Chapter 3; Part 3

Dotty and Jingo made dinner a rather lively affair, shouting at each-other from their opposite ends of the table (being the ranking male, Jingo was of course Aunt Em's partner), telling jokes and gossipy stories, and otherwise being noisy and fun; but they weren't overbearing, they managed to include everyone in the conversation, they simply provided the driving force.

People often assume that Dotty is, well, dotty, due to her incredible frivolity and the saccharine quality of her porcelain-doll prettiness; but she's one of the cleverest women I know.  She has a genius for making people have fun, frequently in spite of themselves; she's also an incredible mimic, particularly of voices, and has given herself a very mush-mouthed Mayfair accent despite having been born and bred "in the sound of Bow bells."  Her giddiness wasn't an act, though, as Caro's was: it was a natural effusion of her desire to entertain everyone around her; and she kept her cleverness to herself so that her friends' enjoyment would not be marred by the knowledge that they were being skillfully manipulated like puppets.

After dinner, Dotty wanted to dance, and prevailed upon me to have the music-room carpet rolled back and the gramophone brought out.  She provided her own recordings, fortunately, since I didn't think the Foxbridge collection got any livelier than a Viennese waltz; and her and Jingo's enthusiasm for the Charleston and the Black Bottom was infectious, and soon we were all flinging ourselves about in accepted nightclub fashion (well, most of us, anyway--Nanny and Lady Heard sat out the festivities, though Silenus and Aunt Em took a few sedate turns).

Chapter 3; Part 2

I was feeling so antsy after one cup of tea that I left the drawing-room as quickly as I politely could, and went to go moon by the front door in hopes of seeing Twister drive up through the gate.  Unfortunately, I didn't have the patience to moon properly, so I kicked the door closed in a pettish gesture that did the door no harm but nearly broke my toe, and slouched grouchily back to my room.

I did some more kicking when I got there, glad I was wearing good country brogues instead of stylish thin-soled Town shoes, taking out my frustration on the table by the door and the small chair by the bureau (having learned my lesson with the door, I stuck to kicking the smaller furniture).  I was about to kick the waste-paper basket, which was made made of fur and claws to look like a bear's foot, when I heard a very strange growling noise.

Curious, I turned to see where the noise had come from, but sound is difficult to trace in stone rooms, with the echo of a vaulted ceiling distorting it; I stood at alert, listening for it to repeat.  When it did repeat, I peered toward the fireplace, whence the sound seemed to come.  The third growl came, and stone room or no stone room, the sound was quite definitely coming from the bearskin rug.  Then the bear moved, the head lifting eerily and staring straight at me, the whole thing lurching forward like it was trying to get up.

I didn't quite scream, but I gasped loudly enough that it might have been interpreted as a scream, and the great lurching bear laughed.  Clutching at my thumping heart, I fell back into the little chair I'd just kicked and heard it laugh again.

"Oh, that was worth sweltering for a half-hour under that rug," Twister's head emerged from under the bear's head, his hair skewed every which way and his face alight with hilarity, "If you could see your face!"

"God damn it, Twister, you took ten years off my life!" I shouted to relieve the tension I felt in my chest, which had been momentarily clenched in terror and wasn't yet ready to unclench, then threw the nearest loose object at him: it was a cigarette box, which missed him by a mile, and cigarettes went flying all over the room.

"Oh, boy, that was priceless!" he kept on laughing, sitting back on his haunches and letting the rug fall off of him into an undignified pile.  He didn't have a stitch on, which made my tension move immediately from my chest to other, more easily relieved parts.  I threw myself at him, wrestling him down to the floor, and a good time was had by all.

"How long have you been hiding up here?" I asked some time later, when our breathing had slowed to a point that speech was possible.

"Not too long," he replied, his voice rumbling in his chest under my ear, "I got Pond to sneak me in when I arrived, a bit before four.  And he only knew I meant to surprise you, which in fact was all I'd intended.  You were to come in and find me in your bed.  But once I got here, this rug absolutely begged to be put to use."

"I would have preferred to find you on the rug rather than under it," I punched him lightly in the ribs.

"The housemaid who popped in here to check your towels about five minutes after I went to ground would probably have disagreed," he punched me back, then tickled me.

"Don't be so sure," I giggled, the picture formed in my mind of a housemaid finding an unknown man lying naked on a bear rug, "Housemaids can be particularly depraved.  And if it had been one of my footmen, you might not have escaped with your honour.  One of them practically raped Claude Chatroy."

"Really?" he sounded concerned, that wonderfully attractive professional tone rising in his voice.

"Practically, but not really," I said, smiling up at him, "I doubt seriously if he resisted in the slightest."

"I guess a short stretch of white-slavery opens a chap's boundaries a bit," he laughed.

"If Claude has any boundaries at all, I've yet to witness one. I haven't heard of anything he won't do, except act like an adult."

"Unusually censorious of you," he said, grasping my chin to turn my face toward his, "Do you want him?"

"What?" his question made me draw back in astonishment.

"He's a very beautiful boy," Twister said in a odd way, as if pointing out something that I must have neglected to notice.

"Do you want him?" I suddenly felt a sensation that I hadn't felt in years: I was jealous.  I hadn't felt that particular emotion since Eton, when my pubescent ideals of romance were rather busted by Jingo getting off with the captain of the rugby team, whom I also fancied, and then telling me about it in lurid detail next night in bed.  It was an unpleasant sensation.

"I've never met him," he pointed out, "You may remember that you left the party before I arrived, the night we raided the Marquis de Mazan's little slave auction."

"But you know he's a beautiful boy?" I frowned.  How had he known that?   I don't think Claude was that well-known outside of his family circle, he certainly wasn't photographed for the society magazines like Caro was.

"There were pictures at the auction," he laughed again, a naughty laugh, "They'd been distributed like a programme.  Quite interesting pictures, if you know what I mean."

"Golly!" I gasped, "I hadn't thought there'd be pictures.  Claude didn't mention it."

"He may not have known, he was pretty well drugged. They were all burned, though, oddly enough," he looked off into the distance, his work life intruding a little bit, "The whole packet of programmes we got off the guests were accidentally sent to the incinerator.  Quite a lot of evidence from that raid went missing, in fact, and then the evidence room clerk suddenly quit his job.  It was distinctly fishy."

"Huh," I grunted noncommittally.  It sounded to me like Silenus may have been responsible for that, ensuring that no scandal could possibly attach to Melinda Cumming, the other abductee who'd been auctioned along with Claude--and whose father was a Member of Parliament, now deeply in Silenus's debt, "Did they give you any interesting ideas, before they were burnt?"

"Not really my cup of tea," he stroked my back absently, "All the tying-up and blindfolding and flogging.  Sadomasochists are so terribly devoted to their equipment."

"You're evading the basic question," I nestled back down against his chest, the spurt of jealousy having mysteriously spent itself already; now I was just curious, "Did you find Claude attractive?  Would you like to have a go at him?"

"Well, he's a superb physical specimen," Twister said thoughtfully--and from my vantage-point, I could see that his thoughts were of an arousing nature, "But I don't know him.  I'm not really one for casual encounters with relative strangers."

"While casual encounters with relative strangers are among my favourite things," I admitted.  Might as well get into this topic now, while we were comfortable.

"À chacun son goût," he said, a chuckle rumbling in his chest.

"Does that mean you wouldn't mind if I went tom-catting around?" I raised my head to look him in the eye.

"I think I'd mind if I knew the particulars," he said very seriously, meeting my eye, "Or if I knew the man.  But as an abstract notion, I can accept that as part of your nature, it's what makes you you.  And you have also evaded the basic question: do you want to have a go at Claude Chatroy?"

"I might if I didn't know him," I laughed at this fundamental difference between us, "He's lovely to look at, but he's much too young, and you'll not find a bigger goof in all of Gloucestershire."

"I just wondered if you were jealous.  Your tone when you spoke of him was rather bitter."

"I guess I am a little jealous," I thought it over, doing a quick examination of my feelings, something that I still wasn't very good at doing, but Silenus was encouraging me to make a practice of it, "but not because I want him.  I just sometimes wish I were as blithely idiotic as he is.  How pleasant it must be to go strolling through life without a care, too stupid to even know how boring you are, with men and women throwing themselves at you, and all you have to do is stand still."

"I hadn't thought of it that way," he raised his eyebrows and stuck out his bottom lip as he considered the idea, "I think I'd rather be intelligent than beautiful, though."

"How fortunate for me that you're both," I reached up and twined my fingers in his wavy golden hair.

"Which would you rather be," he wondered, doing the same with my hair, pulling out a long coppery curl from the front and twining it around his finger, "if you couldn't continue to be both?"

"I don't know," I said honestly, scooting up his side so I could kiss him, "Beauty is so temporary, but then cleverness seems always to get me into trouble."

"Curiosity is what gets you in trouble, not cleverness," he corrected me, but by then we were so wrapped up in each-other's hair, and then wrapped up in other parts, that we weren't really concentrating on speech.

Some time later, Pond made a discreet sound outside the door before entering, giving us time to disentangle ourselves and pretend to be decent.  Twister called bags on the first bath and disappeared into the bathroom, so I slipped into my dressing-gown and curled up in the big chair with a cigarette and my thoughts.  Pond went around opening the windows, saying the place smelt like a gymnasium, and started laying out my evening clothes.

When it was my turn in the tub, Pond followed Twister into his room to help with the dressing, though Twister was a great deal more firm about doing certain things for himself than I ever could be, so he was back before I even finished drying off; as a reaction to being thwarted by Twister, he was excruciatingly meticulous with my toilette, and I looked as perfect as a magazine illustration when he finished with me.

"You look as though you've been lacquered and polished," Twister remarked when we met again in the corridor on the way out of the tower.

"I think I was," I laughed, "You wouldn't let Pond dress you, so he took it out on me."

"I like Pond, but I'm not fond of being valeted.  If you could find a way of mentioning that without hurting his feelings, I'd be much obliged."

"He'll probably ask me to mention to you, without hurting your feelings, that you need to be valeted more thoroughly.   I decline to become involved, you'll have to settle it amongst yourselves."

"Selfish beast," he reached out to pinch me, catching me on the backside and starting a merry and entirely childish chase down the Great Stair and into the hall.

Skidding through the archway on the shining parquet floor, I nearly collided with a girl, whom I took to be Miss Lavender Brazington of Haresden Hall.  She was rather pretty but very young-looking; if I didn't already know she was old enough to be at University, I would have guessed her to be a tall twelve-year-old: her cornsilk hair was very long and tied with a blue ribbon, and her gauzy white evening dress was built in such a way as to somehow suggest a pinafore.

It was a very interesting effect, and when I found Caro dancing attendance on the girl in a distinctly flirtatious way, I realized that Miss Brazington was just my fiancee's type.  It was good to know, I had frequently wondered what sort of woman she'd be bringing home with her when we were married.

With the arrivals of Twister and Miss Brazington, my little party was complete, and I felt an immense sense of satisfaction as we walked in to dinner together, Dotty, Lady Faringdon on  my arm in proper precedence, the rest of my guests paired up neatly as we promenaded into the dining-room; it was such a wonderfully grown-up feeling, looking down the long table, raising my eyes above Aunt Em's head to look at my mother's portrait. I thought she'd be proud of me.

Chapter 3; Part 1

Twister is coming today! That was my first thought on waking up Friday morning, and it filled me with excitement.  I hadn't seen him for almost twenty days, the longest I'd gone without his company in all the time I'd known him.  Granted, I'd only known him for three months and a bit, but he became a key figure in my life on our first meeting, and I'd barely gone a day without thinking about him, and not more than a week without seeing him.

It was for his benefit that I had been chaste (more or less, depending on your definition of chastity) in the time we were apart.  Well, that, and because there aren't a lot of temptations in the country.  I could probably have found a strapping chap on the Castoris estate to oblige me, or met a bloke at the Chatroy Arms in the village--I've discovered that our sort are found everywhere and in every walk of life--but it seemed unwise to dally on the home property of a family into which I planned to marry.

And so I made a virtue of necessity--since I have so very few virtues, I've become accustomed to taking them where I can find them.  At any rate, I was feeling so randy after twenty days with only the pleasure of my own company in bed that I couldn't wait for the day to be over so I could get Twister into the tower, his room or mine.  I wasn't even sure I could wait until night: I might just haul him up here the minute he arrived.

After breakfast and my morning ride, bathed and dressed in my country best, I went in to the room I'd assigned to Twister to make sure that everything was just right.  Each of the guest-rooms in the tower was named for the deceased beastie, usually in the form of a hearth-rug, that was the centerpiece of its decor; mine is of course the Bear Room, not to be confused with the Polar-Bear Room next door where Bunny was lodged; Twister's room was known as the Wolf Room, and contained a profusion of wolf pelts, all different colours and species--the hearth-rug was a shockingly large Canadian timber-wolf, the mouth of its stuffed head arranged in a most fearsome snarl.

My grandmother's brother, the fourth Earl of Carton, was a prodigious hunter of large game, and he gifted his  sister with one hundred trophies when she married the ninth Earl of Vere, ranging from American buffalo heads to Russian bear skins, Argentine stag-horn chairs and Indian tiger blankets, African elephant tusks carved with fantastic scenes and enough Caucasian boar-hides to keep us in bristle brushes well into the next century.  And the trophies kept on coming as long as Lord Carton lived, which was a surprisingly long time considering his dangerous profession, so we had enough taxidermy scattered around the Castle to start our own natural history museum.

And of course everything in the room was just right, from the gleam of polish on the bronze inkwells to the crisp fold of the snowy Irish linen sheets.  There was a water-glass and pitcher on the night-table, a drinks tray on the desk, cigarettes in boxes on the mantelpiece and the tables, spare nightclothes in the sweet-smelling wardrobe, and big rough towels stacked on a rack made of hot-water pipes so they were always nice and warm once the bath was drawn.  Everything a gentleman could possibly want.

It suddenly struck me funny that the part of the house best supplied with modern conveniences was the part that pretended to be the oldest.  The tower keep gave every appearance of being centuries old, its outside almost indistinguishable from the real Norman keep on the hill; but it was built with the electricity, gas, running water, and telephones that had to be expensively (and in some cases clumsily) rigged into the older part of the house, as well as a hydraulic lift serving its three floors of bedrooms and rooftop gymnasium, and electric radiators as well as coal grates and wood-burning fireplaces to keep it toasty warm.

Its lower half housed the kitchens, which are as sleek and gleaming as any London hotel's, modeled on a plan made for my mother by Escoffier himself; before that, it had been slightly less sleek and gleaming, but still in the vanguard of 1860s technology.  It also contained the most hygienic servant's dormitories in Gloucestershire, and service-rooms equipped with every modern time-saving appliance known to man.  It was quite a conceit, all this modernity made to look medieval; and when I thought on it, I found myself becoming rather more appreciative of the Victorian additions.

But my amusement and appreciation only lasted as long as it took me to jot the idea down in my diary.  I was so keyed up for Twister's arrival that I found myself quite bored in the hours leading up to it.

 Generally, in the country, unless there is a planned activity like a hunt or village fete, one just sort of wanders around and occupies oneself with whatever comes to one's notice; you might read a book or write a letter or have a chat with a guest, maybe play billiards or cards, or go outside and practice archery or croquet.  But if you're completely focused on one upcoming event, such pastimes just aren't very entertaining.

I played some billiards with Bunny, ate lunch in the center of the walled garden, went out with my rifle and shot at some paper deer against an ancient stone wall that had been used by my ancestors for target practice since bullets were invented, read the newspapers from London and Gloucester, and played a dozen rounds of Patience in the great hall window with one eye on the gate, all in a writhing discontent of unspeakable ennui.

When Coldicott brought me the telephone, plugging its cord into a tiny hole in the floor under the table where I was sitting, I welcomed the distraction; but then I was plunged into disappointment when he told me it was Sir Oliver Paget on the line--Twister should have been on the local from Gloucester, not on the telephone.

"Don't tell me you're still in London," I complained immediately into the mouthpiece.

"And hullo to you, too," he laughed in that way he has that makes my highest dudgeons melt into little puddles, "But yes, I'm just leaving the Yard now."

"I've been dancing in front of the gate like an anxious puppy, waiting for you," I pouted, "I won't survive another whole day of this."

"I wasn't able to get away from the office in time to get the train," he explained, "I'm sorry."

"Is it a new case?" I hoped it wasn't something that would preempt his visit.

"No, just an annoyance with some misfiled paperwork.  I'll get the very next train, I promise.  The Bristol train leaves Paddington soon, I should be able to get the local, or even a cab, from..." I could hear him flipping the pages of an A.B.C., "Chippenham, and be in time for dinner."

"A cab?  My guests don't arrive in cabs," I said with comic hauteur, "I'll send our driver to Chippenham for you.  Oh, wait!  I have a much better idea!  Bunny got down here in two hours in his motor.  Why don't you go around to Ryder Yard and get mine, then I'll have both you and my motor in one pretty bundle."

"You're willing to trust me with your Rolls-Royce?" he sounded a little incredulous.

"I'd give it to you if you wanted it," I said, in all honesty.  Of course, I'd have to buy myself another one just like it, I love that machine, "But you must promise to drive as fast as you can, with none of your policeman's regard for the law.  Bunny bragged he did eighty-five most of the way here in that tin-pot Lagonda of his, let's see if we can beat him."

"That's a promise," he laughed again, warming my heart, and other parts of my anatomy as well, "Policemen have a gentlemen's agreement about speed laws.  Anything else you'd like me to bring you from London?"

"Just your own beautiful self," I crooned over the wire, wondering briefly after I said it if there was anyone else listening--I knew the Foxbridge end was secure, we had so many extensions in the house that we constituted our own exchange, so there was no operator any closer than Cirencester able to listen in; but Scotland Yard was likely to be better equipped with local busybodies who knew the speaker and might spread tales.

"I'll be with you shortly, then," he said, ringing off without the usual meandering small-talk most people I know use when getting off the telephone.

"Hullo-ullo?" I demanded into the telephone, jiggling the cradle to get someone's attention, "I need to call London, Hoskins' Garage in Ryder Yard, Westminster."

"Right away, my lord," came Coldicott's voice, surprising me a little: he must have run part of the way to get as far as the switchboard-room outside the servants' hall in the short time since he'd left me in the great hall.

"Pond should have the number," I suggested helpfully.

"I'll ask him, my lord, he's right here in the hall."

"Oh!  Since he's there, maybe he should call, they'll know him better than me.  Have him tell them that Sergeant Paget is coming by to pick up my Rolls, and to have it fueled and ready for him."

"Very good, my lord.  I'll be along shortly to retrieve the telephone."

"Thanks, Coldicott," I replaced the receiver and went about dealing another hand of Patience.

The Packard arrived with the guests who had made the train a short time later; and since I knew it wouldn't have Twister in it, I had calmed down quite a bit and was able to display the correct degree of smiling graciousness when Jingo, Dotty, and the Colonel all came piling out of the car.

They sound like Beatrix Potter animals when I put their names together like that, but they simply aren't the sort of people you can call by their proper names after knowing them for any amount of time.

The Marquess and Marchioness of Faringdon are indecently high-spirited and almost shockingly fashionable, giddy and gorgeous Bright Young Things of the first water, and insisted on being called by their nicknames as soon as they met you.  And though I am allowed by familiarity to call Colonel Gascoyne "Tony," he just looks so much like a Punch caricature of an army officer, with his rigid posture and Cavalier mustache, the sort of gentleman who can make pajamas look as formal as a uniform, that I can't think of him as anything else.

I made small-talk about the train journey with the three of them as we climbed the Great Stair and then the smaller staircase to the second floor, and handed Jingo and Dotty (who were rather subdued, so I assumed thoroughly hung-over) to a housemaid to show them to their rooms; Aunt Em had declined to put them in the East Bedchamber, having already been to some trouble to get the Blue Room ready for them.  I then took the Colonel along to his room in the tower, the Tiger Room, directly above my own.

"My goodness!" he exclaimed over the huge specimen laid out on the floor, its immense head bigger than the foot-stool by the fireside chair, "Who shot this fine fellow?"

"My great-uncle, Lord Carton.  He was quite the Great White Hunter in his day."

"Ah, good old Carton.  I knew him well," he knelt down to examine the beast's gleaming fangs; I should have known the Colonel would be a friend of the late Earl, as he was a fairly famous big-game hunter himself, "He took me out on my very first safari.  I bagged a pretty feeble-looking gazelle, but I was just a young lad, then, and Victoria still on the throne.  He brought down a wildebeest the size of a lorry.  He was quite a man."

"How well did you know him?" I asked teasingly, inspired by the tone of his voice to wonder if he did indeed know Lord Carton, "In the Biblical sense, as they say?"

"Not near Biblical enough," he answered with the appropriate note of camp, "A dashed attractive brute, old Carton.  But he had no taste for boys, more's the pity."

"Nor for ladies, so I'm told," the fourth Earl of Carton had died a bachelor, and the title went to his younger brother and thence to a nephew.

"The mind boggles to think where all that energy did go," he smirked, walking up to me and laying his hands on my waist.

"Listen, Tony," I said, not moving away from him but adopting as businesslike a tone as I could manage, "I need you to do me an immense favor."

"Anything for you, dear boy," he said, nuzzling into my neck and making me go all goose-fleshy.  Mustaches are my Achilles heel.

"I need you to lay off on the familiarity," I did step away this time, so he couldn't feel the immediate effect he'd had on me, "My lover is going to be here this week."

"Lover?" he looked surprised, but obliged me immediately by stepping three paces away and putting his hands behind his back at parade rest, "You never struck me as the hearts and flowers type."

"It rather took me by surprise, too," I admitted, "But I am very much in love with him.  We haven't yet discussed his ideas about fidelity, but I suspect they're rather more hidebound than mine.  He's quite the traditional sort of chappie."

"Well, drat," he smiled jovially and settled himself into a chair with his feet on the tiger's head, taking a leatherbound case from his jacket and lighting a slim black cigarillo, "I was looking forward to a bucolic idyll with you.  But I shall take the disappointment with stoic fortitude, as becomes an officer of His Majesty's Army, and find other fields to harrow."

"That's a rather vivid turn of phrase," I laughed and settled into the other chair, propping my feet beside his, "Just keep your mitts off my footmen.  I know from experience that your harrowing would put them off their stride."

"Footmen? Faugh!" he snorted like a mildly offended bull, "I don't dally among the household staff.  Just not pukka, old man."

"I'm glad you think so, I've already had to speak to one of my guests about it."

"Oh?  Fellow travelers at Foxbridge? Do tell!"

I went ahead and told him everything I knew about the proclivities of the other male guests, which as I've said was unusually extensive--unlike Bunny, the Colonel could be counted on to keep reasonably mum.  Loose-lipped fellows were not invited to live at Hyacinth House, Lord Arthur requires a pretty high degree of discretion from his 'lodgers.' It's the only reliable form of security from unwanted attention.  If the fusty old busters at White's, Boodle's, or Brooks's ever got wind of the true nature of their near neighbour on St. James's Street, it wouldn't be long before uncomfortable questions were raised at a Parliamentary level.

He caught me up on all the local gossip from Hyacinth House (we could divulge secrets all we liked about other residents, it was outsiders that we have to keep in the dark), and a few other little tidbits from our mutual clubs and haunts, and then it was time for tea.

I took a roundabout route to the drawing room in order to skirt through the great hall and check if Twister had arrived yet.  It had been two hours, but I hadn't been apprised of his arrival and was getting anxious again.

Chapter 2; Part 2

After lunch, I took Bunny and Lady Bea on an extensive tour of the house, delighted by Lady Bea's superior knowledge of the various styles on display in the different rooms, being able to tell the original Elizabethan bits from the later Jacobean bits and the Victorian reproduction bits.  I'd had no idea how much of the house was Jacobean, and before that afternoon didn't even know there was a real difference between the periods.

I left Lady Bea on the second floor, near her bedroom, and walked back to the keep with Bunny.  His room, adjacent to mine, was a nearly-exact reverse image of my room; coming through the adjoining door, one got the bizarre sensation of stepping through Alice's looking-glass.  We settled down with a couple of whiskeys for a good long gossip about mutual acquaintances and favourite queer haunts in London.

Bunny was particularly interested in hearing anything I had to tell him about Claude; but knowing Bunny's almost complete lack of discretion (he'd just told me a lot of things about people that I'm sure they wouldn't want known), I gave him an extremely Bowdlerized version of my rather extensive knowledge of the subject.  Of course, Claude himself would probably tell Bunny everything I'd left out: he wasn't very talkative but always answered any question put to him with shattering candour.

I left him to take his afternoon nap, and went back to my own room to poke around in the corners in my usual settling-in way, thinking about redecorating it to my own taste, and otherwise wasting time until tea.  I wondered if I should be doing more to entertain my guests, devising outings and pastimes and games and the like; but then, I always preferred my hosts to leave me to my own devices when I was visiting.

"Silenus!" I exclaimed when I found my friend from Hyacinth House in the drawing-room at tea, "When did you get here? Nobody told me."

"I came on the one-thirty train as I was expected to do," the old man smiled jovially at me, though there was the tiniest hint of reproach in his tone; he and Bunny and Lady Bea were meant to arrive together, but with the early arrival of the latter two, I'd quite forgotten that the former was still expected at the usual time.  Silenus would never miss a train... and I suspect that if he was late, they'd have held it for him.

Lord Arthur Longueville, known to me and in his professional capacities as Mr. Arthur Silenus, used to run a shadow-department of the government, gleaning rather personal information from unofficial and quite unorthodox sources and using it as leverage to ensure people behaved in a manner beneficial to the government's aims--a spymaster, really, though he laughed at me when I used that word.

When he retired, he converted his private mansion into Hyacinth House, the exclusively gay hotel in St. James's Street where I and several other well-to-do queers make our temporary or permanent abodes; and he kept up his personal network of spies, but instead of utilizing his specialized information on behalf of the government, he now uses it to make London a safer place for our sort, preventing vice raids and discouraging legislation in Parliament.

Before becoming a spymaster, though, Silenus had been an amateur detective, resolving such mysteries as were frequently beyond the ken of the police.  The professional police have very little access to people in so-called 'high life,' and crimes in those circles are difficult for an outsider to solve: though they don't actively impede the police, as a rule, the aristocracy and gentry are an instinctively clannish bunch.  The second son of the 7th Duke of Gelford, however, has all the access to those circles one could possibly desire, and so was extremely successful in a spectacular string of jewel-theft, blackmail, and murder cases in Society.

He looked very different sitting in the drawing-room than he ever did in London: I'd always thought he resembled a Trafalgar Square pigeon, sort of gray and nondescript, sleek and plumpish with a small round head; but for the country he changed his character altogether--instead of misty gray, his tweeds were a rather loud brown and ivory with orange and blue flecks, and his small steel-rimmed spectacles had been replaced by large tortoise-shell frames that gave him a sort of wondering, goggle-eyed look.  Instead of a city pigeon, he looked like a wood-owl.

I suppose, though, that Silenus would look like he was supposed to look wherever he was: if you encountered him in Jamaica, he'd look exactly like a colonial planter in white linen and a great big panama hat; encountered on the African veldt, he'd look like a big-game hunter in khaki and a pith helmet; so in an English country-house, of course he'd look like a bog-standard country gentleman--one would never expect to see a city pigeon in the Cotswolds, so he became an owl instead.

When Lady Bea came in, accompanied by Claude, I could see at once that she'd wasted no time in reestablishing mastery over the boy: he walked two paces behind her, did not look up from his shoes and did not speak unless addressed directly.  I could also tell he was loving every minute of it.  It takes all kinds to make a world.

After tea, I consulted Aunt Em about how much entertainment I should be providing my guests, and she backed up my previous assumption that very little in the way of planned activities was needed; I should, however, spend my time in the public rooms instead of my own rooms, in order to be available to anyone who might become unaccountably bored.  So instead of going back to my room to loaf and lounge until it was time to dress for dinner, I parked myself in the library and took a stab at writing some letters.

"Your aunt is delightful," Silenus said from the depths of a wing-back chair by the fireplace, giving me something of a start: even in his loud tweeds, he'd simply blended in to the embroidered velvet upholstery, and I didn't see him there until he spoke.

"I gather she had quite a schoolroom pash for you," I smothered the tiny annoyance over being startled under a dollop of charm.

"Oh, all the young girls were in love with me, forty years ago.  Something about me was especially appealing to prepubescent females.  I never knew what it was, though my brother insisted it was a resemblance to Rossetti's illustrations for Tennyson's Galahad, and has been calling me Young Galahad ever since."

"How galling," I smiled, not seeing the resemblance, and making a mental note to find some forty-year-old photographs of Lord Arthur.

"He married an ugly and vicious woman, so I consider myself properly avenged by Fate," he smiled back, a crocodile's grin, "And if you're wondering where to find a photograph, I posed for a group Waterhouse exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1886, I'm sure you have a catalogue on these shelves.  I'm the third page-boy from the right, but it rather bears out my brother's opinion of my looks, so I don't usually admit to it."

"I need lessons on how not to broadcast my thoughts," I had reached the point where I was no longer surprised when people appeared to know exactly what I was thinking, especially Silenus who seemed always to know what I was going to think.

"Practice in a looking-glass," he advised, "That's what I did.  The trick is to create a single expression, interested and pleasant but emotionally neutral, and then hold tight to it regardless of what you're doing or saying or thinking.  Your face is made up of muscles, the same as any other part of your body; if you can learn a good batting stance at cricket, or how to sit a horse over a jump, you can learn an inscrutable facial expression."

"Oh!" I exclaimed, delighted by how simple it was.  This was exactly what I loved about Silenus: he didn't just make fun of me, he taught me things I needed to know so I could correct my errors.  I got up and went over to the shelves where I knew Royal Academy Exhibition catalogues are kept, and pulled 1886, finding him right away among a melee of Byzantine onlookers in a strangely bloodless martyrdom scene, "Well, you were quite the Pre-Raphaelite beauty, weren't you?"

"Not my favourite style of art, but we can't choose how we look, can we?"

"I'm told there are doctors in Switzerland who can," I said, repeating a bit of gossip I'd overheard recently that I thought was very interesting, about private clinics that could whittle down an ungainly nose to more button-like proportions, or tighten a dowager's face to look ten years younger, or inject you with monkey-glands to give you the energy of a child again.

This topic set us off on a feast of gossip about people who were suspected of having had such operations; and the best thing about gossiping with Silenus is that his gossip tended to be more factual than the usual rumours.  I was always amazed at the depth and variety of information he collected about people, things you'd never think could be important but which could, with proper use, influence entire governments.

We chatted on until it was time to go dress for dinner, and while being put into my dinner-clothes I related everything Silenus told me in the library, and began practicing faces in the glass while he worked.

"What about this one?" I asked, my features arranged in a mask that I thought approximated intelligent interest.

"Like you just had a dose of cod-liver oil," he reported back.

"What about this one?" I tried another.

"Toothache," he pronounced.  This was going to be harder than I'd thought.

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).

Chapter 1; Part 3

We trooped in to the dining-room in a straggling mass instead of two-by-two, since there weren't enough of us to consider precedence, and Aunt Em directed us to our seats.  I was seated, for the first time in my life, at the head of the table, where my father had always sat, and my grandfather and great-grandfather before him, and their grandfathers and great-grandfathers going back twelve generations.  The sensation of seeing things from a new point-of-view was intensified, looking at the white-draped table from one end instead of somewhere on the sides.

It also put me in direct line of sight to my mother's best portrait, painted by Sargent shortly after her marriage, which hangs over the sideboard at the far end of the room. She looked so exquisite in that picture, standing beside the marble fireplace in the Great Chamber, luminous against the rich paneling, wearing a pale apricot-coloured taffeta presentation gown, decked in her court jewels complete with the famous Saint-Clair ruby tiara nesting in her piled-up auburn hair; there was a twinkle of gaiety in her eyes and a laughing little half-smile on her face, as if someone had just said something utterly delightful.

The companion piece of my father, standing at the other side of the same fireplace and also in court dress, his face glowing in ivory and gold above the severe black and white, as sweet and pretty as a girl despite the elaborate mustache, had already been donated to the National Portrait Gallery, though a copy of it hung over the fireplace in the study.  Both portraits had originally hung on either side of the pipe-organ in the music-room, but had been separated after Mummy died so that Pater could look at her in her accustomed place at dinner.  But then he never came back to Foxbridge again after having the portrait moved.

I sometimes wondered if it was only grief that drove my father from Foxbridge, or if want of money played a part.  After all, the marriage settlement turned over the income, but not the principal, of the greater part of her fortune to him, and then only until her death or the dissolution of their marriage.  When she died, her entire fortune came to me, the income to be mine when I came of age and the capital when I married; all Pater had left was some of the dowry and the income off the estates: a considerable sum, but not enough to keep Foxbridge Castle and Vere House going in the style to which he was accustomed.

But then, I had no idea what my father felt like.  He never spoke to me if he could help it; and when he did speak to me, he was brusque and offensive.  The only things I ever found out about him were filtered through Aunt Em or the newspapers.

Over dinner, I had Caro on my left and Lady Heard on my right, with Nanny between Lady Heard and Aunt Em at the other end of the shortened table (the table was very cleverly made, and could be expanded by hooking smaller side-tables into it, reaching anywhere from six feet to twenty-five feet long); it was only when we were seated that I noticed Claude hadn't joined us--I'd once again completely forgotten he was around.  One would think someone as gorgeous, and as goofy, as Claude Chatroy would impress himself on one's memory, but his personality was just so untextured that I didn't notice him at all unless he was talking, or if his place-setting was sitting empty.

"I'm so sorry I'm so late, Lady Emily," Claude gasped out, running into the room a moment later and skidding to a halt behind his chair, his face flushed and his breathing laboured, as if he'd run a great distance.  I was rather amazed by that, since his room was quite close-by, at least in relation to the rest of the house, "I'm afraid I fell asleep."

"That's quite all right, dear boy," Aunt Em beamed at him, gesturing for him to take his seat, then gesturing to Coldicott to serve the soup.

"I'd have thought you got enough sleep on the train, old bean," I said to him, wondering why he was so sloppy about his clothes.  His shirt-front was slightly askew, and his tie very poorly arranged--even before the advent of Pond, I could dress myself better than that.

"Claude sleeps like a dormouse, all he has to do is sit still and he's out like a light," Caro said to the company, then leaned over and said very quietly to me, "I think 'sleep' was a euphemism.  He may have been in bed, but he certainly wasn't sleeping."

"Oh!" I said, seeing her point: on further inspection, one could see that the flush in his face was not the sort that comes from mere running, but rather from more involved and pleasurable exercise; but then, with whom had he been 'sleeping'?  If he thought he could go around getting my housemaids in trouble, he had another think coming.

The rest of the meal passed without much in the way of conversation--at least not general conversation: Nanny and Lady Heard kept on with their debates of eugenics and evolution and ethics, while the rest of us listened, or pretended to listen while tucking into our really excellent dinner (we were very fortunate in our cook, she was as skilled with sauces and pastry as a trained chef out of Paris).  I had a feeling Nanny's role in monopolizing the dinner conversation was going to earn her one of Aunt Em's specialty non-scoldings, where she made you feel an absolute heel for something you'd done without actually criticizing you or even directly mentioning the wrongdoing.

But I figured, why not let them have their heads?  I'm sure they were both hungry for intellectual stimulation: though Aunt Em is by no means ignorant, her interests tend toward the ladylike--music and gardens, watercolours and gossip, etc.--while Nanny was more interested in intellectual pursuits; and Lady Heard, no doubt accustomed to the company of her own serious type at womens'-group meetings and in Parliament, had just spent two weeks with nobody her own age and sex to talk to but the Duchess of Buckland, who was even more exclusively domestic than Aunt Em.  It wasn't doing us any harm to have such elevated talk at dinner, even if we couldn't participate much.

When dinner came to a close, I got up and started out toward the drawing-room with Aunt Em, but she made a motion with her head to indicate that I was supposed to stay with Claude for at least a few minutes, being gentlemanly about the port and cigars.  But neither of us care very much about port, nor do we smoke cigars, so the intermission was rather pro forma.

"I say, old boy," I offered him my cigarette case, but he declined, "I don't mean to be personal, but what were you really doing right before dinner?  And more importantly, with whom?"

"Oh!" he blushed scarlet at having been caught out, "I was, well... you know.  With William."

"William?" the name was unfamiliar.

"The footman," he explained, "The blond, good-looking one."

"Aren't they all blond and good-looking?" I wondered.  I'm pretty sure that described most of the new staff, male and female.  I think Colidicott has a thing for the Germanic types.

"I don't know," he blinked with surprise, as if I'd actually expected him to have an answer, "I haven't seen them all."

"But really, Claude, it simply isn't done," I chided as gently as I could; at least he couldn't get a footman pregnant, but it was still a bit beyond the pale of civilized behaviour to dally with the household staff.

"I didn't mean to," he pouted a little bit.

"Not the sort of thing one does by accident, surely!" I laughed.

"Well, no," he picked up his port and took a hearty swallow, then made a terrible face that would have given my grandfather (who'd paid a guinea a bottle for it in 1885) an absolute fit, "But he sort of... I don't mean to say he forced me or anything, but... he came in to help me dress when I was just out of the bath, and he sort of started in on me without asking, and, well... you know.  It's not the sort of thing one can stop until it's finished."

"Yes, quite. I see what you mean," and I really did see: though I didn't much fancy him, myself (I prefer my men a little more mature, and a lot more intelligent), I have to admit he's a particularly toothsome morsel, especially out of his clothes; William may not have been able to help himself.  I would, however, have to find some way of communicating to the footman that he was not to molest my guests, without going through the usual channels of involving Aunt Em and Coldicott, "Shall we join the ladies?"

They weren't in the drawing-room, though, as I had expected: inspired by an audience, Aunt Em had ordered coffee served in the music-room, so she could play and sing.  Aunt Em is something of a musical prodigy, and if she'd not been born the daughter of an earl, she might have gone on to the concert stage.  When Claude and I came in, she was playing the harp and singing a wonderfully melancholy Irish folk song; but there weren't many instruments in that room she couldn't play: the pipe-organ, the piano, the harpsichord, the violin, the cello, even the Spanish guitar and the Elizabethan virginal.

When she'd finished with the song, Aunt Em went over to the piano, which was more centrally placed so she could take part in the conversation while noodling away in a sort of free-form medley, much like a pianist in a restaurant; without taking her hands off the keys, she motioned me over to sit by her--she could say a great deal with only her eyes, as big and round as my own though a different colour, soft silvery blue; it must be where I get the emotional transparency that Caro had teased me about.

"We have to get a girl for Mr. Chatroy," she said, without preamble.

"Get a girl for him?  How unusually accommodating of you," I smirked, "Do we always provide concubines at Foxbridge?"

"Don't be crude, Bassie," she tried to sound offended but couldn't hide a smile of amusement, "I mean for dinner.  I had all the seating arrangements completed for the party, but I hadn't planned for Mr. Chatroy.  I need another girl at the table, so he won't be odd-man-out.  Do you have any lady-friends you could invite?"

"I'm afraid Caro and Lady Bea are the length and breadth of my feminine acquaintance, at least so far as ladies I know well enough to ask down without their husbands or brothers.  Perhaps Caro can ask a friend?"

"Really, Bassie, now you're of age you can't spend all your time with men.  You're not in Oxford, anymore."

"I don't spend all my time with men," I protested, though since I live in an exclusive hotel for men, and belong to a half-dozen different gentlemen's clubs--as well as doing all of my, shall we say, informal socializing among men--she was very close to the mark, "I've met lots of girls, I just haven't got to know any of them terribly well.  There are so many of them, after all, and I've only had one Season."

"Well, never mind," she dismissed the question with a delicate shrug as she segued from one tune to another, "I'll ask Miss Brazington over from Haresden Hall.  If she's not available, I'll ask Lady Caroline to suggest a friend."

"Haresden?" the name sounded familiar, "Isn't that one of ours?  I seem to remember something about it."

"Sir Lionel's family have had the leasehold for three generations; but yes, it's part of the Foxbridge estate, a few miles upriver."

"Oh, I remember!  Mummy brought me along when she and Pater went to visit there, once.  I remember because I asked why it was called Haresden when hares don't live in dens, they live in warrens.  I don't remember the Brazingtons, though.  Do they not hunt?" the Cotswold Hunt was pretty much the only time I met the neighbouring gentry.

"Sir Lionel used to hunt, but he lost a leg in the War, poor man, and can't sit a horse anymore.  And the animal strong enough to carry Lady Brazington over a jump hasn't been bred yet," she said cattily, "Miss Brazington rides, but she's one of those sentimental girls who feel sorry for the fox."

"Well, they are awfully cute--when they're not eviscerating hens," I laughed.  One usually only met such girls in Town, country life tends to afford girls a more realistic view of Dame Nature's habits.

"She is otherwise exceptionally intelligent. Nanny met her at Shrewsbury College when she went to Oxford for the Gaudy.  She's reading history."

"A University girl?" I gasped in mock-horror, teasing Aunt Em, "Is that quite suitable?"

"Mockery ill-suits you, Sebastian," she spared me a withering glance before changing tunes again, "I'd hate to think where your education would be if Nanny hadn't been to Oxford."

"Well, yes, you know I was only joking," I put down my coffee and raised my voice a little so the subject of our conversation could hear me, "My tutor at Eton was very impressed with how well-prepared I was when I came.  He said I was better-educated than the boys who came in from prep schools."

"Michelangelo couldn't make a statue from shale," Nanny said in one of her rare, roundabout, and obscure compliments, which made me blush a little.

"It would be a silly thing to do, certainly," Caro said, and I couldn't tell if she was making fun of Nanny, of Aunt Em, or of me.  I was still learning to understand her sense of humour.

"Would anyone care to play bridge?" Aunt Em stopped playing and turned on the stool to face the company.

(Something something something...end the chapter somehow, TBD)

Chapter 1; Part 2

After tea, Aunt Em and Nanny escorted Caro and Lady Heard to their rooms. Though single young ladies were usually quartered on the third floor of the south wing, above the State Rooms, Caro was the only single young lady on the guest-list, and Aunt Em didn't want her to get lonely, so put her in one of the couples' rooms on the second floor, across the hall from Lady Heard.

I walked Claude up to the room I'd had Coldicott set aside for him when I wired ahead from the Beverborough station, which was on the first floor of the keep, one of the rooms just off the old chapel.  I always thought it would be more poetic to keep the young ladies in the keep, separated from the rest of the house by a chapel, but it was on the north side of the house and tended to be a little chilly.  Besides, the chapel had been converted into a combination billiards-room and smoking-room (though it was still called 'the old chapel'), a sort of gentlemen's recreation hall, during the 1850 renovation.

I had to stop a minute and think about where to go next: up until that week, I'd always stayed in my old nursery room on the third floor of the north wing; but when I came down in July to make arrangements for the autumn, I decided that it was time for me to move into a better room, a room suitable to a full-fledged adult, heir to the earldom and a rich man in his own right.  There were plenty to choose from, of course, but for some perverse reason, I really wanted one of the State Bedrooms on the first floor of the central block.

The Queen's Bedchamber was too much of a museum-piece, having been kept almost exactly as it had been when Elizabeth came to stay in 1480, and again in 1487 and 1498, with only the addition of a bathroom and electricity marring the shrine-like antiquity.  Then there was the West Bedchamber, which had been shared  by my parents: Pater lived in the larger of the two dressing-rooms while Mummy lived in the main room that had been furnished to her taste in Art Nouveau and mauve watered silk: but it seemed somehow sacrilegious to sleep in there.

That left the East Bedchamber, which had been my grandmother's room before she died, but was surprisingly masculine for a woman's room (before my parents, the lord and lady of the house had always lived quite separately in the West and East Bedchambers, respectively).  Grandmother had loved old tapestries, and aside from collecting some of the finest in the land for the house, for her own room she collected together every old moth-eaten rag that had been consigned to the attics, using the uneaten parts as upholstery on the chairs, bedstead, and mahogany wall-panels.

It was a delightful room, giving the illusion of being out in the forest, interrupted by little vignette views of distant towns and oddly-shaped castles, with startling little pieces of people and animals peeking out from unexpected corners.

Once I cleared out all the busy little occasional tables and spider-ridden palms  (as no doubt Caro would have done), it required no further rearranging to suit me.  The furniture was old-fashioned, but not yet antique, heavy and solid and very comfortable; the big bay window held my favorite view, over the broad terrace like the shore of an ocean of lawn, bordered by game-infested acres of old-growth forest, with an ornamental lake in the middle (my schoolroom had faced the same direction, so the view always inspired daydreams).

Aunt Em had dithered a bit when I demanded that room for my own use; it had been her mother's room, after all, and she had memories attached to it.  She also worried what my father would think about me taking over one of the State Bedrooms instead of one of the north-wing family bedrooms, as was seemly for the heir.  But since I did not intend to radically alter the room, and since Pater hadn't set foot in Foxbridge Castle for over a decade and wouldn't know unless she told him, she finally gave in to me.

When I got to my room, I found Pond deep in the wardrobe of the dressing-room, obviously enjoying having so much space to work in.  I'd left him behind on my last visit, much to his annoyance, so it had all the delight of newness for him.  And since the room was pretty much new to me, too, we were in the same boat--although he didn't seem to be at all intimidated by the grandeur of it all, while I was feeling just a tiny bit uncomfortable with it.

"Do I have any Norfolk suits?" I asked, peeking into the truly massive wardrobe that took up most of one wall, marveling at the neatness of it: each hanger was exactly the same distance apart, each suit facing the same direction, with like colours together.

"Yes, my lord," he answered in a somewhat incredulous tone, as if I'd asked whether or not the sky was blue.

"Where?" I pursued, examining the suits on the rack, none of which appeared to be a Norfolk suit.

"In the clothes-press, my lord," he smiled at my confusion, "I put all of our outdoor clothes, for hunting, riding, and the like in the clothes-press beside the door to the corridor; such clothing has to be cleaned frequently, I thought it best to keep it separate.  The odour of cleaning-fluid might overpower the dressing-room, it's not very well-ventilated."

"Oh, I see," it was news to me that there was a clothes-press near the door to the corridor.  The bedrooms in the main block of the house were really suites of rooms, each one with two smaller rooms attached, which could be used for dressing-rooms or secondary bedrooms for husbands or servants, with bathrooms and clothes-presses and miscellaneous little spaces tucked in here and there.

I didn't have any use for the second little room, which was a little bigger than my bedroom in London--and its emptiness rather annoyed me.  It was furnished rather vaguely, with a narrow canopied bed against the wall like a couch and a large wardrobe, the basic furniture of all the dressing-rooms in the house; it had no access except through the bedroom, unless you count the door to the poky little box-room that I'd stuffed with Grandmother's bibelots, which in turn had a door into the corridor.

I often caught myself standing in the doorway, trying to think of something to do with it: maybe a laboratory in which I could conduct Holmesian chemical experiments on cigarette ash and finger-prints, or a study where I could pin butterflies to boards or paste foreign stamps into an album.  But I had no training in chemistry, nor enough patience to collect things, so the little room just sat there, taunting me with unnamed possibilities.

Since I had a good deal of time before I needed to dress for dinner, I went over to the bureau and poured myself a drink (being a grown-up entailed having a drinks-tray in my room, an unexpected luxury) before heading in to the bath.  Pond had already started the coal-burning water heater, so all I had to do was wait for the needle on the gauge to hit 100, turn the spigot, and watch the tub fill up with water the perfect temperature for bathing.  This was deluxe technology in 1902, when my parents married, and was already amusingly quaint twenty-five years later.

I lay in the tub for a long time, sipping my drink and staring at the ventilator in the dropped tin ceiling as the steam from the bath and the smoke from my cigarette escaped through it.  I'd locked the door when I went in, a not-so-subtle hint to Pond that I wanted my bath-time to myself again, and very happily made use of my privacy as had been my habit before going to stay at Castoris: the bath was my favorite place to have a 'ham' (as they say in Cockney, rhyming with ham-shank), warm and wet and no mess to clean up.

When I emerged, he was in the dressing-room waiting calmly, with my evening clothes laid out in readiness, betraying no particular dudgeon about having been locked out of the bathroom.  I let out a relieved sigh, not realizing until I did so that I was holding my breath and bracing against him being cross with me; but he seemed perfectly happy to have let me scrub my own back and dry myself off.

"I rather miss the ghost," I said later, making conversation as Pond adjusted my braces, one of the more tedious moments in the ritual, "I always saw him when I came back from the bath to dress for dinner."

"Hmph," he snorted a little more forcefully than usual, almost angrily.

"You're not afraid of ghosts, are you?" I wondered.  That might be a better explanation of why he always stuck close to me at Castoris, rather than the simple distance between bedroom and bathroom.

"Not afraid, my lord," he said quite angrily, though on the surface he was perfectly calm, finishing off the braces and turning to pick up the waistcoat, "But I found the thing very unpleasant.  It was uncomfortable being alone in that wing, knowing it was about somewhere."

"Well, then, I advise you to stay away from the Great Stair at night," I thought it a good idea to arm him with the worst: though we don't have anywhere near as many ghosts as Castoris Castle, we have our share, "There's a fairly strong apparition of a lady in a Jacobean ruff and farthingale who comes down the stairs at a little after ten every night, though you can only see her clearly when it's raining.  Otherwise she's just a moving cold spot in a very faint mist, but you don't want to walk through her.  I stood in her path on a dare once when I was a child, and it took me hours to get warm again."

"I don't imagine I'll have much occasion to use that staircase, my lord," he said with a glimmer of a smile, which I chose to read as relief, though it might have been amusement.  But he was right, the Victorian remodel supplied the house with a half-dozen turrets with corkscrew stairs inside, allowing servants to get from place to place without being seen.

I had learned through other conversations that the house Pond grew up in was fairly new, built in 1875 or so, and didn't have so much as a glimmer of a ghost yet; the baronet's house outside Oxford was older, late-Georgian I think, but just as bereft of spirits.  The supposed Viking at Castoris Castle was the first ghost he'd ever seen, and before then he hadn't even believed they existed.  He still wasn't convinced, either, which I think made him more uncomfortable.  Having a ghost walk through you is unpleasant, but I imagine it would be worse if you weren't entirely confident of what it was.

I went on to tell him about Foxbridge's other ghosts as he finished dressing me, though none of them was as vivid and regular as the Lady on the Stair.  There was a very weak poltergeist in the nursery wing, who quietly moved things around at night, and something that made a sort of whispering, moaning, scrabbling noise under the marble floor of the old chapel during full moons.  And there was a very interesting but startlingly unpredictable thing in the old tower keep on the headland, which would appear as a plump, elderly man in medieval dress, just as real as you like, sitting in a chair or leaning against a table--but for only a moment, and then he was gone.

Though Saint-Clair children of every generation made up stories about the identities of our ghosts (the moaning thing in the old chapel being a favourite subject: I imagined it was a werewolf buried alive under the floor, though I later discovered there was nothing under the old chapel floor except cold-larders), none of them became generally accepted.  We could guess the historical periods of the Tower Man and the Lady on the Stair based on what was visible of their attire, and naturally assumed that the nursery poltergeist had been a child, but had no idea (or interest in, really) who they'd been in life.

I finished my lecture just as he finished brushing me off, so he thanked me for the information and I thanked him for his usual stellar work in making me presentable, and we went our separate ways to dinner.

Being on the first floor of the main block meant that I would likely be the first one down for dinner every night, since I was closer to the great hall than anyone else.  Coldicott was there with the drinks tray, conversing quietly with one of the new footmen (I don't remember which one, I never did learn all of their names properly that autumn, there were too many of them), though of course they cheesed it when I came into the room.

I asked Coldicott to mix me a martini, which I'd taught him when I was there last.  He was suspicious of the concept of cocktails at first, with the very un-English ice and the specialized utensils, but he eventually found he enjoyed the shaking, and the precision required of pouring the ingredients just right.  Minor details and exacting precision, I've learned, are catnip to butlers and valets.

I took my drink over to the big bay window and watched the sun setting behind the steeple of the village church, colouring the sky scarlet and gold for a few precious moments.  In most English houses, the curtains would have been drawn against the sun to preserve the carpets and paneling, but three extravagant countesses in a row had decreed that seeing the sunset in summer was worth any amount of damage to the old family portraits, and none had hung curtains in the hall...though of course the better portraits had been moved.  Extravagance is one thing, but letting a Holbein or a Van Dyck fade and spoil is just vandalism.

"That was gorgeous," Caro breathed out when the sky finally went from purple to soft violet and the Evening Star glimmered into view.

"Don't sneak up on me like that!" I scolded her: I'd almost spilt my drink.

"You're jumpy," she observed, amused, "I'd have thought you'd go all serene and complacent once you were home."

"I don't feel quite settled," I admitted, "Changing rooms, and taking on the housekeeping, has made everything feel different."

"Petterby said something very like that when he moved out of the nursery," she hooked her arm around my elbow and leaned against me (the Marquess of Petterby is her elder brother, the Duke of Buckland's heir), "He said it was then that he really understood the whole show would be his someday, to have and to hold unto death do you part."

"It's a weighty realization," I agreed.  I was glad to hear I wasn't the only one to feel that way.  I wondered if my father had felt the same--and considering the estate was very nearly bankrupt when he acceded, it must have been rather more harrowing.  Mummy's dowry had put it back on its feet, and the rest of her fortune was now mine, so at least I knew I could take care of the place.

Our conversation was interrupted by the advent of Aunt Em, Nanny, and Lady Heard, who entered the room en masse, chattering as they came.  I'd never before seen Lady Heard chatter, so I assumed that Aunt Em had already had the desired civilizing effect on her.

I realized with something of a start that Nanny was much older than I remembered her being, with wrinkles around her eyes and grey threads in her hair, and had become quite mannish in her middle age.  When I was little, she was very severe-looking, but she was pretty in her own way, with a very motherly quality about her; a decade with no children to care for seemed to have changed her, and she struck me as being rather a fatherly type of person--not like my father, of course, but like one imagines a father to be, sternly reserved  but kind. And though she was dressed in the same sort of dark and unadorned clothes as always, there was something sharper around the edges, something military about them.

Watching her and Aunt Em talking with Lady Heard, not touching but still speaking in tandem like two beings with one mind, I began to wonder if there were something more between them than friendship and a professional relationship.  I knew that Nanny had moved into the room next door to Aunt Em's, when she left the nursery; but with my Lesbian fiancee at my side, I looked at them through her eyes and started wondering if Aunt Em and Nanny were Lesbians, too.

"Yes, they are," Caro answered my unasked question, before I could even open my mouth, "Typical old-fashioned gentlewoman couple.  I spotted it right away."

"Do you read minds?" I wondered, thinking of several other times she'd said something aloud that I had only been thinking.

"Not that I know of," she laughed, pulling on my arm to encourage me to move towards the others, "But you have an incredibly expressive face, you're completely transparent."

"Am I really that easy to read?  No wonder I never get away with fibbing."

"You'd make a fine film actor," she pecked me on the cheek, "Your eyes say what you're thinking as clearly as if they were flashing semaphores, they wouldn't even need to caption you."

"Who is capturing Bassie?" Aunt Em wondered, having caught and misunderstood only the last bit of the sentence.

"Lady Caroline was saying that Sebastian could be a film actor, Emily," Nanny explained.  She'd always had ears like a bat: you could whisper a bad word halfway across the meadow and she'd have the switch ready when you came in for tea, "And that his face is so expressive, they wouldn't need captions."

"Oh, no, that would be quite unsuitable," Aunt Em frowned, "Though of course you're quite as good-looking as any film actor, and you did reasonably well in The Tempest when you were at Eton.  But professional acting is simply not a reputable occupation, my dear."

"Oh, I don't know about that, Auntie," I sat down beside her and took her hand, fiddling with the ornate opal and moonstone rings on her fingers as I did in childhood, "So many Society people are marrying actors and actresses these days.  It's much more respectable than it used to be."

"Society people, perhaps," she sniffed, "But not people like us. We can't go around marrying just anybody.  That's why I am so happy you and Lady Caroline are marrying.  She has quite the right blood."

"Does everyone know about that?" I complained, "We might as well announce it in the Times!"

"Just us, Bassie, love," she soothed me, "The Duchess naturally told me about it when she found out."

"But I wanted to tell you," I pouted.

"This is marriage, Bassie," she said in a rather scolding tone that surprised me, "not some little trifle to surprise and delight us.  It can't matter who tells us."

"And what about Mummy?" I asked pettishly; that bit about 'the right blood' had annoyed me, considering I was half-American myself, "Was she the right blood?"

"Well, Charlotte had not as fine of blood as Lady Caroline, of course," she said as dispassionately as if we were talking about a horse or a dog, "But she wasn't just anybody, I can assure you.  Her mother was from a good Boston family, with antecedents in a very old Berkshire family; and her father, believe it or not, was the great-grandson of the Earl of Rutherford.  A very cadet branch of the family, of course, and he had a quite unfortunate Irish grandmother, and a German mother of no apparent family at all."

"Really! I had no idea," I was actually stunned by this intelligence.  My parents' marriage had been the stuff of fairy-tales and novelettes, the pretty but determined little nobody from Cincinnati falling in love with the handsome nobleman of ancient pedigree.  It rather annoyed me that she was nearly as blue-blooded as he.  It robbed them of their romance, somehow.

"But, Lady Emily," Lady Heard inserted herself into the topic in her usual forthright way, "That sort of thing is part of our past, not our future.  The aristocracy will never survive if it cannot adapt to the modern age."

"Perhaps so, dear Lady Heard," she smiled and fluttered her lace-edged handkerchief in a sort of conversational surrender, "But one does fall into habits of thinking. In my mother's day, and my grandmother's, indeed for the last several centuries, these things were considered of paramount importance."

"Such habits of thinking have resulted in a terrible degree of inbreeding," Lady Heard said earnestly; and though she hadn't changed volume, her tone became one of speech-making, and we all dutifully turned to listen, "The physical and mental weakness of our modern aristocracy is evidence of this.  Not all noble families of course, the Saint-Clairs are surely an exception.  But look at some of the weak, wispy creatures currently filling the House of Lords.  Once the leaders of England were the tallest, the strongest, the most intelligent men in the land, more than capable of ruling over their subjects.  But now it's the labourers and merchant classes who have all the strength, all the determination, all the intelligence.  If the aristocracy refuses to breed with the other classes, the strength of the Norman blood will continue to dilute and thin."

"It was my understanding," Nanny said rather excitedly, smelling a good argument in the wind, "that it was the interbreeding of the aristocracy with the lower classes, generally the wrong side of the blanket, that produced the increased strength and intelligence of the peasantry, creating the labouring classes as they are today."

"Quite possibly, Miss Ingleby," Lady Heard rose to the challenge, "But the right side of the blanket, to play on your excellent phrase, has produced an unconscionable number of weaklings, who marry other weaklings and go on to create even more weaklings.  Lord Foxbridge here is a fine specimen of young manhood, quite strong and fit; but I will lay you any odds that even he cannot lift one of the maces or broadswords that hang on the walls of this very room, much less use one in battle, as his ancestors once did."

"But isn't that itself an adaptation?" Nanny argued, "Bassie may not be as strong in brute strength as the first Sieurs de Saint-Clair that ruled here, but brute strength is no longer a useful tool in government, nor even in war.  Cleverness, knowing the right people, the simple authority that comes of knowing one's ancestors and taking for granted the right to rule?  Aren't these of greater value in leading England into the twentieth century than being able to swipe at a man with a flail from horseback?"

"Yes, indeed," Lady Heard returned, "but the cleverness of today..."

I have to admit that their conversation became very technical at this point, encompassing Darwin's theories, Mendelian genetics, and the Utilitarian movement; it rather undermined Nanny's argument about the cleverness of the aristocracy that I was completely unable to follow any of this, and I was vastly relieved when the dinner-gong went.