounge, and when he was finished I wandered idly around my new rooms.

These were the rooms that I'd intended Twister to have when he came on Saturday, but he wouldn't know that he was being shunted into a smaller room on my account: he'd only know that he would be separated from me by nothing more than a bathroom door, and we'd have free access to each other every night of his stay without anyone seeing either of us in a corridor after dark.  I'd have to give Pond another rise in pay for thinking up this scheme.

Looking back from the much clearer perspective of hindsight, I realize it was rather stupid to have two old lovers (three, if you count my single drunken night with Bunny back in Oxford) to stay at the same time as Twister, who was the only man I loved but by no means the only man in my life--though I didn't know if he knew that or not.

The second lover I'd invited was Tony (Colonel Antony Gascoyne, CBE etc.), with whom I'd had a brief but intense affair in early August, when he first moved in to Hyacinth House, the queer hotel that was my London residence.  Daily proximity had cooled our ardour rather quickly, but we still found each-other sufficiently interesting to spend the occasional night in one-another's rooms, though we hadn't done so since Twister and I became lovers.

On the other hand, I didn't have many friends with whom I'd never been physically intimate, so it was only inevitable that my old and new lovers would overlap a bit at any house-party I gave.  I only hoped that none of them would say or do anything to make Twister jealous.  He is made of sterner ethical stuff than I, and might break from me if given sufficient cause.  One would think that would make me not give him any cause; but I can be rather stupid when properly inspired, and at the age of twenty-one such inspirations are annoyingly frequent.

It was nearly lunch-time when I finally got bored with my solitary musing, so I went downstairs to play the daily game of "where is Aunt Em serving luncheon?"  In the winter, and on rainy days, luncheon was always served in the great hall; but on fine days, she liked to have the midday meal outside the house somewhere, and liked to make it a surprise.  If one was not feeling adventurous, the servants all knew where it would be, and you could ask them to direct you; but I'm nothing if not adventurous, so I always went hunting.

I found them in the conservatory at the edge of the Italian Garden on the south side of the house, perpendicular to the new chapel.  It was the newest building on the estate, put up by my grandfather as a wedding present for my grandmother.  It was largely inspired by the Crystal Palace at the Great Exhibition, made of soaring iron girders and plated from foundation to roof-ridge with square panes of glass, featuring a lofty rotunda in its centre and filled with wild birds, butterflies, and lizards living among the exotic tropical plants from all over the Empire.

The luncheon-table was laid beside the fountain in the middle of the rotunda, which trickled gently rather than spraying or pouring, so as not to disturb the brilliant-coloured fish that lived in its basin; Aunt Em and Nanny were ensconced with cool drinks on the other side of the fountain, where elaborate white wicker chairs and settees had been put out for us to lounge on as we gathered for the meal.  I accepted a lemonade lightly spiked with gin from the footman (no idea which one), and settled down in a chair to wait for the rest of the party, who turned up in due course.

Since warm-weather luncheons were something in the way of a 'moveable feast,' Cook always prepared something cold: iced shrimps with a spicy Oriental sauce, Waldorf salad, and cold sliced beef with a potato souffle on that particular day.  Conversation was of a typical country-house nature: though Bunny and Lady Bea were both residents of London, they'd grown up in the country and still frequented their family estates, so were full of news about crops and chickens and hunts in Somerset and Devonshire (respectively).